When progressing from 1/2NL to 2/4NL and above to 3/6NL+ , what were your bankroll requirements?
Did you start playing next level after set number of hands on previous level, or did you start playing it when your BR reached certain amount? Were you aggressive in moving up to 5/10 or were you conservative?

Btw. fwiw, I agree with you on your political views..

still thinking?

The best adivse I ahbe ever reveived was simply to just be myself. I think of all the times over the years where I didn't say what I wanted to say or do waht I wanted to do because people who I don't even care about might judge me. All that stuff is a bunch of bull****. I say just be yourself and that way you end up with true friends who you know like you for you.

The 3 worst things are probably the stress of dealing with downswings. The constant ability to make money (given the 24 hour nature of it) which can sometimes make it difficult to get away because of the amount of money I could be making by simply playing poker rather than reading a book or wahtever. The last thing is probably the frustrating nature of the legalities of it. It has been more or less driven underground thanks to some bearucratic bull**** in Congress and that makes it pretty annoying. I look forward to the day that it is legal for everyone and us pros are perceived better than we are today by society in general.

Dusty, I have trouble playing long sessions. I tend to get distracted, tired, or my play starts to get too aggresive or too passive.

What do you think makes you such a great grinder?

What are the things you think a person can do to improve their abilities to play long sessions?

+1 Interested.

For me it was a combination of both things. I think BR played a pretty large roll. It was kinda weird the way it happened looking back. I was a pretty good player definitely capable of being a small winner at 5/10 or a decent winner at 3/6. I stayed at 1/2 though becuase I was destroying that limit for $30-$40k and sometimes more per month. So I was like, "Why mess with a good thing." But then I got a bunch of money behind me and got some solid work in with a friend of mie who plays high stakes. I was loaded with $ and confidence and just told myself to stop being a bitch and pretty much just decidied to sit anywhere I though the game was good from 2/4 to 10/20. So I played that wide range of limits pretty much all of last year. The last part of the year was mostly 5/10 and up and this year I haven't played lower than 5/10 at all.

So that was my story. For most people I would say logging 50k+ hands per limit while maybe taking shots at some bigger games along the way makes sense.

I think what my ability to grind hard comes from the fact that first of all I love playing poker (unless I am in a downswing, in that case poker can kiss my ass..lol). I think I also learned a lot of discipline from playung professional golf. In order to be a good golfer you must constantly be in control of your emotions. You must always have a sound strategy for every shot. And a round of golf taks 4 hours or so to play. So I am used to having to focus for 4 hours in a row and grind for every last shot. I also feel very fortunate to be playing poker for a living. I used to work for 8 hours a day at a terrible job and I feel it is pretty weak sauce of me to give it anything less than 8 hours a day at the tables.

Good luck,

Dusty

How do you slow down or stop the aggression on the turn and river but not allow them to just take the pot away from you?

How do you avoid getting deeper in a pot than you should?

Thanks for doing this.

A lot of times I don't want to stop their agression. I am absolutely not afraid to check/call down very aggro opponents with 2nd pair in some situations even for my whole stack. See the fundamental probelm with very loose and very aggressive postflop play is that against good people who can read hand they simply know that you can't have the nuts everytime. So for example if I have a decent hand OOP and a very aggro player bets the flop and I call, bets the turn, and bets the river, only a very strong hand wants to play for stacks. And he knows that only a very strong hand wants to play for stacks which is why he is betting. But I know that only a very hand wants to play for stacks as well and that is why I am calling him They just can't have the nuts every time and if I have a hand that can pick off their muti street bluff I will just check/call it down the whole way.

As they start to catch onto what I am doing they are naturally going to stop 3 barreling me. Which that is fine too. Becuase then I can start to check call the flop with marginal hands like 2nd or 3rd pair and know that they are not going to try and bluff me and I will get to showdown cheap. There are really a ton of ways to combat these guys. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, but prefer to keep some of them to myself too.

Hope this helps.

Hey,

I'm the stars player of the same name. I admire your work ethic a ton.

