For the love of the game..

Mid-Month Update

2010-07-15T11:08:00.003-05:00

Well..things didn't turn around. I decided to withdraw my remaining $350 that was in pokerstars and get backed for $12/180s. As of right now, and for the foreseeable future I will be grinding 180s. I don't have a problem with that. In fact, I'm pleased with it. I don't have to get a job, I can live on the money I withdrew until school started, and during the days I can play tons of poker and build a bankroll in much easier fashion than grinding 2/180s and 3r/180s.

If you like to grind 180s, you'll probably be seeing me a little bit. Feel free to say what's up, I'm usually pretty talkative on the tables and don't mind having a conversation while playing.

GL @ the tables, and watch out, I'll be crushing these games in no time.

- Nathan

A modest new beginning..

2010-07-06T05:12:00.002-05:00

Well, here we are. July 5th, 2010. As of this moment, I have $500 to my name. If I don't get back on track within a week or two, there is no question that I will have to get a job. I could complain about bad luck, I could complain about different variables, but at the end of the day, my green line is not positive; and that's all that matters. I've spent a lot of time thinking about poker recently, more so that I have in a long time. While helping one of my housemates in a couple sng's I regained the passion for poker that I once had. Teaching him allowed me to focus solely on the decisions at hand, not because of money, but because I wanted to teach him the right way.

Today was going to be my big day. I was going to play poker all. day. long. And I did. I played over 100 tournaments today. I lost nearly half of my bankroll. Have I lost confidence? No. Have I lost my desire to win? No. What have I lost? What edge did I used to have, that I just do not have now? My arrogance, maybe. I've become soft in big spots, not challenging them like I should be.

What is luck? How big is luck in poker? Does skill really prevail over chance? Who would rather be lucky than good? I know I would.

This post marks the start of a new beginning. Chances are I'll get a job in the upcoming weeks, but I'm going to ride it out as long as I can.

2/180s, 3r/180s, 3/45s, are going to be my gold mines. If you actually happen to read this and actually happen to be playing these games, gl.

Later.

PokerStars Blogger Championship

2010-01-19T08:59:00.000-06:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 693839

So..back to 200nl..

2009-09-17T14:25:00.003-05:00

Well, the taking shots part didn't work out as well as I had hoped. I ended up losing close to 9 buy ins in 8k hands. Which wasn't healthy for my bankroll to say the least. I'm still plenty rolled for 200nl, so all I have to do now is grind and rebuild.

I have the kind of person that's really determined when it comes to things I'm passionate about, and I've achieved every other poker goal I've set out to accomplish, so eventually, I will achieve this one as well.

I will eventually post a graph of my 400nl adventure, but I just wanted to update here and let everyone know that variance is a bitch haha :)

On a brighter life note, my sister gave birth to a very healthy baby boy, so I am now officially an uncle!

GL @ the tables all,

- Nathan

Started taking shots at 400nl..

2009-09-12T00:48:00.002-05:00

Like the title says, I'm on pace for my "goal" per say of moving up to 400nl. I feel I have the proper bankroll for it, and everything else..so why not take shots? After playing a really long session today I definitely feel like I'm +EV at the level, but then again it IS a Friday night so I'm not entirely sure what the tables are like when it's not peak hours.

I started off well, and then just got myself into a big hole with negative variance. I lost a couple flips, couldn't fade flush draws, and soon enough I was down over 3 buy ins. I was talking to a buddy online and he asked if I would take a break at all and I told him that I basically felt that I could win it all back, because I was playing fine and all that needed to happen was to keep playing and eventually I'd win it back. As you can see from the graph below I did just that.

It was definitely a big confidence booster to lose 3 buy ins and stay calm and win it all back. I think I'm going to make the move up for good now. Being able to handle the monetary swings was all I was worried about, and I can. So, let's grind some hands out and make some money.

My goal is 20k hands/month while in school. Obviously this is going to be more difficult than it sounds because 4-6 tabling it takes almost 2 hours to reach 1k hands. So that's 2 hours a day, 20 days a month, with baseball, and school. However, I definitely think if anyone can do it and keep everything in order, it'd be me.

So that's all for this update, thanks to my buddy "visoring!" for the sweat tonight, he kept me sane while trying to make a comeback.

GL @ the tables.

- Nathan

Very very long trip report. (Pics at bottom)

2009-08-27T17:41:00.008-05:00

As I promised, a trip report of turning stone. It’s going to be quite difficult recalling every individual event that happened in the past 2 weeks of my life, but I’m going to try. Not only am I doing this for you guys, but also for me.

Let’s go in chronological order. The first day I woke up at 6:00 AM, got a taxi at 6:30 AM, and was at the airport boarded on my plane by 8. Everything went pretty smoothly to be honest. I always expect crazy delays or incompetent people running the baggage things but believe it or not, everything went according to plan.

I arrived at my destination after flying from Minnesota, to Milwaukee, to Detroit, to Syracuse. Made for a very long trip, and a ton of txt msg’s to the parents informing them where I was. Anyway, I land in Syracuse and instantly get a text from Caleb saying he’s waiting to pick me up. Sweet. I meet Caleb outside of security and we walk to baggage claim. On the way to baggage claim I spot four or five banners advertising TurningStone Casino and Resort. It was a good feeling realizing that it actually is a decent sized place and not just a hole in the wall like everyone made it sound like.

The drive to TurningStone was close to 35 minutes, but on the drive Caleb and I made like poker nerds and started talking about recent drama on 2p2 and just recalling threads from long ago and laughing. We talked about who we would meet and who to watch out for, and the majority of our conversations were what people looked like and if they look like they come across as online.

Anyway we finally arrive at TS and we go to check into our room, and what do you know, the reservation is slightly changed and not how it was supposed to be booked. We ended up talking with the receptionist and she informs us that midway through our trip we were going to have to change rooms and we wouldn’t be charged the poker rate of $89/night, instead we would be charged the normal rate of something like $150/night. Lol right? Anyway, Caleb and I used our phenomenal persuasion powers and convinced her to check the computer “one more time” because she just may have missed something. Well who woulda thunk it? Our reservation was there, for the full time, for the poker rate. Holla.

Anyway we get into our room and it’s a pretty standard room, two beds, a TV, an AC, a bathroom and a shower. Meh. I don’t really need to do much in it except sleep, and I didn’t really plan on being in the room that long anyway.

Our first order of business of course was to check the poker room for anyone we knew. We get down there and it’s just standard TS regs grinding away at 200nl and 500nl. Lol donkaments. Caleb and I instantly sit down at some 200nl $1/$2 blinds and I win a little, according to my spreadsheet like $100 over the next 4 hours and Caleb drops a couple buy ins. The play is horrendous. Like legit $10nl. We start talking about dinner and food and a couple of friends that Caleb had met on the previous trips to TS show up, they happened to be going out to dinner right that second. So Caleb and I cash out the remaining chips that we have and go out to dinner with them. Little did I know that would become the posse that wondered TS for the next 10 days.

The group consisted of Josh (redsoxsox or something close) Soheb (metsfan) Kerby (kerby147 or something) Brad (philivey561) Brian (Isuckatcards) Shaun Hartlin (Hartlin) Caleb, and myself. We go to one of the pretty standard TS restaurants that’s very close to “fine dining” but isn’t quite up there; Peach Blossom, also known as Peach Hoffom lol. Looking back, the restaurant wasn’t that good, but it’s still much higher than Applebees or something. Hartlin loses CCR and it’s only like a $120 bill for all of us somehow, so he isn’t too upset. During dinner we all just talk about poker and our current goals/plan on how to make it big, and eerily enough each one of them share the same similar goals as myself. We kinda are the “next generation” of online poker players. We’re all up and coming, all have had a little bit of success, and all plan on having more success in the future.

After dinner we go back to Brad’s room, and we start playing Chinese poker for $3 a point. I quickly lose close to $100 (pretty standard swing) but soon enough Hartlin’s degeneracy comes out and declares we are going to be playing Acey Ducey. For those of you that aren’t familiar it’s commonly known as “In Between” and it’s played as a drinking game. The way it works is that you each ante, and the person to the left deals 2 cards face up and you have to guess if the next card is going to be in between or not. You MUST ante the minimum (in our case $5) even if you have a 8 and a T (leaving only one card, the 9 to make you win). If it is say a Q and a K you are skipped and the next person gets a chance. It pays out at 1:1 exactly, so you can only bet as much as the pot, and once the pot is taken down the dealer rotates to the next person. It’s a neutral EV game, so it’s basically just having fun. But obviously certain “spreads” are more +EV than others. Like a 2 and a K spread (which leaves every card in between to make you win) is an easy time to “bet the pot”. Now, here’s the fun part. If the board pairs when it’s your turn to bet, you have to pay double. So with 5 people and a $5 ante, the pot is $25, if you get a profitable spread and decide to pot it, and you get paired, you must put in $50.

Our biggest pot the first night comes out close to $250 and we decide enough is enough, we will be playing much MUCH more of this game. We actually ended up playing until close to 5 AM, at which point people decided it was time to eat an early breakfast and get started on the day. Caleb and I decided to go down to the cage in the casino and cash in our winnings (I came out ahead close to $300) and then go to bed.

While cashing in the chips I realized that the first tournament of the series was later that day at 11 AM. Means that it was definitely time to get some rest and be on the top of my game. Looking back this is also hilarious, because I doubt I got a solid night’s sleep the entire time I was there. We were always doing something late into the night having fun.

Early in the first tournament I double up at 75/150 where a guy 3bet and called my 4bet jam for 20k with AJo. He goes as he’s calling, “I put you on queens!” I had kings. Good read sir, thank you for your 20k chips at 75/150 blinds. Live players are incredibly stupid lol.

Anyway, I continue to chip up and our table breaks and come first break I’m sitting at around 48k with blinds at 100/200 and 20k starting stacks. Being deep like that was amazing haha. Fast forward a few levels and I hit the 100k mark, blinds were around 400/800 at that point. One hand that helped my stack tremendously was when I 4bet bluffed a young guy in the BB with QTo. He tank called with AJo and I won the 60/40. Weeee. Around this point I was notified by some of my new found friends that I was chip leader, there were around 75 left. At that point some newer guys were moved to my table and they all had some chips. At 2k/4k a younger guy who doesn’t seem too familiar with the online theories of smaller raise sizes opens to 12k. I’m in the BB with KQs, flop comes Jx4s5s, I check/jam for close to 30bbs, and he tank calls with JTo and fades. When the river hits he yells, “FUCK YEAH!” and of course in anticipation of a penalty from Mike (NoGimmicks) he walks out of the poker room and cools off. Meanwhile I’m sitting in my seat just kinda staring in disbelief at how terrible he plays. I get up after a few seconds and say good game to my table and am still flustered that I played close to 6 hours of a tournament just to bust 15 out of the money. That would seem to be a reoccurring theme on this trip, seeing as how I went 0/10.

That night after grabbing food with the guys I decide that I’m a pretty competent online player and that the cash games would be where I spent the majority of my time outside the tournament room. My first experience at 500nl ($2/$5 blinds) was amazing. It was a Friday night, games were super soft, and they had multiple tables running. A few of the games had some business men that just enjoyed losing money, some enjoyed losing it slowly, others enjoyed building big pots. One memorable hand that I played occurred when I was sitting with close to $1,200 on the table (~2.4 buy ins) and Brad was to my direct left with ~$500. I’m in the SB with T9o, limps around to brad who checks. Flop comes 67Jr, I check to Brad who fires out $40. Younger guy in MP calls, a couple others call, and suddenly I’m getting implied odds to call also, so I do. Turn 8h, bink. I now have the immediate nuts although there IS a flush draw out there. I check to Brad knowing he’s the aggressor, he open jams his remaining $400. Young guy who was in MP tank calls, leaving himself with close to $250 behind, and when it get’s on me I insta jam for his remaining $250. At this point we’re drawing a crowd because the pot has risen up to $1,600 or almost 3 buyins. The younger guy tank folds and hates his life. It’s very clear to Brad that I have 9To for the nuts and the river comes a J pairing the board. I look at Brad with this face basically asking, “did you get there on the river?” he shakes his head no obv, so I reach to scoop the $1,600 in the pot and the table erupts with multiple, “SON, LET ME SEE YOUR HAND!” directed at Brad. This is news to me, but apparently if cards go to showdown you can request to see them even if they have been “mucked”. Brad knew this and did a move I will never forget. He grabs his cards, stands up, leans over the table and grabs the cards on the table that have already been mucked and shuffles his cards in there extremely quickly before anyone can react.

Once this happens the old TS regs absolutely go berserk and are basically screaming for the floor to come over and give a ruling. The floor comes over and at this point there’s legit NOTHING you can do to recover his cards because only HE knows what they were. Obviously this looks like the perfect example of collusion because he knew I had the nuts when I called, and we essentially “suckered in” the other player in MP. Obviously Brad and I weren’t colluding because he gave me $500 lol. Anyway, the floor comes over and gives Brad a stern, “Son, don’t do it again”. But the equity gained by not giving away the information of showing your cards greatly outweighed the “warning” given by the floor lol.

That hand sparked an epic heater that I continued throughout the night. Shortly after that I flopped top set twice in a row and got paid off both times. My stack slowly climbed from $500 to $1,600 to $2,000 to $2,500 to $3,000 and finally to $3,200 when I decided to call it a night. My favorite hand probably of the trip was when I raised JJ UTG to $25 (yes 5x the BB loll) got one caller from the BB. Flop comes J47, he checks I bet $100 (yes, into a $50 pot.) He flats, turn was a 4, I bet $125 into $250, he flats. River was a T, he checks, I bet $200 and he calls. I show my top boat and of course it’s good. Thank you for your $450 sir. Honestly, I have no idea what he was thinking but all night Brad and I had talked about that if we were in a hand against him we would just blast off for value and he would call. Shocker, he did exactly what we thought he would lol.

When I called it a night everyone else basically did too. I by far had the most money at the table and once I left no one was really left to take the money from. I finished +6 and a half buy ins on that table in about ~2.5 hours. Sick hourly.

We go back to someone’s room where we proceed to play Acey Ducey until close to 4 AM again. I finish up close to $500 and I feel ontop of the world. I’m on an epic heater and walking around with that much cash in your pocket just makes you feel good. I think our biggest pot of the night was ~$300 and I believe I won it. There’s really no skill involved, it’s all about running well at the right time.
The next day is Saturday and there’s another deepstack turbo. I busto towards the beginning of the tournament where I’m crippled early. My busto hand is at 100/200 and I have ~7k. An old woman raises from CO and I have AJs, I flat, everyone else folds. Flop comes 8x9s2s, she bets a little less than half pot, 500. I flat, turn was a 3x, she bets the same bet as on the flop, so it’s now like 1/4th pot and I raise the turn bet to 2k, she flats. River was a brick, she checks I jam and she insta called with the T and the 8 for middle pair and shit kicker. Oh well, I got soulread. Lol. I say GG to everyone at my table and rush to tell my friends about how I got soul read by a nitty old woman.

After telling everyone my busto story I sign up for some waitlists for 500nl. 3 or 4 hours later I book a +$ session and I cash out. At this point it’s about time for dinner. We decide to go to forrest grill (the same group as before) and Brad loses CCR this time. Brad runs pretty poorly, he ends up losing I think 4 or 5 CCRs throughout the trip. (I only lost 2, each for ~$110. I came out way ahead when it comes to food.) The CCR at forrest cost I think $340 a pop and Brad lost 2 there and then one at Wildflowers (the legit “fine dining” restaurant at TS).

We decide to take a break from Acey Ducey and we get a 2/4 HOE game going. HOE consists of Limit Hold ‘Em, Omaha Hi, and Omaha Eight or Better (Hi-Lo). It’s a $2/$4 game so there is no max buy in, and you can only bet a max of $4 per street (unless you’re raised of course). We decide that buying ~$1,000 in chips should be sufficient (lol it’s way more than sufficient.) and we end up building massive castles out of chips. (Pics to come obv). Throughout the night we decide that it’d be a good idea to bring down some drinks to better our experience. Shortly after the drinks arrive we decide we want to play Cap PLO at $100. Bad idea. This turns into just shoving preflop in Omaha sometimes headsup, sometimes 4 ways. I run like Usain Bolt in this flips and win 2 in a row sucking out BOTH times and I think I leave the game with close to $1,500. Ship the $500 profit from a $2/$4 limit game!

It’s close to 3 AM at this point and there’s a live donkament the next day at 11 AM so going to bed seems like a reasonable idea. Luckily for me, the next event is a $240 non turbo. I start at some weird table with some soft spots, and eventually get moved to xBlah’s table. He’s a competent thinking player around my age and we hit it off pretty quickly. We just chat about random poker things while at the table and it ends up being a lot of fun. The blinds end up getting higher and a guy limps with 12BB effective so I just jam KJo over him and I have around 5k. He tank calls with 66, and he wins the flip. I’m down to 3k with blinds at 100/200. This guy to my right kept limping so I shove J5 over him and he folds. Next hand he does it again, so I shove A6 over him. He folds. For the third consecutive time in a row he limps, I look down at KK. Bink? I shove over his limp AGAIN, and he tank calls with A6 claiming that “he’s had enough.” I flip my kings and his face turns white. It’s ok sir, window card is an A and he holds to scoop the 6k pot crippling me down to 600 chips at 100/200. I fold one hand until I’m UTG and I shove my last 3 BBs in. I looked at one card and it was a 7, little did I know that my other card was also a 7. Sweet. Anyway, folds to xBlah who just flat calls, (sick tell btw bra) obviously he has JJ+ and wants action. He gets one more caller and he bets into the dry side pot and the 3rd guy folds. xBlah flips over QQ and I show my 77 and obviously he’s surprised at how strong I was there. Oh well, what can ya do. Apparently zima421 put a bounty on my head and told xBlah that if he busted me that zima would give him $40. I found zima later in the week and made sure that he paid xBlah his money haha.

I decide to play some cash for the rest of the day and I book another +$ session, at this point I’m close to +$3k in profits from cash, but also had $4k in tournament buyins. Being that it’s Sunday I decide the next best thing to do would be to go find my online buddies that are all grinding in a room hoping to hit it big. I go up to Brad’s room where it’s just 6 people all lying in various positions throughout the room with their laptops on their lap grinding anywhere from 3-25 tables. I decide to play some online cash and book another +$ session and am very pleased with success I had been having. While hanging out in the room we watch Tiger Woods blow up and lose the PGA championship and watch an FTOPS final table. The final table was of the $2500 6max event and PSUTennis11 was at TS while he played the FT. First was only $453k, so nothing to get hyped up about obv. Earlier in the trip we had run into PSU and introduced ourselves and he seemed like a very down to earth person. He ended up beating Brian Hastings heads up after Hastings insta declined a chop. It was a pretty epic heads up battle but in the end the “good guy” won. I later found out that PSU had gotten 2nd in the Sunday Warm up the week prior to this win and that was good for another $100k. In the span of 7 days PSUTennis11 had won $550k in two tournaments, and had won smaller tournaments such as the 100r for a solid $30k. We were all incredibly jealous obviously.

On our way to dinner we stop by thezcar19’s room. In his room is DannyMac31, letmelive, xxjondxx, JeanGrey, and 5 or 6 other people. Each with their own laptop hooked up to a larger monitor, propped on a mini table that they had brought up from the front desk specifically for their monitors. Theczar19 had two tables, one for his monitor, and the other for his volcano in which he ate bananas out of. Getting out of the elevator the entire floor smelled terribly of bananas and that was why. At one point while talking to theczar who was seated next to jond, jon randomly explodes, “THAT’S A FOLD DANNY!”. Apparently jon backs danny and didn’t like the way he played a hand. Everyone was instantly interested in the hand because hey, were all nerds. Jon goes, “Danny called a 15bb button shove with AKo from the BB” in an incredibly irritated voice. Everyone in the room was befuddled for a bit and kinda like “Ha Ha jon, that’s a good one!” But we could tell Jon was legitimately pissed about it. After a couple minutes Jon looks at us with this pissed off look on his face and goes “it was a satellite!” Oh. Woops. At that point everyone’s no longer chuckling and reluctantly agrees with Jon that it’s definitely a fold. Danny ends up bubbling the satellite and doesn’t win the $1k seat. Sucks. We decide we’ve had enough of Sunday’s and now it’s REALLY time to go get food.

Due to our break from Acey Ducey the night before we decide it’d be a great idea to play while at dinner. We get chips, cards, and everything needed and we head to emerald, the cheapest diner on the resort. Very comparable to Perkins or Denny’s, same style of food and everything. Anyway, while ordering food we were going around the table with a $5 ante and just having a blast of a time. It’s all fun and games until someone loses a shitload of money. Rolls around to Caleb with an $450 pot and he has a Q2 spread, leaving any card in between to grant him the pot. He insta yells “POT!” and Will flips over the amazing 2. Everyone kinda sits there for a split second and then the “oh shits” come out. Were all quietly laughing and basically thinking “wow that sucks, I’m so glad it isn’t me.” We all watch as Caleb pulls out his “onion” (wad of cash lol) takes off the rubber band and counts out 9 $100 bills and puts them into the pot. At this point all of us are kinda like “wow that’s such a big pot for a $5 ante.”

Hartlin being the genius that he is kinda suggest if we’d be interested in chopping it. Because after all, no one wants to have a 3 K spread and have to pot, get fucked over, and then have to pull out $3,200 in cash. At some point $100 here, $100 there, adds up and $3,200 is real money. Caleb is pretty reluctant at first because he has the most money out of us and would be willing to pot on a $1,600 pot. After a couple minutes of debate we figure out a deal where Caleb gets $600 of his $900 back, and the remaining $1,000 is divided equally among the 4 of us. In the middle of the chop discussion with $1,600 on the restaurant table in front of us the waitress comes out with our food and kinda stares in awe at us. We work out the chop, divide the money equally, and dig into our $8 dinners. Mind you I ended up losing that night’s CCR, so everyone’s $8 dinner was on me.

