Chug-chug-clunkin Along

Almost every time I think about this blog I wonder why I keep it. But I hope, one day, that it will inspire someone like me to keep on doing what they are doing to survive and chase that dream. If it will work or not, I cannot say definitively. I can only say that I am better off because of it.

I have came to the slow and saddening realization that I am in fact a recreational player. I am not as talented or dedicated as Olivier Busquet to have a proving ground worthy enough of criticizing the rest of the poker community for being self entitled dreamers. I AM one of those dreamers, as studied and genuine as I hope to project myself to be. I don't take the game seriously enough to be critical of anything that anyone either than pure trolling artists may enjoy proclaiming. I am that nit bitch all of you LAG micro pros shave value from.

But who cares? I sure as hell don't!

My game is ever evolving and I don't care to express it here anymore. I do like to keep things going as a testament to my original involvement, but I am forevermore changed into a reclusive entity. FWIW, I completely respect my predecessors and I completely admire the best in my field. But I will do this my own way, even if it leads to my eventual detriment. I have too much faith in my own ability to do otherwise.

The recent changes at Stars has led me to begin exploring other options for playing at my micro-low stakes. You should see my handle at various ipoker skins and 888 starting soon. I hope to find games that I can beat at higher rates to increase my overall hourly since I play so few tables for so few hours compared to what is needed to crush the stakes that I am at. I prefer to play my four tables with premium game selection and optimal exploitative strategies than deal with other nit bitch mass tabling SNE chasing regs on Stars. Otherwise, I will only play my best and forego the 'advice as law' mentality that I have used until this point.

That, and I don't have much faith on Amaya's far outlook given their recent changes.

Stars has had too much craziness going on as of late for me to keep to my original two year plan I set out earlier this year. I do hope to clear 30K next year, but I have resigned myself to the fact that it will likely take a decent MTT score in order to do so.

So I am chasing value at the micro-low stakes, I may even be chasing RB and deposit bonuses as well. Who really knows? All I know for sure is that with my new career (that I truly enjoy) and my other possible money making hobbies I have many good nest eggs that need my attention either than poker exclusively. I hope one day to be a peer of those that I admire and have changed my life so significantly, but as previously and imprecisely stated.

ON MY OWN TERMS

Changing Winds

Well, glad to be back to the warm shower of affection from my most endearing fans...

Lol, kinda funny to me I guess. Although. it wouldn't hurt to have one random poker enthusiast stumble by and be blown away by my story, but kinda hard when I don't really give a crap about building my brand just yet. Also, it might be the best idea to delay building that brand until I feel my story is worth telling.

And imho, we are almost there.

Up until two weeks ago the time in between posts has been super productive and moderately profitable ;) That is, I caved and I finally bought myself a new computer that I have been dreaming about for years. The universe somehow found a slightly amusing anecdote to give me the means necessary to put the new setup together. So for the past little while I have given myself a poker vacation and started living my life to the fullest outside of this; my deepest passion to make it as a poker professional. It has been fun playing games, enjoying life and hanging with friends. Exactly what I needed to realize where I am, how I got here and where I intend to go.

One conversation I had with my newest poker buddy a couple days ago finally set off a light inside my head as to what is really going on in my life. And guess what!? The conversation had nothing to do with poker!! I know rite!?!? In a completely indirect way he stirred the very essence of my being and allowed me to gain a much deeper understanding of the passion I have inside of me and the path I have set in front of myself. It is not poker, it is not even music or poetry which I would be doing everyday if money was no object. It has everything to do with realizing my full potential, chasing the dream of fulfillment in life and the satisfaction that comes with it. It really is hard to narrow it down into things like what I could do with all the free time and money when I make it, the joy of spirited competition, the personal development required to achieve my goals or the life skills gained as a result of high levels of success. It is more like finding that momentary glimpse of a perfect life knowing that it is entirely possible and nothing will keep you from it.

Anyways, I feel I should leave it at that. I don't want to get all high and mighty on fluff and cake walks, but suffice to say I am in a new mindset and am just ready to show the world what I bring to the table.

Aside from the vacation, I have been very diligent in keeping poker records. Now with a decent sample size I am able to derive a more profitable understanding of my own poker game. The important things to consider now are how to best optimize my study, review and poker playing hours given the week to week circumstances. The weeks leading up to the vacation were good indications of how I will react if I were to dive off the deep end. Suffice to say, I will not be able to follow daily or weekly schedules, but I will be able to set and hit challenging weekly and monthly goals. The long term plan is still the end result, but I have found a much better way of allowing myself the time and freedom needed to take the next steps.

What weighed heavy on my motivation was the effort needed to take those steps. Of course the basics of goal setting and evental acheiving are more or less concrete but that doesn't mean I have to follow the rules entirely. The real question when it comes down to it is 'Why?' Why am I doing this certain action? What am I trying to do?

