themightyjim

ah didn't know you could deposit and withdrawal with bitcoin via Party. That's helpful.

Party actually restored my funds so now just need to work out a way to withdrawal to skrill. if anyone has any suggestions lmk. thanks!

makes sense. I'll probably reach out and ask what they think is best and try to go about it that way. Worst case scenario I could see if I could travel abroad for a vacation and have them do some kind of wire transfer that way, but I think the player transfer method might be my best bet.

Updates:

I currently work in marketing analytics for a large fantasy sports company. I've been with the company 3 years and have moved up from an entry level analyst to having the title of Senior Manager of our Marketing Analytics team. Along with that I've had the opportunity to work on lots of areas of the business (Marketing, Business Development, International Growth Strategy, Business Planning, VIP Management, Customer Support Analytics, etc.). I also was able to work abroad in London for 3 months to help launch our product in the UK which was very cool.

On a more mixed note I separated from my wife of 5 years (and companion of 15) after things kind of ran it's course and we decided that we should end it before having children. It turned out to be amicable in the end and I still have a lot of love and respect for her and wish her nothing but the best. But it was obviously a rough 16 months or so as we worked out the details. In the end though I'm as happy as I've ever been (maybe happier!), and as I had not been single since I was 17 years old, it was a really important change for me. Being the sole agent of my future in terms of career and major life decisions is pretty awesome, and really freeing in a sense I didn't know was possible. I also feel like it uncapped the potential of what I can accomplish with my life, which is both exciting and motivating.

On a similar note, after a period of being single, I started dating another wonderful woman and realized all of the things I had been missing in my marriage that helped to affirm our decision to separate. And I would credit the perspective, patience, and mediation practices that I learned while being a poker player as being a huge key to me surviving that tough patch and coming out of it as a happier person without going down any self destructive paths.

What have a I learned about poker? To be continued in a later response...

hey wanted to pop back in here because I was thinking about some industry things in my current job and kind of missed checking out RIO. Hope everyone is doing great and having/had a wonderful 2017.

Also I used to live outside of the US and play on Party Poker, and when I moved back for work I left some money on the site in case I ever wanted to go back (expecting I would withdrawal it at a later date). I kind of forgot about it and recently figured it might be time to withdrawal. Anyone have tips for how a player in the US can withdrawal the last of their balance from Party Poker?

Thought 31: Quick update on me

I haven't been around RIO for a bit because I've started a new job in analytics for a daily fantasy sports company. It's only been a week and I still have a ton to learn but I'm enjoying the change in schedule and working in a collaborative team environment again.

I'm hoping as I settle into a more normal work routine in the near future I can get back to playing some poker and spending some time on ROI. I haven't really played at all in the last few weeks and I was thinking earlier today that the idea of playing seemed like fun instead of work for the first time in a long time.

Hope everyone is doing great, and good luck at the tables!

jim

would love to visit taiwan. have seen a view travel shows on it and the people seem very very nice, the food looks delicious, and the history and culture seem very interesting.

happy new year to you!

Happy new year everyone! regardless of your running-hot capabilities I hope everyone has a great 2015.

again I'm going to have to say that I think your comment ignores very clear definitions of what we're talking about. While it may be true that IQ does not have a strong positive impact on success (at least in a verifiable casual way) those studies are clearly talking about the generalized concept of success. Success in poker at high stakes games is very very different from success in life or business or whatever. We're talking about a game of logical problem solving with defined rules and imperfect information. The idea that having a higher IQ wouldn't be a clear benefit to people playing that game, or that having an extremely low IQ couldn't create a ceiling is clearly preposterous. I don't need a study to tell me that people that have mental handicaps are not going to be successful high stakes poker players. By the same token I think it's reasonable to assume that a person's IQ can impact their abilities in any game that requires constant logical analysis of large quantities of data.

It may be the case that for most poker players IQ doesn't impact their ceiling, but it's not an unreasonable hypothesis that for some it might. And my point isn't that IQ is the limiting factor in determining a poker player's ceiling, simply that for many players their ceiling isn't high stakes. A myriad of contributing factors might determine that ceiling, but it contributes to the reason why some players succeed and some people don't.

