Yearly Update

The title has been created in jest however it will appear to be nothing but the truth. Where to start, quite frankly sooooo much has happened since my last post that quite frankly I do not know where to start so let's start at the beginning :-). I started getting coached back in May '10 by, quite frankly, one of the best 100NL (.50/1.00) grinders, brandonjacobs. The setup: via Moshman Stake where I would play out of my own bankroll and split profits at the end of the week (if any) and not have to pay on weeks where I had losses. Needless to say, this did wonders for my game. If I recall correctly I had just come off a 20bi downswing playing 50NL (.25/.50). Oh yeah, got ahead of myself, I almost binked a few more tourneys post-that one mini cash for 2nd, here is a link to my results since then. To sum most of my donkament success up, I've made about $10,800 in tourney scores, of whiche $6295 is 100% profit :-) results. I've turned out to be quite the luckbox in tourneys. I find it interesting to view the progression, since as of my first post I was trying to make it to $100 and look at me now. So back on topic. Long story short, coaching with Lucas went amazing, I even consider him a close friend, at the least, one of the closest friends I have in the category of people I have never physically meet. More on why later. So, after completing my contractual agreements with Moshman, I had discovered that Lucas had left Moshman as well and had joined a grouped called Fluxstables: pretty much a group of the most elite uNL (micro stakes) players online and a few who play stakes as high as 1knl ($5/$10). I started on a stake with Flux for $750, in doing so I accomplished one very important objective: I got to pay myself weekly + withdraw all the funds I had accrued over the last 2 years and buy myself something nice. The deals of the agreement were a 50/50 profit split with free coaching from the elite of the elites: Gary Hurst- El Nino 1. This even further improved my game. In a 5 moth span I went from grinding 25nl to 100nl and then it happened...Black Friday. It happened amidst one of my downswings @ 100nl nonetheless; so I was swiftly locked out of my hobby, my job (which was fast becoming a potential career) and something that quickly became ingrained as part of my lifestyle: Online Poker. I feel this triggered a very interesting chain of events. First, there was pandemonium and we [online poker community] looked to Quadjacks as a D-Day like information center. These amazing individuals kept a podcast running for what seems well over 180 hours constantly bringing on people from all aspects of online poker - from the lowliest grinder to pretty much all the superstars (Esfandiari, Laak, Negreanu, Cates etc.), several CPA's who worked with poker players, a few lawyers and even the CEOs of 2 online poker sites (Victory Poker - Dan Fleyshman and PPN - Chuck Kidd). Well around hour 100 or so I felt the podcast was faltering around 4 am. The podcast constantly had no less than 7 panelist at all times and around the dead of night they were down to 3, I felt compelled to call in and keep the conversations going, that is to say, do everything I could to keep the movement alive. I did what I knew best and talked strat. I was on for about 12 hours and would of stayed on longer had it not been for final exams. I was very excited to have the opportunity to chat with Kathy Liebert - for those that don't know, she is the winning-est female poker player: a true honor. However, my run in with superstars did not end there. Once the dust settled, and yes I am skipping ahead now, a group of close friends alongside my girlfriend and I made a a journey to the poker mecca: Las Vegas. The highlight of the trip: meeting Antonio Esfandiari AND Phil Laak @ 6 AM at the Bellagio while we were walking the strip in basketball shorts and the girls were wearing something slightly nicer than PJs. A momentous occasion to say the least. We also took pictures with a fake Manny Pacquiao, since there was a fight @ the MGM that Saturday as well (I know sick brag). I will be cutting this post short for I fear it is becoming far to long already and would like to leave somethings out for tomorrow's entry. I will start updating it more regularly and thusly can promise the thought process behind my writings will be far more organized. Later for now, and I leave you with this, a $2 SnG I was running on Bodog Poker while I typed this entry:

I crushed everyone, first time I ever eliminate a whole table >:-)

So, Summary of Las Vegas Trip:

Beat: Didn't take a picture with Esfandiari or Laak

Brag: Got to meet Esfandiari and Laak

Variance: Meet and idential, carbon copy of Manny Pacquiao

And once again, I apologize for all the loose ends, I promise to revisit/tie them up next post. Well, most of them.

Sunday 4 Million Guarantee

So I decided to participate in the Sunday 4 Million Guarantee today, first place winning + $1,100,000. Needless to say I busted in the middle-late phase of the tourney approximately 9200 of 36,100; a valiant attempt, yet there are no points for second best and therefore even less for 9200 place.

I was able to pony up the funds for this $215 buy-in by creating my own mini satellite. I played 2 18-man Turbo SNGs for $16 and $27 each, of which I got first place in both of them (consecutively) winning me $288, enough to cover the cost of this once-in-a-blue moon tourney. Needless to say, I discovered that these 18-Man Turbo SNGs are fairly "soft" and thus I've decided to attempt to set a mini-goal for the bankroll for the end of this month. Being that there are only 7 days left in December I've decided that baby steps will suffice for this first mini-goal. I will attempt to increase the bankroll to $2000 by participating and cashing in said 18-man Turbo SNGs for no more than 2% of my bankroll/buy-in. Multi-tabling will be allowed, however I probably won't play more than 4 tables at once so as not to lose focus.

