SuperNova Elite Chase

Bahamas in the Books

2012-02-12T12:13:00.000-08:00

It ended up being a very successful trip poker-wise. I had one of my best 60K hand stretches in terms of big bets won and have run at 2.25 big bets/100 over my last 100K hands or so. I'm definitely running above average but I think a lot of the work and changes I put into my game are paying off as well. In terms of money won it wasn't my greatest month but that was mostly due to running poorly at high limits for a week. I'm not in any way disappointed with the results though. I actually went through one of my worst stretches ever in terms of money lost, losing over 40 thousand. Amazingly, over that same stretch I broke even in terms of big bets.

I feel like I played my A+ game for about the first week and a half and maybe my C+ game for the rest of the trip. The drop off in my level of play coincided with playing much longer sessions for the purpose of earning VPPs and maintaining SNE status. Almost all the sessions early in the year were very focused short sessions where I was motivated to play. This is the major drawback to going for SNE but the obvious benefit is ~80% rakeback. I'm still struggling to determine which of those things outweighs the other. For now the plan is to continue the SNE pursuit. As it stands I'm at about 130K VPPs, ahead of pace and have met the monthly minimum for January and February.

It's back to the US tomorrow, we are visiting my family in Florida for a couple days and then heading back to California. I'm planning on doing a lot of work on my game when I get home. Mostly I'll be reviewing long sessions and analyzing hands where I think I've made mistakes along with taking notes on regulars. HEM is great for this. And of course, I'll be playing a lot pool while I can.

I also have my yearly Vegas trip with best friends planned for early March and then it's off to Costa Rica for three months. We have a great apartment on the water in Jaco so I'm really looking forward to that.

Good luck to everyone playing.

Grinding in the Bahamas

2012-01-15T15:02:00.000-08:00

As expected I didn't do well in the main event, busting out after about 5 hours. I played one big pot where I lost 2/3 of my stack with aces against a set. After discussing the hand with several people, I'm quite sure I should of only lost about 30-50% of my stack. No regrets though, aside from that I think I played well and didn't run particularly well. I didn't play any of the other side events or cash games while I was there. I played a decent amount of blackjack though and ran pretty well which helped offset the outrageous costs at Atlantis.

The trip itself has been a lot of fun, I had a few poker playing friends that we spent most of our time with. We ended up renting a cabana one day, jet skied, clubbed, and ate a bunch of restaurants. I didn't do a whole lot of playing online but that's about to change. We left Atlantis today and moved into a condo next to the ocean and will be here for about eight days before moving to another condo. The plan is start playing 8 hours a day, six days a week, for the next three to four weeks. I feel motivated to play right now and am really looking forward to getting back in the swing of things. I'm planning on devoting an hour a day to reviewing sessions and studying hands as well. This is something I was doing in the US and I found it extremely beneficial. Somehow I need to squeeze some exercise into these days and there's no gym here so I'll probably be jogging along the road or beach in our neighborhood. I'm not a big runner, I normally use elliptical machines, so it should be interesting.

I should have another update towards the end of the month. Good luck at the tables.

Getting Ready and Focused for 2012

2012-01-03T14:27:00.000-08:00

I haven't done a whole lot of playing so far this year mostly due to being unmotivated. The sessions I have played have lacked focus and have been far from my best unfortunately. The high limit games have been pretty dead, at least the times I've been on so the majority of my play has come at 15-30. I'm hoping the games pick up towards the end of the month. I'm intending on playing the majority of my hands this month during the last couple weeks.

I started doing cardio again yesterday and have been eating a lot healthier than normal. I'm hoping to continue the healthy trend and regain my focus and concentration at the tables. I'm confident it's only a matter of time.

I'm planning on taking a much less results oriented approach this year and as a consequence won't be posting too many graphs of my results. I also intend on looking at my results tab in HEM as little as possible. I'm sure I'll have a decent idea of how I'm doing by my account balance but the idea is to give as little attention as possible to results and give all my attention to making the best decisions at the tables. It's not going to be easy, nevertheless it's one of my primary goals this year.

In other news I turned down an offer to write for a magazine. I actually initially accepted it and changed my mind after realizing the amount of time it would involve. I hate doing anything halfheartedly and the amount of time it would of taken to produce quality articles wasn't worth the amount of money I'd receive in return. Also, educating the poker public and my opponents has an attached cost as well. Though it would be nice to say I write for a magazine, I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs.

I'm sure most reading this know about the change in rake methodology implemented by Poker Stars this year. It's going to negatively impact most regulars and some quite severely. It's the biggest news in the online poker world right now and the players are doing everything in their power to negotiate something better. Personally, I'm not sure how it will affect me but I don't think it will hurt me nearly as bad as most players, if at all. So far this year I've played 1400 hands and have actually earned 5% more FPPs/VPPs than I would of under the old rake structure. It's hard to say whether this is an aberration or the norm but it's probably safe to say it won't have too big of an impact on me.

If anyone's wondering how I fared with Jose Parica, I fought pretty hard the first day and was even after about five hours of play. I lost the longest game of 1 pocket I've ever played, a 2.5 hour game in which I was ahead six to negative one and from there lost the last 3 games, losing 4 games on the day. The second day I played some of the worst pool I've played in over a year and Jose beat me 8 or 9 games. Jose is a really, really difficult opponent to play. He's exceptionally deliberate, to put it bluntly, he's slow. I played the two longest games of one pocket in my life against him, the 2.5 hour game and a 2 hour and 15 minute game. I found myself losing patience and interest at points so that's an area I need to work on later this year when I start playing again.

At the moment I'm in Cozumel, a view from our room is below. We're heading to the PCA in 3 days. I'm playing day 1B of the main event on Sunday. I have the lowest expectations I've ever had going into a major tournament, mostly because I've put no time into my NL game. I'll report back Sunday but I don't anticipate good news. Either way, I'm happy to be in warm weather and have a nice view of the ocean.

Vancouver Review

2011-12-11T18:29:00.000-08:00

After running insanely well for the entire trip, I finally got a dose of negative variance today. At one point I was down almost 25K which would have been my worst day ever but I managed to win back more than half of it. Overall, I had one losing day, today, and never experienced more than a 170 big bet down swing over 14K+ hands. A pretty amazing run playing almost exclusively 5-6 handed at high limits.

Overall the trip was a huge success, I ran way above expectation. I played exceptionally well the first week but my game and focus seemed to fade the longer I was here. Part of it may have been running bad but I didn't have the same motivation and focus the last three or four days I was here. I took a much more targeted approach the whole trip though. Instead of 4-5 tabling for 8-10 hours a day, I game-selected mostly at 30-60 and higher. Often I was 2-3 tabling and as a result was able to really hone in on what my opponents were doing and adjust. It's made me wonder whether this would be a better approach for next year instead of going for SNE and subjecting myself to endless hours of grinding at lower limits. We'll see how the games are when I get back on in January, that will likely determine the path I choose.

It's back to California tomorrow. I have a couple of one pocket matches scheduled with Jose Parica this week. I played him earlier this year for two days, about eight hours each day, and ended up down 7 games total. It's was a very competitive match at times and I played really well. I'm out of stroke at the moment but plan on doing a lot of practicing in the next couple days to get ready. It'll probably be my last opportunity to play pool for quite a while.

I don't mention pool too much in this blog but it's the only activity I enjoy more than poker. If only there was some money in the sport.

After California, it's off to Boston for Christmas and then Cancun for New Years and Jamena's birthday. After Cancun, it's off to the Bahamas for the PCA and then Costa Rica to play poker for at least three months. It's going to be a really busy first half of the year for me, hopefully I can continue improving and have another solid year at the tables.

Happy Holidays everyone.

Sweet Start in Vancouver

2011-12-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

I came here with fairly low expectations, in fact I would have been thrilled if you told me ahead of time I'd make 20K in the two weeks I was here. Fortunately, I'm already far ahead of that. I'm running so well that I played some 5-10 and 10-20 NL trying to make the Stars Leaderboard and promptly stacked someone at 10-20 catching a gutshot on the river to crack a slow-played set. I don't know if I ended up making the leaderboard, I'll find out at 5 PM tomorrow. Going into the last hour I had 3900 VPPs and 4000 VPPs was the bottom spot which pays $500. I ended up with ~4450 so it's going to be close. $500 may not seem like it's worth chasing but that's 5 big bets at 50-100 which is approximately what I average over the course of 2.5 hours playing a single table of 50-100 so it is significant. These are exactly the types of things I look to take advantage of to reduce variance and improve my bottom line.

As expected, I was pretty rusty after my three month layoff. It was by far the longest stretch I've gone without online poker in the last eight years. In fact, I don't think I ever missed three days in a row over the course of those eight years. I started playing two tables and I felt dizzy trying to keep up with action which was amazing to me at the time. But after a half hour or so I felt fine. This is one of those times I felt like I needed to run well and thankfully I have. I did a lot of studying the week before I came here and made some significant changes to my preflop game, I'd like to think it's paying off. Overall I think I've played pretty well. My gauge as to how well I'm playing is how many medium to big sized pots I think I'm winning with the worst hand and there have been several in the last two days. Maybe I'm getting lucky running into the bottom of people's ranges, regardless I'm happy with my play.

Hopefully I haven't put the hex on myself with this post. Ten days to go, the goal as always is to make the best possible decision, each and every decision.

I should mention I only had half of my action playing 200-400 so the results aren't quite as spectacular, nonetheless it's one of, if not the, best four day stretches I've had.

Good luck to everyone playing this month and Happy Holidays.

What have I been up to?

2011-11-11T13:29:00.000-08:00

Good question. I've been playing a fair amount of live poker at Bay101 and the Oaks card club which is about 15-20 minutes away from me. I didn't realize until last week that the Oaks spreads a 30-60 game. So instead of driving an hour to Bay101 to play the 40-80 game, I can drive twenty minutes and play 30-60. The skill level of the two games is pretty similar, so it's hard to say what's more profitable. Driving the extra 90 minutes to be able to play stakes 33% higher or having that extra 90 minutes to play along with saving some gas money to play lower. It's pretty close.

My results so far have been disappointing. I'm on about a seven session live losing streak over the last month or so. It terms of hands it's probably 2,000 hands which is literally one half of one day of playing online for me but it feels a whole lot worse than that since it's been spread out over several weeks. Live poker is brutal in that regard, I feel like I can play through losing streaks online, with live poker that could take months.

I have been playing some tournaments at the Oaks as well, trying to get sharper for the PCA. I final tabled the first tournament I played. Well came 10th out of about 75, but final tabling it sounds better. The rest of the tournaments I've played, I haven't cashed. I'm heading to Vegas on Monday to play some of the Venetian deep stacked tournaments.

Aside from that, I'm heading to Canada after Thanksgiving for about two weeks. I'm planning on grinding as much as possible while I'm there and trying to get back into the swing of things. I'm sure I'll be very rusty at first so I intend on restricting most of my play to lower limits until I'm confident I'm playing well.

I'll be heading to Boston for Christmas, Mexico for New Years, the Bahamas for the PCA and then likely Costa Rica for 3 months to play online next year. I just contacted Poker Refugees to help with the move to CR. We're hoping to get a nice place on the ocean with reliable internet. It doesn't sound like CR has any problems with online poker players being in their country so that's nice. The only potential issue is opening a bank account there which I've heard is a hassle. Ideally, I'd like to keep the Canadian accounts and continue withdrawing there but it's still a little unclear whether Poker Stars will allow that.

Good luck at the tables everyone.

Relaxing

2011-09-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a whole lot since I got back other than play pool and relax. I did make it up to Bay101, a card room near me, the last two weekends. They regularly run limit games up to 80-160. I played the 80-160 game last night for the first time and surprisingly most of the players were decent. I'd equate the game to about a 15-30 full ring game online. I say surprised because the 40-80 games I've played in have an amazingly low skill level. In many ways they are tougher to play because the players are much less predictable and have wider ranges. There are a lot of multiway pots where several players can have almost any two cards which makes the decision making very difficult. It's hard to say which game is more profitable, I'd guess the 80-160 is slightly more profitable but comes with a whole lot more variance. I'm planning on heading up there every couple of weeks to play.

I haven't done any studying on my game yet but I have a whole list of things I want to look at and that's something I intend to start doing in the next couple weeks. There's a NL tournament in Reno next month I might go play. I'll be playing the PCA in January and would like to get some more NL tournament experience in before that.

I do miss online poker already and am looking forward to playing next year. It's possible I may even make a trip up to Canada before the end of the year to put in a week or two at the tables. I am worried about getting rusty and I don't think live poker is going to help much due to the low volume of hands.

Not much else to say. Good luck at the tables.

SNE Hat-Trick/Canada Recap

2011-09-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

I made it for the third year in a row. 720k VPPs in 3.5 months. I'm certain I'll never play that much poker again in that short of a time ever again. It was grueling to say to the least.

Overall the Canada trip was a huge success. I far exceeded my expectations coming up here. I knew I could make SNE but I didn't know how difficult it would be. I didn't expect to do nearly as well money-wise mostly because I didn't think I'd be able to get in much volume at 15-30 and higher particularly after the first two weeks when there were very games running. Overall I think I ran about average, maybe slightly below average. I hit a 100K hand break-even stretch in terms of money and big bets. That seems to be about a once every year or two occurrence. Given the amount of hands I was playing, I think I played pretty well. At times great, at other times not so great. The only negative was running so badly at 100-200 but it always got my full attention and best game so no regrets. I also ran way above average at 100-200 early in the year and have run exceptionally well at 50-100 for over a year now.

It's back to the US tomorrow morning. And although I don't even want to think about poker right now I"m sure I'll be doing a lot of work on my game when I'm home. I'll likely be playing some live poker from time to time as well. I just registered for the PCA in January and I'm hoping to be able to stay in the Bahamas for a month or so and play online during that time. It's not really clear with PokerStars whether that's feasible yet. I'm also still worried about using the banks up here. I haven't had any problems yet with TD or BMO but I have a significant amount of money coming into the accounts over the next week so my fingers are crossed.

Thank you to everyone that supported me both here and at the tables. There were at least a dozen regulars in my games over the last few days that wished me luck and said a lot of nice things. It was completely unexpected and I really appreciate it.

Here's what the last 3.5 months looked like. After I send nearly half my money to our state and federal governments, pay a bunch of bills, and make some investments, I should have a few bucks to spend on myself.

August Recap

2011-08-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

This was by far my toughest month mentally. I can't count the number of days I felt completely unmotivated. Too often I was just going through the motions trying to get my VPPs for the day. I hit about a 100K hand breakeven stretch dating back to last month that made things even more difficult. In total I put in 321 hours at the tables or just over 10 hours a day. Imagine the mental wear and tear of walking twenty miles a day, every day, for three and half months and that's likely similar to what it feels like 4-6 table poker 10+ hours a day for 3.5 months. On the bright side I'm up to 967K VPPs, only have five more days of this, and don't ever intend on doing it again. I'm hoping next year to travel to some different tournaments, using my FPPs to buy-in, and staying at the different locales for 3-4 weeks at a time while playing a more normal schedule.

I did finally break out of my extended slump, winning about 700 big bets over the last 15K hands or so. It didn't translate into a great deal of money because most of it came at lower limits. The higher limit games have been incredibly dead over the last week. In fact, I've noticed at the end of every month I've been here the games have died down. I'm not sure why but there were a lot of high limit games towards the middle of every month. In any event, it's nice to run good and string together consecutive winning days.

Good luck to everyone in September.

Oh Variance

2011-08-23T00:46:00.001-07:00

Don't ever underestimate the amount of variance in poker. And further don't underestimate the affect variance can have on your game and mental attitude. If you asked me four weeks ago how I was playing, I might have told you as good or better than anyone in the world. Ask me now and I'm not sure I'm playing better than at least twenty-five of the regulars in my games.

The only thing that's changed is that I've gone through a 400 BB downswing, a 300 BB downswing, and a few 100-200 BB downswings all in the span of 70K hands. There is a serious negative mental impact this has, I start questioning a lot of the things I'm doing and my mind starts playing tricks on me. For example, it becomes a lot more difficult to make a thin river value bet on a scary river card when you've been raised the last nine out of ten times in that situation. I've read that the human brain is conditioned to believe an outcome is likely after it's seen it happen two or three times. This is an evolutionary trait and obviously has a lot of value in the real world, just not when you're playing poker. At that point, you have different parts of the brain conflicting with each other about what the best decision is and when making split decisions for hours at a time, it's easy to choose the wrong one. It's a subtle form of tilt I suppose.

That's just one of many examples.

I've said it before and I'll say it again (and will probably keep saying it), what separates the good players from the great players is being able to maintain your composure and play your A game even when nothing is going right. I think I do a good job of it compared to most but I have a whole lot of room for improvement as well.

I've got about two weeks to go and am up to 915K VPPs or so. I need to get more focused at the tables and bring my A game. I'm not leaving Canada with any regrets about the way I played. I've been really burnt out and unfocused this month. In a strange way this losing streak has been helpful. It's jolted me awake and reminded me that I do actually have to give 100% effort and think through all of my decisions.

