It is my turn to be "in the well" in the Stoxpoker forum. If there is anything you want to ask me please be my guest and I will try and answer all of the questions. I can't promise you I will answer all of them as you never know what you might get asked, but I wll try my best to get to all of them.

Cake or pie? And if so, ice cream?

After you have played a ridiculous amount of hands, is your passion for poker still evident? Or have you lost some of the fire that was once there due to the monotony?

Thanks alot for doing this!

What "poker epiphanies" did you have throughout your career?

What part of your game changed the most from grinding 200nl-400nl to where you are today?

How much of your success was natural intelligence/aptitude, and how much was hard work?

* 6max VPIP/PFR stats and average table number?
* Have you given up a job to play poker or did you play straight after school/still in school?
* Since you play so much, what kind of sleep schedule do you have?

I think double choclate cake is my favorite food in the world. If not my favorite of all foods it is certainly my favorite dessert. A scoop of ice cream will do just fine on the side as well

Monotony? There is nothing monotonus about the challenge of trying to out wit the best players in the world all day long for a living ten tables at a time Poker will never become monotonus. Even if I reach my goal of becoming one of the best players in the world it still wont even become at all monotonus because my stay at the top will be short lived if I don't do everything in my power to stay on top.

I have a ton of passion for this game and my drive for it is as high as it has ever been.

The main epihany I had during my career is when I finally learned to stop focusing on my cards and start focusing on what I think my opponent's range of hands could be. Then it was to think about not only what he may have but what I think he thinks I have. Sometimes I think I do the I know that he knows that I know thing a little overboard but I guess that's better than not doing any of it at all.

I started to really focus on what common lines the regulars at the tables tend to take and how to best exploit those tendencies. Once I took note of those tendencies then it made things a lot easier. An example of this is how most players tend to play "pot control" on the turn and only bet really strong hands and bluffs when in position. So armed with this bit of knowledge you know that if you check the turn to them and they bet you know it is the nuts or a bluff. If you think the liklihood of them having the nuts is really low then you can either check call down with your weak made hand and hope they bluff off their stack or you can check raise them if you don't have a showdownable hand. Once you figure out an opponents tendencies the game gets a heck of a lot easier. But if you aren't looking, which most 1/2 and 2/4 players don't, then you'll never find it.

I would say that it was 25% talent and 75% hard work. Truthfully it may be even less talent wise. It took me a lot of hands to get where I am at. But there is no substitute for hard work in this game or really anything in life. I don't think I've ever met anyone in my life that could look me in the eye and tell me they gave it their best for 10 or 15 or however many years and still failed. I am of the opinion that if you want something bad enough it is as good as yours.

I'm about a 21/18 for 6 max

I quit my job and with less than $1k to my name to play poker.

I keep late hours and go to sleep pretty much whenever I feel like it.

Hi Leatherass. congrats on your success. I just wanted to ask a couple. thanks for your time : -

* I know this is a common question! - how I can decide I'm ready to move up stakes without risking bankroll? - size of bankroll, winrate, general confidence in abilities?
* Do you need to be a consistant, decent winner for say 10,000 hands before you can consider moving up?
* Wonder if you get an adrenalin rush when you are in a large pot with a strong hand but not the nuts that is getting raised and re-raised? Sometimes I think it's not good for my health when I get that pumping heart thing!

Many thanks

Hi LA

What do you do when running seriously bad (I consider break even for running bad) for 50k+ hands, and how many times do you think you on average run into such a stretch over over 1million hands? I'm thinking of special things to turn things around, or do you just grind this variance out without giving it much thought?

A lot of people say that the big jump in pokerlevel is from 200NL to 400NL, do you agree, and is there another level that also takes a bit to get used to/understand?

Could you briefly outline an average poker playing week for you in terms of no. of hours playing, no of sessions, lenght of sessions ect?
How many hours a wk do you put into the non-playing side of poker i.e.hand/opponent analysis ect? What kind of poker analysis do you find most beneficial to growing your game?
I struggle to get good reads when 6 tabling. How do you manage it playing 10 tables?

ps your blog is inspirational. Thx.

Heya Dusty,

Two quick questions:

1: What was most instrumental in helping you to learn how to think about Poker?

2: What is the single most important thing you think a player should focus on when learning how to think about poker as a winning player?

Scenario 1

6max 100 or 200nl

Assume against an uknown and we are utg vs either co or btn.

We have KK and raise get called by co or btn and flop come A47 rainbow.

What is the best line to take?

Scenario 2
same as above except you hold qq-88

which hands do you bluff at the ace with and which hands do you check?

When you played ssnl how did you exploit blinds who did not fold to you bt or co raises? such as someone who only folds bb to steal 50% or less

In other words he is not 3betting our btn or co raise but just calling and playing oop against us almost every other time he is in the blinds.

They usually do not fold to a flop cbet either

How do you combat these villians

Is the correct play against them to just raise premium hands from the button just like our utg range would be?

What do you believe are the optimal/most profitable stats for 100 or 200nl?

What is the most hand you have played in one day, week, and month?

Also how did you wake up the neighbors?

1. What is your golf handicap?

2. What do you spend your FPP's on ?

3. Biggest pot you've ever played?

4. Would you play 100-200+ if the game was great?

What are those talents?

What non-poker talents do you possess that you believe improve your poker play?

What are some of the hardest things you had to work on and how exactly did you work on them? (I'm mostly interested in your micro and small stakes NL efforts but answer how you like)

What are some things you thought you should be working on/developing which turned out to not matter (or matter much)?

Did you discover things you thought you were doing right but turned out to be wrong (in a poker skill/proficiency sense)? What were they and how did you discover it?

In your early poker success was it more a couple big things that made the difference or lots of little ones? What were they?

Did you have any poker beliefs or attitudes or things you thought made you a good player that turned out to be wrong?

What routine NL poker thing are you thinking about before you look at your hand?

wrt to the improvement things, if you had to go back to the beginning and start over, what would you do differently knowing what you now know?

One more, why do you have god mode against me?

1) your thoughts on building a bankroll between 6max and FRNL micro's

2) still like your lexus or buyers remorse after your swong?

3) how 'bout giving props to your lady! (she most likely deserves a few my friend!)

EN