RiverRock55's Poker Blog

Overdue Update

2011-09-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

So life and poker have been good the last couple of months. I got engaged, vacationed in Ibiza, chilled and grinded in Slovakia, caught the end of the Vancouver summer, and have finally settled into a new apartment in a great part of town. I accomplished all this while getting in respectable volume and putting a ton of work into my game.

I just booked the best month of the year at table winnings ( i may have made more $ earlier in the year when I grinded out big bonuses), but either way booking a solid month feels good. I think it's some hard work paying off. I have been active with a coach and a group he facilitates, and have been grinding away in holdem manager breaking down my game. I can confidently say I am playing better than ever before.

RR

Quick May + June Update

2011-06-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Havn't been feeling like blogging at all lately. I arrived back in Slovakia last night and am here with the gf visiting her friends and family. We also have a mini 5day holliday to Ibiza planned in two weeks.

Been grinding 9-12 tables of 100nl the last couple months. Have gotten decent volume putting in 130 hours in May and about 105 hours so far this month. It has been going okay and I really notice the changes in my game starting to pay off. Still the number one thing is maintaining quality focus throughout sessions and remembering to think before each action. Seems so simple.

April

2011-04-30T17:44:00.000-07:00

Interesting Month.

First month of non-SNE grinding this year. I managed to get 90 hours - 72K hands of 100nl - and earn just over 20 buyins in $ and EV.

My game has changed alot in the last few months and I am happy with it but still feel I need to keep working hard off the tables. Im gonna start off May with a DB review of April and while going through my Alan Jackson coaching vids. Then my goal is to grind 150 hours of anywhere from 6-16 tabling. It would be great to take some 200nl shots, but the BR isn't quite there yet. I just want to focus on getting my hours in and making sure they are quality!

Ofcourse FT and Stars closed to american players. I feel sorry for all the American grinders I know personally. Man I would be so choked to be in your shoes. I wish you all good luck getting back on the grind ASAP. In the meantime I think the games are actally a bit better since black friday. All the more reason to work harder my my game and dilligently get in the hours.

I got a surprise call last weekend. It was pokerstars calling me to let me know that one of their sponsored online pros Tyler Frost (his blog is linked on my blogroll as frosty) was taking a group of there VIP players from Vancouver out for dinner on stars dime and asked if I wanted to go. Easy answer obv. They picked me up in a limo with 7 other supernovas, took us downtown to a trendy restaurant were we ran up a $1K bill on appetizers and drinks. We got back in the limo and went to a club/bar where they greased the bouncer to get us past the line. Once inside we partied like rockstars -thanks to stars- and racked up a huge bar tab by buying rounds of 25 vitamin C shots at a time. It was great to meet all the guys - I was the oldest at 25yrs, lol- It was weird to be in a social setting where it was actually fun and not weird or lame to talk poker. There was a range from cash guys, mtt's guys, plo guys and sitngo guys, all really interesting and cool people. Hope to cross paths with any of em again.

Have a Good May!
RR55.

Quest Over: Fresh Start!

2011-04-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

My SNE Quest for 2011 has come to an end. It stings a bit to say but overall I am happy about the decision.

So what happened? The first two months of the year I was getting by. I was putting in alot of hours and trucking along at about 90% of the pace I needed for SNE. I was just slightly losing at the tables and banking decent money in bonuses. In February I decided I didn't like the status quo and wanted to actually be beating the games and planned on picking up the pace in March and April. I worked my ass off this month to make that happen. I played every single day and put in countless hours off the table working on my game. My game has changed quite a bit since I started working on it seriously in early February. The first two weeks of march things went decent and I felt like I was seeing progress. Then I hit a major downwing about 1/2 way through the month. I recovered and was back to even for the month in the third week, and then got crippled the last week and a half. And ofcourse this is all while running good above my $EV. The last part of this second downswing I felt mentally burnt out, physically out of shape and run down, and emotionally not happy.

So after working everyday of the month I decided on March 30 that I did not want to go on like this.

Don't feel sorry for me, I think it's all for the best and have no regrets. This experience has shown me how hard I can work at poker and has made me more hungry to improve than ever before. It also led me to my coach, who I still stay in touch with and has led me to other interesting ideas and people. I also did decently in terms of $, losing $3300 in the poker, but clearing $16K in bonus ($1200+$2800+$4K+$4K+$4K).

If I were to try SNE again I would want to be comfortably 12 tabling at 200nl for at least 1ptbb for some time before I ramped it up. I think 15 tabling 200nl for like 6 hours a day 23 days a month is a much more sane way to do it that 20+ tabling 100nl for 7 hours per day 25 days per month.

So now what? Nothing too major. I still plan to grind a lot of hours playing pokers and working on my game off the tables. I just won't have the stress of some pace that I struggled to stay with while working hard and would lose ground on every time I left my poker bubble for a minute to participate in real life.

I am still going to play at stars but probably cut down to 9-15 tables while I work on my game.

I am also going to be splitting my hours trying out some of the smaller softer sites. I am actually really excited about this. I have been shopping around the last couple days for rakeback deals, something I don't know much about. I have heard I can get sick unadvertised deals if I know who to talk to and can show them the potential volume I bring, maybe even 50%+. If you have any advice on this please let me know.

Finally, Here is the graph. I'm now going to back to my old ways of not posting graphs and results on the blog because it generally isn't something I feel comfortable doing. It was fun for the SNE quest though.

Just to add in an edit since I forgot when I wrote this. I made it to 214K vpps and was ~25K vpp's behind the SNE pace at the end of March when I decided to thrown in the towel on the quest.

