The Well: wpr101

[pokkerisheriff]

have you looked into learning estonian language? how long would you need to plan to stay in a foreign country, to start considering that maybe its worth learning their language also? it obviously depends whether its a "world-language" (spanish, portugese, french) or some language almost noone outside the country itself speaks (estonian).

[Rampage_Jackson]

What are weird things in Estonia when you compare with US? What do you like more in Estonia than in US?

The vibe is totally different. I'll give one example which explains. When you go to a beer festival or song festival in Estonia you see people of all ages. Young children, parents, grandparents... it seems like people of all different ages are interacting. In America at a concert, you would see only young people and maybe like a few hippies, but never small children or old people.

The thing that is more dramatically different is how much better looking the women are. In the past 6 months I've seen more attractive women that I have in my entire life in America. When I first got here I was confused... I'd be walking with groups of guys and a very attractive woman would walk by and nobody would say anything. In America, every guy in the group would be like, Oh man! I would fu_ck her in the face! Or whatever sex act they could think of, each guy kind of competing. I realized I had the Estonian mindset like 2-3 months in when I had guests from Germany and Australia here... they were elbowing me in the side, OMG did you see her? Every 5 minutes. I'd be like dude stop, it's standard.

[rasmer]

Planning to train MMA in Estonia ?

[Rampage_Jackson]

longest BE stretch? hands and days

It was right after I started playing professionally for the first time. In the first 4-5 months I was down maybe 20k before rakeback over like 700,000 cash game hands. It was the most I had ever played in that time span, and the worst I had ever run. Also during this time I had terrible internet which would go out like once a day at the worst times... just a very frustrating period of poker for many reasons.

[Rage]

they were elbowing me in the side, OMG did you see her? Every 5 minutes. I'd be like dude stop, it's standard.

do you still have your girlfriend and the relationship you had when you moved to Estonia?:P

[Rampage_Jackson]

how long do u intend to stay in estonia?
lifetime winnings obv (graphs)

I don't have any lifetime graphs because spread out over different databases, sites and computers...

Here is my PTR: http://www.pokertableratings.com/sta...-search/wpr101

I blocked my sharkscope.

These are all the cash games hands I have on my laptop: http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/5467/cashgames.jpg

And here are the tournies: http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/557/sitandgos.jpg

Lifetime I am up somewhere between 800k and 1 million in poker. How is it possible when most of those graphs are not too impressive :D. Had a pretty big 2006 which isn't on PTR. Played on Party, Bodog, FTP too back in the day. Done Supernova Elite 3x... so lots and lots of rakeback/bonuses. One decent live cash in a tourney for 85k.

[Rampage_Jackson]

Some offtopic qustions:
You said you invest quite a lot. What kind of instruments do you use (stocks, funds, index funds etc)? Also, what are your favourite places to invest region- and sectorwise currently?
About history pretty much the same question, what eras and regions are you interested in the most?

Mostly stocks. I like the Motley Fool approach a lot (fool.com). Some of their paid services are pretty nice, with message boards too. One good book to start with is Rule Breakers Rule Makers. Explains how to find exceptional companies to invest in.

I try think less in terms of stocks, but buying into businesses. I prefer growth stocks mostly and like companies with strong brands. I recently sold a lot of stock recently, but my biggest positions and favorite stocks right now are Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Chipotle (CMG), and Under Armour (UA). I look for opportunities internationally as well. Some of the corporate governance is not as high as in the US though. I have been burned on Chinese small caps stocks more times that I would like to admit :D

The biggest mistake I see people making in investing is wanting to make a quick buck without doing any work. It's like the guy who asks you if he gives you $100 could you turn it into $1,000 for him by playing poker? A lot of people want a quick stock tip. If they approached it like learning to play poker, or learning to play piano, they would be much more successful.

I've gone through many phases. The one I've read the most on is Roman history. It's so dramatically different than today, and there is so much information available. Revolutions are very interesting to me, other periods I've studied are the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, American Revolution, and The Conquest of Mexico. I've recently read some Baltic history as well.

