It seems that the high limit games continue to become more and more aggressive preflop. Do you ever see the game evolving to a point where we see more cold calling preflop? It seems like edges would be larger if more money went in post flop.

I think learning new games is a good idea. It's not as hard as you think. It just takes time.

As of now, I think PLO is more profitable than NL at most limits, but I really have no idea what the future will be like. For a while I was very happy I learned PLO since it's all that ran, then everyone started playing NL again, now HA tables are popular. You can't know what (the right) people will want to play in the future, so you should just learn everything you can. That is, assuming you plan on playing poker for a while.

Being a nosebleed NL/PLO player doesn't really qualify me to answer this, but I'll give it my best shot.

I go back and forth on what life is about, but I've realized that thinking about that doesn't make me happy. So maybe that's what I think life is about... being happy.

Since I don't think it's super likely that something else is going to happen after this life, it seems like life should be about your own happiness and perhaps the happiness of other people, present and future.

I think I'm happier than most, though definitely not happier than I was before poker. Life since poker has gotten much more stressful and busy, though that might just be a product of me getting older and having more responsibilities.

I don't really feel a sense of purpose. I am driven in poker by my competitive nature, though I'm not sure if that's what you were asking. I don't see poker being a large part of my life in the long term. Just a means to an end. I do love the game though.

I have strong morals, but I don't know where they come from. I try to be kind and respectful to everyone, and help people that I care about. I think that might be what's important in life, relationships with other people. It's something that poker has taken away from me a bit. I used to spend much more time with friends and family. You'd think a job like this, where you make your own hours and make more money than you should need, would lead to a lot of free time, but it's been just the opposite for me.

I'm very obsessive about making sure I don't miss good games. I often will turn down plans with friends because I think there's a chance some good games will start. I also have a lot of trouble since I weigh my decisions against my hourly. If there are good games, I could go out with friends or make $50k. Makes it tough to go out, and even tougher to enjoy yourself when you do.

I hope that one day soon I'll make enough money in poker that I'll be able to semi-retire. I'll still play because I love the game and the challenge, but I won't have to play. As far as what I'll do then and purpose, I'm not sure. I feel like getting to the point where you can do whatever you want is the hard part, so I'm working on that. I can figure out what it is I want to do later.

If I make a NY resolution this year, it should be to skip games, or restrict myself from playing at certain times so that I can spend more time with people who are important to me.

That was a bit more of a diary entry than a meaning of life answer, but you said stream of consciousness.

If I'm understanding the question right, being self-aware is the most important skill when determining if you've made mistakes. You have to be honest w/ yourself about why you made the play you made. Justifying the play through math won't do much in most cases.

Just some random Qs.

Any details on the training site you are rumoured to be starting?

Coaching seems to be pretty popular nowadays, what are your thoughts on how to get the most out of being coached?

Any experiments/things worth trying out for someone trying to improve/open up their game?

Thanks and happy holidays.

Could you elaborate a bit on this? Are you saying math analysis often won't be helpful because you can seldom be confident enough that the underlying assumptions (an opponent's hand range for instance) are correct? If that's not it, why is the above quote true?

Games are certainly tougher, though by no means dead. There have been a move towards mixed games, which makes a lot of sense to me. More games = more excuses to convince yourself you're +EV.

There are less HU tables running at most stakes that I've seen. That also makes sense. Winrates are dropping and people can't afford the variance.

People aren't improving as much as I expected. I mean, people that I've played with at nosebleeds. I feel like I've gotten a lot better and many of them have stayed the same. Though Ivey is better at PLO than he was 1yr ago for sure.

name 5 of your favorite movies

what's a good book you recently read and why is it good?

and how do you feel about the legal status of online poker atm?

1) I don't right now. I have some ideas for things I'd do after poker, but for now I just want to have fun. I'd like to start a family sometime in the next 5-10yrs.

2) I don't have many fave movies. I watch TV mostly. I listed top 10 TV shows somewhere else in the thread. Many are still in my top 10.

3) I don't read very much. I'm in the middle of Fooled By Randomness, which is very good so far, though a dense read. It makes me feel better when someone not as good as me is on a heater.

4) I'm not super qualified to answer this. I believe that there is a small chance poker as we know it ends, but I think it's much more likely that it gets legalized and regulated. I think we will never see a return to the Party days though, since there are so many good pros now. The fish will get spread pretty thin.

I think 1k/2k might be around the corner. I hope not. I wish they capped it at 300/600 honestly. It's too stressful.

I sometimes play 500/1k with 100%, sometimes don't. It depends on how I've done lately and how good the games are. It would have to be a very good game for me to play 1k/2k with 100% of myself

Non showdown winnings are meaningful, but there's no "right amount" really. If you are losing money in non-showdowns, that means that you're folding more than your opponents. Also, people with high nonSD winnings usually have lower SD winnings, because they bluff more and get their money in light.

If you have loose opponents, you should be losing money in non showdown pots probably. You'll be killing in SD pots. If they're tight, you should run over them and win the nonSD pots.

