The people whose life savings were taken and the money back guarantee was not honored still care. BBB has proof of that

True, it's gone away. I guess most people now just accept that it's part of who he is. So not exactly forgive and forget, just acceptance.

This is also true, albeit they are only allegations, and however much "evidence" or circumstantial evidence there is, he has never been found guilty of anything, as far as I am aware.

I think it's also worth mentioning that if you look at a comprehensive list of all players who have played HCL https://www.trackingpoker.com/
and Google every name, you will find that some of the people have done some shady stuff that is not just rumoured, but fully documented.

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 wrongs don't make a right, and all that, but if we put the whole of the list of HCL players around one huge table, I think we will see the full spectrum,
from players who are as pure as the driven snow, right through to super shady. Where does NV sit in that spectrum? Who knows.

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On another note, Nick, when is the $50K added comp taking place that you and the casino promised as recompense to the players who entered a guaranteed tournament
that the casino then cancelled because it was looking like a big overlay.

Lol@ psychological warfare.
You acting like a 6 year old isn't as smart or creative as you think. Most importantly it doesn't win you more money the way you think it does. Im not gonna tilt off money to someone who has to result to truly pathetic tactics to try and get an edge.

Guys like you will just never get it.
My theory is not total nonsense. The fact you think acting the way you do at the table (and guys like you doing similar things) doesn't ruin games is comical .Then youll cry about rampage recruiting people for his app games.

Do you think casinos try and give their pit game customers a crappy experience and call it "psychological warfare"?



Not a cry baby-but I admit I can't stand regs who poison their own games. You're not tilting anyone into playing worse against you. You're just making your own games worse.Enjoy your race to the bottom.

Our views overlap a lot in many areas. It's also probably true that your perception of how I am at the table is not entirely accurate, and neither is mine of you.
I agree with everything you are saying, in the sense that extremes of behaviour will put players off playing live. I am not advocating extremes of behaviour.

An extreme of behaviour that did actually tilt me (and I think you will like this one and find it funny)......

Is: there was a reg in a NLHE game, a pretty small game of £1/£3, £600 ish typical stacks.

He must have been in the 70 to 75 year old range. He was a nit, not an OMC, a genuine nit. But he was also a good nit, so proficient at being a nit and with the patience of Jobe,
that he was completely unexploitable. And not only that, you'd sometimes get trapped in the middle of him and another player or another two players pre so lose money as dead money into the pot.

However, it wasn't any of the above that tilted me. What tilted me was that he, never, ever, ever, spoke a single word, and this was for hours per session, session after session.

So in a strange way, whether as a deliberate psychological strategy or not by him, he was doing something extreme, extreme silence, and I found it unsettling and annoying.

7 paragraphs to tell us a story of a 70 year old who did not speak a word. This is good stuff. Now we need a 7 paragraph synopsis of what happened on those 50k bus trips. More than 7 paragraph if you think 7 is not enough.

Why does he wear sunglasses during his dumbass podcast lol? He looks like such a fat pos scumbag, how can anyone ever trust that guy?

Holy **** -- you really don't get it do you? Live poker can't even be a thing with people like you.

Why does he literally paint his head black and go on stream... Because he's a clown

I'm playing live poker to win, not to make friends at the table.

9 out of 10 so called "poker friends" are fake, fair weather friends anyway, motivated only by money and not by real friendship.
So I stick to what I said, kill or be killed, but be/act cordially to all players while doing so, and if you can be entertaining too, which I try to be, then that is a bonus.

The majority of the players I have ever played against in live cash games are actually pretty unpleasant to be around, I am not one of those people.

Well if you tank for menial decisions then yea that’s pretty unpleasant lol

I'm not doing that against everyone but I am doing it sometimes against a specific opponent who has previously complained about me taking 60 seconds to think over a river decision in a big pot when they weren't even in the hand. a) because they shouldn't have been involved, and b) because they have shown lack of patience as a weakness.

If an opponent shows a weakness in a live game, whatever that weakness might be, you should exploit it, while staying within the rules.

Do you not think that opponents are looking for my weaknesses and doing the same to me, trying to exploit those weaknesses?

The trick is to do warfare without them knowing it’s war. When you have learned to be a warrior at the table while ensuring everybody capable of having fun enjoys themselves and wants to see you back, that’s when you’ll reach enlightenment.

This tanking thing vs people who hate tanking is bullshit. Find a better way.

yes you are. you're everything wrong with so many regs who don't understand what makes a good game.

so you suck the fun out of the game for everyone, get less hands per hour ,make it more likely the clock gets called when you have a real decision and you think this makes you more money long term? that's amazing.
have fun in your "war".

I am not tanking, I am playing clever mind games that opponents are unaware that I am doing, I don't think you are really getting some of the subtleties of live play.

The last few replies to me are looking at things in a binary way. (i.e. playing fast is good, playing slow is bad) It is not as simple as that.

Also, if you don't vary how long you take to take decisions in the same repeating spot you will be giving off timing tells.

Plus, it is a perfectly legitimate tactic, whether you are trying to put an opponent on tilt or not, to do something like think very deliberately and with a very serious demeanour,
if you are placing a bet and are desperate not to get raised. If you place that same bet in the identical spot but do it faster and more casually you are much more likely to get raised.

I don't know what sort of idyllic by the sounds of it games you are playing in, but the games I am in are mostly populated by degenerates, anglers, drunks, drug addicts, criminals, and another main category which is younger people with limited social skills, most likely online players playing live, or nerdy university/college types who are decent at math(s) but at very little else.

