The Well: Adanthar (1/16/07)

[adanthar]

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Adanthar,

What do you think would be the quickest way to teach someone to make $15-20 an hour playing poker, assuming they know nothing about it?

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low limit sngs, no question about it.

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What players, be they live or online, that you've run into have really impressed you?

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I was really impressed by ZJ at the PCA this year. I still am impressed by Gigabet as a player - he might not be as good now, but he intuitively got ICM before anyone knew what it was. Others...I mean, almost any STT or MTT poster from years ago that now plays high limits is really good. Also, Schneids' limit hands in BBV totally blow me away because I don't even understand the level of thinking required there.

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What is your largest tournament score and how did you celebrate it?

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I've had two huge scores. The first was winning the Stars 1M for 112K back in April. The other was the Cake 1% (IMO this one is the bigger one long term).

I didn't do much partying for either of them...took my wife out to dinner and a nice bottle of Chimay for the first one and spent a few hundred buying dinner for 2+2'ers after Cake. I'm a pretty quiet guy that way.

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In order to become an excellent tournament player which are the most important concepts to understand?

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Bubble ownage, restealing, and position, pretty much in that order IMO. I don't think you can win big long term without at least two out of three. However, LAGs have a whole different order of things they need to know, like thin value bets.

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What are the most and least profitable tournaments online?

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Anything with an overlay is very profitable [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I still play things like random $55's on Bodog on occasion just because of that. IMO, a tourney pro *has to* have a roll on every site solely to take advantage of things like this.

On the other side of the coin, I hate a lot of the higher Stars buyins. The only one I regularly play is the 1M (and the Stuper when I play weeknights). Sure, I could still eke out a long term profit in the 200r, but why bother when there is so much else out there? There's no reason to sit down in a bad game these days.

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One of the very few pieces of direct advice my father ever game me was 'don't go to law school', was this advise accurate?

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Law school kicked ass. "Don't be a lawyer"...yeah, I can see that one. It's not the worst thing in the world, but boy, that BIGLAW salary just ain't that big of a deal to me these days.

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If all online poker sites closed down besides ultimate bet, would you ever play online poker again?

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if they all closed down, I'd start my own si...oh wait

[JP OSU]

What was it about law school that appealed to you in the first place? Also what made you enjoy it so much while you where there?

[adanthar]

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What was it about law school that appealed to you in the first place? Also what made you enjoy it so much while you where there?

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I come from an 80 year old/multiple 3 generation line of lawyers and pretty much knew I would go to law school since I was about six. Not to worry, there's also a circus strongman in there somewhere!

As far as law school goes...like I said, there wasn't any actual 'law school' about it at all, heh.

[nath]

I feel like I should ask you something, but I can't think of anything specific. In lieu of that, anything you have to offer to elevate my game or life to the level they are capable of being would be appreciated.

[adanthar]

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I feel like I should ask you something, but I can't think of anything specific. In lieu of that, anything you have to offer to elevate my game or life to the level they are capable of being would be appreciated.

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Hmmm...okay, let's try it like this. I'm not a wet blanket when it comes to parties and I'm not really eligible for an FBI job. On the other hand, not only am I married and anti-strip club, my wife and I live on a ~3K a month budget. So non-balla it hurts (well OK there's that 2K massage chair...), but I have six figs saved up, will be using a bunch of it as a downpayment on an LV condo very soon (oh yeah, I've decided we're moving to Vegas for a while...), and I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life.

Here's the thing: most 18-24 year olds in this game right now have gone from zero to six figures without ever making any stops along the way. As a result, you get lots of yvesaints and not much else to show for it when the roll takes a hit for whatever reason. You also get tons of stress, because poker is such a high variance game (for you especially) and the self-confidence you need to win can vanish at any point. Add in this whole poker groupie BS and the fact that all your friends your age are either spending four figs a night or happen to be sandwich artists...it's a [censored] up environment to grow up in. I might be the old man of this poker generation, but I'm very sure I'm right about this.

