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TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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Hey guys,
I've been loitering the TPE forums a little more recently, and I thought just for the hell of it I would follow Killingbird's lead (from the thread below this one) and give you guys the chance to ask me some questions and get to know me a little better, since I'm so new to the TPE pro roster. Everyone loves to be the centre of attention, so feed my ego and ask me stuff! 
Matt 'theginger45' Hunt
TPE Management
April 6, 2010
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Was the Breaking Bad finale all you had hoped it would be?
October 6, 2010
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TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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Killingbird said:
Was the Breaking Bad finale all you had hoped it would be?
It went in the complete opposite direction to how I thought it would go, but yeah, I loved it. I thought it was perfect.
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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bennymacca said:
do gingers really have no soul?
I can confirm this is 100% true. I am, despite appearances, completely dead inside.
TPE Management
April 6, 2010
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Did you ever post a picture of your grind station? I know you had some shipping issues, but post it when its done!
October 6, 2010
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would love your thoughts on the thread that i have just published. i dont mean this in a rude or bad way, but your recent podcast where you mentioned that you were not going to be in poker forever got me thinking how that related to poker as a career compared to a professional
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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Killingbird said:
Did you ever post a picture of your grind station? I know you had some shipping issues, but post it when its done!
I don't think I did, partly because I never took a very good photo of it. I will do at some point, but one of my monitors is down right now so it looks a bit weird.
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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bennymacca said:
would love your thoughts on the thread that i have just published. i dont mean this in a rude or bad way, but your recent podcast where you mentioned that you were not going to be in poker forever got me thinking how that related to poker as a career compared to a professional
Great thread. Heading there to post right now.
Might be a none of my business answer but gonna ask anyway.
When we hear about the earnings of pros it is always he cashed for this and cashed for that, has lifetime cashes of X etc.
Never hear about how much is spent on buy ins that don't produce cashes. If a pro has 5 milion in earnings for life, what is a good guess on what his profits actually are minus all the buy in costs of tourneys whether they cash or not? How about taxes?
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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Mateo said:
Might be a none of my business answer but gonna ask anyway.
When we hear about the earnings of pros it is always he cashed for this and cashed for that, has lifetime cashes of X etc.
Never hear about how much is spent on buy ins that don't produce cashes. If a pro has 5 milion in earnings for life, what is a good guess on what his profits actually are minus all the buy in costs of tourneys whether they cash or not? How about taxes?
Sorry it took me so long to reply to this.
Ultimately there's no real answer to this question, because it's different for everyone. Lifetime cashes are a decent way of measuring someone's long-term ability to continually do well in poker tournaments, but they're a terrible metric for comparing one player to another.
Ordinarily, the profit figure for most players will be somewhere in the region of 20% of the total cashes figure, but there's so much variance within that calculation that it's of absolutely no real use to anyone. There are plenty of terrible poker players who've made a huge amount of money lifetime from one big score, and there are plenty of outstanding players who have run below EV for almost their entire careers. It's really a pointless exercise to try to use earnings or profit as a way to compare one poker player's skill to another, at least it is in tournaments.
Not to mention, the amount of actual money a player has earned and received in his or her bank account will always depend on things like backing deals, sold shares, taxes, unpublicised cash game winnings that we never hear about, etc etc ad infinitum. There's really absolutely no way of ever knowing how much money each individual player has made from poker. The only real truth is that almost no poker players out there are as rich as they probably appear to be, sadly.
Im new to online poker and a bit ignorant about some things.
What is rakeback and how does it work?
Thx.
July 3, 2010
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What one concept or theory do you think made the single biggest difference in your results once it “clicked”?
Skipping all the core essentials, that is … playing position, stack size awareness, etc. It's more of an advanced concepts question.
October 28, 2013
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Been reading your posts for quite a while now and have very much enjoyed them.