Down the Stretch

2011-08-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

I'm up to 873K VPPs. I pushed back my return date to the US to Sept. 6th to give me a little breathing room and still have enough time to make my cousin's wedding in South Dakota on the 10th. I still need to average about 6100 VPPs a day to make it. It's been incredibly challenging, I'm completely burnt out and sick of poker. I've been totally unmotivated this month and often just going through the motions at the table to get hands in. My win rate is probably spot on for the level I'm playing at. All in all, it's just been a frustrating month because I hate playing when I'm not on top of my game. Only three weeks to go thankfully. And for anyone thinking of doing something similar, don't do it. Don't even think about doing it. ~750 VPPs in 3.5 months playing limit borders on insanity.

On the banking front, I found a convenient way to get money back to the US cheaply. I was able to open an account with Canadian Forex. I'm now able to make a bill payment from my TD Canada trust account to CF and have it wired to my US account in about 4 days. The fee is somewhere around 1% which beats any of the banks.

Good luck to everyone at the tables. I'm really looking forward to playing no poker for three months, I never thought I'd say it.

July in the Books

2011-07-31T22:11:00.000-07:00

It ended up being another great month despite running pretty poorly over the last week or so. I've run so well since I've been in Canada, I almost forgot what it's like to run bad. I'm on about a 40K hand breakeven stretch right now. No complaints though, I continue to run exceptionally well at 50-100.

I'm shooting for September 3rd as our return date to the US. I've fallen further behind the pace I set for myself and need to average about 6700 VPPs a day to make SNE by the 3rd. I've been waking up later than usual the past few weeks and by about 7 PM, the games have been completely dead sometimes with nothing running above 3-6. So I'm planning on adjusting my schedule to wake up by 7 AM to make sure I get my hands in.

HSBC ended up closing all of my accounts. This after telling them exactly what the accounts would be used for at account opening and the approximate amount of money that would come through the account and be wired to the US. I also paid them about $3700 in fees. I really hate banks, they're no better than the criminals who rob them with a mask a gun. The banks just hide behind the mask of a corporation and find creative ways to steal people's money and homes.

So I went to TD Canada Trust and opened two more accounts explaining exactly what I'd be doing. The rep opening the accounts asked a bunch of questions, talked to her manager for several minutes, and said it wouldn't be a problem. Time will tell.

Good luck to everyone in August.

July Update

2011-07-15T21:44:00.000-07:00

I've cooled off quite a bit this month and have run pretty poorly over the last week or so. I've been really fortunate that most of it has been confined to lower limits. The games still are spotty, some days great and others really slow. I've been lacking motivation lately and slacking if it could be called that. I'm up to 693K VPPs but have fallen behind the pace I set and now need to average about 6400 per day the rest of the time I'm here. It's going to be tough, I'm really tired of playing but I'll have to find the motivation somewhere.

In other news, I received a call from an HSBC rep yesterday. It was more like an interrogation with her firing off a barrage of questions about where my money was coming from, what I was doing in Canada, what my job was, etc. etc. It felt a lot like a time early in my life when I was caught with a fake ID in a casino and interrogated by two state police officers. Every other question was a previous question rephrased with words being put into my mouth. The call ended with her saying she'd get back to me. She called again later that night and only asked two questions, "Whose name is the account in that you're wiring to to the US?" and "Why are you wiring through us and paying fees instead of withdrawing directly through MoneyBookers to your US account?" I answered both truthfully and I haven't heard back since. I was expecting a call today saying they closed my account. If I make it past Monday without a call, I'm assuming I'm good otherwise I'll have to start using a different account.

Good luck to everyone in the rest of July.

June in the Record Books

2011-06-30T16:54:00.000-07:00

It was an amazing month both in terms of money won and hands played. I shattered both of my previous records. I played a total of 325 hours or about ten hours a day. There were a lot of times where I didn't feel like playing and was way off my game but I mostly played lower limits during those times. The high limit games have really died down the last week or so. The first half of the month, there were several going every day and the last 7 or 10 days, it's been very slow. I'm hoping this is due to the main event. We'll see in a couple weeks.

I'm up to about 605K VPPs and need to average about 6250 a day for the rest of my time here to make SNE. I've been shooting for 7K a day since family will be visiting us up here and I won't be able to play as much during those days. Also it's possible I get sick or something unexpected comes up so it'd be nice to have a cushion going down the homestretch. I'm planning on leaving at the beginning of September and am really looking forward to taking a few months off and relaxing. I do intend on doing a lot of studying and work with HEM. I haven't been able to do that at all with all the hands I'm playing but I've been making a list of things I want to look it.

Good luck at the tables to everyone in July.

Fast Start to June

2011-06-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a great month so far. I'm on pace for about a 130K month with bonuses which would be my best ever. Still a ways to go so hopefully I haven't jinxed myself. I have played a ton of hands, about 51K to this point. To put that in perspective, that's more than two hands per every minute of the month. I've run extremely well at 30-60 at 50-100 and have run at least a big bet above expectation for my last 50K hands at 50-100 so I feel very fortunate there.

The games continue to be sporadic, sometimes it's like pre-black Friday and other days there are very few games running. One minute I can be playing 6 tables of 5-10 and 10-20 and the next playing 5 tables of 30-60 and 50-100.

On the VPP front, I'm up to 505K and need to average about 6400 a day to make SNE by September 1st. It's going to be tough.

May in the Books

2011-05-31T21:06:00.000-07:00

Poker hasn't felt like as much of a job for me in a long time. It feels similar to when I used to host on UB and was forced to work four hour shifts every other day. The difference now is I'm working two five hour shifts every day in hopes of making SNE by the time I leave Canada in early Sept. My days have consisted of waking up at about 6:30, putting a pot of coffee on, and playing till about Noon. I've been doing cardio and eating lunch to break my day and then playing another 4-6 hours, usually finishing up around 6 or 7. I have actually gotten out of the apartment quite a few times at night at least.

In spite of an abbreviated month, my results were decent. I played more hands in three weeks than I've ever played in a full month. There were a lot of sessions where I felt like I was just going through the motions, trying to reach my daily goal of VPPs, and playing on auto-pilot. My strategy always has been to take a break when I'm not focused, unfortunately I don't have that luxury anymore if I want to make SNE while I'm here.

I feel like I ran below average, though it's hard to say. I hit about a 30K downswing courtesy of 100-200 but recouped most of it in the next few sessions. I've been running way above average at 50-100 all year so no complaints.

There have been very few high limit games running since SCOOP ended and now with the World Series starting, it doesn't bode well for June. In any event, I'll be playing whatever games are available.

Here's to a profitable June

Info. on Relocating to Canada

2011-05-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

I've been receiving a number of emails and PMs with Canada questions so I figured putting it all in a thread is the best thing to do at this point. All of this information is subject to change at any time of course.

Traveling Over the Border

The most important point here is to make sure you tell the truth to the border patrol agent. I haven't read of a single instance of a poker player being denied entry after telling the truth about what they are doing. In my opinion, the only chance of a poker player being denied is lying about their intentions. You will be detained, at least everyone I read about has been, and questioned. The questioning took me about ten minutes but some people are saying an hour. It's also possible they'll search your car though they didn't search mine.

The BP's primary concerns are that you have enough money to support yourself and that you'll return to the US within six months. Based on my conversation with the BP agent, they consider poker players a higher risk of going broke and being stuck in Canada. And rightfully so. Bring a bank statement issued within the last three months. I was able to show an ATM receipt that I had saved from the day before so that will likely suffice as well.

If you have any kind of criminal record, including DUIs, there's a good chance they'll deny entry. More information on this is here

Changing your Country of Residence with Poker Stars

Poker Stars is requiring a copy of your passport or license to verify your identity, easy enough.

To verify your address they are requesting a copy of a utility bill. One option with this is to rent an apartment and ask the landlord if you can setup a utility in your name ahead of time. If they are willing to do this, you should have a bill waiting for you when you arrive in Canada. An alternative to this, and what PokerStars accepted from me is a copy of a voided check from a bank, signed and stamped by a manager with the following wording,

"Please accept this copy of a voided cheque as confirmation of the above client's banking account information for purposes of pre-authorized debit or credit"

It literally took eleven emails before Poker Stars security department agreed to accepting this.

The other thing you'll need is a landline, it took a day to get this setup through Shaw. PokerStars will call and ask every imaginable question and once they're satisfied you are who you say you are they'll forward it to their verifications team for final review. The final review has been taking up to two weeks. I was able to escalate it through the VIPClub at PokerStars and it took about a day. If you're a SN or SNE, I strongly recommend doing this. The turnaround time could change though, they were swamped when I applied for my country change.

Opening a Bank Account

Any US citizen can open a bank account in Canada with a license and passport. HSBC required a passport and credit card. At HSBC, I told them exactly what I was doing: that I was a professional poker player looking to wire large amounts of money in from poker sites and then to the US. The rep who opened the account said it wasn't a problem.

I opened two accounts and may open another one in the event one of them is closed for poker transactions. I don't anticipate they'll be problems but it's hard to say until a lot of players start receiving large wires.

Right now the best option for poker players looks like the HSBC premier account. There is a 100K minimum balance requirement but anyone can open the account and pay a $50 fee if the balance isn't maintained. The premier account allows you to open an account in any country where HSBC is present without physically being in the country and they don't require any additional documentation which is great if you're traveling around. They also allow you to link all of your accounts from different countries online and transfer money in different currencies with no fees. Even with a regular HSBC account, they allow you to do wire transfers online. They are the only Canadian bank I know of that allows this, the rest require you to be in the branch to do an outgoing wire.

That said there have been a couple reports from pre black Friday of poker players having their HSCB accounts closed.

Right now I have three withdrawal options available to me in Canada:

MoneyBookers withdrawal up to $15,800 CAD per day
Check up to $52,700 per day
Wire transfer with a *minimum* of 52,700

MoneyBookers is looking like the way to go when out of Canada and requesting checks or MoneyBookers withdrawals while you're here. A regular MB account only allows about 15K to be withdrawn every ninety days after verifying your bank account and address with them. They have a VIP account which allows unlimited withdrawals. In order to become VIP, they've told me you need to deposit at least 5K per month on a gaming site and it can't be a gaming site that you're withdrawing from. So, I opened a new account on Party Poker (Party instructed me to do this) and have started depositing 1K a day to try to hit the 5K limit.

The plan at this point is to upgrade my HSBC account to a premier and get a VIP MB account. With that I do my withdrawals to MB, then to HSBC, then to a US account with minimal fees. I will likely open a US HSBC account when I get back to the US so I can transfer online without doing wires (and paying fees) to other US banks.

Plan B: When back in the US, if I'm not able to get a premier account or VIP MB account for some reason, is to wire the money from PokerStars to a Canadian checking account and then write checks to myself and deposit in my US account. I'm not sure how a $52,700 wire is going to go over with a Canadian bank so I"m hoping it doesn't come to this.

That's about all I can think of right now. I may update/change this as more information becomes available as I'm sure a lot of this will be obsolete in a few months.

Good luck to anyone relocating.

Canada: Week 1

2011-05-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

Week one is in the books. I set a goal to play 6500 VPPs a day and fell just short earning about 41,000 . I ended up winning about 14K with bonuses/milestone credits and am very happy with that especially considering I'm down 2 big bets after 22K hands.

I was very rusty the first couple days, making a lot of mistakes. I also started out 6 tabling which was a big mistake. The pace was way too fast and I kept losing track of the action. I've cut down to 4-5 tables now and sometimes 6 when I'm thinking clearly. It's a ton of poker in terms of time, it's taking me about 9 hours a day of playing to hit 6500 VPPs. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up the pace but I'm going to try.

The games themselves have been sporadic. Sometimes they'll be four or five tables going at 30-60+ and other times they'll be several hours with nothing running. Lobby watching has become even more valuable with the higher limits games since they run less frequently now and fill up so quick. In terms of skill, the games seem about the same. It's generally five regulars with one recreational player, with the occasional table with two recreational players. The lower limit games (5-10 and 10-20) run most of the day but there are even periods where those are dead. I've struggled at the lower limits, partly because I don't pay as much attention to them, partly because I'm not familiar with the players, and partly because many of the players are so difficult to read. I have a lot easier time understanding the regs at higher limits and feel like I'm able to exploit them better.

I haven't made any withdrawals yet and that's my main concern right now. It's still unclear how the Canadian banks will feel about US players receiving money from poker sites. More on that to follow..

Here's what the month has looked like so far:

Back in Business...almost

2011-05-10T12:47:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Vancouver on Friday and were detained by border patrol briefly. I immediately told them the truth about what I was doing and they had no problem at all with it. I asked if I was supposed to get a work visa and the agent said, no you're not taking a job away from a Canadian and you're not being funded by any Canadian entity.

Saturday we opened a bank account without issue and I forwarded basically all the proof possible that I was living in Canada to PokerStars and they wouldn't accept it. I went back to the bank, got an official stamp on a copy of a voided check (which they requested) and again they wouldn't accept it (no explanation given). So after maybe ten emails back and forth they agreed to accept a voided check, with an official bank stamp, with very specific wording. I went back to the bank Monday morning, got the document, and even had it addressed to PokerStars. The Financial Services Manager at the bank laughed when I said it was for PokerStars and said I should play on Party Poker, they're always sending him things in the mail.

So I sent the document to PokerStars and finally they accepted it. They called me at my landline here, asked a ton of questions, and said I was up for final review. Final review is taking anywhere from two hours to two weeks or even longer. I was able to get in touch with one of the VIP hosts who works with SNEs and he forwarded my case the head of security and said this generally results in being approved in less than twenty-four hours.

So, that's where I'm at right now. I've been working out and eating healthy, trying to get myself in the best mental shape possible for the grind. I'm planning on being here about four months and would like to make SNE in that time. As of today, I'd have to average earning about 6000 VPPs a day to do this. I'm really not sure if I'll be able to do it but I'm going to try. Over the last year and a half, I haven't really maximized my time in terms of tables when I've been on. If there were only 2 or 3 games going above 15-30, I'd either take a break or just play those tables instead of opening all the 15-30, 10-20, and 5-10 tables I could. So the plan is to always have at least 6 tables going, likely a couple of lower limit tables that I'm paying little attention to and devoting the majority of my attention to the higher limit games. The games seem to be running from early in the morning, maybe 5 or 6 AM PST to about 5 PM. I intend to wake up early, play for four hours, eat lunch, workout, and play for another four hours.

I'm trying to figure out the cheapest way to convert money as well since I'll be receiving funds in Canadian and later converting to US. I haven't been able to find a bank that does it cheaper than 2.3%. My accountant said the fees are deductible so that knocks about 35% off the 2.3% but I'm sure there are better ways of doing it.

I should have another update in the next week or so.

Update Coming

2011-04-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of relocating and hope to have an update in about two weeks. If anyone has relocation questions, feel free to email me - I've done tons and tons of research on it.

Mid/High Stakes Multitabling Tips

2011-04-07T23:40:00.001-07:00

Most of this post applies to the mid/high stakes games where there are generally few games running and the games that do run are predicated around a recreational player.

Some of this may sound trivial but I always try to look at things in terms of big bets or dollars. Most people spend a lot of time working on their actual game but overlook things like this. To me this is no different than learning a new profitable line or plugging a leak in your preflop game. They both will increase earn over time.

Here are a few tips:

-Make sure the lobby is clearly visible while you're playing.

It's extremely important at mid/high stakes to get into a new game quickly. Most of the time a recreational player sits and the table fills within a minute, sometimes a matter of a few seconds. And within a few minutes the waiting list is often several players deep. Some of these players lose at a clip of 5 BB/100 or more and to miss out on the table, particularly when other games aren't running, is costly.

In my setup I have a sliver of the PokerStars main screen showing on my monitor. It shows just enough of the screen that I can see the tables and # of players at each. I have this placed on my main monitor to the right of the tables I'm playing so I can easily see it without having to turn my head. I've made it a habit to look over any time I have a break in the action.

-Click sit out next big blind when a player the game is built around often leaves the game after only playing an orbit or two.

Pretty self explanatory. When a recreational player leaves the table in the mid/high stakes games, everyone instantly clicks sit out next big blind. It's an unfortunate reality but to avoid being the one who pays their big blind, you're forced to follow suit. I've found players that table hop constantly playing an orbit or two and with these types its important to anticipate them sitting out when seated immediately after them.

-Always check to see who's on the waiting list after you before refusing a table.

Sometimes you'll be offered a seat at a table where the recreational player has left and all good players are sitting out. Before refusing the seat, check to see who is on the waiting list after you. Sometimes a recreational player is waiting and often one of the good players will leave assuming the game has broken, the recreational player will sit, and the game resumes.

-If at capacity in terms of tables and a table becomes available that you don't want to sit at, immediately get back on the waiting list.

Pretty self-explanatory again but in the mid/high stakes environment there generally are a limited amount of games and the ones that do run can break at any moment. So it's important to always be on the waiting lists of all full tables no matter how many you're playing at.

-Do not use the auto-seat option.

Poker Stars did an update a few months back and this was auto-checked for everyone so it would automatically seat you at a table. Sometimes more than one seat will open at a table and there's always more value in having a choice where to sit. You can uncheck this under Options/Advanced Multi-Tabling Options

-Always check to see how much money the recreational players have at your tables before refusing to join another table that you've been waiting on.

