Paul C. Hoppe - The Rambling Path of a Zen Madman - Latest Comments

Re: Poker Is A Skill

Dusty Schmidt — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 03:35:44 -0000

George I just now saw your posts. That made for a great laugh. Thanks so much!

Re: Poker Is A Skill

Kyle — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 03:07:19 -0000

Not sure what George is talking about. Been playing poker full time since 2003 and this book took my game to a new level. Went from someone who wins on avg three buy-ins a day to winning 5.5 buy-ins a day. This book is a must read for any series poker player. If your a math based player you might not enjoy it, but Dusty does warn you about that. For me poker is more of a feel game with a little math so this book was perfect. Thanks guys for taking the time to write it and for letting us into your mind. As a side note I've been playing Dusty online for the past year and the guy is always winning. The statement that he isn't winning is total BS. If you want to improve your game read this book. Hard to say that since it'll cost me money the more people who read this.

Re: Way of the Poker Warrior:
Get Over Yourself

Paul Christopher Hoppe — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 12:58:17 -0000

Phil! I have failed, but not forgotten. Skype your address to me one more time and this time I'll get it done.

Re: Way of the Poker Warrior:
Get Over Yourself

Phil — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:16:24 -0000

Hey Paul, its Phil, you forgot to send the book!

Re: Poker Is A Skill

George — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 23:48:58 -0000

The only reason I bought “Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts” Kindle edition from Amazon in May 2015 for $29.99 is because I have read CardPlayer Magazine for last ten years and Dusty Schmidt has been a featured writer, which had the following hype statement about Dusty in the April 29, 2015 issue:

“With more that $5 million in cash game winnings in his 9-year career, Dusty “leatherass” Schmidt is the consummate grinder. In 2007, Dusty became one of the first SuperNova Elites and later became a member of the PokerStars Team Online. He is currently the player ambassador for America’s Cardroom. He is the author of “Tread Your Poker Like A Business” and “Don’t Listen To Phil Hellmuth” available at cardoze.com. Schmidt’s newest book,” Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts” can be found at pokerinpractice.com.”

CardPlayer forget to mention that Dusty has made almost nothing playing Texas Hold’em No Limit cash games in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, at least nothing that can be verified by an independent source.

I haven’t finished the book. But, there is nothing in the book that is new or hasn’t been said by other poker authors, who have said it much more succinctly.

But, once again I have been taken in by poker hype. All poker magazines rely on hype and puffery to ensure that they will sell magazines and to help ensure that the poker industry will survive.

The primary reasons you and Dusty have won any money whatsoever playing poker is because of when you played (i.e., the poker boom - 1991 to 2006) with millions of fish, multi-tabling, and HUDs.

Dusty was playing over 2 million NL Holdem cash hands annually and was one of the first SuperNova Elites at PokerStars. Who knows how many Limit Holdem hands you were playing and how many tables. You both were multi-tabling and using HUDs.

Neither you nor Dusty are making money now playing NL Hold’em cash games, at least not enough to support a full time living as a poker professional; unlike Isaac Baron, who in last 8 years has won over $8 million in NLHD live and online tournaments. He now makes his living playing cash games on the internet, which is something that neither you nor Dusty can claim.

Here are some comments I have made from reading the reviews at Amazon.

Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts Kindle Edition
by Dusty Schmidt (Author), Paul Christopher Hoppe
There are no customer reviews on Amazon on this book. Why?

Way of the Poker Warrior: A Black Belt's Guide to Conquering the Tables
by Paul Christopher Hoppe
There are no customer reviews on Amazon on this book. Why?

By the way, having a 4th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do has nothing to do with playing poker or making you a better player or conquering the tables. You are such an egotist.

Zen Madman's Flash Fiction Folio
by Paul Christopher Hoppe and Li Ting Deng
There are no customer reviews on Amazon on this book. Way?

2011 Version - Don't Listen to Phil Hellmuth: Correcting the 50 Worst Pieces of Poker Advice You've Ever Heard
by Dusty Schmidt and Paul Christopher Hoppe
8 people apparently bought this book and wrote a review.

Books are rated from 1 star (lowest rating) to 5 stars (highest rating)
This book has 1 five star rating
This book has 1 four star rating from By Antonios Fountouris "A. Fountouris" on August 19, 2013
This book has one 2 star rating from Jiggs on December 12, 2013, who said:

“Just don't see the point. I don't think that this book will help a rookie player, an intermediate player, nor an advanced player. It isn't presented well in my opinion, and while this might have been great 15+ years ago, I think you can learn more listening to a free short strategy video online from any younger math based player. Also I know the title is a joke, but it is in pretty poor taste. PH has proven himself time after time. Isn't it PH and DN (kid poker) that are always hanging around the new era of math headed genius kids? Yeah, that is them sucking up the new wave of thinking about the game. Just do that instead of buying this book.”

This book has five one-star ratings, with comments like:

1. “How did the above good review get written, both on the same day, prior to the release of the book?”

2. “Big disappointment”

3. “Don’t listen to whom?”

4. “Save your money?”, and

5. “Don’t listen to these guys.”

The best reviews I read are these:

“My Review is don't listen to this author Dusty Schmidt… or the advice in this absolute trash of a poker book. This poorly written book seems to have been created in a hurried fashion, poorly thought out; full of blatant mistakes on top of that the advice given would offend even a mediocre poker player. IMO it is nothing more than an attempt to milk the online poker industry the fullest extent. It is even so blatant that it uses a well-known pro poker player’s name to help market it. Seriously, I have over 45 poker books and it rates at or near the bottom. The disturbing part of it is that the book sells for fifty bucks, LOL. Don't waste your money on this it will not help you to play better. Ever hear the expression "there is a sucker born every minute" sadly I am one for buying this book.”

“Tediously written, the title is in poor taste, and there is nothing in the way of advanced concepts here. If you're a good player already, you won't learn anything new. If you're a rookie, you either don't know who Phil Hellmuth is, or don't care enough about him to buy a book bashing him. I have no idea who this book is meant for, but there are wealth of quality books from 2+2 Publishing that are worth spending your money on instead of this.”

Then this book is publish again and appears again on June 5, 2012. It has 5 customer reviews and somehow miraculously is has an overall rating of 4 stars. Bunch of liars!

Here is the only truthful review out of the five:

“Don’t need to elaborate, it’s just the worst book on poker I've ever read. The positive reviews must have been a shill for the author. I'd feel terrible giving this book to someone for free since I know it would be a waste of time. I ended up bearing through all the pages kept it for a few days then decided it was taking up to much space and I put it where it belongs in the trash bin.”

Re: Poker Is A Skill

George — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 20:38:32 -0000

I finally got a chance to go to your twitter site: https://twitter.com/pokeris...

Paul, your site only has 138 followers and 242 Tweets; whereas, Dusty Schmidt’s twitter page has 1,107 tweets and 2,824 followers, which speaks volumes about your popularity versus Dusty’s. Dusty is also the primary reason your co-authored books about poker sell. Paul, it does not appear that your site gets many hits.
https://twitter.com/dustysc...

As a popularity point of reference, the “TwoPlus Two Forums” on twitter has 20,800 followers, which speaks volumes about how it is the “Top Dog” poker authority for discussions about poker.
https://twitter.com/twoplus...

Your site has images of the 15 books you and Dusty have written, some unpublished, which I looked up on the Leanpub website. Most, if not all, of the published books appear to have had limited sales. Most are not even sold at Amazon.

The reviews on Amazon are mainly negative, or neutral, except for the positive reviews from shills.

I will post the Amazon reviews next and the only reason why I bought “Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts” and what I think about the book.

The following information is at the Leanpub website:

https://leanpub.com/pay-att...

