I was driving to the gym this morning and I got inspired to write about why prop betting is important and why more people should be doing it. I also said on twitter that if I failed to write this today I would be paying out 1kusd to some lucky retweeter. This is a prop bet (more freeroll) that I will not be losing
What is a prop bet? In the poker world it is considered anything you might side bet on doing against another person. For example, some of the prop bets I've done are playing 50k hands in a day, playing 600k hands in a month. The bets don't always have to be as extreme as those, they can be as simple as you betting another person on who plays more hours that week (I did a bet like this before with some poor soul who did not have a chance )
Why do people prop bet? Some people do it because they see a chance to make a large amount of money assuming they are wiling to take on a good amount of action against. Some people want to challenge themselves. Some people want to try to make a name for themselves.
Okay, now that we got the basics out of the way, lets talk about why prop betting in poker is important for you to consider doing. The number one reason I initially did my first prop bet is because I really enjoyed the challenging of trying to do something that no one else had ever done before. Every prop bet doesn't have to be as dramatic as this but trying to do something where you are actually going to have to bust your ass to do can be an incredibly positive long term choice. If you are able to win the bet, your confidence will be super high and in the future you will feel much better taking on anything. Even when you fail at winning the bet, assuming you worked you ass off and tried your best, you will have a better understanding of what hard work in poker is. The confidence I have gained myself is something that will probably stick with me forever.
The easiest way to get a prop bet started is to come up with an idea and ask your friends what they think about it and if they want to make a small/big wager against. It might be something that you can compete against each other and that way you both push each other. Another way to get action is to post on the poker forum that you frequent and see if anyone is interested in betting against you. You will need set in place rules, a reliable escrow to hold the money, and a judge(s) to handle any problems that might come up for most prop bets. I think coming up with challenges that you and your friends can do is one of the best sources of motivation that exist in poker (outside of someone saying you don't understand the game you frequently play).
If you are at the small/micro stakes level and want to get your name out there, doing something crazy is the best way to do it. I know some people don't play poker to get any sort of recognition and only play for the money but I think most people enjoy being recognized for something. It can be a great way for you to meet new people that might be following along or that play in the same games you do. I met my San Diego roommate (without him I never would have moved to California) during my first prop bet when we started chatting on twoplustwo and then on Skype when we found out we lived close by. Networking like this can be important for your growth as a poker player. It can also be stepping stones to having a podcast that people enjoy watching .
I don't think most of this will be new information for the mid/high stakes guys out there but for the recreational/micro/small stakes guys this should be something you seriously consider doing more of. I think even for the more established players, taking on something very challenging could be what you need to bring back the passion for the game you once had. If anyone has any questions about anything, it could be a prop bet you have in mind or you might need a judge for your prop bet. Feel free to message me here in the comments, private messages or on twitter @joeingram1 or on facebook.
I also have a standing prop bet offer to anyone in the world for any type of PLO volume competition on Pokerstars
I was watching a video yesterday and a person mentioned how most people that start a business only focus on the short term roi and completely neglect long term roi (return on investment). I've never really said it in that way but I talk about this idea in a different way often with my girlfriend. I talk about how if I work really really really hard now, it will pay off huge in the long term. I can say this confidently now because this is the exact approach I took when I started playing poker about 6 years ago. People who are friends with me on facebook or follow me on twitter saw a point in time where I constantly talked about partying or raging non stop. I had spent the previous 4 years playing poker 8-10 hours/day and thinking about poker 24 hours/day with the idea that if I worked hard enough now, eventually I would be in an extremely comfortable place and be able to take a break and live life. I probably went out to really drink less than 10 times in my life before this point of my life. I lived out the stage of my life that most people experience when they are 18-23 but I was able to do it all around the world and do whatever I wanted to do.
I may have taken it a bit overboard but the lesson I indirectly taught myself is something I am able to apply again now to my life. The idea that if you work extremely hard, harder than anyone else around you, right now....you will put yourself in a position to have an extreme level of success. Doing this does require sacrifice and that is something most people do not know how to do. I've had many poker friends over the years who only looked at the short term who are now unable to play anymore, wishing they worked harder when they had the chance. I think its hard for most people to have that outlook who haven't achieved any success with what they are going for. Most people tend to not have the self-confidence and belief that it can be done. I've started applying this to learning basketball, how to dance, and playing instruments in the past months but I probably wouldn't have been able to had I not had the success with poker. The confidence you get from knowing you can do something if you really put in the work is real. I wish I knew how I was able to instill this into others that I talk about it with but all I can advise to people is that if you have the belief in yourself, put in the time and you give yourself a greater chance success will come.
