A stranger is being shown around a village that he has just become part of. He is shown a well and his guide says "On any day except Tuesday, you can shout any question down that well and you'll be told the answer" . The man seems pretty impressed, and so he shouts down: Why not on Tuesday? and the voice from in the well shouts back: Because on Tuesday, its your day in the well .

Graph and stats of your poker career

How long have you been playing and what are the main differences you found between the levels as you moved up through the micro limits.

What are your bankroll requirements and how aggressivly do you take shots?

These are all my stats since June 07

What's the biggest downswing you've had in poker, and what, if anything did you do to overcome it?

Where are you from?
Poker story?

How old are you?

Job/University?

Where do you see yourself in poker in one year?

I've been playing poker of some sort for about 3 years. As to do with levels online, i started out with sng's, and mtts, then moved to cash.

I started my cash games playing effectively 25NL and so have only really played 3 levels. 25NL is very passive, and you can win here by playing straight forward, no double barreling, and you don't even need to steal that often though it definitely pads the winrate.
50NL is where i've played most of my poker, there you have to steal more, and here is where i really learnt to 3bet light. People can fold hands here, and people put you to tougher decisions.
100NL, i haven't had too many hands at, bu i think its beatable. I've never actually taken a prolonged shot at it, that hasn't been shortstacking. The play at 100NL is waay more aggro, with very few limped pots preflop. There are a lot more tags, though still enough fish to make a profit, and even the tags aren't brilliant from what i have seen

Since i started taking it seroiously, i have stuck to these requirements:
Full ring = 20 BI
Sngs = 30 BI
mtts = 50BI

over the last two years, i have never broken this rule, though i actually play pretty overrolled most of the time. During the 25NL challenge, for example, i actually had over 80 BI's.

I've had two $500 downswings, one in the space of 5 days a year ago, and one in the space of 2 days last month.

I've had longer downswings, but its the sudden ones that hurt the most.

In both of those situations i just stopped playing for a predetermined space of time. Both times it was to the end of the month. It does halp, and i moved back down to 50NL both times

24, 25 in May

Training to be a teacher, i have a degree in Math (Maths for us English people)

I think i will be trying to hit platinum to keep my supernova status. I see poker as a real feasible part time income, and will be trying to save up for a deposit on a house i imagine. I reckon i will be putting in on average 2 hours a day if i was working as a teacher. I would like to be playing at 100NL, and in the future i don't really see myself playing any higher than that.

So is your favorite part of poker the income or do you love the game itself?

What is your favorite non-premium hand?

What is the last book you read? School text doesn't count!

Have you visited the US before and if so, where?


Thanks for doing a well. They are always fun to read.

Significance of "Eggpie"?

Is that your child?

It's the orly baby

It could still be his!

What part of your game do you feel needs the most work?

I'm from the UK -> England -> Yorkshire (for those who know it)

My poker story:

I started playing on any sort of semi regular basis just over 3 years ago. A friend of mine who plays bridge with me, was making a living playing, and i was surprised at how much he could make. A lot of young bridge players were getting in to poker, so i kind of followed them. Once i got my laptop i put some money on Prima (Bet365) and immediately lost it on the cash tables trying to bluff people. This put me off for the time being, and i fell into a rhythm of playing $2 sngs and then on to $5 turbos. I was at uni, and i was also working at a pub for about 30-40 hours a week to get by. Poker was a fun hobby, but i never really made anything significant.

That summer, i started playing cash games on Prima, and started playing 2-3 tables. I won $100 in one day, which made me well pleased, and here was me thinking i could do it every day. I couldn't and soon enough i lost a $185 pot with KK vs AA when he just called preflop. This hurt, as i sat down with $10 and was plying for about an hour.

I then spent my last year of uni on campus, and was skint for the first term, so didn't really play much aside from Live poker with my friends. Its not the same, it was soo random. It was around this time that i found 2+2, after i bought Harrington on Holdem, and it had the 2+2 forum logo on the back. I signed up and started posting, and it was then that i realised exactly how deep the game was, and how much i had to learn. I spent my time lurking around the MTT forum, as thats the main thing i played.

The only site i could play on my laptop at uni, was Pacific poker. great. As everyone knows, their software was awful, but so were the players, so it wasn;t all bad. I played there every day, and read the forum every day. Playing $8 sngs, and the odd $10 mtt i got from $50 to $1700 in the space of about 5 months, a lot of this was to do with a 3rd place in a $10k guarentee, for $850. It pissed me off actually, cos i ran my top pair into slow played AA to go out third. I really thought i was going to win it.

During this time, i also played a bit at the casino in my hometown which had just opened, and i crushed it the times i went. I don't really enjoy it, the atmosphere puts me off, but have come in the top 3 about 20% of the time i have played there, winning 200 pounds, 480 pounds, 600 pounds, and a few more lots of around 200-250 pounds.

