This is a Poker Site After all. Druff tell us about the 300-600 games

[tgull]

I could not even imagine blinds that big let alone the pots. Give us some stories. Let's move on from politics. Give us some stories, biggest pots, biggest sweats, biggest wins, monumental defeats. You have to have some stories.

[desertrunner]

Druff- Any good hotel stories?

[Jayjami]

It’s limit hold ‘em. Pushing small edges to get that one more big bet per hour just isn’t that exciting. I would like his input on shorthand limit play though, because I’m always looking to improve in that area. One of the reasons I usually play 20/40 instead of 40/80 is because the 20/40 games are usually full.

[Texter]

What was his BB rate at 300-600…just 2BB an hour is $2.4M per year if a full time job.

[sonatine]

if someone handed me a tax form at the cage i genuinely think id have a nervous breakdown.

[tgull]

$300 - $600 is salty regardless of the game. I would assume you need to sit down with $50,000. The most I ever sat down with was $10,000 and I was a bit jittery at that level to be honest. Now that was NL, so its even worse, when you have stacks 4X your size next to you. I guess you can play stakes that size if you have $100K in a paper bag at your feet, but if you don't you simply can't sit down. I would like to hear some stories.

[sonatine]

$300 - $600 is salty regardless of the game. I would assume you need to sit down with $50,000. The most I ever sat down with was $10,000 and I was a bit jittery at that level to be honest. Now that was NL, so its even worse, when you have stacks 4X your size next to you. I guess you can play stakes that size if you have $100K in a paper bag at your feet, but if you don't you simply can't sit down. I would like to hear some stories.

ill tell you a funny story about how google execs killed NL holdem in the bay area.

theres a casino called lucky chances which was one of the only casinos with a legitimate high stakes NL game; they spread 10/20 NL and the game was pretty much always running. now they also spread 1/2 NL and 2/5 NL and 1/2 was fishy of course but 2/5 was filled with 2+2 regs; it was the grownup table. and people would grind for _years_ to get rolled enough to get from 1/2 to the 2/5 game. and then they would grind even longer to get enough to buy into the 10/20 game.

if memory serves, min buyin on 2/5 was $200 and min buyin on 10/20 was $1000 i want to say? and up until the mid 90s it was filled with exactly who you would expect leather assed asian regs who have been gambling since they were 4 and either couldnt or wouldnt speak english.

and then the google regs started to show up. they would sit with a 10k chip in front of them, 2 more in their right pocket, 3 more in their left. and they would play any two fucking cards because they were just there to fuck around and have fun and also they had math phds and knew their meta.

so imagine youre a 2/5 reg. youve saved up 6 grand. its your whole roll. what are you going to do, NOT sit in that game?

and so they did. like moths to fucking flames. and they all did the exact same system; wait for AK-AA-KK-QQ-JJ-TT, isolate the google engineer, and get it all in the middle.

seems like a great system but heres a funny thing about math phds with bottomless bankrolls; they dont care about the money, they want blood and souls.

so they would snap call all ins with any 2. and lose. and reload, having their mark covered. and snap call again. and they would keep fucking snap calling until they felted their mark and sent them back to 1/2.

and please understand; they didnt do it once or twice. they did it so often that the 2/5 NL game basically stopped running because all the regs moved up and went broke.

and that was that. not sure if the game ever recovered.

anyway when elon was larping as some sort of sharp, talking about HoW To BEaT No-LImIt, thats literally what he was referring to; the google dorks who beat the bay area no limit games to literal death.

[mickeycrimm]

Druff, tell us about O’Neal Longson.

[Dan Druff]

Druff, tell us about O’Neal Longson.

Don't really know much about him. Played with him a few times in the 2000s, but not really much to say about it.

[Dan Druff]

I quit playing these type of stakes after the 2000s were over.

Was just too stressful. Some people are built for routine single-session swings of mid-5-figures. I'm not. I felt like continuing to play such limits was not good for my mental health, so I dropped down to the upper-middle stakes instead.

The biggest single session live loss I've had was $82k at Commerce 600-1200 in early 2007. The biggest single session online loss I had was $87k in late 2005, on Interpoker, at 300-600. These were limit holdem, in case anyone is wondering.

The live $82k loss was part of an extended downswing in the first 3 months of 2007. By the end of March, I was down $300k for the year, and very depressed. My roll was not in danger, but I never had any losing streak like it before, at least not in terms of money.