The plan is simple, make $700 (net) by the end of the month, this averages to about $100 a day. Being that I love to to play the Daily 80k and Nightly 70k, I might have to put those aside as I leave myself little room for error if I play either one since the buy-ins for each are $55, yet what makes them so appealing are the rewards for first place for each range from 16k to 20k USD! If I find myself amidst a heater perhaps I will raise the bar to $2500, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. More to come later but now I must go to sleep!

It's been a while...

So it's been a while since my last update...however a lot has happened since. I've managed to slowly but surely build my bankroll playing micro-stakes. Currently on Pokerstars I have $670, which is quite a respectable increase from $40. Biggest thing that happened though was that I place 2nd in a $2 multi-table tournament that had approx. 2070 entrances. Pay-out for me was $477, 1st place took $670. The tourney was 3 handed for a way, heads-up play only lasted a few hands. I got dealt A-Q, I made a small raise pre-flop, as I had been doing almost every hand against him, he called, flop came out, I paired my ace, which I checked with the hopes to induce a bluff. He bet, I raised, he just called. Turn came, a King, I checked again, he bet, I moved all-in he called (K-J in his hand, no Jack on the board, no possible straight, so he as down to 5 outs, I was a 9 to 1 favorite) and BOOM K spikes on the river. Had my hand held up I would of been about dead even in chips, and I felt confident that with aggressive play I could of won that tourney and taken home an extra $180.

So after placing second in the MTT, I started playing some NL50 (Cash Games where the blinds are .25/.50) and I've managed to net about another $30 dollars out of. I was up about $120 at one point but I've had some pretty bad-suckouts so I've refrained from playing cash games as I've felt a tendency to go on tilt which I am making a conscious not to do.

Finally, school is out as of December 6th and thus I will be focusing a lot more on poker and building my bankroll come this winter break (as if I don't focus on poker enough already :-D). Moreover, I will participating in this years Mini-FTOPS events (only No-Limit Hold Em, no re-buys, no shootouts). I've already begun to look for stakers to buy up 80% of my action on what is fast becoming one of my favorite forums http://www.twoplustwo.com/. Unfortunately, since I have only been a member for less than 6 months I can't post in the normal staking forum, had that not been the case I feel I probably would of sold the 80% I was looking to sell by now, but either way, I've begun to get offers. I will be posting updates and hand histories regarding my perfomance in the events that I participate in. Here's a list of the events I am looking to play:

FTOPS Event #1 (6 Man) $20+2

FTOPS Event #18 (Cashout) $20+2

FTOPS Event #20 $20+2

FTOPS Event #8 (6 Man-Knockout)$24+2

FTOPS Event #10 $30+3

FTOPS Event ME $50+5

Total: $180

Thanks for reading! For those of you playing poker: Play well, Run well!

Quick Update...

Ok back to business...poker update. Two days have passed and I am pretty stagnant at $39.00. I've played around 24 SNGs (Sit-N-Go: means that once the players sign up the tournament starts, usually takes no more than 2 minutes to fill all the spots in a 9 top) and I've yet to have a breakthrough. I think I am going to try a different strategy (while still sticking to my Bankroll Management). I am going to switch over from the $1.20 9 top (9 player) SNGs to the 10 player-$1.10 DoNs (double of nothing). Basically it's pretty straightforward, 10 players buy-in for $1.10, and 5 leave with $2.00 (yeah I know only 90 cents profit but, extrapolate that to 10 tables an hour that if I can consistently make 5th place or better would yield $9/hr...better than minimum wage! Within 6 hours of play I should be approaching my $100 mark which will allow me to up the stakes, talk about grinding it out though!). It shouldn't be too hard to make 5th or better in these SNGs as 1,

I already consider myself a half-decent poker player and thus should be able to beat most of the competition at these stakes and 2 I am also fairly good at maximizing my profits in the hands that I am involved in. What this translates to is that all I need to do is double up once (increase my chip count from 1500 to 3000 by whatever means necessary) and in theory I should be in the money (10 players with 1500 chips each = 15000, so 3000 chip = 1/5 of all the chips on the table). So I either have to take 1 person out and I've accomplished my mission or I can try and "steal" 200 chips from each player. So if by change I am able to get a chip count of 4500 or more than I should have no reason to play any more hands unless 1, I get dealt pocket aces and have the opportunity to win some more chips or 2, the game progresses extremely slowly, as some of these do, I notice the blinds are starting to chew me up. (Blinds are the mandatory bets that the two seats to the left of the dealer are forced to bet. What this accomplishes is that 2 people have every committed money to the pot and thus will be more likely to promote "action" or get involved. If not for the blinds than everyone would fold away all their hands until they get dealt monsters which would make for horrible poker!) Alright, time to log for now, more on my progress later. I have to try and keep this one shorter than the last!

