ITT: You had me at hello! Lol, jokes aside, no need to convince me on the freedom aspects of the job. It's the thing I value the most, and probably the biggest single reason why I stay in the game (not full-time tho, I love finance/trading and will continue down that road unless it dries up for me).

Perhaps the biggest benefit of keeping a little poker in your skill set is the freedom to be able to work anytime you need to. You never have to worry about being unemployed, because you can always walk into a local casino and set up shop until your other income streams kick back in.

That definitely has some serious value.

I think you're really overestimating how easy it is to get a 100k a year job. I don't know about you, but I know 1 person make more than 100k who isn't a poker player, and she's a doctor. Outside of that, everyone I know barring poker players make under 70k. Also, a lot of careers top out under 100k for 95%+ of people in them. A 100k job isn't something that just falls in your lap, generally, it takes years of work to get to that point, and you may never reach it. Perhaps that last line is a bit different in the finance world, but that's not the only job out there.

Fair enough, but for a person who is interested in making the money, there are several roads that will get you there (or close enough) without much uncertainty: medical, IT (my mother makes 110+ and she's basically a housewife with some computing knowledge), finance, engineering or science even will get you close. For people whose interests lie elsewhere, you can always start of as an employee and then go the small business route. It all takes work and time, but so does becoming an excellent poker player.

But who knows, maybe it's super easy these days for fledgling poker pros, each year there seems to be a new flock of rookie poker pros that break that six-figure mark in their first year?? I don't know why I never get to play with them. All the new hot shots I see at the tables quickly disintegrate in their first couple years. The ones that don't certainly don't make anything close to a quarter-mil per year at 5/10. Maybe I've just been running bad at witnessing the awesomeness.

As an aside, I did witness Ari clear six-figures in his first year. But that was mostly playing 2-tables of 10/20, and given that I could see all his hands (I was working at the site), I can vouch for some seriously sick moves he made to get there. I know, you can't really compare online to live, but I would assume the earning potential of playing 140 hands/hr of online 10-20 (nearly 10 years ago, pre-black Friday) would exceed that of 35 hands/hr of 5-10 live. Ari was incredibly good, in the top 1% of pros, and he didn't break the six-figure mark by much.

But I digress, I would just say that if we can agree on that 50% number (or something close to it), then it is probably more likely for one to find a path to making 75-100K in a normal job, as compared to the success rate of poker pros hitting the 150-200K mark.

It seems we're arguing different things, I've already mentioned that I think your advice is accurate towards new players. Current players who are beating the games are a different story though.

check your privilege.

110K isn't exactly exorbitant. Pretty far from silver spoon territory.

It does qualify as privileged though.

That depends on your vantage point. To a lot of people, 110k is "rich", even though it's not an accurate statement, that's a dream number for a great many people. Which is probably why you view jobs like that as so attainable, and others don't really see it that way. If your network is averaging 100k, then you've probably got a ton of paths to 100k. If most people you know make 40-60k, then you can probably expect to make around that amount. It's just part of life, obviously some people exceed, but most end up in a similar bracket to their parents. You can read some stuff on that here economic mobility study.

That's a very long report.

See, the last time I provided a link, it went immediately to a fantastic pair of tits.

http://www.wwtdd.com/2015/07/charlot...-on-instagram/

Strong move, I have no retit.. retort.

I'm not necessarily betting against the fact that your long term ROI isn't 40% but rather that you need a big score to realize that average and the odds are against you in hitting that big score in only 10 attempts. To give a more extreme example of this to get the point across say we had a bet that you could hit 40% ROI in the very next tournament but only for that tournament. The bet would be in my favor since most of your tournaments will be losses/min cashes and the big score that goes over 40% ROI will only happen occasionally.

When I used to play a ton of SNGs back in the day I would take every +EV spot in a vacuum and pass on all the -EV spots. Now I would agree with you that it's more optimal to factor in future edge and how taking a risk in a current spot would positively or negatively affect that future edge. Then you would have to weigh current edge vs future edge to determine the overall edge of a spot. All of this is unquantifiable of course.

