To be honest, I think that as awesome as HUDS are, people rely too much on them and make a lot of extra poor decisions because of them too. I don't really ever look at my HUD expect when playing people I play with infrequently. I like to play the player and I attack each and every player at my games a little bit differently. I play against a pretty small pool of players and I think I have pretty good reads on all of them. Imo the HUD is of little overall value at my games.

Dusty,

You are still young, why not take another shot at the PGA?

The way I am thinking right now is that I have a 7 figure a year job and who the **** am I to turn that down? Maybe my current mentality will change some day, who knows? But right now I am just trying to raise as much capital as I can while still finding the balance of enjoying life to the fullest. I am pretty darn happy right now with the balance I have. I think overall I have done a pretty good job this year of enjoying life after last year where I went a little overboard with chasing Elite. It was definitely a big mistake and I am glad to have that year behind me. I have learned greatly from it thankfully.

IMO, if you can put in 4yrs of 7figuers/year, then you'll have enough 'capital' to effectively retire and pursue whatever you want to. Keep the leatherass going and then you'll be free to grind it out in golf with a HUGE mental advantage over all the other guys. They'll be sweating about making cuts to stay in the game, whereas you can just focus on playing your best golf because you don't have to worry about the financial side (also, you don't have to live in a car ).

LA

Great thread I've learned a ton so far.

You said that the biggest difference for you came when you stopped thinking about your cards and started to put players on ranges.

Can you give me some examples of exactly how you do this or recommend the best way to go about learning this skill?

fwiw, there are some xclent vids at stox on this... here's a pooh-bah thread you might want to check out too.

gl2u

Cool thread! Screw the naysayers that wont respect you, doesnt matter what they think you make more than all of them anyways. I had a few random questions that i dont think have been asked yet..

How often do you play golf currently? It seems like you put in a ton of hands, do you find it difficult to balance life stuffs with poker stuffs? A lot of online pros find it tough to even put in 40 hours a week, but it seems like u do more than that.

Have you tried yoga? If no, i highly recommend it as far as mental clarity etc etc, portland should have plenty of good stuff. After a couple months of regular yoga, i higherly recommend bikram, or 'hot' yoga. Thank me later.

Do you think its normal, that after getting 'coached' on the mindset part of poker, to go on a gigando downswing? because sure did, i think it was a test.

What are your thoughts on short stacking, and do you have a problem dealing with a 6max table with 2-3 short stackers? I find it best to just quit these games as they are annoying and pull my attention away from other tables, but i was wondering if you have another opinion.

What are the most tables you have ever played on in 6max NL cash simultaneously?

How come you haven't spent more time trying to learn HU play? Perhaps it would be fun/interesting alternative, and some find it even more profitable than 6max.

Do you see yourself playing poker still in 3 years? 5? 10? 20?

What do you think my biggest leak is?

What is your favorite aspect of the Portland area? Favorite places to go, things to do, etc.

Are you happy? If yes OR no, what would you do to make yourself happier? Why aren't you doing it now?

Thanks!

I think that the best thing to do is to start by practicing the skill by playing less tables and focusing on ranges. So here's an example. You raise with AQo in CO and the button calls. The flop comes QT8 with 2 hearts. The player is pretty TAG and you don't think he will raise as a bluff very often. So you bet and he raises you 3x your bet. What does he have? Well, We can probably rule out QQ, because he likely 3bets preflop and it's just harf for him to have that hand esp since you have a queen. So TT is definitely a possibility. 88. KJ is in there. QT/T8. A flush draw is maybe the most likley due to there being so many combos of that hand. J9 is in there as well. And maybe he's bluffing a small percentage of the time as well. So what you do is start assigning hands and then from there you figure out what the best action to take is versus that range. Once you have gotten good at running through the types of hands he can have, then you need to start assigning liklihoods that he has those cards. So maybe like TT/88 make up 20% of his range (just making this stuff up) QT and T8 are another 15%. A flush draw might be like 35%. KJ is maybe like 10% J9 is maybe 5-10% and so on. The more aggro the player is, the more likley it is you can weight his ranges more heavily towards draws and bluffs. The tighter he is the more likley it is he has sets and 2 pair hands.

