BBickes' Well Thread

[spoonitnow]

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 Saturday, 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 Saturday? and the voice from in the well shouts back: Because on Saturday, it’s your day in the well.

I want to thank BBickes for doing this.

[bikes]

Yo yo yo hello everyone. I'll try to answer everyone's questions as best as I can.

[aka_red]

will you detail your first sexual encounter with the same sex aswell as the opposing sex?

[d0zer]

estimate how much money has bad spew cost you lifetime, then tell me whether the education was worth the money, or could have more easily been spent on +ev things like more study, coaching, or an aid like meth, speed or other stimulants?

[d0zer]

will you detail your first sexual encounter with the same sex aswell as the opposing sex?

The story where bikes bangs a stripper is pretty good.

He's snap in love with her, got white picket fence with 2 kids in the burbs on the mind when he finds out his buddy made it rain

[kdawgy80]

Going to go cliche with... If you had to choose only one piece of advice to give us all, what would it be and why?


And just for fun... Do you have a favorite story or hand or experience that you could share?

[bikes]

estimate how much money has bad spew cost you lifetime, then tell me whether the education was worth the money, or could have more easily been spent on +ev things like more study, coaching, or an aid like meth, speed or other stimulants?

Bad spew and tilt have easily cost me over 100k in this game. This really isn't an exaggeration on my part and I've considered tilt and the inability to deal with it my biggest leak for a long part of my poker career.

I am still up in the air about education because without it I would not have met my friends but the ability to focus solely on improving your game is just so beneficial. My school has always been taken care for me as well so I guess it's very close. I'm not sure if school was worth the money due to the fact I'm not completely sure full time school was the correct thing for me at the time and I am of the opinion rushing straight into college or even attending college is something that is not for everyone.

will you detail your first sexual encounter with the same sex aswell as the opposing sex?

A gentlemen never tells.

Going to go cliche with... If you had to choose only one piece of advice to give us all, what would it be and why?

And just for fun... Do you have a favorite story or hand or experience that you could share?

If I had one piece of advice to share with everyone it would be to get any tilt problems under control as best you can as soon as possible. Barring poor BRM, tilt will cause any player more money than any other leak.

As for your second question there are two hands that come to mind both were for tournament wins. One was for the FTP Daily Double B where I called my villian's turn crai with middle pair against his obv gutshot and won the tournament on that hand. The second would be during the stars $55 6m where again HU I had my villian monkey tilting and playing absolutely poorly and I called his massive overbet crai with K high on the flop and was good and winning that hand won me that tournament as well.

[JKDS]

What was the most difficult (or just difficult) hand you've had to review or play? Why was it so difficult, and how would you go about improving so that it would be easier?

[kiwiMark]

Sixth hit on google for "well thread". Winners.

[surviva316]

let me ask thee questions three:

1) it seems like your career has run the gambit of all genres of hold em (HU, 6m, MTT's, etc.). do you think switching it up has had value for your career and general understanding of the game (beyond simply breaking the grinding monotony)? are there any specific examples of this value?

2) have you learned anything about embarrassing about dranger/seen him take part in any horrendous hands that are worth sharing for the sake of laughing at him since taking him on as a student?

3) i know you saw this coming: i've always wondered what it's like to be stacked by me 150bb's deep. can you share exactly what this felt like? was it an honor?

[daven]

MTT
3 most important things in mid-stage tournament play - 2nd-4th hours of a rebuy, 2nd hour of a big tourney, that kind of timing, ya know, blinds creeping up, m dropping from 20 -> 10 if you're not careful...

Cash
thoughts on 4-bet ranges (FR/6max)
best tips on out of position play vs regs

Tilt - you talk about getting it under control - success? secrets?

first major poker a-ha moment?

blondes or brunettes? Tits or arse?

% importance of uber-fish to your income?

[XTR1000]

Ur avatar wears a hat. Why?

[flomo]

you have excellent taste in avatars, where do you find them?
and could you post more pics of them?

