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Ignoring the fact that there is no math in that post, gambling is math wally. That's all it is.

I was being sarcastic or annoying stupid. Durito, Ernie Fok'n Els won the British Open and I won a Baseball TOTAL tonight. I don't know how Ernie is celebrating but I am doing so by obviously pushing your "getting on my fok'n nerve" button.

I'm calling it a night Durito, tomorrow I will go back to boring non-posting mode.
 
I'm really tired bored hungry tonight. Might as well share some of my favorite posts/stories about poker in this thread.

Originally posted by Limon on 2+2

Poker is great. It may be the most enjoyable, rewarding pastime ever invented. Poker has added tremendously to my mental skill set, my business contacts, and my pocketbook. But, like all things, it has a point of diminishing returns. Many of the biggest losers in poker are good players who cant figure this out or dont see it coming. They believe, mistakenly, that the game will just get funner and more interesting as time goes by. This is not true, not for poker, not for anything. You dont believe me, listen to this.

While poker is definitely a good time, I would surely rather be bonin. I assume youre the same way. It seems that the best job in the world would be getting paid to bone, right? Well, not so fast. I knew this dude named Randy, he was a pretty normal dude, sorta boring and bland but he liked to play poker and he played in one of my home games. One night at the game he was so happy, he told us he hooked up with a stripper hed been goin to see at the club for about a month. He said hed been asking her to go out with him and she finally agreed. The chick was from Hungary and more than a little wild looking. One night he brought her to the game, he said she liked poker. Well, I think when she said poker she meant poke-her. About 20 minutes into the game she seemed to become bored and started making out with Randy. The next thing you know she was on his lap and doin the full lap dance thing. She didnt take off her clothes, which was no big loss, but she was quite the nutty fruitcake.

Well, as it turned out she was into a lot of other stuff too magazines, movies etc. The last time I saw him at the home game he told us he was going to be in a porno movie with her. He said her stage name was Siren. I called him and invited him to the game a couple times more but he was always too busy with his new porno life. I couldnt blame him seemed like fun to me. So I didnt see the guy for years, then one day I was at The Normandie and I saw him at a $9-18 game not looking so hot. We got to talking, he told me he wasnt in porn anymore he worked as a bartender in Hermosa Beach. I invited him back to the home game and little by little his crazy life story started to leak out. Turns out he got way into the lifestyle. Started doing fetish movies, breath play, ass play, blood play you name it. He nearly bled to death in one film where he was supposed to get his pinky chopped off at the exact same time he, uhhh, made whoopee on his partner. But thats not the worst part. It turns out that he went so far that he cant even get a boner anymore, not even a little poke! Nothing stimulates him, what kinda hell is that.

Guys who play poker everyday get the exact same way. Without any outside stimulation they need to get all their stimulation from poker. It causes them to play in worse and worse games at worse and worse times, just for the action. Then one day ull see them practicing the poker version of auto erotic asphyxiation, short handed limit poker at 10am after pulling an all nighter. Bye bye bankroll.

So you still wanna be a pro poker player. Give it up. It makes no logical sense. The first thing you need to understand is that to start playing at a level high enough to earn a living you need a large bankroll. Many have written about the size necessary to live through x number of standard deviations assuming you make 1 big bet and hour and still afford your living expenses and yada, yada, yada. Im not sure what their final answer was but in my experience, to play 20-40 and above, which is what you need to do to make a living. And to have enough extra to live a comfortable life, you need at least a $100k starting bankroll. If you play as a prop it can be lower, maybe $75k (but then you have to play shorthanded). If you want to live in a by the hour, day or month motel and eat at the buffet every day you can probably start with $50k, but why would you want to do that just to play poker? You can do much better things with a $50k nestegg and still play poker. The poker game will always be there, the other options may pass you by. The opportunity cost for using your nestegg/windfall as a poker bankroll is just too high. You could use that money to buy real estate and get passive income from the rents. You could use the money to start your own business which would have much better tax breaks than professional gambler and possibly provide you with that all illusive passive income. Poker will never provide passive income, you will never have employees or dividends or rents. To make the money you have to put in the hours, period. And, just like B Real says, although it may be a fun job, its still a job. Nearly all pro poker players do something else (or several other things) on the side. POKER GETS BORING. And if poker is your sole source of income that boredom will kill you. Your play wont be sharp, youll sit in bad games, and youll leak away your bankroll.