This is how I go through the hands and all of this stuff takes a lot of work to figure out away from the table. Because I have seen every situation 5 jillion times, I can make these decisions instantaneously due to so much repitition. But believe me it took me forever to get this stuff down. I hope this helps and makes sense. If you have more questions about if please fire away.

My answers are in bold

I would have huge edge in that regard no doubt. It's hard to say. I may do something like that and I may not. I'll just have to see where the wind takes me on that.

thanks for the quick reply! you did skimp on the final question though, which i think is the most important. you are happy for sure, and that is awesome, but what can you do to become happier? anything? if you were 100 and had 15 minutes to come back to your present self and discuss the theory of happiness and what you wish you did when you were 'younger' (present day self) what would you do? fwiw, anyone reading this i highly recommend performing this exercise yourself.

Thank You - that was very well explained and it pointed me in the right direction, I will get to work on figuring this out.

One final question.

Did you read any books and if so which ones would you recommend (sorry if this has been asked before)

mucho appreciated.

I can honestly say that I am 100% satisfied with my decisons right now on how I am going about the game of life. I mean, of course I could maybe look back and say, "Ya know what, maybe I was a little too concerned with making money when I probably already had plenty and I didn't get out and take more trips or play more golf or whatever." The thing is though, I am very satisifed with the fact that I am working a lot despite having a lot of money already. I have a chance to earn enough money to retire if I wanted at 30 and I just can't turn that down. Of course I will never retire then, but that isn't the point. The other thing is that I have very large goals in terms of making change in this world and they require crazy amounts of money to do them. So my plan is to continue to make a bunch of money and use some of that money to give myself a chance to get insanely rich so I can then be insanely charitable/influential. This year alone I bought into 3 companies I felt strongly about as well as starting my own golf site that is like CR/Stox for golf. I really enjoy the game of accumulating capital, even though I have no intention on spending it on myself. I just enjoy trying to accomplish things.

That got a little long winded, but I can honestly say that I really couldn't be happier. I mean, I guess everyone has a thing or two that could be better in their life, but within reason, I couldn't be happier. Great exercise!

Glad it helped. I would reccomend any book authored or coauthored by Ed MIller and not much else really.

I could be happier by playing less poker but playing so much poker now i will never have to work a day in my life, My number 1 fear is to have to work a 9-5 job. Don't you think its ok to sacrifice abit of happiness now so that later u will never be miserable? I think its also important to be grateful that we can make millions by playing a game.

Leatherass, How many hours of week do u usually play? when you table select what are you looking for? 1 fish? how about if its a6 handed table and there is 2 weaker regulars do u bother playing this game? I enjoy reading your blog leatherass, Want to wish you the best of luck

I read the thread.... tell me your proud!

You said you lead the golden state tour in cashes... whats the most youve ever won from a golf tourny?
How about from a match in general? and I have to know what stakes you and stox play on the course?

More poker related now. Ihave been a member on stox for afew months and i highly enjoy both yours and doughnutz videos. Recently, i have been working alot more on assigning opponents to ranges. You gave an example of how you did it earlier in the thread, i am just wondering how you excersized this? Did you write ranges down on a paper and assign a % value to them? or just store it in your head?

and finally, whats the biggest poker high youve ever been on? most tourny players can say winning the sunday million or the turbo takedown, what is it for you?

Thanks for the content dusty!
Take her easy (if shes easy take her twice)

I agree 100% with the first paragraph.

I usually play about 40 hours a week. Maybe less. It gets less all the time because I am more comfortable financially and I have become involved in a few businesses, namely Stoxpoker and 10thgreen.com.

When I table select I look for at least 1 fish. I won't sit with all pros even though I know I have edge still. There is just no reason to add that much variance for a low WR when I can just frop down where there are fish. Thanks for rooting me on!

I never really had a big check. Maybe $3-4k. There are only a few tourneys a year on the tour I played on that you could win bigger checks than that. Stox and I generall play for peanuts. Like win or lose $100 tops. Even if we were to play for $1k or something, what's the point? It is still not that big a deal relative to the money we play for at poker. We could play for like $20k or something and really get the action going, but then it gets too intense and the point is to have fun.

