Friday, August 22, 2008
Oh Noes, Internet Pros > Live Pros again ...
Here's an excellent post by Bond18 in his "Round the World in 90 Days" section on Full Tilt :
Day 92
Before you point out the obvious contradiction, he's gone round the world and is now taking stock. There's not that much for me to add to it, just read the post. I don't put in huge volume because, well because I'm Mr. Lazy, in a nutshell. I try to put in 3 x $2K sessions a week, most weeks I manage it, some weeks I don't. I'm running at 104% since January 2007, although this is almost certainly not sustainable given the massive positive skew of winning the Party $300K twice in 40 trials. Then again, it's a hell of a tournament ...
But the point remains, and it's a good one. If you have good technique, good discipline and you put the hours in online, you can indeed grind up $200-300K in a year, and then, as Bond says, you're in a position to play a few live tournaments with some judicious selling and swapping of action. You don't have to be a genius or a great player, you just have to work at it, put the hours in and play consistently to a reasonable standard. And this is why I have no tolerance, and in fact borderline contempt, for live "pros" who think they're the nizzles when they're fucking broke and scraping around for a stake. Because that's the other point ; you don't even need a massive bankroll to do this. If you're capable of nipping and scraping up $10K just so you can be seen at EPT London, then you could put that online and off you go. People don't do this because they're either too lazy, not good enough, or both.
The money's online, and in poker if you're looking for the best players, you follow the money. You ask me who the best British tournament player is and I'll say Chris Moorman, without a moment's thought. And I'd take anyone in the UK Top Ten on p5s (which doesn't include me !) above the vast majority of "live tournament pros". Whatever TV or Bluff Europe wants to tell you.
Day 92
Before you point out the obvious contradiction, he's gone round the world and is now taking stock. There's not that much for me to add to it, just read the post. I don't put in huge volume because, well because I'm Mr. Lazy, in a nutshell. I try to put in 3 x $2K sessions a week, most weeks I manage it, some weeks I don't. I'm running at 104% since January 2007, although this is almost certainly not sustainable given the massive positive skew of winning the Party $300K twice in 40 trials. Then again, it's a hell of a tournament ...
But the point remains, and it's a good one. If you have good technique, good discipline and you put the hours in online, you can indeed grind up $200-300K in a year, and then, as Bond says, you're in a position to play a few live tournaments with some judicious selling and swapping of action. You don't have to be a genius or a great player, you just have to work at it, put the hours in and play consistently to a reasonable standard. And this is why I have no tolerance, and in fact borderline contempt, for live "pros" who think they're the nizzles when they're fucking broke and scraping around for a stake. Because that's the other point ; you don't even need a massive bankroll to do this. If you're capable of nipping and scraping up $10K just so you can be seen at EPT London, then you could put that online and off you go. People don't do this because they're either too lazy, not good enough, or both.
The money's online, and in poker if you're looking for the best players, you follow the money. You ask me who the best British tournament player is and I'll say Chris Moorman, without a moment's thought. And I'd take anyone in the UK Top Ten on p5s (which doesn't include me !) above the vast majority of "live tournament pros". Whatever TV or Bluff Europe wants to tell you.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
July Wrap
In between finishing up at the WSOP and being on TV, I have managed to get a fair bit of volume in online. Something went wrong with my accounting to the tune of $1700, but even factoring that in as a loss (which I think is probably correct), I played $32.5K worth of tournaments and returned $42K for just short of $10K. This was a good effort for volume, the highest this year. A lot of this was down to fitting in 4 or 5 turbo tournaments between 10-11pm, and in fact, I went on a super hot streak in those for 10 days (I won the $150 on Betfair 3 times just for starters). It's fair to say that they completely got me out of it on the month.
I'm looking to put in another $30K+ this month, and hopefully do better in terms of profit. It's possible that something might come up September/October which will leave me playing less online (tease) so I might as well crack on now. There's also the FTOPS this month which should be good for 4 or 5 spin-ups.
What I Learned This Month
Well, firstly that if you can find some good turbo tournaments, people still play appallingly badly in these (especially around the bubble) and they can be very profitable. Apart from that, it occurred to me that I very rarely raise post-flop without a very strong hand. Especially when in position, I tend to call quite a lot for pot control/bluff inducing reasons with a deeper stack. Even on sites like Party you have to balance your ranges somewhat, so I've taken to mixing in a few bluff raises and check-raises where appropriate, just enough to keep them guessing. The Pearljammer/Rizen/Apestyles book has some good examples of this, and it's definitely working out well so far.
I'm looking to put in another $30K+ this month, and hopefully do better in terms of profit. It's possible that something might come up September/October which will leave me playing less online (tease) so I might as well crack on now. There's also the FTOPS this month which should be good for 4 or 5 spin-ups.
What I Learned This Month
Well, firstly that if you can find some good turbo tournaments, people still play appallingly badly in these (especially around the bubble) and they can be very profitable. Apart from that, it occurred to me that I very rarely raise post-flop without a very strong hand. Especially when in position, I tend to call quite a lot for pot control/bluff inducing reasons with a deeper stack. Even on sites like Party you have to balance your ranges somewhat, so I've taken to mixing in a few bluff raises and check-raises where appropriate, just enough to keep them guessing. The Pearljammer/Rizen/Apestyles book has some good examples of this, and it's definitely working out well so far.
