Interview with J_V

Mentor: Start off by giving us some backround about your self

J_V: I am 26 years old. I live in Chicago, Illinois. I have been playing poker for around 7 years and about 5 years professionally.

Mentor: That's a lot of poker experience do you feel like you have an edge at all on new era internet players because of it?

J_V: Yes, I think that gives me some edge. I don't necessarily think that the experience necessarily means I am a better player than them, as some of the new upstarts have learn to play fantastic poker in a relatively short period of time, but I'm better able to handle myself during adversity and bad runs than they are simply because they haven't experience how ugly poker can get.

Mentor: Yeah I am often suprised at how quickly players today are getting good and playing higher limits but I've noticed that many under value the importance of discipline, how have you learned to keep a strong mind set while you play?

J_V: When I started playing, I didn't have a job or any money. My parents paid my tuition and gave me about 100 dollars a month to live off. I took out 40 bucks to play the first time. Obviously the money meant a lot. I lost it in about 30 minutes, but really enjoyed playing. So I took out another 40 bucks the next week realizing that if I lost it, I would have to quit playing poker since it was too expensive for me. Luckily, I broke even that session and then won the next 17 times. From the beginning, I saved every dollar I made and never played over my bankroll because I knew that if I ever went bust, I would quit and never play again. I've found that now that going bust is out of the picture I find that my discipline has slipped from the old days. I find myself tilting a little and playing in games I probably shouldn't. It's something I'm working on.

Mentor: Good players usually seem to have an interesting startup story like that, for people who don't know, what games are you currently playing in?

J_V: My favorite agame is heads up Omaha 8 or better. I play anywhere from 100-200 to 300-600 depending on how well I'm running and the competition I can find. I also play limit holdem (same limits) and no limit holdem regularly. I have been playing 10-20 NL on party but with limited success - I just started playing NL about 3 months ago. I also play stud, stud 8, and I just started dabbling in triple draw. I really like all the non holdem games, but finding games are pretty tough. I spend most of time playing party poker and ultimate bet.

Mentor: What do you like about heads up and non holdem games?

J_V: I think they are better games in that there are more interesting plays that you can make. I think Stud Hi is actually the best poker game for the high limits. There is the most information available and if you know how to use it, you can manipulate your opponents in ways you can't in a game like holdem. It seems like all players that play lots of other games seem to have an affinity for the non holdem games. No limit holdem seems like a terrific game but I don't have that much experience yet, but I'm looking forward to learning. But limit holdem at the higher limits is such a grind and there is so much information that it's more a chore for me to play than fun. This is kind've off topic but I think that as the poker craze dies out, limit holdem is a game that is in big trouble. The low limits already have a few bots populating the games and the higher limit games are going to get more difficult as more and more young players start playing. I think you can see the trend already with so many players switching from limit holdem to no limit. As for the heads up games, I like the how much you have to adjust to be successful. There isn't much written on the topic and there is no easy formula to use to figure it out. I've always wanted to be a good heads up holdem player but for some reason I was always terrible at it. I vow to one day to figure it out, but as of right now, everyone and there brother kills me. Because of that, I started playing heads up at other games.

Mentor: Just as an eye opener for some beginning players whose world shatters when they have 2 straight -50 bb sessions, what is your harshest cold streak?

J_V: The worst cold streak ever in a session was against Mike Matusow actually, which is about a bad a break in life as you can get. I was playing him pretty regularly and way up on him which is great because he thinks he's the best heads up omaha player alive. After about 5 hours, I was up about 70k on him at 300-600 and he was tilting badly and then just started raising every hand. I really had him, but then he won about 90% of the hands for about half and hour raising and reraising at every opportunity and got all the way back to even. I had never seen someone run that hot before. All the while he was doing his mike the mouth trash talking. I eventually turned off his chat because it was so frustrating, so between hands there would be 30 seconds pauses of him typing out some trash talk that I wasn't even seeing. That was really frustrating. Those weren't the most painful bad streaks though. The ones that hurt the most are the ones that last a long time. I've never lost for two months is a row, but when I was playing 15-30, I lost 40k in one month which was huge at the time. I'm not sure I booked a win all month. I would sit down and think "How much am I going to lose today." At the time my best month was maybe 20k, so that really hurt. I really thought it may never turn around and I'd have to get a new job.

Mentor: Lol, I think we both know Mike will get his comeuppance sometime, what things would you recommend to a player when he's tilting, do you do anything specifically? (for example I like to jog)

J_V: Jogging sounds like a good idea. I think the best advice I ever got was that when you are tilting, you don't have to play. You aren't having fun. There are a million things you could be doing that are fun instead of playing. Go do something else - anything . Taking a break is always a good idea, eventhough it's so hard to do. Another thing to think about is that at the end of the day, tilting is just self punishment, you are making yourself miserable and losing money at the same time. I play late at night a lot so I can't really do to much, but during the day, I like to go to the gym.

