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INTERNETPOKERS: Poker Blog
Hello, poker. It is I, Haseeb. I have returned. It’s been a long time. Since I got hacked and had to reformat my computers, I moved back to Austin, had a flu for about 3 weeks (during which time I courageously decided not to see a doctor because I’m an idiot), and started back up my school again. During all this time I have done no pokering. None. None at all. Not even a little, Haseeb? Not even a hint? Not even a teensy weensy bit? No, none. Nothing. No reading 2p2, no talking with poker dudes, no coaching, no pulling up poker client to see if any matches are going. In fact, went so far as to not respond to any PM’s or reply to any poker-related e-mails. By the time I had spent about a month away from poker, my poker machine sitting in a box in the dining room, untouched, it occurred to me: “Hmm… I’m not just lazy, am I? I’m trying to avoid this.” It’s not surprising I suppose. The last quarter of 09’ was absolutely brutal to me, running like shit and getting wrecked, and topping it all off with getting hacked. It not only beat down my confidence, but the whole hacking thing left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Poker didn’t seem too interested in paying back any debt to me. Ironically, due to some fortuitous piecing arrangements I actually made a little money in the fourth quarter. What to make of that, I don’t know. Poker has a weird sense of humor. The time I’ve spent away from poker has gotten me rolling a lot of things around in my mind. The reason why I wasn’t in a hurry to come back wasn’t just because it’s a ton of work (sessioning, 2p2ing, coaching, CardRunners stuff, writing stuff), and it wasn’t just a simple reaction to a downswing or anything like that. I’ve begun to realize that poker is taking on a different meaning for me. I’m no longer the same person I was two years ago. Poker is changing, for almost everyone. The vicissitudes of the declining poker economy are slowly eroding at our conceptions of what it means to be a poker player. Online poker is a grittier world now than it was two years ago. It’s getting uglier and uglier with each passing day. Here is the insight that occurred to me most poignantly: my love affair with poker is over. It is no longer my obsession. No more in a quiet moment, does my mind secretly drift to poker. I don’t crave it anymore. That’s not simply to say that I don’t enjoy playing it – I’ve thought that to myself many times before, but I’ve never mustered up the momentum (or financial irreverence) to walk away from it. Deep down poker always sustained me – even when it was hard, in a way it was easy. Being great at poker is starting to feel meaningless. I don’t need it anymore. What am I saying? I don’t know. I’m certainly not saying that I’m quitting. Maybe I’m just saying that I’m as boring as the rest of you, maybe I’m saying that I’m just another dumb kid who occasionally plays cards. Maybe I’m just on an emorant, maybe I’m trying to breathe out my frustrations. Maybe I can see my relationship with poker clearly, and maybe I can’t see it at all. I don’t know. I’m back, so I’m going to be writing again, doing videos, playing, coaching – all that. Playing most days of the week, studying the game, trying to push my way back to nosebleeds. My goals haven’t really changed, just my mindset I suppose. I’m going to be re-opening my doors in coaching (so feel free to message me if you’re interested in coaching but were holding out). There are still some things in poker that I haven’t done, and some content that I have floating around in my mind that I want to produce for CardRunners. Poker is a whore. We all know that poker is a whore. And yet, the first time a whore gently brushes your arm, or gives you a warm kiss on the cheek, you find yourself excited, fascinated. But if you get wrapped up deeply enough with one, it’s easy to forget – whores make terrible companions. Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes. Fuck me, fuck me.
Feb 10, 10 21:31:48
i love your posts, but seriously i guarantee you, you would never be writing this if you didnt lose to isildur, and obv the hacking is a super bat beat, best of luck hope your back at nosebleeds soon
Feb 10, 10 22:20:59
Keep your chin up and your head high. You've done great things in the game and for the world of poker. I'm sorry that your recent experiences have affected you so much. I hope you'll come back swinging, with high energy and a strong mindset. We need guys like you in this community Haseeb.
Feb 10, 10 22:21:31
By the way that song is cool, but it's so damn depressing. I wish I knew the english translation.
Feb 10, 10 23:16:24
grab a guitar and put that shit to music. i'm sure the 6th street bars would love a night of poker ballads from an ethnic musician.
and nutedawg can coach you @ shredding, if necessary.
Feb 11, 10 03:26:21
I think you're still a lot more into poker than you claim not to be.. but in some way, you already agreed to that I guess.
poker is a simple math game with standard deviation and every attempt to describe it in a more complex way is just an attempt to make it more complicated than it actually is. we all do this to find excuses or to justify an outcome that it is NOT in our favour. but in the end, we are all responsible for what comes along in the longrun, and in your case this is something you should be damn proud about.
Feb 11, 10 05:42:27
enjoyed your post up untill when i heard you were doing coaching again.
when will people realise how much of a scam coaching is. there is more information and relevant imformation for there stakes for alot less money.
you coaches charging \$800perhour or whtever are a leach on the poker world and it is a total scam.
Feb 11, 10 08:49:35
ive havent ever been w/ a whore, but afaik most whores wont give you a warm kiss on the cheek. its too intimate.
other than that, nice post.
Feb 11, 10 14:19:38
I am very good at running above EV. I can share some tips if you'd like. PM me.
Feb 11, 10 16:50:14
Welcome back sir; nothing like an extended break to reset you luckbox
Hope you conquer all foes in 2010
Feb 11, 10 21:46:44
obviuosly you need to get off the drugs you are on....GA is always available.....try a new life.....you seem ummm...a bit lost....to young to be such a waste and to waste others lives with any kind of gambl;ing life that you know wont happen.....be more supportive in more important phases of peoples lives
Feb 12, 10 23:38:45
Hi Haseeb.
Concerning other boring things one could do in life,
there is a good theoretical physics group at the University of Texas at Austin led by
Allan MacDonald. You did mention you had interest in math and physics in your high school days, but somehow lost it. Since you think differently about pokers now, who knows, maybe the flame is still there. Then you should definitely check it out, like visit their seminar or talk to some people in the group.
Sure it takes full devotion if you choose career in science, but it can easily become a passion for life and it will never let you down like this stupid game.
Good luck and fuck pokers. Seriously,
it's just sad to see how many smart young guys
waste their lives on this crap.
Feb 13, 10 04:21:38
Hi man sorry to hear you got hacked. I don't know what happened but if you're interested I wrote a little article couple of days ago for basic windows security, check it out.
http://www.coinflip.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1228#p1228
Looking forwards to get new videos out, they've always been golden.
Feb 13, 10 04:21:59
Hi man sorry to hear you got hacked. I don't know what happened but if you're interested I wrote a little article couple of days ago for basic windows security, check it out.
http://www.coinflip.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1228#p1228
Looking forwards to get new videos out, they've always been golden.
Feb 16, 10 10:45:31
Great blog and a nice song as always. Whats up with the Dutch song though?
Feb 16, 10 10:45:58
Great blog and a nice song as always. Whats up with the Dutch song though?
Feb 17, 10 06:14:49
If leatherass can sell a book I'm sure you could write something infinitely more interesting/readable as your life as a poker pro just a suggestion, gl with school and at the tables.
Feb 18, 10 07:42:34
i love ur blogs man
great as always
i have this theory that everything is cycling in life
it might just be that ur in a period where u feel bored about poker (and i totaly understand u... i would feel the same if i did accomplished all things u did) but don't worry, things will change after some time and u'll feel happy again to pwn some clowns like u usualy do ;)))
GL
Feb 19, 10 23:34:07
Your blogs are not so good. You try too hard. Be real. People might like you for it. If not, fuck them.
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I got hacked. I’m going to keep this story as short and as bare of details as possible, but here’s basically how it goes. A few weeks ago I played against a character from Sweden. He seemed okay at PLO but he played a number of hands very suspiciously – it seemed like he never seemed to make wrong decisions in big pots and there were a few hands where he made ridiculous plays that turned out right, with strange (fast) timing. I lost to him pretty bad over two sessions and gave up, determined not to play him anymore. I lost an amount between 20k and 100k to him (intentionally vague). I never do stuff like this, but I ended up showing the hands to a couple of people and suggested that maybe he was cheating. I was mostly dismissed, but I had a very uneasy feeling about the match. After another intentionally sparsely-detailed incident involving another player from Sweden, I began to get very suspicious that maybe there was a bug in my computer. I ended up getting an ex-hacker friend of a friend to run a port scan on my computer, and he had me run some kind of packet scanner that looked through all of the incoming and outgoing traffic on my internet connection. Turns out there was a computer from Stockholm, Sweden that had been tapping into my computer. There was no other explanation for the presence of this person, and we even went so far as to access his computer using his IP, revealing a Swedish Windows XP Login password screen. At that point I was pretty much convinced that I was hacked, and (using another computer) changed all of my passwords immediately and dumped my AIM account. I then cut my computers off from the internet and was going to reformat them completely before coming back online. Well, the day after I did this I actually fell brutally sick, so it took me up until now to finally get my affairs back in order. But, in a nutshell, that’s the story. I won’t go into any more detail about it since I’m well aware that there is no possible recourse to any of this, all I can really do is secure my computer better and spread the word about incidents like this. Anyway, FML. Can’t run any worse at this goddamn game. I’ll be back in the swing of things soon enough though. I think. The exercise coaching deal went on a hiatus while this was going on, so if any of my students or prospective students are reading this, just letting you know that things will be going back to normal now, so hit me up if you want to schedule sessions. Eternal Runbad, Haseeb
Been a while since I checked in. I’ve gone through a pretty interesting episode since I last blogged. Actually, I was really sick for a while, came down with something on Dec 28th, spent New Years rolling over in bed with a fever, and didn’t actually get much better until a couple days ago. So, has been a pretty grueling week or two. I haven’t been playing any poker since then, but not specifically for that reason. There is actually an even shittier reason why I haven’t touched any poker in two weeks.
Jan 8, 10 06:02:51
A few years ago I read an article in one Swedish newspaper about an incident like this. It' was an online pro who had been crushed for weeks by this new unknow guy. Eventully he contacted the poker site (I think it was expekt poker) who looked into the hand histories and ruled the unknown player as a cheater and then involved the police.
good luck with it.
Jan 8, 10 08:48:01
that's fucked up. i've had matches where I really felt like the guy was cheating in some way but i just shrugged it off to being frustrated about losing. It was probably the case but It's still pretty mind boggling you actually found a computer from Sweden sniffing around your PC.
Jan 8, 10 10:01:47
Patrick Antonius went through this too.
[url]http://www.rakeback.com/poker-forum/poker-people/hacker-scammed-millions-poker-pros-patrik-antonius-johnny-lodden-5911/[/url]
Jan 8, 10 19:36:14
1. Do you know how you got the virus? Was it through an IM program?
2. Did you have a firewall and anti-virus installed when it happened?
Jan 8, 10 20:59:16
yeah could you please post what to do... to dont get this happening to us
Jan 9, 10 03:00:41
wow man that is really shitty.... hope u run good because of this now... any thought on how u got this in the first place
Jan 9, 10 17:29:08
just a simple question, but did you have any contacts with poker pros from sweden on your AIM list? or did you think he did all this by simply getting your IP using full tilt poker/did some crazy shit?
Jan 9, 10 18:29:28
Hi Haseeb,
You may want to try a program called "PasswordSafe" (for Windows) and "1Password" (for Mac) as a way to secure your passwords in future... they save your passwords for all your various computer accounts (AIM, FTP, gmail, etc.) in one place.
Jan 9, 10 19:20:28
Sucks man, good job spotting it and good luck moving forward, being sick sucks, lets make a NEW new years party to make up for the one you missed!!!
Jan 10, 10 19:32:32
You can't even take a few criticism, you had to erase my comment? I don't have much else to say other than LOSERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Jan 12, 10 14:25:17
That is sick.
I have noticed this every once in while very unusual play and stuff that is obserd.
I really want to be directed to place that teaches you how to secure the computer better and protect against these theives!
Jan 12, 10 14:25:30
That is sick.
I have noticed this every once in while very unusual play and stuff that is obserd.
I really want to be directed to place that teaches you how to secure the computer better and protect against these theives!