Sometimes the recreational player the game's built upon will be shortstacked. If this is the case, it's best to accept the new table and sit out in case the player busts and the game breaks.

-Get on the waiting lists of tables fifteen to thirty minutes before you intend to start playing.

Part of my morning routine involves getting on the waiting lists of games soon after I wake up. Rather than sitting idly waiting to get in game, I can make coffee, read emails, etc. while I'm on the waiting list.

March in the Books

2011-03-31T21:38:00.001-07:00

March was a great month, one of my best ever in fact. I ran exceptionally well particularly at 50-100. I've been really fortunate all year not to run into any extended downswings, hopefully it continues that way for a while. I think I played pretty well this month, I wouldn't say great but maybe my B game on average.

Looking forward to April I have a 5 day pool tournament at the end of the month. And looking even further to May and June, we're heading to Vegas for the WSOP. Even though the WSOP is such a grind and chances are I won't make a final table, I still really look forward to it. The atmosphere is something I love.

One the VPP front, I'm about 6 or 7 days behind right now. I was 10 days behind and am hoping to continue making up ground and be at least on pace by the time the World Series starts since I'll be missing a lot of time that month.

I'm planning on doing at least one strategy post in April as well.

Good luck to everyone at the tables.

February in the Books

2011-02-28T18:55:00.001-08:00

February was an unusual month, about 20K hands or halfway through I was even in money terms and down about 100 big bets. From there I went on one of those meteoric upswings where I won roughly 600 big bets and 60K in 10K hands.

I think I played a lot better this month. I was sick for about 4 or 5 days and playing my C game. Aside from that it was mostly my B game or better so I'm happy with that. I spent a lot of time taking notes on regulars and semi-regulars and focusing on areas where I think they're exploitable. At this point, I think my default game with no adjustments is probably a break-even to .5 BB/100 winner and the rest of my profit is coming from those adjustments.

I really haven't been in a blogging mood, hence the lack of updates. That could change but the days of multiple strategy posts in a month are probably gone with so much of my competition aware of this blog. I might write a book at some point but probably not till I'm done playing which I don't foresee anytime soon.

Looking forward to March I have my annual Vegas trip with my best friends I grew up with. It's something I look forward to all year and is a great time. I need to continue to be focused and motivated at the tables and that's the plan.

Good luck in March to everyone reading.

January in the Books

2011-01-31T21:37:00.000-08:00

I didn't play very well this month. The .6 BB/100 is likely indicative of my play as I think I ran about average on the month. I was very fortunate to run well at 100-200 or it wouldn't have been nearly as good of a month. I had been running really poorly in the 1-2 games so things are evening out I suppose.

I made a few strategic changes for 2011. I decided I'm going to play a lot of marginal heads up and 3-handed games that I was passing up the last two years. There are a bunch of heads up and short-handed players I feel I have 1-2 BB/100 edge on that I was passing up. This is already paying off. The other big change is that I'm planning on playing any 100-200 games that are running. I have a friend willing to go halves with me in the games and about half the hands I played this month we're shared. This will probably be the norm for a while until I build up a comfortable bankroll to play them on my own.

On the VPP front I managed to earn about 75K VPPs despite missing ten days while playing the PCA. So I'm about 4 days behind there and plan on playing as much as possible in February. I need to step up my game this month, I've been distracted and unfocused way too often lately.

Sizing up Games

2011-01-20T15:49:00.001-08:00

Something I started doing late last year was to create a spreadsheet with the names of the regulars and non-regulars in my games. The first column I have is a rating between 1 and 10 of what I think each players approximate skill level is. This allows me to quickly look at a table, add up my ratings and arrive at a number that tells me the skill level of a table. This is particularly useful when I'm playing 4 or 5 tables and have the choice of joining more tables. 4 or 5 is my capacity so I can quickly make a decision whether to stay in a game or drop the one I'm in and start a new one. Although I know most of the regulars in my games, there are a lot of semi-regular players where I recognize the names but can't remember how they play. You're probably thinking, why not look them up on PTR, wouldn't that be easier? One reason I don't do that is that it's against PokerStars T&C's to have PTR open while their client's open. The second reason is that PTR often doesn't tell the whole story. Players play NL and Limit which can skew win rates. Also, players play heads up and short-handed which skew win rates. It usually takes me about a hundred hands to get a very good idea of someone's skill level and I feel more confident in my assessment than looking at PTR.

In addition to my rating column, I have a long column with all of my notes. Specifically, areas where I think my opponent can be exploited. To give you an example of some of the things I look for:

- High fold big blind to steal%
- Low or High 3-bet %
- Preflop positions where my opponent is overagressive
- Whether my opponent checks back flops or not
- How showdown bound is my opponent - how bluffable is he
- High or low flop and turn check raise %'s

All of these things allow me to make adjustments against my opponents. For example, if somebody is checking back a lot of flops (by a lot I mean 10% or more), I'll adjust by 3-betting from the big blind preflop and capping when out of position and having been 3-bet.

A nice benefit of having everything in a spreadsheet is that I'm able to look at a table before I start playing and formulate a game plan in my head with regard to how I'll play against the table in general as well as the specific players. So for example, let's say there's a seat open with a player that has a low 3-bet% to the left of the seat and then a player with a high fold BB to steal % one or two seats after him. I'll make a mental note before sitting that I need to expand my stealing ranges. I find it a lot easier to do all this before I start playing rather than starting 4 tables at once and doing it on the fly.

In nearly all sports, the competitors know who they're up against and formulate a game plan prior to competing that seeks to exploit their opponent's weaknesses and maximize their strengths. Poker shouldn't be any different.

Bahamas Update

2011-01-15T22:00:00.001-08:00

It's been a rough trip gambling/poker wise. I ended up losing about 20K at the blackjack tables and didn't cash in five tournaments. In addition to the main event I played a 1K, a 1500, and two of the nightly turbos. In both the turbos, I tripled my starting stack early and then lost big races. The turbos are pretty crazy with the blinds escalating every fifteen minutes and people getting it in with all sorts of hands. In the 1K I had about 25K late in day 1 from a 10K starting stack and then lost a big all-in with AK vs. AQ. 2 hands later I raised AK from early position got called by two players and got it in on a KT5 all hearts flop. One of the players had flopped a flush - I was about 30 big blinds deep to start the end so it was unavoidable. I played the 1500 today and had my chips up to about 20K from the 12k starting stack and then was back down to about 13K when I ran nines on the button into the big blinds Aces.

I'm planning on working on my tournament game this year. I think I've made a lot of improvement over the last year but there's a whole lot of room for more. I'm going to devote Sunday days to tournaments from now on and start 5 or 6 them around midday and really focus on them. The problem I've always had with online tournaments is that I'm usually playing 3-4 limit games and giving all my attention to the cash games. Consequently, my results have suffered but more importantly I'm not learning anything because I'm paying so little attention. I think the best way for me to approach it is to not even look at the lobby for limit games so I can resist the temptation to jump into the games. It's going to cost me some money short-term since my earn is nowhere near the same in tournaments but I really want to improve and hopefully it pays off at some point in the future.

Online poker wise, I've managed to play about 10k hands so far this month and basically picked up right where I left off last month, running very well:

My next post will be strategy related - how I size up games and what I look for in table dynamics, hopefully within the next week or so.

Out of the PCA Main Event

2011-01-08T22:47:00.001-08:00

Nothing too eventful to write about. I busted out with about 20 minutes left in Day 1. We started with 30K and I lost two medium/big pots on the river during levels 2 and 3 and was down to about 15K. From there I got back up to about 35K during level 6. I started the last level of the day with about 28K and blinds at 600-1200. I was moved to a really tough table, where I was 3-bet every time I opened - I opened 5 times over the course of about an hour and 40 minutes. I 4-bet all-in twice. The first with KQs and got instacalled with KQ and chopped. The second was with AT and got called by Kings. I don't think people we're 3-betting me light with the exception of the KQ hand, I just kept running into hands. That's poker.

I'm planning on playing a couple of the smaller buy-in events, probably the 1K NL's. I'll have some updates on those.

End of an Amazing Month

2010-12-30T14:15:00.000-08:00

This was my best online month to date. Words can't describe how well I ran. I hope it continues through the PCA main event. I won't be playing much poker the next couple weeks aside from tournaments but I'll have an update from the PCA.

Happy New Year everyone.

Back to Back SNE

2010-12-25T23:18:00.000-08:00

I made it with 6 days to spare:

I haven't decided if I'll go for it again next year but most likely I will.

A couple people have asked me what SNE is. Basically you play a bazillion hands of poker in a year and PokerStars rewards you with a lot of cash and some major tournament entries. More details here: http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/supernova/elite/

Happy Holidays everyone. I'll have a few updates from the PCA.

December to Remember

2010-12-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

My incredible good luck continues. In the ~5.5 Million hands I've played in my poker career, nothing tops how well I've run the last five days. If I had a run like this during the World Series, I'd have won a minimum of 3 bracelets and been anointed poker's next great superstar. What a fickle game we play.

I seriously doubt I'll ever go on a run like this again particularly in such a short amount of time so it's well worth reveling in.

Amazing Positive Variance and why I'd Wouldnt Make it Playing Live

2010-12-19T23:54:00.000-08:00

The last two days have been pretty remarkable, the best two day stretch I can remember having:

My friend George plays live poker, 80-160 I believe and is likely the best player in the game. I was talking to him recently and he was telling me how bad he's been running and that he hadn't won a single session in a long time. Imagine the flip side of this, having the same variance but negative variance. I'm probably somewhere around a 1.25 big bets per hundred hands winner in the games I play. I've run at 12 BB/100 over 4000 hands so I'm running about 10.75 big bets above expectation. The flip side of this run would be run at about -9.5 BB/100 over 4000 hands. Now imagine you're playing live poker where I believe they average about 30 hands an hour. That means I could play for 133 hours, probably 3 or more weeks and be down 380 big bets or $76,000 if I was playing 100-200. And this all assumes I maintain my composure and play the same game that earns me 1.25 BB/100. I don't think I'd make it through the second week. Kudos to you George, I don't know how you do it.

A quick VPP update: I'm up to 986,500 VPPs, way ahead of pace. I'm leaving for Boston Wednesday morning and I'd guess I'll reach SNE by the end of the week. What a relief.

Happy Holidays to everyone and may you run as good as I've been running.

December Update

2010-12-14T23:40:00.000-08:00

I've been playing tons of poker this month - 28,000 hands after 14 days to be exact. It's amazing that I had to average 2,000 hands a day last year to make SuperNovaElite. I really don't know how I did it. I'm exhausted and feel like the only thing I've done for two weeks is sit at my computer playing. Last year I had to do this every single day of the year. Thank god for the changes to Stars VPP structure this year or I don't think there's any way I could make SNE again. So I've gone from being on pace to start the month to about 6 days ahead of pace. I'm at about 970K VPPs as of this post and hope to make SNE within the next 10 days.

I realize I haven't done any strategy posts in a long time, hopefully I have time for one in the next month or so. There really isn't much more to write about that I already haven't written at some point but some topics are worth revisiting. Also my friend Ryan has an excellent blog here: http://ryanwold.com/ and he's already written some good strategy posts.

December has been a pretty strange month money wise. I took off winning 25K after my first week or so and at the beginning of last week I went on about a 20K downswing before recovering some today. I feel like I've run really poorly this week and I'm happy to be where I am. I don't feel like I'm playing my A game, mainly because I'm mentally exhausted but maybe my B+ game. I'm really looking forward to making SNE and relaxing. I need at least a few days where I play very little poker and recharge.

Here's what the month has looked like:

November in the Books

2010-11-30T21:32:00.000-08:00

I'm happy with how the month turned out all things considered. I got really sick after my last blog update. I couldn't play any poker for about four and a half days and went from being a few days ahead of SNE pace to a few days behind. Today was actually the first day since then I've felt 100%. I got sick on Sunday the 14th so for 15 days or so I had various ailments. There were quite a few days where I was playing with a fever and sweat dripping down my face.

I ended the month almost exactly on SNE pace - I'm at 916K Vpps at the moment. I'm heading to Boston for about 6 days for Christmas. Then it's back to San Francisco for a couple days, off to Miami for 3 days, Puerto Rico for another 4 days, and then the PCA in the Bahamas for 10 days. So I really need to play a lot of poker the next couple weeks to make sure I'm ahead of pace before all my traveling. I've been multitabling more of the lower limits to earn VPPs faster and I imagine I'll be doing a lot of that in the next couple weeks.

I'm pretty excited about playing the PCA this year. I feel really good about my tournament game. I've been watching a lot of videos and thinking about my game. My NL game itself is not great but I feel like my tournament game and grasp of the concepts needed to be a winning tournament player is at an all-time high. It's 95% luck in any given tournament of course but I'm still looking forward to it either way.

Here's what November looked like:

November Update

2010-11-13T23:15:00.000-08:00

Things seem to have returned to "normal" at least for the time being. With the exception of one 150 big bet downswing at 50-100 in the span of about 400 hands, it's been a relatively tame month. I think I'm running fairly well and playing well.

The games just seem to get tougher and tougher. When I think back to almost two years ago when I started playing on PokerStars, the games were much, much softer. The player pool of good regulars was probably half of what it is now, and there were many more fish. I used to open a 15-30 and 30-60 table for heads up games and I rarely had any competition. Now there are days where 5 or 6 guys are doing the same thing as me, opening tables, and trying to get in as many hands as possible heads up before someone sits. When I started it wasn't uncommon for me to play heads up against players for extended periods of time. Now I'm lucky to get 3 hands in before someone sits. And in some instances the entire table fills with regulars before I finish the first hand.

I'm hoping the trend of improved play and less fish doesn't continue much longer or I'll give serious consideration to splitting my bankroll across several different sites. SuperNovaElite is great and works out to almost 80% rakeback but another six months of this trend and I'm not sure the rakeback would compensate for the increased earn I could find at other sites. For now though I'm still on Stars. And on the subject of SNE, I'm now 1 day ahead of pace at about 872K VPPs.

This is what the month has looked like so far:

October in the Books

2010-10-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

I made a nice comeback over the last week. I'm not going to say the downswing's over though, I learned my lesson when I mistakenly said that earlier this month. I feel like I'm playing really well right now and that's what I want to continue to focus on. One benefit of running poorly is that I play tons and tons of hands so I was able to close the SNE gap to less than a day. I'd like to be 3 or 4 days ahead by the end of November and since I don't have anything planned, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I wanted to link an article Royston left in the comments a few days ago. A lot of it rings true and it's well written, definitely worth a read if you're a poker player:

http://www.thepokerchronicles.com/archives/000947.html

Here's what October looked like and here's to a profitable November for anyone reading this:

Fighting Through My Worst Downswing Ever

2010-10-29T02:13:00.000-07:00

This probably won't be my most well worded post, I'm mentally exhausted right now but felt like writing which is rare.

This month has probably been my toughest month as a poker player to date. In my last blog update, I wrote about being down 35K and close to 550 big bets. I had recovered to being down 200 big bets and actually was close to even money wise on the month when things really turned again. I dropped about 15K and another 150 big bets in the following couple days. And then it seemed like every day after that, I’d be down about 50-100 big bets, fight back to even, and call it a day.

After about a week of this and couple days where I wasn't able to fight back to even, I was down almost 500 big bets through 45,000 hands on the month. It really started to take its toll on me mentally. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, all I can think about is the fact that I can’t win seemingly no matter what I do. Yesterday I went out to play pool after booking another 100 big bet, 5K losing session and I couldn’t focus or make a ball. I just kept thinking about the money I was down and that I had to win it back. I quit my game, cancelled all future games, and decided to take an extended break from pool. I played several hours of poker when I got home from pool, won back what I had lost earlier in the day and quit about even. This has been the trend nearly every day this week.

I woke up this morning thinking about poker. I had sent a message to a friend the night before about a hand he had a question about. When I sent the response I was exhausted so when I awoke in the morning, my first thoughts were I probably gave the wrong answer. I jumped out of bed, raced down to my computer, reread my response and sure enough, I hadn’t even read the starting hands correctly. What an idiot I am I thought to myself. Is my brain gone, have I lost my mind? Is that what happens after you turn 35? I ran back upstairs and hopped on the elliptical machine, thinking I have to work out. I have to clear my mind somehow, someway.

After working out, I jumped into the games and played for about 3 hours. I was up about 3500 at one point, then lost it all back and decided to take a break. I took my dogs for a long walk that was more about me getting fresh air than it was about the dogs. I came back, played another 3 hours. Down 5K and another 100 big bets. I’m now down over 500 big bets on the month and am wondering if this will ever end. I feel like I’m playing well, I think my mind is working correctly but the results keep telling me otherwise. I decide to relax and watch a football game I have money on. I’ve got Florida State -3 and Over 58. I’m behind 28-24 with 30 seconds left and my team has the ball at the 4 yard line, 2^nd and goal. Great, all I need is a touchdown and I win both bets. They call a timeout, draw up a play. The quarter back drops back, has a receiver wide open in the end zone. As he’s about to throw the ball, his own running back hits him and knocks the ball loose. The other team recovers. Game over. That’s fitting I think, time to play some more poker.