Since then really, i haven't really worked a serious job, as when i started winning i didn't need to.

After that yar at uni, i went home and found i could play more than one table again (Paicific didn't let you) and moved to party. I went from 4 tables to 12 in about 2 weeks, and i played ultra tight set mining style. It worked at 25NL and i made a very slow profit.

I then moved back to Uni to be with my girlfriend at the time, and lived in a house with some guys from uni who had also finished. without a student loan, i had to withdraw all my money to pay for things like rent and stuff.
I messed about playing some $1-$3 sngs and some $4/180 s on stars, until January of last year when i finally tried taking it seriously. I borrowed $600 off my dad and deposited on FT with rakeback and 12 tabled at 25NL/50NL on and off. I stuck to my bankroll rules, and made enough to pay the rent and get by. I took the bankroll rules seriously, but i just didn't put in the hours. I really wish i had done at the time, as when it came to last summer (The start of the graph above) i went ultra serious with poker before my teaching course started, and played about 50k hands in one month!! wow, i was actually winning anout to do mroe than just get by. The next month i played 75k hands, shortstacking 50NL. I had my best month ever to date ($3200 or so).

i shortstacked and found a niche. I found that most of the regulars couldn't cope with a 40BB stack, and i was able to win at a higher rate that i was doing full stacked, as i stacked off too much when i shouldn't. Shoretstacking like this was a solution to it, though i never really shared my style with people as i didn't want to be exploited, and i don't really want to encourage shortstacks.

It was at this point the FR forum came about, and i started posting a lot more. I think the FR forum and the posters here have really helped my game. and i'm really glad that its now been split.

I had an 85k break even stretch which was really annoying, and covered about 2 months mid August to mid Oct. at this point i decided i couldn't beat 100NL shortstacking, as i had tried a few times to do so. And since i was break even at 50NL full stacking, i dropped down to 25NL to improve my game. This is when i got a lot lot better,and was beating 25NL for 5ptbb/100. Then came the FR challenge. One i won $500 in a week there, putting in such a huge amount of hands, i moved to 50NL and had a $2800 month last month. Hopefully its onwards and upwards from here.


One thing i am glad about, is that have always been knocked back on my feet at various points in my poker career. It has made me be more patient, and more understanding of the variance and swings behind it.

If i won the lottery, i would only play tournaments. I don't dislike cash, but if it weren't for the money i doubt i would play it. I treat it like a job, and try not to get attached emotionally

I like my 98s/t9s hands, and 3 bet them constantly

Last book would be NLHTaP, i'm currently reading psychology of poker. Last non-poker book is Breaking Vegas

Went to Florida when i was 14 for two weeks with my family. really liked it

Eggpie was a name my brother and i made up as a username when we were playing command and conquer online. It was a name that no one else would ever use,so i started using it for all my online usernames and emails. The odd occasions where eggpie is actually taken!!!!! i use Rabidbean

No, see above

I'm still a nit at heart. At least, compared to what the forum view of poker is, i am. I don't think its a problem, but it is likely to be one reason why i can;t beat 100NL

Another one is that i don't like cold calling preflop. this comes from playing tournaments, where when it gets late on it is almost never correct to cold call preflop dues to stack sizes (with the exception of cold calling to trap)

As such, i don't call in position with SC's and other hands i know are EV+. I am more apt to 3bet them, or fold them.

Another area i would like to improve on is playing draws, esp OOP. I dislike calling raises, esp where i think a raise myself may get a fold. As such i convince myself to either fold, when i should probably call, or raise and get bet off the hand, when i should probably call

Right, i'm off for a few hours sleep. Its 2:30am here.

Leave any more questions, and i'll get straight back in the morning

Size of penis?

Soccer club?

Do you want to pursue a poker career? I mean, like playing full time?

Do you have some kind of a Yorkshire accent?

Minimum hand requirement to 3 bet a 16/12/3 with a 40% ATS from the BB?

How tall are you?

Favorite colour?

Do you consider yourself an attention whore? Or are you a troll instead?

What's your typical day like and how does poker fit into it?

How many hands do you play per day/month?

Why do you play full ring and not 6-max?

How do you plan to spend your FPPs?

Biggest pot you've ever won?

I live not far from you, durham (the original).

Have you found that your vpip has decreased due to the higher aggression of $100nl? Do you feel this is the main reason your winrate is lower at that level?

I'm doing a masters at Leeds uni so i've got a fair idea where Yorkshire is. .

How did you cope with Shortstacking for any length of time? Did it not bore you to tears?

Interesting read. I like to knowing more about the people I am interacting with.