I take it you are still playing through a backing deal, what kind of bankroll do you think it would take to play on your own roll? And in turn what level of buy-in would you be looking to play with it?
Cheers
Andy
Well I guess he did say we could ask him anything. He never said he would answer. Got me on a technicality! Its alright, googled it.
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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Mateo said:
Im new to online poker and a bit ignorant about some things.
What is rakeback and how does it work?
Thx.
Hey Mateo, I'm sorry it's taken me a while to answer. I was away for a week at the UKIPT Isle of Man and have been busy working on my second video series so I lost track of forum posts I needed to reply to. I guess by now you found the answer to your question – glad to hear you got it sorted. If you have anything further to ask, I'd be happy to answer – I do need to make sure I check these forums more often!
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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FkCoolers said:
What one concept or theory do you think made the single biggest difference in your results once it “clicked”?
Skipping all the core essentials, that is … playing position, stack size awareness, etc. It's more of an advanced concepts question.
Honestly, for an MTT player this is absolutely impossible to say. Certainly, the only thing that makes a big difference to results over any given period is variance – even if I had a massive turnaround in my game and was playing twice as good as I did the week before for some reason, it would almost certainly not be reflected in my results.
Probably the biggest factor in making me play better though, in terms of playing at closer to 100% session-by-session as opposed to improving the front end of my game, was binking the Big 109 and having enough IRL money that I wasn't worried about downswings. It's absolutely immeasurable how important a factor it is to not feel like you “need to win”.
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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andy1861 said:
Been reading your posts for quite a while now and have very much enjoyed them.
I take it you are still playing through a backing deal, what kind of bankroll do you think it would take to play on your own roll? And in turn what level of buy-in would you be looking to play with it?
Cheers
Andy
Thanks man, glad you're enjoying my posts.
I don't have a huge amount of experience in BRM obviously, as I've been backed for the whole of my professional career, but if I were going to start out trying to make a living playing MTTs exclusively, there's no way I would start with less than $10,000, and I wouldn't go any higher with that than a $20 ABI to start with. Obviously the more turbos you play, the lower that ABI should be, and it's perfectly possible to start with a much lower bankroll and build up by mixing MTTs with lower variance games like SNGs and cash. I think it would be possible for a good player to start with $5k and build it up pretty quickly through multitabling low stakes cash games and 180-man SNGs.
The one thing that I'll add to this is that in reality, the key factor in your BRM decisions should your life-bankroll – if you have 2 years' worth of expenses saved up, you can afford to manage your bankroll aggressively and move up and down in limits if needed. If you only have a few months' money saved up, you really shouldn't be playing poker for a living (I did this, it was a huge mistake), and you especially shouldn't be playing exclusively MTTs unless you have some other kind of income to rely on. Real-life money should ALWAYS be your goal – if you're broke in real life then the $EV you make playing poker counts for nothing. Using bad BRM when broke IRL is probably an early indicator of a gambling problem.
September 20, 2012
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Ginger,
Really enjoyed the fairly recent podcast shortly after you joined TPE and hearing about your background. It is so nice to listen to people that have had success and are down to earth and stay hungry/humble. I posted this question in the general forums but I wanted the feeback of a more experienced MTT expert as well on how you would approach this situation. Appreciate any insight when you have time. Take care!
“Noticed I am having a problem in spots where I have an overpair or top pair top kicker on a non-draw heavy board, (e.g AK on a K49 rainbow board or QQ on a J26 rainbow board, etc.) and when to go with it for stacks or not. Obviously getting in a huge stack with one pair generally is a mistake but where I struggle more is the medium stacks and knowing a decent number of players at these stakes will get it in with top pair, weaker kicker or TPTK failing to consider anyone could actually ever have an overpair to the board or better. Of course, sometimes villains end up showing up with a set (seems pre-flop a lot of players at these levels are willing to call a re-raise with any pair in the hopes of binking a set or smashing the flop), two pair, or something that is actually better. I've had some MTT's lately where I end up losing my stack or a huge % of it because some guy called a reraise pre and hit there set or occassionally a not so obvious two pair but by the same token I hate folding to pressure as I have stacked an equal number of villains at these lower levels who commit to a weaker hand thinking you're bluffing or villain simply cannot let go of top pair as highlighted above.
