any questions

[gabe]

any questions???

[gabe]

g1u: want me to say it was your idea
LuKie StyLe 3: whatever, flip a coin
LuKie StyLe 3: heads you
LuKie StyLe 3: tails me
g1u: ill do the watch
g1u: u want first 30 or second 30
LuKie StyLe 3: first
g1u: was on the 24s
g1u: so u win
g1u: your idea!
LuKie StyLe 3: yes!!!

lukie's idea too

[Harry]

Is this your Well thread????

[Galapogos]

At which point did you become cash game elite? And by that I mean what level did you have that indescribable grasp of the game? And was there any kind of revelation that came to you at some point that kicked up your game a gear?

Assuming this is your well thread...?

[gabe]

lets not call it a well thread, call it a ballin thread or something about pimpin hos

[mcatdog]

Do you want the questions to be poker-related or can they be about being a baller in general?

[gabe]

At which point did you become cash game elite? And by that I mean what level did you have that indescribable grasp of the game? And was there any kind of revelation that came to you at some point that kicked up your game a gear?

Assuming this is your well thread...?

it might seem like i have this great grasp of the game but to me, i dont. everytime i have a losing session i start thinking of reasons why i lost. was i playing bad (tilting?)? were my lines not optimal?

there are 3 points of my poker upbringing that stand out and they all deal with aggression. i might not be able to convey what i learned in each but they might help.
1. when i was playing tournaments, rippy coached me in a couple. he was always wanting to raise and bet to steal pots even when my cards were bad. doing this and having it pound it in my head started me on the point to being aggro (and spewy alot i guess)

2. when i was moving up limits, i was asking alot of questions of old FTR member Allinlife, who was playing 5/10 at the time. when i finally got close to having the roll to play 5/10, i ended up on a table with him. the table broke and we were headsup. i didnt quit because maybe i would learn something or own him or get owned myself. a few hands in, i open KJ in the SB (this was the old party structure where BB=button), he reraises AJ to 100 on button i call. flop was 772 with two hearts, i check and he bets 150, i INSTANTLY min check raise, he pushes, i fold and he shows. to some it might just look like another bluff, but it really got me thinking what makes good bluffs. when i talked to him about the hand later on, i asked him how he knew. he said something like "you check minraised, what were you representing??" this seems like a stupid point but it got me thinking ALOT more about handreading and what makes good bluffs.

3. there was a hand on 2p2 posted where board was something like AQxxy (where the x is a low paired board). someone ended up on the river with AJ (or something similiar) and made a poll whether they should call or fold to a large bet. durr responded something like, "my favorite option isn't in the poll..."

this was another one that got me thinking about bluffing in a whole new way.

[gabe]

Do you want the questions to be poker-related or can they be about being a baller in general?

i love talking about ballin

like how my doctor told me not to drink for 2 more weeks and i just finished a beer. BALLIN

[sauce123]

gabe can you sticky that 2p2 thread if you have it bookmarked cause I have literally heard that Durr comment mentioned in at least 5 well-like posts as a turning point in ppl's poker careers.

[Trikflow77]

how are you so good at taking shots? what is your method for shot taking?

[gabe]

gabe can you sticky that 2p2 thread if you have it bookmarked cause I have literally heard that Durr comment mentioned in at least 5 well-like posts as a turning point in ppl's poker careers.

was probably just me saying it on there, not that i've done a well post

i dont have it saved

[gabe]

how are you so good at taking shots? what is your method for shot taking?

i wrote this in my blog and still agree with it, nothing ground breaking

"
i like to take shots at bigger games. this could be when i'm running good, when i think i'm play really well, or when a huge fish leaves my table so he can sit at a higher table.

make sure you aren't playing scared money. if you are risking half of your bankroll, you won't be playing well. this goes hand in hand with the axiom 'dont gamble with what you can't afford to lose.' if you want to sit at a $200NL table and you have a $1k BR, you can't let it get to you if you lose it all. if you can't handle losing it, don't sit at the table.

i think its a great idea to take shots at bigger games when you are feeling confident. if you run good, you can book a nice win that would really help your bankroll. if you don't, you just gotta go back to the grind and make money back at the lower stakes.

when i moved up to $200 NL, i played broke even over my frist 20k hands. i was getting kinda sick of this and i thought i was playing great, so i sat down at a $400 table. after hitting a few sets, i was up to over $1000 on the table. i ender up running really hot (hey, i was due!) at $400 NL and never went back to $200NL. if you could see my PokerTracker databse you would see that over the 20k hands i logged at party 6 max, im actually down a few hundred.

don't use this entry as an excuse to play out of your bankroll. you have to be really confident and not risking too much (i think anything more than 1/5 of BR is waaay too much). Barry Greenstein has a good section in his book about this if you are interested in reading more. he was the one who originally motivated me to take some shots."