[Miffed22001]

total winnings?
Best MTT score?
Favourite non-holdem game?
Biggest tip to a 100nl player moving up
Biggest tip to a 10nl player moving up

where does the ghey SN come from!

Most difficult opponent you have played against (not HU)

[jyms]

Bit of a poker story would be cool. How did you get to where you are now. I am pretty sure I remember you as a beginner at grinderschool, no?

Why are you not on my AIM/MSN/Google

[swiggidy]

How does PLO make you feel?

[bikes]

What was the most difficult (or just difficult) hand you've had to review or play? Why was it so difficult, and how would you go about improving so that it would be easier?

The most difficult hand I've had to review is anything from Redzill4's or Renton's FR against some massive nit. I really don't play to well against massive nits as like, I barrel too much and don't play well against their aggression. But generally any time time I'm shown a HH when they have the near top of their range against a FR nit I just want to shove or call their shove which is usually wrong.

1) it seems like your career has run the gambit of all genres of hold em (HU, 6m, MTT's, etc.). do you think switching it up has had value for your career and general understanding of the game (beyond simply breaking the grinding monotony)? are there any specific examples of this value?

2) have you learned anything about embarrassing about dranger/seen him take part in any horrendous hands that are worth sharing for the sake of laughing at him since taking him on as a student?

3) i know you saw this coming: i've always wondered what it's like to be stacked by me 150bb's deep. can you share exactly what this felt like? was it an honor?

Yes, I would say it has helped. I've played everything and thus learned what I am incapable of doing. FR is just so boring to me and doesn't allow for anything creative. That isn't to say you should be FPSing all over the place but it is very difficult to do anything when your villian's range for raising is 2pr+, sets and the very very few in far between air. HU teaches you so much about hand reading and getting inside your opponents head to figure out what kinda emotion their feeling and thus the best way to exploit what exactly it is they think about you or what they think you think about them. Which translates wonderfully well to 6m. Donkaments were just to break up the monotony, and frankly anyone who can play postflop and knows anything about push/fold can be +EV in most any donkament $100-.

I can't really say anything embarassing about dranger except he over uses the word 'standard' while talking. I have this problem but no where near as bad as him

Getting stacked 150 deep by you was simply pure shock. I was 100 procent sure I had the best hand when I bet bet overbetshoved.

MTT
3 most important things in mid-stage tournament play - 2nd-4th hours of a rebuy, 2nd hour of a big tourney, that kind of timing, ya know, blinds creeping up, m dropping from 20 -> 10 if you're not careful...

Cash
thoughts on 4-bet ranges (FR/6max)
best tips on out of position play vs regs

Tilt - you talk about getting it under control - success? secrets?

first major poker a-ha moment?

blondes or brunettes? Tits or arse?

% importance of uber-fish to your income?

The biggest important of tournaments is when ante's come into play. Stealing and restealing become so much more important than they have been and hopefully by the time antes have come in I try to have some kinda stack to play with so I can maneuver postflop against the fish who call pre too much.

My 4b range in FR is like AA, KK and bluffs against most regs. Against fish my 4b/call range is obviously a little lighter and I only 4b KK if the reg isn't one of those bastards who only 5b shipps AA. 6m depending on the reg 99+ AQs+ but somewhere usually JJ+ AK+

My best tip against playing regs OOP is dont flat 3bs OOP. It makes life just so difficult on yourself and you give them such an advantage because the pot is larger and most people I've played against just have no idea what to do postflop oop. I mean if you have AA well its a little easier but if you flat stuff like JJ TT or just like anything it's very difficult.

My tilt became more controlled after many self talks, long walks and hot showers where I basically told myself this is getting redicoulous and I need to take steps to get it under control. I'm still not tilt free but I'm making great strides.

First poker ahah! moment would be wow people play poorly in 3b pots. I should try to start 3bing more and take advantage of this fact.

Blondes, and it's tits for me. My views on tits are different than most everyones here but its easily tits for me.