February

2011-02-28T17:44:00.000-08:00

February has always been my least favorite month of the year, and this year was no exception. Pokerwise I put in a lot of effort and had a bad month in terms of results and volume. In terms of life it wasn't all that bad but my girlfriend and I both got whacked with the flu that has been going around, I also wasted about 4 full days this month being really hungover, where I am not productive in poker or life.

I played 132.5 hours this month, 197600K hands, earned 65.7K vpp's ($5145 in bonuses), and finished -$698 (-$EV-3279). So I actually ran really hot in terms of $EV and still had a losing month. I also went on a big heater the last couple days to make it seem not as bad as it felt. The fact that I was down so much in $EV last month and this month started to bother me, which turned into motivation to improve.

The one really positive thing that came out of this February was I can confidently say I worked harder on my poker game than I ever have before, Alot harder! I put in 4coaching sessions this month, went over the recording of these sessions and made pages of notes. I also spent alot of time on my own playing around in HEM looking at my game. It is such a valuable tool. I guess I never really spent much time with it before since I didn't feel comfortable with all the filters and stuff. But if you spend the time to learn the program you start to see alot of cool stuff. I would guess that I put in about 30 hours of non-playing time on my game this month. I have a ton of things to try to improve upon and will slowly work on them one by one.

I currently sit at 141K vpp's on the year. 20K vpp back of the SNE pace. This is not where I wanted to be when I mapped this out at the start of the year. I am also going to be dropping the number of tables I play for the next while as I work on improving my game. I am absolutely not giving up and don't count myself out it at all. I am only 5 full work days behind pace. I plan on working really hard this month and want to put in over 200 hours. How much of this is grinding on the tables and how much is off the table work depends on how things go. I am so motivated to play the best poker I can and learn to both beat the games and grind SNE. Also knowing that if I could work my way up to 1/2nl where you earn way more vpps per hand is huge motivation to improve.

Good Luck in March!

January

2011-01-31T19:52:00.000-08:00

I was super busy this month with a bunch of life stuff, so didn't get as much poker in as I should have. I had 6 full days of no poker and a bunch of 1/2 - 3/4 days. Beata and I moved back to Vancouver from Slovakia, we had to settle into a new apartment, and I spent alot of time helping with her resume and job applications. I still managed to get in 144 hours, 230495 hands, 75.2K vpps, and finished up 3 buyins on the month (-24 buyins $EV, so I ran good again).

I finished the month 8K vpps behind SNE pace. Im not too worried about it since it was such a busy month. My goal for February is 90K vpps which would but me back on pace. I really plan to go big in March, April and May.

Some other cool stuff on the poker front. I bought 5 sessions with a bluefire pokercoach who specializes in HEM analysis. I have already had my first session with him and I thought it was great.

I ordered gunnar glasses after seeing them in the fpp store and reading some online reviews. Today was my first full day playing with them and I think they are absolutely awesome and make a huge difference. Fwiw - I ordered them at www.gunnars.com for $100. The fpp store charges like $160 in fpp's and only has one style to choose from.

Not too into blogging lately, but I will stick to my monthly updates. Life outside poker has been awesome.

Good Luck in February.

December

2010-12-29T03:14:00.000-08:00

Woot!!! I just shipped the 500K vpp bonus and cashed another $4K bonus to finish off the year :)

I grinded 255,827 hands in 158.92 hours for 1610 hands/hour. Finished +32 buyins on the month (-7 buyins $EV) so I finally ran hot! The 85765 vpp I earned is worth $8K in bonuses. Finishing the year off with a +11K month is a great feeling, it hasn't been an easy year so this helps alot.

As far as the grind went it was interesting and I learned alot. The month started with a brutal downswing that lasted about 100K hands. It was psychologically one of my tougher moments in poker. Being down +3K so early on in the month, my bankroll hitting an all time low on the year at $7K, and having to work everyday - 7.5hours (I didn't take my fist day off till Dec 17h) made me question if continuing was even a good idea. I had to shut out images of grinding so many hours this month and breaking even or losing money. At the worst times I feared going broke in my account before even making it to the bonus. I'm not proud to admit that I had these thoughts. But it is important that I acknowledge them and learn from them. I know I am stronger for showing up, facing these fears and grinding day in and day out. I constantly tried to play better every day and thought about and worked on my game the few hours I was away from the table. I anticipate I will see many swings like this in the year to come as I attempt SNE. It is really just more motivation to improve my game from break even to even a 0.5ptbb winner, doing so would dramatically reduce the impact of varience.

Then the heater came. Not much to say other than it's a fun game to play when everthing goes your way. I took 3days off over Christmas and enjoyed Slovak Christmas with Beata and her family. Good food Good people and some intersting new traditions :) I got back to work on the 27th and had to face a little drama at the end of the month. With 2K vpps to go, during a break I was surfing the web, clicked on something I shouldn't have clicked on ;) on boom accidnetly installed some type of virus or malcious addware on my computer. The program that installed itself is call "HDD Low" it acts like a windows security center and creates all these pop ups saying I have all these problems "full handrive, not enough ram etc" which is BS cuz I have been able to run PS, HEM, and TN fine with no lag since it installed itself. I also can't figure out how to uninstall it, as it isn't in the normal place to do so. Also wierd is I can no longer start task manager with "ctrl,alt,del". Anyway at the end of my day I restarted the computer to check that it would start up this morning so I could play, it didnt go well, all that showed up was a black screen with the HDD adware and nothing else. I decided to call it a day and spent a restless night figuring out plans on what to do if I couldn't play on my computer. I decided if I had to I would play on Beata's netbook, hooking up my 24inch screen and 6 tabling with out a HUD for the appox 12 hours it would take to get 2K vpp. Glad it didn't come down to that.

Plan on spending the next few days fixing my computer and updating all my programs so I am good to start grinding Jan 2nd. Going to a New Years party in Bratislava and am stoked!