[Halv]

What and when was the last leak you identified and what did you do to plug it?

Who would win in a fight, IowaSkinsFan or Massimo?

[Trikflow77]

How many hands to you play in a month? What is your take on marathon sessions, are they good/bad/or meh? What level do you think your hourly rate is highest taking into account number of tables played and softness of the game.

[Anosmic]

How much does a buy-in matter at HS SH-NLHE? (look a vowel!)
(i.e. there seems to be a lot more stacking off on these weird hands, or is that just a misrepresentative sample?)

What happens when you play your 5/10 game at $200NL? (or whatever) Do you pwn the same? Can we small-stakes fellahs be putting all that stuff in place now, or does it have to come later?

[gabe]

What and when was the last leak you identified and what did you do to plug it?

Who would win in a fight, IowaSkinsFan or Massimo?

-seems like everytime i play i get better at laying down hands. when you have a bad image its hard to let go of mediocre stuff but the more hands i get in the better feel i have for it.
-whoever's owl says "hm rly?"

[sauce123]

Gabe- I'm currently a 6.55 bb/100 winner at 3/6 and I still feel like a huge donkey in about half the pots I play. given the fact I still have a ton of room for improvement, how big a step up would 5/10 and eventually 10/20+ on stars and elsewhere be. Note: right now I also use little game selection, how important is moving money to multiple sites for game selection?

god i ramble, but someone told me stars 5/10 is easier then 3/6 because of the huge amnt of shorstackers/shot takers. meh. respond if u feel like it im goin to bed.

[Lukie]

let's talk about a certain player on pokerstars (he goes by the name Lukieplaya)

this guy has:

played poker for significantly less time then you

has played a comparable amount of hands of NL ring as you, possibly a little more, despite playing smaller then you due to his very conservative br management

is self-taught

has made a comparable amount of $$$ as you at poker

while you might be up slightly on him head to head, he has actually done significantly better then you AT THE SAME TABLE over literally 10's of thousands of hands

HOWEVER

every time this guy talks about poker you BLATANTLY disagree with everything he says and consistently say how bad he is. I don't get it. If anything, he is a better NLHE ring player then you, albeit it's definitely close one way or another. discuss.

[gabe]

Gabe- I'm currently a 6.55 bb/100 winner at 3/6 and I still feel like a huge donkey in about half the pots I play. given the fact I still have a ton of room for improvement, how big a step up would 5/10 and eventually 10/20+ on stars and elsewhere be. Note: right now I also use little game selection, how important is moving money to multiple sites for game selection?

god i ramble, but someone told me stars 5/10 is easier then 3/6 because of the huge amnt of shorstackers/shot takers. meh. respond if u feel like it im goin to bed.

i dont know anything about the stars 3/6 game. if you have 5k that you dont mind losing just sit down and see how it goes. game selection is important but seems really hard now with less and less games.

[gabe]

i'm pretty sure lukie's post isn't a joke. i addressed him on aim, specific about this paragraph.

every time this guy talks about poker you BLATANTLY disagree with everything he says and consistently say how bad he is. I don't get it. If anything, he is a better NLHE ring player then you, albeit it's definitely close one way or another. discuss.

g1u: i disagree with alot of what you say because you dont think abuot the game deep enough most of the time
LuKie StyLe 3: no reason to think too much deeper then your opponents
LuKie StyLe 3: lots of players are ABC

dont really need to argue too much when his first response shows how shallow he thinks

[gabe]

i should add, to lukie and anyone else, if you want to talk shit put $ where your mouth is

[Lukie]

here's the full relevant part of the convo:

g1u (3:10:13 AM): because you dont think abuot the game deep enough most of the time
LuKie StyLe 3 (3:10:38 AM): no reason to think too much deeper then your opponents
LuKie StyLe 3 (3:10:42 AM): lots of players are ABC
g1u (3:10:50 AM): i guess ill post that too
g1u (3:10:52 AM): lol
LuKie StyLe 3 (3:10:49 AM): so u just have to be a little tricky, not uber-tricky
g1u (3:11:07 AM): your response shows how shallow you think
g1u (3:11:11 AM): ty
LuKie StyLe 3 (3:11:15 AM): np

my point was that against a lot of the regs out there that are playing 'solid' ABC poker, there's no reason to constantly get tricky and make all kinds of fancy plays, despite what anybody tells you about these absurdly crazy dynamics in high stakes games (I'm not saying they don't exist, some people just grossly over-exaggerate them).