[Rampage_Jackson]

If you have done some MMA training and stuff, then how many pushups is your personal best, of course if you do pushups :), same for pull-ups, palms facing inward.
What have you gone through to learn poker and become a winning player or whatever player you are at the moment.
Do you have tilt issues :D if so then what have you done about it, pls tell, unless it's too personal.
What kind of poker books you value the most if it's possible to value some more than others, what poker forum you value the most?
Thats all from me.

My peak athletic ability was probably in high school when I was doing intense wrestling training. I could do about 60 pushups in a row, and remember doing 18 pullups once. Right now though, I can do about 35-40 pushups max, and maybe 8 pullups.

I view my poker skills as a continuous evolution. Experience builds upon experience. For poker forums the 2+2 forums used to be very nice from 2004-2006 in the strategy section. People cared a lot about posting decent strategy and there were many high quality origianl thinkers sharing. I think in 2007 though the amount of people on 2+2 got so big that it wasn't much of a community anymore and you had many people trolling strategy posts. In 2008, people started saying DON'T SHARE, you are ruining the games.

It's more important that you continue learning than finding the absolute best source. Maybe for a few months you find a poker buddy who is playing the same games as you and you discuss strategy a ton, but then at some point you learn almost all you can from this player and the converstation drops off. Maybe for the next month you watch a video a day, and really try and learn all you can from videos. Then you feel you are sick of watching videos, and you read 3 or 4 e-books and really study them. Just keeping evolving and working on your game... the results will not be immediate either. Maybe the month you watched a poker video every day, also happened to be your worst month ever. Resist the tendency to blame the videos for your results.

My tilt usually comes after the culmination of many bad beats in a row. Even 5 bad beats rarely tilts me. It's when it gets to like 10 or 20 in a session. Also when it's versus the same player. This year, the one player in sit and gos totally crushed me. Screen name is fricirics. Some SNE from Hungary. I was in so many of his games every day, and he won maybe 70-80% of show downs vs me. If I got allin versus him, it just seemed like he always won. He also played the same times as me, and was so incredibly frustrating to have this guy in nearly half my games and just get destroyed by him. I wish I could sort by allin EV versus just him, he's thoroughly destroyed me over and over.

[kjmrc]

Do you smoke? If not, have you ever been smoking?
What do you think about cigarettes?
Are you OK if someone smokes near you or in the same room/car?

[virukunn]

Playing any more poker this year ?
Going for SNE next year ?
Which cities/towns have you visited in Estonia besides Tallinn obv ?
How long are you planning to stay in Estonia ?
Do you think estonians are slow ?
What did you think of Estonia before you had visited it ?


And thank you for this thread, I really enjoy reading it, especially the long and comprehensive answers.

[Rampage_Jackson]

Have you ever gotten lost in Tallinn, if you have would you write about what happened to you?

The first couple months I would go for a walk at night, and intentionally try and get lost in Old Town. It's quite fun to do, and easy to recognize when you get outside Old Town. One of the strangest was when I walked down to the port area and found that abandoned pyramid like structure. I believe someone told me it is an abandoned music hall. It was 4am, but this was also during the height of summer so the sun was about to rise. I had no idea WTF this thing was, whether it was private property or not. I climbed all the way to the top. Surprisingly there were some other people up there. Met some girl up there who I smoked a cigarette with and talked for awhile. I gave her my contact info, but never heard again from her, damn :P

Funniest thing happened to you in Estonia?

I got 2 stories, you can decide which is the funnier.

First one, the very first night I am in Tallinn, some girl approaches me in Old Town and says she met me the last time I was her. I seriously did not remember her at all. But she says: "You no remember me? I take your virgin!!" Just totally hilarious, and terrible English.

