thomastem - 2 months as a Pro

[Dilbert]

As he announced he would last year, thomastem has gone Pro since the start of the year. Below is a PM he sent me today about his first two months as a Pro. I am sure he would appreciate any comments. Enjoy.

Going Pro 2 months in

Two months in and doing well. I am also studying sports betting to supplement my poker winnings.

The biggest surprise so far is that I have found Home Games to be a great seldomly talked about profit center. After reviewing and looking for reasons why I have come up with a couple.

1. Where else can 16 and 17 year olds play. A few of them actually play better than those a little older but for the most part they don't have the experience, mental toughness, or value of money which improve as we age.

2. The same faces. Knowing how everyone plays and what their strengths and weaknesses are from hand 1 of the session is a big advatange over seeing a table turnover with new faces every half hour online.

3. Adjustments. Perhaps this is a product of multi-tabling but most players don't or are very slow to adjust their game.

For example on point #3 in NL if you know someone raises 4X pre-flop with A-K and A-Q but bets pocket pairs 3X pre-flop they become real easy to play. Further if you know that this player will fold if he misses the flop then playing him heads up with position is profitable with ANY 2 cards.

This is an example of a betting pattern and we talk frequently about picking them up but just as key is finding what players are picking up on us and exploiting. This skill is very rarely if ever practiced by multi-tablers.

Now I have an interesting hand that I played at the Flamingo in Vegas.

About 3 hours into the session I have A-K on the button. 2 limpers and I raise 5X. The BB calls (Fairly solid) the limpers fold (I have tight image). Flop comes A-4-K rainbo (12 BBs in pot).

BB check and I bet 3X as I want a call at this point. This guy goes all-in which is about 5x the pot of 15BBs. Since this guy is solid and protected his chips so far a bluff is hard to believe.

His past actions have been to call on draws. So what could he have? A-A, A-K, or K-K he reraises preflop and doesn't try to buy the flop. Could he have A-Q or A-J? I don't believe he risks all of his chips with these, perhaps a re-raise to test me but not that huge of a bet.

Then I asked myself what he puts me on. A-K is the most popular pockets to put on a tight pre-flop raiser. If he knows that it is likely that I'm that strong he is probably expecting a call.

There is only 1 hand that makes sense with my image, his image, and the way this hand was played. 4-4.

I folded and I said if he'd show I'd show. He agreed. I showed the A-K and he threw down the 4-4 and asked if I had somehow seen his pockets. Irate he left the table and I have to admit that the feeling after this hand was just as good as winning a big pot.

From this point on a few observat opponents that saw I can lay down strong hands heads up started bluffing at me and took several small pots from me. Which was ok because 45 minutes later I slow-played a flopped set and took down about 100 BB pot from one of these agressors.

Hope you enjoyed my review and perhaps someday I can post them on 2+2.

TT

[SackUp]

[ QUOTE ]

1. Where else can 16 and 17 year olds play.

[/ QUOTE ]

He's a pro and yet he resorts to taking money from 16 and 17 year olds??? I guess money is money and the game is the game, but come on now, is this really necessary? I guess we might be taking money from anyone when playing online, but I guess the ignorance let's me sleep at night there whereas seeing the real thing and disregarding it seems a bit much.

[ QUOTE ]
Knowing how everyone plays and what their strengths

[/ QUOTE ] This is what PT and PV are for. I guess he alludes to that somewhat in his next section by talking about multitabling as I assume he uses both of these programs, but it seems like this small advantage of lack of variance hardly makes up for lack of multitabling.

I agree that home games or B&M games are a ton of fun and great to mix it up. But as far as pure profit goes, they don't compare at all. There is a reason why home games are seldomly talked about in the same sentence as profit centers, b/c even if you win regularly they aren't that plentiful and even if they are you are limited to one game at a time and no bonus or rakeback (though i guess you don't apy to play at these, unless you factor in gas, travel time and food). So unless you are playing some high stakes home games that you can't find online, I don't see how home games are that beneficial for a pro other than some variation and communal activity.

[Blackjack]

AHAHAHAHA

Where do the high schoolers play.

Wow.. most I ever won in games during college was like 50-100$.. and that's when I cleaned everyone out which happened a lot.

Goodluck supporting yourself on that kind of income champ.

[nolanfan34]

Nice try Dilbert.

Couple of errors:

- TT has posted in the ISOP forums when they were there, so he could probably post this himself if he wanted to.

- I don't think the Flamingo spreads NL games. Pretty sure they only spread limit and stud, from the times that I've been there. Unless this is a recent development.

I call BS on the whole thing.

[Eder]

Flamingo spread a nl table when I was there...

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
Flamingo spread a nl table when I was there...

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, I guess I just haven't seen one, although I haven't been there in a bit.

Still think the original post is BS though. No way TT would write something like that without mentioning critters of some sort.

[Met Knup]

Who is this thomas guy, and why should we care?

[lorinda]

Who is this thomas guy, and why should we care?

With a name like Punk Tem backwards, I'm sure you know.

Lori