At first I thought it would be good for the game, just infuse a bunch more cash into the ecosystem, but then I realized.. Who would benefit most (and cares more) from being able to dump a sizable, workable bankroll for a given stake? A player good enough to know how much he needs. Hence,

Before btc nobody really had enough to play that big, only the ones disciplined enough to grind it up. The rest of the field would be made up of tourney winners and recs basically looking to stack off the rest. Very nice and polarized.

Now I notice the lobby is more full of 1/6, 1/6, 1/6.. Maybe it's just a seasonal thing, sure, but it's certainly possible it's due to the new ease with which one can get an actual playable roll on. Hopefully the 100vpipers balance it all out.

It was very easy to do. Took about 15 seconds and they have 5k max deposit. Very nice to save the deposit fee

World's most subtle troll. nh

I suppose now is the time at which the degen makes excuses for losing his money. Excuses such as: "I did fine BB/100-wise but lost my ass in big games", "I lived in a very expensive apartment by myself, which drained my roll", "Uncle Sam took like 150k from me", "I don't live within driving distance of many good games, so transportation and lodging costs are significant", "I didn't 'repeatedly' went busto, I only went busto once", etc. etc.

These excuses seem valid to me, but it's highly possible that I'm not looking at it objectively. I don't know. The leaks in my game that you mention are certainly valid, though, there's no doubt. All of them, with the possible exception of ego. I never thought I was anything too great, I just liked to play with the best players. Is that ego, or merely an irrationally competitive spirit? Regardless, I agree with your larger point.

I really miss the romantic aspect of poker. Chess is a superior game, but it's very, I don't know, concrete. I like the idea of throwing myself into the bear-infested woods armed with nothing but a knife. The bears can even be equipped with HUDs or what-have-you, it's all good. I am ready to fight, to scratch, to claw, to stab, to bite. In chess, it's just like, "oh, I'm rated 2100 and you are 2500, ok, I'm going to lose 98.723% of the time". Poker is much more mysterious. I'm emotionally invested in that more so than I am the desire to get rich again. I'm not sure if you QUANTS can understand

A serious issue here is the lack of palatable alternatives. I hated school on my first go-around, and I would likely snap tilt-quit a high percentage of the time.

I think I'd rather be a non-broke non-legend than a broke legend. Jean-Robert Bellande is a fun guy and the world is better off with people like him in it, but I'd much rather be someone like Sauce123 or whoever the stud du jour is in 2016.

They're sending me a check. It should be here within a few days. I agree that it's a good thing I don't have to go to LA to pick it up.

Indeed, the bolded concerns me greatly. Perhaps I can hold steady until harrahspoker.com or whatever opens up and all the live-fish deposit.

If I could stick to a legitimate bankroll management scheme, I think I'll be fine. Of course, that's something I have NEVER been able to achieve ... but hope springs eternal!

Sorry it took a few days to respond to these thoughtful posts. UG's post bummed me out quite a bit (not that that's necessarily a bad thing).

I don't have any problem with any mod. I'm sure that any ban I've ever eaten was justly deserved.

I should note that the degen tilt monkey stuff is me being me. That's who I was well before I ever played a hand of poker. Normal kids don't pick up NEARLY as many technical fouls in youth basketball!

I certainly wish it wasn't so. It's far-and-away the worst aspect of my personality.

If that's really true, then the best players liked to play with you.

lol, that's definitely the most uncharitable possible interpretation of what I wrote

It was just my way of saying: game selection matters! If you really were mostly/only playing with the best players (i.e. bad games), then that could be a huge reason why things didn't go well.

Much respect to your mindset as I definitely do not have that type of courage.

It's difficult in my opinion to all the sudden implement phenomenal bank roll management. Just writing it down, making gradual progress has helped the several freinds that I know.

You only live once so if I were you, I'd pursue Poker if that's what you truly enjoy. Rather than playing at Commerce, putting it on Bovada seems better since I think you've posted several times that you eventually start to despise live poker unless your mindset has changed.

Good luck regardless of what you choose to do.

Why difficult ?

Stop hoping !
Find the reason(s) of why and it should be easy after that imo ...

.edit

Elo, to me busto means losing what should be a sufficient bankroll as opposed to going completely broke. I do think you have gone busto repeatedly in that sense, but I obv do not know the exact numbers.

As far as ego, I do think it is a major issue for you. You have repeatedly made posts that basically amount to "I don't need to use a HUD because I am lazy and so much smarter than the rest of you that I win anyway" or "I am so smart that I don't need to study" or "I can play in bad games with a short bankroll because I have so much heart and the rest of you are so gay" etc.

I am also basing the "losing player" bit on your actual play on Bovada which was consistently awful in your last couple months. You were very easy to mistake for a fish until you started table chatting.

