Time for a Well. I have been playing FLHE since 2004. When I started I wanted to be thegrinder (mike mizrachi), neverwin (dustin woolf) DanDruff (todd Witteles, quaternion (chris hartman), thecount, tsoprano etc...

At this time these guys were the 100-200 + players on stars. At the time I was 27 and knew little but when I watched these guys I thought they were 35-40 because I think (at least for me) you always picture your heros older than you.

But in reality I was prob younger than these guys or close to their age on average. I gravitated to them because at this time this game was huge compared to the 5-10 and 10-20 NL on stars.


I made my first deposit on stars. I think I played for like 48 hours straight on natural energy and eventually lost it all. I just kept depositing for about 4 years here and there and trying to win huge in a night. It never worked. I never won, I never had a plan and Always got crushed. Never sought coaching even though a lot of others were.

2009 I got laid off from my job which I hated. I was collecting unemployment.

First step was supernova on stars at 3-6 6 max. I got it and won a lot at first but by the time I achieved it I was losing in the game slightly. Pre -rb maybe 1-2 guys were winning at that stake. One of these guys possibly could have been the best player on the site but he didnt know that

At that time I never played higher because I always picture the guys playing higher were awesome. They weren't. They just had money and were playing higher vs bad players. And I didn't know this.

My break came when I moved to HU.One of my friends said play hu. Either crush them or sit out.

I did that. My first month I won a ton. I could win because I could read hands from all the 6 max and at that time I could game select. Eventually I had to play 6 max. That all started in 2009. It is 2016 now and I have played as high as 100-200 and a little 200-400 vs the best but for the most part I just grind it out and win.

I have learned new limit games and still win online all sorts of sites. . Not sure how much longer I can support myself with limit games online after 8 years but I am still going



Will add more details to this post on pros/cons

the best players I have played

the smartest

the guys that have taught me the most

big mistakes and things I have learned to be better over the years

And the weird maybe thing is I have never used a HUD for more than 20 hands


Right now I am almost 40, Closest game is 90-120 mins live so I am kind of at a crossroads on what to do.


I am fine with everything in my life but I feel this is the biggest point in my life where I have to make the most proper correct GTO decision on where to move

Thats it for now, will field any questions

Hi chinamaniac,

Thanks for the well!

How good were online/live FLHE games post Chris Moneymaker pokerboom? Maybe a comparison of games at the stakes you played then versus now?

How much was a slightly losing low limit FLHE player online chasing supernova netting post bonuses?

Curious since your specialty seems to be HU now what your thoughts are on bots (2009-BF) and the HU ecosystem. I remember FTP was a haven of HU tables with gameselectors who would only play against losers.

Biggest HULE mistakes beginners make? What separates good HULE players from experts?

Would a 100-200 online player still crush a 100-200 live game?

Thanks!

Looking forward to your well, but I'm not sure a decision on where to move for poker/life constitutes a "GTO" decision. Even if it does, it's not 2004 anymore so not everything has to tinged with poker lingo.

I'll ask this for your Well: was the UIGEA nonsense of 2006 or the Black Friday silliness of 2011 more crushing for you?

Which poker player, in your opinion, has won the most limit hold em bets (in all limit games) since 2009, and why?

What are the top 3 attributes that made you more successful than other good players?

Stars screen name ?

More important skill for HU specialists (don't mean you specifically but certainly was the climate when I last played on stars). Being good at HU limit Holden or being great at not playing anybody good at limit Holdem?

Thoughts on bellagio HU machines

Sick burn!!

Moneymaker Pokerboom (2003-2008) I wasn't playing high enough to know just how good the games were and I probably wasn't knowledgeable enough then on how to grade them and I don't have a ton of experience live. I was a rec player then who played a lot of sessions after nights at the bars.

In my mind they just seemed to be impossible to ever get to because the guys playing them had these mounds of virtual cash on the table and in my mind I just thought these guys must be really really good and I never saved close to that amount of money at any point of time of my life up until then.

Even most of 2009 to 2010 I was mainly playing heads up games (as high as 30-60 but mostly 15-30 and lower) and opening 6 max games but not putting in a ton of 6 max again until after 2011 began.

However, after talking with a buddy of mine recently ( one of the biggest winners from that era) who is finally online retiring I was joking with him about how good he had it and he just told me that the players were just so bad and had access to Netteller etc.. that if you had any sense of a clue and had a good bankroll you would destroy those games if you sat in for a while(in any game format).

I think he said that when he started then he just jumped right into 30-60 (he had a lot of money saved) and just became an instant winner. If someone did that today they would have 0 chance to win without any training or little experience.

