In the Well!! Q + A with Robin Lacey

DeadMoney

Hi Robin, I just have a few questions that relate to newcomers to online poker like myself. I know your quite swamped but i hope you get around to answering some of them. Cheers.


(1) How long were you playing online before you built a bankroll to work with?

(2) Can you Remember your first ever Deposit? (If so, how much?)

(3) Did you start with Ring games or MTT and STT's?

(4) I know you are most well known lately as a Cash player? Do you still play many MTT's?

(5) What books do you mainly recommend aside from HOH and the theory of poker by Sklansky?

(6) Do you focus much on the theoritical side of poker such as Game Theory, immplied odds etc.?

(7) How do you handle a Bad session?

(8) In current times there seems to be alot of online pro's appearing in the spotlight through live tournament performance and sponsorship? For example, player's like Johnny Lodden, Patrick Antonious, Justin Bonomo etc. Does this interest you as a player or are you quite happy to be making a nice profit behind closed doors?

(9) Finally, in terms of where poker is right now, do you think it is harder or easier for new players coming in to the game to be successful than it was 3 to 4 years ago when you started? In other words, Is it still worth while trying to beat?

robinlacey

UnLuckyLloyd wrote:

1) What games/levels are you playing right now?

at the minute i'm playing 3/6 nl here and there,with a little bit of 2/4 and 5/10 when the games dry up in the mornings. i've been running badly and was also away travelling for a month so i've hardly been playing at all recently,i've only played 50k hands of cash so far this year,compared to 60k/month for the last
few months of 2006.

i'm also playing the nightly 100k on stars as often as i can,and trying to get into playing the mansion 100k as well.

How many tables at once?

i usually play 6-8,however since i've been running badly and am less motivated to play i've just been playing 3 or 4 tables most of the time recently.

Are you running good or bad in the last few days?

very bad all this year.some of it is no doubt my own fault but for the most part i've been happy with how i've played,and i've been running much much worse than i ever have before.

that said,a lot of it is my fault,in that i find it a lot harder to put in the hours when i'm running badly,so if i'd played as much as i do when i'm running well i'd be laughing by now.

all of that refers to online by the way,i'm running very well live this year thanks to a good week in vienna.

My Questions:

1) There has been much discussion of how the general standard of online cash games has shot up since the legislation was introduced last year. How has this manifested itself in your view? In terms of your own game and success, how have you been directly affected?

i definitely think the games are getting tougher by the minute,and it is a worry.however,i think they are still beatable up to the highest levels,but i'd say game selection is becoming more and more important.

its hard to say how it has affected my own success,the first few months after the legislation passed were my most successful by far,and the last few months have been my least successful.both of these facts are obviously more to do with varience than anything else,but they do make it difficult to judge exactly what is going on with the games and where that leaves me.

its also hard to tell since the month the legislation passed was the month i started getting coaching,so every month that has passed since then i have been playing better than last month.

basically its a worry but not the end of the world.

2) Do you forsee a bright and stable long – term future for online poker? If not, why not?

its hard to tell really.the future certainly doesn't look as bright as it did a year ago.however,i don't really follow this sort of thing religiously,so any answer i give is really only my own vague impressions of what is going on,taken from my subjective experiences actually playing online poker and from my occassional glances at the twoplustwo legislation forum.

however,i think the speed with which the games is getting big in europe is encouraging,so its not going to be a total disaster in a few years time,or at least i hope not.

one possible ray of hope is that some of the more panglossian members of the twoplustwo legislation forum seem pretty sure that within a few years there will be legalised,regulated online gambling in america,and if this were to happen it would be a unimaginably lucrative time for poker players,especially those of us who had struggled through the previous few years of increasingly tougher games.

its hard to know how realistic this is,but given the potential money involved for harrahs and the like i'd say its not impossible.

3) How did you get into poker? How long have you been playing?

i got into poker maybe three and a half years ago,some friends started playing just for a bit of fun,i was initially not bothered and in fact quite anti-poker (people were playing it at parties and stuff,it was lame)

anyway,one night i got swindled into playing,and quite enjoyed it.

there was maybe 8 of us regularly playing fiver buyin cash games (which seemed like a lot of money at the time-i remember feeling the pain the first time i lost 20 euro) for a while,then daragh,hectorjelly on boards,starting putting in the effort to read about the game,and started making some money both online and in the merrion.

this encouraged the rest of us to try to learn how to play well too,and of course it was a help to have one of us who already knew the basics and several more who were interested in learning.

4) How long have you been playing full – time?

about two and a half years i think.

5) What were you doing before? Do you hold a third level qualification?

i was working part time in a bookshop and also studying english in college.
i don't have a third level qualification,i tried the whole college thing a few times but a combination of cynicism,laziness and frustration at how boringly the subjects i was interested in were taught conspired to ensure that my only academic qualification is my leaving cert.

6) Do you perceive playing poker as a sole means of income as a long – term career option? It has been noted on previous occasions in various places that people who can beat poker for large amounts of money are probably wasting their time as they could be making much greater amounts doing other things in the corporate environment. Do you believe this to be the case? If so, why?

i agree with the idea that people who are good enough to succeed at the highest levels of poker are also good enough to succeed elsewhere,however this doesn't particularly interest me,since my idea of a successful life is probably quite different to a lot of other peoples'.

if i get to middle age and have a family who i love,an interesting group of friends,a nice enough house,and the means to pursue my interest in music,books,travel,food art and films, (and to support my family obviously) then i will consider my life an unqualified success.

this would be the case even if i won the lottery tomorrow.i would like to be successful,but only because success would allow me to lead that sort of life,success in itself holds very little interest for me,or at least not enough that i would be prepared to sacrifice anything for it if it were not necessary to do so.

however,for people who have a more conventional view of success and achievement (which i understand and admire,its just not high on my list of priorities) i fully agree that playing poker in the long run might be a waste of time,and if that if they directed their energies elsewhere they would probably have considerable success.

