hey clemme,

he didn't say i was q's brother. which is good news, because otherwise my mancrush would also be incestuous...

gl in your quest for your last few vpps!

-rudder1ess

Hey Rudder1ess

I am not sure what "my mancrush would also be incestuous..." means. My english is not that good! But I have an idea it was some kind of a joke? :-)

Thx bro. I guess you are also an Elite like all the other bad boys? Gl to you too...

/Clemme

nice well buddy, good luck at the tables

2wizard: What are your thoughts/feelings about LOST's finale?

2Clemme:
Man crush = when one man kinda idolising another man (in a "straight" way I guess). I am sure that word "incest" doesn't rly need an explanation. So the joke is if R were Q's bro, *finish joke by yourself*

Thx Goblet.

By the way Rudder1ess. Sry. I missread Kevins answer earlier in this post. I meant Nutpopper not you.

Think again

What do you mean by that halsted?

It's always a difficult situation, and I regretfully say I'm not close to mastering it. But I can say I have had success from time to time interjecting positive thoughts during these moments of chaos, thoughts of the big picture, why I grind the way I do, my 'motivation desktop folder' as mentioned in my blog, and these techniques often help me regain focus on playing my best through all forms of adversity.

It's always difficult to maintain focus when variance is slapping you around, and I believe it's the culprit to my winrate tanking often. It's something I'm continuously trying to improve upon throughout this year, but I still have a lot to learn (remember I'm relatively new to grinding massive volume, this is only my second year as a SNE.) Guys like Andrew Boccia have been SNE since the inception of the VIP program, and in my opinion appear to be as solid as a rock in during durations of unfavorable variance and would probably be better equipped for answering such a question.


1. Well, this is such a broad question that I don't think I could come close to giving an accurate answer. There are many successful players at these levels, and clearly as you move up the skilled opponent makes up a larger percentage of the overall population. I don't think I should even begin to wrap my brain around what I would believe to be an accurate percent at each stakes because I'd probably have an aneurysm of the brain and still not get any closer to giving an accurate response.

2. I have an accountant. It's still a pain in the ass even when you have an accountant. But you gotta do it or you'll have sleepless nights wondering if big brother, the biggest mobster the world has ever known, will come knocking down your door for his money + juice and threats of confining you to a barred concrete cage for the remainder of your youth.

3. I don't know much about Moon, he seemed like a humble guy at the '09 WSOP, so I don't see any problems hanging out with him, unless there is something I don't know about.. like he has a strong sexual appetite for young white males...? Not a chance in hell I'd voluntarily hang out with Hellmuth or Tony G, but if I had to choose between them I'd probably go with Tony because he'd be easier to Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to the head.

4. Daily.. but 99.9% of the time it's my girlfriend.

5. No, the trash talk drops off significantly as you move up in stakes. However, sometimes tempers flare at the high stakes and people make snide comments. I've been on the receiving end a few times this year, and I'd be lying if I didn't get frustrated and leave a sarcastic comment or two throughout the year. I usually feel guilty/immature later for doing it and wish I could take it back, but it happens sometimes in environments of intense competition.. we're emotional beings.

6. Real big on my lower back like a 'tramp stamp'

7. No, I whip out the long stack for strip poker... ZING!!


No way, rake is not my friend. Sure lower variance would be great, but edges are much smaller than they use to be, can't afford to be dumping twice the rake.


Personally, I didn't suffer from what I'd call a lack of motivation once throughout the year. I do have varying levels of motivation, but all are what I'd consider high. As I've mentioned before, I have the desktop folder filled with reminders of everything I have, want, and love.. representations of the reasons I push myself toward my goal. The more I can keep these things on my mind, the better. I ruminate on the at the end of each of my breaks before I begin the next session so that they are fresh in my mind.

As far as health is concerned however, much of this is out of my control. There are days when I'm forced to take more frequent breaks and get more rest. I keep a detailed log of my VPP pursuit and have quantitative evidence of just how far above or behind pace I am at any point in the year. It's clear that I set lofty goals, so usually I'm playing catch-up throughout the year. In order to make up ground from 'sick days', I usually make a game out of shaving time off my breaks/daily routines and experimenting with ways to get more hands/vpp's in to make up that ground, and I do this for as many days as I can until I'm back on pace. You'd be surprised how much time you waste throughout the day, even when you think you're already being efficient. Eliminate those things that aren't as important as your poker pursuit.. it's all about priorities.


1. Quix is a golden god. I haven't faced another player in my years that plays better from the blinds. Plain and simple his blind defense is better than any other player out there imo.. he's solid, tricky, and relentless. If you can crush the blinds like this man, then you crush the game.