Also to compare Pokerstars games from 2011 to now in a group conversation with some friends who are FLHE players , one of my friends said "damn these Bovada games almost feel like Stars 2011" and the other ROW player replied "I'd kill to have 2011 Stars games back" and he is still active in those games and I think has risen to one of the best. Some of the guys who were perceived to be among the best in the world then have become weaker regs from what I am told but this is all second hand as I don;t play them or watch them.

Not exactly sure how much people were netting going for supernova post bonuses as slight losers. I only did it for like 2 or 3 months before moving to heads up but I remember comparing what I was making in the lesser amount of hands to what I perceived some other guys were probably making then and it didn't seem like it would be worth it to me. Even the guys who were going for and making elite it didn't seem worth it to me unless you were at least playing 15-30?? As it turns out I was a slight winner in 3-6 6max with a whopping 0.58 bb 100.

As far as bots go that was never my specialty when it came to detecting them and if I did play them I probably beat them because I usually only played with what I perceived to be a good edge because there were so many games running at the time. For instance in 2009 when I started on Pokerstars there was only me and like 1 or 2 other regs seeding 3-6 HU FLHE games. I had a game pop off literally 2 or 3 minutes after sitting every time. By the end of 209 there were probably a dozen people sitting there.

While FTP had a ton of players seeding games, so did Pokerstars and all of the other sites. I think around mid 2009 was when these lobbies got swarmed by players realizing they could make more money playing 2 handed vs 6. I would guess that bots may have been minimal in these games on stars and ftp but I could be wrong. I do know that Bovada was loaded with them and it seems they never really did much to protect the players from them

And as far as these players only playing against losers, at the time that is really all you needed to do. There was enough action as to where you could sit down and either look a guy up on PTR and see if it was worth playing him OR you could not use PTR and know within 10 hands whether you had an edge. Because back then you could just quit and more action would come soon.

I think the biggest mistake HU players made (because hu isn't really a thing now) is not game selecting hard enough or playing guys that are too tough for them and having it result in a blood bath. There is merit to learning from better players but in the grand scheme of things the goal is to make as much money as possible and at some of the lower limits the rake is so high that you have to cut off your game selection at some point. Like on stars 3-6 HU where I cut my teeth the rake was something like 10BB 100 maybe more?

So game selecting was most important to me. However I found myself on the wrong end of the stick from a few beatings challenging some of the best while highly intoxicated at times. Learned a little bit but lost a lot of money that way. Eventually I more or less gave up drinking so maybe it helped!

What separates a good from a great HU player is the great ones know when to quit, they know when they don't have an edge or know when they have a large edge, they find ways to exploit the other guy and usually they can do this quickly and most important is they know the value of where their hand stands.

As far as 100-200 live vs 100-200 online players I would guess the Online guys would be more advanced but by how much I am not sure. Just seems to me that online players who are still playing now still put a ton of work into figuring out certain things. I'm not saying that live players don't but I do know that online guys do ( at least the winning players I know do). But there is also some stuff that some live guys may do better as well.

I guess Black Friday because I wasn't playing professionally when UIGEA passed and I was starting to beat 30-60 pretty regularly then.

But also to be fair the games were better on some US sites post black friday (at least for me) so it was somewhat of a blessing in disguise because a good amount of the good online players either moved out of the country or played live.

I think it could be me TBH but in no way does that mean I have made the most money or am the best player because I don't believe either of those to be true.

But I do show up every day and have taken a very small amount of days off over that time frame and work very hard at constantly finding new rooms to play but all of that is drying up now

Work ethic- putting in massive hours over many days and years with relatively few breaks while at the same time going from drinking 200 HARD nights a year to maybe 1 or 2 a year the first year I played full time.

Ego- Knowing when to keep it in check and know when it is time to quit bad games and know when I am not playing well to quit

Learning and Listening- I think I grasp information from other smart people pretty well and can apply certain things that need to be applied to my game

chinamaniac

I think when I started playing professionally you were making videos and phasing out of online play?? (2009ish)

If you still were playing online I don't think we crossed paths much

There is no doubt in my mind the most important skill for heads up players is game selection and knowing you have that edge and crushing it or quitting because you know the other guy is better or even. Obv to have that edge you need a lot of skill especially at the higher stakes vs good players but at the end of the day game selection is #1.

" All PRE BF HU players look like fools now after seeing how mush those guys beat Gus for on FTP post BF at O8" - A very good HU player said this to me the other day


I played the Bellagio bot a few times but not a huge sample and I think I am a very very small winner in the times I played it.

