Ask Me Anything (Dusty Schmidt aka Leatherass in the well)

WVHillbilly

WVHillbilly

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I've read the book (3 times actually) and both you and you wife talk about how to tell others what you do for a living, my question is how and when did you tell your wife's parents? What was their initial reaction to their little girl marrying a professional "gambler"?
 
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Leatherass

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Dusty,
First off I totally appreciate you and your skills on cash games. What you have done and achieved is ..well quite frankly is amazing. Your contribution to this forum and continued responses to questions are very welcomed and appreciated by me and I'm very certain all contributing members. And, will look forward to reading all Q & A's in the future.
In the meanwhile... Any insights how a tourney ( STT and MTT) player could transition into a profitable cash game player? Cash games seem to me to be more sick with the bad beats? Or is that the variance ? Do you or would you...recommend that a profitting tourney player transition into a cash game player? Try to add it to arsenal ?
I'm no Phil Ivey, nor experienced in online cash games...So what do you feel the best path might be, to obtain more desirable ROI. Learn cash or stay tourney? Thanks again and I hope you will play sometime in one of our buy in events ( I'll front ya:D...no worries) or freerolls.
Sincerely,
-Pool


The best point I can make is that I feel that cash games have more money in it and less variance. For those reasons I play cash games. I have a chapter about this in my book, Treat Your Poker Like A Business http://www.dustyschmidt.net
 
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ok you asked for it :p

I feel like you wrote pretty cop-out responses for #1/2 so I'm gonna try to rephrase them:

1. You basically admitted that your job doesn't benefit society in any way. Does it bother you that 90%+ of the working population is doing something that in some way helps society while yours doesn't? Almost every single other job in society provides a service someone else is willing to pay for. Your job preys on people who think they are better than they really are at the game and although there is the occasional rich recreational gambler who knows he's paying to have fun, I would argue that the Guy Laliberte's are not the majority of poker fish and that most are people with gambling problems and/or think they have an edge when they don't. How do you justify to yourself what you've chosen to do in life doesn't help society while most people in the world spend their lives doing something that even if indirectly, somehow does help society? Not trying to be a dick and I have my own answer, I'm just curious as to what yours is.

2. Your Peyton Manning example is actually perfect. Probably the majority of boys growing up want to be like him. There are far more than 30 kids growing up in this country that work their ass off to try to be the best QB they can be. Yet only 30 end up starting in the NFL at any given time. I would argue that the reason is there are enough people that work their ass off to be the best QB they can and the ones that make it are the ones who work their ass off AND have a natural ability. So I agree with you right now about most people that are reasonably intelligent being able to work hard and be able to beat small stakes no limit hold 'em. But what's happening is more and more people are working hard and eventually I think it will come to a point where you have to work extremely hard AND have some sort of natural ability, whether it's intelligence or something else, to win at any decent stakes at poker in the future sometime. I'm not sure how far ahead that is, but I see it as the natural progression. Ten years ago it didn't even take that much work. Now if you put in the work you can do it. In ten years I can see you not only needing to put in a ton of work but also being gifted in the game to succeed.

So I guess the question is do you agree with me or do you believe because of recreational fish that it will always be possible with hard work for a person of average intelligence to be successful in the game of poker?

11. Thoughts on the Jason Ho scandal? Did that effect how trusting you are of other people in the industry or do you think it's just a rare exception?

12. Do you think people are too quick to trust people in the poker world? High stakes players will trade tens of thousands of dollars between sites without thinking when any transfer that large in the real world would definitely have lawyers and contracts involved.

13. I'm likely going to play the WSOP ME too, although probably gonna be backed unless I win a satty since I don't play quite as high as you and don't want to pay 10k for one tourney. We gonna take 1st/2nd?

14. What are your thoughts on Ultimate Bet? They claim to be under new management and be perfectly straight but recent posts on 2p2 have claimed otherwise and it seems they are still being extremely dishonest with how the cheating scandal happened and what they are doing to ensure it never happens again. On top of that after new management they've had a software bug where the pot shipped the wrong way to Phil Hellmuth. Would you really trust your money on a site like that? Does it bother you that sites like Cardschat will still endorse Ultimate Bet and hold tourneys there after we've seen how they treat their customers?

