I'm gonna try moving my blog to the new CardRunners site for awhile since that's what so much of my life revolves around these days. Link to my new blog -- you might need to sign up for a free basic account to view it, but hopefully not.
I'm gonna try to dual-post here and on CR for awhile, but I hope to eventually only post to one of the two. Let me know if you guys run into problems trying to view the CR blog.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
If I were homeless...
...my ass definitely wouldn't be anywhere near Chicago during the winter. Or ever, for that matter, since it gets REALLY FREAKING COLD up here. Not to be a dick about it or anything, but the first priority in my mind if I were homeless in a big city like NYC or Chicago would be to get the hell down south to somewhere warm. I'm sure I could scrape together like $40 for a Greyhound ticket to Miami in a few days by panhandling, stealing from tourists, or selling non-vital organs on the black market. Get creative people!
I just got back from a (failed) downtown excursion, the sole purpose of which was to get my iPhone replaced because it doesn't ring anymore. It still vibrates but the ring is almost inaudible. This happened to me a few weeks back too, and it magically fixed itself after I did a restore on it. Problem solved? Nope -- just a few days later the same thing happened, so I restored it again. This time it took about two weeks before screwing itself up again, so I took it to the Apple store downtown and they said they had to do a restore on it before looking at the hardware itself for defects. Whaddya know, it worked just fine afterwards and they basically told me that it was a problem with iTunes and not my phone. So apparently uninstalling and then re-installing iTunes will solve all of my problems, which sounds like a bunch of BS to me. I told the guy I'd be back in a week when it stops ringing again, and he said to make sure I tried re-installing iTunes before coming back in. Obv I'll give it a shot, but I'm not optimistic...
On a side note, this was my first time inside an Apple store, and I must say I'm very impressed at how the company is run. Everything is well thought out, and it's a great sales environment; I can see why their stock is doing so well. They even have a big seminar area which runs their "getting a Mac will solve all of your computing problems forever" propaganda / TV ads on a loop between informative seminars on how to use various features in bundled Mac software.
Don't get me wrong: Apple makes some really great products. I came very, very close to buying a 15" Macbook Pro last month (on which I would have run XP MCE); the primary reason I chose Dell over Apple was because I could get a higher resolution screen with the Dell (1680x1050) vs the Mac's fixed 1440x900. Once you go to high-res monitors you can't go back, and I've been spoiled by my 24" LCD @ 1920x1200 for almost 3 years now.
So after failing at the Apple store, I headed to Filene's Basement to pick up some new corduroys, and they only had one pair in my size in the whole freaking store. I also needed to pick up some long underwear for my upcoming ski trip to Canada, but once again I sifted through the hoards of Large, XL, & XXL to come up short in my quest for a medium. God I run bad @ clothes.
...and the damn clothes manufacturers never learn either. There's *always* huge stockpiles of Large, XL, & XXL and rarely any mediums or smalls. I swear, if I didn't already have some great business ideas in the works I'd open a sweatshop and hire a bunch of Vietnamese children for $.12/hr to make nothing but clothes in adult small and medium sizes. I'd be a multi-millionaire in no time!
Time for a nap
I just got back from a (failed) downtown excursion, the sole purpose of which was to get my iPhone replaced because it doesn't ring anymore. It still vibrates but the ring is almost inaudible. This happened to me a few weeks back too, and it magically fixed itself after I did a restore on it. Problem solved? Nope -- just a few days later the same thing happened, so I restored it again. This time it took about two weeks before screwing itself up again, so I took it to the Apple store downtown and they said they had to do a restore on it before looking at the hardware itself for defects. Whaddya know, it worked just fine afterwards and they basically told me that it was a problem with iTunes and not my phone. So apparently uninstalling and then re-installing iTunes will solve all of my problems, which sounds like a bunch of BS to me. I told the guy I'd be back in a week when it stops ringing again, and he said to make sure I tried re-installing iTunes before coming back in. Obv I'll give it a shot, but I'm not optimistic...
On a side note, this was my first time inside an Apple store, and I must say I'm very impressed at how the company is run. Everything is well thought out, and it's a great sales environment; I can see why their stock is doing so well. They even have a big seminar area which runs their "getting a Mac will solve all of your computing problems forever" propaganda / TV ads on a loop between informative seminars on how to use various features in bundled Mac software.
Don't get me wrong: Apple makes some really great products. I came very, very close to buying a 15" Macbook Pro last month (on which I would have run XP MCE); the primary reason I chose Dell over Apple was because I could get a higher resolution screen with the Dell (1680x1050) vs the Mac's fixed 1440x900. Once you go to high-res monitors you can't go back, and I've been spoiled by my 24" LCD @ 1920x1200 for almost 3 years now.
So after failing at the Apple store, I headed to Filene's Basement to pick up some new corduroys, and they only had one pair in my size in the whole freaking store. I also needed to pick up some long underwear for my upcoming ski trip to Canada, but once again I sifted through the hoards of Large, XL, & XXL to come up short in my quest for a medium. God I run bad @ clothes.
...and the damn clothes manufacturers never learn either. There's *always* huge stockpiles of Large, XL, & XXL and rarely any mediums or smalls. I swear, if I didn't already have some great business ideas in the works I'd open a sweatshop and hire a bunch of Vietnamese children for $.12/hr to make nothing but clothes in adult small and medium sizes. I'd be a multi-millionaire in no time!
Time for a nap
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Baking soda is overrated
Yeah, you heard me. It's time people found out the truth about keeping a box of baking soda in the fridge to make it smell good: baking soda can't hold a candle to leftover Margherita pizza when it comes to making your fridge smell awesome. Plus, you can eat the pizza when you get hungry, whereas baking soda is totally disgusting. Try to tell me I'm wrong here.
Poker-wise, I'm having a good month so far. I've been running about average of late, and I'm trying to put in a bunch of hands early in the month since I'll be traveling during the latter half of December. Since leaving Accenture, I've been trying to play about 2hrs every day, even if it's at lower stakes than 5/10. The games are so much easier at 3/6 and 2/4 that I've preferred playing a bunch of tables at those stakes as of late instead of grinding it out with a table full of regulars at 5/10 all day. I still feel like I have an edge on most of the regulars at 5/10, but I just don't enjoy it as much unless the games are good. I'm pretty sure I have one of the highest winrates at 5/10 over the past few months (just over 7.1ptbb/100 in my last ~40k hands), however I think it's more important for me to play games that I enjoy instead of simply playing the highest stakes I can consistently beat.
A few interesting hands I haven't blogged about yet:
Ace high is the nuts -- whitelime is a very good, aggressive player and I wasn't about to fold this monster to him. This was from the CR / "Bad Beat on Cancer" Foundation freeroll SNG that I won in November. I donated the $200 I won from this SNG to charity. :)
I got owned pretty hard here, even though this guy's play is atrocious. I was pretty sure this guy was a donkey, but WTF?!
Just because I check behind doesn't mean I don't have a hand -- this guy cursed me in the chat, then proceeded to tilt off his stack by cold 4-shoving JTo from the button for ~50bb the very next hand. :(
I sucked out pretty bad here. It felt nice to finally dish out a horrendous beat. :)
I did a sweat session with Derric last night while he 12-tabled 2/4NL full ring, and holy crap he's such a nit. Maybe you just have to be to play full ring, but I was constantly surprised at how tight he was playing. So he returned the favor this afternoon by watching me play 3/6 & 5/10 on FTP for about two hours. Unfortunately I ran like absolute dogshit the entire time and was down about $4k at one point, finishing down about $1600 overall. I really enjoy having other good players sweat me and discuss hands while I'm playing; this process is how I learn best.
My plans for the night fell through, so after a few hours' break I headed back to the tables. Here are the interesting/big hands:
Derric didn't like this shove, but I was pretty sure my opponent didn't have anything.
