Reid Bill thoughts

Poker world was buzzing this week about the reid bill regulating online poker as an add on to the tax bill extending the bush tax cuts. The bill ended up not being tacked on but is apparently not dead yet. Opinions varied as to whether the bill was good or bad for online poker. I have to say I was pretty split.

A part of me was incredibly excited at the prospect of regulation, I dreamed of all the idiots that would now be able to deposit easily and stay in action. I don't feel any loyalty to Full Tilt, the site I play on, if land based casinos opened sites where their were soft games I would gladly withdraw every cent off of full tilt.

However some of the stipulations did frighten me, most of all the 15 month blackout period where there would be no online poker in the US. Besides being really bummed about the not being able to play, my lack of confidence and distrust of the US gov't really makes me feel like there would be an 80% chance of shit getting royaly fucked up by politicians and regulators.

Change is exciting and nerve racking, I'm not going to stress about it until something actually happens, I am afraid however that unless something significant happens in the next 12 months the online poker landscape will look pretty bleak.

P..S. Still grinding plo25 bankroll=$1200 on a pretty long break evenish stretch, I'm a couple good days away from moving up to plo50.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Shifting Gears

It's so much easier to update this thing when things are going well. I totally changed the focus of my poker playing, the sit n go grind was stagnant. Maybe it was because my multi-tabling abilities weren't what they needed to be, but whatever the reason was, the combination of of not seeing my bankroll grow, and RainmanPoker Training closing shop I decided it was time to try to make a move or quit. So with about $700 in my account I began my quest to learn omaha cash. I cancelled my PokerVT subscription, joined Deuces Cracked, began studying videos, while playing PLO10 6-max. Once I got to 30 buy ins (around $800) I moved up to PLO25. My plan is to continue to with the 30 buy-in minimum and my goal is to reach PLO400. My bankroll is currently at $1,200 and I have been really enjoying the new game, the gamble, and the weak play at this level. I have been running good without a doubt but enjoy being able to have winning days almost every day without needing to 16-table. Rakeback is also huge, because there are so many more all-in pots and the rake is high compared to the stakes, I'm racking up rakeback and FTPs which also allow me to earn free CardRunners membership each month pretty easily. Hopefully I'll be updating more often now, because that will mean I'm doing well at the tables.

back to basics

Just a quick update today, going to be trying to play more 45 and 90 mans this month, rainman training will start up again in september, the heads-up games are good for when i dont have a lot of time, but I have to stay sharp play the MTSNGs if I want to grow my bankroll, which is at about 700. Going to be playing strictly $11 HU turbo SNGs, or combinations of $5 45-mans and $3 90 mans. Those are the two games that I will be able to do volume without risking going broke, and are the ones that I have ROIs in the 20% area.

Back Home

Back from the trip, kinda bummed about being home with not a ton to look forward to, but summer is great regardless. Been playing a little, and after watching a couple videos on Heads-Up SNGs I was inspired to give them a try. I've done pretty well, each day I've single tabled and played anywhere between 15-30 and have had 3 winning days in a row. I never understood the power of the "rematch" button, it is truly where most of your value is in these games. The ability to get a fish to play you multiple times in a row is so huge. Even against a player who isn't bad, playing him a couple times will give you so much information about his game that, if you are able to adjust appropriately, you'll be putting yourself in consistently good spots. I also like the time factor, I've been playing Turbos (not super-turbos) and I find it gives me plenty of time to play, and if I'm involved in an especially long match, I feel like my above-average push-fold game gives me the advantage when the blinds get high. Playing heads-up i've worked the bankroll up to 800, I have to play more to see if I'm actually good at these or just running good.

Finally, a trip update

Okay so blogging on the road didn't really happen, I am in my last week of traveling, I'm leaving from London tonight to spend the weekend in Amsterdam, then coming back to London for a day before returning home to the USA. My trip has been incredible, here is the list of places I have already been in chronological order: [Barcelona (Spain)], [Rome, Florence, Tuscany, Rome, Sicilian Island of Salina, Scylla, Reggio di Calabria, Bari (Italy)], [Corfu, Mykonos, Santorini, Athens (Greece)]. My favorite place for partying has definitely been Mykonos, absolutely over the top insane, clubs, bars, beach parties, totally ridiculous. Florence and Rome where both also very fun and the cities are just so beautiful.

