Was there a saying/quote/maxim that changed the way you view the game?

Was there a saying/quote/maxim that changed the way you view life?

What are your thoughts on the recent name change of a hsnl poster from bigt439 to Snoop Todd?

i 2nd that

i feel like this is such an oxymoron

Will you ever finish your HU match vs. Boosted J ??
This was so fun to watch...

What would you say are the core concepts for anyone who wants to improve at poker to think about?

i know we've heard the thoughts of many different players on this subject, but i'm interested in what you have to say regarding the difficulties one faces during rough downswings; confidence issues, tilt, emotional effects, etc.

Who on these forums could be billed as a philosopher of poker - i.e. who thinks about the game the best - Strasser? You? And for what reasons?

Thanks..

Thanks.

I started with sitngos. I played them for 1.5 years. I started with $50 at $10 sngs (which is too high). I lost and redeposited $50. I found HPFAP by Sklansky and then found 2+2. I slowly moved up, playing $30 sngs for a loooong time. I actually was way overrolled for them and made the leap from $30 to $100 for some reason. A while later I was doing very well at the $100s and $200s when Party started running $1k-$5k tournaments. I took a couple shots at these and ran very well. Actually, I realize now that I ran pretty well for the first 2 years I played poker. Had I run normal or badly, I might not have redeposited again and again and might've never gotten to the point I'm at now.

Anyways, Apathy told me that I should try cash games (He played sngs with me for a while) so I sat down at 5/10nl to try my luck. I had no idea what I was doing. There's very little postflop play in SNGs. Luckily I was a huuuuuge nit from playing SNGs, so I actually made some money since there were so many stations on Party Poker at the time.

I started to read the cash forums and study more. I also hired coaches. I was coached by whitelime briefly, Tommy Angelo, and a well known tourney player who doesn't like to be talked about.

The coaching helped me a lot. It mostly got me to break outside of the box and realize that rules and formulas weren't the best way to play deepstack nlhe. (SNGs they are)

I started beating 5/10 for about 5.5pt over a good sample size. I had trouble with 10/20 for a while adjusting to aggressive players. Eventually I moved up and could beat 10/20.

Right around before PP closed to US players, I started playing on FTP and UB. I had terrible BR management. One time when I had an 80k roll, I played 25/50 and 50/100 on UB with 15k in my account, ran it up to 105k, and then lost it all over the span of 2 days.

That summer, which was the summer before last, I lived in Vegas with who you might know as the SIHBs. I learned so much that summer. OMG I learned so much. Talking to people about poker who know what they're talking about is amazing. Watching them play and discussing every possible line you can take. It improved my game so much.

Around that time I took the occasional shot here and there at 25/50 on FTP. I found one huge fish who loved to play me. I ended up playing him at 50/100 and ran terribly. I remember one hand where I reraised his minraise to 900 with KQo. He called. I bet like 1400 on the flop of 632r, he called. Turn 3o, I checked. He potted for like 4800 or whatever with 4500 behind. He was floating flops a lot and playing.... basically I was sure he wouldn't play a strong hand that way. I shoved for his last 4500. He tanked forever and called with 1 sec left and KJo. Valuetown!!!!!! J river. That was the same night that good2cu got owned by Wayne Newton at the Bellagio at 25/50. It was actually a funny night.

I lost about half my roll that summer, mostly to that one fish. Overall though, it was a great summer. I improved so much.

I stepped back and grinded 5/10 for a long time. I won a bunch and slowly moved up. The next time that I took a shot at 25/50 and 50/100, it stuck, and I played big ever since. That was a little over a year ago I think. I've had up and downs since, but nothing else super notable in my journey to where I am now.

That summer completely changed my future in poker. I had all the skills naturally, but it took meeting the right people to bring them out IMO. All of the guys in the house helped me a ton.

Meeting Tom (durrrr) was a huge part of my move to high stakes play. He opened my mind to thinking about situations completely differently. I remember one time when he was discussing a hand with h@ll in front of me, where he had something like weak top pair and was facing a big river bet. He was like, 'I think a call is better than a fold' and I thought to myself, 'yeah I agree' and then he said 'but I would shove' and I exploded. I realized that you should think of every possible option you have in nlhe. You usually have a ton of them.

I also met Dan (Unarmed on 2p2) that summer. He lived in the house and coincidentally met a girl the previous year who lived in Madison, WI, where I live. He moved in with her, and we hung out a lot. He would come over, set up his laptop on my 3rd monitor, and we'd play for 8 hours and talk about hands.

I know Dan is fairly unknown in the poker world, and he's 'only' a 10/20 player, but I can say without a doubt, Dan has taught me much more about poker than anyone or anything else.

If you are near someone who plays poker and is smart, spend as much time around them as you can if you want to improve your game.

(I'm going as fast as I can guys, but two good 1/2 games are running and I have this problem where I can't make a short reply for some reason)

tough winning nosebleed players would be much more fitting.

jman, how specifically did you move up in stakes(from say, 25/50 to 200/400)? taking ~5 buyin shots, having people buy action of you to start off, adding in one table of the new higher limit to your normal setup, go on a sick heater and just ride the rush all the way to the top? i always thought hearing these types of stories was interesting.

EDIT: you answered this for the most in the other post, but anything you want to add would be great. thanks for doing this.

Please keep doing what you're doing. Long replies = good.

in playing the highest stakes, aside from the rare and egregrious fish, what are some subtle distinctions between winning/marginal/losing players? Also, do you believe that some inherently winning players (that is, with the skills to win) end up losing longterm, and vice versa? Or is the proof entirely in the pudding?

