If you read the last ramble, I’m sure you’ve realized I’m highly intrigued by this durrrr headsup match, and the level of skill displayed. I obviously waste alot of time thinking about poker and other such and wanted to discuss another interesting topic- What are the limits of one’s poker ability? Why does it seem as if some players are just naturally ‘better’ (however you wish to quantify that word) than others? Is it natural ability? Hard work?

I know I’ll never be a nosebleed player. Hell, I’ll never probably ever be a 10/20NL regular either. I’ve come to terms with this truth a long time ago, and I’m fine with it. I’m not going to cry myself to sleep ever night or study HSNL hands constantly (lol @ that anyways, that forum is dead ).  Why is this? Why can’t I be as good as some of those guys?

For one, I’m lazy. I think there is some part of me that has (some) natural ability at this game, in that I think there is alot of subtle, innate thinking occurring- I for one cannot do an EV calc on my own. Never have and probably never will. Am I proud of this? Probably not…it’s basic math, and the fact that I can’t do it is somewhat embarrassing. With that said, I’ve done above average in my poker career, so I can’t complain. I know that I’m not hardworking enough to beat those limits- those guys eat, sleep, and drink poker (I’m sure some are just naturally talented, FU all)…but they are constantly working on their game, playing, discussing hands, etc. I don’t have that drive, at least not anymore.

I’ve been thinking alot about the ceilings of poker ability for poker players. Obviously the pool becomes smaller and smaller as you go up, that should be obvious. The cream of the crop rises, and the number dwindles. A simple analogy might be a fortune 500 company where the CEO, heads are few and while you work down the ladder, the lowly peons work the more menial tasks. What are some of the similarities in some of the HSNL players?

Ability to take risks- I remember meeting Scott Seiver at the leggopoker party two years ago (not that he knows who I am). People were talking about how Scott (or mastrblaster as he’s better known online) had something like $8k to his name in January, and by that summer he was a millionaire. I overheard talk about how he’d bust his roll playing over his head (and being a degen). With that said, he’s obviously very successful and learned from his mistakes, enabling him to move farther and further than he was before. You can see comparisons in blom9 (perhaps isildur?) as well.

Though super degeneracy isn’t seen throughout all of HSNL, there are many cases in which I think that super aggressive play AND bankroll management = a higher ceiling. Obviously there are alot of players that DON’T make that jump, falling along the many holes in ssnl or msnl. But the ones that do make it, that play super diverse and loose styles, those seem to be the ones that have very high ceilings as far as poker ability.

I think Jman was recently seen playing 10/20 and 25/50, lower stakes than he normally plays. I think this is the sign of a great, disciplined player, one who is hoping to recoup some losses, regain confidence, whatever. I think that most players in durrrr’s spot (where he’s down 2.something million) would typically take a breath, eat some pride and maybe drop down in stakes for a bit. But he doesn’t and that’s what makes durrrr great. I’m sure there have been nights where durrrr has held himself at night, thinking “what the fuck just happened” after he lost a large amount. He’s obviously taking a risk (and I don’t have a clue how big his roll is, but I doubt they can take these million losses daily).

And that’s what separates durrrr from me. He’s willing to smile at variance while I hide in the corner and cry. Don’t get me wrong- I’ve busted poker accounts being a degenerate. But probably nowhere along the lines of durrrr or other HSNL players.These players have ran very well in their ascension to the highest games and had the intelligence and heart to sustain that run.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that I think that the best players are those who are willing to take huge risks, to put themselves out there and play the best, to learn and adapt.  These great players also are more naturally aggressive than a more ‘normal’ style, that should go without saying.  Aggression in itself is an interesting topic, and I think that poker styles (at least at the start) are highly dependent on personalities. But that is a discussion for another day. But the ability to take a risk (larger risk than normal) is just one of the reasons why little Cole South shot up when he was 17 or 18 or so through the limits, and I am stuck at SSNL.

What are some other things that have hampered me (and many others) in our rise through poker super-stardom? How much of it is natural, hard work, etc? Obviously some of the natural winners at nosebleeds had to adapt or die, especially once the games became more understood and studied. There aren’t many (if any) old party dragons that still crush like they used to…or even compete with other players. And that should be natural…its the natural progression of easy money.

I’m not sure what we’ll see in the future with regards to the evolution of HSNL play…isildur is certainly one example of a young player who has had a meteoric rise (at least recently) to challenge the current guard.