Poker has not played much of a role in my trip, I read Pearljammer, Rizen, and Apestyle's new book, the second part of the Winning Online Tournaments series which I thought was pretty good. Last night I actually played for the first time at a local Casino here in London called "The Mint". Played 1-2 cash in one of the strangest games I have ever seen. Limp-calls and limp-reraises were very standard, as well as 10x BB opens, and straddled family limped pots. I sat down with two hundred pounds, and finished 10 hours later with 205. I got called out many times for being tight and was able to use that to my advantage as the night progressed. I playing a bit scared though because of my upcoming trip to Amsterdam, I wasn't 100% comfortable with losing that cash right before what has the potential to be a very fun weekend.

I followed the Main Event action as much as I could, a little bummed we didn't more online legends in the November Nine, but am very happy Jason "PBJaxx" Senti was able to grind his way in there. Really bummed I haven't been able to attend any of the Rainman's webinars while I've been abroad, when I get home I'm going to beg and plead to get copies of Bodeye's 90-man series.

Not looking forward to going home very much at all, although it does mean I'll be able to get back to playing, it also means I have resume the job search which is just soul-crushing. I'm trying to line up some part time work teaching tennis lessons as well because after the amount of partying I've done in the last month my bank account is on life support.

I'm going to try to get the blogger app for iphone working and then upload some pictures in my next post.

Uhhh... fail

Bankroll is below 700, which means time to move down in stakes. I'm pretty bummed out, I really think I'm playing well, but it's very hard to stay positive. I asked Bodeye about my awful ROI in the $10 45mans and he said that my current sample size of 400 games doesn't mean much, and that 4,000 would give me meaningful number. Part of me wants to go learn the math behind these numbers for meaningful sample sizes, these huge volume numbers tilt me almost as much as my recent results.

My monthly challenge is also nowhere close to being completed. I haven't played enough because of all the distractions I anticipated initially before I came back home. Parents, job search, and friends being around have all contributed to me not playing. I don't know where to go from here with poker, when I do play I'll be playing $3&$6 90mans and $5 45 mans. I'll have the next month to think about what I want to do with poker and my life, as a graduation gift I'm going on an incredible trip though Europe, meeting some of my friends on the way. Here is the breakdown:
3 days in Barcelona with my college room mate, then in Rome I meet my friend from home I'll call him "Bearjew", then a train to Florence where we meet my other friend from home who speaks italian. Then I think we go back down to southern italy for a bit, then take an overnight ferry to Croatia. We go to Dubrovnek, Split, and other places in Croatia for about a week, then go to Athens. A couple days there then we are still deciding on which greek islands to go to. I think the plan is to do two, then go back to athens, where I will split up with my two home friends and head to London. 5 days in London with some of my former housemates and then back home. It's the first thing I've really had to look forward to this summer and I'm really excited about it.

I won't have any time to play but I'll update the blog as I travel and put pictures and stuff up of all the sick places I'm going.

Strugglin

It's been too long since my last post, it's because I usually post after good things happen, and recently I haven't had a lot of good days at the poker table. I'm down to around $900 and my results have been really swingy. My current downswing is not an abnormal one, I've seen other good players that have had worse runs, what is beginning to worry me though is the gap in my results in the $5 tournies and the $10. I've played over 1,000 at $5 and my ROI is about 23%. I've played about 350 $10s and my ROI is -20%. Since these two tournaments are basically the only ones I play, my bad luck in the $10s is what is holding me back. I do not think the play is better in the $10s although it is a bit tighter. I notice that in the 5s, once the blinds get to 150-300, you are basically at the final table every time. However, in 10s, I think the final table bubble burst a bit later. I find myself placing 15th-7th in the 10s far more than I do in the 5s.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm doing wrong in the 10s, because the answer is probably nothing. The solution is going to be to just play more, which I plan on doing this week, I'm waiting for my new mouse to be delivered, my old one decided to stop working for no reason, and Logitech customer service was EXCELLENT, they're sending me a replacement free of charge and should be here this week.

Big Month

Today was a pretty standard day, very similar to a lot of others I have been living recently. It is however, the end of my first real month of "grinding", as well as my first month of training with Rainman Poker. My bankroll has quadrupled (currently $1,210), my understanding of poker and ability to multi-table have improved a lot as well.

This next month is also going to be equally as important as the last, HUGE decisions are going to be made. I mentioned last blog that I would talk about some of the life decisions I am going to have to make soon. The most pressing and stressful decision is the one regarding my current state of unemployment. Here are the questions I have been asking myself multiple times each day:

1) Should I get a job or try to give poker a real shot?
2) If I do try to get a real job what should it be?
3) If I try to play poker should I get staked or not?