Jan 12, 10 21:41:16
your blogs are by far the most compelling and honest on whole site -- thanks - please post as much detail of your solution as you can share
Jan 12, 10 21:41:42
your blogs are by far the most compelling and honest on whole site -- thanks - please post as much detail of your solution as you can share
Jan 15, 10 16:35:40
You can have your RSA token thing for Full Tilt, that will only protect your account from being broken in, not your computer. There is a lot of stuff hackers can use to break into computers that aren't protected well (keyloggers, backdoors, etc). The best thing is to get a good router with a hardware firewall and have it block the ports you're not using. A software virusscanner plus an additional software firewall are also good to have, just to be on the safe side. It can be a bit of a hassle to get them both to work together but I'm sure there are people that can help you out with that.
Still, you can have all the security in the world, it's only going to make it more difficult for hackers to get in, never impossible. But there's something to be said for making it as difficult as possible. GL.
Jan 28, 10 18:25:13
U cant rally know if ur computer is hacked. The one thing a normal user can do, is to check your running processes and if you detect something unknown just close it.
Feb 1, 10 16:38:48
I do believe a couple of fellas made a song predicting this incident a few years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-WKw15j_E
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… Okay, so to start off let me comment a little on the article I wrote about a month ago about Isildur1. It’s been one hell of a ride, but it looks like Isildur’s bulldozer may have finally run out of steam. I have no doubt he’ll be sticking around in high stakes for a while and will show his face again on Full Tilt, but for now we’re probably mostly back to the average buzz of high stakes. And, for those who somehow still seem to be miffed at me about the article I wrote (apparently, there are some), yes I exaggerated for effect, and no I didn’t believe everything I wrote. But it turned out to be much more spectacular and digestible that I expected it to be. I was amazed at how many views and how much feedback it got. It even landed me a few interviews and a spot in the 2+2 Pokercast podcast! So, although it certainly was laden with bullshit and hyperbole, I’d say it turned out pretty well, and I want to thank all you chumps to managed to wade through it. :) In other news, I’m now offering some awesome coaching. It is awesome because I am doing it while exercising on an exercise bike. I was advertising this on 2p2, and I’m going to advertise it here now too (I might post something in the CR forum too), but basically here’s how it works. I exercise for an hour in the morning on an exercise bike while using my laptop to sweat you playing poker, talking to you and watching your tables and whatnot. Just like regular coaching except I’m exercising. Right now I’m charging a pretty low rate, $475/hr (updated) and have got quite a number of bookings already just from advertising on 2p2 (it got taken down when the forum got restructured). I just want to emphasize that this ISN’T A JOKE because apparently a lot of people think it is, haha. Here’s a picture for the interested: So, spots are filling up fast but I want to get as many students as I can now so I can figure out how much volume I’ll max out at so that I can see how far I can raise rates on this service, as I already have a decent number of applicants. So far everybody has been pleased, so it should work out pretty cool. If you're interested, PM me on Cardrunners or on 2p2. Uh, let’s see, what else. Well, there should be some cool content coming out soon from me for CardRunners, but I gotta keep the hush hush on about that for now. Other than that, not much to report. Poker is going slow but that’s to be expected as I’m rebuilding and working my way back up. Hopefully I’ll be back in the 25/50 and 50/100 games soon. Oh, and for any of you who didn’t see this, I posted a mushy thread in HSNL a while back that got a lot of nice feedback, so you may be interested if you have a sweettooth for BS: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19/high-stakes-p... So, that’s all for now. Next time I’ll probably have some more interesting content, but thought I should update now and let you guys know that I’m still alive and haven’t forgotten about this blog. Until next time, Haseeb
Hey guys. It’s been a while since my last blog post. I know, I know, I’m a lazy piece of shit, I know that. You don’t have to be so harsh. You say that, but you still forgive me don’t you? Of course you do, because you know there’s something here, you can’t deny that. You know we have a special connection. I love you. Come here.
Dec 18, 09 01:56:10
sorry, i guess the title of the comment doesn't work.
I was asking about the cool exercise bike. Who makes it?
Dec 18, 09 07:42:28
How difficult of a ride are you doing while sweating is the real question?
Dec 18, 09 12:04:33
Haha. The exercise is low enough intensity that I don't really have breathing problems. The exercise bike is a Schwinn Biodyne something or other?
Dec 18, 09 13:53:22
LOL. Your blogs are too funny. I completely didn't see my name in your August 9 blog for coaching. Can I still redeem? Would be sweet. Later man, keep riding the bike.
Dec 21, 09 01:24:23
I'm making a small poster that should serve as a reminder to me pre, mid, and post session that reads "I love my jeans." Thanks bro, I don't share this lightly but you are an inspiration. Cheers
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One of the reasons why I wanted to write something like this was because, as most of you know, we have just witnessed a monumental event in the history of online poker – the entrance of Isildur into our world of online poker. A number of other commentators have offered their insight on this event, and there’s no doubt that the commotion over him has rocked the world of high stakes online poker. I felt that given the huge amount of speculation, misinformation, and downright stupidity that has flooded twoplustwo and other forums, it wouldn’t hurt to give the less informed half of the poker world a more accurate glimpse of the high stakes poker world. A Word of Warning It’s important to understand that what Isildur has done (and how hot he has run) is truly amazing. It is also important to understand that almost every high stakes poker player who has insight into him or the dynamics that are occurring around him are all public figures. What I mean by that is that they either have some sort of a sponsorship or an otherwise monetary or emotional connection to their own reputation. This gives everyone two layers of incentives – the first incentive is to openly talk about him, since everybody else wants to know about Isildur and only a small group of people can actually say anything meaningful about him. The second incentive is to stay quiet – since Isildur is very much a player in the online poker world, nobody wants to say anything about him that could jeopardize or negatively affect their relationship with him as an opponent in a poker game. What I mean to say is that anybody who right now would speak about Isildur is going to speak discreetly. Nobody will be direct, and yet everyone acknowledges his enormity. He’s going to be the elephant in the room. You won’t hear any outright admissions of how good he is, who thinks who is better than who, or even who people think Isildur is. And that’s just the nature of the game. The social dynamics of online poker have changed in the last few years, and the reaction to Isildur has shown us some of that. What I want you the reader to understand is that I will not say everything that I think about Isildur. Nobody will. Online poker is at its heart a secretive industry, but as obvious as that is, I want to say this outright because I hope it will give some of you the awareness to look more closely at the discourse of online poker. Not everything is as it seems, and the asymmetry of information is as real here as it is anywhere else. The Story of Isildur That being said, it’s very obvious that Isildur is an extremely good NLHU and HUPLO player. His grasp of handreading, leveling and betsizing is second to none. Nobody who has watched Isildur play from the rail has any idea what kind of a player he is except that he seems to be aggressive and overbets a lot, and of course that he wins – his betting patterns, his style of reasoning, and his depth of thought are aspects that can only be appreciated within an actual match and by a player of adequate skill – that’s the nature of online poker. Isildur is a very good player and with the results he’s had, it’s impossible to deny it. He has rocked the boat in a big way, which is best exemplified by Tom “Durrrr” Dwan and the match they played, which is at this point a legendary one in the history of online poker. For those of you who don’t know, Isildur won more than 3 million USD from Durrrr, which adds up to well over 30 buyins won. I’m not sure exactly how many hands were played, but as far as I know it was over 30,000 hands. It was an epic match, and I mean that in the strongest sense of the word. Allow me to contextualize it a bit. (Disclaimer: some of this may be inaccurate, I’m piecing this together from what I know with little to no extraneous research. But for the most part it’s true enough.) Isildur first showed up on Full Tilt around 25/50 NLHE. I don’t know who the first person he played was, but I remember hearing about him from some 25/50 grinders who had played him or had seen him around. The word was that Isildur was the new semireg on the block. Supposedly, he was hyperaggro, barreled like a monkey, and was really easy to get to stick his stacks in. Of course there are some 25/50 regs for whom this description was not enough to play a non-clueless opponent, but a number of regs were thrilled to have a new reg willing to play a bunch of tables and donk off stacks. Among the first few to play him in extended matches were Jungleman and I Win Flips (Tcorbin16). From what I heard from both of them, they both thought that they had significant edges on Isildur, although Corbin actually lost a decent clip to him (in typical Corbin fashion). Our Battle About a week later I was sitting at tables without any action when Isildur showed up at one of my 25/50 NL tables. I was bored and willing to play anything, so when he offered to play 6 tables (although usually I max out at 4), I decided to take him up on his offer and play a serious NLHE HU match for the first time in a long while. As the match progressed, all of what I’d heard about him being hyperaggro and barrelly checked out, but as I watched the lines he took to bluff, valuebet, and the way he reacted to my betting patterns, he seemed uncannily perceptive. Nevertheless, within the first hour or so I had won about 30k and was feeling pretty confident. He sat out on all of the tables and I assumed that the match was over and was about to check out. But about a minute later he said “brb,” and so I decided to wait for him and continue the match. From that point, I started losing. Bad. There weren’t really any particular pots where I got badly outplayed, but before I knew it, due to beats coolers and him outmaneuvering me in a few spots, he was up 50k. 6-tabling 25/50 that’s not an unheard of swing to one opponent, so I asked him if he wanted to take it up to 50/100NL. He agreed, and we played a very short session there where I just repeatedly ran into the nuts – I thought I played well, but somehow he always had the best hand, despite his aggressiveness and how many big pots he was getting into. After losing 5 buyins at 50/100 I decided I’d had enough, and wasn’t feeling that great about my NL game and didn’t feel any point in going forward when he had all of the momentum and seemed to know my game pretty well. I told him GG and quit all of the tables. Ten minutes later, he sat with me at 100/200 PLO, telling me he was bored and just wanted some action. I consulted my friend who told me that he had played Isildur and had crushed him – Isildur is clueless, he said. So I shrugged my shoulders and went with it – I have a lot of confidence in my PLO game, and I know that there are only a few people in the world who can come out on top against me there. If he’s as degenerate as he seems, it’s possible that I have a huge edge and that he just dumps it back. So I played. PLO is quite different from NL because it’s much more transparent, not just to observers but also to the players themselves. When hands get in or big pots are played, it’s often a lot easier to dissect ranges, understand decisions, and evaluate EV than it is in NL. What that means that, for both observers and for the players themselves, it’s a lot easier to see who’s running bad and who’s getting outplayed in PLO compared to NL. Well, I ended up losing about 400k to him at PLO, and according to HEM I ran 300k below EV. We played probably 1000 hands or less of PLO. It was a bloodbath, but not quite a slaughter, since the poker gods were doing a lot more of the work than he was, which will happen in PLO. At the time I was pretty devastated, but after having reviewed the match carefully, I am sure that I ran bad. I’m not sure that I had an edge, but I am sure that my expectation was nowhere near what I lost, or even a quarter of that. But to all of you, I was only the beginning of the story of Isildur. The Rise of Isildur After I lost to him I took a break from playing, but there was a lot of chatter on NVG and among other high stakes players about this Isildur fellow. Since I’m a fish, most weren’t phased by seeing me lose so much to him, and wanted to try their hand. The next up to bat was Ugotabanana, an 18 year old PLO extraordinaire. He’s well known for being an enormous lucksack (I love you Harry), but even he could not overcome the Promethean run-good of Isildur. He lost 250k over 5000 hands of 100/200 PLO. Again, not a lot for the stakes played and variance, but at this point Isildur’s run was starting to border on the horizon of statistical significance. Over the next few days I wasn’t watching as closely, but apparently he undertook matches with Cole South, Brian Hastings, and Brian Townsend in both PLO and NL. The matches were very back and forth and were grabbing the attention of a lot of railbirds and high stakes players alike. Generally when top class players like Cole and Townsend are swooping in to play a bunch of tables with a new player, the new player ends up going bust pretty quick, but despite tripping up every now and then, Isildur seemed to be holding his ground. They were playing as high as 200/400 and 300/600; stacks were being thrown around and leads were sometimes taken, but never held onto. Nobody doubted that Isildur was losing, it was only a matter of when. He seemed to be solid and certainly not easy to beat, but against the titans of online poker, nobody gave him a chance. It was after a couple of days of battling against these players, Isildur being up a decent but by no means decisive amount on his opponents, that Durrrr entered into the fray. Right off the bat they agreed to 6-table HU at 300/600NL, and it was at that point that all eyes turned to what was inevitably going to be one of the most memorable matches in the history of online poker. Despite being overshadowed by the televised WSOP main event, tens of thousands of online poker players and poker aficionados logged onto Full Tilt to observe these games. The 300/600 didn’t last long, after a short while of playing and being down a few buyins Durrrr asked Isildur to take it to 500/1000 and Isildur happily agreed. What followed then was