2. Yes, his younger brother. I spoke to Nut about it last year.

3. Because Quix and his brother Nut are from Madison, and apparently they had no problem teaching family and friends (i.e. camptheblunt, misttheflop, etc). But if you're an outsider wanting a piece of the action, don't hold your breath because they do not offer coaching to the public.

4. Nope. I'm AIM friends with several successful shortstackers, but we've never once discussed strategy.

5. I'm not close friends with any of the regs, my only interactions with them are on instant messenger on occasion and I've never met any of them in person. In my experience they've all been likable guys though.

6. Haha, I'd love a Guinness more than you'd know, I haven't had a beer in a year. I really want to go to PCA but I'm going to have to wait and see if my health gets any better. Right now I'm not doing well enough to travel, but I have high hopes because I've seen steady increases over the last two weeks.. so I'm feeling optimistic. I'll definitely let you know , sir.

7. For health reasons, travelling is incredibly hard on the immune system. Usually by the time I make it to the event I'm feeling so run down that I can't focus.. and by the end of the day 1 I'm complete garbage. When I wake up for Day 2 it feels like I have a terrible hangover (even though I didn't drink). I'm clearly at a severe disadvantage because of this. But as I said before, I'm doing everything I can to get healthy again, and once I do, I plan on travelling and playing live several times a year... I'd love the experience. If you're healthy and able to travel, please don't take it for granted.. enjoy every moment.

8. Since I broke the record in October, I have been focusing much more on getting healthy. And as I've continued to get healthier, I've been able to think much clearer (not playing when my body is starved for sleep and aching so badly that it's a distraction). I've dropped down in tables simply for the fact that 24 tables generally do not run between $5/10, $10/20, and $25/50. And I've been doing quite well... $50k in the last two weeks at the tables (not including rakeback.) =)

9. When I'm peeing in a jug I have some trouble focusing on the tables and generally give up on hands easier, that's the best time to bluff me.

10. There are a few regs out there that have some exploitable leaks, but that population of players continues to shrink at such a rate that by the time I could even type out their name they wouldn't be considered bad SS'ers anymore.. yep.. it's too late.. I might as well save my breath!

#9 could definitely be a "leak"!

Hey Kevin

Thank you so much. Great answers. You have my deepest respect after I have read this whole well You seem like a really intelligent guy.

I do have some more questions. They are about SNE. I hope you don't mind answering them as well.

1) What two options did you pick when reaching SNE and why?
2) I know it's possible to divide your WCOOP ticket into smaller WCOOP events! Did you do that?
3) Is there any tips or tricks i should know of when I reach my first SNE in a week or so?


Get well soon Kev. GL all the way!

/Clemme

Hi there! thanks for the well, very intructional and motivational. Saw you run 3 gpus for all your monitors.. why don't you check out the new ati/amd cards, up to 6 displays from 1 card, im currently using 3 monitors its great! less heat less noise etc...





Just 1 question, what do you think is/are the biggest leaks mid stakes regs have?

if i stop cursing at the ss'ers in my games do you think they'll re-shove light less often? not a question about what you would do, but i play 50-100nl so i assume they're more likely than you to be impulsive.

lol, nice. I'll set 'em up, you knock 'em out.


1. The first time I achieved SNE I chose the PCA and the $10k in cash. My very first choice was PCA 2010, but after I went and realized just how demanding it was on my health, I selected my second choice as the $10k bonus, because I knew I wouldn't be able to travel any time soon until I was healthy again. When I got SNE again earlier this year, I chose both $10k bonuses (one of them being the money for the WSOP which I did not attend), because I was grinding for the record and didn't have time to travel this year, and as I stated before I haven't been healthy enough to do so anyway.

2. Yes, I divided the ticket into 10 separate events. I enjoy HU and shorthanded much more than full ring. Therefore I divided the $5200 ticket into $5230 worth of smaller short handed events. To be honest however, I would have used the entire $5k ticket for a $5k shorthanded event if it were offered, but the largest shorthanded event offered this year was $500 (aside from the $25k HU highroller event.)

3. Tip #1, celebrate.. you've earned it! As for a second tip, nothing really comes to mind at the moment. I always wondered if it made much of a difference if you displayed your black stars around your avatar while playing. I never did because I was afraid it would deter action from fish.. but who knows if it makes a difference at all. Guys like nanonoko rock the Stars and a red pro spade and a picture which are all hardly subtle for flying under the radar and most of these guys appear to be doing just fine, so it probably doesn't matter all that much.


Oh cool, I didn't even know those cards existed. I'll check them out, thanks for letting me know.

Six months to a year ago the answer would have easily been that they do not play back enough against SB steals... but now that is hardly the case.. if anything several of them are playing back TOO much now.