Second one. I am waiting for the bus to go to Riga for the first time, and in that big area where the busses come. I am sitting with maybe 10 people near by. This guy comes up to me looking stumbling drunk, and he's starts talking in to me in Estonian. And like what at first? He keeps talking so I say "Ei raggi Eesti", and he keeps talking in Estonian. So I am like yo dude I don't speak Estonian. He keeps going so I repeated "Ei raggi" a couple more times. Finally he knows a tiny bit of English and I realize he wanted a cigarette. Now the funny part is only now, I realize he was speaking Russian!! And there was like 10 people around who heard this whole interaction, nobody helped me out to tell me :D. I cannot imagine what they were thinking... like this is seriously the most retarded thing ever. Drunk russian talking and the other guy just keeps saying Ei Raggi.

How does your typical day look like while trying to achieve SNE? Is it the same in Estonia?

I usually start the day by going to the gym or getting breakfast first. Then play a usually a 2 hour session. Sometimes it is 1 hour or sometimes 3 hours depending on if I am feeling it, or if I still have chips in an MTT. Take a break, come back to it later try and put in a couple more sessions in the day. I play on average 3 sessions in a day ranging from 1-2 hours usually. But consider I am usually playing 20 tables, so it is a lot of hands, and playing 20 tables for 5 hours a day is taxing mentally. Roughly the same in Estonia as I was doing in the US.

Did your friends in the States think that you were out your mind when they heard that you will be living in Estonia (probably thought that you will be moving to Russia)?

The night before I left I went to a bar with one of my best friends and we asked everyone who knew of Estonia. Out of an estimated 30 people only 2 people had ever heard of it, and both from the movie Ensino Man where a 30,000 year old caveman pretends to be an Estonian exchange student. If you want to add me on Facebook (William Ross, wpr101) check out this album I posted called New Apartment and the discussion. There are comments like, cool new apartment, is it in Maryland? Some of the comments are total failboat.jpg.

I've told this story a couple times too. Even when I mentioned I'd just traveled to Estonia, this one guy was like "Bro, that's in the Eastern Bloc, are you fucking crazy?" Apparently was somehow under the impression the Berlin Wall is still up and life behind it is truely hell. I was telling him about it, but he wasn't really listening. He was so convinced, he kept trying to tell me how shitty it was there, and I was like no dude, I've been there, it's not shitty.

Did you even know where Estonia is before you visited us the first time?

Not really. I actually googled to see whether Estonia had the internet, and things like what the kidnapping rate was :D

[mikk2468]

Not really. I actually googled to see whether Estonia had the internet, and things what the kidnapping rate was :D

ROFL!:D

[kjmrc]

Not really. I actually googled to see whether Estonia had the internet, and things like what the kidnapping rate was :D

LOL :D

[hotcocacola]

what do u think, where are you better, live or online?
which you prefer to play?

[KristjanLaas]

First of all great answers and good job on 3rd consecutive SNEs. Am enjoying the thread already.

Have you went to or finished college? If yes, then which one?
Have you already gotten in some kind of trouble in Estonia? (with the law, arguments in bars or w-e)
If you plan on answering Rage´s question, then pics?

[tdx]

1) As a profession, do you find poker intellectually stimulating enough compared to e.g your job at Lockheed?
2) Does the complicated nature of gambling (ethical\social aspects) affect you? Or you just go, YO FUCK IT, I'M MAKING THE MONEYS HERE!!!

[Provoker]

Have you ever used firearm? Whats the coolest gun you have used?

[suitsutihane]

thoughts on future of online poker in europe?

bermuda triangle as home - what do u do if u need to sleep in the nighttime?

do u use a pee bottle? what bottle? large ice tea?

have you broken anything bcus of tilt?

[alaska]

Tnx for doing this.

Whats with the geography in america? Can they locate Sweden in maps? France?

Tell some more things that are considered as SIN in america but here nobody cares.

[Rampage_Jackson]

i can teach you chess, if you teach me poker. deal?

Hah maybe if I get into chess we could work something out. Right now, my interest level isn't high enough to commit to it.