That night at dinner was the first time I met Will (WRR1986) Steve (banned on most sites) and their friends. Will is a 2p2er and I recognized his name. Will is very similar to me, he played underage and was extremely successful (unlike me tho :-/), is my age, and goes to a small liberal arts school in California. As a 15 year old he was playing high stakes limit cash games and pretty much crushing. He also has a fake ID where he has cashed and won many events at Foxwoods, the Venetian, and the Bellagio. Good for him I say, that’s pretty hof imo. Throughout the next 8 days or so Will and I hang out quite a bit and just in general become good friends.
After the Acey Ducey pot that we chopped I basically came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to play much more of that degen game. Every now and then when walking through the pit we get a sight of rmthawk grinding away at craps or blackjack. Rumors have it a couple series ago he lost his $12k bankroll. Meh, sucks for him I guess. I don’t have much respect for people that are huge degens and can’t control how much they win or lose in the pit. Caleb and Will taught me craps and it seems like an interesting game but it’s still long term –EV, which is why I don’t understand why ANY poker players play in the pit other than just for “entertainment”. I’ll admit, that night I played in the pit, and I lost a couple hundred $ and decided it wasn’t for me. Wally (RankMeNow) and I took a vow of degeneracy and basically said we wouldn’t play any more degen games (anything on the casino floor). He got drunk a couple nights later and broke it but I’ve held to it haha.

Fast forward to Tuesday Morning and it’s the $300 bounty tournament. Wow. Honestly this was probably the toughest field I have ever seen at a live tournament. Every single table had at least 3-4 online regulars. The tournament only got something like 66 runners or so. My starting table had PSUTennis11, xxjondxx, to my direct left, and to my right 3 of PSUTennis’s friends. The other seats were empty due to seats that were going to be filled by late registration. Obviously in a tournament like there were very few late registration TS regs, so my table was the first to break and I was extremely pleased about that. I sent Caleb a txt in the first couple levels of the tournament saying, “I’m the worst player at my table” and he found that pretty funny. I did play an interesting pot where jond checkraised me on a monotone board and I flopped the flush. I flatted his c/r and he c/f turn. I must be a live tell box or he must have been just making a move on me. Who knows, it was still a great learning experience to play for a couple hours with them. PSU had a prop bet with charder for $300 and the deal was that PSU couldn’t fold preflop for less than a 10x BB raise, and any pocket pair he had to open shove. This led PSU into very intriguing situations where he would have to level his friends that knew the bet was going on. In the end I think Charder won the last longer because a mutual friend of theirs was on PSUs table and just opened every pot to 9xBB until PSU was busto haha.

I got moved to JeanGrey’s direct right on the 300 and busted in a super standard spot where I just lost a flip for the majority of my stack and then lost a 40/60 to knock me out.

This is where most of my memories tend to blend together. I think that night I meet Rainetech and decide he’s not as bad in person as he is online. That night we play more Acey Ducey and Rainetech runs incredibly pure. We do this in slicknastyAK’s room and everyone just kinda laughs at how well Frank (rainetech) runs. He ended up buying in for $200 and leaving with close to $2,200. Sick life. Towards the end people were doing flips, and Frank lost a $700 flip to ArgentinaBoy and STILL left with $2.2k

In that Acey Ducey game my incredible heater ended and I potted a $400 pot on a K2 spread and of course one of the last remaining K’s came. I sigh and everyone else laughs when I have to pull $800 out of my pocket. Oh well, all my profits from my 500nl session from earlier that day go into the pot. I get amazingly lucky and have the pot come back around to me via different skips and bad spreads. I get a K3 spread and pot it again. Some people at this point are rooting for me because no one (except Frank obv) wants to see me get fucked on a $1,200 pot. The middle card comes a 5 and I scoop it in to break even on the night. Phew. That would have seriously sucked. At that point I decided that I was REALLY going to cut back on my Acey Ducey game playing. Later on in the game there is a massive pot brewing and it slowly gets up to $200, someone pots and misses and now its $400. Someone pots and misses and now its $800, it goes around a bit more and suddenly it’s a massive $1,500. Somehow, the pot gets up to $1,500 and it’s on the one and only Don Boivan (slicknastyAK). He gets a T2 spread and instantly yells “POT IT!” the next card hushed the room like nothing else could. Bink, and then T hits bringing the total pot to $3,000. It was sickening watching Don empty his pockets. He only had a few hundred on him so he wrote an “I owe you” note for $1,600 haha. Shortly after that we decided to chop up the pot because once again $3,000 is real money and putting $6k into the pot just because you have a profitable spread is a hard thing to do.
The game ends up going late again of course and Caleb and I slowly find our way back to our hotel room and go to sleep. I don’t play another Acey Ducey game for the rest of the trip due to the incredible variance of it.

Getting up in the mornings was an incredible pain in the ass. I would always wake up first, shower, get dressed and be waiting on Caleb. By the end of the week our shower ledge was lined with the redbulls that Caleb would drink in the shower. I can say with 100% honesty that not once in those 10 days did I drink a SINGLE red bull or ANY energy drink. It was incredible how much caffeine others consumed to stay awake.

Nothing incredibly interesting happens the next couple of days that really sticks out in my mind. Come Friday and that’s when the fun stuff starts to happen again. The $750 was on Thursday and the final table was on day 2 (Friday) and it consisted of Theczar19, Luckychewy, Agame18, GrinderMJ, RMTHawk, and another 3 or 4 notable players that are escaping my mind at the moment. Watching that final table was pretty epic. At one point a guy 4bet and called luckychewy’s 5bet shove with 93o. Obviously he got caught 4bet bluffing in the wrong spot, and as chewy flips over his hand he mutters, “I kinda have a good hand.” And he slowly shows the A, and the other A lol. Being on the rail for that moment cannot be described by anything other than “epic”.

Agame18 and chewy get heads up and Agame has a 2:1 CL. Charder and Jordankickz want to prop on who will win and apparently an even line would have Agame as a 2:1 underdog (even though he had 66% of the chips in play.) That’s just how sick chewy is. Anyway Agame ends up shipping it for $38k. I end up having a couple solid conversations with Agame and he is a really cool guy. He’s had a bit of success recently and he definitely deserves it. He gave me a few tips on BR management and moving up, and I think they’re going to come in extremely handy. In the past we had a few disagreements on 2p2 and we got over it at TS and I almost want to go as far as say we’re friends haha.

The night before the $1,500 started there was a team draft, which was run basically the same as the TLB team prop bets. Except the entry was $300. Having hung out with chewy in the past and seeing he was captain I jokingly asked him if he’d stake me in it because shelling out $300 on a neutral EV bet is kinda stupid especially seeing as how I can’t control what team I’m on. Chewy insta says “Sure.” Holla. Anyway I ended up getting drafted by chewy and my team consisted of Joel (oldschool043) Chewy, Caleb, myself, and DontBluffMePlz.

After the draft a bunch of us head back to chewy’s room and hung out in his lodge room. The lodge room itself is simply amazing. It’s basically a double suit with 2 rooms, and the bathroom is immaculate. The shower can only be described as “baller”. I wish I had taken a picture of it.

The next day I played the $1500 and busted at 100/200 to zima421 when I squeezed him and an older guy with TT and 5k, and he 4bet jammed QQ. I sigh and called and flopped a T only to be rivered by a Q. I said GG to him and wished him luck and he made a deep run almost final tabling it.

Throughout the week I had hung out with various people including slicknastyAK, ArgentinaBoy, RankMeNow, SJUBaseball, Timmy720, Charder, LuckyChewy, theczar, letmelive, Joel, and so many others I really can’t name them.

I forget what night it was but Brad and I played racquetball, then Hartlin and I played racquetball, and on a different night we went to the driving range and just chilled.

The day of the $1500 KingDan arrived and I had hung out with him for a significant amount of time at PCA so we were already pretty close. He and I both busted pretty early and we tried to find a place to play air hockey and just relax. We never ended up playing air hockey but we walked around the resort and caught up on things. We made it to an arcade but they didn’t have a puck for air hockey. The machine ate our dollar that we put in but whatever it was worth a shot. As we’re walking out of the arcade Caleb and Brad walk in and they had the same idea we did of trying to play air hockey. Sighball. No puck. We tried using a quarter but it couldn’t stay on the surface of the table.

We walked back to the poker room and heard through the grapevine people were going to the club lava and were getting a table. I asked if there was any I could get in and Dan looked at me with a smirk and asked if I had an ID. I said I unfortunately do not, and he asked if I would be willing to bribe the bouncer. I said of course. Long story short, I talked to a few other people that had tried in the past and they all told me that they had bribed the bouncer only to be rejected on the inside because they didn’t have a wrist band. Dang.

While Dan and the others went to lava I hung out outside the poker room with Wally and Tim and we just talked about our futures. I am the only one of the three of us in school, so hearing their perspectives on poker was incredibly interesting. We all kind of have the same short term goals. Which are: grind a shitload, make a lot of money, go to PCA, and have lots of fun. We exchanged information and I got their IM’s and told them I looked forward to seeing them at PCA haha.

There multiple weddings going on throughout the week at TS, and we half jokingly always said we would go crash one. Never ended up happening but got pretty close when Chewy asked if I wanted to borrow some clothes and go crash one haha.

All in all it was a great trip, I ended up breaking even from Wends-Sunday at 500nl, I finished up +$5k even after having $4k in buy ins. On Monday morning I sold all my cash to Caleb so he could transfer it to me online. It was a tough decision for me deciding whether or not to give up that much cash. We didn’t have a safe in the room so I had to keep it on me at all times. I had heard horror stories but nothing even remotely close to a sketchy situation ended up happening while I was carrying cash. Anyway, in the end I put the money back online and it was a great experience and if the timing is right I will definitely do it again. That’s my trip report and pictures will follow.

GL @ the tables all.

- Nathan

P.S. Here are pictures

My stack at the $2/$4 HOE game

My stack at the 500max game when I had 6 buyins on the table. Stacks of red are $100, the green and black mix off to the left is $1,500

The casino floor

One of the many a la carte places to eat near the food court

A fountain at the top of the escalator in the lobby

The lobby of the Tower

The money I brought with me to TS

One of the PLO Cap $100 flips we did, Josh one this one for $400..I don't remember the exact hands

The restaurant Pino Bianco, a not so good Italian place

The poker room where all cash games were held. You can see some TS regs grinding in the background

TS Sign out front

The Tower from the outside

A waterfall thingy on a wall in the lobby of the Tower

The lobby of the Tower

<2 days until TurningStone

2009-08-11T16:01:00.000-05:00

Yup. I leave Thursday morning at 8:30 AM, with two layovers, one in Milwaukee and one in Detroit.

Caleb (makeit3bets) is going to be picking me up at the airport, saving me close to $100 in taxi fees, and then we're just gonna check into the hotel room and relax. I believe rmthawk is going to be staying with us the first night so that should be fun. I can't wait to meet everyone I haven't met, and seeing the people I've met in the past.

GL @ the tables everyone.

- Nathan

Positive variance imo

2009-08-10T20:19:00.004-05:00

That's easily the quickest upswong I've experienced at cash. 10 buyins in 1,000 hands haha

Also, 3 days until TurningStone.. I'm stoked.

GL @ the tables.

- Nathan

Interesting life story..

2009-08-07T12:56:00.002-05:00

So, being a poker player, I am always on my computer. Whether I need to be or not, it's typically always open on my lap, always talking to people, and always just doing random stuff on it.

That's not a great environment for a laptop to stay in optimal condition. Basically, my laptop is dying. It overheats and shuts off randomly, it's taking forever to open certain programs, all in all just being a big POS.

I'm talking to my mom and I tell her this, and I remember that I bought the extended warranty, and it lasted 2 years (I had just bought the computer a year ago). Anyway, I decide to take it to best buy, where the "Geek squad" would identify and diagnose the problems.

I'll tell you what, the people there reminded me so much of guys I had known through online video games it was hilarious. One guy reminded me a shitload of TrulyRand0m, and everyone else was just what they said they were, geeks. I would probably fit right in with them. The guy asked me all these questions about the laptop and of course I knew them instantly. Why wouldn't I? The woman to my left who was being helped struggled figuring out how to turn off caps lock lol, you could just tell their job was incredibly difficult because of the people they had to work with.

Anyway, he writes all the stuff up, turns out I have a legit complaint and the warranty covers it, so what he would do is ship it off to wherever the headquarters are (my Dad said Dallas, I have no idea if that's actually true or not) and I'd have to wait until I either get a fixed one, or a brand new one.

How long you ask? Three weeks. Wtf am I going to do for three weeks? AND I'm going to turningstone without a laptop? Wtf.

Basically, I ask the guy if there's anyway they can speed it up, turns out of course not, why would it take less than three weeks. So I call my Dad and he and I agree the best thing to do would be to buy a cheap replacement laptop.

I go to the laptop part of the store, and there's a guy waiting to help me, he asks, "What can I help you with sir?" and I say, "What's the cheapest laptop you have?" of course, as a good salesman should, he goes "Well, that's a very difficult question you see, some laptops are better than others.."

I cut him off and ask him if he's ever played online poker. He replies he has played a little. I tell him that I support myself via online poker, and my computer was just sent away for 3 weeks, so all I need is a cheap piece of crap computer to hold me over until I get mine back.

For some reason he finds this incredibly funny, and directs me to a $299 Toshiba. He tries to tell me the specs and the functions and I cut him off and tell him I'll buy it. From what I gathered he thought it was really cool that I could just spend $300 instantly like that. I mean, c'mon, what else was I going to do? If I make more than $300 on this laptop then it was a good investment. (Yes I'm typing on it now..)

So, that's all that's going on right now. I think this laptop may have it's uses. The battery life is longer, it has a lot of empty drive space, I think I could take this to class because it's a lot smaller and lighter than a 17" widescreen laptop. Also, if my other computer ever dies again I'll have this one which SHOULD be fine after 3 weeks of me being on it, but alas, you never know.

Since I've been on this laptop I lost $200 the first day, -$1k the second day, and I'm +$500 today. It would suck if I didn't make ANY money on this computer lol.

On a different note, getting excited for TurningStone, and similar to PCA I'm going to be doing a 10 day trip report, day by day. I've been told that it won't be as much fun as PCA, but I'm the kinda guy that seriously just enjoys hanging out with other poker players and talking poker. We could sit in the hotel lobby and just grind for 10 days straight, and I wouldn't be bored. That's just how much I enjoy the game.

I'm also excited to not only meet new people, but also to share strategies and things that I've thought of with them. Being around other poker players just makes it so much easier to improve your own game if you utilize the great minds that are around you. That's what I did at PCA, and that's what I hope to do at TS.

Oh well, that's all for now. Thanks for reading, I know I've been sporadic with my updates, but I'm definitely going to try to update more often since I'll be doing a lot of traveling in the upcoming weeks.

- Nathan

Near end month update

2009-07-27T16:40:00.002-05:00

Hey all, been a while since last update.

I've played a couple tournaments, nothing really big since my last final table of the 70k.

I won a 36/180 yesterday and cashed a few other things to give me a solid +1,600. Cash hasn't been going so well recently, pretty crazy variance stretch but I guess I had it coming.

Since I've gotten on my own I've just been on a pretty big "upswing". I had a +4k month in May, a +7k month in June, and as of July I'm somewhere around +5k. This month was on pace to be my best month ever, but I lost close to 15 buyins at 200nl in the last 2 weeks, so I've just slowly stopped grinding cash. Come August I'm definitely going to try to get back into it obviously. I want to be grinding 400nl (with 50 buy ins) by October.

Currently I'm in the TLB prop bet, so I'm going to be grinding tournaments for a bit, and I found out that there are some live donkaments near me, with buyins ranging from $45-$300, and some of them actually have a decent structure.

I plan on playing 2 or 3 of them before my trip to TurningStone (which I'm unbelievably excited for..it's going to be a great time hanging out and playing poker for 10 days) and that should be interesting. I've played a couple live sit-n-gos recently and they're just laughable. People just don't know how to play. But hey, that's cool, I'm certainly not going to educate them haha.

I wish I had more to update, just grinding along, my 12/180 horse is doing well, encountering some minor variance, but he'll get through it.

Also, at TS there's going to be a pretty big whiffle ball or kickball game, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to dominate. I'm excited haha.

That's all from here, gl @ the tables and go my team for TLB!

- Nathan

Got 7th in the daily 80k

2009-07-12T10:15:00.003-05:00

Got 7 out of like 2500 in the daily 80k ($50 buy in) for $3,100...

First place was $19,000..and I was 1/7. I lost a couple stupid hands, and then AKs < AJ aipf to bust me out in 7th. Horrible feeling.

That is all.

Belated end of the month update..

2009-07-07T11:27:00.000-05:00

End of month update –

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. For some reason I don’t really have the motivation to blog much these days. I think it’s because nothing new happens. I final tabled a couple tournaments for like $3k or so, I’m not sure if I mentioned that I final tabled the $11 turbo in my last update, but that was good for 1.2k or so, and then a couple Sundays back I final tabled a $5 2 rebuy 1addon and got 4th for about 2,400 if I recall correctly. Anyway, that certainly helped the cash downswing I was in the middle of.

I moved up to 200nl, right on pace for where I want to be for the summer. Things are going really well. I’ve played 20k hands, and I’m beating it for 2PTBB/100. Which while it isn’t anything spectacular, nor is it something to necessarily be proud of, I’m pleased with it. I know once I sort out a few leaks of mine (learning to fold being one of them) my winrate will jump up and the money will start to come much easier. The downswing I went on wasn’t even that long, just normal variance of shitty cards. I was surprised how easy it was to lose money, while it seems to difficult to actually win. I dropped 5 or 6 buy ins at 200nl in less than 3k hands. For me it seems on average I win one buy in for every 1,500 hands. So dropping 6 buy ins in almost one session was at first tough to handle. It made me question if I could beat 200nl etc.

I spoke with some friends and they all assured me I was +EV at 200nl, I even had a few of them sweat me a couple of sessions. I was on pace for what seemed to be a 10k month in June, but alas, the downswings at the end ended up hurting. Oh well, it ended up being a +7k month, and I believe I reached all my goals.

I’m not online at the moment, otherwise I would look up my goals, but if I remember correctly it was something like beat 100nl over a decent sample and take some shots at 200nl. Well I feel like I’ve comfortably made the switch to 200nl, and we’ll see where we go from there. I also think I said I wanted a 5k month, and I surpassed it with a +7k month. I’ll take it. My bankroll is the biggest it has ever been, with almost 60 buyins for 200nl. That means I can comfortably play 200nl, maybe even take some shots at 400nl (not likely but hey, if there’s a fish, there’s a fish.) and start mixing in $100 tournaments. Even 20r’s and 30r’s, although that’s introducing an incredible amount of variance that I’m not sure I want. We’ll have to wait and see. I think by winter (if poker is still allowed online :-/) I should be comfortably playing 400nl, although one can never be sure what’s going to happen. You cannot predict improvement, it’s kinda like assuming the double play in baseball, you just can’t do it.

I played 31k hands of cash last month, and 350 tournaments. A lot of my profits came from tournaments, and I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t mind playing both tournaments and cash. Besides I feel like playing cash definitely improves my post flop play, which certainly showed in the tournaments I played.

It sounds bad, but I took some shots at some $75 tournies on FTP last month, and I really was just out playing each person I was in a pot with. On Stars it was the same thing, I wish I had the hand histories but I made some sick calls with bottom pair and middle pair simply because the opponents line just didn’t make any sense at all.

I wish I had more to update, this is getting long, but alas I’m on an airplane. I don’t have much more to say poker wise other than I bought 2% of Mortal Limit (Nate. On 2p2) in the Main Event, and I hope he takes it down for like a cool 6 million or whatever. That’d be a sick sick amount of money in my pocket. I’m not getting my hopes up, but it’s still really cool to have a sweat in a tournament like that.
I wish I could have gone out to vegas, but the timing and the money just didn’t work out this time. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to make it out there just to chill. Geoff did it this year and it sounds like he had an absolute blast. I know completedonk and a couple others went out just to chill cause they aren’t old enough to play.

I’m working pretty hard on my game, I’m definitely motivated, putting in great volume and playing what I feel is great poker (for me). So I can only wait and see what will come. I don’t want to sound too cocky, but I see no reason why I couldn’t be playing MSNL (2/4-3/6-5/10) by the time PCA comes. If that’s the case I think for sure I’d end up going to PCA, or I’d try very hard to win a seat.

This month has started out well, I’m +1.1k from cash, haven’t played any tournaments, +650 from a 12/180 horse (only one horse), and I’m waiting to get $800 in rakeback. Already +2.6k and the month has barely started. I’m super excited and looking forward to putting in tons of volume this month.

Also, I think I decided I’m going to go to TurningStone in August for their series. They have a couple $200-$400 events with a $1k main, and from what I’ve heard it’s always been a blast for everyone who went, so I want to go and check it out, and hopefully play well and run well and have a good trip. I’m not quite sure who I’m going to room with yet, but definitely looking for one. Caleb mentioned it to Jon and I but Jon has recently had poker issues and Caleb mentioned rooming with someone else, so I’m def open to suggestions.

That’s really it from this side of things. Baseball is going well this summer, and I’m enjoying everything going on. I’m on my way back from Boston where I had a great time. So…Yeah.

GL @ the tables everyone, if you’re grinding SSNL on FTP you’ll probably see me quite a bit.
- Nathan

Mid-Month Update.

2009-06-17T01:09:00.002-05:00

Well, I say this every time it seems, but it sure has been a while since I updated.

Recent news, I made a $100 TLB Prop Bet with CarlYork, EvertonYorkie on 2p2, and so far I'm in the lead by a couple hundred TLB points. It probably won't last, seeing as how he just got a new setup and is heavily motivated to grind.

In other news, it appears I'm +$2.4k in tournaments so far this month, I final tabled the $11 turbo the other day and got 5th for $1,200. I've also won multiple 180s, including two on my drive from Florida to MN.

I'm also +$1.5k in cash at the moment which is very encouraging. I've played 40k hands total of 100nl, and am beating it for 3PTBB/100 which is a very respectable winrate. I am treating those hands like a learning curve, and basically saying those results are near meaningless because I feel like I'm a much better player now, then I was when I first started grinding.

I took a shot at some $200nl yesterday and this morning, and over 2,000 hands I'm up 5 buy ins, or $1,000. Which is extremely encouraging, because all I've ever heard is how 6max 200nl is where the games die. All the regulars are there, and it's unbeatable. Well, I think I can beat it. I think by the beginning of winter if I grind hard, come November, I can be taking shots at 2/4. I want to put 100k hands in of 1/2 this summer and I think I can do it.

I also want to continue to grind tournaments, I wouldn't mind hitting a big score here or there to supplement some cash winnings ;)

Alright that's all there is on the poker front so far this month. I'll try to update a lot more with each individual session and try to keep you all entertained..I got nothing else going on during my days haha

- Nathan

May Results - June Goals

2009-06-01T11:21:00.003-05:00

I ended up having a +$4,000 month of May which I am very pleased with.