If you try to earn a living playing poker on a short bankroll you are destined to fail. The only reason I have earned so much over the years playing poker is due to the fact that it is not my only source of income. I hesitate to say its not my primary source of income because many years I have made more playing poker than in real estate, the stock market, or other small business ventures. The reason I make money playing poker is because I am selective and patient. I treat it as one of my investments or businesses. I dont have to play. I can wait for the right opportunity or create the right opportunity. If poker is your sole source of income then you need to play. Subsequently you will find yourself in bad games too often. You will work hard to beat these games but they, in conjunction with the rake, will grind you down.
 
I am more Greek.

I love it when I get to the table and see a bunch of Persian types. Armenians, Greeks, Turks, short hairy loud dudes. I can assure you there will be lots of yelling, lots of fights lots of dealer abuse, and tons of bad poker. This night was no exception. The game is 1-2-5 to go no limit holdem. The pot can be killed for $5 from any position and re-killed and re-killed. This is the biggest action NL game in any casino anywhere, especially when tempers get flaring.

Upon sitting down a mountainous Greek (?) fellow in seat 1 was raking in a huge pot. Chips spilling through the fingers of his fat ham hands as he chortled and bragged. His opponent, an older Persian type with dyed black hair, stares the dealer down. It seems as if they both got all of their money in on the flop, AA v. a set of nines. A third Ace came on the river busting the 9s. Fat Greek with talking chips blurts, You shouldnt have been in with 9s to begin with, you deserve to lose.. Dyed Greek is staring at the dealer, Why, Why, Why you [censored] me? You are miserable, I never play a hand with you again. A note about dyed Greek his favorite saying is Why he says it before everything. Every time he gets raised he cries Why. Then the table mimicks back Why!. He then says, without fail, Why, why you raise me? Are we heads up? Then I raise back.. When youre in with him the pots get huge, he will raise with any hand or any draw. When you have something better than his average holding you just have to dig your heels in and go for broke.

But anywho, back to the matter at hand. As dyed Greek berates the dealer fat Greek tips him, tells him, You good dealer, I tip again. He is mad that hes broke. Like a child in a custody battle the dealer is smart and keeps his mouth shut. Now dye job goes nuts, I am not broke, I am Greek, I work, have many jobs, homes, how much you have in chips, I buy to cover. He pulls out a disheveled wad of money and plunks down 2k, all green dealer. The chip runner brings him 4 stacks of quarters. Now the fun starts. The button kills it for $5, this is a standard move, if no re-kill it gives the button last action on every round. Dye Job now re-kills it with a slam to the table proclaiming, I am Greek!. Now fatso re-kills it again for $20 yelling, I am more Greek. Dye job rifles back, WHY, why, I bet all my chips blind, I am more greek!, fatso now stands up and pushes in a mountain of chips, I call all my chips blind I AM MORE GREEK!. A complete nit at the table begins to protest, you cant do this its against the rules, call the floorman.. The table silences him in unison, Shut the [censored] up. I chime in with, This is a big bet game, if you cant handle it leave. He succumbs to peer pressure. There is noooooo way those of us at the table are going to pass up the chance to call an all in bet from someone who hasnt even seen his cards. Its all reward no risk. Furthermore the last thing you want to do is kill the buzz at the table by getting all technical. These guys showed up to gamble, for gods sake let them gamble. If you make them feel big and brave and funny and important this behavior may go on for hours. So the deal goes around and sure enough everyone folds but the greeks. I get a King and a Jack and seriously consider calling knowing Im a favorite to 2 random hands but, I know this wont be my best situation of the evening and I want to have chips when that big hand comes up. Besides there were 2 players to act behind me and they could have had the nuts.

The Greeks hold their hands tight as the flop turn and river are dealt. One says, no pair, the other says, no pair. One says, ten high. The other says ten what?. Now the table is getting restless, a weird old guy grumbles, turn the [censored] hands over. They expose their hands and both have 10-4. The table explodes in shouts and laughter. Railbirds from around the casino gather around to see whats going on.

