Ianmc38 in the well

ligger

Hey Ian,

1. Who is a better player you or Halfbaked.
2. Whilst in jail on suspicion of a crime involving animals , you need a bail bond of 10k. You have 1k, who do you give it to who can spin it up to 10k playing poker?
3. Do you miss working here when working here makes you ask such weird questions (see question 2)
4. Kasia or Kate??
5. You do know Halfbaked is never leaving Dublin don't you...

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

El Stuntman

Not much in the way of poker questions as Bops can answer all my issues....

Admit that the sole and only reason you moved to Thailand was to be in a place where you can finally be considered taller than average. Admit it!

What's it like being a farang? I've had conversations with a friend who's lived all over Asia, he says the Chinese are uber-rude to gweilos but also said that he found Thais to be 'quietly rude'. Have you experienced much of this? If yes, what proportion of the blame for this would you put on the behaviour of Western tourists in Thailand?

You're living in a Buddhist country. Have you developed any interest in it and do you think it could help your poker game, a la Mr Black?

Thanks, el S

GrangeUtd

Hi great well so far. really enjoying it.

Just wondering what sites/skins/networks u play on the most? or recommend?

What do u generally do when u bet any made hand on the flop (pair/straight etc.) with 2 to the flush on the board and the 3 card to the flush hits the turn? in position/out of position?

rgds

ianmc38

Macspower wrote:

Thanks for your honest answers Ian......

A few more if you dont mind... I'm interested in Thailand although prob never get a chance to go myself..

Whats the cost of living like there?

The cost of livng is extremely cheap. You could live here on $500 a month if you wanted. Meals cost anything from 30cent from a street vendor to $100 in a nice restaurant. I've eaten out in loads of really fancy places here, cos I love my food and I'm a posh git.

Macspower wrote:

What would an average appartment cost per month have you any idea?

You can get an apartment from €200 - €2000 a month depending on the place itself, the furniniture and fittings and the location. I'm living ina serviced apartment which is part of a hotel. They're mainly aimed at expat businessmen. It's €1800 a month for a large one bed, but I'd gotten tired of living in 5 square meter beach huts so I decided I was gonna rent somewhere nice. The service is amazing too and anything I want is just a phone call away. They even went out and my shopping for me the other day

Macspower wrote:

I take it internet coverage is not a problem?

Yeha good reliable connection in my room. The broadband infrastructure in Thailand as a whole has come on a huge amount since last year.

Macspower wrote:

Are the girls really hot and anxious to please?

I find there are 2 breeds of Thai women. There are the really hot ones and then there are really ugly ones. I find more of them unattractive than I would attractive, but there are some ridic hot chicks here.

It's quite difficult to find women who are genuine here. Most of them see you as rich foreigner who will be able to offer them a better life, so they'll feign extreme interest. It's quite commoin to see 16-18 year old girls walking hand in hand with 70+ men. Bangkok isnt as bad as Phuket were all the old perverts seem to flock. I'm always quite skeptical when approached by them as it's not really customary for a regular girl to chat up a faranfg so most of the time it'll be a money grabber or a working girl!

Macspower wrote:

whats the weather like? summer and winter?

It's hot and humid all year. Our summer is rainy season here. At the moment it's 30 degrees with high humidity.

Macspower wrote:

Can you describe an average day to me?

Sure. I usually get up around 10am. I've a newspaper hung on my door every morning, so I usually read that while having a few coffees. Then I go to the gym and do about an hours workout.

In the afternoons I either play poker, sit beside the pool or go out and see some of the different tourist attractions, hang out in parks etc. Bangkok is massive and even having been here some time I still find myself getting lost regularly. There are loads of different places to see, the Grand Palace, temples everywhere, snake and crocodile farms, huge shopping centres, loads of insane outdoor markets, cool parks and so on. In the evenings, I usually go out for a meal, then play poker for 4 hours or so or watch whatever sports are on tv. The satellite tv here is great as there are premiership matches on all the time as well as all the rugby world cup matches.

Macspower wrote:

Do you get out socialise much?

I go out occasionally, but I havn't really made much of an effort to meeet new people. I met some of the 2+2 peeps one night but havnt met up with them again since.

Macspower wrote:

Is language a problem?

nah most Thais can speak some English so I get by with hello, how are you and thanks in thai. The only problem I have is with taxi drivers as they dont seem to have a clue what Im talking about when Im telling them where I live!

ianmc38

djsctt wrote:

Couple more for ya, if you'd rather not answer , no problem...

Do you primarily play on ipoker, or are there any other networks you play regularly ?

