Been talking with Joe a bunch lately and reminiscing. I sent this email to the founding fathers of DeucesCracked on 9/5/07:
subject: 3-bet Prime
Greetings, esteemed coaches!
As I’ve expressed to each of you, we want you in on the ground floor of “3-bet Prime“, the new breed of our company. 3-bet Prime is not only a re-design and relaunch of our site, it’s something more… something that we want to talk to you all about in person – something that we believe with all our heart (and lots of money) will be very profitable for not only the owners of the company, but the instructors on this email list too. ☺
So we would like to invite you to join us for a few days and nights in the big apple, New York City – September 25-27. We will have hotel rooms for those who need them, and will reimburse everyone for travel/flight expenses. Before we can get any work done in New York City, we will need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement because we want to keep the details of the re-launch a secret until the launch date. If you have any concerns with this, talk to me BEFORE you confirm you are attending and make travel arrangements.
We will meet for drinks and catch up the first night — then it’s all business on the day of the 26th before a dinner (on us, of course), at one of New York City’s great restaurants that night. And for those of you who want to, we’ll check out the city nightlife.
Please contact me to confirm ASAP, and then book and forward me your travel arrangements and confirmations as soon as possible. No first class flights! And oh yeah – you’re probably wondering who I’m referring to when I say “we.” Come to New York and find out!
Taylor (of Cardrunners) and I did an interview for Forbes.com in early April 2007: http://video.forbes.com/fvn/lifestyle/jal_poker040207
I was just some kid who was good at poker and good at teaching that brought a bunch of friends together to coach. Why not? It was fun, we were traveling the world, we were winning tons of money and getting better and learning about life and poker together. Somehow Taylor (the big kid on the block back then, he still is) and I found ourselves in a Forbes TV studio talking about what we were doing. I remember walking across the city with Taylor (this was probably the second or third time we’d ever met in person, we’d talked on AIM/email but this was the first time we really talked) and talking about the poker world, about how nuts it all was. Read the story of Emil’s $45,000 textbook. You really couldn’t write something more interesting than all this if you tried.
Three years since graduating Boston University now. There’s a TV show. A documentary series. Training sites that show people interested in poker how to follow in our footsteps. We all came from nothing (almost all of us) and built something really awesome, and something really great for the game of poker. People say that training sites are making the games tougher, maybe even close to unbeatable at the highest stakes except for the best players. I’d say that you’re right. But I’d also say that we are helping to grow poker, to make it more honorable, a more respected profession. All of us, putting ourselves out there in the fight, all of us grinding day after day… we’re showing people that poker is not evil, it’s a game of skill and it’s fun and it can prepare you for the cold realities of life better than anything else that exists inside the system. I truly believe that – I didn’t always but looking around at all my peers and seeing how genuinely good everyone is in general… you just can’t deny it.
One more story. Allan Title, the showrunner from 2M2MM, he’s played in a poker game for years called “Big Money Wednesdays.” It’s $60 to buy in, they play all these crazy games like Chicago and Follow the Queen, and they take it really seriously. These guys are actors, writers, producers, musicians and directors. And they play poker. It’s a war on the tables for them in a way that it hasn’t been for me since high school, and I was honored to be invited to play this week. It’s funny who you find yourself across the poker table from. I’ve played and beaten Ivey and Dwan and Antonius. I’ve splashed around with self-made billionaires and a prince (once). But sitting there with the Big Money Wednesdays guys, drinking Jim Bean and listening to the Grateful Dead, just playing poker, I thought to myself fuck all the money I’ve made playing this game.
I’m just happy to be along for the ride.
Very nice Krantz and congratz on your successes! Success is a great feeling. And to say the least, THANKS a ton for your hard work that has been such a positive impact on my own life on and off the table through DeucesCracked. I have seriously become an all around better person because of it.
Great post. I never made it very far as a player (2-5NL for life!) but I love the game and I love the lifestyle. It’s been a real thrill watching the poker world evolve so much in just the past three years and because of you and the Robusto LLC I’ve felt like more a part of it. Thanks for that. I’m happy to be along for the ride too.
its really unbelievable how much you stretch the truth. you are much worse then ivey, patrik, and durrr. you are not that great at poker. you won alot off benyamine 2 years ago and are still trying to cling to that as a relevant achievement. you are pretty good, but a clear level below all the best players, and the combination of your tableratings results and the fact that you rarely play in any of the nosebleed games anymore clearly supports this.
I have much bigger fish to fry than grinding online poker all day, especially when no one soft will play me. Nowhere am I claiming that I’m still the best, I play really tough opponents and in tough games and some of them have gotten the better of me over the past year while my attention has been divided on things outside of just getting better at poker. Can I still beat Ivey, durrrr and Patrik? Maybe. Did I in the past? Yes. But what are you doing when I’m challenging myself and losing tons of my own money, putting myself out there seeing how good I actually am? No one got anywhere worth getting without taking on some risk. But you’re preying on fish and commenting on my blog about something completely irrelevant. Are you saying that I wouldn’t be one of the biggest winners at 5/10-25/50 if I got the kind of action you did and played/thought/learned more about poker with the same commitment I was giving it two years ago? If you are, then you’re a poor excuse for someone who is supposed to understand something about the world he lives in after all this time. I don’t know what kind of grudge you have against me or where I earned it but something I started learning a long time ago was to think before you speak on the Internet.
I have nothing against you other than the fact that you’re a moron and I had to waste more of my time on a Sunday responding to tactless undeserved bullshit from a high stakes poker player. If I hit and ran you or talked shit in chat once upon a time, I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal, I don’t know you obviously, and I was probably tilting. Get over it.
hugs and unicorns,
Jay.
thats funny that you just edited your post; i mean, after all, you dont want to seem like too much of a jerk on your own site!
Well, in all fairness, I can be a bit of an asshole.
well regardless of whatever else you can write that doesn’t relate at all to what i am talking about, everything i said earlier is the clear truth. you scrabble all you want in sentences that will make the average joe emotionally pull for you if that makes you feel better/protects your 2007 image.
What are you looking for here? My results are my results, they’re out there for all to see. Do you want people to not grow up? High stakes players are not living in a fairy tale anymore where we can risk it all on the tables with no worry about going broke. It’s just sharks, you’re one of them, we’re all in the same shit so why do you care what I say? People see my results and can make their own assumptions, but they learn from me how to get better and not lose money to pieces of shit like you, waiting for them to move up and sit down. My friends and I are doing good things for the game that paid for that computer you typed your truths into. I lost over a million dollars twice playing high stakes poker. I also went on million dollar heaters twice. Not only can you not say that for yourself, you’ll never even think of trying.
Hey Krantz,
Can you ship me $5?
so “playmoneypro” is not the real playmoneypro, i guess he is actually a professional play money player… i am sorry i exploded, i should have asked for coaching!