one of the most aggressive, volatile, intense heads up matches ever played. I will do my best to resist characterizing the dynamics or what specifically occurred in the match, but I think it was best described by a phrase I used at the time – “an unstoppable force meets an immovable object,” the former being Isildur and the latter being Durrrr. It was one of those rare heads up matches that exemplifies at once both art and spectacle. Railbirds couldn’t get enough. After the first day with a ton of back and forth and a lot of action, Isildur ended up around +1.5M. Despite having played for a very long session with few breaks, few observers thought that this win was conclusive, despite being over 15 buyins in winnings for Isildur. Before Durrrr finally quit the session he and Isildur made an agreement to play again the next day, and so when night fell again (in the USA), the match continued. That session was the most significant. Despite Durrrr’s shenanigans and suckouts, it seemed as though he was finally starting to reveal his strength. His style had changed and the tables were turning, the unstoppable momentum of Isildur seemed to have been shattered. At one point Durrrr was within 350k of even, and in that moment many of us who had been disheartened from Durrrr’s loss felt a feeling of relief. This was a moment of comfort in the world of high stakes poker. When I read that Durrrr was almost even, I thought to myself “well, I suppose that’s that. This guy’s run is finally over.” But when I was resigning to my bed, the rest of the online poker world was glued to its monitors. For Isildur, the night was far from over. What happened next no one at all expected, not even those who were rooting for Isildur. With Durrr having steamrolled back, Isildur, who people were before calling the masked marauder of high stakes poker, seemed to be back to his previous title of a luckbox shot-taking degen. And yet, slowly but surely, Isildur started winning his money back. He won a couple of big pots as soon as Durrrr hit his peak, and from that point Durrrr seemed to not have a chance to protest or get even a word in. The tides had turned, the poker gods had spoken, and Isildur once again seemed to not be able to lose an all-in, winning and winning, and when the score came back to +1.5M for Isildur – he kept going, winning more and more, as if not to leave any doubt in Durrrr’s or anybody else’s mind that his win was no fluke. After that night he was up over 2M, and by the time of my writing this and a couple more sessions later, Isildur is up well over 3M on Durrrr. Since then, he has battled again with Cole and Townsend and stood his ground, and has massacred both Patrik Antonius and David Benyamine. He is now up well over 5M on Full Tilt poker, and is currently fourth on the all time leaderboard on HSDB behind Phil Ivey, Phil Galfond, and Patrik Antonius. He has cemented his name in the annals of online poker as one of the strongest players of all time. It has been only two weeks since Isildur started playing high stakes on Full Tilt Poker. We truly have witnessed something incredible. But what we – the online poker community – and have not done, is interpreted this event. Made sense of it. Decided what it means. Not just for Durrrr, for Isildur, for high stakes players, or even for railbirds. What does this event mean for online poker? I haven’t the insight to speak for others, but I think that for me, Isildur’s upheaval of the online poker world has caused me to realize and question some things. The European Hierarchy It’s important to realize that the online poker world is split into a number of different worlds. Our world is what I will call the Western poker world (the word is poorly chosen but it works well enough). It includes 2p2, Cardplayer, Tableratings, and extends to the major American poker sites – Stars, Full Tilt, and Ultimatebet. The other major world is the Euro poker world, which includes sites like Ipoker, Prima, Party, Betfair, Svenka Spel, and some other sites that are only open to various European players (I don’t know enough about this poker world to mention any other specific sites, forums, etc.). These poker worlds are generally pretty strongly segregated – most of the top players in the Western poker world only play on Western sites, either because they’re American or because the nosebleed action on FTP/Stars runs more regularly. And in the same way, most of the top players in the Euro poker world only play on Eurosites and make most of their money there. But in each poker world there has been established a pecking order – a hierarchy. From years of poker pros playing each other in different combinations and matchups, people have figured out who is better than who. Over the long run there is not much fluctuation in these hierarchies, as the better players continue to get better and don’t let players lower in the food chain catch up. It is also generally acknowledged that the Western hierarchy is stronger than the Euro hierarchy – the games are tougher and more selective, there are fewer fish, and so the Western hierarchy has bred the best poker players in the world. The Western poker world is tougher, and for that, it is stronger. But Isildur has challenged that. Isildur is from the Euro poker world, and his blitzkrieg against the entire Western poker hierarchy is a direct challenge to this precept. Many Swedish and other European players cheer on the march of Isildur for precisely this reason – to them, Isildur represents their hierarchy taking back control of the poker world. And so Isildur has become, to some, a symbol of the European hierarchy. The Mythology of Online Poker When I saw on that first day that Durrrr was playing Isildur and was down a lot, my feelings were mixed. I think that a lot of people in my situation would think “well, if Durrrr lost to him, then I guess that validates my loss,” and there was probably a dash of that emotion somewhere, but it certainly wasn’t decisive. As with everybody else on the sidelines, I had to decide who to root for. You can’t really stand outside a cage match and just hope it’s a good fight - no matter how objective you claim to be, somebody in the ring is representing you. If that’s not true, then you’re not watching with enough intensity. And if there ever were a poker game that could be considered a cage match, it would be this one. A lot of people who aren’t initiated into the world of high stakes poker are quick to compare high stakes players to each other, but the world of high stakes poker is more rigidly divided than it might seem. Durrrr exists in an echelon of online poker that I haven’t reached, and probably never will. He plays for amounts of money that, even if I had the bankroll, probably wouldn’t be playing. Not only that, but his courage – and degeneracy – are miles above what I could handle. He is truly in another league, and so in a way he is just as distant to me as he is to any of you. Not only that, but I don’t really know Tom, although I know some people who do and I’m sure he’s a good person. But I have no personal reason to root for him. And while this is all true, there was something in me that I couldn’t quite explain that was rooting for Durrrr. Well, more than that. I think there was something inside me that deeply needed Durrrr to win. At first I didn’t really bother to think about it, and maybe I accepted the easy explanation that I just wanted to see Isildur lose. But as the scale of the match grew larger and larger, and the impact of Isildur grew greater and greater, I began to realize that Durrrr represented something else to me in this match. He represented more than just a vicarious avenger. In fact, he was more than just Tom Dwan, more than just a single poker player, who one can choose to like or dislike. Durrrr represents something else, something much larger. To me, Durrrr represents my generation. He represents my hierarchy. He represents the entire empire of the Western poker world. He is the king, and upon his head rests the crown of Western poker. That crown is more than just a piece of jewelry – it is a justification. He wears the crown upon his head because he is the proof that the Western poker world is great. It is proof that we are wise, that we are powerful, and that we are right to think that we are the best in the world. Durrrr holds all of this upon his head. We have imbued it in him. If nobody else in the world can beat Isildur, and if Isildur fights his way to the throne of our poker world, we know that Durrrr will be waiting for him. Durrrr is our last word. He is our proof that ourpoker works, that our poker is powerful, and that we were right to think that our poker is the epitome of all poker. But, to me, Durrrr represents even more than that. Because you have to realize that this significance that I just mentioned is not granted to Durrrr because he is Durrrr – it is granted to him because of how much he’s won, because of who he’s beaten, and because of the respect and fear that he has garnered. But somebody else could just as easily have been in his place, someone else who might have had the same winnings and accomplishments. There’s something significant because of who Durrrr is and what he’s about that makes him an especially important symbol. Durrrr can be dumb. Sometimes he makes mistakes, he tilts, he makes clearly –EV calls and he sticks huge stacks in with rags against the nuts over and over again. Durrrr is often reckless, sometimes emotional, and even at times irrational. Durrrr is fallible. He is imperfect. And yet, somehow he wins. He outplays, he outmaneuvers, and outthinks. He reached the top. He beat everyone. He became the king. He symbolizes the human in all of us, and he bears testament that one does not need to be perfect, unphaseable, untiltable in order to become great. The juggernauts of online poker can sometimes seem to possess an otherworldly stoicism and mental composure. Durrrr is certainly a titan, but his edges are jagged, just as the rest of us. That’s what Durrrr symbolizes to me. I too am sometimes dumb, sometimes I make tilty calls and chase losses. Durrrr is my validation. To me then, Isildur represents something totally alien. He represents the nameless feeling that we all know when we play somebody who we feel that we just cannot beat. The pre-rational feeling that no matter what we do we cannot win; this force (it does not congeal into a person) will push us down and there is no way to fight back, to go up for air – our only option is to surrender. No matter what cards we are dealt or what flop we see, somehow we end up losing or getting outplayed. To a poker player, there is no feeling as terrifying as losing and not knowing why. When Isildur appeared, nobody knew who he was. Nobody knew why he played the way he did, how he was so good, or why he won so much. He surprised everyone, and in a whirlwind he destroyed almost everybody he played. He was a faceless force who suddenly disrupted all of the sensible hierarchy of the Western poker world. Whether or not we acknowledge it, everybody became afraid. Afraid that maybe he would tear everything down. That all of our hierarchies would be rendered irrelevant. Maybe he was the greatest poker player in the world. But to claim that title, he must answer to the king. To me, that is the symbolism behind the battle between Durrrr and Isildur. But my perspective is not the only one, and I will not pretend that my interpretation is any more valid than anyone else’s. For some railbirds who have a more disinterested relationship to the poker hierarchy, many probably are enthralled by the march of Isildur because of all of the action and excitement that he stirs up, and I certainly cannot deny that if making things interesting is the only criterion, Isildur takes the cake. Yet others choose to root against Durrrr because to them Durrrr represents the old order, and Isildur, a newcomer overthrowing an empire, empowers some them in relation to the poker hierarchy. Maybe others dislike Durrrr because they think he represents an older and more fortunate generation of poker players, or maybe others see him as everything wrong with the culture of internet poker players. And a great many others root against Durrrr because they support Europe over America. The battle between Durrrr and Isildur means many different things to many observers, which is part of the reason why the match has been followed and commented on so passionately. The Aftermath Ultimately, as I’m sure you all know, Durrrr lost. Their battle was grand, awesome, and decisive. Isildur triumphed. Now, as the chroniclers of our age of online poker, it is up to us to interpret what that means. There is a lot that I could say about the nature of variance, the significance of leaderboards and results, and the poverty of information – these are issues that we are all grappling with as both students of this world, and as members of it. What did it really mean that Durrrr was up so much money in online poker? That he had beaten so many people, and seemed to be as good as it was? Was it really ever that significant? Were we all fooled by the randomness? We have all seen the simulations where one or two arbitrary lines bound absurdly high above the lot – was Durrrr just an anomaly, his greatness a blip of chance? Or maybe his loss to Isildur was a fluke, the product of bad play, of overconfidence – maybe we have yet to see what Durrrr is really capable of. There are many who think that Isildur is now the best HU NLHE player in the world. Part of what made Durrrr so powerful and feared was his image – not just his image within the context of an actual match, but merely the awareness that Durrrr did not to lose to anyone. It might seem like a secondary aspect of his game, but if you believe your opponent is someone awesome, someone who no one else can stand up to, it invests your opponent with a great deal of power. It was with this invincible image that Durrrr ruled high stakes NL, but Isildur has shattered that illusion. At this point, having bested almost everybody who stood up to him, Isildur has assumed an even more powerful image, which will make it even more difficult for someone to overthrow him. There are some who’d say that Isildur has proven himself as the new king of online poker. Or perhaps it is Isildur who is the anomaly, and as fantastically as he entered this world, he will supernova when he leaves it. Since the time I began writing this article, Isildur has lost 2.5M to Patrik Antonius in PLO, cutting his winnings on FTP in half. The significance of this event is certainly smaller than Isildur’s prolonged battle with Durrrr, but nevertheless the tides are rolling in, and the poker gods are plotting their next spectacle. Is this heralding the fall of Isildur, or is this merely the beginning of another battle? The world of online poker is shifting rapidly and much has yet to be seen. I cannot answer any of the questions I have posed, but I hope that you will all consider them as you continue to observe the path that the world of online poker takes from here. Durrrr and Isildur. Goddamn, were they meant for each other. Until next time, Haseeb, aka Dogishead
It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post. Poker hasn’t really picked up any for me, but I felt like I should keep writing in this blog and try my best to keep it alive in some way. Today I’m going to sell out a bit and write not about myself, but about online poker and recent events. My topic is vague enough that this post may wander through different topics, but it will be centered around Isildur and his recent appearance in high stakes online poker. It is largely a product of my curiosity, experience, and confusion, and I hope that some of these ideas might speak to some of you as well.