It seems abundantly clear to me that poker isn't a game where hard work + even variance directly translates to success. There are character traits, environmental factors, etc that impact that equation and they often cause what I'm referring to as a ceiling. You can certainly do your best to improve your IQ, your mental state, your physical state, your environment, etc. But some people can't change those traits (or we've yet to discover clear ways to alter those traits to our benefit) and they create a ceiling.

we can debate the way I'm defining terms, but I stand by my observations according to the way I've defined terms. people have limiting factors on their achievement in poker that they likely can't change with work or luck. those factors contribute to that person's ceiling. sometimes a person's ceiling is going to prevent them from reaching high stakes and maintaining a high level of success for an extended period regardless of their work ethic or luck.

*I'm doing my best above to avoid assigning terms of frequency so that we can avoid that debate. I'm not suggesting that ceiling is the number one reason that most winning poker players don't reach high stakes, simply that it is a contributing factor. Some players are going to work as hard as the high stakes crushers, they're going to experience reasonable luck, and they are never going to make it to high stakes. Why is that? It must be due to some trait in their makeup that prevents that transition. It could be IQ. It could be age. It could be environment. It could be mental state or psychological weakness. It could be a personal moral code. I don't know. It could be some combination of any of the aforementioned factors (or the many other I couldn't think of or didn't list). But whatever that reason is if it's unlikely to be easily changed it exists as a ceiling to a person's success in the game. Maybe it's possible to raise that ceiling, but it's certainly easier to expand laterally than it is to raise a ceiling. Ask any structural engineer ;)

you can use a program like odds oracle or pokerjuice to assign ranges based on available stats.

A. Villain's river betting range
so you would would assign opponents river range using the following conditions:
- BB cold calls a 3bet OOP
- BB leads the turn for approx half pot after flop is checked around in a 3 way pot
- BB bets bets river when flop FD hits for half pot in a HU spot

B. Odds we're getting on a bluff:

We know on the river a raise risks $21.37 to win $22.65 (which after rake) is basically a 1-1 proposition. So we need villain to fold about half of her range if we assume that we always lose when he calls.

C. So we need to look at our range from A and see if it's is likely that villain folds half or more of the time. If you believe that is true than it is a profitable bluff. If you don't believe that is true than it is an unprofitable bluff.

A couple of notes that should be considered when making this analysis:
- villain is getting about 2-1 to call the river raise, so if villain wants to be unexploitable she needs to call at least 33% of her range. So it's certainly possible that villain can bet fold a majority of her betting range on the river and not be exploitable. This is one of the pros of the bluff. The ability to make a pot sized raise makes it more likely to be a profitable bluff against a good and thinking player.
- as noted before having not bet the flop we greatly reduce the combination of value hands that we can represent. IE villain will likely not give us all combos of the nut flush, and on this board texture we won't be expected to raise anything on the river that isn't a flush.
- make sure when evaluating betting and call ranges you attempt to consider the hand from villain's perspective. IE even if you would frequently take this line with the NFD, villain is unlikely to expect you take this line frequently with the NFD (in my opinion). Also consider player pool tendencies when determine villains river betting range. IE it's unlikely that villain is going to be betting two pair for value on the river. Villain might check call that hand to bluff catch, but I wouldn't expect most villain's at that level to be value bet top two pair (and I don't think it would be a good play either).

hope that helps. If you have any trouble following this I'm sure you can search for any detailed hand analysis via poker juice or odds oracle either in the forums or in the videos and you'll likely find some good examples.

pre flop and turn all look fine.

to estimate whether or not we should have a bluff raise range on the river we need an understanding of villains range for taking this line, and an estimation for how much of that range is calling vs a raise. You can do that math yourself, but your assumptions will drive the analysis. And I'm going to suggest that the following assumption is likely to be the changing factor that makes this bluff poor:

• villain is much less likely to give you credit for the nut flush when you don't bet the flop. Meaning your river range looks more bluff heavy assuming that you're not raising worse than a T high flush on the river. I think villain will be looking you up often with not only all flushes but when he has a strong value hand (straight or top set) with flush blockers.