Now lets get technical: This game is good and not as rare as you might think. Right now I need to develop a game plan for this situation. Theres 3 certifiable maniacs in the game, And theyre competing with each other for attention. Im gonna play tight, real tight, but I need to piss the Greeks off so Ill get paid when the time comes. My plan is to make a stupid juvenile bluff and rub it in one of the Greeks faces. This will cost me little in expectation but a lot in payoffs.

I kill from the button, now its $10 to go. The maniacs limp $10 to me as expected. I plan to make it $50 to go with 34 but the weird old guy big blind makes it $50 first. Oops, lets try that again. Now Im in the Big Blind. Button, dyed greek kills it. One limper to me Small Blind folds. I raise to $30 with K9, both call. Flop is junk, I bet out $100 both fold (whew) now I flip my K9 over and say, Like taking candy from a baby, I thought you were greek. He responds with why.

The trap has been set, goddess please let me go on a rush.

6 hours later Ive played maybe 3 hands past the flop and the game breaks.
 
On a lighter note...

“The Captain” sets sail.

Despite the fact that I play my fair share of casino poker I’m sorta like a ghost in the casino. I’m definitely not part of the “poker culture”. People see me but don’t know me, by design. I float in when there is a game I like and float out when it’s over (hopefully weighted down a little with suckers’ money).

At one point in the history of poker there was a sort of gentleman’s club. This group of players would lend giant sums of money to each other when one went broke. These loans were done on a handshake and, according to the masters (Brunson, Amarillo, Puggy, etc.), always paid back. It was sorta like these guys all played on the same bankroll, fleecing the tourists and spreading the money around when somebody went on a serious cold streak. This “club” still exists today amongst the top players, many loan $100k or more to each other on a handshake and they are “good” for it.

A bastardized version of this club also exists amongst lower level players who aren’t “good” for anything. These players are constantly hustling each other and any other mark they can find to stay in action. It happens a lot around low buy in tournaments. A disheveled looking “friend” with bad breath and clinical ring around the collar will approach you to discuss life, love, bad beats and loaning him entry into the tournament. He will offer you one hell of a deal cause’ he never plans on honoring it. Usually they’ll offer to pay you double the loan + half the winnings blah, blah, blah. Once you win a couple of these tourneys the scum will start wanting to go partners with you or to trade percentages this is also a waste of time. My advice is to avoid all business dealings and/or loans with gamblers. When one asks me, I work up my best Aussie accent and proclaim, “partners is bad luck where I come from, mate” this works and it will get around that your some sort of foreign stiff (even if you never use the accent again).

There used to be this guy named “Captain Bruce” who loitered around a now defunct L.A. card barn. He was an omnipresent traveling mess. His never changing outfit consisted of promotional jacket, shirt and hat from past tournaments, his pants I’m not sure about. Every evening the barn hosted a low buy in tourney. Once a week it was no limit hold em’. I would come to the tourney to make sure the no limit cash game got started afterwards. This went on for at least a year and every night “Captain” would make a deal with someone to gain entry into the tourney. Unfortunately Captain never won. One night at break “Captain” went out to smoke a cig, lied down on the bench and didn’t move. None of the other degenerates could revive him and it spread like wildfire that “The Captain” was dead. He had to be dead to not return to the tourney, he still had chips. Presumably an ambulance came to pick him up but no-one noticed, the break was over, we had to finish the tournament. A dark cloud did hang over that night though as everyone recounted stories of how much money “Captain” owed them when he died.

Then a miracle occurred, at the very next NL tourney “Captain” appeared. Back from the grave and hustling for an entry fee. The tournament director announced that “The Captain” was back, alive and well and the casino was going to pay his entry since he didn’t get to finish the last tournament. It turns out that the captain sent himself into some sort of coma by trying to smoke too many cigarettes too fast during the 10 minute break. The nicotine burst mixed with whatever else he was on put him into shock.

