greenstein talks about winners in the big game.

[ajs510 122]

There's just no way of knowing, that's why I respect DN's so much for hanging it all out in public like this. Barry can say whatever he wants and only 9 people in the world (10 if you count the dealer on any given night) can ever contradict it...

[princeof56k 0]

I dont agree with people's bankroll arguments about the big game. It is comparable to other sports.People get to the highest level by proving they are worthy and beating the lower level games. This happens in every sport. If you have big game talent, you will crush the lower level games, and in poker that means winning a lot of money. Eventually you will have the bankroll needed to play the big game. After all Daniel wasnt born rich and he can play in the big game. He had to earn his way there by beating the lower level games.Now you could argue that there are some great players that have no interest in playing in that game. Maybe their satisfied making money where they're at, or its just not that important to them, but they could play there if they applied themselves.If you want to play in the big game and have the talent, you will eventually have the bankroll.

[ajs510 122]

Just personally, my poker dream only extends as far as playing/cashing the 10g buy-in tourney's on a regular basis. The idea of playing *one hand* of poker for more than I put down on my house just blows my mind. I could never, ever do it and I have no problem saying so. I get a sick feeling losing $100 in a single session, dropping 1000 times that is just unreal...If I could regularly buy in to the big tournaments and put on a good show, that would fufill my dream.

[Sushiman 0]

Did Greenstien just finish his interview with "I have one of the best personas in poker"?Are you friggin kidding me? This guy sounds like one of the most egotistical asses ever.

[CheckRaise 0]

it's not like all 6 billion people in the world are playing and only 5 are winning.

I doubt that there are 6 billion playing poker.

[richgambler 0]

I dont agree with people's bankroll arguments about the big game.  It is comparable to other sports.People get to the highest level by proving they are worthy and beating the lower level games.  This happens in every sport.  If you have big game talent, you will crush the lower level games, and in poker that means winning a lot of money.  Eventually you will have the bankroll needed to play the big game.  After all Daniel wasnt born rich and he can play in the big game.  He had to earn his way there by beating the lower level games.Now you could argue that there are some great players that have no interest in playing in that game.  Maybe their satisfied making money where they're at, or its just not that important to them, but they could play there if they applied themselves.If you want to play in the big game and have the talent, you will eventually have the bankroll.

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :bubbleyeah: Well put....Im glad some people out there get it

[StrikerX9 0]

I just don't understand why Greenstein has gotten barbecued on this thread because he shared opinions in an article which I don't really think merit all the attacks that he's gotten here. I'm by no means here to dispute his ego or that of any other player at that level because they all have one bigger than any of us could imagine. I mean, I love DN and everything, but he references all the time about how he's in another class and how stongly he feels about his poker skills and instincts. More importantly, just like Greenstein, he has complained on numerous ocassions how certain players who have never shown a profit or are totally unprofessional are constantly being referred to as great players simply because they win a televised tournament. I mean, show me where in the article Barry is saying something that's untrue or insulting to anyone that takes poker seriously or makes a living at it like many of us on this forum do. There are many here that could show statements displaying montly profits and longterm growth with a plan of playing bigger games as bankroll rises. These players are far better than any fool who sucks out his way to winning a WPT Celebrity Invitational Tournament in LA for $100,000 by playing horrible poker ( I hate to use Phil Laak as an example her cos I love the guy and he's great on TV, but he played horrible that day) and landing a steady gig on a corny E! poker show.

[angler 0]

The thing about Greenwhine and Phillips is that they are very wealthy to begin with. Now, is he good because he has built himself up to that level, or did he start at the "2nd tier" and get to his top 5. We all would get a lot better if money was no object. Well maybe not me, but good players would. I have much more respect for the guys/gals that decided to forgo the "conventional" way of life to eventually becoming financially independent playing poker. :wink:

[jooka 0]

you do know BG was a pro player before he went to work at the software company and his reasons for doing so was to keep custody of his children? at least thats the story Ive heard.

[Vanillathunder 0]

We all have egos.It's what drives you after a bad session, a bad beat or what keeps you going after you know you can crush the table.Barry is great, that's undisputable, but what I think fuels his and many other "big cash" players and/or old guard poker pros is the fact that they are missing or missed the big time TV/popularization of poker. Many of these guys ground it out on their a$$es for years only to see a new breed of player come in and start making something out of poker that they couldn't.Of course they're going to defend their "big game" because they truly believe they're the best and dare I say it, a bit bitter about other people getting the spoils of poker.It *should* be enough to know you're great and count your millions... but we're talking about gamblers here. It's not about the money after a certain point.. it's about being the best at what you do. It's about the high of winning a big pot or knowing you slice up a room and you're feared. This is the same motivation that gets you going back to the poker room or sitting there for 24 hours at a time.Barry's ego, though is off the charts. It's certainly understandable. When DN talked about "Barry not counting his losses", how many of you can honestly say you're 100% honest with yourself about them too? Not many. You *need* that defense mechanism to survive at the table.. to shake off a loss as "not a big deal" or whatever.I think most of the old pros who hate the new breed of poker are jealous. Plain and simple. Poker is not without its colorful personalities or plain DIC KS. Look around a poker room, you'd have to be a little off kilter to grind everyday.

