Tie53 was Lars right? Did he make this aware to you / did it take a while to figure out? How do you feel about his consistent MA'ing?

1. This depends on a lot of factors. Probably not though. Proven winner at small stakes doesn’t really equate to proven long term professional poker player. Decent job is not that common these days.

2. I didn’t invest ALL my money in startups, just a lot of it. If they all busto I will still be more than fine. I am currently in school, and will probably get an MBA after I finish as I don’t have a better plan for now. At some point I will definitely have a real job, though I doubt it will involve me filling out applications and applying like most people.

3. The list is probably longer than that, I am perhaps too free with my trust. I feel safest with those 4 though, but I would feel almost as safe with probably ~10 other people maybe more. I mean, this isn’t a situation I would ever be in, where I have to give all of my money to someone else to hold onto it, but if I did, I would feel pretty good about the safety of that money in a lot of hands. There are a lot of good people in the poker world.

4. I consider many of them to be true friends. I talk to only a handful of people daily that I don’t live in the immediate vicinity of, and they are all poker players.

5. I have 2 really good friends from high school I stay in touch with (though not often enough really). I have a handful of close friends from college in Texas that I will be friends with forever. The rest are mostly people I have met by way of poker, but may not play poker for a living anymore.

6. I can’t physically play poker right now. Some days I think about playing, but I don’t really mind that much. I was thinking about going to Macau after new year’s, but that seems unlikely now. PCA is a possibility, but it is more likely I just want to hang out with friends and relax. School this semester has been very stressful for me (probably not helping that I have spent 10+ hours doing this well instead of studying. Ooooops)

7. I wake up at like 7:30, take a shower, eat an apple, take my dog out to pee and poop. Come back in, make a protein shake, mess around on the internet for 30 minutes, brush my teeth, go to class. Spend most of the day at school, either in classes or at the library. Come home usually around 8 for dinner. Relax for the evening and repeat. Twice per week I try to get into the gym and do squats, once per week I play basketball with some friends downtown. I go out to dinner maybe once per week. I order a lot of sushi on seamless. I really don’t do a lot of ‘cool’ or ‘interesting’ things. I spend a lot of time studying, and the rest of the time trying to let my brain rest.

8. Not really, no. Sometimes boring, but certainly not mundane. I don’t love sitting in the library studying, but I am a part of a very intellectual community here and feel like I am bettering myself every day. I work very hard to improve myself, and while I may not love every moment of it, I enjoy the results of my work.

1. I read a lot of books on investing and real estate, but nothing that really floored me. Most of the stuff I read is linked to me by friends, and I read random blogs and forums. A friend just linked this to me, and it seems really interesting http://www.avc.com/

2. There are different types of adoptions. Closed adoptions mean you have zero connection to your birth parents. I could hire a private investigator to track them down or something (they could do the same I would imagine), but they did a closed adoption for a reason. I am sure they wonder what I am like, but it is likely they aren't together, have different families that may not know about me, etc. I don't want to go marching in on someone else's life like that to fulfill my curiosity.

Sooo glad that you went back to school and are doing great. I always thought that you, THE Alan Sass, Fiery Justice and Phil would do good things with their winnings/future, etc. Nicely done.

Do you still have your Silver Medal from the STTF HUC? (2005)

Also, didn't you and Durrr spend a jillion dollars at Walmart buying Halloween costumes? That story needs re-telling me thinks.

Thanks for the well.

I feel like I have too much responsibility to just take off for 3-6 months for little reason other than 'I need to do it for me.' I have a dog, a girlfriend, people I care about here, things I want to get involved in, etc. I don't have a great reason. I am probably a little scared to do it. I know something like that would be a life changing experience, but on some levels I am afraid. Of what, I am not sure, but I think fear of being outside my little bubble is a part of it. Most of this is just excuses though. It is possible that I make it happen, but over the next few years I am pretty booked on time and other goals.

1. How big of a part did poker (and the success you've had in it) play in your college applications?

2. Have you ever valued real life things in terms of buy-ins?

3. Was your family 100% supportive back when you told them you would play fulltime? Or were they at least skeptical?

4. Would you have taken the isildur1 challenge on PS?

1. I applied to something like 11 schools. I got rejected at Harvard, Stanford, and Georgetown. I got into Penn, Brown, Chicago, Rice. I actually didn’t check in on any other schools after I got my acceptance at Columbia. I had no idea who would take a weird classics studying ex poker player so I tried to spread it around. My grades were pretty good and my tests scores were very good, but nothing out of the ordinary for the caliber of schools I applied to.

2. I almost never tell random people I play poker for a living. I always said I was a real estate investor, which was true, just not the whole story obviously. I wanted the red pro deal for the financial implications. I liked knowing that if I went busto, I could make 200 an hour breaking even off rakeback and hourly pay from FTP. I don’t really care if what I do seems legitimate to my close friends and family, they trust in my ability to make decisions and won’t judge me if they disagree with them. The degree is for me, for my future kids, for probably a lot of other reasons that are silly.