the difference between my viewpoint and the standard view of success was driven home in the twoplustwo thread a while ago started by strassa when he decided to go and work for one of the big investment banks with a view to becoming a trader.

he was basically saying that he had achieved a lot in poker and was happy with this,but that now he was going to focus on bigger things,and there was a lot of talk about how the amounts of money he would now make would dwarf anything even ivey could hope for,how great an achievement this would be,etc.

there was also a lot of talk about how it would be incredibly hard work,how he would be working 70 hour weeks for the forseeable future,etc,but how this would be worth it for what he would acheive.

i admire really driven,focused people who could think like this,but i would hate to be one,and reading that thread confirmed for me that i was right to remain almost completely ambitionless.

i'm not saying i wouldn't love to win the world series or something,just that i wouldn't be prepared to make huge sacrifices to do so.

i do have one ambition for the sake of it,however-i would love,at some stage of my life,to be able to translate my passion for the arts into something that would allow me to introduce other people to the music,books,whatever,that has meant the most to me,whether it be as author of a book of "criticism" (for want of a better word) or curator of a museum or whatever.

7) Briefly describe your 2006 WSOP experience.

well this was the first major tournament i had ever played,so i was curious to see if i would be nervous or feel under pressure or whatever.

after a few hours of the first day i was down to about 6 or 7 thousand and struggling to not let it get me down,then i hit a few good cards and suddenly i was flying,i started playing a lot better too and ended the day on 60k or so,which was incredible.

day two was disappointing,i ended up with the same amount of chips i had finished day one on,i lost a few biggish pots which would have left me in a great position,but overall i don't think i played or ran as well as the first day.
day three i was disappointed with how i played,there were a few AK hands i played too cautiously,and the fatigue of concentrating for so long really kicked in (i hadn't noticed it as much during day one when i had the wind in my sails)

i went out to two bad beats in a row (all in preflop with AK against AJ,then with AQ against A8) so i can't be too annoyed,but to be honest even if i had won the first all in and had doubled up i would have only been about average stack,which is a great place to be with 500 left when you're talking about it before the tournament,but not so great given what a good start i had made.

overall i was somewhat disappointed with myself,in that i feel i could have done much better had i played a few hands better,but at the same time i know i played well overall,didn't really let the pressure get to me,and considering it was my first major live tournament i'm happy enough with how it went.

8) In terms of your WSOP ME placing – do you feel validated on any level by tournament successes? Or would you conclude that there is too much short – term variance involved for them to be considered a relevant measurement of poker skill?

well i don't feel like the fact that i placed in the world series makes me any better at poker,i am proud that i played better than most people would have and so on,and when i play well in a tournament i am pleased with myself,but if for example someone was saying "that robin lacey is crap at poker" i would never in a million years defend myself on the grounds that i had placed in the world series (or even if i had won it i wouldn't consider it a valid arguement).

however,if someone is consistently successful in tournaments then it means they are more likely than not to be pretty good at poker,although i wouldn't accept it as proof of this,and if i played with someone for a few hours,thought they were terrible,and it turned out they had 5 bracelets it wouldn't change my opinion of them much,except that it might make me consider the possibility that they had been on tilt/tired or whatever.

9) Does the idea of winning tournament titles and the possible media attention and sponsorship opportunities that would bring appeal to you in any way? Or would you simply look on them in terms of an opportunity to make a large amount of money through a single score?

i'm not really sure about this to be honest.

as i said in one of the other answers,i'm not particularly ambitious for the sake of it,however i can't deny that i would be very pleased if i won a major tournament.

i am quite shy so the idea of being in the media spotlight would probably freak me out a little bit,but i'm also fairly level headed so i wouldn't be too bothered by it.

if i won a major tournament and was then sponsored into other big buyin events i would be delighted,since i would be certain i am +ev in almost any big tournament but i don't have the multi-million dollar bankroll to prove it,and even if i won a few million i probably wouldn't want to risk the varience,although i would obviously play more big events than i do now.

10) What do we need to do to improve the general quality of the forum?

i don't know,i have seen a few people mention the possibility of dividing the forums into beginners and others,or having a separate strat forum,one of these might be a good idea.

i have been reading boards occassionally for three years or so,but it is only in the last nine months or so that i have felt compelled to start contributing,and this is because the standard of posting has gone up hugely.

there are now a lot of people here who are posting interesting stuff and doing quite well at poker,which is good to see,and its possible some sort of split might help to capitalise on this,but i don't know exactly what format this should take.

11) Is the tramp / unemployed / homeless look a help or hindrance in terms of getting laid?

well something is obviously a hinderance,so maybe its that!
i'm now sporting my summer look however,much the same as the winter look to be honest but with a slightly neater beard.i may even get a haircut if the mood takes me.

robinlacey

BigDragon wrote:

To create a quote box put [**QUOTE] before the question and [**/QUOTE] after the question [remove the **] and then answer the question. To start the next question...repeat.

nice one

BigDragon

robinlacey wrote:

nice one

np

robinlacey

lafortezza wrote:

In terms of larger buy-in live tournaments, say $2k+ buy-ins, what kind of results would indicate that a player is not a 1-trick donkey/luckbox?
1 big win + a couple of final tables? More?

i really don't know for sure,but after one big win and a few final tables there would be a good chance someone is a decent player,but i don't think it would come anywhere close to confirming it.

there was a great post in july last year on twoplustwo by sirio11.

in 2005 he had absolutely hacked up online tournaments,he was in the top five online mtt earners and had had a good world series too.he was a regular contributor to the mtt strat forum,and was well respected as a player and a poster.

anyway,in this post,he was saying that he had been playing pretty much every decent online mtt going that year,i can't remember how many but it was over 5000,and he was down money overall,not a huge amount but down nonetheless.

i mention this to illustrate the varience in poker is huge,and in mtts where the importance of some hands far supercedes others the varience is even bigger,it really is impossible to understand how huge a factor varience actually is.

