The only ones I'm playing for sure are PCA and Monte Carlo, but I'm sure I'll add more as the year goes. All of the ones I did in 2008 besides those (London, Costa Rica twice, Sydney) were basically spontaneous.

I hate you.

Haha kidding I've certainly done my share of sucking out in those, although not so much lately.

Play more.

I was Jorj95 on there too but I played something like 1600 sngs over a 2 year span, so I probably wasn't very memorable. I was still playing live and/or betting sports mostly back then.

Should be $600k, since it's $200k to make elite.

Your rakeback assumption sounds about right, so if you count what I got back then I paid about 223k. Actually a little less because of the double vpp promotions, maybe like 200k that stars actually made off of me.

If Gravy couldn't play poker, what would he being doing?

I can't think of any good Wilson stories, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I do know that his screen name tilts me beyond belief though. Maybe that's the point of it.

The booking was something I barely did and probably shouldn't discuss too much considering I use my real name on here. It never was a significant part of my income. But no I probably wouldn't do it again unless I had a way for people to post up funds ahead of time and it was legal to do. People don't seem to like to pay after losing when they don't post up.

I like my "job", I don't even see it as a job really. It's so much better in every possible way than when I had a real job.

My wife is awesome. If you had asked me 5 years ago if I would ever be married I would have laughed pretty hard at the thought. It's funny your views change. I mean she puts up with all my poker playing and is always very supportive of me; I think that says enough.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205000/

IMO

What on take on DONs?

What would PokerStars have to do from a VIP perspective to make you hit 3 million vpps again this year? What about 5 million?

If you were 20 years old and thought you'd make 100k~ in 2009 if you dropped out of university, would you?

I've only played maybe 100 of them so far. I have mixed feelings. The positive is there's probably less regulars in them and you can probably play more tables at a time than the regular turbo sngs since you are never shorthanded. The negative is that they are extremely boring and that people could easily collude pretty subtly and never get caught while getting a huge boost in EV. I mean people could (and probably do) do the same thing in regular sngs but the advantage gained isn't nearly as high, and it's a lot easier to get caught. The DONs also seem to be killing some of the action in the turbo sngs.

All that said I'd probably play them if they were spread in higher limits.

what was the site? how much did you lose? are they making ANY attempt to pay you back?

also, ty for this thread. v cool.

I don't know, it probably wouldn't take much for me to go for 3 million again, maybe a little extra cash or some new tournament buyins here and there. 5 million, there's almost no chance I'd go for this just because of the insane amount of hours I'd have to put in. It would have to be a pretty huge carrot and whatever it was it probably wouldn't be worth it for pokerstars to give out. Maybe something like the equivalent of 100% rakeback before I'd even consider it.

Well, I did drop out of university when I was 20 for less than 100k a year, so I guess the answer is yes.

The book is BetCascade, they were a top tier book for a long time. I mean there were always quite a few low end sportsbooks closing shop but I always had my money at the so-called reputable ones. I think the UIEGA played a big role in this as a few sportsbooks closed shop around that time (but I got paid by all the others), and it got way harder to move money around after NeTeller closed to the US.

I lost low 6 figures there, I don't remember the exact amount. They haven't been paying anyone since early 2007. They have made no attempt to pay other than the owner calling me a few times saying things would be worked out soon. Those calls stopped over a year ago and obviously nothing was ever worked out. There are plenty of other people who got screwed by them too. They are actually still open and operating, and they still take deposits. Really the sportsbook business is so shady for the most part. I recommend never having anything to do with it. There's so many problems even besides books closing shop and keeping their money. I mean sometimes you make bets where the result can be ambiguous, like on prop bets, and basically they'll grade it which ever way makes them more money. Other times if they think you're a smart bettor they'll just cancel bets if they think they're taking the worst of it. I could go on and on about this. But since it's unregulated you really don't have any legal recourse in these situations.

Drink w/ me at PCA?

See me doing anything dumb in game?

brutal

Ever consider hiring someone to track them down and try to get the money back? I have no idea how it would work or anything, was just a thought that occured to me in another thread about some shady poker site doing the same to someone else.


Do you use a standard mouse or something else? After just an hour of playing even on stacked tables I get wrist/ hand problems so I couldnt imagine playing for 8 hours or so.

With all the drinks I've promiseed to have with people at PCA I'm gonna get pretty drunk every day, but since that was the plan anyway, yeah I'll have a drink with you.

No I think you're a very good player.

The book is in Costa Rica, and hiring someone to do that seems fruitless and possibly illegal. While the amount is fairly large it's certainly not worth going to jail over. Tracking him down isn't really the problem anyway since I already know where he is and so does everyone else. It's not like he's hiding out or anything.

Ya I use a standard mouse, I don't really have problems with my wrist luckily.

were you born into wealth? if not, how did you acquire the means to begin your poker career at the highest levels?

No I wasn't born into wealth. My parents did better than average for sure but definitely not wealthy by any means.

I began my ONLINE career at the highest levels, not my entire poker career. I played live games starting in 1998 and I played 1/3 stud and 3/6 and 4/8 limit holdem for like a year and built up from there.

ok. sorry for the misunderstanding on my part. does BigJoe still play a ton of sngs? are you in the US? if so, have you experienced any difficulties with banking when/if cashing-out and then depositing large sums on a regular basis?

Do you find you tilt from playing such a broad range of buy-ins? For example, you're winning flips in 109 turbo's but losing every possible showdown in Step 6.

Did it tilt you at all that I won every showdown against you last week whether I got it in bad or just really bad? lol