Okay, lets RETURN THE WELL (again)

[Bond18]

My poker story:

I first started up playing in home games with friends my Senior year of high school (2002-2003). I was the school bookie so gambling on cards seemed like a natural transition.

In February of 2003 I bought in online to paradise poker with a friends help (name/credit card, I just played the account) and played 11 dollar SNG’s. I went to the book store and bought/read all the books I could find on poker. I also continued playing in little home games, and eventually destroying them.

I won about 400 on paradise before my mom found out and chucked a massive spaz, so until I got to college that fall I didn’t play online any more. I was however, killing live games for like 20-60 dollars profit a night 5 times a week, which seemed like an assload of money at the time.

In college I kept going with SNG’s and got into LL poker. I also started posting on www.unitedpokerforums.com I met some people there, and got involved with propping for a while.

Unfortunately, one of my early poker mentors, who at the time I thought was very good, was in fact AWWWWWWWFUL at poker and turned me into a huge nit. In fact, because I learned before the days of people loosening up, I became a huge nit with no real concept of pot odds for quite a while.

I started to get a bit better around sophomore year, and somehow on party poker managed to win a 13k package to Australia on what was then a 3k bankroll. On my first try on a 38 dollar satellite I won a 320 seat that became a 13k package.

In Australia I went very deep in the speed poker tournament and was a HU match away from the final table. Previous to the trip I had read a bunch of Daniel Negreanu cardplayer articles, and decided that damn it, I was gonna play wacky loose aggressive to! I’d also talked to Curtains on IM for a while as well and he told me things like “you can’t fold getting 3 to 1” and “you have to pay attention to peoples stack sizes.” So even though I was basically clueless, especially post flop (some things never change) I was aggressive enough to make things happen. I was set against Sweedish player Michael Thuritz HU, who was and still is a very good player, and going into the HU with him at 70k and my at 55k he says to me “why don’t we organize a swap where the winner of this HU match gives the other 15% of whatever he wins at the final table?”

Michael probably thought I was pretty good having played with me at the semi final table (it was a weird sorta structured tournament) because I was a huge card rack. HU was over in 2 hands where we got it AI with my bottom pair and flush draw vs his middle pair and straight draw. He went on to win the tournament and promptly handed me 15k AU. Plus the 4k I got for my finish I’d cashed for what amounted to about $15,000 US dollars at the time, a huge sum for me.

Having never really spent time outside the country and being totally amazed at the world outside the walls of the US, I decided to do study abroad in Australia, which is where a lot of that 15k went. When I got back to Australia in July 2005 I started hanging out at Crown all the time again and playing the live 10/20 and 20/40 limit games. I ran incredibly hot to start (which is how I got the name LuckyTonyD) and made a lot of friends in the Australian poker world. Then around October I went on an incredibly bad run, which coupled with my poor bankroll management brought me to a few thousand within busto. I asked a friend back home who knew me to be a trustworthy and studious if he would stake me and he agreed, so we worked out a deal:

He puts up all the money (about $8000 at the time if I recall right.) If I lose it I owe him back half of it, though I told him it’d be a while to get it since I’d have to go back to work. If I won he got to keep 1/3rd of profits me 2/3rds.

I started playing 3/6 and 5/10 limit online and continued to run bad. I asked a friend of mine who was beating 100/200 limit online how he got so good so fast (had been playing like 9 months.) He told me to go read 2+2. So I went into the limit forum and started getting a real education. I got a lot better, but still ran very bad. Down a few thousand on the stake the Aussie Millions came around and we decided to put me in a 1k tournament. I ran good and played mostly well, and managed to get 4th for 19k Aussie.

I became increasingly interested in tournaments and started playing a few online. I even ventured into the MTT forum. People really seemed a lot nicer there, there was a sense of community. I started looking it over more though I didn’t post that much. I decided with my recent success I was going to attempt what had been my dream since 18, I’m going to play the WSOP ME damn it. I sold some pieces of myself to people in Australia in case I didn’t win a seat, and if I did said I’d honor their % purchase if they wanted to keep it.