That's not to say that you shouldn't mix up your game, etc, but you don't have to get wickedly out of line or think on the 8th level when your opponent isn't capable of thinking past the 2nd or 3rd level or so, if that.

in any case, this post is so generic now to the point of being near-useless.

I actually came back to give gabe some props b/c he's actually a v. good player, I didn't want to come off like I was bashing him. I just never really understood why he never gave my game much respect. Whatevs.

[Lukie]

i should add, to lukie and anyone else, if you want to talk shit put $ where your mouth is

we have played 10's of thousands of hands together. If that's not putting $ where the mouth is, I don't know what is. I don't play you hu b/c I will readily admit that you are a better HU player then I am. I am ok with this (for the time being).

[mcatdog]

OK, I have one question about being a baller and one question about serious business.

First question, estimate how many people in the world do you think are better than you at short handed NLHE. I was thinking a couple of days ago, most of the people on TV are horrible and 25/50 on stars is just about the toughest game around. For a winning player in that game, there can't be that many people who are better.

Second question, do you have any unusual plans for what to do with the money you've made? Or are you just investing some of it in index funds and putting the rest toward house / car / balling expenses?

[aislephive]

Can you go into a bit more detail about shot taking? Say you have a $10k roll, would you reccomend taking like a $2k shot at 2/4? Or with even less?

Recently you went on a $100k downswing, can you talk about that? What were you feeling like during the downswing? Your style of play involves a lot of deep level thinking and guts, I would imagine that it's easy to get down on yourself when you're playing that way and it isn't working out. Was/is your confidence shot?

Also, do you get phased at all by losing big pots? Or does the money not really mean that much to you, like you could lose a 10k pot at $10/20 and not sweat it. From your demeanor on the forums, you seem like a pretty chill guy and don't take anything too seriously, which is a compliment. Do you ever get upset at anything when it comes to poker? If so, what? And if not, why not?

Lastly, what are your plans for the future? Do you plan on going pro, if you aren't already? If you don't plan on it, is it because of legislation? Aka would you have gone pro if things were like they used to be and you could 9 table $5/10 on Party for $800/hr.

This should provide the thread with some good content.

[bigspenda73]

What is the number 1 tell you see from online poker players?

[Irisheyes]

Will you take me on as your poker protoge? (I've no idea how to spell that word)

[elipsesjeff]

Will you take me on as your poker protoge? (I've no idea how to spell that word)

sorry, i'm 1st in line! but you can have back cuts.

[gabe]

OK, I have one question about being a baller and one question about serious business.

First question, estimate how many people in the world do you think are better than you at short handed NLHE. I was thinking a couple of days ago, most of the people on TV are horrible and 25/50 on stars is just about the toughest game around. For a winning player in that game, there can't be that many people who are better.

Second question, do you have any unusual plans for what to do with the money you've made? Or are you just investing some of it in index funds and putting the rest toward house / car / balling expenses?

-i have no idea. i dont really know how to answer that. im probably top few hundred in world i guess. does that make sense? i dont even know

-lukie and I actually talk about new ideas for getting mega rich all the time using our money. lately we've been talking alot about buying tons of properties and starting a real estate empire.

[gabe]

Can you go into a bit more detail about shot taking? Say you have a $10k roll, would you reccomend taking like a $2k shot at 2/4? Or with even less?

Recently you went on a $100k downswing, can you talk about that? What were you feeling like during the downswing? Your style of play involves a lot of deep level thinking and guts, I would imagine that it's easy to get down on yourself when you're playing that way and it isn't working out. Was/is your confidence shot?

Also, do you get phased at all by losing big pots? Or does the money not really mean that much to you, like you could lose a 10k pot at $10/20 and not sweat it. From your demeanor on the forums, you seem like a pretty chill guy and don't take anything too seriously, which is a compliment. Do you ever get upset at anything when it comes to poker? If so, what? And if not, why not?

