a lot to talk about

[samoleus]

Hello all,

I have been lurking and reading posts here for some time. I thought I would finally pipe in and speak about a few things. The subjects that I intend to discuss in these posts are manifold and perhaps unrelated, so forgive me in advance if this post seems disjointed. For those interested, I'd like to give some background about myself and my game - including addressing some posts made about me. I would also like to discuss my style and extreme LAG play in general. Finally, I would like to comment on my future plans in poker and get some feedback from some of the professionals on this site.

OK, about myself. For better or for worse, I believe that I am one of the better known players that play the 10-20 game on Party Poker. My style is somewhat controversial and has been the topic of considerable discussion in two or three posts that have been made about me. This STYLE (independent of me) has been discussed recently as well, with some excellent posts made about it by ML4L, cero_z, and El Diablo among others.

As those of you that are familiar with me know, I almost always (on PP) employ an extreme LAG style. I have found it to be extremely profitable, especially on Party Poker. I have had success playing much higher, including the big games on UB and Gaming Club - but I have found that multi-tabling 10-20 on PP while employing the LAG style has yielded me the maximum profit. The premise of this play, and the reasons for its success are manifold. In order to keep this post somewhat organized, I will try and talk about them one-by-one in a "list" format.

- First of all, as cero pointed our in a recent post, playing more hands gives one that many more opportunities to win a fish's money. For the simple reason that I am playing many more hands than the average player, I am provided with many more opportunities to win large pots against players who will overplay their hands. Additionally, by playing hands like 8-6 or 5-2, I am MORE likely to hit a hand that will be both disguised and give a weak player a chance to have a top pair/overpair type hand that he will stack off with. Note that if you play tightly, you will not get these opportunities with AA, KK, AK, etc - since (a) the opponent in the hand will be mathematically less likely to hold an overpair or similar cards and (b) if you hit a hand hard, your opponent will be less likely to hold a TPTK type hand that he might stack off with. Otherwise stated, if I hold 8-6, my opponent will be more likely to stack off with AQ.

- The inherent mathematics behind two card poker - in particular, the fact that a hand like AK is only a 3-2 favorite over a hand like 6-5 makes it very profitable to play hands that are NOT duplicated, as long as you possess the capacity to make better decisions than your opponent. Although they are not complicated, I do not want to discuss too many of the simple yet effective ways of winning pots by bluff calling, flop texture reading, etc in great detail for two reasons. One, this post is going to be long enough as it is, and two, I do not want to give away too much of my thought process for obvious reasons. However, the main point is that since the worst hand you can conjure up is still only a 3-2 dog over AK, it becomes +EV in my opinion to get to the flop as often as possible if you can make better decisions than your opponents after flop.

- Although I will do what I can to get maximum money in preflop if I am holding aces - or kings in most situations - the fact remains that the greater an edge a player has over his opponents, the more the gap widens when the bulk of the money (and decisions) are made after the flop. To that end, while I open-raise with a wide variety of hands and call raises with a wide variety of hands, I try to keep the pot sizes small. I try - and feel that I am successful - at winning lots of small pots, and picking up big pots only when I have the goods. As you all know, in NL, it is pretty common that no one has anything TOO good after the flop. The 10-20 players are fairly easy to read if they do or they don't (not just the passive ones, but the aggressive ones sometimes pick inconsistent times or monetary values to bluff with), and I tend to pick up a lot of pots that no one wants. An added benefit of raising and calling raises so frequently is that bad players (and even otherwise good players who are getting frustrated) will make horrendous mistakes far more often against a player like me than they will against a tight player. I don't mean to call out a player here, but I want to provide an example of a hand I played a couple of months ago against an otherwise excellent player and a respected poster here. Captain Zeebo, I apologize in advance for exposing this hand, but I want to point out that even strong players like yourself can make massive mistakes that you would not make against tight players. On the hand in question, it folded to zeebo and he raised to 80 from the small blind. I called in the big blind with 10-9. Many of you will say that this is not a hand I should be calling a preflop raise with, etc. However, on a flop of 8-7-6, zeebo pushed all in for 2.1K with just JJ. I of course called and won a 4.3K pot. Now obviously, zeebo will not do this against a player like sanguin, jackwould, kristelita, or any of the other successful but tight players. However, against a splasher like me, he just assumed his hand was best - and not wanting to be put to the test, he made a massive mistake. This type of thing is not infrequent: I often get statements like "samoleus, how do you get these guys to just give you all their chips?" when someone stacks off with, say second pair against my set or something. Well, the answer is this: since I splash around, players that are either not very smart or not paying close attention, just interpret my constant raising as overaggression and will be willing to play huge pots with marginal holdings. Of course, I rarely (not never of course, but rarely) will play a huge pot without a very big hand. But my style makes it appear that I will and good players give away a lot of chips that they would not give to other players.