Honestly reading this over I still don't really know what it is that has changed in me, but I feel it. I just know that it will take hell and high water to keep me from continuing along this epic of a journey. I know with unwavering certainty and undaunted courage that nothing will stop me and everything is going to be useful along the way.

One day...

///

So still no news about Amaya leaving Canada. No news is good news in this situation I think. Seems like I can still keep a decently long term plan with Stars in the mix.

The BR is sitting up at a newish high but my record keeping has been very poor with respect to this blog, so you won't find it here anymore. Don't worry, I am still tracking it on my own without your help thank you very much. I am playing almost exclusively 18m turbos now. The edges at the $3.50 levels are just too wide to pass up and grind high volume with hyper turbo sattys. My best hourly by far. The game gives me a bit more to chew on with respect to deepening and widening my poker IQ as well, so that is where my focus is on. I imagine I will get back into MTTSnGs soon again, which is kind of ironic since that is where I first started way back in the day. Honestly, I feel very proud of my results considering the entire effort required to be able to pursue my dream.

The biggest hurdle I have to haul over in the immediate future is developing my new setup. Funny how you don't notice how much routine you have until you give it a complete cosmetic readjustment. It has opened up my mind to some new ways of thinking as well as becoming aware of my habitual thought, so I should have a much easier time of keeping my mind elastic while smoothing out the edges.

The old job is gone, just the one now. Although, they are keeping me pretty busy, I am actually working more since I quit. The adjustment period is mostly over, I have a set routine that I can work around and I no longer feel guilty when all of my free time is not used for poker in some form. The potential for a future backup career is starting to look more and more not like a backup anymore. The job really does take what I am best at and combine it with my strongest passions, so I don't think I will ever completely walk away from it. I just might adjust the way I go about my business in it.

And the personal life has been taking an upswong, ldo with the wall of text above us here. I can honestly say that I have never been happier in this moment of my life and the funny thing is that all I do is continuously set the groundwork for an even better tomorrow.

Well boys and girls, the momentum is behind me without a doubt. How, when and what this journey will look like at the end I have no idea. But I have the means and the justification, that is to say I know why.

GL and see you at the tables!

Summer Breeze

   Time for a long overdue update, much to discuss.

   On the tables my plan has once again changed as I think I have found other games that translate into better hourly rates. I am now playing a mix of $3.50 18m turbos and anything under $2.00 hyper turbo satellites exclusively on Stars.

  Not sure really what sparked me to play my first $1.50 18m turbo in the past few weeks, but I do remember in MecaStyles' (Quadz) blog that it used to be his main game. I gave it a shot and won my first game, so of course I needed to pursue the new game type. At the moment I still have nowhere near enough of a sample size, but I imagine that I could maintain at least 20% ROI at the $3.50 level long term. So at a glance, it seems like a pretty risk free way to grind the BR at levels that are significant using the Kelly Criterion. Once I break through the $7.00 games I believe I could reasonably expect an hourly rate of at least $10 and it would become the backbone of the grind for the foreseeable future.

   As for the hyper turbo sattys, I honestly couldn't believe that I gave 6m hyper games another try. I also honestly couldn't believe that I waited this long to try the sattys. Still have yet to gain a reasonable sample to draw from, but it is decent enough to say that I feel those games are much softer than the cash 6m hyper turbos of equivalent BI. From my prior experience, I would say that I am likely a break even player or 1% ROI earner at the micro stakes for cash 6m hyper turbos. From my small experience, I would say I am at least a 5% earner at the $1.90 level. It helps that my BR has grown substantially since the hyper battles last time around reducing the effect of swings affecting my decision, but also they have sattys as small as $0.76 which are a great price point for grinding my BR as it currently stands. The whole reason why I only stop at $2.00 is because of BR considerations, and this time I am ensuring that I do not play a stake with less than 300 BI to counter the effect of tilt when a down swing comes. The game is different too starting off shallower and having much different ICM implications when the games ends with two players getting tickets. It is something that matches the current strengths of my game, and is something that I can exploit even decent regs at with 'relative ease'. When there are no sattys running that I want to participate in, I use the time to convert the T$ to real money with the 18m turbos.

   All in all, the progress that I have been making with grinding my BR up has been fairly consistent as of late. There hasn't been too much time that I have been able to dedicate while feeling my best as a result of juggling two jobs and getting used to 'married life', but the time that I have spent at the tables and at the review station have been very useful.

   I am just barely ahead of pace to clear my goal of $1000 for the end of this year sitting at $650, but with more free time in the upcoming months and recent steps up in BI levels, I have the potential to blow that number out of the water. If I can get up to $2000 before the end of the year I will take $1000 out of the BR and go and buy a new computer for myself. It is nice to have some extra motivation aside from just watching the numbers grow.