Happy New Year!

November

2010-11-30T13:05:00.000-08:00

I managed to play 88 hours this November. I wanted to play more but due to traveling and computer problems I only was able to work 16 days of the month. I grinded 147,676hands for 1680 hands per hour. November wasn't technically a full month of play since I was sidelined for like two weeks. Despite this I am happy to say I booked my first green month mass tabling for a 17 buyin win (+14 bi $EV). I also managed to earn 45991 vpps - about $4K in bonuses.

December is gonna be an epic grind. I got 85,700 to get the 500K milestone bonus, and I want it bad! Hopefully I will be able to pull off my biggest vpp month ever, while still enjoying the hollidays, and rejuice the batteries a bit for the start of the big grind next year. I'm up for the Challenge!

Good Luck at the Tables.

Bump in the Road

2010-11-20T05:25:00.000-08:00

Bea and I are back in Slovakia alive and well. However my grind routine has been rocked with set back after set back. I played alot in the first half the month before our Nov 15th flight because I knew the second half would be busy. Before we left I grinded about 36K vpp, 120K hands, +1K in $ and $EV - these are rough estimates as I cant check my actual stats because of my computer situation which I'll get to in a minute.

Our flight connection was in London and which was covered in heavy fog cancelling alot of flights, including ours. They put us up in a decent hotel in central London for the night and we flew out at 2pm the next day. So ontop of losing the normal two days to travel + time difference + jetleg, I lost another 24hrs. Before we arrived we rented a room in a friends apartment that I could use as an office. It turned out to be 1.5 days before we could track the guy down to get the key so I could set up shop. Once in the apartment I realized I didn't have the right adapters for the plugs, and because all the stores were closed I had to wait until this morning. I finally get the adapters and go to plug my computer into the wall and "Pop Bang" I knock out all the power in our flat and have to go find the fuse box to get the lights back on. I am also pretty sure that I just fried my computer and my chances of making the 500K vpp milestone bonus. Europe runs on 220v and American 110V, but I checked all my equipment and it all said 110v-220v.

The next day we took the computer over to Bea's sisters house - her fiancee is really good about computers. He suspected that I only fried the source component in my computer, after testing we discovered his suspicion was true. Luckily I can buy a new source for like $40. He knows where and offered to do it after work on Monday. He also showed me a switch on the back on the computer that is for switching it from 110v to 220v, if I had known to flip it I would have been fine. So hopefully I can get up and running by Monday night.

Tuesday we are going to Manchester for 4 days to visit and stay with friends. We get back on the 27th, which means I could start grinding on the 28th. Turning this whole debacle into a unwanted and unplanned 2 week break from the tables. It also puts me in a sick spot. I have 95K vpp to go and really want to earn that 500k vpp bonus, I could pay off my student loan by the end of the year. I do plan of grinding close to 100K vpp per month next year, so 95K vpp shouldn't be to grueling. But it will be coming off a 2 week break and be going on over the Xmas holidays. I thought about bailing on my Manchester trip, but doing so seems like something I would regret in the big picture. Tough spot

October

2010-11-01T05:38:00.000-07:00

October was a fairly successful month as my first attempt mass tabling. I played with a 20 table tile on my big screen, with the lobby and the other 4 tables on my smaller screen. But I rarely actually played the 4 tables on the small screen and just sat out at them and slotted them in the big screen if another table broke.

I was -$1760 in table play on the month (-$834 in $EV). I grinded 226401 hands in 144.8 hours (1563 hands per hour). Earned 74041 vpps for $6364 in bonuses, netting $4664 on the month ($32 per hour).

My goal for November is 120 hours, but to get up to 1650 hands per hour. It would be awesome to break even or better in $ and $EV, but improving my mass table game is the most important target for my big picture goal of SNE 2011. I also will be travelling this month with a trip back to Europe for a few months.

Good Luck in November!

September and 2011 Goals

2010-10-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Super Nova Elite 2011! I have spent the last few months thinking about this on the downlow. But now it is officially my plan for 2011. I wanted to do a sort of test run to see how mass tabling would go and had to wait for September to do it. I had to wait to be back in Vancouver with my 30inch desktop setup and wanted to start after the Ironman.

So this is how September went: I took the last week of August and the first 5 days of September off poker. I started on Sept 6th immediately playing 16 tables on the 30inch screen with the stars lobby and staging tables on the 24 inch screen to the left. For the record I tried stacking tables as many mass tablers do and hated it - I'm tiling all the way. I immediately got off to a rocky start playing bad and running under EV. After about a week or so I was able to get in a better groove and play better the rest of the month. My game still has a long way to go to being a 0.5 to 1 ptbb/100 winner mass tabling 100nl 6max. I feel like Im at about break even now despite booking a -25 buyin month (-10 buyins in $EV). I played 130K hands in 107.2 hours for 1,210 hands per hour. I started off 16 tabling but would often fall to around 12 tables and would be too involved to bring up new tables right away. Unfortunately HEM doesnt have a MT ratio stat that Im aware of. I earned 42,335 vpps about 0.326 vpp/hand . So including fpp bonuses I broke almost exactly even for the month. I'm not thrilled about it by not bothered either. It was my first real month trying it and getting back on the grind after an extended poker break is tough. I also had to adjust to using tableninja which took a couple days. I ran at 19.1/16.6/3.2. I also worked a fair bit on my game, posting in the forum a ton on DC, and getting video reviews done by Hielko and SGB5000. My fundamentals need to be more solid for me to pull this off.