You can apply this to poker and you can also apply this to anything you are doing with life
I think I meant for this to be longer but I don't get motivated to write much like this so I wanted to take the opportunity to put something down while I did
Thanks for the feedback I received on my last blog post talking about the 300 buyins in 31 days prop bet . A couple people had some really good ideas that I had previously thought about a bit and started thinking more about after. I do have an approach in my mind I would take but it would probably not be smart to post about it in regards to possibly getting action. I have a few different prop bet ideas I am thinking about trying but the first step is to officially get out of the country, my lease here in the states is up at the end of August and I need to decide in a couple weeks what I will be doing.
I've blogged on here about a couple of my podcasts and this time I wanted to write more about my latest podcast I did with the airport scammer Michael Borovetz. His story intially came to light on a 2p2 post http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/...-mccarran-airport-6-22-14-a-1454252/. The cliffs note version of it all is, he tries to scam someone at the airport for money with a sob story, he has apparently done this in the past many many times and it is posted about on the internet. He comes into the thread and tells his epic life story. Graduation from Penn State, developing a full blown gambling addiction, begging for money in casinos, living on the streets, losing multiple jobs, multiple felonies, scamming at the airport and a bunch of other fun things. At some point the sports website Deadspin http://deadspin.com/poker-addict-and-...mmer-spills-his-life-story-1598124425 linked to his story and the thread on 2p2 and it exploded even further with people giving there opinions on both sides of the spectrum.
I had been following the story a bit and was intrigued/entertained by it all. It seemed like people had a lot of questions and wanted to know more about this guy and I thought it was unlikely anyone else would try to have him on for a podcast/interview. I decided it would be a good idea if I tried to get him on a Poker Life podcast. This is certainly not the usual type of person I would have on any of my podcasts so far but I thought it would be a good opportunity to branch out a bit and try something new. Normally I bring a pretty high energy and joking attitude but I think this situation was better served with me being a bit more mellow and letting him dominate the discussion while trying to maintain a serious tone.
Overall I think it went pretty well and the feedback I received in the thread on 2p2 was positive. Someone mentioned I said "you know" and "obviously" a million times. It tilted me so hard as I was editing every time I said either one but I kept it in. The subject we were speaking about is something I am not super familiar with and I think when I get a bit nervous or am not 100 percent confident in what I am saying I start trying to validate it with "you know". Will try to improve on that in the future.
As for the episode, Part 1 is Mike explaining his life story that was posted in the thread. I think the ridiculousness of the story is one of the reasons the thread took on a life of its own. I was following along with the story in the thread while he retold it and mentioned if this was something he had memorized and used in the past because word for word it was the same. About half way through I decided to start leading the story by saying, "so then you were homeless" "then you went to vegas" etc...
In part 2 I asked him some questions people posted in the thread and we had some pretty good back and forth about what the future holds and how to escape this life he has known for so long. If you only listen to one of these I would suggest part 2.
I was coming on here to reply to comments left on my last blog where I said Hello but after reading Defrag's comment I was inspired to write something. I've said a few different times over the years that I would like to start blogging more but inevitably it never actually ends up happening I am going to try this again as I am going to get started on a new project which will require me to start writing much much more
I was just at the gym working on my basketball game while listening to one of my fave podcast series by James Altucher. I can't quite pinpoint what was said by a guest he had on but it inspired me to write about a prop bet I have mentioned a couple times on the forums and briefly on twitter.
The prop bet I was thinking of trying was trying to make either 300 or 400 buyins at either 50plo or 100plo on Pokerstars in a 31 day time period. Those that are not familiar with online PLO will have no idea if this is hard or how hard it actually is but to my knowledge no one has ever had this amount of buyins at these limits before. One of the reasons for this is because anyone that could ever make that much at these stakes would surely move up before the end of the month. Everyone I have talked to about doing this says with the rake I have absolutely no chance of succeeding at it. Another of the reasons is that the rake bb/100 at these limits is so high that it really makes it hard for anyone to win pre-rake. I do believe that this plays a pretty large part in the success of people playing these limits but I also think its very over blown in the SSPLO community on 2p2 just how big of a factor rake at low stakes plays. I think it is in everyone's best nature to continue to argue this point on the forums in hopes that at some point the poker sites might actually do something about it and lower the rake but I also think that many people will read all this doom & gloom being posted and get turned off to the idea of even trying to make it at the game. Yes the rake does suck at these limits compared to NL but its very very beatable and with some hard work it can be done. I think attempting this prop bet might show people to stop reading all the negative things people repeat nonstop but instead see what I was able to do and know that it is very possible to make money at these stakes while getting better and moving up the ranks at some point.
