#625 – My Q & A with ThePokerPod.com Forum

My friends at ThePokerPod.com Forum have been encouraging their members to play my charity tournament, so they asked me to submit to a Q & A session with their members. (In case you forgot, I’m hosting a tournament on Full Tilt this Sunday, December 21, at 18:00 ET. It’s $5 + $5 NLHE with all the juice going to Relay For Life, an American Cancer Society charity. The password is “relay”.)

They just posted the questions and answers and I thought I’d do the same. There were some good questions and, if I say so myself, some good answers.

1. Hello Michael, thank you for taking the time to answer questions with us! I love your book The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King, which i read last year. If you had to pick 3 pros to join you in  a “corporation” to play Guy Laliberté in a series of similiar high stakes games played entirely online, who would you choose? TYVM Gonzo

Dear Gonzo:  It’s very hard picking a few superlative poker players out of all the greater poker players around.  In addition, I don’t follow the big online cash games very closely.  But if I were forced to choose, these would be my choices:  Phil Ivey, Phil Ivey, and Phil Ivey.

Do you really want me to have to commit beyond Phil? If I had to pick more players, Patrik Antonius and Tom Dwan wouldn’t be bad choices.  Brian Townsend probably could do pretty well in that game, and there are few others like Phil Galfond, who I simply don’t know much about.
2. Michael, what pieces of advice would you give someone who not only wants to turn pro but has a passion for teaching the game to others also?  thx Slo’Mo

Dear Mo:  Play as much as you can and keep an open mind.  You can learn from bad players; you can learn that you are wrong about things; you can learn things that are counter-intuitive. If it is your destiny to become a professional and a teacher of the game, that will eventually happen if you play a lot and keep an open mind.
3. Hello Michael, and thanks for taking time for us. My question is a little more personal. Are you a family man, and if so, how do you keep a healthy balance between playing and family? Thanks again for your time sir. RonnieG63

Ronnie:  I’ve been married for 27+ years and have 3 kids, 19, 17 & 12. Here is how I strike the balance:  (1) my wife and kids realize that when I am playing poker – online at home or when traveling and playing at tournaments – that is my livelihood.  I am around a lot of times when other husbands and fathers aren’t but I need this time to do my job. (2) When I am not in some priority tournament, I should not just be available to my family, but I should seek them out. I try to take advantage of the unstructured nature of professional poker. (3) There will always be another poker game or tournament, so try to avoid missing things because of poker.
4. Thank you for doing this for us!  I have had the pleasure of actually sitting with you in some of these tournies.  My question:  When UTG with a hand …I will raise usually 3 to 3.5bb but I have also limped & then called a raise.  I have been told I should never ever limp UTG.  What are your thoughts?  I limp maybe 10% of the time. TY mizz Behavin

Dear Mizz: When do you limp and when do you raise?  If the answer is anything other than “randomly” then you are giving out information, information that you are not giving out if you always raise when entering a pot.  And if you think that you are being random, examine if that is truly the case. Are you really as likely to limp with A-A as you are with 4-4? And why would you ever want to limp with A-A? The surest way to go broke is to limp with pocket aces and have to play an unraised multi-way pot. In addition, you have the worst position at the table.  If you want to play a hand UTG, you should want to discourage players with a positional advantage from entering the pot.
5. Hi Michael,  Thank you for agreeing to do this interview for us. Do you ever get tired of playing poker? If so, how do you deal with it? I’ve just done the FT Ironman challenge for 7 months and i am so tired that i have no desire to play anymore….cant seem to find motivation and just play badly when i do play…any advice? Pammy (aka xSilent_Knightx)

I’ve had that happen before Pammy, though it is likely I will try to keep playing because (a) I’m hot, or (b) I’m due. By all means, take a break when that happens.  If you’re playing for your livelihood, the game will always be there and it’s hard to imagine you could play your best when you are unmotivated.  And if you are playing for fun or fun-and-maybe-income, the activity has to be … well … fun. Trust me, if you take some time away, you will start getting anxious to play again.
6. Let me start with a little background. At the start of the 2007 Series, Michael Craig released The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide -Tournament Edition, which he edited and wrote with Andy Bloch, Richard Brodie, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Rafe Furst, Phil Gordon, David Grey, Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow,Huckleberry Seed, Keith Sexton, and Gavin Smith. My question is – How difficult was it to collaborate with that many different pros? ty hellbilly

Dear Billy:  It was an embarrassment of riches.  Because I was interested in, both as a collaborator and as a player, learning what these great pros had to share, the only issue was whether they would give me enough time to let me find out everything I could. Without exception, these players were generous with their time so it was never an issue.  In many instances, like with Chris Ferguson and Andy Bloch, I developed friendships with these players and considered the time spent with them seeking poker knowledge as a fun adventure. That left me with piles of transcripts and audio files to turn into the organized prose that became the Strategy Guide. That process was – well, that’s just part of the magic that makes me an author.
7. What’s one thing in your life, you are the most proudest of??? Sin! (aka TheNWrazor)

That James Woods and Jennifer Tilly have asked for MY autograph.
8. Which do you enjoy more, playing the game of poker or interpreting the action of the game in your books and articles? Best of the season to you and yours Michael and thank you for all you do with the charity tournaments.
Cheekysmom

Cheek:  If there’s a really great story to uncover and write, I would rather do that than ANYTHING. But my standards are very high, and I don’t know if there are any poker stories better than the ones I have already been lucky enough to cover. In the meantime, I enjoy playing a lot.
9. Thank you for taking the time out to answer questions for us, My question is If you could choose 8 people at the final table with you who would you choose and why?  momma_21_21

Well Momma: My goal at the poker table is always to win money so I would pick people from whom I think I can win money. In no particular order: Helen Keller (she can’t pick up any tells on me), Marilyn Monroe (not a poker player from what I understand + dead), JFK (see Marilyn Monroe), Elvis (probably dead, not a poker player, not careful with money), Pablo Escobar (shouldn’t drug kingpins be suckers at poker?), Saddam Hussein (dead, or see Pablo Escobar), Jimmy Hoffa (still waiting for him to return to the table), Michael Jordan (lots of money, got a lotta gamble, I hear he enjoys a good cigar).
10. Thx for taking the time, Who is the toughest player you have played live and/or online?  Bobbyde8

Bobby:  I always say that I need to eliminate just one player per tournament: the runner up.  Predictably, just about all the top pros have been fierce competitors at the table; Andy Bloch owns me and having Phil Ivey to my left was an unholy terror.