15. If you were going to die next week, what would you do this week?

16. If I offered you a flip for your net worth, how weighted would the coin have to be in your favor to take it?

17. If I offered you a 55/45 flip in your favor, what percentage of your net worth would you put on the line?

18. Cherry or Apple Pie?

19. Chocolate or Vanilla ice cream?

20. You can decide to either never play golf again in your life or never play poker again in your life. Which do you pick?

21. I know you used to completely idolize Tiger Woods. Has what's come out in the last few months ruined your opinion of him or do you still admire him because of the amazing athlete that he is?

ok that's all I can think of for now :)

#318

1. Sticking with my "copout" answer :)

2. The number of potential pros will be consistent with what the market will bear I believe.

11. I trust the owner of http://www.Dragthebar.com Hunter Bick, who only hires coaches whose results can be verified by PTR ratings. The other sites are rolling the dice expecting their members to simply trust that someone is a winning player with no actual proof. The problem for many of the sites coaches is that they can't beat the games either and verifying the results only makes them look worse.

12. I think they are. I do transfers all the time but will never transfer first except to great friends.

13. Sounds good to me!

14. I don't have an account on UB and have no desire to create one.

15. Spend it with my family and maybe play a round of golf or two.

16. Well. probably 51/49 given that I would just buy insurance and take an immediate profit!! In the spirit of your question though, knowing that I would probably have 9 million people willing to stake me if I went bust, I would probably say I would do it if it was 95/5. I can understand the argument that says you should take it at a much worse rate, but I am probably pretty conservative.

17. Not much. 55/45 I would flip someone for $5,000 maybe. I may not even want to do that unless we were flipping like 1,000 times.

18. Apple

19. chocolate

20. Golf for sure because I make lots of moniez playing poker :)

21. I admire him for most of the same things. I will still root for him for sure. But I will no longer hope that I have a son that turns out like Tiger or any grand visions like that. I used to think that Tiger truly was an incredibly special person, but now it seems like the whole things was a facade.
 
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boxers or briefs? LMAO^^

Dusty its so badass that you have more posts on this site than probably the average CCer has. The fact that you keep coming back to answer more and more questions no matter if its 1 or 22 of them^^^ is truly awesome

thank you again

Thanks!!!!
 
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wow , happy to see you're still here :) what a guy :) just noticed this thread today and read the last two pages and the first two but am hooked and will read it all now . doubt I will be reading the book , it's a little to much for me but does sound well worth it . will also check out DTB and dreaming of getting some coaching .

QUESTION # 1 I have tried reading books to improve but just don't seam to learn very easy that way . can coaching overcome that and be worth the good money to an average player who realizes he will probably never be good enough to play for a living.


#2 do you know or have you ever played with Chris Ferguson .

#3 can a poker player make a living on looks alone ? lol ( kidding ) :)


thanks for helping so many people with your valuable time , much appreciated :)



p.s..probably missed it and will look but .... handicap in golf ?


1. I would try both and see what works. And I know this sounds like a shameless plug but I really do think you should read my book. When I wrote it I was only hoping that people would enjoy the book and get something out of it, but the responses I have gotten have been so positive that I feel confident in saying that I can be certain you will not regret your purchase. The book has been highly well received and I have had tons of people write me telling me they have started making tons of money since they read my book. Give it a shot http://www.dustyschmidt.net

I think personal coaching can be a great thing as well, but finding a coach you connect with can be tough. And typically you will be paying at least $100 for any decent poker coach so I would be really shocked if you would find 20 something minutes with a poker coach (which would cost you about $40) more valuable than my entire 204 page book (which is also $40).

2. I have played with him online, but that is about it.

3. Well if they went off of looks you wouldn't want to learn anything from me lol.

Handicap in golf is about a +3
 
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I tought i read that you were thinking of selling your HH's? how is that all right but data mining is not?

I have never sold a hand history. I may have thought about it, but never made any solicitations for selling them.
 
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Leatherass

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I've read the book (3 times actually) and both you and you wife talk about how to tell others what you do for a living, my question is how and when did you tell your wife's parents? What was their initial reaction to their little girl marrying a professional "gambler"?

#327

Her dad thought it was "****ing cool" and her Mom saw that I was taking care of her daughter pretty well and going on cool trips so she didn't really care one way or the other.
 