Unpublished books:

Nickels Dimes & Chocolate Covered Cranberries
By Paul Christopher Hoppe

White Chip Poker
By Paul Christopher Hoppe

Published books:

Poker is a Skill – Stop Losing Now – A Beginner’s Guide To Winning Poker – 45 pages – 7 readers
By Paul Christopher Hoppe

The Poker Business Plan – 23 pages – 23 Readers
By Dusty Schmidt and Paul Christopher Hoppe

The Poker Lexicon – 22 pages long – 7 readers
By Paul Christopher Hoppe

First – novelette – 51 pages – 5 readers
By Paul Christopher Hoppe

Way of the Poker Warrior – 176 pages – 1 reader
By Paul Christopher Hoppe

Pay Attention To Bet Sizing
Part 1 of Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts
BY Dusty Schmidt AND Paul Christopher Hoppe
50 pages with 65 readers

Turn Your Hand Into A Bluff
Part 2 of Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts
BY Dusty Schmidt AND Paul Christopher Hoppe
51 pages with 18 readers

Wait For It...Induce Multi-Street Bluffs
Part 3 of Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts
BY Dusty Schmidt AND Paul Christopher Hoppe
58 pages with 6 readers

Exploit Capped Ranges
Part 4 of Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts
BY Dusty Schmidt AND Paul Christopher Hoppe
37 pages with 8 readers

Squeeze After The Flop
Part 5 of Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts
BY Dusty Schmidt AND Paul Christopher Hoppe
42 pages with 3 readers

Make Their Scare Card Your Scare Card
Part 6 of Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts
BY Dusty Schmidt AND Paul Christopher Hoppe
38 pages and no readers

Overbet
Part 7 of Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts
BY Dusty Schmidt AND Paul Christopher Hoppe
49 pages and 1 reader

Poker In Practice: Critical Concepts
BY Dusty Schmidt AND Paul Christopher Hoppe
199 Pages with 197 readers

Again, it appears that the books you and Dusty have published have had very limited sales and readership.

Re: Happy Black Cats and Ladders

George — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 19:05:57 -0000

Per you article “Happy Black Cats and Ladders” Posted on December 13, 2013 under your category “Life, Writing”, you wrote:

“I was walking down the street on Monday when a black cat crossed my path. Then I walked under a ladder. I don’t consider myself superstitious, but I do take the time to make a wish when the clock’s digits are all the same or in sequence. I could chalk that one up to my number fetish, but I do the same when I blow an eyelash into the air. And I do not have an eyelash fetish. It’s all about as rational as pi.”

You are again using a word incorrectly when referring to rational and pi.

You comment about pie above is a hoot, and again you have no clue. Irrational in math has nothing to do with your irrational superstitions, like the clock’s digits being the same, e.g., 1.11 and your making a superstitious wish, which is not a habitual response. You are so dishonest that you won’t admit even that.

Mathematics

Noun

1. The systematic treatment of magnitude, relationships between figures and forms, and relations between quantities expressed symbolically.

2. Mathematical procedures, operations, or properties.

http://dictionary.reference...

In math, an irrational number is a real number that cannot be written as a simple fraction e.g., ½ or ratio. 7/1.

Rational numbers can be written as a ratio of two integers as a simple ratio e.g., 7/1

Some numbers that are repeating are also rational numbers, like 3 or 1/3 =’s .3333333333 to infinity

Pi or Pie is not a repeating rational number π = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795 (and more...), which you cannot write as a simple fraction.

The words rational and irrational as used in math have no relation to how those words are used in logic or thought.

So, your analogy to pie is meaningless to anyone else with a brain, except to you!

Re: Welcome To My World

George — Sun, 31 May 2015 22:42:32 -0000

Thanks for that update.

Here are a few comments in respose to your response about how you made it big.

Making a little over $100K in 2009 playing Limit Holdem is quite a stellar feat. I wanted to find an independent source to confirm how many hands you played that year and how many tables you played multi-tabling; but, that information has eluded me on the internet. I am assuming you did this at PokerStars.

I see that you finished in 651st place out of 7,319 entrants in the 2010 WSOP Main Event and won $21,237. The players who finished first through 747 were paid or cashed. That means that 10.2% cashed. After subtracting the entry fee of $10,000, you had $11,237 left to pay for travel expenses, meals, and lodging – why to go. That is quite an accomplishment.

But, it should be told for the benefit of the ill-informed that no matter how good and experienced you are, it is very tuff to win any money in tournaments consistently, which is why internet tournament grinders play thousands of tournaments per year. Most people cannot afford the money or time to do that. They have day jobs that are needed to support themselves and families, if applicable.

Bluff magazine has a database (thepokerdb) the ranks players based on their results in online poker tournaments in three categories: Microstakes total buy-In of $0.01 to $9.99, Midstakes total buy-in of $10.00 to $74.99, and High Stakes buy-in of $75.00 and higher. These ranking are based on a point formula used by Bluff.

http://www.thepokerdb.com/o...

I used to pay the fee to access Bluff’s database and download results in each of the categories that used to be called Bronze, Silver and Gold. This data base does not contain all online tournaments that are played at all online poker sites, so the results of my analyses of the downloaded data is overstated. That being said, the chance of finishing first in any tournament on average is 1% or less and reaching the final table is 5% or less, and cashing is 20% or less. But, just cashing is misleading, because you might cash and not cover your entry fee or win only a small amount $1 to $10 at the Microstakes level.

Your hourly No-Limit win rate peaked at between $100 and $200 primarily at $10/$20, how miraculous. Were you opponents mainly sots? Joking aside, how did you find so many soft games in 2009? Were they still thousands of fish?

I am not trying to rain on your parade. But, many poker authors paint the wrong picture about how easy it is to make lots of money or even a living playing poker. After all, they have a vested interest in making it seem much easier than it is, i.e., selling poker books.

As I have pointed out, it is very fortuitous for poker authors that there is no reliable database to determine how many poker players have broken-even, make only few hundred dollars a year, make varying amounts up to $50,000 per year, and make over $50,000 per year.

But, as I have mentioned before, Matthew Hilger and Mason Malmuth has implied or stated very few.

The best article I have read on this topic was written by Jay Lovinger, “Is playing poker really profitable?” – Jan 2005.

http://sports.espn.go.com/e...

On page 2, of the article he opens with:

“How many people actually make a living -- even a modest one -- playing poker?”

“What percentage of "serious" players show a profit -- even a minuscule one -- for their careers?”

“You'd think a guy (that would be moi) would ask himself those two questions before he embarked on a year-long odyssey as a "high-stakes poker pro." Well, what can I say ... sometimes, people are irrational.”

I would like to add a comment here that was overlooked in this article. Many poker kids that became somewhat successful during the poker boom had wealthy parents to back them, e.g., accommodations, food, medical and dental, transportation, and folding staking money that allowed them to pursue a poker career without worrying about whether they would make it as a pro or not.

Lovinger goes on to state that there is no reliable research. A study in 1995 by Nolan Dalla and Jeff Goldberg (math professor from Arizona State) said that about 10-to12 percent of the estimated 200,000 cardroom players were winners in any given year. But, he did not say how much these few actually won. Did they make a living playing poker.

Dalla went on to say: “By my definition, I would estimate the number of semi-professionals in the U.S. to be in the 30,000 range, if you define a semi-professional as a part-timer who makes some money playing poker. The number of full-time professionals, I would estimate, is a small fraction of that -- about 3,000 or so. I think 60 percent of those are online players."

Wow, Wow, Wow, only about 3,000 poker players make a full-time living playing poker.

Greg Raymer, the winner of last year's (2004) WSOP main event (and a life-changing $5 million which allowed him to quit his job as a patent attorney), pretty much agrees with Dalla's educated guesses, though his evidence is mostly anecdotal and personal.

"I've often heard people say that about 10 percent of poker players in any room are long-term winners," he says. "But many of those are not winning enough to support themselves. For example, I've never had a losing year; but until last year's WSOP, I also never had a year where I won anywhere near as much as my job paid, and there were only a couple of years where I won enough to call it 'a decent living'."

There is way too much variance in poker cash games to win consistently. That is why it is necessary for the few online pros who manage to make enough money to give up their day jobs to play hundreds of thousands to millions of hands a year by multi-tabling to survive.