if i was going to stake someone in a big live tournament and had a choice between judging the candidates on their last 25 results in a $2k+ buyin event,or on a 20 minute conversation with them,i would choose the conversation any time.

robinlacey

lafortezza wrote:

Between you and HJ, who wins a deepstacked HU NL match, a deepstaked HU PLO match, an arm wrestle, HU 5card-doubleflop-oneeyedJackswild PLO match for rollz?

i played daragh in a heads up 100 bbs cash game a few months ago and it seemed fairly even,i'd be surprised if either of us had much of an edge.
i'm rubbish at omaha and i think he's pretty good so i wouldn't stand a chance there,i've never won an arm wrestle in my life and i'm not about to start now,and i'd imagine anyone who has any experience of non holdem games would destroy me in any of them,so i'd say he'd take the last one down too.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

robinlacey

phantom_lord wrote:

How/from where, did u pick up the bulk of your poker knowledge?

at the very start,from hectorjelly,then from a few books that i read,then from talking about it with my friends as we learned to play,and more conversations with hector,then from twoplustwo,and more recently from getting coaching from mdma from twoplustwo.

Did u grind you're way up through the lower levels? If so, how long did that take?

for some stupid reason i mainly played tournaments for the first year or two,so almost all my grinding was done in stts.

How many hands have u played?

i've no idea,since a lot of my play was in tournaments,and it took me ages to sort out pokertracker since it wasn't tribeca compatible for ages.
all i have in pokertracker is 220k hands from sept-dec of last year,and about 25k hands from this year.

Do u use any pahud stats besides #hand/agf/pfr/vpip? how do they help your decision making process if u do?

Whats your set up like?

yeah when i found out you could add all sorts of stuff to the dropdown menu i kinda went a bit nuts,so there's loads of stuff there,most of which i don't use.
some stuff liked fired second barrell is useful,but i often don't have enough of a sample size anyway,and its hard to find the stuff on the drop down thing in time so i usually don't bother,but if i am ending up in a lot of hands with someone over a few tables i will take a minute to study all their stats when i get a moment.

i watched the sbrugby cardrunners video a while ago,and he pointed out that a great stat to have is the cold call preflop one,since if this is high they are calling with a lot of marginal hands that will make medium strenght hands on the flop,call one bet and fold on the turn.

i still haven't got around to adding this to the list since i have been playing mainly on bodog recently,but this is an excellent point and something i never thought of.

Do u spent any time doing ev calculations or calculating hand equities versus hand ranges, like abba talked about I think, in his well?

i hardly ever do stuff like this,i'm pretty bad at maths and rely mainly on instinct,however over the years i've picked up enough of a feel for things like this that on the rare occasions that i sit down and work out something like this out (usually just to prove a point) i'm generally not far off.

do u tilt badly/at all?

i don't think i tilt nearly as much as most people,just from observing my group of poker playing friends i don't think its much of a problem for me.

i have only been on the sort of super monkey tilt other people have a problem with maybe five times in my life,and only for about twenty minutes each time.

i do have a problem with a more insidious form of tilt,where i am just making smallish mistakes,calling a bit too much preflop,paying off smallish bets on the river,etc,basically just not concentrating as much as i should.

do u think playing poker has changed your personality at all?

a little bit.in a lot of ways i am quite an emotional person,but i have also always had a streak of cold logic,all my life i have loved to argue and it is my ability to be quite cold and analytical that allows me to not tilt as much as others,to really believe all that stuff about the long term and all that.
this has always been a part of me but that side of my personality has probably come to the front a little more recently.
i don't think it has hugely changed me though.

on friday there was a 25/50 game on at the io, andy black, laak, antonio , donnacha etc, and a bunch of internet kids, do u think you'd have an edge in that game?

hard to say,it really depends on who the internet kids are,if they have worked their way up through cash games to the point where they can play 25/50 then i probably wouldn't have much of an edge on them if at all,however if they are the sort of internet kids who are constantly up and down,taking shots,changing levels five times in a week then i'd love to play in that game,also if they are tourney players i'd love to play.

as for the name players,its hard to say,in general i think i'd probably have an edge in a deep stacked nlhe cash game on most "name" players,simply because most of them seem to have very little experience in these types of games,since they have only become big over the last few years.

however,i gather laak and antonio are among the name players who are best at nlhe,so they would probably destroy me.

i don't know anything about andy black or donnacha (o 'dea i presume?i dont really know anything about him) 's cash games,so i don't know.

if i had been there and running well i probably would have jumped in the game and found out,but cautiously enough,i don't really know enough about any of the players to judge.

I think that's it. thanks

nice meeting you at the IO btw.

you too

robinlacey

RasTa wrote:

What do you do when your not playing poker?

At what stage did you start reading(if any) books about poker?

Can you making a living playing STT's and MTT's?

my main interests outside poker are music,books,cinema,(including all the deadly new tv shows from the last ten years) and art.

i am also lucky enough to be part of a large and varied group of friends with broadly similar interests,so i spend a lot of my free time hanging around with these people,either just sitting around chatting or,for want of a better word,"partying".

i also follow football and eat in restaurants a lot,and have a keen bordering on obsessive interest in pointing out people who look really like other people.



i read a few poker books at the start,but pretty much gave up when i discovered the twoplustwo forums.
i still flick through poker books every now and then,but i'm not too bothered about them.

you can make a living playing tournaments,in fact i used to do so,but i regret it now,since cash games are much more rewarding,both financially and intellectually.

robinlacey

BigCityBanker wrote:

Are you mainly a NLHE player?

yes,almost exclusively.i've probably played about twenty hours of omaha and maybe ten of lhe in my whole life.

What was the best piece of advice you have ever received in relation to your game? From who?

god i really don't know.
over the years talking about poker,either in real life or on message boards,has obviously hugely contributed to my game,but i can't think of one single maxim or whatever that was particularly important.

i think just the process of talking about it has been more important than any single piece of advice.