I just bought myself a condo. It's expensive.

Hmmm, I can't think of anything worthy of posting. I might come back to this.

I did expect more newcomers. It's been disappointing.

I think they've gotten tougher for sure, but I've kept pace with them. I was cleaning up in the PLO games before I was even good at it, honestly. They were just that soft earlier in the year.

1) me too
2) me too

T.V. and Family - most important things imo. I guess I'll give this a go.

Do you travel a lot when playing poker or for the fun of it?

Where would you live if you could pick anywhere on earth for a year (not including where you currently live)

I didn't really leave it behind, unfortunately. I just do my best with that leak in my game. Not sure what advice I can give you other than just know that it's possible to do well even with some leaks.

At 100bb, I'm thinking not a ton. Maybe .75pt/100. That is, assuming there aren't giant software breakthroughs that give the future player a big advantage.

At 200bb, I'd expect closer to 2pt.

I was kind've a degen for a while wrt BR management. I never really neutral or -ev gambled though. I've become a lot less degen in the past year and a half I'd say, once I really had enough money that losing it would be devastating. I've played 300/600 with like 5-6 buyins. I won't ever do that again though, I'm sure.

I'd be a little bit less happy if I lost half my money, and a little bit more happy if I doubled it. I don't think it'd be a huge difference.

can you rank the 3 toughest hu opponents you've ever played and maybe say a thing or two about why they were so tough/interesting things they do?

merry christmas phil. i am a huge fan and have learned a hell of a lot from watching u play. more than from anyone else. i never posted in this thread b4 but i've been following it since u started it. thx for doing it. gl next yr.

1) I don't understand the question. I call raw processing power intelligence. What do you define intelligence as?

2) Mostly just anecdotes about him being stupid.

He went bowling w/ a bunch of people and the lanes were full and there was a wait. He walked up to the manager with a $100 to ask if they could be moved up in the list. The manager laughed at him and said no. Tom came back and was really surprised that it didn't work. He looked down in his hand and he was holding a $1.

Couple weeks ago he came to visit me. He got a slice of pizza on his way here. I had just hired an assistant who'd been working for me for about 2 weeks. I didn't really know her well. He walked in, said hi, opened his pizza box and it dropped face down in her purse. Sauce all over everything in there. He didn't play it well either. It was really uncomfortable.

3) Small sample.. I'm not good with PT or HEM, so I lost most of my hands:

55.7/42.6 3b 17% wtsd 32.3% AF 2.84

It seems like aggression is the way to go. I'd be surprised if it reverted back to more passive play.

I took the question as asking what's more important in order to tell if you're playing well. You're pretty much right, the underlying assumptions are what matter.

What I was getting at more was, it's easy to justify a bad play to yourself. You can say, well if he had this range its +EV... look I ran calcs. Even if you were right about the range, and it happened to be +EV, it's more important that you made the play for the right reasons.

When people tilt, they often make a play just because. They act faster, without thinking about the reasons. So I think to identify tilt, you need to come to the realization that you aren't making plays for good reasons, or any reason at all.

2 questions,

what's the highest HUNLHE stakes u'd play right now assuming u have an edge of .5pt/100 over your opponent? 1pt/100? 2pt/100?

have u been to the bunny ranch?

You shouldn't believe everything you read.

Coaching is great. I think there are a lot of people who would benefit from being coached and from coaching. I think coaching deals where the coach has a % of earnings are best, assuming you trust each other, because then the coach has a vested interest in your improvement.

Make sure you are asking a lot of questions to your coach, and make sure you explain everything you do to him. Often you'll be making decent plays for the wrong reasons, and he won't realize until you tell him why you're doing what you're doing.

If you want to open up your game, move down and just make some rules for it. I mean like, way down to 1/20th your stakes. Say, I'm going to 3bet every suited hand. You'll see how people react to 3bets from different positions, and you'll get in a lot of tricky spots. Just decide that you're going to make more creative plays. Getting practice doing things, even at lower stakes, will help remove the reservations you have about making some wild plays.

I don't like traveling. I'm kind've OCD and I need my routine otherwise I get unhappy and uncomfortable.

I'd probably go live in Madison, WI, where I just moved from. I guess that's cheating though. Ummmmm. I dunno. If I could bring people with me, maybe somewhere like Ireland.

Ivey is so tough. He adjusts so quickly. Also he's just relentlessly aggressive, and he bases his aggression on how he reads the strength of your range, which means you have to be prepared to make a lot of thin plays all around to beat him.

Honestly, besides Ivey, the toughest players are probably people I don't ever play HU. Tom comes to mind, as well as the Dangs. It'd be annoying to play Raptor. Anyone on Team Israel. etc etc

You're very welcome. Gl to you too.

I remember last year when you did this you were asked about leading, i think by aejones, and at the time you said something like you werent comfortable with it but you could see it becoming a new trend. what are your thoughts now on leading into the pfr a year later?