Agree with your thought process on both scenarios.

Yeah, I wasn't directing that at you in particular, just people who don't do anything to try to make the game fun/entertaining. That's a good point about not having a choice in who you socialize with at work, at least as far as advancement goes.

At the poker table, if someone's totally annoying, we can literally block them out with headphones (I have no problem with 'em in that scenario!). Try doing that to your boss in a 9-5 job.

I think 60-70% is realistic for most people... Most people can't get good benefits with regards to student loans, retirement savings matching, etc. To me, the value of employer-based healthcare is reduced by the Healthcare Marketplace - so I'd value it at about $4,000 a year. That's about what I'm playing for a pretty solid plan on the marketplace. Not top of the line, but not one of the real cheap ones either. I'm also getting no federal/state aid for that. If you value an employer-based healthcare plan at the ticket price, that's a pretty big discrepancy between how we look at it. (Probably ~8K in difference)

Don't really need to read it at the moment since it's not a realistic path for me, but for the average person I'd argue it's as likely winning the Main. They've got to get further education in finance, get an entry level job, work their way up to a level to get bonuses, etc. For the average person with average intelligence, That's probably more than ~6,000 to 1 against. For smart people in here with a proficiency in math and risk assessment, the odds are probably very different.

First off, I'd need to be making a hell of a lot more than 250K to buy a Lambo. I don't know what my long-term 5/T hourly will be til' I've logged a lot more hours in my primary places of play. There's a really good 2/5 game I play sometimes that has a 5/T like hourly and plays deep, which will also slow me down from getting those 5/T hours in.

Also, it's probably not realistic for me to get 40 hours in a week at 5/T for a while, so even if I am making 10bb/hr, which I do expect, I don't expect to make 250K right off the bat. I'm aiming for an average hourly of about $75/hr between 5/T and 2/5, but who knows. It really comes down to how often the games run and are worth being in.

If you want to bask in my awesomeness, you're welcome to wash my Chevy for free, though.

Many do, but there are probably a lot of players who are still crushing who you think went broke/quit/whatever. I crushed the 1/2 and 2/5 at Borgata and then started playing in other casinos more regularly and don't visit the Borg as often. I'm sure there are players/dealers there who think I was a fish on a heater who stopped running good. Winning players who play for a living tend to move around to different games based on player pools, buyin caps, etc. When I first moved to 2/5 the Borgata 500 max was pretty ideal for me. Now, I'd much rather play 160bb-200bb caps or uncapped 2/5 while I'm playing a mix of 5/T and 2/5, so other casinos are better.

So I started playing in Maryland, and crushed it there for a while, then left for the WSOP for a couple months. I wonder how many regs/dealers there think I was a fish on a heater who fell off and quit?

How do you know how much someone makes? Some poker players love to brag, but often they're not the ones actually crushing it. The last thing I want someone I'm in a game with to know is how much money I'm beating the game for.

Ari Engel?

Anyway, I don't know much about playing those stakes online, how many hours he played, etc... But I know online winrates are WAY lower than live winrates in bb/100. But I don't really know enough about 10/20 NL+ win rates online to make any sort of reasonable assumption on all of that. I do know about live winrates, and I believe 10bb/hr is certainly attainable at 5/T.

As to the last part, it really depends who you're talking about. At least 80% of people will never make 100K... As for poker pros, it depends how you define it.

For sure.

110K is definitely privileged. It's not silver spoon, lock to be wealthy territory, but you have a lot of advantages over the majority of people if you're born into a family with that income.

This is a great point. I read recently about high school dropouts from millionaire families having better job prospects and higher average income than people from the lower class with college degrees. This would also be true (to a lesser extent, obviously) of people born into families making over 100K a year.

