Trials and Tribulations of an Internet Grinder

The Las Vegas Paper Chase

2008-04-16T13:11:00.001-07:00

CHECK OUT MY NEW BLOG!!!

CHECK OUT MY NEW BLOG!!!

Back From Vegas Ready To Grind

2007-07-23T14:36:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a 7 week stay in Vegas. I was covering the WSOP for Cardplayer magazine. I was super busy so I could not blog the trip as it happened like I had planned. The trip has motivated me to start grinding like I used to and to stop being such a bum. I will post a short trip report some tiem this week. My plans so far are to play some NL $50 with a large bankroll and no more than six tables at a time. I will play $40,000 hands hopefully in 25 days and then see about moving up.

Vegas Baby!

2007-05-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

Well I am off to vegas tommorow and will be there until July 18th. I am excited to be working for Cardplayer while covering all the events. I will be staying across the street from the RIO at an extended stay suites hotel. Hopefully, I will be able to update my blog pretty regularly and as I mentioned in a previous post, I will be taking pictures throughout the summer and post them on here.

As for poker, I have been taking it easy and just playing the bigger MTTs on Full Tilt. No major results as of yet but I like FTP's smaller $100+ Mtts. I like my MTT fields to be in the 200-600 entrant range rather then 6k+. Not sure how much online playing time I will have in Vegas, but I am bringing a laptop in hopes of getting some hours in.

Check back tommorow for pictures of my digs. :)

-Z

Good Start?!

2007-05-14T01:36:00.000-07:00

I am happy and slightly confused to report that my re immersion into the world of professional gambling is going great. The ugly side of variance usually rears its head at me during my returns to the game. I have played about 200 SnGs and 5 MTTs winning in both. Here are my $22 Stats:

$22+$2 SnGs
Games played: 161
ROI: 9.2%
ITM: 41%
Profit: $353
RB: $81

I went deep in the Full Tilt Mulligan MTT ($216 - 525 runners), but finished in a disappointing 17th for $650. First place was over $27k so you can see why I was so disgusted with my finish. My bust out hand wasn't notable, just a classic late MTT high blind coin flip scenario. Oh well, at least I made a small profit. Holla!

I am going to play ALOT over the next few weeks. I need to make some major money and get my bankroll healthy enough for the $60s. I will post some better stats for SnGs and MTTs once I have more data. Alright, back to the tables.

+ 100 +

2007-05-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

This is the 100th post for my blog. I guess I should have come up with a great post in honor of this blogging milestone. All I really have to say is that I did get my stake and I am now back to playing full time. I am nine tabling the $12 and $24 SnGs on Full Tilt and will post my stats after I play my first 200. So I guess until then, wish me luck and stay off my tables cause I am playing better then ever. :) Pop, Lock and Drop It!

-Z Bizz

Jinx!

2007-04-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

The masochist in me wants to make this post in hopes of jinxing myself. Confused? Well, hopefully by Wednesday I will be getting a $6,000 stake for a fresh start in building back up my poker career. As some of you may be aware, a recent slew of bad financial decisions and neteller freezing 60% of my bankroll had left me with my head barely above water. During this time I took a few shots at building myself back up but could not play <$5 SnGs with the same intensity and dedication that I used to employ daily. A poor excuse, I admit, but I am thrilled to get back into the game grinding the $26 turbo SnGs on Full Tilt. I will be following very strict bankroll guidelines to ensure consistent success in this new era of my poker career. I have 27% rake back at Full Tilt, so this will be a nice aid to my monthly profits or lack thereof.

So for the month of May watchout for me at the $26's. I WILL play 1500 SnGs this month and hopefully the second half will be at the $33's but as I alluded to above, I will not be in a rush to move up. Instead, I will focus on playing at a level offering me a nice ROI to cut down on the variance as much as possible. By my very rough estimates, I should still be able to make between $35k - $55k for 2007.

As for this blog, I have decided to limit my posting of stats to once every 10 days. I plan to fill the days in between with musings, expert hand analysis, and insightful ramblings on my life away from the computer. I feel great about all of this and hope to look back at this post as the "turning point" for my life.

-Z to the B

LOL

2007-03-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

At this point, all I can do is sit back and laugh as I take beat after beat in the easiest games online. I have played enough poker to know that this stuff can and will happen. I do however, find it amusing that "it" always happens when I am starting a new quest or working with a very small bankroll. I know that I am winning in the long run and will continue to win as long as I can play the game. I am not at home right now, but I will post my stats later tonight after I play (give the fish all my money). Other than that nothing to report, just the usual self loathing life I am growing accustom to living.

SOTD
The Fratellis - "Flathead"

-Z

MTT > Cash

2007-03-04T02:09:00.000-08:00

Well, it is about 3 a.m. and I just realized that I needed to make a blog post for the day in spite of my extremely uneventful life. I guess I did go out last night and partied for the first time in a while. Today i started off playing a little bit of NL 25 (6max), as usual I kept getting into some 2nd best hand vs nuts scenarios. I feel like these games are much tougher than I remembered but my sample size of hands played is much to small to be drawing any statistical conclusions about my game. Anyways, after the disappointing cash game session I satellited into the $109 NL 6max MTT on Full Tilt for $15. I placed 31/339 for $165 in profit, which saved my day profit wise. I am thinking about playing full ring games tomorrow since I do not seem to be faring very well in the 6max games on Full Tilt.

Before I go, I want to point you in the direction of an amazing poker blog that I have always enjoyed reading. Shane "Shaniac" Schleger has been traveling the pro NL MTT circuit for the last 2 years or so and he provides well written and insightful posts on life and poker.
Shane "Shaniac" Schleger - "You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure"

SOTD
Lily Allen - "Smile"

I forgot how to win.

2007-03-02T11:29:00.000-08:00

Well after my first full day back I am already sick of poker again (not really). I managed to lose five $25 buy-ins in only about 1k hands. I was however lucky enough to catch an episode of Cardplayer's the Circuit that featured Theo Tran as the guest. Theo is a 26 year old pro with a great story on building a roll from nothing and then going through the cycles of being rich and broke again repeatedly. If you want to listen to the interview or visit Theo's great blog, I have posted a link below. I recommend this for any of the young guys that are coming up and trying to make a name for themselves in the poker world.

The Circuit - 2/27/07 Live from L.A. Poker Classic (Commerce Casino)

The Tran's Blog - Pitt Rounder

In other news the WPT L.A. Poker Classic came to a close last night and I was disappointed to see that J.C. Tran came in 2nd place. Still, my hat is off to J.C. who also final tabled this event last year and is on a sick run this year taking the top spot in Cardplayer's race for player of the year. Look out for J.C. in 2007 and especially at the WSOP which is now only 4 months away.

One last thing before I get to playing. I am always listening to music especially while playing online poker. From now on I will start posting my "song of the day" (SOTD) at the end of each one of my posts. Be prepared as these songs will be mostly hip hop but will stretch all the way across the musical landscape.

SOTD: Paul Wall - "Break em off"

Play on playa...

2007-03-01T00:43:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. I decided that I will once again devote my life to online poker and try to make a living at it. A fellow 2+2 NL cash game player offered to stake me tonight. This could not have come at a better time. I am starting at $25 NL on Full Tilt. I already managed to get in about 500 hands since I got the transfer. I made a little more than a buy-in tonight but what is more important is that I am getting back into the game.

It feels great to be playing after taking 3 weeks off, my longest poker hiatus in the past 3 years. I think my game will shine at these lower limits as I was winning in $400NL as recently as 5 months ago. I guess only time and hands played will tell.

Tommorow I plan on playing at least 1200 hands and if I can play more than 6 tables (need to get resizing Full Tilt beta) I hope to play closer to 2500 hands. I know I usually do a challange but as of now I am just going to play about 20k hands at $25 NL and see if I can move up from there.

February Post...Barley.

2007-02-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

Well I just barely got this post in for February. I am almost positive that any regular readers I once had, have long since moved on to greener pastures in the form of blogs that are updated with content regularly. That being said, today I made a great realization that I myself enjoy reading the back posts of my blog and use them for reflection. As I came to the end of chronologically reading through each one of my 94 blog posts I was stricken with some degree of sadness when I stopped "blogging" in late '06. But alas, I have returned to take back my blog and at the very least turn it into a sort of digital memoir of a degenerate gambler.

BUSTO! is the name of my game and I have decided that I cannot and will not let negative actions taken by the U.S. government towards online poker become my scapegoat for failure. Being a great poker player entails many great qualitys, but I feel that the most important of these is the ability to adapt sucssefully to changing conditions. I must make use of this quality in myself to get "back into the game" I have come to rely on for a peaceful existence.

More to come...for real...this time I mean it!

-Z

Great start!

2006-12-11T13:19:00.000-08:00

I know I said I was going to post stats in 5k hand intervals but I just wanted to let you know that I have started the challenge and after 1,000 hands I am running at 29.33PTBB/100. I know that is historically unsustainable, but I like to brag about statistically irrelevant stats. See ya in 4k hands.

Hiatus... not the first, I might add.

2006-12-10T22:39:00.000-08:00

I am in need of a poker motivation "kick in the ass". I have slacking lately and just playing a few MTTs everyday. I think I need a good old challenge to get back into the swing of things. I am going to do a short challenge between now and Christmas. I want to get in 25k hands of NL 6max. This is very doable and I will be very disappointed if I don't complete this modest goal. I will post stats at 5k hand intervals.

After a short Holiday break I will do some sort of challenge consisting of MTTs and NL 6max. I'm thinking 100k hands and 250 MTTs in 50 Days, but it might be a bit too crazy.

See ya in 5k hands.

109s 4 LIFE

2006-09-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Just in case I have even one follower of my blog, I would like to apologize for the extreme lack of content and updates. Since we last met, I have been playing tons of 109s and breaking even over about 600 of them so far. I am playing good, so I am just waiting for the positive side of varaince to slap me back into postivie earnings. I have not inputed all of ym recent results into the Xcel spreadsheet that i sue for stats, so i ahev nothing for you in that department. Hopefully I will have good things to report in a couple days.

Update coming tonight..

2006-08-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, Party finally fixed their sofware, so lately I have been 8 tabling the 109s only and doing pretty decent. Stats update tonight...

POKER IS DISGUSTING!!!!

2006-08-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

That is all. I love getting 3 outed on the bubble, ten SnGs in a row. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!

Good old downswing...

2006-08-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

Well as usual, the poker gods have decided that I was making too much money in July. so after having a $6k+ month, I have started off August running pretty bad. Although, I am very happy to report that because of my prior experience in SnGs, i am no longer prone to tilt after getting hit with ten 3 outers in a row. My stats don;t look as pretty but I am still making decent money considering it is for playing a card game on the internet. Also I made $3,100 in a MTT on Sunday, which is not included in the stats.

215's
197 Played
6.7% ROI
34% ITM
+$2,845

109's
413 Played
-0.9% ROI
33% ITM
-$417

Overall
+$2,428
RB +$1,668
$/Hr - $50.36 (82 Hours)

Quick stat update...

2006-08-02T01:07:00.000-07:00

Nothing major to report. I have been partying alot lately which has cut down my play time over the past week, but all work and no play makes Zach a dull boy.

215's
141 Played
12.8% ROI
35% ITM
+$3,885

109's
248 Played
2.1% ROI
34% ITM
+$682

Overall
+$4,567
RB +$1,208
$/Hr - $110.81 (52 Hours)

215s = $$$, 109s = no $$$

2006-07-26T16:07:00.000-07:00

I have been putting in around 30 Sngs a day which I am happy with as I have had trouble putting in a good volume in the past. It doesn't hurt that I am killing the 215s and breaking even in the 109s, which is still good for overall profit. I am not done playing for the day but I wanted to post an update anway, cause I am bored and my overall stats look pretty.

