Spec me a System for Online Poker - £2k budget.

BankWire

BankWire

BankWire

Associate
Joined
2 Feb 2015
Posts
12
Hi

I'm seeking some help on a new system for online poker. It's going to take a hammering when I play long sessions, often 12 hours at a time. I'll also be using it for general multimedia; music, movies, tv shows etc. I won't be playing any games on it. Budget can go up to £2k but I don't think I'll need to spend near that to achieve what I need.

Ideally, needs a fast processor, SSD, and plenty of ram as I'll often have many different pieces of software running at the same time, some of which are pretty memory heavy. I'm unsure of what graphics card I'll require.

I also need to add in a monitor to the package which must be a minimum of 27" and 2560x1400. 2560x1600 os preferred or even better 4k for more screen real estate to fit more tables on. Just whatever is best value for money.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
JeditOjanen said:
Not so. Really serious online poker players play on multiple tables simultaneously - six or eight is far from unheard of. To do this they need a PC with enough grunt to run that many instances of their client without input lag and on a video footprint large enough to hold all the windows without any overlap. In fact, if you'd read the post before attempting to be funny you'd have seen that BankWire has already said this is what he wants to do.
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Pretty much this.

I play a minimum of 12 games at a time across four / five different networks and run database software in the background (very high memory usage) to track every single hand I play and provide me with an overlay of statistical analysis on each player at every table.

As Jedi says, I'd tile the tables across my monitor to be able to see them all without overlap, hence a high resolution is required to be able to fit them on the screen. I'm unsure of what graphics card I should be looking at for this.

As I'll have quite a large amount of money in play during my sessions, I need something very reliable.
 
Stulid and Telecaster, thank you very much for your suggestions. They look about right to me and in line with my thoughts. I was very unsure about the graphics card so it's good to have a steer on that. I'll get something on order ASAP. I'm using a Dell XPS 17 laptop with an external monitor at the moment and it's painful. I had to restart numerous times and missed quite a few hands because of it.

With regards to the card counting, it's impossible to count cards in poker. Every hand is a fresh deal after shuffling so there is no way to keep count.

What I'm doing is similar to what Jedi says. Here's an example of a very basic one:

HUDDETAIL.PNG


Each player at the table will have an overlay of numbers by them which I use to help me make better decisions against them. As a simple example I might use the Preflop raise stat to identify what hands someone is starting the hand with if they raise. Let's say they have a 12% preflop raise stat then the hands they are starting with are something like this:

pokerstove-ranges.png


I can use this information along with other actions, statistics, experience, reads on bet sizing, timing, history, player types etc to narrow down their range as much as possible and place my hand against their perceived range to make the best possible bet/call/fold based on the above.

The software also allows me to watch back a replay of my tournaments afterwards and review my own play with other players to try and improve my mistakes.

It's not illegal and most serious players will have it.

Jon there's a couple of programs that can do this, Poker Tracker 4 is my personal preference.

Qitarah, I 12 tabled for 12 hours yesterday, pretty tough! We made bank though, today's a day off :)
 
JeditOjanen said:
I wouldn't bother with a 4K monitor - you might be able to get nine tables on it, but the buttons and text will be small. Better off with two 1080ps that can fit eight tables at a more friendly size.
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It's really difficult to play across two screens and keep track of the action. I have one for the lobbies of the clients and skype / web / range charts, the other screen is purely for the tables. The absolute minimum requirement is a 27" 2560 x 1440 to be able to tile 12 on there clear enough to see everything easily.
 
Quartz said:
Have you had a look at the 34" 21:9 monitors? A pair of those stacked one above the other might be just perfect for you.
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I've considered them yeah. I'm not sure I could work with one above the over, I'm pretty used to just two side by side and comfortable with that setup. Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
Quartz said:
Something else occurred to me: are you officially a professional poker player or gambler? If so, is this a business purchase and thus is your budget gross or net?
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I played professionally in 2013 for a year after being a quantity surveyor for seven years. I decided at the end of the year to go back to QS'ing as the laws for the future are very uncertain and always changing. I just don't know how many years the game is going to be available online for me to play and I couldn't really plan for the future with it. I don't want to be in a position where there's a few years gap in my CV and explaining the situation would look bad on me.

At the moment I'm just playing evenings and weekends or anytime I'm off work. I make more money from it than my job, I just can't commit to the future of it is so uncertain.
 
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JOSH86 said:
I can't add anything to this thread than to say I have learnt something and am hugely impressed by the amount of dedication people put into online poker.

Is there good money to be made? I have never played and don't intend to, but from the outlay of a £2k system to play I am curious to know what pro's who use 12 odd tables can earn.

Do you have to pay tax on the winnings or are winnings tax free?
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There's great money to be made if you're good at it. There's a big learning curve to get to a reasonable level at the game. I've been playing for seven years now and I've been coached by some of the best players in the world so I'm at a point where I can do pretty well for myself. I've put a lot of effort into reviewing play and strategy and I still know very little. The learning process is just never ending and general play and styles adapt so you're always adjusting how you play based on the latest concepts.

In terms of the £2k budget, my system might not cost me that, however on a Sunday I'll usually pay more than that in tournament entries so to have a decent reliable system is well worth it for me.

Earnings will vary from player to player so it's impossible to answer the question on how much can a decent pro earn. As an example a decent pro could have an average buy in for a tournament of $35 and easily play 400 games a month. If they have a return on investment of 50% (achievable if you're good) per game then they would make $7,000 a month. It's all subjective though and depends on what you're average buy in is, how much you play and how good you are. There's also lots of variance and swings involved so it's impossible to predict how much you're going to make.

Most countries have to pay tax (and a large chunk!!) but we're lucky as we don't have to pay it here.
 
stulid said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x LG Flatron 34UC97-S 34" WideScreen Super-Wide Curved LED Monitor £899.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 - Devils Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle **£25 Saving** £385.98
1 x MSI AMD Radeon R9 285 Gaming Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED316G2400HC11CDC01) £101.99
1 x SK Hynix 256GB SSD SH910A SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (HFS256G32MNB-2201A) £84.98
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 650W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £74.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £66.98
1 x NZXT Source 340 Midi-Tower Case- Black Window £59.99
1 x BeQuiet! Pure Rock Cpu Cooler - 120mm £28.99
Total : £1,878.00 (includes shipping : £20.10).

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Currently this is the preferred option with two of the Samsung monitors. Will this graphics card be sufficient?

Should also add that I'll be doing some streaming and screen sharing for coaching sessions.
 
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