2015 WSOP Main Event Part 1: Day 1C – “Live at the Main Event, I bet a trip to Maui on it.”

I valet my car and stroll into the WSOP like I’ve done so many times this summer. I see people who are in awe of their surroundings, or lost inside the WSOP area, unsure of where to go to find their table. I walk with purpose to my table in the back corner of the Amazon room, ready to see a few of those bewildered fish make their way to my table. Sadly, none of them really will.



Level 1

I get over to my table, and after a couple minutes, cards are in the air. There is definitely a pressure that comes with playing in the Main Event, which brings with it some physical symptoms. I think these give the better live players a bigger advantage.

The seat to my left is empty for a bit, and the 5 seat is empty. The 4 seat is a recreational player, who’s playing very tight, and the rest look like pros or at least winning grinders. That said, the table is playing pretty tight and I chip up pretty smoothly. Still, it’s not the greatest table draw, with primarily all pros. The 5 seat arrives and he’s a huge fish, but the player in the 2 seat to my direct left arrives, and yeah… not so much.

It’s Jordan Cristos, who has a WPT title under his belt from the 2013 Legends of Poker for $613K, and over $1.1M in earnings on Hendon Mob. He’s also a notoriously long tanker and takes forever to make even simple decisions, but that’s in part because he doesn’t use a standard open sizing and makes really odd overbets. He’ll open to 6-12x, 3bet to just about any amount you could imagine, and overbet the pot postflop sometimes.

So, his aggressiveness on my direct left slows me down a bit. Never the less, at the end of the first level, I had 37,700 without major confrontation, playing exactly the style I wanted to play.

Level 2

Hand 1: Cuserounder vs. Cristos

In the second level, I was knocked down a bit to about 32K at 100/200. Making matters worse, the fish in the 5 seat managed to punt an entire stack to Cristos on the turn with the nut flush draw on a paired board – Cristos snapped with a set and held. So, he’s got me covered…

It folded to my cutoff and I opened to 600 with QQ. Cristos 3bet me to 4200. Just the old tournament 7x 3bet, nothing unusual here. It folds around to me and I consider my options. My initial gut instinct is “Don’t go broke with QQ in the second level of the Main Event preflop.”

This is why his huge sizings work so well. When even an experienced player is feeling that, “Don’t go broke,” feeling with QUEENS, he’s getting a ton of folds. Obviously, I brush that feeling off because it’s a load of crap, and I need to defend my range – QQ being obviously near the top. I decide that 4betting is playing right into his hands. He’s sized this such that any reasonable 4bet (10.5K-12.5K) basically commits my stack by putting 1/3 in preflop and leaving approximately a pot-sized bet behind. He’ll then be able to play almost perfectly.

I call.

Flop (8,700): A77

That A comes right in the window, and I’m off to a terrible start in the “running good,” department of the Main. I check, and after his usual 2-3 minute tank, Jordan checks.

Turn (8,700): 3

I check, he tanks and bets 7,700 and I tank call. This sizing is extremely threatening, because it leaves me with about 21K behind and puts 24K in the pot – setting up the very legitimate threat of a river shove. I know that calling this bet and check-folding on the river is not going to be a great option, so I’m prepared to hero off on most cards… Plus I have the flush draw.

River (24,100): 3

I check, he tanks for a while and checks back, and my hand is good. I was likely calling anything he bet on the river, but who knows in the moment… That was the plan while he was tanking and I was analyzing the situation, and it was the plan when I decided to call the turn. I end the level with 47,600.

Level 3

Hand 2: Cuserounder vs. Unknown Pro MTT Grinder

I’m around 40K at 150/300 and a villain two seats to my right who looks semi-familiar, although I can’t place him, has opened about 3 or 4 times an orbit for the last 2.5-3 orbits. He’s been minraising a lot and his play leads me to believe he’s an MTT grinder.

He opens to 600 in the HJ, and it folds to me on the button. I haven’t 3bet yet in around 3 hours of play, and I look down at K9. Looks like a good spot to do so. I make it 1,500, and he calls.

Flop (3,450) QT4

He checks, I bet 1,700, and he calls.

Turn (6,850): K

He checks and I check back.