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Received the book / Some Feedback, please

Hi Dusty, I received the book today I will start to read tonight, it was fast, even faster than Amazon! I am from portugal and I waited no more than 2 weeks.

This is my 3rd post and I did not have any feedback from you, hope you can make some comment on my last post (this one).

I am a SNG player, I play following the 100 buy in rule and I play micro stakes for now as a hobby (I have a family and a full time job during the day). When I started playing poker I was a losing player, and I lost about $110. On the last 3 months I begin to study teh game and my game improved a lot and I increased my bankroll in more than 60%. I made a promise to myself to never ever deposit again and my last deposit was on last summer.

If you check my data on sharkscope, my nick is "lmagalhaes" and I play on pokerstars, you can see that I made a big recovery on my "debt" and I am almost break even.

Your book comes in a better time because I am right now facing a downswing (6 games in a row without cashing), I am getting some bad beats along the way.

Anyway, thanks Dusty I will read your book and I hope one day can write or talk to you personal to say that your book changed my life and my game. I hope in that day I have my financial freedom.

Cheers.
 
Sean Pilgrim

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Hi Dusty, I received the book today I will start to read tonight, it was fast, even faster than Amazon! I am from Portugal and I waited no more than 2 weeks.

This is my 3rd post and I did not have any feedback from you, hope you can make some comment on my last post (this one).

I am a SNG player, I play following the 100 buy in rule and I play micro stakes for now as a hobby (I have a family and a full time job during the day). When I started playing poker I was a losing player, and I lost about $110. On the last 3 months I begin to study teh game and my game improved a lot and I increased my bankroll in more than 60%. I made a promise to myself to never ever deposit again and my last deposit was on last summer.


If you check my data on sharkscope, my nick is "lmagalhaes" and I play on Pokerstars, you can see that I made a big recovery on my "debt" and I am almost break even.

Your book comes in a better time because I am right now facing a downswing (6 games in a row without cashing), I am getting some bad beats along the way.

Anyway, thanks Dusty I will read your book and I hope one day can write or talk to you personal to say that your book changed my life and my game. I hope in that day I have my financial freedom.

Cheers.

nice recovery! bring it above the red! I know you can do it!
 
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Leatherass

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Hi Dusty, I received the book today I will start to read tonight, it was fast, even faster than Amazon! I am from Portugal and I waited no more than 2 weeks.

This is my 3rd post and I did not have any feedback from you, hope you can make some comment on my last post (this one).

I am a SNG player, I play following the 100 buy in rule and I play micro stakes for now as a hobby (I have a family and a full time job during the day). When I started playing poker I was a losing player, and I lost about $110. On the last 3 months I begin to study teh game and my game improved a lot and I increased my bankroll in more than 60%. I made a promise to myself to never ever deposit again and my last deposit was on last summer.

If you check my data on sharkscope, my nick is "lmagalhaes" and I play on Pokerstars, you can see that I made a big recovery on my "debt" and I am almost break even.

Your book comes in a better time because I am right now facing a downswing (6 games in a row without cashing), I am getting some bad beats along the way.

Anyway, thanks Dusty I will read your book and I hope one day can write or talk to you personal to say that your book changed my life and my game. I hope in that day I have my financial freedom.

Cheers.

#335

Perfect timing! I wrote a blog a few minutes ago that I think will be of some help to you.

http://www.dustyschmidt.net/2010/02/everyone-runs-like-garbage-from-time-to-time/
 
KerouacsDog

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sir, Im sure Im not the only one here who appreciates your time spent here, and your excellent replies/advice/posts.
Thanks, from a micro-stake(2nl-25nl) player!
 
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fletchdad

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I have been following this thread, but not yet posted any questions.
First off, as many have already said, kudos to you for taking your time to do this. It is also a definite good business move, as I am ordering your "Treat your Poker Like a Business"....
Which brings me to my questions:
1.) Which Books/Websites/Blogs do you recommend, and in what order to be consumed IYO? I have Harrington on Hold'em 1+2, Sit and Go Strategy by Moshman, and have ordered "Hold'em Poker: A completes guide to playing the game" by Sklansky. I played micro stake ring, but am starting to re-evaluate my whole approach, and at the moment playing only low buy-in SnGs. I am doing a month-to-month plan, wont go into details, but, as well as with help here at CC, am using guide lines from the above mentioned books (with Moshman being my book-Guru at the moment) but will read and re-read and apply all I absorb. My playing time/Study time is respectively 25%/75% at the moment, a big change for me.

