I posted a couple of my essays a couple days ago in this well.

1. Raise and reraise a lot, thin value bets. I honestly don’t think I play that situation anywhere close to optimal. I do best in short handed aggressive games or HU, so full ring limpfests give me some trouble.

2. I love isoing with almost anything. Any time I can get the pot HU against weak limp call people, I feel pretty confident in my ability to win the vast majority of pots, and extract the most value when I do hit good hands. In general, I much rather iso with 56o than with KJo. I think you are right about the limp call frequencies with stuff like KQ or AJ, so the KJ type stuff just gets in a ton of trouble.

3. Possibly. I think I barrel too much in some situations and not nearly enough in others. Often, if you barrel off once and everyone sees it early on, you can just be a nit for the rest of the day and everyone will look you up light. Or just keep firing and make everyone mad, either way.

4. I think 100 gets 0 folds from the limpers. 150 is often enough to win the pot right there. In general I am happy to make it on the larger side, because I can either win the pot immediately or play for a bigger pot in position.

5. If someone opened to 3x, I would 10x on the button as my standard.

6. No, I am horrible at chess. I am going to try to become at least competent at some point though, I like playing. Tom never wanted to play me. He bet that he could beat a GM down a piece, so I found someone for him to play. I think he is better than me at chess.

Only when boxing.

I wouldn't get into poker today. Seems like everyone is pretty good and it has to be pretty difficult to move up. I rather do a lot of things with my time. I am not sure how hyped up the difference between 2006 and today is, but a current, good 1-2 NL reg would crush the 50-1 regs of 6 years ago (I think).

Di Dang

1. Write a lot. Read a lot. Find someone to edit your writing. I don’t think I am a particularly good writer yet, but I try to write often and always have good friends who are much better writers than me help edit my work.

2. I think you should learn how to play cash games. At the very worst it will help you in tournaments, and possibly even open up a new income stream. Cash games are way more fun too. I don’t know how long it would take, some people are uber nits in tourneys and have a lot of trouble adjusting to playing cash games, but some people pick it up pretty quick. Watch a lot of videos and talk about hands a lot with people, that’s my best advice for making the switch.

1. I am very new to all of this. For the most part I just invest money and talk with the people in charge about what is going on. When I have useful thoughts I give them, but for the most part I play a passive role. I make few if any decisions that are related to the day to day running of the companies. I am starting to get more involved with the energy company, but I am still a rank novice in just about every area, so I am mainly trying to learn as much as I can about the green energy world and business in general.

2. I am far from qualified to be giving advice, but I am trying to talk about it a lot with random people I meet, and have met some really interesting people doing really cool things so far. I am not really investing in these companies to get uber rich, but I think they are really cool ideas that I want to be a part of. If I get rich, that would be wonderful, but it is as much about the experience for me. There are probably much smarter things to do with money. I am a poker player, so don't listen to me about how to invest

Interesting. Could you elaborate on what you mean by "raise and reraise a lot?" Pre or post? I've always steered clear of 3betting the nits bc they hardly ever open so I often flat AK and QQ to a handful of players at the table. As for postflop, I generally approach their bets and raises with caution too as they seem to have such a narrow range for anything other than c/c. Maybe you could share an example to elucidate?

Cool! This is definitely a concept I don't think about enough. It kind of reminds me of seeing Tom play tons of junky hands on HSP. Do you think this line of thinking has anything to do with his pf hand selection in live tv games?

Thanks for the insight and quick response. Lol @ Tom vs the GM for 50k, even down a piece. Those dudes are sick and if you're significantly better at chess than someone, a piece doesn't mean all that much. That's why full information games aren't great to gamble on.

And you taught me a good lesson: taking the wrong end of a stake just wasn't worth the effort. I haven't been staked or staked anyone since!

But I appreciated the opportunity just the same.

this has still been very interesting, so thanks again for this.

what advice would you have post- Black Friday as far as staying on top of poker for those who want to? Play a lot of hands online even if it's microstakes? Try to play live as much as possible? just watch a bunch of videos instead?

Hey thanks for doing this,
What advice would you give a random 15 year old playing for fun, and studying poker, to become better by the time he's 18?

Thanks

hi, thx for your time on this

2 questions:

1) you reccomend taking shots.
if i play plo100 full buy in, and feel comfy, how do i benefit for, lets say taking a shot in 2-4 with a shortstack (120$), when i can win about the same amount of money when all in, and my only move with this stack is raise-push? this is especially in plo, when most all in's on the flop pots are basically flips.

2) do you think luck was a big factor for the guys who in a year or two made a 7 figure roll from a 50$ deposit?

i mean, i think most of us understand the game quite well, but to jump from a 50$ buy in game to be a millionare in such a short time is incredible. you need so much luck for your hands to hold so many times, your draws to hit for the win, for the kk vs. aj pot go in your favour in a mtt when 15 ppl are left and you bust for 200$ instead of the 5k$ 1st place.... it seems like you need to have a year or so that EVERYTING goes in your favour. im sorry for being a bitter donkey, i just dont think that studying hh, or doing more 3-bets (which both i did a lot) can make me a millionare (which im not lol)
do you agree?

1. I guess I meant isolate the nits a lot when they limp, and reraise the weaker aggro guys a lot. I flat a lot of the uber nit raises because they generally have nutter type hands. I am happy to call raises with 67o in position from them and just folding a lot to cbets if I don’t hit anything. These guys get tied to their big hands and don’t like to fold if they have an overpair or tptk since they wait around so long for a good hand. If you hit a janky 2 pair or something you can get a lot of value out of them, especially if you have a nuts image.