Lastly, what are your plans for the future? Do you plan on going pro, if you aren't already? If you don't plan on it, is it because of legislation? Aka would you have gone pro if things were like they used to be and you could 9 table $5/10 on Party for $800/hr.

This should provide the thread with some good content.

-25 buyins i would definitely be taking a shot. 25 buyins for the shot and move back down if you lose 5 seeems fine.

-ewwwwwwwww 100k downswing. yea i question myself alot and it sucks. im confident in me being better than most players so i can still win money forever (hopefully!)

-in real life im a pretty chill guy too, i'm always smiling and enjoying myself. but ive actually found myself getting mad at really dumb things lately and i think it has alot to do with dropping 100k. money size of pots doesn't really affect, but % of BR does. the only times i really get mad at the tables are when i really outplay someone but the deck lets them win anyway.

-if the games were as good as they were on party for the next 10 years i would definitely keep playing poker, but i dont think thats going to happen. even if poker dies, i have alot of money for someone my age and i like to think im pretty smart, so ill be mega rich eventually.

[gabe]

What is the number 1 tell you see from online poker players?

timing tells are alot more important than people think. not sure if thats a #1 tell but its worth mentioning.

[gabe]

Will you take me on as your poker protoge? (I've no idea how to spell that word)

if poker comes back like it was a year ago, maybe.

[Irisheyes]

I'll hold you to that when asia comes on board soon.

[gabe]

actually theres no way im helping you if you dont get a muppet avatar

[IowaSkinsFan]

How often, if ever, are you using game theory?

[zook]

What's the ballinest thing you've bought with poker winnings?

What are you doing for Lee Jones now that he's leaving his position as Stars poker room manager?

Why are you so much better than Lukie at hu?

When you have an aggro/spewy image and a solid regular with position on you starts flat-calling c-bets and second barrels more often, what adjustments do you make?

[XTR1000]

when did you start not only to "consume" poker theory/strategy other ppl wrote, but to think about certain situations yourself and evaluating alternative strategies?

at what points do you disagree with the common theories/starts?

[gabe]

How often, if ever, are you using game theory?

every hand i guess. everytime i try to balance my play (every pot) its like using game theory, right?

[gabe]

What's the ballinest thing you've bought with poker winnings?

What are you doing for Lee Jones now that he's leaving his position as Stars poker room manager?

Why are you so much better than Lukie at hu?

When you have an aggro/spewy image and a solid regular with position on you starts flat-calling c-bets and second barrels more often, what adjustments do you make?

-i bought a rolex a few weeks ago. no diamonds so not THAT baller. i had some dom perignon in the bahamas, thats pretty baller. when i have really good poker days/months, i've taken out all my boys for dinner or picked up bar tabs. i posted a story in commune once about having a $500 tab and my friend's mom trying to get me to be her 'sugar daddy.'

-next time i see lee jones im giving him another high five. he seems cool on the internet but hes a really nice guy in real life, enjoyable to talk to. once i sent him money on stars but then stars support told me i couldnt do that and sent it back.

-lukie pffffffffft

-if i'm in position i just keep firing more! eventually i'll have something and trick them into calling. if they are solid enough so that i think they are better than me i'll avoid playing big pots with them. if i'm out of position i'll start check raising different streets more with better than average hands, but i dont do that too often because i try to make sure i have position on ones that give me trouble.

[gabe]

when did you start not only to "consume" poker theory/strategy other ppl wrote, but to think about certain situations yourself and evaluating alternative strategies?

at what points do you disagree with the common theories/starts?

-as soon as i found ftr and saw tyson making a several hundred a month i was hooked. i mean, how amazing would it be to win $1k a month for an entire year???? now i lose that much preflop without even getting my stack in. pretty sick if you think about it.

anyway as soon as i saw all that i started reading everything. at first i was really driven to just learn the game and make money, but as i started to play with the same people more and more i started to want to make more than any of them. i wanted (err want?) to be better than all the regulars. now i've gotten to the point where i want to beat the highest stakes games offered. not only reading everything i could, but also just thinking about my own hands analytically then putting what i thought about into practice has made me so much better.

since i have 'consumed' sooo much poker, poker has kinda consumed my life. everything i do seems to revolve around it. i schedule things around poker. i dont do well in school anymore because of it. i tell myself that i have so much money that i don't ever need a real job (thus no studying for school!). not saying this is a bad thing, but its changed my life so much from when i was a broke freshman in college struggling in classes. i used to be such a smart kid in high school (top 10 of my 600 person class, almost all As, never missed assignment) to almost a degenerate (not quite there yet) and i love it.

