4 hours and around 70% id say but i really dont keep that stat so im not sure. i consider my whole poker career 1 session...is that strange?

well..live limit cheating teams are very rare but if one did pop up it would definately be in a mixed game where the marks are unaware of the general flow and baseline occurrence rate of certain situations. i would still find it hard to believe because cheating on line is so much easier and, as you can tell by this thread, there is an unlimited supply of marks who think it doesnt happen.

how many hours have you actually played? maybe you're good at it and just dont know it yet.

ther are lots of terrible unbusto players all around the casino...brown chips spend too...

several reasons. for 3 years pre uigea i really never went in the casino (on line only) and after that my roll was big enough/investments diversified enough that i didnt need to play alot. i play short sessions and i play days. im not a "reg", i make no effort to meet or speak to anyone (i use thjis site for my interaction with the poker world). poker is just work to me im married w/ a set of friends outside poker so unlike many i really seek nothing from my time in the casino but money.

Limon, every once in a while you say something that is striking in its bluntness and stubborn refusal to buckle to the waves of idiocy and memes that wash through 2+2. This struck me just right, and actually lol'ed as I read it. Wp.

whats the most amt of BB's u've won/lost in a pot(if u recll the hnds thatd be cool)also do you see online msnl staying as soft as it is now say 5-8-12 yrs away. also do u see it as possible to play $700-$2000 bi live tourneys for a living(gud structures)as possible?

The fact that so many smart people on this forum disagree with limon's strat suggestions on the margins should be an indicator that he is dead correct on his fundamental points -- 1) straightforward, mostly ABC play, is a good (perhaps the best) way not to go broke, especially live; and 2) a lot of LAGs are not nearly as good as they think they are. Rather, a good percentage of them are lucky and do not appreciate how truly "long" the long run is.

im pretty sure it was a 15k pot i won in a 10-20-40 PLO game during the lapc a couple years ago. alot of money got in preflop 3 way and i won w/ unimproved aces.

truth is i play alot less big pots than the uder 30 baller reg crowd but i also win a higher % of the pots i play. i "induce" alot and keep things under controll. most players are smart enough to not play big pots w/ me but not smart enough not to set money on fire trying to bluff me when i "show weakness". i think my advantage in medium size pots is much bigger than in big pots.

i dont play online anymore. i think the games are horrible compared to live and can only be made up for by grinding 6+ tables. for quality of life/sanity purposes id rather just stick w/ 1 table against a soft lineup while making calls and taking care of other business. if franks bill passes we might see the party days come back and then ill be right back on-line.

no. whenever the tourney circuit (circus) rolls into town i just look at the lot of them and see there is no way any of them is making a living. there are a lucky few who are gifted w/ a living by winning a big one but no one is grinding out a living through good play and average luck...if someone is THAN HE IS WASTING HIS TIME IN TOURNIES. that level of skill and self controll would find greater rewards in cash games.

Hellmuths gimmick account?

Good posts! I enjoyed em!

Awesome -- I was walking by this table yesterday on my way back from the bathroom. Julien had got what looked like 7k a/i pre against another guy with KK vs AA -- he asked to run it three times, lost all three. Based on what I had heard about the guy, I was really expecting him to blow up and make a scene, but all I got to see was him checking the board for 15 seconds unable to comprehend that he didn't get some sort of chop. Were you the guy with AA?

the guy with AA lost all 3?

Sorry, julien had KK and lost all 3

Well, if you are going to keep answering, I'll keep firing:

To what extent, if any, have you ever taken notes after live sessions?

On specific opponents?

How many mistakes do you make in an average session? Average $ amount of a mistake? Do you immediately realize the mistake, or does it ever hit you that night or 2 weeks later?

Rank your hand reading skills on a scale of 1-100?

How much per hour does tilt cost you on average?

Roughly how many 80 hour (or 2400 hand) losing streaks have you experienced live in your career?

