Sklansky thread

If you had read any basic poker strategy book that told you “tight is right”, a flashcard of top 10 starting hands, the patience and discipline of a 9-5 worker, the submissive nature to fold for hours, and a modicum of emotional control you could have crushed the games during the poker boom by waiting for drug dealers who were washing their money to ship their ill gotten gains to you. Let’s not fool ourselves that you had to be a genius to beat the games back then. The middle management office workers had the tools to beat the game before they became infested by GTO nerds and foreign pros. They just lacked the grit to step into seedy cardrooms.

That being said, Sklanksy and Mason are obviously highly intelligent and accomplished individuals who wrote books and contributed a lot to the game. That doesn’t mean they have the tools to beat the current games though.

Lemon is fortunate to be an old geezer who was around during the poker boom to make piles of money to put into a market that went parabolic. He doesnt like to admit any part of it was luck though.

beating a game for peanuts has nothing to do with crushing a game. I saw THOUSANDS of wannabe nit/rock players come and go during the poker boom flat ass broke. Those who made it through that time as full time gamblers for decades and are multi multi millionaires now are few and far between. Its extremely rare when I see a guy who was rounding for decades from the mid 90s who is doing extremely well today.

for me....wild bill, nick the greek, doyle and ivey. obviously none of that is "set in stone".

I grew up in trailer and my mom made my clothes. The things i was doing in gambling the 90s was so far outside the box the normie world just basically viewed me as a straight up criminal. Using a genius IQ and a lot of courage I put myself in many positions to get very lucky.

I’ve played with many former top dogs during the 2010’s and watched them start struggling to beat the games because the new wave of aggressive young players were running them over. They were middle aged old nits with zero creativity who could not adapt to the new environment. They weren’t dumb but they they were probably in the 110 IQ range and were stuck in their ways. They were often bitter that the game had passed them by and loved to reminisce of the time when they were winners at 100/200 limit and Party Poker. Aside from being bitter, they were doing well because they made enough to buy SFHs in LA and those have all appreciated significantly. I don’t know Lemon personally but he’s from a similar era and background as these old nit pros. Maybe he has a little more personality and creativity than those old nit pros since he is exceptionally loud and hosted some shows

Your mom raised you well to have high self esteem and be your own biggest hype man.

It should be noted that Mount Rushmore is a national monument under the authority of the National Park Service and any attempt to add any figure, poker or otherwise, is forbidden and almost sure to result in arrest. Of the figures currently represented only Abraham Lincoln is known to have been a poker player, but his memorialization is largely in response to his political leadership, not his card skills.

I suspect that particular thread was closed because no legal case was made against DS. (And that specific incident was the topic of the thread.)

Are you a lawyer?

Every new generation of poker players becomes more and more delusional than the previous generation (for reference see Dane Cook thread, wherein the posters were claiming a poker pro who's name escapes me was worth X-number times more than Cook; the pro is question is basically still owing money).

Poker is a negative sum game. A table going 24/7 will take 1.5 million off the table. The only guaranteed winners are the house and the dealer. A winning player has to be very good, lucky and also not unlucky. The winners who have thrived - and more than likely achieved via tournament lotteries - have done it more from investments than continued poker excellence.

Because of inflation, its practically impossible now to do what the "poker pros" from 90s could do.

link to post about poker player networth vs dane cook please

the high IQ gambling crushers from the 90s wouldn't be playing poker post boom/crash if they were born in the 90s. If i was a late/peak millennial instead of gen x i can virtually guarantee i would have already made millions off of pump and dump and rug pull crypto gambits including other grey area phishing and pig butchering operations and NFT wash trading. the wild west of crypto is where every high IQ, thrill seeking, semi deviant millennial would have gravitated to, poker was already fast becoming a dead/small game for mediocre middle managers by 2010.

Maybe the most epic troll in 2+2 history?

Was he lucky to be around for the boom? Yes.
So were lots of other people myself included.
And I went from literally playing 1 table of .5/1 limit on party poker with Lee Jones book on my lap to playing 10/20 nl in maybe 18 months making more money than is possible to make online today. And all i really did was just play tight. The 22 year old today would never have that chance.

But unlike probably 99 percent of people who made money during the boom I didn't piss it away. And neither did Limon. That's not luck.

A few weeks ago I told my friends nephew who is 20 or so he should not want to be a poker pro when he was asking me about it. 99.9 percent chance he's a reasonably smart kid, he'll win but be 30 years old with basically nothing saved and a giant resume gap. Games are so much smaller than they were back then (even before you adjust for inflation), rake is higher, players are better. And there are way better ways to make money. in 2005 sure go nuts.

I know a lot of people who won in the boom and are dead broke today. Including one who spent 5 years swearing he was just running bad and I told him to his face he's miserable playing, he's making everyone else miserable and he can't win anymore. But he'd take his best month in a 2 or 3 year period, think that's what he should make every month and swear he's running bad. And the more he couldnt' win the more he'd start chirping about playing 25/50 nl at commerce 15-20 years earlier. Cool story. Where is the money?

Easy money making opportunities never last. This is even more true in any form of AP gambling. The smart people make the easy money and turn it into more money. The idiots think the gravy train will never end and piss it all away.

How do you treat/feed/water a professional poker player?

Hanging on to the money was not my point.

Lemon claimed you had to have genius level IQ to even beat the games around the poker boom. You just agreed with me that you don’t.

Lemon sought out other opportunities like being a host for LATB and a prop at Commerce after the poker boom ended. Why do you think that is?

Have you ever heard Phil Galfond brag about what a poker genius he is? Brad Pitt brag about his looks or Stephen Hawking brag about his intelligence? No, because they don’t have to.

So how much did you make off crypto?

i had many large 6 figure scores well documented. i used to post all my buys and sells on twitter and the old pokersesh podcast. many people who traded dumb stuff like MANA, ETH classic, LINK and Filecoin along side me made a lot of money. But i was really a small fry just selling to the bigger fool on pumps, i wasn't from the generation that would have seen all the angles and been the one making the pumps happen. I was already rich off poker/gambling.

I know a few guys with multiple 6 figure scores and then a single 7 figure loss wiped them out. That’s crypto, baby.

Pretty sure Limon never claimed to be some Phil Golfond type player.
Yea he was getting paid to host a 10/20 plo game against a bunch of droolers. That's not exactly the DN dream spot but it is a pretty good spot to be in. And people would debate whether or not he could still beat 25 nl on stars. When in the real world whether or not he could beat it means less than nothing. And trying to when you're not some broke 22 year old sounds like an absolute prison sentence. Way too many poker nerds can't see the forest for the trees.

Does he brag too much? Probably.
Do I agree with everything he says as far as poker goes? No probably just like 90 percent.
Does it "get it" more than basically all poker pros? Yes.

He claimed he has genius level IQ because he beat the games during the poker boom so yes he thinks he’s a poker genius like Phil Galfond. Reality is many uncreative ABC nits were able to beat the games during the poker boom which he vehemently denies because it’ll burst his bubble

He’s been in live poker for like 30-40 years so of course he “gets it” more than most poker pros

the bot mod they have attached to my account deletes half of my responses for no apparent reason so most of these conversations make no sense. it causes a lot of misinformation about me and what ive said to stand unanswered.

see above.