Fish are the most important asset to anyone's game and it would be good for people to remember that next time they want to berate one.

[bikes]

Ur avatar wears a hat. Why?

Hats are cool
<-----Exhibit A.

you have excellent taste in avatars, where do you find them?
and could you post more pics of them?

Various spots of the internets and I can definitely post some in the sexy thread.


total winnings? -mid to high 5 figures.

Best MTT score? - 5.2k in the 11r 1r1a

Favourite non-holdem game? drunken microstakes stud with ge00 and lemon

Biggest tip to a 100nl player moving up - Be prepared to face more aggression. A lot of 200nl is regs trying to outplay each other as opposed to making the most +EV play.

Biggest tip to a 10nl player moving up - Keep doing what you are doing.

Most difficult opponent you have played against (not HU)- PaulMC A fr reg who I hate who always has the nuts when I have the top of my range. Which really doesn't make him difficult I guess, just really frustrating to play against. The most difficult player I play against is ge00 because I overthink his ranges all the time and I've just been fortunate to run about 2k above EV against him.

I'll try to answer more a little later.

[CBAT]

What is the reason you dont you apply to work at Grinderschool?

Are drangers arms as small as they look in his pictures?

[kiwiMark]

First poker ahah! moment would be wow people play poorly in 3b pots. I should try to start 3bing more and take advantage of this fact.

"Man regs play horribly in 3bet pots" seems to be a fairly common comment- how did those of you who don't play horribly learn not to? Any tips, any articles you found particularly helpful, or was it just a matter of sitting down and thinking through spots?


You mentioned that you feel HU play gives you skills that translate well to 6max, and I know you have dranger playing HU SNGs. Would you recommend beginning/aspiring players start out at HU? It seems to generally be something that people feel they're going to "try out" once they've gotten the hang of FR/6m.


Do you let dranger hold you after?



Thanks a ton for doing this, really cool read. Oh, and plus about 14 on the nice taste in avatars comment.

[mbiz]

dear bbickies

how are you?
I play micro FR a fair bit, recently into 10nl. However i'd like to play some MTTs as well, ive only ever played a couple of cheapo (25c) ones that i went well in. Do you have any basic recommendations for me concerning MTT play?
Also, should i get a push fold chart for use in MTT, and at what point do i start push/folding.

thanks muchly

from mbiz

[!Luck]

1) What is your favorite thing about poker?
2) Would you be happy playing poker for the next 40 years? Describe why or why not?
3) How do you deal with people's perspective when they find out what you do?
!luck

[spoonitnow]

A question for the fishies, how often in the past year have you participated in sweat sessions, session reviews, things of that nature? What types of things do you do (or have you done) to improve?

[eragotte]

Is the hand history converter not working or is it something on my end?

[bikes]

Bit of a poker story would be cool. How did you get to where you are now. I am pretty sure I remember you as a beginner at grinderschool, no?

Why are you not on my AIM/MSN/Google

I started online poker back in summer 2007 losing a few $50 deposits. I took 3rd in a $3 dollar tournament which got my roll a small bit of stability. Unfortunately back then I had major tilt issues and went nearly broke flipping with fat-b several times. Sometime around winter 2008 I got a stake from mcatdog for 50nl and my results were insanely poor and frankly I still feel bad about that to this day. Summer 2008 I had a lot of family commitments and weddings that invovled me being without the internet for a long period of time.

I returned to poker in Fall 2008 where I was supposed to attend the University of Illinois. Unfortunately a bad case of strep kept me bed ridden during the first 2 weeks of class and as a result I was told to drop all my classes. During this time I played a lot of poker, mostly focusing on Sit n Goes to build the roll then HU cash once my roll was built. I learned a lot about poker during this time and built my roll for 200nl 6m. I did very well however my tilt was still an issue and I started to bounce between 200nl and 100nl. I've was starting to make real progress but around Oct. 2009 I hit the worst downswing of my career and it lasted a long time. I ran worse than I could imagine, which isn't to say my play was perfect but as I'm sure you know its very difficult to play A+ poker when your mindset isn't the greatest. Rav's post in Gentriuc's blog covers this very well. Anyways with my roll and confidence crushed I decided to give it the last effort in Jan with a renewed focus and mindset and things are going much better.