215's
116 Played
19.5% ROI
38% ITM
+$4,860

109's
248 Played
-.5% ROI
33% ITM
-$132

Overall
+$4,728
RB +$993
$/Hr - $133.59 (43 Hours)

Makin' money, countin' hundreds...

2006-07-23T00:54:00.000-07:00

My first full week back at the SnG's was a sucess. I made about $1,500 with RB(including a $1,400 last day), and it was nice to book a solid win for the week. This week has started off great, I booked two $+1k days back to back which is a milestone for me also I forgot to mention, last week i had a +$2,500 day which is my biggest winning day(excluding MTTs). Not much else to report, I have failed at my goal of getting a WSOP ME seat, but I guess I have a couple more days to get lucky. I am now planning on playing the first 3 or 4 events of the Doyle Brunson Championship at the Bellagio in October. Well here are my ballin' stat updates.

215's
86 Played
11.4% ROI
36% ITM
+$2,110

109's
176 Played
8.4% ROI
35% ITM
+$1,616

Overall+$3,726
RB +$719
$/Hr - $152.67 (29 Hours)

Party Down...

2006-07-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Party has been down for a while tonight so I was only able to get in 14 games earlier. I am going to post my stats event hough I wanted a few more games before posting. As you cans ee things have been going good overall but I still need to turn a profit in the 109's.

215's
56 played
25% ROI
39% ITM
+$2,960

109's
123 played
-4.5% ROI
31% ITM
-$607

Overall+$2,353
RB +$486

Back from San Diego...

2006-07-17T02:31:00.000-07:00

Hi all, I am now back from San Diego after a great week on the beach and some much needed time off from poker. As any long time reader of my blog would know, I suffer from "Poker ADD" and have a problem sticking to one type of holdem for an extended period of time. After doing some hard thinking about what i want from poker and how I can get it; I haev decided that i will be getting back into the grind of SnG's. I had always dreamed of playing the 109/215 SnGs full time and now that I have a decent sized bankroll I have started to realize those goals. For the past few days I have been playing SnGs with breakeven success (losing in 109's and winning in 215's). I am going to try and pump out 40 SnG's a day (30-109's and 10-215's) for a few months. From rakeback alone I should bring in about $2.5k/month, so that will help me with my living expenses while I grow my bankroll. Here are my stats since getting back into SnG's. ( remember this is a VERY small smaple size and means nothing)

215's
28 played
23% ROI
39% ITM
+$1,380

109's
60 played
-20% ROI ...YUCK!
27% ITM
-$1,340

Overall
+$40 LOL

Days 11 - 17

2006-06-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

3,653 Hands
+895.54

Things went pretty standard over the last week. As always, I didn't spend as much time as I would ahve liked palying online, but what's changed? I made some decent money and also played my first couple hundered hands of NL 600 (broke even). I decided that I will be doing the hole Vegas/WSOP thing on the week of July 17th. The week before that i will be in San Diego on vacation, so I might not be getting many online hands in. I have decided that I really want to be making $100/hr consistently as I have for this entire month so far.

25k in 50 Totals
Hands 12,297/60,000
Overall $ 4,089
$117/hr - 35 hours Holla!

Days 7-10

2006-06-21T01:25:00.000-07:00

2,794 Hands
+2,617.20

I am not getting in a good amount of hands, but obviously I am still happy with my results. I think that it will be very tough for me to reach the goal of $25k but I hope to get as close as possible and at least clear $15k. I have been palying at a local club about 3 times a week and feel like I am improving my game greatly as there are a few great players there.

25k in 50 Totals
Hands 8,578/60,000
Overall $ 3,401.95
$140/hr - 25 hours Holla!

Days 5-6

2006-06-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Days 5-6
1,534 Hands
-1,194.54

As you can see from my stats, things went as bad as they could over the last couple days. I lost 3 pots over $800 each and that about sums up my play. I made a little profit in the party Friday Special but I am dissapointed cause I got busted with AK vs A9 pretty deep in that one. That's life and that's poker. Also i ahve decided that for this challenge, i will buy a car with however jmuch money i make between now and the end. here is what I am looking at getting: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Audi-A6-2-7-Bi-Turbo-Audi-A6-2-7-Twin-Turbo-2000-w-RS6-Upgrades-Pristine_W0QQitemZ4648103573QQcategoryZ6004QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

25k in 50 Totals
Hands 5,784/60,000
Overall $ 784.75
$49.15hr - 16 hours

MTT'S
Party 33 - 225/285 -33 (581)
Party 215 - 67/845 +292 (873)

Days 3-4

2006-06-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

Days 3-4
1,850 Hands
+262.66

Kept playing a mix of 200NL and 400NL, and was able to make a few bucks. I wasn't expecting to keep winning like I did the first two days of this challenge. I only played about 2 hours each day and I think I will need to play closer to 4 hours a day to get to $25k in 50 days. Gotta sleep now...

25k in 50 Totals
Hands 4,250/60,000
Overall $ 1,979.29
$171.12/hr - 12 hours LOL :)

MTT'S
none* (614)

Days 1-2

2006-06-13T00:24:00.000-07:00

Days 1-2
2,400 Hands
+1,716.63

Started the 25k in 50 days challenge yesterday, and today I rounded out a great first two days. i played about half and half 200NL and 400NL. I am running good in both, but especially in the 400NL game. My current winrate is unsustainable so I am prepared to cool off in the near future. I will try my hardest to post some interesting hands for some of these updates, but I am super lazy. My biggest task for this challenge is going to be putting in a good amount of hands on a daily basis. I did a good job of this for the first two days. Let's hope my good luck and play continues for at least 50 more days. :)

25k in 50 Totals
Hands 2,400/60,000
Overall $ 1,716.63
$225.87hr - 8 hours LOL :)

MTT'S
Party 109 - 8th/330 +829 (829)
Party 215 - 3k/5k -215 (614)

Movin' up and starting a challenge...

2006-06-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

I have started taking shots at 400NL by adding a couple tables in with my two other 200NL tables. So far things ahve been going VERY good. I am running hot but the players donl't seem any better than the NL 200 players. I found that the games are a little tighter on the flop, but other than that no major changes. I am going to 4 table 400NL for 50 days and hope to make $25,000 (including rakeback). I figure I will have to play about 60k hands in order to ahve a lagetimate shot at my monatary goal. So starting tommorow I will start my challenge tommorow and post an update every other day.

Bellagio $1k, Pwnage!!

2006-06-06T00:22:00.000-07:00

Well I jsut got back from a little weekend excursion to Vegas. And as you may have guessed by the title, I won the weekly Bellagio $1k MTT to the tune of $20,000. I am feeling great about that along with winning another $1.2k in the 2-5NL cash games. I did however manage to blow a nice amount of money on tips and lots of expensive meals/bar tabs, as should be expected. As far as the tourney went I pretty much was card dead for the first few hours, but thanks to the nice slow structure I was able to hang on until I caught a few hands in key spots. I am proud to say that i never had to put a bad beat on anybody and only had to win two races. I am also excited that my name will be in the next issue of cardplayer and I am now listed in the cardplayer.com player database, here: http://cardplayer.com/poker-tournaments/view/name/Zachriah_Bailey&year=&name_id=40393

With this latest bankroll boost, I have decided that i will scrap my current challenge and start a $10k in 30 days, playing 2/4 NL 6max. I will start this tommorow and post more details or alterations to this challenge.

Vegas, Holla!

2006-06-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

I am leaving for Vegas tommroow afternoon, so I am going to wait and post an update tommorow before I leave for the airport. While in vegas I plan on playing in the Bellagio 2-5 NL game which now has a max buyin of $500 instead of the worthless $200. If I can make any money int hat game I think I am going to buy into the Bellagio $1k saturday tourney, which I have always dreamed of palying. laso for any other poker blogger's out there here is a nice little freeroll MTT for ya.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 6538320

Days 20-22

2006-05-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

Days 20-22
374 Hands
+191.10

Very uneventful 3 days. I ahve been super lazy and getting in a laughable amount of hands. I keep starting of my sessions with a quick little prfit and just wuitting to keep myslef in a positive mindset. I know that by doing this I am costing myself money, but I feelt hat it is very important for me to have a positive mindset about poker before going to Vegas at the end of this week. I am planning on taking some shots at the Bellagio 2-5 NL game and if things go well I hope to play at least one session of 5-10 NL ($1k buy in). I may play in the Party $750k tommorow but I may just decide to play a bunch of 1/2 NL and actually make some money.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 12,446/60,000
Overall $ 1,564.67
$38.43hr - 41 hours

MTT'S
None (-618)

Days 17-19

2006-05-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

Days 17-19
1,775 Hands
+103.51

I have decided that posting my results everyday is a bit of overkill as far as stats go. I will now post my stats in 3 day updates so that i have a bit more tot alka bout in my posts and more hands to gather stats with. Over the past three days I spent much of my time playing at the card club and also played a couple MTT's at the casino. I ended up making about $400 in this span. As far as my online play goes, I was very disgusted with my results and overall nature of the game lately. I feel very fortunate to ahev turned evena small profit for the last few days as I was subjected to some of the sickest coolers of my poker career. The type of hands that play out in a fashion in which it is almost impossible for me to fold even though i am fairly certain i am beat. Lot's of best ahnd vs. 2nd best hand scenarios. But ig uess that is poker at it's best/worst and I will keep on grinding. I am really trying to make some money this week as I am going on a quick 3 day trip to Vegas from June 5-8.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 12,072/60,000
Overall $ 1,373.57
$34.77/hr - 40 hours

none (-618)

Day 16

2006-05-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

Day 16
401 Hands
+145.75

Well today I wasn't able to get in very amny hands, but what was great is that I actually turned a profit. I am feeling really good even though I only made about $150, it just feels great to post a winning day. I took my brother to the local card club i play at for some live 1/2 NL. I came up about $180, so that was pretty nice. Right now I am playing in a $55 MTT on party but things are not looking too promising. I hope I can get my lazy as into gear and actually put some decent hours in this week because I really want to be able to bring $5k out to vegas with me next month.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 10,297/60,000
Overall $ 1,270.06
$36.92/hr - 35 hours

MTT'S
Party $55 104/322 -55 (-618)

Days 14-15

2006-05-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

Day 14-15
1,041 Hands
-75.12

So I still suck at poker. Everytime I start one of these challenges I decide to just lose money instead of win. I guess I should be happy that I lost less than $100 over the last 2 days... If things don;t turn around soon i will move back down to NL100, this is something that i really do not want to do, but I will if I have to. Part of being a great poker player is being good at bankroll managment and right now my roll is tumbling down to the $8k range. I wish I was playing horrible but instead I am just getting killed by the deck. It also sucks to lose because it makes palying a good amount of hands harder to do, as you can see. Hopefully, I can still salvage the rest of the month and at least make $4k in May (including rakeback).