I've thought about the actual chances of being able to do this and to be honest I really have no idea if I could actually do it. In every prop bet I've tried I had no idea if I could do it going into it. I am pretty confident I could get some action at this bet at 3-1 but I am not really sure if I want to gamble it up that much with the most likely outcome being that I don't succeed and in the process costing me money that I would otherwise make grinding my normal stakes and hours.
My question I have for you guys is if you were going to try to make 300-400 buyins in 31 days at 50PLO, what would be your strategy to do it? Assuming it is all normal tables (no zoom or HU tables) but you could play deep games and also start tables. Would you try to maximize your hands/hr and play many many hands in that month while going for a lower winrate? Would you split up your sessions into different ones or would you try to grind out one big one/build up big stacks on tables? Assuming you COULD play 24 tables at once competently, would you do that for many hr/s per day, set a goal of xxx,xxx thousands of hands for the month and then adjust depending on how the results were going? Would you want to do it at 50plo or 100plo?? It is a pretty simple task but there are so many ways you could attack it from a strategic stand point. If only Urubu would have had 1 strategy going into his prop bet maybe he wouldn't have given up
Hey guys, I haven't blogged yet about the PLO podcasts that I have been doing for a couple of months now. I wanted to talk a bit more about the idea I originally had, the process so far, feedback I've gotten and what I hope to do with them in the future.
I wrote about the website idea I had a couple months back and with that I have been wanting to do some type of podcast for a long time now. I had wanted it to be focused on PLO because there isn't anything else out there that PLO players can listen to that is specific for the game. I'm not one to get in depth about poker strategy, as I have written about on my blog before. I decided that I would try to do a podcast focused around high stakes hands posted on 2plus2 in the NVG high stakes thread and would sometimes take hands posted in the PLO specific forums. I started doing the first one and went for a bit of strategy talk, level 1 type of stuff, and focus more on trying to make it entertaining. As I have alot of experiences with almost every player I had some good and bad things to say about almost every player in the hands I choose to post. I was hoping to put together something that high stakes regs could enjoy watching but also something that small stakes regs and casual fans of PLO/poker in general would be able to enjoy. I think finding that balance could have been a difficult thing but I think so far I have been able to do that. I had hoped that people would start listening to it and then become interested in playing more PLO themselves. It has turned out this is what has been happening as I have gotten many messages on all my social media platforms from people asking questions, telling me about there experiences with the game so far, and more. The feedback overall has been really good and its encouraging moving forward with doing podcasts. I think some of them have been a bit long for people but my thinking is that if you want to watch it all you can, if you want to stop after 25 minutes you can do that also.
My initial intent was that I wanted everyone in the world to be playing PLO, its such a fun game.... who wouldn't want to play . I've been posting my videos on my youtube channel and they have been getting linked in both PLO forums on 2p2 and also there was a thread in NVG made where new episodes have been posted. I've tried to communicate with everyone who has given me feedback good or bad. I wanted to try to be as interactive with people that are taking the time to listen to these because thats how I have wanted people to be to me that I might be a fan of. The pokertube guys have been putting them up on there website as well and it has gotten some extra views. Overall I am very pleased with the number of views on youtube that I have been able to get with these. For the first couple of podcasts some websites wrote up articles about them and linked to them but I figured that would happen initially and then would not keep happening with future episodes. The goal moving forward is to continue putting out quality content and also be able to put more people onto the fact that they even exist. I haven't done the greatest job so far in terms staying on a consistent schedule and blogging about my experience so far with it which I need to work harder at.