[joshrogo 0]

The thing about Greenwhine and Phillips is that they are very wealthy to begin with. Now, is he good because he has built himself up to that level, or did he start at the "2nd tier" and get to his top 5. We all would get a lot better if money was no object. Well maybe not me, but good players would. I have much more respect for the guys/gals that decided to forgo the "conventional" way of life to eventually becoming financially independent playing poker. :wink:

greenstein did not accumulate all his wealth through symantec .. as he has said many times, he made a lot more from poker, than from his "day job" .. he needed the symantec job in order to show he had a steady job to get more custody of his kids .. Barry is a great player and regularly plays for the highest stakes .. Daniel is a great player, that does not regularly play in that game .. On a side note, have you ever seen Count Chocula and Barry in the same place at the same time?

[Sushiman 0]

On a side note, have you ever seen Count Chocula and Barry in the same place at the same time?

I once saw Barry disappear into a phone booth, and then like 5 seconds later Count Chocula emerged to disponse spooky ghost marshmellows on needy bowls of cereal. Coincidence?

[MikeR 0]

If the most egotistical big game player says that you're going to be the best poker player ever someday, you must be pretty good. Here's what Barry had to say about Phil Ivey."The guy who is going to pass me up is Phil Ivey," says Barry Greenstein, who claims to have won more money playing poker than anyone in history. "He is hungrier than any of us. He has the most stamina and he has the killer instinct. Phil doesn't even play the games well right now. That's what's scary about him. He is a great gambler and he is just getting better. Right now, technically, he doesn't have it all down, but just on gambling smarts, he is able to stay even or win at most of these games. He just gets better and better all the time. By next year at the World Series, you're going to have a monster on your hands."

[troy5168 0]

i dont have anything against barry but of course i like daniel better.but i do understand with what barry is saying. the facts he lays out about being the top tier are true. and if you did something the best in the world and TV made it seem like lower level guys did it better you'd be mad too.and whether you like it or not because barry is the 'robin hood of poker' he can get away with alot more things being said than others.is barry an ass? problyis he justified in most of his comments? yeadoes he look like count chocula? no doubt

please don't ever change your avatar! lol

[mrdannyg 274]

maybe all those tourney players couldn't play with greenstein and the boys in the big game.but why does he think his game is the pinnacle of poker? i bet he and a few other guys can't match other players in tournaments. so does that make him a better player? no.tournaments and ring games are two different aspects of poker. if anything, the closest analogy is to other sports, with ring games being the regular season and tournaments being the playoffs. flame away at this analogy, i didn't say it was perfect.but it is at the very least a point of contention as to what relates a poker player's skill, their ring game success or tournament success. greenstein has taken the point of view that tournaments don't matter and ring games are the only determination. it is fine for him to have his opinion, but by ignoring that tournament success may relate skill is simply dogmatic.finally, greenstein has often made tongue-in-cheek pop-psychological references to DN's openness, with his results, emotions, etc. these may be founded, but the same could be said of someone who feels the need to comments on these things, to openly boast about being one of the 5 best, etc etc.barry greenstein is a fantastic ring game player. also he is not one of the best tournament players and seems to be wildly insecure.cheers,daniel

[MikeR 0]

tournaments and ring games are two different aspects of poker. if anything, the closest analogy is to other sports, with ring games being the regular season and tournaments being the playoffs. flame away at this analogy, i didn't say it was perfect.

I won't flame, but that's not perfect at all. That's like saying once you make the playoffs you don't get paid anymore. There's a very popular opinion that the way you keep score in poker is by how much money you make playing it.

[PMJackson21 0]

you do know BG was a pro player before he went to work at the software company and his reasons for doing so was to keep custody of his children? at least thats the story Ive heard.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.ga...632df6d0b?hl=en

[blueodum 0]

I wonder if part of Greenstein's motivation is to coax some of these "young guns" to the mixed game. Perhaps there isn't enough new blood coming in, making it more difficult for the "fab five" to make money at their cash game. Challenging the ego of the "tournament" players might be the best way to get more young players in the big game.Let's face it, most of the young tournament players are NLHE specialists. It takes a great deal of thinking and practice against expert opposition to become as good at all the poker games as the mixed game regulars are. If you are someone like Mizrachi, who can probably make several million a year on average playing NLHE exclusively, the incentive to master the other games decreases somewhat.Greenstein knows that most of the players trying their hand at the 4000-8000 mixed game are going to go through a lengthy period where they are losing players before their game improves enough to hold their own (if they have the talent in the first place).