   Amaya's shareholders just approved the financing behind the Stars acquisition just two days ago I believe. So the changes that would happen to Canadian players as a result are likely imminent if they are happening. Aside from the initial backlash from the chicken littles of the internet, not much bad press has been released about the Canadian players situation either than speculation. The only concrete statements came from Steve Dee on 2p2 saying that they will not be leaving and from the Loto-Quebec saying they are working on a deal with Amaya gaming currently. Both are pretty good signs in my opinion, so I am less worried now than I was when the news first broke.

   As for the personal life, I have yet to stamp out the sauce and peeling bananas completely out of my diet. It isn't very helpful for me for the most part as I tend to consume it all as soon as I can, which is usually right before a session. Some nights it is fine to have a brew and then some while the session is running down, but for sure not at the start of every session. This is the biggest leak in my game so far and I am sort of unsure how to kick it. Absolutely, without a doubt, I am addicted to this part of my life and for sure it has hurt me in the past. But going forward... just not sure how to best handle it either than to work my ass off and start craving the big bucks at the end of this road.

   The second job is almost wrapped up, just working there one day a week now. The main job fits my schedule almost perfectly, pays pretty decent and I love working there. If all fails then I at least take comfort in the fact that I would enjoy building a career in that industry.

   On a side note I played my first live MTT in almost 3 years. When Black Friday first hit I made a point of traveling the local circuit and playing a regular schedule. After dropping about 12 BIs I decided to stop out of frustration. My game isn't even comparable now as it was then, so I was pretty stoked when a buddy brought me out. I finished just shy of the money bubble and felt pretty comfortable in it. Made a few good impressions with a couple top regulars in the circuit, had some good conversation and all in all just had a good time, so that was nice. Felt pretty good about my game too, lost a cooler flip at the end to bust so NBD. One dude that was there was pretty funny though. Stoic glare at anyone who had the action on them, big sunglasses to cover his face, frustration when he couldn't hit a flop, folding under pressure when calling / limping into a pot in / out of position, and aside from his typical tight passive fish online play, he actually wore a PokerStars hat and a Chrome t-shirt to the tournament. I mean, I almost laughed out lout when I first saw the guy, and since he was sitting directly across the table from me, there were several other times I had to choke back a laugh. I mean, comon, really, CHROME STAR? You are proud of CHROME STAR!?!? Wow...

   One last thing that I would like to mention is that I have been participating in Jason Sommerville's Run It Up community lately and have been having a tonne of fun there. He is running up $50 to $10K and putting the almost entire grind on twitch.tv and youtube. Mostly just a fun place to ghost him while he does it and hang out, but some decent enough poker conversations take place as well. To anyone who reads this, I would recommend signing up there.

   So as mentioned before, I will likely be posting less here as I have been keeping extensive notes on my spreadsheet. I am more of an introverted person, especially considering all the trolling on the Internets, but I will keep up appearances and post here for anyone who stumbles by and for my own amusement.

GL and see you at the tables!

Well Now What?

Wow.

Serious news broke earlier this week. Details are yet to be completely clarified, but this news might have some poor implications according to my previously set goals.

Both PokerStars and FullTilt might remove Canadian accessibility to their platforms as a result of Amaya buying out the parent company of the Rational Group, The OldFord Group. This seriously might mean the end of my goals basically right out of the gate. 2p2 PokerStars representative Steve specifically mentioned in the created 2p2 Amaya thread specifically that they intend to continue services to Canadian players in the future, but it appears that it goes against direct federal legislation. The deal is set to finalize sometime in September, so I have until then to grind out my meager BR, but after that the future is quite uncertain.

After doing some initial research, 888 might be a good place for me to continue grinding out the micro - low stakes and move my way up to the mid - high stakes. The games will be softer for sure, and the liquidity is there for the most part, so it is not a terrible potential solution for my exact situation. Actually, I am quite optimistic that I will still be able to begin playing full time at the start of 2016, it just might not be for SNE. +$100K might be a pipe dream, but clearing enough to live comfortably should be doable with taking the occasional shot at a big live tournament score. The long term goals after that might include cashing in on the EPT satelites and play big over there rather than continue clicking buttons from home, but that is still up for debate. First thing is first, still got to get my BR up to at least $1K by the end of this year to give me a real shot at phasing out the job and earn $30K over 2015.

Anyways, I pulled a real lazy couple of weeks lately. The volume has not been there but I have put in a tonne of time into study and review. Got a new spreadsheet to track time reviewed, time studied and time played separately in order to better gauge how to best increase my hourly. It also gives me the opportunity to calculate my actual hourly rate with study and review included, rather than just at the tables. I have also been using it as a weekly activity sheet with weekly goals to achieve and a place to keep the long term goals in mind while I work away. Overall the process of treating this persuit like a legitimate job is going well and I am feeling real positive about the personal and professional develoment that I am undergoing to chase my dreams down.