River (6,850): 8

He checks, and I bet 3,000. He tanks and jams 18,700. I go into the tank. The plan here was to bet/fold for value, but his jam makes very little sense. Suited connectors that made a flush or AJx make some sense, but I can’t imagine he’d check those hands on the river. It’s hard to put him on a value hand that goes for the check raise.

He looks nervous. In a cash game, I’d call. I consider what hands he might turn into a bluff… AQ? AT? QJ/JT? However, would he also do that with a better K? KJ maybe? It seems like a pretty bad spot to turn a K into a bluff as opposed to calling, but that’s a possibility too… and there’s the chance he thought I had total air with a nutted hand and the only way he was going to get value was to check the river. I fold, and he shows AK.

Me: “Did you think you were value betting or bluffing?”

Him: “C’mon, give me some credit, man.”

I still don’t know what that means. If he’s a total sicko who wants to check-jam over thin value bets on the river as a bluff and wants to balance that range against hero calls, he could do this for value with AKx, which blocks the nuts and has showdown value… But it’s hard to believe he’d do that without a pretty sweet read on how I play.

Maybe he knows who I am and did it as a sick value shove, but the odds are slim… More likely he was either button clicking for value or running a really weird/bad bluff. It's an interesting hand too, from a running good/bad perspective. Obviously a J could've come off and I would've lost a lot of chips. At the same time, if the flop comes a bit better, which it will a majority of the time, I'm probably going to win the hand on the flop - which shows the power of position.

Hand 3: Cuserounder vs. Unknown Pro

I know this player is a tournament pro, because he was chatting it up with the other tournament pros about a variety of things and they all knew each other… Other than that, I don’t know much about him. I didn’t take notes on this hand, so the cards/sizing might be a little bit off.

I’m under the gun with AK at 150/300 and open to 750. The big blind defends. I’ve been very active from early position due to the hands I’ve been dealt, but none of them have gone to showdown.

Flop (1,650): 963

Check, check.

Turn (1,650): T

Villain bets 1,200. I tank and call.

River (4,050): Q

That’s just about the worst card in the deck, but I think he's still going to over bluff it and it also polarizes his river betting range when he fires since a lot of his value combos would check. The villain bets something like 2,750. I tank and call. “Ace high,” he says and shows A5. I roll over my AK and drag the pot.

Shortly thereafter, our table breaks, and I’m feeling pretty happy about that… It had become 8 pros and 1 recreational TAG who was really playing like scared money, plus I had Cristos on my left forcing me to open less wide than I would’ve liked.

Table 2

I made the walk over to the Pavillion and looked toward my table… It was looking good, if I do say so myself. A couple of recreational players, a couple of question marks, I just couldn’t see the player who was going to be on my left, because my view was blocked. As I walked up to the table, I saw the back of his head… A Sacramento Kings hat.

Yep, J.C. Tran on my left at my second table. To his left would turn out to be two good aggro players, at least one of which was a pro – if not both. So, I was pinned down by good players on my left again.

Hero Calls

Shortly after I arrived, JC heroed a fish with 55 on a board with 3 or 4 overs and all of the recreational players shook their heads in awe and murmered about it. About 15 minutes later, I open 77 and the big blind defends – he’s a recreational player. The flop is something like KTx, check-check. The turn is a J and he leads. I call. The river is a brick, he leads and I tank call – my hand is good.

The recreational players just shake their heads again.

The 4bet That Never Was

On the last hand before dinner break, it folds to me in the CO and I open A8. JC flats the button and the SB 3bets. The BB folds and action is back on me. I tank, knowing this is a really good 4bet spot. It’s right before dinner, and people usually avoid confrontation before dinner – except the pros who know that. The SB does, and could easily be squeezing light here. However, JC also knows that, and the SB knows JC knows that. I decide this is a spot I’d take in the money, but not out of the money with a very healthy stack, and fold. It’s probably a +EV move, but it adds a ton of variance as well. JC shows AJ and folds, and the SB shows AT. I’m pretty sure it would’ve gotten through.