-common strategies are fine for beating small games. if you have no desire to get better or move up stakes then fine, keep nut camping $50nl. the problem with any common strategies are they dont teach you to think deeper.

someone might say "at $100nl i limp any suited ace because people always pay you off," but that advice sucks. did they consider what type of opponents they play with? all their $100nl cant be the same. what about his image? maybe he just gets paid off because he plays like a maniac all the time. are the stacks deep enough to play stuff like that? is there someone tough on the table that will punish your limping? is who you are giving this advice to going to be able to fold when they hit their ace with no kicker??

common strategies might be a good starting point, but if you have the same desires i have in poker that i listed earlier they arent going to take you far. rekrul said the following that i liked: "ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS LOG HOURS AND THINK ANALYTICALLY ABOUT EVERY HAND YOU PLAY AND IMPLEMENT YOUR FINDINGS. Doing this will make you become a great player "

[gabe]

wow tons of rambling in that one

[griffey24]

wow tons of rambling in that one

Very good rambling, keep it up, its very helpful!

What was the longest you ever spent on any level, before moving up? Which level (50NL/100NL etc...) did you find the toughest to overcome? I'd imagine the hardest level, was the one you spent the longest on.

[Trikflow77]

Seems to me that lukie is obv jealous that gabe is either a) a better player, or b) he sells it better. There is some serious shit talking in this thread.

Question for gabe, What do your pokertracker stats look like on lukie in the 10s of thousands of hands. Are you up $$$ against him?

[gabe]

wow tons of rambling in that one

Very good rambling, keep it up, its very helpful!

What was the longest you ever spent on any level, before moving up? Which level (50NL/100NL etc...) did you find the toughest to overcome? I'd imagine the hardest level, was the one you spent the longest on.

i spent along time trying to get by 200nl. it seemed like every day i would lose a few buyins there, then spend a few days at 100nl making it back. i think one one of the days at 100nl i went on a sick run and just said fuck it, im taking a shot at 400nl! i played 400, won a little over the first week, then lost a lot. when i came back to 200nl suddenly i was really good at it and owned everyone.

also, for some reason i cant beat the stars 10/20 game. im down like 20 buyins there over 40k hands or so. i think its just variance but it still messes with my mind a little.

[gabe]

Seems to me that lukie is obv jealous that gabe is either a) a better player, or b) he sells it better. There is some serious shit talking in this thread.

Question for gabe, What do your pokertracker stats look like on lukie in the 10s of thousands of hands. Are you up $$$ against him?

i dont know, have a bunch of hands in different databases.

the other day we played HU at $200nl on 4-5 tables and i won about $1100 though.

[Phantaroth]

Y so pessimistic about the future of poker?

Americans can still play, just not as easily as before. There will be more companies that step up to provide easy transfer options, and poker popularity should remain stable throughout the restof the world untill US policy changes.

[drmcboy]

There will be more companies that step up to provide easy transfer options, and poker popularity should remain stable throughout the restof the world untill US policy changes.

link?

Gabe, if online goes away would you go to Vegas/AC/LA/Canada?

It seems like you play as many tables as you can at whatever stakes you are playing at, can you talk about that in comparison to the snippet I saw somewhere about "Find the guys on 12 tables and outplay them on 2-3"?

[gabe]

there aren't as many games to play as there were when party was open. or at least i can't find them...fish seem to be decreasing

[Ash256]

How long did it take for you to move from low-stakes (<1k br) to where you're at now? Whats your longest breakeven/losing stretch (in hands)? What's the quickest, most effective way of getting better at poker and moving up?

[Galapogos]

Do you think any person capable of undertsanding the game like most of the players that are winners on this site are capable of improving their game to the high stakes levels? Or is there some point where you need that special something extra to surpass?

For instance, I can win a solid rate at 100NL-200NL but when I look at 600NL hands and read the thinking involved it honestly kinda blows my mind sometimes. I don't think I could survive well at that level.

[IowaSkinsFan]

Do you think any person capable of undertsanding the game like most of the players that are winners on this site are capable of improving their game to the high stakes levels?

personally I think some may take longer than others, and some may take a really really long time.

[gabe]

There will be more companies that step up to provide easy transfer options, and poker popularity should remain stable throughout the restof the world untill US policy changes.

link?