But the toughest player has to be Michael Craig. First, if I didn’t believe that, I’d have no business putting my family’s money at stake on poker. Second, your toughest opponent is always yourself. I have learned that advancement in poker is like crossing a series of bridges. Each bridge represents skills you have to master to continue. The first bridge is probably very simple things like the rules of the games and the importance of protecting your hand.  Gradually, you learn about position, semi-bluffing, isolating certain opponents, etc. Later on the bridges involve reading opponents and creating the right environment for action. The last bridge, I believe, is about conquering yourself.
11. With all the on-line cheat software and bots are you comfortable playing in high money games on-line? Thx sandman0069

Sandy:  I don’t know because I play just tournaments online, no high money games. And I play all my online poker on Full Tilt, a site I’m not just affiliated with but believe is a fundamentally honest operation. I wrote a blog about this very subject recently.
12. Hello Michael, Here’s a scenario, you been card dead throughout a mtt and you’ve been lucky enough to make to where you’ve made back your entry fee and a bit. Now by card dead I do mean cold carded.Your stack is due to a few good hands you were able capitalize on to the max and a few bluffs lucky enough to see folds on the river when you had high card in the hole only. So far even your folds would have been a waste of chips as most of those hands saw decent laydowns where you would have been called and lost had you played them.

Now you’re an orbit away from the next pay level, with the chips to get that far probably. Do you limp here for the cash and likely call it a day unless you see a sudden change in your cards or do you push with the first reasonable hand and hope for the best and maybe get enough chips to take you deeper?

Keep in mind the way the cards have been and that at this point your stack isn’t threatening and will likely be called by a stack with a playable set.

Personally I’d limp and call it a day I should have skipped poker, but then again I don’t earn my living from poker. With good reason   Pike60

Dear Pike:  Especially once I have made it into the money, my goal is to win (or finish in one of the top few spots). The money in tournaments is so concentrated among the last few players that I consider it almost always worthwhile to gamble rather than hang around for a slightly higher payoff. Naturally I want to find the right hand to put my chips behind. It would be nice to pick up aces or kings but if I don’t have that luxury almost any hand will do. Remember, 3-2 is just a 2-to-1 underdog against A-K. When you add in the blinds and antes, you are not getting a bad price to play almost any hand. If possible, I would rather have a hand like T-9 than A-5. When you are low on chips, you can count on just about anyone with an ace calling you. It’s better to have two live cards than to be dominated with a weak ace.
13. Hi Michael, thanks for doing this. I think its a great thing that you do for the charity’s and a good way that us mortals can play against some big names.  Do you have difficulty recruiting the pro’s to come and play?

Do you ever feel any of the top players have just had a long streak of luck and don’t really deserve the acolade they get?  If so who?(leading question hahahaha) Thanks Spozzy  (hope you will be blogging about me some day LOL)

Dear Spozz:  If you wanna know which pros truly deserve their success, look at the list of red names at the top of my Relay For Life tournament, Sunday, December 21 on Full Tilt at 18:00 ET. (The password is “relay”.) The pros who will not be participating in that tournament have merely been lucky all these years, except for Howard Lederer, who told me he couldn’t play that day because he was traveling. 
14. Which do you prefer ?  Casino – (real life) or Online – (sit in your computer room) FUN ? Also, what do you do about the numb butt syndrome ? lol Thx Michael, TomRoc

Dear Mike/Tom: I adore playing live tournament poker, but (a) I have a family, (b) there is the time, travel, and expense of live poker, and (c) I’m lazy. I think online tournament poker is a better value than all but the biggest and best live tournaments. As far as numb butt syndrome (NBS) is concerned, hopefully someone will care enough to sponsor a telethon to wipe out this dreaded affliction. (Ironically, a charity poker tournament would not be a good idea because of the anticipated outbreak of NBS.) In the meantime, get a comfortable chair and use the break time to take a walk.

   
15. Thank you for your time to answer some questions! Which poker books are absolutely essential to read for everyone who wants to become a successful player, and in which order??  Ozoone

Ozzy:  I know for sure you need to read The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide -Tournament Edition. Somewhere near the top of your list should also be The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King.  After that…who can say?

Seriously, though I recommend both those books very highly, anything that challenges your brain and that you can try out at the tables (for good or bad) is worth your while. There are, however, some obvious choices like the SuperSystem books, Mike Caro’s Book of Tells, Joe Navarro’s book about tells, just about anything written by Sklansky and Malmuth, and any of Dan Harrington’s books. There are plenty more; if you are able to read it and try it out, it is automatically a good thing.

But don’t be too narrow in your reading. It takes more than a poker manual to make a poker player. Books like Katie Lederer’s Poker Face, Al Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town, Anthony Holden’s Big Deal, and even Peter Alson’s Confession’s of an Ivy League Bookie, provide great insight into the lives of people who gamble for a living.

You could even go further afield. For example, Howard Lederer once told me that Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb saved him a million dollars.  Anything that encourages you in critical thinking about games is a good thing.

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