John "gabe" Patgorski AMA

[Biazellag]

When did you know you are meant to become a professional poker player?

[bfsq921]

In your opinion, who are the best poker players of today?

[bfsq921]

Are you de-sensitized to winning and losing large sums?

Who first taught you to play the game?

Do you all online poker is rigged to a degree?

When and/or how did you realize you had what it takes to compete with pro players? How long did it take you to get there?

Would you rather sit at a table with a couple of pros so you can tell your friends you played at the same table with .... (example: Chris Ferguson) or would you rather sit at the table with the regular poker players

Thanks!

[gabe]

Are you drunk right now?

no although it doesnt take much to get me drunk nowadays. 3 years ago i could pound beers no problem but ive lost my drinking toughness. 3 g+ts and im in the zone

How are the games in Macao?
Should I go there and play poker for a living? I'm a Hong Kong citizen. I'm competent in NLHE and very, very good in Omaha and Omaha H/L.

Good to hear from you once again.

the 50/100 games can be really soft but the rake is pretty high. if the game is full of nits its hard to beat the rake. there is no o8 there, just plo, usually 100/200 but sometimes they split that into 50/100 and 200/500

u should go try it out. the plo games are cool because its like a poker club. most people know everyones name because its mostly the same players, who are all good at some stuff but bad at other stuff. one thing though is, as you already know, plo variance is sick. and only getting in 20 hands an hour can result in sick swings where its hard to work your way out of it. imagine how easy it is to run bad for 3000 hands online, then think about how long that takes playing in a casino. i have a friend who ran bad in 2 days at 100/200 and lost 450k straight buying in for 20 at a time and he plays plo very well.

theres lots of competition for the soft money.

Hi
If you were not playing poker, what other job/ hobby will you have picked for yourself?

i used to be very interested in trading. im pretty set on not working for someone else unless its the perfect opportunity. im glad i found poker because it shook me out of the 'go to college-> get a job' mentality that so many people get stuck on. now that i know this id probably hustle up a business if there was no more poker. but if there was no internet and no poker, i would probably become a hawaiian farm hand or something

When did you know you are meant to become a professional poker player?

probably when i first started making money by outthinking people. exploiting dumb fish is one (easy) thing but beating people who have a clue is so much more rewarding. ive been making decent money since 2006, back when online was huge. i fell in love with the lifestyle and knew i had to work hard to keep it up. i cant think of a defining moment or anything