Ha wow I have no recollection of this hand whatsoever. I'm typically pretty good at remembering hands.

This is as far away from standard as you can get for me. I really don't know what my rationale was at the time but I'd guess I make that play less than 1% of the time I'm in that situation. Given that it was live poker, there's probably a greater chance that I misread my cards than actually intended to do that. I don't even say that jokingly, I make so many mistakes playing live poker that it's embarrassing.

Every once in a while I will just do something for fun, experimentation, or just to be crazy. Being crazy or unpredictable every once in a while has value. Sometimes it's OK to sacrifice short-term EV in the hopes of gaining that EV back later. This wasn't the case with the KK hand but wanted to mention it.

Something funny that this just reminded me of is that the very 1st hand, literally the very 1st hand I ever played at the Oaks I was dealt Kings and the player to my immediate left was dealt Aces. I'm not overly superstitious but given the odds of that I felt like some higher power was telling me to get the heck out of the Oaks.

iirc, you did some advertising your first hand last November. You sat down and went all the way with 74o or something? Most of us assumed
Still with Captain Ron and Desert Cat at the table, it might not have been the first time someone tried to pull that move in the current round of dealing.

It seemed like you were having fun and being sporting.

One way to improve your game is to study the games of players you regularly play against. Specifically, look at the areas of their play that differ most from your play and try to determine the reasons why. If you can get inside that person's head it can enable you to see situations from a different perspective. That has value in itself because you're competing against that person regularly but also can have value in that you can incorporate some of their more successful strategies into your own game.

Just generally you always want to be thinking about the different situations the come up at the table. It's important to keep an open mind and never assume you know it all regardless of how much success you've had.

I got to play pool with Efren Reyes, widely regarded as the best pool player to ever live. When asked how he got so good, he said half-jokingly "from watching bad players play". Half-jokingly because lesser skilled players are always trying things that are out of the norm or unconventional. If you pay attention to the results, often you can learn a new shot or a new way of doing something.

So keep your eyes open, keep an open mind, and always be thinking about what you can do better.

It would take me quite a while to find that blog post. But here's an article I wrote a few years ago that's very similar:

http://nutblocker.com/rethinking-pre...iranha-pirone/

Thanks MB,

1) Yep I grew up in the Boston area and lived there for 30+ years. I didn't actually live in the city though so I don't have the accent. I was all around the suburbs: Medfiield, Needham, Watertown, Framingham, Natick, and Waltham were all places I lived at one time or another.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by "square". I'm guessing a site that has a lot of recreational players? If so, I've only really played on Bovada besides some PLO on the smaller facing US sites (not enough to really comment). Bovada has some good games and a lot of weak players. Although my frame of reference is Poker Stars so every site is going to have a lot of weak players in comparison. If you're wondering if it's worth it to play there, I think so. I should mention that I haven't played there in over a year and have probably logged less than 5K hands total on the site so I may not the best person to answer this.

3)No kids and that didn't play into the decision.

4)Again I'm not the best person to ask because all I play is LHE. I definitely wouldn't think LHE is the way to go though. The games have really dried up over the last three years. It was to the point about a year and a half ago where I thought I'd have to learn another game because there was so little action. But over the last year or so things have seem to stabilize. There still aren't many games but I haven't noticed any further drop off either.

The last I heard the action was at PLO but this was a few years ago. If I were you I'd just be looking to see where the most traffic is and focus my energy there. I'm not sure what sites/stakes you're playing but rake along with rewards and rakeback would be a big consideration for me as well. For example, I've read the rake is so high at lower stakes PLO games that they're near impossible to beat on some sites. If you're playing a lot of the smaller sites where the rake tends to vary from site to site, I would be sure to do a comparison before making a decision.

5) If you can handle the emotional stress of a big loss with a bankroll that's small relative to the stakes you're playing, then yes I would say go for it. I would set a strict stop-loss for the game though. Let's say your primary stakes are 15/30 so you've got 1000 BB's for that. If a great 100/200 pops up that you're confident that you have an edge in, then I'd play that game with maybe a 5K or 25 BB stop-loss. If you end up losing the 5K, you've still got 800+ BB's for your main stake which is going to sufficient 98% of the time. And if you do happen to hit that 1/100 downswing immediately after losing in the big game, you always have the ability to drop down in stakes for a while.