So ya... please conduct yourself professionally and plug your leaks if you come back.

Fwiw, I am not exactly a shining example of post-bf awesomeness. I have significantly less money than I did in 2011, have not improved at all, and have wasted absurd amounts of time and money the past 5 years. I definitely need to get out of poker in the next few years.

R.I.P Merge

BTC reload bonus on bovada... can someone walk me through a 101 for dummies on what I need to do for washing the BTC that I have on the homebase of the coins?

I made a small deposit when they first advertised accepting them and the next time I signed into CB I got hit with a survey about occupation/source of funds etc. so now I'm sketched out

use a third party wallet like electrum or kraken. Send pokersite --> wallet --> coinbase and vice versa.

Elo should move to Colorado, Hawaii, etc and get a job in a weed store. The job interview would go like this:
store manager: You certainly seem qualified. However, I can't do any better than $20 an hour.
Elo: The best I can do is $15.
store manager: Wat? 15??!?
Elo: I can't afford $20, the most I can pay you is $15 an hour.
store manager: >rimshot<

I think Colorado also has live LHE.

srsly dont use coinbase

Hmmm. I feel like I played mostly the same as I ever have, although I was experimenting with checkbacks and screwplays and various FPS stuff. I also have always genuinely felt that I've been clear that I don't view myself as this superstar player, although it looks like I've failed! And sometimes, after I butcher a few hands, I feel like a huge fish. I think I have some sort of inferiority complex going on that manifests itself as boasting.

In any case, I intend to purchase and work with HUDs and what-have-you, and to stick to a legitimate BR management scheme. I'm also an experienced and fairly significant winner in SnGs, MTTs, and live NL, so I'm optimistic!



lol

My entire crazy-ass, white-trash, crack-smoking, psuedo-gypsy fugitive-from-the-law family lives in Colorado. They'd probably give me free rent in one of their trailers if I pinched off a few nuggets from work for them.

Edit: forgot about maka, thank you for your words as well

I don't think checkbacks are all that FPSy. I've been playing with some serious aggro monsters lately and I'm 100% sure that checking back certain flops is best against them. It's not huge, I'm probably like 94% flop cbet. But when you're playing against people who will c/r the 225 flop 100% of the time and are basically guaranteed to show down K high or better, it becomes pretty suicidal to cbet T9.

Another good one is something like 679 with two diamonds when you have something like Ad 2x. Against a guy who's c/r all pairs and all gutshots+ you probably need to show down on a lot of runouts, but it's just better to avoid putting yourself in that flop spot since you're getting c/r like 75%.

Just some random thoughts I've been having recently. Ran it by one friend whose opinion I don't value very much and he said he disagrees. Glad to be back here in the 2p2 ghost town to maybe get some opinions from intelligent people.

Glad I checked back. band back together and all. Wow 5 years post black friday, we must all be old. elo sounds so mature wtf. I am officially rated 1850 at chess and think I'm the equivalent at poker. That is easily good enough to win big at 2/5 5/10 live RxR. I would lose online 3/6 LHE. Live 2/5 inundated with 1600 rated players who think they are international masters. That's because they crush 1/2 which is a collection of 1200-1400 rated players. Every game i sit as seems good and that allows me to have the elo approach of no table or seat selection. Let them select then beat them anyway.

Anyone who insists on playing online should move to jersey and play 8 game and take all bocs money.

PS: 2100 backgammon though so watch out.

I agree, boc. I've come to the tentative conclusion checking back certain flop textures vs certain players is very viable, if not best. Checking back good draws vs some showdowny tags on "showdownable" boards, loose/passive guys who don't valuebet turn thin even when you hand it to them (obviously there are substantially more of these guys at lower stakes), etc. Unbelievably, against many fish (especially in anonymous games) I think it's best to loltarpcheckback with AK on KK2 in a BTNvsBB spot.

Playing this way creates a whole set of other issues against winning players in non-anonymous games, and I think to figure it out you'd have to get into combinatorial math and stuff like this.

But I haven't received any input into this other than my own experiences, so, you know, maybe all of this theorizing is just ******ed.

I assume this is the kind of work that people were doing 3-4 years ago.

Awesome post. I think I'm 2350 at poker and 2200 at chess. Live 2/5 is a great game and your ratings analogy is basically accurate.

Backgammon is a great game too. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to play these games online for money? Technology is the worst. We should have stuck with dial-up.

Edit: nah, actually because with dial-up you'd get disconnected anytime somebody made or received a phone call. Forgot about that.

Interesting...
You should create an account on chess.com and play me.
I would be interested to see what is your toughts on 2200 .
You speaking slow games or blitz ?