Most of the midstakes regs are quite solid these days and don't have a single common leak amongst them that I could generalize across the population. Most of them have a small leak or two here or there, but like I said, no real commonality that I can address.


I'm not sure if they'll re-shove any less, but when they do I'd imagine your hands will hold up a little bit better in the long run now. There is no disadvantage to having a little extra good karma on your side.

Awesome Kev and thx once again. Your answers are highly appriciated.

First of all: About hiding the Stars. Every SNE seems to do it accept for Chisness, Pokerpoopy and Nano. I don't know if it matters that much as you say, but afterall it is a tiny tell. Like hiding yourself from search. Don't give away free information right? Afterall. The stars is just a sign of how much you play, but I guess it might scare some fish away...I dunno.

So you can get a total of $20.000 when you reach SNE? Just tell them you want the $10K and the WSOP? Cause you don't have to go to Vegas right?
Cool thing about the WCOOP. That's nice.

By the way. Please put updates of your health situation in the future if you feel for it. A lot of the guys here would like to know if you've gotten any better

/Clemme

got some questions for u aswell wiz, sry if they already have been asked

1. since poker is the most boring and annoying game i can imagine, i cant understand how anyone can play as much as you do so i wonder if making money is your main motivation and if yes do u need alot of money for your medical treatment?

2. did u make this well to increase your chances becoming an online pro?

cheers brokerface

Yep, you just tell them that. The first $10k will get credited to your account quickly, but the $10k for the WSOP won't get credited until around April or May.

Hopefully I'll have plenty of good health updates soon!


1. I've always enjoyed poker, like I mentioned earlier, back in 1999 when it started playing online, I was playing a ridiculous amount of hours just so I could top the leaderboard and get the silly pokerroom.com t-shirt.. and I was playing FULL RING LIMIT hold'em for PLAY MONEY for hours on end.. how absurd is that.

My motivation to break the VPP record can be prioritized in the following order:
- Money.
- Self worth.
- Challenge.

Yes, my medical expenses are quite high, but you still have to have a passion for the game or you'd never come close to breaking the VPP record.. because as you've stated, it's a ridiculous amount of poker, and no one could possibly endure it day in and day out with only money as a motivation imo.

2. I made this well because several people in the SNE thread asked me if I would. George Lind even said earlier in the year that the only two wells he'd likely read on 2p2 is Jman's and mine.. that alone gave me a sense of pride and one of the main reasons I followed through with it. If it wasn't for these requests there is no way I would have considered starting a Well because I don't think that highly of myself. When I think of a 2p2 Well, I think of guys like Jman, George, and aba. So, it didn't even cross my mind until several of the SNE guys asked me if I would. I planned on waiting until the end of the year, but since I decided to take a little time off to focus on my health after hitting the record, I figured it was a good time to start it now.. though I realize the timing coincides with Team Online selections.

A few people have stated that they believe my chances are good for being selected as a Team Online member. However, I honestly don't feel they are.. if I were to guess I'd say 5-10% chance or something. Sure I broke the VPP record and I do have a blog that gets a moderate amount of traffic, but I don't think I've done anything incredibly entertaining from a marketing standpoint to set me apart from a lot of the other people out there that applied.. so many applicants have entertaining video blogs and run all kinds of Stars promotions/sites/etc that reach different markets of potential players.. something that I just didn't have time to pursue this year since I was busy being a VPP machine.

The Stars representatives in charge of the Team Online selections are probably too busy to even notice that I have a Well on 2p2 anyway, much less a spare moment to read through any of it if they did. The Well is here because I honestly just enjoy helping others.

Favorite book? Movie? Album? Meal?

Ever considering moving out of the US purely because of your medical expenses?

We euro get to see a flabbergasting amount US citizens has to pay in order to get at least a checkup let alone surgery etc.

!! I do not know how much your medical expenses are but since you mentioned it along with ''quite high'' I assume we are not talking about $200 per month or sth like that

- Gerv

I don't think there are many (any?) foreign governments that pay for the medical expenses of aliens. You would have to be naturalized to get the benefits, and the better the benefits the harder it will be to qualify.

#344

Well in Netherlands you are required to have a medical insurance of like 120eu per month with an option of increasing your medical insurance with an extra 30 I think for dentist, uncommon things that are not covered

It might be easier for EU citizens moving from EU Country #1 to EU Country #2 so i didn't researched this completely with US residents emigrating but it was just a question that struck my mind

Great well. You make the rest of us look very lazy. You could probably write a separate book on how to be a pro. Something like an online version on Barry's book.