It sounds like you're concerned about the emotional aspects of losing a lot of money relative to your bankroll. And this really is a big consideration. It's often not just the money lost but the after effect of losing a lot of money. I've seen really good players lose a lot of money playing way above their typical stakes that are sent into a lengthy tailspin. There's one very well known player I can think of that this happened to and it took him over a year to recover. His level of play dropped so significantly that he went from one of the biggest, consistent winners in the games to break-even for over a year.

If there's any chance of this, then I'd recommend avoiding shot-taking altogether.

1. I think Daniel Negreanu was flirting with making a bet that with 2 weeks training he could beat midstakes NLH on Pokerstars. In your opinion, if you had to take a bet on whether he would be able to beat 30-60 + on stars over 50k hands with 2 weeks training would you bet on him or against him if you had to choose a side?

2. What are your general thoughts on blind structures that are like sb 20 and bb 30 for a 30-60 game. How much would your play change from say a traditional 15 and 30 blind structure for this game

This is gold

Thanks TPirahna for the kind words about my plays. Def. give me a huge confidence boost. Btw would you ever consider selling your pre flop text document? Or how about a coaching deal where you get % of winning for set amount of time? I mean the LHE economy can't get any worst if one or two TPirahna pop up :P.

Also was going to bring up your turn/riv play in position. I actually thought it was very ingenious when I went through your hhs and notice your turn aggressive was very low compare to your flop and turn. Found out you would wait to repop with good hands on river and small % of bluff for balance. Add in you waiting an extra few longer second to raise river that would tilt the crap out of me. It has the benefit of making me fold out a sub-optimal amount of time.

Thanks again for doing this I learn the most playing against you out of all the other guys but very costly since you one of the guy I lose the most to.

Thanks I actually hadn't been on 2+2 for a while myself.

Hi Merry,

I have given a lot of thought and consideration to live poker. As you mentioned the big benefits are that I can stay home and save a lot of money in expenses.

There are some big drawbacks as well though. The biggest is having to sit at a table for 8-10 hours in a game where I'm uninvolved for the vast majority of that time. I'm so used to being faced with constant decisions for hours at a time that it's a huge transition to have so few decisions relative to online.

I've played a decent amount of live poker and what ends up happening is after about 2-3 hours, I'm bored out of my mind. My mind starts drifting to the TV, or my phone, or anywhere else. And then when I actually am faced with some decisions, I make a lot of mistakes. I've misread the action, misread my cards, acted out of turn, all numerous times. I realize this could be fixed by just paying more attention but the bigger problem that's seemingly unfixable is that I just don't enjoy it.

The other big drawback is going from 400 hands an hour to 45 hands an hour or whatever it is. This is really tough to overcome in terms of earning potential outside of playing astronomical stakes that brings its own set of problems.

All that said, if DFS doesn't work out and the online games dry up, then this may be my best option.

My wife went with me on all the trips and sometimes we brought our dogs. It was really hard to balance life and poker because trying to squeeze SNE into less than 9 months is incredibly time consuming.

We had a lot of friends and family visit us at the different locales and that's when I went out most and was able to experience some of the culture. I did go out to eat fairly regularly, usually for dinner a couple times a week. But overall I wasn't balanced at all, it was 95% playing poker and 5% doing other things.

Everyone around me is really supportive with giving DFS a shot full-time. My wife's really happy to be back home so she wants this to work as much as I do. Just generally my friends and family have a lot of confidence in me and support whatever I do so that's really cool.

Hi TPirahna,

a lot of the question I'd ask were already asked. So I just wanted to send some greetings and wish you the best for your future. Two or three years ago, when I was still playing for SNE in the FL games on Stars, there couldn't have been any better news for me than you retiring from the game. As for most of the FL regs, you are definitely one of the guys I've played the most hands with - and probably one of the guys I've lost the most money to. Your game and your graph was always the thing to achieve, but what I kept in mind best was your idea to post the Big Blind last for one month when a recreational player was sitting out. This was at least a good try to break the prisoner's dilemma of breaking tables at the high stakes.

Ok, a couple of questions:

1) Was your name on Stars a typo or did you choose it intentionally for some reason (maybe some pun that I don't get as a German)? Here in the forums it's piranha, not pirahna.

2) Did you ever have problems with the ethical part of playing poker and taking the money not only from rich people in a gambling mood, but also from addicts? Did you ever think about talking to a recreational player about his gambling problems with the risk of making less money?

Greetings from Germany,
Umumba

It's probably not ever a bad choice to get the heck out of Oaks. =)

And yeah, I figured that KK hand had to be non-standard, since that's why it stood out to me all these years. I do vividly remember a couple decent-ish players relative to the game had bemused expressions, especially since they didn't know your background.

