Be-where?, the Jabberwock, my son?

Just bought a ticket to Barcelona to play in the FTP Espana tourney on the 20th which I won entry to prior to the DOJ crackdown. For some reason I am nervous as hell....well, it isn't really a mystery - it's a one way ticket because I don't know when I'm coming back or even where I'm staying...I've got some research to do!

I'm drinking "Jabberwocky Ale" from Walkabout brewing right now and thinking about it over an ashtray full of spliff ends. On the one hand I'm sad to leave all the amazing things I have here in Portland, but on the other I can't wait to get back to poker, and the sooner the better.

And on top of that...I've never been to Europe! A fact which surprises me to no end and I'm happy to be rid of!

Investing in Online Gaming

This seems like a no brainer to me. If regulation actually passes that allows these companies to operate freely money will rain from the sky. I've been hearing about the possibility of various regulation bills recently but hadn't been following the investment side of it - that could be a big mistake.

Or not! I'd be curious to hear some opinions on this

Here's the article which lays it all out

Preaching the Silver Bullion

I am now preaching the virtues of buying silver bullion to my friends and family. It's awesome. You can hold it in your hand, it has verifiable, liquid value, and it has an inverse relationship with inflation so you can bet it's going to keep rising. For years I've been waiting for the metals to crash and they haven't - and I think this is because there are big players in the market now- countries like China, who are actively buying up gold. This is not market fluctuation imo...or at least I'm willing to gamble it's not.

I've also decided to take on the stock market as a side hobby, though I don't want to spend too much time on it so ETFs sound like a great option. For specific industries I really want to take a look at online gaming and green energy. Feel free to post thoughts on that or tips in the comments.

I crush Plo

I've been learning omaha the last few months. Saturdays are extra fun now because there are two 200$ omaha tourneys to play between PS and FTP (now starting at a brutal 11am as opposed to blissful 4pm Buenos Aires time)- I did good by finally final tabling the ftp one (35k guarantee but a measly 1500 for 8th. What a shame that more people don't play PLO. It's cool to play a game where people can actually have something sometimes, and at the same time you have the freedom to represent anything.

In other good news I final tabled my first Sunday Major last Sunday but it was a smallish Mulligan and only netted 24 buy ins- a far stretch from the 250+ buyins 1st got, and a good deal less than I've put into Sunday Majors. Still though... even if I haven't quite snared the prize yet I've been getting close and the big win is in sight...I swear man! Any day now...

I'm going to start spouting politics now

As an online poker player, you get a lot of free time. You actually get precisely as much of it as you want., or at least as much as you can afford.

I spend much of my spare time reading news and opinions of current events, as self abusive as that is. I grew up in the 80s, and was even, I admit, a child fan of Alex P. Keaton.

I've reformed in dramatic fashion, and at least one more time since then. I've always been intellectually idealistic - I want the very best of all possible worlds and think it's defeatist not to. Repeatedly both parties have let me down.

I was democrat by default for a very long time and was even exceedingly happy to vote for Obama in the last election. It was a wave of optimism I was happy to ride, and the fact that he was black made it so much sweeter - we could at last make a democratic choice resoundingly anti racist and that prospect alone was thrilling.

But it is clear now that the Democrats are simply not for the values they have previously claimed to represent. Environmentalism is largely abandoned by the party, and it is no longer even remotely anti war...

And the biggest villain is the news media for failing to keep them honest. An open news media is our best defense against government corruption and ours has played the role of puppet for decades.

Case in point - -I've been a fan of the Daily Show for a long time and was looking forward to the Obama interview.

It was very pleasant, and only after did I realize that the word "war" was never used once. It didn't come up in the State of the Union either...

The U.S. is engaged in at least two wars in different countries right now, and yet that has no bearing on the State of the Union. And Jon Stewart of all people can be bought off into not mentioning it?

Our media is fucked.

I'm thinking I should start a separate politics blog, or just start mixing it in here since it really is on my mind. If anyone has an opinion let me know.

I could also really use a name suggestion for said politics blog, hrmmm....

