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?