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 9,896/60,000
Overall $ 1,124.31
$34.21/hr - 33 hours

MTT'S
None (-563)

Days 10 - 13

2006-05-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

Day 10 - 13
1,853 Hands
-562.63

Well, as you can see it was a rough few days. just to give you an idea, I lost with AA all in preflop 4 times, got all my money in to a $500 pot with a guy drawing to one out and lost. In addition to that I just couldn't get anything going during any of my sessions. I was however pleased with my ability to stay cool and not tilt away any of my chips after those losses. In some cases i just quit ym sessions early and let myself cool down. I also played a bunch of live poker over these last few days and things went great. I won $1,800by winning a 50 person live MTT and I also made about $500 in the 1/2 NL game at a local card club. I have decided not to include my live stats in my records as I don;t put my winnings into my "official" bankroll. Hopefully things will go better over the weekend as I am going to try andplay at least 3.5k hands by monday.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 8,855/60,000
Overall $ 1,199.43
$40.61/hr - 30 hours

MTT'S
Party $109 297/ 490 -109 (-563)

Day 9

2006-05-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

Day 9
697 Hands
-375.06

Well, these are the days that poker players hate most, losing days. I seem to have a problem beating the late night donks on party that try to give their money away. I lost a $700 pot after getting all the money in on the turn with top 2 pair against a flush draw. In the two MTT's I played things went horrible an dmy bustout in the party 500k was due to my horrible play, which really made me mad. I didn't think that I would be able to sustain the winate i saw during the start of my challenge, but I really hope that things turn around. I also added a little bragging list of final table appearances to the right of my blog page.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 7,002/60,000
Overall $ 1,762.06
$75.36/hr - 23 hours

MTT'S
Party $215 825/2320 -215 (-292)
Party $162 205/ 375 -162 (-454)

Day 8

2006-05-13T22:23:00.000-07:00

Day 8
831 Hands
-264.16

Well I started the day up about $100 but silly me decided to take advantage of the saturday night, drunk donks. And of course I ran and played horrible to lose a good 2 buy-ins. I was happy to get out and go on a 5 mile bike ride which I was proud of since online poker can make a man VERY lazy. In the morning I played in two Bodog WSOP ME sat's only to lose one with KK vs Q9 nad the other with AK vs 66. I think I will try a couple more tomorrow as there is about a 100% overlay in these things. I am currently playing a party $77 MTT and made it past the first hour which is solid for me lately. :) I have also decided to add my MTT results to my daily updates, but not as part of my "challenge". For the most part I use rakeback to make up for any of my MTT losses at the end of the month. After my 3 final tables in a row last month, this month has been horrible and it looks like all of my expected $1800 in rakeback will go back into my roll.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 6,305/60,000
Overall $ 2,137.12
I Need $ 3,862.88
$104.08/hr - 21 hours

MTT'S
Party $77 198/320 -77 (-77)

Day 7

2006-05-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

Day 7
315 Hands
+175.98

Today I was busy with my "real" job and I decided to take it easy in the poker world. Only played for about an hour today, but booked a nice little profit. I think I am going to take tommorow of from cash games and play a bunch of WSOP ME Qualiferes on Bodog. I really want to paly in the big dance this year, so hopefully things will pan out. Also I must point out that my current hourly rate is a bit too high to sustain so i expect that to drop at some point. I would hop to sustain at least a $75/hr rate.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 5,474/60,000
Overall $ 2,401.28
I Need $ 3,598.72

$134.78/hr - 18 hours

Day 6

2006-05-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

Day 6
970 Hands
+540.15

Well I lied about boycotting the Party Supers. :( I played for 3 hours just to get busted on the bubble when I shoved AK and got called by 99. At least for my sake, the 1/2 NL tables treated me nicely, and I was able to book a nice little profit to erase yesterday's disaster. I am still not happy about the amount of ahnds I have been getting in, but single tabling MTT's is the cause of that. I think I will start posting some interesting hands daily to help keep my blog worth reading.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 5,159/60,000
Overall $ 2,225.30
I Need $ 3,774.70

$132.59/hr - 17 hours

Day 5

2006-05-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

Day 5
554 Hands
- 503.71

Well as you can see, things have been going VERY good for me over the last week. With that being said, it should be no suprise that I had a horrible day today. I feel like I was playing well, things just weren't going my way. I lost one $500 pot when I flopped a flush against a guy who flopped a bigger flush. Another $400 pot I lost could ahve been avoided but I failed to go with my read and fold QQ on a 25J rainbow baord, but the guy made it obvious he had AA/KK. I can;t expect to win $200+ everyday but I do hate losing more than $500 in less than 600 hands. Oh well, I still love poker.

P.S. I played in a $60 live MTT at ym local, crappy casino and lost with AA vs 44 all-in preflop. :(

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 4,189/60,000
Overall $ 1,685.15
I Need $ 4,314.85

$124.52/hr - 14 hours

Day 4

2006-05-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

Day 4
1026 Hands
+ 203.44

Things are still going my way, I was up over $500 until the end of my session when I made a bad all-in call with trips top kicker against a guy who rivered a gutterball straight. I am still happy with my play overall and feel like I am doing really well with my continuation bets. I played the Party Super tonight (shame on me!) and got knocked out in the first level with KK vs AA. This time I am serious about "boycott" of the Party MTT's for a while. This weekend I will be playing some WSOP ME sattelites at Bodog which look like they will have some good overlays. (Shhhh!)

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 3,635/60,000
Overall $ 2,188.86
I Need $ 3,811.14

Day 3

2006-05-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

Day 2
1239 Hands
+ 809.63

Things are going great, only problem is that I am not playing very long sessions. I feel like the longer I play the higher the chance i end up losing a huge hand. I know this is a bad way to think about and play poker, but oh well. 800+ hands played in one day isn't exactly miniscule, at a B&M casino it would take me about 2 days of straight playing to get that many hands in. PLayed the Super Monday and 10pm $109, as usual I barely won a pot in each and was out in first hour of both. I think I will take a few days of from MTT's and focus on playing insane amounts of 1/2 NL since that seems to be my personal ATM currently.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 2,609/60,000
Overall $ 1,985.42
I Need $ 4,014.58

Day 2

2006-05-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

Day 2
923 Hands
+ 468.14

Spent 3 hours single tabling the 500k on party jsut to get knocked out by a 2 outer after all the chips went in on the flop. : ( At least the 200 NL games are going well. I would love for this hot streak to keep going forever but it won't. :(

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 1,370/60,ooo
Overall $ 1,179.75
I Need $ 4,820.25

My blog sucks...

2006-05-07T22:33:00.000-07:00

Decided to start an actual challenge to hopefully make some money to take to Vegas for the WSOP in July. I am setting the modest goal of $6k in 50 days playing 60k hands. This will be NOT including rakeback which I will use to pay my bills and to fund some online MTT entry fees. I am going to help motivate myself to play as many hands as possible during this time by posting my results daily.

Day 1

447 Hands
+ 707.65

Didn't play much today, but it was easy to quit early after getting up a nice amount quickly.

6k in 50 Totals
Overall $ 707.65
I Need $ 5292.35

Road to the WSOP/Vegas

2006-05-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

Well I ahve decided that I want to go out to Vegas for the WSOp and hopefulyl sattelite into the main event. If that does not happen then I at least want to take part in the highly lucrative cash games that will be going on during the series. In order to boost my bankroll I will be playing 90k hands of 1/2 NL between now and July 1. If I can keep up a modest win rate of 3ptbb/100 hands I should be able to make $10k-$12k including rakeback during the next two months. I seem to always fail at these challenges but maybe this time things will be different as I have some good motivation and school ends next week.

WSOP Step 4...

2006-04-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

So the last few days have been pretty uneventful. I played the Party Million MTT and had no chance as I busted soon after the 1st break. In the first hour I had to dodge AA with my KK and then get of a set when a guy obviously rivered a flush. I got in a few thousand hands of NL200 and am down about $100. One good peice of news is that I have moved onto Step 4 in the WSOP steps on Party. 1-2 places get to go onto Step % (the final step) and 3-5 get a replay of Step 4, and so on.. I feel like if I play my best and am very patient, I have a legitmiate shot at winning the WSOP package worth $12k. Here we go...!

4/20 Update...

2006-04-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

So after my recent success in some MTT's, I have been able to take a shot at some higher NL 6max games. For me those hogher games are 200NL with 1/2 blinds. For once in my life taking a shot at a higher limit has been going great! After 3,507 hands, I am up $725 running at a healthy 5.2 ptbb/100. I will continue playing these games until things turn sour. I hope to get in another 10k hands before the end of this month and continue winning. I may allow myslef to play in the $640 Party Million MTT on Saturday. I have always wanted to give this tourney a shot, and I feel like this may be a good time for me to take my shot at the $200,000+ first prize.

I'm baaack! This time it's for real...

2006-04-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

So as I said in my last entry, which seems like it was a year ago, I have been very busy with school and my "real" job. As a result, my poker playing has been cut back, but I am proud to say that I have been studying alot and am going to make a comeback by way of NL cash games.

Now for the fun stuff. this past week I satrted palying MTT's again and I have had insanley good results. I made 3 fianl tables this week in $100+ MTT's on party. the crazy thing is that i got 5th place in all of them. Slightly dissapointing but I still made: $3k, $2.2, and $3.3k. As usual i got my money in good 2 of the 3 MTT's and caught a cooler on the other (QQ vs KK - 5 handed). this has helped boost my bankroll and I am now able to start playing some NL200 on party. I hope to get in 50k hands at this level and at least a 3ptbb/100 win rate. I played about 22k hands of NL100 over the past month at 2ptbb/100 but felt I was running kinda poorly.

Edit:
I started up 3 tables of NL200 6max, epecting to be instantly humbled, but alas, my heater continues with me up $350 in my first hour. Holla.

School > Poker (not by choice)

2006-03-15T16:30:00.000-08:00

So the past month or so I ahve been spending alot less time studying poker and alot more time studying biology and anthropology. As fun as that sounds I am glad to say that my poker hiatus is coming to an end at least for a couple of weeks. Now that I am done with midterms I will be able to log some major hours. Also, I am going to the promised land of Las Vegas next week for a few days, so hopefully I will play some great live poker out there.

You might be wondering how may play has been going over the past month and I am sad to report that I ahve been not doing very well. During that last part of February I continued to play $55 SnG's and could not seem to break through to any profits. At the end of the moth Party poker restructered all their SnG's and I decided that would be a great time to start playing NL ring again. After playing almost 5,000 Sng's I was ready for a change. So since the begenning of March i ahve been 4 tabling the 6max NL100 tables and gotten ina bout 12,000 hands so far. I started out great but have dropped down recently and will post my stats once I get done with my first 20k hands.

Part of the reason i am starting to struggle is that I am new to 6max and it is a much different game than SnG's. Hopefully I can do a lot of studying and playing over the next couple weeks and make some great improvments in my game. I think that I should eventually be able to make about 5 PTBB/100 hands which would equate to $35-$40/hr plus $1200/month in rakeback.

I will start making some regualr updates about what I am learning in thw world of shorthanded NL Ring and will also post a full Las Vegas trip report. So stay tuned and wish me luck.

Feb. 4 - 6 Bad, Bad, Bad

2006-02-06T23:47:00.000-08:00

So far this has been a horrible year for my SnG progress. Through a combination of some horrible luck, some bad stress induced play, and lack of confidence I am currently struggling through a 38 buy-in downstreak. That streak is not the worst ever but it is over about 500 SnG's making it a horrible run at best. I am starting to look into getting a SnG coach through 2+2 and I will be paying that person about $75/hr to help me work on my game and get me back on track. The only thing I can do now is keep playing and hope that the cards even themsleves out VERY soon. Here are my stats, I almsot don't want to keep posting these poor updates but part of being a good poker player is good record keeping even if it is not good records.

4 $33's played
+$78 yay! :)

59 $55's played
-$445

1 $109 played
-$109

Feb. 1 - 3

2006-02-04T17:48:00.000-08:00

Didnt play much over the last 3 days, took friday off and tried to study some hand histories. I am always hoping to find some huge mistakes when looking through them but I cannot seem to find any huge leaks. One thing I am trying to do is make better calls late instead of autofolding to all-ins. Well here are my ugly stats from the last 3 days, enjoy.