In such a game you have to be adaptable to all of this, and frankly most people don't care about specifically who is a slow player, who is a fast player, who is friendly or unfriendly, they are in a zoo and are part of that zoo. Any player that decides to behave nicey-nicey at all times is a mark, as others will seize on this and try to bully or intimidate them in some way, in a poker sense.

I would agree with previous posters if we are talking about a high or higher stakes game that has mainly recs / fish in it, then yes, of course, do any fake BS that you need to do to make them happy and to make them think that you are not a professional whose one and only purpose is to fleece them.

But I am not playing those games, I am playing your average mid stakes game in a casino, where you get a wide variety of player type and a wide variety of behaviour by players, ranging from very good behaviour to very bad.

amazing you can make these 2 statements. you're worried about timing tells with these kinds of people.
you aren't playing high rollers you're playing live poker with mostly donks.

your also aren't tanking to balance timing tells - you're doing it bc you want to piss people off.

you mind tricks aren't remotely clever. they're juvenile at best.


"I don't think you are really getting some of the subtleties of live play."

I get it way more than most. live poker at the end of the day is best as a social game and is essentially a soft hustle.
if you're halfway decent at poker how you actually play your hands is way less important than a lot of other things especially playing in a fun environment and not tilting (not saying you do or don't.) the fact you think it's some kind of war shows you absolutely don't get it.

Honestly i've played with enough people like you over the years who while decent at poker would make a lot more money if they changed their approach and mindset at the table.

The one thing you said I agree with is this stuff becomes even more important in higher stakes games since the player pools are so much smaller.

online poker is a war- live isn't.

You're mistaken. These are things I might have said when I was younger and had kinda poor social skills and was insecure.

Firstly, poker is not a state of war. It's a normal part of life and there is no special reason to be inconsiderate to the other players, the dealer or even the card room. If you wouldn't cause a scene or hold up the line at a coffee shop to get a free cup, there is no reason to do so to (maybe) gain 2bb in EV at a poker table.

9/10 times the game will be most profitable if people are laughing and having fun and it feels like they are playing for nickels in a home game. It might also be more fun for you, even if the social element doesn't click for you. You can play more hands and get into more interesting situations, as the pros on HCL do.

I've made good friends playing poker. Met a ton of interesting people. Picked the brain of a famous psychology prof. Heard about life as a fisherman or in combat. Listened to self-made rich guys talk about how they got there. I've also met a few critical business partners through poker, or through people, I've met playing poker. I've made more money because of that than if I got 1,000 people to tilt of their stacks to me.

Poker is an incredible opportunity to meet people, network, and connect and you can use that to do everything from hearing a good joke to getting a good deal on a car to making a friend to getting a job to getting free coaching from better players. Focusing on "psychological warfare" that might gain you a few BBs is penny wise and pound foolish.

As I said, you must be playing in very different games to me, I've played hundreds of sessions of live cash game poker and not one of them was a social game, they were all 100% everyone trying to win money from the other players, and that's all.

I have played some tournaments, where it felt more like a social game, but this was only when the buy in was very low, or if it was a smallish buy in mixed games comp. All other live tournaments I've ever played in, again were not a social game.

I noticed that you brought up Rampage. Well he acts a little slower than most players at the table when on HCL (not slowly, but relative to others), he is not fun at the table, and has very little interaction with other players.

So he is someone who I would pinpoint as someone (the type of player) who is bad for the game.

He is obviously only invited on to the HCL stream because of his large social media following.

His natural home for live streams is Live At The Bike, who have 10 to 15 players similar to him, who don't act that fast, don't interact very much with other players, and who are basically boring to watch. So please explain to me (according to your blueprint of how to make the game fun for non pros), how exactly Rampage is making it fun for them?

Both are a war, but fought with a different set of weapons

Is it possible that your games don't involve people having fun because you make your entire table uncomfortable?

well said.

now to be fair there are fake friendships but GENERALLY speaking the people who can afford to lose real money at poker are smart and interesting with all kinds of different backgrounds. i'm still friends with some who either don't play poker anymore or barely play. but they'll still go to casinos, drink, eat at night restaurants , gamble at -ev pit games and have themselves a fun weekend. they aren't there to be all super serious at the table. but sitting at a table of grinders on their tablets/grinding 3 poker apps on 3 different cell phones, 4 of whom have seat change buttons to seat hop the bad players, tanking etc isn't their idea of fun.

No.

I am one of the main people telling stories, joking around and being sociable, in between hands.

Most people are just generally very miserable at the poker table, even when winning, and are generally not very sociable either.

Perhaps you just can't compute that it is possible to be sociable and friendly, but also to be very tactical when in an actual hand.

interesting tangent (lie).

we should get back to hoping VeryDouche continues his downswing this week. Last week was wonderful

One of my main reasons for playing quicker is to be considerate to the dealers who make money based on hands/hour. Help them keep the game moving at a reasonable pace.

Everything exists on a spectrum. If you wait for your turn to look at your cards, at least be experienced enough where you can make the decision quickly. If you wait to look and still have to sit there for 30 secs thinking about what to do then **** you. Otherwise, I don’t think too many recs will care as long as you’re personable.

habitual tankers should at least have the decency to tip a little extra when they take forever- win or lose really.
The worst is when 2 tankers get in a hand together which takes forever, then run it twice, chop and nobody tips.