I guess that is the most simple summation of the questions I most frequently ask myself, there are a hundred other questions that are connected to these three questions, which make this decision even more difficult. I have been making steps towards finding a real job mainly in order to keep my parents off my back, I will have interviews and lunches with potential employers starting as soon as this week. Hopefully, by the end of the month I will be able to compare any offers I get to what I envision myself being able to accomplish in poker.

My goal for the month is to play 1,000 tournaments, I'll be sure to keep this number updated as I progress.

The Chat Box

My assortment of games has changed a little bit, for the past couple of days in addition to the $5 45 mans, I've added $10 45s, $6 90s, and $12 90s. I've added in the 90s to keep my number of tables up (I can comfortabley do 9 tables now for short to medium periods of time). The 90s are really going to test my mental toughness because from my experience so far, they are far more prone to variance (more players, turbo blind structure, knockout bounties, only 9 get paid) and I've had some epic beats against fellow chip leaders that seem to have disgustingly huge pots because there are 4 times as many chips in play compared to the 45s. I'm still running very well in the 45s, and some of my luck has started to transfer over to the $10 level (I won two today).

I wanted to just say a little something about the chat box feature on online poker sites. I think most people know this already, but if you use the chat box, you are a donkey. End of story, there is no good that comes from chatting on a poker site, it is impossible to win an argument, sound smart, make a "friend", get useful information, literally nothing good comes from it. I thought about turning it off today, but I came to the conclusion that the chat box is actually useful for one purpose: to see the people that use it so you can properly label them as fish. At a final table today the guy to my left was getting so tilted by my blind vs. blind shoves he was spending almost all of his energy berating me in the chat box. The shoves I made were all standard, he ended up knocking me out at the final table before the money when I shoved 69o for 8 big blinds and he snap called with 33. The tilt he was experiencing actually allowed him to make a good call in this case, but this guy could not have given away his lack of poker ability any more.

Will try to continue playing a decent amount the rest of this week, it's been difficult, next blog will be a pretty heavy one about living at home, my future, and current state of unemployment.

1K

I had a feeling it was coming, but did not anticipate such dramatic fashion. I reached my $1,000 bankroll goal today, the new high point for my poker earnings to date. I have attempted to grind the $5 45 mans while at home, and it has been tough, there are a lot of distractions at home and no one in the house is supportive of me playing poker. While I was locked up in my new makeshift office I was trying to load up some tournies, they were taking forever to load and I had recently won some step 3 tickets, so I decided to use 3 of my step 3s to jumps into 3 $26 45 mans, they load up much faster than the $5s. Well, I ended up taking one down for $410 and catapulted me past the $1,000 mark. I'm really psyched right now, although I have also just started reading "Fooled by Randomness" so I'm trying to get my excitement under control as I do realize how lucky I just got. Just sent my update e-mail off to the Rainman and am awaiting further instructions on the next step in my journey, I assume it will involve some $10 45mans.

And for fun, below are some pics I took with my phone of my fully packed car prior to my return home from school. You can learn a lot about a person from the way the pack, what they pack, where they pack what etc., the garbage bags are all full of laundry btw, no trash or body parts.

Going back

Just finished a decent session, have a wicked headache from wierd sleeping schedule + staring at computer screen for so long. I have officially graduated college, it was a nice weekend, lots of family and friends. Actual ceremonies were awful though, very impersonal, time consuming, and boring. I actually brought a book to the main ceremony on sunday, thought it would be rude to whip it out so i ended up doing crossword puzzles on my phone. In addition to receiving my diploma, graduating means time to move out of my wonderful house at school, and move back home. It's going to be interesting to see how much poker I can play, my strategy is going to be to claim a room and declare it my office, set up shop, and see if my parents will leave me alone (unlikely).

My bankroll is has been around $700 for about a week, I feel like I'm very close to breaking through to my next goal. I've been using a lot of free trials for poker software lately and they are going to run out soon, today I was thinking of a list of things I will eventually need to spend money on to keep my poker solid: SngWiz, Hold'em Manager/PokerTracker, and TableNinja. I think I'm going to make these purchases once I move up in stakes, hopefully my trial software will last until then.

I'm going to try to start throwing in some more random stuff into this blog from other parts of my life other than poker, I'm really into music, my favorite site for finding new music is pitchfork.com , they are great at finding weird new music. One band they've turned me onto recently is Sleigh Bells, their new debut cd "Treats" is freaking awesome. Kept me really focused and jacked up for poker recently. It's a bit between a bunch of genres, kind of electro-hip-pop. Go buy it, especially if you have a nice pair of headphones or speakers to blast it on.