Anyway, thanks again for doing this epic Well. Hope to run into you again once in awhile at the Bay Area tables--we'll chat some DFS, all of your comments on here have gotten me to try it out seriously.

Congratulations on your retirement from poker, and best of luck with DFS and anything else you choose to do. I am sure you will be successful. Thanks for the inspiration all these years.

Ha ok. Glad you like the thread, it's been fun doing it.

Thanks I'm definitely going to look into this. NHL isn't looking like the greatest tournament sport either though I'm not sure it would be much better for H2H and 50/50's. Just seems so difficult to predict where the scoring is going to come from with all the different lines.

Even though I haven't done very well in NFL GPP's I'm still encouraged. I've been on the right group of players the last few weeks, I just haven't put together that magic lineup to crack the top 10. Some of the NFL GPPs are so incredibly top-heavy too that I could go a long, long time with +EV lineups without making any money.

1. I believe it was around 850 BB's. I think I was pretty fortunate is this regard, just about everyone I know has gone through a 1000+ BB downswing at some point.

2. I don't know this off the top of my head but it's in my blog somewhere. I'm pretty sure I had a 200K hand break-even stretch, rakeback/bonuses excluded. That was at the beginning of 2012 when I was multi-tabling 200/400. There was about a month stretch where Gomir and a few other players were starting those games regularly. I think I hit about an 80K downswing, dropped down in limits, and it took quite a while to recover that money.

3. That 200K hand break-even stretch was around 3.5 months. Again, not counting rakeback/bonuses. Thank God it wasn't live poker, I would of long given up thinking I'd never win again.

4. Hmm, I guess Pepperoni and mushrooms or even just plain Pepperoni. I'm pretty simple when it comes to food - give me a plate with steak, rice, and a vegetable and I'm happy.

Numbered it so my questions don't go all over the place.



1. You mentioned you bet quite a bit while playing online poker at this time. Would you be willing to share how much $ you were betting on the stuff you were betting on average? Such as what amount range and average bet? I figure for someone like you, lowest bet size would probably be $500 and highest might be like $3000 with your average bet being around
$1000-$1500 or so? I would figure it has to fall between somewhere around that amount plus or minus a few hundred? Reason is b/c i can't imagine you betting any smaller than say $750 on a bet considering what stakes you play with in online poker.


2. Would you say skrill was a huge blow as oppose to just a blow? To me, that is one of the biggest blows to either be or continue being a sportsbetting pro in Canada as you can't really move funds around. I believe Canadians can still deposit and withdraw without problems using bank wire to pinnacle, betcris but for an american thats there, its really tough as they only seem to do canadian and not usd anymore.


3. What books did you play at besides pinnacle for sportsbetting? I assume betcris as well? Did you play at matchbook too? I'm sure you are aware they left Canada as well right? That was another huge blow to canada as they left as well and most pros play at pinnacle/betcris/matchbook.
Did you bother keep funds at usa books like 5d or bovada? I know bodog is the canadian book but basically they are the same company.


4. Another thing i wanted to ask you is what bank acct did you use? I read a blog you wrote a while back i think it was right after you relocated and you mentioned u got a hsbc acct in canada that offered online wires. In canada, i got a bmo bank acct but u have to physically go to the bank each time if u want to do a wire. I also recalled you mentioned hsbc was one of the very few banks that does online wires. Is that true? The thing is if you are not in canada, then u cant wire funds from canadian bank to american bank acct if you dont go there physically. Were you able to do online wires whereever you were in mexico?


5. Is there a reason why you didn't bother going to Rosarito Beach? The 2 most popular options in mexico for poker players seem to be rosarito and playa del carmen. Is it b/c rosarito beach is boring and basically nothing to do and thats why you choose playa? Another thing i wanted to ask is how did you wire money from playa del carmen to eventually your usa bank account b/c from what i read, its impossible to get a usd bank acct in playa. So either you have to pay heavy fees and do a wire from stars or skrill usd to playa del carmen peso acct then eventually get it to your american acct? Because one is going to pay around 8 percent in vig if im not mistaken? I know ppl on the forum trade for funds such as pokerstars or skrill for bank of america for a few percent vig and with skrill and usd bank acct, you pay like 1-2 percent max in vig to get from stars/skrill usd to non-usa bank acct to american bank account.


6. But if you were to decide to only do sportsbetting instead of DFS, you still go to Costa rica right? What would be your 2nd or 3rd location option or there isn't? Playa you can't because u can't get a usd bank account unless im missing something? I assume you wouldn't want to go to another continent like europe or something b/c the time zone would be completely different for sports right and probably farthest from usa u would go is costa rica?