What is the best piece of advice you can offer to the rest of us on NLHE tourney & cash games?

for beginners,you just need to focus on getting a tight,solid game together,just get the most basic,tight game you can before you start trying to add to it.

for people who have a tight solid game,the most important thing,more so even that improving i think,is concentrating.

try to have a reason for everything you do,and try to make as few mistakes as possible.

Your most pleasing moment in poker is?

hard to say.

i know that i got far more of a thrill out of winning my first $5k gtd on tribeca a few years ago for 2k than i did out of winning 24k in vienna recently,or out of any of my big nights playing cash games,so maybe it was that.

however the more measured satisfaction i have got out of gradually becoming better at poker to the point where i feel i could sit in most games and do well if i play my A game possibly eclipses the coarser pleasures of my younger days.

i'm sure the thrill would return if i won some ridiculous tournament though.

What levels are you playing on what platforms?

i have an account on all the major sites,however i play most of my poker on ipoker,party,crypto and bodog.

until its sad departure i considered tribeca my "home" site though.

at the minute i have been running so badly that i am relaxing at bodog 3/6 till i have a good week,in general i play 5/10 and 10/20,with the occassional pop at 20/40 if the games look good.

What makes you uncomfortable at a poker table? Another specific player having position on you/stack sizes/other?

all these pricks 3betting me!

but yeah obviously have a good agressive player to your left is a nightmare.

What is your poker background and where did you pick up the fundamentals of NLHE?


What did you do to improve your game from your starting point?

i talked about most of this in one of the above posts,basically a combination of friends,forums and practice.

How long did it take from when you started taking poker seriously to reach the point where you stood back from it all and said "you know what? pokah is ez!"

i have found poker to be a constant cycle of getting to the point where i think its easy,followed shortly after by the realisation that i may have mastered one part of it but that only paved the way for another part of my game that i'm only starting to understand.

Was there an epiphany in your poker career? When was it? What turned it around?

again,there have been various epiphanies,from my first tourney win to the decision to play full time,to the decision to switch to cash.

Do you use Poker Tracker? If so what for? (I dont use it)

i use it,but not as much as i should.
i use it to analyse my own game and sometimes my opponents',and to keep track of results.

What is the most common mistake you see other players make at the table in both tourney and cash games?

calling too much,raising too little is probably up there.
everyone has their own set of mistakes that they make though.

If it takes 2 men 3 days to walk backwards into eternity and it takes a man a week to walk a fortnight then how long does it take to become a poker millionaire?

i don't know but i'm not there yet!

If you wernt a pokah player you would be ......?

i don't even want to think about that one.

Thanks for being in the well.

no problem

robinlacey

Flipper wrote:

1) What has been your biggest extravagance from your winnings?

2) How do your family react to your occupation?

3) Do you play PLO at all? What stakes?

i've never bought any one particularly extravagant thing with my winnings,i wouldn't have any interest in cars or jewellery or whatever,so i suppose the answer is just my lifestyle in general-i eat in good restaurants a lot,go on holiday a lot,buy lots of music/books/etc

initially my family were cynical about it all,however at this stage i think they are reasonably pro the whole thing,having seen how much it suits my personality and also the fact that i've been at it for over two years and have been quite successful.

i hardly play any omaha,i keep meaning to learn it,i can probably hold my own in a game full of fish just by playing tight but i'm no great shakes at it.

robinlacey

Solksjaer wrote:

You double up in a tourny and you are now above average, do you consolidate for a while or do you move quickly to build up your stack?

well the situations that arise and to some extent that cards that i am dealt will dictate how i play more than anything else,but i am certainly not going to sit back and relax now that my tournament life has been extended!

Don't have to answer this (I have my owns views)....Do you think there are a lot of overrated players on this forum?
Care to name 1 or 2...hmm maybe not.

well i think varience makes it hard to judge how good or bad someone is,so anyone who is considered good or bad based solely on their results is in danger of being over- or under- rated.

the posters i rate on this forum are the ones whose posts demonstrate a good knowledge of poker,regardless of how successful they have been in the last while.

since i mainly play online i haven't put in a lot of hours with most of the people on the forum so i'm not really in a position to judge.

What are your pet hates at the poker table?

i presume you mean live...one thing that gets to me is all the people who take minutes to make a really basic decision,they do all this shownboating before folding preflop or whatever.

the one thing that really bothers me though is people being rude to the dealers.

i have found in the poker world that most of the people i end up talking to turn out to be nice,interesting people,but there is definitely a higher proportion of people in casinos who i have no respect whatsoever for than in society at large,and the best way of identifying these people is seeing how they treat the dealers.

several times recently (including at the irish open cash games) i have ended up being the only person at the table defending the dealer when some idiot is getting really out of line,and that bothers me,especially when the dealer is a young,foreign woman sitting at a table full of men.

What makes a successful online tourny player/cash player?

once you get to a certain level where you know the basics,i think concentration is the most important thing.

Best poker book out there?

i suppose the right answer is theory of poker,but the more i think about it the more i appreciate supersystem,i keep meaning to reread it.

neither come close to the twoplustwo forum archives though.

Are you related to the other Lacey of GJP fame?

no relation no,there aren't too many laceys around so its a strange coincidence that there's too of us in a relatively small irish poker scene.

If you were playing a TV tournamnet and someone like Tony G, Mike the mouth started badgering you, how would you react.

this came up in conversation recently,and i really don't know.

when i play live and someone starts talking during a hand,i usually try to just ignore whatever they are saying and think about the hand exactly as i would if i saw it written down as a hand history,so i'd like to think that it wouldn't get to me.however having seen some of the tony g stuff on youtube,i can imagine it would be pretty hard to take.

i suppose i'd just try and make as good a decision as i could.the trouble with tony g is there's no point trying to outwit him,since there is no spark or wit to what he is saying,he's just being a prick.one of my friends suggested that a possible counter strategy would be to point out the table as soon as you sit down how much he looks like the kid from that two and half men show,hopefully people would then start laughing at him and you would have him on the back foot.