Sigh, I still run bad against donks. Luckily things turned around later in the sesh :)
Kids at home: this is why you don't slowplay. This guy was a pretty big donkey though, and he snap-called my river shove. This hand was important to in allowing me to take a good amount of his stack later on (see next hand).
My turn shove really was for value, I swear. It's obviously pretty thin, but this guy was a huge donk (although he was quite aggressive) who led very big OOP (often for full pot) on the next street every time you 3-bet or raised him. There were a ton of hands he could have here, and I really didn't think an ace made up much of his range, so luckily I got him to put most of the money in on his own (donkish) accord.
There are few things in life I hate more than shortstackers. These rat-holers ruin the game, and I hate them with a passion.
Could this guy have played his hand any worse? I guess check/calling every street constitutes a slow-play...
My first "misclick" -- damn keyboard added an extra digit cost me $700 :(
Slow-playing is contagious (but it's still a really bad idea)
Dunno if shoving here is correct, but he could totally have a worse jack right?
Tough fold here, but I think I'm drawing dead pretty often here against this villain. He was a total nit (~12/9 or so), and I'm definitely behind when he shoves. I was extremely close to checking this behind because: 1) my hand can't stand a raise from a player like this, and 2) I got a bad feeling about the way he checked on the turn.
Yes, I do 4-shove AA and KK. Some people only 4-shove their bluffs (Ace-X), AK, and sometimes QQ, but I think it's important to 4-shove with aces & kings too if you 4-shove at all.
Ugh, so sick. Seeing that T on the turn always makes you cringe.
I get coolered for a big pot against an aggressive player. Nothing I can do here; I was obv planning to take the pot away on lots of flops that I missed.
I don't like this guy's call w/QQ at all. I was quite sure of a few things in this hand before I called before the flop: 1) here2win had an overpair, but was reasonably solid; 2) rattlenbite was a donkey and could have just about anything; and 3) I could use these two pieces of information to my advantage to take lots of pots away post-flop. When ratt donk led, I was pretty sure I had good FE against him (and obviously plenty of equity against his calling range too), and I honestly expected to take the pot down on the flop without going to showdown. here2win's call on the flop is quite bad without a very specific read on me -- which I'm pretty sure he didn't have since I'd been playing pretty solid thus far. Against my range here, he's going to be about a coinflip at best most of the time and a huge underdog a lot of the time.
Donks like to bluff when you check to them. It's a well-documented impulse that they often cannot control.
This was a snap-call preflop. Too bad 99 couldn't hold up; villain here was super LAG-spewy, so 99 is the nuts here.
No idea wtf this guy was thinking
The plan here was to bet/3-bet allin against this super-LAG jokester, but that plan went to hell when s/he straight-up shoved. Too bad I didn't have an ace to snap-call with :(
Flop the nuts, lose a big pot. I really wanted to fold the river here, and I might have if Doomer and Derric weren't screaming at me to call on vent :(
Bluffing nits is not a good idea. Had to try it once though.
Smooth called the flop here to give an aggro player behind me the chance to make a big mistake. I wasn't worried about either draw out there to hit the donkish villain in this hand, but he proved me wrong.
Tough call for me here -- villain was pretty standard/TAG and I could definitely fold this against a lot of players, but my gut said to call here and I did.
Lots of players value-bet the river here, but I prefer check/calling for exactly this reason.
Run good one time! Open-ended straight flush draws are always fun, and I got lucky to win our little coinflip this time.
I raise floaters, and they're everywhere nowdays :(
River bet FTW! Villain in this hand was pretty donkish, and I was almost certain he had a draw that missed. I think betting the river in spots like these when a bad player checks to you is absolutely imperative with any two cards, especially when you don't have showdown value. If I had the A-high flush draw I think my hand might have been best anyway (but I still would have made the bet). Derric didn't like this bet at the time, but he agreed with me once I explained my reasoning (and after the guy folded obv!).
The rest of these hands happened during a 4-hour session I had against a very deepstacked donk who could be pretty aggressive:
I found myself a big donk sitting extremely deep on PS. He hated folding -- I'm 100% sure that he still would have called me even if the river didn't pair the king.
He's an aggressive donkey -- I love how when you flop the nut straight sitting deep against an aggro donkey the turn and river are always the two worst cards in the deck for your hand. Thank God he didn't have anything. (Note the similarity to this hand posted above; guess I just run bad when flopping straights)
He really likes to bluff -- am I playing this too passively?
This guy doesn't fold, so idk why I even tried to bluff him
Note to self: DO NOT BLUFF THIS GUY! He loved doing stuff like this.
Pretty sure my pair outs were good here too
You knew it was coming -- thankfully I won the massive pot that you knew was inevitable. The table broke shortly thereafter for obvious reasons, but I truly enjoyed the 4hrs I spent at the table playing against this guy.
Whew, that was a lot of hands. I played nearly 3500 hands today, which is very high for me in a single day, netting me about $4500 on the day. Needless to say, my second session today was much better than the first. I plan to start doing daily (or at least semi-weekly) posts like these as part of my session reviews, so keep checking back for more hot poker action. In the meantime, I've got a Margherita pizza calling my name from the fridge...
Poker-wise, I'm having a good month so far. I've been running about average of late, and I'm trying to put in a bunch of hands early in the month since I'll be traveling during the latter half of December. Since leaving Accenture, I've been trying to play about 2hrs every day, even if it's at lower stakes than 5/10. The games are so much easier at 3/6 and 2/4 that I've preferred playing a bunch of tables at those stakes as of late instead of grinding it out with a table full of regulars at 5/10 all day. I still feel like I have an edge on most of the regulars at 5/10, but I just don't enjoy it as much unless the games are good. I'm pretty sure I have one of the highest winrates at 5/10 over the past few months (just over 7.1ptbb/100 in my last ~40k hands), however I think it's more important for me to play games that I enjoy instead of simply playing the highest stakes I can consistently beat.
A few interesting hands I haven't blogged about yet:
Ace high is the nuts -- whitelime is a very good, aggressive player and I wasn't about to fold this monster to him. This was from the CR / "Bad Beat on Cancer" Foundation freeroll SNG that I won in November. I donated the $200 I won from this SNG to charity. :)
I got owned pretty hard here, even though this guy's play is atrocious. I was pretty sure this guy was a donkey, but WTF?!
Just because I check behind doesn't mean I don't have a hand -- this guy cursed me in the chat, then proceeded to tilt off his stack by cold 4-shoving JTo from the button for ~50bb the very next hand. :(
I sucked out pretty bad here. It felt nice to finally dish out a horrendous beat. :)
I did a sweat session with Derric last night while he 12-tabled 2/4NL full ring, and holy crap he's such a nit. Maybe you just have to be to play full ring, but I was constantly surprised at how tight he was playing. So he returned the favor this afternoon by watching me play 3/6 & 5/10 on FTP for about two hours. Unfortunately I ran like absolute dogshit the entire time and was down about $4k at one point, finishing down about $1600 overall. I really enjoy having other good players sweat me and discuss hands while I'm playing; this process is how I learn best.
My plans for the night fell through, so after a few hours' break I headed back to the tables. Here are the interesting/big hands:
Derric didn't like this shove, but I was pretty sure my opponent didn't have anything.
Sigh, I still run bad against donks. Luckily things turned around later in the sesh :)
Kids at home: this is why you don't slowplay. This guy was a pretty big donkey though, and he snap-called my river shove. This hand was important to in allowing me to take a good amount of his stack later on (see next hand).
My turn shove really was for value, I swear. It's obviously pretty thin, but this guy was a huge donk (although he was quite aggressive) who led very big OOP (often for full pot) on the next street every time you 3-bet or raised him. There were a ton of hands he could have here, and I really didn't think an ace made up much of his range, so luckily I got him to put most of the money in on his own (donkish) accord.