Most poker players with full time real jobs cannot afford the time or money to do that.

I will leave you with this thought:

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.
Bodhidharma
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/...

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

George — Sun, 31 May 2015 22:25:49 -0000

Making a little over $100K in 2009 playing Limit Holdem is quite a stellar feat. I wanted to find an independent source to confirm how many hands you played that year and how many tables you played multi-tabling and the total hours you played; but, that information has eluded me on the internet. I am assuming you did this at PokerStars.

I am not trying to rain on your parade. But, many poker authors paint the wrong misleading picture about how easy it is to make lots of money or even a living playing poker. After all, they have a vested interest in making it seem much easier than it is, i.e., selling poker books.

But, as I have mentioned before, Matthew Hilger and Mason Malmuth has implied or stated very few.

The best article I have read on this topic was written by Jay Lovinger,

“Is playing poker really profitable?” – Jan 2005.

http://sports.espn.go.com/e...

On page 2, of the article he opens with:

“How many people actually make a living -- even a modest one -- playing poker?”

“What percentage of "serious" players show a profit -- even a minuscule one -- for their careers?”

I would like to add a comment here that was overlooked in his article. Many poker kids that became somewhat successful during the poker boom had wealthy parents to back them, e.g., accommodations, food, medical and dental, transportation, and folding staking money that allowed them to pursue a full-time poker career without worrying about whether they would make it as a pro or not.

Wow, Wow, Wow, only about 3,000 poker players make a full-time living playing poker.

Most poker players with full time real jobs cannot afford the time or money to do that.

But don't worry, they are not rational about it, and will continue to buy poker books chasing their fantasies that they too can be poker professionals making lots of money, even playing part time.

"The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion."
Bodhidharma
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/...

http://espn.go.com/i/magazi...

Re: Welcome To My World

Paul Christopher Hoppe — Sun, 31 May 2015 17:27:32 -0000

Next issue should have an article from Dusty. They have an issue every two weeks, and occasionally he misses an issue. I'll try to make sure he doesn't miss any more issues.

Re: Welcome To My World

George — Sun, 31 May 2015 16:19:27 -0000

I just got my CardPlayer magazine for the month of May – Vol 28/No. 11, May 27, 2015. I read CardPlayer from cover to cover, but always read the articles under “Strategies & Analysis” first.

I was shocked to see that Dusty Schmidt did not write an article this month, like he has done every month for many years.

I would ask Dusty this directly, but you and this site appear to be the conduit for his answering questions.

Do you know why he did not write an article in CardPlayer under Strategies & Analysis this month?

Has CardPlayer cancelled his contract? If so, do you know why?

Or, is he too busy writing about golf or trying to become a golf professional again and has no time to write about poker?

He mentioned in his Feb 19, 2013 article “This is my Brain, This is my Brain on Poker” that “Since I will no longer play poker full time, I am pursuing a publishing contract for a golf book…easing into golf tournaments…”

Has he had an epiphany about playing too much poker (multi-tabling on the internet) is bad for your health and no longer beliefs it is moral to give advice on that subject?

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

George — Sun, 31 May 2015 15:25:08 -0000

I don’t want to dwell on your post “Happy Black Cats and Ladders” on Friday December the 13th - 2013 but your responses to my post bother me. Your closing in that post was “Happy Triskaidekaphobia Day”, which is incorrect if you were talking about Friday the 13th, which you were.

It bothers me is that you won’t admit that you were wrong and made a mistake by using the wrong word when you said “Happy Triskaidekaphobia Day,” instead of Happy Paraskevidekatriaphobia Day. This was not a minor mistake or a typo.

There are 12 days in a year where the day is the number 13. Friday the 13th occurs about once every 213.59 days. In 2013, Friday the 13th occurred twice, September 13, and December 13. In 2012 it occurred three times. Fear of the day Friday the 13th is called Paraskevidekatriaphobia. So, since you wrote an article on Friday the 13th December 13, 2013, you should have said “Happy Paraskevidekatriaphobia Day.”

The second thing that bothers me is your belief that you are not superstitious; but you do take the time to make a wish when the clock’s digits are the same or in sequence. Well, that happens 8 times a day, 4 times in the AM hours and 4 times in the PM hours, e.g., 1:11, 2:22, 3:33, and 4:44. So, I guess if you stayed up for 24 hours and watched your digital clock, you could make 8 wishes that day. This phobia goes under a broad category called “Numberophobia”.

Instead of admitting that you are superstitious, your response was “those things are habits. It’s like an atheist saying “God damn it,” or “Oh my God!” Language and behavior are often reflexive and the result of our surroundings. I do not have any phobias regarding numbers, cats, ladders, or anything I can think of.”

You forgot “God Bless You, which is also a conditioned response, a learned behavior that becomes habitual. Using the phrase “God Damn it” is a dysphemism – an intentionally harsh word or phrase intended to shock or offend that can become habitual. Using the phrases “God bless you” or “Oh my God” are a polite euphemisms that has become habitual for many people, especially Christians. “

Just for the record, Christians say “God dam it” too, not just atheists

But, how many people make wishes when their digital clocks show a number in sequence. Hard to say! Astrologers, prophets and soothsayers seem to have an affinity for numbers in sequence, e.g., 666 in Revelations.

So, using those phrases “God Bless You”, “God Damn it”, and “Oh my God” are habitual for many people and using those phrases has nothing to do with superstition. Well, except when someone says “God Bless You” after you sneeze and believes that your heart stops or you are expelling demons from your body.

But, making wishes when the numbers on a clock are in sequence or throwing salt over your shoulder when you spill salt or holding your breath when you pass a cemetery or holding a button until a funeral cortege passes are definitely superstituous actions, even if they are learned behaviors or conditioned responses that have become habitual.

They are superstitous even if you choose not to admit that they are superstitious.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

George — Sun, 31 May 2015 01:59:26 -0000

I didn’t explain myself well as regards why I am not playing Texas Hold’em on the internet for cash anymore at the few sites that accept USA players or playing at the local casinos live.

When I could afford to play Texas Holdem, Limit or No-Limit, I did not have much time to do so from 2003 to 2007 and had not studied the game. The financial crisis of 2007-2008 destroyed me financially and the CPA consulting market that was my forte.

Since the end of 2007, I haven’t been able to find work as a CPA, mainly because I am old. Age discrimination is alive and well in America. We have a huge mortgage and my wife and I can barely make ends meet, so nothing is left to play poker.

Looking at the bright side of life (Monty Python's version), Monday June 1, I start my part-time bookkeeping job for one of the largest retail home improvement store chains in America for $10 per hour. Now that is ironic, from $70 to $10 per hour when I now know how to play Texas Holdem.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

George — Sun, 31 May 2015 00:06:49 -0000

I will answer some questions you had and clarify who I am and why I like to debate.

I am definitely interested in thoughtful conversation. I am not an internet troll.

But, you need to understand how a CPA’s mind works, or at least how this CPA’s mind works.

I became a CPA in 1980 at the age of 31. The uniform CPA – Certified Public Accountant exam is the pinnacle of accounting exams, and less than 50% pass all four parts (i.e., Accounting Practice, Accounting Theory, Auditing, and Law) on the first try. Most people have no idea how difficult the exam is and there is not much to compare it to; however, most attorney CPAs I know say that passing the bar in their respective states was easier than passing the uniform CPA exam. I am not tooting my horn, just stating the facts.

As a CPA, when you audit a company’s financial statements, you have to obtain reliable supportable verifiable evidence to support what is presented, i.e., you do not accept circumstantial evidence or someone’s opinion. Because of this training, I question everything that does not make sense or seems questionable or open to doubt. It drives my wife bonkers.

Because I was in the auditing profession, it was not uncommon for me to work 6 days a weeks for up to 10 hours or more a day, and sometimes, although rarely, on Sundays. You don’t have a lot of free time to devote to leisurely activities like poker.

