1000 posts for GingerWizard!

[gingerwizard]

Wow, I remember Taipan's 1000th post, and he had this whole thread in the SNG section on who he was and how he'd improved etc. Da Goat then copied, so I couldn't very well let mine go unnoticed, since I've posted 90% of my 1000 in here!

Here is a brief history of GW the poker player. Feel free to ask me any questions in this thread, no matter how random!

First Deposit into Party after seeing poker on TV. That $50 and the next went bye bye very quickly. I joined here to see where I was going wrong, and the snowball began to form!

Bought the books, HOH, Sklansky, etc, posted on here for a month, then deposited into stars. Ground the $6.50s, made frequent moves up to $16s but weekend variance took care of me and I always kept going back down. I stagnated at around $800 going up and down, then DA Goat convinced me to try cash. Started bonus whoring and learned full ring. Got to 100NL in 4 months, dropped 5 buyins, got scared because I needed my roll to pay for my wifes wedding ring, decided to cash out so I wouldn't disappoint her. That was a year ago.

I don't think you can ever quit poker if you've consistently made money from it. You always end up going back, because you were interested enough to learn to get good, so one day that spark's gonna come back.

Mine is back and I'm ready to get even better. A lot seems to have changed (SNGWIZ is the thing now instead of SNGPT which is what I had). Some things have not (Taipan still posts here when he gets up before work everyday and at night after his poker session!). Oh and my laptop got wiped so I lot PT and the hundreds of thousands of hands therein

I'm nearing the end of my phd in statistics and decision theory, which makes some of my posts very mathematical. My biggest pet hate is the independant chip model, which is just wrong but the best thing we have at the moment.

Anyway, that's enough background. Fire away the questions, and if i don't get any then meh, it was kinda fun to write this anyway, and at least you know a bit more about the guy commenting on all the hands in this forum!

[taipan168]

Congratulations on the milestone Danny, well done! Looking forward to many thousands more of your posts (your classic post on poker being totally mathematical was superb).

So, tell us about the wedding, honeymoon etc!

[dranger7070]

How old were you when you started playing poker? How old are you know? (if you dont mind me asking) What are your goals for playing poker? Do you want to go pro eventually?

[gingerwizard]

Congratulations on the milestone Danny, well done! Looking forward to many thousands more of your posts (your classic post on poker being totally mathematical was superb).

So, tell us about the wedding, honeymoon etc!

Thanks for the compliment. Interestingly I feel my best posts were two essays I did after that. One was called "The truth about the dangers of playing underrolled" and the other was "The truth about the dangers of playing overrolled." They went in the beginners section but at a weekend, 1 night saw like 20 new posts and they got lost without much comment. Shame really.

So, to the wedding and honeymoon:

The wedding was not in a church but in a lovely hotel called Redworth Hall (near Darlington if you want to look it up). The hall we got married in (called the great hall) was like a mini version of the hall in Harry Potter, with a starry ceiling.

It was 9th February (mid winter in England) and it was bright blue sky and sunshine all day. (Anyone who has ever been to, or lived in England will be amazed at this miracle). We were cold having the photos outside, but it looks like a July wedding in the photos!

Looking back it's hard to describe the best day of your life to somebody. You can throw in a million details, but there is no way to get across the feeling of total and complete hapiness I had using words. The photos of me smiling like an idiot say a lot though!

For honeymoon, we decided, as we didn't have enough money to fly somewhere fancy, to tour Scotland by car. We'd stay in only very nice hotels and be pampered a bit, whilst seeing one of the most amazing countries in the world!

Best decision ever!

Remember the weather we had for the wedding day? Well it was exactly the same for 2 weeks! Not a cloud! In Scotland! In February! This is a place that only gets 19 and a half days of sunshine a year and we saw 14 of them!!!!!!!!!!

