Daniel Negreanu's Latest Cardplayer Article

[CardSharpCook]

Yes, the actual article did a much better job of getting the "jist" of it across than did DS. Good article. I now realize that Daniel's Larry/Johnny theory CAN apply to me. Last year I was playing as high as 100/200 LHE, failed, returned to my 20/40 LHE grind, and now that those party tables are gone, I've even had to accept a drop to 10/20. It is all very frustrating and I do look forward to those trips to commerce where I can play at "my true skill level", the 40-80 game there. As DN said, it is quite aggrevating that I'm not "playing as high as I should", at levels commensurate with my self-estimation. Additionally, taking on new expenses of a home mortgage and paying off a small loan for King Putt, the best mini-golf in all of Nevada, has seriously reduced whatever surplus winnings I might have squandered at higher stakes.

Anyway, good article.

[Taylor Caby]

Daniel,

Maybe I'm confused about what exactly a Johnny means but how can you put Brian Townsend in the same category as Ivey, Chau, and yourself?

Brian has taken some shots in his day but they are nowhere near as big a percentage of his bankroll as the shots the others on the list have taken. he didn't have all of his action on HSP and by the time he played in Bobby's room losing a million bucks would not hurt him in the least bit. Furthermore, the guy has never gambled in the pits except for 10 bucks a roll with some college friends.

I was under the impression the overall definition of a Johnny/Larry has to do with the amount of risk someone is willing to take compared to their bankroll combined with the amount of gamble they have in them. By this definition I'd put Brian at a 6.5 or 7 (no gamble whatsoever, takes some risk with his bankroll).

tc

[Matt Flynn]

[ QUOTE ]
also my point was that there may be some good reasons to take unusually big risks that may result in going broke - i don't think every one of these guys necessarily realized this with poker but i think there are times in life when taking a large risk might be worth it.

tc

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one example is starting a self-funded business. house and everything else are on the line, but you will eventually recover even if you lose, and you could win huge plus there are side benefits like working for yourself.

[The B]

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That list is pretty funny:

John Juanda: Video Poker and Craps lover
Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Bobby Baldwin, Chau Giang, David Benyamine, Patrick Antonius, Gus Hansen: All gameble huge, on anything, best of it or not, for sick amounts of money.
David Grey!!!: This one is really good, lol.

Doyle Brunson once said something on television I thought was pretty funny, but also accurately describes him and most of the big game players, he said, "We are all degenerate gamblers, we just got lucky enough to find something we could win at."



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[x] we need more of this at NVG
[x] thread/Daniel delivers

[75s]

David, I think what Daniel means is 'run goot' early in your career so you can move up and actually learn how to play from solid competition. This is obviously unrealistic, but hindsight is 20/20.

[bustedromo]

Maybe the answer is not to test yourself playing higher and higher. Maybe the answer is to get yourself staked. Or more realistically some sort of shared pool of funds with one or more other players.

Even if you have ample capital, exponential nature of variance might kill your game at a certain point. You're just not cut out to play that high with 100% your own money.

Stop-lossing yourself in this manner allows you to learn from the better players with lower risk and play your best game / max your EV.

[kakon3]

Brian Townsend seems to me like 8-9 from reading his blog, not a 10 because he dont do coin flipping, but he seems that he can easily lose almost all his bankroll. if when he was minus million against sammy he would have kept losing, i find it hard to belive he would ever stop...

[bet2win]

meh

most people know what level they can and cant beat (those with common sense do anyway)

I think whether you push for higher games which are 0 or -EV is basically an ego thing.

Everyone takes some risk and tries a higher game multiple times otherwise we'd all be stuck at micro limits.

Some people just have more to prove to themselves than others (different motivations)

Personally I'm satisfied with playing 2/4NL - 5/10NL. I've tried 10/20NL and trading variance with all the other good players while trying to improve doesn't interest me.

As far as money goes $150k a year from poker is more than enough for me and earning more than that does not increase my life EV.

Nearly every decent player is a risk taker until the money no longer makes a big difference to their life.

[binions]

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I am a Larry. But I'm not a nit. A "nit" is a nitpicker. It's someone who's petty about the rules, without appreciation for what's good for the game in the long run. It's someone looking for little edges, like not risking taking the last blind before a game breaks up. It's someone who annoys live ones, rather than indulging them. Very, very few true winning players are nits. Just like very few are really tight. Most of the time, "nit" is now only used as a pejorative description of a solid player who annoys you by not losing to you, poor you.

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Excellent points.

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First, DN, like most of you, is single (or if he isn't, that just changed). You aren't in the same spot as a man with a wife, kids and mortage payment, like me. Going broke isn't an option for me. Period. It would be childish of me to take significant risks with my BR. It isn't nittiness. It isn't fear of risk. I play poker for a living. Hard to be more risk-embracing than that. But I'm not stupid. I don't have an ego that needs for strangers to know my name or respect my play. Especially considering that most of the fame anyone gets from poker is from people who don't know what the games' even about, and only admire players for having been on TV or having big stacks. You have to be good at poker to know who's good at poker, and the vast majority, even of poker players, much less lay people, aren't good at poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, well said. You portray an excellent attitude that many would do well to emulate.

