Never really thought about it like that. In general I don't consider myself very structured or organized. I am kind of all over the place and have had to learn how to organize myself over the last few years in order to maximize efficiency. I probably picked up a lot of stuff I don't really think about from them though.

My boxing coach would say this to me. Train really hard, work your ass off in practice. Come fight night, 3-5 rounds is a piece of cake (so is a quick KO). This is applicable to so many things in life.

Sorry, really trying to get all of them, sometimes I miss a couple in there.

1. Probably 80 total hours of work before my first chinese test. That includes learning the vocab, doing homeworks, figuring out how the hell to recognize characters, etc.

2. Fried tastes a lot better, but I eat more grilled.

3. I don't really 'party', I am pretty boring. I like going out to dinner though with my v close friends. If I had to go to a club or something, Tom usually blows a lot of money on nice tables, but I usually have more fun if I go out with 1 other person, get drinks at the bar, and meet new people (this was more of a single life kinda thing).

I think I do 4 6m without missing a step, 6 I probably slow down very slightly but not much. 8 probably a little bit more but it still feels very easy. 12 starts to get tough, 16 I time out once per hour, 20 I time out like 5 times per hour.

HU I have done 12 before, but it was really hard. I feel pretty uncomfortable playing different people at the same time HU, I tend to miss a ton of stuff. If it is the same person I can 6 table no problem, 8 is a little dicey but don't generally have issues with it. I have an easier time 8 tabling the same person than 3 tabling 3 different people.

In general I don't play a ton of tables unless I am playing pretty low stakes, and at that point the rakeback benefits kick in so it makes sense to sacrifice a little skill for the hourly in RB and added hands.

1. Stout beers. Crown and coke.

2. I think I am usually the happiest at Del Frisco's with my good friends. If you mean like, city or something, NY is pretty sweet. I like being home with my family though too, so I am kinda all over the place on this one.

3. dullz? I dno don't play out of position in big pots. Easy to get crushed that way.

In general, I always had a lot more money than was in my poker account, but I used my poker account as my 'bankroll' because I never wanted to reload. I could have 500k in the bank but feel like I was taking a 25-50 shot because I only had like 50k in my poker account. I like your suggestion, if you have 10 buyins it is ok to take a shot and move down if you lose a buyin or 2.

In general I am pretty cautious. Durrrr is a different animal and what he does clearly works for him, but I would go crazy if I did some of the stuff he did. I advocate smart aggro bankroll management. If you have no reason to play in the bigger game other than you want to try to run it up, you probably shouldn't be playing. I would always sit in a bigger game if there was a big fish or something, but if I lost I wouldn't keep firing in barrels because it is a 'good' game. The 5k-10k or whatever PLO game in Macau could be the best game ever, but if I get stacked a few times I am straight up broke, so it isn't really worth playing (arguably selling pieces makes this worth it).

Also, if you play a lot of like, 5-10 or something but aren't comfortable with playing 10-20, sell off 25% and make it effectively 7.5-15 until you get comfortable. Most of the time people will reciprocate pieces too, so u can swap 25 and get 25 back from them if they play some time later. It works out to being about the same money and lower variance, so something to think about assuming you have friends that are good / you can trust.

I almost always have a small % out to a friend because it keeps me playing my best, knowing if I do something stupid I am losing my friend money and not just being a masochist. I have never had less than 50% though, I think that could impact my play as well. I like having around 75% when I play 200-400ish and 60% when playing 500-1k. It keeps me on my A game and I worry about the dollars less.

As a side note, if my physics experience has anything to say about poker, this won't be enough. People will benefit greatly from explicitly identifying mistakes they're making in actual hands. Physics education research shows that (one of) the best way(s) to do this is to make people explicitly say "I did thing X for reason Y" before you explain to them that they've misapplied/misunderstood something. If you don't make them explain what they're doing before you explain why it's wrong, your explanation just won't stick.

In that case, I'm really curious: how many important fundamental concepts do you think there in low/mid/high stakes poker?

I'd say that the first semester of college physics has maybe ten actual concepts (two conservation laws, two of Newton's laws, three laws of thermodynamics, and superposition, maybe 1-2 other fundamental things). I could write them down completely on a notecard. The bulk of the work is in figuring out what those concepts actually mean by knowing how and when to apply them.

I'd imagine that a non-expert like me sees poker (or, at least, poker at the stakes I play) as significantly more complicated than it actually is, while someone like you see things more clearly because you've distilled it down to the fundamental concepts and figured out how to apply them.