We stayed on the banks of loch lomond drinking champagne on our balcony that looked over the loch. Toured Whisky distillaries, went across to the west coast, up to ben nevis, boating on Loch Ness (didn't see the monster although someone saw me and was confused for a minute). We spent the last 3 nights in Edinburgh seeing tourist attractions by day, and eating fine scottish cuising (and drinking fine scottish whisky) by night.

Don't think I've ever been sadder to leave a place. Just as we got in the car to travel back to England, a spot of rain hit me. It rained the whole trip back, and whilst I don't believe in poker sites being rigged, I do believe that the weather was a sign of "mean't to be."

It was back then to our awful former house to hit reality with a thud. We moved out of that place 2 months ago and are much happier now though!

Thanks for the question

[gingerwizard]

How old were you when you started playing poker? How old are you know? (if you dont mind me asking) What are your goals for playing poker? Do you want to go pro eventually?

I was 22 when I started playing poker and I'm 25 now. I have four goals when it comes to poker this time around:

1.) Enjoy myself.
2.) Learn more from my mistakes and improve.
3.) Get rolled for more Multi-table tournaments and play them more. I really really enjoy playing big Mtts, and it's something I feel I'm not great at, not rolled for and don't have time for. This goal is important for 1.)
4.) Earn side money for holidays.

I don't want to go pro, and I don't want to make fortunes or maximise winrates. I have a number of reasons for this.

Firstly and most importantly I love my job. Doing a PhD in statistics, with a particular angle towards policy making for climate change, is not only interesting but it makes me feel like I'm making a difference, even if only in a small way (unless governments look at my methodologies and think "Yes, that is what we should do!"). Of course that is temporary and doesn't pay great, but I already have a research job lined up for when it is finished. Being paid to research and to publish papers is my main focus, and playing poker for a living would feel like a waste.

Secondly I have friends who have tried to go pro. They are very good, and winning I believe, but they never seemed happy. It seems like you get a lack of human contact having to put in so many hands, and I am a people person.

Thirdly I played a lot of hands when I was bonus whoring up to $100NL and I just started to hate it. Maybe I'm not strong enough mentally to take the downswings, maybe I let leaks come in and didn't have time to fix them. I just felt like all I was doing was trying to put in the hours, rather than to play a game. Back then I wanted money for my wedding. Once I'd made it though, I started getting greedy and obsessed with volume, and winrate per hour. I know poker is about making money for most people on here which is fine, but I let money making ruin the fun of the game for me.

That's why it took so long to get interested again. I'm back from the cash tables and on the SNG forums, and this is where I plan to stay for a while. Cash is a great game, which is much more pure and mathematical, and I think that was the allure at first. But you never feel like you've won, and tournaments give you that.

My ultimate goal is to come up with a better system than ICM, but before I even address that, I need to learn it inside out and backwards again.

[dranger7070]

I see your reasoning about not going pro. I'm 18 and JUST getting started online. I have a TINY sample but so far I'm doing ok at the micros, and have dreams of going pro, but if i did i wouldn't go online with it. I would honestly play in B&M casinos for the exact reasons you stated. I too am a people person and need the contact of other humans.

I mean making a living by just playing a game is crazy to think about, but it would be interesting, but i also think that i am destined for bigger and better things. I enlisted for the United States Marine Corps Reserves and I am at college pursuing my Bachelor's Degree in Political Science. The ultimate goal is to go to Law school somewhere and become a JAG (Judge Advocate General) in the Marine Corps. After my career in the Marines I would like to get into politics. I think being a lawyer AND in the Marines will give me a pretty prestigious background, so I'd like to be a Senator or Governor one day. That is my dream though...

BTW your wedding sounded amazing dude. I dont even know you but I hope you and her live a long and happy life together. Do you guys want to have kids/ are you expecting? Good luck sir!

[gingerwizard]

Kids are not yet in the offing. Both of our best friends have children, and it's not yet made either of us broody!