I was +$980 at 100nl, and I won $3k through tournaments.

My goals for June I haven't really thought about much. I want to put in a lot of cash volume now that I've moved my cash action to FTP (where I get a 27% rakeback deal).

I hope to put in 30,000 hands at 100nl, and maybe even take some shots at 200nl, and of course continue to grind tournaments on Stars. I hope to have another 4 or 5k month in the month of June, seeing as how I will have tons of time to grind. At the current moment I'm not feeling to motivated to play cash but I think I'm just gonna force myself to watch videos and improve. I'm probably going to start watching some LeggoPoker videos, and DeucesCracked. Those sites are generally known to be the best cash game videos online.

Don't really have much to complain about because I've been running quite well recently..I hope it continues :)

That's all for now, I'll try to update more often in the upcoming weeks..see you around on the 100nl tables ;)

- Nathan

Update obv

2009-05-18T12:52:00.006-05:00

So, my bankroll sits at 4.2k, which is nothing to sneer at imo.

In a month in a half I have gotten my bankroll from a measly $500 to a real bankroll of $4,200. With this bankroll I can comfortably play midstakes tournaments, and SSNL (50nl - 200nl basically).

Here's my graph of 100nl so far, I think it shows that I have improved at cash as I have gone along, and there's no reason why I cannot continue to improve and beat the game for more money. Obviously, it's not like tournaments, putting in the hours is much more difficult because there is no elusive "big score". I think as I get better, and if I move up to 200nl and hopefully even higher than that, that the motivation to put in hours will not be a problem.

Obviously it's only 20k hands, but I still think it is a decent enough sample to prove to myself that I am competent at that level.

As for 12/180s, since I've started playing them I'm up $2,100 with 720 played, for an ROI of 25%. I hope to start mixing in 36/180s, and if all goes well those will boost my bankroll significantly.

Anyway, just a quick check-in from here...not all that much to really tell, it's all just grinding day in and day out haha

I guess when I hit a certain point I'll get back to the feeling of not knowing what to do next, but I think playing mid-stakes cash, and mid to high stakes mtts (with a 15k roll or so) will be the plunge I will have to take.

Hopefully by the end of the summer I'm up around 15k or so. That's all, gl @ the tables all.

- Nathan

Finally. Summer.

2009-05-09T15:03:00.003-05:00

Woot.

Finals are done, freshman year is in the rear view mirror. Now what? Yesterday and today I've found myself thinking, "Wow, what is there to do today?"

Obviously the only answer is to grind. I've been playing a lot of 180 man sngs, I feel like I'm running a bit below expectation unfortunately. I've played over 700 within the last month and I'm running at a 22% ROI. In the past, over a large sample (2,500) I was running at close to 36%. Yeah, I guess that's quite a large amount to be running below EV, but whatever, the only thing to do is grind through it and eventually it will turn around.

During this recent stretch where I'm running below expectation I found it very easy to get extremely frustrated with the short sighted aspects of tournament poker. I ended up getting really tilted finishing 7th in a 180 because I lost a couple flips. One thing that I had to do was go back to the archives in the twoplustwo forums and find the amazing posts by IreGuy and GigaBet. Both of their posts deal with not only winners and losers in the game of poker, but the attitude of the winners and losers in the game of poker.

In a nutshell, IreGuy talks about how a positive attitude will affect one's daily life, and in my mind, he's 100% correct. Having a positive outlook when it comes to poker is extremely essential to not getting burned out. Gigabet responded to IreGuy's post and said that he was on the right track, but has not arrived at the final destination yet.

My favorite quotes from GigaBet are the following:

"Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it."

"There are no winners or losers, to think that, is to let yourself be affected by negative variance. If you are not in the positive for the day, then you therefore must be a loser, and so the downward spiral begins. All of those negative ideas must be eliminated from your mind, or you will not perform to your potential. The trick is recognizing these negative ideas, since there are so many and so commonplace in our society, it is a large task indeed to sort them out as real, or just ideas created by the masses."

"Imagine, 6000 hands a day on average, just watching and learning, with no predisposed judgements of the other players. This is what it takes. Bad beats are no longer bad beats, they are just the cards coming out randomly, evening themselves out over time. What is really important is learning the thousands of languages that different people speak through their actions at the table. Believe me, it isn't some spiritual science, it is listening and learning without prejudice."

The above quotes are simply what help me get through the day.

I just got 3rd in a 12/180 losing 4 flips and 2 70/30s to the same guy 3 handed...after each loss I would win back chips via shoving...unbelievable.

I cannot wait for variance to equal out in my way. Running 14% below expected ROI is a shitload of money, especially over 700 games. It is extremely difficult to build a bankroll when you cannot win at a final table. I have 4x as many 6ths and 7ths at 180 final tables than I do 1sts and 2nds (over this sample obviously.)

I meant this to be a good post, but you can probably tell where I got extremely tilted from stupid variance.

GL @ the tables,

- Nathan

Friendly update

2009-04-28T00:06:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, just updating because I haven't updated in a while.

Been grinding pretty hard, got the bankroll up to $3k. Pretty soon going to try to get into cash for real and do it the right way. I already have stoxpoker but I'm going to get Deucescracked and maybe LeggoPoker and watch videos.

I can't wait for summer to start because that's when I'll have all the free time to actually put in the hours. I'm excited. I know this summer I'm just going to improve tremendously and at the same time crush the games.

That's all for now, finals week coming up, last week of baseball, lots going on.

GL @ the tables all,

- Nathan

Oh wow sorry for the lack of updates!

2009-04-08T10:36:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the lack of update guys, have been really really busy with school.

As soon as I got staked for the 12's I won 4 in 3 days, and final tabled a number of others. Because of this I ended up getting a $1k roll, and went on my own. After those wins and getting on my own I went on a pretty sick breakeven stretch, at one point being down to $300. After a long session on Sunday I finally broke even for the day back at $800. Come Monday night I got 2nd in one, 1st in another, and 4th in another for a solid +$1k day, putting me at $1,800 br.

Having this bankroll is pivotal to my success. I would say that Monday's success is probably my most "clutch" day in poker. Having the 1,800 bankroll allows me to play MTTs, and comfortably grind 180s and take all the marginal edges possible, without worrying about variance.

Also, I bought 5 step 1's with FPPs, and I've been grinding those. I have 1 step 4 already ($215) and 2 other step 1 tickets. I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing with it, but it's a very nice problem to have.

That's all on the poker front, gl @ the tables all.

- Nathan

On my own again..kinda

2009-03-31T13:33:00.003-05:00

After my big Sunday last week I decided that I didn't want to do what I had been doing.

For the last 6 months I had been playing high stakes MTTs. It's not that I don't think they're for me, I think I can beat them in the long run. There is just too much variance, and I don't have the time to keep up with it. I can play a couple times a week, for 3 hours here and there, never enough for a nightly session. I can only play a full session on Sundays, and we all know that Sundays are when people lose the most money.

I didn't want to only be playing the biggest tournaments online once a week, and not be able to balance out with smaller easier tournaments. One can imagine that only playing Sundays it doesn't take long to get back at 20k makeup.

Basically, I ended up getting out of makeup by a little more than $1k, so I took my half of $1k and tried to build a bankroll. Playing 6/45s, 3/45s, and 4/180s, I thought within a short time I would be back at the 12/180s.

Clearly I thought wrong. The very first day I played I ended up dropping to $250. I played close to 275 games in a week, and I finished on Sunday night at a bankroll of $259.27

I didn't realize how stressful managing a small bankroll was. I have no idea how I did it when I was first starting out.

I was talking to a good friend of mine that I met at PCA late on Sunday night. He was getting deep in the mil and somehow we got on the topic of him having a large number of horses strictly for 12/180s. This intrigued me so I asked what kind of deal he would be able to offer me. He offered me a very fair deal for me, and looking at my sharkscope stats I came to the conclusion that it would not necessarily be more profitable, but it would simply take less time for me to grind out a bankroll at the deal he gave me than to grind micro stakes.

I say this because I could certainly grind out 4/180s at a 100% ROI, but at the end of the day I just don't have time to grind 6 hours a day, especially when 4/180s take 4 and a half hours.

I started under him on Monday, and in my first session of 20 12/180s I won one, got 5th in another, and cashed 2 others for a total net profit of $600 or so. I hope to grind short 3 or 3 and a half hour sessions, four times a week, and I can see myself winning $3k a month doing this.

I told him before I accepted the deal that I would simply be using him as a means to an end, and that I was only doing it with the vision of going on my own as soon as I can. He was 100% ok with that, and so we started the arrangement.

My turbo 180 stats from sharkscope are as follows:

PsYcOsNiPeR 2,267 $5 $12 35% $11,374

Name, games played, Average profit/game, Average buy in, ROI, total profit.

You can't see it here, but I have a shark next to my name ;) While there is a lot of variance in these tournaments, you can overcome said variance by putting in a shitload of volume, which I plan on doing this summer.

To change gears, I was railing a couple buddies last night talking on AIM, and we were talking about our good times at PCA, and one of my buddies (JPOSU) offered me the option of visiting him and others in vegas this summer. He and 5 others are renting a house for the entire 2 months of the WSOP, and he said he would have no problem having me sleep on the couch, or an air mattress, or wherever I end up haha.

I looked up the cost of flying there and it was only $200...that's a 3rd place in a $12/180.

Granted, I would not be able to play in any casinos, nor would I be able to drink out there, but just chilling with all the best poker players for 3 or 4 days for the small price of $200 + food is a very enticing deal.

I told him I had to check my baseball schedule but I would for sure think about it.

That's all for now, I finished my homework for a couple days, and after baseball practice tonight I plan to grind quite a few 12/180s.

- Nathan

Sunday Recap

2009-03-23T00:53:00.006-05:00

Dear PsYcOsNiPeR,

You finished the tournament in 3rd place. A $14,941.51 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 2,006.80 tournament leader points in this tournament. For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/leader-board/

Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.

And also,

Basically, I ran well and played well, and won $21.5k today.

It's a great feeling. That is all.

Seeing a trend - Sunday Recap

2009-03-09T20:20:00.004-05:00

So, it appears that I'm only updating on Mondays telling everyone how the Sunday tournaments went haha. I think part of the reason why is because Sunday is my only day off from baseball thus the only time I can play tournaments all day.

During the week now that we're in season we either have practice or games every night. It's very time consuming, but I don't think I'd have it any other way. Being a part of a college team is pretty entertaining. Sure, sometimes individuals don't get along, it happens when you see each other anywhere from 3-6 hours a day. At the end of the day though if anyone outside the team tried to mess with one of the baseball players the others would have their back.

Anyways, onto Sunday tournaments.

I had a few baseball things to take care of early in the day, so I didn't get started until the $75 22.5k on FTP, and the $55 80k on Stars. I ended up being able to catch the majority of the tournaments, playing close to 25 I think.

I made a good run in the Mil, finishing 400th or so, my first cash ever in the million. Had a couple good runs in the 11r and 5r but nothing really of note. Had a good stack in the 750k for a long time but couldn't win a couple flips to get there in the end. A smaller tournament of the day that I hadn't really been focusing on just kept getting deeper and deeper until we were ITM with like 30 left and I realized that I had a chance to FT it. It was the 30r 6max, and I love 6max. Being aggressive is easily one of my strengths, especially preflop. Opening up and finding spots to steal blinds is one of my favorite things to do.

With about 24 left we were down to the final 4 tables and I just started picking up cards, and this allowed the transition to playing more aggressive because once you've shown down a couple solid hands people start to think you're on a rush of cards. I abused it. I think at one point from 18-6 players I won 8 out of 13 pots when we were 4 or 5 handed. I thought it was cool, I showed my friends the Instant Hand History and he just laughed at me because apparently it's not a big deal lol.

I went into the final table 2 of 6 and the final table just kept dragging on and on, people were hitting 2 outters like it's their job. Before the first person got knocked out KK < JJ, 88 < 22, AK < AT, and one other hand that I can't remember. Anyway, finally someone busts out and then it took forever for the next person to bust out.

One guy at the table was just playing super aggro and his stack fluctuated from like 200k-750k at 5k/10k multiple times. It was pretty hilarious to watch him bust out when he 3bet/called T6 on a K76 board. After he busted I was heads up with the perfect opponent, he was definitely the weaker player of the table who just kind of sat by as others busted. I came in with close to a 2:1 chip lead, and bet/3bet QJ on a 789 board, he obv had TJ and flopped the nuts. Oh well. I grinded back and got it about even when JT > J3 on a J76 flop.

The interesting hand I think is my bust out hand. Stacks are his 550k to my 450k, blinds are 6k/12k, I minraise 5Ts flop comes TA4 with two spades, he check/raises me and I jam. Same line I took with the QJ hand, and he tanks for a while and calls with A9 and I brick out. The problem I thought was that he was certainly a weaker player, and he check/raised me with the nuts before. It's certainly an interesting spot but I made the decision to jam and I couldn't push him off the A9. I think it was a fine semi bluff, esp HU.

I got 2nd in that for a solid $4400ish, and while playing this FT I was going deep in the Sunday Second Chance. First was 50k or so, and I kept playing 15bb poker, staying alive from 80 people all the way down. I ended up busting AJ < 88 to p w I and he final tabled it getting 5th I think. GG to him. That was good for $1kish. Overall, solid Sunday, I'd say I'm pleased with the results of being +$4kish.

That's all for now, have to go write a few papers lol

GLGL

- Nathan

Sunday Recap

2009-03-02T10:32:00.003-06:00

Hey all, standard Sunday recap. Wasn't the worst Sunday by any means, cashing 4 tournaments, so I ended up losing about half the normal amount on a Sunday.

I final tabled the Stars 30 2r1a, but got 7th after losing 3 flips in a row at the final table. It was good for like $850.

I bubbled mulligan, went deep in the $100 fo on stars but spazzed on when a guy c/called three streets with top two, I play bad.

Ended up going deep in a huge fuper ($30k for first) but flaming out in 45th when JJ < AJ, A7 < K3, 33 < K4 after flopping a set, and finally AK < AA on an AKT flop.

It was pretty brutal, but we all know it was going to happen at some point.

So, that's all...heres to a good March imo

- Nathan

Quick sunday update/ftops

2009-02-17T13:08:00.000-06:00

Hey all, only have 10 minutes in between classes here, Sunday was...well, a Sunday.

I cashed 1 in 30 tournaments and my epic downswing continues. I didn't cash a single FTOPS but that's pretty standard at this point. Last night I played nightlies and FT bubbled the 20r on tilt and got 30th or so in the Stars 20r. Other than that nothing of note, so just kind of hanging in there, playing poker when I can.

This week is going to be really busy, and next Friday is my first baseball game, so I can't imagine things will slow down all that much :(

Stars released their SCOOP schedule, and it's a 3 tier system, it looks like some high stakes MTT pros are either going to 1) go broke or 2) check their ego's and not play the highest stakes possible. The thing is insane, and one MTT pro who isn't going to play all the events estimated that he alone will have close to $50k in buy ins...that's pretty ridic.

No way I play many/any high stakes ones, but we'll see. I could bink something big between now and then haha (fingers crossed)

- Nathan

Sunday Review/FTOPS Review

2009-02-10T00:08:00.004-06:00

So, Sunday sucked. I just...don't even begin to know how to describe how frustrating it is. I had another AA < AK deep in the 11r for a top 5 chip stack with like 150 left.

Tonight in the $1k FTOPS I got close to no cards. I picked my spots perfectly, doubled up with JJ after 2 hours of folding, used my aggression to pick up chips, and kept myself afloat with 30bbs.

A couple interesting spots where I raise J9s spades from MP at like 200/400, sb flats, flop 822 two clubs. he checks, i check behind, turn K of spades. He checks, I fire 1450 into a 2,400 pot, he flats. River is a 6d, he checks, I fire 2950 into a 4500ish pot, he folds. I pick up a nice pot and I'm cruising.

Shortly after that, a guy who was hella aggro to my left has KK < AA aipf for a monster pot. I raise his BB when he has 8bbs left with ATs, and he reships 77, flop KT9 ez game. turn 6, river 8. Boo, sick suckout sir. That crippled me to 10bbs, and I fold for another 20 minutes giving me 8bbs in the SB with AJs. MP1 raises 2.5x, i reshove, he tanks for 20 seconds and calls with QJs. WTF sir, where did you come up with $1,000 to play in this tournament?

Obviously flop comes Q33 and I'm busto. Whatever. I'm on a 100 buy in downswing and people think I run well lol. I've never heard such BS in my life.

I'm done, thanks for the sweat whoever watched, I know of a couple particular who did.

- Nathan

Sunday mornings!

2009-02-08T11:34:00.002-06:00

So much potential. This is one of the biggest Sunday's in recent memory because of FTOPS. 30 tournaments on the schedule today, let's try to cash a couple :)

GL All.

- Nathan

So liak, this is why I don't win.

2009-02-06T00:00:00.002-06:00

PokerStars Game #24641997192: Tournament #137384024, $150+$12 Hold'em No Limit - Level XIII (600/1200) - 2009/02/05 23:29:08 CT [2009/02/06 0:29:08 ET]
Table '137384024 28' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: netix (18475 in chips)
Seat 2: ihaveurlute (47773 in chips)
Seat 4: incesto (38545 in chips)
Seat 5: cruzas (49559 in chips)
Seat 6: keepsnoozein (10938 in chips)
Seat 7: CSalsman1985 (19717 in chips)
Seat 8: opsco (88023 in chips)
Seat 9: PsYcOsNiPeR (75733 in chips)
netix: posts the ante 125
ihaveurlute: posts the ante 125
incesto: posts the ante 125
cruzas: posts the ante 125
keepsnoozein: posts the ante 125
CSalsman1985: posts the ante 125
opsco: posts the ante 125
PsYcOsNiPeR: posts the ante 125
PsYcOsNiPeR: posts small blind 600
netix: posts big blind 1200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PsYcOsNiPeR [As Ac]
ihaveurlute: folds
incesto: folds
cruzas: raises 2800 to 4000
keepsnoozein: folds
CSalsman1985: folds
opsco: folds
PsYcOsNiPeR: raises 9010 to 13010
netix: folds
cruzas: raises 36424 to 49434 and is all-in
PsYcOsNiPeR: calls 36424
*** FLOP *** [Kc 2h 7c]
*** TURN *** [Kc 2h 7c] [4c]
*** RIVER *** [Kc 2h 7c 4c] [3s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PsYcOsNiPeR: shows [As Ac] (a pair of Aces)
cruzas: shows [Kd Kh] (three of a kind, Kings)
cruzas collected 101068 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 101068 | Rake 0
Board [Kc 2h 7c 4c 3s]
Seat 1: netix (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: ihaveurlute folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: incesto folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: cruzas showed [Kd Kh] and won (101068) with three of a kind, Kings
Seat 6: keepsnoozein folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: CSalsman1985 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: opsco (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: PsYcOsNiPeR (small blind) showed [As Ac] and lost with a pair of Aces

Yeah. This is why I'm in makeup. It's really tough to keep a cool composure and tell yourself everything's going to work out and life will be good. People complain to me about bad beats, I usually don't complain to them. In fact, I try to avoid complaining. However, y'all are choosing to read this, therefore this is my place to complain.

I run bad. Running bad = below expectation.

What's the solution to this problem? There is none. Because it's me, I will be doomed to be unlucky, similar to ASPoker8, GeoffRas22, and that's all that come to mind at the moment. Unlike Vietcong, lilholdem954, Wretchy, USCPhildo. Ya, you guys know those names..why? Because to the untrained eye they look "sick" and have "crazy results". They click buttons and win a shitload of money. So it goes with poker. I guess 40 years down the road if I continue playing it will even out.

At least I have my health right? lol.

That's all for this update, one of these days I'm going to win 25k and get out of makeup. 2009 is going to be a hell of a year. I can feel it. Sooner or later if I keep getting deep I'm going to win something big...It's inevitable right? Right!?

GL @ the tables all

- Nathan

Also - lol @ this

2009-02-04T15:26:00.002-06:00

http://betting.betfair.com/poker/puds-poker-progress/poker-blog-roundup-300109.html

Second paragraph from the bottom. One of my friends alerted me to this a little while back. I thought it was extremely funny considering BetFair is a fairly large online gambling site in the UK.

Thanks for reading my blog whoever the author is. :)

- Nathan

Updateeee

2009-02-04T14:28:00.002-06:00

Sorry fellas, I haven't played a hand of poker since Sunday. Alas, so it goes with baseball season. I have an off day tomorrow and Sunday, and Saturday is a morning practice. Hopefully I don't have a shitload of homework over the weekend and there is a chance I'll play! I'm definitely going to play Sundays. FTOPS starts tonight, but sigh, baseball 6:30-8:30 (which in reality is 6:30-9:00 once everything is said and done). FTOPS starts at 8 PM here, so I won't be able to play event #1. Oh well.

Sunday's went really shitty. I think I played 15 tournaments and went 0 for 15. Oh well, at least it wasn't a full Sunday where I would have gone 0 for 25 ;)

A "teammate" of mine (Team Mement ldo) is on a sick rush, since the new year started I think he's up something like 40k or so which is completely insane. Congrats to him, his sn is Homanga on Stars and AUHoman on FTP. He's on a sick rush, hopefully it keeps up and he can ship an FTOPS (would be nice imo.)

Since I talked about Homanga I may as well talk about others too haha. Geoff is continuing to play sick, and run piss poor lol. Since PCA I don't think he's had a major cash of any kind, despite going deep in a couple big tournaments including the Super Tuesday ($1,050 buy in). Good luck to him during FTOPS, he's due for a big one imo.

I haven't run too well since my recent heater, I almost got out of makeup but Saturday's and Sunday's kinda killed me. So it goes I guess. I was looking at my tourney trax and I think I've cashed in 3 of 60 tournaments or so in the last week. Which is pretty brutal for all the tournaments I'm playing ($200 tournaments and under, down to $5r). So, of course make up adds on, but I cut it down once, I can surely do it again. Maybe I'll pull a Homanga and crush everything for 2 months :)

Classes are moving along nicely, already getting assignments and had to turn in a couple papers so I've certainly been busy. I've been getting into a nice routine of homework before practice, just relaxing after practice. So hopefully as the season goes on, when I'm not completely exhausted or when I don't have homework I'll be able to put in some sessions.

That's all for now, gl all.

- Nathan

Wat Wat? February hollaaaa

2009-02-01T11:26:00.003-06:00

So, I'm really excited for February.