So to briefly summarize, my style affords me the best of both worlds. First, I am able to pick up most of the pots that no one wants. Second, I am able to win huge pots with big hands. There are additional benefits as well. It frustrates opponents and sets them on tilt. It makes players who are not able to make good marginal decisions loosen up their starting hand standards against me. I get to play more hands against fish who are begging to get their money taken by whoever gets to them first. My loose preflop standards are often misinterpreted as loose postflop standards at great benefit to me. I could go on, but you all are probably tired of reading by now.

A quick tangent: ML4L wrote an excellent post some time back entitled "the running game" or something like that. In it, he talked about winning loose aggressive players and their potential inability to adjust to those who adjust to them. Indeed that trait is of paramount importance. While I am almost always the table captain in my Party games, I have often (on UB agaist Prahlad, and sometimes live depending on the opponents) shifted to a very tight strategy. For instance, I have played a couple times at Foxwoods where a couple of players attacked very pot out of drunkenness or machismo. I knew that my splashing style would not work, so I simply sat and waited until I had big edges on them. I played way fewer pots than I am accustomed to, but won huge pots and ended up with very good profits. Same situation occured when playing in games with players like Antonio Esfandiari, Kenna James, and Phil Laak at Foxwoods. Playing 25-50 NL with an uncapped buy-in, these guys were clearly playing below their usual level and wanted to compensate by overbetting the pots. When I was in this game, I simply downshifted, let them "run" the game, but walked away with the biggest profits by playing TAG. I am not trying to toot my horn here, but just trying to make the operative point that this style that I discuss is one that I use almost exclusively on Party, but to employ it gainfully, it has to be used with discretion and has to be able to be adjusted accordingly.

Some outstanding posters, such as cero, have suggested that the counter strategy is "so simple." I do not want to get in a protracted discussion about this for obvious reasons, but I do disagree with that. I think that when a player adjusts to me (reraising to isolate, thin calls, etc), I can adjust specifically to them and counter with either extreme aggression (putting them to the question when they put me to the question marginally) or by trapping. The notes feature is a great tool obviously. Ultimately, adjusting to this style requires a good deal of decision making and stones that a lot of players are incapable of making.

OK enough about that for now. I want to address some posts that were made about me in the past. As many of you know, I was formerly "punketty." I was surprised to say the least to see at least three posts pop here about me - both as samoleus and as punketty. I have to say that I am stunned at how these posters claim to know how much I have won or lost at a time. I also would like to say for the record that while I appreciate the comments from the poster who said I was the best player I have ever seen - I do not know who he is (and it is certainly not me posting as some had suggested). I must say that I am quite disappointed in certain posters - particularly Yeti and fsuplayer - who claim that I suck and/or that when I am sitting with mutiple 10K stacks, it is only because I have thrown away that much money to get there. These statements are both inaccurate and irresponsible. Moreoever, they do not make sense - if I was throwing away money, the stacks may be more volatile, but I would not automatically be sitting with large stacks (as I would lose large chunks of money from the big stacks as well as starting stacks). Anyway, I do not want to get into my win rate in detail, I do not want to attack people or make this post a negative one in any way. However, I want to state again that I am surprised and disappointed in those posters who felt themselves qualified to talk about how much I lose or whatever - without any knowledge thereof.