I can pm you my AIM if you'd like it Jyms.

PLO is funny swig, Like there is a lot of variance but the play there is so poor compared to NLHE it kinda helps even things out.

What is the reason you dont you apply to work at Grinderschool?
Are drangers arms as small as they look in his pictures?

Those are reasons between me and GS.
I dunno about his arms as I haven't like checked him out or anything like that.

[bikes]

"Man regs play horribly in 3bet pots" seems to be a fairly common comment- how did those of you who don't play horribly learn not to? Any tips, any articles you found particularly helpful, or was it just a matter of sitting down and thinking through spots?

You mentioned that you feel HU play gives you skills that translate well to 6max, and I know you have dranger playing HU SNGs. Would you recommend beginning/aspiring players start out at HU? It seems to generally be something that people feel they're going to "try out" once they've gotten the hang of FR/6m.

Do you let dranger hold you after?
.

HU teaches you so much about 3b pots because you are involved in so many more 3b pots. You learn about playing in position and OOP in 3b pots because of the game dynamics of HU. If you cannot play well in these kind of pots you will simply be destroyed quickly. I guess the only way to learn about them is to try to play more of them I guess. Instead of insta 4bing AA and KK maybe try and take a flop IP and see how people react and take notes of their ranges and how they react and what they do.

I would recommend everyone learn's HU at some point in their poker career because it has something beneficial to everyone's game. Whether its learning how to deal with the passive fish or the maniac aggro reg. You learn so much more about the way certain styles play when you are taking every flop against them. You learn so much more about hand reading and adjustments which is just such a huge part of poker. Tilt control is a valuable skill you will need to learn because the variance of HU is just so big that there the swings will cause lots of people to tilt. Which why HU was such a profitable game, you could get someone to tilt and they would spew and spew and spew it off to you. These days its a lot of bumhunters at cash so I would recommend HU sngs to a lot of beginners.

Lol @ the dranger joke btw.

[bikes]

how are you?
I play micro FR a fair bit, recently into 10nl. However i'd like to play some MTTs as well, ive only ever played a couple of cheapo (25c) ones that i went well in. Do you have any basic recommendations for me concerning MTT play?
Also, should i get a push fold chart for use in MTT, and at what point do i start push/folding.

Some advice I would offer you is don't pass up decision that you think is very close because if you sit and nut camp too much you will end up having to call your last 3bb's off with like T3o. Be aggressive but not maniacal.

You should start push/folding around 11-12bb's and if you do a bit of research there are a lot of good push/fold charts out there and SNG Wizard is just wonderful for learning push/fold.


1) What is your favorite thing about poker?
Making money is fun. I'm sorry thats about as generic as AA is my favorite hand. I like being able to make that to laugh when someone just makes an atrocious play against my range and then cries in chat at how bad I am. FWIW I do not use the chat box when playing until today when a fish exclaimed "JOKERSTARS WINS AGAIN!" after a split pot, to which I replied " Lee needs a new pair of shoes" Just too great of a spot to pass up.

2) Would you be happy playing poker for the next 40 years? Describe why or why not?
No not really. I really want to make a positive difference in this world and I really cannot go out and get my hands dirty so to speak playing poker forever. I also think the games are only getting tougher and I don't want to do this more than a few more years. The stress from this style of life is alot I guess, though I have no experience with what stress is like for anything else so my opinion could easily be naive.

3) How do you deal with people's perspective when they find out what you do?
There are lots of people in my family who don't approve of what I do and I kinda just have to take their insults and shrug them off. It's kinda something I have to do and that's fine. It's kinda unfortunate that they can't accept it but I can't do anything to change that.