41 $55's played
-$305 : (

Jan 29 - 31

2006-02-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

Well this 3 day stretch was better than the previous one so i can;t compain there. I still feel like I am not playing my best at all times and i really hope that my stats turn around in February. I don't have time to write much right now but I will make a full January results post by tommorow. Also for WPT fans the Borgota Winter Open finalt able is taking place today and boy is it stacked: Eric Lindigren, Michael "the grinder" Mizrachi, and John D'agnistino are threee of the six finalists, should make for some great TV.

Stats

66 $55's played
+$320 :

Jan 26-28 Things could be worse....

2006-01-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

I could be dead :) As you may have already noticed by the title of this post, things have been going horrible lately. I cannot seem to win any hands regardless of if I am a 5% or 90% favorite. I am currently dealing with a 30 buy-in downswing at the $55's and I am NOT enjoying it. Now as someone who has played about 4,000 SnG's in my career I am well aware that these kinds of runs happen and there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, so i will keep pressing on and playing good poker. On another note, Daniel Negranu just won the WSOP Tournament Circuit event in Mississippi, so congrats to him as he is once again King of the poker world. :)

Ugly stats:

69 $55's played
-$1145 :(

3 $109's played
-$27

Update: Jan 23-25

2006-01-25T22:48:00.000-08:00

A pretty uneventful last couple of days, I have a good article for you to read that was posted on the Two Plus Two message boards by Gigabet. This article is a pretty advanced read about stack sizes in tournaments and how they relate to the style of poker you should be playing. Here is the link: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=4524424&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1&nt=10

As for my stats from he last three days, I will be posting them in a new format which is a simple report on what I played during the last three days. I will do the overall stats on the 15th and last day of each month.

69 $55's played
-$145 :(

1 $109 played
-$109 :(

Back to the grind...

Jan 20-22

2006-01-23T12:33:00.000-08:00

Not much to report I played 44 $55's over the last few days and I made about $175 so not too great although anything is better then lsong money so I am still happy. By the start of next month I want to be playing sets of 4 $55's and 3 $109's and then by the start of March hopefully I will finalyl be a full-time $109's player. Here are my stats up till now...

55's - 159 played
ROI - 4.1 %
ITM - 35.2 %
$ 355

109's - 28 played
ROI - 37.6 %
ITM - 42.9 %
$ 1148

Jan 18-19 Update...

2006-01-19T21:25:00.000-08:00

Since these two day updates could get boring pretty fast I am probably going to extend them to 3 day updates so roughly 10 a month, I think this will still give readers a good idea of the day to day swings of playing this game for a living. I played a little more in these latest 2 days but still failing to meet my previous expectations. I keep ahving my best perfermances int he 109's so my profit stats are kinda funny to look at at in this regard.

55's - 115 played
ROI - 3.6 %
ITM - 35.7 %
$ 225

109's - 28 played
ROI - 37.6 %
ITM - 42.9 %
$ 1148

Jan 16 -17...

2006-01-18T14:40:00.000-08:00

I didn't get much online play in these past two days because of me starting school and playing at the casino. Which leads me to my first bit of news, I won back to back 50 player MTTs on Monday and Tuesday night for $850 and $975 respectively. I also won and entry into a sattelite for a seat to the WPT Reno. The sattelite will have only 40 entrants and be giving away 3 seats so I am excited about playing in that next month. As far as online play I got in about 15 SnG's here are my running stats:

55's - 88 played
ROI - 9.5 %
ITM - 36.4 %
$ $460

109's - 20 played
ROI - 23.9 %
ITM - 45.0 %
$ $520

MTT's
$109 - 24/375 +$152

New stats posts...

2006-01-15T20:53:00.000-08:00

So for the new year I started a new spreadsheet in excel for keeping my records. It is a pre-designed spreadsheet from a poster on 2+2 so thanks to "slim" for that. I am going to post the stats for the SnGs I have played in the last week and then starting tomorrow I will build on those stats daily and hopefully give my readers a better idea of how variance can ruin your life. :)
Recently thing shave been going good, I've been playing about 5-6 tables at a time and mostly the $55's with a few $109's thrown in. I would really like to get the bankroll for playing $109's exclusively. But anyways here are my stats so far, I hope to complete a total of 600 SnG's by month's end.

*55's

Total played - 75

ITM % - 34.7%

ROI % - 7.9%

Profit - $325

*109's

Total played - 17

ITM% - 52.9%

ROI% - 45.7%

Prfoit - $847

**Overall $/HR - $49.77 (bound to go down)

Back to business...

2006-01-14T21:58:00.000-08:00

Well now that school is about to start back up for me, I am going to have to take on a more routine oriented life style. This will probably help my poker though as I am going to really try and make some money over the coming months. Also I have a few goals that I would like to accomplish in the next 12 months:

1) Have a $10,000 profit month (Including MTT's)

2) Make at least 6 final tables in big MTT's

3) Cash in a WSOP event

4) Play at least 10,000 SnG (5,000 215's)

5) Learn more about the game than I did in 2005

So starting tomorrow Jan 15, I will be on a quest to play 500 $55's by February. I will update at least 5 days a week but hopefully everyday. BTW congrats to 2+2er Steve Paul-Ambrose for taking down the Caribbean WPT event for $1.4 Million. Nice score!

Good way to ring int he New Year!

2006-01-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

I'm back! Over the past few weeks I ahve been keeping very busy with the holidays and all. I got in a decent amount of poker but basicaly just broke even over a few hundred 33's and 55's. However, last night I started the new year off with a nice little bankroll bost tot he tune of $4,800. I was able to finish 2nd out of 648 people in a $55 multitable tournament. I will now proceed to play blow a bunch of that money by playing some of the bigger tounreys on party. I want to make the next 3 months very profitable so i will be playing tons of $55 SnG's along with that I think I will devote my nightime play to NL cash games. I have about 60,000 hands experience at the PArty NL 25 and NL 50 tables but I think I want to break into the NL 100 game as it appears to be pretty profitable. I'll try to do 2 updates per week for this New Year let's hope it is Profitable.

Gone but not lost...

2005-12-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

Well, as you may have noticed I have been on a hiatus from blogging. A mixture of being sick, having internet problems, having computer problems, and going on my worst downswing ever have all been contributing factors in my absence. So to sum up the bad news my bankroll has now shrunk down to $6,200 after getting it very close to $10,000 about a month ago. I have spent about $1,200 on MTT's which along with my 32 buy-in downswing at the $55's has not been fun. The only good thing about all this is that I am still playing my A game and I know that things will turn around. I am now playing with only one monitor so I am stuck 4 tabling, but I do ahve rakeback again so that should help offset some of my losses in the future. I am sure that I will be lacking on my updates over the next couple weeks as the holidays will be keeping me more than busy. I do however, plan on playing at least 300 more $55's before the end of the year. Hopefully I can get my bankroll closer to $7,500 before then as Jan. 1 will be my official start as a professional poker player. In light of realizing that there are many things that can go wrong for an internet poker player I ahve decided to set a more modest goal for 2006 and hope to make $50,000 including rakeback. Well, that is all fro now, back to the tables.

Results for November

2005-12-01T12:31:00.000-08:00

November has come to an end and to be honest, I have mixed feelings about my results for the month. On one hand I was able to play the $55's regularly and discovered they are no harder than the 33's. But at the same time, I only copmleted 510 SnG's total. My profit for the month was a slightly dissapointing $1,651 including the few days of rakeback I had. With an hourly rate around $14 for laying online poker I should not even start to think about complaining although I feel I could attain $20+/hr with a little more effort. I blew some money on expensive tournaments but I feel that i am +EV in them so only time is my enemy when it comes to making a big score in one of those.

For the month of december I am going to put in as much effort as it takes to get 800 $55's and 100 $109's done. Also I am about 2 days away from having a new accoutn with RB so my profits for enxt motnh should be at least $1,300 just from rakeback alone. Well off to the tables.

Slackin' on my bloggin'

2005-11-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

My last update was about 10 days ago and since then not much exciting has happened in the way of poker. I'm proud to say that I did spend time with my family and friends over the Thanksgiving weekend and it was a much needed break from the daily grind I had been getting accustomed to. So for last week, ending friday, I only played a mere 102 $55's and ended up in the red, to the tune of $430. I ran into soem bad luck, however, I can blame about 5 SnG exits on my poor play as I caught myself making a few impatient and reckless moves last week.

I am happy to report that this week is already starting off great. After only 26 $55's i am up over $600 so hopefully this will be one of those +1200 weeks to make up for last weeks poor results. I managed to play a couple +$100 MTT's this weekend but barely made the money in both, so nothing too exciting.

In other news, Full Tilt aired a Invational SnG live from Monaco on Thanksgiving. It was great beacuse they showed virtually every hand and it was interesting to see how the top pros play a fast blind structure SnG.

Also this weekend Party Poker released a new Beta version of their client which carries a new window resizing feature. This is great for a multitabler like myself, who does not have two 20" LCD's like all the big guns. I can now fit six poker games on my 17" Lcd and use my second monitor for more tables or work. Well, thats all for now, hope everyone had a grand holiday weekend. back to grinding for me. Holler.

Rollercoaster week...

2005-11-17T23:47:00.000-08:00

Nothing exciting to report, yesterday I played 20 455's and was on fire, I finished up $800 for the day but naturaly today I played 20 more and lost $600 back getting beat up VERY badly. I knew it was coming so it softened the blow somewhat. Tommorow is the last day of the week but as of now I am up $425 so far after 20 hours of play, which is respectable enough.

In WPT news the Foxwoods ME final table will be played tommorow at 4. Nick Shulman a huge internet player (the_takeover on Stars, who won over $140,000 for 1st in the 750k garunteed) is going into the final table of 6 players with over 50% of the chips in play. That should be fun to watch on TV next season. Good luck Nick.

Good week

2005-11-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

My most recent week ending on friday was a solid one for me. I made a little over $800 after 126 $55's. This was offset by me spending about $450 on some bigger tourneys last week but I still am int he black for the week, so its all good. Yesterday was a so-so day to start the week I lost $140 but I played great only to get thrashed by the deck. Today however, things have turned around I made around $500 in 16 SnGs earlier today and this was by getting seven 2nds and one 1st. So event hough I did great bad luck in heads up cost me hundreds extra. I am kinda dissapointed int he amount I haev been palying lately and hope to motivate myself to play 200 SnGs this week.

In WPT news the Foxwoods event started today and after Day 1 Heat A, the chip leader is Lyle Beramn with 130,000 chips. Iw ill try to throw in WPT/WSOP curcuit event updates into this blog to make it more interesting to read. That's it for now, back to the tables.

Personal Revalation!

2005-11-08T16:43:00.000-08:00

As all the faithful readers of this blog know that my recent tourney win in October really boosted my bankroll and confidence to play higher limits. I feel like it has all settled in and I am very happy with my current position and have been making constant improvments in my game, mindest, bankroll, and understanding of the real "poker world". Basically, I am just voicing my appreciation for the life I have been able to lead over the last 6 months. What keeps me going and more excited is knowing that in a very short time I should be able to 8 table the 109's and using that as a launchpad for my quest of $100,000 profit in 2006. Right now that seems out of the question but if alot of things go just right it could become a reality very soon. Enough dreaming for one day, onto my poker playing over the last few days. As of right now this week I am up about $500 over 61 $55's and 1 $109, that's right, a 109. I played my very first $109 SnG on Sunday and naturally i got 4th when i pushed KJ from the button and SB called with AQ. I was just happy to see that the one I played went just like a $55, although it would be dumb to start drawing conclusions after a single SnG has been played. I also played in the Party nightly $109 MTT it had 450 entrants and I finished 125, when I turned a flush that was not good against my opponents A high flush. It happens, but it ain't fun. I put a couple hundred on Poker Stars to start playing some heads-up matches which will definatley improve my game in the long-run. I have played about 7 between $10-$50 and only won 1 $20 match. I was getting beat up on but I will start making adjustments to improve my heads-up game. Well that is all for now, I may play the Party $109 tonight, I'll update if I do anygood in it. Out.