I grew up with good money management (thx immigrant parents) and still have that 90K in student loans over my head. So the first thing I've always done after winning is made sure to protect the money, and as a result, I've got more of it than I have any business keeping/am not stressed out about losing one or a hundred donkaments.

I also just have this feeling that anybody that implodes after losing like, to be totally honest, you do, cannot succeed in this game long term. That's something aside from this and something you have to really mentally work on.

[rothko]

excellent posts.

did you play the other cake tourneys and go for three percent?

[burningyen]

173 is easily good enough to get into Columbia. Law school was great, but I was/am a geek who actually enjoyed the classes and not just all the free time. And BigLaw may suck, but you have to admit it's a great safety net.

How did Gigabet cheat in SNGs? I missed that bit of gossip.

How would you play this hand taken from PXF: Last 4 players of a Stars $100r. Only read is Button likes to slowplay. You're the best player at the table by a good margin. Payouts are:

1st: 30%
2nd: 20%
3rd: 11.9%
4th: 8%

Adjusting for locked up 4th place money, the players are playing for:

1st: 58%
2nd: 32%
3rd: 10%

After posting 6k/12k/600, stacks are:

UTG: 8,350
Button: 288,892
SB: 225,730
Hero: 383,128

Pre-flop (20,400): Hero is dealt AsKs

UTG pushes for 8,350, Button limps for 12,000, SB folds.

A) What's your play?
B) Assume you raised to 57,500 and Button shoves. What's your play?
C) Assume you know for a fact Button has a medium pair. Do you take the flip?

[adanthar]

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excellent posts.

did you play the other cake tourneys and go for three percent?

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The other 2% went to affiliates. If they ran another dozen tourneys I'd directly buy into all of them, though!

re: 173 - I actually applied early decision there and got waitlisted. In fact, my total tally was 7 apps, 5 waitlists (split GPA/LSATs tend to do that.) Oh well, whatever.

PXF: With no read, I'd raise/call and shrug (even if he has a midpair there are too many chips in there by now). If I could put button on an actual midpair PF just from the limp for some reason - and there's almost no way that's possible since he can easily still do this with say AQ - I would, of course, check it down, but there's no particular reason to think that/payouts are top heavy anyway.

[bugstud]

Ok, magically you are only allowed to have $1k on stars. Detail a plan to make that $1k a reasonable number over time via sats/mtts

Also, thx for dinner.

[psyduck]

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I feel like I should ask you something, but I can't think of anything specific. In lieu of that, anything you have to offer to elevate my game or life to the level they are capable of being would be appreciated.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm...okay, let's try it like this. I'm not a wet blanket when it comes to parties and I'm not really eligible for an FBI job. On the other hand, not only am I married and anti-strip club, my wife and I live on a ~3K a month budget. So non-balla it hurts (well OK there's that 2K massage chair...), but I have six figs saved up, will be using a bunch of it as a downpayment on an LV condo very soon (oh yeah, I've decided we're moving to Vegas for a while...), and I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life.

Here's the thing: most 18-24 year olds in this game right now have gone from zero to six figures without ever making any stops along the way. As a result, you get lots of yvesaints and not much else to show for it when the roll takes a hit for whatever reason. You also get tons of stress, because poker is such a high variance game (for you especially) and the self-confidence you need to win can vanish at any point. Add in this whole poker groupie BS and the fact that all your friends your age are either spending four figs a night or happen to be sandwich artists...it's a [censored] up environment to grow up in. I might be the old man of this poker generation, but I'm very sure I'm right about this.

I grew up with good money management (thx immigrant parents) and still have that 90K in student loans over my head. So the first thing I've always done after winning is made sure to protect the money, and as a result, I've got more of it than I have any business keeping/am not stressed out about losing one or a hundred donkaments.

I also just have this feeling that anybody that implodes after losing like, to be totally honest, you do, cannot succeed in this game long term. That's something aside from this and something you have to really mentally work on.

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Excellent mindset, this is how I need to train myself to think.