A bit of fishing from the FTOPS ME

I bought all 6 bullets for the FTOPS ME last Sunday and one of them made it all the way to 51st from the 14k+ player field.

By the time I busted out at ~7:30am the tourney was still hours from completion and I was getting seriously tired and in hindsight I'm not happy with my final few orbits of play.

Over all though it was a fun tournament and I played well for most of it, and was happy to get a great rail going which was really cool to stay motivated through the difficult parts of the grind 10-12 hours in.

Here's a big pot I played where observers weren't able to see my hand. Several people commented to me that they were sure I had AJ+

Full Tilt Poker FTOPS Main Event No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t17000/t34000 Blinds + t4000 - 8 players - View hand 1199651

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter



NemoInDeniaL (MP1): t870048 M = 10.48

Hero (MP2): t1547731 M = 18.65

SqueezePlease (CO): t1351722 M = 16.29

mralan2950 (BTN): t1155312 M = 13.92

DoomIV (SB): t322619 M = 3.89

STerrano85 (BB): t1165188 M = 14.04

nickdawgg (UTG): t1933981 M = 23.30

GIAMPP (UTG+1): t1305061 M = 15.72



Pre Flop: (t83000) Hero is MP2 with K 9

3 folds, Hero raises to t68000, 3 folds, STerrano85 calls t34000



Flop: (t185000) J 8 9 (2 players)

STerrano85 checks, Hero bets t98050, STerrano85 calls t98050

Checking back is also a decent play I often use but given my opponents spewiness I wanted more value.

Turn: (t381100) 2 (2 players)

STerrano85 checks, Hero requests TIME, Hero bets t136000, STerrano85 requests TIME, STerrano85 raises to t345000, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls t209000

The board hasn't changed and yet his turn c/r sizing is telling a completely different story from his preflop and flop play.

Am I really supposed to believe that he either check called and checked again with 2 pair+ or that the 3 hit his 83s (possible) though even then I would expect him to lead that a fair portion of the time. I call B.S. and flat call in order to extra max value from his bluffing range. My spew tard is spewing, it's time to make love to the call button.

River: (t1071100) 6 (2 players)

This was an oddly gross card in that it could give him two pair sometimes....but I went out of my way to set the trap so now I gotta fall in it.

STerrano85 bets t650138 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls t650138



Final Pot: t2371376

Hero mucks K 9

STerrano85 shows 5 7 (a straight, Nine high)

STerrano85 wins t2371376


In a nutshell: I had a game plan for this player going in - I knew he was spazzy so I went for thin value and refused to back down when his line didn't make sense.

Needless to say I don't have to pay him off when a ten rolls off either so the fish was lucky indeed.

Perhaps there is a parallel universe where that 6 didn't roll off on the river- (an ace would be sweetest) - and he bluffed his entire stack off to me and I went on to use those chips awesomely and win 1,326 thousand dollars.

Or maybe I donk off a half million in equity in a giant pot due to fatigue and fling myself from the balcony in self loathing.

Anything is possible in the multiverse.

Good night.

Finally did it

I had a decent day taking 2nd in the 25k on full tilt for just over 4k. As it turns out that score was just enough to finally correct my 25k downswing I had on Full Tilt last year -



It's true... the peak on the right is a little bit higher than the peak on the left... I did it! I'm the donkey who got even tonight :)

Stats for the Buenos Aires trip in general are looking good-


Username Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100 Network Filter
J4bberW0cky 423 $29 $62 20% $12,203 - N/A FullTilt 1/7/2011 3/7/2011 x
konway 283 $52 $69 25% $14,616 - N/A PokerStars 1/7/2011 3/7/2011 x


Still hoping to make 100k for the trip so I can really brag about how I spent my winter so I'm gonna have to work a little harder.

Killing it in Paradise

It's 6am here so it won't be a long post...but my poker game is the beastliest it has ever been and my results on pokerstars have been positively crackling if not exactly everything they *should be*

Meanwhile I am dumping monies on ftp like nobodies business but still coming out with quite a nice wage over all...And better things are coming!