I would likely fold to the river bet, but I would have bluffed had villain checked to me with the nut straight and flush blockers.

Raphael,

While I agree with your larger points about self improvement, I think my point still stands that all poker players have a ceiling (at least based on my definition of ceiling).

To be blunt, a person with a well below average IQ is unlikely to ever be a poker crusher. It is without a doubt necessary to have at least an above average (if not well above average) IQ to be at the top of poker for a considerable amount of time. And I'm being slightly kind there. I know that I have a well above average IQ, and my guess is that my IQ is probably lower than the average of the top players in the biggest games from the last few years. More importantly I don't know of any long term crushers in the current poker environment that I could identify as even average IQs, let alone below average.

IQ can certainly be a limiting factor in poker, and your own IQ can create a ceiling for your game.

I think we're defining ceiling in a different way. In my case what I'm referring to as a ceiling is a limiting factor. For example no matter how much he works on his vertical leaping ability a person who is 5 feet tall is unlikely to play in the nba. Sure there is a chance, and hard work is the only thing that makes that chance non-zero, but the fact is that the person very likely has a ceiling that is pre-nba for his basketball career and that is caused by his height.

In poker it may seem that in reality none of us have a ceiling as the game can be studied and practice so much that we could theorize that any person of reasonable intelligence could compete at the highest level. but that theory pretty clearly isn't realistic as many players have studied and played the game for countless hours and never reached the peak of the poker marketplace. That would suggest that certain players "ceilings" are lower than others. It may not always be immediately clear what is causing such players to have a lower ceiling, but I'm sure a thorough investigation could show why they are unlikely to achieve the ultimate success regardless of their work ethic.

in my case I believe it was a combination of intelligence, psychology, and my own life choices that created a ceiling that was well below nose bleeds. And by saying that I'm not suggesting that the players are the nose bleeds are necessarily more intelligent, more mentally strong, or have made better life choices than me (quite the contrary as I think in terms of personal decision making and mental game I feel confident in my place). What I am suggesting is that those players don't have a ceiling that I have with regards to those attributes as they're more positioned or attuned to the game of poker.

I understand what you're saying, but what you're talking about isn't a ceiling to me it's the current status of your A game. We can always work to elevate our A game, but when we get to a point where our A game isn't improving fast enough to allow us to move into a tougher or more risky market we've reached our ceiling. And some players A game will never be good enough to complete with the best. So no matter how much they work on it they'll always have a ceiling below that of the top crushers.

they're both right. Phil is correct that most people have a ceiling, albeit few ever reach it. And Ben is right that a big difference between a lot of the highest achievers and successful but not top class players is work ethic. I'd like to add that there is a third important factor: properly timed luck, aka variance.

when you find players that have both the high ceiling and the unbelievable work ethic (and you add the ever important third element of at least normal if not good variance on their side) you also find the consistent crushers. I would say that some people that you saw that crushed in the past and don't crush now are experiencing a loss of one of these three key ingredients:

1) they don't work as hard as they used to, or aren't working as hard relative to their competition as they used to.
2) they hit their ceiling and other are also reaching that level or surpassing them
3) they've experience a serious turn of bad luck/variance.

Everything but the ceiling part can be overcome. But there is only so much we can do to augment our intellectual, psychological, or physical edge in a game like poker. The fact is that certain people are simply smarter, more mentally attuned to the nature of the game, and have the physical stamina to play much more than others. Beyond simple intelligence or physical stamina, playing in super high stakes games against difficult opponents for large sums of money requires more than just an understanding of the game. It requires the mental fortitude to make correct decisions in the face of potential pressure when mistakes could actually change your life. This is akin to the fact that I've seen lots of pitchers throw fantastic big show worthy bull pens in college and the minors. They had the stuff that you see the best of the best display. But with the bright lights, and the pressure, some of them couldn't consistently perform at that level. That is a component of a person's ceiling. A lot of people's inherent gifts can be overcome with hard work and study (and importantly some good luck). But in the long run luck and work can be equaled by different people, and that is when the person with the higher ceiling will always have an edge.