Not winning, but staying positive...

2005-11-06T00:31:00.000-08:00

So this past week was one of my worst ever. I played 113 $55's and managed to lose $565. Even with the lack of profit I was pleased with my game and know that these things are inevitable. Today I slacked and wasn't too productive. I played 15 $55's and lost $25, then I dropped a quick $100 messign around with $100 NL 6 max. I also went big, or at least tried to by buying directly into the Party Poker $200k garunteed, which carried a $215 pricetag. I played decent and got busted 980th out of 1400 with AQ on a QJ6r board with the pot bigger than my stack and villain sure-enough had QJ. Oh well. This week I hope to get in 225 $55's and pick up my pace for trying to get 2000 done by Christmas.

Another month in the books...

2005-11-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

Well October is over and it was by far the best month of my poker career. I ended up getting in about 720 SnG's , 500 were $33's and the rest were $55's. I ended up making $1,200 from the SnG's but I also had a big MTT win to the tune of $7,000 so overall I had a profit exceeding $8,000 this month which is incredible. As you may remember my goal was to have a $10,000 bankroll by Christmas and currently I am sitting at $9,000 so unless things go Horrible wrong over the next 50 days I think I may even get to the $12,000 mark by christmas. As for the month of November, my goal will be to play 1,000 $55's and clear $5,000. If I get my act together and start playing with rakeback on party I can make $1,000 this moth just from that. Well abck tot he tables wish me luck.

Luckbox is in working order...

2005-10-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

Today is friday, the last day of the week, and this week was very good to me...so far. As of now I am up $1,841 for the week, by far the best week of my poker career (excluding tourney wins). So far, I have played 110 $55's and my hourly rate for the week is a whopping $92.50! If only all weeks were this kind to me, lol. The month is over on monday and after having a horrible first two weeks I think I should be pulling off a pretty profitable month. Well, back to the $55's. Holler.

*Get these songs -
Motion City Soundtrack - My Favorite Accident
Atmosphere - Say Hey There

Landmark Day!

2005-10-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day and I feel that it was a big steping stone on my path to fulfilling my desire to become a professional poker player. Today after a mere 22 $55's I was up an astonishing $1,090. Now I know I won over $7,000 for 1st in a tourney last week, but those types of scores only come very sparingly. A big reason this is so serious to me is because I can literaly remember little over a year ago, I was dreaming of one day becoming one of those guys on the 2+2 forums who made posts about winning over a thousand bucks in one day of normal play. I feel great right now and fully understand that tommorow I will probably lose $700 of it back but as long as I feel like my game is up to par, which I do, I will keep playing the $55's. Also after reading over some past posts I am starting to realize that the posts seem to say alot of the same things. So over the next few weeks I am going to try and start making more informative and innovative posts. i think I will start tommorow by picking out some hands to post, which I feel demonstrate some higher level skills. Thaks for reading. I'm riiich, beeeyach. Holler.

Easy does it...

2005-10-24T01:16:00.000-07:00

Not much to report, I have been slacking on my hours but I think I needed to tone downt the playing for at least a week. Starting tommorow I will be back to the normal grind. Over the last 4 days I made about $700 over 61 $55's. I think I have been playing pretty solid lately, I find that the players in the $55's are a lot worse than i originaly thought. I have been sucked out on many times, but today I did 5 ITM in a row 1,1,1,2,1 so I made up some much needed ground. I think I may play a couple tounreys each day this or use mon-wed to try and qualify for a bigger Party tourney. My main goal however is just to get in at least 25 SnG's a day. Well I'm off to bed, bye bye weekend fish and hello weekDAY grinders ! :) Holler.

I like to jinx myself...

2005-10-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

It seems as though everytime I start to get positive about this game and everything seems to be running smoothly some unknown powers strike down and punish me for enjoying life too much. So today i lost $500 and was palying the best poker of my life, I can't even mention some of the beats cause I might throw up, but it was bad. The good news is that I have discovered that the $55 SnGs are filled to capacity with stupid, fishy donks. Did I mention that I love stupid, fishy donks. It is only the 3rd day of the week and I am still up $620 but it is so frustratng that I cannot pull together a solid winning week. I have talked to guys that say that have 5 losing days a month and I always seem to have 12-15 losing days a month. What makes it worse is that there is no way around most of my bustouts, I can;t fold AA/KK preflop even if I "know" that my opponent is going to hit their 2 outer. I guess that is why I called this blog 2 outer, it is a big problem in my poker life. I still hope to clear $1,500 more between now and Haloween putting me at +$2,000 in SnGs for the month, after starting off on the worst downswing of my life. Looking ahead to November, I am going to devote my time to playing $55's only and will play about 1000 of them. i should have rakeback set up again by then and need to clear $5,000 including rakeback. New longterm goals are: $12,000 bankroll by Christmas and $25,000 by my birthday on April 14th. Also between now and next summer I need to get $17,000 together for a new car purchase, I really want to get a 2001 Lexus GS300 and poker might make that possible. Holler.

Trying to stake my claim at the $55's...

2005-10-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

Between yesterday and saturday I played 35 $55 SnGs and profited a cool $1,129. Today I have played 10 so far and am down about $376 but am not too dissapointed as I played well and had to expect some losses after running so hot for my last few tourneys. I also played a $22 qualifer for the Super Monday tounrament on Party Poker. The entry is worth $162 and first place is over $30,000. I busted on the bubble in my last "Party Super", so let's hope things go better this time around. I am going to play about 16 more $55's today and hopefully I can turn a small profit for the day. I'll post an update tonight if I have a noteworthy finish in the tourney or if i have a my first -$1,000 day, which seems to be possible with how bad I am running as I type this. (KK lose to QQ, next hand other table AA lose to QQ).

The new frontier...

2005-10-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

Since that big tourney win that I last posted about things have been low key for me poker-wise. I have taken a little time off, which has been much needed and dropped back down to 4 tabling. Now that I am working with a $7,000 bankroll I am palying the $55'sa nd with no pressure for instant results which is really reflecting nicely on my game. Today I only played 15 $55's but managed a whopping $825 profit which is a 100% ROI, if only it were always this fun and easy. And to be perfectly honest I ahve not really had any crazy suckout luck, just getting paid off with good ahnds and not getting sucked out ON. I am hoping that my good play and fortune can continue but my goal is only a 10% ROI which should be very doable especially since I am only 4 tabling. That tournament win was VERY good for my confidence but I am not going to let it compromise my dedication to this game, on monday I will be abck to the grind and trying to get in at least 35 SnG's a day. So today I only played for 3.5 hours but had my biggest 1 day profit without a tounrey score. I'm going to play a couple qualifiers for tommorow's Party $500k garunteed and since it would be my first tourney since the win hoepfully I will be known as back-to-back Zach. Holler.

Out.

"We did it baby!!"

2005-10-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

Those were the famous words shouted by Scotty Ngynn after taking down the 1998 World Series of Poker main event. Last night at about 3:30 a.m., I too shouted those words after winning a $33 buy-in tournament with 1060 entrants. The prize for this feat was a cool $7.2k!(almost 4 times my current bankroll!) I know in the big shceme of things it is not that big of a deal but for me this couldn;t ahve come at a better time. Before entering the tourney last night I was at the lowest point, emotionally, of my poker career. Nothing was going right, although I was playing good poker, and my bankroll was dwindling down to the $2k mark after ahving it up to $3.5k last week. I feel like a huge burdon has been lifted off my back and now instead of worrying about grining it out as much as possible, I can really focus on my game and try to break into the $55's. This next week I will be tweaking my game and making some major observations and adjumstments so watch out for the new Zach next week.

Since this was my first tourney win over 30 people I will be posting a full tourney report on Sunday. It will include all key hands and my proud moment of busting Gigabet when we were down to 4 handed. For those that don;t know Gigabet aka Darrel Dinkins is widely regarded as one of the best if not the best online poker players in the world. I learned a lot from palying a shortahnded final table with him, which was like a bonus on top of the money. I almost equate it to getting to sit at a live table with soemone like Phil Ivey. Well that's it for now I just thought I would update so you all didn;t think I had jumped off a bridge.

Holler. Yeah Son.

Running Bad, Really Bad...

2005-10-12T00:22:00.000-07:00

Things are not going good this week and I am currently in the midst of a 41 buy-in downstreak which equates to over $1,200. This is not fun but I am hoping that things turn around soon. If the streak gets down to 50 buy-ins I will bite the bullet and drop down to the $22's. But as of now my bankroll is still at about $3,000 so I am not in any danger of going broke anytime soon. I just really I hope I can turn things around and have a profitable week and more importantly a sucessful month. Well I am going to bed but I just pray I don't wake up to more bad beats and horibble luck in general. I will proabably not update until the end of the week on Friday, so stay tuned to see if I can turn this dwonstreak around.

Black Saturday...

2005-10-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

Today was a bad day for people like me who multitable online games with a rakeback deal. Party Poker today announced that they are no longer sharing their tables with sites such as the one I play on, Empire. Because of this there is a shortage of bad players and I will be forced to move over to Party Poker and play without rakeback. This means that i will be losing about 1/6th of my profits overall. I am still trying to look on the brightside and realize that I should still be able to clear $4k-$6k per month and after Jan 1. that figure should jump to $6k-$10k/month. There is also a VERY small chance that I will be able to get rakeback at Party Poker but that is still just a dream as far as I am concerned. This was definatley a hectic day in the online poker world but overall I can't blame Party Poker for the move. They are a business and it is in their interest to increase profits. I guess I am taking this news a little better because I had a winning day, I only got in 26 SnGs and profited $319. One other change to note is that Party Poker now allows players to be on up to 10 tables at the same time. This will at least help me keep my bankroll in one spot and save a little time when i tcomes to multitabling. That's all for now, it ahs been a pretty long day and I need some sleep. Tommorow for a change of pace I am going to try and win an entry into the Party $500k Garunteed Tourney. As always wish me luck.

Holler.

Week 1 Poor Results :(

2005-10-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

So after putting of my official career start until Jan. 1 I have decided to use the next 13 weeks to make $10,000 giving me a good bankroll to start my "career". that equates to about $770/week which is doable but after week 1 it is gonna be a little tougher than I had hoped, nuless the cards start falling my way again soon.

So from now until Jan.1 I will post my results week by week and make random posts to mention out of the ordinary results and things going on in my life. Week 1 is now over and it wasn't to fun, actually until my last day I was up $390 but then dropped $492 yesterday including a 15 OOTM streak. Brutal. I am however very pleased with the amount of SnGs that I was able to play and since I didn't have my second monitor until day 3 I think I will be able to get in 300+ SnGs per week.

Week 1 Stats
$33 SnG's Played: 262 (30 hours)
Profit: -$102 (-$3.40/hr)
Current Banroll: $3,322

Volume is my friend...

2005-10-07T01:44:00.000-07:00

Now that I am able to get so many SnG's done per day it is a little bit easier to handle some of the swings but when things go bad they go bad eight times over. :)

After my losing day yesterday I am glad to report that I had a profitable day to the tune of $528 over 54 $33 SnG's. This puts me at +$390 for the week with one more day left. I am starting to realize that I may be paying too much attention to my short term results and that it is taking away from my normal studying of the game during my downtime. I am going to try and only focus on week by week data rather than day by day. I am really a stat junkie so I probably will not be able to hold back. I think that since my bankroll is online and I cannot have it in my pocket I tend to treat my Excel spreadsheet like a safe and admire my stats like stacks of money. Just a thought. Well it is 3 a.m. and tommorow night is Friday Night so it's time to PARTY!

Out.

Losing $...