There are few things in life I hate more than shortstackers. These rat-holers ruin the game, and I hate them with a passion.
Could this guy have played his hand any worse? I guess check/calling every street constitutes a slow-play...
My first "misclick" -- damn keyboard added an extra digit cost me $700 :(
Slow-playing is contagious (but it's still a really bad idea)
Dunno if shoving here is correct, but he could totally have a worse jack right?
Tough fold here, but I think I'm drawing dead pretty often here against this villain. He was a total nit (~12/9 or so), and I'm definitely behind when he shoves. I was extremely close to checking this behind because: 1) my hand can't stand a raise from a player like this, and 2) I got a bad feeling about the way he checked on the turn.
Yes, I do 4-shove AA and KK. Some people only 4-shove their bluffs (Ace-X), AK, and sometimes QQ, but I think it's important to 4-shove with aces & kings too if you 4-shove at all.
Ugh, so sick. Seeing that T on the turn always makes you cringe.
I get coolered for a big pot against an aggressive player. Nothing I can do here; I was obv planning to take the pot away on lots of flops that I missed.
I don't like this guy's call w/QQ at all. I was quite sure of a few things in this hand before I called before the flop: 1) here2win had an overpair, but was reasonably solid; 2) rattlenbite was a donkey and could have just about anything; and 3) I could use these two pieces of information to my advantage to take lots of pots away post-flop. When ratt donk led, I was pretty sure I had good FE against him (and obviously plenty of equity against his calling range too), and I honestly expected to take the pot down on the flop without going to showdown. here2win's call on the flop is quite bad without a very specific read on me -- which I'm pretty sure he didn't have since I'd been playing pretty solid thus far. Against my range here, he's going to be about a coinflip at best most of the time and a huge underdog a lot of the time.
Donks like to bluff when you check to them. It's a well-documented impulse that they often cannot control.
This was a snap-call preflop. Too bad 99 couldn't hold up; villain here was super LAG-spewy, so 99 is the nuts here.
No idea wtf this guy was thinking
The plan here was to bet/3-bet allin against this super-LAG jokester, but that plan went to hell when s/he straight-up shoved. Too bad I didn't have an ace to snap-call with :(
Flop the nuts, lose a big pot. I really wanted to fold the river here, and I might have if Doomer and Derric weren't screaming at me to call on vent :(
Bluffing nits is not a good idea. Had to try it once though.
Smooth called the flop here to give an aggro player behind me the chance to make a big mistake. I wasn't worried about either draw out there to hit the donkish villain in this hand, but he proved me wrong.
Tough call for me here -- villain was pretty standard/TAG and I could definitely fold this against a lot of players, but my gut said to call here and I did.
Lots of players value-bet the river here, but I prefer check/calling for exactly this reason.
Run good one time! Open-ended straight flush draws are always fun, and I got lucky to win our little coinflip this time.
I raise floaters, and they're everywhere nowdays :(
River bet FTW! Villain in this hand was pretty donkish, and I was almost certain he had a draw that missed. I think betting the river in spots like these when a bad player checks to you is absolutely imperative with any two cards, especially when you don't have showdown value. If I had the A-high flush draw I think my hand might have been best anyway (but I still would have made the bet). Derric didn't like this bet at the time, but he agreed with me once I explained my reasoning (and after the guy folded obv!).
The rest of these hands happened during a 4-hour session I had against a very deepstacked donk who could be pretty aggressive:
I found myself a big donk sitting extremely deep on PS. He hated folding -- I'm 100% sure that he still would have called me even if the river didn't pair the king.
He's an aggressive donkey -- I love how when you flop the nut straight sitting deep against an aggro donkey the turn and river are always the two worst cards in the deck for your hand. Thank God he didn't have anything. (Note the similarity to this hand posted above; guess I just run bad when flopping straights)
He really likes to bluff -- am I playing this too passively?
This guy doesn't fold, so idk why I even tried to bluff him
Note to self: DO NOT BLUFF THIS GUY! He loved doing stuff like this.
Pretty sure my pair outs were good here too
You knew it was coming -- thankfully I won the massive pot that you knew was inevitable. The table broke shortly thereafter for obvious reasons, but I truly enjoyed the 4hrs I spent at the table playing against this guy.
Whew, that was a lot of hands. I played nearly 3500 hands today, which is very high for me in a single day, netting me about $4500 on the day. Needless to say, my second session today was much better than the first. I plan to start doing daily (or at least semi-weekly) posts like these as part of my session reviews, so keep checking back for more hot poker action. In the meantime, I've got a Margherita pizza calling my name from the fridge...
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Post-Aruba Life
Well it's been forever since I updated this blog, and a *lot* has changed in my life since Aruba. My trip to the island was amazing -- we stayed in this really awesome house about 5min from the casinos. It was very very hot the whole time we were there; unfortunately the A/C in the house wasn't quite up to the task of keeping our living areas cool. Luckily each room also had an A/C unit, and the one in my room kept me nice and cool at night.
Apparently when you have a big pool, a separate hot tub connected to said pool via waterfall, and a huge patio area, Aruban law requires you to host at least one party per week. It's a strange law for sure, but seeing as how we didn't want to cause any trouble we threw a big bash my last night on the island. Some crazy stuff happened during both the party and in the casino during my 5 days there, but I know all of you read this blog for the poker stuff so I'll spare you all of the boring (awesome) details. My roommates Derric, Clay, TC, and Doomer were awesome -- we've gotta do that again sometime guys.
At the poker tables, I dropped about $2500 at 5/10 pretty quickly getting 2-outed and then 5-outed in almost consecutive hands during my second orbit. The games were very soft, as usual, but unfortunatly I didn't get to play much during my stay on the island. I made most of my losses back in a very good 10/20 game, but that was short-lived as well. All in all, I ended the trip about even at poker. Some poker room highlights I remember:
- Andrew getting thrown out of the poker room
- Andrew sneaking back in, hanging out for a second, then getting thrown out again by 4 huge security guards
- Top boat losing to rivered quads for ~$8k at 5/10 after getting allin on the turn
- Making a value check/raise on Annette_15 with king high, no draw on the turn of some hand one night
- Taylor being took drunk to read his hand at PLO, yet still insisting on playing at our table (me, a few other CR guys, Annette, and a random live donk)
- Some chick at the above table leaves to go to the bathroom, and I look over a second later to see Andrew sitting in her seat next to Taylor playing the girl's hand for her with her chips. She came back a minute or two later and had him escorted out again. (Note to Wiggins: 6'4" guys in bright yellow shirts stand out very boldly in just about any crowd)
While in Aruba, I talked to a bunch of my poker buddies who had gone pro about their experiences being self-employed. Just about everyone I talked to about my situation agreed with me that it simply didn't make sense to continue working at Accenture, so I left the company shortly after returning from my vacation. It's crazy and kind of scary, but I'm totally up for the challenge.
The one factor I forgot to consider was that life is a bitch, and as such, as soon as I left my job I went on the biggest downswing of my life. To be blunt, I dropped $17k in my first four days as a professional, nearly all of it from running really bad at 3/6 and 5/10. I'd get my money in as a favorite and lose every time. It just kept happening over and over and over again, and it really wore me down. Here's two perfect examples of how my October went:
This was at the final table of a $50 tournament -- losing this hand cost me at least $2k and possibly as much as $8k
OMG HOW DO I RUN THIS BAD?! -- dean06 said in the chat that he folded KK preflop after 3-betting my UTG raise, and based on how nitty he was playing I believe him.
So I did what I always do when I run bad: I bought some cool stuff for myself. I got some new games for the 360 and bought an entire winter wardrobe (a good move on my part). I was very concerned about having a losing month (which hadn't happened to me in over 18 months), and somehow I rallied back by the end of the month to finish up a hair over $2k. This was a huge victory for my self-confidence, and I was pumped to take on November.