fwiw as I (hopefully) wrap up my career as a professional I can freely admit (heck I did back in 2010) that I never had the ceiling to be a high stakes crusher. I never could get over the meaning of the money at a level like nl2k. I wasn't the type to minimize my risk by pooling bankrolls or a taking pieces of someone (I was some what of a lone wolf in the poker world and didn't really make a lot of personal connections over the years) so if I was to make that jump it would have been on my own risk. At the time when I think my ability, work ethic, and intelligence were enough to compete in those games I occasionally took shots. And what I found was I didn't have the psychological make up to take that leap without a much large financial cushion (or edge in the game). but it's times like this when I like to fall back on the ancient greek aphorism, "know thyself". at least I had that. ;)

thanks for the kind words and great comments!

I'm looking to go into a profession that isn't what I got my degrees in and that I don't have any solid experience in. But I think I would be good at it, and I think my background shows that. I'm going for it, and it may not work out, but I just feel like it's time to throw myself into something new. That is kind of what happened with poker, I threw myself into it and it turned out to be a fantastic decision. Now it's time to move on and I have no regrets and lots of excitement about the future.

If you think you might want to try something else down the line I'd suggest just thinking about things that interest you, looking at what jobs are available that are in that field, and then find someone doing that job and ask them to sit down and talk with you about the work and how they got into their position. You'll definitely get some great insight into what you need to do to make yourself a viable candidate for a position in the field. It's possible you may be more qualified than you think or that you wouldn't be interested in the job anyway, but either way the best way to find out is to ask.

I wasn't sure I wanted to move on from poker till I took the step to sit down with a random person that was kind enough to discuss their transition from poker to a job I was interested in. That hour of help, from what was previously a stranger, was a huge step towards making a change that I'm very excited about now.

best of luck at the tables and thanks so much for commenting in the thread.

you're very welcome, and the kind words are much appreciated.

I hope that I can continue to update and reflect in this thread even if I'm not playing full time. As I said earlier I know I'll always play poker for the rest of my life, something about the game just rings true with me. Maybe my input won't be as valuable to the focused grinder, but hopefully my perspective on the game will become more rounded as I see it more often from the outside.

31, and I left a job as a structural engineer in 2007 to play full time. So a little over 7 years as a pro.

and ty for the kind words.

thanks Ben! hopefully I can do my best to stay involved with this great community that Phil and pros like yourself have fostered.

LYD85 - East coast of North America depending on what sites I want to play poker on. Home-base is Boston, but I've spent a lot of time in Canada in order to play sites that don't allow Americans.

15 hours per day! omg! yolo. maybe go outside occasionally.

Thought 30: Mostly and update, but also some advice.

I haven't been as active on RIO over the last two months, and thus haven't been posting many thoughts. Firstly it was because of travel as I went on a business trip with my wife and then a vacation afterwards. Needless to say, if you focus on poker during your vacation you won't have a happy wife. And as we all know, happy wife = happy life.

But the second and more recent thing that has kept me away from RIO is a restructuring of my time. I've finally decided to step away from playing poker full time, and I'm in the process of making that transition. In the past I had tested the waters of non-poker professions, but I've come to understand that I need to dive in head first if I'm actually to make some headway towards a new career.

Luckily, despite having the worst year of run-bad in my life at the tables, I have a decent amount of savings built up to give myself time to make this transition. I'm currently in an early round of interviews with a company, and if this opportunity doesn't work out I'm sure I'll start pursuing other openings.

That being said I plan on remaining active on RIO, in a more limited capacity as I'll never stop playing the game of poker. It's given me so much over the years, and I still love it dearly, but it's time to move on. I'm not going to list all of the reasons why I've decided to step away, but I think if you've read most of my posts on whether or not someone should go pro you'll get a sense for why I'm moving on. Trust me this hasn't been easy, but I think it's for the best both financially and personally.

So to add some value to this post I'm going to run down a brief list of things you should be doing if you're a pro to make sure that when you decide to leave poker it's on amicable terms.