Gabe, if online goes away would you go to Vegas/AC/LA/Canada?

It seems like you play as many tables as you can at whatever stakes you are playing at, can you talk about that in comparison to the snippet I saw somewhere about "Find the guys on 12 tables and outplay them on 2-3"?

i doubt i would move some where. but i dont know.

yea i could play 4 tables and outplay everyone, but the hourly rate would be so low. its alllll about the hourly rate and besides, i think im getting better and better at outplaying people on more tables.

[gabe]

How long did it take for you to move from low-stakes (<1k br) to where you're at now? Whats your longest breakeven/losing stretch (in hands)? What's the quickest, most effective way of getting better at poker and moving up?

january 06 i had a 1k BR, roughly

ive had a 100k hand breakeven stretch

spend all your time learning and playing. take shots when you are feeling good and stop playing when you recognize youre not up to the best.

[gabe]

Do you think any person capable of undertsanding the game like most of the players that are winners on this site are capable of improving their game to the high stakes levels? Or is there some point where you need that special something extra to surpass?

For instance, I can win a solid rate at 100NL-200NL but when I look at 600NL hands and read the thinking involved it honestly kinda blows my mind sometimes. I don't think I could survive well at that level.

no, i dont think anyone can do it, but i would say anyone who takes the time to find a poker message board and post a thousand things probably has "it"

just stick to it. realize that there are more factors that go into decisions than you know right now, and figure out what they are.

[zenbitz]

float me 100gs?


And Lukie, chill. Maybe he disagrees with you because his style is different. And then again, maybe he's goading you into playing HU with him.

[Phantaroth]

I understand what you are saying, poker will certainly experience some bumps due to US pressure but I personally believe that european markets will eventually make up for the disproportion of sharks/fish playing from the US market.

In response to the "link?" question - ePassport is gaining popularity, and there was a thread about YouTeller a while back that sounded promising... If there are poker rooms that are willing to accept US players, I do not see why business persons would not make the same sacrafices to reap the insane $$$ benifets of the US market from the e-wallet side of things.

[drmcboy]

I don't want to hijack Gabe's thread, but just making these statements

There will be more companies that step up to provide easy transfer options, and poker popularity should remain stable throughout the restof the world untill US policy changes.

is at best meaningless and at worst will lead people into the same complacent mindset we had before the bill. You may not remember, but before the bill passed people would make similar statements about how there was OBV no chance it would pass, and people who suggested otherwise were ridiculed. If we had listened, maybe we wouldn't be here. Convention wisdom =! sure thing.

Back to Gabe -

When (if?) you watch High Stakes Poker, do you think:

"Man, I could kill this game"

"Hey, I play just like XXXXXXX"

"MATASOW HU FOR BRS!!!"

"Meh, online is juicier"

"Why don't they show 12 tables at once?

[Sprayed]

What are some of the adjustments MTTers must make in order for them to be successful at ring? Why, in your opinion, are MTTers not able to adjust, but ring players can make the jump to tourneys?

[IowaSkinsFan]

If someone is lagging it up and calling threebets OOP with a wide range should you be threebetting more or less? Try to respond in depth because obv there are a lot of variables.

[Genitruc]

Is there something you do when playing badly that - once you notice it - makes you just think "hmmm not my night GG later"?

[Miffed22001]

one word to describe your poker game?
one quote or something somebody said or a post that you can look back to and think 'that really changed my perception on how to play'
was it easy to adapt from MTT's to ring games (from when i was a newb i always remember watching your mtt posts/reads and thinking 'wtf does this guy know that i dont?! '

[Phantaroth]

heh. I'll let this get back on topic, but I take some joy in my first ever succesful hijack of a thread... anyway, I'm sure some of my optimisim is rooted in the hope I will be able to be as succesful at poker someday as gabe is now.

A poker related question for gabe:

Have you read NL HE Theory and Practice by Slansky and Miller? And if so, what "level"do most high stake players think on...? Is there really a way to tell ?

[gabe]

Back to Gabe -

When (if?) you watch High Stakes Poker, do you think:

"Man, I could kill this game"

"Hey, I play just like XXXXXXX"

"MATASOW HU FOR BRS!!!"

"Meh, online is juicier"

"Why don't they show 12 tables at once?

ive probably only seen about 2 hours worth of the show, but i dont see why people are saying how the game is so soft. maybe i haven't seen enough of it. i guess the huge pots i've seen weren't played that bad or something.