So, in summation, the best players in the world have innumerable intangibles (tilt control, ability to grind many hours, etc) as well as a high level of intelligence to adapt (obviously), and the balls to take risks outside of their rolls. I and millions of others do not have all of these necessary tools to compete, thus, our potential isn’t nearly there. Can I perhaps beat a soft 5/10 game? Maybe, with some hard work. But obviously as you move up, the wolves get hungrier and the players much much better, in infinite ways.

So, sorry got off topic. Blah…HERE are some thoughts from Phil Galfond on the recent durrrr match. Good post.

Anyone is who is somewhat an online poker player knows about the recent durrrr headsup death matches with isildur1, a relatively unknown European psycho. These matches have been historical in the context of online poker, in the sense that these swings are the largest we’ve seen yet (online). Everybody knows durrrr, a player who has dominated NL cash games for the past several years. Aggression is the name of the game for many of these high stakes players (obviously aggression is a key component in any form of poker), and durrrr has it in abundance.durrrr is recognized as one of the most aggro in the game and before this recent match, I wouldn’t have thought that anyone would out-aggro him.

High stakes PLO has been the game of choice for all nosebleeders the past year or so, and rarely has NL nosebleeds ran…some even felt that NL nosebleeds were relatively ‘dead’, as the game has been ‘solved’ (both incorrect imo). Only recently have we seen some NL action in the high stakes world. A fun, favorite writeup on durrrr that I enjoy by MagicNinja…

durrrr’s recent (poor) run in PLO (online) have led many to believe that he isn’t good at PLO in the least, that he is outmatched by his peers (Antonious, Galfond, etc). His NL results speak for themselves however, and his last large NL session was a long HU match with an unknown player named ‘martonas’. durrrr crushed him, winning something like 1.5m in a session. the match was crazy aggro, and overbets/3-4 betting preflop were constant.

As of late, a new European player named ‘isildur1′ emerged, beating the likes of cole south (cts) and other nosebleed players. Some stated he was martonas, durrrr’s opponent from the last match, as their styles were similar (seen in insane aggression,large overbets, and a ’3x open’ rule). Two days ago, isildur and durrrr played an epic headsup match, lasting an absurd 10+ hours (maybe it was 12ish, I went to sleep). Million dollar swings were observed and the entire online poker world was an audience. Isildur played again yesterday, totaling a 2.something million dollar win vs. one of the best online poker players in the world.

There is alot of speculation as to who Isildur is. Here is a short article on the identity of Isildur.Even if the identity of Isildur = martonas, that still won’t shed a ton of light as to who this player is. martonas was relatively unknown to begin with, before he went on a run through high stakes players (and eventually losing his roll to durrrr).

Some have speculated that Isildur is blom9, a European headsup player who has destroyed for years, beating many top headsup players on a sick run. A quote from snake8484 (another very good Euro crusher)-

I’ve played a lot of HU with Blom on ipoker (italienstyle now) in the past and everything leads me to beleive that isildur is him… Not only do I think their games are very alike, but blom always wanted as many tables as possible with everyone and the way isildur chats is exactly like blom.
I would be verrryyy surprised if it wasn’t him to be honest

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I started playing him about a year ago, as soon as he built up a roll he was literally playing every single high stake reg/bumhunter on ipoker, often sitting with 3 or more different guys at once and multitabling them. At this time he was playing sooo crazy and always seeming to get it in bad but win. He busted many of the guys on ipoker including myself at the time. I lost about 550k to him at 100-200 which was a 300k loss bigger than my ev
Shortly after I got back on the site and took a few more shots at him where I eventually made back about 20 buyins (400k) progressively. His rate of improvement was insane… When I first started playing him he had some huge preflop leaks and it seemed like he couldn’t fold a pair in a 3bet pot even 200 BB’s+ deep, but he eventually started improving every part of his game… By the time I quit him he really was a postflop nightmare.
Eventually I quit him, conceding that I probably wasn’t gonna beat him, and that i didn’t wanna go through the highs and lows of playing the extremely swingy sessions with him. 

Isildur’s chat seems identical to bloms. Blom even used to often say to me that hes so tired he can barely keep his eyes open so he had to quit, and that he would play me as much as I wanted the next day, and he would (just like isildur said to durrr)
Also, he was somewhat cocky in the chat but not a complete ass or overly disrespectful, saying things like “i’ll play you tommorow as much as you want, or every day please”. I saw isildur say this to durrr today as well.

word. at first I had my doubts, but given that he seems to have improved at such a massive rate it should not be all that suprising. I also agree that the chat matches…with the smiley faces. Especially given that he is from sweden. Anyways, I now have just a whole new level of respect for this guy. 