I play another 3 hours, drop another 5K and another 100 big bets. I’m now down over 600 big bets, including 200 on the day (one of worst days ever) and am absolutely beside myself. I sit out at all my tables, walk outside, look up at the sky and just think this can’t possibly be happening. I have this delusional thought that there’s some remote possibility somebody has tapped into my wireless internet so I switch to my Verizon card. I close all my 50-100 tables and decide I’m done with that limit until I can start start winning at lower limits. I resolve to play my absolute best no matter what. I play another 600 hands, maybe 2 hours and win back the 10K I’m down on the day and about 160 big bets. Again I’m about even on the day and call it quits.

So that’s where I’m at. In one respect I’ve been very fortunate this month in that I’ve run well at 50-100 all month long. So even though I’m still down a bazillion big bets, it could be much, much worse in terms of money. At this point I just need to focus on playing my best. I know I’m running bad. I think I’m playing well. It should only be a matter of time before things turn around.

As much as I love poker and gambling, man it can be a hard profession to be in when everything goes wrong. I’ve got no choice but to fight through it.

The End of a Vicious Downswing

2010-10-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

I powered through what was my worst downswing in recent memory and possibly my worst ever. I was down about 550 big bets and 35K at one point. I've actually been lucky to run well at 50-100 all month or it could have been worse money wise.

I'm still down a couple hundred big bets and a few thousand on the month but I feel a whole lot better. I get pretty stressed out when I run that bad and my natural reaction is to play, play, and play some more. I'm now within 4 days of SNE pace and have no intention of slowing down for the rest of the month.

Poker is a crazy, crazy game. I've read that 99/100 fail at becoming professional poker players and I wouldn't doubt that it's an even higher failure rate. It's incredibly difficult to maintain composure during these types of streaks - to not tilt, not play higher limits, drop down limits if necessary, and maintain your best game. All it would have taken was for me to decide to play 100-200 or 200-400 after I was down 350 big bets to try to recoup my losses and I'd have busted my account.

I've got my fingers crossed I continue to run well. As I always say, the cards have no memory so anything's possible.

Slow Start to October

2010-10-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

I'm down about 12K after 16K+ hands this month. I jumped in a couple 100-200 games early in the month on my own and ran terribly. Every time I've ever moved up in limits in my poker career, I've run bad for an extended period and 100-200 has been no different. Aside from that, I think I've actually run ok this month and have just played poorly. I had a -14K day on Saturday where I folded to a 3-bet preflop twice, posted out of turn 4 times, and totally lacked focus. That reawakened me to the fact the game actually requires attention and thought. You'd think a couple thousand would have engendered that startling realization. Nope.

Hands wise I've done pretty well this month. I cut my 8.5 day SNE deficit to just under 7 days, I'm hoping to continue that pace for the rest of the month and be within 4 days by months end.

September in the Books

2010-09-30T22:23:00.000-07:00

I ran very well this month and it ended up being one of my better months of the year. I also was lucky enough to cash in the 5K WCOOP main event for about 10K - this was one of the tournaments Poker Stars put me in from being SuperNova Elite. It also ended a streak of about twenty consecutive Stars tournaments where I hadn't cashed.

In other news, I'm now partnering with a friend (and blog reader) in the 100-200 games on Stars. So essentially what this means is I now have the option of playing another 50-100 table whenever a good 1-2 game is going since I have half the action. This should translate into more money making opportunities and more profit. I'm hoping the more I play the games, the more comfortable I'll be with the swings even though I'm only absorbing half, and ultimately play the games on my own.

On the VPP front, I'm still about 8.5 days behind. I multitabled more 10-20 this month to keep up pace and that's the plan for the next few months. There will likely be some days in October where I 6-8 table those games for several hours and earn 2-3 days worth of VPPS.

September Update

2010-09-14T23:22:00.000-07:00

I've run fairly well so far in September, up about 300 big bets and 18K through half the month. I missed about three days of playing from attending my brother's wedding and have been playing a ton of hands since I got back to make up for it. I'm now about 10 days behind SNE pace and look to narrow the gap by the end of the month. I don't have anything major planned until Christmas so hopefully I can get a lot of hands in between now and then.

On a personal note, I either bruised or cracked a rib playing kickball of all things. I haven't been to the doctor yet but the way it's still hurting I'm pretty sure I cracked it. If you're wondering how I broke a rib playing kickball, I tried stealing home with a head first dive and it ended up being a rib first dive. Oh and I'm getting old, that too. If a broken rib wasn't enough, they disallowed my steal because the pitcher allegedly had the ball before I left third. I wasn't in any condition to argue as I jogged back to third grimacing.

Here's what September has looked like so far:

Farewell August and CardRunners

2010-08-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

August didn't end too well, I broke about even over the last two weeks or so. I feel like I'm playing the worst poker I've played in a long time. I can't keep my concentration and feel really burnt out. Unfortunately I can't afford to take a break and fall any further behind SNE pace so I'll have to play through it. As of today, I'm about 8 days behind.

I quit my instructor position at CardRunners. It was a difficult decision that I've been wavering back and forth on for quite some time but ultimately decided it's too much time invested for too little return. I also didn't like the idea of giving my opponents information and several of them informed me they were watching.

Heading to a pool tournament this weekend and then off to Boston the following weekend for my brother's wedding. Other than that, I'll be playing a lot of poker and hopefully getting ahead of SNE pace by the end of the month. I need to get back on track mentally this month which will probably entail a lot more exercise/cardio.

Here's what August looked like:

Great Start to August

2010-08-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

I've run really well so far this month. I've done OK handswise but am hoping to play even more the last three weeks of the month. I have nothing planned until my brother's wedding at the beginning of September so looking forward to playing a lot between now and then.

Getting 3-Bet Out of Position

2010-08-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

Ok here are some of my thoughts on getting 3-bet when out of position in limit HE, specifically against aggressive 3-bettors.

The most important thing to keep in mind, as it is in any hand, is your opponent’s range. There are several things that you can do to identify their range in this spot (in no particular order):

Know what position you are raising from and what position they are 3-betting from. There’s a huge difference between being 3-bet by UTG+1 when you’ve raised from UTG and raising from the small blind and being 3-bet by the big blind. In the first case, your opponent might be raising with 10% of his hands and in the latter, he might be raising with 35%. The earlier the position you’ve raised from and the earlier the position you’ve been 3-bet from, the stronger your opponent’s range will be.

Use your opponent’s 3-betting stat to get an idea of their range. If you use HEM, you can mouse over the % they 3-bet and it will break down how often they 3-bet from each position. The 3-bet % by position accounts for how often they 3-bet in that position against all positions, not just the position you’re raising from so you want to adjust that number based on your position but it’s a good starting point. This stat is one you need a lot of data on and if you have less than 100 trials from that position HEM will list the exact number in parentheses next to the %. Similarly, the overall 3-bet % stat takes into account how often they are 3-betting from all positions so this can be misleading. I don’t know if UTG (where it’s impossible to 3-bet) is included in this stat but it wouldn’t surprise me.

The way I use the 3-bet% stat is by comparing it to my own 3-bet%. I know what HEM lists my 3-bet% as and the default ranges I 3-bet from each position against all other positions along with what % of my overall range these hands constitute. I actually have a text document with all this information that I refer to a lot. For example, if my overall 3B% is 20% and I get 3-bet by a player with a 25% 3B% I will take the range I’d normally 3-bet in his position against my position and add 5% more hands. This isn’t an exact science by any stretch, but it’s what I do.

Know your own opening range from each position and more importantly how your opponent views your opening range. Is your opponent a good regular that you’ve played thousands of hands with? If so, they probably use HEM or PT as well and know almost exactly what % of hands you’re raising from that position. Consequently, they probably have a very specific and easily identifiable 3-betting range against you. Or is your opponent an unknown who has been at the table for twenty hands and seen you raise ten out of those hands. In this case, your opponent could have a very wide 3-betting range incorrectly assuming you’re a maniac.

Know how your opening ranges stack up against typical competition in your games. Are you a lot looser preflop than most or more passive? Your opponent’s 3-betting % is based on 3-betting against all the players in your games. So, if you’re tighter than most, it’s likely they have a tighter 3-betting range than their stats would indicate.

And lastly, as I alluded to earlier is game flow. Have you been playing really tight this session or really aggressive. Players often open up their 3-betting ranges when you’ve been raising a lot of hands or tighten up when you’ve been playing tight. Something that helps a lot with this is looking at your own stats, HEM displays your session stats at each table and this is something I often look at to keep in mind what my opponent’s views of me might be during that session. Knowing your opponent helps here as well. Bad players are more likely to incorrectly assume you’re playing like a maniac or on tilt when you’ve raised several hands in a row. Good players don’t automatically assume this because they understand you could just be getting a lot of good hands.

Enough about hand ranges, so what to do with them?

The big debate preflop is whether you should be capping with some of your range or just calling your entire range. This seems to be pretty evenly split among good players but I’m on the side of flat calling your entire range.

There are a few benefits to calling our entire preflop raising range. One is that we’ve given no information back to our opponent about the strength of our hand. We still have our entire preflop raising range. And since almost all opponents will bet the flop, we always have the option of raising the flop and taking the lead back and winning the same amount of bets with our good hands. The important thing for me is that the less information my opponent has, the worse his postflop decisions will be. In other words, he will make more mistakes on average. There’s no getting around this unless you have a perfectly balanced capping range and I have no idea how you’d even go about this. The other benefit to just flatting is that we now have the option of raising the flop, where we’ve seen 3 more cards, or just calling or even folding. Since our opponent is nearly always betting, the flop is basically irrelevant in determining their first flop action but it’s very relevant to ours because we can use it to determine our best course of action.

That said I do see some benefits to capping, particularly if you’re not confident in your own postflop skills out of position. One obvious benefit is that if you do encounter one of those rare opponents that checks back flops after 3-betting, then you can lose value by not getting that extra small bet in preflop. If I encounter an opponent like this, I make a note, and I have a range of capping hands that I’ll use against them. The bigger benefit I see, is your decisions become a lot easier at that point. You’re always betting the flop, and you’re almost always betting the turn assuming they’ve just called your flop bet. As a result of this, you’ll win a lot of pots where you both don’t connect with the board where you otherwise might not have had you just called preflop and given up at some point. My counterargument to this, and this is where good postflop skills come into play, is that you almost always have the opportunity to take the lead back in the hand, either on the flop or the turn. You also have the added information of knowing the board. So, if you understand your opponent’s range well enough and how well it connects with different board textures, then you can still take back the lead and win those pots where you both don’t connect with the board. In fact, this way is even better because you’re not always getting punished the times your opponent has a big hand by always having the betting lead, you can selectively choose when to take the betting lead back.

Here’s an example of taking the lead back and picking up a pot where you both have nothing:

Let’s say you raise JTo from the cutoff and an aggressive button who isn’t very showdown bound and not very imaginative 3-bets you (there are a lot of these player types in my games). You’ve estimated the button would 3-bet about 23% of their hands against you in the cutoff – a rough range of their hands would be something like:

44+,A4s+,K9s+,QTs+,JTs,T9s,A6o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo

The flop is 3d 5s 6c

He bets and you call

The turn is the Ah

He bets and you raise

Your opponent will be hard pressed to call in this situation without a pair especially given that your raise is very credible considering you can have your entire preflop raising range going into the turn, at least all of your unpaired Ax hands. I plugged this into Flopzilla and our opponent in this hand has nothing ~40% of the time. By nothing, I mean no pair and no draw. So, you’re risking 2 big bets on the turn to win 5.75 big bets which means you’re getting ~2.9-1 on your raise and it only has to work ~26% of the time. This is a huge victory to get a fold here. Now of course there are some opponents that might call with KQ here (I’m one of them) but most do not.

One other related thought about this hand. A flop raise is also a very viable line with a hand like JT, QJ, KQ, etc. What this raise can do particularly on this type of board texture is “buy” you outs. Let’s say your opponent has AK, AQ, or any other unpaired high card hand. Now if a 4 or 7, and possibly even a 2 in addition to your overcard outs comes, you can often win the hand.

So those are just a couple examples from one hand to give you an idea of ways you can take the lead back and win pots unimproved. What’s great is that if you’re confident you can find enough of these spots, then you minimize losses with your weak SD bound hands like your ace high or bottom pairs because you’ll just be check/calling for the most part instead of capping, leading the flop and turn and getting raised by the top of his range. And you're still able to get value out of your own strong hands because your opponent will nearly always be betting the flop and you have the option of checkraising

The best advice I can give if you’re unsure of what to do in a 3-bet pot out of position is to plug your hand into PokerStove along with your opponent’s hand range to get an idea of your equity. By looking at your equity you can get a good idea of the strength of your hand compared to his range and it will help to make better postflop decisions. This is something I do all the time. I often do it immediately after a hand I played where I was unsure of what the best play was. As a quick aside, there was a hand I played today where I raised UTG with 66 and got 3-bet by the button. The flop was JJT with two diamonds and I wasn't sure whether I had enough equity to call. I called. The turn was the 9d and again I wasn't sure if I had enough equity to call, I chose to fold. So I immediately looked it up and found that I probably should have folded the flop and definitely the turn. Additionally, you can use Flopzilla and plug in your opponent’s hand range along with the board texture to get an idea of how well their range is connecting with the board.

Ok those are some of my thoughts, I have a lot more but this could go on forever. Feel free to ask questions.

July in the Books/ HR2267

2010-08-01T02:01:00.000-07:00

July ended up being my second worst month of the year after June. I feel pretty good to end up winning 20K or so considering where I was halfway through the month. I'm looking forward to playing a lot of hands in August and hopefully I can run and play better.

I'm sure most of the people reading this have heard that HR2267 was passed in the US House Financial Committee. From what I've read and understand, this was the first step to legalizing and regulating online gambling including poker (a few things like sports betting are excluded). From the 41-22 vote and the sounds of things, there's a decent chance this gets passed in the house and senate and signed into law by next year but no guarantee. If it's signed the way it's currently written, it will be up to the states whether they want to opt-in. All indications are that California will be opting out which unfortunately means we'll have to move. If you're in an opt out state, it will be impossible to play on a legal, licensed site. Poker Stars and Full Tilt are confident they will be licensed in the US which is great if you're in an opt-in state. From what I read (and someone can correct me if this is wrong), people will be able to play as the are today in the opt-out states with two big differences. They can't play on a licensed site and if they play on an unlicensed site, there's a 50% tax imposed on deposits (ouch!)

I'll certainly be following the bill closely along with what states are likely to opt-in.

Back on Track

2010-07-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

Things actually got a lot worse before getting better. I think I dropped another 10k or so and was down to 35K in my account which was the least I have had in over in a year. It was scary because another 10k or so lost and I would have had to give serious consideration to dropping the 30-60 games. I hit 500k vpps this month and earned two 4K bonuses which helped keep me afloat. Things finally did turn about five days ago and I'm on about a 500 big bet, 28k upswing.

It's amazing what running good does to my game. My game and reads are much sharper. Although some part of that is likely my perception, I'm nearly positive I'm playing better than I was last week. The right plays suddenly seem much more apparent and have been almost automatic at times. It's unfortunate in a way, it's a subtle form of tilt to know I'm not playing my A game when I'm running bad. This was especially true because the more I lost, the more meaningful lost money became to me, and the harder it was to play my best. It's tough not to be results oriented and this is something I constantly struggle with.

I mentioned in my last post that I need to make sure I don't put myself in the position of having to drop down limits because of mismanaging money. This became even more apparent when I started playing worse because the money was becoming more meaningful. This is one of the main reasons I've refrained from taking shots at nosebleed limits even when properly bankrolled and profitable games are running. It's not only the possible lost money at those limits but it's the after affect on my game that can be doubly detrimental and ultimately even more costly. Ideally, I'd like to always play stakes where the money means next to nothing and allows me to always play my best game regardless of how much I'm winning or losing.

On the VPP front, I've gained a lot of ground in the last week. I'm up to 528K VPPs which I think puts me about 2 weeks behind pace. I don't anticipate any problems making SNE again this year.

As my wife reminded me today, I haven't made any strategy posts for a while. If anybody has a specific topic they want me to write about, please email me or comment and I"ll do my best. If not, I'm sure I can come up with something.

Tough Times/Dropping Down in Limits

2010-07-20T02:28:00.000-07:00

It's been a really tough 2 month stretch for me. After running so good for so many months I almost forgot what's it like to run bad for an extended period of time. It seems like every 15-25 big bet pot I'm involved in, I'm either coolered or rivered. What's scary is it can get worse, the cards have no memory. In dollar terms it doesn't look so bad:

But last month I had my worst month of the year with WSOP tournaments costing me about 30K. On top of that, tons of expenses. And truthfully, I'm the worst money manager in the world. I live like the Sultan of Brunei and between my wife and I we easily spend 10K a month on non essential things. And if that weren't enough over 40% of my money goes to the IRS

And so I'm left with no choice but to drop down in limits and will be sparingly, if at all, playing the 50-100 games until I'm able to build back up. Those who follow my blog probably know I did this twice last year as well. I only hope I'm as lucky as last to year to be able to build back up quickly. This year it's a little more painful. According to PTR I'm the biggest winner online in the 50-100 games and at least temporarily I can't play them:

My current Poker Stars bankroll sits at 46K and I'd like at least 60K to play in the 50 games. With 50K, I feel fine 1 and 2 tabling the games so if I'm able to get back above 50K, I'll probably selectively play them.

