[Irieguy]

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I'm just trying to help, no need to get defensive.

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One thing I feel compelled to add, as this topic is sort of my "thing," is that there is a big difference between Pineapple being candid about his tough spell and any random or semi-random STTFer posting about how they are the most unlucky person alive.

Pineapple became very well known among all of us who frequented the $55-$215 PartyPoker SNGs over the past few years as one of the very best SNG players out there. He was always honest about his results, and while he was posting profits of $5-10K every month... month after month, I frankly became skeptical that he was just another 2+2 wanker with a big ego on a heater. I even started to lay into him a bit in posts, and he returned my semi-veiled criticisms of his poker thinking with similarly thinly-veiled criticisms of my poker thinking. I remember one post in particular where we disagreed about how to appropriately weight the impact of impending blind increases and relative position with the other players on the bubble and that disagreement caused me to examine the topic at greater length and improve my understanding of some very key concepts in percentage-payout tournament theory.

Since then, I have had the opportunity to meet Pineapple in person and he is even more interesting and intelligent than his on-line persona lets on... and far less pompous and indignant. In fact, I would use the words "kind" and "humble" to describe him and I have had the opportunity to rely upon his trustworthiness in real life.

The point of my rambling a bit here is twofold: 1. This forum continues to be the preferred hangout of some of the coolest people I have ever met... and I'm old (in 2+2 terms) and have met a lot of people, and 2. If a regular poster who has been winning regularly for a very long time, sharing his results, and posting extraordinarily accurate and thought-provoking comments in hand threads starts to describe a horrible cooler...

HAVE THE COURTESY TO REFRAIN FROM TRITE AND CONDESCENDING REPLIES IN THEIR THREAD.

(Noodleman, this diatribe is not directed at you... it just happens that your comment was the one to which Pineapple objected. You are the nuts, too, and I would respect any honest disclosure of a particularly poor SNG run on your part to the same extent.)

One of the glaring shortcomings of this forum has always been the paucity of candid discussions about how professionals deal with preternaturally bad runs of cards. There's plenty of discussion about 'balling, plenty of talk about how high someone's ROI can or should be, and of course plenty of bad beat stories.

But as the throngs of young poker "pros" swell in number so does the need for a healthier collection of discussions about all of the things that can go wrong besides losing with AA 5 times in a row.

Perhaps the most significant obstacle preventing the development of such a collection is the sheer discomfort associated with braving those waters with the written word.

It is hard to write about losing without feeling like a loser. It is harder still if your comments are met instantly with snideness or dismissive ridicule. Now I hate bad beat stories and whining as much or more so than the next guy... but if a long term winner on this forum wants to express the pain of a cooler, I am interested in hearing about it. And that is NOT what BBV is for, as fun as it may seem to wrong-forum-police such exceedingly rare sentiments.

I am fortunate enough to be friends with a good portion of the biggest winners that post regularly on this forum, and I have heard their stories about how bad it can get. That's why my opinion about the limits of sustainable win rates are lower than what most people want to acknowledge... I like to make allowances for losing more than one would expect, from time to time.

So, Pineapple, or anyone else paying the bills with only or mostly SNGs for the past few years... keep us posted on how you get through the rough spells. It is helpful.

Irieguy