Zima

agree with this.

if he thinks he can do it, then surely he can.

go Awice!

I now hate this person --;

(out of complete and unbridled jealousy of course)

I'm gonna be answering questions now so if you post quick enough I'll get to it, I'm starting on page 2

I would guess the mexican challenger is Sherifty

A few pages back I asked about how you are going to continue to contribute to the company that you work for (that this entire challenge is designed to support in the end). How are you going to stay part of this company when you are taking basically an entire year to submerse yourself in poker?

Any insight? Thanks.

what gaming company you wanna work for? any chance you will work for blizzard?

can i have a signed copy of your first ever game when it comes out. thanks

This is a very good question

In terms of "gameflow" not really, if I see a new technique being utilized I will consider the impact on all ranges (eg. a player with low donk flop starts to donk flop regularly, a player that rarely limps hu starts to limp regularly, cr flop, limp in ep, etc. [there are dozens of these])

It is true in highstakes that you play the same 20 players over and over, and I try to study their ranges carefully, especially players that I respect (since I often learn from them.) The players I respect are a very short list but certainly MouldyOnions and River Prayer are on that list.

I can see results of showdowns but it often does not factor into my future decision-making. Sometimes it does though. When I see a hand I tend to think about "if I think that with me continuing to play range X, and my opponent playing range Y which included the cards just shown down, whether 1) I will still be profitable (unexploitable robot type of idea) and 2) am I showing the most profit?"

Question #2 doesn't come up that much especially for some spots where I do not want regulars to adapt in a way in the future where they are essentially spiting me, but sometimes #2 does. Often #2 comes up where I will want to make only a very slight adjustment, eg. instead of jamming 88 ATs AJo, I will jam 88 ATs ATo KQs -- a 1% change.

Question #1 comes up all the time and requires deeper thought. Often a hand will be played out where I know the answer is false (that they are showing an advantage in EV proven through how the hand was played [and my updated bayesian belief etc.]) and now the question is how do I answer it?

Vs the best opponents there are no real answers, because much of what they are doing is basically an optimal response. To give a cludgey example, say I raise 100% utg (I don't.) The best players will not just 3bet bluff a lot, but maybe also 3bet small for value and 3bet jam for "value" (+EV jams) more, etc. In this sense there is no way I can adapt in that subgame (utg open, facing 3b) and show a profit, without actually changing my opening range. In a broader sense, many questions where my opponents are proving an advantage in various subgames are forcing me to reshape other areas of my game (in the parent game.)

I don't know, one day at a time. I think after the first SNE I will take a break. But to be honest, with the way that I have sculpted my life, not playing poker feels so empty, because I don't have anything I want to do. Sure, I can watch a movie, but I have no drive to.

Sorry no pictures this update but maybe next week I can take some pictures. I stack. I don't think PS pro is on the horizon considering I am a very vocal opponent of PS sometimes, and I am not even sure if I want the job, but we'll see.

Thanks for the recommendation, haha. I was kind of joking about F50, don't think I'll be buying a car in the foreseeable future.

Ya, I am probably more motivated, mainly because I don't want to **** up, haha. I don't know whether this thread is a net positive or negative, but my ego is my greatest asset so maybe it is.

I mean, a hotter room is going to improve circulation, which is good. If your hands or feet ever get cold while playing then that is pretty much a slam dunk reason why you would want to heat the room.

Thanks I'll see in Feb

Upbringing? Don't know either.

I want support, not attention. Don't think I'll be blocking my scope anytime soon, atleast until the pressure dies down. Right now there is a lot of pressure for me to succeed and I've only been playing 6 days.

Good question, you tell me lol. I have no idea, if anyone wants to help out that would be nice.

Use all the FPPs on whatever the cheapest thing is in the PS store, then next year they might change the super lame prize .

+2

wouldn't it be max EV to spend the fpp on Gunnars and sell them after?

If I had to guess, and limiting this question to preflop timeouts, a hyper takes about 20 hands, so this would be in the area of $10 a hand probably. Of course, this isn't evenly distributed, you lose all of the money from sitouts at the end.

We can take a more nuanced approach in our estimate. In typical scenarios, we can think of the EVdiff of every hand we can be dealt. Then when we take the integral, we will find the answer. For example, sitting out on the CO at 40/80 when 6 players has 500 chips, you lose $6.56 or so. For a 10/20 spot, we can think of eg. a player is normally say 20bb/100 but instead loses the ante = -10/100. So that difference is 30bb/100 = $2.40 or so. So definitely all of the losses come right at the end and in the BB as expected.

Breakeven pre-rb would be ideal but I am open to less. I don't really have a specific profit goal in mind, I would like to just play and be less focused on results and more about how to handle my life correctly. I'm starting out as a relative small-timer, some people have been playing hypers for years and have the experience and the bankroll.

As for SS, see above. Basically I am not open to the idea right now and probably won't consider it any time soon. I don't mind any negative consequences of this decision.

Also there gets to a certain level where the "community" is less relevant for the same reason really good pros don't/rarely post strategy or why players in that HU all star challenge didn't want HHs to be posted.

I really don't want to encourage other regs to start playing these games which are actually a lot harder than they think anyways. For example sometimes stars pros or other mtt pros or whatever sit 6 reg games because they don't know who the regs are, and even though they are the weakest player I am still net losing money compared to who would have sat if they didn't sit.

