1) I definitely won't be playing regularly but I'm sure at some point I'll get the itch to play. I usually play 3-4 times a year in live games so that'd probably be my best estimate for the year.

2) That's a very difficult question to answer. I don't have a ton of experience playing live and I think it would vary depending on the stakes and location for the live grinders.

As an aside and before I try to answer:

What's interesting about LHE is that you never can make a big mistake short of folding the best on the river where you clearly have the best hand.

Take a play that almost everyone would consider egregiously bad: 3-betting an UTG raise with 27o. As bad as this is, we're still going to win pots postlfop when our opponent incorrectly assigns a stronger range to us and folds at some point postflop. We're still going to flop monsters occasionally and win big pots. And we're still going to spike 2's and 7's and be up against broadway cards that whiffed. So the end result is a small fraction of a big bet mistake. And the overwhelming majority of decisions in LHE are like that.

Generally I think people have a tough time recognizing this and as a result have a tendency to overestimate their edge against other regulars. They see their opponent do something whacky like 3-betting 94s and automatically assume they have a big edge over this person.

I think the majority of regulars playing in mid/high stakes games online are separated by less than .5 BB/100 hands at this point. If you took the average online regular and sat him at a 9 handed table full of live regulars, I would be very surprised if the online reg had an edge of more than 1 BB/100. As a total guess, I'm going to say the difference between online and live regulars is around .75 BB/100 and quite possibly less.

Wow no A9o from 6h utg. 2 qs if you can:

1. button open range and BB defense range (%) v button open?

2. I assume by playing daily fantasy sports that you'll be betting it for a living. If so, how/why do you think you have an edge?

Congratulations on playing at a high level for so long and good luck with whatever's next.

Wow always though you were one of the best if not the best in today game. At first I was surprise but after reading your blog it make total sense with today highstake environment. Kind of crazy how some of the guys I would rate not anywhere near you that are killing this year at highstake. Do you think at the current state it more important to be lucky than skill at 30/60+ if you were are a decent reg?

GL in DFS. There actually a guy in sport betting forum 4 years ago when the fantasy sport betting was kind of new and he build a bot that would match head up against other weak player. I think he was making 50k+ a month from that not sure how the landscape is now but I imagine it probably more money than poker.

Do you have a large enough sample yet to assess profitability of those lower suited hands when raised UTG (T8s, 97s, 87s, 76s)?. I know you have a huge database but I'd guess it's still maybe not large enough to tell, unless maybe they are all profitable. Thanks.

The only time I felt like I had to learn another game was about two years ago if I'm remembering correctly. There was a stretch where the Stars lobby was as dead as I had ever seen it. It was at that time I started trying to learn PLO but not long after the games picked back up and I refocused all my energy on limit.

Adding a second game would be beneficial during those dead times but it's a lot harder than it sounds. To come anywhere close to matching the earning potential I had with LHE would require a very significant time investment. After BF, I was forced to cram SNE into 9 months along with a lot of travelling so trying to spend my 3 months of "off time" studying wasn't something I wanted to commit to.

To answer your 2nd question, it most definitely was not a mistake to go for SNE in terms of maximizing my earning potential. Whether it was a mistake for my happiness and sometimes even sanity may be a different story though. I think taking that targeted high-stakes approach that some players do is perfect for a part-time player that doesn't need steady significant income coming in. With a house, family, a whole lot of expenses, and no other source of income, it never was an option for me even though I'd have much preferred to do that.

What made you choose the guarantees for DFS?
I've found the 50/50s very soft for mlb and nfl, and am really looking forward to hockey season.

What sort of game-flow differences, if any, have you noticed from other regs in the way how they play pre and/or postflop compared to 2-4 years ago?

Thanks for taking time to do this and I wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

What was your job prior to poker?

Did you plan on playing poker for decades?

Did you ever take a stab at nosebleeds back when durrr, benyamine, schneids played?

You wrote #30 going for SNE and being abroad at times made you unhappy. In retrospect, do you feel it was a mistake moving abroad to play online?

D.E.R.B. - Genius ahead of his time, or luckbox who ran hot enough for selection bias to make us notice him?

Hey TP, played a few hands with ya at 30/60+ always thought you were decent. Best wishes regarding your future. My question just involves what BR do you personally think is necessary to be playing these stakes 4 tabling to 6 tabling at most? I talked to Stick about it briefly but he didn't understand me it appears. Best luck again TP. Cheers
-GTLbabyyy

Can you give us your common stats plus winrates from the SB and BB, for the past 500k hands or so?