Guess I will tell my blom story…..

I remember talking to some of my poker friends about how this one guy (zebul_on) was able to rape very hard. He would play very loose and just seemed to constantly be making bank (from railing his games and looking at the leaderboard). It felt like he was making like 300k every week or 1 million every month. I saw him playing 6 tables of 100/200 HU and he literally would be playing insane and always ended up with the opponents chip at the end of the match.

So given that I said that, I decided to play him at 25/50 (lowest he would ever sit), for a learning experience. I ran well and he just seemed to never believe me (was a station and would 4bet/get it in way to light). I was able to take like 10-12 buyins off him (+50ish) in very few hands by getting it in good nonstop. After the match I was able to snag his MSN (which was later hacked), because even though I raped him I still considered him a god because he seemed to always make bank.

He told me on msn he was blom90 and to not tell anyone. I didnt really mean anything to me at the time, except that he was vvv rich from this site with his style. I asked if I could sometime sweat some of his matches, and I think he said maybe. He eventually sat at my 5knl tables again and I was defenitely going to give him a second chance to win his money back.

As we played more and more it was like he was in a whole new league. He defenitely ran very well EV wise. Yet, he was also floating/bluffing me at perfect times. He just always had excellent reads when I was bluffing and he incorporated overbetting in spots where I never really was sure what to do. He eventually became a nightmare postflop and at the end I probably had a -150k USD swing at 25/50 HU (30 buyins, WHAT!). I managed to play a lot of hands against him, and even though I felt like he ran godly, I probably got outplayed way more then I thought. I even got some coaching (which def. helped) to try and learn how to beat him because I was so frustrated but at the end of the day I was just outmatched.

Even though I got raped, it was still a great lesson….that some one can manage to play a style that I cant understand yet still be amazing at poker. It really just gives me a new respect for winning 50/100+ HU players who have to compete with the likes of blom90. You guys are truly doing something special and are all very intelligent.

/story + rant.

Good players adjust to their opponents, this should go without saying. What’s interesting to me is that this player Isildur plays so unconventionally by observation. (A caveat- I’m not going to claim to be a HU expert. In fact I’m not much of a headsup player at all…I’ll occasionally play it when bored and want to bum hunt a little, but in terms of experience, I don’t have alot of it). A quote from BldSWTRs, a former partypoker ‘dragon’ (as they called him ) from that same thread linked before-

A couple days ago I commented to a couple people that he was maybe the best HU player I’ve ever seen. And I also said he would probably win another couple million in the next week.
Honestly he’s so good I would put it at 5 – 10% that he’s somehow cheating.

Without a doubt, this player is very very good, at least in a short term view. Variance will only show how good he truly is in the long run, and how much better he is than his peers. Even isildur cannot deny that he ran well in the first two days of this epic match.

So, I guess I’ll discuss more on styles, etc later on. Long post, sorry about the length…I just was bored and wanted to comment on the recent railtarding.

ONE FINAL ARTICLE ON DOGISHEAD ABOUT THIS MATCHUP- Excellent read

I last discussed some of the benefits that we gain from playing poker a week or two ago (This ramble is obviously geared for both poker players who can relate as well as shed light to those who do not play). Tonight I’ve been thinking about some of the ‘meh’ aspects of poker. For those who look at poker players and think “ahhh…to sit on your computer and make lots of money”, think again.

I’ve had a few friends in real life try their hand at poker. They saw the money, they saw that I sat on my ass for a few hours and made x amount, far more than they made. A few of them deposited and saw for themselves what poker is truly about-yes, it’s nice to sit in your boxers and ‘work’. But more importantly, they saw both how difficult and how stressful poker really is.

Some of the negatives to playing this game- Loss of money, incredible stress, deceptive work ethic, and lazy mentality.

Loss of money- This should be obvious. Unlike other jobs, you can lose your pay check. That’s one thing people don’t understand, is that they  think that poker is a guaranteed win. Yes, we have edges over our opponents (sometimes quite large), but variance and luck ARE huge factors in this game. With that said, you can go months without winning, and at times, even lose large sums of money (both in short and long term instances). The swings in this game can be very hard, and it’s difficult when you realize you just lost several cruises around the Bahamas in an evening. (Or whatever relation you please).

Yeah, a real job might make less than poker playing…but at least it’s a steady, consistent check, one that doesn’t fluctuate. This is one thing that makes playing for a living difficult, in that a downer (especially a gigantic one) can kill you.