Yeah I play 90% of the time on Ipoker. I started playing a bit on Stars again recently when the WCOOP started. I've started playing some mid limit O8 games again there as the games are spread there all the time where as I can sit at a table on Ipoker for 5 hours and not get any action.

ianmc38

ligger wrote:

Hey Ian,

1. Who is a better player you or Halfbaked.

1. Is a good question. I would say I'm a better online player and Peter is a better live player. For some reason my game totally changes when I play live which I'm at a loss to explain. I tend to play far nittier and cant translate what I do online to live play properly. I think if I was to play live again now there would be a huge improvement in my play.

I find it much easier to take someones money online where I dont have to see their face. I find live I feel quite empathic towards people who are losing money all the time and I dont really feel very comfortable playing with 8 other people I know in a bid to win their cash. Obviously that isn't a good attitude to have when you're playing a live cash game. Against people I dont know it's a different story and I feel I play much better.

ligger wrote:

2. Whilst in jail on suspicion of a crime involving animals , you need a bail bond of 10k. You have 1k, who do you give it to who can spin it up to 10k playing poker?

Who told you about that? For guaranteed ROI it would be LuckyLloyd or HalfBaked. For a quick spin I'd go for QKQJT or JBravado.

ligger wrote:

3. Do you miss working here when working here makes you ask such weird questions (see question 2)

I miss the people. I had the best group of people to work with, all 25-35 with similar interests to myself working in a stress free enviroment. I used to go out to sessions all the time with my boss!

ligger wrote:

4. Kasia or Kate??

Kasia

ligger wrote:

5. You do know Halfbaked is never leaving Dublin don't you...

I've long suspected it. I've asked the Emporium in writing to take away his living quarters on the 3rd floor where he sleeps between sessions.

ollyk1

Nice well Ian. WP

A lot of the stuff has been covered but I'd like to get your views on the following if I may.

1. Is your improved tilt control down to playing shorter sessions and playing fresh or truly down to improved self discipline? Or could you estimate the contribution of both to the improvement?

2. Are you ahead on loldonkaments for life?

3. Before you left for Thailand you played in the SE for a few weeks and having started off pwning the game by the end of the few weeks you had slipped back into some bad habits on. In light of this do you intend playing as a live pro in Vegas or more so playing on the net and only emerging for the odd bit of degneracy?

4. I know you are a big fan of the needle and the put down any favourites you'd care to regale us with?

All the best.

Olly

Scouser in Dub

Did you ever have a poker epiphany where it all started to make sense or was it just a consistent gradual improvement in your play?

You mentioned in O8 you rarely play with anyone that has any idea of how to play what are the most common mistakes you see?

You mention you play differently live, how much is that influenced by the demographic that plays live and the frequency of floating, 3betting light etc

luckylucky

I'm intrigued about O8 as it's one game I've never played(except for a quick dabble or by accident when I thought it was PLO ). Do you make as much from it as you do in NLH?

zuutroy

How much of success in poker is down to hard work and how much is down to 'talent'?

ianmc38

LuckyLloyd wrote:

1) [tl;dr]

Obviously, during the time that we were both playing live cash regularly I witnessed you go koblaammo a couple of times. However, that being said, I can’t really think of a regular live cash player who I have never (or rarely even) seen go on monkey – tilt. I myself can think of a couple of nights since last Christmas where I threw all the toys out of the pram and would soon be down over a grand (sometimes as many as four buy – ins in a single session) to awful players. You know when you’ve gone aswell – which is the distressing part. You KNOW you shouldn’t be paying 25 to see a flop from the small blind with K2 suited; you KNOW you shouldn’t be three barrel bluffing some of the regulars – and yet you are anyway. And you don’t walk away until defeat on the night is abject and conclusive.

My questions are, do you think that removing tilt from your game is something that every player has to do at some stage? And how much do you think that: a) quitting your job and not being life tilted part of the time; b) playing hundreds of thousands of hands online and focusing on it with a clear head – have helped you in eradicating most of your demons? Would you be more likely to tilt while four – tabling online than live? And, on the assumption that it is live, do you believe that the pace of live and the ‘quality’ of conversation at times has a lot to with that?

I think for anyone to be truly successful in poker they need to be able to form a type of emotional detachment. Tilting is -EV for everyone no matter what degree it is. It's still possible to be a winning player even as a tilt monster, but it really affects your winrate.

Sure quitting my job helped. After that the only real stress in my life was living at home. Now that's gone there's literally nothing to annoy me. In relation to working, I'd say tiredness would have been more of a tilt inducing factor than work related stress. I used to stay up til 3 or 4 am every night and get up again at 7:30, so I was exhausted and lacking in energy pretty much every day of the week. Those aren't the ideal conditions to play poker which can often be draining mentally and requires excellent concentration.

Playing a lot online does help too. After a while you get used to the soul crushing 1 and 2 outers, the flushes cracking your sets, the middlers cracking your overpairs. When you start to understand variance and realise the equities of different hands in different scenarios, then you realise that it's all just part of the game and that your AA is going to lose to KK AIPF 20% of the time no matter what way you play it.