Goal by this weekend - Break $100

Why Start a Blog...

...What is the purpose of this blog...Read on and you just might learn something....

As of late I've been playing a lot of online poker...A LOT. However I seem to be on the worst downswing of downswings. I recently went out in the low 8900's during Full Tilt Poker's Mini FTOP event #20 ($12+$1 Buy-in) with AA (the best hand in NLHE) by someone who called me with 33. Low and behold he turned a set...for those of you who might not know what that odds of this are just imagine, 9 players, 2 cards each = 18 cards. 52 cards in a deck - 18 cards already out = 34. There are only 2 other 3s left in the deck meaning there are 32 cards for me and 2 cards (outs) for him making me a 16-1 favorite...need I say more. Not to mention I've lost with AA 4 times in row prior to that, (Granted 7-2 off suit will beat AA about 20% of the time, but 5 out of 5 times is just unacceptable). You can imagine how upset (on tilt) I was after this devastating loss, none the less I took my wonderful girlfriend's (which by the way has recently started playing poker under my tutelage) advice and took a break from poker until the next event, the FTOPS Main event ($50+$2 Buy-in) with a $500,000.00 Guarantee!

Guarantees are just that, regardless of how many people enter the tournament a prize pool of 500k is guaranteed. Usually the guarantee is met, but the purpose of them, if you are lucky, is to get into 1 where the guarantee is not met so you get better odds of a return on you money also known as ROI (Return on Investment). Say for example there is a $1 dollar tournament with a $10,000 guarantee (Full Tilt Poker runs these everyday) and say 1000 people sign up (which is rarely ever the case) well in any other tournament the prize pool would be $1000 (1000 players $1 each) where 1st place would get somewhere along the lines of $300.00 With the 10k guarantee you'd get around $3,000.00 for beating out the same field of opponents.

So why the blog? I'll tell you why...I love the game of poker. No matter how many bad beats I receive I keep coming back to it, the reason, well...because I love poker and everything it stands for. Poker is competition at its finest; it's just you vs your opponent and truly at the end of the day it doesn't matter what the size of your stack is vs his/hers (BTW woman are better bluffers than men at poker), or even what cards you get, it comes down to skill (90% of the time). Where else can you see $100,000.00 exchange hands in a mater of seconds (see the Durrrr challenge on Full Tilt, amazing stuff, it's exhilarating just watching because when they put all the money in the middle you can't help but ask "WTF are they holding that they just committed some much money into the pot?!"). There is a sense of satisfaction when you downright just outplay a person, when you have the nuts (best possible hand) and you're opponent bets into you because you've masked the strength of the monster you are holding so well; even when you lose you will be satisfied, these are called monster lay-downs (when you fold top 2 pair because you feel you opponent has the nuts and you have a case of what is known as 2nd bestssss) and were right in doing. You'll feel proud because you know that had it been anyone else they would of bet the house, kids, wife and farm and they would of lost it all...

Furthermore I will explain a lot of the terminology that I use (as I have done) and break dow n odds (as I have done as well) with the hopes that if anyone is or does start following than maybe you can learn something too. You might even drop me a thank you note of sorts if this information helps you make any money at all. No person should be playing poker at a high stakes of mid-stake level if you don't feel comfortable writing a book for others to learn from (FSB guys, if you are reading this, this is my book... :-D, Chapter 1); I hope to one day play at those stakes...consistently. Lastly, when you teach you learn. Have you ever asked yourself how it is that you chem professor seems to have memorized the atomic weights of every single element? The answer - because he has been teaching the damn subject for over 7 years and he can't help but learn the in's and out's; I too hope to learn the in's and out's of poker in this manner. This blog will track my progress as I learn more and mature as a poker player.

Lastly, I've decided to issue myself a challenge and this will be my way of tracking said challenge. There is a certain online poker player by the name Boku87 who is attempting to turn $5 into $100,000 in a years time. While I realize the amount of grinding (work put into playing hours) to accomplish this feat is not one I am willing to put in (school, work, social life aka spend time with the Mrs. are too important to me atm) I do feel I need to start somewhere, by grinding it out for six months I hope to obtain a bank roll of $2000.00 when starting out with only $5. It may not seem like much but I hope to engrave the principles of Bank Roll Management and variance (more on this later) deep within my brain so I never forget them, and for this I will be a better poker player.

For those of you that are wondering, I lost the Main Event with KK vs AQos, which isn't as bad as the previous beat being that the guy was a 3-7 underdog this time (30% of the time he will hit the ace) so unfortunately I am still broke...for now...