The bottom line is that I need to learn how to manage my money better. The losing streaks are inevitable but not planning ahead for them is inexcusable and now results in a big opportunity cost.

July Update

2010-07-15T23:45:00.000-07:00

I've been back home from Vegas for about 4 days now and it's hard to describe how much better I feel. The heat/lack of humidity, no exercise, and 6 week tournament grind really did a number on me. I can only imagine how bad I would have felt if I was drinking and partying like a lot of players do. I never felt quite right when I was there and most of the online sessions I played, I felt like I was off my game. One of the first things I did when I got home is to watch the CardRunners video I had made while in Vegas and I was amazed that I made 3 math mistakes in the video in the span of 40 minutes. That's a good indicator I wasn't thinking clearly. I still don't feel like I'm playing my A game but I'm at least thinking clearer and it's only a matter of time. Wherever we end up staying next year, exercise equipment and humidifiers will be mandatory.

This month has been pretty rocky so far. I've spent most of it in the negative but have crept into positive land the past couple days. I played about 4000 hands the past two days and this will likely be the norm for at least the next month. I'm currently sitting at about 483K VPPs which I believe puts me about 2 1/2 weeks off SNE pace. It shouldn't be too hard to catch up and I'm hoping to by next month. My brother is getting married at the end of next month, that's the only major trip I have planned for a while.

This is what things have looked like since about the time I left for Vegas:

Out of the Main Event

2010-07-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

The day started out getting all-in with AK against Queens in about a 110K chip pot and losing. That dropped me to about 60K and from there I ran 66 into QQ on the button vs. a short stacked big blind, that took me down to about 35K. From there it was up and down and I briefly got back up to 60K when AK got me again. Button raised, I 3-bet to about 12K with AK and he called. Flop was 78T, I bet about 15K and he moved in. I folded and was down to about 20K. From there I got all-in with 88 against Aces and busted.

It was a tough series and a tough 6 weeks. I'm looking forward to getting back home and putting in a lot of hands online. I'm going to continue working on my NL game and taking lessons from Vanessa Selbst who by the way has over 320K chips in the ME as I'm writing this.

There's always next year...

Main Event Day 2

2010-07-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

I ended the day with 121,500 which is still above average. It was a pretty tough day in terms of starting hands, I wasn't dealt Aces, Queens, or Jacks all day - Kings once but I was pretty fortunate in the pots I played to either flop something or be able to win the pot because my opponent missed.

The only hand I played today where I was "coolered" was when I raised AQo from early position and got called by a good player in late position. The flop was A22, I bet about 1/2 pot and he called. The turn was a T and we both checked. The river was a 9 and I bet about 2/3 pot and he called with AK. I could have lost a lot more money in this hand so I was pretty happy to only lose 15K chips or so.

Aside from that, nothing really notable happened all day. I was playing tight because of being pretty card dead and having the three best players at the table seated to my immediate left including Hazif Kahn. I still did my share of stealing and was able to find a few spots preflop to reraise and squeeze with thrashy hands. One thing I couldn't do is find a way to get involved with the bad players. There were several of them seated before me and I was just itching to get in pots with them but the cards and situations never cooperated. Something I've learned about NL is that you want to look for every opportunity to get involved in pots with bad players. You can take the worst of it preflop particularly in position because they can and often do make huge mistakes postflop.

Day 3 on Monday. It only gets tougher from here. I'm going to spend a lot of time watching videos this weekend and working on my NL game.

Main Event Day 1

2010-07-08T00:22:00.000-07:00

Started the day with 30K and ended with 87K. It was a great start to the tournament. I had a very tough table as far as ME Day 1 tables go but I was really fortunate that one of the best players seated right after me was moved about 3 hours in and the two other best players busted including David Benefield.

I played pretty cautiously today and did a lot of trapping with big pairs which is how I got most of my chips. Basically I just flatted big hands in position and let people bluff their chips into me.

The only big pot I lost was early in the day when I raised JTs UTG and was called by two players. The flop was J85 rainbow, I bet and got one caller who was a good player. The turn was a Jack, I checked and my opponent bet pretty big and I called. The river was a 9 and my opponent bet big again and I called. He had 55 for a full house. This is a hand I would have lost a lot more chips in a few years back.

The biggest pot I won was towards the end with Kings. I raised UTG and was reraised by a very tight small blind. At the time, I thought there was a very good chance he had Aces so I just called. The flop was J8x and he bet very big which I called. The turn was a 5, he checked and I checked. The river was a King and I bet about half pot which he thought for a long time before calling with QQ.

Day 2 on Friday. May my good fortune continue...

Out of the $1500 Limit Shootout and a Merciful End to June

2010-07-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I've ever been more card dead in a tournament than this one. In the 5 hours I lasted, maybe 250 hands, I was dealt KK and AK exactly once each. I never was dealt TT, JJ, QQ, AA, AQ, or AJ. I was the tightest player at the table until we got about 4 handed and then I started picking up a lot marginal hands. I ran my chips up to about 7K when we were 3-handed and then got coolered twice with A9 vs AK on an Ace high flop and my bustout hand with A8 vs A5 on a A5x flop. I played as well as I possibly could. Even being shortstacked 3-handed I felt like I had a great chance to win my table, it wasn't meant to be though.

I'm happy to see June go. I believe it was my worst month as a professional gambler. I lost somewhere around 20K in WSOP tournaments and that's about what I won online so I basically broke even for the month. Online it was a really crazy month, I had 5 or 6 20K swings and up until a couple days ago I was actually down money. I think I played fairly well overall but ran really poorly. There were some times where I was tired from all the NL and it took me a while to refocus my mind on limit but I don't think that impacted the results too much.

Next up is the main event, my last shot this year. I'm looking forward to getting back home and putting in a lot of hands again. I've been playing a decent amount of cash NL as well and took a lesson from Vanessa Selbst a few days ago. I intend to continue learning NL and to start putting more and more time into that. My ultimate goal is to have my NL game on par with my limit game.

Here's what June looked like:

Out of the $1500 and $350 Venetian Deep Stack

2010-06-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

Not much to say about the $1500, I played about 10 pots early and won 1 of them - mostly calling late position raises with small pairs and suited connector type hands that I had to fold. I got all-in with a flush draw on a K33 board and the player happened to have A3s, I didn't improve.

I ran over to the Venetian and registered late for their $350 deepstack tournament. I ran my chips up to about 30K and then ran AQ into AK for about 12K chips. I had 18K with blinds at 400-800 and raised to 1950 with Aces. Player behind me moves in for 12k and the player after him moves in for 16K. I call, first player has KTc, second player has JJ. Flop is 236 with no clubs. Turn 2. River J. The very next hand I moved in for my remaining 2K with 88, got called by A4s and flop was AKK.

Not sure what I'm playing next, I'm pretty spent right now. There is a 1K tomorrow but I might take a few days off and play the 3K "Triple Chance" tournament which I think is next Wednesday. That one is 3K in chips to start but they give you two additional add ons by the end of the second level so effectively 9K chips to play with.

Out of the $2500 Mixed

2010-06-24T15:42:00.000-07:00

The structure in this one was awful. We started with 7500 in chips and the 1st limit round was 100-200 so we started with less to 40 big bets. To make matters worse, they doubled the blinds in the second limit level and the levels were only 30 minutes long.

I never got above my starting stack of 7500. Going into the 3rd limit level I had 3500 in chips. I played one hand where I had 3-bet a player with ATs, he turned a straight with A3 and that was that.

Next up $1500 NL tomorrow.

Out of the $1500 NL

2010-06-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

I ran my chips up to 20K right before the dinner break and had about 17K when we resumed. About third hand in I ran Queens into Aces with blinds at 200-400 against a 15K stack. I doubled up the next hand with A8s vs. QJs and then got all-in with TT vs AQ with about 4500 chips and busted when he turned an Ace.

I played well and for the fourth NL tournament in a row I went into the dinner break with a decent stack. I feel pretty good about my NL game right now although I still have a ton learn. On that subject I hired Vanessa Selbst as a NL tournament coach and have my first lesson Monday with her. I'm really looking forward to taking my game to another level.

Next up Mixed $2500 Limit/NL tomorrow.

Out on the Right Side of the Bubble

2010-06-21T17:04:00.001-07:00

I had about 19K to start the day and folded the first 9 hands. 10th hand I'm dealt A8o on the button and raise to 1500, small blind who hasn't played a hand cold-calls, and big blind who is short-stacked moves in for 6500. I reraise all-in and small blind folds. Big blind has 84s and rivers a flush - I'm down to about 10K.

I reraise the button all-in from the big blind with KQ0 and he shows an Ace and folds. Back to 12.5K.

Fast forward a couple orbits and I raise all-in with AJ from early position with 10K (Blinds are 400-800), get called by a shortstacked player with 99 and his nines hold up. Down to 5K.

An orbit later, I'm down to 4K and raise all-in with TT, get called by 55 and my Tens hold. I'm back up to about 10K.

I fold the next 10 hands or so and the bubble breaks.

First hand after the bubble breaks, player with 8800 in chips moves in from UTG, I move in for 8300 with QQ. He shows AJ. Flop T83. Turn A. River J.

And that was that.

On one hand I feel very lucky to have cashed, I came in 324th and they paid 324. When I was down to 4K in chips, I was probably a 2-1 dog to make the money. On the other hand, I easily could have had 30 or 40K in chips if my hands hold up.

Next up $1500 NL on Wednesday

1K NL Info

2010-06-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

It looks like there were 2559 to start Day 1A and we're down to 287 players. I'm tied for 122nd.

If anyone is interested in following tomorrow, you can do it here:

http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/chipcounts.asp?grid=764&tid=10857

They hand us numbered cards at the beginning of the day that we carry with us to all our tables and they're able to update chip counts that way.

1K NL Day 1

2010-06-19T23:51:00.000-07:00

What a crazy day. We started with 3K and I ended with 19K. I was up to 40K during level 6, probably the chip leader in the tournament and then literally didn't win a hand for 3 hours and got bluffed in a huge pot where I didn't trust my instincts - more on that. We started with 2000 or so and are down to about 280. There's a Day 1B tomorrow and then we all start back up on Monday and will be maybe 150 spots from the money. I believe average is about 24K and the blinds will either be 300-600 or 400-800 to start day 2 so I have plenty of chips in relation to the blinds.

The first 6 levels I ran incredibly well picking up tons of premium hands and busting player after player and chipping up to 40K or so. From there it was all downhill. The player sitting after me had about 30K chips at the time when average was somewhere around 12k so we were both huge stacks. I knew he was a very good player and could tell he wanted to get involved in every pot I was in.

It folded around to me in the small blind and I limped into his big blind with 99. I believe the blinds were 200-400 at the time. He raised to 1200 and I called. The flop was 345 rainbow, I checked, he bet about 1200 and I called. The turn was an 8, he bet about 1700 and I called. The river was a 4, I checked, he bet about 4k and I insta-called. He turned over 42 for rivered trips. Ouch.

From there I raised JT in the cutoff. Same big stack good player after me called and the big blind called, there was about 3K in the pot. Flop was J93 with two spades. Big blind checked, I bet 2K, player after me folded and the big blind min-raised to 4K. I didn't really know what to make of the min-raise, he had been playing pretty tight but it was a really drawy board and calling seemed right so that's what I did. Turn was the Ace of Hearts, he checked and I checked. River was a 9 so the board read J93A9 and he moved all-in for about 9K. I thought for about 3 minutes before finally folding. My thinking was that he would have raised more on the flop with a draw so even though his line was consistent with a busted draw, his betting wasn't. He showed J9 for a full house.

A few hands later a short-stacked small blind moved in for about 2500 chips and I called with KT. He turned over 28. Flop 28T and I didn't improve.

Fast forward to the last level, I have about 29K and blinds are at 300-600 with a 75 ante. I raise KJ to 1500 from the cutoff and the good player from the Ouch hand after me calls (he's called every one of my raises in the last 4 levels I believe). Flop is AK5 with two clubs. I check, he bets 1750 and I call. Turn is the 8 of clubs. I check, he bets 3250 and I call. River is a 5 so the board reads AK855 with 3 clubs. He bets 11500 into about a 15000 chip pot. I think and think and think. I really can't put him on anything other than a flush, full house, or bluff. I don't think he bets and Ace on the river because my hand really looks like AJ or AQ at the least. Eventually I fold. He shows 9 high.

That's the second time this year I've been in a big pot against a good player where I felt strongly the player was bluffing on the river and I was afraid to pull the trigger for most of my chips. I'm confident that if I get in the situation again, I'll trust my instincts and call. I won't always be right but I won't be sick that I didn't listen to my own instincts. I'm giving players too much credit especially ones that I know are capable of making big moves and chickening out when it comes to making a really big call.

Oh well, it's a learning experience and I felt like I grew a lot as a player after that hand. I'm in decent position heading into Day 2 and I certainly know how to play a short to medium sized stack, I've been doing it every tournament.

Another update on Monday, hopefully late at night...

Out in 54th

2010-06-18T00:15:00.001-07:00

Most of my day was spent much like yesterday, short-stacked, stealing blinds, and reraising people all-in. The few times I was all-in I had the best of it and my hands held up until my bustout hand. I had 120K with blinds at 4-8K and a player in mid position raised to 15K and I reraised all-in with Kings. He called with Nines and spiked a nine on the turn. I would have been over 250K and above average but that's poker. I played well and ran well today, I finally picked up some premium hands and doubled through a player early with Aces.

Next up will likely be the 1K on Saturday.

$1500 NL Day 1

2010-06-17T01:19:00.000-07:00

I started with 4500 and ended with 25200. We're down to about 260 players from 2400 and they pay 243. Average is about 37K and I'll have roughly 20 big blinds to start day 2. I have a great shot of making the money although I plan on being aggressive while we're on the bubble so anything's possible.

It was a very strange day. I don't feel like I ran well at all, I just kept stealing blinds and whenever my money went in I had the best of it and my hand held up. I wasn't dealt Aces or Kings all day and had AK only once. I did have Jacks and Queens several times which is where most of my chips came from. I was up to 12K by the end of Level 1 and then down to 3500 by the middle of level 2. For the next 4 levels I never had more than 5500 and going into the dinner break I had less than 15 big blinds. I briefly hit 40K during the last level and then lost 2 hands before we broke for the day.

I'll have an update tomorrow, hopefully not till late at night.

Out of the 10K Limit

2010-06-16T00:45:00.000-07:00

Not much to say other than I didn't win a single hand after the end of Level 2 and I lasted until about the middle of Level 5. At one point, I went over an hour doing nothing but folding. It was literally 3+ hours without winning a hand and I went from 36K to bust over that period.

The last hand I played I had 5K in chips and was in the big blind with T8s, blinds were 400-800. A very aggressive player who had been raising 40-50% of the hands that were folded to him, raised in mid position. The next player 3-bet (he had 3-bet him at least 6 times to that point). I 4-bet with T8s figuring my hand did pretty well against their ranges and I'd have a decent shot of tripling up or even winning the pot uncontested by the turn given how tight I'd been playing. Flop was J85 with one of my suit. I bet, second player raised, preflop 3-bettor folded and I reraised all-in and was up against 66. Turn was a 6 also bringing me a flush draw and I didn't improve on the river. It was a really frustrating and boring tournament. I had a great table, the easiest limit table of any event I had played but the cards handcuffed me.

There's a chance I'll play the $1500 NL tomorrow otherwise next up is the 1K NL on Saturday.

My Mental Attitude/Avoiding Tilt

2010-06-14T00:21:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I did any sort of strategy post so now is as good a time as any. I've done a few posts on emotional control/tilt in the past but it's worthy of another.

I've run into a bunch of people at the WSOP that I play online with and everyone seems to say and ask the same thing which is something like, "Wow, well it's good to see you're human. How to you stay so balanced and controlled when you play?"

The answer likely started a long time ago when I was a kid playing pool for money. People were always trying to shark me. They'd stand in front of the pocket I was shooting at, they'd drop their stick right as I was about to stroke the cueball, they'd pull money out of their pocket when I'd have a couple balls left to win the set. It went on and on, one guy even threw his pool case at me and threatened me saying I had to stop beating him. Every time somebody tried to shark me, I took what they were trying to do and turned it around on them. I said mentally to myself, "There's absolutely no fucking way on earth I'm missing this ball now"(pardon my English). I gave every single ounce of concentration, effort, and energy I could muster into making sure I didn't miss and it was very rare that I did. I didn't care if they were pointing a gun at my head, the only thing that mattered was that the ball went in the pocket.

I've adopted the same attitude with poker. People try to "shark" me at the poker table all the time. They harass me in the chat box, they hit and run me, they time bank down to 1 second with the nuts on the river, etc. etc.. All it does is motivate me to play better. Each and every time somebody does something, I mentally resolve to play to the best of my ability and to devote every ounce of concentration I have to the game.