In my opinion a lot of the high stakes poker players are just above average players with a bankroll, which of these type of players impress you most and lest.

its hard to tell really,i don't watch much poker on tv anyway,and even if i did you can only tell so much from the hands they show.
however,i'm sure some of the big names pros have just ran well,but in general most of them are probably doing something right,at least in mtts.
from what i have seen most of the big names are pretty bad at nlhe cash.

Have you ever come close to blows due to poker?

i never get in fights,for both practical (i am small and weak) and philosophical (people who end up in fights more often than very occasionally are usually dickheads) reasons

however,i did have a guy try to start on me in the bellagio when i told him to shut the f.uck up after he was getting particularly out of line with the dealer.

at the last minute he decided it wasn't worth getting kicked out,so he backed down,which was lucky cause he around six times bigger than me.

other than that no.

robinlacey

HiCloy wrote:

1. Have you set yourself any targets, for the year or in general?

2. How many hours do you play a day/week?

3. How important is ego in poker?

Thanks for doing this

i haven't really set many targets,other than to keep improving.i could say i'd like to win a big live mtt or whatever,but that's really out of my hands.
i would like to play well enough in the tournaments i play to win one,and in cash i'd like to just keep playing as well as i can when i do play,and focus on not making mistakes through lack of concentration.

usually i probably play 30-40 hours a week,however this year it hasn't even been half that,i've been running really badly and so haven't played nearly as much as i should,plus i was away for all of march.

ego is probably very important,i'd say it accounts for a good proportion of the mistakes people make against me.i try to have as little an ego as possible,any time it rears its ugly head it does no good,for example i got stacked in the cash games at the irish open recently when i tangled with the only other good player at the table.

there was no need to get involved with trying to outsmart him,but i did,which meant i lost not only the money i lost in that hand,but all the other money i could have made that night if i had just steered clear of him.

nicnicnic

Hi Robin, great stuff so far keep it up. Pleasure meeting you at the IO and I was very glad I was not sitting on your right at that table we played on.


You've mentioned that your currently being mentored can you elaborate on this ie what it actually involves, do you pay for it, how many hours a week ect

after your initial lesson at the IO for chip flipping and shuffling are you making any progress in this department:)

robinlacey

Wreck wrote:

Interested to know the answer to this.

Also, when I spoke to you briefly at the IO, bankroll management seemed to be extremely important to you. Could you please explain:

1) Whether you built your roll from scratch (or close to it)

i did build my bankroll from scratch,when i was learning to play poker they used to have these 10c giveaway stts on victor chandler that were running constantly,i used these to learn how to play,and from there i worked my way up (and down) the stt ladder till i eventually settled on $25 stts as my break and butter for a while.

2) What guidelines you use for moving up/down levels

i have tried to develop a fairly dynamic approach to moving up and down levels,and try to think of myself as having a range of stakes rather than just dividing my bankroll by 30 and playing whatever buyin that gives me.

i would consider 30 buyins the absolute minimum these days, (i will take a shot with 20 buyins,but only playing one or two particularly good tables) but basically i try and play the top end of my range when i am running well and the games are good,and i will drop down as low as two levels below this if i am running or playing bad.

the thinking behind it is this: you are playing your best game when you are playing the higher stakes,and when you aren't doing so well,you are playing easier games,which you are more likely to win in,or if you keep losing your losses will be limited.

i try to drop down if i have a losing session or two even if i felt i played well-this is because it can be hard to tell when you're running bad how well you are really playing,and you can start second guessing yourself and overcompensating for things in your play.

also confidence is such a huge factor in poker,so its good to be playing the better players for more money when you are playing well and then when things aren't going so well you are playing worse players for less.

i have to admit that i wish i had been more disciplined in applying the above recently,i tend to be better at sticking to those ideas when i am doing well in general,but i think the ideas are sound,and so at the minute i'm playing 3/6 even though i'm well overrolled for it,and once i have a few good sessions under my belt i'll move back up.

3) What portion of your bankroll you use for tourney buy-ins.

well for online tourneys,i am well overrolled for nearly all of them,so i just play them whenever i feel like it.

for live tourneys,i have a different approach.

i consider myself a professional online cash game player,so i look at live tourneys as a hobby,albeit one with a positive expectation.

so for something like the irish open,which i really wanted to play,i just bought in out of my bank account,bypassing my roll altogether.obviously this is a somewhat spurious distinction,but basically my online roll is sacrosanct,but for live games i will happily take a pop out of my own money if i feel like it.obviously i can't be doing this all the time,as a $5k buyin tourney is something of an extravagance,but i don't think there's any harm in taking a pop every so often.i plan on trying to win a few satellites to upcoming major events though,since i would like to play more of them but obviously can't be buying in all the time.

i have a similar approach to cash games live-i will take out whatever amount of money for the weekend,and play whatever looks like the best game.if i turned up at a festival with 2k,ran it into 10k playing 5/10 and 10/20,and then saw a juicy 25/50 or 50/100 game going,i wouldn't hesitate to jump in.

this is completely separate from my bankroll,and this approach allows to me take a pop at games i otherwise wouldn't play in.

i like being able to do this because live games are so much softer than online its unbelievable,and it adds an element of gamble to my game without interfering with my livelihood.

4) How/when you decide 'pay' yourself - i.e. take money for yourself from your poker roll.

i don't really have a method anymore,if i am running well i will cash out a lot,i've been running badly recently so i haven't cashed out at all,etc.

5) Do you have any other income besides poker (shares, investments etc.) and if not do you plan to?

yeah having spent a disgraceful amount of money last year on roughly the same lifestyle i had the year before when i wasn't spending nearly as much i decided i needed to do something more productive with my money,so now i have an amount of money each month going into a bank of ireland savings/investment scheme.
i'm not sure how good an idea this is,i'd like to look into this sort of thing more myself,but i know it'll be a while before i get around to it,so i decided to go with this for the minute,since it has to be better than just leaving the money sitting there doing nothing.