7. About the amount of funds one have in risk. I do agree with what you say don't leave an amount that is too much for you. But for someone like you, would you even bother keeping any funds there? Obviously for someone like you, keeping even 10k there is probably small potatoes for you b/c you bet a lot more and thats only a few bets. But would you bother keeping even 1/2 a normal bankroll size in the usa facing sites though?[/QUOTE]

I am a big Blackhawks fan. I the course of that I have learned some advanced stats they are using to evaluate play. Google corsi and fenwick. I would think there is edge there. Good luck. May Kane be with you

Thanks Avataren.

It's always tough to judge when your'e ready to move up in stakes because there's so much variance involved that you can't rely on results alone.

If I were to start over, I'd do it pretty much the same except that I'd be quicker to take shots at higher limits. By shots, I'd set aside some part of my bankroll, maybe 10-20% and play the next limit up with that money. If I do well, great I'm probably going to stick with that limit. If I lose my stake, I'll drop back down and try to build up my bankroll for another shot.

I basically started at the bottom and slowly worked my way through each limit, logging hundreds of thousands of hands at each limit. I mentioned this earlier but something I did and would recommend doing is to take note of the successful regulars that are playing in your games. Study their games and figure out what they're doing differently than you. Try to understand why they're doing it and if it's something you think has merit, then try to incorporate it into your own game. Even if you don't think it has merit, it can be worth experimenting with. It will put you in new and uncomfortable situations that you'll be forced to learn how to deal with. It'll also give you the perspective of the person that's using the strategy. Even if you don't adopt it, you'll better know how to combat it.

One of the keys is to keep an open mind. Never assume that because somebody's doing something drastically different than you that it's incorrect, particularly if that player is successful.

I remember hearing 6 or 7 years ago that people were opening 30% of their hands from the cut-off and I immediately thought that there's no way you could profitably open that many hands (I was probably opening less than 25%). I even started a thread on StoxPoker arguing against it. Fast forward to today and I'm positive you can open close to 40% of hands profitably in some of the toughest high stakes games.

Keep thinking, keep discussing, and keep studying your game as well as other's games. It can take a long, long time but eventually more and more things will start to click and your game will improve.

Good Luck

I estimate I was break even in stars 30/60 just before Black Friday (assume i played any game that would continue running with me in it, so at least one player was worse than me I'd like to think), what limit could I beat on stars today with no game selection? I'm basically asking how much stronger the regs are in the last 3 years.

i play also up to 50/100 3 years ago, and 10/20 on a regular basis, i would compare the 10/20 3 years ago with 3/6 nowadays. and 5/10 the former fishlimit is now 2/4. nowadays on 10/20 start the elite playing. but if you wanna get the old 2BB/100 winrate you really have to play 2/4$. this limit unimaginable fishy. so many bad regulars, any table is soft maximum 1 good player all the time.

A.Please describe your experiences crossing both boarders to those who are also considering such a move.

B.Which of the two countries that you had temporary residence most fit the lifestyle you and your wife like to lead.

C. Did you ever take time off to go exploring on any of your non-poker days ?

Thanks for your time.

1) I actually only read Phil Galfonds which was excellent.

2) I don't know if he has any intention of playing again but it would definitely be Bryce. He was one of the players i learned the most from and one of the people that gave back to the community most. It was really sad that a storm of personal problems hit him, he fell behind the curve, and then couldn't catch up.

3) Ha, not something I've really thought about in any depth. I'd have to say it's extremely unlikely. I wouldn't say it doesn't exist, there's obviously some non-zero chance. But the fact there is a question of it's existence, the incomprehensible size of outer space, and the fact we haven't found it yet, I'll go with very, very unlikely.

4) I'm not qualified at all to give an opinion on this one. It's mind-boggling what some of the CEOs get paid but the same could be said for professional athletes. So no comment here.

5) Yes, this has always been a huge concern of mine. I played on UB for several years where bots were playing in nearly all the games. This was about six to seven years ago and even back then the bots were some of the biggest winners in the games. They were playing heads up as well as 6-max from 10/20 to 100/200.

I strongly believe bots can be created for every form of poker that would eventually surpass any human in ability. If I were to sit down with an expert programmer right now and spend the next few years developing a LHE bot, I have no doubt we could develop a better version of myself. And that's not even taking into account that bots never get tired or tilt (yes I do both of those).