As soon as October ended, I went back to running normal. This meant that I'd usually win when I got my money in as a huge favorite -- awesome! I'm sure there was some interesting stuff in November, but aside from meeting a really awesome girl at my sister's deb party back home and my birthday at the end of the month, it was pretty standard on the whole. That's not to say I didn't lose some retarded hands, but it was nothing compared to what I went through in October. I made about $15k at NLH in November, so I netted about $10k after my PLO losses (see below).
I tried learning PLO in November, even going so far as to hire one of my Vegas roommates to coach me through beating the 2/4PLO games, but I ran into some absolutely SICK variance (yeah, I know) and gave up after dropping ~$5500 in my first 3 or 4 days. Some of this was from tilt or dumb plays on my part, but the majority of it was from sick variance, coolers, and running bad. It made me really angry losing so much when the average skill level of my opponent was so incredibly low; people did absolutely retarded shit like defending their BB w/K863 rainbow against a button raise, then stacking off 50bb on a K-high flop with no other draws! PLO is a sick, sick game with massive variance; I'm sure I'll give it another shot later on down the road.
I started coaching again, and I've currently got three students, all of whom I think have the potential to become excellent players. I really enjoy teaching the game to others who are similarly motivated to learn, and in addition to the videos I make for CR, I feel like this is my way of giving back to the poker community. On a similar note, I'm working with a few of the CR guys on some really cool stuff that I can hopefully talk about more in January, but for now that's all I can really say. We should have two really huge announcements for CR coming pretty soon, this being one of them, so keep your ears open!
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an avid Guitar Hero & Rock Band junkie, and I've come a long way at both games recently. In GH3, I'm two songs away from having 5 stars on every song on Hard -- only Knights of Cydonia (which is an awesome song) and the Slayer song (which is a really shitty song) remain. The Slayer song is also the only song I can't beat on Expert, mostly because it's a terrible song and I have no motivation to practice it. I've also managed to crack 200k points on Through the Fire and Flames a few times, an achievement of which I'm damn proud.
On the Rock Band side, I beat drums on Hard yesterday. On my way to doing this, I only failed two songs: (Don't Fear) The Reaper and Run to the Hills. I beat the Blue Oyster Cult song on my second try (the bridge part is awesome), but the Iron Maiden song took a *lot* of practice to beat. The Who's Don't Get Fooled Again is a pretty awesome song for every instrument and is definitely one of my favorites in the game. Expert will be pretty much impossible to beat on drums, but I'll give it a shot. I've already beaten guitar and vocals on Expert, so here's hoping for the trifecta.
Anyway, that pretty much does it for my long-overdue update. I had a pretty crazy day at poker today/tonight, but I'll put all of that in its own post shortly.
Apparently when you have a big pool, a separate hot tub connected to said pool via waterfall, and a huge patio area, Aruban law requires you to host at least one party per week. It's a strange law for sure, but seeing as how we didn't want to cause any trouble we threw a big bash my last night on the island. Some crazy stuff happened during both the party and in the casino during my 5 days there, but I know all of you read this blog for the poker stuff so I'll spare you all of the boring (awesome) details. My roommates Derric, Clay, TC, and Doomer were awesome -- we've gotta do that again sometime guys.
At the poker tables, I dropped about $2500 at 5/10 pretty quickly getting 2-outed and then 5-outed in almost consecutive hands during my second orbit. The games were very soft, as usual, but unfortunatly I didn't get to play much during my stay on the island. I made most of my losses back in a very good 10/20 game, but that was short-lived as well. All in all, I ended the trip about even at poker. Some poker room highlights I remember:
- Andrew getting thrown out of the poker room
- Andrew sneaking back in, hanging out for a second, then getting thrown out again by 4 huge security guards
- Top boat losing to rivered quads for ~$8k at 5/10 after getting allin on the turn
- Making a value check/raise on Annette_15 with king high, no draw on the turn of some hand one night
- Taylor being took drunk to read his hand at PLO, yet still insisting on playing at our table (me, a few other CR guys, Annette, and a random live donk)
- Some chick at the above table leaves to go to the bathroom, and I look over a second later to see Andrew sitting in her seat next to Taylor playing the girl's hand for her with her chips. She came back a minute or two later and had him escorted out again. (Note to Wiggins: 6'4" guys in bright yellow shirts stand out very boldly in just about any crowd)
While in Aruba, I talked to a bunch of my poker buddies who had gone pro about their experiences being self-employed. Just about everyone I talked to about my situation agreed with me that it simply didn't make sense to continue working at Accenture, so I left the company shortly after returning from my vacation. It's crazy and kind of scary, but I'm totally up for the challenge.
The one factor I forgot to consider was that life is a bitch, and as such, as soon as I left my job I went on the biggest downswing of my life. To be blunt, I dropped $17k in my first four days as a professional, nearly all of it from running really bad at 3/6 and 5/10. I'd get my money in as a favorite and lose every time. It just kept happening over and over and over again, and it really wore me down. Here's two perfect examples of how my October went:
This was at the final table of a $50 tournament -- losing this hand cost me at least $2k and possibly as much as $8k
OMG HOW DO I RUN THIS BAD?! -- dean06 said in the chat that he folded KK preflop after 3-betting my UTG raise, and based on how nitty he was playing I believe him.
So I did what I always do when I run bad: I bought some cool stuff for myself. I got some new games for the 360 and bought an entire winter wardrobe (a good move on my part). I was very concerned about having a losing month (which hadn't happened to me in over 18 months), and somehow I rallied back by the end of the month to finish up a hair over $2k. This was a huge victory for my self-confidence, and I was pumped to take on November.
As soon as October ended, I went back to running normal. This meant that I'd usually win when I got my money in as a huge favorite -- awesome! I'm sure there was some interesting stuff in November, but aside from meeting a really awesome girl at my sister's deb party back home and my birthday at the end of the month, it was pretty standard on the whole. That's not to say I didn't lose some retarded hands, but it was nothing compared to what I went through in October. I made about $15k at NLH in November, so I netted about $10k after my PLO losses (see below).
I tried learning PLO in November, even going so far as to hire one of my Vegas roommates to coach me through beating the 2/4PLO games, but I ran into some absolutely SICK variance (yeah, I know) and gave up after dropping ~$5500 in my first 3 or 4 days. Some of this was from tilt or dumb plays on my part, but the majority of it was from sick variance, coolers, and running bad. It made me really angry losing so much when the average skill level of my opponent was so incredibly low; people did absolutely retarded shit like defending their BB w/K863 rainbow against a button raise, then stacking off 50bb on a K-high flop with no other draws! PLO is a sick, sick game with massive variance; I'm sure I'll give it another shot later on down the road.
I started coaching again, and I've currently got three students, all of whom I think have the potential to become excellent players. I really enjoy teaching the game to others who are similarly motivated to learn, and in addition to the videos I make for CR, I feel like this is my way of giving back to the poker community. On a similar note, I'm working with a few of the CR guys on some really cool stuff that I can hopefully talk about more in January, but for now that's all I can really say. We should have two really huge announcements for CR coming pretty soon, this being one of them, so keep your ears open!
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an avid Guitar Hero & Rock Band junkie, and I've come a long way at both games recently. In GH3, I'm two songs away from having 5 stars on every song on Hard -- only Knights of Cydonia (which is an awesome song) and the Slayer song (which is a really shitty song) remain. The Slayer song is also the only song I can't beat on Expert, mostly because it's a terrible song and I have no motivation to practice it. I've also managed to crack 200k points on Through the Fire and Flames a few times, an achievement of which I'm damn proud.
