A couple of months ago I realized I was coming up on 10k posts made on the 2p2 forums. I looked back on my join date....August 15th 2005. Wow, that sounds like a long time ago and a lot of posts. I started to think back to how much things have changed for poker and for myself over these years. I had an idea to save my 10,000th post to do a 'well thread' for the forum where I started out learning poker on. Hopefully I can give back something to anyone who is interested. Here's the gist of my story, starting from when I made my 2p2 account:


In August of 2005 I was 28 years old. I was living in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. I was a newly promoted district manager for a small, southern US based insurance company. I had been with this company at this point for 5 years....working my way up from agent, to sales manager, then to district manager. With each promotion, came a time for me to move locations. This was no problem for me though, as A) I was single with no dependents; and B) I was used to moving around a bunch, as I spent the 4 years prior to this job enlisted as a combat engineer in the US Army. They had kept me very busy with a tour in Bosnia, and also some time in Egypt to go along with my US based stations.

I had been playing poker for fun (and for profit) quite a bit at this point. I estimate I started playing poker online in 2003. I remember making quite a few $50 deposits on PartyPoker, spaced out over a couple months. Maybe $400 or $500 tops. I enjoyed it quite a bit and played really badly. The first game I played was $5 full ring sit n go's. They were a blast! At that time, the blind levels weren't actually on a time clock, they were on a hand clock. Every 10 hands or so I believe, the blinds went up. I can specifically remember how in almost every one of these tournaments, 2 or 3 people would be knocked out on the very first hand!


The games were very fishy back then, the problem was that everyone was a fish. I used to browse the TwoPlusTwo Forums quite a bit before I made my account. I remember seeing strategy that would be laughed at today but worked surprisingly well back then. Things like "The Move of Honor". This was serious advice given at that time on these forums, where if you had KK or AA preflop you would just open shove your whole stack pre or 3 bet shove pre over any open, and expecting to be usually called. I would also learn very valuable tools and theories that would stand the test of time, like "The Baluga Theorem".


We witnessed the consensus "solid" poker strategy given here on 2p2 change over the years, it progressed something like this, with maybe 2 years for each progression:

- Be a huge nit because everyone is such a fish and make the money!
- Dont be a nit...Be a TAG because nits are missing too many profitable spots and then you will make the money!
- The heck with being a TAG, Be a LAG because TAGs are still missing some spots we can play and then you certainly will make the money!
- And finally, back to being a TAG because there are less fish and the average opponent is better. That's how to win!


Things started to change dramatically in my real life as well at this point. After a major disagreement with my employer in 2007, I decided to leave the company. At this point I was making solid and consistent money off online poker, playing a mixture of cash games and tournaments. This year I also married my fiancee, and we were having our first child together, to go along with her 5 yr old that she had from a previous relationship. Responsibilities started growing very quickly for me. Free time dwindled. Once the baby arrived, it became an easy decision for me to just concentrate more time on the poker playing, and raise these children myself, instead of putting her in in some high cost day care and letting someone else raise her for many hours a day (my wife works full time). The shift to "poker pro" happened almost automatically in this way.


I started working on my game a lot. I found that 6 max cash games provided me with biggest edge over my opponents. Tournaments were too high variance and way too often the only decision was between pushing or folding. Full ring was so nitty that I didn't like it. I found I could win enough at 25nl and 50nl each week that I could continue to concentrate on my family and being happy. Cashout times were almost instantaneous, and life was good. I put in millions of hands doing just this. In hindsight, I was way too cautious and should have taken more shots at higher stakes. Poker came easy to me, and I had won at any stake I had played...However I was content to play a low variance style with a massive edge, and because of the monthly expenses of raising a family, I would cash out all my winnings every month to pay bills, and Id be right back to where I started each month. This went on this way for a few years.