I'm going to start doing podcasts with people outside of PLO and the WCG podcasts in hopes that I can ultimately attract new listeners to my PLOcasts. I'm actually recording my first podcast today with Bart Hanson. His longtime NL podcasts were something I listened to every single week for years when I was coming up in the poker world and with his live poker training site I think I will have alot good things to talk about with him that will make for a great conversation. My hope with this new series is that I can talk more with people who I find interesting and would like to know more about but also that fans of that person will want to hear more about. Hopefully those fans can enjoy my content and become fans of mine and the listeners to my podcasts will become fans of theirs. I actually have no idea if this is sound logic when it comes to this type of thing but we shall see. My main focus right now is still putting in 4-8 hours/day playing poker and with the results I've been having, I don't need to worry about trying to monetize any of this. That also has lead to me becoming pretty lackadaisical with putting out new episodes. I've been spending some weeks playing poker and basketball all day and never even thinking about doing podcasts. I think moving forward that if I want to have the most success possible with this I will need to nail down a better schedule and put in more effort staying on that.
That also leads to the question, what kind of success does this even lead to? What is the point of doing these? I have asked myself that a couple of times and I'm not even sure what it means to be a success in poker podcasting. Hoping that I can get as many people as possible into playing the game I intend to play for a long time to come is what I think about the most. I think that some good networking possibilities could come from it but that remains to be seen. I really enjoy doing them so far as I think most of the poker content being put out right now is pretty boring and I am hoping I can provide a bit of entertainment in other poker players lives, even if its only for an hour/week. I think I went more in depth on this whole subject than I initially intended to
Here is a link to the first high stakes PLO podcast I did. I started having a guest with my last podcast which featured krmont22. If you watch the first couple episodes, I tried to do a good job on building up some players more than others. The last episode with Krmont I started live streaming for people that wanted to listen to things unedited and people have really seemed to enjoy that. I fucked up on capturing the audio doing this (still noob at editing) so it ended up being a veryyyyyy long live stream version but for the people that can make it through it all, i think its really entertaing. In the future I hope to do many more with guests because I enjoy that format much more. I like getting to know my peers better and being able to showcase them a bit.
Hola LP world, I haven't written about any of my podcasts as of yet. I wanted to let you guys know about my 2nd podcast I have begun doing with WCGRider (link at bottom) and a bit of behind the scene idea's, thoughts, etc... that I have been having about the poker podcast world. I've already done a few episodes of a PLO podcast that I will be going a bit more in detail about soon on here but I am going to focus more on the WCG pod right now.
A couple of months back I had an idea to start doing podcasts, one forming around PLO hands, one around conversation style pertaining to the poker lifestyle/mindset/etc... and one where me/wcg rider do a 2 man podcast. We have known each other for about 6-7 years. Doug initially messaged me on 2p2 and asked me if I would be interested in being staked by him so that I would be able to move up a limit and also get some coaching. I had been posting some really sick 50nl and 100nl full ring graphs in the BBV forum and he looked for winning players that might be interested in playing a higher limit. I of course accepted and our poker relationship was born from that moment. We have stayed in touch over the years and hung out at different random times in different cities. He was in Chicago in December with his girlfriend and we did a double date while discussing this idea further. I think he is one of the most talked about people in the NL world right now but I think most of the talk that goes on is "i hate this mother fucker, he is a dbag." With some of the public comments he has made about being the best I can understand why many people might feel a certain type of way. I think a large percentage of the poker following population is also unaware of anything he did in poker/life before he started battling at high stakes HU which is also to be expected. By doing this podcast, I thought it would be a really great way for people out there to get to know more about him and also to get a better understanding of the poker journey to the top and that he isn't a complete asshole.
We decided to make it official and record our first podcast together a couple weeks ago. I started out with an outline of about 20 different potential talking points but I quickly realized we really wouldn't need any talking points because everything flowed out really well. I know that Doug is going to be the far more interesting person and the one that most people listening are going to want to hear so I decided to take a more interviewish approach to it but also including some ideas of my own on different topics. I noob'd it up in a couple different places over the first one but overall I really enjoyed that angle of things and I am really excited to start doing more with different people in poker. I'm hoping to stay away from the traditional "what is your poker story" angle and try to focus more on a bit more exciting things about the poker life.
I released this podcast last Thursday and overall the reception has been really good. I hope you guys enjoy the first episode and feedback good and bad is much appreciated. So far I think I've done a really good job on taking all feedback in and thinking about ways I can improve on my podcasting all around.