Baseballs starting up, in a routine with school, and best of all, FTOPS!?

Everybody loves FTOPS. Even if it means losing close to $10k during the series :)

I'm excited because in every event I'm going to play (probably close to 6 or 7 of them), first place should be well over $100k.

Having 6 or 7 chances (not including Sundays) to ship 100k in one tournament DURING THE WEEK? Zomg.

Just one good run, and the money will be big. FTOPS is also huge because not only is it one of the biggest payouts for online tournaments, it's also the softest.

Anytime you have 2k+ players in a tournament it becomes one of the softest high stakes tournaments anywhere. Sure, a lot of high stakes players play it, but it's impossible for what people think is the "top 2,000 players in the world" playing in it. Even if that were the case the top 2k players aren't that good anyway imo lol.

Whatever, I suck too, but hey, better lucky than good amirite? :-D

Alright, I have some real life stuff to do before I hit up Sundays. I'm going to be starting at 3 PM my time, so I'll be able to catch the 750k, Million, Second Chance, Mulligan, $100 FO, Fuper, and some other smaller tournaments.

GL @ The tables all, and **** SUNDAYS <3 lol

- Nathan

A month in review - January

2009-01-30T12:12:00.005-06:00

Of everything that happened this month, how can I condense it into one blog entry?

I started the new year off in Boston, went back to Florida for a day, then flew to the Bahamas for PCA. Being around all the poker players at PCA opened my eyes to different viewpoints of poker, as well as different concepts that I thought I understood.

Discussing hands 24/7, meeting different people, and just being in a poker environment for that amount of time, by osmosis one is going to get better.

Since PCA I have had the best month of my life. Whether I am playing better, or simply running hotter than the sun, (probably a mixture of both) the results I have expected from myself are finally here.

I hope they're sustainable. I'm feeling uber confident about everything I play, so we'll see what happens.

That's all for this update.

- Nathan

Quick update..

2009-01-29T02:47:00.000-06:00

Just got 2nd in the 50 cubed ($50 + 1r1a) for 3.5k

Was a very tough field and I feel like I played well. Won a couple key hands and that was that. More to update soon, but I'm tired and have class in the morning. It's nice to be on a little upswong, hopefully it continues through FTOPS lol

- Nathan

Nightly's Recap

2009-01-28T13:51:00.003-06:00

After having such a disappointing Sunday, and waking up on Monday still hurt from the FT Bubble I decided to take Monday night off. Because of this I was itching to get back to the tables on Tuesday. We all know how much a positive attitude affects our game, and I was so ready to dominate.

I registered for I think 20 nightly tournaments starting at 6 PM. At 8:45 a friend of mine IMed me and asked how it was going, I was 14 tabling at the time. It's a nice feeling being in every single one of your tournaments for 2 and a half hours without busting.

I ended up making a deep run in the $75 40k on Tilt, but flared out in 50th or so when I lost a big flip. I also went deep in the Stuper but exact bubbled it when I lost a couple flips in a row. I thought for sure that was going to be my night, I had such a great stack and then lost it. Oh well, still had another 12 tournaments going on.

Throughout the night I kept building and building different stacks, but in each tournament I would lose that key flip. I kept my mind right, and whenever I would lose a hand I would just remind myself that it was easily re-attainable.

I was talking to mement a while back, and he said something along the lines of, "When I get to 100k in a tournament I know I'm going deep." and this has sort of stuck with me. Once I reach 100k in a tournament I have my eyes 100% on the final table.

One of my first tournaments of the night, the 11^3 ($11 1r1a, or the 11 cubed), is a very soft tournament with a great structure allowing a lot of play. Because of this the bad players are easily exploited, and I exploited to the best of my ability.

I FTed that tournament for my 5th time, coming in as chip leader. At one point 6 handed I was 1/6 with about 3/5ths the chips in play. I jokingly attempted to chop for more than 1st place, but they wouldn't allow it.

I got HU with a 1.5:1 chip lead, and after abusing the shortstack 3 handed I just open shoved (as my opponent had seen me do numerous times before) and he snapped Q2s. I had ATs, and I didn't hold. My bust out hand to get 2nd place was A9 < 77 on a A74Ax board. It was a semi cooler, but I misclicked during it which fucked me up a little bit. 2nd paid $2.8k so that made for a profitable night and cut down on the makeup a bit more.

I haven't decided if I'm going to play tonight. I have a lot of time this afternoon to get work done, so if I manage to get everything done there is a good chance I'll end up playing nightly tournaments. I don't feel like I've been running way above expectation, although one could make the argument that I am. Idk, no one can be an accurate judge of how well or how bad they run. A smart man (RonaldKosh) once said, "Embrace the variance, that's what makes poker fun." so, I think that's what I'm going to do. No complaints, just play my best and control what I can control. Other than that there's literally nothing else to be done.

In tournaments you inherently fail all but a minuscule percentage of time that you get first place. Most people I think have a problem accepting this, and even though they say they do grasp it, it nags at them on the inside. I feel like my background in baseball (where a .300 hitter fails 7 out of 10 times) helps tremendously with the mental aspect of poker.

That's all I got for this update. GL @ the tables.

- Nathan

Sunady Recap

2009-01-26T14:20:00.001-06:00

Talk about a disappointing Sunday.

Got 10th in the Stars $100 100k, first was 25k.

Lost $600 playing Sundays, cashed a few tournaments. Whatever.

-Nathan

Back Home

2009-01-25T12:44:00.000-06:00

Back “home”.

So, I’m back at school for the next 18 weeks. Looking over my schedule I don’t know how much time I’m going to have for poker. 4 classes this semester, with a lab, plus a college sport doesn’t leave me much time. I spoke with my backer a little bit about it, and it looks like I’m just going to have a couple 3 hour blocks of time to play here and there. Clearly this amount of time isn’t enough to put in a true MTT session, so I figured I’d play a few MTTSNG’s like I used to way back when. 36/180s, 12/180s, 75/45s on Tilt, maybe even a few 45’s/90’s on Stars.

If my schedule works out the way I hope it will on Monday and Friday I’ll be done by Noon, Wednesdays I will be done by 2:10, and Tuesdays and Thursdays I’ll be done by 2:50. Now when I don’t have baseball until 6:30, sometimes even 8:00 PM, (some nights I have off as well), I figure I can put in some pretty solid SNG sessions of 20 tournaments given that they shoot off in time.

I’m kind of upset that I’m flying on a Saturday and missing some big daily’s, but whatever, I’m playing Sundays tomorrow even though I’m going to miss a “mandatory” meeting for work study. Thanks to google chat I instant messaged my boss asking him if it was mandatory, he said no, as long as I e-mail him my schedule. So I’m gonna have to get on that, but as long as it gets me out of interrupting Sunday’s it’ll be fine.

I’m actually on an airplane as I’m typing this but whatever lol. I found out via facebook that a couple people I met at PCA actually read my blog, which I guess is cool, but also pretty embarrassing haha. I probably sound a bit too much like a fan boy, but at heart, I am a fan boy. I’m proud of it too. So that’s all for now, sorry for the lack of updates while I’ve been home. I’ve been doing a lot with baseball and working out/getting in shape for the upcoming season. Also packing to come back to school was a huge hassle.

To completely change gears, I noticed the other day when writing on the forums that I have a pretty dickish attitude. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. When talking strategy I don’t call people names, but I do call them out a lot. If someone says something is dumb, I’m very quick to jump on their stupidity. Although, “nice guys finish last” and “nice poker players are usually bad” are both fairly true statements. However, I would certainly like to be the exception to that statement. I feel like of all the people that grind HSMTT’s I’m one of the more sociable and approachable people. Then again I’ve only been grinding HSMTT’s for a couple months, so we’ll see how things are down the road.

January has been a good month so far, I think I have a little more than $10k profit for the month, which if it held (hopefully it will and I have a kick ass Sunday tomorrow) it would be my first $10k month. All I need is one more score, then I’m in the black and things are going well. One time dealer?

Alright that’s all for this update.

-Nathan

2k Post on 2p2

2009-01-21T15:24:00.002-06:00

Just made my 2k post on 2p2. I kinda made it a special thread in SSMTT, but meh, whatever. Just a few quick shoutouts to people that impacted my poker career.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/23/mtt-strategy/my-2-000th-post-shoutouts-itt-393782/

-Nathan

Sunday Recap

2009-01-21T11:11:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I just haven't been in a blogging mood I guess.

So, Sunday went fairly well for me I think. I ended up going deep in the warm up getting 250th or so, which was good for a solid $750 cash. I also cashed two $100 FO's, which were solid cashes, and I went deep in a daily $50 on Stars finishing 25th or so.

On top of all those are Stars, I went deep in both the $500 million finishing 45th, and the Mulligan finishing 90th or so. Because of all these deep runs, even without a final table, I finished the day +$2.3k. Which is always a good Sunday IMO.

In the FTP Million there was an interesting situation...or atleast one that became interesting. I slowrolled Allen Cunningham, on purpose. I must say, it wasn't even a bad slowroll. I waited my allotted 15 seconds without cutting into my timebank and then I called. I got tons of shit for it, including a nasty e-mail about how slowrolling is unethical, which of course I posted in BBV and that got tons of attention as well.

My reason for slowrolling was 1) He is a very nice guy, and I like him a lot. If I slowroll him I imagine he'll shake it off and move on with his life. Because I figured he would move on with his life it wouldn't be a big deal. 2) I thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if I slowrolled the NICEST guy in poker?" and I still think it is. Shit, even my Dad thinks its funny (he was watching in the other room.)

Anyway, here is the BBV thread if you guys want to check it out:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/beat-got-trouble-slowrolling-ftp-391696/

It got something like 10k views, and 150 replies. Even a gimmick Allen Cunningham account, and maybe one real Allen. No one's really sure haha.

Oh well, that's all. I played a session last night cashing in one $26 tournament for $48 (woohoo). Yesterday afternoon a girl wrote on my facebook wall that, "Gambling is an addiction and if I ever need to admit it she'll be there for me." obviously this tilted me a slight bit, so I wrote back that, "I've won $15k in the last 3 days. If you ever need a loan, I'm here."

lol donkaments.

Hopefully tonight will be a good night with the super stuper and the big fields.

- Nathan

Breakthrough

2009-01-17T22:46:00.003-06:00

I got 3rd in the $320 Saturday 6max on FTP for $12,663

First 5 figure score, biggest score; solid night imo.

I played ok IMO, there were 2 hands that I specifically remember me playing horribly. They crippled me down to 10BBs, but I grinded back, won a few flips, and ended up going into the FT 6/6.

Someone busted 6th, then tufat in 5th, then MrVogt in 4th...suddenly I was guaranteed $12,000 lol I'm not sure if it's hit me yet, but I guess my epic downswing is gone, and two months of run bad is out the door. Hopefully I'll be able to continue it into tomorrow (Sunday) :)

GL @ the tables all,

Nathan

Trip Report Part VII

2009-01-15T10:53:00.002-06:00

The last part of the PCA Trip Reports.

I woke up on Saturday realizing that I had no way of contacting anybody. I didn't have anyone AIM screenname, nor cellphone #'s, and cell phones wouldn't work anyway. I ended up just wandering around until 2 o clock, where I ran into Tufat looking for the business center. We found the business center, and Andy's PartyPoker sheet that he had to print out was something like 10 pages long. For black and white printing it was $1/page, and for color it was $3/page, jesus christ..like wtf?

Anyway, we got done with that and we went to a diner that was similar to a Steak and Shake, but it didn't have any milkshakes. I didn't eat, but Tufat got a sandwich and we just chilled and talked poker for close to an hour. On our way to the poker room after lunch we ran into Bakes who was leaving to head home. Short trip for him, played every day and as soon as he busts he leaves. That sucks. We also run into Adit (intervntion). He asks what we're up to and we both said we were on our way to the poker room. He asks if we wanted some bananas, of course Tufat is intrigued, but I don't really peel bananas. Obviously, Adit doesn't have any, so we go on a trek to find some.

First we walk the beach all the way down to the Jet Ski guys, but it was crazy, all they were interested in selling were jet ski rides!? Wtf? Haha. We contemplate waiting until it's dark outside and hitting up the taxi cab drivers, but then decide even though it's a crazy long walk, we'll walk to the other side of the hotel and hit up the REAL Jet Ski guys.

It was really sketchy but we ended up getting it done, and then going back to Adit's room. On the way back we run into Rubenrtv and his friends VPIP100 and someone else. They come back to Adit's room as well and they all peel bananas while I watch football with Adit's roommates.

Anyway, they all are starting to get hungry and so am I, so I suggest going to Nobu. Mr. BigQueso comes down from his room and sets up a reservation for us. At one point the lady asked how many and Queso replied "15 or so", the lady on the phone was clearly upset, and said it would be a while. Queso instantly responds with, "We are all very hungry and very wealthy, and we tip very well." Instead of 9:30 our reservations are now 7:30. Hollaaa. The lady asked if we are all adults, and Queso responds, "Yes, we have 14 adults and one indian" and everyone dies laughing lol.

At Nobu, it ended up being everyone from eaerlier + SirWatts, Timex, Ch0ppy, TheToilet, and ImALuckSac...was very cool meeting everyone there. TuFat ordered for our table (the 6 of us) and it ended up being very good, and a $1k bill haha I can only imagine if we did CC Roullete for the entire table. I ended up buying out for my share because $1k is just too much money for me to risk it. ImALuckSac got stuck with it, and afterwards chugged a bottle of saki just for kicks.

Was a fun night, afterwards I hung out with TheToilet, he played some 5/10 live and I watched him. One of the guys he was playing with was on my $1k table. He recognized me and complimented me on my play, saying I "scared the fuck out of him" haha. Good.

That's really all, I ended up missing my flight on my way home so I had to wait stand by on a different one but I ended up getting home OK. Overall was an amazing trip, met a bunch of new people, and I think because of talking to them I can take my game to the next level. It was all I could ask for.

Also, I got 2nd in the 11 cubed last night for 3k, biggest score yet, hopefully I can keep breaking my biggest cash haha.

- Nathan

Picture time!

2009-01-13T13:36:00.005-06:00

I promised pictures.. here they are!

Sigh. I'm a fish, and I don't know how to properly upload pictures. Some of them are upside down, all of them are too big. However, if you click on each one, its hyperlinked to the actual photobucket image, so if you click on each picture you can see the original picture in it's entirety. I hope that helps.

The Poker Room.

A snapshot of the Stars welcome party..You can see there are tons of people scattered about

View coming over the bridge from the limo, my first sight of Atlantis.

A hallway of the Royal Tower, the hallway leads to the casino, which leads to the coral lobby, which leads to the shop area, which leads to the restaurant area, which leads to the movie theater, which leads to the poker room.

The actual lobby of the royal tower, through this is the casino.

The casino, which leads to the coral lobby

The beginning of the coral lobby

The Coral Lobby, where all the grinding went on (including the prop bet between DJK123 and Esfandiari)

The shops on the way to the poker room

One of the many fountains on the way to the poker room

Another fountain on the way to the poker room.

Another hall way on the way to the poker room, the poker stars advertisements were everywhere on the resort.

Entrance into the poker room area

The famous Stars bank..I used it a few times as well..

Finally, after the Stars bank, we arrive at the poker room. Now you guys know why I complained about the walk every day ;)

The inside of the limo on the road to Atlantis

Jurollo playing on Day 3 of the Main Event.

The 25k high roller final table, pic includes Mastr (Scott) and Elky (who won it for close to 500k)

Geoff chillin in the limo

Day 4 featured table, across from us is Jason (Pasterbator) and with his back towards us is David "Bakes" Baker

Me playing drunk 1/2 NL..I'm wearing "Blazer"s jacket, I never actually got his real name.

Another view of the poker room.

Sick view from Geoff and my hotel room.

The Stars VIP lounge, where I played PS3 with Chris Moneymaker, and talked about how long the final table takes with Joe Hachem

Shaun ****ing Deeb at the final SNG of the World Cup.

That's all my pictures guys, I'll eventually edit in my last part of the trip report, but I haven't written it yet haha

Until next time...gl @ the tables

Nathan

Trip Report Part VI

2009-01-10T10:08:00.003-06:00

So, there really isn’t that much to write about that happened yesterday. I woke up early, showered, worked out and then headed to the poker room to watch the ME. I watched for a solid hour or so with Tommy, and then the $1k was starting. I get to my table and of course I’m feeling pretty confident, similar to how I was in the $2k, but more relaxed and ready to play. I remember KingDan told me earlier in the week, “Live tournaments are simple, you fold until the ante stages, and then you rape.” What’s funny is that’s almost exactly how it worked for me.

At my starting table there are 6 guys ages 35+, and then one guy late 20’s and one young euro and myself. Clearly, going by age and origin I’m the best player at the table. After a couple hands it was obvious who was competent with stack sizes and bet sizes, we had a couple people raising to 300 at 25/50 and thinking they were hot shit lol.

Anyway, I fold for close to 3 hours 3betting a bit here in position and taking pots with cbetting, and I’m at starting stack (5k) when we get to 100/200/25a. At this point my table breaks and I get moved to a nicer, bigger table with dirtyriv3r two to my left (but he didn’t know who I was and I didn’t know who he was). A guy across from me I had played some drunk 1/2NL with, and although I had played with him I didn’t remember his playing style. I think me being around KingDan and Inyourface helped my image with him, because it was obvious he respected me.

My new seat at the newer table really allowed me to play more hands. I had two nits to my direct right and two aggro internet players to his right. So, when it came to opening pots the two aggro guys were always in early position while I was in middle/late. Within 5 minutes of moving to the new table I had increased my stack from 5k to 10k without a showdown at 100/200/25a. The next level is 200/400/50a and BadgerPro gets moved to my table and recognizes dirtyriv3r. He says hello to him, so I take off my headphones and ask him who he is (smart move by me imo).

He also asks me who I am and I reply that I’m not really anybody, I just turned 18 like 6 months ago and I’m not very good. He laughed and said, “Well, you’re here and playing well, congratulations on being a phenom”. That obviously boosted my confidence a bit.

I lost a shortstack flip for like 5k chips at 200/400/50a, 88 < AQ. I raise from LP, BB ships in 4kish and of course I snap. Flop AQx and I brick out.

I look a bit disappointed and my 1/2NL buddy gives me a head nod kind of like “Hey man, you’re still in this”. So obviously I try to grind back. I fold down to 3k or so when I pick up QQ in the HJ. UTG raises to 1.5k at 200/400 (lol..) and I ship the rest in. He has A9s and while the board comes 9xx two clubs, I hold and double up to 6.5k.

My favorite part of the tournament is the 15bbs stage. The aggro internet players are still playing well, opening pots, stealing blinds, etc. However, whenever they are in early position it always folds to me. I end up shitting on the blinds, unexploitably shoving from the button, co, and HJ. I increased my stack to 11kish in an orbit and a half.

The blinds increase to 300/600/50a, and I continue my unexploitable shoving. Often times the blinds will ask for a count and I would say something like “10k” and they would sigh and go “that’s way too much for me.” Lol liveaments. I chip up to 14kish and obviously decide it’s time to stop the open shoving business. I 2.5x one hand and steal the blinds and next hand (after being really aggressive, probably raised 5 of the last 15 hands) I pick up Aces. Folds to me in MP2, I do my standard 2.5x raise, btn ships 9k at 300/600 and I thought about being a dick and slowrolling, but I didn’t. I snapped and said “Unlucky bro.” He shows A8o and he’s kinda crushed lol.

I won that and I’m up to 24kish sitting very well.
About an orbit later I raise KQo from MP1 when it’s folded to me, btn calls, BB calls, flop 36K (I flop good.) and I take it down with a cbet, this propels me close to the 30kish mark and we go on dinner break.

During dinner break for some reason I got really nervous. I don’t know what happened, what thoughts entered my mind, or really any reason why that happened. I ended up eating a tuna sandwich and getting a coke, and watching the featured table with Dan and a few other people. I jokingly asked for advice from Dan and he goes, “Well, if you have 3 aces in a 5 way pot, bet it!” I think that was almost exactly what I needed to hear; it relieved me a little bit and brought me back into the perspective that in reality it’s a live $1k, and the players are just around my skill level.

People often claim to have solid tells and reads when it comes to live, but what I noticed that I have to give credit to Geoff for was that I looked for people who looked at their cards before it was their turn; especially the people to my left. There was an older gentleman who was two to my left, and always on the button when I was in the HJ, if his hands were on his cards he’d fold, if he was playing with his chips he would open. It was a really useful bit of information because I’d just fold my marginal hands instead of opening and trying to steal blinds.

Another interesting bit was when it folded to someone in late position they often looked at their cards and thought for a second. It’s difficult to describe but the two aggro internet kids would often look at their cards and almost stop themselves from folding because they were in late position. I somehow picked up more or less because of how they touched their cards (a finger gripping opposite sides of the cards as if to flick them into the muck) and how quickly they acted, that they didn’t have a plan preflop. I would 3bet the two aggro guys with regularity, and chipped up to 45k at 400/800/75a.

To make a long story short, I went card dead with around 70 left, stole blinds a couple times, and kept myself at 45kish until all the way at 1500/3k/300a with 40 left. I resteal one more time from a young guy who has trouble understanding PF raise sizes, opening to 3x or slightly more, while the entire table is opening 2.5x. Then with 36 left it folds to me in the HJ with K9s and I ship 36k at 1500/3k/300a and button insta iso’s with AJs. I brick he wins gg me. I played from 2PM until 1:30AM, that’s a long day by internet standards, but we still had one more level to make it to Day 2 lol.

Oh well it was a lot of fun going deep in a live tournament, especially a $1k live tournament at PCA. I’m not sure what I’m going to do now, probably hang out and watch the final table with a bunch of people. Oh well, until next time fellas, glgl @ the tables.

Nathan

Trip Report Part V

2009-01-09T10:16:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I woke up really late, close to 2 o clock haha… because of this I really didn’t do much at all.

I went down to the poker room to check things out, saw a few people in the 5k and watched them for a bit. I also played a $50 sit and go, but it certainly wasn’t worth my time..the play was horrendous.

After the sit and go I ran into a couple people but no one was really doing anything. I came back upstairs to my room and at this point it’s around 5:30 and I get an IM from shaundeeb inviting me to dinner with him and Adam. I accept and off to seafire steakhouse we go. It was only the three of us and of course shaundeeb is a huge spender, so we buy two bottles of wine, one merlot and something else, but we each got an appetizer, an entrée, and dessert. We did the over/under on the bill to be $525, and sure enough it was $462. Woohoo, cheapest meal so far!