I know stack sizes, stage of MTT, villain history, image, etc. are all factors on what to do but against a complete unknown when we are dealing with those mid-range stacks and the field is a mix of competents/incompetents if anyone has any tips for how they think is a good way to deal with these situations. Thanks for the feedback and good luck at the tables.”
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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serenitynow said:
Ginger,
Really enjoyed the fairly recent podcast shortly after you joined TPE and hearing about your background. It is so nice to listen to people that have had success and are down to earth and stay hungry/humble. I posted this question in the general forums but I wanted the feeback of a more experienced MTT expert as well on how you would approach this situation. Appreciate any insight when you have time. Take care!
“Noticed I am having a problem in spots where I have an overpair or top pair top kicker on a non-draw heavy board, (e.g AK on a K49 rainbow board or QQ on a J26 rainbow board, etc.) and when to go with it for stacks or not. Obviously getting in a huge stack with one pair generally is a mistake but where I struggle more is the medium stacks and knowing a decent number of players at these stakes will get it in with top pair, weaker kicker or TPTK failing to consider anyone could actually ever have an overpair to the board or better. Of course, sometimes villains end up showing up with a set (seems pre-flop a lot of players at these levels are willing to call a re-raise with any pair in the hopes of binking a set or smashing the flop), two pair, or something that is actually better. I've had some MTT's lately where I end up losing my stack or a huge % of it because some guy called a reraise pre and hit there set or occassionally a not so obvious two pair but by the same token I hate folding to pressure as I have stacked an equal number of villains at these lower levels who commit to a weaker hand thinking you're bluffing or villain simply cannot let go of top pair as highlighted above.
I know stack sizes, stage of MTT, villain history, image, etc. are all factors on what to do but against a complete unknown when we are dealing with those mid-range stacks and the field is a mix of competents/incompetents if anyone has any tips for how they think is a good way to deal with these situations. Thanks for the feedback and good luck at the tables.”
Thanks man, I really appreciate the kind words. Really glad you enjoyed the podcast.
As for some feedback on the problem you're having, it seems to me that the problem is that you're being results-orientated, and your brain is being dragged in two directions at once as a result. When you stack someone with an overpair, the results make you feel good, and you feel like you made the right play. Then, when a similar hand comes along and the opposite happens, you get stacked by a set, you feel bad. You feel like you made the wrong play.
What you need to do is separate yourself from how each situation turned out. Forget about what the villains actually ended up having. Download SliceEV (better than PokerStove), take a few of the hands that you're concerned about, and just run the EV calculations. Look at their HUD stats, look at their preflop ranges. Look at how each flop hits those ranges. Figure out whether it's realistic that they would be stacking off with worse. If not, look at alternatives. Don't be afraid to just call. Don't be afraid to fold. But look at the hand in detail, and look at both your range and your opponent's range. Most importantly, forget about what actually happened in the hand, because it's not relevant.
Every profitable decision you make in poker is going to have a variety of potential outcomes. You could make a very profitable play that results in you getting stacked 40% of the time, but if you stack the other guy 60% of the time, you're making money. Try to reconfigure your thought processes so that you're not thinking “maybe he has a set, but I hope he has top pair”. Instead, try to think “his range pretty wide here, he's going to have sets a small percentage of the time but top pair much more often”. Everything should be described in terms of ranges and equities.
If changing your thinking in this way is difficult, don't be discouraged. Just play more volume, keep working at it, and after more and more experience, your thought patterns will change. Just accept that stacking people sometimes and getting stacked other times is the way poker works, and take the time to analyse your decisions away from the table. If you do that, your understanding of these situations will deepen and your game will improve.
