Heh, nobody answered your question. It's possible to be in a good limit game and know for a fact that you're easily +EV. While you still may lose, you won't lose without taking horrendous, obvious bad beats. It's easy to sleep at night when this happens.

My understanding is that that's the way the games were a couple of years ago. Now, there are still players who aren't so good, but the mistakes they make are less obvious than "playing any two", and thus the games are a little swingier and if it's a game that you can beat but not kill, downswings may result from less provable things, you miss too many flops or your opponents may miss too few, for example. So downswings are a little more deep and painful.

In short, there are still "fish" at the table but they're not as bad. I think if you are good enough you can still kill lots of the games he talks about.

Well, you and I have had our differences, and I must say I'm surprised at the 5th year news, as I was under the impression you are a top-notch limit player, but hopefully you can gain something positive from the experience, learn from your mistakes, and possibly have some introspection into your overall state of mind. We all have changes we need to make, and I am constantly striving towards making them. Hopefully you will too.

Your impression has changed?

I see a big part of his bad run was losing a good portion of his roll due to non-poker related events. Even great players will be psychologically affected by that sudden turn of events. Not sure what that has to do with being a top notch limit player.

b

Well, his roll appears pretty low for a top-notch player, and at stakes where he can't make all that much $$$ live, which brings me to why is he playing live for a living when online is so much more profitable? I thought he was playing 40-80+ for some reason.

no hating here...I just want to confirm this timeline...b/c this is some very depressing $hit...

at the end of your first year you were consitently beating 10/20 stud and 20/40 LHE...and as you said occasionally taking shots at 40/80

now at the end of 5 years you are playing 1/2NL at Caesars???

and as far as LHE goes, the bellagio is packed every night of the week with 20-40 to 40-80 games

did you just not want to play LHE anymore or did you run bad for a while ?

I can imagine a few 'personal situations' that could cripple a BR. Again, this has nothing really to do with being a top-notch player. However, money-wise, it could be said that maybe some more advantageous opportunities weren't taken advantage of(online, as you mentioned. However, many players that started out as live players like live better than online even though they can still make more online. I'm one of them. Online compared to live is like watching paint dry). Or one may not play as often as one would think(one nice thing about playing higher limits is you don't have to grind as many hours to make the same amount on a lower limit table) I don't know. Who knows. But that has nothing to do with playing ability.

b

I'd guess he's at that limit because he's getting used to NL and learning more about it. One shouldn't just jump into a higher NL game after concentrating on limit for so long.

He might also still be alternating between his normal limit game and NL.

b

Very nice posts Dynasty, enjoyed reading your story. Best of luck in the future, I'm sure you will be crushing 10/20 NL in the future.

surf,

"no hating here...I just want to confirm this timeline...b/c this is some very depressing $hit..."

The thing is, Dynasty's story is probably way more common than people think. It's just that most guys who are in his situation (grinding as a pro for five years as a winning, but not top-level player, making enough to pay the bills but not much more) aren't prominent posters who are writing about their experiences.

A lot of the aspiring pros around here should pay attention to Dynasty's story.

Not only that, but good players who go broke after some years of playing is way more common than many people probably think, too.


Yes, and there are many worse stories out there, too. We just don't read them on the forums for the most part.

Here are a few more things aspiring pros might want to consider:

-Most players underestimate the "long run", as well as how long they can run bad

-Most players underestimate how much their own play deteriorates when they are under the weight of running bad. That deterioration in play can greatly affect expected win rates, and therefore it can greatly affect how long the bad run can last.

-Most players have leaks or "personal management flaws" in some way or another.

-Just because someone is a good player, does not "entitle" them to win 1 big bet per hour (live) or 2BB/100 hands (online) or whatever. It's not like being a carpenter.

-Beating the other players *and* beating the rake for enough to pay the bills is not all that easy in the long run. Sure it looks and feels easy when you are running pretty decent. Sure it looks and feels easy when you are sitting with donkeys and you are not running bad. Will the games always be this good? I don't think so.

-There are a lot of good players who have started playing poker in the last five years and are now playing professionally. A high percentage of them are destined to go broke at some point in the future.

edited: (FWIW, I don't think Dynasty is one of those destined to go broke at some point. But I would also guess that few of today's recent crop of pros are as level-headed and methodical as Dynasty).

Year 6?

Someone needs to tell this guy about online poker. I cannot fathom why anyone would play something like 10-20 live, let alone 1/2 NL.

(And yes I skimmed enough to know he has some online experience.)

Good point--I guess people who are 8-tabling need to be told about that online option. Did you miss the post where he said:

By the end of May, I had invested about $3,000 in a new computer and two of those ever popular Dell 2001FP monitors. I intended to jump into 8-tabling. First, I would do it at low-limits to get used to the mechanics of it. Then, I would move up when I thought I had the mechanics down pat.

In June and July of 2004, I played exclusively online except for a road trip I made to the Commerce with Clarkmeister and Ed Miller. It was just 3-6 on Party Poker (and skins). But, by 8-tabling, I was making more than $60/hour. Considering it was just 3-6, I had to be happy with the win rate. It was already more than I could reasonably expect to make in a live 20-40 game and it had considerably less variance.

Parts of online play were fun. Getting 10-12 times as many hands per hour ensured there weren’t any dead periods. If I wasn’t dealt a good hand at the moment, I only had to wait a few minutes before one would show up. On the other hand, there wasn’t the social atmosphere of the live game. Online play was definitely going to be a part of my career repertoire. But, it was only going to be a part. I intended to mix in live games as well after sorting out what I wanted to do online.

and the one where he said:

Entering the summer of 2005, I was in a comfortable bankroll situation. I had been playing exclusively online and having steady success as an 8-table full ring game limit player (3-6 and 5-10 with the occasional 15-30).

Yeah I should have spent two hours reading this monstrosity of a thread before dropping a sarcastic one-liner.

cool, i just read all the 3 past years. they've been good reads but have only convinced me more that anyone who plays poker professionally must be sadistically insane.

year 6!