Ask Me Anything (Dusty Schmidt aka Leatherass in the well)

Dear Cardschat members,

My name is Dusty Schmidt and I go by the online handle, "Leatherass." I play the high stakes games online at Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker under the screen name "Leatherass9." I just released a new book last week called Treat Your Poker Like A Business. It is available at http://www.dustyschmidt.net for anyone who is interested.

For a period of at least 3 weeks, I will be taking any and all questions of any kind. If you have read the book and would like to ask me something about it, definitely feel free. Questions won't be confined to being about the book. You are free to ask me anything under the sun. I am pretty liberal about what I will answer, but if it is something too personal that I would prefer not to answer, I may choose to take a pass.

It has been my understanding that Cardschat.com is one of the best poker forums on the internet and I am excited to be a part of this. I really look forward to taking your questions. So feel free to ask me anything.

Best,

Dusty Schmidt

Welcome to the forum Sir.

I suppose the first question that I want to ask you, seems as its a big topic of discussion at the moment around here, is how many shortstackers have to be on your table before you leave ?

What stakes are you currently playing ?

Edit : I've ordered your book and awaiting with baited breath

Welcome to Cardschat sir. I have not had the opportunity as of yet to purchase your book. I will ask u though what was driving force for you to write it?

How long did it take you to write it?

What do value more? The money or the respect you recieve from the online poker community?

Do you plan on sticking around Cardschat after your question thread to share more of your knowledge with us?


Normand

Hi there. Welcome to the forum.

1. Are you at the least bit concerned that you made it a wide open "ask me anything" thread (even with reserving the right to decline answer)?

2. Are you planning to be active in other areas of the forum (e.g. Hand Analysis) while you are here answering questions?

3. Any chance you might post some small excerpts from your book (like a page or two from somewhere randomly in the middle?

4. Do you dabble in lesser played games such as Razz?

Hello Sir,


the last days your name and the book you have written have been been mentioned quite often by various regs - looking forward to reading it, too.

Questions:

- How long did it take you to get the data material for the book together ?
- Are you going to stay after the 3 week period ?
- Are you only playing NLHE or do you play other games aswell regularly ?

1. It's the 18th, did my book ship out today?

2. Did you ever resolve your amateur status issue so you could go back to playing competitive golf?

3. Who, if anyone, were you most afraid would take you up on the golf/poker challenge?

4. What's the biggest single thing you think small stakes players will gain by reading your new book?

5. With the new addition to the family (congrats) are you getting any sleep?

Would you consider playing in some of our private forum games?

In the process of writing this book did u ever consider going the high priced ebook route witch some of the other big time grinders have gone with there books and pricing it at 1500$+?
Or was your intention allways to market it to the general poker community oposed to just small/mid stakes grinders?

Do you think there will come a point in the forseeable future where all the online games will have dried up(either because of more easily available learning material, changed legistalation or improvements to so called poker bots)?

What tracking software do you use for poker?

Can we borrow your database to fight the "poker is rigged" people?

IMHO great question Sindri.

Given the relatively rapid progress of computerized chess programs, I do forsee a future where there will be some very capable poker playing software.

Dusty, do you think the online sites will be able to combat these programs when they do exist? Like maybe some biometric interfaces?

JD, having read the e-book I think he's using HEM since he recommends it.

- A lot of players are still getting their feet wet in the micro-micro levels. Do you have any advice where to start if you were going to start over again right now? And any advice at what level some of your poker plays should start to be applied?

- Any advice for those who can't get rakeback at Full Tilt, other than play at Stars?

Dusty, if I may call you that way,

i'm a member at stox and i read your blog, so I know that you are both a really intelligent and a really decent person who cares a lot about the fate of people who are less fortunate then you are.

As such, do you ever feel that - from an unselfish perspective - you are somehow wasting your abilities and maybe if you didn't play poker, you could be the one discovering the cure for cancer or something ridiculously cool like that?

Obviously if the alternative to poker is to sell pest control services like Matt Bolt used to, then poker is a no brainer when it comes to career choices. But what if your regular job is actually both reasonably well paid and socially useful, yet you do make a little more $/hour playing poker? That's the conundrum i'm in.

WOW!!! We've got leatherass joining the forum.... way cool!!! I was just reading something about your new book yesterday.

I've watched a bunch of your vids.! great stuff (even though I don't play alot of cash tables, mostly a NLHE MTT player).

Very cool oppurtunity for us to ask u questions.... even though I can't think of any at the moment. I'll try to get my brain in gear.. (what questions would I ask leatherass if I had the oppurtunity to do so?...hmm...). Who is Isildur1? jk

Page 136, you write: "Don't waste a lot of time on forums and block all the chat.". What are you doing here?

Are there players that you wont play even at a comfortable buy-in?

What is your favorite older Muscle Car?

Have/Would you ever sky dive?

What is the craziest prop bet you won and lost?

Who is your favorite Pro to play poker against?

If you had 3 wishes,what would the 1st 2 be?

Ive ordered your book,and look forward to reading it.Ill be back with more Questions later.

Thanks for doing this,you have been a buzz around here this week and we have been looking forward to this!



Snow

What is your favorite swear word for ratholing shortstackers? Also, are you mad at Ed Miller for coaching them?

Did you ever have a "AHAH" moment in your poker career?

Anything else you would rather do for a living?

How do you chill out?

Favourite type of TV?

What pisses you off?

Thanks

First off if there is a mega fish at the tables, I will stay no matter how many short stackers are there. Generally speaking, if there are 3 at a 6 max table I will usually just leave.

I am currently playing 99% of my poker at 5/10nl through 25/50 nl. If I play 100k hands in a month maybe 65k at 5/10, 25k at 10/20 and 10k at 25/50nl.