December 24, 2013
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ginger,
really really enjoyed hearing you speak on the podcast. youre very articulate and definitely come off in the exact demeanor i hope to find in people more educated than myself. it’s so much easier to learn from someone when they want to teach. my question for you is on backing. i live in florida, so i’m already shot in the foot as far as availability to online games goes. US facing sites still function, and some function well. there are loads of medium sized fields between 10 and 109, with prob like 80% gravitating under $33. i originally had a roll of about 5k and was playing a loose abi of like $15-20, but also playing the sunday major because it was half satellite winners. basically i considered that tournament to be extremely low variance given its nature (15 minute levels, over 100bb for a couple of hours of play, most tables having at 5 players willing to get it in (via check/calling) with top pair good kicker because they’re afraid of losing their tourney life, etc), so i justified it to myself to continue playing it. i final tabled it once, mincashed it once, busted right before the money in a 3x avg stack spot 6b jam spot KK<69s but lovedddd his play such a rad dynamic…man i miss playing regularly lol) anyway. the site i played on got rid of the vast majority of its schedule, so i cashed my roll and got a job. i now work a great job making about $17/hr after taxes. my roll was depleted through life necessities, though to be honest i didn't have nearly the roll i needed to live off of anyway. now that i have a job and savings capabilities, im trying to figure out how to best approach playing in the next 6 months. as much as i want to get back to playing the midstakes schedule on nights and weekends, it's not feasible or practical to start from 0 and deposit/play as normal/repeat when bust. the lack of a roll causes me to play weaker i feel. i recently resubscribed to tpe and feel far more confident in my game than i do 3 months ago. would it make more sense to save a few months and put a 50 buy-in roll together knowing that i can replenish again? or should i take that same savings and play far lower to prevent redeposits from being an issue. it would be nice to start saving more outside of rebuilding my roll sooner than i planned. there's also the possibility of searching for a backer. i spend probably 2 hours a day studying HH's and tpe vids. i have more time available to me if i so choose, so i'm seriously considering dedicating time to finding a midstakes backer. if i spent an hour a day, in a week i'd have so much more to showcase myself than i currently do (which is nothing). my game stats aren't impressive in my eyes, but i see losing players with full backing deals for my stakes and below outside of the US, and even winners with fewer games, so i'd like outside insight into the situation if possible.
…..:SCHEDULED
i don't know if that link works properly, but my names have been jacobshark jacobsharks jacobsharkta jacobsharktank
i was backed on lock by a local friend on lock at the beginning of the year who coached me regularly, but he has since stopped playing poker online.
so annoying to be as rambly of a person as i am, but i hope that comes off as intended. should i be focusing on finding a backer, playing far smaller again, or play far less until i can save to rebuild a short roll.
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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Thanks Jacob, I’m glad you enjoyed the podcast.
I have a lot of thoughts about backing, and you can PM me if you want to discuss it in detail. But here are my condensed thoughts on your three options:
1. Get a backer. Basically, if you’re going to get backed, you should get backed by an experienced backer who knows exactly what they’re doing. To put it bluntly, there are not going to be many of those around at the moment backing for US sites, so I think it is likely to be a fruitless search. Most of the top backers are backing European and Canadian players on Stars these days.
2. Play far smaller. This is by far your best option IMO. You should be playing at a level where the money doesn’t matter to you and losing doesn’t hurt you, because losing is always going to be a part of your routine. It will also give you the confidence to know you can beat the games at the lower limits.
3. Save and rebuild a roll. I think you should do this in conjunction with number 2, but don’t use it as an excuse to play higher. The following sentence is crucial – ***you should be playing at the highest level you have reasonable proof that you can beat, NOT the highest level you can afford***. Save and add to your roll periodically, but beat the games from the ground up. That’s what’ll help your game the most in the long run.
Hope that helps, and feel free to PM me any time.
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