2.) As I am a relative beginner, I realize micro stakes are my only realistic option. How do I best decide when to play and apply new concepts, as opposed to continue reading/studying more? Is this a question that can be answered?

3.) How do I measure bad play as opposed to variance so I know when I am playing correctly? I post some hands but have not posted a lot here in HA. Software??? (Freeware..... poor musician thing......)

4.) Is it worth playing play money games to improve or are the differences in real/play money to great to reap strategy benefits from play money?

5.) Is there any websites/blogs/books (maybe your book that I will get would be your answer here?:) that will help me learn how to graph my progress so I will know better when to take the next step in terms of my skill/ability as opposed to just advancing according to BR, (or is THE way?) as well as helping me determine which game is my strongest one - SnG, Rings MTT etc. and if and when I should move on to a new game?

6.) Have you ever had a more awesome experience in you life then the birth and growth of your daughter????? Mine is 7 1/2 and brings me joy greater everyday, no matter what else is happening in my life!! OK, my wife is cool too, but, man, that little girl:).....
 
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Leatherass

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sir, Im sure Im not the only one here who appreciates your time spent here, and your excellent replies/advice/posts.
Thanks, from a micro-stake(2nl-25nl) player!

#338

Appreciate it!! It's been a lot of fun for sure.
 
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Leatherass

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I have been following this thread, but not yet posted any questions.
First off, as many have already said, kudos to you for taking your time to do this. It is also a definite good business move, as I am ordering your "Treat your Poker Like a Business"....
Which brings me to my questions:
1.) Which Books/Websites/Blogs do you recommend, and in what order to be consumed IYO? I have Harrington on Hold'em 1+2, Sit and Go Strategy by Moshman, and have ordered "Hold'em Poker: A completes guide to playing the game" by Sklansky. I played micro stake ring, but am starting to re-evaluate my whole approach, and at the moment playing only low buy-in SnGs. I am doing a month-to-month plan, wont go into details, but, as well as with help here at CC, am using guide lines from the above mentioned books (with Moshman being my book-Guru at the moment) but will read and re-read and apply all I absorb. My playing time/Study time is respectively 25%/75% at the moment, a big change for me.

2.) As I am a relative beginner, I realize micro stakes are my only realistic option. How do I best decide when to play and apply new concepts, as opposed to continue reading/studying more? Is this a question that can be answered?

3.) How do I measure bad play as opposed to variance so I know when I am playing correctly? I post some hands but have not posted a lot here in HA. Software??? (Freeware..... poor musician thing......)

4.) Is it worth playing play money games to improve or are the differences in real/play money to great to reap strategy benefits from play money?

5.) Is there any websites/blogs/books (maybe your book that I will get would be your answer here?:) that will help me learn how to graph my progress so I will know better when to take the next step in terms of my skill/ability as opposed to just advancing according to BR, (or is THE way?) as well as helping me determine which game is my strongest one - SnG, Rings MTT etc. and if and when I should move on to a new game?

6.) Have you ever had a more awesome experience in you life then the birth and growth of your daughter????? Mine is 7 1/2 and brings me joy greater everyday, no matter what else is happening in my life!! OK, my wife is cool too, but, man, that little girl:).....

I hope you enjoy the book! Thanks so much for the support.

1. I think your best options by far are books and poker training sites like the one I work for called http://www.dragthebar.com I don't see you getting a ton of value out of blogs, but there are some that are definitely worthwhile reads. Believe it or not, but I have kept a very active blog up for over 3 years now. I enjoy doing it and I think from time to time I give some good advice in there. It is at my book website, Cardplayer.com and dragthebar.com

I suppose that you are best off reading a few blogs. Daniel Negranu's is generally pretty good I think.

2. I think you should almost always be playing. I think reading stuff is great, but put into play right away. I would never advocate someone simply studying poker for a week and not playing. I think you want to spend no more than 20% of your time studying and less and less as you improve. There is no substitute for experience in this game.