I did find some time to play Texas Holdem Limit starting in 2003 at PokerStars, but had not studied the game. I was taught how to play draw poker and pinochle by my grandfather when I was eight, and we played for pennies for fun. My grandfather had to give all the kids pennies to play with. He did not like to play for nothing, but a few pennies made the game real for him.

The first poker book I read was “The Illustrated Guide to NO-LIMIT TEXAS HOLD’EM” by Dennis Purdy, which I read in March 2010. The second poker book I read in 2010 was Doyle Brunson’s Super System: A Course in Power Poker. Since then, I have read over 40 other poker books, studied hand histories, used Poker Tracker and HUDs, use PokerStove and Flopzilla to do hand analyses.

I did not lose more than $200/$300 playing Limit on the internet, without studying the game. After Poker Black Friday, I played some at Carbon poker, and even tried no-limit hold cash games at the lowest levels for pennies, and broke even. I play as GWL666 or HoldemZeus.

Now that I am retired, I do waste time playing at subscription sites, and do OK. You can't multi-table at these subscription sites, and there are no cash games to play. I play mainly at NLOP, where my winnings this year are about $850. You can play for free at these subscription sites. My biggest win at NLOP is winning 1st place in the Sunday NL $1,000 on 1-18-15, where I won $400 against 235 other entrants. But, there are too many donkeys playing at NLOP that will play almost any starting hands and go all-in preflop hoping to hit miracles by river; so you get knocked out of many tournaments with good playable hands. So, despite having superior poker knowledge, it is hard to put anyone on a range. I have had my pocket Aces or Kings beaten by 7-3 offsuit because some donkey hit miracles, sometimes runner runners on turn and river. But, there is nothing at risk, so why not go for it with junk. I understand that this is happening in cash game too on the internet, which is ruining the game. This bring up an interesting point about reading the ranges that cash players on the internet play now, versus during the internet boom. I won't get rich at those sites. I have played TH Limit at Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, WI, and broke even. I was the Audit Manager at Hollywood Casino in Aurora, IL, but it is illegal, in Illinois, to play at a casino you work at.

I will respond to your responses submitted over the last two days, with of course, additional comments.

George

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Paul Christopher Hoppe — Sat, 30 May 2015 10:48:18 -0000

Wow. That is a lot of questions!

I appreciate you reading old posts and taking the time to comment on them. Regarding "Happy Black Cats and Ladders."

1. A thing is only superstitious if you believe in the superstition. I don't. Those things are habits. It's like an Athiest saying, "God damn it," or "Oh my God!" Language and behavior are often reflexive and the result of our surroundings. I do not have any phobias regarding numbers, cats, ladders, or anything I can think of.

2. Yes! I enjoy the occasional bit of archaic verbiage. I like to play with language. It's what I do. On this site, I write in whatever way pleases me. I figure that the people whom it pleases will stick around and the rest may or may not leave. That's fine. When I'm speaking to a specific person or writing to a known audience, I use words that I think the listener will understand and appreciate. I try to avoid talking down to people or talking over their heads. Language is for communication, and communication can be fun. I want people to have fun when they're reading, even if that fun might be at my expense.

"How old were you when you started playing Texas Hold’em limit in 2006?"

I was 28 when I *resumed* playing poker seriously in 2006. I had played seriously from 98-01 as well, and played recreationally from 02-05. So I started playing poker seriously in 1998, when I was 20. But I did a bunch of other things in that time period, like run a martial arts school, tour in a band, write, etc.

"Playing Texas Hold’em limit, what were your net winnings for each of the following years and how many hands and hours did you played each year: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2013. If you were multi-tabling, how many tables were you playing? Did you use tacking software, e.g., Poker Tracker and HUD to pick your games and know your opponents?"

I don't have all of that information sitting right here in a spreadsheet, and I don't think it's all that interesting, so I'll give a more general answer. From mid-'06-'10, I was mostly playing full-time. Probably 20 to 30 hours of play per week plus 20 to 30 hours of study per week. Sometimes I would play a lot more and sometimes I would study a lot more. Looking back, I wish that I had played more hours while the games were so good. Even though I missed the heart of the boom, the 06-08 games were much better than the games in recent years.

First of all, yes, I was multi-tabling, with the exception of live play, heads-up play, and the very beginning of 2008 when I spent a week single-tabling 6-max games. Playing Limit Holdem, I would often play as few as 2 tables. The majority of the time, I'd play 3 or 4 tables. As time went on, I worked my way up to 6 tables, and at one point started playing way too many tables. Compared to No Limit, there are many more decisions per hand in Limit Holdem. As a result, LHE players typically play fewer tables than NL players.

Yes, I usually used a HUD to play, but not to pick my games. I use the note-taking system of the poker client to select games. I make marks on the players I want to play with, and then I join those tables later. I also recognize the regulars and avoid tables comprised solely of them. Half of game selection is knowing when to quit a bad table. With LHE on PokerStars, I would often get every seat I could and then selectively quit the tables I didn't like.

HUDs are mentioned in some of our books. Neither of us are highly reliant on them, so they don't figure in as much as you might assume. Also, we're trying to be inclusive of live players and people who play on sites that don't allow HUDs. It's my opinion that HUDs can be a valuable tool, but that many players become overly reliant on them and place too much confidence in small sample sizes.

I think I answered most of the winnings questions in my other reply. In terms of hourly rates, my Limit Holdem win-rate peaked somewhere between $100 and $200 per hour. That was playing primarily $10/$20 LHE, where I was one of the best players on PokerStars. I had to build towards that from $3/$6 and $5/$10, where my hourly rates were somewhere between $20 and $75 an hour, give or take. Looking back, I find it depressing that I didn't put in more volume in those $10/$20 games. I started focusing more on music right when my poker career was at its peak. That was surely a financial mistake.

"Do you only play no-limit cash games or do you play tournaments?"

I play a few tournaments, but not many. I've only played in the WSOP Main Event once, 2010, and I cashed in that. Overall, I find tournaments boring, frustrating, and worse than cash games in their ratio of variance to win rate.

"Because you have almost no experience playing Texas
Hold’em - No Limit..."

This is just false. I have considerable experience playing No Limit Holdem. I don't have the enormous success of someone like Dusty, but I've been thinking about and playing the game for 17 years.

I don't think college degrees are all that indicative of a person's intellectual prowess, nor of their ability to teach poker. If you like degrees, I'm a 5th degree black belt in taekwondo. As far as my credentials, it's pretty simple:

1) I played poker professionally for years.
2) I taught martial arts for years before teaching poker. (i.e., I know how to teach)
3) I communicate well, understand the math of the game, and was a respected poster on poker forums before I managed to stop wasting so much time posting on them.

"Anyway, with all I have seen and read, poker appears to be a game mainly of chance, not skill."

Well, I obviously disagree. Winning or losing a single hand is mainly chance. Winning or losing over the course of 100k hands is mainly skill. There's an inflection point somewhere in between where skill becomes the predominant factor.

And now I have a question for you:

What are *your* poker results? Have they affected your conclusion on the skill v chance?

I ask this because I can't recall meeting a long-term winner who believes poker is predominantly chance. (The exception to that would be when a good player goes through a tough stretch and complains about the luck in the game.)

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Paul Christopher Hoppe — Sat, 30 May 2015 09:59:59 -0000

Okay...response time.

Natural selection: Yes, I know the origin of the term. I am using it metaphorically, drawing a parallel between the evolution of life forms and the evolution of words and ideas. I am not the first to do so. Using something metaphorically is not the same as using it incorrectly. When it comes to language, using something literally is not the only way to use it effectively. You seem to have an extremely literal interpretation of everything, which is why I thought you were trolling before. But now I accept that this is just how your mind works. That's cool. It's not how my mind works. I scan things for literal and figurative meanings, often taking delight when there is an incongruity in the two, sometimes making light of the existence of two disparate meanings. In short, I like analogies, metaphors, and puns.