2005-10-06T02:03:00.000-07:00

Well the title says it all, things aren't going all to well right now. This doesn;t really suprise me as I just started 8 tabling and everytime I embark on a new poker "quest", I seem to be in perfect timing with some bad variance. I'm sure I made a few mistakes as a result of 8 tabling such as being too passive in some hands because folding or checking takes less time than raising. The good news is that i am getting a sick amount of games in each day. In the past 2 days I have played 114 $33's and profited about $170. My totals for October so far are 184 SnG's played and a profit of -$138. Luckily things should turn around pretty quick due to the volume at which i am now playing these tournaments. I am now shooting for 1400 SnG's played this month, and even if I can only manage a 9% ROI my monthly profit will be about $5,500 with rakeback. Only time will tell.

It is now 3:00am and I think that I am done for the day, tommorow should be another 50+ SnG day so wish me the best, I will need it.

First full day of 8 tabling!

2005-10-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

It feels so good to ahve 22 SnG's played before 4 pm, normally I would only have like 6-10 done. I also am doing pretty good today so far my placings have been: 6/2/3/11 for a profit of $534, not bad for 2.5 hours of work. But as always I can't and don't expect these results to continue. I will update this post later tonight hopefully i will have 50 done by then.

8 Table Madness!!!

2005-10-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

Well. I finally did it, I got a second monitor today and a new video card. So from this day forward I can be playing 8 tables at once across 2 screens. The monitor I picked up is just a 17" Gateway LCD, it was only $299 so it isn't really that big of an investment as I hope to get a couple of Dell 20" LCD's as a Christmas gift to myself. So now I am getting around $6-7/Hr from rakeback alone and once i move up to the $55's it will be around $12/Hr. So after getting it all set I started up 4 tables on each of my two Empire accounts. I ended up playing 12 $33's and went: 1/1/0/10.
**In case somer eaders dont't know what that means it is # of finishes 1st/2nd/3rd/4th-10th**
So i start the day down a cool $126, however, I feel like i was playing optimally as I took soem brutal beats in some crucial pots, but hey what else is new? :)

I feel like a small wieght has been lifted off my shoulders because now I can get in 30-40 SnG's a day and have no excuse not to do 1,000 SnG's per month. I think I will play mostly 33's this month as I will want to get used to 8 tabling at a limit I am comfterable with. As soon as the bankroll get's to $4400 I will switch to the $55's. My new goals for this month are:
- 1000 $33's/$55's
- >10% ROI
- >$3500 profit w/o rakeback (I would really like to do $5,000 including rakeback)
- Use at least 20% of month's profit to pay off credit card.

I will update again tommorow night after my first full day of 8 tabling. It feels good to say that I should have over 50 more SnG's played by tommorow night.

Out.

September Rusults...

2005-10-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

Well September is over and I am very happy about where I ended up considering I went through a 400 SnG breakeven streak and I only played 570 total for the month. Overall I made about $2,000 including rakeback. All but $300 of that money went back into my banroll, as I am hoping to have it up to $5,000 byt he end of this month (Haloween). This new month started off bad yesterday as I only got in 12 SnG's (half day cause i needed to go party, hey it is Saturday!), 9 $33's and 3 $55's, got 2nd in 1 $33 and 1 $55 for a -$233 day to start off the month. Luckily I woke up this morning (suprised to not have a hang-over) did 2/0/1/1 for my first set, bumbing me up to +$6 for the moth of October, Holla.

I am currently playing right now and hope to at least get 20 SnG's in today. Sunday night's I play in a Single Table Tourney with some friends,w e ahve been doing it every Sunday for about 18 months. So if I get knocked out of that early enough I may be able to get in closer to 30 SnG's. I know that I have been talking about getting a second monitor for a while now but between my nice little breakeven streak and me being very conservative with my bankroll, it hasn't ahppened yet. Latley though I have really been thinking that I need to get one ASAP, I mean if I consider myself to be a winning SnG player, I could be increasing my income by as much as 80%. So I am vowing to spend the next week scouring stores and the internet for a good deal on any 17"-19" LCD monitor. I am not going to worry about overlap and getting 2 20" Dell's like all the "cool" multitablers, but once I get closer the $109's I will look into splurging on two 20" lcds.

Out.

Winning is fun... :)

2005-09-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Well the past 3 days ahve been good to me, I played 70 $33's and I was up a cool $1,017 from Sunday thru Tuesday. Today i have played 20 $33's and am down $50 but I didn't expect to keep up that level of winning. After that little heater my bankroll is back up to $3,000 but let's hope it stays up there. Hell, a week ago i thought my October 1st bankroll goal of $3,500 was a lost cause, and now I think I can get pretty damn close if I keep up the good run. The thing about my recent heater is that I actually got some pretty bad luck ITM and should of had a few more 1sts in place of 3rds, but oh well. It looks like a will amek just over $1,000 this month plus another $400 from rakeback and considering I only played about 550 SnG's these results aren;t that bad. I really hope next month I am able to get in at least 900 SnG's as I really NEED to get my second monitor and 6-8 Tabling started. looks like it'll be 600 $33's and 300 $55's next month and my goal will be to make $3,200 plus rakeback.

Also for all you Hip Hop listener's out there, I highly reccomend picking up the new Atmosphere album, they are a DJ/Emcee Duo out of Minnosota and are the truth. Holla.

Change of plan.

2005-09-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well at first I had intended for this to be a week by week account of life as a professional internet poker player. I wanted to start out 8-Tabling the $55 SnG's and over the year work my way up to the $215 SnG's and Beyond. Currently I am still 4-Tabling the $33 SnG's, there are many reasons for this but it has taught me a great lesson about playing poker for a living. that lesson is no matter how much planning you do. variance and fate will always throw some jabs to derail progress temporarily. It is during these times that the "True" winning players seperate themselves for the weak-minded fish. So all that being said I have decided to delay the start of my official online poker career until the start of the new year. So for the year of 2006 I hope to make at least $60,000 ($70,000 if rakeback is still around). My bankroll should be about $10,000 on Jan. 1, 2006 and thus I will start out 8-Tabling the $55 and $109 SnG's. I think that my goal is reasonable and will require me to play about 30 hours/week, which is very doable especially with that salary.

So what am I doing until then? Well I will still be updating this blog regularly as I hope to gain a few readers before the start of my "Career". I'm gonna keep grinding away at the $33 SnG's, eventually move to the $55 SnG's and hopefully pad wmy bankroll with another $7,000 before the end of the year. So therin lies another mini challenge, in the next 3 months I must make at least $7,000. Wish me luck.

Results from past 15 days...

2005-09-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

As you ahve already see, the month of September has not been good to me. I am also dissapointed in myself because I ahevn;t been putting in as many hours as I had vowed to do. But with the downswing this month I have had to quit ealr ymany session because I know I am prone to tilt when things get really bad. Here are my stats fort he past 15 Days. Not Good. Let's hope October goes better as i plan on getting 800 SnG;s done if I ever get another monitor (I am waiting till my bankroll gets to $4,000, which was supposed to be this month :( ).

15 days of Stats
SnG's Played Won/Loss$
16 -$181
24 +$60
23 +$432
19 -$292
12 +$183
16 -$242
12 +$84
16 -$48
16 -$168
25 +$18
18 -$62
17 -$141
16 -$54
16 +$12
16 +$222
Totals:
262 -$177

So as you can see things have not been going too good.

Next month = (400 33's @ 12%ROI = $1,600) + (400 55's @ 10%ROI = $2,200) + $800 Rakeback =
*$4,600*
Let's Hope So...

Not Winning...

2005-09-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

The title of this post should give you a good idea of my curernt mood and progres in my poker career. So far this month I have played 400 SnG's mostly $33's, I am up only $150. I am VERY dissapointed although i knew when I started down this path, things would not always be good, so I feel that I am better prepared for this than I could be. So at this point I am just hoping to finish the month with a profit of any kind. Luckily I have rakeback so that will give me an extra $450 to add to my totals. As far as my game I feel I am playing solid, I mostly just laugh in a disgusted way during all my bouts of getting sucked out on. I am really hoping to get in 1,000 SnG's next month and still have a good chance to hit my Haloween bankroll goal of $5,000. So today i leave you with another great article/post from 2+2. This is from Irieguy and talks about dealing with downswings properly.

"That which we shall not speak of..." by Irieguy

Well, after finally beginning to pull myself out of a bad run the likes of which I had heretofore thought to be impossible; I feel I am as ready as ever to draft my definitive "bad run" post.My profits are back to an acceptable level for 2005, but I must say that I had quite a bad start this year. I learned so much from 2+2 posters as I began playing SNGs regularly last year that I feel like I should "pay it forward" and share what I've learned about running badly.To begin with, most players (especially new players) have a great deal of difficulty discriminating between common variance and a bonafide bad spell. The best way to differentiate between the two would probably be to pick some statistical thresholds and declare that anything above or below those thresholds are unlikely enough to warrant consideration for being particularly "lucky" or "unlucky" events. But running badly really has nothing to do with statistics... it's an emotional event. The fragile, twisted, neurotic mind of a SNG player cannot truly comprehend the implications of the metrics we discuss on this forum. Statistical perspective is a necessary component to a sound psyche, but it is not enough. Hopefully I can offer another type of perspective.
Running Bad
If you play SNGs regularly (at least 400 a month), there are certain things that will happen so frequently that you really will get used to them. A 100 SNG negative ROI run, for example. A 12 SNG OOTM streak. A 20 buy-in drop. These things happen so frequently that if you are able go 30-60 days without seeing at least one of them, you are lucky. So unless you are running worse than that, you really aren't running badly... you're just playing SNGs. If you exceed one of those markers, though, I think it's OK to accept the fact that you are running badly. Go ahead and post something. Cry. Break something. Yell at a loved one for no good reason. We are all human beings, so some indulgence must be taken in the name of misery. Do not torture yourself with the belief that such irrational behavior is not Zen. In fact, it is the third tenet of IrieZen philosophy (the obscure spritual fusion of rastafarianism and zen buddhism to which I subscribe):"Let if flow. Then let it go."But until your losing extends beyond 100 SNGs... until your losing streak surpasses 12 OOTM in a row... or until your bankroll hemorrhage exceeds 20 buy-ins, you aren't running bad. You're just playing SNGs. Just living, man. Grab a heineken, put your feet up, twist a fat one, look at your pathetic spreadsheet and laugh. Then log onto 2+2 and ruthlessly berate the newbie who authored the post "How can I lose 2 days in a row when my ROI was 47% over the past 72 SNGs?"IT happensOnce you've truly entered the depths of a bad run, things actually ease up a bit. You've let it flow, and let it go, and you can comfortably settle into the rhythm of losing every 60-40 race for a week or so, and starting every session with a 10th place finish by getting aces or kings cracked. Then IT happens.IT is that peculiar new level of running badly where you actually begin to develop paranormal powers. If your opponent needs precisely the 7 of clubs on the river to beat you, you will KNOW that the 7 of clubs is coming on the river. It's not pessimism, or selective memory, or anything like that. A luminous thread extending from your soul and enveloping the universe will resonate with the 7 of clubs. It's coming, and you know it. PartyPoker will pause an extra blink, as if to acknowledge the event. It's the electronic equivalent of Amarillo Slim winking at you before he slow rolls you in a low limit side game on day 27 of the WSOP.When IT is happening, I sometimes revel in my new found psychic powers. If my wife is in the room, and my pocket kings are exposed against my opponents pocket 4's I will get her attention and say "watch, honey... a 4 will appear on this board." While my wife is pleased with the financial perks of my poker hobbie, she is much more impressed with my ability to declare the cards that will appear with 100% accuracy than she is with any ability I may have to play the right way. She doesn't beleive me when I tell her that the universe bestows upon us all brief periods of clairvoyance... she thinks it must be some form of legerdemain.I don't know what IT is, or what causes IT, but
IT happens.
You no longer lose to overpairs. Your opponents will make a set at the minimum. They sometimes river quads when they don't even need it to win. You become particularly vulnerble to any hand with 2 gaps or less, because they are always live to a runner-runner straight. IT is what causes people to quit.Which brings us to the second tenet of IrieZen philosophy:"The universe will unfold as it should."I'm not exactly sure what that means yet, but I think it has something to do with how you are supposed to handle IT.
That Which We Shall Not Speak Of
Then there is something so egregious, so horrifying, so odious that it shall not be given a name. I will mention it here, but I will never speak of it again.It's origin is a simple statistical fact. If something is possible, it is possible for it to happen twice in a row.Can a winning player have a 200-SNG stretch with a negative ROI? Anyone who's played more than a few thousand SNGs knows that this is possible. What if you had 2, 200-SNG losing stretches in a row? It gives me the chills just writing about it. This is the type of spell that can lead even the best player, with the soundest disposition into a psychological squalor from which he may never recover.Anyways, it happens. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The only thing that can save you is to adhere to the first and foremost tenet of IrieZen philosophy:

"Make yourself comfortable, and ride it out."This means something different to everybody, but I will offer my own interpretation for what it's worth:
2 Dell 2001fps.A papasan chairA refrigerator full of HeinekenReady access to Las Vegas lap artistry
Play the right way,
Irieguy

Breakeven is breaking my heart...