Well, cheating death sent Captain on some sort of hot streak. At the break he was chip leader. I broke out shortly thereafter and started my cash game, but the game was light. Many of the players wouldn’t sit down cause they were too interested in the tournament. Captain was on a streak, and had a huge gallery. Everyone he owed money to was rooting for him to win so they would get paid back. There must have been 100 people watching the final table exploding into cheers every time he won a pot. The whole casino seemed to come to a halt to see what was going on. Even players from the top section slummed down to take a look.

When it got to 3 players Captain had a huge chip lead and the other 2 players wanted a deal, some sort of 3 way split. The crowd began to chant, “NO DEAL! NO DEAL! NO DEAL!” first place was about $5k and he was going to need all of it to pay these people back. Captain, drunk on success, decided to play on for 1st place, the crowd erupted in cheers. Within a half hour the re-born Captain steamrolled the competition and took first. A mighty roar went up as he won the last hand. The whole crowd, bustled and elbowed to be first in line to get their payback after the prize money was distributed, following him like a jovial mob to the prize table.

Captain claimed his prize money from the tournament director and then whispered something to the security guard. The security guard got on his walkie-talkie and asked for assistance at the tournament desk then began to escort him towards the front of the casino. A rumble went through the crowd. People started to shout, “Captain my hunnerd.” “Captain my fiddy”. More security guards showed up, and it became apparent, The Captain was making his escape! Guards surrounded him like a prize fighter while the crowd blocked the way, people yelled and pushed at the security guards. The guards got out their mace and made there way towards the parking lot. Oh, but there was a problem. Captain had no car. He rode the bus to the casino, so a cab had to be called. The wait for the cab seemed to take forever. The guards formed a shield around captain while the crowed pelted them with garbage and soda, screaming, “I’m gonna kill you Captain” and “I know where you live”. Cops showed up just after the cab and drove right into a melee. The guards threw captain into the cab and it sped off with people pounding on the windows and trying to stand in its path.

The mini riot must have lasted for at least 2 minutes after the cab sped away. Then the degenerates figured out they were wasting valuable gambling time and bustled back to the tables. While I never actually loaned “Captain” any money I do believe he owes me $23, my expectation for the hour his “riot” closed down my no limit game.

I've hosted many home poker games (2 at this time) and attended many. In fact i try to play in home poker games exclusively. I have never been 86'd here are some tips:

1. you gotta give action to get action. my fav. action play is the live straddle, generally once an hour will get you invited back for life.

2. if people in the game drink...you drink! OR bring the host a bottle of his liquor of choice.

3. if people in the game smoke..you smoke OR bring the host a cigar each time you come.

4. dont EVER be a coach or table captain.

5. be willing to bet on anything.

in your case since you got 86'd call the dude and ask why. your perception of yourself my be wayyy different than how other people see you.

in los angeles big bet casinos allow two all in players to make a deal "run the cards" more than once. They dont allow splits or insurance at the table.

My strategy for years in this is to deal with bad players, not deal with good players and always deal when my opponent has 2 outs or less.

the reasoning is: against bad players im gonna break em sooner or later so there is no reason to give them the chance to get lucky. i want to limit swings and grind them down.

against good players i achieved my goal and got them all in and now is my chance to break them, maybe even drive them from the game. my tilt factor is 0 and i want to test theirs.

with my opponent having 2 or less outs I can guarantee myself the lions share of the pot by running it the correct amount of times, say 3 times when i have set over set and totally taking away the chance of a bad beat.

are there any other strategies for this?

I like to run it enough to guarantee a win. thats 3 times for 1 opponent out. 5 times for 2 opponent outs. I the opponent has more than 2 outs i go back to my basic strategy. Deal with losers, dont deal with winners. We always show the hands first. anything else to consider...i love the thoughtfulness of the responses so far.

yes "goodish" (tight) players will tilt after losing a big pot and bad players will also. But tight players dont get in that often so when i do get them in i want to test their metal. I also dont mind pissing them off a little and having them react to me.

bad players on the other hand get their money in all the time. and i definitely dont want to piss one off and make him leave if he wants to deal i deal, poker is "fun" right, we're having a party, right?

i think i mentioned once before about my strange relationship to players at the casino. bad players love me, "good" (tight nitwit) players HATE me (just like on this forum), and the 1% who actually know what i'm doing i consider friends.

here are some sure fire armenian tells. (they work for other persians & turks as well)

The faster the raise the surer the draw. In limit if you raise an armenian and he three bets you before your chips are in the pot hes on a draw 110%. Even if the flop is K84 hes on a draw! if oyur heads up get him for 5-6 bets whenever he decides to stop.