As for life expectancy, good question, but I am not sure. Life is short. There actually could be this weird effect where say this puts my LE at -0.9 years, but living the way I was puts it at -1.1 years, so it is net +LE.

I am surprised PS didn't run with this, they should have had a graph of my VPP count vs MO's because I am sure it was within 5k the entire way. Now it is too late but it would have been cool to see a graph of that 40h.

Can't you select hands manually to see your winnings in HM2?

I haven't caught up yet. Just to the point where I saw we have the same birthday and both eat lots of nam phrik. At the other end of the spectrum this challenge is one of the most interesting and crazy PGC threads I've seen while mine is possibly the most boring. Chok dee krap, Best of luck, and stay sane!

QFT (because most of this is true)

Only part I would disagree with is the 12 and 16 tabling. I can handle big stretches even when losing but it is hard and I have practiced (and will continue practicing.) I sort of make an analogy to a 4 minute mile. If you run the mile in 7 minutes and some of your friends run it in 6-8 minutes you might think a 4 minute mile is flat out impossible. Someone that has been practicing can run it in 6 minutes, then 5:30, then 5, etc.

This was just a one time thing, I don't think I will break 24 tables basically ever again. Mostly I plan to 12-20 table depending on conditions.

true

Okay so first hand I posted a dime in the cutoff and it folds to me. I have 64o and I raise to 3 dimes because I already have 1 in there. Okay the BB called and it came KdQcJd. He checks which is what I expect and I cbet pot because there was a flop. Alright now the turn comes a Qd, right now I am putting him on a straight draw, he checks so I will check back and if the river misses his draw I will bet to take him off it. Okay so now the river is a 3s and he bets 2 dimes. I fold.

Howd I do?

I miss 2012

First, you guys are the posters in the top group in my mind that I respect the most.

There is a lot to get to, so I will just answer in point form.

0. I respect what you guys are saying and you are mostly right. But I feel that the path that you laid out is just mostly right, its not right for everyone. For me, I feel comfortable with the path I am on. Soon, that path will be right for me, but not just yet.

1. If I wasn't playing poker, I wouldn't go outside or talk to anyone, I would very likely just do some derp **** instead. Kirbynator can tell you, when I found some derp Diablo III exploit I literally woke up, played it 16 straight hours, slept, played 16 straight hours, slept, etc. hammering that exploit (something very repetitive that takes 1 minute) every day all day because I felt like I was winning. That's my personality. Realistically I would be playing games or watching people play games all day.

2. If you look at the VIP club leaderboard, there are plenty of people doing what I am doing. Why? It turns out that you can get something like 3k VPP an hour at 200s or whatever. If I did it correctly I could play something like 7h a day, or less, or whatever. The time factor isn't actually the problem, even if I was playing say 12h a day. Plenty of people work two jobs or three or whatever. The problem is stress from swings and self doubt, and being a good enough player to legit beat those stakes. Only a handful of people in the world right at this moment can beat these games.

3. I have a lot of enthusiasm for poker even when it's tough. I feel like you guys have an egocentric bias here, because eg. if 40 hours of poker a week is something very painful for you, you assume it must be for me too. I just came off the biggest downswing of my life and I played phenomenally yesterday for 12h small tabling even while losing big. I'm happy to play. I just wanna play, mang.

4. My performance does suffer a bit but I think for me specifically, these things are either something I understand or I don't. If I understand it then it will become memory and I will play the hand that way forever. If I don't then it is a leak and I will lose money in that spot. I don't think eg. my 8 tabling ability is better than my 12 tabling ability basically. For most people this isn't true though. There are some tilt control issues but I feel comfortable with my tilt control overall.

5. I have plenty of freedom even while getting 8x. I just don't have that much freedom if I intend to do 12x this Jan (which I am on pace for.) Depending on results (maybe I can handle running about 50 bad from today before I throw the towel) I may have to abandon 12x. But all of these things are sort of flex goals anyways, even 8x. The main thing for me is that I want to do all the things in point #6 + play poker min 40h a week so I can feel good about myself that I took the game seriously and made money before bots take over or whatever instead of jerking off.

6. I do respect myself, haha. That's why I eat well, exercise, wake up on time, sleep on time, take timeouts to relax, talk with people, play piano, etc.

Pretty much how I feel about this, thx

I don't remember this but it makes total sense. Haha I was so obnoxious back then. I guess I still am lols.

Thanks for the support~

Good question. I answer emails and read our subreddit daily (its like google wave before they closed that down) to stay in touch with everyone. I offer general advice but I can't really code. If necessary I can write a function for something I am familiar with if no one else can efficiently (like server code eg.) I have quite a bit of free time to do this because I don't commute to work, don't waste time making food or doing chores, etc. All 4 other members are getting a phd at MIT but they are not done grad school yet so I envision most of the members will only be working part time on it mostly anyways.

Don't want to work for any company, unless I could get both autonomy and %ownership.

The first is important because I want to do what I am good at (which is most efficient anyways for a company setting because 1. I'm good at it and 2. I probably like it so I will do it more instead of wasting time while doing it) instead of what I have to do / what someone tells me to do.

The second is important because profit in business is mostly power-law, which means that the best players make way more money than the 5th best players or whatever. This makes "skill" (however you define it) an extremely dominant factor. If I am bringing a lot of skill to a company I want to get a piece of the pie too. I think basically all of the members of our company feel the same way too, as they are all extremely skilled individuals.

I (we) don't intend any physical copy of the game.