Feeling goodish

Been able to play a good amount the past couple days, just finished a nice session that was capped off with a win. My bankroll is approaching its previous peak which makes really feel a lot more confident about my playing. I also realize however that I have been running pretty hot lately (the win I just mentioned, came by way of my j6o flopping trips versus kqs heads up). I think that my feel for game flow has been improving. I tried to add tables for a little today and that did not go so well, I went for 6/7 to 8/9 and felt a little overwhelmed. I'll have to go over the hand histories later to decide if my decision making was actually worse during this or if I'm just being results oriented. Here is my updated graph so you can guys can see my current upswing. You can see from a couple posts ago where I was when this blog was started, around 700 total games (and when I joined Rainman Poker, coincidence?)

Even though this sample size is crazy small, and I still haven't hit 1,000 games (which I'm kind of bummed about) the recent success has really increased my drive to keep pounding out the games. I only have 3 days left that I can dedicate to poker because my family arrives for graduation festivities on Friday evening. I'm excited for them to come and to graduate, but it also presents a problem for my poker aspirations. Here is my conundrum: I don't have the cash to move out and live on my own, so after graduation I have to move back home. I don't think I'll be able to properly grind at home because my parents are very anti me playing poker whilst remaining unemployed. The more I think about getting a real job the less excited I am about it. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that upon my entering the real world I now have real issues, not enough money, and not enough time.

Movin' on up

Still early in my post-finals, pre-graduation grind, but I was lucky enough to run good in some of the 180 mans I was playing recently, and took one down. That win got me above my first bankroll goal of $400. I think I learned a lot playing those, they are a lot more similar to the larger field tournaments. Looking back on the way I played I think I've definitely improved my ability to take measured risks in order to "play for the win". It was very funny the way my 180 win went down. I was literally doing everything I was not supposed to in order to be playing my best. My room mates have been moving out the past couple days because they aren't seniors like myself and don't have to hang around for graduation. Since it was their last night, and this particular tourny I decided was going to be my last for the night, I had started knocking a couple beers back once there were about 45 left. By the time I was three handed I was bordering on drunk. Not good on my part, but luckily the poker gods thought I deserved to celebrate and let me take it down with some favorable all-in situations.

Now that I've met my first goal I get to move up in stakes, and also get to return to the game I think I was starting to get a feel for before I had to move down in stakes. So now I will be grinding the $5 45 man sit and goes on Full Tilt, trying to reach my next bankroll goal which is $1,000. This is a significantly bigger jump than my last success, I will definitely be trying to improve my ability multi-table during this time as well. The 45s load up a lot faster than the 180s so this will allow me to work my way up from 6 tables to maybe 8 or 10 by the end of the month. As I type this I have just finished winning one of my first 10, by way of shortstack comeback, hopefully the good news will continue for me, although I have a feeling this next goal will be a lot tougher to achieve. I'll have a ton of time to get in some good volume this week, my house is almost empty (which is heartbreakingly sad), and I have literally nothing to do (which is fanfreakingtastic).

New Set Up, Long Day

After listening to the rainman talk about having a routine and treating poker was like a sport, I was inspired to make my set-up a little more legit. Previously, my desk was a chair, which upon it rested my monitor and computer, and a broke-ass couch that I would lie down on while I played (and often also doubled as my bed). It's pretty obvious that I was not giving myself the best chance to play good poker with that set-up, especially when you consider that I am infamous for having totally unpredictable sleeping patterns. I went to the Micro Center (best computer store imo) and bought a little do-hickey to make my laptop use dual screens, and a fancy mouse that I succesfully programmed to run my PokerNinja shortcuts, I was very proud of myself. Above is the pic of my new and improved set up.


Yesterday was a long day of grinding, I started around two after Bodeye's webinar, the 180 mans were taking too long to load so I added in some $2 MTTs, strangely enough the MTTs were where I had the most success yesterday. Got fourth in a random $2 non-turbo, for a decent $70 cash. I was feeling a little tired around 8pm, 6 hours is definitely a long session for me, but I was so amped on my new set up I just wanted to keep playing/perfecting my setting etc. On my last round of tournies when I was starting to get pretty tired I made a very poor decision by entering the Daily Dollar on Full Tilt. This is a double stack non-turbo and needless to say takes freaking forever if you a make run, which I did, ended up 40th of 7,000+. I think my fatigue led to some really poor play on my part in the mid-late stages when there were 90 or less people remaining. I went from contending for chip lead to shortstacked during this time, due 100% to poor post flop play. To keep myself awake I connected my headphones to my laptop, turned the volume almost all the way up, so when my turn came the "BEEP" would alert me if I had passed out. Not ideal. Still a solid day though, made some legit steps towards reaching my bank roll goals, today I'm going to try to do some intense sessions, but break them up a little more, the 14 hour session yesterday was a little excessive.