J4bberW0cky 238 -$26 $52 -49% -$6,205 Super Tilt N/A FullTilt 1/7/2011 3/7/2011 x
konway 135 $161 $66 119% $21,771 - N/A PokerStars 1/7/2011 3/7/2011 x


My overall PS graph now looks like:





And ya gotta admit...that's a nice slope! Let's hope it continues =)

In other news my great *pat on the back/rejoice* moment for today involved playing without a HUD at all yet going through HEM after to check out my preflop stats... 10.9% 3 bet post ante bitches! Yeahhhhhh Bring da monies!

Oh Fuck It Mentality Anonymous

Yes, I admit - I am a chronic sufferer of the "Oh Fuck It Mentality" (OFIM)

OFIM:

A state of not giving a shit. Monkey tilt chasing bottom pair shoving ass clownery. That's what I do. Not always, but for periods of time it happens, and it costs me a fortune.


This state of mind tends to come about after a few bad beats while playing many tables (12+). Suddenly everyone looks like a donk, doom is everywhere, so oh fuck it let's just get it in even though they can't ever be bluffing, or folding, or whatever absurd action I suddenly decide I need them to be doing.

Fuck it.

Unfortunately, I think that was my attitude toward most of my games on Poker Stars when I recently started grinding multiple sites. For the most part I don't know who any of the players are, the note taking software tilts me, so I just wouldn't pay much attention and treat everyone like donks which is fine until I'd inevitably run into a good player, and then I'd get raped. There was some running-like-shit in there as well, but as I've learned - poker doesn't owe you anything, and you got no right to complain if you aren't trying your hardest and I definitely wasn't. I'd have all the cheap PS mtts just kind of splatter/stacked in the side of my screen while I focused on FTP.

Lately though I've been getting up to half of my games through PS and have given them their own proper spaces and have gotten better at focusing on them and am starting to turn what was a depressing losing streak around with a few modest but encouraging cashes



(Just playing the Sunday Million has been costing me $860 a month so really I'm practically even and ready for my 4580% ROI I'll have after finally binking it.)

As far as curing my OFIM I really don't know what to do, except to be more aware of when it is happening and somehow stop it - anyone have any ideas?

By the way, my new favorite album of today has a song that's pretty fitting and awesome-

I'm playing the best poker of my life, and still scheduling lessons

Poker is a brilliant game. And I don't say that lightly...I've always loved games. I cut my teeth on monopoly, passionately honed my devotion in chess, gave them both a toss when I found I could make money on backgammon (a brilliant game when played for money), but ultimately gave those games up for poker.

And it's not just because you can't make money at those other games (though that is a clearly huge factor), poker is just more complex. It's intriguing (though often maddening) to the extent that no matter how well I feel I know it, there's always another level waiting for me, where previous problems seem ridiculous. I don't know if this pattern will hold...but so far it has, astonishingly well.

That's why, no matter how confident I am feeling, I am still very grateful for all the feedback and advice I get from my poker buddies via skype, and I can still be found scheduling lessons to get coaching from other professionals.

Always, no matter what, my advice is to keep getting better. And always be willing to radically change your perception of the game...especially if you learned poker pre internet-age...poker has gotten kind of weird since then.

Cheers and good luck

I donked out of the 100r 6max today, but learned a lesson

Basically, I had a 50x stack w ~12 left and I opened 2.2x w 45s in the hijack, a cautious player flatted in the sb, and the high 3bet % *definitely gonna squeeze guy* squeezed.

At this point the amount in the pot is about a third of my stack and I expected the bb to do this verrry lightly. So I ship obviously. He has the same amount of chips as me so my fEV should be about perfect....(except that no one folds anything anymore if they know what they are doing, because "no one ever has anything")

He tanks...he really does and I'm screaming FOOLLDDD because I have 5 hi.

Finally he calls with 88 and I'm predictably crushed and I'm out.