PokerTableRatings soon came out. Now people could see who was doing well and who wasn't. Because of my success at 50nl and below, I was contacted by uNL's own Verneer who had seen my PTR and was looking for someone to help make some CardRunners videos for these stakes. I was very excited to do some work for the same site that had big names like Stinger, CTS, and Green Plastic. I started getting many requests for coaching. I found out that some of the same skills that helped me at my previous career in insurance, things like public speaking, and dealing with people, also helped me in these new poker venues I was getting into. I discovered that I really enjoy teaching poker.


These days I still pride myself on being a poker player first and a coach second. I'm currently still playing on a couple small US based sites, and still playing some smaller stakes when there's not much action. However I am putting in a lot more 200nl these days than ever before.


Here's a real old graph I found that's from my old Stars PTR before they took them down. These results came from tons of hands 12+ tabling at 25nl and 50nl:





And here's a much more recent graph. It's my last 100k hands. There is play in here from as low as 20nl to as high as 600nl, but most of it comes between 50nl and 200nl:





So that's the basics of my story! If people have any questions about nearly anything, I'm willing to try to answer or help if I can. Ask me about poker, the army, coaching, almost anything. 10k posts. That's a lot of posts sheesh.

1st

Nice of u to do this, long time no see

Glad to see u finally moved up

2nd

wow i have tears to my eyes, golden age of poker

So, with your long experience i'm going to ask a question: what do you think the online field will become in say 5-7 years ?

Congrats for the milestone

Sick story
Thanks for the well

Thanks for doing this! What do you think has allowed you to play for so long and weather the emotional ups associated with poker?

The man! The legend!

1. Good to hear you finally moved up. I was always glad you didnt move up, but since you are on US sites now, I don't care. How are small US sites compared to Stars?
2. What did you think of xTheSnowmanx, the second-best 25nl stars grinder back in the days according to PTR? (No, it's not myself.)

3. Where is your avatar from? (I hate Ben Affleck or Jim Carey or whatever this clown's name is!)
Why did you choose it? Why did you never change it?

4. And what does your SN even mean?

I know 3 and 4 are kind of superficial, but this itched me all the time.

Thanks for doing this!

How did you juggle work, family and poker?

Any tips for being able to play your A game after after a long day at the office?

Cool story bro.

you were lucky enough to be around the golden years of poker, do you feel like you missed huge opportunity to make a lot of money and be set for life?

What would you change if you went back to circa 2006

What did it take for you to 'get out of the micros'?

Couple tips for a 24yo playing 25nl 50nl as only source of income?

Thanks man. Good to see you are still around here!

Well this depends dramatically on how the US gov't decides to rule on poker legality. I still hold high hopes for our gov't to make the right decisions here. Although our gov't has been able to agree on really anything in quite awhile.

The state of online poker for the ROW is solid. I have students who are crushing for high winrates while still playing 12+ tables. For US players, the state of poker is currently sick. Not dead, but sick. With my family situation, moving out of the country is not an option. With no law changes, Id expect online poker in the US to stay close to what it is now. Small sites full of people working on their game, and very few true fish. I don't expect US poker rooms to get much tougher than they are now, because there's few fish already and little in the way of upside, since their is rarely a game above 200nl. If someone wants to play higher than 200nl, they need to go to a card room/casino or move out of the country.

the fact that this exists makes me happy. loved your vids with verneer. helped me alot.

don't really have much to ask, but will read this thread and gl.

Thanks!!


Thanks Verneer. This is a good question. I think there are certain mental skill sets required to play poker effectively over a long period. Many people think just being smart is enough to win. It truly isn't. I've seen people much smarter than me that can't string a few winning sessions together in a row. So much of it comes down to mental fortitude.

First, this game cant become about ego. The minute you let it get too that point you've already lost. Easier said than done here though! There's so much ego that surrounds poker...from the message boards, the chat boxes while we play, to sometimes even our actual decision making. If you cant keep ego out of your play, you wont do nearly as well as someone who keeps an even keal.

You also have to be able to handle the swings. If you were to look at my graphs above closely, you would see that there are quite a few 20+ buyin down swings in there. This happens to everyone at some point. It doesn't have to mean you are playing poorly. Being able to play your A game while losing is one of the hardest things to do in poker, yet again it just comes down to your mental fortitude. Most people can play well when winning.

