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.

Blogging Run Bad?

I mean, who really is going to scope these posts by me to see if they can squeeze tiny edges out of leaks in my games at the lowest stakes PokerStars offers? It has to be blogging run bad. It is kind of funny how I seem to run bad as soon as I make a post though. Forget cash out doomswitch, I have a blogger doomswitch that I need to fix.

That is my cumulative run at the 6max hypers I mentioned in my last post. Yes yes, #lolsamplesize and such, and yes yes I know how easy it is to run 50 BI below EV or have a 500 BI downswong, and yes yes I even did run good.

I DON'T CARE!!

The last post I made was right at the top of that graph. That big drop is a 20 BI cashless streak, of which I was one tabling making the best play I could every time. I'm pretty sure a breakeven stretch over 1000 games would be less painful than that small session. Squeezing out a 1-5% ROI wouldn't be so bad if I was on my way to SNE, definitely not on my way to silver.

I did enjoy my time playing them and I will continue to log in some time with them while cuddling with the lady or got some time to kill with my phone, but for sure it is time to get back to serious business. Time to get myself back to 7-10% ROI on Tilt's $2.25 and $5.00 turbos and possibly start getting some minor rakeback. I may come back to them at a higher stake when I need to get some Stars rakeback, but for the foreseeable future I will only be studying and pushing my edge.

On the plus, I did develop my HUD a bit further which will for sure lead to more exploitative play when I get back to my main games. I also had some great exposure to a new(ish) type game which expanded my understanding of the game somewhat. 6max and PokerStars regs are less intimidating to me now at the very least. So all in all I am begrudgingly happy and ready to blow through the low stakes as quick as I can.

BR ~ $600

Change to the plan.... again...

Lately I have been messing around with SNGWIZ 2.0 has been fun and useful. To try it out I figured I would run a few 6-max hyper turbos to get some new data. The software has a few bugs to work out for sure, but being able to tweak the ranges as ICMizer can is a sweet bonus. Running a few trials of exactly the same situations also demonstrated the algorithm has changed as well. It does seem to have a closer to accurate representation of the true ranges, true weight of ICM and includes at least one future hand with Nash ranges included in the calculation.

The 6-max hypers have been quite the eye opener as well. A couple of the important benefits are that I can load up a full session quicker than 9-man turbos and can finish them up quicker when I want. This gives me a lot more freedom as to when I start and end my sessions and it takes a great weight off my chest when thinking about how I want to schedule my play. Just tonight I put two loads of laundry through, did the dishes, spent some time with the lady, wrote this post and got at least a couple hours and ~50 games in. I must have put in 4 or so quick sessions to get all that done.

The games themselves pretty much play themselves out to a certian degree. Just a quick glance at the basic stats and the situation I am in is usually enough to give me the decision I am looking for. There is a lot less effort I put toward making the best decision given the information present at all times, so I have a bit more brain power to give as well. With will power being a finite resource, this leaves me feeling fresh during the entire session and I feel I am playing better poker as a result. Also, maybe the most important thing about this is that I can sit on my laptop beside the lady while she watches TV in the background. She is pretty cool about me playing poker while she watches whatever she wants, as long as we are together. It is easy for me to zone out, so I don't feel that I am losing too much value while I am doing this. The plus life EV about keeping the lady happy is pretty awesome while I am grinding out a few bucks an hour building the dream, and she seems to enjoy watching my HM2 graph keep climbing almost every day.

So currently I am playing $1.50 Stars 6-max hypers to log the volume. I was sitting at $1.00 and $2.25 games at Tilt while doing this thinking there would be less regs, but it seems to be the other way around. The difference is likely miniscule in the long run, but I for sure feel more comfortable playing the Stars games. Of course the games load quicker, so it is likely better for the hourly rate as well. It isn't that they are all really terrible players at Stars, most actually seem pretty competent, but the difference is that the small mistakes seem to happen at a much higher rate. Antes likely are the main reason why this happens. The slight shove and call range errors that I catch out of the corner of my eye aren't too bad, but they are mistakes that someone who has a great understanding of ICM wouldn't make. I remember hearing that the real money isn't made about how many great decisions you make, but how many bad ones the fishes make. For that reason, as long as you can make a educated range adjustment, these stakes will always have money to be made for a good reg.