6) Do you still wear tight speedos when you go swimming?:D

lol! not so much no,except in france where for some reason they insist upon it.

robinlacey

goodluck2me wrote:

1. have you ever considered it to be -ev posting advanced strategy you think of on a public forum?

maybe on twoplustwo,but here the pool of players is fairly small,so even if everyone here improved hugely it'd probably be a drop in the ocean,there'd still be plenty of fish.

2. How satisfying is winning a large buy in event i.e. Austrian Open to raking in a massive pot in a cash game with a marginal call that you were correct in?

just to clarify,i won the 1k event in vienna,not the austrian open itself.

anyway,i really enjoyed winning that tournament because i think i played really well,so it was satisfying,however if i'd fluked my way to the win i wouldn't have gained any personal satisfaction from the title,or at least no more than if i'd found the money on the street.

money aside,i do get a lot of satisfaction from making good decisions in cash games,not even just in big pots,i like nothing more than a cheeky little wafer thin value bet on the river.

3. What do you see as the main flaw in tournament structures?

i don't really play enough tournaments to be able to give much of an answer,but really just the more blind levels and the longer the clock the better.

4. What do you see as the main mistake you see people make in tournaments/Cash games?

think i answered this one already,its probably people calling too much and raising too little.

5. Is it possible for a losing 1-2 player to be a winning 5-10 or above player due to the style of their game?

interesting one,probably not in the long run,but i would imagine there are some players who would be more likely to do well in a 5/10 game than a 1/2.

6. Do you remember giving me 100-1 and me placing 10 euro on Marty Smith winning the IO in Clonmel? If Yes, ill pm you my PS SN, if not..forget it you have no honour!

i'd love to answer this but to be honest that would be an ecuminical matter and it wouldn't be my place to discuss it.

robinlacey

Marq wrote:

How often do you come into the Fitz just to eat a steak after midnight?

at least a few times a month,having somewhere you can get a hot meal at 3 am is a godsend!

robinlacey

Ste05 wrote:

Hey Robin, good luck answering all these questions, I hope you have a spare day coming up soon My questions for you.

What 2+2 forums do you currently post most in and what posters do you consider as the current cream of the posting crop.

i've never really posted that much on twoplustwo,i think i have about 700 posts to my name in the last three years.i've been posting a bit on the el diablo forum recently since i think it has a lot of potential,i hardly post on any poker related forums though.

for the strat forums,hsnl and msnl are both good but far past their best,i don't bother reading either as much as i used to do,although both are still quite good and still the best resource for learning the game.

What posters from the Archives do you look out for most.

the best thing to do is to look for the best of threads and see who appears most often in them.

however,there are a few posters who never posted a huge amount,but often when they did they posted some really great,they wouldn't be there every day discussing every hand but they'd put up little mini-essays that were fantastic.

off the top of my head,the best of these were limon (early days) and samoleus (more recently)

also people like strassa,cero z and bruiser

then there were the other regulars who were constantly posting good stuff,you'd probably know most of their names,el diablo,fsu player,mdma,etc

Do you have any recommendations for the best CR videos you remember watching, answers such as "GP7" or "MW9" would be perfect if you can remember or have any bookmarked or saved.

Cheers.

i don't really have any that i remember,to be honest.

i watched a lot of the green plastic ones when i joined and found them all to be good.

i never bothered with any of the others,until sbrugby of course.

ive only watched two sbrugby ones so far but i presume they will all be worth watching.

robinlacey

An Gaisc&#237 wrote: »

My only question

What is your secret to be able to still be in bed at 9 at night?!!!

become a professional poker player!

robinlacey

http://tinyurl.com/yqt3gy

robinlacey

MacStacked wrote:

Lol..Good morning..
What are your usual sleeping patterns?

all over the place to be honest,they tend towards staying up all night and sleeping during the day though.this was the case even before i played poker.

now that its summer though i've been making an effort to be up during the day,but there was a party on over the weekend which meant that went out the window.

robinlacey

Lazare wrote:

Hi Robin,

Do you feel you would've had a diminished performance in last years WSOP had you not managed to get a nice cup of tea?

absolutely
in fact if anyone has any contacts in barry's and wants to get them to sponsor me that'd be great

robinlacey

nicnicnic wrote:

Hi Robin, great stuff so far keep it up. Pleasure meeting you at the IO and I was very glad I was not sitting on your right at that table we played on.

hi nicky

nice to meet you too,and well done on getting to the final table,you were playing very well while you were at my table.

You've mentioned that your currently being mentored can you elaborate on this ie what it actually involves, do you pay for it, how many hours a week ect

i get coaching from MDMA off the twoplustwo high stakes forums (i'm actually on a break from it at the minute since i was away,but i will be starting again soon)

basically i get four hours of coaching a week,for $225/hour.

this breaks down into two two hour sessions,during which time i play while he watches,and we talk about it over skype.

also included in the price i can send him hand histories or general questions whenever i want and he sends me back detailed answers going through all the factors in each situation.

i've been doing it since last november and i have found it to be a huge help with my game.

after your initial lesson at the IO for chip flipping and shuffling are you making any progress in this department:)

lol!

i've had three chips in my hand all day and have been messing around with them trying to figure out how i was doing it at the irish open,i can still kind of do it but not with the same fluidity

so no progress at all no,i'll never be a respected live player at this rate!

robinlacey

finally caught up!

keep 'em coming,its kind of a laugh answering all these questions.

i suppose there's not many others reading boards at four in the morning though...

cardshark202

Great thread Robin. I've been looking forward to this one for a while.

Lafortezza

Are you going to Vegas this year?

Tell us a poker story full of degeneracy plz.

pok3rplaya

Robin, firstly I would like to say this thread has been an interesting read so thanks for taking part and giving such intricate answers.