I think Poker Stars has done a very good job of keeping bots out of their games, at least at LHE. I would be very surprised if there's a single bot playing mid/high stakes LHE right now. Bots are always something I've been on the lookout for since playing on UB and I feel like I'm good at recognizing them.

There's no guarantee it will remain this way of course. I don't really understand all the measures Poker Stars takes to prevent them and the counter-measures the programmers take to avoid detection. But I think there's always a risk that someone figures out a way to avoid detection and we'd see an influx of bots.

6) This is an easy one. Fix the non-randomized button issue. In my opinion this is the single biggest problem at mid/high stakes right now and it's completely inexcusable that Poker Stars hasn't fixed it.

It's what allows the Jama Dharma's of the world to operate and steal money from others. It's what's costing the regulars that don't start tables a fortune. And what's costing unsuspecting recreational players a fortune because they can never start a game with the button. This actually played into my decision to retire.

Wow, that's one heck of a compliment coming from you, thanks.

I didn't realize you were exclusively a HU player at one time. That makes sense though, I've railed several of your high stakes HU matches and you made quick work of just about every one of your opponents when I was watching.

Hmm, I'm probably going to regret this if I'm forced to play at some point but here goes.

First you're a very good player so keep that in mind with whatever else I have to say

I think you have a tendency to just kind of go on auto-pilot and make a lot of quick decisions without really thinking them through. What's interesting to me is that you'll rarely do this at any stakes over 30/60. It almost seemed to me like you lacked interest in the lower stakes games, maybe you weren't giving 100% effort. I don't know but there's a definite difference in your mid stakes game compared to high stakes.

I think generally you need to bluff a little bit more especially at lower stakes. I did notice some really creative bluffs in higher stakes games from time to time but rarely in the lower stakes games. Just overall though I think you could get away with bluffing more.

That's really all that jumps off the top of my head. You're one of the tougher regs in the games and it's pretty obvious that when you want to exert the mental effort, you can be extremely tough.

Having that heads up background is really valuable - I actually played primarily heads up for a few years before coming to Stars. If you're a successful HU player, then you have that ability to stay a step of your opponents and outguess them which is so beneficial when you're battling with other good regs. It's just a matter of understanding all the 6-max ranges as well as you understand HU ranges and your 6-max game is likely to be just as good.

Good luck with the SNE chase this year.

1. 2004 - 2014

1.) What are the main reasons from the beginning until now , so many new hands where added in our Preflop strategy. While way back they strongly believe
that only a few hands where profitable?
2.) I understand that we can change our preflop strategy based on conditions at the table, aggro players, coldcallers etc. You say we can never play perfect
preflop, yet in some posts you say hands are profitable based on large databases as default. What is wrong with my thinking, that every new hand dealt,
the only information we have about our opponents , is that they have random hands at that moment and we can use our profitable selected hands as default and move only up or down
based on specific conditions?
3.) I have doubts about pocket pairs, why do you use 55 as default from UTG, is your PF handselection again based on your large database? Do you ever play 44 UTG?
4.) Your UTG handrange example is different from the one in Stox book, why?
5.) UTG open - CO . We 3b IP vs these positions. Do we need an equity edge vs these positions if 3b, or do you think because we are IP this adds position equity and as a result we can lower our equity edge vs. their range. How low would you go, also we need to think about the blinds right?
6.) Almost a similair question but then for the SB, is here a equity edge more of a goal then IP? Or are there to many variables to consider when 3betting?
7.) Are you using multiple designed formats for preflop situations while playing, based on stats or vs. stats of players gathered over the years?
8.) I am from the Netherlands and always wondered about the impressive aggro loose canon Otterkopf. Why was his style so succesfull? I can think of some answers, but maybe you played with him to shine another light on it. Did his edge dissapeared when suddenly everyone started to play balanced(GTO)?
9. ) Solve poker for me

Again Gl Tony with your other adventures, with your skills nothing is out of reach.

-Johan-

Hi PJ,

There a lot of questions here and many of them I don't feel comfortable answering due to the legality issues of sports betting in the US. I do bet sports, I file taxes for my sports winnings/losses, but I don't want to get into many details outside of that.

Re: The choice to go to Playa Del Carmen over Rosarito

There wasn't much to this outside of it's where the American poker players seemed to be going at the time. There was the Vancouver/Playa Del Carmen/Jaco circuit that seemed to be the most popular destinations for US poker players so that's where I chose to go. I never really researched Rosarito but did quite a bit on Playa Del Carmen and it looked beautiful and like a lot of fun so I went - both those things were true.