My 2nd question,

Compare mine and your list of best 25/50 regs? I'm only counting ppl who actively play both stars and ftp 25/50 these days, so no poopers for example.

In order, cts wins by a longshot, p3achykeen (not adz, the real peachy), raptor (tho i think he is better than the other 2 hu),

then in no particular order, ppl who i thin are really good: ike, play2kill - although he hasnt been around in a while, poopers despite not playing ftp as far as i kno, jcmoussa, boosted, and despite never really doing anything spectacular, samh too. You gotta give him cred for just bein solid all the time. and i think im somewhere up there. and you too obviously.

I feel like I am forgetting a lot of people, but I am mainly curious if you agree w/ my top 3.

edit: I of course think urin/durr etc all those killers are sick good, but they never really play 25/50.

are you up lifetime at 25/50+ plo

Thanks jfish.

I'll probably miss a bunch of epiphanies I've had. Maybe if I searched through my old posts it would help, but I'm trying to get through these questions. I'll come back if I think of anything else.

I just posted about the time that durrrr made me realize that you have more options than you think you do. Thinking outside the box, turning made hands that are good enough to call into bluffraises that turn out to be even more profitable, cbetting 1/3 pot in a rr pot, etc.

One thing that occurred to me at some point was how to use your style/image and balance your range accordingly. I started out being pretty nitty before realizing that I could use my image to bluff. Then I started to get called down. I got angry, like 'I'm so tight, how can they call!?!' before figuring out what my ranges really consisted of in certain spots.

I was a nit and not making thin 3 street vbs. So when I bet 3 streets, I had two pair+ and bluffs pretty much. If you are a player who doesn't make very thin value bets, you have to bluff less, otherwise your range will be weighted heavily towards bluffs when you're pounding on the pot.

It made me think about how I can create an image for myself.

I made a post once in HSNL about a thought which helped me a lot. It basically was the idea that every time the action is to you, it's an opportunity for you to make the perfect play. Thinking about poker that way is great for your game.

Lastly, I've realized that working out regularly helps your game more than you might think. I highly recommend it.

Strengths?

I think I have as good a mental skillset for the game as possibly anyone. I think the three most important areas of intelligence in regards to poker are logic, probability, psychology. They actually are pretty close in order of importance, and change depending on game structure.

I think I excel in all three of those areas. There are players who can calculate probabilities better than me, but almost all of those players don't understand people as well or have as firm a grasp on logic as I do. Many who are strong in player psychology are very weak in the other areas. You get the point.

I don't think that I'm the best poker player in the world, but I think I could possibly have the best mind in these areas combined. I think because of this, I'll always be successful at poker since these are things that are more naturally occuring than teachable.

Weaknesses

I think my main weaknesses are personality based.

I'm an underachiever. I'm lazy. I can't do any hard work unless I'm extremely interested in it. Luckily I'm interested in certain aspects of poker, so I'm able to work on it. However I don't spend any time going through PT, checking my hands for mistakes, going over hands to take notes on players, calculating my equity vs. ranges of hands (except when I have to write an article about it), etc.

I also don't have the right overall personality for poker. I'm a very passive person by nature. I don't like to cause trouble or upset people, and I'm very non-confrontational. I absolutely believe that your personality affects the way you play poker.

It took me a very long time to push my level of poker aggression to the point it is at now, still a bit lower than it should be IMO.

I also am very indecisive in real life. I'm afraid to make a mistake and I always fear the worst might happen. This translates to me misplaying hands, erring too far on the side of minimizing losses and not enough on the side of maximizing gains.

If I reraise AQ and get called, cbet A98r flop, and the turn is a J, my first thought is '****, what if he has AJ or QT?!' A lot of times it causes me to play the hand much more passively than I should. My default move when I get scared like this is to call a lot, hence my reputation. I have to be focused to catch myself and use my logic to overpower my tendency to shut down and play from behind.

I guess another one of my strengths is that I'm self aware.

Looking back what are some things you would change or stress for someone looking to get to your level to do or not to do? Any mistakes you made a lot that took you a few times to learn? All please work it out with CR for more Vids

At what point do you feel playing "abc poker" does not cut it anymore?

OMG I write long replies.

I g2g for about 45 min but I'll be working on this most of tonight and tomorrow I think.

I especially encourage questions about or responses to the responses I've given in this thread. I'd like to know if anything is particularly helpful or hit home with you, or if you think I have a leak that shows in my response. Or anything really. It makes it feel more like a conversation.

vn post, ty.

I know you might not take the time to answer this, but feel free to PM the answer to me or acquire my AIM and we'll talk about it, thanks:

What do you think of leading into the pfr?

I feel like I can comprehend general theory behind it, but I just haven't really worked it into my game, and I feel like I should be "able" to do anything.

If you'd like to just answer your thoughts on it, or your thoughts on balancing (i.e. if I always CR with big hands and bluffs, how okay do you think it is that I'm only leading like 1% of flops, and half of that 1% is a misclick?), as opposed to actual theory of board texture and player types, I will forgive you.

Additionally, feel free to ignore multiway pots and pots where your relative position dictates leading, and just focus on HU pots in button/bb or even just HU in general.

serious question: do you think aejones' ego helps or hurts him as far as becoming a great player?

Why do you think this is a leak? In a grander sense, how do you value the creation of a unique image in heads up matches?

i'll echo aejones question about donking into a preflop raiser heads up.

also thanks for doing this, interesting and thought-provoking to read.

it helps him at the moment, once he wants to beat 25/50+ it will hurt him. I have a lot of personal experience with this.