Nov 17, 09 14:51:30
your blogs and the way your write them are really enjoyable. fun read
Nov 17, 09 15:30:55
I love your interpretation of this hu match between durrr and Isildur1. It was def historical for online poker.
Personally, I was rooting for durrr to win. Then I started to root for sildur1 because this guy would play everyone. As a railbird, it's fun to watch high stakes poker online.
In the end, I do want to see durrr win though because I'm American. Poker is our game and we are the best at it.
Nov 17, 09 16:07:46
he will go broke obviously. he's riding high on tons of confidence and momentum. i remember one time last year on cakepoker i had 4k on there and had been playing 1/2. suddenly i decided to play 2/4 and quickly won 5k. i now had 9k online. then i sat in 5/10 NL. i was suddenly glued and addicted to the games. i was up 30k at 5/10 NL in 1 day. the rush was unbelievable. i could not quit. alls i could do was think about playuing more and more and higher. i played 10/20 heads up and quicvkly won 8k off a guy. i then sat in 25/50 with 40k online because the rush was so crazy and i was playing so good without even trying. well, my run ended there because i ran bad and ran out of money. well, ilsidur simply kept running good and propelled this same mindset into the millions he's got now. he will lose everything back, beleive me. poker aint no sprint, it's a marathon. have u ever sprinted a marathon? u fucking die. he's sprinting. he will die.
Nov 17, 09 16:47:03
So, you've never played euro games but you just assume they're softer? :o
If that's the case why there's a lot of euros playing highstakes on FTP when they have to pay taxes on FTP winnings and euro-sites would be tax free?
And why are two of FTPs biggest winners this year both scandis? (and isildur too)
Nov 17, 09 17:11:28
Nice post. I'm rooting for Isildur1. I hate bum hunters, which is what nosebleeds has come to with the dangs, galfonds, and others of the world. Durrr isn't a bum hunter, as you aren't either. However, there is excitement which is what the HSNL world needs. If the money goes to Isildur1, it may trickle down the system, whereas if it goes to Durrrr, odds are we never see it again.
Nov 17, 09 17:31:50
I think you're a bit wrong about the Western/European thingy, if you look at alltime money winners a good bunch of them is european, larzluzak(Once considered best nlhe player in the world?) Patrik Antonius obv, ziigmund, david benyamine(french lol!), kaiibuxxe/Niki jedlicka and probably some other names.
Ofc, if you look at the hs part 10/20 -> 50/100 very few would be european but that is pretty easy to conclude why, it's really not worth the problem of moving funds from euro sites and risking taxes if you play those stakes because you ain't really upping the amount of action moving to FTP at those stakes, you really have to go skyrocket high to up the amount of action you get.
And alot of ppl hate durrr because of the fact that galfond, and the dangs have kinda dragged him with them in the dirt because he is by ALOT of railbirds affiliated with bumhunting because of his friends and the relationship they have.
(Obv, scumming loads of do' from gus and guy have to to do with it... u know what i mean.)
Great blog btw, great read...There is alot of strong europlayers that have been trying to break isildur1 on euro sites for some time but what he does to them and did to durrrr is pretty much the same, dragging em to a game of variance and aggression he is simply better at IMO.
Nov 17, 09 17:34:03
Larz haven't won much tho, i forgot about his massive downswing and what it did to him regarding the nosebleed action participation.
And yea, i didnt mean that he is better at handling variance i just mean he is really good at a high variance game, he is so freakin' beasty that he somehow takes the game in a way he wants it... except against PA yesterday when he played those NLHE games so friggin slow in comparison to PLO so he semitilted him right of the bat there.
Nov 17, 09 17:34:29
great post, excellent writing style too.
I agree fully on the fact that there are 2 poker worlds. The top Euros are truly very very good, and given more time it will become obvious to most people that they are actually better than the top American pros.
I play on euro sites so this is why I root for isildur1
Nov 17, 09 17:37:57
All I know is there are a lot of top swede's focus almost fully on GTO play and dont care about gameflow, a style that will be very hard to beat.
I dont know if isildur1 is one of these guys but it wouldnt surprise me.
Nov 17, 09 18:04:21
i had the exact same feelings as you about the durrrr v. isildur battle but could never write it so well in a million years, best blog post ever
Nov 17, 09 19:29:45
Excellent.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You put a lot of effort into writing your blog well. I appreciate that.
Nov 17, 09 22:01:36
Is this a joke? Durrr is supposed to be the example of our "King"...lol. He obv. a good player
but waaaaaaaaay overstated here. I realize that highstakesdb is not completely accurate but in 08 it show his + almost 6mill and now for 09 he down 6mill. So in an entire 2 years he hasnt made shit (under his name) ...and he's the King?? How about Patrick Ant. + around 11mill over 2 years or IVY?...
Nov 17, 09 22:17:12
great read!
thanks!
hopefully cts can dig himself out of his current hole to the faceless challenger
Nov 17, 09 22:32:26
awesome post. i really felt oddly interested in the match beyond what i anticipated and also found myself rooting for durrr for many of the reasons you stated. poker has a lot of levels.
as far as the match is concerned, i think it was a lot closer than results indicated. isildur was a total unknown - everyone knows durrr and has had ample time to study his play. early edge clearly goes to isildur. kudos to him for taking advantage and making it stick, and then holding off the comeback at those stakes. but given how aggro these guys play in hu matches and the variance those styles of play would generate i don't think 30k hands is even remotely enough hands to determine who the better player is. even if one or the other had a very slight edge, there would be 30 bi swings up and down on a regular basis. whoever is running better, not just in all ins, but in coolers, hitting good bluff cards, semibluffing and lucksacking rivers, etc, will be the one taking the lead.
Nov 17, 09 23:44:15
One thing that hasn't been meantioned is, what the rise of Isldur1 means is that there will be others to follow. The lansdcape is constantly changing...
Nov 18, 09 00:38:02
gambler2k4 no offense 2 u, but u cant compare your run to isildurs, im sure hes at the top because hes good not just running good
Nov 18, 09 00:43:39
very nice read although i do think ur being a bit overdramatic about it all lol
Nov 18, 09 02:13:06
i will play high stakes one day soon, and i should thank this blog for the encouragement
haseeb you killed it
cheers bro
Nov 18, 09 02:45:52
Too early to say anything about how good the guy is. And yes, the post is a bit over dramatic.
Nov 18, 09 03:29:35
Still think he needs to have a match similar to this vs ivey. ivey's image is beyond that of durrr's. he just always seems to come out good in the end.
Nov 18, 09 04:16:53
until he beats these games regularly, we can't really surmise much. I remember Dustin Dirksen was crushing the NL games for a while too, and everyone was talking about him......
haven't heard from him in a while have we??
Nov 18, 09 05:44:39
I loved the blog until you started about the western/euro stuff. In the history books I read, Europe is part of the western world. Seperating Europe from the western world is like starting the cold war again. I dont know why you are thinking this way, maybe it's inherent for Americans who always want to be creating wars and thinking themselves as the superior. Maybe it's something else.
You made me laugh when comparing Durrr to the older poker generation. The past months Durrr was "the new kid in town" who was teaching the old generation how to play. Now he gets beaten hard, and all of a sudden he is the old generation. Does not compute IMO.
But of course I'm just a low stakes grinder, so not my stakes.
Just a quick laugh as before ending: You wanna know why Euro players play with without fear? The \$\$ comes so cheap! :D
Nov 18, 09 09:06:51
I actually read all of that, and I'm even late to go do something else. Well written, good sir!
Edit: The part about USA/Europe was a bit stupid, though. :I
Nov 18, 09 09:16:28
absolutly an EPIC post.. great read and really entertaining!!
you should write scripts man
Nov 18, 09 11:58:37
thanks - great read especially coming from some one who was on the wrong side of the isildur rampage. I wish you the best of luck in your comeback sir.
Nov 18, 09 12:22:05
I don't know what these haters are talking about. The part about Euro/US and the players' symbolic roles spoke very deeply to my thoughts on the matter.
Nov 18, 09 12:52:25
I think people hugely underestimate the variance of such matches. There's a good chance one of the players stands to make \$3000 an hour (or less) plus/minus a random swing of \$300K (or more).
Run some simulations of 50 hours of such a match and revel in the variance. No really, do it. It's pretty sick.
Nov 18, 09 15:04:40
Ivey is still king in my book. Until he crushes ivey for 5 million + he still has something to prove. Im sure durrrr has not said his final word yet. SAme goes for Cole and Antonius.
I watched for about 2 hours last night and its obv that he over bluffs a bit 2 much. Ivey picked him off with a pair of sevens for a 400k pot with a gross overbet on the river but Isal.
I also saw cole pick him off also. I think what is so diffrent about him is that he calls ATC out of popo, he fires a lot of flops and floats a lot out of popo. Kinda plays against "the standard" way.
Anyway, when antonius started a NLHU match last night, Isil asked him if he wanted to play 4 tables. Patrick did not respond.
Im not sure if he was goin to close a few of his other HU if patrick would of accepted. Isal was already play 6 HU at the time of the request.
SICK stuff
Great entry, very well written.
Nov 18, 09 15:14:56
Your posts aren`t blogposts, they`re more like world class philosophical articles...
Nov 18, 09 16:21:57
Should Patrick be considered part of European or Western-FTP team?
Nov 19, 09 01:27:46
probably one of the best poker-related things I have ever read. Nice job, and thanks.
Poopy
Nov 19, 09 01:27:58
probably one of the best poker-related things I have ever read. Nice job, and thanks.
Poopy
Nov 19, 09 07:41:51
This is a great post, but I find it interesting that you managed to write so much about the online poker hierarchy without mentioning the word "Ivey". Isildur has definitely shaken up the high stakes world, but I don't think you can say that the established order has fallen while Ivey remains intact.
To me, Ivey and Dwan are both looked up to as the king(s) of online poker. They give online players a sense of security. Even if someone comes and goes on a crazy heater against other high stakes regs, people say "oh yeah? just wait til he plays Ivey or Dwan!"
What is the difference between Dwan and Ivey? I think Dwan gets talked about more online because he is younger and better represents our generation of internet players, and I think you're right about his imperfection making him easier to relate to. On the other hand, Ivey is almost viewed as a machine, taking people apart with mechanical precision. He doesn't represent the "average" young high stakes grinder, but that doesn't make him any less of a force to be reckoned with. The throne of online poker is shared equally between Dwan and Ivey imo...
On another note, I think you're right about the aura of invulnerability thing. In many cases, it only takes one person to take down the "champion" and then a lot of people will come out of the woodwork and start beating him because that psychological barrier has been broken. For people who follow tennis, I bring up the example of Roger Federer. Once his aura of invulnerabilty was shattered by Nadal, lots of the other top 10 players started beating him too.
Nov 19, 09 08:35:35
fantastic read.
What i dont get is the Western/Eastern, America/Europe thing. Im from Europe and i was routing for durrrr, because i think hes a really good person and the best HUNL player in the world.