What I learned:

54s is not good for reshipping simply by virtue of being crushed by the bottom of their range. Even T7s is going to fare better. And they will call with those medium pairs. Nice to have some equity against the bottom of their range when that happens...though even here, if someone is 3betting 100% and folding 90% than you gotta shove ATC...but against rational humans it pays to be a bit more selective because *people don't always do what they should be doin* and sometimes they actually have the (relative) top of their range...the part that can call you.

Now, I say "gotta shove ATC" because that's how the mtt sng mind works and stems from that fact that the skills required to beat those games have nothing in common with the skills of utilizing bigger stack sizes and playing post flop. More credible than the shove would be a smaller 4 bet. The problem is his squeeze was a little biggish and 45s plays terrible so I'd be putting in more than a third of my stack to play as a pure bluff since in the rare occasions he does just freak out and flat, I'm not going to make much very often.

I think the lesson is... stats wise it was the perfect place to ship. Everything was lined up for it to be easy profit but : the cards in our hand weren't right and b. our stack was a little too big.

Now I know I'll get heat from my purist cEV friends for a statement like that... but it would be insane of me to not assign some serious survival value to a 40x stack with two tables left in the 100r.

If it worked though, I woulda had a nice stack... :) 6 on the river woulda been epic too. :)

Ah well. Thank god for tomorrow...

Back on it

I've been winning mtts like it's my job. I haven't been hitting the big scores but I'm schooling hard core and having fun again.

Some of my win-good is almost definitely being generated by the fact that I'm ditching the winter cold in style this year. A couple mtt grinders and I are getting a dope apartment in Buenos Aires January and February...it'll actually be summer there, and I'm expecting to put in a monster grind.

Another big factor in my current momentum is the time I spent sweating my bud Vestvik7... in something like a year and a half he went from scrub to epic beast, and I was fortunate enough to talk to him about a lot of his hands and sweat his play during his latest challenge. I learned a lot..and it has really opened me up from being a mtt sng nit to something a lot laggier and thoroughly dangerous.

Here's my brag hand for the day: Look how easy to make the HS regs spew hard bwahaha, PWNd ya InescapableD
Full Tilt Poker Game #26090940416: $40,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) (197677940), Table 7 - 40/80 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:10:42 ET - 2010/12/03
Seat 1: K3nny_87 (4,668)
Seat 2: 3333631 (4,550)
Seat 3: LEADBOOTS (4,960)
Seat 4: J4bberW0cky (7,735)
Seat 5: InescapableD (7,440)
Seat 6: RemixIt (8,580)
InescapableD posts the small blind of 40
RemixIt posts the big blind of 80
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to J4bberW0cky [Qd As]
K3nny_87 folds
3333631 folds
LEADBOOTS folds
J4bberW0cky raises to 220
InescapableD raises to 640
RemixIt folds
J4bberW0cky has 15 seconds left to act
J4bberW0cky has requested TIME
J4bberW0cky raises to 1,345
InescapableD has 15 seconds left to act
InescapableD has requested TIME
InescapableD raises to 2,050
J4bberW0cky calls 705
*** FLOP *** [5s Qs 4c]
InescapableD has 15 seconds left to act
InescapableD has requested TIME
InescapableD bets 1,600
J4bberW0cky has 15 seconds left to act
J4bberW0cky has requested TIME
J4bberW0cky calls 1,600
*** TURN *** [5s Qs 4c] [2d]
InescapableD has 15 seconds left to act
InescapableD has requested TIME
InescapableD bets 3,790, and is all in
J4bberW0cky calls 3,790
InescapableD shows [Ac 6d]
J4bberW0cky shows [Qd As]
*** RIVER *** [5s Qs 4c 2d] [Qc]
InescapableD shows a pair of Queens
J4bberW0cky shows three of a kind, Queens
J4bberW0cky wins the pot (14,960) with three of a kind, Queens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 14,960 | Rake 0
Board: [5s Qs 4c 2d Qc]
Seat 1: K3nny_87 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: 3333631 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: LEADBOOTS didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: J4bberW0cky (button) showed [Qd As] and won (14,960) with three of a kind, Queens
Seat 5: InescapableD (small blind) showed [Ac 6d] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 6: RemixIt (big blind) folded before the Flop

Tumbleweeds

No updates in forever I know. This isn't much of one either, I admit. I'm going to try and do more soon though.