Starting to grind

I've been playing more than I ever have the past couple days, I'm really trying to get some volume to show that I can build a bankroll without relying on getting lucky when I take shots at higher buy ins. The rainman gave me some suggestions about what games I should be playing, I was having trouble deciding this on my own at the time of my last post. We've settled on $2 180 mans, and since I don't have any cash on PokerStars, I've been playing the non-turbos on FTP. They take a really long time to play and to load which I think is a big downside for my potential $s/hour. I felt like I was really in the zone playing well this morning/afternoon, I fell just short of taking a couple down, but I was pretty happy with my overall play. I was able to build stacks really effectively in a couple tournaments, I was trying to be more aggressive in taking plus ev spots. I've played more than 50 of these since Sunday, but wish it was more, at this point I'm comfortable 6 tabling, but these tournies don't generally load fast enough unless we're in the absolute busiest part of the day.

I haven't won one yet but I'm still pretty much even since I started playing these, gunna try to get to 100 games by wednesday.

Plan for the next week

I've been running pretty terribly recently, I'm going to take it as a sign to stop playing for a bit and get the last few pieces of schoolwork done. In my typical fashion, I've left an entire semester worth of work in my Sociology of Social Work class to do tonight and tomorrow, 6 overdue weekly write-ups, a 4 page paper, and a take home final due saturday afternoon. I'm going to get that nonsense done then move on to studying for my Alternative Economic Systems final on saturday morning. THEN I AM DONE WITH COLLEGE, and I'm very excited about never having to go to class ever again. Saturday night, we party, I live in a house with 8 other guys off-campus and we are going to celebrate the end of the semester with some bad beer, cheap liquor, and good friends.

The next week I have literally nothing on my slate (besides trying to get job interviews). The rainman's training site will be up and running by then and I'm going to try and earn some respect by putting in some serious volume in the first week of May. Even though I've been running bad lately, I've gotten much more comfortable 6-tabling so for now I'm going to go for the $3 90 mans on FullTilt, however if those continue to go poorly I may have to revert to 9-mans. The variance in these MTSNGs has been killing me. Over the past month I've doubled my bankroll only to be back even right now, so annoying. Here is my incredibly depressing graph

I was playing above my bankroll to start ($10 45 mans) and ran very well, then once I was properly rolled with about 70 buy ins I added more tables I got royally screwed, I thought I was recovering, then I didn't and I'm back at 0. I know everyone talks about variance and that I'm better off moving down in stakes and playing more tournys, but the first place in the $3 90 mans is $70 something as opposed to $170 for the $10 45 mans. I'm tempted to press on with the 45s but I'll give the 90s a try. Hopefully my remaining $237 can withstand the $3 90 mans. It makes me sick saying that because earlier this month I was sitting pretty with over $700, I was already picking out apartments in Vegas. Hopefully the grind will be kind to me this week, I'll give an update sometime next week, if anyone can send me some rungood, it will be much appreciated.

First Blog, Last Class, tons of air quotes

So I've decided to start my blog today, it's a strange day with a lot of things coming to an end, and a lot of things about to start.

I have my last class of college in an hour, which is crazy to think about, in two weeks I can no longer describe myself as a "student", I will just be "unemployed". I figure today is as good as any other day to start a blog, I guess its going to be focused on my poker aspirations, but its a very unpredictable time right now and the topic of this blog is just as much in a state of flux.

I've been interested in poker for a while, playing online for about a year, micro to small stakes. I've recently joined Nick Rainey's training site, and hope to give playing poker some real time and effort in the next couple months. I play on Full Tilt as "freemoniez".

The conflict is that four years of college, a summer in Australia "studying", have really drained my personal non-poker funds. I will be forced to move home for hopefully just the summer, and will need to find a job relatively soon, which I am not looking forward to. I wish I could stay in college forever, this blog in the immediate future will track my transition and into the real world, while monitoring my aspirations to make poker my job.

The only thing I can promise is that I will be totally honest, and won't hold anything back.

Thanks for reading.