So my general game plan for SNE 2011 is to start off on pace to get SNE in 10 months and hold this pace for the first 6 months. That way if I need to take some time off to enjoy the summer and fight burnout I can take 1 month off over July - August to juice up my grinding batteries and get back at it full force in September to finish at the end of November. I don't want to be grinding down to the wire over the Christmas holidays, I will if necessary ofcouse but want to avoid that by giving my self a bit of a cushion. So to get SNE in 10 months at 100 nl 6max I need to play 3,067,000 hands or 307K hands per month assuming 0.326 vpp/hand. I plan to "work" 25 days per month meaning I have to average 12.25K hands per day. If I want to work 6 hours per day that's 2050 hands per hour. If I extend it to 7 hours that's 1750 hands per hour. This past month I probably average around 13-14 tables and got 1200 hands per hour. So if I can get up to averaging 20 tables I should be able to average the 1750 hands per hour I need for a 7 hour work day. If I can get up to 24 tables I should be able to average 2K hands/hour I need for a 6 hour workday.

So the goal for October is to make the transition from my 16 tables tile set up to the 20 table tile set up on the 30 inch. This is basically the max - I will never be able to tile 24 tables on the 30inch screen as they would be too small - to 24 table I would have to go 20 tables on the big screen and 4 + lobby on small screen. I would also like to get in a minimum of 120 hours at the tables. Well see how this goes and see how many hands per hour I can get and how many vpps I can earn.

Back on the Grind

2010-09-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

I'm back on the Grind after taking a couple weeks off poker to do the Ironman Triathlon the weekend of Aug 29th, and then went away with friends the following weekend to Denman Island to chill and party.

The Ironman was a success! It didn't go as smoothly as planed but when you attempt the most difficult single day endurance event it rarely does. The plan from the beginning was to meet up with my Dad after the swim in transition 1 and then stick it out together the rest of the way. I finished the 3.8km swim (2.4 miles) in 1hour 21 min and waited for my Dad for about 10 minutes in T1. We headed out on the 180km (112 mile) bike course and grinded it out there for 7 hours 40 minutes. We were expecting the bike to take about 6.5-7 hours but my Dads upper back was totally seized from a crash he sustained 6 weeks prior to the event. This meant that we had to stop about 5 times for me to rub Voltaren (topical ibuprofen) onto his back. There were also brutal headwinds the last hour or so on the bike that slowed us down. When we got to the run we had already gone longer than expected on the bike so weren't concerned with time as much as making sure we got the finish. So we ran about 80% of the 42Km (26 mile) marathon and walked the other 20% - mostly steep hills and water stations. Our marathon took 4 hours 45 minutes. Our total Ironman time was 14 hours 18 minutes. Im very proud and happy of my Dad and myself for conquering this event, and am already anticipating when I will take another attempt at Ironman to blow this time out of the water.

Denman Island was a total blast. Beata and about 10 friends went up to my buddy Ross's cabin and chilled, partied and fully enjoyed the good company and beautiful scenery.

SNAP BACK TO REALITY - you poker game will suffer after not playing 2 weeks. I got destroyed the first 3 days back dropping about 23 buyins. In one 3 hour session I lost 13 buyins for my worst single session ever ( in terms of buyins not $ ). I was also running terrible only about -9 buyins in $EV but -24 in $. I bounced back today booking a +6 buyin day and hope it's the start of something good. I also made a video today that I hope to get reviewed soon.

24hrs to Ironman

2010-08-28T06:53:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since the last update. Beata and I flew back to Vancouver on the 16th of August. The two weeks leading up to this I grinded a ton playing over 35K hands - mostly 100nl - because I knew the second half of the month would be busy. The flight to Vancovuer was smooth and we have since settled into my old room at my Dads house. Would have been nice to get our own place but we will prob just be back in Canada for 3 months, infact we already have our return tickets to Slovakia booked for mid November.

Since getting back to Vancouver things have been hectic but I managed to get some hands in getting used to my desktop + 30inch setup which is nice and have mostly been 12 tabling on the 30. I also got table ninja and have been getting used to that - so far I basically think it is awesome and recommend it to anyone who plays more than 4 tables. I am also extremely happy to say that I booked a solid win this month of over 30 buyins at 100nl which is a great feeling after the last two months. I'm on the road right now so don't have my exact stats like usual but think I played about 90 hours and earned about 25K vpp.

So what has been keeping me busy the last two weeks of August? Besides the usual jetlag, family and friends stuff, Bea and I went up to Whistler last weekend for 2 nights in a hotel with her best friend Jarka (also Slovak - the reason Bea was here last summer) We chilled in the hottub and went whitewater rafting. It was a great time.

But more importantly the time has almost arrived my Dad and I to attempt the ironman we have trained so hard for over the last year. It starts in 24hours and as I sit writing this in my Penticton, B.C hotel room Im looking over the lake where me and 3000 other triathletes will rush into the water and start our swim. My dad and I are planning on sticking together and crossing the finish line together, we figure it will take between 11.5 and 13.5 hours if nothing unexpected happens. We arrived up in Penticton two days ago and will stay until Tuesday. Needless to say I left my poker playing at home and am giving this ironman 100% of my focus.

New Plan

2010-08-07T01:41:00.000-07:00

I had a shitty session at 200nl this morning where I spewed about 2-3 buyins with poor play. Nothing horrible, but a 3bet here and there and wasn't necesary. Stacking off with TPTK vs a regulars flop checkraise when his range is air, flushdraws and sets, something that can be okay, but on this texture and vs this specific guy it was definitly -EV. And one or two flop bluff raises that wern't quite necessary - I find with spots like this if you pick them really well they are great but they can quickly become spew if you are not careful. What I mean by this is there are usually 2-3 major factors to evaluate when considering making a play like this ie: villan stats, my actual cards, current image and all three basically have to be perfect to run the play. For example villan has a 60% fold cbet to raise stat and I only need a fold 45% of the time for the bluff to show a profit, my hand contains a blocker to part of his continuing range, and maybe some backdoor potiental, and I have a clean solid image. If all this is in place run the bluff - but if even one of the factors isn't quite there, ie he only folds cbet to raise 40% , or my hand has no backdoor equity or blockers, or i just got stacked 3 hands ago so he could think im steaming, then its a pass and wait till the spot is perfect. Same idea for 4bet bluffing..

