Q+A with Marty Smyth

BigCityBanker wrote: »

Good luck in the well.

- What has been your biggest poker epiphany?
- Biggest Influence on your poker career?
- If you could do it again, what would you do differently? i.e. play a specific hand differently, dont get involved in poker etc.
- One exit hand that you wished you had won, from any tournament.
- What makes you uncomfortable at the table? i.e another specific player having position on you, stack sizes, stakes etc.
- what is your biggest leak? what was once your biggest leak that have since corrected?
- what is the most common mistake that you see players making that they shouldnt really be making?
- what would you change about poker in Ireland?
- If you could trade either the IO or the PLO Bracelet for any other title, which one would you trade and for what title?
- What is the sound of one hand clapping?
- If it takes two men, threee days, to walk backwards into eternity then how long does it take Oliver Twist to pick a pocket or two?
- When you were 3 handed at the FT in Vegas there was a 10 minute break and ppl were just hanging around chatting, at one stage, mid sentence you paused and looked at John O'Shea (dagunman) and said "holy ****, do you wax your chest?".... how upsetting was it for you to learn that a guy who masquerades as man with an unblemished record of heterosexuality may actually be hiding something in the closet. If you hadnt won the bracelet do you think you would ever have forgiven John for upsetting you and potentially putting you off your game like this? It wouldnt have been much of him to ask to button up the shirt?

I look forward to reading this thread when I get home at the weekend.

- What has been your biggest poker epiphany?

no idea... maybe just recently, when it suddenly hit me that maybe i should stop selling off %s of myself and just stick to a few swaps

- Biggest Influence on your poker career?

per werner svesson - a swedish guy who i used to play in the same games as when i started online. in my opinion he was totally different class to anyone else at the time and took a lot of money from me, but i was making more from the others at the table, and the stuff i learned from him was invaluable

- If you could do it again, what would you do differently? i.e. play a specific hand differently, dont get involved in poker etc.

i wouldn't lend out money

- One exit hand that you wished you had won, from any tournament.

pokermillion final last year maybe - it's a tournament i'd love to win

- What makes you uncomfortable at the table? i.e another specific player having position on you, stack sizes, stakes etc.

getting into pots deep-stacked with someone who i consider to be better than me

- what is your biggest leak? what was once your biggest leak that have since corrected?

i was quite a sick gambler 15 years ago and everything was a leak really but not a huge leak as i didn't have much money to lose and there's only so much debt u can get into at that age. i still play table games the odd time, but not often and i don't consider it a problem that i need to give up.

- what is the most common mistake that you see players making that they shouldnt really be making?

tilting and playing higher than they should in cash games where they are the value at the table.

- what would you change about poker in Ireland?

legalise it in the north

- If you could trade either the IO or the PLO Bracelet for any other title, which one would you trade and for what title?

i'd trade either for a wsop main event bracelet... that would be the only thing. and i'd probably trade the omaha bracelet actually - i'd be happy with one bracelet and one IO title, and if u have to have one bracelet then the ME is bigger.

- What is the sound of one hand clapping?

- If it takes two men, threee days, to walk backwards into eternity then how long does it take Oliver Twist to pick a pocket or two?

if he was picking the pocket of a certain irish poker player who got robbed twice in the same night in vegas this year, then maybe it would only have taken him a couple of hours.

- When you were 3 handed at the FT in Vegas there was a 10 minute break and ppl were just hanging around chatting, at one stage, mid sentence you paused and looked at John O'Shea (dagunman) and said "holy ****, do you wax your chest?".... how upsetting was it for you to learn that a guy who masquerades as man with an unblemished record of heterosexuality may actually be hiding something in the closet. If you hadnt won the bracelet do you think you would ever have forgiven John for upsetting you and potentially putting you off your game like this? It wouldnt have been much of him to ask to button up the shirt?

i wasn't upset at all - i was just wondering why i never thought of it b4... i could do my back and shoulders while i was at it. far from putting me off, i think it actually spurred me on to victory, as i was thinking if i won then i'd get the number of his beautician and give myself a nice treat afterwards...

pokerkingsni wrote: »

Where did you learn the game? Living in Belfast what were the options to play live poker?

Cheers, Eoin.

i'd always played poker since i was very young and played in small home games with friends in belfast through secondary school and university. it was only when i started playing in the jackpot in dublin that i learned holdem and omaha and that was were i continued to play until the internet started getting big. there have been a few illegal clubs that have came and gone in the north, but at the minute there are only 2 decent legit ones that i know of and they are both quite far from where i live.

eagle eye wrote: »

Hi Marty, and again congrats on the bracelet and a wonderful 18 months in tourneys as well.

I only played with you once and it was in Cavan in 05, you weren't happy with me when I doubled up a shorty called Stephen McClean:D. I was only new to the scene at that stage and I thought you were a very focused player, you seemed to be watching everything. I have spoken to you once or twice since then and you seem to be a very decent bloke. Best of luck with this, and for the future as well.