[metman04]

kinda random but i saw ur gettin a phd in statistics...im currently taking business statistics and my final is next week (mostly on regression) if i have any questions while studying u care if i make a post or shoot u an email? if not its cool

[flomo]

congrats gingerwizard!

and where abouts are you ?

[TLR]

congrats ginger

Do you play any poker variant other then holdem ? are you fan of any football team ?

Kids are not yet in the offing. Both of our best friends have children, and it's not yet made either of us broody!

Kids are ton of fun and also tons of headache, you really have to be mentally there before you have them

[gingerwizard]

kinda random but i saw ur gettin a phd in statistics...im currently taking business statistics and my final is next week (mostly on regression) if i have any questions while studying u care if i make a post or shoot u an email? if not its cool

Post is fine, and I'll try to help. I help teach basic regression to undergraduates, but I'm no expert in that field.

[gingerwizard]

congrats gingerwizard!

and where abouts are you ?

I'm in Durham, England.

[gingerwizard]

congrats ginger

Do you play any poker variant other then holdem ? are you fan of any football team ?

Kids are not yet in the offing. Both of our best friends have children, and it's not yet made either of us broody!

Kids are ton of fun and also tons of headache, you really have to be mentally there before you have them

I've tried most poker variants both live and online. I found I had a good edge in 2-7 triple draw and made a fair bit playing that at $2/$4. It's not good to play so many different games because it stops you focusing on one. It was good for my head sometimes to get away from the cash grind and play a bit of "fun poker."

I have 2 football teams. The first is the team from where I grew up. Hull City are in the premiership now and doing very well! I live a hundred or so miles from the KC stadium and tickets for home games are rare because of size but I should be able to see them when they come up to the North East to play Sunderland and Boro (who we just beat!)

My other team is non-league Durham City AFC. I love going to home fixtures and try not to miss them. In fact I'm going tonight to see us take on the mighty Newcastle Blue Star. If Durham ever found their way to the same league as Hull I reckon I'd have a tough decision to make! We're in Unibond League 1 North at the minute, so it's quite a way away!

[Rage2100]

Congratulations on the 1000 posts.

Do you think Hull City can finish in the top six this season? I hope they do, it's an amazing achievement what they have done up to now.

What car do you drive?

[gingerwizard]

No I don't think we can. It's been a mega ride of guts and determination, but the teams will have adjusted to us by next half of the season, and we still have a relatively weak squad. I still hope for staying up this season, and I hope that will happen.

I drive a light blue Citroen C3 born in 2003.

[sammyfarha]

hey G, congratulations on your thousand posts, on your wedding and honeymoon. I'm a big fan of your analysis. Keep it up!

[fulksy]

congrats on everything, appreciate your replys, they've helped a ton, good luck with everything.

[gingerwizard]

BOSH!

I have a roll on stars again! Took down an FPP sat for a $215 seat to some qualifier for a live event.

Thanks to a very kind FTR'r who agreed to exchange my $W (a really sucky stars invention) for $ I'll be back on the old $6.50s before you can say "here fishy fishy!"

YAY!

[taipan168]

Well done on the sat win! What are W$?

[gingerwizard]

So you've heard of T$, where you can use them to play any STT, MTT or whatever. Just not cash?

Well W$ are like that except they don't allow you to play SNGs, Mtts or anything other than qualifiers and satellites for the special events they have. Events such as WSOP, WCOOP, EPT, PCA and others.

Fine if you are trying to sat into these constantly, then W$ are useful part of your roll. Not fine for someone way underrolled (or without roll) who thought it was like a million sat and just wanted to use T$ for sngs.

[taipan168]

So if you enter one of these FPP satellites and win a seat, they give you W$ rather than T$? That's good to know, because I've got some FPPs that I'd like to use up and I was considering using them on these Sunday Million sats. If they only give you W$ I don't think I'll bother (I'll get the $250 Dick Smith gift card instead).

[gingerwizard]

No No, million sats give you T$. This was a sat to a special event which is why they gave me the dammed W$