I'm glad you liked my "spawning of new words" metaphor. Clearly you're able to appreciate metaphor, so maybe you just don't like *some* of mine. No problem.

So, about those questions:

2009 was my best year playing Limit Holdem. I made a little over $100k that year from Limit Holdem.

I'm not going to come through my tax returns for the past sixteen years, but my net winnings from Limit Holdem are a few hundred thousand. I still play Limit Holdem, but not online, as I don't have access to the games.

I haven't won very much from No Limit Holdem over the past few years. I started an NL challenge at the beginning of 2014 and got sidetracked by non-poker pursuits. I did very well at $.05/$.10 and $.25/$.50, but got fed up with the NJ sites. In retrospect, it was a mistake to take on a year-long challenge at a game that I don't enjoy.

"Since you have only been playing Texas No-Limit Hold’em for less than two years, why do you think you are an authority to give advice on how to play it?"

The first phrase is false. I played my first hand of No Limit Holdem in 1998. I regularly played in a $5/$10 NL game in 2000, just before the Mayfair Club got shut down. I missed the poker boom, but when I started playing regularly again in 2006, I played a lot of No Limit until 2008. I played live $1/$2 and $2/$5 for a while, then played smaller stakes online. I focused too heavily on multitabling, rather than focusing on developing a strong NL game.

From 2008 through 2010, I primarily focused on Limit Holdem. That was my most successful period as a poker player. In 2010, I started writing books, including an NL strategy book with Dusty Schmidt. After we finished the book, we continued to talk about strategy and I played a good amount of deepstack $1/$2 NL on PokerStars. I had good success at this game until the DoJ knocked them out of the US market. I then played live NL in underground NYC clubs for the rest of the year. I was a winning player both live and online.

In 2012, I traveled internationally to play online poker again, but decided to focus on Limit Holdem, since I enjoy it more and can make a better hourly figure. I had a lot of fun doing that and made some money, but decided to accept a job teaching taekwondo in New York after a friend of mine bought the school where we had both trained.

In 2014, I started an ill-fated challenge to relearn NL from the bottom up. Things were going pretty well for the first few months, but I got sidetracked. It was an online poker challenge, and the geolocation in NJ chronically malfunctions. I would get booted from the sites every 80 to 90 minutes, which is not only frustrating, but also costly.

If you look at the advice I give in No Limit Holdem, it is often either theory-based (in which case my playing history is largely irrelevant), aimed at low-limit players (where a simple, straightforward approach is often the best - and I have enough experience there), or introspective, where I'm using my knowledge of poker in general to examine my own game, and simply making that process public.

The rest of my No Limit writing is based off of Dusty's skill and experience. For instance, Critical Concepts is almost entirely based on Dusty's thoughts on NL Holdem strategy. I apply my own mathematical rigor, examine things like combinations, and apply what is hopefully a light literary touch. Basically, I take Dusty's ideas and put them into numbers and words.

Pokerisaskill.com - yeah, it was a grandiose idea that I/we didn't follow through on. Actually, there was a site for a while, but I couldn't get some things to work, so I tore it down. I may still rebuild it. Sorry for the confusion there. It was essentially a dead link for a while, so I decided to redirect it here. My thought is to integrate it into my larger framework for writing about stuff, but I'm not 100% committed to that plan of action. I definitely need to rework this site, though. It was originally conceived as an author's blog, which is why my name is so big. (That wasn't my idea; it was the site's designer's.) For a site that is more about specific content, I think a different banner would be better.

Anyway, sorry it's not what it was supposed to be or what we'd said it would be. Maybe it will be in the future. Maybe it won't be.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

George — Sat, 30 May 2015 00:53:07 -0000

Thanks for that comment.

Since I am new to this site, I am reading all the posts and posting comments to them even though they were written years ago.

This post is in response to what you wrote in “Happy Black Cats and Ladders” on Friday the 13, 2013.

Here are the points I would like make and or discuss concerning this post.

1. You don’t believe you are superstitious, but you do superstitious things, e.g., taking the time to make a wish when your digital clock has all the same numbers, e.g., 11:11, 12:12.

Do you think a digital clock, a mechanical manmade device, showing all the same numbers is magical and that causes you to have an epiphany? And, you wrote this post on Friday December 13, 2013. Friday the 13th, also known as Black Friday, is considered an unlucky day in Western superstitious countries.

The fear on the number 13 has been given a scientific name: triskaidekaphobia.

And on analogy to this, the fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia.

You closing was “Happy Triskaidekaphobia Day”, which taken literally means a phobia where a person fears the number 13.

Are you superstitious about any day that falls on the 13th of the month, or just when the 13th day of the month falls on a Friday?

If you are superstitious about Friday the 13th, you should have written “Happy Paraskevidekatriaphobia Day.”

Do you think you have an irrational phobia?

2. You state, “It’s a score of minutes past six in the morning.” Wow, how archaic!

The word “score” is an archaic word meaning the number 20. It is used in the famous expression from the Gettysburg Address “Four score and seven years ago, and in the Bible for the age of people in the Old Testament, “three score years and ten” meaning seventy years old.

But no one but you uses the word “score” in speech or writing in the 21st century, especially to tell someone that it is 20 minutes past a specific hour, e.g., 6:20 AM.

Why do you write like that?

Comments not related to your “Happy Black Cats and Ladders,” post.

I see that you received some notoriety as a Limit Poker Player under the name “GiantBuddha” and started playing in 2006.

“He posted outstanding win rates in all formats of mid-stakes Limit Holdem before shifting his focus to No Limit in 2014.”

https://leanpub.com/u/paulc...

How old were you when you started playing Texas Hold’em limit in 2006?

Playing Texas Hold’em limit, what were your net winnings for each of the following years and how many hands and hours did you played each year: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2013. If you were multi-tabling, how many tables were you playing? Did you use tacking software, e.g., Poker Tracker and HUD to pick your games and know your opponents?

If you and Dusty do use poker tracking software and HUDs, is this mentioned in any of your books? If not, why not?

Anyone mult-tabling on the internet is most likly using the tracking software and HUDs on each player at the table. For example, Randy "Nanonoko"Lew played a total of 23,493 hands in 8 hours playing between 25 to 40 tables at a time. When he finished he had a profit of $7.65.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/fea...

I am curious to know how what your lifetime net winnings were when you quit playing limit poker at the end of 2013, when you switched to No Limit. What was your hourly win rate and at what limits? Were you multi-tabling? If so, how many tables were you playing?

I am even more curious to know how much you have won or lost playing Texas Hold’em – No Limit in 2014 and 2015; and, whether those winnings or losses can be confirmed by an independent source. And, how many hands you have played and hours. Were you multi-tabling? If you were multi-tabling, how many tables were you playing at once?

Do you only play no-limit cash games or do you play tournaments?

If you do play tournaments, did you play at the WSOP main Event in 2014 (6,683 entrants)? If you did, did you cash, and what place did you finished at.

Because you have almost no experience playing Texas Hold’em – No Limit, why do you think you are an authority on the game or why should anyone listen to your advice.

What other credentials do you have, e.g., education that might qualify you as a Texas Hold’em No-Limit authority, e.g., a BS or BA degree in Mathematics.

List of poker greats that have advance educational degrees or other professional designations and write poker books:

David Sklansky – University of Teaneck where he passed multiple Society of Actuaries exams that allowed him to be an actuary. His father was math professor at the University of Columbia.

Doyle Brunson – Masters in Administrative Education – many poker titles – won the WSLP main event two years in a row (1976 – 22 entrants and 1977 – 34 entrants).

Dan Harrington – Law Degree from Suffolk University Boston – U.S. Chess Master, Champion backgammon player. Won WSOP main event in 1995 and has over six million dollars in tournament cashes and is a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.

Matthew Hilger – University of Georgia with Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Finance. He began playing limit poker in 2001 and made over $100,000 in his first year. He won the New Zealand Poker Championship in 2002 and finished in the money in the WSOP $10,000 no limit Texas hold’em main event in 2004 (33rd), 2005 (332nd) and 2007 (221st).

