Now is your chance to dig deep into the mind of an amazing poker player and coach. We're putting together an interview with Mark Schmid consisting of questions from users in this thread.
Ask mark anything! He will be choosing several questions to answer on a separate post in his blog. He may also reply to questions in here.
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.
I do coaching for a handful of players that request it. The rate I charge is $150/hr. Lately though I have been making more than that at the tables so that rate may be going up soon. It doesn't make sense financially for me to make less coaching than I do playing the game. If you want to contact me about coaching only email PimpinDonks@gmail.com. Please don't email me poker questions.
All other poker related questions please ask here so I don't have to answer the same questions repeatedly.
Hi Mark,
In which format do you play?
Do you play fixed games/hours a day?
Do you use stop losses?
Do you wait until all tables are finished or its the X numbers of tables is opened all the time?
Thanks
Andrei
Hello Mark,
Two questions:
1. What is the longest losing/break even streak that you have endured and how did you keep your confidence up during that period?
2. I have been using a custom structure in SnG Power tools to analyze my final table play in the 90mans, but was wondering how to look at hands on or before the bubble. Since the program seems to only deal with 9 or fewer players I have not been able to figure out the solution. Do you know of a way to do this?
Thanks!
kloptikus333
Hi Andrei, 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.
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.
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.
kloptikus333, 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!
I don't know of a solution to that problem. Sng Whiz is a better program for icm imo. It is more expensive but you can switch formats quickly and easily. I used to use power tools but sng whiz is much more user friendly.
"So I just keep opening them until I hit my goal for the day."
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? Do you do anything in particular to prevent these issues? Care to share what mouse (or trackball, ect...) you use?
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.
I have some questions for you.
When did you decide to play poker professionally? Was it a hard decision?
What advise would you give to a motivated new poker player?
What poker player do you respect the most and why?
Do you have any plans or goals for the future (in poker)?
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.
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.
I think the best poker player in the world is Phil Ivey. Phil beats the highest stakes live cash games, including mixed cash games. He also crushes the nosebleed stakes online. Phil Ivey's tournament record is phenomenal. Look what he did last year at the wsop, winning multiple bracelets and final tabling the main event. So in short he crushes every form of poker out there. That to me means he is the best!
My long term goals with poker are to make enough money to retire on, win a bracelet and help others that want to learn how to do the same.
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.
talking that much would get very annoying though.
200 years from now they will just hook something up to your head and it will know exactly what you want to do, we won't be around for that though. 
lol, I would lose my voice. I saw a show on tv of a monkey using his brain to control a robotic arm. So it may happen in our lifetime.
pretty sure they use this kind of stuff for people with prostetics (sp?) , and cochlear implants, but i'm sure it will take a long time just for them to come up with stuff for personal use for stuff, especially with something as complex as multitabling and having your actions be what your brain wants. would be very cool tho
what age did you start playing poker?
do you think you will still be playing online in 10 years?
not sure if its been asked but, how many hours a week do you play on average.
do you think roi's will be much lower at all stakes in 5 years? 10 years? especially at higher stakes.
in 2011 how many people do you think will be the most online at one time during the year?
what about 2012? (think i've seen mid 300k before, rough guestimation)
if i gave you $15 million right now would you never play 1 hand of any form of poker for the rest of your life?
also,
what is your routine for a normal day of play? when you play, meals, work out, other, sleep?
.
I started playing 5 card draw for change when I was 7 years old just for fun. I started playing seriously online when I was 24.
I still enjoy playing poker. In 10 years even if I am financially set for life I will still play poker online just for something to do. Online has many advantages over live play. I like playing online far more than live because you can play multiple tables, get rakeback, lower rake charged online, little wait time, don't need to drive far away to a casino, no tipping dealers, have exact stats on opponents and do it from the comfort of your home!
I just looked up how many hours I played per week on average for the first half of 2010 on poker tracker. It is 33 hours per week for all games (tournaments, sngs and cash games).
The games are getting gradually tougher, but it is a slow process. There are always new fish coming into the poker world. A lot of new players are coming from countries other than the America now. So as poker expands globally I think sngs will be very profitable for a very long time.
I assume you are talking about poker stars for how many will be online at peek times. Honestly, I don't follow that stat very closely so I am not even going to guess. I haven't seen any stats about growth rates or how the industry is doing from the business end. So I am not qualified to give an answer on this.
I will play poker for the rest of my life. I truly enjoy what I do. When I am financially set for life I will still play and play to win. That is the only way I know how to play. It gets to be a grind at times but any job does. Even professional athletes get tired of working out or practicing. I heard a pretty cool saying about this topic. "If you find a job you love, you will never have to work another day in your life again."
Normally, I get up around 8am or 9am. I don't use an alarm clock (nice perk of being your own boss). I eat breakfast and workout. I workout Monday thru Friday and take weekends off. I do 30 minutes of cardio on a treadmill or stationary bike.
Next, I check email and take care of other online stuff. I usually start playing poker around 11 am or noon. I eat lunch sometimes before I start if it is a little later. I will play for 5 to 6 hours typically and stop to eat dinner. After dinner if I don't have anything going on I will play another session for 2 to 4 hours more. I usually go to bed around midnight or 1am.
i bet you've not seen me at the tables for a while. thats if you remember me.
anyway my question is this -
after watching your mass tabling vidios i have decided to give it a shot with tableninja and i can play say 10 with no problems ( so i hope i become more profitable).
but what i cant manage to do is-
1. play different game types - 45 and 90mans - this is because i play completlly different in the 2 and dont seem to get the time to see which game it is that my table is on.