So, we did credit card roulette and obviously I run worse than Adam and Shaun, so I pick up the $460 bill and that’s that. The good thing about that though is that through credit card roulette I’ve easily gotten more than $460 in food. So I’m running above expectation ;)

After dinner I go to register for the $1k tourney and the line is packed because the Stars Bank is closed. Whatever, I stand in line and talk to luckychewy for a good 15 mins and then pick up my $1k and register. While in line I realize I’m missing the national championship kickoff but whatever it’s fine. I go back to Adam’s room and hang out with him and shaun and watch the game. Obviously UF wins and Adam ships whatever sidebets he has on it. The man runs so good (lol).

That’s all for now, Geoff left earlier today because he sick. I now have the room to myself and I’m going to check out before I leave. Hah room service is coming in to clean the room now, I gotta go! I’ll give updates on the $1k tonight (hopefully it’s a good update)

Nathan

Trip Report Part IV

2009-01-08T21:09:00.003-06:00

Sorry it took me a while to update, long day/night yesterday.
Yesterday was my biggest live buy in tournament of $2k. Needless to say I lasted close to 10 minutes. I played 3 hands, raising 2. I raised TT from UTG+2, BB flats, I cbet the flop and take it down.

Next hand I 3x AA from UTG+1, 4 flatters. Flop comes A47 rainbow, we all check to an aggro button who bets 2/3rds pot. BB flats, I flat, turn is a 3 completing the rainbow, we both check to the aggro button who bets 1/2 pot, bb raises, I jam 8k with top set. BB snaps and shows 56o. GG $2k.

I return to my room directly after the tournament and Geoff laughs at me for busting within 10 minutes. We play Chinese and I think I win like $20 or whatever, and then Adam shows up and we hit up the lazy river for 2 hours.

Geoff convinces me to play nightlys with him, and while we head to the coral lobby we run into Ricky (RonaldKosh). He, Adam, Geoff, and I hit up Johnny Rockets for dinner.

We grind nightlys until probably 2 AM, where I get 14th in the 11 cubed, and Ricky gets 13th in the 100r. The 3 of us (Geoff, Adam, and I) ended up drinking 4 bottles of champagne, and Ricky and I were pretty drunk. Oh well, it made FT bubbling hurt a little less.

In the process of final table bubbling Allen Kessler (the chainsaw) sits down with Ricky and I. He attempts to talk strategy with us, and we instantly berate the total shit out of him. It was easily my favorite part of the night just listening to him tell bad beat after bad beat, and listening to Ricky berate him as if he were a small stakes MTT player. I joined in the beratement and laughed in his face with Ricky when he said he raise folded A7s on the button with 13BBs at a WPT final table..

Shortly after I final table bubbled Tommy (TomTom lol?) came down to the lobby and told me he was going to play drunk 1/2 NL. I figured what the hell, why not? So I go and sit down with him, I meet 2 more online players, one guy who is a 2p2er and is a cash player. He’s drunk so clearly it’s ok for him to be playing 1/2 and then his buddy who calls himself “blazer” (he was wearing a blazer jacket, which he lent to me for a hand so I could get a picture in it lol) was also drunk. Anyway, TomTom and I have a good time, he drops close to $200 I think. I continue on my sick heater of making $35 or so.

One hand, 2p2er raises 3x to $6, folds to me on button and I have AQs hearts and I just stick in $110. Folds back to him and he snaps with K7s hearts. He shows, I don’t show because I forget to. Flop comes like T34 one heart, Alex (2p2er) shouts out, “Running hearts! One time dealer!” turn is 9h, river Jh. The table explodes. Even I was laughing and shouting and congratulating him. Obviously, I didn’t show my cards so I forgot what they were. I go to flip them up as he’s scooping the pot and I say, “Wait! I hit the flush too!” Sick slowroll imo. When I tabled my hand the table went even more nuts and everyone was laughing at my slowroll (I obviously didn’t mean to slowroll him, it was clearly just a drunkroll.)

I apologized to Alex and we continued talking and he was a cool guy. Because he took my sick slowroll with such grace I bought him a drink (goombay smash), within 10 seconds of getting it he had dropped his gum in it and didn’t drink end up drinking it. Throughout the night I gave him shit for it, but he was cool with it haha.

At this point it’s very close to 4:30 AM, and the poker room is closing. We eventually get kicked out, so I go to the cashier and cash in my $300 or whatever I had in chips. The details are a little hazy but I made it back to my room around 5, and I guess I made a bit of noise getting into the room and woke Geoff up, but whatever it’s cool.

That’s all that happened yesterday/last night, I could continue writing and just give a summary of today but I’ll leave that for tomorrow when I wake up early before the $1k. My plan is to work out, shower, eat breakfast, and just dominate the $1k. But knowing me, I won’t make the ante stages ;)

I’m out, the national championship is on and I’m lying in bed. Peace, gl all.

Nathan

Trip Report; Part III

2009-01-07T08:56:00.002-06:00

So, shortly after I finished updating my blog here, Geoff and I went to breakfast at this place in the Royal Towers lobby. Obviously neither of us knew that this place existed, but I thought I had heard there was a buffet; and sure enough, there was. I ended up paying for Geoff for some unknown reason, and the buffet was $30 a person (lol woops).

Breakfast was simply amazing, even though we only ate for 15 minutes. Geoff had to get to the poker room which is at least a 10 minute walk, so we had to leave around 11:50 to get there for 12:00 starting day. We come out of the breakfast buffet and there is a swarm of people walking in the direction of the poker room. It was clearly a swarm of poker players all leaving at the same time. It was quite funny to see the look on people’s faces when we passed. You could see they were thinking, “Surely this massive group of close to 200 people isn’t all together!?” I enjoyed their looks immensely.

Once we arrived in the poker room we had to go check on Shaun Deeb in the World Cub, he was 3 handed in a sit and go and obviously the structure sucked so he’s shoving every hand lol. The other two guys are extremely nitty and somehow shaun loses close to 6 different all ins to finally bust in 3rd. The nittiest one of all obviously takes it down.

I walk around the poker room a bit and don’t really recognize anyone, and the day had just started so obviously it was going to be a boring time, so I went into the VIP player lounge. While there, it was completely deserted because of the ME (and no one who isn’t play the ME wakes up in time for it..except me obv). So while trying to figure out how to play this game on PS3, who else but Chris Moneymaker walks up and asks if I want to play him in either madden of FIFA. To be quite honest, I’m horrible at PS3, I stopped playing video games when I was in middle school. But whatever, it’s Chris Moneymaker. I choose Madden, and we play for close to 5 minutes before Stars calls him and the rest of the team pro’s over. Apparently they had to go into the poker room and do some quick presentation or something as a group. Oh well, good playing with you sir.

Shortly after this I realize I have nothing to do today, so I go back to the room, put on some shorts and go hit up the water park. Once I’m there I realized something else… I was the only person who was alone lol. Each and every person had a buddy, husband/wife, girlfriend/boyfriend, or son/daughter. As I start to walk back inside I run into Joel (oldschool43) and Andrew (charder30’s friend from home). Pretty good timing because I was just about to go sit in isolation in my room; but they invite me to chill with them. We head over to get something to drink/eat and then we hit up the place.

While ordering food from like a snack bar thingy, no one was quite sure what to get. The menu sucked, and everything was hella expensive. All three of us decide we’re going to get some kind of wrap sandwich. The wraps were $11 each. However, on the complete other side of the menu we could get a wrap, a drink, and a bag of chips, for $8. Wtf? Good eyes Andrew. We didn’t bother asking, we just got the latter for $8; the wrap was decent sized and tasted fine.

Joel, instead of getting the package deal for $8, decided to get some kind of cocktail. But instead of getting just a normal cup/glass/whatever, they gave him one of those amusement park giant water bottles full. The drink was $14, but it had (what seemed like) half a bottle of rum and a shitload of everything else. All 3 of us decided that it was a good idea to split it so he doesn’t get absolutely trashed and end up in the shark tank. Because of this, the water park probably seemed more fun than it actually was haha. We went on the tube water slides, one of which goes through the shark tank, and then we did one that shoots you through the shark tank super quick without a tube, and then we raced down a couple slides and did the lazy river. All in all, it was a solid day at the water park.

At this point it’s almost 4 o clock, and they were going to play basketball. I decided I would try and play as well, but had to go back to my room. I ended up not getting to the courts until 4:30ish, and at that point they had already started. I sat and watched for close to 15 mins, and it was a good thing I didn’t play. These guys were surely much better than I was.

I decided that if I’m going to be doing nothing, I might as well be doing nothing but have it be poker related. I go back to the room, put on real clothes and make the trek to the poker room.

I had no idea what I was planning on doing, maybe playing some cash, a sit and go, something; IDK. I show up, the Stars bank closes at 5; it’s now 5:10. I had a plan to leave my rakeback on FTP and just take that money out of my stars account, but obviously the stars bank was closed. So I realize I only have like $80 in cash on me, which isn’t enough for any kind of live buy in. Whatever, I’ll just chill.

I go and watch shaundeeb in the world cup some more (he started at 10 and finished around 2 AM..long day imo.) He comes over and says Hi, he tells me how he’s doing, invites me back to the feature table where his family is sitting etc (It’s roped off to the public.) After close to 15-20 minutes of watching a couple other poker players come over to talk to shaun. I got introduced to them and it was Jon Aguiar (gah spelling) aka “FatalError”, and David Baker (Bakes) who happens to be a top 5 stack from Day 1A.

KingDan comes over to join the conversation, and Bakes starts talking about how he’s going to win PCA so in anticipation he’s going to lose all the money on him (lol stndrd.) He goes and sits at what I think is a 25/50 NL game and I’m sure he dominated it.

Meanwhile, I go and walk around the poker room some more, see who I know etc. Within a couple minutes of walking around I spot Scott (SCTrojans) and he has a decent stack. I go and watch him for a while. He even goes out of his way to walk away from the table and talk to me etc, he’s a pretty genuine guy. Props to him for that. I check up on him throughout the day/night and he ends the day with close to 80k I believe.

KingDan is still talking to FatalError and a couple other people, and then we realize that his legs are just absolutely caked in sand. What’s funny is he had no idea.

Around 7ish Dan and I go to the coral lobby and meet up with Steve (zugwat), luckychewy, and a couple other of zugwat’s friends. Dan convinces everyone to wait for him while he goes and showers and changes so we can go to dinner. While waiting for him Zugwat decides to gambooool (why not?). We all follow him to the craps table where he proceeds to lose $3k in a matter of 10 mins. The idea was that the $3k would last us half an hour, but I guess that didn’t work lol.

We go and chill outside the Bahamian Grill, which was a pretty sick restaurant, while waiting for Dan. Everyone eventually shows up and we go to dinner. Dinner was a shitload of fun, we got some sick wine and I ended up getting a very nice Grouper fillet. Throughout the dinner the main topic was me keeping kosher, because oddly enough, with 8 people at the table, all of us were Jewish. There was only one other somewhat observant guy there and props to him for that. At the end of the dinner after sharing a shitload of stories of fun nights and just having a blast, I hear the zugwat theorem on credit card roulette. “If there are more than 7 people eating out, it is impossible to lose.” – Clearly, CLEARLY, that theorem is infallible.
So I decide, do I want to pay the $100 to buy out (that’s approx how much my dinner cost), or do I want to put the zugwat theorem to the test and see if I can dodge it? I decided to gambol (thanks for Dan, he convinced me) and I was the first one to be picked in credit card roulette; Ship the $900 fade hollaa.

After dinner we decide to check out the poker room and see who of our buddies is still in. Only a couple people, but the idea was to go to a bar after dinner and party it up, but once you get poker players in a poker room you obviously can’t get them out. 30 mins later, zugwat and friends come over and say they’re going to the bar, while I kindly decline and so does Dan.

While in the poker room we run into Max, “inyaface”. He’s a high stakes cash player, and a really nice guy. Dan, Max, and I are sipping on some mix drinks when we decide that we’re so much better than everyone else at poker that we should play a drunk sit and go. It would be fun, and it’s only $100, and in reality, I am +EV in it. We go to sign up on the sit and go list, it’s like 200 names until us. Ouch.

We go up to Max’s friends room and start to play Chinese/drink/share more stories. After 30 mins or so we decide to go back to the poker room and play some drunk $1/2NL ($400 max buy in, $100 min). I split half my action with Max and Dan because 1) I’m drunk, 2) I’m not a cash player; however if I was sober I would certainly be +EV against these people. Max and Dan end up doing $100 side bets and open shipping $200 here, $200 there lol. It certainly made for a crazy game. I owned a couple souls, including snapping Max’s $200 shove with KJo. He had AQ, I nailed the gutshot on the river; ship it crucial! Max, Dan, Max’s friend Tommy (who I eventually started calling TomTom for some reason) and I dominated the $1/2 game. There were a couple people who were so frustrated with us that Max bought a round of drinks for the table lol. One English guy lost close to $500 calling Dan’s shoves, but Dan always got there. One time Dan open shipped Q6o and got snapped by J9s, obv Q6o held against the English guy. It pissed him off quite a bit.

There was a young kid to our right who was a solid nit, and who couldn’t adjust to all 3 of us to his left. He eventually shipped in his last $20 and Max busted him. While scooping up the pot Max says, “If I see you anymore on this trip I’ll buy you a drink sir.” The kid replies that he doesn’t have to, and that it was a pleasure playing with all 3 of us. He then goes on to say that he wishes he were as good as us because it is quite clear to him that the 3 of us were the best players at the table. He was a nice guy.

Around 1:30 I decide to call it quits, I’m playing the $2k today and even though I know I’d get enough sleep, I wanted to be sure I was completely rested etc. Walking out I saw Shaun leaving with his father, and I caught up to them but didn’t want to interrupt their convo. Shaun insta goes, “Nate what the hell? You catch up to us and don’t even say hello?” I guess I should have said hi haha.

I’m feeling very confident with my poker game, and last night showed me that I can be comfortable with my live game as well. I correctly folded top pair twice (ow ow!) and put TomTom on 2 exact cards (ballaaa). I wouldn’t be surprised however if I’m back here posting how I busted before 3 o clock or something ;)

Ok guys, time to work out, shower, and eat breakfast.. GL, stay classy etc

Nathan

Trip Report; Part II

2009-01-06T12:10:00.003-06:00

After only getting 4 hours of sleep on Sunday night, Geoff and I decided that it was going to be a good day to grind. We thought that the 1 o clocks would be good to start with, and then if we felt up to it we’d play the nightlys. Getting down to the lobby at 12:50ish, didn’t leave us much time to order food, so we ended up both getting sandwiches from the bar in the Coral Lobby, which of course, racked up to be $18 a piece. Whatever… It wasn’t horrible. While we’re grinding, about 45 minutes into the session JP OSU comes and sits down with us, and we all just start talking poker and having fun. 30 minutes after we sit down we’re doing 3 way Chinese for 5 a point lol.

Who else would be a magnet for Chinese but Allen Kessler, the CHAIN-SAW!! Comes over in his awkward fashion and asks what we’re playing per point and out of nowhere, “Can I play!?!?”. Obviously none of us can refuse the chainsaw. 4 way Chinese has some sick variance obv and chainsaw loses 18 points in one hand lol. He runs so good obv he ended being up 14 points for the session and me owing him $70. Oh well, he ran sick hot haha.

JP OSU gets fed up with chainsaw and eventually makes up a stupid get away like, “I have dinner reservations at 6 o’ clock.” haha. With that the game breaks and chainsaw picks up and walks away. While Geoff and I are still grinding from our 1 o’ clock session, JP comes back shortly after just to tell us that he wanted to get away from Kessler and didn’t actually have dinner plans – solid play JP, solid play.

Meanwhile the big nightlys are starting such as the 100 FO, 100r, $75 on Tilt etc. We send Geoff to Johnny Rocket’s where I get a tuna melt and that costs each of us close to $20 again. This place is fucking expensive, but whatever I expected it.
People are starting to bust the ME, and more people are coming in from the pool, so slowly but surely we amass a crowd around us. JP knows some people, Geoff knows some people, everyone we met in the previous day, and most of them stop by and say hi.

Geoff and I are doing pretty well in our tournaments when KingDan gets RonaldKosh to come over and sit at our table, he’s a really chill guy and he FT’d PCA last year. With him came his friend Victor (who doesn’t play online poker, but final tabled the 20r right next to us lolol), his good buddy Jason Mercier (yes the one with $3mil+ in winnings) and Jason’s girlfriend. Geoff and I clearly don’t know them, but they’re already sipping on some sick wine and can’t be bothered to introduce themselves. Throughout the night as Jason gets more and more drunk, he becomes more and more friendly and funny. His level of sarcasm increased 10x while intoxicated, it was easily one of the funniest nights I’ve had.

At one point through the night Jason and Ronald are talking about how sick Ronald is, and eventually I introduce myself to Jason. He gives me his online name (which obv he doesn’t play on anymore…and makes me figure out who he is lol).

At the first break in the 100r Geoff and Ronald are talking mad shit to each other just for fun, and Ronald comes up with $100 last longer, cash only. Geoff insta accepts because it’s Geoff. At the time Geoff had 12k and Ronald had 10k, which I believe were top 20 stacks at the time. Throughout the night the shit talking continues, and we eventually amass a crowd with the likes of Shaundeeb, KingDan, SCTrojans, RandALLin, Tufat, and others.

Close to 10 o clock Ronald and Geoff get moved to the same table, and someone points out that they could clearly use live reads, and are clowns for not doing so. It was particularly funny because on our table it was Geoff on one side, me in the middle, and Ronald on the other, and in the middle of the table behind each of our laptops were the 3 bottles of wine that Jason his girlfriend and Victor all killed.

At this point I’m doing well in a couple things but eventually flare out of most of my tournaments, and Geoff and Ronald both FT the 100r. Shaundeeb makes a sweat on 2p2, and then the heat is on imo. Shortly after the FT happens a dude comes over from the other side of the lobby and goes, “Oh wow, you guys are both in the 100r? I just busted that on the FT bubble!”

Lol, why wouldn’t 3 guys at PCA all go deep in a 100r in the same room? It ends up being a pretty sick sweat, Geoff and Ronald are both crushing and playing sick good, and are 1/3 and 2/3, with a clown random fish being the 3rd place. Obviously Geoff loses 4 all-ins to Ronald, and Geoff takes 3rd, two hands later it’s just about over when Ronald’s middle pair and flush draw can’t hit against clown’s bottom set.

During this sick sweat I final table and win the $55 6max, which was a pretty good feeling because quite often Shaun would check my table and comment on hands I was playing. My win and Geoff’s 3rd place finish up close to a 14 hour session in the Coral Lobby.

Today’s Tuesday, majority of people I know are playing the 10k today, so I’m really not sure what I’m going to be doing. I imagine I’ll head out to the pool, work out, just lounge around and take it easy. I might even go to the PokerStars VIP room and check that out, I haven’t been yet but I heard it’s pretty sick.

Alright until next time fellas,
Nathan

Trip Report Part I

2009-01-05T10:57:00.003-06:00

At around 10 PM on Jan 3rd, I really started to get excited. So excited I barely slept. It was one of those excitements where you're not sure what's going to happen next, but you KNOW that nothing bad could come of it. That feeling basically kept me from sleeping the majority of the night.

I finally fell asleep around 3ish, and had to wake up at 5:30 AM to make it to an 8:40 flight out of Tampa. Once I'm up I was all packed and ready to go, so all I had to do was get in the car and go. I got in my car and left around 5:45, and I realized I really didn't know how to get to the airport. Typically my parents drive and I just kind of doze off in the passenger seat. It's a pretty straight shot, just drive up I-75 for an hourish and then get on I-275 North. Thank G-d for street signs amirite?

I'm about 30 mins away from the airport at like 6:45 and GeoffRas txts me, "Where are you?" lol, like wtf? I call him back and turns out he's already at the gate like 2 hours early. Geoff would be at the gate 2 hours early. lol

Anyway I get through security plop down next to Geoff in a seat, and we insta start talking past hands, 2p2, and other poker nerd stuff. We looked around and it was a pretty full flight to Fort Lauderdale, but no one looked like a poker player.

We’re waiting to board and we realize that the time is now 8:50, when the plane should have left at 8:45. The flight attendant lady comes on and says that the plane is overbooked, and that in order to not overload the plane or something that they were going to have to start pulling bags. Lol… I sure as hell hope they don’t pull MY bag haha.

Long story short, we took off at like 9:15, and my next flight boarded at 9:50 and left at 10. Well the flight to Lauderdale was supposedly 50 minutes, but at 9:30 the dude comes on and says “We’re beginning out descent into Lauderdale.” Flight ended up being like 23 minutes. Why wouldn’t the airline say its longer than it is, cause then they’re always early amirite?

We get to our gate at our connecting flight with no problem, and there sitting is none other than THE CHAINSAW. Hahahaha Allen Kessler, sigh, what a nit. Shortly before we board the guy next to me calls his buddy and goes “Hawk, where you at?” That got my attention. 5 minutes later Hawk Sno0owman walks over and I instantly say what’s up to him and it takes him a second to recognize me. We went to high school together, and we’ve kept in touch a couple of times. I went golfing with him and his dad the first weekend in December. So he said hey and then Geoff and I go back to talking.

Our flight was absolutely packed with poker players, Gavin Smith was on there, and he just kept ripping on the chainsaw. Chainsaw was talking forever to the people around him and it got to be so annoying and tilting.

We arrive in Nassau, don’t see anyone, make it through customs and Geoff goes, “Dude let’s not wait for anyone, let’s get out of here.” So we leave, and he insists we take a limo cause it’s the same price as a cab. Lol, not quite the same imo.

We arrive at Atlantis, and we go to check in, me for a key and him to actually get his room. Turns out, Geoff never changed my name on the guest list, so I’m staying with him, and I checked in for us. Good deal imo.

First thing we do when we get in is try to find wireless, nope. I dunno how a place like this can’t have wireless lol. Anyway, I hook up to the Ethernet cable and accidentally charge the $15 24 hour pass to the room it tilts Geoff almost instantly lol

We get online, and Geoff insta- IM’s shaundeeb, and tells him to come grind in our room. He obv says no and asks if Geoff or Adam is playing, and they both say no and shaun proceeds to tell them both that they’re the worst horses ever lol.

