The Well: Adanthar (1/16/07)

[adanthar]

On this week's exciting episode of "ask a poker player things", Adanthar answers all questions, most of them totally unrelated to poker!

Fire away guys. Please note that 2+2 is slow as hell for me right now so answers may take some time.

Edit: We've been giving the wells spades.

[registrar]

I think you could pre-empt a lot of questions and negotiate the delay issue by writing a long catch-all "My Poker Story" post to get us going.

Oh, and why "Adanthar" and exactly how Russian are you (and if much at all, views on Putin) and why the avatar?

Here I am all gooey kneed: my favourite poster is in the well.

[Ontario_Tory]

[Sob Story] I'm in the middle (well - hopefully at the end of...) a brutal downswing. I can't win a race, hell, I can't even win when I'm way ahead. (AK vs. A2, I ask my wife to guess if the two is coming on the turn or the river). I've seen my BR decrease by about 30% over these past six weeks or so...
[/Sob Story]

How do you handle the downswings? Do you take a break? Step 'down' and play cheaper tourneys? Just press on knowing that your decisions are good and therefore you'll win soon enough? What advise do you have for somebody getting pretty depressed with his luck (and feeling like he's making bad decisions because of it...)?

[skylos]

Which is harder law or poker?

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, and why "Adanthar" and exactly how Russian are you (and if much at all, views on Putin) and why the avatar?


[/ QUOTE ]

"Adanthar" is just an amalgamation of two online nicks I use, nothing special. Same deal with my avatar - I was about to go to law school when I originally went around looking for an 'attorney' pic to use and found that guy. I hope his descendants don't hunt me down and sue me, because he's awesome.

I am originally Russian and still speak it fluently/occasionally go back/have an uncle in St.Petersburg. My view on Putin...well, Russia's never had a functioning democracy before, so why should they start now?

[ QUOTE ]
[Sob Story] I'm in the middle (well - hopefully at the end of...) a brutal downswing. I can't win a race, hell, I can't even win when I'm way ahead. (AK vs. A2, I ask my wife to guess if the two is coming on the turn or the river). I've seen my BR decrease by about 30% over these past six weeks or so...
[/Sob Story]

How do you handle the downswings? Do you take a break? Step 'down' and play cheaper tourneys? Just press on knowing that your decisions are good and therefore you'll win soon enough? What advise do you have for somebody getting pretty depressed with his luck (and feeling like he's making bad decisions because of it...)?

[/ QUOTE ]

One of the things I've realized over the past year is just how much mental toughness you need to do well in this game over the 'long term', where the 'long term' turns out to be 'way too freaking long'. It's worth it to mention that two years ago, nobody had a clue what 'too long' meant - people were basing big decisions on 10K hand samples, 100 SNG's, etc. (I'm not so sure they were wrong, honestly, because it's probably better for a talented player to move up too soon than to delay development too long, but that's another story...) Because of that, and the development of poker as a whole, people are just now realizing that the mental aspect of handling big, prolonged downswings is its own skillset. Irieguy in STT's posted a long thread about this that, unfortunately, I don't remember the title of...it's worth trying to find it, though.

Suffice to say that I think handling long swings and minimizing tilt is probably the most important thing you need to know after you are sure you're a significant long term winner. It costs you a little less money in MTT's than cash, but at the same time, the swings last longer and cause more burnout. Do I have any secrets for handling them? No. I do have a very calm personality (some might say level headed [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]) that lets me weather them easier, but I've dropped 1500 bucks on tilt while learning cash just last week, so I'm not immune. I guess the bottom line is to keep analyzing your play and not sweat the results (this is also where good bankroll management comes in.)

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
Which is harder law or poker?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is going to sound weird, but poker can actually be harder. The legal process for most attorneys is very formulaic, to the point where, say, drafting a contract or representing a client at a small administrative hearing is 99% copying other people's work and 1% actual effort. Furthermore, while playing winning poker is easy enough that you can probably teach an eight year old to do it, playing *high stakes* winning poker is something else. There are lots of people that can turn out to be good lawyers, but very few have the exact skill set (and this includes things like bankroll management and the ability not to care about quickly dropping six figures) that go into a Phil Ivey or Patrick Antonius.

I have no idea why I responded to this seriously BTW [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[onoble]

1) How did you build your bankroll? What would you have done differently knowing what you know now?


2) I am considering law school. I am hoping to support myself by playing poker while in school, but I hear first year is a hell of a grind will either poker or law studies suffer no matter what? Any tips for balancing the two?

[skylos]

[ QUOTE ]


I have no idea why I responded to this seriously BTW [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha. I dunno why I asked it either lol. It just popped into my head and I guess because I always hear about lawyers who hate their job for a lot of different reasons but there's also a lot of reasons to hate poker too so I dunno figured I'd get your take on it lol. Here's some more but you don't have to answer all or any of them:

Do you regret going to law school? What would you have done if not law? Are you going to quit when you win a big tourney? Would you tell your kids to be lawyers? How similar is/was your life to Mike McDermott from Roudners?

[registrar]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you going to quit when you win another big tourney?

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP.

[lacky]

what are the main holes in my game? (joke, just asked cause you cant say "dude, I don't know who you are")

is it wrong for my to hate you when you talk about bad runs, when I know you play less and make more/hour at mtt's than anyone other than Jamie Gold?

50 sng's played in the last year, over or under?

whats the % breakdown these days on lawyering/playing poker? (ie you ever go get that "real" job?)

Steve