You were talking about average players ranges earlier. How do you go about figuring this out for each position since HEM doesn't allow custom reports? The preflop by position report is pretty generic.

Thanks for the well your an inspiration.

I can't really put into words what a travesty it would be for you not to be chosen as a pokerstars pro. Right now it seems that the reasons to be chosen have to do with everything except poker. If you were female or had a great blog, or lived in some remote part of the world. Who cares about the fact that you work harder then most people in the world generate insane amounts of rake, and inspire people like me to take my business from ftp and play on stars in hopes to achieve sne, and be partly as succesfull as you.

good well
think you are a little too into the health food stuff, but so it goes
everything else was quite interesting to me

Great well needbeers.

Ive just started playing more on stars recently. Ive noticed that there are many players who have put in massive volume to attain SNE, but some have a steady loss rate adding up to 40-50k over the course of 2-3million hands and others (such as you) adding up lots of money at a small winrate. I find it hard to believe that this is simply a skill difference as everyone is playing a huge amount of tables and mostly forced to autopilot. Would you attribute the difference in the SNE's with slightly positive winrates vs the slight losers as being purely a focus or tilt issue?

Ive considered giving SNE a shot but Im concerned I would simply burnout and my game would be awful in the end if I came up short. Is this reason enough to not even bother? Sorry if youve answered this in the other posts, Ive read most of this but cant remember each question answered.

It's all of the above and then some.. loss of focus, soft tilt, hard tilt, skill, endurance/health, etc. For me personally it was primarily loss of focus due to continually fading health. Once I finally got a solid week of sleep I was back to playing as well as I started the year. There is a big difference between going for SNE, SNEx2, and SNEx3 imo.. the first SNE wasn't too bad. I played every waking hour and did not table select once. I would play with quixtar on my direct left at the highest stakes even if I was on my Z game and nodding off asleep at the tables. My goal was to break the VPP record as quickly as I could.. not focusing on squeezing out the most impressive bb/100 I could.

All said and done I've made $100k so far at the tables this year, another $400k in rakeback, $70k in coaching, and $15k in random bonuses/promotions... so I think pushing through any and all adversity for 10 months and taking a big dump on winrates turned out to be a good idea. :-p

I had a blog post titled "Motivation: Fear" that touched on how much you can make even with a losing winrate if you just put in the time. I've even had people PM me asking if I'd send them the excel sheet I used for the calculations.. which I'd gladly do for you too if you'd like. Don't worry about what could go wrong, about posting a loss, if anything you should worry about how you'd feel looking back if you never even gave it a try..


1.) I don't read for any other purpose than improving myself in some way. TV/Movies quenches all my entertainment needs. I have "self help" books covering anything from poker (Tommy Angelo's Elements of Poker) to.. and I'm embarrassed to say this.. Anger Management for Dummies. Funny story about that. My good friend came over earlier in the year and saw that book on the top shelf of my closet... and he yelled out "WHO YOU CALLIN A DUMMY!!?" and his delivery had me cry laughing...
2) Movie? Good lord.. I watch 1000 of them a year. I think it would take me weeks of deliberation to anally narrow down to a top 5. I don't even know where to begin, I'm gonna skip this one lol.
3) Album.. another insanely tough one to answer.. probably harder to answer than favorite movie. I have an appreciation for most types of music.. but I definitely always lean towards rock.. which one could conclude seeing I was the lead guitarist in a rock band for a few years following college. My influences over the years are a long list that would take forever to think of.. Tool, Metallica, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Radiohead, A Perfect Circle, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Toadies, STP, SOAD, Days of the New, and the list is endless. Right now my playlist has Wolfmother, Cage the Elephant, Raconteurs, Black Keys to name a few, as they are fitting my mood well this month.
4. Easiest one for me to answer: Anything that swims. And usually the less it's cooked the better.

Not something I've considered, though I wouldn't be against at all if I thought it would help. I have spent on average $3-$4k per month over the last few years. But a lot of that was just trying to determine what the hell was wrong with me. And now that I know what I have, I've learned that there isn't really any good help out there in the medical community... and as far as I know, there aren't any other countries out there with leading Lyme specialists. I've actually heard that most people with the disease overseas fly to the U.S. for treatment.
So far in my experience treatment is long, painful, expensive, and doesn't do a damn thing. So I'm back to the drawing board.. but I'm researching a few alternatives at the moment that I'm putting all my faith in.. I've had a lot of help in this respect from the 2p2 community.. I've received some really helpful PM's recently.

HEM doesn't do custom reports yet, but my programmer can.. the man is a GD genius.

Thank you for taking the time to write this, it means a lot.. I'm really glad I could help. =)
By the way, today is my birthday! Happy 32.