I then set out to make it back at midstakes online, heavily grinding Absolute Poker and Cake Poker. I was the biggest winner in both of those games, and got the $300k back by early August, playing no higher than 50-100. Just as I was feeling great, I ran into a seemingly unbeatable fish on Absolute named GRAYCAT, and I couldn't figure it out. Eventually I did figure it out -- he was a superuser -- and I made the first post accusing Absolute Poker of being crooked, which turned out to be correct, and kicked off that huge scandal.

At 400-800 at Commerce, I had the worst first orbit possible. After waiting 2 hours to get in the game, I proceeded to sit down and get dealt 4 pairs in the first 9 hands, all of which flopped sets on relatively safe-looking boards. I lost all 4, and was $16k down by the time it was my blind again.

Want a happier story? Okay.

In 2006, I received a call that Neverwin and "some kid" were playing 400-800 3-handed at Venetian, with what appeared to be a fish. Venetian never spread limit holdem, so I knew this had to be a special game built around that fish, so I rushed down. Neverwin was very surprised to see me, and the kid introduced himself as Mark, and said he was 21. The fish was a middle-aged dude named Paul Horn. He was extremely obnoxious and boorish. I didn't care for him at all, but he was playing horribly, drinking heavily, and at one point was demanding someone find him cocaine so he could sniff it off the table (and was serious). He even asked the floor people if they could get him cocaine, which they laughed off, but again he wasn't joking. I ended up winning about $12k in that game by the time Paul quit (and the game broke). Not wonderful for shorthanded 400-800 with a fish in it, but better than losing. On the way to the cage, Mark told me that his last name was Newhouse -- then a complete unknown in the game. Neverwin later told me that they were at Venetian at Paul's request to "get away from all the nits" at Bellagio, and that he was a little bit annoyed that I was tipped off about the game. Not sure how Newhouse got into it. What happened to Paul Horn? He eventually left poker, and some people told me he stiffed people for 6 figures, who were stupid enough to let him play them on credit. He then stiffed his business partner, which was a deadly mistake. The partner murdered him in 2011, and was convicted of it.

[Shadolph_Titler]

Take a ride on the west coast kick

[Dan Druff]

Bonus content

Phil Hellmuth gets crushed at $300/$600 on UB, tilts in chat: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...-tilts-in-chat

[mickeycrimm]

Druff, tell us about O’Neal Longson.

Don't really know much about him. Played with him a few times in the 2000s, but not really much to say about it.

First saw Longson at the 92 WSOP. High stakes player from Salt Lake City. He was tough as nails in the games. But they say he holds the record for being hijacked the most times. He was so well known by the robbers that they would say "Stick 'em up, Neil!"

[sonatine]

Don't really know much about him. Played with him a few times in the 2000s, but not really much to say about it.

First saw Longson at the 92 WSOP. High stakes player from Salt Lake City. He was tough as nails in the games. But they say he holds the record for being hijacked the most times. He was so well known by the robbers that they would say "Stick 'em up, Neil!"

no one asked, no one cares.

[Sloppy Joe]

Don't really know much about him. Played with him a few times in the 2000s, but not really much to say about it.

First saw Longson at the 92 WSOP. High stakes player from Salt Lake City. He was tough as nails in the games. But they say he holds the record for being hijacked the most times. He was so well known by the robbers that they would say "Stick 'em up, Neil!"

Such a memory for men. How did he stack his chips?

[simpdog]

First saw Longson at the 92 WSOP. High stakes player from Salt Lake City. He was tough as nails in the games. But they say he holds the record for being hijacked the most times. He was so well known by the robbers that they would say "Stick 'em up, Neil!"

Such a memory for men. How did he stack his chips?

He tossed Mickey a $25 food voucher since he saw him slumming around the slots looking for coins on the floor and behind machines.

[sonatine]

ive heard of lot lizards but mickey might be the worlds first slot lizard.

[tgull]

I quit playing these type of stakes after the 2000s were over.

Was just too stressful. Some people are built for routine single-session swings of mid-5-figures. I'm not. I felt like continuing to play such limits was not good for my mental health, so I dropped down to the upper-middle stakes instead.

The biggest single session live loss I've had was $82k at Commerce 600-1200 in early 2007. The biggest single session online loss I had was $87k in late 2005, on Interpoker, at 300-600. These were limit holdem, in case anyone is wondering.

The live $82k loss was part of an extended downswing in the first 3 months of 2007. By the end of March, I was down $300k for the year, and very depressed. My roll was not in danger, but I never had any losing streak like it before, at least not in terms of money.

I then set out to make it back at midstakes online, heavily grinding Absolute Poker and Cake Poker. I was the biggest winner in both of those games, and got the $300k back by early August, playing no higher than 50-100. Just as I was feeling great, I ran into a seemingly unbeatable fish on Absolute named GRAYCAT, and I couldn't figure it out. Eventually I did figure it out -- he was a superuser -- and I made the first post accusing Absolute Poker of being crooked, which turned out to be correct, and kicked off that huge scandal.