I'm far more likely to tilt live than online. Online play is somewhat robotic for me and beats dont affect me like they used to. Live play is so montonous, 25 hands an hour, same old faces, same old conversation, same old jokes. It's always nice for a change, but for anyone who plays poker for the money, I can't understand why live play in Dublin would be their game of choice.

Of course, from a social perspective it's good fun and the poker community in Ireland are a fantastic group of people with whom I'm glad to have made many friends. But poker (for me anyway) is about the bottom line and anyone who is a good player can make alot more online than they'll ever make playing live 1/2 PLHE in Dublin.

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Ultimately, and in your opinion of course, how much of Peter’s recent dominance can be attributed to the fact that he is coming in to play rested and with a clear head? Can work and poker mix fully successfully?

I’ll be asking himself something similar when he gets in the well btw.

I dont think there's a huge difference. Even when he was working full time he was still crushing the game week in week out. He's a sick sick machine though. I remember one day in Vegas, we were playing in the Venetian. I played for 12 hours or so, then went back to the MGM to sleep. I came back 14 hours later and he was still there "feeling great".

LuckyLloyd wrote:

2)

Are there many people who play poker that you have seen who definitely shouldn’t play poker (no names)? Does the moral dilemma of the game bother you in anyway? Or, do you just reckon that if someone is over 18 and stupid enough to put their money on the table they are fair pickings?

Yes there are lots of them. I alluded to this somewhat in my response to question1. The moral aspect of the game does bother me which i why I find I dont always play optimally at a table full of people I know/am friendly with.

I think people should be allowed spend their money as they please, but I've been in situations where I've felt extremely uncomfortable with people losing their bollux. One morning in the Jackpot there was some guy who had his wage packet there with him. He was the worst player I've ever encountered in my life. He proceeded to lose his entire weeks wages over the course of a few hours before I gave him a tenner to get a taxi home. I felt absolutely depressed at the table where as everyone else was thinking happy days as they took his money. he'd mentioned that he did the same thing the week before and then walked the whole way from the Jackpot to Tallaght. Grim.

LuckyLloyd wrote:

3)

While in UCD, you would be most likely found drinking on campus in the Student Bar; The Forum Bar; The Sports Bar? You can only pick one, and there is only one correct answer – and there is one very wrong answer.

Always in the student bar, drinking Fosters. One of my friends in College was a sick pool player so we used to play pool (winner stays on), drink beers and smoke spliffs all day, 3 or 4 days a week.

LuckyLloyd wrote:

4)

What age are you? 26?

25

LuckyLloyd wrote:

5)

Five albums on heavy rotation at the moment?

6)

1. favela chic - postonove The best collection of Brazilain music ever.
2. The Coral - Roots and Echoes. My favourite band of the 00s
3. Feist - The Reminder
4. Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope
5. General Electrics - Cliquety kliqk

There's always been a Dylan album somewhere in the list as well.

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Do you buy CD’s anymore? When did you stop?

I think I bought about 5 cds in my life. I've been using p2p for about 10 years now. From the early illegal Napster days, to Kazaa, Morpheus, EDonkey, Bearshare etc. Now I use torrents and soulseek. I couldn't really imagine buying a cd again.


Great job so far by the way.[/QUOTE]

gosplan

ianmc38 wrote:

...Phuket...

Does this get any less funny with time?

ianmc38

El Stuntman wrote:

Not much in the way of poker questions as Bops can answer all my issues....

Admit that the sole and only reason you moved to Thailand was to be in a place where you can finally be considered taller than average. Admit it!

Lol Glyn. Excellent start. Whats average in ireland? I'm guessing I'm about average. Damn you making me insecure about my height.

El Stuntman wrote:

What's it like being a farang? I've had conversations with a friend who's lived all over Asia, he says the Chinese are uber-rude to gweilos but also said that he found Thais to be 'quietly rude'. Have you experienced much of this? If yes, what proportion of the blame for this would you put on the behaviour of Western tourists in Thailand?

Most of the Thai people I've met have been really warm and friendly. there are some people who are quite rude, but on the whole they're a very welcoming people.

El Stuntman wrote:

You're living in a Buddhist country. Have you developed any interest in it and do you think it could help your poker game, a la Mr Black?

When I was about 15 I was extremely depressed as a result of my spirituality/lack thereof and started looking into different religions. Some of the principles are extremely interesting and it's definitely the most appealing one, but I dont think I'll be converting form agnosticism/atheism anytime soon.

I do think the different types of mediatation they practice could prove very beneficial for poker as well as in general life. I'm surprised that Andy can still be such a tilt monster in spite of his practices.

ianmc38

GrangeUtd wrote:

Hi great well so far. really enjoying it.