On the Rock Band side, I beat drums on Hard yesterday. On my way to doing this, I only failed two songs: (Don't Fear) The Reaper and Run to the Hills. I beat the Blue Oyster Cult song on my second try (the bridge part is awesome), but the Iron Maiden song took a *lot* of practice to beat. The Who's Don't Get Fooled Again is a pretty awesome song for every instrument and is definitely one of my favorites in the game. Expert will be pretty much impossible to beat on drums, but I'll give it a shot. I've already beaten guitar and vocals on Expert, so here's hoping for the trifecta.
Anyway, that pretty much does it for my long-overdue update. I had a pretty crazy day at poker today/tonight, but I'll put all of that in its own post shortly.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Life update + Aruba tomorrow!
The new CR site finally launched, and it looks like I'll be moving this blog over there in the coming weeks (where it probably belonged in the first place). If and when this happens, I'll post here with a link to the new blog so you guys can continue to read about my boring life. I had been beta testing the site for a week or two to help test things out before launch, and I'm excited to see the way in which all of these new tools & features will improve CardRunners as a community. Cool stuff!
Anyway, I'm really pumped about leaving for Aruba tomorrow. I'm staying with Derric and a few of his buddies in a house down there from Friday until Tuesday, and I can already tell that it's gonna be very hard for me to leave the island -- especially since I'm leaving early (the tourney lasts until next Saturday!). Chicago has cooled down a lot recently, and it's getting to be about that time of year where you can't walk outside without a jacket anymore. The ~2 months I've been living up here have been beautiful and sunny for the most part, and I'm really going to miss being able to hit up the beach for a pick-up game of volleyball on the weekends. San Antonio was awesome for stuff like that almost year-round. At least I'll get one final weekend in paradise before it gets freezing in the windy city...
On a personal note, I'm still pretty bored with work. I really hope things will change, but it's been a full month since I finished my five weeks of training, and I've been applying to projects like a madman in an effort to get staffed. Unfortunately, the subgroup I was assigned to within the company does things much differently than every other subgroup: we don't get to directly apply for roles ourselves, we are under relatively strict supervision every day, and we all basically just sit around staring at our desks pumping out any remedial busywork handed down to us by our supervisors. In short, everything that's hilarious about Office Space applies to my work life right now. This is lightyears from what I expected from a career in consulting...I'm a very intelligent + motivated person, and my talents are being utterly wasted on a daily basis.
Like I said above, any project we wish to submit an application to must be approved by our HR rep. She then removes the roles that either she or the subgroup's policies deem "inappropriate" for a person from our subgroup to fill (which typically shortens my list of roles significantly), adds other roles that are "appropriate," and then applies us to the remaining roles on her own instead of letting us do it ourselves. This is apparently the standard policy for all employees in the subgroup to which I was assigned. The problems with this are as follows: this creates an unnecessarily excessive workload for our HR reps, who are already very very busy; I have no way of verifying that my internal resume was actually submitted to all of the roles I wanted; I end up being proposed for roles I don't want; and, most importantly, I don't get to choose my own career path.
This final point was actually the most important concept they drilled into our heads during our final two weeks of training: your career path in this company is entirely in your hands, and you are strongly encouraged to choose projects which will help you develop the skills you wish to acquire to further your career goals. Nearly everyone else from my start group has been encouraged to exercise their freedom of choice -- the only people deprived of this ability are myself and the four others from my start group who were also assigned to this specific internal group. It's extremely disheartening to see all of your other friends taking control of their own careers while we're stuck in the office all day waiting for staffing opportunities on projects we (typically) didn't choose ourselves.
Many of the projects I applied for sound really awesome and would certainly allow me to utilize all the skills I have developed in school and from other experiences, but unfortunately I've found that most of these are not deemed "appropriate", and I get stuck applying for boring roles as a tester for newly implemented IT systems. The words remedial and monotonous can only begin to describe how boring a testing role would be, so hopefully things will work out soon so I can stop ranting about dumb stuff in this blog that noone wants to read about anyway.
Poker-wise, I've been playing a lot of PLO lately. I got burned out after a long day of NLHE about a week ago and decided to give PLO another shot. 2/4 PLO seemed like a good place to start since I've historically done well (and spotted tons of poor players) when dabbling in the .5/1 & 1/2 PLO games for fun. It's rare for me to find many tough players at the games when I sit, but the amount of variance inherent in the game makes it extremely frustrating to play against these bad players when they keep winning. I probably have some leaks in my game still, but I think my game is reasonably solid -- even now I'm certain that my current level of skill is sufficient to show a significant longterm profit at 2/4 PLO (if I could find the time to put in enough hands). I plan on playing 2/4 & 3/6 until I feel very comfortable with the game and have played enough hands to prove to myself that I'm a solid winner at PLO. Besides, it's a nice change of pace for me, and it's always fun to learn a new game.
PLO does have some nasty swings though, and I started off with a 9 buyin downswing my second full session. I'll post some hands later, but I got coolered a few times and this one opponent kept outdrawing me every time I either flopped or turned a strong hand. It was just sick how hot this guy was running -- especially against me! My past couple of sessions have helped me crawl out of this hole, and as it stands right now I'm only down $700 on the month at PLO. Hopefully I can get this out of the red before the month ends, but it's not a big deal if I can't.
NLHE has been a crazy rollercoaster ride since my last blog entry where I took 10 buyins off that guy @ HU in under an hour. For the most part, I've been playing very well but running terribly, but I honestly expected something like this to happen after making >$20k in the first 10 days of September. 5/10NL has been good to me overall, but I'm struggling with a few players at 10/20. I've studied a bunch of hands and had lots of discussions about hands with friends, and I'm feeling confident that I can make the transition to 10/20 full time (with good game selection, of course) in the near future. I still play 3/6NL too when the bigger games aren't good, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how bad the play still is. If all goes well, this month will top August as my biggest month ever. My goal for September was $25k; I barely scraped past this mark as of last night, so as long as I don't post a big losing session before Sunday I should be good. I'm hoping to have a $30k month before the year ends, but I'd honestly be just as happy proving to myself that I can make a consistent ~$20k/month at poker.
Aruba here I come!
Anyway, I'm really pumped about leaving for Aruba tomorrow. I'm staying with Derric and a few of his buddies in a house down there from Friday until Tuesday, and I can already tell that it's gonna be very hard for me to leave the island -- especially since I'm leaving early (the tourney lasts until next Saturday!). Chicago has cooled down a lot recently, and it's getting to be about that time of year where you can't walk outside without a jacket anymore. The ~2 months I've been living up here have been beautiful and sunny for the most part, and I'm really going to miss being able to hit up the beach for a pick-up game of volleyball on the weekends. San Antonio was awesome for stuff like that almost year-round. At least I'll get one final weekend in paradise before it gets freezing in the windy city...
On a personal note, I'm still pretty bored with work. I really hope things will change, but it's been a full month since I finished my five weeks of training, and I've been applying to projects like a madman in an effort to get staffed. Unfortunately, the subgroup I was assigned to within the company does things much differently than every other subgroup: we don't get to directly apply for roles ourselves, we are under relatively strict supervision every day, and we all basically just sit around staring at our desks pumping out any remedial busywork handed down to us by our supervisors. In short, everything that's hilarious about Office Space applies to my work life right now. This is lightyears from what I expected from a career in consulting...I'm a very intelligent + motivated person, and my talents are being utterly wasted on a daily basis.
Like I said above, any project we wish to submit an application to must be approved by our HR rep. She then removes the roles that either she or the subgroup's policies deem "inappropriate" for a person from our subgroup to fill (which typically shortens my list of roles significantly), adds other roles that are "appropriate," and then applies us to the remaining roles on her own instead of letting us do it ourselves. This is apparently the standard policy for all employees in the subgroup to which I was assigned. The problems with this are as follows: this creates an unnecessarily excessive workload for our HR reps, who are already very very busy; I have no way of verifying that my internal resume was actually submitted to all of the roles I wanted; I end up being proposed for roles I don't want; and, most importantly, I don't get to choose my own career path.