By the way, all you 45 man players who think you need to chase every single chip of cev by shoving ridiculous stacks from any kind of position and giving your opponents absolutely no way to make mistakes beyond which their choices of CALL or FOLD allow them- you've ruined the game.

More on this later, and how I propose we change it.

Well Obviously I Am Insanely Lucky

Just binked my biggest score to date- a few bucks shy of 28k for winning the 150+13 75k and ohhh man it feels good, especially after the grueling heads up match with hitthehole, a very aggressive player. His stats were 50/44/74 (or roundabouts) for pretty much the entire final table. I would've thought he was a donk since his raising was so stubborn and he double or triple barrelled almost every single hand but it was working and he held the chip lead for almost the entire final table like that. Luckily I was more to his left than right so I was able to keep myself afloat through the final table by 3 betting him from the blinds from time to time. Finally he picked up a hand to call me when with I 3 bet shoved my KTs from the bb and he flipped up AQo. The KJx flop was merciful to me though so instead of a less than inspiring 5th place finish I was solidly in contention for the top spots. :)

The heads up portion of the match was pretty sick fun, I have to admit. I was only playing one table, really baked, and I was definitely having a great time. We started HU with him having a 4.5-ish to 1 chip lead but I still had over 30 bbs and wasn't shy about using them since he was 2.1x-ing every button- a strategy I like quite well myself, so I was in familiar territory I felt with guessing hand ranges, and in general playing the hyper aggressive Roshambo game. . . except this time there was a 10k difference between first and second. Once heads up I offered to mitigate the difference in pay outs and he declined which I was fine with. When I later took the chip lead it never came up. :)

Overall I'm very proud of my play HU. I was able to win the ongoing battle between him barrelling me off my hands and me taking advantage of his predictable barrelling at the right times, to finally turn the tide in chip ratios. In the final hand I flopped a flush draw with T7s on a 992 flop and I check called the flop planning to checkraise the turn all in which I did when a King fell but he had flopped trips that time, tabling J9o. The river was a surprisingly merciful 5h though and the game was over and I had won my biggest score to date.

Most weirdly, this win comes at a time when I've been feeling especially lazy and malcontent with poker, mostly due to being totally sick of grinding sit and go's, (even though I think they're awesome and very profitable I just feel like I don't have much more to achieve there other than continuing to grind a nice income, but nothing inordinately spectacular. I've been doing 12 tables really comfortably for awhile and know I could easily manage 16 and then probably more. . . but that isn't fun at all. Switching to mtts isn't something to decide lightly either. I've been researching the graphs of some of the mtt ballers out there and it's really no joke- 10-30k downswings are regular for the guys grinding the higher tournament levels, and I've really been trying to analyze if that's something I want to introduce into my life.

I've decided that I kinda do, and wouldn't you know it but I've been blessed with some exceptionally positive variance lately, and it's always nice to have a little luck when you're trying to get something going!

I'll try and return to this later. The lady is home with goodies. Time to celebrate. :)

Day of the Week Sharkscope Graph

I just checked my sharkscope graph to see which days I was most profitable on and I was a little suprised to not see any losing days, which I had a couple of last I checked a year ago, but also that apparantly on Thursdays I have 90% ROI for just under 1k games. I should really be playing poker right now, but getting high and watching the Three Amigos and eating take out sushi with the girlfriend seemed more appealing. Go figure.

Still, I'm not sure these graphs mean anything. Does anyone?

Endless Bragging

After a rocky start to the year I had a few nice cashes at the end of January to finish up 14k for the month. I immediately booked a 19 day trip to Mexico (Portland winters are murderous) and took the week off to plan for the trip and relax as in my head I wrote February off as a non playing month.

