Agreed. I absolutely believe it's possible to be a winning player with a 30. I think for most people, it isn't a viable strategy, as your post-flop skills have to be excellent.

The key boils down to what the other Barron (okay, he was here first, so the original Barron) discovers with his data. I know some (the other/original Barron included) have said that this isn't skill, but I'm not entirely convinced.

Yet. Even though it probably is either variance ahoy or collusion ahoy in some fashion.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

Out of curiousity, and I'm not trying to be a dick, have you ever played with this guy before? He does not play a +EV style. You're going to drive yourself nuts if you try to explain this run rationally.
-James

I really like having him on the table. As for his run, I can't explain it. I think he's pretty damn bad. But he is aggressive, I'll give him that.

We are talking about "L" and not "P" right? I think he really has the # of some ppl causing them to make pot size mistakes. The mistakes he makes though are bet sized ones and get him big action on his good hands. I wouldn't guess that he'd be a winning player, but money makes a strong argument and I'm not going to totally ignore it.

-f

I think its very interesting that both you and James think he is an awful player, yet stoxtrader thinks he is an awesome player.

Anyone know his exact SD/100? Maybe putting his results into confidence intervals might shed some light on his over/under. I think if you fool around with some numbers the under is at least $100/hour(which is actually pretty bad in this game, but given that its his bare minumum its likely he makes much more, and at the very least isn't a losing player).

EDIT: OK i punched in a few numbers for the stats i have for him. I have 93205 hands, Winrate of 2.58(assuming all are 30/60).

SD/100 Lower Bound Upper Bound
20 1.3 3.87
21 1.24 3.93
22 1.17 4
23 1.11 4.06
24 1.05 4.13
25 0.98 4.19
26 0.92 4.26
27 0.85 4.32
28 0.79 4.38

No, I haven't, and I don't think you're rude to ask. And even if I hunt him down and play with him one session ... that really doesn't give a full picture. I'll freely admit that I have FAR less online experience than most as I only started in the game in the last few months, however, even still, perhaps in my naivety, I'm not ruling out the possibility that he is more than just "lucky," especially since the known sample size is far more than a few sessions.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

I make no claims about whether or not this individual is a winner, as Im a small stakes player and have never seem him play.

But... this is an interesting article about thinking outside the twoplustwo box.

Hey, stox and I discussed this at the Mets game tonight. He agrees with me now I think.
-James

That reminds me, wasn't it Ted Forrest that raised 93s UTG on the 300/600 at live at the bike?

i have indeed jumped the gun and called einstein a heretic and imprisoned copernicus...im waiting till finals are over and taking the data to SAS...i wish i had many more controls to work with but we got what we have...maybe i'll be able to come up with some inventive numberical manipulations/compinations with what i have to proxy for what i want...

time will tell
-Barron

and im now willing to suspend beliefe on his play

Well thanks guys, after reading the post about this guy (and probably something in my brain snapping during finals) I've gone completely LAGtarded. And it's a hell of a lot of fun, and working pretty well (not completely stupid, playing my opponents and all that, just trying to see if I can match this guy's stats).

Maybe I'll report back after a while to see if this experiment works...or I'll just slink back into anonomynimity. Did I just make up a word?

Anyways, at least I'm having fun livening up a game that was getting much too ABC multitabling like a robot.

All the better for me.

- Andrew

www.pokerstove.com

Heh, you're funny. Especially if you think the data is lying. Do me a favor and estimate his confidence interval before you go spouting off random macho crap. I haven't seen a single hand with any gross errors of play. Maybe if you could produce a bunch of hands where there were gross errors, I'd be more interested in your paradox theory. But as it stands, from the hands posted, it looks like he's a loose tenacious value bettor. Nothing so strange about that.

I play at that level and higher regularly, and there are tons of players who play over a third of their hands in a full game who win. If I haven't played against this particular player, then I've played on who is just like him. And yes, they take money from other players. Usually it's players like you who think they can't possibly win.

I can name a good dozen players who are loose, who beat the high limit online games, and who've been around for over two years. ZeeJustin (whoever that is) may be a smart fellow, but just because you see a few loose players go bust doesn't mean all loose players go bust.