Why would you root for a poker player based on which country he is, i mean its poker not soccer or so. For me it would make more sense if i were you to root for Isildur because then there is a better chance that I could become the best "West" player one time.
Also you said that you wouldnt play as high as durrrr even if you had the bankroll, that was really leaving me speechless.
Maybee i just dont understand the american mentality. In Europe its more like when you start a game keep on fighting till u are the best at what u do and if u fail u go broke, so what.
Dont get me wrong im a nit as well, using bankroll management and so on, but how can u motivate urself and keep on grinding if theres no goal anymore?
greetz kohi
Nov 19, 09 19:28:03
But isildur is actually new to PLO. His main game is NL and from what ive heard he has mostly played some tiltgames before joining FTP. Sick good post though!
Nov 19, 09 20:53:35
you should be a writer or spokesman for poker with a stirring, profound and honest article like this! keep up the good work. i basically agree with your viewpoint, and watch with excitement to see what happens next at this historical time for poker.
Nov 19, 09 23:29:45
Thank you very much for that indulgent, insightful, and remarkably well-written blog post.
Nov 20, 09 04:05:36
I might take action based on the odds Isildur1 a superuser
seems pretty obv now you say he was playing 25/50 LOL
*puts down haterade*
Nov 20, 09 07:27:34
Your final comment about Antonius turning the tides again is slightly wrong of course, as he is from the European heirarchy (if such a thing exists).
Nov 21, 09 13:08:42
Haseeb,
Your analysis and your writing is second to none. Very good indeed.
And it's 'Svenska Spel' :)
Nov 21, 09 15:08:10
Interesting,intellectual,imformative and inspirational.........best blog in the history of poker!
Nov 22, 09 14:46:50
what do you have to say not that isildur is only up 100k and antonius has all your money now? i dont think super users tilt off five million in a week. =)
Nov 23, 09 17:18:15
Wow!
While I don't necessarily agree with everything you said (i'm European, which probably explains why) what you write is a joy to read.
If or when you decide to retire from the game go write a novel, i'll be first in line for a signed copy!
Cheers and keep blogging.
Nov 25, 09 04:51:24
I was directed here from Tyler Cowen's blog. Wow Haseeb, you are moving up in the world.
Nov 27, 09 21:56:20
I loved reading this entry. IMO the king is Phil Ivey. Don't be so easy to give up the crown when Phil doesn't back down to anyone including billionaires.
Nov 27, 09 21:56:47
I loved reading this entry. IMO the king is Phil Ivey. Don't be so easy to give up the crown when Phil doesn't back down to anyone including billionaires.
Nov 27, 09 21:57:08
I loved reading this entry. IMO the king is Phil Ivey. Don't be so easy to give up the crown when Phil doesn't back down to anyone including billionaires.
Nov 27, 09 21:57:30
I loved reading this entry. IMO the king is Phil Ivey. Don't be so easy to give up the crown when Phil doesn't back down to anyone including billionaires.
Nov 27, 09 21:57:51
I loved reading this entry. IMO the king is Phil Ivey. Don't be so easy to give up the crown when Phil doesn't back down to anyone including billionaires.
Nov 30, 09 22:48:09
Absolutely absurd post. One of the most well-written and interesting pieces I have ever read.
Nov 30, 09 22:48:34
Absolutely absurd post. One of the most well-written and interesting pieces I have ever read.
Dec 3, 09 01:33:57
Well well well, it would seem like youre unstoppable bullshit DID meet a gullable audience, but why wouldnt it have. You yanks would believe a monkey could pull his head out his arse, if the banana it was eating, told you so.
The amount of total shite in this drivvle is hilarious. If it wasnt enough that you actually bought into the fact that this tit isildur was just on a heater from heaven, then you start shiting on about euro v america, are you totally fucking insane.
Anyway, i read this a couple of weeks ago and though SHIT SHIT SHIT. Talking shit. You may have well been anaylzing how perfectly Betty picked the winning numbers for the fucking lottery.
It was a heater, simple as, and now what. He has lost it all back...ooooooo fuckin surprise.
I wonder where isildur is right now, probably at the bottom of a lake, or maybe in the boot of a car at the bottom of canyon. Or maybe he's in your attic with a needle sticking our of his arm, who gives a fuck, he's in hiding probably never to show his ugly face again.
But where are you?? I know you couldnt give a fuck about your blog, but you MUST feel an awful lot of embarassment after the shite you wrote, which has all proven to be total fabrication in past week. I cant wait, cannot wait, to read your next piece of crap, cannot wait to read how you wriggle out of the piss that you wrote, but when it comes, and when you do write it, I'm going to print it off and wipe my arse with it.
hahahaahah you thought it was the second coming, but know your ass is getting a god ols bumming.
Dec 3, 09 01:34:31
Well well well, it would seem like youre unstoppable bullshit DID meet a gullable audience, but why wouldnt it have. You yanks would believe a monkey could pull his head out his arse, if the banana it was eating, told you so.
The amount of total shite in this drivvle is hilarious. If it wasnt enough that you actually bought into the fact that this tit isildur was just on a heater from heaven, then you start shiting on about euro v america, are you totally fucking insane.
Anyway, i read this a couple of weeks ago and though SHIT SHIT SHIT. Talking shit. You may have well been anaylzing how perfectly Betty picked the winning numbers for the fucking lottery.
It was a heater, simple as, and now what. He has lost it all back...ooooooo fuckin surprise.
I wonder where isildur is right now, probably at the bottom of a lake, or maybe in the boot of a car at the bottom of canyon. Or maybe he's in your attic with a needle sticking our of his arm, who gives a fuck, he's in hiding probably never to show his ugly face again.
But where are you?? I know you couldnt give a fuck about your blog, but you MUST feel an awful lot of embarassment after the shite you wrote, which has all proven to be total fabrication in past week. I cant wait, cannot wait, to read your next piece of crap, cannot wait to read how you wriggle out of the piss that you wrote, but when it comes, and when you do write it, I'm going to print it off and wipe my arse with it.
hahahaahah you thought it was the second coming, but know your ass is getting a god ols bumming.
Dec 3, 09 01:34:53
Well well well, it would seem like youre unstoppable bullshit DID meet a gullable audience, but why wouldnt it have. You yanks would believe a monkey could pull his head out his arse, if the banana it was eating, told you so.
The amount of total shite in this drivvle is hilarious. If it wasnt enough that you actually bought into the fact that this tit isildur was just on a heater from heaven, then you start shiting on about euro v america, are you totally fucking insane.
Anyway, i read this a couple of weeks ago and though SHIT SHIT SHIT. Talking shit. You may have well been anaylzing how perfectly Betty picked the winning numbers for the fucking lottery.
It was a heater, simple as, and now what. He has lost it all back...ooooooo fuckin surprise.
I wonder where isildur is right now, probably at the bottom of a lake, or maybe in the boot of a car at the bottom of canyon. Or maybe he's in your attic with a needle sticking our of his arm, who gives a fuck, he's in hiding probably never to show his ugly face again.
But where are you?? I know you couldnt give a fuck about your blog, but you MUST feel an awful lot of embarassment after the shite you wrote, which has all proven to be total fabrication in past week. I cant wait, cannot wait, to read your next piece of crap, cannot wait to read how you wriggle out of the piss that you wrote, but when it comes, and when you do write it, I'm going to print it off and wipe my arse with it.
hahahaahah you thought it was the second coming, but know your ass is getting a god ols bumming.
Dec 3, 09 01:35:24
Well well well, it would seem like youre unstoppable bullshit DID meet a gullable audience, but why wouldnt it have. You yanks would believe a monkey could pull his head out his arse, if the banana it was eating, told you so.
The amount of total shite in this drivvle is hilarious. If it wasnt enough that you actually bought into the fact that this tit isildur was just on a heater from heaven, then you start shiting on about euro v america, are you totally fucking insane.
Anyway, i read this a couple of weeks ago and though SHIT SHIT SHIT. Talking shit. You may have well been anaylzing how perfectly Betty picked the winning numbers for the fucking lottery.
It was a heater, simple as, and now what. He has lost it all back...ooooooo fuckin surprise.
I wonder where isildur is right now, probably at the bottom of a lake, or maybe in the boot of a car at the bottom of canyon. Or maybe he's in your attic with a needle sticking our of his arm, who gives a fuck, he's in hiding probably never to show his ugly face again.
But where are you?? I know you couldnt give a fuck about your blog, but you MUST feel an awful lot of embarassment after the shite you wrote, which has all proven to be total fabrication in past week. I cant wait, cannot wait, to read your next piece of crap, cannot wait to read how you wriggle out of the piss that you wrote, but when it comes, and when you do write it, I'm going to print it off and wipe my arse with it.
hahahaahah you thought it was the second coming, but know your ass is getting a god ols bumming.
Dec 13, 09 01:45:36
Hi man, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading and thinking about your essay on the beauty of poker (blog titled I live in eliminable liminability or some shit like that). You are obviously very intelligent. You'll probably be back playing high stakes before you know it. Good luck!
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This blog post is both important and very unique, because in it I complain about losing and also convey resentment toward poker. Also, it is unnecessarily long. Nothing like it has ever been done before, so please prepare your brain for high impact novelty. Well, since I last updated, a lot of shit has gone down – mostly me gaining back momentum, getting on a run, and then getting bludgeoned over and over. I finally was back on a roll until yesterday I played Isildur1 at 50/100 NL and 100/200 PLO, losing about 500k to him. I ran 400k under EV. I ran really, really bad. This is by far the worst losing day I’ve ever had in my life, and I’ve never felt as much shock in my body as I felt during that match. It felt like I had just gone through a car crash. It bore down on me like an enormous mental weight, my body felt weak and tired, and my mind was too cloudy to couldn’t think of anything beyond the hands I was playing. I’ve never reacted that way to poker before. These last few months have been unfriendly, but yesterday the poker gods stretched my mouth wide open and took a huge and inglorious shit straight down my gullet. So, since I’m a wannabe pseudo-intellectual, of course I have to rationalize this series of events. Poker sucks. I can’t run good. Randomness, variance simulations, survivorship bias, the people who tell the stories about poker are the people who've run good enough to seem to be worth listening to, blah blah blah. I want to write about that shit but who cares. Fuck that, fuck me. This is what I signed up for. Of all the hundreds of thousands of grinders who have tried to climb the mountain of poker, most of them have felt this moment before. Not everybody wins at poker, and for some the mountain is insurmountable. I feel like it’s unfair. I look at the people around me who run good, who are rewarded for their efforts, for whom the good run and bad run come in equal shares, for whom their luck gives them room to breathe and remember the direction in which they’re climbing. I resent poker for pushing upon me this bad luck, even though I know the randomness must exist. I’ve seen the simulations, I’ve read the posts, I’ve even meditated on the idea countless times to myself. I’ve always known that if poker wanted to bury me, it could bury me so deep that I could never get out. I acknowledged the God of poker, and I’ve feared it, I have loved it. But I still put in my time. I still put in the hours playing, the hours studying, the hours coaching, the hours getting coached. I’ve done my share. I have been faithful, I have loved, and I have feared. I feel like it’s unfair. This is what I feel. But nevertheless, here I am. Buried. Buried so deep that I’d have to be the son of fucking God himself to get unburied. So since I am here in my grave, the only true way to unbury myself is to realize that there is no such thing as a grave unless one chooses to call it a grave. Where I am now is not a grave, nor is it above ground or anything in between. Where I am is where I am, it is my moment. From here, I begin to rebuild and reformulate. This is all there is. It’s time to start over. As much as I would like to think I am buried – as much as clinging to that idea makes me feel like what I have done in my past life defines me – I am not buried. I am here, I am alive; my hands and feet are alive. So I will climb. That’s all I’m going to write in regards to that. Writing only does so much. I need to reset my mindset and reconstruct my narrative, and although writing can make it sound definite, it doesn't make it a part of my psyche. I guess what it'll take is time and work. Since this is a pretty emotionally shitty time for me, I’m going to mention a few things in regards to my blog and some other stuff I’ve put out. For one, I think it’s about time that I acknowledge that I’m not really that committed to this blog as far as updating it every week, and as such it doesn’t make that much sense for me to keep up with this silly contest. Right now I have a lot of other concerns in my life, poker included, that maintaining this blog or thinking up novel material for it is not really a priority for me. I’m going to, at least for now, rescind this free coaching deal. It’s really always been more of a mental gadfly than a genuine motivator, so I think I need to stop pretending that this sort of thing works. Also, the deal that I offered here and on 2p2 about shipping $200 to every person who catches me complaining is also rescinded. It was kind of the same way. It didn’t really work as a motivator, if anything it just made me more tilted from all of the people PMing me all the time in regards to it, trying to catch every little thing I said in chat. Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m not sure when the next time I update will be, but I’ll try to make it pretty soon. But obviously right now I need to spend some time regrouping and picking up the pieces. P.S.S.S. lolbusto
Well, it's been officially five weeks since my last blog entry, which means I owe five people an hour of coaching each (you suck Benji2813, RoughPokers, RodeoBlue, WC18, and Effneasy). PM me to redeem your coaching.