Mentor: I agree, doing something physical can really help and not just with poker. What do you think some of the biggest weaknesses of 2+2ers in general?

J_V: I think sometimes they get dogmatic in their approach to the game. There are a lot of ways to play poker and a lot of different styles that can work. I think I am a victim of this, but when you try and learn to play poker on paper, it's easy to fall into the trap of not reading players well enough and just putting players on hand ranges. A lot of the players that are self taught are much better at picking up tells both online and live and in general better at reading hands, even if there fundamentals aren't quite as strong. A good example would be Neverwin, a fairly famous online limit holdem player. His fundamentals are not that great, but he's able to beat the biggest online games because he is one of the best at hand reading around.

Mentor: Over your entire poker journey what do you feel like has helped you the most?

J_V: Having a network of friends that wanted to learn the game as much as me and always talking to better players and figuring out what they were doing. It's very hard to learn poker on your own.

Mentor: I agree, any players specifically? maybe ones who went through the process with you or ones you looked up to

J_V: In the beginning, I learned from four close friends, we both didn't know anything but we learned together. Later on I became friends with some of the good players in the games I played with and inevitably we would talk about strategies and types of plays and how to think about certain situations. Guys on the forum would be Hiatus_over, Nomar, James282, SteveG, shaniac to name a few.

Mentor: Describe to me how the learning curve turned out for you, like in the beginning and then more recently

J_V: That's an interesting question. I think that the learning curve is very steep in the beginning. You can become a very good player in 1-2 years. After you become a good player, I think the main thing you learn is how to adjust at each higher limit level as you move up. Phil Ivey said that 300-600 is a totally different ball game from 2k-4k. Now I wouldn't know why or how, but if Phil says it, I believe it. Scaling the analogy down a bit, an expert at 1-2 will need do things a lot differently at 10-20 to be an expert there. And there is the Ray Zee, evolution on a player essay, which everyone should read, which says that the first phase of a winning player is tight, than overly loose and aggressive, than hopefull back to expert strategy. I definitely went through that cycle and back a few times.

Mentor: I can definately relate, what types of things are you currently working on to improve, what was your last poker epiphany

J_V: Right now, I am trying to work on omaha, triple draw and no limit holdem. I am trying to play no limit holdem but the game isn't coming as easily to me as the other games have. I think party because I tried to jump right into the tougher games and thats not the right way to learn. In omaha and triple draw the best way to learn is to run your own simulations even if they are as simple as twodimes.net simulations to get a feel for your equity. My last poker epiphany was probably more psychological. Even at the high limits, most players tilt. If you can just pass your turn when it arises, you'll be way ahead of the other players. And when I run bad, I tried to think of running bad as an opportunity instead of a negative. Key word is TRY. As far a strategic epiphany I would say its was in limit holdem when I finally realized that playing "in flow" was cutting my options in half especially OOP. If you can balance your turn "donk bets" with good hands and bad hands well enough you can come a long way in minimizing your positional disadvantage.

Mentor: Can you elaborate on "in flow" and the last part of your answer for the newer players

J_V: In flow means that you defer to the player in the lead (usually in heads up pots, it can be very bad to do this in multiway pots). So let's say we are in a heads up match and the button raises and you call in the BB. The flop comes 9-4-2, I would always check to the raiser, and sometimes, fold, call or check raise. If I called, I would rarely lead a blank into the preflop raiser. A counter flow play would be to call the raise from the button and bet out on a K-4-6 flop. A lot of great players play in flow, Jennifer harmon, thunder keller, etc. but it's definitley not optimal.

Mentor: Alright well I think we've touched on a lot of great topics, how about finishing with the most interesting hand you've played this week

J_V: haha, well since I bust out so early in every event, I don't really have anything too great. But I will share a limit holdem trick I learned from a friend. In a limit tournament if you get down to 2-3 bets, you don't have enough chips to blow the blinds off any hands. So if you try and wait for a decent hand and raise the blinds, they are going to call and now you are going to have to beat 3 players. To avoid this, you are better off trying to reraise someone who might be stealing (a potential fraud) with a whatever decent hand you can find. This way the blind money will likely go dead and you will have to beat once person instead of two and stil make about the same money. I know thats boring but my WSOP has been pretty ugly so far.

Mentor: That's great. The trick makes sense and I've never heard of it before. Anyway, I'd just like to say that this interviews has really exceeded my expectations and I'd like to thank you on the behalf of all the people who enjoy reading it!

J_V: thank you