I won a seat on Bodog and went off to the WSOP for 6 weeks. I played 9 pre lims and went 0 for 9 after god knows how many 2 outers. In the main I managed to get late into day 4 before AK<AQ and finished 198th for 43k. I paid back a bunch of the 43k then went back to Milwaukee to hopefully finish school. Unfortunately, my girlfriends visa ran out and she had to go back to Australia while I finished the semester. I started playing/posting online more and more and had a lot of early success. In December my girlfriend and I decided we needed to find a place that’d let both of us live together without much worry for visas while I sorted out my Australian permanent residency, and that ended up being China, where her mother had an apartment anyway.

The single greatest recipe for poker success I could give someone goes as like this:

Go somewhere you have no friends and can’t communicate, spend all day on computer asking questions and playing poker, continue for 6 months.

Eventually I got to know more and more guys through 2+2, and eventually approached one whose game/thought process I had a lot of respect for, AJunglen, to coach me. He agreed and helped a [censored] load at plugging all the various leaks I didn’t see or can’t be found by posting a few times a day.

I also got to know Timex online, and told him if he wanted to back me for WSOP I was all for it since I was under rolled for that amount of events. I thought he’d want to do like 5 events or something, see how it worked. Instead, when he got back to me, Stevepa and him had asked their players to play as many as possible. No complaints on my end, but as you guys already know, Vegas was a huge bust and I lost over $61,000 in the end.

Anyway, at this point I’m hoping to continue to play the occasional live tournament, but my real goal for the time being is continued improvement. I feel like my game is pretty good, but not anywhere near as good as it could be with further coaching and comments from my peers. So that’s the game plan for the time being, keep learning and asking questions.

[Bond18]

[ QUOTE ]
Lets here your #1 high and #1 low of your poker career. Excluding 2007 wsop suckouts.

[/ QUOTE ]

High: Going fairly deep in 2006 WSOP ME.

Low: Nearly going busto in the fall of 2005.

[cking]

What reasons do you contribute most to you lack of success at this years world series? Was it just simply variance? A lack of adapting to live play? Other reasons? Or perhaps a mix of all these?

Also if the princess and an unknown baby are in the burning tower and you can only save one of them, which one do you save and why?

EDIT: typed so poorly it looked like shaun deeb took ahold of my keyboard and had his way with it

[Bond18]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Best Quarterback of all time?

[/ QUOTE ]

Brett Favre. Why ask a question when the answer is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO obvious?

[/ QUOTE ]

<----------- Vinny FTW obv.




- Discuss how poker has changed your perspective on life and concept of value for money;

- Poker players and professional gamblers of any discipline are a shady bunch who contribute nothing to general society. Agree?;

- If you weren't playing poker you would...


Thanks for doing this.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. Poker has changed EVERYTHING in my life. In highschool i wanted to be a bodybuilder, i was obcessed with working out. After i realized nobody does pro bodybuilding without steroids (at the highest levels this is mostly true) i wanted to join the marines. I was all ready to sign up and do it, then sat down with some friends at a card table and BAM, i knew what i wanted to do with my life. Poker gave me a confidence i never have before. I guess, in a lot of highschool/college people are changing a lot trying to figure out where they fit in or who they are. They change friends/clothes/taste whatever. When i found poker, i basically came to understand where i fit in.

As far as shady/useless bunch, thats a half truth. I would say that poker players are very often way more shady than "regular" people i meet. But there are also A LOT of very good/cool guys in the poker world, many of which i've had the pleasure to get to know through 2p2. And as far as not contributing, do you know anyone who spews money back into the economy like us?

If i wasn't playing poker i would want to kill myself. Save that, i would probably write. I'm technically a theatre major, and although the teachers seemed to think i had acting talent i always saw acting as an awesome way to hang out with a lot of desperate yet often pretentious people and make 200 dollars a week. No thanks.

[Bond18]

[ QUOTE ]
What reasons do you contribute most to you lack of success at this years world series? Was it just simply variance? A lack of adapting to live play? Other reasons? Or perhaps a mix of all these?

Also if the princess and an unknown baby are in the burning tower and you can only save one of them, which one do you save and why?

