Liar Dice - Diary of a Bean Counter!

The one LetchLord linked will do perfectly.

You just plug it into a usb port yes and then you d/l the driver / software from the loitech site for free.

Then its as easy as can be you literally assign any key on the gamepad to do anything you want
I just assigned buttons to mouse clicks (I have a 6 button mouse) and the thumbpad to actually
controlling the cursor so when you move the joystick its like moving your mouse.

Then you just assign your table ninja keys like normal and you use your gamepad instead of your mouse.

Very comfortable and no stress on your wrist/arm.

*** I saw a video yesterday of a guy who did this and then 105 tabled the $1 DONS on Stars.
funny as hell video he was folding KK preflop and just going batshit crazy. He made 5 bucks
though.

Thanks for that, 8979687.

Just one question: you said about assigning keys for table ninja as normal. Do you mean you use the controller and keyboard at same time?

Think i must have misunderstood as that sounds counterintuitive...

Originally posted by Tim64
Thanks for that, 8979687.

Just one question: you said about assigning keys for table ninja as normal. Do you mean you use the controller and keyboard at same time?

Think i must have misunderstood as that sounds counterintuitive...

Sorry, I'll clear it up...

Lets say normally you use Table Ninja and your mouse.....

So you set your mouse right click to say fold.....

Then you set your gamepad button to be right mouse click, and voila every time you push that button
on your gamepad it is the same as right clicking your mouse. So you set one button to right click one to left click
and the joystick to be moving the mouse x and y axis and your gamepad is now your mouse.

You can use this for ANY program you want. If you need more table Ninja hot keys then how ever many
mouse buttons you have, I have 6 buttons on my mouse so I used 6 gamepad buttons but if you need
more hot keys just assign keyboard keys to your gamepad as well.

You can even assign a string of keys to a button push.

The gamepad has 2 thumb joysticks....

I used one to move the mouse and the other one to raise and lower bet sizes....

I then assigned the trigger butons to change the table that table ninja had selected and I used the other
buttons for bet call check fold etc etc etc.

Here is a Screen shot of setting up your controller.

You can not see my mouse but the line that goes from Mouse right button in the game pad pick, shows up
when you mouse over it to the corrasponding button on the game pad. Then in Table Ninja I have fold set to
right mouse button. So every time I push button 1 on the gamepad it is like right clicking so it folds.

You can see I set keys up as well, like flat calling is cntrl N and I have a button assigned to pushing CNTRL N.

Yikes, I'm sold! That looks awesome!!!

Quick one: that looks like Ninja for Stars - is it? I play on FTP so just have free version of TNinja.

Is it the same for use with the game pad, do you know (seems like should be same - but thought i'd check )

Thanks again!

Originally posted by Tim64
Yikes, I'm sold! That looks awesome!!!

Quick one: that looks like Ninja for Stars - is it? I play on FTP so just have free version of TNinja.

Is it the same for use with the game pad, do you know (seems like should be same - but thought i'd check )

Thanks again!

The software is from the gampad company and I recommend you use logitech.

In that profiler I showed upi on the left of Table Ninja, you create a profiler for ANY program you want.

So you can just create a profile and set your buttons just for Table Ninja Full Tilt and it will only
assign your joystick buttons to what you chose when you open Table Ninja Full Tilt.

You can even set one for internet explorer or any other program you can think of.

You just create a profile in the Logitech profiler and slect the .exe file of the program you want the
button assignments to be for.

This should help your wrist problems BUT

WARNING WARNING WARNING

Do not just jump into your normal tables, test it out first because I fired up my usual ammount,
and I ended up with a few mistakes. For example you need to get used to the buttons. It is
possible to keep the button pressed down for too long like for example fold. You press the fold
button and hold it down then you can fold on the next table that pops up.

This is the only downswide but once you get the feel for it and just press the button and let it go
to fold you should be ok. There may be other little quirks but just fire up some micros or something
maybe even play money SNGs just to see how it feels etc first.

***EDIT I set my profiler to activate whenever poker stars is open. You can see in the Picture
the little Stars log.

Ok, I really am almost there with this. (By the way, if you are getting a feeling that I'm not exactly 'Mr Impulsive', you'd be right).

I'm on Windows 7 64bit. Would you happen to know if the product you have is supported?

Thanks once again. (There is, honestly, an outside chance I may get a gamepad this century). ♦

So far just about everything that works on windows vista works on windows 7 and I am
using the same setup as you so yes this works. Do not worry I fix computers and
help people through problems on a routine basis I am used to the different capacity
and knowledge people have when it comes to computers and their programs.

I will be bothering you about the text to speech because when I get a headset I will
definately want to start playing around with it.

his text-speech program is the bomb.

i would definitely have a go with the gamepad tim. sounds very very good for your old man injuries

Ok guys, I'm definitely in for this. Will be placing an order for a gamepad as soon as I get back from the big city after Easter.