Until next time,
Haseeb
P.S. This post is not a busto declaration, just means no nosebleeds for a while. For a long while, probably.
P.S.S. Oh, and fuck anyone who says poker isn't a tough job.
Oct 24, 09 06:34:04
Good luck in the furture IP. Sure looks like youhave run into the bad side of varience and hopefully things will start to turn around for you.
Oct 24, 09 06:37:28
Haseeb, I know you're down right now but try to have a little perspective about your situation. Most poker players could only dream of making 500K in a lifetime of playing, and you lost that much in one day.
I'm sure that you could probably make 2-300K a year in your sleep while coaching and playing smaller stakes in a low variance, and stress free manner. That is more than what 99% of people in this country are making especially in this economy!
You have the freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want, and you'll never have to work a day in your life. With the skills you have you'll always be able to rebuild your roll, and when you do you'll appreciate it ten times more because of what you're going through now.
The next time you won't put your roll in jeopardy. You'll buy a beautiful house, and take your girlfriend/wife and awesome vacations. You'll realize how lucky you are, and that most poker players could only dream of having your skillset, and the ability to make as money as you do.
Good luck to you Haseeb.
Oct 24, 09 08:13:43
consider your lifetime winnings as well as your age and then really reassess the concept of "running bad". and as far as your match yesterday, it sounds like you slipped into the Tommy Angelo "fog" which makes it virtually impossible to play anything close to an A game. i'm sure you don't need to be a told that making a good quit is just as important as making a good play. good luck to you in the future, but in reallity you don't really need it.
Oct 24, 09 08:15:42
Appreciate the honest blog post. Keep your chin up man!
Oh yeah --- when will I see your private avatar?
Oct 24, 09 08:57:42
Running -400K EV? Let me just say I've followed dogishead from 'that other training site' to CR and to this day no other coach has made such strategic and insightful videos. I remember reading somewhere that you were 19-20 years old? Unbelievable. As 8+yrs your senior, you have certainly expanded my knowledge of HU play, even your seemingly random metaphors (ie: comparing poker to a ship) were just so profound that I've been a supporter the whole way. When I hear news like this, it makes me a bit weary about the game of poker, such sick sick variance; where the better player is not awarded what is owed to him (besides good ole' sklansky bucks). 500K in a day would be nothing less than a chokehold on any sane poker player, especially when that 500K was not spew, not random variance, it was simply running ICE COLD. My best of luck to you and your endeavors, whether you continue on the path with poker or not, there is certainly a beautiful mind behind the player, and don't ever corner yourself into thinking poker is your only source of livelihood, from watching your videos since your older days I'd say you are very much border-line genius and will succeed beyond just poker. Best of luck to you, keep your head up man.
Oct 24, 09 11:19:27
GL Haseeb....
I hope everything goes great on the way back up to the top.
Oct 24, 09 11:44:38
you are man now dog.. and nice avatar on fulltilt..
gl on your soon upswing.
Oct 24, 09 13:25:58
The worst part about those "shocking" losses is the loss of confidence in yourself. Obv. your confidence is shot right now but just use it as a learning experience and a month or 2 of good results at low games will regain it.. The Swede will give you action again.. But anyways I agree with what you say about the hundreds and thousands of poker players that love the game to death and just fail at it (how they relatively feel what u felt). It's unimaginative how much pain poker has caused to many ppl around the world (its literally lead to suicide). As you said, u know what u signed up for. Keep ur chin up and keep fighting. GL.
Oct 24, 09 13:52:56
I know this is not what you want to hear right now but losing 500k and running 400k below EV means you lost 100k due to straight bad play. This is the only thing you can control and only thing you should worry about. It seems pretty likely you did not have an edge in the match and even if you are a better player than him you were likely playing your C game and were actually a dog (no pun intended) in the match.
Also, you should really consider your lifetime EV in poker and not your most recent couple of months of run bad. How many people really make a million and even get a chance to play nosebleeds? It's very likely you ran hot to get to where you are and now things are just evening out a bit. If you look at a lot of other great players like Btown or theASHMAN they've gone through similar huge downswings but they've come back from them as much better players and are crushing now a days. I am sure you will be the same.
andr3w321
Oct 24, 09 14:53:24
Stop whining. Poker Gods don't hate you. In fact, they love you. They've given you the ability to make it this far in the poker world. I'm sure you've caught some timely breaks in your poker career and ran well enough over your career. Sure \$500k is a tough loss, as is \$400k below ev. This gives you the right to complain though, say how bad you run, and think the poker gods are against you? Your playing insanely high stakes with insanely high variance. Did you know know this before hand ? So you ran 20 buyins below EV in a high stakes game. It's not uncommon in PLO and HU. The stakes and money at hand are just clouding your thoughts.
You really need to look at it in perspective of self control. What happened to a stop loss ? If you ignore a stop loss in these situations, it's likely your not playing anything but your C game anyways.
Put things into perspective. Your a great talented player. Maybe your just not cut out for higher stakes if you can't handle downswings. Maybe your underrolled for the games? Maybe your over-confident? These are all just variable that could explain why your attitude is the way it is right now. You don't run worse than anyone else. You just choose to play a super high variance game at high stakes.
Pick your head up, realize how fortunate you are, and get on the grind! You have to much talent to sit around righting emo blogs about how poker hates you, etc !
Oct 24, 09 15:45:40
Don't take this too harshly but I think it's justice for your arrogant pompous pseduo-intellectual blog posts; prime candidate being that one where you spent a thousand words boastfully justifying your J High call which even a noob could see was -EV. Also the way you referred to yourself in a serious tone as an up and coming internet poker super star. And the way you smugly put peers on a tier system.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you're infinitely superior to me I'm just objectively making these remarks with candor in the hope it snaps you out of your sometimes cringeworthy pretentiousness. If already your crushing downswing hasn't.
Take care and good luck man.
P.S It's P.P.S
Oct 24, 09 16:05:26
I try to make it a point not to reply to comments when I can avoid it or it doesn't really create a productive discussion, but I'm tilted enough to break my own rules.
Yes, I am a pretentious ass at times sure, and I do have an ego in regards to how good I am at poker. That is no secret and it would be pretty impressive if I did not have an ego. As to whether the J high call I made and my defense of it is worthy of ridicule, I'm not really sure and I don't really care. That being said, I try to be level when I can and honest about myself and honest to others about who I am and what I'm about. Sometimes my desire to express myself intelligently gets the best of me, but trust me when I say that I do my best. I'm young, I'm learning.
TrevRob - you're right, and of course I'd be blind not to acknowledge that the fact that I have skill and the ability to make money makes my story objectively trivial - you might think, shit, the rich guy is a little less rich and will take a little longer getting richer. One thing that poker has taught me to appreciate is that framing these stories objectively can be helpful - sometimes a bit of perspective can make one's problems seem petty or insignificant, and one can essentially rationalize them away. But other times they are not, and other times the rationalization process can't overcome the fabric of reality that constructs that person's life. Poker is my livelihood, it's the thing I try the hardest at and focus the most on. When it goes poorly, I feel bad. I have different goals for myself than others, and whether or not some busto grinder in his parents' basement is making 100x less than me, when I fail I will feel like a failure. The people I talk to, the people around me, the people I subconsciously and consciously compare myself to are the same, the expectations that others have for me are the same. All I can really change are the expectations for myself. Ignoring everything else is doable, but it's not easy. These sorts of shifts are hard, and so the turmoil is justified.
Call me an ass if you will, but I do have the right to feel the way I do. But I also have the responsibility to move past what I feel. We don't perceive reality objectively, we perceive reality with respect to ourselves and our place in it.
Goddammit, there I go with the pseudo-intellectual BS again.
Oct 24, 09 16:30:44
in the end nothing is more motivating to a poker player than getting his ass handed to him; this will drive you to make much much more than it costs you long run
Oct 24, 09 19:39:21
It hurts; it feels like being thrown on an anthill & being bitten to death.
Self honesty is commendable, but being truthful is the most difficult thing of all. Truth requires us to be completely sober when we scrutinize ourselves, & the resulting benefits far outweigh those of being merely honest.
Oct 24, 09 20:16:49
Haseeb,
Your feelings are justified. You just lost over 500k. I would be upset too. I think writing about it in your blog will help you move on and be a better poker player. I love reading your feelings on poker and the swings it can take you on.
Good luck
Oct 24, 09 23:05:59
Haseeb,
The one thing you really need to remember as a result of this downswing is that you'll always be able to make it back. No matter what happens, your a skilled enough player to make the money back. Swallow your pride, move down, start grinding, and make it back.
You heads up videos are some of the best on the internet, I know without a doubt that you'll be back to the nosebleeds soon, just have faith and don't let it bother you.
gl
Oct 25, 09 00:39:45
It's clear you are beaten down emotionally right now. After you cool down I think you should try thinking about the real issues here.
It's probably a weird feeling to read comments attacking your personal nature, but hey that comes with the territory. My only comment on that is that you should really stop addressing negative statements towards you because getting defensive won't lead to any insight.
What I notice from your comment above is that you take success in poker as an indicator of your personal qualities to some degree (intelligence, diligence, etc) . If you are someone who has always been able to push through anything if you try hard enough, you probably make lots of untrue conclusions about what a loss like this means about you.
My random advice - You should try to accept that you are not entitled to success just by trying. Everyone has a limit and when you don't hit it until adulthood the fall hurts more. It's hard to accept, I know myself. Don't label your self things like "pseudo-intellectual", even if you only half believe it. Running good or bad does not correlate with character or personality, but you know that already. Lastly what are you doing sitting down with money you aren't comfortable losing? You have to have limits man.
Anyway, hope you come out of this Haseeb with some perspective. Let go of all the crap surrounding this and focus on the real issues.
Oct 25, 09 03:48:01
care to post the hands against isildur haseeb?? i know they were probably all 60/40 standard omaha situations but noone on 2+2 tracked any of them.
also this could've been avoided if you implemented a stop loss, i may be sounding like a little results oriented bitch (blah blah you could've made a comeback), but i think a stop less is the most important thing for a HU specialist. ~25 buyins is way too much to lose at HU in a day.
Oct 25, 09 15:28:09
I watched your match against Isildur and saw you lose a few flips and get coolered a few times. Why did you play such high stakes against him in such a high variance type of game, why didn't you just play him at 25/50 , or play 2-4 tables instead of 6-tabling 100/200??
Anyways, I'm sure you'll recover within the following months, hopefully you get a little run good to balance out that EV. Good luck at the tables.
Oct 25, 09 18:02:27
As big an event and impact that this has been, in the end it will only make you stronger. Keep your chin up and start grinding the lower limits and get your confidence back. You'll be fine.
Oct 25, 09 20:40:31
Building off sleepi's advice, have you thought about using this as an educational opportunity; displaying your stats and graph from the session, evaluating hands. Relating your mentality at various points of the match in relation to stop loss, playing your A game, all in EV etc. There is something to be learned from this rather than you ran bad or the poker gods don't like you.