This final point was actually the most important concept they drilled into our heads during our final two weeks of training: your career path in this company is entirely in your hands, and you are strongly encouraged to choose projects which will help you develop the skills you wish to acquire to further your career goals. Nearly everyone else from my start group has been encouraged to exercise their freedom of choice -- the only people deprived of this ability are myself and the four others from my start group who were also assigned to this specific internal group. It's extremely disheartening to see all of your other friends taking control of their own careers while we're stuck in the office all day waiting for staffing opportunities on projects we (typically) didn't choose ourselves.
Many of the projects I applied for sound really awesome and would certainly allow me to utilize all the skills I have developed in school and from other experiences, but unfortunately I've found that most of these are not deemed "appropriate", and I get stuck applying for boring roles as a tester for newly implemented IT systems. The words remedial and monotonous can only begin to describe how boring a testing role would be, so hopefully things will work out soon so I can stop ranting about dumb stuff in this blog that noone wants to read about anyway.
Poker-wise, I've been playing a lot of PLO lately. I got burned out after a long day of NLHE about a week ago and decided to give PLO another shot. 2/4 PLO seemed like a good place to start since I've historically done well (and spotted tons of poor players) when dabbling in the .5/1 & 1/2 PLO games for fun. It's rare for me to find many tough players at the games when I sit, but the amount of variance inherent in the game makes it extremely frustrating to play against these bad players when they keep winning. I probably have some leaks in my game still, but I think my game is reasonably solid -- even now I'm certain that my current level of skill is sufficient to show a significant longterm profit at 2/4 PLO (if I could find the time to put in enough hands). I plan on playing 2/4 & 3/6 until I feel very comfortable with the game and have played enough hands to prove to myself that I'm a solid winner at PLO. Besides, it's a nice change of pace for me, and it's always fun to learn a new game.
PLO does have some nasty swings though, and I started off with a 9 buyin downswing my second full session. I'll post some hands later, but I got coolered a few times and this one opponent kept outdrawing me every time I either flopped or turned a strong hand. It was just sick how hot this guy was running -- especially against me! My past couple of sessions have helped me crawl out of this hole, and as it stands right now I'm only down $700 on the month at PLO. Hopefully I can get this out of the red before the month ends, but it's not a big deal if I can't.
NLHE has been a crazy rollercoaster ride since my last blog entry where I took 10 buyins off that guy @ HU in under an hour. For the most part, I've been playing very well but running terribly, but I honestly expected something like this to happen after making >$20k in the first 10 days of September. 5/10NL has been good to me overall, but I'm struggling with a few players at 10/20. I've studied a bunch of hands and had lots of discussions about hands with friends, and I'm feeling confident that I can make the transition to 10/20 full time (with good game selection, of course) in the near future. I still play 3/6NL too when the bigger games aren't good, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how bad the play still is. If all goes well, this month will top August as my biggest month ever. My goal for September was $25k; I barely scraped past this mark as of last night, so as long as I don't post a big losing session before Sunday I should be good. I'm hoping to have a $30k month before the year ends, but I'd honestly be just as happy proving to myself that I can make a consistent ~$20k/month at poker.
Aruba here I come!
Monday, September 10, 2007
Another Exciting Sunday
I went deep in the Sunday Million again today. After getting a lucky double-up early on with AK vs QQ, I went on a nice tear through the soft field to accumulate a really nice stack. I stayed consistently in the top 10 or 20 on the leaderboard from about the first hour until the 4th hour; here's the sick hand that knocked me down quite a bit: AQ owns me (that's me getting it in as a 70/30 favorite for a MASSIVE chiplead). Shortly after that, I lost another 200k coinflip and was basically shortstacked the rest of the time until I busted. My bust out hand was pretty standard, and I would have been in great shape for the late stages of the tourney had I won the coinflip. I finished 280th or so for a small profit of ~$550, but it definitely sucks getting so deep two weeks in a row and missing out on the really big $$ :(
The ring games were unusually soft this afternoon too. I was 5-tabling 5/10NL during the early stages of the Million and the games were just awesome. There were at least 2 very loose-passive donkeys at each of my five tables who were playing >=40vpip (!), but unfortunately I was running pretty bad and they were killing me. I never really lost any big pots, just lots of small- to medium-sized pots. Some hands:
I honestly wanted to fold this on the turn
Value tooooowwwwwnnnnnnn
Don't try to bluff me you donkey
I run so bad :(
It's always nice when you have aces and someone 4-bets you
HU: Bluff or value shove? (this was against some other guy who sat with me while I was playing the spewtard I describe below)
I finished down about $3k in my first session, but I came back after the tourney and flipped my results to +$3k on the day. So I watched some CR videos, browsed the internet for awhile, then decided to play some HU before bed. I saw this guy at 3/6NL HU sitting with about $6k (10 buyins), which is an extraordinary amount of money to be sitting with at a heads-up table -- the most you can sit down with is $600, so he was probably a pretty good player. I've been working on my HU game a lot recently, so I decided to sit and see just how good he was. Turns out he was actually terrible at poker, and in less than an hour he lost everything he was sitting with to me. This guy was really bad. Here are some highlights from our little HU session:
Soooooo he doesn't like to fold -- this was very early in the match, and I didn't realize how light his calling range was. Made a quick adjustment after this hand :)
He calls down very light -- this would turn out to be the theme of our match
I'm a bluffer -- first time I'd 3-bet all match and I was pretty sure he didn't have much. Good luck calling me with like 66 here...
Such a sick beat...did I mention he doesn't like to fold? It was after this hand that I realized just how bad he was and that there was no way in hell I could leave the table until I had all of his chips.
I mentioned he calls down light, right?
My first preflop 4-bet -- he was 3-betting pretty light, so I tried a 4-bet and was met with insta-calls preflop and on the flop. I put him on a small to mid pair and actually should have shoved the river here, but this guy never, ever folds.
Nuts on the river -- I was planning to bluff the river regardless, but hitting the nuts helps. I guess this guy folds on the river, but he definitely doesn't fold preflop or on the flop. Ever.
He really doesn't like folding -- if he's calling with A4o on this flop, you know his calling range might as well be any two.
Remember: he never folds! I was really hoping (and expecting) for him to call the river, but I guess he realized that T6 probably wasn't good by the river :(
Tried for a river check/raise (but failed)
Here's our first really big pot -- our stacks were starting to get pretty deep, so this was a pretty tough call for me since I hadn't seen him do anything like this yet. I called because 1) I didn't think he'd take this line with a boat; 2) I felt like he'd make this play with an A9-type hand; 3) I was pretty sure he had me on an overpair, so the actual strength of my hand was greatly underrepresented; and 4) I knew that if I was wrong I could easily rebuy and build my stack back up.
After that hand, he started going kinda crazy -- he started 3-betting like a maniac, but he also (correctly) adjusted his 3-bet sizes for our now super-deep stacks, which surprised me since basically everything else he was doing was wrong. On with the hand histories!
Pretty sure I missed out on a ton of G-bucks here (if you don't know what G-Bucks are, you really need to read this article). I def shoulda bet the turn again, and I really wanted to raise the river for value, but I was being cautious playing so deepstacked because I obviously couldn't call if he re-raised allin.
He started going nuts, and I knew that a happy ending to this story was eminent.
Some loose calls from me, but my implied odds were enormous, and I honestly felt like Ks and Qs were outs too. Also, checking the river here was a huge mistake.