Some people think that winners who have played a lot of hands lifetime don't ever tilt. That's not true either. Everyone tilts. The best players just tend to tilt less frequently than others and when they do tilt they are strong enough to not allow it to do much damage, either by coming out of tilt quickly, or just realizing the signs early on and walking away from the table.

Like in heads up poker for example, I always tell people that HU is basically just a race to see who tilts first. Whoever tilts first, loses. I call it the 'mental wall'. Everyone has a wall built up in their head that keeps them from being on tilt. Everyone's wall is of a different size and depth. More experienced players tend to have a nice tall thick stone wall built up. One bad beat doesn't tear down much of that wall. It can take quite a bit to happen to knock that wall down. For these players, when the wall is knocked down, they tend to start rebuilding their wall very quickly.

For other players, their mental wall is much smaller. Their wall is made out of paper and straw. One bad beat and that wall is destroyed and it wont be replaced for the rest of the night or even longer. I mention HU because in HU play you can see and exploit people who are tilted much easier than in 6 max or FR.

I also tend to not get too high or too low with poker. I think this has been helpful for me. In the poker world people tend to want to blame downswings on coolers and bad beats, but they give full credit to their amazing skills when they upswing. We can improve on this way of thinking, and it helps our overall game long term. I think someone has to be able to handle these mental ups and downs incredibly well to play poker well long term.

1. Right now there is a huge difference between US facing sites and PokerStars.

We can see this in player pool alone. Just having the opportunity to play against a player pool in the 6 figures is incredible, and I wish i didn't take it for granted those years I used to play on Stars. In general, the bigger the player pool, the more diluted the player pool is with fish and recreational players. Obviously this is a huge deal.


We can't truly trust all of these US facing sites yet. Look at Lock Poker for example. They have lost a lot of credibility with the ways they have chosen to run their business. If you aren't taking care of your customers, someone else will, and I think Lock is relearning this lesson.

That said, Stars still leads the way in many other areas. Their customer service is the best in the business, and their software is right up there. Add in fast cashouts and a solid reputation and it's the only site I would play on if I were a ROW player.

2. I remember Snowman! Haha, yes we used to play each other quite a bit, and likely had some epic battles. I know we had some battles in the forums somewhere . Bottom line was he was a solid winning player, although our styles were quite different.

Nice to see someone progress over a long period of time, it gives the rest of us hope!

1. What would you say the best way for a uNL player to improve their game these days given that videos are generally 50NL+, did you have any particular methods other than posting hands on 2+2?

2. If you hadn't invested your time playing/coaching poker then what do you think the most profitable (happiness or monetary value) way of spending your time would have been?

3. Would you like to donate some of your time to review my play with me?

Thanks in advance for the answers

3. I chose the Zoolander avatar because I thought that it would be the most funny avatar to picture staring down across a poker table. How do you get a read on Blue Steel? you can't!

When I joined CR, the avatar took new meaning as it became the center piece for the intros to my training videos. I've never had a good enough reason to change it I suppose. Derek Zoolander and I might be tied together for life.

4. MDoranD is just a play off my IRL name. Nothing too exciting unfortunately.

Not an easy task, but there are some benefits to having a family in this regard. For example, I often get asked how do I stay motivated to play day in and day out. I think motivation issues affect many people. When we aren't motivated, we either don't play, or sometimes we force it and then accordingly don't play very well.

Having my first child actually helped immensely with any motivational issues I might have had. I think it may have had something to do with the internal desire to provide for my family. There would be days I didn't feel like playing, and then I'd think about how many people were counting on me to make the right decision in this spot.