Armenians love to "suppress" a bet by grabbing their stack when you're about to bet. this signigfies a weak hand BUT ONE THEY WILL CALL WITH. if playing NL and holding a better than average hand. stop when they make this move. look at them defiantly and then say "OK ALL IN". Stare the short hairy dude dead in the eye hell call you 100%.
 
When is that post from? I started with $200. LOL.

Was playing 5/10 NL in 3 months.

Money was ridiculously easy back then.

Which post? Limon is a golf hustler/poker pro/card counter from LA. he posted from 2002-2011 on 2+2 before stopping. I searched through all his posts/threads and archived the stuff so it wouldn't get eaten since it's pure gold as far as live play is concerned IMO.

I never gambled until late 2009 so I missed the bull days but at least I don't have the comparison in my mind (although this is of little comfort to my BR).
 
What were you doing before the move? Only the trading bot or poker/other advantage too?

I started playing poker in 2004. I put $200 in a Pacific Poker account. I ran it up to $20k in the first 40 days or so. The games were ridiculously soft. I won a couple of tournaments but won most of it from cash games. Their highest limits at the time were 1/2 NL and 30/60. And the majority of it came from 1/2 NL. I was running out of upside on the site and Full Tilt was just becoming popular. I put $1000 in an account there and ran it up to $7k in a few weeks. At the time, their highest game was 5/10 NL which kind of scared me. It was filled with pros. But I ended up playing it anyway just to see if I was good enough. I started playing against guys like David Grey, John Juanda, and Layne Flack daily. And I was doing well. There were guys that would come into the game just to play against the pros, and you could pick them off. There was another guy who (and I can't remember his name) that was there daily that helped develop Microsoft Office. Super nice guy. And it was obvious that he had money. Cuz he would donk off stacks to us every day. It was a feast. I won a seat to the main event and started making a bunch of trips to Vegas. When the UIGEA was signed, I decided that I might as well just live here. The games online were already getting much tighter and live play here was still thriving.

So that's how I ended up here.

From there, I started venturing more into sports. I was getting tired of spending so much time at the tables. And now, if I play once a week, it's a lot.
 
Which post? Limon is a golf hustler/poker pro/card counter from LA. he posted from 2002-2011 on 2+2 before stopping. I searched through all his posts/threads and archived the stuff so it wouldn't get eaten since it's pure gold as far as live play is concerned IMO.

I never gambled until late 2009 so I missed the bull days but at least I don't have the comparison in my mind (although this is of little comfort to my BR).

Yeah. Limon's post.
 
I started playing poker in 2004. I put $200 in a Pacific Poker account. I ran it up to $20k in the first 40 days or so. The games were ridiculously soft. I won a couple of tournaments but won most of it from cash games. Their highest limits at the time were 1/2 NL and 30/60. And the majority of it came from 1/2 NL. I was running out of upside on the site and Full Tilt was just becoming popular. I put $1000 in an account there and ran it up to $7k in a few weeks. At the time, their highest game was 5/10 NL which kind of scared me. It was filled with pros. But I ended up playing it anyway just to see if I was good enough. I started playing against guys like David Grey, John Juanda, and Layne Flack daily. And I was doing well. There were guys that would come into the game just to play against the pros, and you could pick them off. There was another guy who (and I can't remember his name) that was there daily that helped develop Microsoft Office. Super nice guy. And it was obvious that he had money. Cuz he would donk off stacks to us every day. It was a feast. I won a seat to the main event and started making a bunch of trips to Vegas. When the UIGEA was signed, I decided that I might as well just live here. The games online were already getting much tighter and live play here was still thriving.

So that's how I ended up here.

From there, I started venturing more into sports. I was getting tired of spending so much time at the tables. And now, if I play once a week, it's a lot.

Thanks for sharing. I wish I would have known about it during that time period but don't begrudge your success either. I don't think I could live full time in vegas though.