1.Save your money. I know this sounds obvious, but most players what to put their bankroll into play at higher stakes as it grows, or immediately reward their hard work with purchases. Even investing in businesses that don't allow for much liquidity can leverage too much of your cash. If you want to leave poker it's unlikely you're going to immediately step into a highly lucrative career. You may spend some time looking for opportunities, or you may have to take a chance at a lower (or non) paying gig in order to get where you want to go. This process will be a lot less stressful if you have a significant amount of savings to fall back on. I currently have somewhere between 12 and 16 months of living expenses saved up, and that's on top of maxing out my IRA almost every year since 2007. So if I were to encounter any other disasters I could access a significant amount of cash. Having a spouse that is crushing it in her career means that I likely won't even need to go through much those funds (and hopefully will have a new job soon), but regardless I have the money. It's very reassuring.

2.Don't stop your education, and finish what you've started. In some ways I succeeded in this goal as I got a BSE and a Masters from a prestigious University before I went pro. However I'm very disappointed that I didn't use more of my time as a pro to learn other skills. I'm taking that time now, but it would be much easier to get the job interviews I want if I didn't have to say that I'm working to learn some skill and could instead say that I have been using that skill for the last 3-4 years. Even if you are playing full time and have no desire to quit in the near future consider what job you would potentially enjoy doing. Then find someone in the field and ask them to explain what skills you would need to get a job in that field. Then start learning those skills in your free time. There are tons of free and inexpensive ways to develop your skillset online. Take advantage of them!

3.Keep your resume updated, and if you don't have anything to update it with diversify your interests. You should have a well written, well edited, resume available at all times. I started updating my resume in 2011, and I've continually polished it and worked on it since then. I'm fairly happy with my current version, but I'm always asking for advice from friends and prospective employers. Also talk to a career counselor about how to tailor your resume towards a position you're interested in. If you look at your resume and you don't have anything to update then find something to spend your time on. Look to #2 above, volunteer with an organization, start a podcast, do something. It's always important to diversify your interests and experience.

4.Network whenever you can. Always spend time broadening your group of friends and connections. You're going to need help getting doors opened, and you're going to need advice when you decide to make a career change. People are actually really great and helpful, and you'll will be shocked how much help you can get just by asking. Always remember to be interested, humble and appreciative. If someone goes out of their way to help you make sure to stay in touch and thank them. If you haven't talked to someone in a long time don't be afraid to reach out and connect with them. The worst that can happen is that they don't have the time to help. You never know who you might meet next that could totally change your career plans for the future.

I hope the advice above can be helpful to some other pros that might be considering a career change. I think it's pretty valuable stuff even if you're not in poker but just considering doing something different with your time. I don't take any credit for coming up with any of the stuff above, and I'm sure countless other people have given similar advice countless other times. If anyone has any questions for me or has some helpful advice they'd like to pass on please reply in the thread. I'm always looking for any help in figuring out what to do next, and I trust RIO has some people with really great advice on this subject.

at this level I just don't know if this is ever a bluff. But you're getting 2.5-1 meaning you only need about 29% equity against his range so it might be close with your two second nut outs and a bd fd and bd straight draw.

I think an exploitable fold here without better reads might be correct against this player at these stakes. But I'm sure we can make some assumptions about a shoving range that would make calling ok.

without taking the time to hash out those assumptions I'm going to suggest that folding this is going to win more money at 100 plo. that being said I've had lousy results lately.

let me just add (as my previous answer was more information based and less analytical) that I would be surprised if players at these stakes got to the river with a range that allowed them to bluff in a balanced fashion, and more surprised if such a player then did bluff in a balanced fashion. I would guess that most players range for taking this line is going to be heavily weighted towards wraps or SD+something and medium SD value, and I don't think most players turn much of that medium SD value into a bluff. So if I had to make a player-pool based read I guess we should be making a (potentially exploitable) river fold here.

That being said, the players that get to the river with enough stuff to have a reasonable bluff range may often be the kind of players "try to win every pot". against those players it's very important to have notes about river betting ranges when checked to. If you find that they're frequently betting what seems to be a merged range (ie hands that are good bluff catchers but bad value bets) they might be the kind of player that try to fold out your entire range everything you check the river. Against that player you need to bluff catch more often even though you're going to open yourself to exploitation if the player would adopt a more GTO-considerate range in the future.