2005-09-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Over the past week I am break even, well I'm up $22 which is less thanh one buy-in at my current level. Like I mentioned in a previous post, there have been winning players who ahve gone 1,000 SnG's at a breakeven win rate. So that being said I am not too worried about this although I am pretty unpotomistic about making $2,000+ this month as I had hoped to. It looks like I need to have an Incredible run over the next 11 days to finish off the month of Spetember. I have also decided that until I hit $3,500 I will play strictly $33 SnGs, because for some reason my stats in these so far are the best I have, right now with 300 played I'm at 18% ROI which is over $5/SnG. If I haven't already said so, this game is VERY crazy, and the people like me who try and play it for a living, are even crazier.

I'm gonna try and find a good article to post tommorow so expect a little startegy gem in the morning. :)

Bad Play + Bad Variance = Hell

2005-09-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

So, it is the halfway point of the month and I'm a little dissapointed. Since I had decided not to start the 55's full time and I have yet to add a second monitor I guess a good goal for this month would be $2200 before rakeback. I currently am up only $729, which leaves me $371 dollars off pace. So in the next 15 days I must profit a little under $1500. I think that this goal is very reasonable and should be attianed as long as I get 300 SnG's done at the least. I am kinda assuming that the cards will fall for me in the coming weeks, i guess this could be a curse but this game feels like one big cycle. Soemtimes all is good and sometimes all is bad and as long as you are playing optimal during both of these times you will come out ahead. There are times when I'm running so poorly that I think I have lost the ability to be a winning poker player. Then after I cool down I realize I have played a little over 100,000 Hands of winning ring game poker and about 1800 SNG Tournaments as a winner, plus a few random tounrnament cashes. I am 99% certain that I ahve made about $8,000 dollars playing small stakes poker online over the last 15 months. This does not seem like much to me at this point as I hope to make at least $60,000 in the next 15 months, but in the grand scheme of things it really is incredible.

Back to business...

2005-09-14T01:17:00.000-07:00

Well over the past few days i had been on a pretty horrendous downstreak that topped out around $1,050, but today I made $500 of that back and I feel like the rest is soon to come. So at this point for the month of September I have made about $825 which is a little below estimates. I still hope to make a little over $2,500 for this month and start October with a $4,000 bankroll so that I can play strictly 55's without having to drop down for small downstreaks. That along with me starting to 8 Table should enable me to have my first $5,000 month including rakeback. I think I will jump back into the 55's this weekend and give it another shot. My first attempt saw my going 8 in a row out of the money, which isn't so bad but it was 1/6 of my bankroll.

The bubble hurts...

2005-09-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I played in the Party Super Thursday last night. This tourney icarries $150+$12 entry fee and usually has around 1,000 people, making for a good prizepool. Last night first prize was $30,000, and there were 971 entrants. I got no cards for the first two hours but made a VERY nice play at a pot at the start of the 3rd hour. Iw as basically representing a flush on the river putting all my chips in with J high. My opponent folded and very well could have been beat after seeing some of the hands played out last ngiht. :) I had about 4,000 chips and blinds were 100/200. A couple orbits later I picked up KK got it all in against AQ for a 6,200 pot. The flop was terrible as it brought an A, the turn just rubbed it in, bringing a Q, but the magical river brought the beatiful K. (last one in the deck as somebody att the table said they folded a K.) So I am now looking to cruise into the money, but alas I get involved in a couple blind stealiong debacles and am down to 4,000 with 130 left int he tourney and the top 100 spots paying I still had a good chance to sneak into the money. down to 120 players, blinds at 400/800 it gets folded to me on the button I have AT, both blinds have me barely covered. I decide to minraise thinking i'll get away if the push and that it looks scarier because they have to assume im calling a push. My plan is busted when the BB flat calls. Flop brings 3 5 5 and i think im ahead, BB checks I push he calls and shows J5., and im done. Finsihed 119th out of 971. Oh well back to the SnG grind.

One week down 51 to go...

2005-09-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

Well I wrapped up the first week of my official online poker career and I couldn't be happier with my stats. In the first seven days I was able to get in 142 SnG's, mostly 33's and 55's. My profit was about $1,039 which is great. Once I am playing solely 55's and have a second monitor for 6-8 tabling I hope to clear an average of $1,500/week. So the grind continues, and it is kinda tough to keep playing and playing without withdrawing money and rewarding yourself. I am not going to make a withdraw until the end of this month and anything over $4,000 that I ahve is going towards a little weekend vegas trip with some freinds, Oct. 8-11.

Also, due to some extra money in my rakeback account I am going to try my luck at the Party Super Thursday tournament tonight. The last time I played in one of these was in May and I made a great run finishing 27th out of 831 and collecting $900, not bad for 27th place! So wish me luck as a final table woulod result in a much better Vegas Vacation. : )

5 days down...

2005-09-06T00:12:00.000-07:00

Day 5 Update:

So I am 5 days into my official online poker career, and I couldn't be happier about my results. I have played about 100 SnG's mostly 22's and 33's with a couple 55's tossed into the mix. I am up $850 so far, but I am not expecting to keep up this good of a win rate. My goal for this month is to get in at least 800 SnG's (I am starting to 6-8 table on the 20th) and have a profit of at least$2500. My bankroll will get $2000 so my bankroll goal is $4000 by October 1st. I feel like these goals are both reasonable but at the same time will take some variance in my favor. I am not quick to forget the horror stories I have heard from winning players, of going on 1,000 SnG breakeven streaks. this may sound weird but I feel like the higher buyins are slightly more profitable for me and my style of play. I say this because a large part of my success comes from my ability to get players to make bad folds around the bubble. In the higher buyins I seem to notice tighter players on the bubble, which indicates tighter/better players who play the bubble incorrectly. Hope that made sense, anyways wish me luck at the tables. and until next time. Holla

First 48

2005-09-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

So I am starting my 3rd day of the online poker career today. The first two days only saw me palyign 20 SnG's per day and my goal is 30. I did however manage to turn a $300 profit so far, so things are going good in that regard. In my original plan I was supposed to be playing the 55's right now but I am still grinding away at the 33's because my bankroll is still a little too low for the 55's. I should ahve the roll up to $3,000 before or around the 15th of this month.

I have another great article for all you SnG players out there, this one was written by Gigabet and deals with stack sizes and how they relate to the way you should be playing at any given time. Enjoy!

Ok, boys and girls, this here may be the most -ev post I have ever written. The Q3 push thread received quite a few responses from players who were confused about the validity of it, while I thought that it was a fairly standard play for most of us here(read independent.) Even if the players do not know why they do it, I thought that at least they would understand intuitively the value from plays such as these. Before I get into the actual dynamics of that individual hand, let me see if I can explain the "Gigabet Dilemma." For those that do not know, there was a very long and controversial thread(in the MTT forum) about another hand that I had played. Basically, I had made a -ev call because I had felt that the positive ev I would gain later in the game, if I win the hand, outweighs the negative ev of the specific hand. Because you cannot mathematically prove the positive equity of future happenings with any certainty, this is all theory. The controversy surrounding the argument of whether or not to take the immediate negative expected value or make the "correct" play has been coined the Gigabet Dilemma. If you are on my side, and agree with my reasoning, then you have to take these negative situations and use them to your advantage. But the real question is, how do you recognize when you can get on the negative side of the situation and know that if you lose that individual hand, your stack will still be able to contend with the fields? Understanding that every situation is one long stream of events, and the results of any single hand mean nothing in the long run isn't enough. Because of Gamblers Ruin(cannot recover from zero) you are forced to recognize that each situation is independent, and have to be results oriented for that hand. It is counter-intuitive to make a move based on one situation, rather than 100s of thousands similar situations, but because you cannot recover from zero, there has to be a plateau in each situation that you can recover from. Since each situation will involve different stacks, you have to depend on your results from the texture of that individual setting to decide whether to make that -ev move. You cannot create hard and fast guidelines to make that decision, rather, you have to go by your feel for the situation at hand.Here is where it gets interesting. Although you cannot make guidelines, you can create one "model" that you can look at, and decide what the best decision would be in that model. If you decide that your model calls for avoiding the -ev situation, then adjust the sizes of the stacks until you find a model that calls for embracing the negative situation. If you think you would have troubles actually finding a correct model, here are some things that may help you. Put everyone at near the same stack size, except for one player, who has around 1/3 the rest of the field, and gradually increase the blinds, if you still cannot get it, gradually increase your stack, while leaving everyones the same, including the small stack. Once you get your model, use it as a relative comparison to some past stts you have played, and see if you cannot see actual game situations that are relatively close to that situation that is represented by your model. Read through enough hand histories, and you will start to intuitively see the situations as they arise. In my mind, I see each stack as a "block" that fits into a complete mold that encompasses all of the chips in play. I cannot comprehend what "one" chip is, because that is too small of a unit for my mold. Here is a very loose description of what I mean. At the beginning of a tourney, everyone has a block that is the same size, imagine 10 blocks sitting next to each other, with a bold face line running across the top of all of the blocks. I actually envision a pie type mold, with the blocks pieced in the pie evenly, however that is too difficult to put into words, so I will try and analagize it. Ok, so your bold face line is just a guideline that represents the saturation point of the chips in play, basically, the average stack, but the line could go above or below avg, if one of the stack gets excessively larger or smaller than the fields. As the tourney goes on for a time, and the blinds get to a certain point, your line will get very erratic, and there will be times, when the size of the blinds will equal, or nearly equal the size of a "block" that is near the level of your line. When situations like these occur, and your stack hovers above the line, then any part of your stack over the line is essentially meaningless. However, because the line is erratic at that level of play, using those meaningless chips to capture a "block" will make your stack a real force that controls the level of that line. Basically, capturing a block is nearly equivalent to doubling up. Here is a kicker, if your stack is flush with the line, and the size of the pot is nearly flush with the line, then you have an ideal situation to take alot of negative ev to call an all in from another player. If you can understand that statement, then you will understand alot more than just what I have written so far.There will be situations where math tells you to push with any two cards to pick up the pot(preflop, of course), however, if you are using my model, you will see that because the "line" is relatively stable, and your stack hovers above the line, than taking down that pot is very nearly always wrong. This is working on the opposite side of the coin, and recognizing when +ev situations should actually be avoided, because it would be more positive to wait until either the line moves, or your stack moves closer to the line. Now that you have read this, go back and look at the hand history, and see if you can see why I pushed all in with Q3, knowing I was going to take the worst of it in a showdown. If need be, I will go through and explain that hand in detail, and try and put together a more easily identifiable model that represents the stacks at that table.I have never put this theory into words before, however, I have put them in use enough times to know that there is no doubt in my mind that they are true. I hope that this isn't too disjointed to read, and while I know that understanding it may be difficult, please read through it a few times before asking questions that may have an obvious answer. Obviously newer players will benefit from this more, since they have less "preconceived" notions of how to play. More experienced players may actually intuitively understand it more, but find it hard to believe that this is any kind of poker, and never really incorporate it into their game.