Few questions:

1) How do you deal with the fact that poker is a completely selfish career and you don't contribute pretty much anything to society? Do you balance with volunteering in some way or do you have hobbies that make you happy other than poker?

2) How do you deal with your really close friends that don't play poker with your success? Do you talk to them about it? Or do you think that would make things awkward?

3) I plan on visiting Oregon this summer with my fiancee to go to some parks and hang out in Portland. Care to get a bite to eat? If not, best local restaurants?

4) Care to divulge any opinions about my game?

You really ought to read his blog. It is one of the best out there. He answers both of the above questions (in December, if I remember correctly) in his blog.

The Leatherass blog

If you go back earlier you can follow his rise up the levels and his quest for Super Duper Nova Elite. It is a great read.

---------------Kitty

bump

What is the longest break even stretch you have experienced?

1. I don't see it as any different than most jobs. I also make a point of it to give back mostly through cash donations as I feel I am in a better position to help people with my money rather than my time.
2. I am just myself and I talk about things very openly. If talking about my success, if asked of course, makes things awkward then that is there problem imo.
3. Hit me up through a PM when you get closer to coming and maybe we can hook up while you are here.
4. I think you are a solid and thoughtful player, but will refrain from getting any more specific than that. You are good though imo

Prob about 80k hands.

So your longest break even stretch is about 2 days?

Thanks for doing this man.

I actually found your blog and just joined 2+2 after reading this thread.

I've been playing for about a year and have been mainly running SNGs but want to learn cash (I watched a few videos on Stox and plan on signing up here soon). What are some of the main differences between SNGs and cash games? Obv hand selection, other players' ranges, push/fold etc. but is there anything else that you can think of that helped you jump from sits into cash?

Also, since I never play cash or anything like that I have no concept of what bb/100, vpip, 30/20/10 or any of that other stuff means. Can you point me in the right direction?

I hope you're still responding to this thread--I'd like to start studying more and expanding my game from being a robot at the sngs to playing better and making more $ at the cash tables.

word1985, this will get you started on your 30/20/10 question, and then take some time to look through the posts linked to in this thread! great schtuff in there!

looking forward to seeing you at stox! gl2u!

I would assume when playing a session you are constantly rotating tables in and out as they find new games and others become less profitable. Can you expand on some basic table traits that appear which make you bail on a table?

If you play 10 tables are you constantly opening up new tables and then dropping the current weakest?

Maybe this is not as common now that you have moved up to stakes that simply do not spread as many tables. What was your standard approach to table selection and maintaining 8-12 tables at MSNL and SSNL?

Have you read War of Art by Steven Pressfield? Cause he describes what separates amateurs and professionals and you really come off as a complete professional.

Also does your work ethic come naturally or did you have to work at it? What steps do you think someone with poor work ethic can take to improve?

ever considered buying into HSP =P?

Basically whenever my edge in the game becomes small due to a fish leaving or really good players arriving, I start looking for another table in the lobbie and just bail on it.

I usually try to look for new tables any time there I get a 5 second break. If I find a good one then I drop my weakest one and replace it.

It pretty much hasn't changed since I have moved up in stakes because there are usually tons of 5/10s spread across FTP and Stars.

I would love to play on it and would either buy in myself or sell parts of myself. Either way I would like to have a lot of my own action in a game as easy as that one is most of the time.

I haven't read that book. I think I play very "professionally" in terms of the ways that I do things.

I have always had a strong work ethic. I have never been overtalented in anything, but have always wanted to be great at stuff so the only way for me to do that was through hard work. Hard work is the great equalizer imo.

I think that most people that have poor work ethics are making things more complicated than they need to be. It's pretty simple; JUST WORK HARDER. There is no trick to it. If you aren't tired by the end of the day then you need to keep working It's kind of like being fat. Some people of course have some sort of condition. But the vast majority simply just need to stop being lazy and take the fork away from their mouths. It's not that hard

so wats stopping you? i would LOVE to see you CRUSH that game
i've seen alot of your vids and they have definitely helped my game alot
thx for doing this well xD