OK, finally, if any of you have actually made it this far, I would like to ask for general advice as well as one specific question. I am planning to do this full-time very soon. I have hesitated in doing so for two reasons. First, I have an outstanding engineering job (one of the best in the country at a premier think tank). I am loathe to give that up because if I do poker full-time for more than a couple of years, it will be nearly impossible for me to go back to this job - and to any cutting edge engineering job for that matter. I was winning so much at poker (again please forgive me: my intent is not to brag about my winnings but to give a background to those that can advise me) that I had initially decided to wait until I have made enough money that I could retire if need be and have savings in the amount that I would have if I had continued with my engineering career for the next 30+ years. In the last couple of years, I have not quite reached that point, but I am about 40% of the way there. Despite not getting there (I was intending to do that before quitting and doing poker full-time), I am planning to take on this endeavor shortly. I have my first child on the way next month, and I think this is an excellent time and opportunity to do that. I plan on doing so, but I do have one major concern.

I am concerned about the ongoing legality of on-line poker. I do not intend to ever move my family to a place where I will have to be going to a casino every day, and I want my career to subsist on the internet. However, if I go a few years as an internet pro, and then that is made illegal, I will be screwed. I will not be able to get back into engineering after that kind of a layoff and will not have means to be gainfully employed. Nonetheless, at this time, I feel like this is a risk worth taking.

At this point, I would like to ask for advice/thoughts on this concern. For those of you that have legitamate opinions on this, I would like to ask about what you think of the concern that internet poker might be made illegal sometime in the near-to-mid term future. And also, I would like to hear any thoughts and comments that the big guns (diablo, limon, cero, flynn, turnip, ml4l, kane, sklansky, etc) may be able to provide about turning pro.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[samoleus]

by the way, when I said I am one of the "better known players", I meant "most well-known" NOT "BETTER known" ...

[Yeti]

Welcome aboard,

Do not quit your job.

edit - I do not mean this is a 'funny' or dickish way, just sounds like you have a sweet job.

[edge]

Longest post ever in this forum?

By the way, this is a lot more coherent and meaningful than Sklansky's posts on a similar subject, even if a lot of the principles you outline here are fairly straightforward and simple.

[spino1i]

are you gamble4you?

[samoleus]

yeti,

although it is a nice job, I enjoy playing poker a lot more than I enjoy my job. Moreover, I win a lot more money playing poker. It is just the inherent legality question that gives me pause. Care to expand on your thoughts?

[ML4L]

[ QUOTE ]
Welcome aboard,

Do not quit your job.

edit - I do not mean this is a 'funny' or dickish way, just sounds like you have a sweet job.

[/ QUOTE ]

[samoleus]

ML, could you (and any other posters who want to give this blanket advice) please expand upon it? I enjoy poker and make much more money at it than I do at my job. My biggest concern by far though is the fear about the legality of internet poker. Could you explain why you recommend not to quit my job?

[Yeti]

You say you prefer poker to your job. Fine. I don't know how many hours you play nowadays, but you _will_ get sick of it.

You can start running bad, lose the motivation to play, the games dry up, the legality issue, etc etc. You say you can never go back to your sweet job if you leave. Why on earth would you want to jeopardise that? Just keep it as a sweet hobby for now man and maybe retire early.

[KaneKungFu123]

You seem like a very nice guy so I am going to give it to you straight:

(this is from when weve played back in june/july)
I think you are way too loose and I think your game has alot of holes in it.

You obviously have given this alot of thought and are a smart person. Whenever i play with you, youve seemed like a guy who really enjoys playing poker and even when you were getting torched you kept a good attitude in the chat. I believe that you have the capabilities of being a strong player, but I do not believe that you are currently a strong player. I would consider you a very loose caller. It is very easy to induce bluffs out of you on the turn, and to rebluff you with draws. For instance, my standard line against you if i had a flush draw on flop, is to try and check=raise the turn allin because i know you will bluff at it often. i found you very easy to read.

How many hands do you have and what is your winrate, if you want to tell? We have all ran good for 80K hands and thought we were God. It comes the other way, trust me. There is nothing more humbling then breaking even over 40k hands.

If quitting your job means that you wont get it back, then please dont. This is a very bad idea.

I suggest you continue to play as a hobby and try to improve. From what ive seen (june/july) i really wouldnt have pegged you as a winning player.

form your effort/background, again, i think you CAN be a winning player though.

just my 2 cents.