~Gigabet

22 of 23 OOTM! YAY!

2005-08-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

Well the last 2 days have been horrific, I can't win any coinflip, hell i cant even win with KK vs AJ. But I know that this is all part of the grand scheme so I am trying to stay positive through this downswing. Didn't I just have a downswing?? Well My roll is now down to $1,950 after having it up to $2,500 on Sunday, this game is sick. Tommorow is and was supposed to be the start of my "official online poker career", which meant palying 4 tables of $55 SnG's at a rate of 25-35 a day. However, I have decided in ligh of this recent swing that if this were to happen at the 55's I would probably go insane and go broke. So I am going to wait until my roll is up to $2500 then I will start at the 55's. Until then mroe lovely 22's and 33's wich seem to be the hardest games I have ever played with luck factored in. :) I also want to state now, that my goal for the end of September is to have my bankroll up to $3,700 and to cashout the excess. Wish me the best of luck, because I REALLY do need it right now.

All in a weekend's work...

2005-08-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

Well considering that on Friday evening my bankroll was at $1652 and as I type this it stands at $2404, I would say that I had a pretty productive weekend. I played about 45 22's and 33's and a couple of $25 tourneys. I actually made a final table but it was only a 70 person tourney and 7th place only took $84. :)

Assuming that I don't dip back below $2000 (knock on wood) I will play sets of 2 33's and 2 55's until I hit $2650 which is the bankroll milestone that I set for myself to play sets of 55's regularly. At that point I hope to start making some decent money and build a roll for the 109's. I am very proud of myself considering I started at the 11's a mere 2 1/2 months ago and I am already starting to talk about building a roll for the 109's. It is awesome to see a dream take shape as planned. I know that variance is always going to battle me, but as long as I stick to my bankroll guidelines, I feel very confident that I can succeed at the highest levels.

As you all know, Thursday is the big day, the start of my official online poker career. It does help that I have been playing for "supplemental income" over the past year, but as I have previously noted, I want to be at a point where I make a minimum of $5,000/month.

WSOP 2005...

2005-08-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already, I strongly suggest you check out the audio commentary from this years WSOP Main Event Final Table. As of now the audio is available in 8 different segemnets, on for each bustout, on cardplayer's web site. Here's the link,

http://www.cardplayer.com/audio/wsop2005.php

It's very interesting to listen to as you hear commentary from Phil Helmuth, Daniel Negranu, Jennifer Harman, David Williams, Jeff Shulman, Joe Cassidy, Eric Lindergren, and more.

As far as poker goes, I am chugging along playing a mix of 22's and 33's. I actually hit my $2,000 milestone again last night, but like before I will not be suprised if I dip back down for a a day or two more. Although I hope I never look back and can jump into the 55's by Wednesday. Wish me luck. Or just wish me no bad luck :)

Bankroll Update

2005-08-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

I have decided that every other friday starting today, I will post my bankroll as a way for me to track my progress and remember the bad times when I'm running good and vice versa.

This is the business I chose...

2005-08-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

A couple of breakeven days to keep my downswing in full effect. The thing about playing SnG's for a steady income, is that I fully expect streaks like this to happen and have even heard horror stories of 1,000 SnG break even streaks from winning players, such as Raptor from 2+2. But knowing this is inevitable doesn't necesarily make it any easier to deal with mentally and emotionally. Its easy to deal with amking a horrible play because you can correct it in the future and see positive results, but with variance you can be making the best strategical plays you ahve ever made and still be on the losing end 10 times in a row!! Well now that I ahve vented a little of my frustration, I would like to share another 2+2 post. This post is actually perfect for my days post and it is a response to the IrieGuy post that I put on here a few days ago. The subject is Success and Failure. this post was written by Gigabet who is one of the most if not the most successful online players in the world. Enjoy.

When I read Irieguys post I wasn't planning on responding, I rarely respond to posts, because most of the time I am the dissenter, and frankly, it isn't good for my long term financial situation. As I started reading the responses I soon felt obligated to respond. He is so close, but travelling in the wrong direction.The wording he uses in the text lets me know where he is at on the "path," so to speak(the very beginning). Let me start with the words success and failure. These are words that mean such different things to each individual that to use them to label your accomplishments, or lackthereof, is setting yourself up for a long ardurous journey, that most won't finish. Success and failure are just ideas created by society to improperly judge others against ourselves. There are no successful people, or rather, using these words, I should say that there are no failures and everyone is a success.
Quote:
Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it.
This statement is truer than anyone can know(even though I think most of you do know, it just seems impossible for me to believe that someone else can understand). What he says about winners and losers though, will keep you from attaining a more complete game. There are no winners or losers, to think that, is to let yourself be affected by negative variance. If you are not in the positive for the day, then you therefore must be a loser, and so the downward spiral begins. All of those negative ideas must be eliminated from your mind, or you will not perform to your potential. The trick is recognizing these negative ideas, since there are so many and so commonplace in our society, it is a large task indeed to sort them out as real, or just ideas created by the masses. Our labels for winners and losers simply identify individuals who play the same game a different way. Just because one person doesn't achieve the same goal that I strive for, doesn't make that person a "loser." Everyone is the same, and everyone has the same potential, some just direct their energies in different directions. The sooner you can get that into your head and really believe it, the sooner you will start to have a real understanding of the game.
Quote:
I am beginning to realize that most people don't have the psychological fortitude or spiritual perspective to manage the vicissitudes of this game. I also believe that of the very small number of professional poker players who have been successful for more than a few years, most of them are actually quite lucky. I believe that there are many pros who will fail once they begin to experience average luck.
I really believe that everyone has the "psychological fortitude" to manage the vicissitudes of the game. It is simply a choice. A choice to change the way you think about results. Stop thinking in terms of winning as good and losing as bad. The two concepts should be grouped in your mind exactly the same. When God "blessed" man with shame, failure became a real entity we had to deal with. That is what we are trying to achieve when we label a person as a failure, we are attaching shame to A meaningless act. Throughout my life I have been around alot of people that most would classify as "failures" and not one of them seemed any different than myself. The problem comes to life when a person starts their downswing, which we classify as "losing," they begin to suspect that they may "fail" and rather than become susceptible to the shame that comes with "failure" they decide to quit. They stop because they fear things that aren't even real. The people who come to realize these negative labels aren't real, either concretely or intuitively, are the same people that do not give up, no matter how bad things seem to be running. Eventually they become the "professionals" in whatever walk of life they choose.You have to find your own way to deal with these thoughts that have been brainwashed into your mind for your whole life. Identifying every negative thought as it creeps into your mind is a start, it takes practice to monitor your thoughts, but you cannot eliminate what you do not recognize. I try very hard not to allow any negativity in my life, ask my brother(ship_it_tome) how upset I get when he is at my house, playing, struggling, for hours on end, and finally says "I can't win." We get along very well, but I get very irate with him when he utters those deadly words, as I am sure you all have muttered them at one time or another.
Quote:
I think you can learn how to avoid this trap of psychological betrayal. I think I'm beginning to learn it myself. It involves turning your noise filter all the way up.
Turning your noise filter up will work for a time, but eventually it builds and seeps through at one time or another, and everything that has been blocked comes pouring out at once, which creates the very worst tilt imaginable. Believe me, I have been there many times. I have come to realize that it is much better to acknowledge the negative or angry thoughts as they arrive, that doesn't mean just noticing their presence, when they approach, actually talk to your mind and announce their arrival, and then identify the reasons behind them. As your mind comes to realize how trivial and meaningless these thoughts are, it will eventually stop creating them in the first place. It takes alot of time and effort to do this, but the long term results will be well worth it.OK....SO HOW DOES ALL THIS REALLY RELATE TO POKER?The game that most of us play is really very simple. You get 2 cards, 5 cards come up, and you do a little betting here and there. Best 5 card hand wins. With a game this simple, why do so many people have so much trouble ending up ahead of where they started?The real game is about people, not the cards in your hand. If you know a person well enough, you can read their hand, and once you know what they have in their hand, the game becomes a cakewalk. The problem is, we have all of these predisposed ideas of who a person is based on ideas that have been placed in our heads by our society. You have to be able to eliminate all of these ideas. Once you train yourself to be completely judgement free, you will become a more complete player. Anyone can read a persons hand based on his actions and seeing common tendencies, ie., a beginning player will commonly bet small when on a draw, and bet big when he has a made hand. What about more experienced players? What does it mean when they bet 2/3s of the pot one time, and than bet pot the next? They are certainly experienced enough to know not to bet the same pattern for the same types of hands. So how can you figure out what they have? Well, get to know him, watch him play. Try and figure out what he is thinking, he has to be thinking something. Put yourself in his spot, what kind of hand would you have if you were betting like that? Now do this for every hand for every player that is in the hand, for every player at the table, for every table that you are playing at. Try and eight table while doing this exercise. Put effort into every single hand that is played out at your table, not just the ones you are involved in, every single hand. Every time there is a showdown, and the losing hand is mucked, open up the hand history file, and see what he had. Go through the hand again and see if you can figure out why he willingly showed down a losing hand(something that should rarely be done.) I call this an exercise, but this should be done on every single hand that is played out at any of your tables for the rest of your poker career. This is how you become a real player, then you can ignore the "sng" formula and really start to play. Post flop is where the real game is at, and it is fun to play. Use your bets to pull information from your opponent, and then when you know what he has, trust your judgement 100%. If you think he is on second pair, but will not fold unless you bet your whole stack, then bet your whole stack(unless of course you have a better hand than second pair, which is unlikely since players like us can rarely beat bottom pair), even if it means your tournament is over if you are wrong. Practice trusting yourself, you will be wrong enough in the beginning to doubt yourself, but don't let that stop you. There is a strong possibility that I am the most active player in the world, and I can honestly say that this is something that I do on nearly every hand. Imagine, 6000 hands a day on average, just watching and learning, with no predisposed judgements of the other players. This is what it takes. Bad beats are no longer bad beats, they are just the cards coming out randomly, evening themselves out over time. What is really important is learning the thousands of languages that different people speak through their actions at the table. Believe me, it isn't some spiritual science, it is listening and learning without prejudice.

-Gigabet

Variance: Oh how I loathe you...

2005-08-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

The past couple of days have been fun, and by fun I mean they have sucked. Overall I am in the middle of a $600 downswing across the 22's, 33's and few 55's. So on that note I switched back to the 22's full time and am still trying to claw my way back to the $2,000 mark before I start my "career" next thursday. As it stands right now I am sitting at $1600 and I hope that today goes better as in I hope I can win with KK vs AT and fun hands like that. :)

Other than that nothing much new on the scene. However, I do have a book recomendation for you. I personally just picked it up, and it is a very good read especially for a poker player. Although, this book would be great for anyone who uses their mind and would like to know a little more about what exactly goes on in there. I posted a a picture for those of you who are intersted, here is a,link to purchase the book. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316172324/qid=1124993497/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-4654433-5378453?v=glance&s=books&n=507846