...and so it ends (with a 1200bb pot!) -- I just called on the flop because he doesn't like to fold and would probably call down with something retarded like ace high. My gin card hit on the turn, and I kept betting knowing he would call super light. I also knew that when I bet the river that there was a chance he would shove over my bet, so I made the bet fully intending to call a shove allin. I actually instantly called his $2300 raise on the river because I was 100% certain I had the best hand. I won't lie though: I was pretty nervous to play a 1300bb pot!
I wrote all of this having just finished off a $10k session, which puts me at +$22k for the month already...huzzah! I had a great night, and I'm wondering once again why I have a day job that pays 25% of the amount of money I made tonight per month. I'm really enjoying Chicago and most of the guys I'm hanging out with here are smart, solid people, but work just isn't doing it for me at all. Everyone always says to follow your passions in life, and mine are poker, music, and extreme sports. IMO, there's nothing wrong with leaving the company and still living in Wrigleyville to pursue other opportunities -- especially considering how favorable these opportunities are right now. Bleh, I'm starting to ramble now...this is a lot to think about, and I need sleep so I can be at my desk in 4 hours.
The ring games were unusually soft this afternoon too. I was 5-tabling 5/10NL during the early stages of the Million and the games were just awesome. There were at least 2 very loose-passive donkeys at each of my five tables who were playing >=40vpip (!), but unfortunately I was running pretty bad and they were killing me. I never really lost any big pots, just lots of small- to medium-sized pots. Some hands:
I honestly wanted to fold this on the turn
Value tooooowwwwwnnnnnnn
Don't try to bluff me you donkey
I run so bad :(
It's always nice when you have aces and someone 4-bets you
HU: Bluff or value shove? (this was against some other guy who sat with me while I was playing the spewtard I describe below)
I finished down about $3k in my first session, but I came back after the tourney and flipped my results to +$3k on the day. So I watched some CR videos, browsed the internet for awhile, then decided to play some HU before bed. I saw this guy at 3/6NL HU sitting with about $6k (10 buyins), which is an extraordinary amount of money to be sitting with at a heads-up table -- the most you can sit down with is $600, so he was probably a pretty good player. I've been working on my HU game a lot recently, so I decided to sit and see just how good he was. Turns out he was actually terrible at poker, and in less than an hour he lost everything he was sitting with to me. This guy was really bad. Here are some highlights from our little HU session:
Soooooo he doesn't like to fold -- this was very early in the match, and I didn't realize how light his calling range was. Made a quick adjustment after this hand :)
He calls down very light -- this would turn out to be the theme of our match
I'm a bluffer -- first time I'd 3-bet all match and I was pretty sure he didn't have much. Good luck calling me with like 66 here...
Such a sick beat...did I mention he doesn't like to fold? It was after this hand that I realized just how bad he was and that there was no way in hell I could leave the table until I had all of his chips.
I mentioned he calls down light, right?
My first preflop 4-bet -- he was 3-betting pretty light, so I tried a 4-bet and was met with insta-calls preflop and on the flop. I put him on a small to mid pair and actually should have shoved the river here, but this guy never, ever folds.
Nuts on the river -- I was planning to bluff the river regardless, but hitting the nuts helps. I guess this guy folds on the river, but he definitely doesn't fold preflop or on the flop. Ever.
He really doesn't like folding -- if he's calling with A4o on this flop, you know his calling range might as well be any two.
Remember: he never folds! I was really hoping (and expecting) for him to call the river, but I guess he realized that T6 probably wasn't good by the river :(
Tried for a river check/raise (but failed)
Here's our first really big pot -- our stacks were starting to get pretty deep, so this was a pretty tough call for me since I hadn't seen him do anything like this yet. I called because 1) I didn't think he'd take this line with a boat; 2) I felt like he'd make this play with an A9-type hand; 3) I was pretty sure he had me on an overpair, so the actual strength of my hand was greatly underrepresented; and 4) I knew that if I was wrong I could easily rebuy and build my stack back up.
After that hand, he started going kinda crazy -- he started 3-betting like a maniac, but he also (correctly) adjusted his 3-bet sizes for our now super-deep stacks, which surprised me since basically everything else he was doing was wrong. On with the hand histories!
Pretty sure I missed out on a ton of G-bucks here (if you don't know what G-Bucks are, you really need to read this article). I def shoulda bet the turn again, and I really wanted to raise the river for value, but I was being cautious playing so deepstacked because I obviously couldn't call if he re-raised allin.
He started going nuts, and I knew that a happy ending to this story was eminent.
Some loose calls from me, but my implied odds were enormous, and I honestly felt like Ks and Qs were outs too. Also, checking the river here was a huge mistake.
...and so it ends (with a 1200bb pot!) -- I just called on the flop because he doesn't like to fold and would probably call down with something retarded like ace high. My gin card hit on the turn, and I kept betting knowing he would call super light. I also knew that when I bet the river that there was a chance he would shove over my bet, so I made the bet fully intending to call a shove allin. I actually instantly called his $2300 raise on the river because I was 100% certain I had the best hand. I won't lie though: I was pretty nervous to play a 1300bb pot!
I wrote all of this having just finished off a $10k session, which puts me at +$22k for the month already...huzzah! I had a great night, and I'm wondering once again why I have a day job that pays 25% of the amount of money I made tonight per month. I'm really enjoying Chicago and most of the guys I'm hanging out with here are smart, solid people, but work just isn't doing it for me at all. Everyone always says to follow your passions in life, and mine are poker, music, and extreme sports. IMO, there's nothing wrong with leaving the company and still living in Wrigleyville to pursue other opportunities -- especially considering how favorable these opportunities are right now. Bleh, I'm starting to ramble now...this is a lot to think about, and I need sleep so I can be at my desk in 4 hours.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Sunday Million Blues
I got 17th in this week's Sunday Million on PS for just over $5500 tonight, and I'm on total monkey-tilt. I'm so utterly disappointed that I couldn't have a better showing...I was playing really great poker and was running decently well too (which is a lethal combination) until I couldn't get my hand to hold up AIPF 3-way with ~43% equity for a top-4 stack and only 17 players left (from a field of >6500). Sigh...
On the upside, Andrew and a bunch of other people were sweating me, and he took me out for drinks / shots after I busted out. Met some cool guys and had a ton of drinks in like an hour and a half. All in all it was a fun night, and although I'm sure you non-poker readers won't understand why I'm pissed for having a >$5k day, I can assure you that I'm still really upset at my core. First was a whopping $173,000 (!), and had I won that hand, I feel that I would have had a very, very good shot at taking home a 6-figure payday. My shorthanded game is superb, and I had some really smart people sweating me that I could turn to for advice in tough spots. SIGHHHHHH............time for sleep
On the upside, Andrew and a bunch of other people were sweating me, and he took me out for drinks / shots after I busted out. Met some cool guys and had a ton of drinks in like an hour and a half. All in all it was a fun night, and although I'm sure you non-poker readers won't understand why I'm pissed for having a >$5k day, I can assure you that I'm still really upset at my core. First was a whopping $173,000 (!), and had I won that hand, I feel that I would have had a very, very good shot at taking home a 6-figure payday. My shorthanded game is superb, and I had some really smart people sweating me that I could turn to for advice in tough spots. SIGHHHHHH............time for sleep
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Best. Month. Ever.
It's September 1st, and I just posted my best month ever at poker. I've said it before: I feel that I'm playing the best poker of my life right now, and I'm glad the results I achieved in August reflect this (nearly 21k!). I did run decently well this month, but most of the time I felt that I was unquestionably the best player at my tables. Too bad I couldn't put in more hands this month...I only played ~13k hands, which is slightly below the number of hands/month I averaged in college.