How often, if ever, will you test a new player by bluffing/semi-bluffing big on him with little read on his general play?

the guy w/ AA is a really nice guy and good player...thats all i know.... he told me he hates running it 3 times because the dealers are so lost and julien is so bossy everything gets fuqqed up. fortunately he won all 3 so the dealer had it easy ... the only reason he does it is to be a sport, if it was any winning player hed run it once and be done with it.

from the time i've spent with limon, i can honestly say he has it made and he did a good job of making it for himself.

i used to alot. never on opponents only about situations. i remember opponents forever.

theres a doctor who used to play mostly 10/20 now he plays mostly 5/10. he always notices that im only at the best tables. its because i remember bad players even if they only come in the casino twice a year and spend alot of time maneuvering my way to the best table in the house (sometimes it isnt holdem).

i probably make about 1 mistake a month (every 80 hours) when im playing alot and on my A game. if i take a month off, when i come back, i make about 1 every 8 hours for a while. I dont consider moving on a calling station w/ qq pre and having him show up w/ AA a mistake. (some would probably think i make some mistakes of omission, plays left on the table, but i look at my lifetime of results and see no reason to beleive many of these fancy plays arent break even at best)

the other day a dude led all-in on me on the river when a flush hit on a paired board and i made a snap call w/an overpair because i knew this guy would lead 100% of the time w/ weaker pairs if the scare card hit. i was so happy that everything worked as planned that i forgot his bluff leads were never aggressive all in shoves and always deliberate 1/2 pot type bets. as soon as i called the way he bet flashed through my head as he flipped his boat. luckily the all in was just a hair over PSB.

with bad players its hard not to get ahead of them, like finishing sentences for a stutterer. but i like to beleive one of the strengths of my game is always respecting the bad players and realizing there is a method to their madness even if that method is a sure loser. when i dont treat all of their bizarre actions with respect and miss things i get really mad at myself.


i know immediately when i do something wrong but sometimes i dont fully realize what i did wrong until i really think hard about it for an hour on and off (usually at the table)

hmmm, in the 5/10 i might be the best in l.a. (not saying much)
in the 10/20 im in the top 5% in the 20-40 top 25%? hard to say because 25% of the people in the 20/40 game at any given time are the best live, full time, working pros on the planet...im not going to say i do anything better than than them, equal is good enough. i rate myself by looking at the obvious mistakes other reg's make. usually theyre like the ones i mentioned above, turning their brain off against bad players. or not paying close attention to how other regs play draws and getting outplayed on scary boards. some regs see too many situations as call or fold and forget raise is still an option if they really thought about the holdings theyre in against.

also alot of the young guys refuse to believe subtle tells are all around them.

exactly 0. key is realizing getting happy during a big win is the most insidious form of tilt. once you can turn that off you can start dealing w/ the other side of the coin. also, if you're a gambler at heart your gonna fight tilt forever. i dont have an ounce of gamble in me. if youll give me +110 ill bet plenty on a coinflip but at even money i wont bet a dime. now dont confuse no gamble for no heart. i got plenty of heart. if i think im the favorite to win you cant keep me from cr'ing the river w/ air just when you spike your 3 kings!

hard to say. im sure once every 1000 hours?

i never test anybody. that mindset leads to personal battles, vendettas, games that exist only in your own head and ultimately super monkey tilt. i use all the information available to me (including talking his ear off during the hand) to make the best decision possible based on my years of experience and the reactions i expect from different types of players.

Wow, so simple yet, gold. Never thought about it like this, thank you!!!

Do you try to pause roughly the same amount of time before you act in order to reduce tells, etc to counteract times when you need some deep thinking (excluding preflop instamucks)?

do you know bart hanson from deuces cracked (was cash plays) podcast? if so, what do you think of his game? apparently he's a 5/10 - 10/20 reg at the commerce.

I came across this old link to a limon post on http://www.potstuck.com/2007/12/13/i...-poker-player/ It's a paste of a 2p2 limon post, but the guy edited it into paragraphs. Thought some of you might enjoy it.

"the key to being a long time winning pro is making poker less than 1/5 of your income over a 10 yr. period from the time you start."

Post by limon

When asked to explain this he went into further detail.