Mason Malmuth – Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mathematics.

Ed Miller – degrees in both Physics and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000.

With reference to winning the WSOP main event twice and winning it two years in a row like Doyle Brunson, which I mentioned above, it should be noted that these wins were when the number of entrants was small, 22 and 34 entrants respectively.

It is very unlikely that anyone will ever win the WSOP main event twice again now, especially two years in a row when there are over 5,000 entrants. From 2005 to 2014, the number of entrants has ranged from a low of 5,619 in 2005 to a high 8,773 in 2006.

The fact that no one has won it twice or two years in a row recently, is just more proof that luck is more important than skill when playing tournaments with thousands of entrants. You either get the cards or you don’t; and naked and semi-bluffs will not help for long if you don’t get the cards.

Do many Texas Hold’em very skillful and experienced no-limit professionals get eliminated early in these big WSOP tournaments?

You bet they do!

For example, on Day 1A and 1B of the 2012 WSOP main event with 6,598 entrants, many superstars with super poker skills and experience were eliminated (e.g., Phil Hellmuth, Frank Kassela, Eric Froehlich, Allen Bari, Greg Mueller, and Ted Lawson).

Anyway, with all I have seen and read, poker appears to be a game mainly of chance, not skill.

Probably the most revealing book I have read is “Poker is Dead: The most Controversial Book about Poker Ever Written” by Eric Dale.

What he states about how the poker games have become less and less beatable, as players have become significantly better and more fish have dropped out is right on the money.

The poker industry (i.e., internet poker site, brick and mortar casinos and card rooms, poker magazines, etc.), and most poker authors have a vested interest in hyping and puffing up poker to bring in more fish. If more fish are not brought into the game, they lose.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Paul Christopher Hoppe — Fri, 29 May 2015 23:00:41 -0000

I will reply to this first, then answer the rest tomorrow: "I am disappointed that you pick and choose my questions that you will answer, leaving many unanswered."

I have a lot of work to do and didn't have time to respond to every point in your post. It's an impressive wall of text. I wasn't 100% sure at first whether you were interested in a thoughtful conversation or were just trying to start an argument. I now believe it's the former, and will take more time to reply to your comments.

However, I don't have a lot of time tonight, so I'll answer those questions in the morning.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

George — Fri, 29 May 2015 22:34:09 -0000

Sorry, you think I am being antagonistic and don’t like you. I do love to debate.

Sometimes, you say some things incorrectly.

For example, “There is a bit of natural selection in the spawning of new words.”

Natural selection is a Darwinian concept that pertains to the evolution of living organisms on earth.

natural selection
noun
1. the process by which forms of life having traits that better enable them to adapt to specific environmental pressures, as predators, changes in climate, or competition for food or mates, will tend to survive and reproduce in greater numbers than others of their kind, thus ensuring the perpetuation of those favorable traits in succeeding generations.
http://dictionary.reference...

The formation of new words has nothing to do with natural selection, not even a tiny bit.

I do like your metaphor in that sentence, spawning of new words.

I am disappointed that you pick and choose my questions that you will answer, leaving many unanswered.

Here are a few questions that have not been addressed at your site:

In what year did you make most of your money playing limit Texas Hold’em and how much was that?

What were your lifetime net winnings from playing limit Texas Hold’em?

What were you net winnings from Texas No-Limit Hold’em in 2014 and so far in 2015?

Since you have only been playing Texas No-Limit Hold’em for less than two years, why do you think you are an authority to give advice on how to play it?

I am not sure why you won’t answer this question.

The book Poker in Practice: Critical Concepts that you co-authored with Dusty Schmidt, states:

“We provide the tools to improve your poker skills. For more information, follow us on Twitter @PokerIsASkill, visit our website (pokerisaskill.com) join our mailing list (http://eepurl.com/PdVZf) or contact us by email at info@pokerisaskill.com.”

But, when you click on the internet link pokerisaskill.com you are redirected to http://zenmadman.com/poker-....

When you go to the web site “worth of web”, it says pokerisakill.com is worth about $56 and has an Alexa Rank of 20,978,989 with about 5 visits per day.

Your site http://zenmadman.com/poker-... has an Alexa Traffic Rank of 21,677,993 according to @Alexa, An Amazon.com company.
http://www.alexa.com/sitein...

So, where is the website pokerisaskill.com?

Did you not finish it?

Did you decide that since so few people (based on hits to your website) are interested in what you and Dusty Schmidt have to say that you didn’t bother completing the web site that is referenced in the book?

Re: Mission Accomplished

Paul Christopher Hoppe — Fri, 29 May 2015 22:15:09 -0000

1. A figure like 50,000 is just as arbitrary as 10,000. There are formulas to calculate how much confidence you can have that you are a winner given a your win rate and sample size. Having a miniscule win rate over 100,000 hands proves next to nothing, while having a massive win rate over 25,000 hands can tell you quite a lot.

2. "David Sklansky made an outrageous comment in one of his books about how playing $3/$6 limit Hold’em that you should be able to clear $50,000 per year." If he were talking about online games, that would certainly be feasible. I know people who have made more than that in a year playing $3/$6 online. He was probably talking about live games, however, in which case I agree that $50k in a year would be insane. I once played in a $3/$6 game where that might have been possible, but the rake is way too high in most $3/$6 games to allow anyone to win at a high enough rate that they could make $50k in a year without grinding 60 to 100 hours per week.

3. It's certainly possible to be a winning player at one point in a career and then either get worse, or not get better fast enough to keep up with the other players in the game. If you have questions for Dusty, you can find him here: http://www.twitch.tv/leathe...

4. I am friends with Dusty and have been writing with him for about 5 years. I know what he tells me. I haven't hacked his computer to verify his results, but I have talked a ton of strategy with him and I am quite confident that he is still a winning player. I'm sure he's making less than he was during the early post-boom era, which is when he was crushing the game. I know he made less than that during the heart of the boom because he wasn't playing high enough stakes to be making millions yet.

5. "the hands that Dusty played through to the river and lost are significant. They show where despite his skill set, his read was wrong or something else was overlooked."

Your first sentence is correct, but the second is not. Lost hands are significant and I wish I had gotten him to include more of them in Critical Concepts. In fact, we're thinking of doing a small book titled, "Poker Hands I Lost," which would look at hands where someone else won the pot. Losing a hand does not mean a read was wrong. (Similarly, winning a hand does not mean a read was right.) Sometimes a read is bad, but a good player does not put an opponent on a hand. He puts an opponent on a range. Sometimes the opponent will have the top of that range. Sometimes he won't.

Yes, Dusty often uses a HUD. Most grinders do most of the time. Not always, though, and they are not essential. We discussed opponent tendencies in the book, but didn't get into numbers like VPIP and PFR because we wanted the book to work for a larger audience.

6. Dusty took a very brief break from poker. He has been grinding regularly again for quite a while. You can actually watch him play live here: http://www.twitch.tv/leathe...

7. No doubt it's gotten harder to find good games (i.e., games where people play poorly). In fact, that was basically the entire premise of Critical Concepts. It used to be a lot easier to win. But there are still good games online. Finding them is a skill. In general, though, live games tend to be much softer.

As far as the higher win rate, I have substantial personal experience playing different numbers of tables. I 2-tabled for a while, but mostly played up to 4 tables when I was at my peak. I sometimes experimented with playing as many as 14 Limit Holdem tables at a time. I can assure you that there is a massive difference in win rate between 4 tables and 14 tables. The best Limit Holdem players don't play that many tables. But there are a number of VPP/rakeback grinders who play a lot of tables. They are trading win rate for volume.

I can prove the difference in win rate logically, too, assuming we stipulate that some tables are softer than others and that game selection is a skill.