As far as the ranges go and all that stuff, I have always outsourced that work I have no idea how to do it, but I have good buddies who do so we tend to swap advice in terms of what we do best and mutually beneift each other in that way. If it weren't for them I'd be screwed because I have no idea how to go about precisely figuring out all of that stuff.

I'm not sure I have really had a major poker high. My biggest high was probably when I won a tourney for $1k when I was first trying to scrap together rent money when I first became a pro. I remember feeling like I had really arrived and my decision to play poker became justified in my head. I'm not sure I will ever have a big high from poker which is partly why I don't intend to use poker as my only competitive outlet. I only get major highs from winning skill based competitions. IF you when a poker tournament all it really means is that you got raelly lucky for a day or two. I get a high from when I pour thousands of hours into practice and then it all comes together and I play exceptionally well and win. Poker just doesn't really offer that.

LA has asked you to not post in this thread before, please respect his request in this particular thread.

*snap!* excellent thread... thanks for keeping it clean Nick.

Hey LA,

I am new to the game and have been reading the boards. My question is that did you always play a TAG style from the very beginning and all the way to the highest stakes?

It seems that playing LAG has a more allure on these boards and TAG players are discounted as sometimes "tagfish" at all stakes. But after reading your posts its seems that playing TAG is less variance (although not as wowing to others). Compound that with it being a relatively easier way to learn, I am just wondering why does it not gain more respect or popularity? Or do you think a fast learning LAG player can rise up the stakes quicker and maybe that is the appeal? Thanks and great thread.

A TAG style is very profitable at any limit. It doesn't have as much respect or popularity simply because people in general are more impressed by flash than substance. Just think about any sport and you will see that it's not just poker, it's everywhere. LAG is the same way. It just looks flashy. The crack up is that most of the poker players that I play with think flash makes you better too...lol. They actually believe that because they are flashy they are better. How else could you explain the hundreds of haters of mine who don't even sniff my WR, but who think they are a million times better than me at poker...lol. They physically see the screenshots and the datamines where I win more than them and it just makes no difference to them. They would laugh at the notion that I am a better player than them, even though all of the statistical evidence proves otherwise. I like to call it "faith based poker" lol. Despite what evidence they see, they have the "faith" they are better and they're sticking to it...lol.

Trust me, stick with TAG and focus hard on doing ALL of the little things in poker well and you will do well. You don't have to reraise J3s to be a great player. Most poker players will hang themselves if you given them enough rope. Just make sure when you play the LAG's you play them that way and you'll be as good as you want to be.

Thanks for the great reply. For a newbie it can be confusing when LAG is perpetuated as something that needs to be kowtowed above "TAGfish." lol


Quick golf questions: What do you think of Anthony Kim? How many majors o/u do you predict for him?

And out of all the PGA pros you have observed or even met, who are the few that are truly good guys off the course? And if you want to add, who are the not so nice ones lol.

I think that Anthony Kim will have a great career. Probably when it's all said and done his record will look a lot like Phil Mickelson's and maybe a little better. Anthony has what very few American young golfers have and that is heart. Most of the pros from my generation on tour are a bunch of puss ies. They simply don't have the heart to play their best golf down the stretch when it counts. Anthony will back down to no one. He will look Tiger in the eye and not even blink. He was that way when I used to battle him in tournaments as a kid too. He was very little then, but feared no one.

I think there are quite a few nice guys out there, but I can only really comment on the ones I know or have spent time with personally. Kevin Na, Hunter Mahan, KJ Choi, Charles Howell, John Daly, Corey Pavin, Aaron Baddely, John Merrick, John Mallinger, Sean O' Hair, Trevor Immelman, Notah Begay III and Jeff Quinney all are good guys. I know from just about everyone that they don't come much better than Rocco Mediate. There are more, but my mind is blank.

There are pricks too, of course. Paul Goydos, Frank Lickliter, Tom Pernice, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia (major dick), Nick Faldo and Pat Perez. Sure there are more of course.

Hey LA
Paul Newman, actor and philanthropist, dead at 83, after donating more than $100m to charities.

What do you think of Paul Newman as a role model for what you are aiming to achieve? Obviously you're not an actor but I mean the way Paul Newman ran businesses that mega-donated to charity.