3. I go by feel. If I fell like I am running like shit, then I probably am. If I feel like I am running decent and get in a lot of tough spots, I probably need to do some home work on that stuff because I am getting outplayed.

4. Play money is a complete waste of time. I tell anyone looking to learn poker to just deposit $20 on poker stars and play some 1/2 cent. Play money is not realistic. In fact, it makes no sense to begin with. You play poker to gamble money. If you take away money, then you don't have a game in my opinion. There has to be a consequence to your actions or it isn't poker in my mind.

5. My publishing company, Imagine Media, has a book coming out soon that will help you with all this stuff. We haven't officially announced what it is going to be yet, but keep your eyes peeled for an announcement relatively soon. It is going to knock the socks off of the secrets pros use that will be a game changer for the amateur player who is unsure of how to go about the online game.

6. No there really isn't. There have been tons of times this year I will say, "Allright, I'm going to start poker at 1PM and then by 3PM I realize that I have just been hanging out with her trying to get her to giggle :) She's definitely the best. Sorry Leatherwife :)
 
JoeShowdown

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Just went to the pokercast site to listen to it as I do everyweek and the show description mentions a feud between you and Aaron AE Jones. What are your thoughts on the pokercast? I'm sure they are on Aaron's side as leggo poker is a sponsor. I hope they don't sling mud at you.
 
icemonkey9

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Okay, finally my turn to ask Dusty some questions ...

1. I hear you are going through a terrible downswing. I have a sure-fire good luck charm I can send you. Are you willing to be my friend to get it?

2. In light of question #1, how superstitious are you?

3. Why are even some of the best athletes or poker players superstitious?

4. What do these eight letters stand for? (WDTELSF)

5. You mentored Matt Bolt to the mid and high stakes games. Have you, or would you consider again, mentoring someone else in similar fashion?

6. Do you ever care about promotions at PokerStars or full tilt poker? If there are any that you do care about, what are they?
 
dmorris68

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Just went to the pokercast site to listen to it as I do everyweek and the show description mentions a feud between you and Aaron AE Jones. What are your thoughts on the pokercast? I'm sure they are on Aaron's side as leggo poker is a sponsor. I hope they don't sling mud at you.
Yeah I've watched this going on for awhile, and it was addressed recently in Dusty's blog. From my perspective, and this is solely my opinion as a spectator to the whole debacle who didn't know much of Dusty until he started posting here, AEJones has always been out of line with this. And he's really coming off as quite the hypocrite lately. From his comments about how many hands an internet pro plays in a month, it has become pretty clear he didn't know what he was talking about. To wit, he's always bashed Dusty about being a "bumhunter" (which I don't understand -- isn't this what all poker players do?), but now has hired his very own "bumhunter" who he claims can't be a bumhunter because you "can't bumhunt playing 50K hands a month" like his guy does. Dusty plays 3-4x that much in a month, yet Dusty has always been one of those dirty bumhunters. Wat?
 
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4. What do these eight letters stand for? (WDTELSF)
sorry to intrude but.....
My Daughter in first grade got this one.....
 
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fletchdad

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or maybe that was the point????? lol
 
dg1267

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Holy Cripes! When did this turn into "fletchdad in the well"?:rolleyes::p
 
kidkvno1

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I suppose that you are best off reading a few blogs. Daniel Negranu's is generally pretty good I think.

2. I think you should almost always be playing. I think reading stuff is great, but put into play right away. I would never advocate someone simply studying poker for a week and not playing. I think you want to spend no more than 20% of your time studying and less and less as you improve. There is no substitute for experience in this game.

3. I go by feel. If I fell like I am running like shit, then I probably am. If I feel like I am running decent and get in a lot of tough spots, I probably need to do some home work on that stuff because I am getting outplayed.
I've only been reading on here, or posts from fulltilts pros is that good???

I don't tend to read that much, but i have picked up a-lot from just playing..

I did read your blog "Garbage from time to time" and thats how it's been going for me... :cool:
 
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Poker Orifice

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4. What do these eight letters stand for? (WDTELSF)
sorry to intrude but.....
My Daughter in first grade got this one.....

Maybe she could sweat some of my games.... cuz I'm lost on this one??
 
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