If you play just 1 table at a time, you can play 100% of your hands on the best table where you can get a seat. If you play 2 tables at a time, you can play 100% of your hands on the two best tables available to you. If you play 6 tables, then only about 33% of your hands will be at the two best tables available. ~67% of your hands will be played at tables worse than those two best tables. If you play are good enough at multitabling that you can play *all* the tables available on a given site, then some of your hands will be played at the *worst* tables available to you. So playing fewer tables allows you to play, on average, in softer games. Playing in softer games allows you to post a higher win rate. QED.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Paul Christopher Hoppe — Fri, 29 May 2015 21:47:29 -0000

With regard to neologisms, if no one had ever created any new words, there would be no words at all. Language evolves constantly. A single word can have many meanings (see: polysemy), and it can acquire additional meanings over time, sometimes within the span of a single conversation. Those meanings may only be understood by a pair of people, or they may be understood by nations of people.

Serious book recommendation: read some Steven Pinker. The Language Instinct; Words and Rules; The Stuff of Thought. All very good. He's a psycholinguist whose philosophy on language I agree with (i.e., he talks about descriptive grammar rather than prescriptive grammar).

"Are you another one of those spoiled rotten kids with wealthy parents who started playing poker at 16 on their parent’s dime that played for 15 hours a day and never had a real job like Alec Torelli, who I believe is also into Zen and heavily into drugs and booze?"

No. I drink very rarely and have never done drugs besides alcohol, aside from a post-surgery prescription for percocet. My parents were not rich. I started playing poker seriously at age 20, mostly live. I began playing seriously again in 2006, starting with a $100 bankroll and turning it into a self-supporting living within months. The games were better back then, so I imagine it would be harder to do the same thing now.

You seem to have a rather severe opinion of me, despite knowing relatively little about me.

Expondicate: It's a word I coined and used in a bit of flash fiction I wrote, which oddly enough is about punctuation.

Troll: I was using the internet meaning of the word. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

I do greatly enjoy civil debate, though I feel like you've been rather antagonistic and I'm not fully sure why. I will admit that I like you a bit more after seeing your recommendations of Hitchens and Dawkins.

I have great confidence that I write very well, but writing and speaking have as much to do with the audience as they do with the writer or speaker. Communication is a two-way street, and you don't always know which side of the road the other person is driving on. It seems rather clear that my writing isn't exactly your cup of tea, so perhaps you're not my intended audience. This blog is mostly me talking to myself, so it's both amusing and slightly disturbing to have someone pick things apart to such a degree.

My point about dictionaries is that there are many. When people say "the" dictionary, they're talking about something that doesn't exist, unless they're referring to a specific book, something along the lines of, "Please pass the dictionary."

I don't think every noise belongs in "the" dictionary, but I do think not being in a dictionary does not make something not a word. If I create a word and it serves a purpose and people like it, then it will survive. If I create a word and it serves no purpose and/or people don't like it, then it will perish. There's a bit of natural selection in the spawning of new words.

Anyway, have a good day.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

George — Fri, 29 May 2015 19:06:38 -0000

Hoppe states: “Language is ours, to use how we will. I like to play with it and have fun.”

George’s response: Language is not ours to use how we will and play with. Language is used to communicate effectively, which you are not doing.

Hoppe states: “Little-z zen can most certainly be an adjective, as in the phrase, "That's mad zen, yo."

George’s response: Again, Zen is a proper noun; it is grammatically incorrect to write it with the small letter z. Proper nouns can be changed into proper adjectives, but they retain the first letter being capitalized, for example: a play written by Shakespeare can be written as a Shakespearian play.

Your clause that you mistakenly call a phrase, That’s mad zen, yo” is meaningless to 99% of the people in America. Yo is an English slang interjection that means hello or hey.

The word ‘that’ is a relative pronoun. Relative pronouns introduce relative clauses, which are a type of dependent clause. Relative clauses modify a word, phrase or idea in the main clause. The word, phrase, or idea modified is called the antecedent. In your relative clause “That’s mad zen, yo”, I have no idea what the antecedent or main clause is.

I suggest you read this book, “Rex Barks – Diagramming Sentences Made Easy” – Phyllis Davenport. It is a good source for understanding grammar. If you can’t diagram a sentence properly, you most likely don’t understand the proper composition of sentences.

Zen is a concept, you don’t talk to it. If zen is the name of one of your friends, it needs to be capitalized.

Let’s remove the word zen and replace it with Bob, then your dependent clause could be rewritten - Hey, that is mad Bob. That is still missing the antecedent main clause to explain what is mad. I will add one for you and turn it into a sentence.

Hey, Sue’s cow is the cow that is mad Bob.

Hoppe states: “Dictionaries do not contain every definition of every word. Rather, they are an attempt to capture the major meanings of as many words as they can.”

George’s response: Yes, dictionaries don’t contain most slang words because they are only used by a few people, relatively speaking. Once the slang words are commonly used, they are added to the dictionary.

Dictionary
noun, plural dictionaries.
1. a book, optical disc, mobile device, or online lexical resource (such as Dictionary.com ) containing a selection of the words of a language, giving information about their meanings, pronunciations, etymologies, inflected forms, derived forms, etc., expressed in either the same or another language; lexicon; glossary. Print dictionaries of various sizes, ranging from small pocket dictionaries to multivolume books, usually sort entries alphabetically, as do typical CD or DVD dictionary applications, allowing one to browse through the terms in sequence. All electronic dictionaries, whether online or installed on a device, can provide immediate, direct access to a search term, its meanings, and ancillary information: an unabridged dictionary of English; a Japanese-English dictionary.

http://dictionary.reference...

Again, you must not understand etymology.

etymology
[et-uh-mol-uh-jee]
noun, plural etymologies.
1. the derivation of a word.
Synonyms: word origin, word source, derivation, origin.
2. a chronological account of the birth and development of a particular word or element of a word, often delineating its spread from one language to another and its evolving changes in form and meaning.
Synonyms: word history, word lore, historical development.
3. the study of historical linguistic change, especially as manifested in individual words.
http://dictionary.reference...

Hoppe states: “Not being in "the" dictionary does not make a word not a word.

George’s response: Everything that is spoken is a word, including a baby’s gibberish, which is baby slang, only understood by babies and some parents. When Homo erectus appeared about 1.8 million years ago, they grunted. Those grunts were words too; but language did not appear until Homo sapiens appeared about 200,000 years ago.

So, by your definition, baby gibberish and the grunts used by cavemen are words; and one step further, they sould be in the dictionary. I think baby gibberish and the grunts of cavemen are much more understandable than the slang of the new ganster rappers and other low life punks that use slang that is only understood by a few, relatively speaking.

Hoppe states: “Forgive me for not expondicating.”

George’s response: What is expondicating? I have used the word expounding, but have no idea what expondicating means, nor do most of the people in America.

You have taken your literary license too far!

You should have said, forgive me for not expounding.

Here is the meaning of the word expound.

verb - gerund or present participle: expounding - present and explain (a theory or idea) systematically and in detail.
"he was expounding a powerful argument"
synonyms: present, put forward, set forth, propose, propound; More - explain the meaning of (a literary or doctrinal work).
"the abbess expounded the scriptures to her nuns"
synonyms: explain, interpret, explicate, elucidate; comment on, give a commentary on - "a treatise expounding Chomsky's theories"

“There is only one way to write properly (Yes, you spotted it!). It is to write in such a way that your meaning is clear to the reader. It's as easy as that!” “…In order to make our meaning understood, we must follow the basic rules and conventions of the English language. These rules and conventions are not too difficult, but if you get them wrong you will be in trouble.”

http://archive.bio.ed.ac.uk...

Writing Mechanics & Grammar
“Learning grammar rules and the mechanics of writing are critical components of learning to write. Having strong skills in writing and grammar allows writers to get their message or story to their readers in a clear and understandable way. It is important to know the rules of grammar and how to use them properly.”
http://www.time4writing.com...

Hoppe states: “I do not believe in zombies or vampires, but I do believe in trolls.”