Thanks so much for the support of the book. I hope you enjoy it and maybe you can ask me some questions on it after you've read it.

Initially the driving force behind writing it was to do something a little different from playing poker at the tables. It evolved into something I enjoyed and took a lot of pride in. I am really pleased with how it turned out and the support I have gotten for this project.

It took me 3 months in total, but I did not work full time on it. I also had a co writer, Scott Brown, who spent an equal amount of time on it.

I value the money. And not for the material things it can purchase, but rather the freedom I have as well as the ability to help others. The respect is great, but that is not what gets me up in the morning. Hope that makes sense.

I don't have any plan one way or another at the moment. Basically I am attracted to quality people. I will be spending a lot of time for the next 3 weeks on this forum and if it seems like a friendly place, then I will absolutely stick around.

i apologize if you've addressed any of this in your book, i haven't read it yet but i'll definitely consider picking it up

do you think there comes a point in poker where a certain amount of natural talent is required to excel? for example, do you think the average 100NL 2ptbb/100 grinder could eventually "learn" to beat the 10/20 NLHE games online, via hard work, studying, and experience? or are there just too many naturally skilled (but also fundamentally competent) players at those levels to compete with hard work alone? if not at 10/20 NLHE, do you believe there's a certain level where this becomes true?

as a follow-up to that, how much of your poker skill do you think was attained through practice and hard work, and how much of it is raw ability that you couldn't have been taught?

thanks

1. Not at all. I am as open as any poker player probably. I don't have anything to hide so unless the question is totally ridiculous, I am happy to answer it.

2. The demand for my time has been tremendous lately. I also have a newborn at home right now. So I will probably not be too involved in any forum in the short term, but long term there is an excellent chance I will help out in other forums.

3. I put excerpts up all the time on my facebook page and http://www.dustyschmidt.net

4. I stick just with NL holdem. I actually wrote a chapter on that same question!

I think I got to these already. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Is it ok to discuss politics?

If you had to choose between passing universal health care legislation and cancelling UIGEA, which one would you pick?

1. We changed it to the 19th for shipping awhile back. All systems are on the go and there doesn't appear to be any more delays.

2. I lost in Federal court after representing myself. Basically the judge said that the USGA totally screwed me, but that I had no legal recourse. He can only enforce the law, which he did. The judge likened my situation to a church who excommunicated a member for an unfair reason. While it sucks for that person and what the church did was clearly wrong, it is not necessarily a Federal court judge's duty to intervene. Hope that makes sense.

3. Rocco Mediate and I would have had a dog fight if we played. I wouldn't rule a match between the two of us out someday. I would actually be surprised if it never happened.

4. An understanding of how to run their poker business as well as some fundamental poker strategies that will last them a lifetime. Think of it this way. You could be the most talented baseball player in the world, but if you don't know what hitting coaches to see, what team to play for, don't know how to negotiate your contract, don't know how to manage your money or your time etc. etc. will all that talent just go to waste? In my opinion there is an excellent chance that that ball player will at the very least spend half his career trying to figure everything out or at the most, will never make it. My book will teach you to get the most out of the least.

5. Actually I've been sleeping pretty well. We have had excellent family support through this trying period.

Hope Debi remembered to remove the 7 post per day maximum for new users

For this new user I did.

Welcome to CC Sir..
Why does the play at higher limits, look like donkey's playing???
^^^ I hope did not get on anyone with that, you know what i mean...

Sweet Debi.

At some point in time that is certainly possible. Right now I haven't worked less than 12 hours a day in the last month prob. There have been no days off. So for now anyway, I can't commit to much.

From the movie Rounders:

Worm: He sees all the angles, but he doesn't have the balls to play one.
Mike: Hey, that guy hasn't had to work in 15 years, Worm.
Worm: You don't think that's work, what he does? Grinding it out on his ****in' leather ass? No, thank you.
Mike: I thought so, too, all right? Now I know what real work is.

38 mins in.

I am known in poker for being the consummate grinder. My friends gave me the nickname as a result.

I will never release a book for that kind of price tag. I like to see everyone do well in life. If I put out a big ticket book, then I am just helping a small number of rich people get richer. I don't want to be in the business of helping the rich get richer, I want to see people who are willing to work hard make their way in life. If this book can help a few people do that, then I will consider it a success.

I really don't see that happening. There are too many people who love poker. The chances that this happens are close to zero in my opinion. Towns like Las Vegas and Atlantic City don't seem to worried about fish coming into town so neither do I.

I use Holdem Manager.

I actually am considering selling chunks of my database or possibly even the whole thing. I will keep people posted on that.

As far as the poker being rigged thing, I don't 100% rule out the sites possibly having some mechanism that makes things marginally unfair, however I think that is highly unlikely and it is impossible that they are doing anything obviously unfair.

I don't for see a situation where no limit holdem will ever be beatable at any reasonable limit by a bot. I just don't believe making a bot that can beat someone like myself in a 6 max NL setting is possible. I could be wrong on this, but that is my opinion.

+1 .
Very good question Jd.
And what have you BBQ latley bud,we need to bump that BBQ thread,im searching right now.

What are your thoughts on data mining in general (beyond just being against the ToS of most sites) and pokertableratings specifically?

hey i read the book i am forming some thoughts not sure how much i liked it yet ? you seem to call for very liberal flush and str8 chasing is it the implied odds that make this proffitable over the long haul? also you suggest holdem manager [which is a pain in the ass to get going im not there yet] rakeback can you get them both at your site ? if a person already plays at PS & FT with no rake where would you go to get it? my biggest ? where did you get your disipline?
thanks