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PimpinDonks (Mark Schmid) Interview

Posted by dbirider - Posted on June 3rd, 2010

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PimpinDonks has one of the most upward trending profit charts in poker. Since he began playing professionally several years ago, he's only had one losing month. In real life, PimpinDonks name is Mark Schmid. In addition to playing poker, Mark has coached several players to help them skyrocket their earnings. He has the most sought after poker training videos on SharkScopers.

Last week we opened up a Q&A thread with PimpinDonks so members can learn more about him and seek guidance. Here are some featured questions that we pulled out.

When did you decide to play poker professionally? Was it a hard decision? - dbirider

I decided to play poker professionally when I was still working at JP Morgan Chase. I was making more playing poker though and enjoyed it much more than working for the bank. That was about 5 years ago.

It was a big risk because I just bought a house and was getting married so I had a lot of money going out and needed to keep the money coming in to pay the bills. I probably went pro too early considering my bankroll at the time and all the big costs I had, but everything worked out. I would recommend players considering going pro to be in a better position than I was.

What advise would you give to a motivated new poker player? - dbirider

If you are a motivated new player you should play poker a little and learn a lot. So 25% of the time you are dedicating to poker should be for playing and the other 75% for learning to get good fast. Studying can drastically cut down the amount of time it takes for you to learn what you may or may not have learned playing on your own. Unfortunately, most new players just want to play. So put in the time learning the proper way to play and you will be very happy with your results compared to other new players. Reading forums, watching videos and reading books are what I would do if I were a new player.

Hey Pimpin, are you going to the wsop this year? - angel77

I am going to the Wsop this year. I am going to try to play about 10 to 15 events depending on how long I last in each tournament. I have not decided yet if I'm going to play in the main event. I am buying in directly to all the smaller events and my try to satelite into the main event.

Do you play fixed games/hours a day? - andreiSL

I usually set a daily goal of how many sngs I want to play that day. I have found doing goals based on set hours per day makes it seem more like a job. Things change though, if I am having a good day I may play more than I originally expected. If I'm having a tough day I may quit early. 

Do you use stop losses? andreiSL

I don't use stop losses. If I feel I am playing my best but just not having the cards fall my way I continue playing if I want to keep playing. 

Do you wait until all tables are finished or its the X numbers of tables is opened all the time? - andreiSL

You will make more money per hour if you keep opening the sngs continuously over a period of time. It will be significantly more, almost double the hourly rate! When you wait for all the tables to be done you will only have 1 or 2 tables going at the start and end of each set. This reduces your hourly rate substantially. So I just keep opening them until I hit my goal for the day.

What is the longest losing/break even streak that you have endured and how did you keep your confidence up during that period? - Kloptikus

I have had some big losing streaks having played online poker for over 5 years now. It depends on what games your talking about. I used to 18 table single table turbos as my main game on stars at the $60 and $119 level. I did that about 3 years ago and I had a stretch of about 5000 games of breakeven at the tables. In that time I got alot of bonuses from fpps, but the variance in those games is sick!

So you just play one long set until you're done for the day? Have you had problems with carpel tunnel or repetitive stress injuries? Care to share what mouse (or trackball, ect...) you use? - ha7ch47

Most of the time I do 1 long session, but sometimes I split them up for various reasons. Thankfully, so far I haven't had any problems with carpel tunnel. I don't have anything in particular to prevent these things, but I do make sure to keep my forearm, wrist and hand on a level surface.

I just use a regular mouse with a cord. A wireless mouse can lose power right in middle of a key hand, so I prefer a corded mouse. It would be nice if there were a program that could respond to verbal commands to avoid all the clicking. However, I don't know of any that could handle playing 20+ tables and know what table you are giving commands about.