Just wondering what sites/skins/networks u play on the most? or recommend?

At the moment I play on Green Joker Poker. I've been with them since they launched on the Tribeca network. I've always found them really helpful and they've looked after any problem I've ever had immediately. It's also nice to know that you can email/call the owner of the site at any time if you're having any issues rather than waiting in the line of some support queue to talk to someone who can barely speak English.

i used to play alot on Full Tilt, but the last time I played there the games were awaful. The standard at 1/2 was like the standard of 3/6 on Ipoker. I'd definitely recommend playing on Ipoker if you play cash games as they're the softest games around IMO. If you play tournaments then Stars is the place to go.

GrangeUtd wrote:

What do u generally do when u bet any made hand on the flop (pair/straight etc.) with 2 to the flush on the board and the 3 card to the flush hits the turn? in position/out of position?

rgds

This is a really general question and cant be answered without knowing table conditions such as stack sizes, opponents in the hand etc. If there's a calling station, I may bet something as weak as TPTK for value on all streets. Against a nit, i may check fold or check behind in position and fold toa river bet, sometimes calling a river bet. Oop, I often bet fold.

ligger

ollyk1 wrote:

4. I know you are a big fan of the needle
Olly

Exclusive.

Intravenous drug use in poker player scandal......

ianmc38

ollyk1 wrote:

Nice well Ian. WP

A lot of the stuff has been covered but I'd like to get your views on the following if I may.

1. Is your improved tilt control down to playing shorter sessions and playing fresh or truly down to improved self discipline? Or could you estimate the contribution of both to the improvement?

Good questions Olly. I still play both really short and long sessions, anywhere from 100-2000 hands. I always play fresh now and avoid playing cash games when Im tired, as concentration levels are key when playing cash. Playing tired is extremely -EV, even with 5 fish at the table. The main factor in my improved tilt control is definitely self-discipline and a realisation that to be successful at poker you need to be able to be unaffected by everything that goes on around you at the table; beats, table talk etc. It took a long time for me to do, but I feel my self-control is better now than its ever been.

ollyk1 wrote:

2. Are you ahead on loldonkaments for life?

Live I would say no. Online definitely.

ollyk1 wrote:

3. Before you left for Thailand you played in the SE for a few weeks and having started off pwning the game by the end of the few weeks you had slipped back into some bad habits on. In light of this do you intend playing as a live pro in Vegas or more so playing on the net and only emerging for the odd bit of degneracy?

When I started playing live again in Dublin, I went back with a totally different mindset. I'd gone from being a big winning player to being breakeven or possibly even losing. I was really beat up about this as I knew I was a far better player than 90% of the people I played with day in day out. It was really crushing to come home after losing a pile of cash, knowing the reasons for it yet not being able to do anything about it.

The first few weeks I started playing again, I had 12 straight winning sesssion, making very few bad decisions and playing good tight aggressive poker. After a few weeks, I found myself getting bored, calling raises with the K2s from the SB, calling flop bets with bottom pair and so on. I just find the pace of a live cash game really tiresome and the mindframe I'd gotten into was soon left at the door and normal degenerate -EV gambling was resumed.

In Vegas, I'll definitely play a lot live. I wont be playing any small stakes games, as I dont think the stakes at a 1/2NL game with a $200 cap will be high enough for me to take it seriously and play my A game. At 5/10 the stakes will be far more significant, the players better and I hope that will encourage me to play my A game.

ollyk1 wrote:

4. I know you are a big fan of the needle and the put down any favourites you'd care to regale us with?

All the best.

Olly

haha. I genuinely cant think of any right now, though there have been countless occurences over the years? Maybe you can remember one?

ianmc38

luckylucky wrote:

I'm intrigued about O8 as it's one game I've never played(except for a quick dabble or by accident when I thought it was PLO ). Do you make as much from it as you do in NLH?

My winrate is about the same. It's a really interesting game and has by far the worst standard of player on the internet. I'd recommend anyone looking to learn a new game to play O8 as there's a huge amount of value in it, especially at the low-medium stakes games online. Most people have no concept of how to play the game and play Omaha hands such as 679J ds for a raise. Hands like these are absolute garbage in O8 and have very little value.

ianmc38

zuutroy wrote:

How much of success in poker is down to hard work and how much is down to 'talent'?

I would say it's about 50-50. I've worked on my game alot since I started playing and everyday I play I feel like I'm reaching a new level. It's a great feeling of accomplishment to be where I am now having put in all the spade work by playing 10s of thousands of hands at .25/.50 and .50/1 over the last few years.

I do think that it is a game which comes naturally to me as well. I'm an intelligent guy and have a good grasp of psychology, as well as having a good understanding of maths, and I think both of these qualities are important for poker.

