Actually, I've also heard from long time winning players that play with him that he's a mess and plays poorly. I've never played with him so can't comment directly.

As for people staking him, I see bad players get staked and decent players get ridiculous markup every day. Staking players is a skill and few have it. And Ted should always be able to get staked, cause he's a legend. There are lots of older players from his generation who have money and no clue how much game fundamentals have improved since their era.

I mean, this is not good at all.

I've heard everyone say that about anyone. I've heard "famous" multi-bracelet winners say that about players who not an hour scalped them for six figures.

What people say doesn't matter. People are ******s. Judge by fruits.

Forrest plays- and wins- pretty high, with his own money. He is regularly staked by non-donk backers to play higher and wins there too. Whatever his personal idiosyncrasies with water bottles are are irrelevant. There are no 'poor players' who are long term at his levels like he has been, for as long as he has been. There is no waiting list that forms when he sits down. The same cannot be said for many others.

I am not happy to see him sit down at my table, ever.
I am thrilled to see any given 27 year old with Ray Bans and an IWC Portuguese.

I think the corporation may have eventually played that high but not initially when Ted was playing his own money.

I'm not sure though, it's been many years since I read about it

Most hands there are clearly correct ways to play them, clearly wrong ways to play them, and occasionally situations so close as to not matter much.

Bad players are bad because they don't know the math and logic of how to play most hands correctly. So when they say someone sucks, we can easily discount it because their perspective is simply incorrect.

But when someone who is a long term winner who actually knows how to play well says Ted plays poorly, I have to give their opinion some credit. They can see hands he shows down and immediately say, good, bad or doesn't matter. Limping TT52ds UTG+1 in a 75 O8 game is an example where you could say he plays poorly.

And I hope you are right and he's playing his own bankroll and doing well, but sadly his reported behavior doesn't really match up with that.

DC, he joined my games 2x and played less than 1.5 hrs total. In the 101025 hand I mentioned, I thought he might be " advertising" but he got up after his Utg hand.

THIS

and THIS

I feel like the debate here is how ESPN/WSOP commentary team/books/Beal saga etc told us repeatedly what amazingly successful LEGENDS these poker players were, and many of us fell for it (myself included)

Now time, scams, the degeneration of online poker and whatnot has stripped away all the gloss exposing lifetime poker players for what they are, sad husks of wasted lives. You think Ted is going to lay of his deathbed wishing he spent more time inside of casinos when he could have realized his true potential and had a far more fulfilling life? (he might I suppose, but that's besides the point)

He's a legend, but not in a good way. The pain of dreading 3 outers is etched all over his face, just like almost every 35-something + live grinder I've ever seen. Too much poker is just terrible for 98% of the population :/

The other thing about Ted that makes it so easy to believe he's busto is that many of the stories about him are about his total lack of bankroll management. Sitting down with Beal three handed was ridiculous, I'm a winning LHE player and I've had 400+ bet downswings playing mostly full ring in soft games. You can easily lose 100 bets in a few hours in a three handed game (I just lost 80 buying playing HU online in only 20 minutes).

His fearlessness is why he's a legend and an NVG god, but it also seems to make busto inevitable.

And no matter how good Ted is in some games, he's unlikely to be good in all games. I've played with Barry Greenstein, and he was even worse than me at Badugi. Of course, I accept he'd eviscerate me in any stud variant and some other games. Which means I will never play him willingly in those games unless it's a 7 handed mix with lots of favorable games for me.

So what does Ted do when the big game runs around another big whale who only wants to play Ted's worse games? Does he skip it and play lower until the whale busts or leaves town and the game gets more favorable? Or did Ted say "f it" I'm better than the whale for sure, and jump into some 2k/4k game when he was a dog to the rest of the table. How often could he run good in those games and what happens when he actually runs below expectation in a game where his expectation is below breakeven to begin with?

Again I hope he's doing well and not busto. But his whole career he's refused to consider variance and it just wouldn't be surprised it has finally bit him in the ass.

You are correct. Reese and Beal were playing 10k/20k hu flhe and Ted sat them with his own money (500k which was basically his whole role). It was also noted Ted was not regarded as a strong fixed limit holdem player.

It got up to 100k/200k when Ivey was playing. The Beal/Ivey match took place after the book was written.

You're mistaken the other poster had it right the first time; he sat w his entire roll (500k) and played 3-handed 10k-20k w Chip and Andy, until he won all the monies which turned out to be a million or so profit.

There was a funny back and forth that happened on Twitter recently where Shaun Deeb made a snide comment about Ted that prompted Daniel Negreanu to offer to stake Ted to play Deeb HU razz, which resulted in Shaun going completely silent....

From all accounts Ted is thought of to be world class in all the Stud variants, but like so many others his game selection is the worst imaginable.

Not that it matters what I think but I've met Ted in Vegas on two seperate occasions and he came off as being the nicest guy imaginable so I'm a bit biased and root for him.

If the life of my family were on the line and I had to pick one living player to play a rotation of stud games for their life, it would be him.

Not Ivey, not Lisandro, not Johnny World.
It would be Forrest.

I've been out of town for going on a year now.
If he's taken a nose-dive since then, I suppose that's possible but I know he's +ev in pretty much any stud variant against pretty much anyone and barring an extreme change in mentality/capability since I saw the guy last, he wouldn't have a hard time getting put in any bigger stud game running by pretty much anyone who's good for that kind of thing. I realize the poker economy has changed a lot, but he is what he is, irrespective of whatever bad play he made that one time in O8 when he limped with tens and a 2 and a 5.

As far as I know, his credit around town is good.
He absolutely belongs in the Poker HOF.

He won a bracelet like two years ago.

I played with Ted about two years ago at the Borgata, I think shortly after he started playing there as he was asking where stud games ran in the region. I was amused that nobody else recognized him.

He seemed like a nice guy. Didn't seem weird or creepy, especially by poker room standards. Not the most stylish/cool guy ever, but it was the Borgata poker room on a weeknight, who cares?

I don't play stud, but anyone I've talked to who knows anything about it says he's inarguably one of the best, now or ever.

Bottom line, I've never heard about him welching on a bet, angling, scamming, etc. He was friendly when I played with him, and people seem to be ripping him for no good reason, which isn't cool. Get a life, guys.

Maybe he is/was busto, maybe not. It's well publicized he's put his whole bankroll in play before, so it wouldn't be a shock. I guess speculating on that is fair game since he's famous in the poker world but if you guys really want to hate on some poker players, there are actual villains out there scamming/angling/cheating.

Best post yet.

What about Seb86

Only shady thing I've ever heard was the rumour that he was paying the dealer of the HU with Beal to make his mucked hole cards the first two of the board on the next hand.

Ditto, guy hasn't done anything to have people pile on like this.

I have heard these rumors as well.

Wait, what? Explain. He was cheating? They weren't shuffling?

I can see his point if he was playing in Flint, Michigan.

Ted is a legend. His story of driving to Vegas to play 10k/20k Heads up is great.

I don't live in LV and don't get out there as much as I used to, but there have always been rumors and conspiracy theories accusing " the corporation" bringing in a card mechanic. This is known.

Ted wasn't in the corporation till after the three handed session. So seems unlikely he was cheating during it, and would have to be cheating Chip in his own room.

Gotcha. Ty

Of course but there is aging and then there is hard aging for example Charlie sheen vs john stamos(or anyone around his age) btw not hating on Charlie ailment and all he still gets more trim then the entire 2p2 community put together x5