Stress- This is one that isn’t usually immediately realized when thinking about professional poker. the stress of this game can be so devastating. The losses feel about 100x worse than big wins, and sometimes, you can’t think about anything BUT the losses. When you lose large amounts (relative to you bankroll, whether it be $40 at 5NL or $5,000 at 3/6), you think about the hole you just dug for yourself, and what you have to do to get out of it. Sometimes you dig deeper and deeper, surmounting in large downswings. With that said, your stress level increases tenfold when you play poker seriously. Sometimes your bad mood from poker merges over to your real life attitude, and you find yourself more agitated or pissy than normal.

I was talking with one of my friends in real life who tried poker…he said when he was playing, his stress level was at about a 50 (out of 10, lol)…but when he was finished, all of it was alleviated.

Losing money, it really fucks with your head. I guess the feelings from losing can’t be put into words or be described…poker players know the feeling all too well, and I’m sure stock brokers or other similar trades can relate.

Deceptive Work Ethic- I was somewhat alluding to this from the previous post as well as this one…though poker is a relatively ‘easy’ profession (by many definitions), it DOES take alot of work. Hours upon hours have been spent reading poker forums, reading poker hands, discussing poker hands, discussing the math and alternatives involved, arguing the psychology and the history of each play. That’s not adding in other sources, such as reading poker books, articles, e-books, or watching poker videos from other players. If you want to learn, if you really want to get better, alot of dedication is needed, especially in this day and age. Poker is a dying game, in that the players are getting better daily, and the games are tougher than they’ve ever been. Is it dead? Obviously not, at least at the small stakes levels. But the higher stakes, mmmm.

So yeah, poker really isn’t that ‘easy’. Learning it is an investment, as are all things. But as I’ve stated, you can’t think of poker as PURELY an investment…if you’re just trying to learn for the money alone, you will not succeed.  I didn’t know I was going to win money (if at all) when I first started…I just read and learned because I loved the game. I spent hours upon hours reading, and learning…I could have read about stocks instead of poker(and perhaps excelled in that). I’ll reference my four friends again- one succeeded (where succeed= made maybe $3k or something, maybe more) at small stakes ($50NL). I consider this a success (and he could have gone further, if he had more time). The others just didn’t have the drive or passion to make it.

So, yeah…it takes many hours not only to learn the game itself, but constant maintenance- be it by continuing poker discussions, watching videos, getting coached, whatever. The best players are constantly thinking about what they can do to improve their game. This game, while the application of it is relatively easy (playing), is very time consuming and deceptively difficult.

Lazy Mentality- wat? How can poker players be both hard working but very lazy? Isn’t this a contradiction? This is a predicament we find ourselves in. Though poker is indeed difficult to learn (initially) and the maintenance is heavy, we poker players enjoy it. We enjoy reading about the game, we enjoy improving our intellectual boundaries. So yes, poker is time consuming and difficult, but the fact that we enjoy it makes it much easier.

Now, that’s all swell and good, especially when poker is our sole source of income. But what happens when poker dries up? You aren’t going to find many jobs that offer $100 an hour (or much more) without a good college degree (and lots of work experience). You aren’t going to be able to sit on the pot and grind your ass off, taking breaks at your leisure. Poker players are very lazy in a real world sense. We let money do the talking, and since we often have alot of it (relative to our age), we lose some of the real world work ethic that others feel. My roomie (great great guy) works his ass off for $10 an hour washing dishes. $10 an hour is really solid (where we live) for our age level. When he’s working full time, he does 40 hours a week.

I’m not trying to rag on him in the least either. I think poker players are spoiled, spoiled to the point where we’ve lost touch with reality. Making hundreds an hour, that’s not realistic, at least by ‘real world’ standards. Oftentimes, poker players will pay someone to do lazy work (ahem). What happens when poker isn’t available? High hourly wages, low, flexible work hours, etc, all of that is missing from ‘real’ work. I suppose the title of ‘lazy mentality’ should perhaps be retitled ‘a disconnect from reality’. I know I’ve talked about this in previous blog posts as well, and it’s just a topic that is close to me…maybe it’s because I know I’m on my way out (soon enough) and my friends in real life don’t really play at all.

I wonder what’s going to happen when alot of us are going to have to get real jobs. I just want to get a job in something I love…the money is obviously nice, but I really just want to do something I enjoy, something I can do for a long time.

So, those are just a few things that poker can bring. It ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. In summation, poker, while a great game and great source of income, is a very stressful job…a hard way to make an easy living, as they say.