Never the less, I end level 3 with 39,000.

Level 4

I don’t remember any hands I played on this level, but I chipped up to 53,500 without much confrontation.

Level 5

Hand 4: Cuserounder vs. Tran & Co.

The blinds are 200/400/50 and a fishy short stack limps in EP. I limp behind, and you’ll have to guess my cards here – it’s an odd play and I don’t want to give away any information about my range. JC raises to 2K, the button calls and the EP limper calls.

I raise to 8,500. JC tanks for a while and folds, and the others quickly fold.

Hand 5: Cuserounder vs. Tran

Two hands later, I’m in MP and raise to 900 with AQo. JC 3bets to 2,500. He’s been 3betting actively, and I feel like this is a hand I need to defend. I call. I’m not looking to play a lot of pots out of position with JC, but I also can’t allow him to just steamroll me.

Flop (6,050): K42r

I check, JC thinks and bets 1,800. I’ve figured something out about his ranges at this point, and I’ve already formed a game plan against it. I think a bit and raise it to 4,800. As he’s tanking, I realize that he’s considering a 3bet and that if he does, I’m going to rip it in. He folds, and later tells me he almost clicked it back to bluff me. I told him I was going to rip it in, but I didn't tell him that would've been a bluff.

I end the night with 58,650. Considering that I had two lousy table draws, with highly talented tournament players on my direct left, I'm thrilled with the result and my play. I never made a value hand that I was trying to get stacks in with after 5 minutes into the first level when I flopped top set, but had no shot of getting much out of the opponent, who was just never playing a big pot five minutes in. I flopped the nut flush later, but it was a spot where I had to check back the flop to get value, and the board paired the turn. I still raised and got some value, but I couldn't try to play as big of a pot as I wanted to... So basically, I was in grind out small pots and defend my poor position mode all day.

As I'm walking out, I think about some of the people who were telling me I was giving up huge edge to the good tournament players, and I laugh to myself.

Just a few final thoughts on the topic since I think we might have to just agree to disagree...

My advice was geared to a person hypothetically choosing between the two life paths: the assumption being that they are neither making 100K at a regular job yet, or beating poker at the very top echelon of winrates. Obv, is a person has achieved either prior to making the decision...then there isn't much of a decision in the first place.

Some lack of economic mobility is, and likely always will be, a pervasive issue in almost any culture, but I would argue that people living in first-world countries have immense opportunities to make what they want out of their lives (if they are so driven). And equivalently, to succeed in poker, you would need to be at least--if not more--driven to succeed.

I know personally, the amount of drive/concentration/effort it takes to beat 5-10 at even 5bb/hr is far higher than what it takes to maintain a 4.0 in schoolhouse.

Sure, for the "average person with average intelligence" it might be somewhat more difficult to navigate to the higher income bracket jobs. But, for the "average person with average intelligence" it will be just as difficult--and likely much more--to navigate to the higher winrates in poker.


Even at $75/hr, you've gone from living in your mom's basement with barely a roll, to making $150K/yr in a very short amount of time. Naturally, with such soul-crushing talent, you'll be making much more (300K, 500K/yr?) at bigger games within a couple years. I think you should be picking out a color for that Lambo already.

I understand that you may have other motives in the winrates you provide, especially if you aspire to start charging 3-figure hourlies for coaching and what not. But also remember that there are a lot of impressionable young players reading these PG&Cs, and when they hear about how you can start playing poker full-time and your salary will be 150K/yr a year in, you could be screwing up someone pretty good.

No

When I'm assessing someones winrate, I don't base it upon what they say, what they post online, etc. because we all know it's total nonsense a vast majority of the time. When you play with someone for enough hours, you can usually ballpark it to an extent by seeing how they play, what they showdown, if they missed obvious moves, etc.

Naturally, it is only a very rough estimate, but I'm sure you know what I mean when I say you can usually sum up a player's caliber after playing with them for a few days.