I think it's great reading boards and seeing all the people who are playing lower levels and to see how there games are evolving and improving every day. It reminds me of where I was at not so long ago, but it seems people these days are improving far quicker. I've been really impressed with some of the newer posters on the forums, like DVDFan, Coillcam and yourself to name but a few and I think it's great to see people reaping the rewards for putting alot of time and hard work into their games.

Lafortezza

Whats the legal situation regarding online poker in Thailand?

sumoward

ianmc38 wrote:

This month I'm 28/23/2.6

My friends aunt is the Irish Consulate to Thailand. Her parents have a huge house in Phuket beside her aunts house. It's got a private pool, 5 bedrooms with big balconies, people who deliver fresh ice and drinks into cooler boxes every morning. generally pimping place. 7 of my friends were going over there for 2 months earlier in the summer, so I headed over with them. They've all gone back to uni/jobs now. I went to Koh tao for a few weeks to do some diving and then came back to Bangkok where I've been since.

Do you mean Helene FW, the Irish Honourary consul in Phuket, lovily lady. next time you see her say Brían Ward was asking for her.

Those houses are great, if there the ones I am thinking off.

ianmc38

lafortezza wrote:

Whats the legal situation regarding online poker in Thailand?

The government lottery and horse racing are the only 2 forms of legal gambling in Thailand.

Online gambling is illegal though they don't seem to have restricted access to very many online gambling sites. In Koh tao I met some locals who were betting 20kBaht on several football matches every night which is a lot of money for Thai people.

I dont think there's a huge amount of enforcement from what I've seen. Every internet cafe ive gone to has had some form of poker software installed on it and all the islands down south had people playing online every day I was there.

The one pain in the ass is that Neteller is blocked here, so i ened to get other people to accesss my account for me.

ianmc38

sumoward wrote:

Do you mean Helene FW, the Irish Honourary consul in Phuket, lovily lady. next time you see her say Brían Ward was asking for her.

Those houses are great, if there the ones I am thinking off.

Yeah Helene. The houses are ridiculously sweet. coconut palms!

connie147

Hi Ian,
Brilliant well job. Obviously your having a fantastic time at the moment. I agree with you that the Thais are a very welcoming race, now a couple of questions for you:
1-As they block most gambling sites out there,are all the different sites you play available to you or can you not get into some of them?

2-Was there any one thread on boards that made you think "fcuking hell,I suck at this game" and was responsible for your eventual success at the game?

3-when your playing an online session,what makes you decide to end the session? Is it a predetermined time or is that you,ve reached a daily target you've set?

4-How many Thai baht now for €100?

Continued good luck to you,
Connie

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

bohsman

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Is Hectorjelly anywhere near as good at Pro Evo as he makes himself out to be?

HJ was outed as a Pro Evo fish at the Grudge match.

ianmc38

connie147 wrote:

Hi Ian,
Brilliant well job. Obviously your having a fantastic time at the moment. I agree with you that the Thais are a very welcoming race, now a couple of questions for you:
1-As they block most gambling sites out there,are all the different sites you play available to you or can you not get into some of them?

Allt he ones I play on are all available. For now anyways...

connie147 wrote:

2-Was there any one thread on boards that made you think "fcuking hell,I suck at this game" and was responsible for your eventual success at the game?

yeah. undoubtedly Fuzzboxes 6 max cash game advice thread. Thats when i realised I was absolutely terrible and had no idea what i was talking about.

connie147 wrote:

3-when your playing an online session,what makes you decide to end the session? Is it a predetermined time or is that you,ve reached a daily target you've set?

There are a number of different reasons:

1. If i feel I'm playing badly. I just quit immediately
2. When I get tired
3. If I'm down 3 buyins.
4. If i feel any sort of tilt coming it at all

I dont have any daily targets as such and if im play well and feeling good then i'll continue playing regardless of whether Im up $1 or 10 buyins until i reach a point where I'm tired or feeling burnt out.

connie147 wrote:

4-How many Thai baht now for €100?

Continued good luck to you,
Connie

€100 is about 4500 Baht, probably a tiny bit under.

Thanks Connie!

ianmc38

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Is Hectorjelly anywhere near as good at Pro Evo as he makes himself out to be?

He's v good on playstation. Average on the xbox, but I hear he's been working on that. We have a bit of a rivalry going with HalfBaked and another friend of ours who play 4 player on the Xbox. Myself and HJ against the other 2. On the last 3 outings before I left ireland, we took a bit of a hammering. I'm hoping with all the practice he's gotten in that we'll dish out some soul destroying defeats when I come home for Christmas.

califano

Hi Ian,
Great well fair play for doing it.

In the pics you attached is that a note on the bathroom mirror? what does it say?.

Have you learned to do any cooking and put it to practice over there or do you mostly eat out/order in takeaways or microwave stuff?.