My questions

1. You have had a lot of success in holdem tournaments and the big one in the wsop in Omaha. Whats the biggest difference in playing tournament Omaha and tournament Holdem'?

2. Name the final table that you would not like your chances at in a HA game?

3. If you had a choice between playing only one of Omaha or Holdem for the rest of your career which would you choose and why?

4. Which has an softer field, an ept or wsop event of similar buyin?

5. Do you set targets for youself or just go day by day?

6. What do you think is your biggest strength in Poker?

Thats all for now, might have more later. Again best of luck with this?

1. not being able to bluff/steal blinds as much in omaha

2. i think i heard recently that HA stands for holdem/omaha? if this is true then probably a really loose aggressive table with the likes of ram, devilfish, gus hansen, annette obrestad, andy black, a drunk padraig, a drunk alan betson and a token scandinavian player... how would u know what anyone had when there's 6 to every flop...

3. omaha. i prefer the game and it's growing all the time.

4. from my limited experience, the wsop main event has many more bad players than epts, but the standard in some other wsop events with 5k or 10k buy ins is pretty similar to epts.

5. i don't really set target for poker in regards to what i would like to win although i might set a target like say - playing at least 80 hours online in a month and not tilting. i have an idea of what i would be happy to achieve in any month or year or any series of tournaments etc, but luck plays such a big part in short term poker that u can't really set targets and be too surprised if u don't make them.

6. i really don't know. i'm quite patient, but not as patient as i could be... quite disciplined, reasonably good at thinking my way through hands, but again there is room for improvement in both those. maybe my biggest strength is that although i might not be the strongest in any one department, i don't think i really have any major weaknesses.

7. u shouldn't double up players like steven mcclean

ITT-Pat wrote: »

Great replies so far. Cant think of much now apart from:

Who have you found to be the best 'character' you have met on the poker scene?

padraig or dennis winters

glenjamin wrote: »

Just a couple of quick Qs, if you don't mind Mr.Smyth?

1- Would you ever feel comfortable enough to sit down and play the 'big' games in Vegas now that your're the PLO champ?

2- Did you find that reading books and forums on poker helped your game. Or was it all down to your sheer experience of sitting down playing at a casino learning from your own mistakes?

3- Now that your're financially secure would you ever consider going on the tournament trail playing tourney after tourney in search of more 'bling'? i.e. WPT/EPT titles, WSOP bracelets.

4- Hows your Stud/Razz and Hi/Lo game?

Cheers and congrats again...

1. absolutely not - when i won the PLO it didn't make me any better than i had been the day before i played the PLO... it just made me a fair bit richer and a bit more well-known probably... actually i suppose it depends what u mean by big games. i wouldn't play something like 200-400PLO whatever the line up was, but i might play 50-100 or something if it looked fairly soft, although that has nothing to do with me winning the tourney.

2. i didn't read any books although i wish i had as it might have saved a bit of time. i learned from watching other good players and trying to work out what they were doing better than me and try to understand why those things made sense and understand what i was doing wrong and what i had to change. if i bluffed and someone called me with bottom pair i wouldn't just think - 'what a clown'... i'd think - what did i do in the way that i played the hand that made him think bottom pair was winning, then the next time a similar situation occurs i'd be better at navigating my way through the hand.

3. i pretty much am at the minute - not so much for the bling (although i won't lie and say that it isn't nice to pick up titles), but mainly because i have a sponsorship deal, and also because online has gotten tougher and i think i have a much bigger edge in live tournaments now.
even though i have a very generous budget from boyles, i won't be playing tourneys that i don't think are good value for me just because they're high profile.. i won't be playing the wsope unless i hear that the field looks a lot softer than last year, and i doubt i'll ever go to monte carlo for the ept final.

4. i'm pretty bad at all fixed limit games. i think i could hold my own at pot-limit omaha hi-lo.

Can I go back in time and take that deal?

when's it due on TV?...or more like pokertube...

Marty, Apathy, and now FLIPPER all on the same page - WOWZ!!

anyways, good stuff Marty, fair play for doing this - interesting read.

My question:

Poker & Family life - Discuss


cheers
bops

will there be an announcement when you are going to be a bounty on boyles?
YES


will it be plo or holdem?

You decide


does the person who knocks you out get to keep the bracelet? (If not i'd be willing to swap you the cash bounty for it)

We will make a bracelet for the person who knocks him out (if its possible)

good read marty, thanks very much.

Instead of asking you questions, could you share with us 2/3 stories from the circuit of drunken Degen funny stuff (that you can say publicly). Them stories always seem to be worth a good laugh -(akin to you appearing on Match of tha Day! )

thanks

Donal

Apathy wrote: »

Can I go back in time and take that deal?

i was only kidding anyway :P