3. The kids I have met are almost universally VERY smart. Like, a lot of kids just make me feel stupid, and this wasn’t a very common experience for me before transferring here. The backgrounds are all over the place. Some very rich kids, some not so rich kids. I think most of the kids worked pretty hard to get here, I am probably in the middle of the pack

have you had any poker students? if no why not (i'm sure you've had requests) and if yes did you feel like it was a mutually beneficial experience?

is it possible for a human being who's not a psychopath to completely 100% dissociate his emotions from his results?

what percentage of successful highstakes players do you think are essentially very smart/talented degenerates?

I was quite excited about your foolproof plan for me and Micro to cash you out if you booked a big win. But in terms of a "life lesson" I have to say this is one of the more exciting memories I have from my past and always made me feel more "ok" with not being the huge degen everyone else seemed to be the next couple of years.

But this did lead to you demanding (and getting ldo) a free room at the Wynn and Alan and me sharing a bed iirc. Good times, lol.

I'm a bit surprised these would rank as your most degen moments. But, of course, you only got more mature, more money, and wiser after this point, .

1) Was this during the same visit with that big dude who you kept baiting and we all thought you were crazy enough that you might get into an actual fight?

2) Was this because of the amount or because everyone you knew who had some idea about chess told you that the chance of losing the bet was extremely minimal?

I'm going to ask a few real questions too but before that, great well. I've always tried to make it clear (to people who know who you are and get all excited that I used to hang out with you) that the fact you were/became a tremendous poker player was never the awesome part of you. It's your charisma and the way you approach activities/ideas that's the cool part. /nuthugging

3) Also, have you tried the Prince of Nothing series or the Malazan Books of the Fallen? They are darker, but man they are also good series I've read in the last couple of years (along with everything you mentioned ofc).

4) Have you watched Game of Thrones? I'm surprised that's not on your TV list

5) How annoying is it being a famous (albeit in a niche area) and well-known poker player at this point? Does it ever seem like you are a celeb and too many ppl are asking you annoying stuff, getting up in your biz too much?

6) How has your view of "being happy" changed in the last, let's say, 5 years? What has changed the most: the type of your biggest priorities, the mechanisms behind your priorities, the way you're emotionally/mentally tethered to or see the world (due to new experiences)?

7) If you could insta-plug something you felt was a life leak, what would it be? Would you go for something very straightforward like "never cheat on my meal plan for the day" or go for something very complex and vague like "be more at peace with how I evaluate myself"?

I am like 98% sure this was him. It didn't take all that long to figure out.

In Europe, the attitude towards multiaccounting is a lot different than in the US. They don't see it as a big deal at all, and he did not tell me it was him. I don't really care if people multiaccount, doesn't change a whole lot for me personally. I think people make a really big deal about it in the US because people like making a really big deal about a lot of things that aren't that big of a deal.

Before it was taboo (get the ropes and fire ready), pretty much everyone I know in poker multiaccounted. I did it back in 04-05 to get an extra few rakeback % from party/empire/eurobet. I wasn't trying to gain some edge on my opponents playing as a sneaky name to steal their gold. That said, I think it would be super shady if I made a new account and acted like a fish and started playing all my friends without telling them. I think this is cheating and a deplorable thing in general to do.

1. I never got rid of it, but it is probably stuffed in a drawer or closet somewhere. I don't actually know where it is.

2. I didn't. I bought a harry potter costume for like 20 bucks. Tom bought like 20 gold necklaces or something though. There is a picture floating around somewhere that gets posted a lot. We had a pretty fun group together for that. Phil was a candy fairy.

1. I think it had a large impact. If I didn’t have poker to talk about, I would be just another student with decent grades, and they have about a million of those to go through. Poker helped me stand out, and that is a good thing for college apps. All of my admissions essays were about poker in some way, what it helped me learn about life, dealing with loss, whatever.

2. Yep. Earlier in my career I did this with almost everything. Now I do it close to never.

3. My mom is an academic and my dad was a 25 year military guy. To say they were unsupportive would be a pretty gross understatement. It took about a year for them to come around.

4. Yea definitely.

1. No formal students. I often help out people that are lower stakes guys that I am friends with, but I haven’t done any formal coaching. It isn’t worth my time financially to do the way I would want to do it. I could sit back and charge 1k an hour for lessons, but I don’t think I would feel very good about that.

2. I have no idea, I certainly can’t do it.

3. Probably a decent amount, maybe like 25-30, possibly much higher.

I’m glad you benefited from my degeneracy ☺. I am glad I didn’t really ever do anything more degen than this.

1. I think so, shaved head dude with lots of tats? Yea he was pissed

2. I felt bad because he was pretty much 0% to win. When I made the bet I was like 85% confident, but after talking to people I was 99%. Tom was probably 85%+ confident as well though. I still felt bad, too much money to bet with a friend imo. Luckily we staked some ppl that ran really well that summer so it was easy to just pull out of the staking fund.

3. I have not. I have heard great things about malazan, but don’t really have time to get into that series right now. I will look up Prince of Nothing, thanks for the tip!

4. I think the show is garbage compared to the books. It is rushed and leaves a lot of important stuff out. Ok, not garbage, it could just be so much better if each episode was 10 minutes longer.

5. I don’t think I am very famous. I have some internet notoriety in a super niche area, but I have only ever been stopped on the street once. I don’t have issues with people in my business.

6. I don’t honestly know what changed. I used to be a lot more hedonistic that’s for sure. My priorities are way different obviously, I thought school was a joke 5 years ago. I think I actually got less and less happy over the last few years, and it started becoming necessary to take an active role in my own happiness. This is a good question that I don’t feel like I can answer particularly well right now, we can gchat about it sometime.

7. Lol, both of those options sound pretty sweet. I think it would be great if I could make a plan and not deviate from it. That includes meals, but also stuff like studying. I try to make a list of things to accomplish for the day and very rarely complete everything on that list.

Also, I am with Mike Graves right now he says hi! We are going to see Curtains help launch some chess reality tv show on Friday, seems like something you would be interested in.

Views on the Ship it holla ballas?

Who were the funniest young/degen poker players / ballas (small story would be appreciated)

Have you ever played Phil Ivey online hu?

Thx

What would the online poker landscape look like right now (er pre-Black Friday I guess) if durrrr never existed or never played poker? Do you think you'd still be roughly as successful? If not how much dropoff do you think there would be?

1. I always thought it was a bit silly and didn't want to be involved.

2. Andrew Robl used to be pretty nuts. Finding stories about his earlier days shouldn't be too tough. Tom and CTS streaked through a Denny's once in Canada, that was pretty funny.

3. Yep.

It probably would look pretty similar. He is a big part of it, but it's not like the poker would would collapse without Durrrrr. He was a big part of my learning process, but I had a lot of close friends other than him that I learned a lot about poker from. I still would have been good friends with Phil, Hac, Z, etc, and honestly I didn't really start making a ton of money until after I stopped living with Tom. It's very possible that I would be less successful though, I really am not sure.

Awesome.

Btw Mike should do a well. No one would care (they should though) but of everyone I know from 2p2 seems he extremely efficiently made poker work for him in his life without it ever really being his life (my impression anyway). Of course, he probably thinks he was super consumed and then balanced his life out like everyone else, but, he always fooled me pretty genuinely!

Hope you get to see Curtains CRUSH the reality show, .

Maybe it's just me, but why the hell do you shower and chill for like an hour before brushing your teeth?

rank yourself/durrr/galfond/hac/z 1-5 at who would be toughest to beat in a physical street fight

I think it is weird to brush teeth before eating breakfast.

Lol. Me hac z phil tom.

Nice...#1 on list of wells I'd like to see. Great job so far.

We seem to have pretty similar goals. I am half assed trying to learn chinese using rosetta stone (will prob get online/live tutor as well if I decide to stay with it, I def need way more work w/ pronunciation/tones/reading+writing chars). I have also been thinking about getting back into some programming stuff..did 1 class in college and have done various minor stuff since high school but never a lot of formal training. I think it's a really valuable skill to learn while still young.

Couple questions: I know there are tons of benefits to learning chinese (or any language) apart from possible future jobs/opportunites in business+stocks etc, however that was definitely one of the reasons I have been thinking about getting serious w/ it vs. other languages (Also huge chinese population where I am was a very big factor). Not sure if you have any thoughts, but by the time I'm reasonably fluent I feel like translation software could possibly catch up to me fairly quickly....reducing the economic value of learning the language. Any thoughts?

Also, have you ever gone through an entire course w/ OCW? I find that I have a hard time staying focused through an entire semester (or even like...1/4 of a semester haha) I find I am a pretty good distance learner and I love learning at my own pace, but for things that I don't absolutely love I lose motivation pretty fast if I dont have a classroom/teacher. Another reason I was thinking of a chinese tutor/enrolling in college again to take a couple classes I have previously tried to take via OCW.

Dunking a basketball is so hard. Lost a prop bet on this already, got a little above the rim but never did enough plyos imo. Still something Id love to be able to do but it is a ton of work and since Ive been working out again I have mainly been doing more energy systems stuff and playing a lot of squash (great cardio, ez to get a game w/ just two ppl which is nice as we get older ) I liked being "strong" (very loosely used) but I find I have had more life/health benefits this way (Mental related stuff is going up instead of down, less nagging injuries, less tired when playing sports etc) Obv some balance is best but I never realized that a couple years ago

Thanks for doin the well, hope all is well with you!

-Mike

I've read most of the thread and hope this hasn't already been asked. You used to (If I remember correctly) be very anti-huds and explained that none of the high stakes guys you knew felt the need to use them. Have you had a change of heart with regards to using them in today's games or would you still not use one if you were playing regularly now?