How does the bins situation work over there?. Do you leave your garbage out the night before collection or the morning of and what happens if you forget?.

The natives. Are there any charachters over there?. I mean someine like a paper stand man for example who you get a laugh out of or someone you know from a close by appartment that you have some chats with and if so any amusing situations with the natives?.

Poker. Do you believe there is such a level a good and diciplined pro player bankrolls up to only to realise he cant beat it before the realisation of 'So this is my level, this is as far as i am good enough to go without being able to bankroll further up'. Would it scare or depress you if you arrived at a juncture to realise that you could make a reasonable living from poker but not a very good living?. Would it make you think of quitting the game?.

bops

ianmc38 wrote:

Always in the student bar, drinking Fosters. One of my friends in College was a sick pool player so we used to play pool (winner stays on), drink beers and smoke spliffs all day, 3 or 4 days a week...

Fosters $$$ FTW!!

the above paragraph sums up my 4 years of hard work @ UCD

nice reading keep up the good work!

now i'm off to give elstunto his weekly tutorial

Hitman Actual

Great well, Ian, here's a few from me:

1. How did you get on in that "essay" tournament that you won the buy-in to? I can't remember reading any reports. And did you find out who the mystery benefactor was?

2. Have you hit any really bad downswings since you've been playing full-time?

3. How can the forum here be improved? What are your opinions on its evolution over the last few years? Do you agree with the "Clique" tag it has earned? Also, do you post in many of the other Boards forums, or are most of your 6000-odd posts in this one?

4. Where are you on the whole "TLS" issue? When you play tournaments, do you take any edge going, or does survival ever come into your decision-making process?

5. What were your All-Ireland medals in? And what's your opinion on the GAA in general?

6. You mentioned PC gaming on your laptop... any particular genre you like?

I think that's all I have. Best of luck on your travels!

ZZR1100

ianmc38 wrote:

I've gone from being a 20/10 player to being somewhere in the region of 22/18. I'm far more aggressive, read hands much better and have a much greater understanding and feel for the game. I could write a huge amount on this one topic as my game has come on so much over the past year. The last 6 months alone, I'd say my game has improved at least ten fold and I think I'm way ahead of 90% of the people I play with day in day out. .

What were the main changes you made to your game to reach 18% pfr
from 10%. Elaborate more aggressive

how did u handle the 10 BI downswing and did u change anything or consider changing anything about your play as a result or just put it down to variance.

Pls write a huge amount about on the topic of how your game has improved over the last year. For a 10 fold improvement in 6 months you must have made some major changes. new thread ianmc 6max cash strategy.

tks for taking the time.

BuChan

pretty hard work for you here ian, answering so many questions. lucky for you living you're living it up in paradise with plenty of time on your hands!

well most topics have been covered already.

will you be taking part in big buy-in tournaments as the years progress? do you see tournaments as unimportant or unprofitable?

all this talk of tilt. would you say that you're now better at controlling tilt or just less likely to tilt in the first place?

ianmc38

rounders123 wrote:

Hi Ian,
Great well fair play for doing it.

In the pics you attached is that a note on the bathroom mirror? what does it say?.

Put on clothes before leaving apartment.

rounders123 wrote:

Have you learned to do any cooking and put it to practice over there or do you mostly eat out/order in takeaways or microwave stuff?.

I've actually surprised myself. back home a toasted sandwich was about as exotic as my cooking got but here I've donned my chefs hat and been whipping up some really tatsy meals with a little help from googling recipes. I eat out in really nice restaurants every second or thrid night as I love my food and there are some great places to eat both thai and international cuisine here.

rounders123 wrote:

How does the bins situation work over there?. Do you leave your garbage out the night before collection or the morning of and what happens if you forget?.

Well i've a maid who cleans my apartment every day so she looks after the bins. I just leave a do not disturb sign hanging on my bedroom door.

rounders123 wrote:

The natives. Are there any charachters over there?. I mean someine like a paper stand man for example who you get a laugh out of or someone you know from a close by appartment that you have some chats with and if so any amusing situations with the natives?.

Oh man. So many. There's one 4 foot something toothless food vendor who's just down the road from where I live. have had a few good chats with him, though it's pretty hard to make out what he's saying the whole time. He has the best laugh of all time. gotta get a photo. Bangkok also has the craziest selection of bums in the entire world.

rounders123 wrote:

Poker. Do you believe there is such a level a good and diciplined pro player bankrolls up to only to realise he cant beat it before the realisation of 'So this is my level, this is as far as i am good enough to go without being able to bankroll further up'. Would it scare or depress you if you arrived at a juncture to realise that you could make a reasonable living from poker but not a very good living?. Would it make you think of quitting the game?.