Thanks again for the advice.
T64

Just wanted to post this one hand as my reaction to it really pleased me. This was on the back of a very nice one hour-long session in which I had netted a cool $55.00, 6-tabling NL 50 SH. I had one table left, my last hand before blinding out and I'm dealt KK. Well, I guess I'm playing this hand after all.

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.25/$0.5 No-Limit Hold'em (6 handed)

Known players:
[tg]BB$19.50:///////;MP2 (Hero)$20.00:///////;MP3$22.50:///////;CO$51.20:///////;BU$21.60:///////;SB$63.20:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K:s, K:d.
Hero raises to $1.50, 4 folds, BB calls $1.00.

Flop: ($3.25) 6:h, 2:d, 8:s (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $2.00, BB calls $2.00.

Turn: ($7.25) 4:h (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5.00, BB calls $5.00.

River: ($17.25) A:c (2 players)
BB bets $11.00(All-In), Hero calls $11.00.

Final Pot: $39.25.

Results follow:

Hero shows a pair of kings(K:s K:d).
BB shows two pairs, aces and twos(2:h A:h).

BB wins with two pairs, aces and twos(2:h A:h).

The old me would have been spitting that with one card to come and with (what I at first thought was only about 6% equity), this jerk manages to hit and suck me out. Turns out his equity on the turn is 32% but that's a different matter.

I had no hesitation in calling his river shove. When the ace hit, I just thought "well, if you've been calling me down with Ace high then fine, nice hand." And I even think, in a twisted sort of way, paying this kind of player off when he hits in this kind of situation is +EV. Only by giving him my full stack will he be convinced to continue calling out of position with easily dominated Aces and then compounding the error by continuing on the flop with nothing better than bottom pair. And when he does that I laugh my self all the way to the bank. ♠_biggrin:

It was the end of the session, $20 of my profit had been wiped off in one hand, and I just smiled, closed the table and exited the site.

(p.s. it's a whole lot easier to be "philosophical" about hands like this when you're on a massive heater ♦ )

BR $4650

Considering that I didn't play for a whole week during this month due to my various aches and pains, I'm pretty happy with how things went. I haven't recaptured the glory days of January and the $1000 month, managing just half that in fact, but still I have been pretty happy with my play and the switch to NL SH at least temporarily halted the bad beats.

I don't know whether the switch will be permanent. I don't think so, but I do find the convenience of cash games and being able to leave at any time without forfeiting my investment something of a draw.

Everything I have read suggests that it's hard to demonstrate a long-term significant edge in SnGs above the $50-60s, so I see cash games as being a 'natural home' for me if I want to ever get close to serious money. But in the meantime I still hope to reach the $55+5 Turbo sngs - with the aim that these will be my "bread-and-butter".

I had hoped to have the necessary bankroll for this limit by the end of March. A combination of insufficient volume and lost $EV has prevented this but I'm still confident I can get there - eventually. Had the poker gods seen fit to send my way the $1200 Holdem Manager says I ought to have won, then I would already be there -- but such is life.

April brings a trip to the USA to see Mrs Tim64's brother (and his wife) in South Carolina and will be a much-needed break from the muscle-decaying PC.

March Profit: $548.19
Profit as % of initial bankroll: 13.61%
Total hours: 35.76
Equiv $/hr (inc r/back): $15.33

BR: $4715.22

good to see a green month Mr Tim64.

have fun on your trip!

I feel inspired to post something as I have just tripled up my stack on Party.

What am I doing on Party, when I normally play on Full Tilt? Well, I had $2.79 together with about 650 party points from ages ago. I decided to trade in 400 points at the most terrible exchange rate possible for a measly $10 cash. This is rakeback worth a massive 5%, I'll have you know. Well, what else was I going to do with them?

I took $2 on to a NL2 table and promptly got dealt AK, AK, KK, AA, then ATs (hitting the nut flush on the flop) and managed to get paid off almost every time.

It reminded me how much I loved playing on Party. That "kerrrching" sound it plays when you rake in the chips... And the tables are just so unbelievably soft.

Anyhow, that's all for today. Amongst all the grind, it's nice to record those days when poker just feels like... fun.

BR: $5,458.93

Rake Machine

I recently had a discussion with a friend about rake. They expressed surprise that I was happy to be receiving rakeback since, they argued, I would be better off if there were no rake in the first place.

It's a hard argument to win, that one. But I'll have a go, naturally.

Without rake, there are no online poker platforms. Without online poker platforms there are no . If there are no , there is nothing for the ♠_cool:'s to feed on.