[Osprey 0]

Um.Let's think about this for a moment:$163,000/58= an hourly rate of $2,810 Let's say Dapper Dan were to play 40 hours of big game a week, for 40 weeks, to give him time for his other tournaments and projects.That would be $2810x40x40= a yearly income of 4.49 Million Dollars.That's pretty damn good- just home much is everyone beating this game for? I've heard Ivey plays like 80 hours a week and makes like 10-15 million a year at the big game. If that's true, DN's performance is at most probably only a little behind of Ivey, if he's not ahead of Ivey's rat- and thats depending on how many weeks Ivey plays.... I think 0.3 big bets is probably great at that game, especially considering who you are playing against- ie, these top pros have to lose the money to you.O

Odd how DN is willing to post his results' date=' and yet Barry who claims to be one of the best ever does not...hmm...[/quote']I know I'm just asking for flames for this...but...DN's own data kinda supports this claim. He played 5 sessions of 4000/8000 between February and April. 58 hours of poker at 4000/8000 limit. The final tally at the end (of just those 5 sessions, not counting all the other poker he played during that time) DN was up $163,000. A monumental sum of money to you and me, but absolutely nothing to the people who play in that game. Over the course of 58 hours, he won 20.3 big blinds, or roughly .3 (point three) big blinds per hour. I am certainly not knocking DN's poker abilities, as he would trash me and everyone else I know in every poker game known to mankind (but I would whoop him at Golden Tee :)Just saying that from the data I had to work with, his performance in the big game wasn't anything to write home about in the eyes of the elite poker professionals.

[htc1278 0]

58 hours in the big game is not a significant sample size to decide what your yearly expected income will be. How many hands is that, 1800 or so? Let's wait till we have a full year's worth of data before we start deciding on Daniel's actual level of skill in that game (not that I think he's overmatched but rather that it's not enough hands to make a proper evaluation).

[waldo 0]

this statement right here made me laugh:"What tournaments are all about is beating bad players. Building up big chips in tournaments is a skill. I don't want to say they don't have certain skills. But playing good players, they'd have their heads handed to them at the highest levels.Actually poker is the exact opposite of this, in tournaments you have to beat the best players consistently because they all make it much farthur in tournaments then crappy players, in cash games your are looking for soft spots you can exploit and playing players weaker than you is how you make your money

[PhishForChips 0]

this statement right here made me laugh:"What tournaments are all about is beating bad players. Building up big chips in tournaments is a skill. I don't want to say they don't have certain skills. But playing good players, they'd have their heads handed to them at the highest levels.Actually poker is the exact opposite of this, in tournaments you have to beat the best players consistently because they all make it much farthur in tournaments then crappy players, in cash games your are looking for soft spots you can exploit and playing players weaker than you is how you make your money

What made me laugh even more though was your atttempt to correct maybe the greatest cash game player alive. I think he knows of what he speaks. Unless of course you have won over 50 mill playing poker in the last 5 years. Yes?

[otnemem 0]

i dont have anything against barry but of course i like daniel better.but i do understand with what barry is saying. the facts he lays out about being the top tier are true. and if you did something the best in the world and TV made it seem like lower level guys did it better you'd be mad too.and whether you like it or not because barry is the 'robin hood of poker' he can get away with alot more things being said than others.is barry an ass? problyis he justified in most of his comments? yeadoes he look like count chocula? no doubt

Hey Ian, what's your avatar from? I need to get that full video...

[mark33f 0]

"There isn't any tournament player you're going to put in our game who's going to beat it. They'd be drawing dead. They'd be the live ones. We'd play 'til they're broke."Does anyone else consider people like Gus Hansen and Daniel tournament players...I don't get this, is he saying they lose or I am reading this wrong/are they cash game players???Someone clarify???you do know BG was a pro player before he went to work at the software company and his reasons for doing so was to keep custody of his children? at least thats the story Ive heard.That is what I heard as well on some t.v. show...I think he said it himself

[Abbaddabba 0]

this statement right here made me laugh:"What tournaments are all about is beating bad players. Building up big chips in tournaments is a skill. I don't want to say they don't have certain skills. But playing good players, they'd have their heads handed to them at the highest levels.Actually poker is the exact opposite of this, in tournaments you have to beat the best players consistently because they all make it much farthur in tournaments then crappy players, in cash games your are looking for soft spots you can exploit and playing players weaker than you is how you make your money

Barry is talking about tournaments versus the 'big game'. At the top level game, you aren't exploiting poor players. You're exploiting those who are great, but less great than yourself. In a tournament, a substantial portion of your success is dependent on how well you exploit the poor players early on in the tournament. At the final table, you'll have to battle it out with the pro's; but your arsenal (chip count) is dependent on how badly you've pounded the clueless competition earlier. If you've got a 2:1 chip deficit, it doesnt matter if you're a superior player, you'll typically end up losing to a player who you could beat heads up.