I think that everytime you reach a new level there's always the fear of this happening. I've been lucky so far that I havn't reached a level yet where I've felt I'm being outplayed by everyone at the table. I do think for some players there are levels where they'll reach a big hurdle that will appear insurmountable, but I think with hard work and lots of analysis of one's game, that all levels are ultimately beatable.

In regards to making a living, if I had to grind lower levels to barely pay the bills, I'd just give up. I wouldn't feel the end justified the means. 2/4 is the first level where you can make serious amounts of money if you play alot of hands. Any level above that is serious $$$ for a good player. Hopefully, I'll continue playing/running well so that I dont have to worry about facing reality again. For the time being anyway.

ianmc38

lenny_leonard wrote:

Great well, Ian, here's a few from me:

1. How did you get on in that "essay" tournament that you won the buy-in to? I can't remember reading any reports. And did you find out who the mystery benefactor was?

I was really happy with the tournament. I laid down bottom set in my first hand and was shown top set. I managed to build up a stack of 25k by the 3rd level by playing really aggresivley and running over the table. Then I hadnt noticed that UTG had limped and I raised 9To OTB. UTG called and crai on a K78 flop. I was priced into calling and his KJ held up.

That put me down to about 13k

I got back up to 20k or so and then the tournament started turning into a total crapshoot. At 1k/2k, UTG shoved for 16k. He was very aggor and had a huge range. I called in MP with AQs. Everyone else folded. UTG turned over A2s and rivered a 2. Very next hand I shoved AKs and lost a race against tens and that was all she wrote. Played well just got unlucky in key spots.

Met the benefactor. very nice guy.

lenny_leonard wrote:

2. Have you hit any really bad downswings since you've been playing full-time?

My biggest downswing was -10BI. At first i wrote if off as varaince, but when I looked back through the hands I realised I had played some hands extremely badly and had thrown away 7 or 8 buyins in really bad spots. After that, I stuck 2 A4 pages with big notes in black marker beside my PC, saying things like "No 3rd barrels", "No tilting", "Fold to 3 bets" and "Fold when beat". Seeing these while I played all the time really helped me to stop spewing away money.

lenny_leonard wrote:

3. How can the forum here be improved? What are your opinions on its evolution over the last few years? Do you agree with the "Clique" tag it has earned? Also, do you post in many of the other Boards forums, or are most of your 6000-odd posts in this one?

It's hard to say. i do think there could be some sort of general sub dividing of the forum into General Banter and Strategy/Hand Histories. At the moment there's some really good stuff in there, but I find myself missing out on good threads all the time as i dont take the time to filter through all the threads I'm not interested in.

There are certain clique style elements in the forum for sure, but I think it's all overhpyed. All the so called clique members are excellent posters and would be a huge loss to the forum if they weren't giving up their free time to post really sound advice every day of the week.

I used to post in loads of other forums on boards. I still read some of the other forums, but not as much as I used to. Personal issues was always greta for a laugh as there were some really good trolling posts there on a daily basis. The cuckoos nest is non-stop entertainment. Every thread there is brilliant.

lenny_leonard wrote:

4. Where are you on the whole "TLS" issue? When you play tournaments, do you take any edge going, or does survival ever come into your decision-making process?

If i think I have an edge in a hand I'll take it. I dont buy in to the whole TLS to be honest.

lenny_leonard wrote:

5. What were your All-Ireland medals in? And what's your opinion on the GAA in general?

Minor Championship Football. GAA is a great game, IMO by far the most entertaining sports played in Ireland. I'd much rather watch a GAA match than a game of soccer.

lenny_leonard wrote:

6. You mentioned PC gaming on your laptop... any particular genre you like?

I think that's all I have. Best of luck on your travels!

FPS for sure. I used to spend about 12 hours a day playing Halo on the Xbox with friends for 2 years straight, 5-7 days a week, anywhere from 4-16 players in a LAN game with projectors and tvs in several different rooms.

I love RPGs as well, Final fantasy, Elder Scrolls and of course Zelda which is the game I grew up playing.

ianmc38

ZZR1100 wrote:

What were the main changes you made to your game to reach 18% pfr
from 10%. Elaborate more aggressive

Instead of limping 67o after 2 limpers I raise it. I pretty much never limp into any hand anymore. If there are limpers and I'm in the pot, I'm now raising pretty much all my range.

By more aggressive, I mean I fire more cbets, more 2nd and 3 barrels and float and check raise light more. I generally try to put a smuch pressure on people as possible and leave them with tough decisions rather than making them myself.

ZZR1100 wrote:

how did u handle the 10 BI downswing and did u change anything or consider changing anything about your play as a result or just put it down to variance.