I should clarify, when I was talking about the newly-minted poker pro hot-shots coming and going...it's not that I see them crush for a few months and then disappear up a 100K or whatever. They either get destroyed early, or they run good for a month or two, then you see them bleed out for a few weeks/months and the depressed look on their faces during the last couple weeks...and then they disappear.

It could all be an elaborate ploy to disguise the massive amounts of money they fleece from the other players, but I think it's fairly self-evident what happens.

I intentionally left out the last name since I'm talking about stuff that might be considered private...though I doubt he would care at this point. Let's just say they aren't many players with a first name of Ari that started off by crushing onlone games.

Online winrates are way lower than live winrates, ergo the comparison of 4x as many hands per hour, and 2x the stakes. It's impossible to have an absolute scale, but I would expect that someone crushing 2-tables of 10-20 online would have a net paycheck that is at least as big as a 5-10 live pro. Also remember that I'm talking about the online games from nearly 10 years ago, which were considerable better than the current games.

Further, Ari was a brilliant player, and he put in a LOT of hours.

Fair enough. But at least 80% of people won't make jack-**** playing poker either.

Excellent write-up!

definitely a weird play by him. I think he thinks the check/raise is for value, since your range appears to be capped (most players would bet AJ, KQ, QT on the turn). I can imagine him thinking that a check/ship will fold out the same hand, AK, and sometimes get heroed by worse.

definitely a high-variance line, though, and his spazz does get called by better sometimes. I would have enjoyed it if you snapped him off with K2 or something.

It's very nice to see this kind of update back itt! The discussions of staking, your expected hourly, and the benefits/drawbacks to being a poker pro are helpful, I hope, but too often it seems that you're feeding the trolls. You've done a nice job improving your game in the last year--that much is clear--and I hope you don't get bogged down in unanswerable debates ("my expected hourly in X tournament is Y"; "X profession is better than Y profession because of Z").

The advantage of writing out your trip reports, aside from being enjoyable for us readers, is that you can work through how you think you played these hands, many of which are super-tough to navigate. In the end, that's the most important thing.

Looking forward to the next one!

Every stat I've ever posted or ever will post is 100% accurate, I'm not making up anything in the win rates I "provide."

As for being a year in, I am a year and a half into this PG&C, but I've been playing poker for over 10 years. I started in 2004, and played part-time through college. Maybe I'll try to dig up some stats from back then. I know I was winning a lot, but I was also playing 1/2 back then. Anyway, I read a ton of books, studied the game a lot, and so on... So to the "impressionable young players," reading, you DO have to put in work.

I had no idea how he started out - in fact, that surprises me that he started out that way. I'd think he'd be more on the 10K circuit than the middle stakes circuit, but you never know how much of their own action people have or how much was spent. If what you're posting is private, though, you shouldn't even post it. It seems odd you had access to full hand histories.

Thanks!

It really depends how he views my 3bet range, which I could see going either way. I haven't made a 3bet at all in three hours and I'm a relative unknown in the Main Event, so I'd think he'd range me pretty tight, which changes the hand a lot. It could be a two-way bet to fold some chops and get heroed by worse occasionally, but I think that's probably a -$EV play in this spot in the Main, given that he is occasionally going to run into something.

Thanks... The thing is, I already work through how I think I play all of my interesting hands. I go through them with study groups, friends who's poker opinion I value, etc. Posting them on here actually hurts me by putting more of how I think out there for potential opponents, which is why I'm primarily only doing it in tournament hands now.

Yeah, he started out as a cash game player. I'm not sure if it's appropriate to disclose such information or not, but this was from nearly a decade ago, and I was saying very positive things about his poker prowess, not talking about his sexual orientation or what not, so I doubt it would be a problem. I was just using him as an example of a top-tier player.

You find it odd that employees of online sites have access to complete hand histories? How do you think we resolve problems or provide support, or look into collusion, etc. As soon as a hand is complete, we can see everybody's hole cards whether they played the hand or not. I'm sure the same applies to every online site. And obviously we can see players' wins & losses as this is all recorded in their accounts.