It's definitely a spot that can play very very differently depending on opponent. Without detailed opponent notes have a general feel for players in the player pool can be very beneficial.

yeah constructing another range is going to be tough. I guess you'd want to include some low pairs that really can't continue by calling but gain a lot of value by folding out hands that always have equity against them. so some 4x and 55 type stuff. but again my nlhe game is definitely weak right now so this conjecture is more to advance discussion than to be a suggested solution.

I think it's a really interesting hand, but assuming hero folded river I'm not sure how else we could play it. In terms of absolute value as a bluff catcher this hand is pretty bad as we don't block any of his value hands.

we also have ton of combos of better hands to call with (sets, straights, flushes) and if we thought he was over bluffing and needed to bluff catch wider we could use hands with blockers as a better starting point.

I don't have a problem with the idea of 3betting the flop as we should have a range advantage and we force a lot of his semi-bluffs (which seemingly should be a large portion of his x/r range because they will often have strong equity but weak SD value) into tough stack committing decisions. Calling helps protect the weaker parts of our range and allows villain to continue bluffing on turns, but I think we can use other hands that are either more blockerish or less vulnerable (top pair + FD or top set etc).

but my nlhe tourney game is probably not strong so I don't know if splitting our range again on the flop by having a 3bet range is going to be make things more difficult.

if x/r'ing the turn was the best way to get value then betting the river would also be best (because villain bluff catches too often). more importantly I don't think you're going to have a large turn x/r range so you can probably balance it by x/r'ing on the top of your range that blocks villains strong bluff catchers.

I would either keep betting on the turn or x/c depending on opponent. x/c'ing is probably best if villain bets a very wide range of value and bluffs, betting is probably best if villain is likely to check back often and attempt to realize SD value with medium strength made hands.

if you're assumptions are accurate (which is obviously the more difficult part of any poker analysis) PJ is right. Based on your assumptions, if 51% of his range gets there on the river, and he's going to offer you approx 2-1 on a bluff then he can bluff half as often as he value bets. So he should value bet his entire 51% of value hands, and bluff 25.5% of his river range selected from his non-value bets. He has 34% of his range as air at the river so he should bluff approximately 69% of that air range. This allows villain to check back all 13% of his non-air bluff catchers.

if villain is playing GTO his river range should look like:

100% total range
1) 51% value hands that are betting for value.
2) 13% bluff catchers that are checking back for SD value
3) 25.5% air that he is bluffing
4) 10.5% air that he is giving up with and checks back

from villains perspective:
IF you x/f too often on the river he should bluff more of his air. IF you x/c too often on the river he should bluff less of his air. IF he believes you x/c the appropriate amount he should bluff a GTO strategy (suggested by PJ) to ensure that he captures all of the value of the pot.

from your perspective:
if he bluffs more often than GTO that you should bluff catch, if he bluffs less often than GTO you should fold. If he bluffs appropriately GTO based on pot odds you are indifferent.

one last thing to note (although I think you already understand this):
you're not getting "33% pot odds". you're getting approx 2-1 pot odds (or more precisely 2.08-1), indicating that you need to win the pot approx 33% (or precisely 32.4%) to justify a call. Be careful about confusing necessary equity and pot odds as it can make a big difference in determining what your action should be in a hand.

heeeee's baaaaack

if our bluff range is going to be this wide pre (assuming that if you're 4betting this hand you're also 4betting A(Broadway)o blocker hands) we need to be raising larger in order to force villain to fold a greater portion of his range.

I'd fold pre, but if I 4bet it would be to a larger size.

on the flop we're getting close to direct odds to call the flop bet and just stack on any turn that improves our hand. That being said villain could have a lot more semi-bluffs that we're ahead of given our preflop 4bet size, so I'm more inclined to come over the top and see if we have fold equity. Player read could make b/c on the flop and decide on the turn a better plan than jam, but I don't hate a flop jam.