2. It has everything to do with it, though he takes it further than I normally would.

Not really sure. There are sites you can play on, but I certainly won't vouch for their safety. I watched a couple videos this semester but that's about it as far as keeping on top. Live can't hurt if that is an option, but many of us will have to move in order to play in any form. I am thinking about making the drive down to AC a few times this semester just to stay sharp (and I should probably try to find a safe game in NYC), but I actually think long breaks don't hurt me that much.

There are a number of 15-17 year olds that start playing before they turn 18. I won't recommend this, but it has happened before. I would just soak up poker knowledge, but also try to do well in high school and crush the standardized tests in case you decide you want to go the college route. Honestly, I can't imagine taking poker seriously enough to get really good if it is just for play money and I have no hope of turning it into something big.

1. There is usually a lot more dead money when you are playing the short stack game against a lot of people playing deep. I am not telling you what to do, I am telling you what works for me. I think you misinterpreted my post too. If there is a game that has 5 fish and you at 2-4, would you sit for 120 or would you sit for what you do best, 400? I recommend taking smart shots when you have a specific reason for playing in that specific game, not just firing up higher stakes and short stacking and praying.

2. Of course. I don’t really know anyone that did that though (I am sure there are some). It took me like 4 years of playing 40-80 hours per week to break a million. I never won a tournament. I grinded a ton for rakeback, worked my ass off to move up, kept taking shots and getting it shoved up my ass until I finally broke in to the bigger games. Of course everything has to work out awesome to go from 50 to a mil in 1 year, no one is saying otherwise. My taxes looked something like… 1st year 50k, 2nd year 220k, 3rd year 700k, 4th year 2m. I didn’t pay taxes when I was 16-17, but I probably made around 20k there.

You don’t have to apologize for being a bitter donkey. I don’t think studying hh or doing more 3bets will make you a millionaire either. Everyone can do those things, only a few people can do it really well. People ask me basic questions about how to improve in a live game with a lot of limps, and I give a basic answer about my strategy. People ask best to improve overall, I tell them to study hhs and figure out how to exploit players. You have to do these things, but you have to do a lot more than just these things.

favourite screen name you have ever seen?

Favourite book?

if you could study one area for the rest of your life including all the courses you have tried which would it be and why?

can you elaborate on this?

You're good friends with durrrr and I imagine you're good friends with the Cardrunner boys i.e. Cole South, Brian Townsend and Brian Hastings etc...

There is one particular situation i've always wanted to know your opinion on - when durrrr lost that massive chunk of his bankroll to isildur1 and then isildur1 lost it all to Brian Hastings - knowing Hastings cheated (shady actions at the very least) isildur1 out of his money and that Hastings never gave that kind of action back so the money was almost completly locked up - durrrr was never given a proper chance to win his money back after Hastings cheated isildur1 out of $4 million +

To my knowledge Durrrr has always been upset about this and with both of them being your friends, what are your thoughts on this?

1. It seems like poker has become one of many hobbies for you but you've not yet totally jumped away from it because it's still lucrative and, I would imagine, still pretty mentally stimulating at times. Do you have any remaining goals as a poker player, such as learning a new game or earning WSOP hardware?

2. How does your immediate family feel about your poker success?

3. Do you have any interest in Eastern spirituality?

4. What sites do you regularly visit? Any favorite blogs?

5. Do you think most very successful poker players are any happier than the average person?

6. Will PLO ever take off live? (i.e., at least 1/4 as many PLO tables regularly available as NLHE)

1. You said that preflop you liked to iso the fish with hands like 76o much more than KJ which can put you in difficult spots. Do you have an equivalent in PLO - disguised hands that you like to isolate with?

2. Why does Ziigmund crush online PLO?

3. Would the little community of high stakes players from the year 2000s be where they are now without Guy Laliberte?

Most ballin thing you've bought with your poker winnings?

Hope you adopt the same theory as OMG in his well when he said that well thought out answers will be met with well thought out response.
You've always been one of my favorite online guys (dont know you personally but just from reading your blog which needs to updated more for the good of close minded people and society). Now enough of the nut jocking.

1. You said earlier that you have become less happy since you were 18. I feel the same way and I always attributed it to being more aware of the world and like Socrates said "The more you know the more you realize you know nothing." Kind of a ignorance is bliss type of thing. In your opinion would you say this is true with you?

2. If you could have lunch with anyone in the history of the world who would you choose and why?

3. Studies have shown that the anticipation (sweat) of a reward (manies) is far more exciting when you arent sure you will recieve the reward than if you were recieving the reward 100% of the time i.e. gambling. As shown here by Dr Robert Salposky of Stanford http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2WEfkRx6Ow my question to you is in your opinion
are the cravings for dopamine directly correlated with success in poker. Meaning the good players want this feeling more and know (maybe subconsiously) to get this feeling they need to become good?

4. What are your thoughts on Ego and poker other than setting it aside while play?

5. In your opinion why are humans religious?

6. Why are above average poker players usually gamers? I know that the skills translate over well blah blah but what about it is in our nature to constantly be wanting to play some form of game? Stimulation maybe?

Do you have a wine cellar? How big? What's in it?

Tell Tom he's allowed to do a well and say no Full Tilt questions.

does it bug you that you are so tied to tom?

does it bug you that so many people ask you questions about him?

have you considered taking a psychedelic? if so what made you decide to take/not take some?