I must say I am intrigued by your personality. I've always held the notion that poker playing ability and the arts had little common ground and it is interesting to me to find someone who derives pleasusure from both fields. Along with telling us of your appreciation for the arts, you also say you have a strong logical streak. I find it difficult to understand how you are not contantly contradicting yourself in your perception of the world as this particular mix of qualities would seem insoluable to me.

I've always considered myself a logical person. I've always been better at maths then at languages and I always tended towards engineering diciplines when it came to picking college courses. As such, throughout my life I've found it difficult to develop an appreciation of the arts. Things such as paintings, poetry and to an extent even music just don't seem to have the
same effect on me as they do other people. Of course, I can appreciate the skill that it takes to paint a delicate picture and I realise the value of astethics but a lot of the aura of the work is lost on me it seems. A lot of it, especially abstract art, seems rather meaningless and fashion (ie bullsh!t) driven.

So, as someone who can maybe bridge a gap for me, I have some questions on the subject.

What do you think is the relevance of art in todays society? What function does it perform?
Would you reccomend that everyone makes an effort to develop an interest in art and if so, why?


Secondly, I see you have an interest in books. This is something I deffinitly can appreciate even though I don't take the time to read very often ever since I became more interested in parties!

Can you name 5 books which you feel every person in the world should read?


Thanks, I know they are weird questions.

ianmc38

In terms of taking shots at games, what's your point of view? At what point in terms of numbers of buyins do you think you should move up/down? I'm currently in this situation myself where I have more than the standard bankroll for the level I play most frequently, but am unsure regarding moving up levels fulltime.

Is your 4 bet sizing opponent specific? If you've bene involved in alot of 3/4 betting with somebody, do you like to vary your 4 bet sizes or do you have a standard line? Eg in a 1/2 game 7/28/75

What's your favourite restaurant in Dublin?

What are your PT stats like? Would you consider yourself a TAG/LAG? What's your lifetime bb/100?

robinlacey

interesting questions,i'll see what i can do.

pok3rplaya wrote:

Robin, firstly I would like to say this thread has been an interesting read so thanks for taking part and giving such intricate answers.

I must say I am intrigued by your personality. I've always held the notion that poker playing ability and the arts had little common ground and it is interesting to me to find someone who derives pleasusure from both fields. Along with telling us of your appreciation for the arts, you also say you have a strong logical streak. I find it difficult to understand how you are not contantly contradicting yourself in your perception of the world as this particular mix of qualities would seem insoluable to me.

first of all,there is definitely a contradiction of sorts here,i know what you mean.i definitely do have a strong logical streak,but i would say that by and large my personality is far far more driven by emotion than reason.my interest in music and art and so on is far more important to me than my interest in "how things work".

i am fairly bad at maths,and you wouldn't believe how little i understand of science,its hard to get across to people because i am quite articulate so they assume i am also intelligent,but junior cert science utterly mystifies me.

i think the logical side of my personality was largely formed because i enjoy arguing-i think a lot of this comes from having been quite a precocious and contrarian child,and a lot of my logical arguement experience comes from the natural disagreements you have with authority figures (mainly parents and teachers) while growing up,stuff like the inevitable arguements about drugs and staying out late and religion and so on during your teenage years.

i still get a great deal of satisfaction out of arguing,and i find it incredibly frustrating when someone has an opinion which is rooted in what i see as a fallacy.even with stuff like science i don't fully understand,i am often willing to defer to the judgement of people who have taken the time to study these things,and for example when political policy ignores the overwhelming opinion of scientific orthodoxy it really pisses me off.

but all this is certainly far less important than the joy i get from listening to a great piece of music or seeing an amazing film or whatever.

actually the way i play poker is probably quite a good analogy for all this-in general i am what is known as a "feel" player,and i rely a lot on instinct when i am playing poker.however i do not for a second fool myself into thinking that this is rooted in anything other than logic and maths,even if it is often logic and maths i do not fully understand.i know well that when i make a decision based on instinct,it is not some supernatural ability i have,rather my brain is able to process the information i have been given quicker on a subconscious level than a conscious one,which manifests itself in a strong feeling that i should call or fold or push or whatever.i may be unable to reduce my decisions to the sort of equity calculations and game theory other people use,but i know well that it can be expressed like that.

I've always considered myself a logical person. I've always been better at maths then at languages and I always tended towards engineering diciplines when it came to picking college courses. As such, throughout my life I've found it difficult to develop an appreciation of the arts. Things such as paintings, poetry and to an extent even music just don't seem to have the
same effect on me as they do other people. Of course, I can appreciate the skill that it takes to paint a delicate picture and I realise the value of astethics but a lot of the aura of the work is lost on me it seems. A lot of it, especially abstract art, seems rather meaningless and fashion (ie bullsh!t) driven.

this paragraph actually touches on something that's been coming up in my conversations about music and so on a lot recently,and also confirms something i've long suspected of people who don't have a huge appreciation for these things!

a lot of the time when i disagree with someone about the merit of some music or art or whatever,i realise quickly that the disagreement comes down to the idea that if something is difficult to do or technically impressive it is automatically of worth.obviously a lot of the great art down through the years has required a huge amount of technical skill,but i feel very strongly,contrary to what other people usually think,that in and of itself this is not enough.

people often play some horrible album of dull sounding guitar based music and defend it on the grounds that the guitar playing is extremely complicated,and they cannot understand the simple fact that i don't care about this at all if it doesn't move me.sure,its impressive that you can play a complicated chord sequence or paint a particularly detailed picture,but i don't really care about that.