After food we go down to the coral lobby which is like a 10 minute walk..disgusting imo and Geoff introduces me to almost everyone he knows, and it was a good time. Geoff went back up to the room to sleep, and took MY key because he didn’t bring his. Ok, whatever, I don’t have a key, I’ll just knock when I get up there. Nope.

He locks the door and passes out, and requires me to walk ALL the way back to the lobby to get a new one. Eff u Geoffras. Lol.

So I get back and aspoker8 asks me if I would like to join them for dinner at the Mesa Grill. I say sure, and we head over there. I meet charder30, jordankickz, luckychewy, Adam Junglen, ActionJeff, Mr. Big Queso, SCTrojans, and Oldschool43. They were all very nice people, and extremely chill about everything in general.

Charder ended up picking up the $950 bill due to credit card roulette lol, I bought out for $40 and just enjoyed watching everyone play for an almost $1k bill.

After dinner we all ended up going back to Charder’s room in the cove, it was so dirty.

After Charer’s room we ended up splitting up for a bit, and I ended up hanging with luckychewy and aspoker8. We had to go to aspoker8s room because he needed his wrist band to get in and chewy and I already had ours. So on our way up we just start talking about how 3 years ago chewy was exactly like me, loved playing, enjoyed Sundays, PCA was his first live event and he wishes he did what I’m doing coming down and playing the prelims even though I don’t have enough $ for the ME.

We all 3 walk together to the party and they’re not the best with directions so they go one way and I’m always like "hey fellas, this way." They ended up almost walking through a wedding or something and they’re like isn’t this the stars party? The ushers had to point us in the right direction because outside Atlantis at night is just a giant maze.

We finally find the party and there are hundreds of people there. The party is outside by the pool and waterslides. We walk around for like 5 minutes and don’t see anyone any of us know, so finally I’m just like "where are the drinks?" and chewy goes "good idea" so we get in line and eventually everyone we know comes to our bar line to get drinks as well. Me not knowing anyone but chewy, aspoker8 and the dinner crew, I wasn’t really sure what to do because all these people out of nowhere show up.

So I get introduced to a few people that I’m not really sure about but who cares, it’s a party! I’m getting a bit tipsy from like 5 or 6 mixed drinks and some kid walks up to KingDan and gives him a massive hug.

He then comes up to me like, “Hey! Sup man? Who are you?”

I respond with my typical, “Hi, I’m Nate, Psycosniper on 2p2.”

He goes, “No fucking way man!?”

I’m like, “uh...wat?”

He goes, “I’m djk123 dog! We both started at poker-strategy.org dude!”

I’m like, “Yaya we've talked on AIM a bit too!”

Out of nowhere he says, "I can’t believe its fucking you man! How the fuck are you? Doesn't that bobby guy on psorg tilt the fuck out of you?"

Haha, he’s definitely a cool kid. I hang out with him and Queso a bit and then DJK spills his drinks on some girl and BadgerPro, Jurollo, and MsuCouger come out of nowhere laughing their asses off. I meet them, and it turns out the girl is a writer for PokerPro magazine and knows DJK well.

Badgerpro is pretty drunk yelling and shit and he goes "PSYCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" at this point I’m still laughing from DJK dropping his drink so not really paying attention to BadgerPro, and then he goes up to Jurollo swat team style acting out holding a gun
and "shoots Jurollo" after that he then yells "SNIPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" It was A+.

I leave BadgerPro and Jurollo and walk around with Queso and DJK. We see Bill Chen and we go up to him; Queso and Chen are both hella wasted and apparently shared hugs a couple time last year at PCA. Queso starts talking about a possible internship at Chen’s firm lolol.

Chen goes, “Oh ya dude you’re good at poker! We love poker players at the firm! Send us your resume but put on it you’re Mr BigQueso! Chen introduces us 3 to Victor Ramdhin and of course, who else, but Hevad “Rainkhan” Khan. All 3 of us have played with him so he knows of us. I continue following djk123 and Queso around a bit more and i meet kingdan, holdplz, stevie444 and one other guy who looks hella familiar but isn’t drinking much and just chillin. I introduce myself to him

he goes, “Hey I’m Craig”,

and of course I was like, “Oh cool man I’m Nate; Psycosniper on 2p2”

and he goes, “Oh ya man you always post in MTTc I don’t get around to it much, yaya, cool cool.

So I reply, “What’s your online name?”

"craigmarq" he says.

Lol, why wouldn’t Craig Marquis be hanging out by the pool at PCA? So it’s the 5 of us just chillin by the pool and out of nowhere someone goes "so..has anyone seen any hot girls without a boyfriend yet?"

and KingDan goes "GREAT IDEA, THERES A GROUP OVER THERE BUT IM TOO DRUNK TO SEE IF THEYRE GOOD LOOKING OR NOT"

so he sets up a plan of attack to walk around the pool; split up and then meet at the other side in front of the girls. Craig and I go one way; Dan, Stevie and DJK go another. As soon as we meet up at the other side like 10 feet away from the girls, all 4 of them look at us, and INSTA stand up and walk away together. The others were too drunk to notice but Craig and I started laughing so hard we almost cried.

Some bohemian waitress came over and was like "I’m sorry fellas, but that was some funny shit"

Out of nowhere I was like, “You know, I bet those girls wouldn’t do that if they knew Craig was a millionaire.”

and then the waitress goes "nooooo sonnn?"

Craig acts like he’s taking out his checkbook, "How many millions should i write you dear?"

It was so funny. Anyway, Dan and them kind of ran off and I hung back with Craig a bit and we just talked about the grind and etc apparently he was a MSNL player, took a few shots at 200/400 PLO and then binked 1 mil in the ME. Next thing you know, here he is; all rolled for live 10ks lol.

A bit later in the night Queso comes back drunk and Holdplz shows up again after grinding Sundays. We talk about how Sundays went, and apparently he lost a massive flip for chip lead in the 2nd chance with like 45 left.

At the party he lost his glasses and Queso is wearing them, and then he starts freaking out because they aren’t his glasses, he just uses them. Close to 30 minutes later Queso comes back and holdplz gets them and he goes "Thank G-d" and I’m like "SHIP IT CRUCIAL" and he just dies laughing. He asks for my number to see what I’m doing later because apparently people want to be around me now? Haha

That was almost the end of the night; shortly after this they run out of alcohol.

I see 2 people on the other side of the party and DJK comes back and goes "is that JPOSU?" and of course it is.

We go over and I introduce myself and he goes "PSYCOSNIPER? YOURE MY FAN BOY!"
and i laugh and go, “Yup that’s me.” and he goes, “YOU MAKE MY DAY MAN EVERYTIME YOU POST IN MY SWEAT THREADS!” Haha.

That was really the end of the night for me, I came back and tried to sleep, but Geoff and I ordered room service but I fell asleep before it came. He woke me up so I ate, and then didn’t fall back asleep until like 4 AM. Of course we can’t sleep so Geoff buys a movie off TV and we just started talking random hands and ranges until eventually I fall asleep. Now, here I am writing this trip report. I will edit pictures into this sometime later in the day.

Cliff notes:
Met a shitton of new people and my favorite people are easily Luckychewy, djk123, Craig Marquis, JP OSU, Tufat, Shaundeeb, MrBigQueso, KingDan, and Charder30. No particular order obviously.

Greetings from Bahamas

2009-01-04T16:37:00.001-06:00

I'm here, rooming with the one and only Geoffras22. Met a shitload of people today, going out to dinner soon with a bunch more people, I'm going to try and give a detailed trip report of every day with pics, but this post was designed more just to tell people I made it safely.

GL

Nathan

PCA..

2009-01-03T20:32:00.002-06:00

So, I leave for PCA tomorrow morning at 6 AM.

Looks like I'll be on the same flight as GeoffRas22, and I imagine quite a few other poker players.. I've already made arrangements to split a cab with Jurollo and Clayton from the airport to Atlantis.. I'm assuming that Geoff wouldn't mind splitting the cab as well. I'm going to be staying in the Royal Towers, which is the nicer of the two between Royal and Coral. I'm getting hella excited, but I'm dreading the hour and a half drive tomorrow to Tampa at 6 AM.

I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked if I was going to play high stakes chinese poker on the plane, I laughed, and I realized I have no idea how to play chinese. I think I'll learn sometime on this trip. Another thing I'm looking forward to is how crazy these trips get, I've heard some sick stories. I kinda wanna see if I can make it a profitable trip just on prop bets or something along those lines. I'm taking $2kish for spending money, so I hope that will be enough (I think it will be plenty lol).

Alright fellas, I'll prob give an update from the Bahamas, I'm getting in at 11:40 AM, just in time for the big Sunday tournaments haha (lol @ grinding while in the Bahamas...)

GL @ the tables,

Nathan

Greetings from Boston

2008-12-30T09:28:00.002-06:00

So, I flew to Boston yesterday. It wasn't a direct flight, so I flew from Sarasota to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to Boston. Overall trip took close to 7 hours. I left my house around 9 and arrived at 4.

Quick recap of Sunday: Easily the biggest Sunday of '08. The Warm up had a $1mil guarantee, and the Million had a $2.5mil guarantee. So sick. Not including the extra holiday 100k on tilt (2k ftp points) and the Turbo Takedown (5k FPPS).

Over all, boring Sunday, went deep in a few tournaments including the $55 Daily 80k (which had $33k for first place) and a $75 on tilt.

I also went deep in the Turbo Takedown on stars, I ended getting 23rd for $2k...Was disappointing as that's just another deep run on a Sunday where I win a couple more crucial hands or run hot at the right time and ship the $100k.

Also, my backer and I discussed that because it was all FPPs I had all of my own action. Me being short on cash as of late and going to PCA decided it was a good idea to go deep in it ;)

So I figure $2k should be good enough to have a good time at PCA...although you never really know about things down there.

Well, that's really all thats going on, I'm probably not going to be playing much poker this week because I'm in Boston for New Years, and I go back home on Friday. Then on Sunday I turn around and fly to the Bahamas, but I imagine I'll be doing non-stop poker down there. Yaya I know it's the "bahamas"! But whatever, beach, beauty, etc.. I live in paradise anyway :-D

Till next time.

Nathan

Sorry for the lack of updates!

2008-12-27T14:19:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I wish I could say it's been hectic, but it hasn't hah..I've just been lazy.

So, GeoffRas ended up coming down for that home game ($50r) which was a lot of fun, meeting him and talking the little poker we did was enlightening. Geoff ended up busting first in the homegame and I finished 6th or so while only 3 paid.

There was a hand very early in the home game, blinds 25/50 4.9k starting stacks (lol homegame) guy limps in EP i raise to 200 over him and geoff reraises from the SB to 900. I had QQ and flatted in position, flop came Q48 or somethign of the sort, geoff insta bets out 1.4k and me being the live fish that i am call (leaving myself like 1.6k behind) instead of just sticking it in. Obv geoff shuts down and folds river to my shove, he claims to had AA. I'm such a fish, not stacking him there.

Anyway, the next day Geoff left in the morning and wanted to get back to his house so he could grind nightlys. I ended up having a brutal session i got:

15th in the 120 KO
24th in the $50 50k
15th in the $75 40k
15th in the stuper ($150+12)
and 10th in the big double A ($60+15)

Not to mention Geoff also went deep in the stuper, and he was at my table with 18 left until I busted hah. The rail was a lot of fun seeing some recognizable players cheering us on.

I haven't played much since then, played a bit on thursday and didn't cash anything. On Friday afternoon my Dad was playing $1 sng's and I made a bet with him that if I played 6 1/45s and won one he would have to learn how to play the right way instead of folding down to 3 BBs and pushing haha..On my last 1/45 I made the final table and of course "areaman" on 2p2 made a joke sweat thread for me and the rail on that was hilarious..I ended up losing 66 < 99 bvb and then got short and had to shove; I didn't win, so my Dad continues to play the way he wants to haha

Tomorrow is the big "world record" tournament or something haha, theres also the turbo takedown, and the holiday 100k on ftp..so we'll see how things go tomorrow..until next time y'alllll glgl

Nathan

Well..It's Monday

2008-12-22T11:40:00.003-06:00

Monday = after Sunday...so, I survived :)

Sunday Recap - I was -$142.65 so that's certainly not bad..I built up a stack in the warm-up only to get 2 outted in a 60k pot or whatever, no big deal lol went deep again in the Sunday Brawl on FTP ($240+15), finished 19th for like $1,260 or something..I also had 5 knock outs, and at $40 a piece I was almost freerolling the brawl...

Other tournaments, I got 29th in a $26 freezeout on tilt, and went deep in a $26 KO tournament on tilt..oh well, got short in both and shoved into the blinds and eventually lost a 60/40.

Also went deep in the mini-fuper ($150+13 50k gtd) on tilt finished I think 39th in that or so for $440..

I just kept going deep in tournaments but not deep enough. Ontop of all those cashes, I went deep in my largest field ever, the Sunday Double Deuce ($20+2) on Tilt, there were over 8,600 runners and I finished 50th or so when RaineTech knocked me out, AJ < A7..I had the overs and a flush draw, ofc he hits an off suit 7 ;) oh well, he played well and it was my last tournament of the day.

So, I survived another Sunday without losing too much...next Sunday is really my last sunday for a while to my knowledge..I'm going to Boston to see a good friend for New Years, and then two days later I'm flying to PCA. I think I'm flying to PCA on a Sunday, and returning on a Sunday as well...Oh well.

GeoffRas22 may come down so we can hit up a live home game tonight, if he doesn't I'll probably just play online. I don't really know the guys at the home game too well, so to go and not talk for 4 hours won't be very entertaining.

Shoutout to a buddy of mine who shipped the $3r last night for $7.2k, sick score. His previous biggest score was $800 which he set earlier in the night, and before that I believe it was $300 haha...sick life imo...If he keeps working I really think he could move up levels pretty quickly..he works hard, knows the fundamentals of the game, and is smart. That's really all you need to be good at poker. Also, because of last night he now has the proper bankroll to play all the micro games ;) Good job kid.

That's all I got for an update..until next time obv..

Nathan

Kinda a year in review post

2008-12-19T10:38:00.005-06:00

Well, I don't really have anything to update; although I never really do. I just kind of start typing and eventually you have a blog entry haha

I've played every day this week, nothing of real note except two nights ago I went deep in close to 5 tournaments, topping it off with a 28th in the Fuper ($150+13). I'm over it now, but in the course of 5 minutes I lost JJ < AJ, TT < AT, and QQ < K5. The last one was the only one against a shorty, so if I win either of the first two I have a decent stack going into the last three tables.

It was funny, the next morning I spoke with my backer and told him I went deep in the fuper again and he joked that the only tournaments I should play would be the stuper and the fuper haha I thought that was pretty funny considering in reality I've gone deep in one of the two it seems like every other night.

As winter break goes on, I'm still awaiting the arrival of my grades. The majority of my friends got theirs back, but we all know Florida schools aren't THAT hard ;) I basically know what I got already, but it'd be nice to see it in writing. It's amazing for me to think that I'm already a semester through college, when it seems like I started high school just last year. It's also amazing to me to think that I've been playing this game (poker obv) for 2 years now; wow. I feel no different, but I know my game has improved tremendously. Especially in the last year alone.

I was talking to a buddy of mine about a joke of an idea called "MTTc Superlatives" - which basically talks about a subforum that we both post on quite regularly, with things like "most improved for 2008". He argues that it would be him, when I could make a very strong case for me. In January of '08 I was still playing $3/45 mans. To think now, I'm playing tournaments up to $1k online and maybe even more live is just mind-boggling to me.

I guess this is going to turn into a year in review kinda post haha...I remember playing 3/45s on a stake from Ontario_Tory in January, learning "true push/fold", moving up to the 6/45s on my own $, and then going deep in my first tournament. I got 5th in the $10 20k (which is now 30k) nightly tournament at 7 PM EST. It paid 1,600 which at the time was my biggest cash. Add that on to the roll I had at the time, it was around $2,200. That was enough to start grinding 12/180s. Jeez, I played 12/180s truly up until I got backed in November. Obviously I had a ton of learning to do moving up to the $12 games. I spoke with a close buddy of mine who at the time was grinding the same games (even though he could have been playing any game he wanted to) Mortal Limit (Nate. on 2p2) helped me through all different kind of situations. Whether it be teaching me proper push/fold, or just different concepts that I had never heard of before.

Recently, Geoffras22 has been fixing a lot of leaks with my MTT game, and I consider him to be one of the most solid fundamental MTT players online. I'd go as far as saying he's better than 75% of the top 100 on pocketfives. Obviously, he's a true grinder; cause he run's like shit. Oh well, just watch for him in 2009. I'm calling it, he's going to break out and be one of the best. Then again, wartch out for me too! 2008 has been a great year for me poker wise, I can only hope I make as many advances next year as I did this year.

EDIT: I realized I didn't even mention my goals for 2008! My goals for 2008 if I recall them correctly were something like profit $15k, final table 20 tournaments, and win like 5 or something.. Well, I profited $15k, and ended up withdrawing all of it throughout the course of the year (because of my backing situation), I believe I final tabled close to 20 tournaments, so overall; A success IMO.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make my goals for 2009. If poker stays legal, and online works out for everything, I want to be top 100 on P5's, I want to profit at least $50k from tournaments online. At the moment that's all I got, doesn't sound too hard does it? :-D

GL @ the tables all,

Nathan

So I said I was excited for Sunday

2008-12-16T17:36:00.003-06:00

Haha, I said in my previous post that I was excited for Sunday, something felt right and I ended up final tabling the $75 40k on FTP. First was $16k, however I unfortunately ended up folding every hand from 18 people down and getting 8th. I folded to 3 BBs lol

Anyway that was good for $1,600..so meh kinda saved my sunday. I also went deep in the Warm up, and 2nd chance..Ended up getting I think 36th in the 2nd chance..Oh well..plenty more sundays to play IMO.

That's all really lol just got done playing a session all day with a 31st in a $26 ftp tourny...sigh whatever

gl all

Excited for sunday

2008-12-14T11:42:00.003-06:00

Most tournament players dread Sundays. This is because the average pro tournament player loses between 2k-5k every Sunday. It is by far the biggest losing day of the week. However, as cliche as it sounds, fortunes can be made on Sunday's...there are 6 tournaments between only two sites offering 100k+ for first place. That's pretty much life changing money.

I'm excited, I usually am. I'm still a fan boy at heart, and being able to play amongst some of the best (and the worst) on Sunday's really motivates me to in a sense.."prove myself".

Well, short post because tournaments are firing up - I'll update at the end of the day with how I'm life titled etc haha

GL @ the tables all.

Nathan

My attempt at a strategy post..

2008-12-11T18:28:00.001-06:00

Forwarning: This post was my 1,000th post on a very small forum with very low level tournament players. I was asked to make a strategy post on tournaments, and well..here it is; directly copy and pasted from Microsoft Word. It's very long, and I don't expect anyone to read it. Haha GL @ the tables everyone.

So, for my 1000th post I made a thread asking you guys what you wanted me to write about. I got some good ideas and suggestions, so I’m going to try and touch on many different aspects of tournament poker. This post is going to be very long and winded because I am sitting on an airplane writing this.

One idea that I believe TRS brought up was how to go from the middle stages of the tournament, to the deeper stages of the tournament. The always confusing stack size of 25-30BB’s right before the money or right in the money where one can stay quiet, but not too quiet.

In a nutshell, they key to staying alive is just sheer aggression. Not only raising PF and stealing blinds, but cbetting flops, 3bet resteals, 4bet shoves, (if you must do it light every now and then to keep someone honest, you must do it light.) and also – my favorite – unexploitable shoves.

The word “unexploitable” in tournament poker basically means that the hand that you are playing is mathematically impeccable. For example, I have QT in the SB at 150/300 with 25 ante or whatever. I shove 8k into a 6k stack. No matter what he calls with, I will always pick up chips in the long run. I’m not going to go into the math with this, but essentially, the amount of time he folds, and the amount of time I get called and win = a positive gain in chips. AKA that move is +cEV. Try not to put too much concern into your “tournament life” because to be very frank, it means very little; if anything at all. There’s always another tournament.

A lot of people recently have been using the term “unexploitable” very loosely and IMO too loosely. People have come to think it means simply a +cEV move and that is simply not the case. An “unexploitable” shove is a shove that no matter what picks up chips.

Here is an example of an unexploitable shove. For those wondering, yes I shove JJ+ and AK here as well to balance my range. If you notice, both the SB and the BB have me covered, I have no fear of busting out of this tournament because I know it is a +cEV play, and in the long run I will pick up chips here. It’s the same idea that if we were to do 66 v AK an infinite number of times 66 will come out ahead; and of course, I would take 66 v AK every time, because I am not willing to pass up on a 54/46 advantage. Unless I feel like my edge on the field is so great I can pass it up – and online it’s very rare that we are deep enough (BB wise) that we will be able to use our skill to that effect.

Full Tilt Poker Game #9433656272: The Fifty-Fifty (69928208), Table 92 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:10:15 ET - 2008/12/11
Seat 1: triple_t09 (9,810)
Seat 2: FTP6 (12,904)
Seat 3: chrispallin (5,910)
Seat 4: smoothustler (12,783)
Seat 5: PsYcOsNiP3R (6,095)
Seat 6: kryber (9,010)
Seat 7: Jade n Gabs (5,933)
Seat 8: Only_the_nutz (8,396)
Seat 9: saladfinger (17,995)
triple_t09 antes 50
FTP6 antes 50
chrispallin antes 50
smoothustler antes 50
PsYcOsNiP3R antes 50
kryber antes 50
Jade n Gabs antes 50
Only_the_nutz antes 50
saladfinger antes 50
kryber posts the small blind of 200
Jade n Gabs posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PsYcOsNiP3R [Ks Qd]
Only_the_nutz folds
saladfinger folds
triple_t09 folds
FTP6 folds
chrispallin folds
smoothustler folds
PsYcOsNiP3R raises to 6,045, and is all in
kryber folds
Jade n Gabs folds
triple_t09 has 15 seconds left to act
triple_t09 folds
Uncalled bet of 5,645 returned to PsYcOsNiP3R
PsYcOsNiP3R mucks
PsYcOsNiP3R wins the pot (1,450)

Here are some situations late in tournaments where IMO I picked up the necessary chips to make it deeper into this tournament.