My videos for CardRunners have also gotten much better IMO; the latest video I made (1/2NL heads-up) is probably my best one yet. All in all, I'm very confident in (and happy with) my poker life right now, and I'm constantly trying to find time in my schedule to put in sessions. I'm starting to regret my decision to start a real career downtown because poker motivates me a LOT more than my consulting work so far, and I'm also making substantially more money at poker in my spare time! I'm still putting forth my best effort at work, but my real passion lies elsewhere...
Anyway, it's time to celebrate in Wrigleyville. Ryan, David and I are gonna go hit the bars on Clark; Andrew is gonna be out tonight with some of his buddies too, so we might all meet up and take on the bar scene together. Here's to August!
My videos for CardRunners have also gotten much better IMO; the latest video I made (1/2NL heads-up) is probably my best one yet. All in all, I'm very confident in (and happy with) my poker life right now, and I'm constantly trying to find time in my schedule to put in sessions. I'm starting to regret my decision to start a real career downtown because poker motivates me a LOT more than my consulting work so far, and I'm also making substantially more money at poker in my spare time! I'm still putting forth my best effort at work, but my real passion lies elsewhere...
Anyway, it's time to celebrate in Wrigleyville. Ryan, David and I are gonna go hit the bars on Clark; Andrew is gonna be out tonight with some of his buddies too, so we might all meet up and take on the bar scene together. Here's to August!
Friday, August 17, 2007
Done w/SDF training & a poker update
It's been way too long since my last entry, and a lot of stuff has happened. My start group at work is pretty large (~40 people), and I've met some really great people here so far. We completed our third week of training today, which concludes our Chicago SDF new consultant training. Two weeks of training remain before each of us gets staffed on our first project; the final training sessions are held in St Charles, and every employee I've talked to so far has raved about how much fun their experiences were at St Charles. I'm catching a ride down there with David, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Life in Chicago is great too. Nate, Meyvis, and their Yale friend Robert came to visit a few weeks ago and I had a great time with them bar hopping, playing guitar hero, and going to my first Cubs game at Wrigley. I also went home to see my Great Uncle Nelson from Peru last weekend. Richard, Laura, and Jennifer came to town as well, and we all managed to get in some really good skiing & wakeboarding time at the lake, which was nice. I know you guys are reading this, so come visit me in Chicago sometime.
Poker has been going pretty well lately too. I've been playing lots of very short sessions this month, most of which are under an hour, and I'm on track to have a really great month (my goal is 20k). I'm playing the best poker of my life right now, so hopefully i can keep it up and post my best month ever.
My last video for CardRunners was posted on Monday, and I was pretty nervous about the feedback it would receive from the membership. The goal of the video was to show how to play deepstacked against the "tough" regulars at 100NL. Unfortunately, things didnt go as planned, and I ended up losing over $300 (>3 buyins!) during the video, making it my biggest loss ever in a video by far. Most of the hands I lost were due to running bad or just getting into some really bad spots (obviously nothing I have control over), but I felt that I gave some really good commentary throughout and played pretty well for the most part.
Still, I was worried that I'd get hammered in the feedback for not putting up better results, but luckily my assumption couldn't have been more wrong. This video garnered some of the best feedback I've ever gotten, probably because every serious poker player has had many many bad sessions like the one I had in my video. I went out of my way to describe how one should handle these situations when they (inevitably) happen: you have to stop playing *immediately* and take a break at least 15min long before playing again. And when you do return, you MUST find completely new tables to sit at, preferably with all different people at them.
After introducing this concept in detail, I proceeded to take my own advice and paused the video for 15min to take a break of my own. I closed all of my tables and found new ones to play at for the remainder of the video. I think this really drove my point home and was probably the reason my video got such great reviews.
Life in Chicago is great too. Nate, Meyvis, and their Yale friend Robert came to visit a few weeks ago and I had a great time with them bar hopping, playing guitar hero, and going to my first Cubs game at Wrigley. I also went home to see my Great Uncle Nelson from Peru last weekend. Richard, Laura, and Jennifer came to town as well, and we all managed to get in some really good skiing & wakeboarding time at the lake, which was nice. I know you guys are reading this, so come visit me in Chicago sometime.
Poker has been going pretty well lately too. I've been playing lots of very short sessions this month, most of which are under an hour, and I'm on track to have a really great month (my goal is 20k). I'm playing the best poker of my life right now, so hopefully i can keep it up and post my best month ever.
My last video for CardRunners was posted on Monday, and I was pretty nervous about the feedback it would receive from the membership. The goal of the video was to show how to play deepstacked against the "tough" regulars at 100NL. Unfortunately, things didnt go as planned, and I ended up losing over $300 (>3 buyins!) during the video, making it my biggest loss ever in a video by far. Most of the hands I lost were due to running bad or just getting into some really bad spots (obviously nothing I have control over), but I felt that I gave some really good commentary throughout and played pretty well for the most part.
Still, I was worried that I'd get hammered in the feedback for not putting up better results, but luckily my assumption couldn't have been more wrong. This video garnered some of the best feedback I've ever gotten, probably because every serious poker player has had many many bad sessions like the one I had in my video. I went out of my way to describe how one should handle these situations when they (inevitably) happen: you have to stop playing *immediately* and take a break at least 15min long before playing again. And when you do return, you MUST find completely new tables to sit at, preferably with all different people at them.
After introducing this concept in detail, I proceeded to take my own advice and paused the video for 15min to take a break of my own. I closed all of my tables and found new ones to play at for the remainder of the video. I think this really drove my point home and was probably the reason my video got such great reviews.
I really wish I had more time for poker; like I said above I feel that I'm playing the best I have ever played, and I'm still very committed to improving my game. It also sucks that I had to stop giving private lessons since I really enjoy teaching the game and it was a great, consistent way to earn a good amount of money. Unfortunately I don't forsee myself having enough free time for this anytime soon. :(
That's it for now...hopefully I'll start posting more than twice per month again.
Monday, July 30, 2007
The Real World Begins...
It's official: I have become another faceless working stiff in the American workforce. As I write this blog post from a cafe near the office in downtown Chicago, my mind keeps wandering back to Vegas. I had a great time this summer, and I'm really sad that it ended so quickly.
Anyway, I finally moved up to Chicago last week and I'm loving it so far. Brandon and I drove a 26' moving truck up from Austin on Wednesday, stopping only in Little Rock to say a quick hello to James and Kelsey. Our place in Wrigleyville is in a great neighborhood with lots of young people; most of the people I've met have been very open and friendly. The summer weather up here is beautiful, and I think I'm gonna really like living in Chicago.
I met Andrew at their new CardRunners office on Division St yesterday afternoon to see the place and record a video (which I subsequently forgot to upload last night). The office is HUGE and even has its own full-sized kitchen -- it's more than big enough for CR's needs and will likely double as a nice staging area for pre-partying.
Nate, Meyvis, and another friend of theirs from Yale are coming up this weekend for a quiz bowl competition, but Nate said they ran into some problems registering at the last minute and might just forget about it and enjoy themselves up here instead.
Sent from my iPhone
Anyway, I finally moved up to Chicago last week and I'm loving it so far. Brandon and I drove a 26' moving truck up from Austin on Wednesday, stopping only in Little Rock to say a quick hello to James and Kelsey. Our place in Wrigleyville is in a great neighborhood with lots of young people; most of the people I've met have been very open and friendly. The summer weather up here is beautiful, and I think I'm gonna really like living in Chicago.
I met Andrew at their new CardRunners office on Division St yesterday afternoon to see the place and record a video (which I subsequently forgot to upload last night). The office is HUGE and even has its own full-sized kitchen -- it's more than big enough for CR's needs and will likely double as a nice staging area for pre-partying.
Nate, Meyvis, and another friend of theirs from Yale are coming up this weekend for a quiz bowl competition, but Nate said they ran into some problems registering at the last minute and might just forget about it and enjoy themselves up here instead.
Sent from my iPhone
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