i love john coltrane's music,and i gather from people who know about musical theory (i haven't a clue) that his saxaphone playing is pretty much unsurpassed on a technical level in the history of music.this is all well and good,but it is the feelings it evokes when i listen to it that interests me.this technical proficiency is probably what allows him to make such astonishing music,but it alone is not enough,again it is the abstract,unquantifiable "inspiration" or whatever in the music that grabs me.(there are some things where i can appreciate and get enjoyment from the craft or technical difficulty of them,for example illmatic by nas is one of my favourite albums and i am astonished by the virtuosity of his rapping whenever i listen to it,however there is a lot more to it than just how complicated it is)

your comments about art touch upon where this arguement most often comes up.i absolutely love modern,abstract art (well,i hate a lot of it,there is loads that really conforms to the most common stereotypes of it as meaningless pretentious sh.ite,but i am willing to just walk quickly past it on the way to the good stuff)
and i couldn't care less about how difficult it was to paint.people often look at stuff like mark rothko (possibly my favourite painter) and say "well its just a load of colours,ok it looks nice but i could have done that!)

the fact is you (or i) couldn't have done that because we never would have thought of it,you might be able to recreate some modern art,(although i suspect a lot of it is more difficult to make than it lets on) but its the fact that it was brought into existence that is the "skill",not the difficulty in making it once you've thought of it.

basically if a painting is beautiful to look at i don't care how simple it appears to make,it is the feeling i get when i look at it that matters,everything else is secondary,bordering on irrelevant to me.

similarly i listen to a lot of techno music,which is extremely regimented and straightforward seeming (deceptively so,since very few people can take the simple structure of it and construct a truly astonishing piece of music,but when they do its truly amazing) and often dismissed as all sounding the same,however it is the subtleties within each small change that make it,much as the subtle wash of colours in a great painting are what i am in it for,not the technical accomplishment.

So, as someone who can maybe bridge a gap for me, I have some questions on the subject.

What do you think is the relevance of art in todays society? What function does it perform?
Would you reccomend that everyone makes an effort to develop an interest in art and if so, why?

(i'm going to presume you mean "the arts" by art,since music and film and art and so on all serve a similar purpose)
i don't really know what i think about the relevance of art in society,i suppose its main function is merely to provide moments of joy for people who are into it,i think most art that tries hard to perform a social function fails,art should in general be for its own sake i think,and i think that's more than enough.

some art has contributed greatly to society,and i think a society that finds release and joy through art will be a happier and therefore more prosperous society than one without it,but i don't think great art is made for the good of society so much as because whoever makes it feels like they have to,and whoever consumes it feels like they have to.

art that tries to be overly political or whatever is almost always doomed to failure,the art itself is the most important thing.

for example i think the wire,a hbo tv show that came up in conversation on flipper's the well thread,is one of the most amazing social/political statements of our time,but only because it does this without every being heavy handed with it-its only a few seasons in that you realise that it is such a sophisticated social and political document,you were too busy enjoying the fact that it is a cracking story with loads of deadly characters to notice any attempt at meaning,and this is how it should be.i would imagine the same would be true of many great novels with a political or social meaning-the meaning is great and all,but nothing without the "art"

as for whether everyone should make an effort to develop an interest in these things,its hard to say.

i mean when i think of the all encompasing,impossible to describe joy i get from being immersed in a great piece of music,its hard not to think that you are missing out if you don't "get" it.

however,i suspect that its just that other people get the same buzz from other areas of life,for example the pleasure engineers or mathematicians get from figuring out how things work probably serves a similar function in their lives to music in mine.i can certainly see the appeal,in that i get a lot of enjoyment from making a very thin value bet or a great call.

also,i talked elsewhere in this thread about how i don't have much in the way of what would conventionally be known as ambition,so i suppose a lot of people who can really devote themselves to achieving things in business or whatever would feel that i am missing out on that joy just as i feel they are missing out on seeing a great painting or whatever.

i suppose maybe it comes back to the divide between logic and emotion - my personality is such that the things that give me the greatest pleasure are those which it is impossible to describe (even though it is a laugh trying to),whether it is an amazing piece of music or a beautiful goal,wheras other people get more enjoyment out of precisely the opposite,describing or understanding things in as much accurate detail as possible.

having said that,i think it must be worth trying to develop an interest in the arts,since you can't argue with the risk/reward ratio-if it turns out it doesn't really do much for you,it will still have been an interesting experience,and if you do get into it it will be an incredible source of happiness for the rest of your life.

Secondly, I see you have an interest in books. This is something I deffinitly can appreciate even though I don't take the time to read very often ever since I became more interested in parties!

lol,i know the feeling!

Can you name 5 books which you feel every person in the world should read?


Thanks, I know they are weird questions.

thats a difficult one,as you may have gathered from my ramblings above i'm not hugely into the idea that things like books should have a specific purpose,or at least the ones that mean the most to me shouldn't.

one book that i read recently that i felt that everyone should read,however,is a book called naked economics,its a basic introduction to economics that is written so clearly and concisely that when i finished it i thought that the world would be a better place if everyone had read it.

i am quite sure there are equivalents in numerous other fields,stuff like science,politics,psychology,ethics,philosophy,etc,although i have yet to come across any so perfectly simple and clearly explained.you can't buy it in ireland but it is on amazon.

my absolute favourite book of all time,and one which i reckon anyone who reads fiction for pleasure couldn't help but enjoy,is a book called life:a user's manual by george perec.

its an experimental novel (experimental only in structure,its not at all difficult to read or follow) about the people who live in an apartment building in paris,and its a joy to read.

beyond that its hard to say,favourite books are so rooted in your personality that there's not many you could unreservedly recommend to people,the writer whose stuff has meant the most to me is possibly samuel beckett,(even though i haven't actually read that much of his stuff) but i woiuld hesitate to recommend him to most people since i know that many people find his stuff bleak,boring or pretentious.i think its both beautiful and hilarious,but i know its not a common opinion.

come to think of it one writer who i think almost anyone would enjoy is pg wodehouse,the jeeves and wooster books are so consitantly funny its amazing,they're sort of like seinfeld in that each of them is pretty much the same but you love the characters and watching how each mess they find themselves in develops so much that it doesn't really matter.

robinlacey

jesus,that has to be the most unnecessarily lenghty and waffly post in the history of boards!