Similarly with the cards themselves, I look at them as a test. I use the bad beats, the horrific runs of cards, being "owned" by somebody, etc. as motivation to play to the absolute best of my ability. The worse things get, the stronger my resolve gets to play my best and there isn't a chance in hell I'm breaking down and giving in.

Emotional control is the single most important trait for a poker player. It's what separates the good players from the great players. There are at least 25 players I can think of that all play within a fraction of a big bet of each other at limit holdem. Of those 25, there are only 2 or 3 that seem to have complete control of their emotions. Unsurprisingly they're the toughest to beat and the players with the best long term results.

Over the long run we all experience the incredible ups and downs. We all go through days where we lose 100+ big bets, stretches where we lose 3 or 4 hundred big bets, and where everything imaginable goes wrong. The overwhelming majority of players do not handle these stretches well and tilt. When you experience one of those unbelievable bad runs of cards, don't bemoan your luck and feel bad for yourself. Look at it as an opportunity. It's an opportunity to separate yourself from everyone else.

Back to Earth - June Update

2010-06-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

All year I've said how amazingly well I've run. Well that's officially over, I've hit my first significant stretch of bad cards. I had my first 300 big bet downswing of the year and had a session where I dropped 20K in about 450 hands. I maintained my composure extremely well during the 20K downswing and was able to recoup most of it fairly quickly - I was in a heads up 100-200 match with someone I had a pretty sizable edge on. After that though, it just seemed like every other big pot I played I got rivered. I almost forgot what it was like to have that happen because it had been so long. It took its toll on me and after about 5K hands of it,I think my game tailed off quite a bit. I regrouped a couple days ago, willing myself to play my best game, and I think I have played very well since although the results really haven't reflected it.

11K hands of break even poker and running terribly in the WSOP events has brought me back to the harsh reality of what poker can be. Sometimes I wonder how I ever made it through a 100K hand breakeven stretch last year. I knew it was coming eventually, I was just hoping it would be after the World Series.

Now more than ever I need to maintain my composure and focus and that's what I intend to do. It can change in a hurry, regardless of whether it does though, I need to focus on making the best decisions I can. And that's the plan.

No Dice in the $2500 LImit 6-Max

2010-06-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm getting tired of writing the same thing but I just ran really bad and busted in Level 4. I ran into big hand after big hand tonight and that's a recipe for disaster.

I found out about half way through that the player on my immediate left was Brian Aleska, a very good mid-high stakes player that makes videos on CR. On my immediate right was Heisenberg, also a very good mid-high stakes player that I play with a lot on Poker Stars. It was pretty cool to meet them and play with them in person but it also was likely the worst seat/table draw in the tournament.

I might play the 1K NL tomorrow otherwise next up is 10K Limit Championship on Tuesday. Hopefully I start running better, the 10K would be a great place to do it.

2nd CardRunner Video is Up

2010-06-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

That's all

Busto in 2K Limit

2010-06-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

I'll spare all the gory details except to say I was rivered 3 times and coolered twice. To put the exclamation point on it all, I got all in when I turned a flush with QJs on a T282 board while my opponent held pocket tens.

Next up: $2500 Limit 6-Max on Friday

Out of 6-handed $1500 NL

2010-06-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

I had 4200 chips late in level 3 and called a raise to 375 (blinds 75-150) out of the small blind with QTs from a very aggressive UTG player and and UTG+1 coldcaller, big blind calls as well.

Flop is T67 with two clubs. Big blind checks, UTG bets 750, UTG+1 folds, and I move in for about 3K more. He thinks for a while and calls with the 63 of clubs for a pair+flush draw.

He turns the flush and that was that.

Next up is the $2000 Limit on Wednesday and then a 6-handed $2500 Limit on Friday.

Looking forward to the next two limit events, hopefully the cards cooperate.

Out of the $1500 Limit

2010-06-05T00:34:00.000-07:00

I got off to a pretty good start in this one, I had my $4500 starting stack up to 9K by the middle of level 4. I had a very good table as expected. I really didn't run exceptionally well, I just picked my spots well and was connecting with a lot of flops and winning a lot of hands unimproved. I lost a couple small pots before the dinner break and going into the dinner break I had 8K which was above the average of maybe 5500.

After the dinner break it was all downhill and I lost all of my chips in about 5 hands:

First hand I reraised a very aggressive early position raiser with ATs from the button (blinds were 100-200, limits 200-400). He called. The flop was 753 with two clubs (I had diamonds). I bet, he check-raised, I called. Turn 7, he bet, I folded. That brought me down to about 7K.

Few hands later short-stacked player raises from the cutoff, I call in the big blind with A5. Flop is A64. He bets, I checkraise, he calls. Turn is a 7, I bet, he raises another 50 chips all-in, I call. He turns over A9. I don't improve on the river and I'm down to 5K.

Few hands later I raise KQs from early position, get called by both blinds. The flop is QT7 with two diamonds (I have spades). Blinds check, I bet, small blind checkraises, big blind folds, and I call. Turn is an offsuit 3, small blind bets, I raise, he 3-bets, I call. River is a 7, he bets, I call. He shows Q7s for a full house and I'm down to about 2500.

Few hands later same aggressive player, also player in the small blind last hand raises from early position. I 3-bet TT from the button, a loose/passive player calls from the big blind, the original raiser 4-bets (he had been doing this a lot in multiway pots), I 5-bet both players call. Flop is J87, both players check to me, I bet, they both call. Turn is a J, both players check again, I bet, big blind raises, aggressive player folds and I call. River is a meaningless 2. Big blind bets and I call, he shows QJ.

That brought me down to 200 chips or 1 big blind and from there I got it in with K6 vs. AJ and busted.

I played well, unfortunately didn't run well. The tournament was what I expected in terms of skill level, there just isn't a lot of play with the 1st level starting at 50-100 and 4500 in chips.

I'm going to keep at it. I feel good about how I'm playing, just need some luck.

I might play the 1K NL tomorrow which is a huge event and a crapshoot otherwise next tournament will probably be Monday, I believe it's a 2K NL but not positive.

Out of the $1500 (Again)

2010-06-02T22:22:00.000-07:00

I made it to the end of Level 7 and was up to 20K in a chips a couple times during the day from the 4500 starting stack.

I called an all-in from a short stack who had 9 big bets with KQ late in Level 7 and he unfortunately had QQ, That brought me down to about 15K when the following hand came up.

A very tight player who I hadn't seen raise a hand in over an hour raised from UTG to 1200 with about 8000 chips behind. I had KK on the button and decided to call with the intention of setting him all-in on most flops. The big blind who had me covered by a few hundred chips called as well. The flop was J76 with two hearts. The big blind checked, UTG bet 2400, I raised all-in. The big blind instantly called and UTG instantly called. Big blind had JJ for top set, UTG had 77 for middle set. I didn't improve and that was that.

I'm fairly sure no matter how I played preflop, all the money was getting in postflop since I don't think the big blind ever folds. I was actually surprised he didn't reraise preflop based on his play up to that point but he was probably afraid of the very tight player having a big hand.

As played I may have been able to just flat the flop bet from UTG and get away from my hand when both players moved in. In hindsight this seems like a decent play but I would have run the risk of letting both players draw at something.

I have no regrets though, I played well.

$1500 Limit (!) next up on Friday...

Out of the $1500

2010-05-31T14:11:00.000-07:00

The hand that seems to be following me came up 2 hands into level two. I had about 3200 in chips from the original 4500 and had been calling a lot in late position and then folding either the flop or turn unimproved. I think I had an image of loose passive up to that point so I felt like I had a good trap set when I decided to call a late position raise from the button with KK. The small blind folded and the big blind raised to 750, the original raiser thought for a while before calling, and I of course moved in. Big blind who has me covered moves in and original raiser thinks for a while before folding. Big blind has Aces, original raiser says he folded AK. I don't catch the case King and that's that.

This is the third time I've run Kings into Aces. I did it in the Main Event three years ago deep into day 2 , in the Mohegan main event this year, and now. It will be a nice feeling when I'm on the other side of this one and they hold up.

I was disappointed to learn that they start the blinds at 25-50 and jump to 50-100 right away. So, we actually started with less big blinds in $1500 despite having more chips (1K starts at 25-25) which doesn't make much sense to me. The second level is 100-200 so an average stack starting the second level probably has less than 50 big blinds. I assume the $1500 tournament has more levels towards the middle or end of the tournament or else it's structured poorly in comparison to the 1K.

Next up $1500 on Wednesday....

Out of the 1K

2010-05-29T16:32:00.000-07:00

Not too much exciting in this one. I had a great table as expected, I only recognized Tom McEvoy who busted pretty early when he ran Jacks into Aces. We started with 3000 chips or 120 big blinds so there wasn't a whole lot of room to manuever. I actually was dealt a fair amount of decent starting hands but it seemed like every time I had it I won a small pot and every time I didn't I got played back at.

The biggest pot I lost was when I isolated a limper one off the button with AJ to 200. The flop was AQ8x with two spades and I checked behind. The turn was a spade and he led out 200. I read his bet as weak, probably a flush draw or flush draw+pair and raised to 625 intending to check behind on the river, he called. The river was an offsuit King and he led out for 850 and I thought for a while before calling. I couldn't really put him on a hand besides JT or a bluff but as it turned out he had a slowplayed flush with 45s. I had been playing a lot of hands to that point and my opponent had been limping a lot and generally playing bad so I thought there was a good chance his river bet was a bluff. From there I was down to about 2K and nothing exciting happened until I raised all-in with AQ two off the button with 1600 chips - blinds were 75-150. The small blind woke up with AK and that was that.

Next up is the $1500 NL on Monday. We start with 4500 chips in that one so they'll be a little more play at least.

May Update/WSOP Thoughts

2010-05-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

I've pulled to within 6 days of SNE pace and have been playing a fair amount amount of hands. I think I was two weeks off of pace when I returned from Monte Carlo so I've done well hands wise but nowhere near the 2500 hands a day goal I had set for myself. Inevitably, things always seem to come up and I haven't been quite as driven as last year. For example, yesterday I spent 3+ hours unsuccessfully trying to will the Celtics to a victory instead of playing. It was worth it even though they didn't win.

As I have all year, I've continued to run well this month. It's really amazing because I'm not playing nearly as much heads up and 3-handed as I was last year. I don't even feel like I played very well this month particularly during the last week, nevertheless my results have been good:

I'm heading to Vegas in 2 days and my first tournament is on Saturday. I've been watching no-limit videos every night, both cash game and tournament videos. I've also been playing 2-3 tournaments a day online although that doesn't seem to help me much since I'm usually 3-4 tabling ring games and paying little attention to the tournament. The videos are a big help though and I plan on continuing to watch them throughout the next six weeks. I've also been reading Telling Lies and Getting Paid and Positively Fifth Street to psyche me up for the WSOP.

It will undoubtedly be a grind and a battle of attrition at times. I've set the following rules to help:

-Eat Healthy
-No Caffeine after 7 PM
-Exercise on days off
-Get as much rest as possible (not always easy to do between Day 1 and Day 2 of a tourney)
-Sanitize my hands several times a day (I've been sick during almost every extended stay in Vegas)
-Stay focused on making the best decision possible using all the information I have available, the rest is irrelevant

Next update after Day 1 of the 1K NL..

A Tournament Win

2010-05-22T02:53:00.001-07:00

I won a $50, 1522 player NL tournament tonight that paid about 13K. I believe it's the second online tournament I've won in all these years excluding satelites and my 2nd biggest online cash. I played well and ran better. I've been watching a lot of videos on CardRunners which has really helped my game. Hopefully this carries over into the World Series.

WSOP Schedule

2010-05-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe it's only another ten days until the start of the World Series. I'm heading out to Vegas next week for about 6 weeks and am planning on playing about 20 events. I'll be blogging with tournament updates throughout. Here's a list of events I'm planning on playing:

May 29th Event #3 $1,000 NL
May 31st Event #5 $1,500 NL
June 2nd Event #8 $1,500 NL
June 4th Event #12 $1,500 Limit
June 5th Event #13 $1,000 NL
June 7th Event #16 $1,500 NL 6-Handed
June 9th Event #18 $2,000 Limit
June 11th Event #23 $2,500 Limit 6-Handed
June 12th Event #24 $1,000 NL
June 15th Event #29 $10,000 Limit Championship
June 19th Event #36 $1,000 NL
June 21st Event #40 $2,500 Razz
June 23rd Event #42 $1,500 NL
June 24th Event #44 $2,500 Mixed Limit/NL
June 25th Event #45 $1,500 NL
June 26th Event #47 $1,000 NL
June 28th Event #49 $1,500 NL
June 30th Event #53 $1,500 Limit Shootout
July 2nd Event #56 $2,500 NL
July 5th Event #57 $10,000 NL Championship

Interesting Poker Article

2010-05-16T23:07:00.001-07:00

Article

Gettin my Grind On

2010-05-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

Finally back home and looking forward to playing full time again. I haven't played much the last three weeks or so and have fallen about 35K VPPs or 2 weeks off SNE pace. I'm planning on playing about 15 events during the World Series which starts at the end of the month so I'll probably lose 3-4 weeks there as well. So the next three weeks should be poker filled for me, I'm hoping to average about 2500 hands a day which should bring me within a few days of being on pace before heading to Vegas.

Been playing a fair amount of NL lately as well and watching a lot of videos. I feel like I'm getting better although my results haven't been too great, it's a very small sample though of a couple thousand hands. Not sure how much NL I'll be playing in the next couple weeks but hopefully 3 or 4 hundred hands a day in addition to my regular play.

Also planning on playing some of the SCOOP events that are coming up. There is a 5K limit event on Friday and several midstakes NL tournaments that I'll likely enter.

This is what May has looked like so far:

CardRunners Video Up

2010-05-04T05:27:00.001-07:00

That's it, just wanted to let everyone know my first video is up. Please make comments, suggestions on CR so I can improve future videos.

Out in 17th

2010-04-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

Nothing too noteworthy after the dinner break. I did a lot of folding and then moved in with Q9o with 6 or 7 big blinds and got called by KQ. I was pretty card dead for most of the day but that's the way it goes when you're playing 20 hands an hour.

I'm happy with my play overall and the experience will be valuable come WSOP time. I'll probably be playing 5 or 10 tournaments a week online when I get back home, maybe some SCOOP events to keep my NL game sharp.

Off to Italy on Saturday, looking forward to the R&R.

Day 2 Dinner Break

2010-04-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

Down to 18 and I'm fairly sure I'm in 18th with about 37K, blinds are now 2500-5K with 500 ante.

I have no idea how I'm still in this thing. I was down to 8800 in chips when the blinds were 1-2K and have fluctuated between 5 and 20 big blinds all day. I've survived 3 or 4 all-ins where we were flipping or I was a 60-40 favorite or 60-40 dog.

I'll need to double up a couple times to have a legitimate shot. It's certainly possible, players are making all kinds of mistakes.

This will be my last tournament of this trip and probably the last until the WSOP.

1K NL Day 1

2010-04-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

I ended the day with 36K, average is about 55K. 280 players started, we're down to 45 and they pay 24 places. 24th pays about 2500 Euro and 1st pays about 90K Euro. Blinds start at 600-1200 w/ 200 ante so I'll have about 30 big blinds to start.

The skill level was pretty poor overall. There were are a few really bad players and then a lot of average to good players. I don't have much of a frame of reference other than the Mohegan events I played which were loaded with strong players. It's possible I drew good tables today too but unlikely.

I wasn't involved in many interesting hands. I got the majority of my chips by getting it in preflop twice with AK against QQ and my AK winning both times. Other than that, it was mostly stealing and restealing. My high point was about 55K during the 2nd to last level. I was reraised a bunch of times in the last level and forced to fold which brought me down to 36K.

I feel pretty good about my chances if I can get some cards. 30 big blinds should allow me to patient and pick my spots. Another update to follow tomorrow, hopefully late in the day.

Out of the EPT Championship

2010-04-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

It just wasn't my day. I played two significant pots and lost both:

Level 2

Player in early position raises to 600, loosest/most aggressive player at the table reraises to 1700, good player thinks for a while and calls 1700 - at the time I thought it was very likely he had TT or JJ - folded around to me and I have AKs. I raise to 7K with about 20K behind. Initial raiser folds, reraiser moves all-in and cold caller folds. I came very close to calling but ultimately decided not to because I hadn't played many hands to that point and my preflop 4-bet had to look like a huge hand to him. He showed Aces and I was down to 20K.

Level 5

I've fluctuated between 10 and 20K since level 2 and am back up to about 18K. Blinds are 300-600 w/ 50 ante. Same aggressive player raises from early position to 1500, I reraise to 4000 with AA. The player immediately behind me raises to 12K. Initial raiser folds and I of course move in. Player after me calls with QQ. Another player announces he folded a queen as the dealer is about to put the flop out. First card I see on the flop is a Queen and that was that.

I had pretty terrible luck all day in about every imaginable way, I'll spare the details. It was really unfortunate because I had a great table, it was close in terms of skill level to some of the tables I've played on day 1 of the WSOP main event which was very surprising. We were at table 2 also which meant we weren't breaking on day 1.

I'm planning on playing at least one other smaller tournament while I'm here. There's a 1K Euro event on Wed and also on Thurs. If I get knocked out of the Wed tourney, I'll likely play Thursday too.