When I play bad I often run these plays despite a sketcy factor, its a small but costly error.

So for the next while when I determine I make this mistake in a 200nl session, my next playing session will automatically be at 100nl. If I make the mistake again at 100nl I stay there for the next session, if I don't I go back to 200nl and so on..

18 bi 100nl challenge complete

2010-08-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

After a terrible start the first two days of the month, the tables turned the next two days. I ran well and played well and was able to accomplish my goal of 18bi at 100nl (actually only 17.2, but I surpassed the mark in my bankroll I wanted). So I get to cash a bit out and give 200nl another shot.

Below is the graph and its a nice reminder that things can often get worse before the get better but keep trying your best and the tables can turn very quickly in the positive direction too.

I still have a ton of work to do on my game. I have/am making progress but I got along way to go. I have been active in the DC forums lately and want to continue to do so. Specifically posting hands has let me find some spots with my flop aggression I never would have found on my own.

I have also really enjoyed this last week or so playing 100nl. Even when im losing I feel so much more confident and tilt proof at that level. I also find that when I play 200nl on a short bankroll knowing if I lose x buyings or the next session or two I have to drop to 100nl, I get really stressed, don't play we'll and am not really happy away from the table. I just got to let that go and remember the worst that can happen is I lose and drop to a limit I know I can beat and enjoy playing. I will also allow myself to play a 100nl session if I rather for the next while. We'll see what happens.

Also gotta give a shout out to "Acombfosure" for DC. He has some awesome notes on various videos and coaching sessions on his blog. Ive given them a read through a couple times and they seem to have helped. His blog link is on the left of this page.

July

2010-08-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

July by the numbers

34K hands of 1/2 nl for -14 buyins. 41K hands of 0.5/1 nl for +5 buyins. 118 hours played. 35k vpp.

Ugly month really. The first week was a bad continuation of last month. Switched to 100nl in week 2 and really working on some changes in my game. Rallied in week 3 back at 200nl and had it all crash and burn in one day at the end of the week. Decided to make 18bi at 100nl before going back to 200nl to cash out some and pad the br. First day of this new mission picked up 5 buyins, day 2 had the second -10bi day of the month, managed recoup the losses from this day in the last few days of the month.

Despite another rough month I feel like I did/and still am learning and improving. Im also happy that despite strugling at the tables I was able to meet my volume goals. I also put in way more hours than normal in off the table work and enjoyed doing so quite a bit. It feels good to be active in the forums again.

Augest - just plan to keep pluggin away at earning those 18bi at 100nl and working on improving my play. I am starting to get a decent sample of hands to go through since I identified certain areas to work on. So I plan to do another leak buster review soon to see how I am doing in my weaker areas. Hopefully I have improved!

Bea and I are moving back to Vancouver for 3 months on Aug 16th. And I am attempting IronMan Canada on Aug 29th. So I will be busy and hope I can get some decent volume in depite that. I really plan on focusing on poker for the rest of the year once the ironman is behind me. It has been difficult since training for it is like a part time job itself and after my big training days Im too tired to play. I plan on keeping active working out for 45min-1hour 5 days a week, maybe trying some new stuff like marital arts or yoga. It will be nice to get a break from triathlon for the rest of the year though.

Full Cirlce

2010-07-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

Above is the graph since returning to 1/2 after the 20K 0.5/1 hands.
Went on a mini heater when I jumpd back up to 1/2 (made it briefly into the green on the month wooot!) only to have my soul crushed and stomped on by the pokergods yesterday donating it all back for a -11 bi day. So Im right back to where I was before I started the 20K hands at 100nl. So I see no other choice but to drop back to 100nl keep trying to improve the areas I have been working on. Instead of 20K hands Im shooting to earn 18 buyins at 100nl before I return to 200nl. The last couple months have been rough and I obv havn't cashed out anything but bonuses. So of the 18 buyins I plan to cash out 10 and have the other 8 pad the br for when I return 1/2.

Leaking Losing TP at SD

2010-07-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

So Leakbuster says that I lose money with TopPair at Showdown. Below is a premium example of this massive leak. This hand is just utterly disgusting to look at, but I can learn alot from it.

The good news - this wasn't a snap hero call out of disgust and frustration that my twopair got counterfieted on the river. I used my full time bank on this hand thinking of the villan's range and when the time was up given what I had gone through in my mind I chose call. My thinking was incomplete and paritally incorrect by atleast I tried to think critically in the moment.

So here is what I was thinking: Preflop A8s great hand to have in my 3bet bluff range 150bb vs 63% fold to 3bet. Flop this is my standard size - I battle this guy alot in 3bet pots and choose to stick with neutral betsizing. Turn - I think there is a good chance he has AQ,AJ,AT, and maybe some AK although I expect him to 4bet it alot. I also think a big part of his range is KQ, QJ, QT, Q9, KJ, KTs, JTs, T9s, 98s, 87s, basically alot of pair + gutshot type hands. I choose to bet big because I know he will view my hand more like a draw with this betsize and maybe peel a Ax or Qx + gutter hand hoping I give up on the river. I also expect him to shove a better hand that mine on the turn here AQ, QQ given there is a ton on money in the pot and my hand looks like a draw. On this river I obv check and he shoves, this confused me. Its possible if he flatted AK preflop he could take this line but I couldn't think of any other value hands, since I think he ships them on the turn. A9s, Q9s, and 98s suited make sense but i missed them in my realtime analysis. I can also see him turning a bunch on hands into bluffs here, KJd, QJd, KTd, QTd, KQ, 76d, 65d, 54d - basically 19 combos possible vs really the discounted AK combos and discounted set combos. This is what I had in my head when i called.