I know I have been running pretty damn well, but I do think I found myself a new main game and a new plan to move up through the stakes at the quickest pace. I'll move myself over to the $3.50 games in the next couple weeks I imagine, I just want to get enough data at the $1.50 limit to figure out where I am sitting. Over about 100 games I am sitting at an ITM of almost 60%, ROI almost 60% and running somewhat around 1.2x over what the EV line suggests. So obviously I am just killing it, but soon enough I will get my way around 1000 games and have a better idea of what I am doing. But I think I have got it close enough to demonstrate that I am a winning player at this game and stake.

Currently I believe my hourly rate to be around $3.00 - $5.00 playing these games.
BR ~$650

Haha, and I thought I was smart and current with online poker...

Like really, lol, did you know that SitNGo Wizard 2.0 beta has been released for almost a year and a half already? And I was just about to subscribe to ICMizer to get the future game simulation calculations included in my review.

Well, at least this might look somewhat promising to future grinders. If you can let something as important as this beta release slip under your nose for 16 months, you can still make money at poker.

Hey, at least I finally got it on my own eh? Here is to some epic fine tuning of my push-fold game.

And in case you missed it, ICM failing to consider future situations has been one of the topics I have been trying to wrap my head around lately.

Postflop will have to wait, lol.

A New Beginning

So it begins again...

I remember thinking about this period in my poker career at one point in time, must have been roughly two years ago. I imagined this time as the point where I would have a bunch of choices about where to take my game in the next short while. This comes as a result that I am finally grinding out my way through the low games, no longer in the micros. The regs that I see sometimes are actually significant winning players, the average losing players are getting closer to LAG rather than LPASS and every once in a while someone who is just crushing the stakes I am playing sits at my table. But the most important revelation is that I need to study and review the key hands of every session to keep the trend going. No longer does the ABC style of poker give me the most significant edge in the long run. I have to open my 3B against min raises more because they don't only mean the villain wants action on his aces. I have to open my late position ATS because those smallish +EV situations are so much more important. I have to play better post flop and extract full value from LAG regs and fish alike.

In short, poker has become much harder, much more exciting, but also a tonne more fun. Watching that BR grow also has it's way of making me smile.

I feel like I am learning the game all over again, and in reality that is not too far from the truth. I have spent the better part of two years researching, studying and deciphering the deepest aspects of ICM and it's application to poker. I still have a hell of a lot of work to do there, and I don't want to let my progress become complacent, but I do feel comfortable enough for me to open up other parts of my game to squeeze out every last bit of ROI that I can. ICM has been and will likely continue to be the strongest part of my game, almost guaranteeing me a slightly better than breakeven poker game at the low stakes, but now I want to learn more. I kind of feel like a kid who finally learned to read and is just opening his first Goosebumps book.

The concept I believe that I will spend most of my time on and give me the most value is basically post flop play. This has a lot of aspects to it, but mostly I am looking forward to being able to open up my late position steals, BB defends and the like knowing that I will outplay my opponents on the flop. Also, being more comfortable with deep stack play in early game situations will be another benefit.

This will likely be accomplished by spending more time on those types of hands as they come along and less on the ICM heavy situations that I have somewhat mastered already, but I have some other ideas. Basically I will take a look at giving cash games a try, mostly as a training ground for me to develop those concepts. I mean, it can't hurt really. My ABI is already more than a full buy in at 1c/2c, so as long as it takes me over 15 minutes to lose it I consider that cheap education. I already have tons of experience in MTTSNGs and MTT tournies, but post flop play doesn't take place too much at the micro turbos. Those seem to be more of a 3b/4b/ft3b game of value chicken to me rather than a place to practice basic concepts.

Aside from the practice, the real game plan consists of $2.25 and $5.00 games on Tilt for the grind. I have also started to play a mix of the $1.00 - 180 man hypers on Stars and $0.50 / $1.00 hyper 6max games on Tilt for those shorter sessions where I just want to chill and play some poker.

tldr

- moving up stakes
- expanding my theory in cash games
- looking forward to it

BR ~ $580

Back, But Never Really Gone >>> My Secret Game

So it has been a seed in my mind that I should keep this diary / blog ongoing. Kind of cool that it seems there may be a few people who are checking me out, interested in what I have to say. Yes, I am watching your interwebs. I wonder how many of those are fellow 2p2'ers, how many are people checking my stats mid-tournie and how many are people spamming to sell me cock pumps...

Oh well, this blog is mostly for me just so you know.

Been a hell of a long time since my last post, so let's recap. For the first few months after my last post things went basically as planned. On tilt I played the $1.00 turbos mostly and mixed in some $0.50 hypers. Occasionally I would take a stab at the $2.25 games with some moderate results, just not a heck of a lot of volume. IIRC, I made a transition back to MTTSNGs shortly after that. Stars rolled out some new $0.50 turbos, 180 man and 360 man. I logged a ton of volume with those and had some moderate success. That put my roll somewhere around $300 by Sept - Oct.

I made a real change to the games I played right around that time. I played the MTTSNGs almost exclusively and tried to work my way up the ranks there. The $1.50 45 man turbo burnt quite of bit of my profits there somewhat due to lack of volume, but I managed to keep on trucking. The real problem was I was starting to have my edge reduced from the shit ton of regs at that game and the variance was unreal. From here I started playing almost every NLH MTT that stars offered during my normal play hours. Pretty much broke even, had a couple fun nights and did pretty decent overall. During that time the best result I would imagine was placing 3rd out of ~1400 in the $0.25 MTT that runs late at night, cashed for ~$43. Had one real decent run at the big $2.20, I think I placed somewhere around 60th or 70th for once again ~$40, but got three outted OTR with a 1.5x avg stack where I imagine I could have made a serious run at the FT. I felt like I was playing great, started to see the value in large MTTs and almost made my first 3 figure score (or even 4 figure).

Anyways...

While I was playing the large MTTs, I would load up some of the $1.00 180 man hypers to get some volume and keep myself interested. With the strong ICM background I developed playing STTSNGs I felt that I could at least make a few bucks in the long run and possibly gain some rake back; the thought never occured to me that I might actually make those my main game.

That is my graph from basically late December of 2013 until now. By far my winningest game in somewhere between 1/10th to 1/4 of the time of all the $0.50 turbo games combined. That also doesn't include the games I played on my phone! I mean, it basically plays itself, who needs a HUD in that game where the avg stack at the FT is like 6-7 bbs. I have registered I think three double diget winning days since I started playing almost exclusively those. I mean, I don't even play the MTTs anymore because I have such a better hourly rate playing these. Maybe I shouldn't be saying anything, but then again, not many people reading this will have the background that I have. I mean, once you REALLY know your ICM, and I mean REALLY know your ICM with respect to MTTSNGs, this game is printing money. Sure, I may still be averaging out something far less than minimum wage, but this is seriously a BR builder. The regs that are beyond my skill level play far higher stakes and the vast majority of people playing this game either have know idea what they are doing or are just looking for quick gambolz.

As a result I have build my roll to ~$565 and have just about passed this game behind me. I have catapulted my BR to the point where I can comfortably play the $3.50 turbos on stars, face off against mostly fish and poor regs, get a decent hourly rate and start looking at seriously replacing my income with poker winnings. I have a few more levels to jump through, but I do believe that if I played the $1.00 hypers during the peak global hours and the $3.50 during my regular hours, put in 60+ hours per week, I can cover my meager expenses and still build the roll comfortably each month. Plug that in with the occasional bink in a  'Big $X.XX' tourny and we have ourselves, ladies and gentlemen, someone who made it. I am SO close I can taste it, got a tonne of work to do as far as volume goes, but I know I am at that point where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

//

On a personal note, I quit my old job and found one that is better suited for my personality and is much more flexible with my time. I am sleeping better, eating better, exercising more and generally have put my life on the right track to ensure I keep this momentum rolling. It is kind of funny really, the momentum started about 6 years ago now when I first made the decision to learn about success principles and apply them to my life. I guess this is the point that I was working toward all along. Super pumped to bring myself to the next step, the plan is still there to break $100K in a year and now I can plan for the next immediate steps.

Also, not so humble brag, I finally broke the friend zone during the past few months. Bagged me quite the little cutie who I was friends with for a few years. Just kept at it, not pushing anything and finally woke up at the right time and right place to put a solid foundation down. She is easily the best thing going on in my life at the moment and I hope that when you read this babe you know just how special you are. Yes, you and your face! You dork!

Here is to a great 2014, the best year of my life thus far!

Go cry emo fishies

So yeah, I'll tap the fishbowl a bit here.

Recently there have been a slew of forums popping up on 2p2 talking about how online poker is dead and you just can't make a living off of it anymore. Now sure, I have a bias obviously since I am writing this blog, but I just can't stand some of the perspectives presented there.

Nothing, and I mean literally nothing in poker, is impossible. Hard? Sure, without a doubt. Harder than working for someone else for 40 years making their dreams come true? Harder than 60 hour work weeks getting stuck in rush hour traffic? That I doubt.

I didn't play back in the hay day of online poker where 16 year old high school students binked a freeroll and ramped it up to six figures before they were 18. I didn't play back in the day where reading a couple books and figuring out starting hand ranges was all it took to grind out the mid stakes. I started where you are likely to find 4-5 decent regs at every $1.50 nine man SNG at any given time. The point being here is the people who played back in 2006 and made tons of easy money fell into the complacency mind set.

It is too much of a shot to the ego for these people to admit they fell behind the game. It is too scary, too hard for people to admit they are nowhere near as good as they think they are. Maybe some people are just lazy and don't care to put the needed effort into their games. Who knows? But one thing that I know for sure is with proper planning, tireless study and determined execution anything is possible.

Job mentality, I feel, has penetrated the minds of these people who choose to whine on internet poker forums. That is, the job mentality of doing the least amount of work possible for the biggest return. Think about it, really that is what the governing principle is between employees and employers. The employee wants to do as little as possible and get paid as much as possible. The employer wants to squeeze as much effort from the worker as possible while paying them the least. Might be a bit of an extreme way to put it, but that is the paradigm we face today.

Some people just apply this philosophy to everything in life, including poker. And it is easy to see how that sets you up for failure in poker as well as almost every other area in life. I fall subject to that same mentality while putting in the hours at my job. I want to do just enough to fly under the radar and keep my job. I don't want to get more projects and more responsibility without guarantee of increased pay. I don't want my boss trying to get me to do more with less. If my job would allow me the freedom, and same pay, to leave as soon as I have my list of tasks complete, I would work my ass off for however long it took to do the job right and then take off. That is because I would have incentive to do so. The result would be the same amount of work completed to the same level of excellence, and maybe even better, in a much shorter time. Now if that isn't efficiency then I don't know what it. That is the way I approach poker. I work my ass off doing everything I can to grow as a player knowing the results will show when I have earned them.

So sure, it is hard. No way is poker as soft as it used to be and will likely get harder for the next several years to come. But I know that if I put my best effort forward I will overcome the average expected results and stamp my name amongst my poker heroes. Or at least replace my income and take control of my life not living up to the 50 hour work week demand society has placed upon me.

As Norman Chad said in the recent WSOP main event replay, "Winners win, whiners whine".

Now I'll get back to winning

/rant

BR ~$250

Life Hack - Update

Well it really has been a hell of a long time since I last posted, might as well keep this together.

One of the reasons why I started this blog was to have some kind of cool down procedure where I would write about my game. I have since been keeping point form study notes derived from review of each session. Not trying to make excuses, but I have not felt like writing until today.

The past month and a bit have been awesome for me all around.

Full Tilt

Stars

Overall I have been doing well at the stakes, logging about 500 games with a ROI of around 10%. Recent changes to my strategy have been to log 150 games per week, maintaining the stab at $1.50 on stars and studying not every hand but big or marked hands from every session. There has been a decent increase to the time put into study as well, but I don't track that so this is all the graphs you get. Once I get to ~$225 I will start to add $2.25 games from Tilt to my rotation.

I feel that since I started this blog my poker game has benefited yes, but more so the other areas of my life have felt an up tick. I really have been cracking down on my game, just relentlessly pursuing excellence and that has boiled over into the other areas of my life. Just because my mind is that much sharper, I perform better at work as well as with music. I remember a quote I heard once, something to the effect of "When one is excellent at one area of life he tends to be excellent at all areas of life".

As a result of that perspective taking hold I started a band with a couple friends over the weekend. We are doing it for more than fun; we want to fulfill a life long dream and ambition. Just as with poker, I dream of taking my talents to a larger stage and I know if I work smart enough I can get there.

BR ~ $205

Now for fun, I will leave you with one of the smartest life hacks I have ever seen

The Good vs. The Bad

Overall the switch to playing STTSnGs has worked out very well. I am getting more volume in, studying more intently and had some great improvement to the BR. Well, that is when you look at Tilt.

Not bad eh?

Not so good when you mix in what happened at Stars.

The stars games are a mix of the >50c MTTs which I was playing for value and the 1.5d 9 man turbos, so it is a bit skewed, but man does it look bad. Overall I am plus about 2 bucks for the whole month. Not sure what happened since my last post to throw the numbers off either because the BR is now ~$195.

Now to pad my own sob story, yes I ran ridiculously bad when I took my shot at playing the 1.5d games on Stars. Like REALLY bad, but whatever, that's poker. I just get disappointed when I know that from the outside looking in you see at best a break even player complaining about how his ATo monster gets cracked by KQs all the time. But really, you could add about 10 bucks to my running total to make up for the sick beats I was catching.

But to anyone who got this far, your scoffs are well founded. I did play bad as well to get there. I mean, I have only been playing the 9 mans for a couple weeks. There has to be some sort of transition phase from MTTSNGs. But I have improved quite a bit since the switch. There has been a ton of study which has helped tremendously. I have found leaks in my game that I did not know existed. I have also solidified some confidence in my game, I actually believe that there is hope for me to nail down my dream / goal of building a BR of $100,000 and live off of playing a game I enjoy. I read on 2p2 today that certain regulars feel that the average poker player can expect to earn $25-30K per year. The way that I have been improving, playing and logging solid volume, combined with my belief I can do much better than the average, that otherwise depressing news gives me something to hope for.

I missed my goal of logging 500 games this month, but I did hit the goal of breaking in the 1d games. I just didn't know it was going to be on 9 man sngs rather than 90 mans.

So for next month I have set down the following;

- Log 500 games
- Begin working in $1.50 games on Stars
- Continue review of almost all games, find and plug leaks
- Keep up to date with study notes
- Watch 15 hours of study videos

As for my personal life, I have joined the choir at my church. We have a concert on June 2nd and I am very much looking forward to it. I like the time that I spend there, it really helps to keep me grounded and focused. I must be crazy though, because I don't think there are many Christians who like to play poker and even less poker players who would consider themselves Christian. But hey, I always did march to the drum of my own beat.

Switch Up The Game

So I have been mostly treading water with 50c 90m turbos on stars whilst mixing in the occasional 1d 90m turbo. I think I may have got a little complacent in my study, but I do believe the biggest reason is the lack of volume. Really, I don't hit my prime until about three hours into a session playing these types of games and that can really drag on. Also, the stress of putting the volume in by playing about 8 tables on average during the session has been putting me in zombie mode. A combination of lack of binks, lack of fun, lack of motivation and lack of stamina caused me to make my most recent decision.

Currently I am playing 50c 9m turbos on tilt. It is kind of refreshing to go from an MTTSnG mindset to a STTSnG mindset. The action is a bit more intense, the swings are a bit jumpier and the volume gets crushed way easier. I still have to log in a ton more volume with those games to figure out what my win rate will be around, but I think I have proven to myself I am a winner there. It will also sharpen my game overall when I do make it to the final tables of MTTs and MTTSnGs. I will have a much better grasp of ICM overall and will be able to recognize spots to push my edges much easier. Who knows, it might actually be the best thing to do to build the BR. I could maintain bronze on tilt for the decent free rolls, play the stars less than a dollar MTTs and grind out some very fishy micro single table sit n gos.

At the very least I can practice my control of nerd rage quit; those variance bumps just smack you in the face as compared to MTTSnGs. Much easier to go 10 in a row without cashing imho. But hey, I may be wrong.

I fixed the problems with HM2, auto import isn't working too well so I have to manually do it. Not much I can do there, tried everything.

And SNGWiz seems to be running better. The last couple updates must have narrowed down the default ranges some and sped up the overall performance. Or maybe I have just not used it as much since playing the STTSnGs. It is hard to find the time to grab a HH while 8-10 tabling on stars rather than 4 tabling on tilt.

I have decided to forego Saturday night festivities for the most part with friends. I really want to dedicate Saturday and Sunday to the grind without nursing a hangover or getting lack of sleep. I have committed myself to going to church on Sunday to help commit myself to it as well. It sounds much better to say I am taking off early on a Saturday night to make it to church rather than to gamble for 14 hours. Well, I guess it depends who you ask.

BR~$210

Post Mexico

Tons of fun these past couple weeks. I took a two week vacation from work to play some poker, build the roll and went to a wedding for a couple of my best friends in Mexico. The sunrise pictures I got are stellar and I can't wait to go back for some more good times. Back in the grind I feel refreshed and ready to improve my game once again.

Tabledroid has been working very well for me; I am up to 10 tables comfortably. This has helped my overall win rate and also helped me overcome tilt somewhat. With being able to squeeze more volume out of my daily routine I am less fazed when the cards don't go my way. This is because partially because I am distracted with many other decisions to make at the same time but also because I get those wins more often in any given session to bump my roll. I fixed the computer up a bit also to help improve the speed of my game play. Glad I made those improvements.

Cardrunners also has just released the mobile version of their website which helps my game. I have some downtime at work right now with it being the time after spring break up which makes it slow. Now I can spend some of that time, about an hour each day, watching training videos on my phone without anyone at work noticing. So things are looking up all around.

Right now the main thing I have noticed improvement on is my ability to make reads on fishy players and adjust my game accordingly. I am starting to extract more value from them by making exploitative plays, things that they don't notice and walk right into my trap. Sure sometimes it backfires, but the long term benefit well outweighs the negatives. This has made it easier for me to accumulate chips early and mid game so that I can avoid the push fold scenarios until much later in the game. The thing I need to work on is differentiating between people randomly pushing buttons and the thinking opponents that you will find at the micros. Once I can hone that skill it will improve my win rate significantly.

 HM2 seems to be fucking up a bit, it doesn't seem to register all of my wins or all of the games played for a given session and shows my graph as worse than it really is. I think it might have something to do with desktop compatibility mode not registering correctly, but I am not sure. The steps listed in the forum as to how to fix it don't seem to be working for me. Doesn't really matter though as the hand histories are working fine, so my review still goes well.

BR ~ $200

I will leave us with one of my favourite moments from the trip.

Enjoy!

Sunday Funday

Cut my Sunday grind well short of what I was hoping to get done today. As it always happens from time to time, the variance caught up with me and sent me reeling. Sure, I am only down 20 or so buy ins (about $10) but it was the fury of the bust outs and the way it happened that tilted me. The same old bad side of the coolers and losing more than my fair share of 2:1 dominated hands. So I quit. I was too tilted to continue and was beginning to play some bad poker. I would say it was about a 7 out of 10 on the old tilt-o-meter.

Anyways, time to eat some decent Chinese food and watch a new samurai sword fighting movie on Netflix.

Beat: tilt
Brag: Green onion cake
Variance: Laughing at my roommate getting his chest waxed.

My Choice is Tabledroid

Interesting couple days in the poker world.

First the G in NVG.

Twitter and 2p2 was blowing up these past couple days with Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari getting ridiculed for attending Choice Center leadership seminars. I for one will be a little biased towards this decision, refer to my other blog to understand why. I personally have no problem with people spending big bucks to attend science of mind training seminars, I go to them myself. Choice may have it's problems but I believe the good far outweighs the bad. I would just like to see a bit more of an understanding approach from the poker community. So many negative responses to this small blip on the world social scale that is frustrates me. Can people not just try and see the good in everything? Sure, I will forever remain naive because of some of my personal life decisions, but I just don't understand why so many people are scared of this program before they go experience it themselves. It is so easy to join the bandwagon and bash people from behind a computer rather than go out and experience life for yourself. Part of the reason why there is so much negative response in the social media realm is because people who are strong minded enough to take this training seriously do not bother with what other people think about them. Anyways, that is my rant. I could go on and on...

I would just like to see a bit more LOVE in the world is all.

The real point of this post is to describe my love for Tabledroid in a verse.

Roses are Red
My boss is mean
Tabledroid rules
Now ship me the green

Really impressed with it albeit my first experience with a script type piece of software. I really just wanted something that will snap my tiled 12 tables into chronological order, which is something that I have not found yet. TD can do that according to BB which is almost as good, except for when I am mixing in my MTTs with my regular MTTSNGs. I get a bit of lag with it, but the hot keys more than make up for it. Some more fine tuning with it and I will be set. Support is great as well, since it is a smaller scale operation. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to start up being a mass table grinding zombie.

The study group is not coming along very well. Linked in has a bunch of techno-poker geeks but not many pros looking for a study group. Out of the few friends that have responded, none are really taking it as seriously as I. Most are just looking to get a better understanding of the game, like does a straight beat a flush, and the guys who have some decent poker sense are treating it as a get rich quick scheme. Trust me, it takes A LOT of time and effort and is by no means quick. Oh well, I am sure I will get some kind of network happening soon.

Set a new BR record today, combined over Stars and Tilt I am ~$175. I also broke 1000 tournaments today. Average ROI is 68% over wide variety of games ABI is somewhere ~$0.50, I am too lazy to try and figure out how to get it on HM2 at the moment.

Well, back to the old 9-5 and same thing tomorrow. GG GL.

Introduction

So it starts today.

Welcome to The Fishbowl, a personal diary style blog following my daily grind out of the micros and into financial freedom. I have plenty of ideas to put here and will be updating it on a frequent basis, but for the most part this is a blog by myself and for myself. That doesn't mean anyone reading this won't at least be entertained or find a golden nugget or two, but you are forewarned that this may not be the most concise blog you have ever stumbled upon.

First of all, let me start with what I intend to accomplish here.

1. Create a growing personal archive of results.

2. Maintain a pulse on the attitudes shaping my poker though process as it continues to grow.

3. Provide a starting ground for all other poker related projects.

Let me summarize what I have been thinking about to bring me to this point.

I have been reviewing tons of educational material in the form of e-books, strategy websites and 2p2 posts and although these materials have been a tremendous help, I feel I need more. I feel that what I am lacking in is a concrete and structured way of organizing my growth. I know from past experience that writing down ideas, keeping a journal, tracking goals and making myself accountable to this process will do just that. With solidifying these ideas in my mind I am able to free up some creativity and will power to do what needs to be done >>>> the grind. Right now this blog will suffice as a central point for all strategy thought process, goal tracking and networking to build a great Edmontonian poker mastermind group. Of course anyone who is willing to can chime in even if it is just a slight criticism or bout of encouragement.

If you have got this far in my first post, thank you for reading. I look forward to growing as a poker player with you.