Oct 25, 09 22:16:52
Its gonna feel that much better when you run well and CRUSH from here on out. Here's to a quick recovery
Oct 26, 09 08:49:46
who are you getting coached by?
really interested to know but its okay if you dont want to answer that
Oct 26, 09 13:18:21
haseeb, lets just go to pitch n' putt bro. it's at Riverside and S. Lamar behind Cabana and Paggi House. the place has soothing properties like no other place on earth. PM me about it :D
Oct 26, 09 13:22:52
Take it easy "varianceowns".
All good players are somewhat pretentious.
There very confidant and sometimes cross the line.
I admit, I was a little put off with his early post oh here but after a while, I saw that his posts where kinda "tougue and cheek" comments.
I think he has helped a lot of people on here with free coaching, giving away a few bucks, and he even answered me on fulltilt when I asked hima few poker questions and some personal ones.
Honestly, I think Hasseb has nothing to gain to come here and spill his losing sessions on here (many pros on here just talk about there winning session) except to continue to prove he is a class act.
Oct 27, 09 09:09:18
sounds like to me the ego was in control of you and you weren't in control of it…..
WISDOM = learned consequences
bt summed it up in a post when he mentioned he didn't want to lose 1.5m or whatever it was in a plo session when it has taken all year to build it up… he knows the consequences, in other words he is in control of his ego (ego parts more integrated)..however i see he is taking shots at \$1K-\$2K mix, so see how works out….
from my point of view you needed this lesson and it sucks, however you are where you are mean't to be, like all of us..…
gl…
Oct 27, 09 14:12:14
Just move down and stay moved down. Playing that high of stakes is just dumb for anyone. Except Ivey. Go crush 2knl or whatev and make a good living.
Oct 28, 09 09:00:30
IP-I know you acknowledged the massive variance in PLO in a previous blog. Has any high stakes player acknowledged that PLO is PURE LUCK at the high stakes? I've seen high stakes players "rationalize" the high levels of skill involved in PLO, but it seems like any pot that gets pumped up preflop has justification mathematically for shoving it in on the flop a huge amount of the time. How is there skill involved in that??? It seems like high stakes players "justify" playing high stakes PLO because of their egos or because they are somewhat degenerate gamblers (and I definitely don't put you in the degen gambler category). I would appreciate your input, IP, or for that matter, any high stakes player's input. GL
Oct 28, 09 14:16:29
Your blog shows that poker players go through all types of swings, but the good ones will always prevail in the long run. My blog http://ndirish1414.blogspot.com/
is about similar subject matter. If any inexperienced players are interested, I give advice on there, and you can leave comments and I'll get back to you.
ndirish1414
Oct 29, 09 13:31:27
Think of this as the biggest downswing in your poker career (including future). Think of how much better you are going to deal with lesser downswings - maybe you wont feel them at all.
Now summon all your strength and go crush please. Kuzzucan.
Oct 29, 09 13:39:10
kinda feel bad for everyone who plays u on the way back up. good luck, u'll be fine
Oct 30, 09 09:22:31
billions of people live below the poverty line. and now u have to stick to playing 10/20? boo Fing hoo.
Oct 31, 09 12:04:27
"I'm sure that you could probably make 2-300K a year in your sleep while coaching and playing smaller stakes in a low variance"
IP is obviously a good player but to suggest that he can make 300k in his sleep at lower stakes is hillarious. It takes alot of skill and alot of time invested to win today.
This loss cant be a shock. The best midstakes grinders lose 20bi on a regular basis in lower varience softer games. Most will suffer alot bigger ds to so as harsh as it sounds this post is std. If you cant take losing so much dont play so high.
Oct 31, 09 14:14:23
"PLO involves SKILL?????
IP-I know you acknowledged the massive variance in PLO in a previous blog. Has any high stakes player acknowledged that PLO is PURE LUCK at the high stakes? I've seen high stakes players "rationalize" the high levels of skill involved in PLO, but it seems like any pot that gets pumped up preflop has justification mathematically for shoving it in on the flop a huge amount of the time. How is there skill involved in that??? It seems like high stakes players "justify" playing high stakes PLO because of their egos or because they are somewhat degenerate gamblers (and I definitely don't put you in the degen gambler category). I would appreciate your input, IP, or for that matter, any high stakes player's input. GL
bobkill"
maybe he have a big ego, and a degenerate gambler
Oct 31, 09 17:53:05
I agree that it's not easy at all for most people to make 2-300K a year at online poker. However, if IP plays 30K hands a month of 10-20 at a 2.5 ptbb winrate, that will net him well over 300K for the year. That's not even counting coaching where he can make a ton of extra cash as well.
Given that IP has been a consistent winner at much higher stakes for so long I would think that he could do this without to much difficulty. However, I do agree that online poker is tough and only great players like IP can really be expected to be able to do this.
Nov 1, 09 07:42:32
One week without a blog!
I hope you've recovered from your downswing and grind a shitload.
Nov 9, 09 01:05:22
T_T
Print out a poster that cites the Law of Large numbers and think about all the theoretical dollars you are going to make in the future.
Nov 11, 09 15:26:41
this blog is too intelligent for me to read, but if it puts things in perspective durr lost 3 million to ikildurr1
Nov 12, 09 14:37:12
I will give you one tip, stay as far as you can from this swede. He is so good that now one can touch him :)
Nov 15, 09 16:33:40
Come on, blog please, your blogs are the best along with Cole's.
Nov 16, 09 15:18:24
Keep your head up Haseeb, your a great player and you'll be back on the winning track soon. GL
Nov 17, 09 02:48:22
it is starting to look like maybe you messed with the wrong guy in isildur. however, as you said you ran 400k below ev, so the session should have been -100k. so if you imagine that you'd taken on possibly the best online player in the world at the moment in 6 tables of hu omaha and should only have lost 100k then actually you've done quite well in my opinion.
you're an amazing player, and i'd back you to be the best in the world in a few years if anyone was offering odds. ride it out mate, and hope to see you back in the hunt soon
Nov 18, 09 12:27:24
rolf, i never seen what the fascination was about haseeb's game. the ultimate nit bumhunter with no sickness in his game what so ever.
haseeb, you would have been better off writing a shorter story about how you became part of the poker ecology. eventually the bottom feeder gets run off........just like you.
Nov 18, 09 17:02:34
Come on with ur stupid 400k below ev guys! losing 500k running 400k below ev does NOT necessarily mean that he played bad. Thats just ignorant reasoning. The EV graph shows EV for ALL-IN situations and if u think a little bit further beyond the numbers you would realise that there could be potential coolers in big pots where u get it in bad vs FI´s holding BUT good vs his range and there could also be situations where u get sucked out on and have to call river with all in etc. All in all there could be ALOT of situations which would not show up correctly in the EV graph.
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I was working on some poker writing when with some Googling, I came across some quotations about poker from various people in Western culture. I found the rift between their romanticism of the game and the ironclad analyticity with which I view poker to be jarring. It almost made me feel a little sad. Well, I’ll let them do the rest of the talking. - Walter Matthau There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a "flush." It is enough to make one ashamed of the species. - Mark Twain "How long does it take to learn poker, Dad?" Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens. - John Lukacs A person should gamble every day, because think of how bad it would be to walk around being lucky and not know it. - Robert Turner Whether he likes it or not, a man’s character is stripped at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life. - Anthony Holden Poker is the only game for a grown man. Then, your hand is against every man's, and evern man's hand is against yours. Teamwork? Who ever made a fortune by teamwork? - Somerset Maugham The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent. - David Mamet [Poker is] as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find outside an advertising agency. - Raymond Chandler And so it goes. It’s amazing how when I think about poker, the manifestation that most viscerally occurs to me is this mechanical game that I play on my computer, but poker – card games in general, have been a part of the human experience for hundreds of years. It’s an almost amazing idea that somehow I’ve reached near the pinnacle of that expression of skill – and yet I feel as though I have nothing that this game seems to promise. It’s strange. Mae West: Is poker a game of chance?
Well, I have to write another blog post, but I really didn’t feel much like writing anything this week. After making a pretty positive declaration about how I was going to revamp my poker game, I ended up running terrible and losing another 130k, putting the running total on the downswing at a solid 500k, so I decided to take another week off the game to keep myself from getting overly depressed. It’s been frustrating to keep pulling myself up just to get knocked down again. So I haven’t touched the game since Wednesday. I’m probably going to start up again tomorrow, but I don’t really want to dwell on it, so I decided to enlist some help for my blog entry this week – admittedly lazier, but at least it’s something.
[Poker] exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.
"All your life, son."
- Michael Pertwee
W.C. Fields: Not the way I play it.
Until next week.
Sep 7, 09 01:46:04
cool blog. Cant believe you didnt find this quote: "poker sucks"
-whoteen
Sep 7, 09 03:43:52
Keep ur chin up. Ironically having your worst downswing (I assume its ur worst) is a step towards your progression.
Sep 7, 09 09:01:12
i'm curious if you use a thesaurus when you write your blogs or if your parents beat you with a stick when you were younger and forced you to memorize the entire dictionary. sometimes the "big" words you use just make you look academically arrogant, which i suppose is okay but unnessecery when most people don't even know what phrases such as "ironclad analyticity" even mean.
Sep 7, 09 23:40:37
Thanks again IP always enjoy your posts. I appreciate the richness of your vocabulary.
Sep 8, 09 06:04:37
You are too smart for this game, the intellectual aspect of which is quite limited.
The rest being luck, take your winnings as its gift
and invest your abilities in something that produces
more nonmonetary value for yourself and others.
You'll find it much more rewarding, emotionally and intellectually.
Sep 10, 09 16:44:03
Might be time to invest in some tilt items : / i.e. stuff that's fun to break. A \$200 computer might be fun, Matusow style u can chuck it into a pool after a big loss and start a collection at the bottom of your pool...
Sep 10, 09 19:56:04
A great author who never wrote what you say he did. He was talking about chess. Read him anyway--great stuff.
Sep 14, 09 01:57:33
his phillip marlowe series is one of my favorites
Sep 20, 09 02:52:57
hey its now another week and you haven't blogged. I hope I win the hour of free coaching. gl sir.
Sep 20, 09 21:31:28
I saw you complain when u was playing against Snus123:
Dealer: Snus123 has 15 seconds left to act
Haseeb Qureshi: yo let's play 50/100?
Dealer: Haseeb Qureshi has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: Snus123 has 15 seconds left to act
Haseeb Qureshi: jesus christ how can u run this good
Dealer: Snus123 wins the pot (\$8,099.50)
Dealer: Hand #14832687842
Dealer: Snus123 wins the pot (\$100)
Dealer: Hand #14832690742
Dealer: Haseeb Qureshi wins the pot (\$100)
I think thats enought to get the 200\$ bounty...
I am ATKZ1234 on full tilt. Ship it ;o)
Thank you and gl
Sep 23, 09 01:50:04
Robert Turner quote is good. Showed your graph to a couple people to motivate them by belittling their "downswing".
Also, mememe for coaching obv.
Sep 23, 09 12:32:20
I enjoy reading your blog, some of the entries have been incredible. Still it often seems that you don't seem to write it every week. Why are you forcing yourself to do so?
Rather than seing one post every now and then where you complain about downswings I'd much rather wait a while longer and read a masterpiece.
That said I loved the qutes :)
Sep 23, 09 21:21:54
if one hand is fapping in the woods but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
but srsly hope u run better
Sep 26, 09 06:13:25
First of all, sorry about the downswing. I don't read many blogs but I read yours because it is always interesting and not just rambling about some party you went to or where you had dinner last night.
I also noticed its been quite a while since you blogged, if you are still giving away free coaching sign me up!
Sep 26, 09 21:27:20
How have i managed to go so long without reading your blog, just began playing catchup and i look forward to future weeks entries.
Sep 26, 09 21:27:25
How have i managed to go so long without reading your blog, just began playing catchup and i look forward to future weeks entries.
Sep 28, 09 10:23:19
I'm sure you'll pull through the downswing. You're too good to keep losing.
Oct 1, 09 09:10:37
nie blog man, its crazy that your not even over 21, yet you thinking is so deep. poker and life wise. anywayz hopefully your out of the ds.