What is your 3bet % from the BB vs a SB open? Does it depend greatly on opponent?
How do you handle your SB play (pre and post) vs a BB who 3bets SB steals extremely wide?
Are you ever the last aggressor out of position heads up for more than one raise (i.e. no cap vs 3bet, call only in BB)?

Thanks for this well. Been reading your blog for awhile. GL in your future pursuits.

Responding mostly to subscribe to thread, but the bankroll question is pretty much entirely objective and dependent on your winrate (and SD). If he's a 1.5BB/100 winner and you're a 0.7BB/100 winner, his subjective opinion on bankroll size from personal experience is completely meaningless to you. Play around with something like this http://pokerdope.com/poker-variance-calculator/ to get an idea.

Here are my questions. It woul be very kind of you, if you answered them:

a) I am pretty sure you have a checkbehind Flop Range. Only HU and 4handed+ or 3handed aswell?

b) do you have a checkbehind Flop rT Range or even xbF cT rR Range or do they only consist of improvaments (for example A2 on a JT7 A Board?)

c) My idea of a balanced xbF Range ist to fold 20%, call 60% and raise 20% on the turn. What was your gameplan? Did you always stick to your plan or did it depend on your Villains?

d) How would you describe your game? GTO or exploitive? I guess it is a mixture. what's the Mix?

e) what would be your first advice to an advanced pokerplayer, let's say someone who plays 2/4 and who wants to reach T/20+? e.g. valuebet thinner, bluff less, be more polarised/merged etc.

many thanks and good Luck to you. Enjoy your life and your new challenges!

Subbed

While you touched on this in another post, outside of money management what were your biggest mistakes in your poker career? If you could go back in time and give yourself advice 10 years ago what would it be (does not necessarily have to be poker related)?

If DFS does not work out, would you enter the work force or would you go back to poker? Did you ever consider transitioning into something non-gambling related?

I have always enjoyed reading your blog. Hopefully, you will continue to post occasional updates. Thank you for taking the time to make a well!

I've also been taking fantasy sports pretty seriously this year. One spot I have is a weekly heads up draft, standard scoring, non ppr 1 QB, 2 RB/2 WR/TE/Flex/K/def.

What would you consider the best strategy for such a draft? Obviously jts opponent dependent, but at first we thought we should be drafting players with the highest gap in replacement players (basically jimmy grahm first) but quickly changed directions before our first draft (almost always Murray first)

Maybe you've explained this in your blog in the past, but was moving from country to country something you wanted to do or something you had to do?

Along those lines, do you see yourself staying in the SF Bay Area or moving around (for pleasure / fun or to minimize living costs, etc.)?

Also, if you're unaware of it, the Broken Rack has moved. It's now on the other side of the Powell St. overpass in its own building.

Hey BK,

Can you expand on this a little? Not exactly sure what you're asking. Thanks!

I don't think there's much debate here at least among the major sports that NFL is the softest. I could see EPL soccer being super soft or some of the more obscure sports but I haven't tried them yet.

What I was more getting at is that it only runs once a week. If you include Thursday night and Sunday 4 PM and Sun-Mon games then you get 4 sets of tournaments. Compare that to something like baseball where you get tournaments every day of the week, and often twice a day with 7 PM games and then 10 PM games.

So even though NFL is softer, there's so much opportunity at MLB that I think ultimately it's more profitable provided you're taking advantage of all those extra tournaments. Of course if you're just playing DFS a couple times a week, then I think it's clear NFL would be the way to go.

I also should mention that I understand MLB the best of all the major sports. I actually enjoy watching NFL more but I don't understand the game itself nearly as well. I'm sure that's playing into my results so far as well and making me biased towards MLB

FW, first thanks for the kind words, I really do appreciate it. These kinds of compliments were the only thing outside of money that was motivating me to play the past couple of years.

1. I do think preflop play is extremely important and is probably the most misplayed area among mid/high stakes players. If you search my blog I made an old post titled something like "The Importance of PreFlop Play" that gets into all the math of why I think it's so important.

I wouldn't put too much stock into exact VPIP and PFR numbers though. Both of those statistics, especially VPIP, are a function of your opponents. So what might be an optimal VPIP and PFR in one type of game will be sub optimal in another.

2. Ha no I definitely don't have any special gifts and am not a genius in any one area. I do have a very strong mathematical/logical mind and also the ability to empathize very well.