Juggling family and poker has been easier than expected. I tend to do family stuff, and errands much of the day...a Mr. Mom type situation for much of the day time hours, save for 1 or 2 hours of coaching. Then once the night comes and my house has quieted down, I settle in to play some cards. I recommend listening to good music while you play. It tends to keep me alert and focused. I think there are many wives who can't handle the financial swings of being married to a poker player. It's not easy for them, as the swings can be violent and they literally have no control over them. My wife is especially good in this area. She seems to know how things are going, without having to ask a ton of questions. I think it would be frustrating for guys who have a significant other who asks them every day "So how much did you win?!?!?".

Playing your A game constantly is tough. Here's a couple things I've done to help gauge how well i was playing in real time.

- Before you sit down at your first table, write out a list of 2 or 3 things you are going to do in this session (or in many cases things you AREN'T going to do). These could be areas you are making mistakes in, common traps or spots that have led you to spewing off chips. Maybe you are calling 3 bets too wide when you know you likely shouldn't be...whatever they are, write them down. Keep this sheet of paper in front of you throughout the session. I've found that if you take the time to write down a few things you don't want to do, and then you proceed to do them, you can safely assume you aren't playing your A game.

- Also I think river decision making is quite often a good barometer of what level you are playing at. Making thin river value bets and getting called by worse? A game. Making a tough fold? A game.

Conversely, if you are facing a river bet or raise and feel like you are beat, but just HAVE to see it and call. This is not your A game. Checking back the river and seeing that your opponent holds a worse hand that likely would have called a river bet is also a sign of not playing your A game.

How did you become a fan of them Patriots?

I doubt I would have ever felt "set for life". With poker that doesn't really happen unless you win the Main Event or something similar.

I definitely feel like I was way too conservative in shot taking. Looking back, and of course hindsight is 20/20, I chose to avoid higher variance limits because I was too focused on the short term. My daily thinking was more along the lines of "Let's meet my daily goals for profit so I can initiate another cashout." Instead I should have been building my bankroll, and taking more shots. I certainly missed some solid financial opportunities by being conservative in this area. I'd also have spent less time mass multi tabling. Although there is some merit to it, and it was very profitable to do, in the very long term playing 12+ tables makes it very difficult to improve on a day to day basis.

The advice I'd give someone who was young, single, and with no kids would be to take aggressive shots at moving up, now is the time where it's not that big of a deal to go busto. Dont wait till you have some absurd high amount of buyins before you take the shot. There have been quite a few people who have made a lot of money in poker without a great long term skill set, but in the short term ran well, played well, and made a killing. I wish I could go back and take a much more aggressive line with shot taking...even if that meant getting staked.

The advice I'd give to someone with dependents is to be a little more cautious about it. Use a slightly more conservative bankroll. Lessen the risk of ruin. Don't be afraid to take the shots though where you can.


I'd like to add that I think there are a lot of similarities in comparing our 'Poker Boom' to the US Gold Rush of the 1840's and 1850's.

1. A few people realized there was gold in them hills and started making a ton of money very quickly.

2. Everyone heard about all this gold, and thousands of people moved out west to deposit their own chance of striking it big.

3. Unfortunately many more people lost their fortunes trying to strike it rich than actually got rich.

4. The easy gold started running out, and it required better equipment to get to the rest of the gold. You had to dig deeper, work harder, use better equipment if you wanted to still hit the gold.

#4 Is where we are at now with poker. The gold is still there, but you are going to have to work a lot harder to get that gold than the people before you did.

I also think both of these examples show why getting in on the ground floor of something is of utmost importance to making the most amount of money. Lesson learned.



Going to take a break from posting till the morning probably. Feel free to keep questions coming and Ill get to them this weekend. Thanks!

I'm a casual micro player trying to improve my game but I never play sngs or mtts because I don't really know the strategy behind them. Where is a good place to start?

I feel like learning this style will help my cash game particularly vs SS who have often owned me in the past.

Thanks for this. Nice well. Do u mind sharing which US sites u play on? I play Carbon $50-$200nl also. Might have battled a bit if so.

What is your average session length? Number of sessions a day?
GL GL

Did you ever get around to seeing the movie 'Heavyweights', and if not I'm going to buy you a copy as a gift.