So I like that there is rake and I especially like the fact that I even get rakeback on tournaments I enter with FTP that I received as rakeback in the first place - it's like an ever decreasing circle. Diminishing returns in the food chain, you might say.

Anyway, back to my poker journey. Last night, sitting with the family in the front room (the outlaws are visiting), I decided to open up a few shallow stack NL100 tables. The last time I played NL100 was about a 7 months ago - on my aborted SSS journey as a rakeback whore. Well I guess I am going to be generating a load more rake as the tables (after a wobbly start) seem soft enough.

I'm not quite ready to buy in for 100BB at this limit but it's not far off. I'd like to have 60BI before that. The more I play cash, the more I like it and the less likely I think it is that I will end up grinding the $55+5 Turbo SnGs as I had originally intended.

So instead I might just scavenge around the $55+5s, looking for SnGs with no more than 2 regs on them. Anything more than that and I'm guessing I won't have enough edge to make the variance worth bearing. It probably means I won't be able to play them with the volume necessary but maybe that's for the best. Incidentally, I'm grateful to Monsieur Lennonac for his shedding some light on the likelihood of my going bust with only 100BI for the $55+5s and the numbers were indeed frightening.

But one thing is certain: when I get to $6k, I'm going to play some $60 SnGs. And when, eventually, I win one of them, I'm going to post a screen shot of the winnings announcement for $247.50. And after that, I might just retire a happy man.

Thanks for reading!

BR: $5,619.17

nice to see you're moving up old bean

keep up the grind! ♠_love:

Yes your dedication to learning is an inspiration to me

Keep up the good work my English friend ♦

I'm in that scary place where it seems like whenever you switch on the computer you win a bunch of money. $80 up in half an hour and it appears you can do nothing wrong. Every time someone bluffs at you, you pick it off. Every time someone tight 3bets you preflop you sense strength and find an easy fold.

I must remember this won't last.

Below, graph for 13,000 hands of NL50 (and around 500 of NL100):

BR: $5702.02

Good to see you running nice Tim. Did you resolve your wrist problem in the end and did you get the gamepad ? Been looking at that logitech precision one, looks cheap enough for me to take the plunge.

How are you finding mixing up the cash and SNG's ? Is it just something that doesn't seem like a transition to you or do you have to make a concious effort to stay focused ?

Take It Easy

PS
Just realised how many questions I asked lol, sorry about that

@nibbana, I have some vouchers (bonus at work of around £50) which I can use at PC world, so when I get a chance I'm going to nip to the store and pick up a gamepad. Will probably get a Logitech one as they seem very well respected and I don't think it's worth trying to save $10-20 when it's probably going to get a lot of use and easily earn its keep.

Still having some problems with my shoulders and neck but it's definitely bearable and I am able to play 8 tables again reasonably comfortably as long as I don't play too long.

I quite like mixing up cash and sngs. It's a totally different game but the thing is, I think each adds to the other. In a sit and go you have increased ability to maximise winnings (or minimise losses) if you are confident in your post-flop play and the preflop game in SnGs makes you more comfortable with likely ranges for shortsstack fish in cash games, since the mathematics at heart are sort of similar, I think.

I think it would be quite hard to play cash and sngs at the same time so I'm not going to attempt that.

Just wanted to record yesterday as my best day playing poker since I started over a year ago.

Played for 1 hour 12 minutes and made $455 on NL100. Things were going very well for me, it's true. My set of Js got paid off by a slow played cold calling KK. My flopped set of 6s got paid off by a lower set of 2s ($100 pots each). Another opponent called two decent sized bets on the flop and turn drawing to his gut shot, missed and then wrongly interpreted my small river bet as weakness and decided to bluff off another $40.

Not everything went my way. I lost 40bb all-in on the turn with a pair of Jacks against a flush draw with one over card and had my preflop 3bet called by a guy with A5 who called my cbet on Jxx and then make the most of my turn check on a scary second J to catch an Ace on the River. Still, it was a very encouraging day and has basically confirmed in my mind that cash games are the way forward for me, which is a good conclusion to have reached.

I'm pretty glad that NL100 has not given me a completely kicking to begin with. I had always intended to make sure I had a decent hand sample at NL50 before moving up but in the end I was (as always) impatient and, realistically, comfortably 'rolled for the next limit up.

In other news I really suffered over the weekend with stiff joints and fatigue and it's clear to me that if I don't get fit and active soon I might end up totally screwing over my body. I went for a 3 mile walk yesterday and swimming today. Tomorrow is rollerblading and I am absolutely committed to exercising my way out of this. Many of the 20-something-year-olds reading this will have no problem sitting still and grinding for hours on end; when you get to your mid-30s the body sure does a lot more complaining.

Graph for yesterday below:

BR: $5831.69
(only a measly $168.31 to go before reaching my 'magic' bankroll).