Being able to put yourself in another persons mind is a blessing and a curse in poker. It's a blessing because being able to understand what your opponent is thinking and feeling is really valuable in anticipating their actions. It's a curse because it's very difficult not to get caught up in the emotions of the game of that point. In a sense you're trying to eliminate all emotion playing poker while simultaneously trying to understand the emotions of the other player. It's just human nature to experience those emotions you're trying to understand so at times it can be very difficult to separate the understanding from the experiencing.

More than math and empathy though, my success has been due to hard work.

I've had an incredibly strong work ethic ever since my mother passed away about 15 years ago. I'll spare all the details here but I had an unbelievably difficult life from the time I was about 16 to 29 and this really shaped me. At one point I was sitting in an office doing data entry for 8 hours a day and being refused any higher paid positions because no one had confidence I could do them. I wake up every day almost on a mission to prove people wrong and make the most of every minute I have.

I think it was Einstein who said something to the effect of "It wasn't that I was smarter than everyone else, it's just that I never gave up when I couldn't figure something out". I really believe there's a lot of truth to this statement. Give me the choice between a lazy genius and a hard working person of above average intelligence and I'd choose the latter.

3. Preflop is where I see the most mistakes being made. It's also where I see the most differentiation between people's play. You've got guys opening 60% from the SB while others open 100%. You have people opening 30% UTG and others opening 15%. Etc., etc.

That said, It's a lot more difficult to identify postflop mistakes because nearly any play can be justified in the context of a broader strategy. I remember battling the bots on UB and every now and then they'd make a play that looked so incredibly bad to me. As time went on I understood that this was part of a much broader strategy and even though the play taken out of context looked so bad, it actually made a lot of sense when put back into context.

I don't think there's as much of this preflop. In other words there's not as much need ,or in some cases, even ability to balance ranges in preflop spots. As a result it's a lot easier to determine optimal (or close to optimal) play and identify mistakes in others.


Good questions, I will get back to you on the rest. Still getting caught up here. I think half the appliances broke in my house while I was out of the country so still trying to restore order here and get caught up.

Tommy angelo coined the term in an article here

TLDR: "In the world of reciprocality, it's not what you do that matters most, and it's not what they do. It's both. Reciprocality is any difference between you and your opponents that affects your bottom line. Reciprocality says that when you and your opponents would do the same thing in a given situation, no money moves, and when you do something different, it does."

Hey Tony, thanks for doing this and congrats on the retirement. I've played with you a couple times at Oaks/Bay 101 over the years (always a pleasure) and there was always one fun hand that stuck out to me in our limited time playing that I hoped you could shed insight/debunk interest in.

It's been a few years, so details are fuzzy, but basically it was your very first hand in a full-ring game and you posted behind the button. There was at least one limper and a raiser before you flatted, which lead to either a blind or limper 3-betting. You then proceeded to cap when it got back to you. Results, but you ended up winning a sizeable pot with KK.

(I could be wrong and you might've posted the BB, but either way...)

So anyway, I was always curious whether this was a standard-ish preflop line for you based on posting to enter the game or whether it was like a LOLlivepoker thing. And it'd be great, if you could share your thought on your post-flop plan in a spot like this if there was no 3-bet action back to you.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and thanks again for doing this!

Without many videos or books out there on lhe these past few years, how would you suggest I work on my game away from the tables?

Can you link me your blog post about pre flop? I've been grinding 10/20 for awhile with success but still I lack understanding of how to think about pre flop. If you decide to make videos I would be thrilled to hear about your pre flop standards and when/why you deviate from them.

Congrats on your accomplishments and for making a big change in life. Forgive me if any of these questions been answered.

1) you are a boston guy, right? East boston? I still have the accent, I don't think it goes away.

2) do you think games online on US facing sites are square? Not sure if you bothered ever playing them.

3) Do you have kids and did that effect your decision to quit pro poker?

4) What would be your biggest piece of advice to someone who has resumed playing mix/limit games after fairly long hiatus in terms of games to concentrate on? flhe only, other HORSE, big bet, or draw/hybrids?

5) for serious mid stakes part time player with 35 hour job and a book to lessen the stress of losses, how aggressive should that person be w their BR? Could that person play 1-2 w only a 30k roll for poker if the game is good? Should we, as plus ev seeking gamblers, be willing to jump into any gambling spot if we think it is plus ev, even if we will never see enough trials in that particular spot to let variance even things out and experience our actual edge (or lack thereof)?

thank you and gl