EDIT: typed so poorly it looked like shaun deeb took ahold of my keyboard and had his way with it

[/ QUOTE ]

This years WSOP? Here's my honest opinion. I did the math, this years WSOP i played 30 events. Thats 2 days worth of tournaments online. Certainly none of us would be concerned about two days of minimal results online? I think we need a much larger sample size before we can draw any real conclusions. Would you agree?

As far as the princess/baby, how hot is this princess exactly?

[Soulman]

Busto was worse than this year's ME?

Did you pay ajungelen, promise him % or friendship-based?

How cool is Australia, and how hard should I try to qualify for the Aussie Millions based on visiting the country alone? FWIW I'm 32 and my poker-playing gf would be accompanying me.

[cking]

she's a princess, they're always hot. As to this year's ME i agree with you on the sample size just being small and it being simple variance. Was just curious as to how you felt about it (i know some people let that kind of run really get to their heads, obv your not one of them)

[KneeCo]

Hey Bond, cool idea I always liked wells and enjoy your TRs and poker story post (though I really think those should just be the OP in well posts since it's always the first question).

I can't think of a question...
...
...
Awhile ago, I was Swiffering my apt, and I started thinking about how the Swiffer could be better and as I decided what it needed to be the ultimate floor cleaning machine I got very excited because my idea seemed brilliant and feasible. It took a full minute of imagining and perfecting my device before I sadly realized I had just invented the vacuum.

Does anything like that ever happen to you?

[Bond18]

[ QUOTE ]
Any advice for someone who wants to get better at assigning ranges and learning about hand reading?

I typically hear the following suggestions. If your answers could avoid the following it would be greatly appreciated:

1. Play more
2. Pay attention to the table even when you are not in a hand
3. Put opponents on hands even when you are not in a hand

Assuming that someone does all this, what is the best way to get better at estimated what ranges players play in what conditions? I guess I'm wondering if you've read something somewhere or you just have some sort of gut feel for ranges.

[/ QUOTE ]

Study other peoples hand histories. This will give you an idea of what a larger section of the poker population is capable of.

Create threads where you ask about ranges, and if you like PM me the link so i always see it.

In acting they have this old cliche phrase "whats my motivation" Ask yourself mid hand, "what is my villains motivation? With what would he be taking this line and why? What is he trying to accomplish?" Slow down your thought process a lot and think through the angles. A few months ago i had the same problems, just slow it down and think it over.

[LuckyLloyd]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Best Quarterback of all time?

[/ QUOTE ]

Brett Favre. Why ask a question when the answer is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO obvious?

[/ QUOTE ]

<----------- Vinny FTW obv.




- Discuss how poker has changed your perspective on life and concept of value for money;

- Poker players and professional gamblers of any discipline are a shady bunch who contribute nothing to general society. Agree?;

- If you weren't playing poker you would...


Thanks for doing this.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. Poker has changed EVERYTHING in my life. In highschool i wanted to be a bodybuilder, i was obcessed with working out. After i realized nobody does pro bodybuilding without steroids (at the highest levels this is mostly true) i wanted to join the marines. I was all ready to sign up and do it, then sat down with some friends at a card table and BAM, i knew what i wanted to do with my life. Poker gave me a confidence i never have before. I guess, in a lot of highschool/college people are changing a lot trying to figure out where they fit in or who they are. They change friends/clothes/taste whatever. When i found poker, i basically came to understand where i fit in.

As far as shady/useless bunch, thats a half truth. I would say that poker players are very often way more shady than "regular" people i meet. But there are also A LOT of very good/cool guys in the poker world, many of which i've had the pleasure to get to know through 2p2. And as far as not contributing, do you know anyone who spews money back into the economy like us?

If i wasn't playing poker i would want to kill myself. Save that, i would probably write. I'm technically a theatre major, and although the teachers seemed to think i had acting talent i always saw acting as an awesome way to hang out with a lot of desperate yet often pretentious people and make 200 dollars a week. No thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

On question 2 I was just playing devil's advocate.

I'm an English lit grad and completely share the last sentiment.

wp.