George’s response: Are you talking about the slang meaning of troll, which is, “a person who lives or sleeps in a park or under a viaduct or bridge, as a derelict or poor person.” Or, are you talking about the troll in Scandinavian folklore, which is, “any of a race of supernatural beings, sometimes conceived as giants and sometimes as dwarfs, inhabiting caves or subterranean dwellings.
http://dictionary.reference...

If you believe in trolls as depicted in Scandinavian folklore, you have a screw lose.

Hoppe states: “There is a level of pedantry up with which I will not put, so excuse me while I Churchill along. Now I've gone and verbed a famous British chap. Good day. ”

George’s response: I am far from being pedantic; but, believe in using proper language and grammar.

Wow, verbed is not a word, but verbing is.

Creating a verb from a noun, adjective or other word is called verbification.

noun
1. The act or practice of using a noun as a verb, such as 'medal' to mean "to win a medal"

Winston S. Churchill did say, “You create your own universe as you go along.”

What does, I will Churchill along mean? Churchill is not a verb but a proper noun. As you have used it, along is an adverb. Does Churchill along mean acting like a British Prime Minister?

Are you familiar with the term neologism?

“A neologism (/niːˈɒlədʒɪzəm/; from Greek νέο- néo-, "new" and λόγος lógos, "speech, utterance") is the name for a newly coined term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event.”

Hoppe, there is one problem with the neologisms that you are creating; nobody but you knows what they mean. They have not entered into common use and most likely never will.

“In psychiatry, the term neologism is used to describe the use of words that have meaning only to the person who uses them, independent of their common meaning. This tendency is considered normal in children, but in adults it can be a symptom of psychopathy or a thought disorder (indicative of a psychotic mental illness, such as schizophrenia).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

I am getting off topic with this question and don't mean to offend you. I am just looking for the facts.

Are you another one of those spoiled rotten kids with wealthy parents who started playing poker at 16 on their parent’s dime that played for 15 hours a day and never had a real job like Alec Torelli, who I believe is also into Zen and heavily into drugs and booze?

Most of these poker kids (e.g., Alex Torelli) were flashes in the pan that played lots of poker and did lots of drugs and booze when not playing poker and lived off their parent's dime until they made some money playing poker. By the way, Alex Torelli is an egotist and a megalomaniac too. Doyle Brunson kick him off his poker team when he found out that Alex chip dumped in a tournament to pay of a $150,000 debt. I don't know if Alex is still in drug rehab.
http://forumserver.twoplust...

Someone responded to one of your posts by saying that you write well.

If that person wants to see good writing, both fictional and non-fictional, I suggest reading the following great books:

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Anyway, you have a good day too.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Paul Christopher Hoppe — Fri, 29 May 2015 09:37:43 -0000

Language is ours, to use how we will. I like to play with it and have fun.

Little-z zen can most certainly be an adjective, as in the phrase, "That's mad zen, yo." Dictionaries do not contain every definition of every word. Rather, they are an attempt to capture the major meanings of as many words as they can. Not being in "the" dictionary does not make a word not a word. Forgive me for not expondicating.

I do not believe in zombies or vampires, but I do believe in trolls. There is a level of pedantry up with which I will not put, so excuse me while I Churchill along. Now I've gone and verbed a famous British chap. Good day.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

George — Fri, 29 May 2015 02:14:42 -0000

You need to look at your banner or title on your site. Zen is in large capital letters as follows, and is not an adjective but a proper noun.

PAUL CHRISTOPHER HOPPE is in a GIGANTIC FONT SIZE. And, the first letter of the words in this phrase or title are all in large capital letters, “The Rambling Path of a Zen Madman”.

The first letter in each word of a title does not need to be capitalized. If you use the sentence style for titles, you only capitalize the first letter of the first word in the title and any other word that should be capitalized, e.g., proper nouns.
http://www.quickanddirtytip...

So, it appears that you are not using the word zen with a small letter as an adjective. And, the word Zen is never written with a small z. Zen is a proper noun, and all proper nouns need to be capitalized.

What exactly is the meaning of this new adjective "zen" word you have created?

Be that what it may, when you use proper English Grammar, Zen is a proper noun and not an adjective and it is always capitalized. All proper nouns are always capitalized.

The less educated in English speaking countries have created a secondary English language called slang, which is sometimes alright in informal speech, but not in writing.

Zen spelled with a small z, as zen can be found in the Urban Dictionary of slang. But, the definitions in the Urban Dictionary have not been created by etymologists; but are sent in by unknowns who are most likely uneducated nobodies who have strange names, e.g., justanotherperson, fatguy, Buddhabing, the_unknown, Zen Master Vex, NuclearConfusion….
http://www.urbandictionary....

Yes, there is such a thing as creative writers using literary or poetic licenses, but that does not mean you use improper grammar or change the meanings of words.

What is etymology?

etymology
noun, plural etymologies.
1. The derivation of a word.
Synonyms: word origin, word source, derivation, origin.
2. A chronological account of the birth and development of a particular word or element of a word, often delineating its spread from one language to another and its evolving changes in form and meaning.
Synonyms: word history, word lore, historical development.
3. The study of historical linguistic change, especially as manifested in individual words.
dictionary.reference.com/br...

It does not matter that you believe Zen is an adjective and that Zen can be spelled with a small z as zen; it is not an adjective and is a proper noun that requires capitalization. You are once again misusing words.

In one of your posts you say, “Even a madman zens out for 100 hours a weeks on a single skill…”

Here you have created a verb phrase, zens out, using the proper noun Zen and the adverb out. This is not a proper verb phase, becuse Zen is not a verb, even if you spell it incorrectly with a small z. What exactly does “zens” out mean? It is not in the dictionary. I guess you are thinking that you are cute by creating new words. Please get a grip with reality. And, I thought you said zen with a small z was an adjective.

Zen - [zen]
Noun
1. Chinese Ch'an. Buddhism. A Mahayana movement, introduced into China in the 6th century a.d. and into Japan in the 12th century, that emphasizes enlightenment for the student by the most direct possible means, accepting formal studies and observances only when they form part of such means.
2. The discipline and practice of this sect.
Zen is also called Zen Buddhism.

I hope you are jesting about zombies and vampires. If you actually believe in zombies and vampires, are you a stoner?

And, lethal force or deadly force is only permissable if there is an unavoidable threat of death or grave bodily harm in a narrow range of circumstances, which does not include another human biting you, except in very unusual biting scenarios, e.g., person trying to rip your throat out with his/her teeth.

"Deadly force is generally defined as physical force which, under the circumstances in which it is used, is readily capable of causing death or serious physical injury. In order for deadly force to be justified there must be an immediate, otherwise unavoidable threat of death or grave bodily harm to yourself or other innocents. Deadly force is that force which could reasonably be expected to cause death or grave bodily harm.
http://definitions.uslegal....

Re: Poker Is A Skill

George — Thu, 28 May 2015 20:37:45 -0000

Where is the PokerIsASkill website where you write your instructional poker words of wisdom that you keep talking about?

Per the website “w3snoop”, pokerisaskill.com has a potential sales value of $10, which is typically the cost of the registration fee for the domain name. The IP address is 198.46.90.135. The Alexa Rank is 10,526,064 based on traffic volume to the site.

I am guessing that you never completed this website and it is not used. So, unless you plan to develop it, you should not keep referencing it and take it out as a reference in books.

Paul C. Hoppe - The Rambling Path of a Zen Madman - Latest Comments

Re: Poker Is A Skill

Re: Poker Is A Skill

Re: Way of the Poker Warrior: Get Over Yourself

Re: Way of the Poker Warrior: Get Over Yourself

Re: Poker Is A Skill

Re: Poker Is A Skill

Re: Happy Black Cats and Ladders

Re: Welcome To My World

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: Welcome To My World

Re: Welcome To My World

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: Mission Accomplished

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: The Mosquito and the Spider. It’s Ironic. No, For Real.

Re: Poker Is A Skill

Re: Way of the Poker Warrior:
Get Over Yourself

Re: Way of the Poker Warrior:
Get Over Yourself