At 400-800 at Commerce, I had the worst first orbit possible. After waiting 2 hours to get in the game, I proceeded to sit down and get dealt 4 pairs in the first 9 hands, all of which flopped sets on relatively safe-looking boards. I lost all 4, and was $16k down by the time it was my blind again.

Want a happier story? Okay.

In 2006, I received a call that Neverwin and "some kid" were playing 400-800 3-handed at Venetian, with what appeared to be a fish. Venetian never spread limit holdem, so I knew this had to be a special game built around that fish, so I rushed down. Neverwin was very surprised to see me, and the kid introduced himself as Mark, and said he was 21. The fish was a middle-aged dude named Paul Horn. He was extremely obnoxious and boorish. I didn't care for him at all, but he was playing horribly, drinking heavily, and at one point was demanding someone find him cocaine so he could sniff it off the table (and was serious). He even asked the floor people if they could get him cocaine, which they laughed off, but again he wasn't joking. I ended up winning about $12k in that game by the time Paul quit (and the game broke). Not wonderful for shorthanded 400-800 with a fish in it, but better than losing. On the way to the cage, Mark told me that his last name was Newhouse -- then a complete unknown in the game. Neverwin later told me that they were at Venetian at Paul's request to "get away from all the nits" at Bellagio, and that he was a little bit annoyed that I was tipped off about the game. Not sure how Newhouse got into it. What happened to Paul Horn? He eventually left poker, and some people told me he stiffed people for 6 figures, who were stupid enough to let him play them on credit. He then stiffed his business partner, which was a deadly mistake. The partner murdered him in 2011, and was convicted of it.

That is some crazy shit. Maybe 5% of professional poker players lead a decent and in some cases a successful life, the other 95% it's nothing but chaos, turmoil, indebtedness, and in some cases a shortened life. I remember years ago when I was playing regularly I saw Erick Lindgren on TV, he won a tourney, had a hot girlfriend and just living the life. Anyone watching would be like what a life. Then I read 10 years later he filed for bankruptcy owing $12M. When I walked away from the game finally in 2010, I was in Atlantic City. I was in a $2-$4 NL, and you can only imagine the life losers that ring attracted at those limits. Just looking at the ring, it was just fail and half the people stunk, the guy's breath next to me literally would knock you over. I am like WTF am I doing here at 2am? I still go into casinos time to time and play for a few hours, maybe twice a year. I never play by the proverbial rules anymore and go in all the time and just piss everyone off. Last time I sat down with $1,000 and walked with nearly $4,000 and I could hear people talk when I left that guy has no idea how to play, lol. As I walked out with most of their stacks. I thought one guy was going to lunge at me when I cracked his KK with QJ, he was exacerbated and physically ill when I got the third Q on the river. hehehehe.

[Kalam]

I sort of played live poker with Druff once years and years ago. It was 40-80 LHE at Commerce. He sat down and was on his cell phone the entire time, around 30 minutes, and then got called to whatever bigger game he was waiting for. I was on the other side of the table, and between that and him being on the phone never really found a moment to say hi.

This was waaaay back in NWP days. I was mostly a lurker back then who barely ever posted, and if I did it was all poker related. I couldn't even tell you what my SN was; don't remember.

FWIW, my biggest LHE win was $14K in the 60-120 LHE. I wasn't a regular in that game, but took shots from time to time.

Someone mentioned tax forms. My first experience with tax forms was when I bought in $10K across 40-80 and 60-120 in one session. I was re-buying $1k to $2k at a time (handing money to chip runners to get me chips), and I didn't even realize but someone was keeping track; and when I crossed $10k they brought a tax form to the table with the chips. Obviously I wasn't in a great mood, so it was pretty annoying experience to go through. FWIW, I made a bit of a comeback so only ended up losing $6k total that day.

[Jayjami]

I sort of played live poker with Druff once years and years ago. It was 40-80 LHE at Commerce. He sat down and was on his cell phone the entire time, around 30 minutes, and then got called to whatever bigger game he was waiting for. I was on the other side of the table, and between that and him being on the phone never really found a moment to say hi.

This was waaaay back in NWP days. I was mostly a lurker back then who barely ever posted, and if I did it was all poker related. I couldn't even tell you what my SN was; don't remember.

Druff is obsessed with his phone (and wonders why he suffers bouts of depression lol). His table observation skills could use improvement. But that’s how all those internet players grew up.