Your appeal to authority is one of the most popular falacies in logic. Try thinking for yourself for a change.

- Andrew

www.pokerstove.com

Wow.

A good way to check this would be to do a cross-analsysis of stats with other players in the hands to check for any strange anomalies.

Though this may prove to be a prudent and difficult task if the players change accounts/names often enough to mask their collusion efforts (which by the way this truly does wreak of)

Lawrence

thats 95% confidence right?

Its very possible he is running 99th percentile-type good.

No it's not...it only slightly possible. It's much more likely he is a winning player.

It's possible he's running 99.9% percentile good. He could easily be the 1000:1 player that randomness has decided gets this variance; there have been 1000 players in the 30/60.

This would have happened over and over in the history of poker. Doesn't even Mason have an article on this in Poker Essays?

The facts are, he plays badly, he plays a high variance style, in a high variance game, which has been running for years. Sooner or later this post was going to be made about one LAG in the 30/60 and over the next 5 years i'd bet my bankroll on another one being made about another new LAG.

Not when you have expert knowledge that he doesn't play to a 3bb/100h.

Say the S.D. comes out to say there's a 95% confidence that after these 100k hands he's at least a winning player. That's 5 people per 100 that aren't; 1/20 isn't rare. Even if it comes out 99% confidence he's a winning player; 1/100 isn't rare.

FWIW, if we could some how arrange a bet to keep his play and game conditions the same i'd take some big even money bets that his stats will be negative bb/100h for a year from today's date.

if this guy is a highly effective cheat making hundreds of thousands of dollars wouldnt he be changing his identity on a regular basis as part of a plan to avoid detection and possibly lose a lucrative income

There are many, many LAGgy, aggressive players who multitable on partypoker. Over the course of a year, it is overwhelmingly likely that one of them would run extremely well. It is very possible that DERB is that one guy.

Party Poker 30/60 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: is with , .

Flop: (1.50 SB) J, A, 7 (9 players)
SB checks, DERB checks, Button bets, SB calls, DERB calls.

Turn: (2.25 BB) 5 (9 players)
SB checks, DERB checks, Button bets, SB folds, DERB calls.

River: (4.25 BB) Q (8 players)
DERB bets, Button calls.

Final Pot: 6.25 BB

Results in white below:
DERB has 6s Qs (one pair, queens).
Button has Ks Jh (one pair, jacks).
Outcome: DERB wins 6.25 BB.

This hand is entirely unremarkable. I think DERB played it well.

The data is not lying, it's just misleading you. I'm sure you've played high plenty of times. So have I! I am not appealing to J_V's authority - I have logged 5 figures worth of hands against this player also and can tell you that the amount that he loses to decent players far exceeds the amount he wins from players that are overly tight(in terms of expectation and not results). Several players who have actually logged hands with this player are saying that he makes extremely fundamental mistakes but you are just saying "it's impossible for this player to just be running well!!!" You must concede that it is at least possible that someone could run this well while not playing a +EV style. That much seems obvious. And if it is possible - why can't this player be the one who is? 5 players have come forth who are big winners in this game and others saying that they are sure he is a loser, but you stand firm in your position in spite of never having logged a hand with him.

He is not just loose and aggressive, he is also a calling station. I played a hand with him where someone raised in EP, 2 cold called and he 3 bet AJo. I capped out of the SB. I bet every street and the final board was 94259. He overcalled the river. Are you saying that this is indicative of some higher level postflop strategy of which I am not aware? That same day he called 2 bets cold in his BB in a 3 way pot with QTo against a 3 bettor who only raised 10 percent of his hands and the original raiser who raises 12. Could even Ray Zee churn a profit with QTo in this scenario, much less someone who pays off in the most obvious laydown situations? The simple answer is no, of course not. But you can continue to spout of inane claims like "I know several people who win at high limits who play 1/3 of their hands." Cool, so let's see your log of their last 100,000 hands with these stats and we can start thinking that this is more than an anamoly. The simple fact is you can't provide this. You have some anecdotal evidence that is likely from live play - which means you don't even know how many hands they play or what they actually win or lose. I just have no clue how you can argue so vehemently about something with which you have no experience.
-James

You like his flop call?