you're both right.

10BBs this deep in the 3rb might just constitute "killing it."

Must win $3rb someday. Only when it has 10-min levels though.

hi shane, it was really nice to meet/play with you @ bay 101. congrats again on the deal, your blog is awesome etcetcetc

Haha TY. Always nice to put a face to a name etcetc. Continued success to you.

BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

I just moved downtown Toronto a couple weeks ago and there is 1 on my street (Baldwin) and then another at the end of my street on Augusta. They are both in Kensington Market. I saw someone mention an older one got shut down but these 2 are going strong from the looks of things.

Great well and congrats on team online... I've posted in this thread a few times but never said congrats :/ I;ve also been reading the blog lately and it is awesome.

Congrats on everything Shane, I started reading your blog when I was stuck in a cubicle dreaming of playing poker all day. It was inspiring and sobering at the same time but always a great read. I'm glad you have your blogging legs under you again with regular updates because it is - along with Terrance Chan's - the best player blog out there.

Question: With online poker being sortofa young man's game at the moment, where do you see all these "internet kids" 10-, 15-, 20-years from now? Won't the nanonoko's of the world find an end-point?

And if they don't, how will the industry adjust to them as they get older? I mean, will Pokerstars eventually offer retirement and 401k's as part of their supernova program? How mainstream and respected will playing poker on a computer become? Its really not much different from most cubicle jobs except with some obvious plusses on a personal level.

Will poker, particularly online poker, reach a saturation point? Or will it simply stay a young man's game and as they get older they move on and let the next crop of youngin's take over?

I know that was a terribly cumbersome question with a lot of wherefore's and whathaveyou's but who knows, maybe you see some things in your crystal ball? Take care man, would be interested in your thoughts.

Sick brag: I won the $3r once, but it was 15-min levels , didn't finish till 530am eastern...

I often think about risk and reward in life. The risks in life are often deceiving, low risk jobs with steady pay and retirement plans turn out to be high risk long term when the industry collapses. In fact commuting everyday is a risk where the payoff is getting safely to work and the risk is serious injury or death. Most of the over looked risks in life are lost opportunities, and IMO if you are beating the game and have played enough hands to prove it then move up. If you do not you are costing yourself money, but most of all you are not learning or improving and will eventually lose interest. Think about it like car racing, the faster racer will always be the person most willing to take risks, but any faster lap time is offset when the faster racer crashes. It's like the turtle and the hare, but eventually the faster racer who took more risks will win, and win consistently to the point where his/her competition is no match. At that point they will also lose interest but will have quit a champion.

Thanks, and I agree that Terrence is one of the best poker bloggers out there. And as I might have mentioned, I started reading 2+2 from a cubicle, too.

If I understand the question right, I don't think there necessarily has to be an "endpoint." After all, Doyle Brunson and Erik Seidel and other guys who go back decades in the game, were all once sort of "young men."

And to quote another young man before his first big Foxwoods score, Nick Schulman said, "it's a cliche but true, poker is more than a game, it's a way of life."

I don't think there's anything inherent to youth that makes poker suited to it, rather overall mental agility. There are plenty of inflexible-minded young players who probably don't have as much potential as they think, while I think Doyle will be +EV until they throw the dirt on his casket.

I don't know much about 401Ks, but are they ever offered to independently employed types? We should be able to take the money we make and buy insurance and start retirement funds.

We've come such a long way in terms of the "mainstreaming" of poker since I became an observer of this world c. 2002. And although the momentum might have slowed since the boom, the saturation effect ought to ensure that poker maintains some kind of place as a respected/understood profession the way many other slightly offbeat careers are understood. I am more curious to see if poker has any pop-culture staying power.

I think the average age will get older, but it will never be surprising to run across a 21 year old at a live tournament who has been pro for 3 years. Again, I think mental agility will determine individual staying power, and there won't be some automatic switch-over to younger troops.

Hope I came up with something adequate. I tried.

So, there's a race-car analogy that directly contradicts the Aesop's Fables' lesson of, "slow and steady wins the race?"

I can't disagree with your point about risk-takers being bigger potential winners, but my point about risk-of-ruin remains. Like Dirty Harry said, "a man's got to know his limitations." And if a person can maintain a low-stakes grind that pays the bills while not losing interest, is he any worse off than than the high-risk-taker? I guess I still think in most cases in poker, the Tortoise beats both the hare and the race car driver.

notice I said "if you are beating the game and have played enough hands to prove it then move up". Your risk of ruin is very small as long as you follow a conservative bankroll strategy. IMO if you just choose not to move up your a nit and unless you have some evidence to say you cannot beat the next level your just being a coward (no offense). I wish there was a rule that said after you make x amount of money at a certain level you had to move up. Then again I guess you make pretty good money from stars and you went busto so I see why you would be so risk adverse.

Hmm, I think you are taking what I said too literally and maybe missing some places in the thread where I indicated I am clearly on the "shot-taking" side of the BRM spectrum. I believe I mentioned that I have a friend whose professionalism I respect above all, but who would take shots in 10Ks when his BR was <100K. But he still had a low risk of ruin because he was willing to grind MSNL online.

My main points were that there is a lot of smoke-and-mirrors in poker, and, again, to me not going broke is more valuable than pressing every edge. The real problem is that most people do not have a good sense of when to move up and take risks, nor the discipline to drop down in stakes when those risks don't work out. That's what leads to debt, makeup and pretend-ballers who are really super-busto.

We are in agreement that pressing edges where you are confident is pretty standard for a good and reasonably ambitious poker player.

I agree 100%
It's like once people win a little, they grow their confidence more than it should be and refuse to realize their true edges. The short-term effect that poker can bring will crush those without mental stability and a humble attitude. BTW I am sorry because I clearly missed where you pointed out your BRM and reading back my last post sounds really harsh. I was not pointing fingers,I guess I needed to vent..LOL

gogogo ship the WCOOP main!

prob my favourite well on 2+2, well done in the ME Shane.