I used to get annoyed when random people at parties found out a long time ago but since then I kinda just go with it. People are interested in what I do and it would be a douchebag move on my part if I was to treat them like they were retarded or stupid.

A question for the fishies, how often in the past year have you participated in sweat sessions, session reviews, things of that nature? What types of things do you do (or have you done) to improve?

I joined in sessions as often as possible. I've sweated a lot of people's games and had people sweat mine. There is nothing better than watching someone's game and taking things from their game and having them take from yours. I constantly posted hands in IRC and sent them to far better players than I for opinions on what I screwed up and where. Talking on skype while playing and talking over your decisions is very helpful as well. Talking your decisions and reasons behind them aloud is very benefical to the learning proccess because you will stop and say, wow that's stupid I should probably 'insert decision here' instead.The most important thing I can say is never take offense to what people offering you advice say. There is alot that can be learned from a HH where nutsinho tells you 'this is the worst hand i've ever seen'

[dranger7070]

I can't really say anything embarassing about dranger except he over uses the word 'standard' while talking. I have this problem but no where near as bad as him.

I laughed and then said standard out loud.

[kingnat]

Have you attempted to incorporate specific studying on tilt control... e.g. meditation, exercise, counseling, reckless fapping pre-sesh, etc.?

[d0zer]

I can't really say anything embarassing about dranger except he over uses the word 'standard' while talking. I have this problem but no where near as bad as him.

I laughed and then said standard out loud.

Wait...there's something wrong with saying "standard" after every sentence IRL?

[kingnat]

I can't really say anything embarassing about dranger except he over uses the word 'standard' while talking. I have this problem but no where near as bad as him.

I laughed and then said standard out loud.

Wait...there's something wrong with saying "standard" after every sentence IRL?

It's only wrong if you don't use a ville18 voice when saying it.

[spoonitnow]

How do you use pot control in no-limit hold'em poker?

[Sasquach991]

I hear the term "showdown value" alot, especially in videos.
What does this really mean?

[!Luck]

What is needed for you to call AXs on Button vs EP raiser?
What is needed for you to 3-bet suited connectors on the button vs EP raiser?

How do you go about deciding how often to do the above?

!luck

[killerkebab]

Where would you like to be in a year's time, realistically?

[kiwiMark]

Why does facebook keep getting uglier?

[bigspenda73]

are azn wobmenz better in the sack than white chicks?

[spoonitnow]

Care to elaborate on this?

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ry-t69187.html

[bikes]

Have you attempted to incorporate specific studying on tilt control... e.g. meditation, exercise, counseling, reckless fapping pre-sesh, etc.?

Lots of tea and a little bit of meditation went a long way. I mean I still tilt but it is miles away from where I was a few months ago.

How do you use pot control in no-limit hold'em poker?

as someone who as actually read a well before you should know this is a poor well question =(
Checking back some flops and turns IP as well as block betting a lot of turns OOP. Block betting flops doesn't do to well as in my experience most regs raise>>>>>>fold>call in that order depending on board texture.

are azn wobmenz better in the sack than white chicks?

hooray someone has actually read a well before. due to growing up in an all white neighborhood and attending a primarily white college I unfortunately have no experience with the former.

[bikes]

Where would you like to be in a year's time, realistically?

Not in Michigan and back at MSNL approaching HSNL. I think both are very achievable if I was to put forth any kind of decent effort. To put it in perspective there are people who have deposited 500 bucks in March and made SNE by December. Just requires a lot of work, focus, and attitude to succeed in this game which unfortunately for most of my poker career i've lacked some of these characteristics so to speak.

LOL spoon at the intervention story. It's funny what a few years can do to change people's opinions.

Facebook keeps getting uglier because the devolopers hate us and probably want to make facebook cheaper to run as well as add more ad-space. It's always about the dollars no matter what the enterprise.

[aka_red]

Should I do a well?

[spoonitnow]

Should I do a well?

Not yet imo. Probably so just in a week or so.