[gabe]

What are some of the adjustments MTTers must make in order for them to be successful at ring? Why, in your opinion, are MTTers not able to adjust, but ring players can make the jump to tourneys?

tourney players are so used to playing with shallow stacks that they make huge mistakes when they get to 100bbs. mtt players have to deal with short effective stacks all the time when people buyin short.

[gabe]

If someone is lagging it up and calling threebets OOP with a wide range should you be threebetting more or less? Try to respond in depth because obv there are a lot of variables.

eep tough one, especially since i haven't really decided myself. if i respect them then i will just play like normal with one or two light reraises every now and then, but in general i try to not mix it up with someone good. if i think they are a shitty lag i'll start 3 betting them alot and try to get them to start spewing stacks to me.

if stacks are deep and i have position i'll 3 bet more vs anyone, good or bad.

feel free to ask more questions abuot this, i dont feel like writing some essay now but dont mind answering questions.

[gabe]

Is there something you do when playing badly that - once you notice it - makes you just think "hmmm not my night GG later"?

i dont quit when im playing bad enough. i TRY to, but i dont find myself doing it because i usually convince myself im just running bad and im "due."

there probably should be a good answer here but i just cant think of it

[gabe]

one word to describe your poker game?

one quote or something somebody said or a post that you can look back to and think 'that really changed my perception on how to play'

was it easy to adapt from MTT's to ring games (from when i was a newb i always remember watching your mtt posts/reads and thinking 'wtf does this guy know that i dont?! '

-fun

-i cant think of any one in particular that did, but i just saw this one a few months ago and i really like it:

"only pot odds, pot/fold equity, and hand ranges matter. if a hand range is in someway exploitable, exploit it. "

-i was from the rippy school of mtts so i already had that aggresion factor going so it wasn't that hard. the biggest thing was trying to stop spewing so much in situations where i thought i could move people off hands (this was $50nl mind you). like when an ace came i would always raise their 2nd barrel, or if a flush card came i would check raise allin. dumb shit like that got me in trouble early.

[boost]

what exactly are the differences between short handed play and fullring? I always hear that there are a lot more edges to push at 6max, could you go into what exactly these edges are, and why they exist?

why cant I beat the softest games in existence?

[Zee Devee]

what age did you start playing poker online and how much did you deposit/lose before starting to win?

[givememyleg]

If you can think of it, what would you say was the biggest mistake you made during your run? Anything that stands out as you look back and think "wow why did I do that?"

[Alibi]

do you feel like you are an example of the american dream?

[gabe]

what exactly are the differences between short handed play and fullring? I always hear that there are a lot more edges to push at 6max, could you go into what exactly these edges are, and why they exist?

why cant I beat the softest games in existence?

the people who play full ring are used to playing really tight and nitty, so -you cant play the same as you would in a short handed game. (like folding TPTK is standard in so many full ring hands but not nearly as much short handed).

-my guess is that you dont really know the reasons you do things, you just know you are supposed to do thing most of the time so you do it all the time. that probably doesnt make sense but heres an example.

once we were talking about a hand where there were some limpers and the button raised, and the hero just called with AQs in the blinds. you said something like "isnt that a standard reraise v a button raise??"

well yea, if they were the first one in the pot its a standard reraise because their range is so wide. but there range isn't so wide when they are raising behind early position limpers.

also, if the button is raising with a wide range to isolate the limpers because they are fish, you should reraise because its just like a button raise (wide range of hands raising), right???? no, because you want to play pots with the fish, and reraising will drive thme out in this spot.

[gabe]

what age did you start playing poker online and how much did you deposit/lose before starting to win?

started a few months after i was 18. i had only played poker a few times but had seen people talking about it in different online forums, then i found this place.

i think i lost $150. then someone from FTR realized that i had potential and staked me in some low limit games.

[gabe]

If you can think of it, what would you say was the biggest mistake you made during your run? Anything that stands out as you look back and think "wow why did I do that?"

after i had a terrible day at 25/50, i vowed to play some 10 20 until i got back on track. so next day i played some 10/20, then i saw a juicy 25/50 game and jumped in. i played like an idiot and lost 10k. that loss is not significant in that game but i just felt stupid for taking a shot back to 25/50 when i wasnt even playing good.

[gabe]

do you feel like you are an example of the american dream?

no, americans dream of getting good 9-5s with job security and shit