Monte Carlo/April Update/CR Video

2010-04-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving tomorrow to play the EPT championship in Monte Carlo. I had a little bit of bad luck drawing Day1A on Sunday, I'm leaving tomorrow morning and arriving in Monte Carlo late Saturday so hopefully I'm not too jet-lagged. I'm planning on taking some melatonin on one of the flights to help me sleep. Generally I have a tough time falling asleep on planes so I'm a little worried about it.

I've been playing a bunch of online tournaments the past couple weeks trying to hone my skills and have continued to watch NL videos. I seem to be bubble boy this week. I finished about 10 spots out of the money in the Stars Sunday tournament when I ran AK into Aces about 35 big blinds deep. I also bubbled the Sunday warm-up, I don't remember the hand I busted but I lost a pretty big pot with KK vs. K8. Ah the joy of tournaments. Hopefully I have some luck in Monte Carlo, I'm going to need it against what will likely be a very strong field.

After Monte Carlo, we're off to Italy for about a week. I should have some pics of the trip to post when I get back.

I just finished my first CardRunners video and I believe it's scheduled to be released in about 2 weeks. There should be announcement on CR about it. Hopefully some of you can watch and give me feedback.

April has been a pretty slow month so far. I've only played about 20K hands and I think I've run a little below expectation. I still haven't hit a really bad stretch this year but the past week has been one of my worst weeks so far. I'm not complaining though, I've run extremely well this year.

Next post after Monte Carlo Day 1....

The Importance of PreFlop Play

2010-04-17T01:27:00.000-07:00

Something I do two or three times a year is analyze how my starting hands are faring in different preflop situations. For example, I look at how hands I’m raising first in from the button, cutoff, hijack, under the gun, and the small blind are faring. I look at how hands I’m defending from the big blind fare against opens from different positions. I also look at how hands I 3-bet from the small blind fare against button and cutoff raises. Etc, etc. These are all situations where I have a fairly substantial amount of data to work with and feel confident in the results. Based on the analysis I add or subtract hands from the various ranges. This process has contributed a great deal to my improvement over the past few years.

How important is preflop play? There are 169 starting hands in hold-em. 13 are pairs, 78 are suited hands, and 78 are offsuit hands. There are 12 ways to make an offsuit hand, 4 ways to make a suited hand, and 6 ways to make a pair. You’ll be dealt a specific pair like Aces once every 221 hands, a specific suited hand once every 332 hands, and a specific offsuit hand once every 111 hands. More on the math associated with all this is here

Now let’s assume the following plays are mistakes and that you make them:

Raising K2o, K3o, K4o, K5o from the button against typical blinds
*Not* raising Q8o, Q7o, Q2s, Q3s, Q4s, Q5s and Q6s against typical blinds

Let’s assume you lose the following when you play or don’t play these hands. These are approximations based on my data:

K5o (.03) BB/HD
K4o (.06) BB/HD
K3o (.09) BB/HD
K2o (.12) BB/HD
Q8o (.15) BB/HD
Q7o (.05) BB/HD
Q6s (.09) BB/HD
Q5s (.07) BB/HD
Q4s (.05) BB/HD
Q3s (.03) BB/HD
Q2s (.01) BB/HD

Last, let’s assume you’re going to play 1000 hands of 3-handed poker. That means over the course of these hands you’ll be on the button roughly 333 times. So how much do these mistakes cost on average over these 1000 hands?

Since you’ll be dealt a specific offsuit hand once every 111 hands on average you’d be dealt each offsuit hand 3 times on the button and lose:

.03*3 + .06*3 + .09*3 + .12*3 + .15*3 + .05*3 =.09+.18+.27+.36+.45+.15 = 1.5 Big Bets

And you’ll be dealt a specific suited hand once every 332 hands on average or about 1 once on the button and lose:

.09+.07+.05+.03+.01 = .25 big bets

All that adds up to a net loss of 1.75 Big Bets over the 1000 hands. That might not sound like a whole lot but consider that’s .175 big bets per every 100 hands. Now consider that some of the best limit hold-em players average 1 big bet per hundred hands, that’s 17.5% of their profit! Also consider that these are a just a few of hundreds of possible mistakes people can make. Imagine they are 3-betting incorrectly from the small blind and defending incorrectly from the big blind over this 1000 hand sample and they could be giving up quite a bit.

Nobody plays perfect preflop, it’s nearly impossible. But the idea is to make as few mistakes as possible. The best way you can do this is to analyze your own data and see how you’re faring with hands in certain situations. This should give you a general idea of what hands are playable under normal or average conditions. You then can make in-game adjustments based on table dynamics. For example, if you have very tight blinds, you can add in all those hands that were small to marginal losers from the button. If you have loose, aggressive blinds, you can drop all the hands that are small winners. Another example is defending from the big blind against the various positions. I know what my default defending range is based on a typical raiser’s RFI% from each position. If the raiser is atypical, I’ll cater my range to them. I also account for the player’s postflop ability when deciding to defend borderline hands. In extreme cases, I’ve played against opponents who play so poorly postflop that I defend 100% of my hands from the big blind regardless of what position they’re raising from. So use your data as a baseline and go from there. It’s not an exact science and you won’t get every situation right. The most you can do is to consider all the information available and make the best possible decision based on it.

Exciting News

2010-04-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've agreed to be a limit HE instructor at CardRunners and will be making videos for them along with answering questions in the forums. It was a bit of a difficult decision because I will be giving away information on how I play to some of my opponents. The opponents that do watch my videos are very likely good players and not where my profit is coming from so I don't think I'm giving up too much there. The fact that I'll be forced to analyze my game and discuss plays and strategy should be of great benefit and I think this alone outweighs the cons.

Tournament Hands and Thoughts

2010-04-11T05:58:00.000-07:00

My no limit game grew stronger and stronger through each tournament and I feel like a competent player at this point. I still have a whole lot to learn but I at least feel like I have a pretty decent idea of hand ranges pre and post flop. My ability to interpret postflop actions improved a great deal over these tournaments. I'm feeling lost less and less and understand more of what I need to be thinking about in tough situations.

Playing twelve hours a day and committing myself to focus on every hand and trying to assign ranges to players based on their actions in every hand helped immensely. If the hand got to showdown, I could see if my thought process was correct or if I'd left something out. Listening to the other players, particularly good ones, discuss hands at the table allowed me to understand how and what I should thinking about. Watching tournament videos nightly over the past week helped a great deal as well. There's a seven part series on CardRunners where Timex discusses every hand of a 5K buy-in tournament he wins that's been really helpful.

Here are some tournament hands as best I remember them:

Luckiest Hand:

Blinds were something like 300-600 w/ 50 ante. I had about 8K in chips and moved in with 44 from the cutoff. The button moves all-in with AQ and the big blind moves all-in with KK. I flop a 4 and more than triple up to about an average stack.

Unluckiest Hand:

Blinds were 100-200 w/ 25 ante and I have 66 in late position with about 35K chips. UTG opens to 600 with about 20K, I call, and the big blind, also with 20K calls. Flop is 689 w/ 2 diamonds and the big blind leads out for 2K. UTG calls and I move in. Big blind calls with the AT of diamonds and UTG calls with 99. 99 holds up to win a huge pot.

Strangest Hand:

Blinds 1000-2000 and player who I've only seen play 2 hands and have aces both times opens in mid position to 6K. She has about 120K in chips and I have about 100K. I call on the button with KQs. Flop is Q42 rainbow and she bets 8000, I call. Turn is another Queen and she bets 11K, I call. River is a Jack and she checks. I bet smallish, maybe 15K thinking I'm value betting. She calls turning over 44 for a full house.

Best Bluff:

Blinds 500-1000 maybe, I have about 40K and villain has me covered. I raise T8 of hearts to 2500 from the hijack and a good young player calls from the big blind. The flop is J53 with two hearts. He leads out for 6K and I call. The turn is an offsuit 2, he bets 11K and I call. The river is an offsuit 3, he checks, I bet 15K and he thinks for a while and folds.

Out in 3rd

2010-04-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

I busted in 3rd and cashed for 21K, first was around 70K. I ended up losing a big race at the end - my AQ to 55 for about a million chips (there were 2.9 million in play). I played well and ran very well for most of the day. Heading home tomorrow and have some pretty big news (poker related) when I get back.

1K NL Day 1

2010-04-10T00:17:00.001-07:00

Started with about 250, down to 26 or 27 and they're paying 25 places. I have 61K, average is around 110K. There are a bunch of short-stacks trying to hang on and one player with over 500K in chips.

I had tough tables all day with the best player at the table always 1 or 2 seats to my left. Jason Mercier was on my immediate left for about 9 hours. According to a bunch to the tournament regs he's in the top 5 best tournament players in the world. I tried to stay out of his way but he kept getting in mine, it seemed like he raised 40% of the hands at our table.

I'm not playing to get in the money tomorrow and cash for $2500. With blinds at 1500-3000 to start, I won't hesitate to reraise someone all-in if I think I'm ahead of their range. Most of the big stacks are relentlessly raising at this point in the tournament so it's a distinct possibility.

More to follow, hopefully late in the day.

Out of 2K in 33rd or so - off to play 1K

2010-04-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

2 Big Hands

1st Hand

Kenny (Poker Stars Pro don't know last name) raises in late position. I reraise TT to about 8K with 45K behind, he calls. Flop 963, I bet 9K, he calls. Turn Jack, he checks I check. River Q, he moves all-in. I thought and thought before finally folding. He said after the tourney he had 89.

2nd Hand

Same guy raises on button, I reraise to about 9K with ~30K behind with the AsQc. Flop is J92 with two spades. I move in, he calls with J9. Turn's an Ace, river's a brick and I bust.

Oh well, I really wish I had called the first hand. Both his preflop calls are pretty bad given how shallow our stacks are. I wouldn't be complaining if I called and won the first hand though. Oh well, that's poker.

Off to play the 1K, last one on this trip.

$2150 NL Day 1

2010-04-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

Quick update since it's 3AM and we start back up at 1:00:

135 Players, Super Strong Field, 15K Starting Chips

We're down to about 45 players, 15 places pay with 1st around 90K.
I have 54K, average is about 48K. High point 70K, low point 6.5K

Played good, ran better. Hope to do the same tomorrow.

Out of the Main Event

2010-04-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty frustrating day. I started out winning seemingly every pot I played and had built up my 30k starting stack to 47K by the middle of level 2. Towards the end of the level I was dealt Kings in the big blind, there was a raise and call in front of me, I reraised and the initial raiser 4-bet to about 6500 (he had 27K or so). I had a strong feeling he had Aces but I just couldn't bring myself to call or fold so I moved in and sure enough he had Aces. I flopped a King and he rivered an Ace to add insult to injury. That brought me down to 20K.

From there it was all downhill. It seemed like I went two hours without a playable hand and my stack was down to about 5K. I went all-in a few times without getting called and was up to about 8K when I moved in with AK. I was called by JJ and after a Jack flopped, I was out.

I had a really great table today, the level of play was surprisingly bad. Unfortunately the cards didn't cooperate.

I'm planning on playing a 2K event tomorrow at 4 PM and then possibly a 1K event on Friday. More updates to follow on that.

$650 Bounty Hunter - Main Event on Deck

2010-04-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

I played the $650 Bounty Hunter tournament today and ended up finishing on the bubble in 16th - there were about 115 players to start. I think I played well although I did make a few mistakes especially early on. I sometimes lack confidence playing live and am afraid to pull the trigger in certain situations which is exactly why I wanted to play this before the main event. As the day went on my confidence grew and I felt a lot more comfortable and really got into playing my game.

When we were down to 16 players, I was the chip leader with about 120K in chips. A bunch of the players got together and decided they wanted to give $50 each to whoever bubbled, that way the bubble boy wouldn't leave empty handed. I was thinking to myself at the time, "Why would I want to do this when I'm the chip leader?". Then I thought about a time where the situation was reversed, I was a short-stack, and one person wouldn't agree to giving the bubble boy money so nobody ended up doing it - of course I bubbled. So I went along with it and wouldn't you know, it was me who ended up bubbling. So, I ended up pocketing $750 for bubbling and I had also picked up $1200 along the way for knocking out 6 people - it was a $200 bounty for each person I eliminated.

The hand that did me in was AJ. The blinds were 3K-6K with a 500 ante and I had ~120K to start (yes 20 big blinds was the chip leader). I raised to 15K from mid position with AJ and a tricky/good player who viewed me as pretty loose preflop reraised all-in to about 80K. So I had to call about 65K to win about 110K. Against a lot of players I would have folded knowing they wouldn't want to put their tournament life at stake on the bubble without a big hand. But I knew this player's range was fairly wide; I don't think he expected me to risk 2/3 of my chips being chipleader and being on the bubble without a very big hand. Knowing this I called and he flipped over 99 which I think was right in the middle of his range. He flopped a set and I was down to 40K or about 7 big blinds. About an orbit later at 4K-8K I reraised the button all in with A8 (I had about 30K) and unfortunately he had kings.

I'm really glad I played today, I feel a lot better about my game and my confidence/comfort level going into tomorrow is high. I hope I'm as lucky as I was today, if so I should be able to make a run in the main event. I'll have an update at some point tomorrow...

March in the Books...almost

2010-03-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a month, my 2nd best to date excluding tournaments. I've continued to run well as I have all year. I don't think I've had more than a 200 big bet downswing yet this year and that's over the span of 125K+ hands which is really amazing. Something that's contributing to that is the fact that the majority of my hands are coming at 30-60 and above as I'm playing very little 6-max 15-30 where the rake is about 1.3 big bets/ 100 hands. Contrast that with 6-max 30-60 where the rake is about .6 big bets/100 hands or 1/2 that and it makes sense that the downswings would be a lot less drastic. On the flip side though, I have played less heads up and 3-handed than last year. There's a lot more competition for heads up games this year and the games never last long when I do get them. I don't mind though, I've really come to enjoy 3-10 handed and my game is constantly improving as a result.

I've been playing a lot more 50-100 and even some 100-200 with good results. I've mentioned before that once you hit 50-100, the games play similarly all the way up the ladder. Generally, they don't run unless a fish sits and once one does, the regulars swarm in. So it's usually 4-5 guys who are fractions of a big bet apart in skill level fighting over the money of the fish. I feel very comfortable with the swings at 50-100 now and plan on playing the 100-200 games whenever they run - hopefully I can get used to the swings there as well. It's definitely going to take a while but I also won't be 4-5 tabling the games like I do with 30-60.

I'm not planning on playing a whole lot of poker the next ten days or so, maybe about half of what I normally do. I'm heading to Boston for Easter and then off to to play the 5K main event at Mohegan Sun. I will be blogging with tournament updates. I've been watching some tournament videos and playing tournaments recently so I feel pretty good about my game. It all boils down to getting some cards in those events since it's such a short amount of time and hands.

So Ya Think Poker's Easy?

2010-03-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Here’s a question I saw in one of the high limit forums the other day:

“Villain, BB, in this hand is fairly solid. I've maybe played 20-25 hrs with him. Live 30-60 game.

Folded to me (CO) and I open raise AdQd. Folded to BB who calls.

Flop: JsKs5d

Villain checks, I bet, villain calls.

Turn: Jd.

Board is now JsKs5dJd giving me gutshot and nut flush draw.

Villain checks, Hero??”

This is a good question and a close spot for sure. The reaction of most people is “Bet!, you have a flush draw, gut-shot straight draw, and your opponent has shown no strength” All those things are true but if only poker was that easy. It’s not only about what you have, it’s about what you think your opponent has based on his actions to this point in the hand and how you expect him to play this street along with any future streets. And then based on that, what is your best course of action?

So this hand got me thinking, is there any way to answer this question definitively. I don’t think so but if we make some assumptions about what a “solid” player might do and what he might hold, maybe we could come close.

So what would go into answering a question like this?

We need to assign our opponent a range of hands. This alone can get pretty complicated and varies quite a bit from opponent to opponent. First off, it’s beneficial to know whether the villain in this hand calls his premium hands preflop out of the blinds or 3-bets them. In my experience with “solid” players, about half do and half don’t.

So hands like AJ, AQ, AK, KQ, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, and AA might only be half as likely as they would compared with an opponent you know 3-bets which means when we assign our opponent a range, we’d need to divide the total number of hand combos for those premium hands by 2.

Back to assigning our opponent a range. Here’s the information we have:

-He’s solid.

-He called out of the big blind vs. a cutoff raise.

-He called a flop bet on a Ks, Js, 5d board and checked the turn

The most critical piece of information is that he called a Ks, Js, 5d flop. What would a solid player call with? He almost certainly would call with a hand that contains a 5. It’s also possible he has a hand that contains a Jack. Less likely, but also possible, is that he holds a pair of kings or better and is intending to check-raise. It’s possible that he holds an ace high flush draw that he’s playing passively. It’s also possible he has a gutshot straight draw like AQ, AT, Q9, or 9T. I would assume he would nearly always check-raise the flop with QT or a non ace high flush draw so I would exclude those from his range. I would also assume he’s never floating with a random hand given that the board texture so likely hits hero’s cutoff’s open raising range.