Yeah, that's a large part of why I looked for jobs at smaller schools. I think I actually have the idea to do some of that here .

Hey Raptor, this is pretty swell.

Have you ever had any problems with tilt throughout your career and if not how have you managed to keep your head clear?

Do you ever implement stop losses in hu games?

Have you ever wondered if any girls you have dated might not have dated you had you not of had the notoriety/money you have?
If so would that concern you?

(Not sure if this has been entirely covered.) Rank the factors you think are most essential for poker success in priority:

1. Luck
2. Intelligence
3. Emotional control/tilt management
4. Natural poker ability
5. Study
6. Bankroll Management / game selection
7. Other circumstances such as being in the right place at the right time (eg. getting HU with a massive fish) but that might go into #1.
8. Anything else i've missed out.

ps. Just a bit of constructive criticism....in post #105 you wrote "Use that to segway into the Java course at school." It's "segue", just to save you writing it in an essay or something academic at some point in time.

Excellent post, I should have clarified what I meant a little better.

1. "I did x for reason y" is one of the most important ways to break down poker. When I mentioned that I talk about the approach instead of the actual hands, this is what I meant. In some of my earlier posts in this well I mention how important it is to always have a reason for each play you make. One of the things I tell struggling people to do is to cut down the number of tables and start thinking about each decision. Don't just make a play because you always make the play. Make the play because it is right for a specific reason in this specific instance.

2. I have no idea. I probably oversimplify things a lot.

3. This is an excellent point. I never had cardrunners or anything, and a lot of what I learned how to do I learned by experimenting. I would pick up things from watching Tom play, or one of the better regs in the big NL games, and try to work those into my own game. I would try to figure out WHY they worked. I tried to think about how I would react to someone doing that to me. I would try to think about how I could exploit that play, what I could do to really punish it and stop getting ownd by it. I agree that poker probably seems overwhelming at first. There are a billion different things you can do every hand, and it is often hard to know which option is the best. Even the best players disagree on the best play most of the time in complicated hands. It really does take an enormous amount of hours to get comfortable with all the different situations that can come up. There aren't any shortcuts as far as I can tell.

1. Not really. I used to bang on my table sometimes if I lost a big hand, but I think I have always been pretty good about separating my reactions from my ability to think.

2. Not really. Sometimes I just feel like I am getting crushed and quit, but I don’t have a set number of buyins usually unless I am playing massive. When I was playing Ivey a bit I would use a 2 buyin stoploss, but he did the same thing so it was kind of annoying, heh.

3. I haven’t dated that many people. I have been in 2 long term relationships since I started playing poker that have taken up ~6 years. The first time around I didn’t have much poker money. The second time around poker didn’t come up until we were already pretty crazy about each other. It would definitely bother me if I was with a gold digger.

3 6 7 5 2 1 4. This is the best I can do, probably would change if given 24 hrs and had to do it over again. I think emotional control is super important, though that is pretty close to bankroll management as far as I can tell. Right place at right time is huge, I was 18 and didn't have any responsibilities. Made things easy. All of these things are pretty important really.

Thanks for the heads up about segue

If we took the best HUNL player around at the moment and the best HUNL player from 5 years in the future what sort of edge do you think the future guy would have? (basically is there still a lot of room for improvement of do you think its pretty much reached its peak now)

What are you opinions on bots and how harmful they are to online games? How could they best be prevented?

Few more questions, it wouldnt let me edit my original post.

Are there any particular hand histories you can remember which blew your mind? I remember seeing some nosebleed hands where i 'got it' up to a certain point but then it got 3 and 4 bet on the river and the winning hand was like the 50th nuts and its just like wow.

Do you change your play style when playing a reg or a fish HU? For example you're sat at $100/200hu and a random fish joins you instead of a highstakes reg. Do you try to minimise variance with the fish by not 4 betting 1010 preflop because you fear he will hit and run if he wins the pot?

Are there any spots where you feel like you're imbalanced HU? I'm a midstakes HU reg and sometimes i get in a spot where there has been a ton of action on the flop and turn and i know im only 3 bet shoving the river with nuts. Do you think this is a leak? Do you make the effort to be balanced by shipping in certain spots that come up rarely?

Newfys are my fav dog. When I settle down in one place for a while, I plan on getting one. They are not the ideal city dog, you ever have problems with that? Any other big problems? I'd imagine he/she sheds a lot, is that unbearable at times? More pics if possible please! Great well.

I think she is an awesome city dog. Newfs don't need a ton of exercise, and they generally just lay around a lot inside. Shedding is an issue, a couple times a year she blows her coat and the apartment turns into a hair palace, but it is just a minor annoyance. She drools a lot sometimes when she is playing with other dogs, but that kinda stuff doesn't really bother me. She is a great dog.

1. I have no idea really. 5 years ago most current good 1-2 HUNL guys would crush the best HUNL guys. 5 years from now, I don't know if it will be the same, certainly people will be better though.

2. Bots have never really had an effect on me afaik. I would imagine they suck a ton of money out of the poker economy so it s definitely an issue. I am not technically sophisticated enough to know what could be done to stop them.

1. I’m sure there are some, but I can see the logic behind most any play. Very few hands I look at and am completely floored about what the winner was thinking.

2. I always vary my play depending on my opponent. It is hart to optimize against opponents if you have a consistent strategy and don’t deviate from it at all. If the fish is a nutcase I am happy getting in TT, if he is a nit, probably should avoid it.

3. You people are crazy. I don’t get in 4 bet bluff wars unless I play Genius28. He just has that effect on me. There are certainly exploitable things about my play, but as long as people aren’t really taking advantage of it, it doesn’t matter. Playing unexploitably is pretty far from playing in a way that maximizes profit. It is unexploitable to open shove AA pre flop, but it is more +ev to open for 3x or whatever (obviously this is an extreme example). Any time you are playing in a way that exploits the opponent, you are making a play that in itself is exploitable. As long as that person doesn’t realize this at the time, it doesn’t matter that your play is exploitable.

i just had to say what a great read ive only been around poker a couple of years so i didnt know who you are, but it seems your quite the legend so i wish you alll the luck in the world on your new endevours.
If you new what you know now would you do the same to get were you are or would you go a different route?

thanks a lot for doing this. i really respect your ability to quit poker after making such significant amounts of money and pursuing something of higher interest (while definitely sacrificing some major ev). always been a fan, one of my first xbl tags was hollataballa heh. best of luck with everything.

not sure if you've heard but bodog (now bovada) implemented completely anonymous tables. if you were to play on these tables, what immediate adjustments do you think you would make? you can't even keep notes on players at your table while you play with them, and also ratholing is not preventable, so you can sit up and instantly sit back down with whatever amount you want (and you can't tell it was the same person) - so it's very, very hard to get solid reads.

throughout this thread you've explained how you are a strat/feel player and that bet sizing/timing tells were what you went on. can you expand on this a bit (maybe a sizing example or timing example) and relate it to how you would put it to best use at these anonymous tables. or just any advice on how you would approach and go about maximizing your profits at anonymous tables. mostly curious for 6max nl games (mid stakes)

kinda OT, but these tables aren't actually anonymous. the software is implemented terribly and is trivially easy to hack: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...hread-1135471/

thx ike, i've been keeping up with it all and while it's definitely sketchy and concerning, i'm not that worried about players creating a new handgrabber, making the script/hack kyle did, starting a database of the account #'s, somehow link them all up into tracking software and get a hud going, etc. kyle himself did none of this besides exposing the account #'s (which bodog claims they have fixed now) maybe i'm just naive but at this point i'm not worried about people actually creating databases and having huds working to gain an unfair advantage over me.

with that said i'm not keeping a significant amount on there anymore and am strongly considering moving all of my play elsewhere. besides the security issues the most annoying thing for me is the ridiculous amount of bugs/glitches and the ratholing that is going on now (you can sit up and instantly sit back down with 30-100bb). the other thing was just make sure you have a really strong password, as the bodog site doesn't have good false login preventative measures. /sry to derail

Hey Raptor, thanks for doing this. I'm a big fan of yours and have followed your career for a while even though I'm new to twoplustwo.

I decided to watch your nets vs vets episode again after you started this well and was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your thought process on the river in the hand with doyle where you had trip sixes and he made it 40k more when the jack hit and he made two pair.

Awesome well bro! You studying at Colombia is very inspiring to self improve for myself in that area. I noticed some of the top schools post free lectures/videos online, going to try some out.

1. Del frisco bread > all other restaurant bread?

2. Best piece of meat you ever had? Where?

3. Favorite red wine to stock up for the house?

4. Any start up ideas of your own?

5. After school is finished, do you still want to live in nyc?

6. Whats top 5 on your bucket list?

7. If coming to nyc for 3 nights, what 3 places to try out for dinner if with a group of 4-5?

thx for clarifying what exactly ur dog uses to do in the morning


j/k, great thread, great attitude, love it when theres a reason to check 2+2 these days!