You may have started this PG&C a year and a half ago, but until <1 year ago a majority of your time was spent working for something closer to $11/hr and living in your mom's basement; you only started playing full-time in the last year. To multiply your salary by 10x in under a year is astounding, and given such a trajectory it would be reasonable to assume you'll be making 2-3x as much in another year. Could it all be true? Of course, stranger things have happened. Is it likely? Not so much.

I do know that early in this PG&C you mentioned an interest in coaching. Made perfect sense, that's a pretty big raise from your sports broadcasting salary, and a PG&C documenting your rise to fame would be a perfect way to sell yourself. Moreover, you have other websites doing just that (selling yourself), and you seem quite talented at it (that's not meant in a condescending way at all...marketing yourself is actually an excellent talent to have). And now, a short-time later, you're crushing the game for over $100/hr, and you created a website where you're selling coaching for $80-$100/hr (and generous enough to be coaching for lower than your winrate).

Once again...Is it all possible? Sure, you could be the next Phil Ivey; somebody's gonna be sooner or later, right? It's just that it's a movie perfect story with the meteoric rise, mandatory downswing which you valiantly came out of and instantly started crushing again, then got the coaching website up and running for a super-sales discount just in time, all documented in your first PG&C.

All I'm saying is you must be able to see how this might look to an outside observer, and that's the only reason I said what I said earlier (along with the humble offer of being willing to clean your soon-to-be Lambo for free if I'm wrong).

Preparing already:

http://www.simplygoodstuff.com/super_shammies.htm

Push, you're misrepresenting a few things there. I'm not pimping my coaching site on here right now, though, and have only sent it to a couple people via PM who were interested. That's more of a placeholder for now, and the coaching rates were set up before I started playing 5/T.

I have always had an interest in coaching and obviously this thread can help me in that regard and others... That said, every single stat or hand history I've posted has been 100% truthful. The only changes I've ever made are things like making up the suits on a rainbow flop when they're irrelevant to the action because the hand histories are easier to read with the suit icons. I also point out when I'm not remembering exactly the sizing or whether it's a T97 or T87 board... Also largely irrelevant details and I still point out that they may be slightly off.

I also think you're misrepresenting this being a meteoric rise by minimizing the work and study I have put in over the years. I'd love to paint myself as a natural phenom, and I'm not saying I wasn't blessed with some talent, but there's been a ton of work, study and hands played over the years.

No, I find it odd that you said you saw all of his hands... It seems like looking at every hand a player played so you could learn how they played would be pretty unethical.

I wouldn't assume that. I believe in becoming increasingly cautious moving up in stakes as your bankroll grows, and it's not like I even have a 25/50 game nearby. I think 10/25 is about as high as I could go without relocating drastically. I'm not sure where 25/50 even runs over 20 hours a week. Maybe in LA? I don't think it goes that often in Vegas outside of the WSOP, but I don't really know because I'm not at the point where I need to know yet. As for 10/25, I'm not sure how often it runs locally, either... But probably at least a couple nights a week.

It's much easier to go from $20-$25 an hour in poker to $100 an hour than $100 to $300. So, we'll see. I'm focused on the next step right now, not three steps ahead.

I've shared my stats, graphs and pictures of chips... Beyond a certain degree, people have to make their own judgments. I'll probably be posting my real name in the future at some point, which may make you more trusting. Beyond that, I said my roll was ~48K before I came to Vegas, and all my cash wins and tourney losses should add up to something around that, give or take (I've invested in a couple people in tourneys and such and sold some of my own action, so it could be a little different)... I guess I could've made that up..



But, I didn't.

If you don't want to believe me, don't believe me. It really doesn't change anything for me, so I don't care. Anyone who gets coaching from me is welcome to say what they think of my analysis and guidance, good or bad.

All that money is in the bank, now, by the way... I'm not dumb enough to post a money pic before it's nice and safe and secure.

Let's rob cuse's house!

(just kidding)

I doubt anyone would ever do something like that. But it's always better to be safe.