Full Tilt Poker Game #9434245299: Big Double - B (71906096), Table 1 - 250/500 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:53:51 ET - 2008/12/11
Seat 1: tdrot (1,261)
Seat 2: TYGOP (7,940)
Seat 3: PsYcOsNiP3R (18,492)
Seat 5: Onlycashfor_me (13,687)
Seat 6: lLLPokeHerBrain (19,188)
Seat 7: crewzen (7,433)
Seat 8: The Yid (17,057)
Seat 9: kroete70 (13,759)
tdrot antes 50
TYGOP antes 50
PsYcOsNiP3R antes 50
Onlycashfor_me antes 50
lLLPokeHerBrain antes 50
crewzen antes 50
The Yid antes 50
kroete70 antes 50
lLLPokeHerBrain posts the small blind of 250
crewzen posts the big blind of 500
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PsYcOsNiP3R [Jd Tc]
The Yid folds
kroete70 folds
tdrot folds
TYGOP folds
PsYcOsNiP3R raises to 1,250
Onlycashfor_me has 15 seconds left to act
Onlycashfor_me folds
lLLPokeHerBrain folds
crewzen calls 750
*** FLOP *** [Ah 9c 9s]
crewzen checks
PsYcOsNiP3R bets 2,000
crewzen folds
Uncalled bet of 2,000 returned to PsYcOsNiP3R
PsYcOsNiP3R mucks
PsYcOsNiP3R wins the pot (3,150)

In the hand above it is a very simple thought process. I am in somewhat later position, the CO (cutoff) which is button+1. This is essentially a blatant steal spot. However, in the big blinds position, I feel like anytime he flats out of the big blind he’s doing what’s called “defending his big blind” and calling with a wide range of hands. Unluckily for him, I flop the ace obviously. Just because I don’t have the ace doesn’t mean the ace isn’t a very likely holding for me. Because it is one of the best cards that could come on the flop, I bet my standard cbet and he folds. I pick up a pot of ~3.1k chips at 250/500 which is around 6 big blinds. This hand is a very simple hand in which I increase and stabilize my stack to stay ahead of the blinds.

Here is a hand that is slightly awkward, the original raiser’s stack size is such that any raise SHOULD commit him, therefore he might as well shove – going back to the unexploitable shove discussion. However, he decides to 2.6x the BB from the CO.

Full Tilt Poker Game #9433427062: $28,000 Guarantee (71905855), Table 44 - 150/300 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:54:18 ET - 2008/12/10
Seat 1: dansteele (11,158), is sitting out
Seat 2: Chloe Puppy (15,314)
Seat 3: kram0513 (3,338)
Seat 4: lolumissed (3,951)
Seat 5: takedown (7,739)
Seat 6: quadducks (4,100)
Seat 7: PsYcOsNiP3R (12,235)
Seat 8: lak357 (15,270)
Seat 9: muchodumbo (5,474)
dansteele antes 25
Chloe Puppy antes 25
kram0513 antes 25
lolumissed antes 25
takedown antes 25
quadducks antes 25
PsYcOsNiP3R antes 25
lak357 antes 25
muchodumbo antes 25
dansteele has returned
lak357 posts the small blind of 150
muchodumbo posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PsYcOsNiP3R [Qh Jd]
dansteele folds
Chloe Puppy folds
kram0513 folds
lolumissed folds
takedown folds
quadducks has 15 seconds left to act
quadducks raises to 725
PsYcOsNiP3R raises to 2,350
lak357 folds
muchodumbo folds
quadducks folds
Uncalled bet of 1,625 returned to PsYcOsNiP3R
PsYcOsNiP3R mucks
PsYcOsNiP3R wins the pot (2,125)
*** SUMMARY ***

A typical sufficient 3bet size is ~3x his raise. I decided to make it slightly more in order to get the point across to him that I was committing myself to the hand. In his situation technically speaking he should never be folding, but my past history with him told me he was fairly weak – laggy and this hand represents it. Instead of open shoving, he decided to be *exploitable* meaning that I picked up on his weakness and capitalized on it. For those of you that are wondering how I would fare against his range; I’ll run it in pokerstove.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 41.533% 39.19% 02.35% 178488045 10683748.00 { QhJd }
Hand 1: 58.467% 56.12% 02.35% 255617323 10683748.00 { 66+, A3s+, K7s+, Q8s+, J9s+, T9s, A8o+, K9o+, QTo+, JTo }

So it says that we are a 40/60 against his range, and with the blinds + antes + what I’ve put into the pot, when he shoves it’s an easy call. How do I know those are in his range? Because he is weak-laggy and was going simply for the steal; as a player you should always be able to identify the other players at the table that are aggressive, tight, weak, passive and etc. One of my favorite moves is to raise over limpers in the early levels and cbet the pot to take it down. You can only do this after you identify the weaker and more passive players at the table. Believe it or not, 9 tabling without a HUD and picking up on these patterns is much easier than you would think.

One more key aspect that I feel every tournament player MUST master before he does ANYTHING else, is shoving ranges and calling shoving ranges.

Full Tilt Poker Game #9434197135: Big Double - B (71906096), Table 1 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:50:07 ET - 2008/12/11
Seat 1: iChoke (3,160)
Seat 2: TYGOP (3,820)
Seat 3: PsYcOsNiP3R (15,132)
Seat 4: All In Reed (4,747)
Seat 5: Onlycashfor_me (9,540)
Seat 6: lLLPokeHerBrain (20,388)
Seat 7: crewzen (7,633)
Seat 8: The Yid (20,777)
Seat 9: kroete70 (12,309)
iChoke antes 50
TYGOP antes 50
PsYcOsNiP3R antes 50
All In Reed antes 50
Onlycashfor_me antes 50
lLLPokeHerBrain antes 50
crewzen antes 50
The Yid antes 50
kroete70 antes 50
TYGOP posts the small blind of 200
PsYcOsNiP3R posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PsYcOsNiP3R [Ks 3s]
All In Reed folds
Onlycashfor_me has 15 seconds left to act
Onlycashfor_me folds
lLLPokeHerBrain folds
crewzen folds
The Yid has 15 seconds left to act
The Yid folds
kroete70 folds
iChoke raises to 3,110, and is all in
TYGOP folds
PsYcOsNiP3R calls 2,710
iChoke shows [2h 2d]
PsYcOsNiP3R shows [Ks 3s]
*** FLOP *** [3h 7c Qd]
*** TURN *** [3h 7c Qd] [As]
*** RIVER *** [3h 7c Qd As] [Jc]
iChoke shows a pair of Twos
PsYcOsNiP3R shows a pair of Threes
PsYcOsNiP3R wins the pot (6,870) with a pair of Threes

In this spot, villain has ~8 big blinds and is on the button. It’s folded to him and he needs to pick up chips in order to survive. His range is not ATC (any two cards) however it is extremely wide and I would venture to say his range consists of all but the bottom 10-15% of hands. ATC is overused imo because sometimes people fold the bottom 10% of their range; especially on the button and SB because it has become such an occurrence to steal – In fact I fold the bottom ends of my range bvb because open shoving ATC has become too well known in higher stakes tournaments. Once again; I will use pokerstove to prove that this is a very easy call.

Hand 0: 51.861% 49.68% 02.18% 896628572 39348624.50 { Ks3s }
Hand 1: 48.139% 45.96% 02.18% 829442595 39348624.50 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 82s+, 72s+, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, A2o+, K2o+, Q2o+, J2o+, T3o+, 95o+, 85o+, 74o+, 64o+, 54o }

I gave him a tighter than normal range, top 85% of hands (meaning he folds the bottom 15% of hands) and even still we are AHEAD in this spot. Even if he were to tighten his range to the top 48% of hands we would have to call because of the overlay in the pot! It’s 2.7 to call to win 4.1, that’s in the ballpark of 1.6:1.

Hand 0: 44.834% 42.52% 02.31% 435423792 23658893.00 { Ks3s }
Hand 1: 55.166% 52.86% 02.31% 541216214 23658893.00 { 33+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J4s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, A2o+, K5o+, Q7o+, J8o+, T8o+, 98o }

These should be snap calls all day long, and so many tournament regulars (even those ranked top 100 on pocketfives) just make stupid leaky plays preflop.

I would advise that all of you work on your preflop game, because believe it or not in tournament poker the preflop game is ALL that matters. With 30BBs and under there is no secret to post flop play, because you don’t have enough room to maneuver and outplay people.

Here is a hand that I thought was semi-interesting from the Sunday Mulligan on FTP

Full Tilt Poker Game #9379173331: The Sunday Mulligan (69414943), Table 22 - 120/240 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:27:32 ET - 2008/12/07
Seat 1: bparis (7,410)
Seat 2: AKSharky (1,925)
Seat 3: ksig394 (5,556)
Seat 4: tuna_fish_tank (11,650)
Seat 5: Falfaris (7,723)
Seat 6: PsYcOsNiP3R (3,400)
Seat 7: DennyK (4,570)
Seat 8: kingofthetable9 (12,519)
Seat 9: edg72 (1,116)
bparis antes 25
AKSharky antes 25
ksig394 antes 25
tuna_fish_tank antes 25
Falfaris antes 25
PsYcOsNiP3R antes 25
DennyK antes 25
kingofthetable9 antes 25
edg72 antes 25
Falfaris posts the small blind of 120
PsYcOsNiP3R posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PsYcOsNiP3R [Ac Tc]
DennyK folds
kingofthetable9 folds
edg72 folds
bparis folds
AKSharky raises to 1,900, and is all in
ksig394 folds
tuna_fish_tank folds
Falfaris raises to 3,560
PsYcOsNiP3R calls 3,135, and is all in
Falfaris shows [7d Ah]
PsYcOsNiP3R shows [Ac Tc]
AKSharky shows [9d Th]
Uncalled bet of 185 returned to Falfaris
*** FLOP *** [2d 4h 8c]
*** TURN *** [2d 4h 8c] [3c]
*** RIVER *** [2d 4h 8c 3c] [Td]
Falfaris shows Ace Ten high
PsYcOsNiP3R shows a pair of Tens
PsYcOsNiP3R wins the side pot (2,950) with a pair of Tens
AKSharky shows a pair of Tens
PsYcOsNiP3R wins the main pot (5,925) with a pair of Tens
AKSharky stands up
*** SUMMARY ***

As you can see the original raiser has around 8BBs again, and he’s in the CO shoving – which we know is a very wide shoving position. Being in the Sunday Mulligan one can assume he’s almost competent which means he should be shoving a super wide range here. Now, he doesn’t flat, he iso raises just enough to put me in. I thought this was interesting because if he flats he knows a lot of the times he probably induces a shove from me. This is because AKSharky’s range is so wide, so his calling range should be super wide. Because his calling range is super wide, his isolating range is also that wide. ATs obviously fares very well against a super wide shove and a respectably wide effective reshove. As you can see, putting ranges on people is basically all of poker. It’s nearly impossible to put someone on two exact cards pre-flop.

Ok so that is my post on how to stay alive in tournaments, and I hope that all of you are able to use it to the best of your ability – however I hope that because I’m teaching y’all this you guys don’t invade my games and outplay me :-D

Good luck at the tables everyone.

Nathan

Sunday/Studying/Finals

2008-12-08T11:53:00.002-06:00

Sunday - 0 for however many tournaments I played, I think it was 8ish.

Studying - Studied from like 3 PM to 2AM, got back to my room thinking it was hella late, and my roommate wasn't even there lol he was still studying

Final - Final went well, I think I did ok. First question was lol worthy

"True or False: This sentence is false."

like....wat? hahah

Our professor meant it as a joke question but he said he would give everyone credit no matter what we put, so *fistpump* I got one right!

Last night

2008-12-06T21:39:00.002-06:00

Played with a couple of friends last night; ended up doing o.k.

I went deep in the stuper again..it's quickly becoming one of my favorite tournaments haha I got 24th in it for a solid $600 cash or so.

I also final tabled the $11 cubed for the 2nd time..got 6th after shoving AQ into AA bvb, and then shoved 88 over a limpers AQ and lost the flip..6th was good for $850ish so I had a positive session and all was well.

Played a bit today, had a +$150 session so..yeah slowly but surely making headway I guess haha.

I'm not going to be able to play tomorrow because of finals which kind of sucks, but oh well, always next sunday :)

Can't get much closer..

2008-12-02T01:52:00.005-06:00

I got the exact final table bubble of the Stuper tonight ($150+12). Although it paid $1,625 or so it was still a very emotional ride, and I ended up getting coolered AJ < AQ button v blind. I was 10 of 10, with 14BBs so it was do or die at that point..oh well is all I can say..first was $28,500..would have been nice is all there is to say about that

People have confidence in my game, I have confidence in my game, the problem is I don't have confidence in the cards anymore.

I don't mean to make this an emo post but I've final table bubbled around 8 tournaments these last 5 or 6 weeks, and if I win two, three, or four more hands I'm suddenly a wealthy man living a comfortable life. So it goes with poker I guess.

Tonight was really my only night to play, I have a shit load of work to do, and I don't think I'll be able to put in any volume the rest of the week, or next week for that matter.

This afternoon I went and applied for a passport to go to the Bahamas, for the PCA. I should get it in 3 weeks which is plenty of time before I leave.

I should go to bed, I'm going to need to wake up early and get work done..gnight all gl

Back at home..

2008-11-26T00:50:00.002-06:00

Back at home a little earlier than I expected..played my first session tonight back at home, went somewhat well I guess..cashed 3 or 4 tournaments but couldn't get anything going. Oh well.

It's late, I'm tired, I'm thinking about going to the local cardroom sometime tomorrow just for old times sake, and to dominate low limit cash game noobs obv haha

Till next time, gl @ the tables.

Nathan

Sunday, Sunday, so good to me...

2008-11-23T22:45:00.002-06:00

Well, another Sunday...and another painful session.

Played for about 10 and a half hours today, didn't cash a single tournament. So it goes.

I lost 3 flips and an 80/20 to bust out of one of my first tournaments of the day just outside the money, and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the tournaments.

I thought I was finally going to make a push at a tournament and ended up losing a massive pot (AK v K8 v A3..A3 won obv) at 300/600 in the 20 rebuy on full tilt..was something like a 28k pot, and I had 11k behind. That would have easily put me in dominating position...I apologized to mement for picking such an unlucky horse, he calmly and positively replied, "one day..we'll be rich" - I had to smile at that :)

Oh well, nothing to report here...two days until I head back to Florida for thanksgiving..can't wait to get back home and see all of my friends...it will be a refreshing break from the monotone of school, baseball, and poker. However, once I get back I have a week until finals start...so things will be picking up very quickly. After that it's winter break, and I'm home free with nothing to do but work out and play poker for 6 weeks :)

Alright, gotta get ready for class tomorrow...gl @ the tables all

Nathan

Last couple of days

2008-11-22T14:36:00.003-06:00

It's been a couple of days since my last entry...I didn't play on Wednesday simply because I wanted a night off. I don't play the "super stuper" the weekly Wednesday $320, so I figured with one tournament off my schedule it would be a good day to take off.

Came back and played Thursday, same shit different day etc. I cashed a few tournaments but not nearly enough to have a break-even day, and I lost a monster monster flip QQ v JJ v AK in the fifty-fifty on FTP for the chiplead when we were in the money. So, whatever, one of these days I'm going to win that and go on to win $10k+ so..hopefully sooner than later...

Have a lot of school work to do today so I figured instead of playing my typical Saturday 6 or 7 hour session I would just fire up a few quick turbo sit-n-goe's.. Those were fun, I hadn't played any of those since before I got backed; I forgot how fun and easy they were. I ended up shipping a $27/45 for like $350 I think, then cashed another $27/45, and FTed a 12/180..overall it was a good positive session of $200 in prob an hour and a half or so...always nice to play poker and get like $130/hour :)

Alright, I got finals coming up and thanksgiving break, so I'm not sure how much volume I'll be able to put in this next week, however I know I'll be able to grind Sundays. As much as everyone always says "fuck Sundays" etc I love it. I think it's so cool that I can play in 5 or 6 tournaments every week with $100k+ for first place. It really is mindblowing.

Ok, gotta go work on a few projects and write a couple papers...till next time; gl @ the tables etc

Nathan

I'm getting closer

2008-11-19T00:33:00.000-06:00

Well, tournaments by nature are going to be disappointing. After all, there can only be one winner.

Today I took a couple brutal beats for major stacks in tournaments, but just like a thread in HSMTT reminded everyone; never take a hand off. And I feel like I can say that I didn't take any hands off today. I played as well as I possibly could, and I ended up getting 14th in the fuper, for $788 when first paid $24,000.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.

I think I can finally say to myself that I'm playing where I belong. I've bubbled 5 final tables this month, and I feel like I can really toss that up to variance. When I start to run hot late, watch out imo.

Also, made a run in the stars 20r, but took a beat to bust out of that haha oh well...

It's late, and I'm tired.. I just played what appears to be an 8 and a half hour session only to break even maybe or so lol

Disappointing night..

2008-11-17T22:59:00.000-06:00

I guess it's more disappointing than normal..

I was chipleader very early on in the Fuper ($150+13) on tilt, their nightly tournament. I had 20k chips at 40/80, never got above it.

I lost two flips to bust it, main one being 99 < AK for like 30bbs. I win that I have a very solid stack 20 people from the money; first place was 21k

Then in the stuper ($150+12) on stars, their nightly tournament, I had just won AQ > AJ for 20k chips at 300/600, and then the very next hand raised QQ 2.5x, got 3bet from the button to 4.5k, and shoved my remaining 18k into the pot. Guy tanked and called with AKo, flop came AKx.

I win that pot I'm in 3rd place for chips right outside the money; first was 27k in it.

Oh well. I cashed the $27.50 (40k gtd) and lost a flip TT < QKcc, flop 656c7c5c so he went running cards for a flush on me...oh well would have been nice but whatever.

Today just wasn't my day I guess..someday soon though, someday soon.

I feel like I'm playing well, and although I don't have the results to back it up at the moment I really think that I'm going to break through soon. I can only hope it's before the end of the year; that way I can go to the P.C.A feeling good ;)

Alright, gotta run...till next time obv

Nathan

Edit: Also, did my first CiB today (imo atleast, not in Geoff's) and also did a pretty sick (imo atleast) 4bet shove for 50bbs with QKo...obviously got called by ATo but when I start making plays "standard" for high-stakes players it's really cool; because I get it now lol

Been a long time lol

2008-11-16T20:40:00.000-06:00

So, it's been over a year and a half.

My how times change.

Quick update, I am now backed for online MTTs. I am playing tournaments $250 and under.

As of late, because of FTOPs I have been playing tournaments $1,000 and under in buy in.

To think just last year I was playing $3/45s.

Also, I'm going to PCA in January, and going to room with a few buddies of mine. Another friend of mine told me that I should write a trip report when I go. I had a great idea to write down the days events here! It brought me back to this, and I reread all my posts. Pure gold imo.

So - there's the plan, I'm probably going to update this just for kicks, and I'll keep a trip report of the 8 days that I'm in the bahamas.

Also - eff Sundays, dropped around ~$2.4k in buy-ins. Until next time..

Nathan

Wow...what a great month so far

2007-03-13T14:49:00.000-05:00

Well...been a while...about 2 weeks i beileve...

From that $220 i was up and down up and down...then i won a $5 45 man that put me at around $250 or so...

Well...i sort of went on a dramatic downswing from there...playing bad hands playing too loose too aggresively and my roll was suddenly at around $195 or something like that...well..i decided to go out on a limb and play a double shootout to the sunday million because i felt my STT game was good enough. Turns out it was. I won the seat for $215 T$ and then sold that $215 for $210 W$ which is a pretty good exchange rate. That alone put my roll at about $395 or something like that...i lost a buy in somewhere along there but it was pretty damn high...well...i slowly declined and had like a -$70 day...then it got worse...and i was suddenly at $295...

so one last tournement of the night i told myself...just one more and i was giong to focus all my efforts into it...It was a $4.40 180 man...one of my favorite tournements. I would say until about 30 people left i had a below average stack...i dont believe i ever got above 6k or 7k until right before the bubble (25 or so people left) then all of a sudden the deck hit me in the face and i just got cards after cards and my tight image REALLY paid off. We came into the money and i was suddenly 2nd in chips with 43k...then i asked a buddy of mine to "rail" me to the final table and watch me take it down. Well luckily for me...he asked what hands i had and i would tell him and he would walk me through most of my hands...I had been in those situations before, but never with such a big stack...so it was a new experience for me.

Well, about 35 minutes after the bubble burst, the final table began. I came into that 2nd with a small defecit of about 1k chips behind the leader. Basically one steal of the blinds would have made me the chip leader. Anyways, i played tight tight tight tigh tight at the final table. When the FT started i had about 55 big blinds...thats an amazing stack for a final table. Therefore i could "afford" to fold hands such as ATo and live to see more cards. Infact it DID pay off, i occasionally stole and when i did no one dared called because i had only played 3 or 4 hands previous. Then i started to get more active when it became 4 handed and we are pretty heavy into the money. I began to steal more, and i regained my stack that i once had. I would say i was at about 30 BB when it got down to 3 players...still a pretty solid stack for a final table. I had about 70k then chip leader had ~109k and 3rd place had something like 65k...well the CL wasnt playing as tight and i had a hand when i needed it...i got it all in on a 264 flop when i had TT and he had 77...he went all in and it was the perfect move that i could want. I called and won the race and that put me at an easy 2:1 on the last 2 people. I was at ~180k when the ex-chip leader busted and left 2nd with ~90k in chips. Thanks to my friend i was able to trap him with Q2o (bad hand right?) well my opponent had AA and they were simply no match for my Q2. What happened was he had folded 9 hands straight giving me the blinds and lowering his stack. He raised a standard 3x the BB and this is an insta-tell that when he folds 9 hands in a row he has a hand that he likes...well..i called since i had such a lead over him..flop comes 692 and he bets 2x the BB and i call...turn....Q....i check since i was OOP and he pushes all in! oh man i insta called with a huge smile on my face and i only got more excited when the river fell and it was a J :) so i took down a $4.40 180 man for $216

and that put my roll at $500.61

i felt that my friend deserved a reward for his efforts and his helping me during this tournement so i gladly shipped him ~10% of my winnings which equaled out to $21...well...after that i was left with $479 and i lost 3 buy ins for $6.50 sng's and my roll is currently sitting healthy at $460...

only problem is im not supposed to play anymore due to my grades...i ended up getting 1 "A" and 3 "B"s...i guess not bad considering 3 college classes and an honors class..but still not good enough for anybody in my family...thus i (and my parents) decided that i was not goign to play on the weekdays and only on the weekends...it enables more time for homework and baseball and i am not nearly as distracted as i would normally be...