Oct 1, 09 19:35:54
There is a lot of chance involved in the pokers..
Id take a free lesson. Good luck.
Oct 3, 09 01:51:34
LOL. So many ppl dedicated to this blog now. We're going on 4 weeks there Haseeb. Thats 4 lessons if I can count... and I CAN count!
Oct 12, 09 15:08:31
sick downswing. a lot of interesting quotes you found here, hopefully your october is going much better.
Oct 16, 09 14:27:14
Assuming that your hourly for coaching is 500/hr, the immediate EV for someone posting in your blog =
int((# of days since last blog post - 1)/7)*500/(# of ppl who responded to your blog)
I just made $48 in EV, sweet.
Oct 18, 09 00:25:14
I too would like some coaching...lemme know
Hope the crazy DS flips around
Oct 18, 09 12:50:03
Just wanted to add that if I win a coaching lesson I'll donate \$100 to charity.
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This graph is obviously not complete; it’s missing a some hands, and because the action at high stakes was so convoluted (lots of action taking and selling, etc.) and it really skewed the graph, I decided to just exclude everything 200/400 and above for simplicity. And it’s missing some hands, but didn’t really feel like scavenging for them before posting this so whatever. In total, I’m down about 120k more than this on the month, which is the cherry on top that makes this my worst month ever. Basically, ran bad and played okay. Overall I’m not too thrilled with how I played, especially in NLHE. In PLO I played pretty well and my game has been moving forward slowly, but my NLHE game has definitely stagnated and looking back I see that I’ve been too focused on PLO to be very disciplined about my NLHE play. I need to start focusing more and paying more attention to some leaks that I’ve noticed I’ve developed, which is sort of stupid because I never expected my NLHE game to degrade while my PLO game was improving. I guess I was a bit nave and sort of assumed that I could auto-pilot through NLHE games while working on PLO and it’d just be extra money on top. I need to apply more focus and review sessions more often. Nosebleed action didn’t really work out too well, but given that I’ve been playing so much 100/200 PLO, taking a hit like this is inevitable. I’ve run significantly under expectation in the last four months, but (supposedly) it’s only a matter of time until I hit some comparably hot run. I tell myself that, but poker doesn’t give a shit. It’s equally as likely from this point forward that I run soulcrushingly bad or run mindbogglingly good. Hoping that poker will eventually make amends is a waste of effort and a pointless fantasy. The only thing I can do is regroup, re-evaluate, and move forward. It sucks and has wiped out a lot of profits, but I’m a poker player, so dealing with bullshit like this is what defines whether or not I’m cut out for this job. I expected to feel depressed, but that hasn’t really set in at any point during this downswing. I guess if the loss is momentous enough, then it’s hard to be depressed so much as rattled. So, I start again, move down a little, rebuild confidence, work on my game and my mentality some more, and try to scrounge together some more bankroll. This is poker, I suppose. Riding the wave, making the adjustments, re-evaluating my perspective every now and then. This game sucks, but here I am. I decided to set some goals to work on and help me keep rebuilding with a constructive mindset. I guess I’ll rate myself in my next blog post about how well I’ve fulfilled these goals. Number seven is an idea that I got from Stoxpoker “mental coach” Jared Tendler. Basically, I keep a notebook on my desk that at the end of every session, I write how the session went, any thoughts I had about the session, any mental notes to myself, and any mistakes or leaks I thought I might’ve had. I also try to write through any psychological issues I may be feeling. Then at the beginning of the next session I play, I read back through the last couple of entries before beginning my session. This keeps up a dialogue with myself that I think is tremendously valuable for me to organize my thoughts, work on problems that I notice with myself, and keep track of all of my poker-related ideas so I don’t lose any of them. I think it’s a shame that I haven’t used this for that long, because I’ve had a lot of good ideas that I would forget by the next time I returned to session – writing something down at the end of every session makes it so that I don’t forget anything, and every idea that I have has the chance to be fleshed out and implemented. Also helps to defuse emotions after a bad session, so it’s something that I’d highly recommend. The log is not so much for monetary accounting as it is for emotional and strategical accounting. Anyway, gotta get my head on straight and start up again a bit lower. All is still well and the gears still churn. Also, one thing I need to start working on more is this goddamn blog. I think I’ve always felt a little intimidated about posting here, that I needed to have something creative or interesting to justify writing a blog entry, so I tended to shy away when I had a bit of a mental block. I think it’s probably better if I just vomit some shit out every week and not really care that much that I’m very interesting every time I post something. So, fuck it. Also, I missed two weeks so two random commenters from last week get some coaching. The winners this week are kingc11 and Shrewww, so PM me for your hour of coaching. Also, for those of you who are interested in antagonizing me, "obv OT, but i've gotten sick of myself lately so in the spirit of HSNL going to offer this: So, if you manage to catch me being a bitch (this blog and my general personality excluded), ship me a PM on here or 2p2 with some evidence thereof and I’ll send you $200. A few bounty hunters have already cashed in, so everybody chip in to try to run me into the ground! That’s all for this week. Here’s a video a friend showed to me the other day, it’s a bit old so some of you might’ve seen it before but it’s pretty whack. Some Russian pop singer.
Well, poker has just delivered a spectacular roundhouse kick to my face. I can’t think of anything clever to say, so I’ll just post a graph so that you have something to look at as trudge your way through the inevitable tearfest.
next time you see me complain about poker, including but not limited to :
""posting about running bad on 2p2
posting an unspectacular beat to demonstrate how bad i'm running
complaining anywhere in chat while playing about running bad, even something like "ffs" or "fml" or "asdf"
anything else you can think of that might qualify
gets $200 from me.
that is all. carry on."
Aug 29, 09 07:23:00
Damn, really hope that things turn around for you soon IP. Also, kinda hope that you forget to blog next week and i get an hrs coaching. Mainly the first thing tho i guess
Aug 29, 09 07:40:04
Looks like a tough month, hang in there man. I think it's cool that you're willing to suck it up and move down rather than being all like "fuck that, there's nothing wrong with my game" and trying to keep grinding it out...I wish I could apply that lesson to myself =/
Aug 29, 09 08:21:45
Hope your "luck" catches up with you and you get a fantastic turn around in the near future. Great points, I need to record sessions and review and go back to the goal setting and reviewing I'd back before and after each session. All the best.
Aug 29, 09 08:25:25
Though luck, it will turn around. Variance is a bitA**. More PLO vids, I like your hand range analysis.
Aug 29, 09 08:35:25
yikes. turn it around, and give me some coaching while you're at it!
Aug 29, 09 10:58:56
youre extremely intelligent and a hell of a poker player, youre gonna crush in this rebuilding phase
Aug 29, 09 12:38:57
ship the \$200 as this is a whine blog post :P . but seriously i think you should run so much better considering how much free coaching you give out. like wtf?
Aug 29, 09 12:48:52
PLZ to be making your HU matches into training videos sir, I've learned so much from your videos you should put out at least 1 per day!!
Kidding obv but seriously, I'm just gettin started HU so please don't update this blog next week.
Aug 29, 09 13:34:50
rolf, take shots at weak players?
all you ever do is play weak players.
thats why you always get hit and run on.
you didnt even want to play martonas.
seriously haseeb, stop trying to fool everyone and yourself that you are some sort of sick player.
your the biggest bumhunting nit at those levels.
Aug 30, 09 01:18:16
xlnt idea from thje stox poker guy about having a mini "journal" to write in before/after every session. I dont know why I have never done that.
I guess its never too late to start though,
GL in your downswong.
Aug 30, 09 10:38:51
Everybody has their dark days, but fortunately you're able to suck it up and move on.
Excellent points too, I never really thought about making comments on my state of mind after a session.
All I can really say is, I hope I play as bad as you someday, I would make many monies.
Aug 30, 09 18:00:21
do i get 200\$ if i get a screenshot of u saying "bing blang blaow" lol. =)
Aug 30, 09 18:41:23
im semi broke now due to having blown my bankroll on drunken nights at least 20 times but would take free coaching... ready to make a sick run.
Aug 30, 09 20:52:14
IP: it helps me to follow your story every week (or every few weeks) as a peer in seeking the finer points of the beautiful game as well as discovering whether one is fit or not to make a living through its means. Holla
Aug 30, 09 22:14:50
I recently made a list of poker goals. for some reason it is very hard for me to follow, but I find when I do I play and feel much better about life and my game. It's just a matter of making yourself follow through. Make sure you do and you will be glad you did in the end.
Aug 30, 09 23:21:20
If you want a second opinion of your play I'd happily review your hands for you.. pm me
Aug 31, 09 00:44:32
Wow that video really sucked until the 2:24 mark.... then it became unbearable.
Aug 31, 09 08:09:56
That video is whack, but he's a good singer, I just don't know wtf he is saying.
Aug 31, 09 09:50:16
Great blog post as always.
I read something each time that helps my game.
I'm a fellow longhorn also.
Hook em!!
sdplayer
Aug 31, 09 14:21:58
BAM! lucky winner, ive PM'd you..i think. Hopefully what i did was right. If not get back to me, thx!
Aug 31, 09 14:22:38
I'll be honest, I am just posting this in case you somehow forget to write a new blog post soon enough.
run better, and forget to post,
Stake Monster
Aug 31, 09 18:05:42
I like the goals, I think I'll implement some of them myself.
Random coaching obv, etc, gl.
Sep 4, 09 20:09:42
as always nice read, my favorite poker bloger :D
GL MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!! hope u crush them
Sep 20, 09 21:29:10
I saw you complain when u was playing against Snus123:
Dealer: Snus123 has 15 seconds left to act
Haseeb Qureshi: yo let's play 50/100?
Dealer: Haseeb Qureshi has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: Snus123 has 15 seconds left to act
Haseeb Qureshi: jesus christ how can u run this good
Dealer: Snus123 wins the pot (\$8,099.50)
Dealer: Hand #14832687842
Dealer: Snus123 wins the pot (\$100)
Dealer: Hand #14832690742
Dealer: Haseeb Qureshi wins the pot (\$100)
I think thats enought to get the bounty ;o)...
I am ATKZ1234 on full tilt.
Thank you and gl
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So I missed three whole weeks of blogging, since I am a bad person. Yeah, that’s right. Since I missed three weeks, I owe three people who commented on the previous week’s blog an hour and a half of coaching each. The lucky winners are Mobeer, Zaitsev, and McSemilian; PM me to redeem your indentured servitude. Also, I’m going to go ahead and revise the terms of the coaching deal such that from now on for every week I miss I only owe 1 hour of coaching instead of 1.5, since this is adding up pretty quick. Poker’s going pretty decent. Ended July up around 130 after a lot of swinging, and this month I’m up a little, around 30k. Not much of a foothold given the variance in the games I play, but it’s something. It’s odd – on the first day of the month I showed my graph to Citizenwind, in which I was up 100k, then had a huge drop all the way down to -40k, and then finished out at +11k, and I was telling him how disappointing it was. He couldn’t really understand what there was to complain about if I won 10k on the day, but when you’re playing a game like Omaha, winning an amount in any given day isn’t quite the same as it is for other kinds of poker players. If you’re a tournament player and you cash in an FTOPS event for 50k, if you look at your graph, there’s a solid and in a sense irrefutable spike on your graph. It’s very unlikely that you will run bad enough in tournaments that you’ll slowly lose your way through that 50k in tournament buyins before making another significant cash, so you can kind of count on that 50k being part of your score on the month. For an NLHE player, it’s similar. The graph of an NLHE player generally looks like a straightish line with a few peaks and troughs every now and then. On the other hand, the graph of a PLO player is a fucking seismic chart, jumping around everywhere and occasionally exploding upwards or taking a nosedive. A 10k bump on this graph is meaningless; you’re still just as uncertain as to whether you’ll end up or down a ton on the month. Being +100k then isn’t so much 100k in your wallet as it is a pretty good buffer to not end the month down. That’s kind of how I think I’ve started to look at sessions. I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing, but I think it’s kind of natural when exposed to this sort of variance. Anyway, I’ve come up with a new topic fo