What I should have done was before any analysis just step back and look at the situation in the simplist way: A somewhat nitty reg shoving pot on the river - Im getting like 2 to 1 so he needs to be bluffing 33% of the time atleast before I can call here. I ideally then I do my analysis I see the 1 combo A9s, 1 combo 98s, 2 combos Q9s, I give him 4 of the 8 possible combos of AK for 8 combos I lose to. Of the 19 possible combos of bluff he can have I eliminate say 5 he folds preflop. Of the remaing 14 I think he folds to the large turn bet like 2/3 of the time so there are say 4 left. Of the 4 that are left say he has the balls to bluff the river 1/2 the time. So we got 8 value combos and 2 bluff combos, meaning I need to be getting 3 to 1 on the river to break even on a call - im only getting 2.25 SO FOLD.

What I failed to do in the moment was simply look at this and say to myself "is this guy bluffing more than 33%" and then do the analysis. I usually just jump right into counting combos and fail to look at the bigger picture in a more simple way- this is what I want to get into the habit of doing. My analysis or combo counting was also flawed - I failed to see the Q9s, A9s, and 98s in this range, and I also failed to elimate a big chunk of the pair + gutters due to them folding to my large turn bet. The more I do this the better I will get with it - I just gotta always remember to first step back and LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE in a SIMPLE WAY

Villan is a regular who plays 18/16/3.1, 7% 3bet, 63% fold to 3bet, 57% fold to cbet 3bet pot, 46% W$WSF, 29% river aggression. In my notes I have him turning 88 into a bluff in a 3bet pot raising an AJ9 flop and shipping turn, I also have him TB AQ on Qxxxx for thin value.

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 817612

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $219.85

Hero (BB): $407.80

UTG: $201.00

CO: $312.60

BTN: $70.30

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with A 8

1 fold, CO raises to $6.95, 2 folds, Hero raises to $22, CO calls $15.05

Flop: ($45.00) 8 A Q (2 players)

Hero bets $24.00, CO calls $24

Turn: ($93.00) 9 (2 players)

Hero bets $74.00, CO calls $74

River: ($241.00) 9 (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $192.60, Hero calls $192.60

20K 100nl Hands complete

2010-07-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

I completed the 20K hands of 100nl I set out to do. I was trying out some of the adjustments I wanted to work in. I went a little overboard in some cases, my overall aggession for this sample is like 4.7. So I still need to recalibrate and work in alot of tweaks here and there.

Leakbuster has shown me that I have 3 big leaks - too aggressive on flop, not aggressive enough on turn, and very bad river call efficiency. These leaks are are related to one another in various ways and are really one big problem - by fixing one I should natuarally see an improvent in the other two, although I will be working at this and tying to fix all angles at once. The just of it goes like this - With some hands we can decide to bring the aggression on the flop or turn, ie we have weak top pair vs an aggro villian - both cbetting flop and checking back to delay cbet or induce are both viable options. My problem is that I choose the aggressive flop action way more than is optimal in these two-way spots. Because I use up these hands on the flop I don't have enough hands in my range to have decent turn aggression - making me too passive on the turn. This leads me to getting to the river too much without the inititve making it harder to read hands which leads to more paranoid calls and a crap river call efficiency.

So above is the general problem. Leak buster has narrowed down certain areas of this problem for me to work on in more detail. ie the specific hands im making the bad river calls with or the speicific type of hands I shouldn't be playing aggro on the flop etc. Im hoping that as I work on this my ugly redline improves, it should as I work to dump weak hands that have little chance to SD a street earlier than I have been, and stop making bad 4bet bluffs.There are also a few other minor leaks that arn't really related to this big problem, Im not too worried about them but will be mindul of them as I go forward.

So I got some confindece back. Im definitly playing better than I was at the start of the month. I still need to put a ton of work into my game and continue to look for things I wasn't seeing before. For now Im going back to 200nl - I got 10 buyins before I would have to drop to 100nl due to bankroll rules. Kind of exciting to see if I can build this back to a more stable 200nl roll. Im going to bring my A game, try to mostly play just 6 tables, and focus on these new spots.

Droping Down to Regroup

2010-07-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

The first week of July has been a brutal extension of my last losing 2 weeks of June. I sit down just over 2k this month and close to -4K in $EV, so im actually running good, lol...

I managed to regroup around the 2nd or 3rd of July after droping alot the first few sessions of the month. The next few days have been up and down and I finally tilted a bit in my second session today where I spewed off two stacks, puke.

I have been working with Leak Buster for about a week now and have identifed several leaks in my game. It is an awesome piece of software, I just wish it didn't take a $5k downswing to make me wake up and buy the dam thing.

It's hard to adjust your game in the middle of a downswing ( something I have been learning the hard way the last week or so). So I've decided to drop to 100nl for 20K hands and try work in the adjustments there and get some postive momentum going. I'll repost when the 20K is complete with hopefully some good news.

Marginal Middle Pair Spots vs Tags. Help Plz

2010-07-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

This villan is 21/20, 3bets the BB 14% vs steals and 11% vs other positons. He cbets 85% in 3bet pots and double barrels 40% in general. First what do you think about the preflop decision? What if the 8 on the flop is a 7 and we don't have a set? More interested in the general spot then how I played the hand, but for the hand I like my line but think I should have bet $55 on the river rather than shove.