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Second, at some point in that article he says there are many "Larrys." He's wrong. There are very, very few of us. There are many, many Johnnys. Tons. They're a dime a dozen, really. But guys earning a middle-class living without ever suffering the degradations and stresses of going broke are rare birds.

Third, of the Johnnys who make it big, most are just lucky. Most, really, hit a tourney streak at some point, got pumped up and maybe famous enough to freeroll from endorsements and stakes. But they aren't inherently better or different than the thousands and thousands of Johnnys who tried but failed. One Johnny makes it big for every 1000 or so who fail. On luck alone.

And there are TENS of thousands of Johnnys trying this progression.

DN looks back at the climb as one of the Johnnys who made it, and thinks "What a good decision I made trying." Fanboys look at his climb and think, "See, I'm not crazy trying to do it, too."

The guys who've make it, that I've talked to, have respect for the Larrys, actually. BG, Todd B., Ted Forrest, and DN, too, I think, recognize that it's a choice, and further recognize that they aren't even necessarily better players than the Larrys. In return, most of us Larrys have respect for the Johnnys who've made it, and don't wish them poorly, don't gloat about the big-time bustos, and don't hate them.

But, unlike many of you, who are young, I've seen the lives of Johnny as they usually play out. I've seen the collateral (family and friends) damage.

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Spot on.

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Consider at least Moneymaker, who had to borrow from family to afford the travel expenses, or Jerry Yang, who couldn't even afford a decent hotel room, or Raymer, who had to hustle up stakehorses online. The WSOP is full of stories like that WITHOUT the happy endings. Just, borrowed money never paid back, or spent at a kid's expense. That's life, and I don't blame poker for its human scale, but to glorify the mountain climbers as "risk takers," without seeing also that they're "risk-takers" and not "degenerates" only because of a spade on the river or a 4 on the turn or whatever, is to be childish.

[/ QUOTE ]

It occurs to me that Raymer is not your best example. Prior to the WSOP, he could have been playing for a living instead of practicing law. Hachem appears to be an excellent player. Jury's out on Gold and Yang, but Moneymaker and Varkonyi fit your description.

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Sometimes it takes courage to move up in stakes and risk your BR. But sometimes it takes courage not to.

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Agreed.

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[Responding to Raymer] You'll have fanboys who'll come on here now and say, essentially, "But he won the big one! So, like, he can't be wrong." And they'll really think your title means something. And you'll let them. And so, in fact, will I, now, because everyone capable of understanding why winning a tournament doesn't mean much of anything already understands why winning a tournament doesn't mean much of anything, and everyone who doesn't, at this point, won't get it upon one more re-explaining.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's where I diverge. While the winner of any single tournament got extremely lucky during the tournament, some players can have an edge in tournmaments over the long run. Hachem and Raymer clearly do, whether they won the main event or not.

Many side game pros look at the uber-agressive tourney pros as yum-yum when they sit in a cash game. Perhaps this attitude is influencing your post. I think it's a mistake to generalize, however. After all, Doyle won the WSOP twice. Is he a cash game donkey?

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I organized my first post poorly, if it came across that I thought of you as a Johnny. You, in fact, are neither a Johnny nor a Larry. You're a Joe. An average Joe. You, and Moneymaker and Hachem and Gold and Yang, all average Joe poker players who won a poker lottery full of thousands of average Joe poker players. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not even an insult, unless you're such an egotist that you believe you were anything other than lucky.

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Now you are sounding bitter. Do you run poorly in tournaments? Most tight cash game pros who cannot adjust do.

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And if we could set up the test (we can't) I'd be willing to bet none of you would be winners after a year of 40/80 limit or 10/20 NL at the Commerce. I'd be very happy to make that bet. I wouldn't make that bet against a Johnny like DN, or a Larry such as myself. Only against a Joe.

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Is Harrington a Joe? Or a Larry? Or a Johnny? I suspect he can beat those games. And I suspect Raymer can too, since he was doing so prior to winning the WSOP.

[Lanzalot]

If there has been a post about this in the past, I apologize.

From Winning Secrets of Poker by Peter Thomas Fornotale, p. 99:

Q: I see what you mean from a competitiveness point of view [on playing against the world’s best on a regular basis], but I do understand when a guy like David Sklansky gives his opinion that it’s the wrong play to play so high because of the variance involved.

DN: I would say that he doesn’t have the passion or the heart. If you want to be the best at something, you have to challenge the best. There are two types of poker players –those that strive to be the best and those who are happy to make a living. Sklansky definitely falls into that category. What I do find offensive is the idea that it’s the “wrong play.” Because first of all, he has no experience playing in that game. He doesn’t know how it is. For him to estimate how much of an edge one player might have over another in that game is pure guesswork. He doesn’t understand how people get motivated and how they live their life, and to say that it’s the wrong play is insane. Sklansky has a difficult time convincing the rest of the poker world he’s an authority on the game. One of the reasons that he has a difficult time amongst the top players is the Doyle Brunsons and Chip Reeses think that he couldn’t beat them in a million years. They think, “How can he be the authority when he never shows his face in this game?” Sklansky’s crutch is to say that it’s the wrong play to play so high. And that’s a great excuse…."

Discuss.