It was really hard to take at the time as I'd been running super hot and I suddenly had visions of some form of impending doom that would reuslt in me going busto. It was at that time I started reviewing all my sessions and realised how badly I'd been playing. It's very easy to blame a downswing on running badly, but I think if people review their sessions honestly they'll find a lot of their losses are a result of bad/suboptimal play.

ZZR1100 wrote:

Pls write a huge amount about on the topic of how your game has improved over the last year. For a 10 fold improvement in 6 months you must have made some major changes. new thread ianmc 6max cash strategy.

tks for taking the time.

I'll have a think about it, maybe post something in my blog. I think i could write something fantastic if I could just get my thoughts together and articualte them properly.

ianmc38

BuChan wrote:

pretty hard work for you here ian, answering so many questions. lucky for you living you're living it up in paradise with plenty of time on your hands!

well most topics have been covered already.

will you be taking part in big buy-in tournaments as the years progress? do you see tournaments as unimportant or unprofitable?

If I'm in Vegas later this year then I'lld efinitely play some WSOP events. Other than that, I'm considering playing one of the Asian Poker Tour events. I almost booked a flight to Seol the other day to play, but then I read it was hours ina taxi from the airport, so I would have got there tired and jetlagged with very little time to chill out, so I decided against it.

BuChan wrote:

all this talk of tilt. would you say that you're now better at controlling tilt or just less likely to tilt in the first place?

A bit of both. There are still times when I feel it coming on but I'm able to just ignore it now. If I feel a really bad bout coming on then I just quit the session until I've calmed down.

Flushdraw

Ian top job so far answering these questions. Its been a great read. I have a couple for you.

1. If you could invite 4 people to dinner, past or present, who would in be?

2. On the subject of food, it you could be the meat in a human sandwich, which 2 women would you chose?

3. If you were rolled to play the $300/$600 omaha game on FT, would you expect to be a big winner in it? Who would you class as the fish?

4. If you were to win only 1 tournament in the world, and money was not a factor, which torunament would you hold in the highest prestige?

5. Michelle while we were in vegas..did you?

6. Ladyboys..any close calls?

Glowingmind

ianmc38 wrote:

Always in the student bar, drinking Fosters. One of my friends in College was a sick pool player so we used to play pool (winner stays on), drink beers and smoke spliffs all day, 3 or 4 days a week.

His name wasn't fergus by any chance was it?

God bless fosters dollars.

What'd you do in UCD?

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Glowingmind

LuckyLloyd wrote:

The correct answer was the Sports Bar. The evil and incorrect answer was the Forum. Carry on.

Wrong.

El Stuntman

LuckyLloyd wrote:

The correct answer was the Sports Bar. The evil and incorrect answer was the Forum. Carry on.

<mental picture of a slightly younger LL perving on the women's aerobics classes from the height of the Sports Bar :rolleyes:>

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

bops

getting slightly OT, but in my day (94-98) the sports bar was full of tossers (upturned rugby collars) and mental farmer agg science students

the student bar was the place to be

i dunno what/where the forum is??

do you own many rugby shirts Lloyd?

ianmc38

Glowingmind wrote:

Wrong.

QFT.

1. Student bar
2. Forum bar
Distant 3rd Sports Bar

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

5starpool

Ya, stop talking about UCD. Ididn't go there, therefore can't join in, therefore want you all to get back on topic.

Edit to say that Bops is finally right about one thing, '94 was THE year to start college.

HalfBaked

ianmc38 wrote:

He's v good on playstation. Average on the xbox, but I hear he's been working on that. We have a bit of a rivalry going with HalfBaked and another friend of ours who play 4 player on the Xbox. Myself and HJ against the other 2. On the last 3 outings before I left ireland, we took a bit of a hammering.

A bit of a hammering? If it was a boxing match the ref would have stopped the fight.

ianmc38 wrote:

I'm hoping with all the practice he's gotten in that we'll dish out some soul destroying defeats when I come home for Christmas.

Lol, no chance.

Nothing like the pro ev needle.:D

semibluff

nah gotta be student bar, all day sesh and pool tables for the win- then sports bar, and then the post grad/ hippie bar (forum)


back on topic, very good read so far

1. is there anyone on boards who you would follow from table to table online?

2. how much of a disadvantage is it if others know you SN, apart from it not being any of their business

3. have you encountered the scary lady boy phenomenon yet? (scary depending on preference of course)

4. now that your away from the SE and wont see anyone there in awhile . . .

... pick you least favourite and favourite final table of a tournament

and the same for cash . . (9 names for each)

thanks again!

marius

Great Reading Ian,

Few questions.....

What was it like arriving into Bangkok - did you have a 'holy sh1t wtf am I doing here moment'?

What is the 'long term' plan? Are you sticking around in Thailand for long?

What do you think your biggest leak is? (in NLH)

Also - go to Chang Mai and Chang Rai.....by far the best places in thailand....