2. i find that my edge when i get itm is taken away when mass tabling (which i think is the stongest part of the game) because you dont have time to see the type of player that you are up against. - even when you set the table to the side.
can you give me any tips?
cheers
players like iamcastleman, boku87, and others that play 5 different buy ins and 5 different types of games, its crazy that they can play the right strategy while playing so many different stakes and playing 9 mans, 18mans, 45's, 180's and tourneys at the same time while 30+ tabling.
tips would be great, i hate playing just 2 different stakes of same games.
Hi Mark. I'm a fairly experienced online poker player. Just started getting serious about poker recently and go to Vegas about once a month to get some good practice. I've actually been playing online for some time but just without much success. I just had a question I've been thinking about for some time.
I guess it is only because I play at one table at a time, but I just cannot seem to grasp the concept of multi-tabling. I understand that it is for increased profit per hour and playing 2 - 4 tables at a time is reasonable in my mind. But when I look up the poker pros on PokerStars and to see some of the Online Professionals playing 20 30 or 40+ games at a time it just comes off as completely reckless.
Wouldn't it make more sense to play fewer games for higher stakes than to play more games at lower stakes as to be able to comprehend the betting patterns, time it takes for a bet, and really try and read your opponent? Thanks a lot!
Hi
Best of Luck in the WSOP.
Just curious what type of job you had at JP Morgan Chase, and did you just hate the job and what it entailed or just had the overwhelming desire to take the poker route?
Also, do you tend to tell people that ask you how hard it is to be a poker professional and discourage most - or do you have a different philosophy?
I was playing a 6 man super turbo a couple days ago and found myself with pocket kings in the SB. I had 3 all ins before the action got to me. I called obv. (and lost). Afterwards i ran it through poker stove and found my KK would hold up only 45% of the time against the other 3 hands ( QKs, A8o, and 33). Knowing this would you call? I can't see laying down pocket kings but maybe in a super turbo with 3 allins ?
hey, my screen name is Kingriver321 on tilt and we have played against each other a decent amount. Hit me up on aim. my screen name is nelsonbball9 I would love to go over hands with u every now and then. Im currently the biggest 52 90 man winner and i know ur a great 45 man winner, so im sure we could help each other out.
imamackem, if you aren't running a HUD that will help a lot with knowing the types of players you are up against when mass tabling. If you are running a hud and still don't have enough time to make good decisions, I recommend playing fewer table. It is a gradual process to increase the number of tables you play. You shouldn't try to go from 10 tables to 18. Add 1 or 2 more for a week or two and if it goes well and it feels slow to you add a couple more. Also, you can put the 45 mans on one part of the screen and 90 mans on the opposite part of the screen to help sort them in your head.
pharreal87, it takes a great deal of experience and studying of icm situations to be able to play multiple games like that profitably. I recommend getting good at 1 type of sng at a time. When you have mastered that you can branch out. The reason the high stakes sng players play different types though is because there are not enough of the games they want to play starting on a regular basis. So they are forced to play multiple buyins. I currently play the $114 45 and 18 mans, $60 45 and 18 mans, $38 45 and 18 mans, and $36 180 mans. I would love to play all $114 buyins but they start very seldom so I am forced to play lower stakes.
frvRockets, many players mass table to rack up huge rakeback or fpp bonuses. By mass tabling they can get to super nova elite quicker. Also, many pros chose to play smaller stakes with more fish on 20 to 40 tables rather than battle it out against other pros for higher stakes on a couple tables and have much higher variance. It actually makes a lot of sense to do so. Why play other players you may only have a 2% edge on when you can play fish you have a 50% edge on?
Also, if a great player only played 4 tables he may be able to achieve a very high roi for his sng type. However, by adding many more tables he can make more money per hour by sacrificing 1 or 2% of his roi due to multi tabling. The important thing to consider is money per hour. The pros wouldn't be playing that many tables if it wasn't the best thing for them. They have figured out how to make the most money per hour for their game.
WECpoker, I helped clients invest their money in mutual funds, annuities, bonds... I also helped them get mortgages and loans. It was a sales job though. I didn't care for that aspect of it.
I just tell people the truth about my experiences and the pros and cons. There are a lot of good things and bad things about being a poker pro. If someone really wants to do it though and they think they are good enough, I think they should go for it. You have to take risks in life to be successful. It is a lot like starting a business. Most people don't make it but those that do are usually pretty happy about their job.
pocketgrinder, I would call there. Don't just think of it as a 1 time hand. Think of it more on a long term basis. For example, if that situation happened to you 1000 times what will make you the most money in the long run? I think calling is the most profitable play in the long run so that is what I would do.
i'm assuming top 2 get paid 65 35 or close to that.
Call all day. basically you are going to get ko'd half the time and the other half you will quad up with a giant chip stack 3 handed, and be in a great position to win.
soooooo, get knocked out 55% of the time, Win 25%+ percent of the time, 2nd place 15% of time or so
i'd take those stats all day long.
thanks for that,
but i dont know how to do a few things with that table ninja so i will start up a new topic if anyone could help me out.
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for the reply. Also thanks for the videos, they are proving helpfull. Now if I could just get over this slump. Seems I'll do really well double up maybe even triple then get all in with the best hand and get crippled and either go out in 3rd or 2cd. It's so frustrating. Do you ever find times when you want to pull your hair out because it seems like you just cant win with the best hand?
Kingriver321, I am going to be in vegas for 3 weeks playing wsop. I am also in the process of making my new video series and still grinding on the tables. So I don't get on aim much with my current schedule. So in a couple months I should have more time.
pocketgrinder, there are some sick runs in poker. I haven't pulled my hair out yet, but I have broken a couple mice. I don't get too mad anymore because I have seen it over and over, but when I was a new player I didn't handle it to good.
Hey Pimpin, are you going to the wsop this year?
I saw on your blog you may still do some coaching. Do you still coach?