**I actually thought I would go more in-depth into my whole podcast mindset with things but I realized most of that is more relevant to the PLO write up , what happened to youtube videos automatically embedding in the posts??
How do you measure productivity as a poker player?
Joeingram1, Mar 05 2014
I've been thinking about this so much these past couple months but I can't really come up with a good answer that makes me happy about it. The idea of what should we be doing to consider ourselves being productive as a poker player. I think for a long time in my early poker years, I measured this only by did I play alot of hours/hands today, hopefully I won some money. As time went on that started to shift over to have I been winning money which gradually turned into have I been playing well/winning money.
In the past couple months I've been having really great results playing but I feel like I have been not very productive. In the months before that I felt like I was being really productive in terms of putting in the hours but with not so good results. So if you are playing 8-10 hours/day and making a small amount or playing 1-3 hours a day and making a large amount, is one more productive than the other? The only thing that matters for results in poker is making money....I haven't been able to justify working on other things/doing absolutely nothing with my time just because I am having big winning months. I think I feel more happy with myself and feel a better sense of achievement if I struggle for 8-10 hours a day playing. You could then argue, well why don't you just play 8-10 hours a day if you are winning but that is a completely different argument which is much much easier in theory than actuality.
I think you can also take into account how much time you spend working with PPT (poker equity program), reviewing hand histories, watching poker videos, talking poker with friends to decide if you are being productive but the less hours I play in a day the less hours I will work on any of this.
I've been able to be extremely productive outside of poker which could be argued has actually helped me be more productive in a shorter time at poker. There are really so many hours in the day you can spend playing basketball, working out, cooking, doing yoga, practicing dance, playing guitar/piano, stretching. I'm pretty sure I still spend hours and hours a day browsing random things on the internet but I'm not sure I should have expectations on myself to be working on something every minute I am awake. Maybe some mindless browsing is good each day.
If I was a professional live poker player and was trying to figure all of this out I would get sad. For most live players that go to the casino 5-7 times a week for 6+ hours a day... I can't imagine they feel much productivity with any part of there life. Even trying to think about having to do this makes me feel a certain type of way. You could argue that comparing a live poker player profession to many other professions where you get a similar type of feeling and make less money would even be worse. I would agree
This whole idea of productivity is something I never really have given much thought to but I know there are plenty of other poker players out there who probably have and can answer this question much better than I can. Hopefully I'll be able to take away something from someone else out there that I can incorporate into my own mindset.
Wanted to write a little liquid poker psa that it took me about 6 years to figure out. I never knew how to do this for the longest time and I would end up commenting on something and forgetting what I commented on and then never reply or engage in any sort of conversation. Last week I discovered if you go to My Blog and then My Posts, the posts you commented on all come up and it tells you who had the last response and takes you right there. Really wish I knew about this a long time ago.
Also for PLO Hand Histories being posted on here. I've been posting on some HH's lately but the guy who posts the hand never comes back to it, which is a problem I used to have because I never knew how to track if something got commented on or if a new comment was posted. I'm more than happy to comment on PLO HH's that are posted but pleaseeeeee reply back lol, my last comments on hands were 3 questions just to see if anyone ever came back to check what they posted
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. A couple people had some really good ideas that I had previously thought about a bit and started thinking more about after. I do have an approach in my mind I would take but it would probably not be smart to post about it in regards to possibly getting action. I have a few different prop bet ideas I am thinking about trying but the first step is to officially get out of the country, my lease here in the states is up at the end of August and I need to decide in a couple weeks what I will be doing. 
I am going to try this again as I am going to get started on a new project which will require me to start writing much much more 
. I've been posting my videos on my youtube channel and they have been getting linked in both PLO forums on 2p2 and also there was a thread in NVG made where new episodes have been posted. I've tried to communicate with everyone who has given me feedback good or bad. I wanted to try to be as interactive with people that are taking the time to listen to these because thats how I have wanted people to be to me that I might be a fan of. The pokertube guys have been putting them up on there website as well and it has gotten some extra views. Overall I am very pleased with the number of views on youtube that I have been able to get with these. For the first couple of podcasts some websites wrote up articles about them and linked to them but I figured that would happen initially and then would not keep happening with future episodes. The goal moving forward is to continue putting out quality content and also be able to put more people onto the fact that they even exist. I haven't done the greatest job so far in terms staying on a consistent schedule and blogging about my experience so far with it which I need to work harder at.