So then I spend 19 days travelling the Yucatan having a fantastic time with Carrie, on my Very first day back I bink the 35k K.O. on FTP for 10.5k while playing a warm up 4 tabling session - totally loaded.

I promptly took that as a sign from the gods that everything I've been doing is totally synced with what the universe wants for me, and since what I had been doing was whatever I wanted, I've continued to do that which doesn't happen to always include much poker. Especially not sober poker.

Is combining weed with poker a great idea? It's not the greatest, but I limit myself to 6 tables at a time, and I think cumulatively I'm paying so much more attention to the dynamics and action at the particular tables that it's enough of a significant increase to ROI to offset the potential bad aspects of playing loaded. I don't recommend playing loaded if you aren't comfortable with your general game plan. You need to be able to realize that you are starting to play weak passive for instance, and be able to adjust for that and perhaps even be able to capitalize on your opponents recent perception of you as a weak tight player.

I focus on playing tight- really pretty tight in general- but I'm also always on the look out for reasons to open up my game as I think nailing those little opportunities regularly is a big part of what makes the difference between a highly successful mtt player and a mediocre one. Those little spots really add up over time and help you weather many inevitable storms that could otherwise be devastating if a few extra chips hadn't been accumulated. Mary Jane's dreamy and creative functions seem to highlite such spots for me, when it's working right. Sometimes in poker you really just need to slow down and THINK. . . ie, what's the right bet size? What does he think I have and how will he react? And so forth. Playing 12 tables cracked out on caffeine is a totally different experience. . . one focused on bashing out the most correct play on average as often as I am able. . . playing stoned is a totally different, really enjoyable experience compared to that.

Sometimes. Lately. . . I just haven't wanted to play. And it's not like I have another way to make money at the moment. . . (though I've started work on making my own web based browser game, a coffee product I want to produce, and have half a dozen writing and web projects gathering dust), I just don't want to play. Sometimes poker just doesn't feel right and I don't know if I'm just chronically (heheh) lazy or if I just really need to diversify myself a bit.

Now, there is one ugly truth I'm avoiding looking at. . . the allegations that marijuana use saps motivation. That could definitely be true in my case for a very simple reason- I don't play serious sessions unless I really feel like playing, and I often wake up just cloudy headed enough to want to spend my time playing video games. . . and smoking more pot all day. Which, incidentally, is a lot of fun! It's like I'm 9 years old and can have Saturday any time I want, and this time I've got way better video games and drugs to help me enjoy them. It's pretty awesome.

Incidentally, alcohol and poker is a horrible combination, and as I say that as one of the worlds biggest fans of both. I've just done plenty of the two together to know that they don't really belong. Alcohol and Marijuana for that matter have a similiar issue- The Blowup Factor. Booze has a much higher Blowup Factor in my opinion than MJ, but they both have the potential to produce drastically bad plays.

Or is that excuse making? Lord knows I can make horribly redonkulous plays completely sober.

LOL variance

Having my most painful month in a long while. Last I posted I was trashing my room over a $350 loss. . . enter the 2.5k downswing! I've actually been keeping my cool for the most part since my last brainsplosion at the madness of poker brutality.

The newest and best thing in my life poker wise is definitely Rush Poker. . . only played it once but I felt like a drooling rake back monkey after I earned 2500 ftp points for my 5.5 hour session!
Sngs. . . are hell. Worst thing is documenting it by participating in the January 90 man contest on badbeatspoker.net. Pretty fucking gross!
Username Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100 Network Filter
J4bberW0cky 29 -$24 $32 -86% -$697 Super Tilt N/A FullTilt <12Hours x
J4bberW0cky 37 -$3 $10 -29% -$119 Super Tilt N/A FullTilt 1/1/2010 1/31/2010 E90-90 S<=15 SNG Only x
J4bberW0cky 67 -$1 $20 -4% -$61 Super Tilt N/A FullTilt 1/1/2010 1/31/2010 E90-90 S20-30 SNG Only x
J4bberW0cky 35 -$21 $40 -49% -$748 Tilt N/A FullTilt 1/1/2010 1/31/2010 E90-90 S36-80 SNG Only x
J4bberW0cky 5,110 $12 $27 44% $59,390 Super Tilt 87 FullTilt x
J4bberW0cky 311 -$5 $31 -7% -$1,521 Super Tilt N/A FullTilt Year2010 x

the little things

Up until tonight January has been pretty crappy. My motivation has been low, I haven't been playing much as I've been too busy swilling this awesome scotch bar that I bought myself for Christmas, delving deeply into gourmet beers, and basically eating like a king from the Medieval Ages.