So the next question is what is the likelihood of each of the opponent hand groups based on his flop action? This is going to take some more assumptions and here’s what I’d assume from a solid player. I’m not saying this exact player will do these things at these frequencies but that solid players on a whole would come close.

-He’d always call with a one pair hand that contained a 5.

-He’d always call with 66, 77, 88, 99, and TT

-He’d raise about 60% of the time with a hand that contained a jack and call the other 40%

-He’d raise about 90% of the time with a hand that contained a King or a hand better than top pair and call intending to check-raise the other 10%.

-He’d call with an ace high flush draw about 25% of the time and raise the rest.

So what’s the next step? We need to determine the likelihood of him holding each of these hand types. That’s done by the tedious process of counting combos. I’m not going to count them all as the point of this is to show just how much work can go into trying to answer a poker question. But to give you an idea:

The one pair hands that contain a 5 - I’m assuming he calls with all these preflop against a cutoff raise

45s 3 Combos (accounting for 5 that’s already on the board)

56s 3 Combos

57s 3 Combos

85s 3 Combos

K5s 0 Combos (this is a 2 pair hand)

A5s 3 Combos (Ace in hero’s hand and 5 on board)

A5o 6 Combos

So, we have 21 combos of bottom pair hands.

There are 6 ways to make a pocket pair so he has 30 combos of 66-TT that he’s also calling with. But remember we assumed a solid player would 3-bet preflop with 99 and TT half the time so we need to divide the number of combos for these hands by 2 which is actually 6 combos less, So 24 combos in total of pocket pair hands that are calling the flop.

How about one pair hands that contain a Jack?

AJ - 9 Combos (accounting for known ace and jack)

We also assumed a solid player would raise AJ preflop 50% of the time so we’re left with 4.5 combos of AJ

KJ – 0 Combos (It’s a 2 pair hand).

QJ – 12 Combos

JT – 12 Combos

J9 – 12 Combos

J8 – 12 Combos

J7 – 3 Combos (assuming he only calls with J7 suited)

That’s a total of 55.5 combos. But remember again we assumed he’d only call with these hands 40% of the time so we need to multiply 55.5*.4 which leaves 22.2 combos.

I’m not going to count out all the combos for all the different hand types; hopefully you get the picture and see the amount of work involved - it’s worth mentioning there are a few programs that facilitate combo counting like StoxPokerCombo. But let’s assume we did, what’s the next step?

The next step would be to make assumptions about how he would play the various hand types (bottom pair, middle pair, top pair or better, etc.) in his range if we bet the turn or if we check the turn. And when we’re trying to figure out the best course of action we are comparing the value of checking to the value of betting based on the likelihood (see combos) of our opponent holding a certain hand type( like bottom pair, middle pair, etc.), what actions he will take based on our actions, and how each one of the 44 river cards will affect both our actions and our opponent’s actions.

All this sound easy? And this is a relatively simple question in that there are only two streets to play and two players. Imagine there are 3 streets to play, 5 players with different styles, tendencies and hand ranges, and a few thousand turn+river card combinations.

March Update

2010-03-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

The month started off really slow, I was down about 13K and 80 big bets after 10K hands. Dating back to last month I was on a 20K hand breakeven stretch. Last year I went through a 100K hand breakeven stretch so compared to that it was nothing but frustrating nonetheless. I have a tendency to play more when things aren't going well and as a result have played over 15K hands this month. I went from being 5 days behind SNE pace to being on pace.

Things turned for me yesterday and I won about 500 big bets in less than 5000 hands, it was a pretty amazing stretch. I've changed my style a bit the last few days as well which contributed. I alternate between different styles of play and I've found that whenever I change my style, my opponents start making more mistakes. I've posted a couple times about the benefits of being unpredictable. There's a lot of value to confusing your opponents and it works particularly well when you're playing in games with a lot of the same players as I am. The regulars in my games adapt to my style and as soon as I make some adjustments back, I show immediate profit. They will adjust again, and hopefully I can stay a step ahead of them.

I'm off to Vegas this Wednesday so there won't be much poker next week. I'm going to relax and enjoy the time with my friends, I've looked forward to it ever since last year. I should have another post after that, probably something strategy related.

February in the Books

2010-02-28T21:22:00.000-08:00

As expected, my last post cued the end to my upswing. I did end the month fairly well but the last week or so had a lot more swings. All in all, I'm very happy with the way the month went and I ran above expectation. I don't think I had a 200 big bet downswing and I'm not sure I've had one this year which is really amazing. Last year I had several 350-500 big bet downswings. So in that respect I'm very fortunate. I feel like I played my A game for maybe 30% of the month, my B game for about 60%, and my C game for about 10%. There were a few days where I really had trouble focusing and my brain just wasn't working but other than that I played well.

I played very little no-limit and didn't reach my goal of 2000 hands per day. Looking forward to March I'm going to set the same goal, at the very least it should push me to play more than I normally would. I'm also going to get back to watching NL videos, particularly tournament videos. I'd like to watch at least one a week. My annual trip to Vegas with my best friends is coming up in a couple weeks so I won't be playing much during those days but other than that I should be able to get a lot of hands in. Looking forward to April, I'm playing the 5K no-limit tournament at Mohegan Sun which is part of the North American Poker Tour and then the European Poker Championship in Monte Carlo at the end of the month. So I'm definitely not going to be able to play a lot of hands which makes it more important I play as much as possible during March. I'm about 4 days behind SNE pace right now which isn't much at all. I'd like to stay within 2 weeks of the pace throughout the year, I can make a late push if need be.

En Fuego

2010-02-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

I've been hesitant to post a February update for fear of jinxing myself - yes I'm somewhat superstitious. I have run exceptionally well all month particularly at 50-100 and am on pace for one of the best months of my career. I'm not happy with the fact that I'm only averaging about 1500 hands a day, I set a goal of 2000 and am far behind that. I'm playing in a pool tournament this weekend so I won't be able too play many hands the next three days either. On the no-limit front, I have played very few hands this month, about 500 in total I believe. I haven't been able to find the time and I'm giving serious consideration to revising my yearly goals. I still would like to become proficient at no-limit but playing 500 hands a day doesn't seem feasible at this point, at least without making other sacrifices which I'm not sure I'd like to make - more to follow on that.

Emotional Control/Tilt

2010-02-12T19:29:00.000-08:00

Emotional control might be the single most important trait for a poker player to have. It’s what separates great players from good ones and good players from below average players.

By emotional control, I mean the ability to prevent emotions from influencing poker decisions. Also the ability to recognize when emotions are playing a part in decisions and the discipline to stop playing until you’ve regained control over them.

I’ve had several players tell me that they don’t tilt, some even insist on it. Everyone tilts to some degree including myself. We’re human, not robots. The key is to recognize the instant that you begin to tilt and stop playing.

So, what causes tilt and how do you identify it?

I think the answers to these questions vary from person to person but I can share my experience. Something that used to tilt me was when I was running extremely bad during a session. I kept expecting the cards to change and with each hand that didn’t I’d get more upset. I started to feel like people were taking shots at me, bluffing me off hands, 3-betting me, and I felt the need to fight back. That caused me to start raising hands I wouldn’t normally raise and to make lighter call-downs thinking my opponents were bluffing which would only further exacerbate the situation. I felt a sense of entitlement to better hands and luck. And when the cards didn’t cooperate with my unrealistic expectations, I’d only play worse. I’d make more and more decisions based on emotion and eventually I’d be way off my game and playing very erratically. If this wasn’t bad enough, I’d then quit the games I was in and play higher limits usually on full-blown tilt. My warped logic was that the cards had to change, I was due and I’d win it all back by playing higher limits. Of course this never worked and I’d end up losing more money in a day than I’d lose during one of my worst weeks.

So where did I go wrong? Well initially I should have been able to recognize that I was starting to make decisions based on emotion and not well thought out reasoning which should have led me to quit the games I was in. Perhaps the bigger problem was my feeling that I had a sense of entitlement to better cards. I didn’t. The cards have no idea who I am, they have no memory, and they have no predictive powers. It’s unlikely the people in my games were taking shots at me, that was likely a function of them consistently being dealt better hands.

I have gotten better and better over the years with this problem and it now takes an extremely bad run of cards to throw me off my game. More importantly I’ve learned to recognize that instant where I make a decision that is based on emotion. It doesn’t even have to be a decision solely based on emotion, it could be a decision where two options are close but the factor that ultimately pushes me to favor one option over another is emotion. For example if I mentally say to myself, I’m tired of this guy 3-betting me, I’m going to cap this hand when capping and calling are two close options.

Something else that has tilted me over the years is the chat-box. It has always bothered me when people would berate my play after a hand or launch a verbal attack on me. My response was always to fight back and engage them and try to humiliate them. This ended up completely taking my focus off the game which would cause me to make mistakes. I’d then get caught up in a verbal war and get upset which would cause me to start making emotion-based decisions particularly against the person that was attacking me.

I rarely have a problem with this one these days because I normally turn my chat off when playing. I think the cons of having chat on far outweigh the pros, at least for me, but I’d guess it’s that way for most. If I do happen to have my chat on and am attacked, I’ll normally block the person’s chat or turn my chat off altogether. I have also matured over the years and come to the realization that the reason the person is attacking me is to throw me off game. The best possible defense I have against this is to ignore them.

There are other things that can potentially tilt me but I won’t go into them all. The important thing is that there have been less and less of them as time has gone on. And I’m nearly always able to quit my games as soon as I make a single emotion based decision. My advice to anyone trying to reduce tilt is to work on recognizing that moment that your decisions are influenced by emotions. If you’re able to recognize it, quit playing immediately. Spend your time trying to figure out exactly what caused you to tilt. Once you’ve identified the cause, work on developing a solution. It might be as easy as turning your chat off or it might be something more complex that requires a change in your thinking. If you’re not able to find a solution, there are several good poker psychology coaches out there that can help.

Good luck at the tables.

Hit and Runners

2010-02-02T13:32:00.001-08:00

A hit and runner is a player looking to get up money and quit playing. They are easily identifiable in heads-up games where they'll often play a few hands, sometimes as few as one, and leave up money, assuming they get up money. But they also play ring games and leave after winning a pot or a predetermined amount of money.

I welcome H&R's at my tables and would go out of my way to play them. They are generally poor players, often very poor players. They may even realize they're losing players and mistakenly believe that hit and running affords them a better chance of winning. Many hit and runners lose their entire bankroll trying to get up money. There's no guarantee they'll ever get ahead and often when they do start losing, they tilt and lose the rest of their money quickly.

Imagine if a casino were to institute a rule that you weren't allowed to play one hand of blackjack, one spin of roulette, or one throw of the dice at craps. Also imagine there were hundreds of other casinos next door that would welcome the action. The disallowing casino would lose a fortune in revenue. The reason casinos allow it is because they understand that hit and runners are at a disadvantage whether they make one bet or one hundred bets. And one bet from a hundred different H&R's is identical in terms of expected profit to a hundred bets from a single person. They also understand the H&R isn't going to walk out of the casino and never make another bet. They'll be back to try it again.

Similarly in poker, the H&R's who win almost always come back, sometimes even to play the same player. But whether they come back to play me is irrelevant, there are many other H&R's that will come to play me. And what's the difference between one or another?

Think of how many would be H&R's have sat in your games, never gotten up money, hence never given the opportunity to run, and ended up busting. You probably can't think of any because you never had the chance to identify them as a H&R. Does that mean they don't exist? Of course not, they're playing in your games and busting every day.

So embrace H&R's. They have contributed a significant amount to my poker winnings over the years and can do the same for you.

January in the Books

2010-01-31T21:09:00.000-08:00

It wasn't my best month in terms of hands or win rate but I managed to do pretty well largely in part to running good at 50-100. I don't feel like I"m playing very well, even when I had a big upswing I felt like I was losing focus at times. I cut down to 4 tables for several days and still was having trouble focusing. I'm going to make an effort to exercise more in February, hopefully that will help with focus/concentration issues I'm having.

With the new VPP structure I only need to play about 60-65% of the hands I'm used to playing to stay on pace for SNE. While that's good, it's also made me a lot less motivated to play hands which ultimately translates to less money. So I have a hand goal starting in February of 2000 limit hands per day.

On the no-limit front I ran extremely well but only managed to play to play about 4700 hands. I had a goal of 500 a day so I fell well short of that. I did watch about 15 no-limit videos over the month and played 5 tournaments so I'm happy about that. I still need to play more hands and hopefully I can get up to 500 a day.

I haven't had much time to blog lately but hopefully I can get in a couple strategy posts during February. I have a few ideas of things to talk about, it's just a matter of taking the time to put it into words.

Good luck at the tables everyone.

Avoiding Auto Pilot

2010-01-21T13:39:00.000-08:00

I’ve written a few blog posts about avoiding predictability and staying away from auto-pilot but it’s worth another. I haven’t really gone into specifics of what you can do but here are a few examples. I should mention that these aren’t necessarily things you should always be doing but things you should be doing at least some of the time.

Checking back some flops particularly multi-way. When on auto-pilot we auto-bet every flop regardless of number of opponents, board texture, or opponent tendencies. Here are a couple spots it might be worth checking back:

-In a pot with 2 or more opponents where the board texture is very likely to have hit at least one of them. Example, you raise AQ, get 2 callers and the flop comes 987 with two of a suit.

-In a heads up pot against a player who goes to showdown often where the board texture is such that you’re opponent is unlikely to ever fold to a flop bet. Let’s say you raised with KQ and the flop is 235 or 346, or 457, etc.

Check-raise bluffing the river is another way to keep your opponents off balance and avoid being predictable. A lot of very good players rarely, if ever, check-raise bluff the river. And the vast majority of players who do check/raise bluff on the river don’t do it enough. You don’t want to be one of these players or your opponents, particularly good ones, will safely fold any time you check-raise the river and they hold a medium strength hand. If you don’t think you’re one of those players, filter your HEM for Filter By Actions/Filter by River Actions/Check Raise. Then look through all of those hands and see how many you were bluffing. I’d be willing to bet it’s not many. If you consider the average pot size might be 6 big bets or so when your opponent has to decide whether to call one more bet, you can see that you should be bluffing a lot more against observant opponents. I’d recommend making a mental note to yourself before a session to look for at least one hand per session where you can check-raise bluff the river. Here’s an example of a river check-raise bluff I made:

I raised 99 in the cutoff and was 3-bet by an aggressive player on the button and called. The flop was AK5, my opponent bet and I called. Folding the flop would have been fine but this opponent plays pretty straightforward against me postflop so I figured if he didn’t have an A or K, he’d check the turn and give up on the river assuming he didn’t improve. The turn was a King, I checked and my opponent checked. The king pairing and my opponent checking behind changed my plan a bit. My opponent’s turn check now didn’t necessarily represent weakness as I initially thought it would since my opponent would often check back an Ace here. I still thought I could pick up the pot but I thought I’d have a better chance of it by check-raising and representing a king. My check-raise would be very credible because my play in the hand is completely consistent with having a king. My opponent would have a tough time calling with a hand like QQ or JJ and could fold an ace. I should mention my opponent is someone I have a lot of history with an d is capable of making lay-downs on the river with made hands. The river was a 3, I checked my opponent bet, I check-raised and unfortunately my opponent called showing AQ.

Capping a variety of hands in multiway pots is another good way to keep your opponents off balance. It’s never a huge loss to put extra bets in preflop in a multiway pot particularly when you hold a speculative hand like a suited connector. If you’re only capping with hands like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, AK, and AQ, you have way too narrow of a range and your opponents can easily play against your range postflop. So add some hands to your capping range, suited connectors work best. A benefit to capping especially when on the button is that the flop will be checked around to you and you always have the option to check and see the turn. Contrast this to the times where you just call and the preflop 3-bettor bets the flop and you’re forced to fold a hand with outs because you have the big blind to act after you. Or to hands where the 3-bettor leads the flop, gets raised, and you're forced to fold some outs facing 2 bets. They’ll be some hands where you cap preflop and are led into on the flop but this happens less frequently than the hands where it’s checked around. One last benefit of capping is that the flop might come something like A52, you decide to continuation bet the flop with 78s, and all your opponents fold. This happens a lot more often than it should.

Back in the Swing of Things

2010-01-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

I'm back from the PCA, unfortunately I didn't cash in either of the events I played. I played in the 6-handed limit event the day before we left. Nothing too exciting happened, I was pretty card dead throughout and ended up 10th out of 26th. I did meet a bunch of people I play regularly with on Stars so that was cool.

I've been playing a lot since I got back trying to make up for all the days I missed. I'm earning VPPs at a much faster rate this year due to the changes Stars implemented - almost 20% faster. This makes a huge difference and I'm confident I'll be able to make SNE again this year.

My primary concern/goal is getting better at no-limit. I've been watching about a video a day and playing about 500 hands a day at 1-2 and 2-4. I feel like I'm learning but still have a ton to learn to be a consistent winner in the 3-6 and 5-10 games.

I will probably be making some no-limit posts this year maybe comparing some of the differences between no limit and limit along with some strategy. I will be working on my limit game as well so they'll be plenty of limit posts along the way.

Things have gone very well so far at no-limit and not so well at limit: