On Every Street

Foxwoods

2011-07-22T12:11:00.001-07:00

Yes, I have not posted since ever, but anyway....

I am going to Foxwoods for the first time at the end of the month. My dad and his fiancee are going to a concert to see Steely Dan and they asked me if I would like to come along. I plan on playing the $230 deep stack tourney on Friday, July 29th. It's not that simple though! It is more money than I have ever played with before, I have not played in quite awhile, and my confidence could not be lower. All signs point to me picking something different to play or not playing at all, but of course I am obviously very tempted. I have been saving up money for this trip for awhile by saving 20 bucks a week (lame I know), but I have amassed a nice sum of money. With this no online biznass, it is hard to train my game back up to peak performance, but I will hopefully be reading up and playing some heads-up with a super friend and opponent. Good luck me!!

The Epic Copyright Story: Somebody Stole A Picture of Me

2010-05-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

So I should of written about this long ago, but something crazy crazy CRAZY happened to me around December of last year...

The Back Story
Flashback to freshman year of college (almost three years ago now), I just moved into my dorm and met my roommate Mike. He was an incredible photographer at only 20 years old so one thing led to another and we were doing a mini photoshoot one night. He knew I was a big poker fan so we were doing different things with cards. We decided to do a picture where I would toss two aces and just pray that they were showing face-up to the camera. It took about forty tries, but eventually we got em' to show pretty well. However, we didn't know how GOOD the picture was going to show up. The final product is my profile picture for this blog so look to the top right to seeeee. This picture is also my facebook picture and as of right now, there are 54 comments from people talking about how awesome it is =).

The Incident
A little more backstory, my Sophomore year roommate has a friend who is one of the best MTT tournament players on Full Tilt and Pokerstars. I love to watch him play any chance I get. In the winter, this player was playing in the Aruba. One night, around 2am, I was looking for a site on Google to track his progress. I clicked on the first one and there was MY PROFILE PICTURE as the main picture of the background of that site. At first, I thought I was tripping from fatigue, but once I realized that this was LEGIT. I ran to my suitemates and tried to verbalize what the fuck I just found. Everybody had a good laugh, including my old roommate who took the picture. It was soo amazing to me that I just stumbled upon my picture. At first, I thought somebody took it from my facebook page, but it makes much more sense that somebody actually took it from this here poker blog! Heyyyy, that means people read this! Hehe, anyway, if you're out there dipshit, yeah u, the one who took my picture, I would like a nice talk please.

Everybody exploded when I posted the picture on facebook and a lot of people wanted me to sue their ass off. I will save what Mikey and I for the Part II of this post. Last but not least, here is a screenshot from the site.

Holy guacamole

2010-05-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, I knowwww. I haven't posted for awhile. I certainly admire people like Josie and others who post very consistently, but it's hard to have lots to say that don't bore the hell out of me and the few readers who come across this barren excuse of a blog. However, poker and wanting to write are still always present in my melon. I don't have the mulah to play online, nor the desire to, really. I certainly have the urge to play some rebuy tournaments from time to time, but I am definitely a better person when I avoid the online felt. This is because I am not in my boxers till 4pm and actually get some stuff done during the days I don't work in the summer (even though being in my boxers till 4 is good every of often!).

My semester ended very well. I finished my internship at an elementary school and received 19 very cute cards from first graders at the end of it. I have potential (probably jinxing it) to get all four A's this semester. Like poker, definitely part luck and part skill. This one class where I was sure I would get a B, magically turned into an A. I think part of that grade was due in part to the fact that I was the only one in my group that did not rant to the teacher about how she sucked and organized the class totally counterintuitive to reality. This class I researched the "Cohabitation Effect" which pretty much says that couples are more likely to experience marital problems and divorce if they live together before marriage. Sounds crazy, huh? Well it is pretty statistically significant. My dad said, "Bullshittt, Jake!" and my response was, "Well... you're a product of it!" Not so nice, I guess...

Other than that, this summer I will be working at my local hardware store for like the billionth year in a row now. I tried getting a summer camp job, but it seemed like those jobs are very "it's not what you know, it's who you know" type gigs. I will also be working on graduate school stuff and the GRE, which hopefully I will actually get in gear with that. Poker will certainly not help that situation. I would be more than happy to play live any chance I get with friends, but I'm gonna try and stay away from online.

I will also be flying down to FL to help my gf pack up and move back to MA since her internship is done. We will be driving back so if anyone knows of any restaurants right off of 95 that is worth going to, that would be saweeeeetttt.

Lastly, HOW BOUT DEM CELTSSSSSSS.

Pauly is amazing

2010-03-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

I know most of you read his blog as it is, but his newest post about what he does to railbirds that ask for $5 is hilarious.

check Pauly out

WSOP 2013

2010-03-05T14:27:00.000-08:00

So I've always had a goal at playing in Vegas. I have my doubts if I will actually like it compared to the views of so many because I do not like to gamble besides poker. I have read other blogs talking about the people who comes to vegas for strictly poker reasons and it just seems that they do not enjoy it as much as the people willing to donate to casinos. I have been to Turningstone Casino before and I'm not sure if it was getting no sleep or losing 100 dollars in Ferocious Kitty's glove compartment, but I did not have an enjoyable experience.

Late June, I will be turning the famous 21. I do drink from time to time, but I guess I am a huge party pooper since I am slightly excited, but not as much as the avg college boy/girl about going to bahhhhhs. I will not have the money to go to Vegas this year considering my brokeness, but my goal is to go when I am about 23-24 when I am in the work force and making sooooome cash monies. Despite not playing online, I feel my game is pretty strong right now, and feel I would have a good shot against anyone who wants to play live.

On a side note, A blogger who I just started reading, VeryJosie is coming up with some great posts that you all should check out!

Lastly, this week is my spring break and I am going to FL to see the gf who I haven't seen in 2 months. Holyyyyyyy.

Something New

2010-02-08T20:11:00.000-08:00

During the school year, I completely ban myself from playing anything called online poker. It started last semester and I was actually 100% successful at sticking to my word. I still play live a few times a week with some college donks, but that's it. This semester is just as successful, but I obviously get help by new semi-addictions. The new thing for me right now is Scrabble. Specifically Facebook Scrabble. It seems like the perfect transition because like poker, scrabble requires immense amount of skill, but definitely luck too. Scrabble is definitely more skillful, but there are a lot amount of mental ties one can make with poker. There is so much strategy behind it and I am just beginning to see a small amount of it. Two bloggers, Ferocious Kitty and Shoving With Air play me all the time and they definitely are getting really good too. I just purchased my first official scrabble strategy book, which apparently is like the Super System of Scrabble. I feel like I'm still really bad. My vocabulary is pretty atrocious (as probably one could tell reading this blog), but I will work hard at improving. So get ready possibly for some boring ass scrabble posts!!!

Other news, this semester marks the second half of my internship working in a local elementary school. I help out in a first grade class as well as hold two lunch groups for some awesome kids. However, after working in the school, I am completely drained of any mental capabilities. I have begun to watch the amazing show The Wire and it is the best time waster of all time. Like woah. Highly recommend it to anyone who needs to unwind.

Anywayyyyy, let's power through this weeeeek! =)

The Softest Game Ever (long post ahead)

2010-01-16T08:44:00.001-08:00

So I know I don't blog very often, but I feel like I'm almost obligated to share a cash game I was lucky to take part in last night. The back story is whenever I'm home from college, I play basketball with my dad every sunday with all the other 45-50 year olds who play with him. I've been playing with these same guys since I've been in like sixth grade so I know most of these sweaty and awkward guys pretty well. Little did I know that since I started college two years ago, they started a cash game with one of the players and his business friends. My dad has gossiped about me to them about how I play quite frequently and I'm an alright player. So last night, they held a game specifically for yours truly. I felt somewhat like Phil Hellmuth almost because everyone was gunning for me and going nuts WHENEVER I would lose a pot.

The night started around 7:30 and was a $20 cash game, which was a bit more than I'm used to, but it did not affect my play at all. 11 guys showed up and at first, they all wanted to play at the same table. I nicely proposed to divide it into two tables because 11 is simply ridiculous and instead of hands per hour with these nice fish, it might turn into hours per hand. Luckily, they decided to split us up and my table draw was really loose and passive. There was a family pot about 3/5 of the time. All of the guys at my table were really nice and the atmosphere was good, but NONE of them had any game. I'm not sure if my game has gotten much better where I feel completely in control, but last night was a dream. Here's how the table went down:

Seat 1: Me - the shark obviously
Seat 2: Aeric - local bartender who was hitting his share of cards, but a calling station nonetheless.
Seat 3: Rich - The player who was the most cognizant, but extremely tight
Seat 4: Rob - athletic and competitive guy who limped in every unopened pot (which was almost every pot). had interest in the game.
Seat 5: Fat Dave: prototypical calling station. The guy who you hope just deposits every week on Full Tilt.

The other table that my dad was at was even more fishy. They minraised every single hand so I was somewhat jealous that there was more action, but knew that I would get a piece of them later in the night.

I'm actually not too great at remembering that many specific hands, but the first hand of note was when little dave moved to our table. He was the host and probably the biggest proponent of watching me lose. I hadn't played a pot in awhile so for some reason I was impelled to raise with K7o in the co. Little and Fat Dave called. Little Dave was a pretty cognizant player, who was pretty tight, but liked to raise large preflop when he was involved. The flop came pretty dry with the board 862 rainbow. It was checked to me. I've been taking my time with my decisions and was obviously going to cont bet. I decided on 3.25, which I thought would put people to the test. Dave instaraised me to 6 (which was kosher at this game) and Fat Dave folded. Here, it was very clear to me that Dave was just trying to push me out because he wanted to be the guy that can bluff me. So I took my time even though I was pretty sold at 4betting him here with K high. I'm silly like that. I'm also a young gun who thinks he's the shit obv. I had about 18 dollars behind, and made it to 13.50. This was my big hand and I knew it would probably dictate the rest of the night, which would obviously suck if he called. He took a long time and folded. It probably was a pretty reckless play and most of my friends know I'm known for pulling some crazy shit. It worked here and I showed the bluff because I'm not going to let Little Dave think he can outplay me.

Other than that, simple cont bets helped. 2/3 of the way through the night, we combined tables to play 9-handed. It messed up my feng shui because i was very happy with the hands per hour and now it just hit a concrete wall. I had to like do push ups in between hands because everyone and their grandmother was limping and min raising and I almost wanted to find a gun or just run home or something. I finally picked up AKss on the button and just took down a pot. After that, I decided to step my aggression up and took a few more pots down uncontested.

Anyway, I obviously lost pots as well with an overflush and when i didnt notice a flush on board when i had two pair.

Dream game all around.

WHOOO AHHHHH

2010-01-01T21:17:00.000-08:00

Hey All. Quick Update. So far, pokering has been predominantly what I have done for this winter break. I'm really cool, I know. I only got about 250 to show for it so far, but not too bad for the stakes I've been playing. Interestingly enough, I really haven't even come into my groove until the last ten or twelve sessions. Oh and yeah, I have completely 180'ed what I had originally wanted to do and listened to my old high school friend and just grinded 9 man sng's again. I'm not sure if having a blog is beneficial for a boring grinder like me, but I'm more than welcome to let you in on my system since I doubt most people read what I have to say =). My main goal now is to make enough money for books, which I already think I have done with my total roll now, but my new goal is to make it to the 700 mark. That would be a MAJOR victory for me.

So my strategy?

Be a HUGE.......

MOTHA FUCKIN........

NIT

in a few days, I hope to recap on my goals from last year and see if I actually accomplished anything!

Restlessss

2009-12-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

So I realize I have not posted on here since like seventeen years ago. One of the only reasons is because I don't play online during the school year. That's been a move I decided to make since the beginning of the semester because playing online definitely hinders my ability to start long term work. hehe. I have been very honest about not playing, though I sure watch ISilDur1 quite a lot and it's given me a closet desire to learn omaha. Howeverrrr, I don't think I have the bankroll or time to start any time soon.

I have about six more days of this semester till I can play again! Definitely feeling really restless to play because looming finals and papers are just crazy. So, in a nutshell, this post is to further procrastinate. At the end of the summer, I cashed out most of my winnings. My goal was to be able to afford for books and I actually did that. Just realized that now. I left myself about ten bucks in case I had any free time before I made my little semester long choice. I got sick early on in the semester and decided to play a few MTT sng's on a friday afternoon where I ran really well and now have about 127 to mess with when I am able to play again.

My goal is to just gain more confidence with the later stages of MTT's. I will have okay bankroll management when I play again, but I don't give a shiiiiat if I just lose my bankroll on this go around. I expressed my opinion on Hoyazo's blog about what MTT's feel like, but I plan on just running over competition.

Writing this, I am quite hung over, but expect to hear from me definitely more consistently. =)

I Fucking Hate The Yankees

2009-08-09T20:33:00.001-07:00

SO MUCH.

Yeah.

2009-07-16T13:10:00.001-07:00

It's time to play cash.

Hammer Playin Pompous Ass FTW!!!!!

2009-06-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a joy it was to look at my dashboard this morning and see my man Hoyazo just chop for 51k. Like, unreal. For all the time that he is in awe over other fellow bloggers just ripping the WSOP, he goes out and SHITS on the Venetian. Like, I've had a big fucking smile on all morning long.

I haven't talked about poker recently, but I've been on quite a killing. Up over 500 already this summer. Not sure when to move up in stakes, but it's amazing what running good does to your head. I feel like I can beat anyone, which obviously is not the case. I still make some big key mistakes.

One for example: It was a 5 dolla 45-man and I had AQ in the hijack pos and raise to 3.5x because of a limper and get min raised by the co. Uh oh. This was as I was 6-tabling so I don't have too much time to either vomit over what he has or think about what decision I have to make. However, obviously an inkling that a donk is playing his KK or AA. Flop comes Q22. Nice. Real Sexy. Pot is 900 and this guy leads out for whole pot. At this time, all my previous thoughts of already being beat go out the window and I rr AI (me being an aggro mofo) and run into AA. This, I feel, could be a situation I could have avoided, arguably. I think his range of hands here definitely includes hands I crush (after the flop), but if I were playing AA on that flop, I would definitely lead out for the pot as well and pray the guy has AQ. I think JJ is definitely in his range, but 99 and 1010 hell no because why would they minraise my ass with a set mining hand? So i think KK AA AK and even AQ are all more likely hhands that this guy is holding. Looking at the actualy hand history, I still had 2200 behind even after the 900. If I was actually thinking coherently for a change, I could have just flatted since I was in position and possibly made the laydown on the turn. This definitely is a sign that 6-tabling still is not bread and butter. This all being said in retrospect.

Lastly, Capital Grille was phucking phenomenal. When I made the reservation, they asked if this was for some special occasion. This dinner celebrated a bunch of different things, but most currently I said my birthday. So when we finally sat down, every waiter that friggin walked by my table said happy birthday as well as our table having those colored happy birthday little metallic thingies all over the place. This place does it big. I got the big-time sirloin (recommended by father OES) and the gf got the filet mignon (as predicted). It was really cool, cutting into a piece of steak and knowing that my skillz at the table provided me the opportunity to live large for a night.

I hope everyone that read this epicly long post didn't die of boredom and makes it through another work week!

Official Poker Rankings

2009-06-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, the website Official Poker Rankings is a site that allows players to check up on their own stats as well as their opponents and friends and see what tournaments they play as well as their successes/failures as well as their percentile among the site that they play on. It provides a comprehensive stats program, which I orgasm looking at because it is soooo cool. It shows me that I come in first place in 9-man sng's much more often then second and third. Today, not thinking it was any different day, I went to check up on how my friend did on a tournament. I was absolutely outraged to find that Full Tilt has decided to remove all ties with Offical Poker Rankings because it apparently, "gives players an unfair advantage" and "very similar to how a shared hand history database works." This is total horse shit. Official Poker Rankings is a free site that everyone can use and the only help it gives is letting opponents know how skilled the opposing players are. It also lets me to track the big dogs and see their scores, but now I'm left in the dark.

I learned that through their percentile ratings, that 80% of all online players are LOSING players. This fact might be a reason why Full Tilt wanted to cut ties because this shows that a disproportionate amount of players are giving their money to Full Tilt. This is obviously not a great idea of mine, but anybody else have reasons why Full Tilt really wanted to cut ties with OPR because their reasoning already is pretty bs.

Brag Post

2009-06-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

Just made reservations for 730 at The Capital Grille on my birthday (June 24th babyyy). I would think this makes a run at whatever Hoyazo is talking about in his Prime talks.

The bill we be payed for by the lovely donks over at Full Tilt Poker and also may be attributed to my incredible skillz.

I've been looking forward to this night for a long time and pumped that it actually is going to happen. This is a big instance that my girlfriend actually likes when I play =)=).

I Lied.

2009-06-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

So in my earlier post, I wrote that I was done for an indefinite time. That time meant... three days apparently. My friend decided not to want the transfer so me, having the poker bug, wanted to give it another go. Of course, crazy shit happens and I promptly get sucked out in my sng's. Another day goes by. I wake up and feel good and tell myself, let's multitable sng's again. I don't understand why I would feel that way, given my results, but proceed to run like a KENYAN GOD. All my flats on the bubble with A6 against his K2 were holding. I won all my 80/20's and even sucked out a few times to TAKE DOWN 6 sng's-- 5 nine-mans and 1 27-man to amass a huge pay day. When I run good, I don't amass second and third place earnings, I fucking annihilate tables.

With this day, it really shows me that you win some/you lose some. I definitely feel like I am an above average player by all means, but results fluctuate so crazily.

One pattern that I wonder if any of you reading this could explain is this interesting downward motion of one's bankroll after they cash out a bit. It's happened to three other people than me who cash out x amount of dollars then proceed to lose a large chunk of their remaining roll. I obviously know Full Tilt isn't rigged, but it's funny to think about if FT does it this way:
Full Tilt Mod: Oh I see this fucker just took out 160 from our system. Let's fuck 'em hard now. (pushes button to lose 10 straight sng's regardless of statistics).

To be honest, I can easily believe that, but no it seems pretty impossible that shit goes on. What goes on in the mindset of players to completely suck ballz after they cash out? I really did not feel any different after I cashed out 1/3 of my roll besides relief.

In other news, congrats to the TOC players. It was awesome to watch, despite feeling completely horrible for Hoyazo making a big testicle call. And congrats to CK! You gots to love her.

Lastly, this badass picture that BJ Nemeth took is rockin' my wallpaper as we speak.

The New York Yankees

2009-06-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

Dan Shaugnessy, consistent sports writer of The Boston Globe wrote, "They [The New York Yankees] came to town in first place, winners of 19 of 25 games. They left the Hub early this morning with bags over their heads, reeling from yet another loss, yet another sweep at the hands of the Boston Red Sox."

0-8 against the BOSTON RED SOX this year.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

Yikes

2009-06-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

So. Yeah. Fast forward about a week. I have never seen so many sick things and sick tilts that I am absolutely disgusted. I don't feel like articulating every single thing I've witnessed, but it was bad. I think my online days might be done for an indefinite time. I lost about 120 straight, which definitely chunked into my roll. I'm gonna transfer my remaining roll to a buddy of mine and just enjoy my summer Full Tiltless. Goals? No thank you. I tried remaining positive, and definitely cut down my play, but even when I was single-tabling, Full Tilt was relentless. I am sure that I made a few bad plays along the line, but lately, the same system I was using to build a solid roll completely came up from under me.

Online poker is such a bitter world that after a few days of not playing, I feel the urge to play again. However, I'm gonna bite the bullet and cut my losses. It's so hard since I'm so immersed in everything Full Tilt and everything WSOP, but I got's to. It really isn't worth my time or effort. Sorry for the rant post and repetitiveness, but I gots to. Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend.

Where I'm At

2009-05-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have been pretty sweet. My back is finally better so I can start running and bballing again, which is definitely missed. First and foremost though, one of my poker buddies, Toots just launched a great blog, which he already left an incredibly chock-full post of poker content in his Odyssey of heads up cash. Definitely a must-read.

With poker, I go in phases. Lately, I have become a sng reg. It's been definitely a profitable journey thus far. I seem to change my mind with my direction, but I'm open to change. During the last week of finals, I went on a crazy tilt. Obviously my mind was not in the optimal mindset and I steamrolled my bankroll down into the 200's when I was at around 400. It was mostly tournaments, but sixty dollars of cash to that I lost quicker than Hellmuth playing that crazy Chinese Poker.

SNG's
My new thing, which I've played about 100-150 sng's in a week and a half span is to 4-5 table the 6.50 turbo's On Full Tilt. I usually play three 9-man's and one 18-27man. This allows me to get more experience in the 18-man format where I definitely lack skill and experience compared to my 9-man takedowns. Lately, I have taken down two 18 man's and came in 2nd in a 27-man, which definitely gives me confidence in my game as well as a boost in ROI. I got up to as high as 340 in my roll and cashed out a bit to treat the gf for our two year anniversary. Kinda crazy to think it's been that long already, but pretty sweet too =).

My Goal
I think a very attainable goal by the end of the summer is to make enough money to pay off my books for next semester. I am certainly not working as much as I was last summer, so some extra income would be great. Other news, I got another final table under my belt cming in fourth out of 244 people for a nice cash as well. These past few weeks has definitely been a profitable one,raking in about $265 from mostly just $6.50 buy-ins, but also showing me that this MOFO has a bit of skilllzz!!! But also, this situation doesn't hurt either.

Mookie

2009-05-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

I'm going to play the Mookie tonight. That is all. =) =). First time for everything.

Being grateful

2009-05-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

So despite this lovely economy, yours truly has a summer job. However, I'm not sure if this is how the business world works, but does every job require connections? My first job in High School I worked at the local ACE hardware. I got the job because I knew the bosses son. Second job, worked for Kelloggs cereal. Got the job because my dad's girlfriend works for Kelloggs. This new job, my best friend's sister works for the deli that I will start working at now. Don't get me wrong, I work my ass off when I'm working, but it seems that the business world that I've been a part of is all about "It's not what you know, it's who you know." I'm also very grateful that I've obtained these jobs and I seem to be at the right place at the right time.

I've always had the careless mindset that I will get a job with little trouble (before any of the connections listed above have come arise). It's kind of the luck I attract when everyone around me is talking about their bad beats and here I am with AA on the button. I certainly have had my fucking share of bad beats, but I am not one to dwell on my shit, which I think works in my favor in a spiritual way. I sway where the wind blows me. When I was little, I led my soccer team in scoring while my dad was the assistant coach. He told me (and it was true) that I just got garbage goals. I somehow ended up exactly where the ball was going to be. I never had the skillz, the speed, but I had the crazy skillz for opportunity

Poker works the same way for most scenarios, but opposite when I play large MTT's. I will be in my flow for around two hours, but immediately when I start to think about the payouts, my game detiorates and my mind gets hazy. This has obvious effects on my game, but also completely changes my mental strategy of swaying where the wind blows me. Instead, I am constantly on guard and concerned about my hand rather than other peoples. I think this mindset has my friends plagued with the need to find a summer job. I'm sure there's a logical explanation to everything, but fuck it, this metaphor I'm crafting at 1am is workin'.

Anyway, I'm kinda stopping on the whole MTT's for awhile and just focus on cash since that's where my big-time success is. I'm gonna try to only limit my play to off days because I know that I will just steam-tilt my br away if I play after work. Plus, I my aggro-exploiting self when I my mind is thinking efficiently (John Madden comment). Hope everybody has a good weekend!

Oh Goodness.

2009-04-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

This is the week from hell in the college world. 3 Finals, One paper, and one HUGE project away from finishing half of my undergraduate college career. I have crazy procrastination skillz. Poker just allows me to procrastinate without having to battle myself as I am sitting at my desk trying to get legit work done. That is why I banned myself yet again on both stars and tilt because I apparently just want to find other means at which to waste time. I get a lot of crap from my friends from my constant self exclusion, but I really do have trouble not playing to procrastinate.

I went to the Sox-Yankees game on Friday night. It was the first of 3 games of this wonderful weekend. After Jason Bay tied it up with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and Youkilis's walk-off dinger, I practically had a religious experience and reflected with my friends on what we just witnessed. All I can remember is screaming so loud that my throat hurt for the rest of the night. Fenway was electric. The crowd was actually not incredibly into it all game until after Neil Diamond's lovely "Sweet Caroline" and that promptly pumped the crowd up for the rest of the game. After the game, they were giving out free "yankee hater" bumper stickers and I prompted to take four or five because I am sure I can find uses for these (like covering the douche bag's door who lives above me who's a big yankee fan).

On a poker front, I've been 6 tabling sng's for a nice profit over on stars. the 650 turbo's are pretty soft with on avg like 1-2 players doing the same thing as me. I just so can't wait till I can play over the summer where I don't have school in the back of my mind.

A Recap

2009-04-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

Yo! Do I know you? I am glad I don't feel pressure to write frequently on this thing cause I sure as hell don't post too often. Anyway, I have been really trying to get some hours in online and I definitely have some legit results to prove it. 3.5 weeks of cash so far and I have seen my roll rise from 165--406. It is now at a healthy 381, which is a result of donkey plays and consistent suckouts in the mini FTOPS satellites that Full Tilt runs as consistently as my donkitude right now. Cash has definitely had it's ups and downs. Pretty much what I learned so far is that 3betting regulars is a lovely tactic (with the help of Poker Copilot) and to never play poker at 3-4am. I have really gotten down playing 4 tables of 6 max and have been working in the fifth table from time to time. One example of a play I like to do sparingly, but has worked very consistently.

I raise to .30 from the button with any two cards (this scenario happens to be with K2).
a regular (whom I identify using poker copilot with his VPIP at 20 with his PFR to be close to the same thing as his VPIP) notices ive been stealing a lot and 3 bets me to 90 cents. I think for a bit, but knowing exactly what I want to do all along, I confidently raise to 3 dollars and he almost instafolds. Yeah, this is uber aggressive, but that's my style. Soon I hope to be able to organize all my hand history to break more hands down for analysis by anyone out there. I've had great experiences talking to my roommate about stategy and he always seems to convince me that I should have thought it this way, despite it sounding completely counterintuitive. Below is the update of my br. Have a good rest of the week!

Update

2009-03-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

So sorry I havent posted in awhile. I have certainly not been lacking on the poker playing front, but for some reason I have not felt the need to post. Like Cmh76 I have delved into the cash games to see how well I will do at something completely different. At the same time, I decided to download the software Poker Copilot (specifically for Macs) in order to track my progress and test out this Heads-Up Display that seems to help out a lot of cash gamers. I get a 30 day free trial, which seems like a perfect time to test out cash as a whole anyway. I started out with a roll at 165 and now im looking at a roll with almost 285 in one week. It's been a very positive experience so far and I have never seen this sort of positive consistency ever in the online world.

My system is I play 4 tables of .05/.10 where I buy-in for $8 each. I've received criticism for why I don't do the maximum buy-in (10), but I don't know, I just feel more comfortable this way. So thanks to this program, I'm able to see my bankroll chart, every hand I've ever played, how well I do at every position at the table and so much friggin more! It really is my nerdy poker statistics dream! Anyway, above is my progress, which has had its ups and downs, but always going up so I must be doing something right! I also limp quite a bit and raise about two thirds of the times that I am in a pot. Cash has definitely been really refreshing from the sng and MTT grind.

My goals: If I still can keep on building, once I get to 550, I will take 150 out and buy this cool program then take my gf out to dinner for the remaining 100! I have no idea how to spend 100, given my college kid broke status, but any suggestions will be taken into consideration. Have a good week all!

You can only win so many flips...

2009-03-03T22:04:00.000-08:00

So on the eve of my journey to Turningstone, I decided to play a shit ton of online poker to "pre game," shall we say before we depart. I ran like death for most of the night, getting sucked out of 3 and coolered in two sng's and MTT's respectively. However, as I was 3-4 tabling, I noticed that my 5 dollar turbo was going nice and smoothly and that window was just sitting there. I took down an 18 man and decided that I would focus on just this mtt. I final tabled that bitch, but IGH when my K8 couldn't hit against 77's. But here am I looking short as hell at the table. I am very grateful to come in second because I got sucked out once and coolered once when we were already in the money.

ANYWAYY, We are leaving at 2 in the morning and should arrive at around 7. I hope to be coherent enough to stand when I get out of the car, but my vacation has started!

First tourney is a 50 dolla deep stack turbo at noon. HERE WE GO.

BBT4/ I'm a Donk

2009-03-01T22:52:00.000-08:00

So I watched a good amount of the action at the final table of the first big event in the BBT4 that I hear so much blogging about. I only watched the final table because I donked out of a large 10 dolla freeze out 35 spots from the money. fml.

Anyway, congrats to Hoyazo for a deep cash. This guy, if you don't know him is a great and consistent blogger. He gets a lot of harp for being pompous from time to time and steamy, but he really is fun to watch and very nice if you need help with anything. He advised me on the proper way to take screenshots awhile back and I recommend his blog to any player and advise to read all of his deep runs that he has posted on his sidebar.

Back to my game, Idk. might need a break until TStone, but no biggy. I will pull through!

Spring Break and Turningstone

2009-02-26T19:50:00.001-08:00

It is almost finally here. The time where I regain sanity from all this work that I have been doing and also time for me to get over this cold! I have had some variation of the plague for the past two weeks that has been getting worse/getting better/getting worse in f*ing weird stages. Anywhoo, I will get to sleep in my very own bed starting tomorrow night and play some crazy amounts of online poker since the gf is working.

Tuesday, oh Tuesday! Normally I have terrible Tuesdays (alliteration intended) with 3.5 classes in one day accompanied by work and a 9am class. However, this tuesday,
Ferociousness, his friends from home, and I will be shipping up to Turningstone Casino in upstate NY! This will be my first real casino experience since most casino's I am still not eligible to play given that I am at the wee age of 19. I have been working at my college's library like a fiend to save up enough money that I feel comfortable taking with me! We will be leaving Tuesday night and plan to arrive at 3am or so. We then will just start playing from then on! Pretty crazy, but should be an awesome time. I am sure we will also be playing all the nightly tournies. I have had a little 100 dolla buy in experience, playing in only one, but cashing for a nice $900 in a 4 way chop. I can't wait to partake in this Spring Break Experience and will most definitely blog all about when I get back! Hope all is well with everyone!

The Connection Between AROID and poker

2009-02-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

First off, I have not posted in awhile. It's kind of a refreshing thing to be writing this right now! I have been UBER busy here at the college as now I have survived the first round of Midyears with 1-2 more rounds to go!

I wanted to write about this awhile back when I read Hoyazo's good posts about his opinion on AROID, but just havent had the time. Anyway, when I saw the video with Rodriquez and Katie Couric, something struck me of a connection between this whole steroids debacle and a possible tie to poker. Back in the 90's with the MLB, steroids were illegal, but nobody tested. Im sure that with the players, they just wanted to get ahead and were worried that some farm kid was going to overpass them if they didn't themselves take that ball-shrinking medecine I know it is not deemed illegal, but what about poker software? I haven't done much research into the companies that make these programs and also given that I have a Mac, most software is not even compatible for me. Also, I am just not good enough or trying to make a killer profit in the online world to even want poker software. However, my friend has it and seems to make a large profit with the help of this software. This HUD display that shows a player's betting patterns right on the screen as your playing allows my friend to play 10-12 cash game tables at a time. Also one can know everyone's 3bet percentage or fold to 3bet percentage without having to take notes! Definitely seems to be some sort of edge. Another connection too, is I am sure that a donk wouldn't use this to their full advantage, but so wouldnt steroids! You usually just dont have some Joe Schmo take steroids and expect to get big. It's those heavy weight lifters or a-holes like AROD that take steroids.

Anywhoo, that's some fuel for thought. I hope to post later in the week about my poker playing as of late! =)

lol donkaments

2009-02-07T23:04:00.000-08:00

I <3 New Zealand and their funny shows on HBO, but this really brings a smile to my face.

It reminds me of 3-4 years ago when I would play on stars in those 10,000 person freerolls. I'm sure everyone has been there, but looking back on them, (they were fun as shit) but also pure death for two reasons:

1.) if you cashed, the first pay structure was .04 cents. quite the bargain. dodging a minefield of about 8,500 raging donkeys and staying up till ridiculous hours for a fraction of what my mom pockets when she does the laundry. been there, done that. simply embarassing if I ever responded truthfully to someone's "What did you do over the weekend?" question.

2.) They played hand for hand in EVERY LEVEL OF PAY STRUCTURE. yeah.

Anyway, things have been stagnant on the poker front. I have been on a heater with heads up sng's finally playing 100 h/up's and actually winning 60 of them. you better believe it. OP AHHH me. Despite that, I have been lacking in my usual skill with regular 9-man's, but Im sure I will bring that back to form. That's about it coming from me, but hope everyone enjoys their Sunday!

Hot and Cold

2009-01-29T08:29:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have been playing with some consistency and overall have seen some nice progress with the occasional donkyness from time to time. However, I have seen my bankroll double as a result of some good tournament play. I have made two final tables in six days. I also played my very first 24+2 and actually ran really well until about two hours in when I got massively sucked out to come in second in my other MTT I was playing at the same time. This caused me to make moves when I could have just sat on my massive stack. However, here is what I was looking at after the first 45 mins into the 28k guarantee.
The hand that put a large hurt on me was about fifteen minutes after I got sucked out in my other MTT so I wasn't playing optimally at all. However, it wasn't too bad of a play imo.

I was dealt Q5o in the sb about two hours and fifteen minutes into the tourney. Co makes it a solid 3x to 1800. Having seen this guy be quite aggressive near the button, I pushed the time button so I can have time to fake like I'm pondering make a decision when I was pretty set on restealing here. I was real card dead for almost an hour straight so this (in my tilting head) looked like the place to chip up again. So I decided to make it to an even 4000 (with about 8000 behind), repping some pretty big cards despite my gross ass hand. He thought for a long time, but eventually made the call. The one thing I regret is not having a solid read on this guy on his playing ability so I only could put him on a range of a small pocket pair like 77 or 88 since I really had no range on him from previous hands. The flop came an ace high, rainbow board. So because I dont think my post flop play is that good, I'm usually very aggressive preflop and on on the flop. I open pushed him on the flop, obviously continuing with my aggression on this hand. Again he pondered, but reluctantly called with A4o. And i was sent packing with my complete air of a hand and just short of the money.

I am kind of firm that I would have made this play tilting or not, but it was obviously not the right move. I feel I'm very aggresive, which obviously is good and bad.

Anyway, I am curious for any feedback from anyone on how I played the hand or the way I phrased the hand, since I'm still a pretty new blogger. =)

Mental Funk

2009-01-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

Coming into this week, the last full week of winter break for my college, I was all psyched to visit one of of my good friends in Maine with a bunch more of my friends. It being so close to my thirty days without online poker, I decided to ease up on my ban and play on pstars because I still had a teency amount of cash moniess on there and everyone else was going to be playing too. I ended up really well, grinding my big $1.80-$35.00 thanks in part to the special donkeys on the low limits of stahhhs. I began to play again, only to tilt so fast that I stopped playing after only a douzen sng's. I actually cashed the first six for a few nice scores, but I tilt soo fast. I have to find a way to recover fully recover.

Fast forward a few days... I still don't have my game. I am playing close to usual, but I just feel like I'm going to lose every time I register for a tournament. Obviously, not the best mentality. Having this mentality definitely doesn't help if you're playing MTT's so I'm just not gonna play very consistently to not playing at all. I fair alright in H/UP's just because I still feel I can outplay people there, but I am in a serious mental funk. Not good not good.

However, I have other priorities anyways, given that a new semester has just begun. This set of classes definitely seems to be the most demanding of my college experience thus far. Holy tits.

Zee Goals for 2009

2009-01-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

After reading Hoyt's great review of his 2008 goals, I thought it would be a good idea for me to create a set of goals for myself to follow or not follow as 2009 gets underway. I want to make it clear that these goals are not going to be a constitution for me that I live by every day. Some goals will obviously be more prevalent than others, but I am doing this as a way to gauge progress as well as look back and see how smart/stoooopid I was. Without more bs, let's get into it baby!

Goal: Play situational poker while keeping strategy in mind.

To clarify, it feels like I play more strategy based poker and not use the current situation to help me make decisions. This is an obvious flaw in my game, which will be difficult, yet not impossible to fix because I'm gonna have to make an adaptation in my thought process despite the easiness of going back to my game where I live off of aggression, a lack of cognitive thoughts and making plays based on the book. So, I would like to just play more thoughtfully, than do what is easy when I play on the virtual felt.

Goal: If I ain't feeling good, don't play.

This will also be a tough goal to accomplish because I like to play to let off steam. This mindset has never been a profitable time to play at all. However, this hiatus of the past thirty days has shown me that I can limit myself no problem, which definitely was reassuring. So given my new MTT strategy, I will gauge myself on how I'm feeling before I sign up for a tournament. Numerous times I have felt like shit, ran alright, then got massively sucked out. The times that I've run amazingly well as well was when I had no attachment with either a win or loss. I was hanging with friends, in a good mood, but I was playing that this tournament is not going to be the life or death of me. There is this weird phenomenon that whenever I "late register" into a tournament, I nearly always cash. To me, it's because I just played on a whim and had no expectations.

Goal: Break into the 300's and 400's.

I have never had a sufficient bank roll due to me cashing out or being donkery. So getting in those regions definitely would be a self esteem booster.

Goal: Take phucking FIRST in a large MTT

It's always been a hard thing for me to close the door. I have final tabled a few big MTT's but never have I took it down due to bad luck or final table inexperience. This goal probably might the most meaningful due to the amount of time that I have put into MTT's in the past.

So that's it. I hope to look at this next year and see if I actually, hopefully, somehow accomplished these goals. =)

The New Strategy + Entourage

2008-12-23T22:28:00.000-08:00

The hiatus is going well. Every so often I really want to play on the virtual felt, but it hasn't been as bad as I thought. Scale of 1-10 - one being indifferent and ten being fucking addicted, I'm like a 4.75. Not so bad, but not indifferent. Anyway, when I'm back to playing, I thought of a brand new strategy. I am very willing to hear feedback from a anyone who stumbles upon my blog.

MTT's

Ever since I began playing online poker, I played about 80% SNG's and 20% MTT's. I consider myself an okay SNG player, but I have never really made a killer profit playing SNG's. I don't know what what's fucked up with my game, but obviously I got on massive tilt sessions within my bankroll and just bloooooowwwwww. So instead of that, I will play more of the crazy players out there and play a disproportionate amount of MTT's over SNG's. I think this will work well for two reasons. I think my style of play promotes an eventual big score and this will help with my late game MTT practice because I desperately need it. Numerous times in the past 6-8 months, i've run deep in the low stakes MTT games, but just can't close the door and come in 8th or 10th and fall short of the nice money and in turn, feel like complete shit. So with a really limited bankroll right now, I can afford to play 3 and 5 dolla MTT's and hopefully just build from there. However, I am going to be open to have to rely on SNG's again given the percent of actually cashing these MTT's. Anyway, it is late and I have to get up at an ungodly hour to work at the local hardware store where I worked all through High School. Now that I'm on break, what better way to spend boring ass times...

A Whole Month

2008-12-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

I am on hiatus. Before hell week began at the good ol' University, I came to the conclusion that I needed a break from the online world. Never have I ever been so torn at a decision (I must have a tough life for this decision to be tolling) about choosing not to play online and sticking with my decision. I was so torn because of a bunch of reasons:

1) I know so much about the poker world (both online and live) that a break would leave me feeling incomplete. I've been playing so consistently and talking about it so much with everyone that it would be so hard not to play. Not to mention reading other blogger's posts and feeling the need to play.

2) I need to keep my skillllz sharp. I don't play that much live anymore and online feels like a way to still have my game up to somewhat par.

However, making the decision a week before break, I decided that I wanted to have a break that is a little less stressful and more organized, given that when I play online, I play really late and sleep really late, leaving me feel kind of shitty that I'm not leading a very productive life, especially when I don't cash. And honestly, I don't think that I'm that good of a player. I talk a big game, but I'm not like any of those crazy players out there who are very profitable. Instead, I'm a slightly successful online player, who tilts easily and makes plenty of stupid decisions.

Now, being on break, I have nothing really to do. I want to play online due to the fact that I'm already bored SHITless. However, since I went all out doing the self exclusion option on Full Tilt for a whole month, I really have no other option. I am sure I will get by just fine. I have plenty of movies to watch, a girlfriend who is also home for break, and family. I'm SO pumped I will be less stressed out. I am just gonna need some shiiiat to dooo.

To all others on the East Coast, stay warm through this big storm =)

The Cycle

2008-12-05T15:30:00.000-08:00

So I go back and forth to wanting to actually have my own blog or to just reading other peoples' blogs and now I have finally come to a conclusion: Just keep my blog up! I have no pressure from anyone to write every day like some of the poker bloggers I do read. I feel rather unoriginal when I blog so I will try to only post when I actually have something pretty legit to say!

For a poker update, I haven't been playing as much as I usually do because college life at the moment is ridiculous with three final's and two papers to bust out in a span of four days. I even had to pull out the self-exclusion a few weeks ago, just so I wont use lovely Full Tilt as a distraction mechanism from doing some lovely Quantitative Methods. I'm still my TaGGGy self, however, and hope to rebuild my bank roll, like anybody else out there. I won't be playing any poker till Sunday (Two days, holy shit), because the gf will be in town. Anyways, to any sad person reading my blog, have a good weekend!