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 782653

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): $250.00

CO: $203.00

BTN: $486.25

SB: $205.35

BB: $439.05

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is UTG with 8 8

Hero raises to $6, 3 folds, BB raises to $20, Hero calls $14

Flop: ($41.00) 8 9 K (2 players)

BB bets $22.00, Hero calls $22

Turn: ($85.00) K (2 players)

BB bets $46.00, Hero calls $46

River: ($177.00) J (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $162.00, BB folds

This villan opens the button 30% of the time, he cbets 80% of the time, and double barrels 59% of the time, triple barrels 63% of the time, fold to 3bet 64%, 4bets 15%. Just a gross spot, his range is obviously wide, but he is very likely to barrel and we can't stand the heat. If this is the case it just seems like calling preflop isn't even profitable. But do we really want this in our 3bet range? That seems margial too. And we cant really fold preflop. Thoughts on this spot in general??

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 782650

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $292.05

Hero (SB): $241.90

BB: $320.60

UTG: $253.35

MP: $213.60

CO: $203.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is SB with 8 8

3 folds, BTN raises to $5, Hero calls $4, 1 fold

Flop: ($12.00) 2 J 9 (2 players)

Hero checks, BTN bets $8.00, Hero folds

The Villan here is 20/20 , 3bet BTN 8%, fold to 4bet 36%, he cbets 90% in 3bet pots and double barrels 45% overall. I don't think 4bet calling here is profitable against this guy in this spot. Problem is I think we will get owned when we flat here, but 99 is also gotta be ahead of his 8% 3bet range. What are we looking to do? If we call what is our plan when we flop 2nd pair, or an overpair, ch/call the flop and he double barrels 1/2 pot?

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 782640

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $292.45

Hero (CO): $245.90

BTN: $317.60

SB: $251.35

BB: $213.60

UTG: $203.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with 9 9

2 folds, Hero raises to $6, BTN raises to $20, 2 folds, Hero raises to $44, BTN raises to $305, Hero calls $201.90 all in

June

2010-06-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

June was a shitty month pokerwise. It started off decently in Vancouver where I was 12 tabling on my new 30inch Dell monitor and. My hands per hour was great but I didn't get as many hours in as I was hoping too, so my volume wasn't what I wanted it to be heading back to Slovakia on the 15th, at this point I was up 12 buyins on the month.

Since getting back to Slovakia the last two weeks I played 58 hours, 48K hands, and am down 22buyins. Sucks to have to post about a -10buyin month where my volume was decent. 33K vpps on the month. Over this 48K hands I grinded about even for grinded through a 15 buyin downswing over the first 20K hands or so, made some money the next 18K hands and then got slapped with this 22 buyin downswing over the last 10K hands or so.

Throughout the month I feel I played well except for the last week of the month on this last downswing. I felt tilted at a couple points and have had to quit, something that hasn't happend in quite a few months. I also think I have made some bad river calls in spots I have like the 3rd nutted hand and due to the action it is very hard for the villan to have the nuts - but I forgot that in these spots (usually big river checkraises, after they have been check calling the whole way)It is even less likely for the villan to have any bluffs in his range. I also feel I have been playing some marginal spots poorly, this is partly due to the rough stretch testing my confidence.

I did manage to get a video to Hielko and get him to review it. I got some positive feedback and he really only had one big adjustment for me to make in my game, which had to do with my 3bet bluff range. However this video was made at the start of the month and I don't feel I am playing as well now as I was then. I have watched it twice but havn't gone over it as indepth as I should.

The one postive thing in June was that I cleared a $4K bonus and am currently breathing down the neck of the 200K vpp $3400, at 192vpp on the year. Just 8K vpp shy of the pace for my yearly goal of 400K vpp. I am very happy with my yearly vpp pace, it is a bit behind but thats okay since I expect to get alot of volume in after the ironman, training for it is bacisally a part time job 20hrs a week. I will hopefully also be back on the 30inch dell for majority of the second have of 2010.

So what adjustments does July have in store? Play less tables until I feel back on my game. For most of June I was playing atleast 9 tables 9(even without the big screen). Im going to taper this down to 6 and focus on hand reading, my play vs regs, using my notes, and using some stats that I know are useful but have been neglecting recently do to too many talbes. Im also going to purchase Leak Buster. I have always been useless at really taking full advantage of HEM, and this tool should make HEM alot more useful for HEM retards like myself. I also want to restore confidence in my marginal spot decision making by posting hands (forums and here) and possibly collecting about 20 or so and doing a HH review of them with Hielko. It is also a goal of mine to address my long term problem of playing too many hands from the blinds. I hope Leak Buster will help fix this.

Good Luck Grinding July Everyone!
J

May 2010

2010-06-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

Poker is never boring and May was another interesting month where I continue to learn about both my poker game and myself.

In May I played 74K hands in 108 hours (685) hands per hour. I finished + 15bi on the month ( +20 in $EV). Earned 39K Vpps.

Considering the circumstances I am happy with both my hours played and $ result. My goal is 132 hours per month, I had more activity than usual this month. The first weekend in May I was in Prague for 3 days and successfully ran the Prague Marathon in 3hour 13min. Then at the end of the month I traveled back to Vancouver. So that's basically 3 days of just traveling right there not including the fatigue that traveling brings.

As for finishing up 15bi on the month I consider this a huge success. To earn these buyins I had to grind through my largest monetary downswing in cash ever, about $5K, in the middle of the month. The downswing lasted about 5 full playing days and 20K hands where I just continued to get housed day after day. Without a doubt it tested and eventually got to my mental game a bit. I was feeling slightly down, depressed, and stressed for a few days. My GF read me like a book and could tell pokers wasn't going well for me and was effecting me, something she never noticed the slightest bit in the 4 months we have lived together. I consider this a bit of a failure since one of my most important goals is to not let poker results effect me at all away from the table. It isn't fair to those around you who care about you, I decided to gamble for cash not them. But everyone has tough days and weeks at work. It is a real test of mental strength to have another losing session and when you finish leave it at the computer and genuinely be your normal happy self with your friends or family. I find it all comes down to letting go of the BS and just staying in the present moment in whatever you are doing. I will continue to put my energy toward improving upon this.

