My name on Prima is the same as my name on this site. About a month ago, one guy did attack me in chat and target me at the tables, taking advantage of the fact that I had posted how much trouble I was having winning at the $50 tables at Prima. He talked smack to me, and told me stuff like "Iceman isn't around to keep me from taking your money." He really stepped up his chat efforts after he beat me on a hand -- I misplayed the river badly -- trying to put me on tilt. It didn't work (I played fine) but it wasn't real pleasant either.

So I support Ice's reluctance to have anybody know his screen name. I'm not using "k3nt" as my PartyPoker screen name, or probably for any other sites I sign up for in the future. But I'm stuck with it at Prima.

I wonder who would do something like that? Its kind of funny as I sit here reading it, but Im sure it was quite annoying for you.

why do you not have $10,000 if you've been beating the 1-2 and 2-4 games for over a year?

Why can't you build this up on your own in a month or so of playing (The $5,000 that you're short)

I would say the risk of ruin with only 10 buyins is more than 1% at these levels, as there is much more variance than the 1-2 or 2-4 games. What will you do if you lose half of your bankroll on some bad beats - will you move down to 3-6? If the backers are to prevent steam control why not put up 10k yourself and get 7-8K from investors.

Not criticizing at all. Just trying to help people to think things through before they decide to stake you.

1) I have much more then $10K in my roll
2) Im not short and dont need to build up for it
3) The risk of ruin may be higher than that. I may have underexaggerrated, but since Ive havent lost more than 6 buy ins in over 2 years, I seriously doubt that I will lose 10 buy ins at the exact time that I happen to start this project, but its possible of course.
4) If I lose half the roll, I will cry myself to sleep and then get back up and continue to play $5/$10
5) The backers have nothing to do with tilt control. I dont tilt. I used to tilt like most other players but Ive been playing long enough that Ive learned to control it. I might break something, but my play wont alter. Last month I lost 6 buy ins in the worst streak of bad luck imaginable. I got outdrawn while all in as a monster favorite so many times, that i still cant believe it happened over and over, but I still played well and poured my money in when I was way ahead. Since the streak ended about 30 days ago, Ive had the best 30 day stretch of my career. Ive never played better than Im playing right now. The backers are for nothing more than peace of mind. A crutch if you will. Im making a -EV move here and giving up half of my winnings for peace of mind sake of not having to deal with large down days. A bad losing day will be monetarily similar to when I have a bad day playing $2/$4, but I'll get 30K-50K hands in at the $5/$10 NL game at the same time and I'll know if the game is for me or not.

I already know for a 100% fact that I can crush the $1/$2 games. I will now learn how much i can win in the $5/$10 game. After a couple months, I will know if the risk reward ratio of the bigger game is worth it or not.

Ive actually done somethign similar to that, but ust never stayed at the higher level. I do have several thousand hands at $5/$10 so I have a general idea what to expect.

I made $5K in the past 30 days playing nothing but $1/$2 (with maybe 500 hands of $2/$4 thrown in), so I could easily do what you said with that $5K. I just prefer to try it this way. You are correct that I will feel pretty bad if I lose other peoples money though.

I'm already in if u want my money, so I'm not here to grill u. I'm not worried about the money either because I won it from some players who actually play worse than I do.
Just a few thoughts; I would love to get to see the hands u play. Not to see how u play personally, but to be able to study the hands of a known winner. That in itself would be worth my $500. Would it not be possible to use that 10k on a different skin under a different name? If not, you're only talking about 10 players that will see the hands anyway. you wouldn't have to post them on this site. Just a few thoughts, let me know when u want my money.

stoni...PM me with whatever amount you are pledging. I'll be sorting thru all the PMs in the next few days when time allows when Im on vacation.


I'll be playing at Prima and Party. At Party I could change my screen name but its not possible at Prima. Maybe I can post the hand histories from Party and change my screen name afterwards. I'll think about it.

I've been asking for a lenghty ring game history from one of you bigshots for quite some time. In my process of learning poker, watching handhistories from SNG's and ring games (which are available at some sites) have been extremely valuable to me.

I wouldn't worry too much about educating 'the masses' too much Ice(if that's a concern), because you can't copy a playing style without knowing the theory and concepts behind the decisions. And so I think only small percentage would really benefit from such handhistories.

As to divulging your screen name, if you can put them into one big file it's pretty easy to replace your name with something else in any word processor with a couple of clicks (I think it's autoreplace in word, not sure tho). Also it should be relatively simple to compile single files in to one big file if that's what you have. Altough how you do that I'm not sure, but I'm sure someone here knows how to do that.

Anyway, enjoy bahamas Ice! Send us a travel letter from the beach.

*I would say the risk of ruin with only 10 buyins is more than 1% at these levels, as there is much more variance than the 1-2 or 2-4 games. What will you do if you lose half of your bankroll on some bad beats - will you move down to 3-6? If the backers are to prevent steam control why not put up 10k yourself and get 7-8K from investors. *

I've extrapolated values and have come up with an ev/sd ratio of $125/$680. Ice's long term RoR here is $8500 for a 1% element of ruin that is close to his estimate of $10K. A professional blackjack player with the same ev would have about a $1450 sd. For the blackjack player, he would need a $40K bank to for that same 1% peace of mind.

A poker player of Ice's capability is either 4 times stronger than the competent blackjack player or 1/4th less risky.

I'm probably a player for $1K. I'll be on a week's worth of blackjack play out of town starting tomorrow, but will get back to you.

Hey Ice,

I was wondering if you could send me a list of all your usernames, sites you play at, tables you frequent, all your PT stats, as well as the times of the day you usually play.

Thanks in advance!

LOL