I played 4 or 5 session in the first ten days of the new year, quietly donking off a hundred or two a session (except for a nice little win at the 5/10 LHE tables- that was fun. Limit Holdem is a great, great game sometimes.).

Today I got straightened out. Instead of lounging around per the norm I actually made it to the gym after my morning smoothie, had a nice work out, got a balanced meal and all that, took my vitamins, some Piracetam, and I think most importantly- I really cleaned off my desk. All those nasty little smudges and piles of sticky tobaccoe and weed fragments- I saved the weed fragments obviously, but I really scoured the area and made my situation as nice as possible. I played a nice 42 game session in an excellent mood - hardly screaming at all - and capped what would have been just an okay night with a very welcome 4th place finish in the 23k K.O. tourney for just over 2k.

Mission accomplished. (except for the obvious failure at clinching the 23k- but if I really want to pursue that line of reasoning than I might as well be bitter that I didn't win every single tournament I played tonight.)

The lesson is- and it's a lesson I know but don't follow often enough- everything counts in poker. Poker is a Meta-Game of sorts. Every detail matters, even though sometimes none of it does. It's BIG like that.

And to really optimize your playing and profit making experience, take the time to set the stage. For me I've realized that this means getting some exercise. I find that my emotions are more balanced and my thinking is more clear after a work out. I'm also tangibly "more awake," which is huge when multi tabling because you have to make a lot of important decisions very quickly sometimes, and your information is often of an esoteric nature at best. Every little detail adds up at the poker table and the quicker and more efficiently you can take it in the better obviously.

I haven't gotten around to making my New Years goals yet, but you can believe that they're going to be more focused on maintaining my attitude and dedication and overall well-being more than they will be about winning some X amount of $.

2009- Year of The Fucking Finally

Awesome year comes to a close. . . I've been cobbling together income from small stakes poker games for years, always felt like I could succeed, yet I never was able to establish a real money making groove until this year.

My biggest accomplishment by far is finishing the year #1 on a Sharkscope leaderboard. . . now mind you there's a lot of categories to fight over. My category is

Most money won in 2009 in tournaments that started with between 4 and 6 tables, with a buy in between 16-$35. Any site.

To achieve this I played 2,285 $24+2 45 player sit and go's at a pretty spectacular %57 ROI for a total win of $33,772 in this category, which happened to be the most this year. There's a day left so perhaps I shouldn't be documenting this yet. . .

Add to that some nice wins in some other brackets, a recent slew of mtt successes (or near successes depending upon outlook) and 2009 completely outstripped my expectations and was an unequivocal success. For the first time since working in the casino's I earned a proffessionals living wage and I did it working my hours on my terms.

Pretty awesome.

What's on the horizon? I'm not sure. Cash games keep calling to me siren like just for the shear flexibility of the game. Being able to play as long as I like, whenever I like, for as little or as long as seems good. . . sounds awesome. I'm definitely going to work on improving my skills in that area, it's just a matter of figuring out which form I want to specialize in.

That's how I work. I specialize. If I'm going to play a game I study the hell out of it. I think this stems from my chess background and how much work needs to go into preparing your Openings. But it's true. Every poker format has it's own strategies and conditions. A friend of mine recently asked me for a book recommendation- specifically for NLHE cash games. Another friend present suggested Harringtons Tournament Series because it was an excellent book. . . and it is . . . but totally inappropriate for cash games! So many of the concepts just don't properly carry over.

Here's an example.