On another note I have cut out drinking entirely from my diet, that is something that has seemed to help keep me motivated and at my best during the entire course of a day. If you knew me personally you would understand how big of a deal that is to me.

Finally, the changes that I have actually made on the table are to not concern myself with chasing down 'randomish' goals just for the sake of doing something. I reviewed all the types of games that I have played since getting HM2 and identified what I believe to be the most profitable mix for me to play at any given time. When I can, I will load up to six $1.00 - 180 man hypers and play those exclusively. To maintain volume and keep the table count up I will be mixing in $1.00 hypers and $2.25 turbos on Tilt. They removed the 9 max hypers from Tilt lately which is kind of discouraging, but the 6 max games have been the most profitable for me anyways.

So all in all a weird week. Lots of changes going on, an uncertain future, but lots of progress going on in my life on and off the tables. This will be one of those times of my life that I will remember forever, but I do have a good feeling about this.

Yeah? So what

Too much time not spending on making my dreams come true...

 I'll get er dun don worry

Those hyper turbo 9-max $1.50 BI games are pretty sweet tho

I'll add them to the schedule, so you betters watch out kk?

Further Clarification

Well, I have sobered up since my last post and got some real traction going, so it is time to provide some futhur clarification with respect to my goals.


1. In the last third of this calander year I will make my push for climbing the Black Card Leaderboard for "Low SNGs" (anything below $26). I will be playing a mix of $5.00 and $10.00 turbo games as the main and lesser buy in hypers to fill the tables. At the end of this period I intend to have my BR at least of $1500 in value.

2. At the start of 2015 I will begin at $7.00 turbo SNGs on Stars and make a push for Supernova. Hypers will be mixed in as I transition throughout the year and depending on what games are the most profitable I will hop into them as needed. I intend to clear $35,000 worth of profit and bonuses during the year. This will depend on any changes to the VIP program Stars has for next year, so I will provide an update on how I expect to get that done at the start of next year. Likely it will take either 200,000 or 300,000 VPPs, while being profitable at the table for at least half of the yearly income.

3. At the start of 2016 I will make my push for SNE. At this time I will likely have been a proven winner at both the $15 and $30 turbos and hypers, so those games will be what I will play mostly to get the job done. A detailed plan will also be released at the start of the year when I have a clearer understanding of how best to accomplish that, but I intend to clear over $100,000 worth of profit and bonuses during that calendar year.


The weekly activities and intermediate goals will need to be addressed as they happen, so I cannot get into too much detail with how I will get there as of right now. But this is my two and a half year plan that I have laid out for me. I believe this plan to be realistic in it's expectations of my efforts and well within the expected swings while I climb the stakes.

During the first phase I will continue working my two jobs and put in the time as I can. The second phase will be done while still working at the casino. The third phase will be done with my entire work week dedicated to playing poker as a professional.

To begin my weekly goals I will keep track of them on my main desktop and update on this blog as I feel necessary. But to start, I will be looking at playing 100 tournaments on Full Tilt with an ABI over two dollars to close out the rest of the week. Study will be reviewing the noted hands at the end of each mini session throughout the week and one serious study session away from the table of at least two hours per week. Hopefully I can make that serious study session sometime on Sunday while updating my weekly activity sheet to keep it simple, but regardless the goals will be tracked and the activity will me monitored via excel spreadsheet.

With a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work I can actually make this dream of mine become an attainable goal and an eventual reality.

See you at the tables!

Black Card Pro

OK, so fwiw I am 6/5 intoxicated while writing this, but at the very least I thought of the best way to write it 100% sober for a few days.

From here on in this blog is something I attempt to speak of in truth alone.

I realized that after creating this blog I have no real set goal in mind. The experience I have in mental science type leanings tells me that any type of ambition without a realistic and measurable goal is folly. This is my attempt to rectify and consolidate my ambitions in poker to something worthwhile.

Full Tilt Black Card Sponsored Pro
2014

That is it, that is what I will be and am working toward to make this dream of mine come to fruition. I have no idea how to get it done either than climb the leader board for my set limits and game type. I have no real idea of what kind of volume and steaks it will take to get me there, but that is what I am aiming for in the long run either than just making monies.

Updates will come as I see fit.

100% RB and some FT swag is a pretty cool deal, but for sure being able to say that I crushed the stakes and earned my way to the top is what I want the most. IDC how bad the whole idea of running it up from bronze $5 turbo reg to BC pro is, that is what I am aiming for.

Stop me if you dare to try, lose your EV if you must.

May the whole eenternets hold me accountable, because my dream includes your vested interest.