However I think one of my buddies has more hands vs it than anyone and he beat it for a long while and enjoyed monster comps and huge winning sessions vs it. It had some exploitable tendencies in the beginning according to him. Then they kept updating it and after about 2 years or so he told me it just got so good that he didn't feel it was beatable anymore. A few others told me the same thing. But they did comp it like a slot machine for a while. Play a $389 pot and they were comping $389 coin in at some places

Will answer any other questions from now till whenever, as I am always online. I actually made this post the other night when I was pretty bombed after a long fantasy draft rofl

I don't think I am anyone special etc.. and certainly not a superstar but I have carved out a decent living since 09 so I feel I have some knowledge on some stuff.

Ironically after posting this I played some online BJ which I rarely ever do and I won like $9k LMAO

Thanks, Chinamaniac!

What site(s) do you recommend for US players to play limit games based on two factors: traffic and withdrawal speed? Do you recommend Ignition?

Basically what thought process do you use to figure out your only opponent at HULHE?

Three most exploitable mistakes did you notice at HULHE?

Do you cap preflop in HULHE?

What skills do you think which can be transferred from HULHE to NHULHE, besides hand reading and table selection?

Ah gotcha. I think I basically moved to playing triple draw and then mix games full time around then. The Stars bigger LHE games were just so tough and competitive for seats.

The only one you can get any real volume on right now is Bovada which in 30 days will turn into ignition unless you already transferred your account over. Games range from ****ty to awesome @ 20-40+ and have been much better at lower stakes.

But the sportsbetting section will be separate come the end of September and this probably will make games either tougher and potentially we could be headed towards the end of FLHE online.

Acr has seen an uptick in action as well but it is still not enough to be a site where you could make a living on IMO

The most important things for me when I got a lot of HU action was what are they 3 betting with? What are they 4 betting with? What are they barreling with? What are they showing down with? What are they check raising with? Are they acting fast just because they don't know what they are doing? And whatever I thought was wrong I would try and take advantage of it. Usually within 10 to 20 hands you can more or less tell if a player is solid or not but sometimes it takes more.

As far as 3 most exploitable mistakes a lot of that is listed above and basically it is just stuff you would take notes on in every match. Guys sometimes just 3 bet to wide , barrel to much and weren't picking up on things you were doing to beat them and when they become very predictable it is only a matter of time as to when you will have all the money.


As far as capping HU, I did cap for about 3 or 4 years. Then a very big winner told me he never did and explained his thought process and it made sense at the time. I then went through a period where I did not cap HU for a while and now if I get action I think I mostly don't but there are some situations where I may mix it up a bit. Overall I think you will suffer way less variance not capping AND NOT THREE BETTING and the matches seem more controlled in a way. U can skin a chicken many different ways


What skills do you think which can be transferred from HULHE to

NHULHE,

NLHEHU??

Ex-soccer player or the Canadian?

Neither, the guy is a vegas local

Very curious

Carving out a decent living at LHE online since '09 is pretty damn impressive. Much respect.

Nitpicking time.

I currently find 20/40+ on Bovada really soft. Most of the time at least one fish to constantly coldcalls or limps. Else, still people playing too many hands (50/40) or way too few (20/15). HU is huge variance but very profitable if you find the right fish to sit with. Rarely would I call it ****ty.

Def agree that most players are very predictable.


Huh? If you think someone will still give too much action after you've 4b pre, that is a HUGE reason to 4b your monsters. Not 3b'ing HU is missing out on a lot of value. Why focus on variance when you should be focusing on EV. Yes, there are a lot of ways to skin a chicken, but some ways are better than others.

I currently find 20/40+ on Bovada really soft. Most of the time at least one fish to constantly coldcalls or limps. Else, still people playing too many hands (50/40) or way too few (20/15). HU is huge variance but very profitable if you find the right fish to sit with. Rarely would I call it ****ty.



Have you put in a lot of 6 max volume in August? I think the games have been the worst they have been in a long time overall in August at least for the first few weeks of the month and maybe some of the end of July. I'm not saying they aren't beatable but they seemed tougher to me


Huh? If you think someone will still give too much action after you've 4b pre, that is a HUGE reason to 4b your monsters. Not 3b'ing HU is missing out on a lot of value. Why focus on variance when you should be focusing on EV. Yes, there are a lot of ways to skin a chicken, but some ways are better than others



I have heard this reasoning a lot for a long time and most people are on your side of the fence. (although I am not sure how many actually tried what I have been doing before claiming "their way" is the best)

I can tell you the guy who brought this strategy to my attention ( no 3b pre and no 4B pre) had a one of the higher WR I had seen HU over a monster sample of hands.

After using this strat for a long time and comparing WR from before and after my WR stayed about the same. However, while employing the no 3b and no 4bet strat I was less likely to quit and less likely to tilt which in itself is worth some value.

Some people say the same about limping HU being terrible but I can use that vs specific opponent types

Yeah August bo has been ridiculously dead and not playable to me more often than it's been playable.

I've been playing a lot more video games waiting for games.