In a 45 man sng it can be appropriate to reraise, get all in with AK on the first hand.

In a traditional 9 man sng it pretty much never is.

In a cash game AK can be folded or played for less than all in preflop in many, many situations. Stack size and previous action play a large consideration and can lead to a variety of plays.

So about a year ago was when I finally decided to specialize in poker. I had seen some regular success in the 45 man sngs and wanted to see if I could get more, more often.

One of the problems was that I was only playing 2-6 tables a year ago, and I was often doing that in compromising situations, like while watching t.v..

Some of the biggest strides I've made in the last year have been in the realm of multi tabling. I now play 12 tables quite comfortably, and am now itching to get my second monitor working so that I can move to 16 without overlap.

Not only did multi tabling help me put in more volume, but it also helped me plug some leaks. In particular I'm a chronic sufferer of Fancy Play Syndrome, but in order to play 9, and later 12, games comfortably, I finally said good bye to a lot of the moves that I knew were marginal at best yet were difficult to play in even the best spots to account for the limited attention I could give particular hands playing 12 games at once. Basically, playing a bunch of tables at once forced me to finally play more or less correctly- which is pretty damn tight- at least in this format of poker.

There's a whole train of thought to come after this I'm sure, but it's a little late for that.

Happy New Year, Reader, Apologies for the rambling, it's been a sloppy, and happy holidays.

Good luck in 2010!

DUDE

Just had the most grueling night ever, except that I made $3500 on it! How could that be??

XXXXX <---- INSERT SHARKSCOPE GRAPH OF MY SUCKAGE HERE

Unfortunately the formatting on the sharkscope graph went to hell, and I'm too tired to fix it, but I busted out of everything I played tonight, or had to settle for penis cash, in almost every game but two. Agonizing soul crush after agonizing soul crush. . . except that in two games out of 40-whatever I actually went deep before being soul crushed. . . so made some nice coin.

In my big cashout, the 3rd place in the 25k guarantee- I had a rather dissapointing finish. After sparring with other final 3 players for almost 45 minutes (these rebuy tourneys have a ton of chips- they're awesome), both of them big winners, I raised 9To on the button to just over the minimum, the small blind flatted and the big blind folded. I very happily bet about 1/2 pot on the flop of QJ8- giving me the nuts! The bb called. He check called the turned King, and led on the river 3 for about half pot. I tanked and wound up shoving as the pot was so large I thought he'd be committed with many worse holdings. He snap called and showed AT for the turned nuts.

OUCH.

After shoving and winning a couple flips in the next two orbits I actually clawed my way back into contention for 2nd place but the blinds had gotten large and my 9x shove was called by the chip leader who was holding K4o which was more than enough to beat my 68s. GG. Both players at the final 3 were very competent so the third place didn't hurt as much as it might normally. . . but I'm definitely starting to get a little nervous about my short handed game as I haven't been able to clinch one of these in awhile.

The crazy, stupid fucked up thing about playing poker for a living is that even though I had a killer night at "work" it was absolutely dreadful to participate in! The wins came late in the night, and were a damn good turn of events for me since I was down $1000 in tournaments already- almost all of them $24-$50 buy ins and just getting fisted every single time I entered the pot until I was screaming at my monitor and pounding my computer mouse every ten minutes! I was livid, bent, frustrated, impatient, I think I went on tilt a dozen times tonight! Thank god for those 5 minute breaks I get to spend with my dogs. They really hook me up at times like that- the look of mortal concern in their eyes reminds me I'm being a total fucktard, and playing with them afterwards is great for the spirits. Dogs rule.

So yeah, the pleasure/pain ratio in poker is totally fucked. After having my mind ground to dust over 40 painful bust outs tonight I finally win some good money- but am STILL left to curse the HOWs of getting only 3rd place (the money for first and even second is much better, and good players take pride in being able to "close the deal"), and the actual money won. . . well it doesn't seem very real right now.

Fuggin lame. But I suppose there could be worse things. Some of my friends take orders, give orders and stand up for up to 16 hours a day. :P