Oh well...summer is only 9 weeks away :)

Roll: $460....
Total Profit: $460 :)
ROI for March alone: 236%
Total Profit for March: $316

Till next time..
Nathan

yay first real milestone

2007-03-01T21:20:00.000-06:00

well took down a $6.50 turbo 9 man sng for a nice $27...that officially put my roll at $220...

i had been bouncing from anywhere between 205-195 the past day or two and finally i (in my opinion) "broke" the $200 milestone...so just informing those tiny amount of readers that i have (1 if im lucky) that i am doing quite well...

as of right now

321 games played
$1 average profit
26% ROI
$267 Total Profit (this includes rake and everything..i have also staked out around $35 that i never got a return on)

hopefully i can continue with the upswing...feburary was a good month and i am hoping March will be a better (more profitable) month due to the moving up in limits. Also, since i moved up in limits my ROI has jumped 3% and my profit has increased around $150...so it was a smart move on my part.

yay.

2007-02-24T23:38:00.001-06:00

roll is thriving at $161 at the moment

today i took down a $5 45 man and a couple of days ago i got 2nd in a $5 45 man which brought my roll to where it is now :) end of story lol

2007-02-06T16:56:00.000-06:00

sorry guys its been a while....i busted out and i didnt feel like posting...

well...once i busted i figured hey theres always that really cool place called neverbeg...well its impossible...IMPOSSIBLE to get a stake there...so i had to borrow $6 from GP and at the moment im at $29.71 :) im about to play a $3.40 sng so ill let ya know how that goes later on...

for the record, i have asked around and i have come to the conclusion that i must have $100 in my BR at ALL times. a bad run is a bad run, and they can get pretty deep and being left with a $25 BR is not a good enough chunk of money to withstand a bad run.

ok this is one sick SNG...in the first level of the blinds i have knocked 3 people out in 7 hands...my chip stack is 6.8k IN THE FIRST LEVEL OF BLINDS = 10/20!?!?!? LOL

ive had a sick run of hands...hopefully it will keep up.

WOW LOL...i knocked 7 out of the 9 people out!!!! lol that was the craziest sheit ever...bankroll is at $40.54 but im going to buy in to another $3.40 andim going to register for the $1.10 at 7 o clock EST...good experience...low buy in...easy to cashin....it works...

current BR: $36

Hmm..interesting weekend...

2007-01-29T08:17:00.000-06:00

well... i had a very interesting weekend lol. First, i made a cashout for 50$ which left my bankroll at about 30$...then i managed to lose quite a few buy ins, which left me at like 15 or 17$....decided hey if im not winning, maybe someone else will. so i staked 5 players, and only one returned ANY investment at all. My bankroll was officially at 6$.....i bought in a $3.40 turbo SnG, the ones i used to play when i very first started, i won it for 15$ which brought my BR up to 18$..gave out $3.30 in stakes, 3 continuous $1.10 45 mans, hoping that if he got lucky in atleast one of them he would get $14 giving me 8$ in return. Well he came in 2nd for $10 which gave me 6$ in profit. During this time period i had bought into another $3.40 sng and busted out, which left my BR around $14 or so, and his return of 6$ gave me $20.

The guy i staked who is ranked #1 on sharkscope for $5 HU matches got on AIM and told me he got in some trouble at NB, i posted in his thread, vouched for him, he is a very nice guy. Well, i asked if he could teach me HU play, so i registered for a HU match and i told him my cards and he told me each play and the exact play. We were keeping pretty even with the guy then suddenly he went all in 4 times in a row. He stole like 4 BB which was nothing big at all, and then i find myself with AA in the BB. he goes all in and i insta call.....he shows A8, got this in the bag.

Flop comes Q84...turn: 9.....river: 8

wow.

what
the
hell.

so that put my BR at about $15 even. I needed money.

i had him "heeb" $5.25 up to $29 and had him ship me $17 back. that put me at $27, i called it a day there.

Remaining Bankroll: $27.
BR + Cashout i made = $77.

I'm pleased, hopefully ill cash in a 180 man, thatd be nice. I cant wait for the check to come, the only problem is that the check will come in MY name, and im a tiny bit worried how the bank will view the check from "PokerStars" :-/ we will see.....till next time... :)

:)

2007-01-28T07:50:00.000-06:00

well, havent cashed in any 180 mans yet, but i did finish 2nd in a $5 45 man, and that prize was nice :) it was $50 so that covered all of my buy ins to previous tournies + more. I then went to neverbeg and decided to try that out, i staked some1 to "heeb" $5 up to $25...and he did.

so i got $65 total yesterday, and i decided to make a $50 cashout, my very first cash out. ever. So i am quite excited. Although that left my roll somewhat low, ($30) i am confident i can get that back up. :-) all and all, yesterday was a good day.

well....MTT theory is working

2007-01-25T21:12:00.000-06:00

finished 10th in a $4 180 man tonight...i should have easily final tabled that bitch except my KK ran into AA preflop and of course i never improved...i was in 2nd for the majority of the second hour, then at the end right before the final table i was out :( ohhhh welll. tomorrow i will do the same, come home and immediately play in a 180 man...im trusting my instincts and 99% of the time they were dead on...and i listened every time except once, and my feeling was right then too...

regarding the post below this one..

2007-01-24T17:20:00.000-06:00

this is my "rail" thread to the tournement that i was in..it has all the major hands from that tournement that i played..

http://www.poker-strategy.org/default.aspx?tabid=44&frmview=showpost&postid=33484

Hmm...i think i have found a calling...

2007-01-23T08:24:00.000-06:00

alright well...i played in 4 sng's yesterday, and one MTT. I have come to the conclusion that the bigger the MTT, the better i play. How? i dont know. Why? I dont know.

Here are some stats for yesterday: I played in 2 single tables and 3 45 mans which is like 5 tables...i didnt cash in a single one of them...however...i have played 2 180 mans (20 tables), and 2 MTT's...i have cashed in every single one of the MTT's including 2 final table apperances, highest place has been 3rd for a cash of $89...

I accidentally registered for the $3 rebuy on PokerStars last night at 8 PM EST. I realized this was a mistake because i typically go to bed at 10 because i need my rest for baseball, and school. Well, i realized my mistake and figured hey its a pretty big prize pool why not give it a go...Well, in the 4th hand of the tournement 2 people ahead of me went all in and i found myself with KK, i went all in, tripled up, and quickly became a power at any of my tables.

At the first break i was at 12,500 chips, well above the average. I found myself slowly building my stack up throughout the 2nd hour, and at the second break i was at 31,000 chips. This put me in about 150th out of the 1200 that were left. At that time the prize pool was at $35,000. throughout the 3rd hour i lost a couple of hands, won a couple of hands, didnt really move in my chip stack, got to the third break at 29,000 chips, which was about 2,000 above the average. After the third break, it was getting late, it was about 11:30 and i was beginning to get tired, blinds were going up, and it didnt help that i had a guy who had been chip leader for half the tournement directly to my left, he had amazing position on me. Well i found myself in the BB with AQo and the big big big stack to my left raised 4x the BB to 8,000...well...thats a pretty big raise, but not for him, he had been raising low pocket pairs, A10 AJ, not premium hands, but good enough hands that if reraised all in by a shortstack he would call. Well, i put him on something like pocket 7's and i reraised all in for 13,000 chips (i had made a dumb play with A9 lol) he insta called with 55, practically a coin flip, nothing hit, i was out in 354th place.

buy in: $3.30
add-on: $3.00
total amount spent: $6.30

Cashed for: $28.00

My bankroll is at $64.98 not bad considering it was getting low again, i may need to play more MTT's lol.

i dunno how to figure ROI% but in MTT's i have gotten my buy in back + quite a bit more.

P.S: i officially inspired trulyrand0m to play poker again, i went to bed last night at 11:45 and he was online, i woke up at 6:30 and he was still online, he was 3rd in a deepstack tournement that had been running for 4 hours, first place paid 750$....the bubble was 10 people, and he was at the final table when i left for school, i dont know how he did but im sure he made it to atleast 5th or 6th....ill find out when i get home...which will be late due to baseball then open house then dinner lol.

EDIT: i was rereading some of my previous posts, and i realized that in a lot of them i mentioned that i was good at MTT's and that i should start playing more of them. Well, thats my goal, to play 3 MTT's a week, whether it be $4.40 180 mans, or a $1.50 buy in as a regular tourny, i dunno but i know i want to play more MTT's even tho they take forever. Im gonna win some money.

aghhhh

2007-01-20T23:31:00.000-06:00

aghhhh....my BR was down to about $25 or so...so i decided to play a $4.40 180 man...well just like last time i absolutely kick ass...i get to the final table...im still kicking ass...stealing blinds...making right laydowns...i was 2nd the entire final table...until we got 4 handed...there was a short stack who had maybe 9 BB and was at 70k with about 35 BB...i got it in with the big stack when i had a PP and he had A7o and on the river he hit an ace..i lost about 1/2 of my stack on that one which put me at about 35k...next i just made a dumb play...got KJo on the button, big stack was BB...everyone folds i raise he calls..flop comes A8A i push he has A8...gg me...

so i finished in 4th with $57.75 which put my bankroll back around $80. I'm not quite sure what im going to do with it, everytime i get money i blow it again...MTT's sure seem to be my thing considering i cant manage to cash in a single table SnG.

Umm...most US players can no longer deposit due to the whole Neteller thing, although those of you who are reading this already know that. Honestly, ive never deposited or withdrawn from any site, so i dunno what is going to happen. I am tempted to withdraw some money and have them send it as a check, but im not quite sure if thats a good idea or not. I need money, i had 70$ cash but i spent it on dumb shit, so now i need more. I think im going to start playing MTT's more.

Bankroll: $80.80
Bankroll + "loaned" money = $90.80

Hopefully i can break $100 one of these damn days.

Who believes in playing odds? I certainly dont.

2007-01-17T08:37:00.000-06:00

The title. Simple, easy. I have read poker strategy over and over and over and over. Simple strategy: GET YOUR MONEY IN WHEN YOU'RE AHEAD. Period. End of story. When you are a 75/25 favorite, you are supposed to win, and if you dont win, you win in the LONG RUN. Well what the hell, how can you win in the "long run" if you go fking broke in the process? If you hit $0, thats not winning in the long run, thats bad beats desecrating your bankroll.

granted, im not at $0, but i AM at $65, and i was like $90 last night. I am honest to G-d starting to believe that PokerStars deals bad beats to players who win too often. I am HONESTLY beginning to believe it. I think i may actually set up a neteller account or something and withdraw from Stars and deposit somewhere else, no where are there bad beats like at Stars. NO WHERE. No where do i have a boat and then get beat by 4 of a kind on the river, those odds are so slim its sickening. Set after set after set after set gets it in with 4 to a flush, and its to the point now where i KNOW its going to hit. The odds are 4:1 that it will hit, which means 3 of those times it should NOT hit. WHY PLAY ODDS? I swear i LOSE money playing odds!!! What is that!?

I want to go deep in tournements, i want to make a lot of money, i want to be the BEST. I can't when i feel that the cards arent good enough, i cant trust the website not to fuck me over. I honestly believe that stars knows who the good players are, and once one has had an amazing upswing, the downswing that comes after it is not brought upon by ones careless errors, its the website DEALING bad beats.

This may sound like a "stick it to the man" post, but im trying to not make it one. People tell me that "Oh, there are SO many tables, the ODDS are that things like this WILL happen"...im sorry when you get runner runner str8 or runner runner flush or runner runner str8 flush, or even runner runner full house!? thats happened to me DAILY...what the hell. Show me the fucking algorithim that proves at the table I AM AT, EVERY DAY for 1 week, i will have a boat beate by 4 of a kind, that runner runner full house will come, that AA loses to A6o....SOME1 SHOW ME! Why dont they show me? Because THEY themsevles EXPERIENCE the same shit i go through.

The ONLY way to stop these horrendous bad beats in tournements is simple: DONT GO ALL IN, honestly, thats horse shit. You go all in when you are a 3:1 or a 4:1 favorite. however I LOSE on a CONSISTENT BASIS when i am a favorite.

What is the point of even calling one a FAVORITE? There are no favorites, the odds are so fucked up its actually dissappointing.

You want to comment this and disagree with me thats fine, but i am no longer sitting at my desk going "Oh, another bad beat, its ok, it will work out in the long run." NO IT WONT. Like i said above, GOING BROKE, is not WINNING in the LONG RUN. "We all should love people who make dumb plays" Damnit i HATE THEM! Lay your freaking hand down when you are behind!

A little mix up..

2007-01-16T08:27:00.000-06:00

alright so, funny story, i have been meaning to post about my poker life recently, however with me deleting my cookies and history (it was time to do that again) i realized i forgot how to log into blogger. I have to log in using my "google" account, but its my Yahoo e-mail address. I thought that was confusing, so here i am at school messing around with logging in, and i finally got it :).

News on poker: Well, 3 days ago i ended a terrible downswing, terrible. I was down to $5 and it was early in the afternoon, and i decided to spend $4 on a 180 man buy in. Well, after that buy in i was left with one dollar...$1....well i had a miraculous run in the tourny and finished in third for $85.65 :) somehow that put me at $90 im not quite sure how, but then i lent out another $5 which put me back at 85. I decided to play a couple of SnG's with TrulyRand0m, or attempt to atelast. I had to register for 4 different sng's because we couldnt register quick enough with eachother, i cashed in a couple of them, i came in third in a single table, which covered most of the buy ins for the night, then i won an 18 man winning $7.20 so that put me at about $92-93ish...and honestly i havent had much time to play poker since then...i was more interested in watching TR get pretty deep in a huge $5 rebuy, a 56k prizepool. he ended up getting 90th, but he spent 10$ and got 78$ in return, not bad. My ROI on sharkscope is pretty good, it up at about 43% i think....people think it will go down,but if i keep playing in single table SnG's and 45 man's i honestly dont think it will...ive played 75 games at 3 different limits and range of people, and i honestly think it will hover at about 35-45% which is a pretty good return on your investment :)

BR: $93
Owed: $10
Total Bankroll with money lent out: 103$ :)

started out well

2007-01-10T18:56:00.000-06:00

well...i started out well...i won a 45 man $1.20 :) that brought my BR up to about $62 or so...i lent $5 to a good buddy of mine so that brought me back down to about $57...im involved in a 45 man at the moment and currently in 8th place out of 35 or so...hoping i can this down before i go to bed :)

alright bad play....had a flush draw and i went up against a guy who went all in in a previous hand with nothing but 2 over cards...i figured i would suck him in with a flush...too bad the flush never came...i bet pretty strongly on the river and he reraised all in, knew i was beat i folded...he showed KK...judging by the way the hand went after reading the HH i guess it was pretty apparant that he had something of that sort...i put him on AK on a low board...he played it well...down to 1.2k in chips...still in about 20th or so lol...DaHo said my play was donk-a-licious, and frankly i have to agree with him. I just have to start reading players and not just playing the cards. That seems to be my problem, ill get a read on some1 after playing with them for about 45 min- 1 hour...it needs to be a hell of a lot quicker than that if i want to be successfull...ill post an update when i bust out of this SnG

update: was down to 4BB and got AA in middle position...1 caller before i raise all in it wasnt much of a raise...he calls with 99 and of course...hits his 9 on the turn...all over for me...finished 15/45...not too happy about that but oh well...i think my ROI% for 46 games is something insane like 63% or something...i just wish i could keep a steady profit going, i go up and i go down, i go up and i go down...highest my BR has been is like $76 and now its at $58.75 ....itll go up...

lost a buy in to a $3.40 sng

current BR: $55.35

edit: i was mad cuz i thought i was down for the day but i realized i lent a friend $5...which would put my BR at $60.35...yay up $3 for the day :) lol

agh

2007-01-09T20:46:00.000-06:00

well the day started out great...got up to something like 75$ or something....ended the day down at $56.65...i got my money in when i was ahead and it just didnt work out. atleast not for my last 3 hours of playing. good thing DaHo was in IRC or i would have thrown my comp or something, like i mentioned in one of my previous posts he is my comic relief. and it sort of worked.

I tried playing a sng with GadolParah, he busted out before me and I bubbled the money, didnt cash, came in 4th. i think the final hand was me all in with A9 and he had K9 and 9 came on the flop and then a king on the river, i dunno i just know i lost. tomorrow will be better, im going to start playing $1.20 45 man's much more frequently seeing as how the $1 buy in with a first place of $14 is a pretty good return. hopefully ill b able to build my BR back up that way, 2 wins of those and i should be cruising back at around $75-80...thatd be nice :)

i hate bad players..

2007-01-09T15:41:00.000-06:00

Now, you may read this title and go what!? He hates bad players? Well, yes. I am playing a $5 + .50 on Stars and I was the chip leader, i had gone up against a guy in a pervious hand where he bet bottom pair like a mad man, when i had 2 pair. I had position on him so i was able to see his cards. I did not say anything to him, figuring i could take the rest of his chips some other time. Well, that some other time came. I knew he had nothing he was short stacked with 10 BBs...i know what it is like to be in that position and i was dealt KQ of diamonds, he insta raised all in, i insta called. he flips over 4 6 off, he hits 2 pair on the flop, and he has the balls to criticise me for insta calling with KQs.

This got me irritated a little bit, plus i was a huge favorite, i dont know the exact odds but i was in the clear, ready to extend my chip lead. He and i get into it, telling eachother in the nicest way possible that they suck, his plays are dumb, etc. I eventually stopped because i realized it was hurting my play and i was almost the short stack at the table. We are still currently playing...5 people left, im in 3rd hes in 4th. I will update this once i get further into it. Oh, just jumped into 1st, stole blinds a couple of times here and there, im getting up there in chips.

Alright, ill admit it, hes a nicer guy than i thought. I was in BB and he was in SB, guy on the button raised 4x the BB i was dealt AQs....after everything that had happened in this big chunk of time i didnt write about we were all equal at around 2.6k...well i reraised all in with AQ of clubs...he shows AK of diamonds...he doesn hit anything and i hit a Q so i officially sucked out big time...and instead of criticizing me for making a play like that the guy who i had been bitching at simply said, "Well, what does around comes around." i laughed and said i guess its karma or something like that but everything worked out...im now the chip leader with 4 people left...so i gotta finish this SnG and then ill write some more, or if anything exciting happens like a bad beat ill put that in here. alright...im in BB hes in small blind he calls i check i have Q4 and flop comes Q 10 8....he checks i bet...turn is a 9...he bets small i call...river is a blank...he flips over J7...he hit is gut shot straight draw...agh i was pissed...but i said nice play and he said ty and that was that....speaking of him he just knocked out 4th place with J9 suited so we are now 3 handed and hes major chip leader...and im in a far second and then there is a very distant 3rd...ive got this in the bag :)

alright well...he knocked 3rd place out and he had a 4:1 chip lead on me...it went quick...i won one hand and he trapped me on a low board with pocket 10s...oh well...14$ to my account and i smoothely moved up to $75.14....only $24.86 till my first goal of 100$.

First post!

2007-01-08T18:52:00.000-06:00

Well guys, this is very exciting for me...this is my first post ever on a blog. Well, I guess this is going to be my poker blog, so I might as well mention poker :)

I started playing poker probably three months ago. Me, being the noob that I was, flew threw every single no deposit bonus at every site possible. I was terrible, I lost each 10$ no deposit bonus within a matter of days. Fortunately for me (as of right now) it's a good thing that i did not give up. I recently found a 10$ no deposit bonus at Golden Riviera, and i had run that up to over 30$, unfortunately my lack of bankroll management skills brought that bankroll crashing downward.

When i first started actually looking poker up, i found an amazing website, and those of you who are reading this are probably from this website, www.poker-strategy.org aka PSORG :)

I met some great people there, infact i learned my first poker strategy. One day when browsing the fourms i saw a topic called "mIRC Channel" i was not aware PSORG had an IRC channel, but it turns out they do. I went on, and instantly i was hooked talking to all the amazing people and amazing poker players that were on there. I met a man by the name of Macio, who is an extremely good NL100$ Ring game player, and he happened to be in the giving mood and he lent me 10$, as of right now (almost 2 weeks later) i have $66.78. I'm planning on running this up to $100 and then returning Macio's 10$

I met many other people in the IRC channel, and the three other people that had the most influence on me (in no particular order) GadolParah, TrulyRand0m, and DaHo.

Gadol helped me tremendously with pot odds, implied odds, and all other odds of poker, he is a math nerd ;)

Rand0m, is in my eyes one of the best tournement poker players that i have ever seen. If he could learn bankroll management i am 100% positive that he can achieve his goal of participating in the WSOP and moneying. He staked me in a $3.40 SnG, unfortunately it was my first SnG and i was scared shitless, didn't get any cards, and was blinded away, i also have to pay him back. The whole blog thing was also his idea, so i guess this is a formal thank you :) Thank you TR.

DaHo and Macio probably provide the most comic relief, they are very knowledgeable about poker, and many a night have Macio DaHo and i just thrown hilarious insults at eachother. When any of us are on tilt, or coming close to tilt, we are easily moved from the emotions and we just talk it out. Well, i cannot speak for the others but i certainly feel this way :)

Today i won a $1.20 45 man SnG at PokerStars for a cash of $14...not much but i loved the way i played the final table. The hand that i felt best about was going all in shortstacked with 9 6 suited of hearts, i dont know why but i felt i had that hand won, and i tripled up for the chip lead. After that hand i had a 2:1 on every player and i never fell below that 2:1 ratio, i eventually made it to 3:1 heads up and after 3 hands he was done. Aggresive heads up is intimidating, especially with a 50k chip stack :)

At the moment im playing in a 10 FPP $250 freeroll at stars. 100/200 blinds 25 ante and im at 6.1k chips, im hoping ill make it into the money, the money starts at around 800 people so im pretty sure i'll be able to make it past that.

I was reading TrulyRand0m's blog earlier and the idea came to me that i should try doing larger field larger buy in's MTTs, the prize pool is bigger, and one tournement win could cover roughly 100 buy ins...I have to build my bankroll first however, I am going to be extremely smart about my bankroll, i will not waste it on stupid things. (i say this now but watch, i will go above my limit and buy in for a huge amount...) I made a promise to myself, and to Macio, that i would not bust out on his 10$, so that is what i am working on right now. I will try to update regularly but i cant say if i will even remember i have this tomorrow.

Quick update, i am up to 7.9k chips since i typed that last paragraph. I am off for the night, i must finish writing a history essay and the OSU v UF BCS national championship game is tonight. I'm off :-D