"in my experience most wanna be pros start out thinking their gonna love playing poker forever and so they never prepare for that day when it all comes crashing down. so when they make their first 50k playing 5-10nl or whatever they just move up to the next highest limit that they can barely afford. so even though they are moving up limits their lifestyle isnt changing and they still have all thier eggs in one basket. this is bad for financial and psychological reasons.

inevitably they go on a massive losing streak and because they were always playing right on the edge of what they could afford it buries them. now they have to work their way out of this hole and it becomes a horrible grind, many go on life tilt at this point. fully coming to the realization of how many hours theyre gonna have to put in ,they borrow money (from people like me) to make a quick hit and then really get stuck.

a smarter plan would be to move up slower and invest on the way so you never have to do any one thing to survive. sooooo, instead of jumping straight from 5-10 to 10-20 buy a little triplex. instead of jumping straight from 10-20 to 25-50 buy a laundromat or a parking lot. instead of buying into 20 events at the wsop parter w/ someone in a business venture that you find interesting.

instead of playing 70 hours a week play 40 and get a part time job you really enjoy (i still do golf club repair to this day). keep your ears open at the casino for opportunites, (one of my biggest f-ups was not partnering w/ co owner of an l.a. casino who was starting an offshore sportsbook a decade ago), pretty soon you realize that you never have to play poker again…then your poker game becomes unbeatable and you see the grinders in a totally different way.

i guarantee you 10 years from now the “winners” who post on 2+2 will NOT be the guys playing 6 screens 80 hours a week at higher and higher stakes. it will be the guys who are writing books or software or starting “poker schools” and it wont be because they made a fortune doing any of these things it will be because they diversified early and stepped out of the boom/bust cycle."

Post by limon, link http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...7&postcount=24

not really because my deep thinking can be a bout a fold call or raise or about a future action so i dont think im giving away much if anything.

ive played a couple hours with him. hes solid. hes spends too much time fiddling w/ his i phone and not paying attention. he uses "standard" TAG lines, which is good for the 5-10 where that will get you 90% of your expected win. if you have a big hand its pretty easy to get him to "sense weakness" and stack off light. hes not someone i want at my table, tougher than your avg. 5/10 reg.

Have you had any training in this skill?

I find in myself and with some of the people I have coached that "jones'ing" for a win is a very common and very ruinous form of tilt. Now that you mention the reaction to a win, it makes me wonder if the two are not interconnected. Your thoughts?

It took me a lot of time before I could truly laugh off a bad beat, but still slip at times, generally pissed at myself. Assuming that a bad beat doesn't really bother you, how long did that take for you? Do you slip up from time to time and if yes how do you deal with it?

no training. i just pay attention, respect my opponents, correlate and keep an open mind.

in regards to tilt i think you only go as low as you go high. a good way to cheat changing your personality is just to be overrolled. how much would you tilt in a game 1/2 your normal stakes?

i stopped caring about bad beats once i became convinced i was a winner and had enough $$$ not to sweat the results from any session. it took a couple years.

i still slip up from time to time when i lose all respect for an opponent and start hating them. i get ahead of myself in hands where their cards are face up and when they weasel out i start to form a competition w/ them that exists only in my own mind and thats bad, real bad. it happens so infrequently now that i recognize it quick and snap back to reality.

great posts limon

how do u think i played this hand? $1,000 BI live tourney. 180 left from 221. villain is unimagitave mid 50's fishy tendencies saw him open limp the cutoff w QQ earlier, his range is v wide here after he calls but prolly a pp.
i was dealt AA on btn.
10handed, utg limps for 150, 3 other limpers i make it 800 everyone folds except 2nd lmper.(MP). 18K eff stacks. flop 347
check check. turn 7 check, i bet 1300. mp immediately says raise and throws 2800 total into pot. after some thoughti call,(i was abt 65% call 35% call) river 8. he checks(?????) now i bet 3600 and he immediately calls.

yo jude...im loathe to answer this because i dont want this thread to become me analyzing everyones hands (especially donkament hands) but since you didnt know this ill do my best...

pre i think you gotta look at the open limper close. Most people generally know better than to open limp in these tournies and if i think there is a reasonable chance he is on a limp RR ill make my raise big enough that we can get it in.

on the flop how do you not bet? you said the guy is unimaginative so you can probably muck to undue pressure but if you want to get it all in against a straightforward player while always being in the lead (which you do) you need to start building the pot early.

on the turn how were you 65% call/35% call ...lol...

you need to know whether this guy opened limped QQ because he is greedy or scared. if hes greedy you can play a big pot w/ him w/ AA if he raises if hes scared (im inclined to beleive this) you need to show consistent pressure so that when he does raise you can instamuck w/ no regrets. as soon as you check the flop regrets are going to creep in and then your gonna blindly donk off all your (fake tournament) money.

60% of the time it works EVERY time