When I got back to Van I had my 30inch DELL 3008wfp waiting for me. I have been playing on it the last couple days usually 9 tabling on the 30in and 2-4tabling on the 24in next to it. My desktop video card doesn't support it's max resolution, which is why im only 9tabling on it. I ordered a better video card this morning and can hopefully have it set up before I got back to Slovakia on June 13th. At max resolution I should be able to comfortably 12 table on it with no overlap. My goal is to get my game to a place where I can average 1K hands per hour at a winrate of 1-2ptbb/100. I won't have the big screen when I go back to Slovakia for 2 months but it still fun to try it out.

My Dad and I are attempting a half ironman triathlon next Sunday. It will probably take somewhere in the 6-7 hour range to complete if all goes well. I've never exercised that long before maybe only 4hours in training so it should be interesting.

Good Luck Grinding June Everyone!

RollerCoaster Poker

2010-05-21T02:04:00.000-07:00

I continue the rocky ride on the varience train. I was on fire yesterday and won 13 buyins and actually ran slighty under $EV. This morning was a different story, I dropped 8 buyins in my morning session but only ran -2 buyins below $EV. This month has been intersting in that I started off up about 20 buyins but only 5 in $EV, then the tides turned and I now sit down 2 buyins on the month but up 8 in $EV.

May seem like whatever and in the big picture ofcourse it is, but in terms of dollars these are some of the biggest swings of my cash game experience. The +13 buyin day was actually my best day in cash ( prob wont count on ptr though cuz im on euro time so start my day earlier, not sure). It's kind of sick funny that I have by best day ever in the middle of my largest monetary downswing, I guess thats why it's called no limit baby.

As much as its stressful its also kind of fun. Im up for the challenge of bringing my best state of mind forward through this shit storm and dwelling in the moment when faced with decisions at the tables.

DownSwing Baby

2010-05-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

Im 40k hands into the month and have been on a 25 buyin downswing over the last 15k hands. Luckily I was on a heater at the start of the month so only sit down about 6 buyins on the month ( only 3 in $EV).

Definitly some poor play mixed in with the bad varience, I can recall 2 bad stack offs the last couple days that were out of character for me. They were both when I was playing HU against very aggro Lag 42/35 type guy on 2 tables while I had like 4 other tables going, the mistake has more to do with even putting myself in that situation rather than the actual hands themselves.

From a psychological perspective this one has been a little more challenging than the last since I've never tried to ride out a downsiwng of this size at 200nl before - I would always drop back to 100nl after about 10buyins. This time my gameplan has changed and I know I need to learn to ride them out at 200nl to become a better player. My roll can handle the varience - Im still about 20 buyins at 200nl before I would have to drop to 100nl. However I have decided that if I drop another 10 buyins I will grind 100nl until the doomswitch gets switched off.

Im also trying to keep my work ethic up putting extra time into my mental game (meditating, exercise, food, relationships) so I can be prepared to bring my A game to the table.

April

2010-05-03T04:52:00.000-07:00

Basically April was an awesome month in life and a mediocre poker month. I played 66hrs, 35K hands, finished down 0.5 bi on the month, but up 10bi in EV. I only earned 18K vpp this month. The varience is not that bad at all. I have been through worse and still had winning months, I really only have myself to blame for the lack of volume. I dont regret not playing more but dont really feel great about it either since slacking after stretches of big volume and run good have slowed my overall progress in the past. Im basically just very vigilant that May is here and I gotta switch gears from play to work.

My triathlon training also suffered at the expense of good times this month. I got about half of my scheduled workouts in, and failed to find a bicycle to ride. My trainer just gave me an earful over email saying that I better get my ass in gear, find a bike and start riding it alot, or my goals are going down the drain. Kind of unpleasent to read but certainly necessary. On top of that my Dad ran the Vancouver marathon yesterday in 3hrs 14min a solid 14min faster than my 3hrs 28min Bratislava marathon time. When we ran the Victoria marathon together in october I finished 15min ahead of him. Its not a competition but he is my trianing partner in all of this and we are doing the events together and its a wake up call to see him progress as much as I have regressed since Ive been in Europe.

Now the positives... 4days in Amsterdam with Beata and Andrew, one of my best buddys from back home. 3days in Austria chillin with Andrew partying and site seeing. One week of Andrew staying with Beata and I in Slovakia, showing him a good time and doing more Slovak site seeing than I have done since Ive been here. Huge festival in Malacky this past weekend with beer gardens and live music. My birthday on April 30th, all the girls threw me a Slovak style party at my place then went out to the clubs.

Really looking forward to getting back on the poker and triathlon grind. Running the Prague marathon in 6days and hope I dont die.. Well see..

March

2010-04-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

March was a great but interesting month pokerwise. I started off the month on a big heater that lasted for the fist week, while getting a ton of volume in. The second week tapered off to breaking even while keeping the volume up. At the start of the third week my computer died on me. I scrambled to get my girlfriends computer set up for pokers installing HEM, setting up HUD etc and was back in action in about a day. Unfortunatly HEM is a beast and made her computer run really slow while occasionaly freezing if too much is happening on it or too many applications are open. So for the final two weeks of the month I played about 85% of the hours I wanted to at about 150 less hands per hour due to her computer. The constant freezing and having hands folded made staying off tilt more challenging, but I accepted it and treated it like a practice exercise and did a decent job of not letting it get to me.

Because I lost everything on my computer Im not really sure how many hours or hands I played or how much money I made. The one thing I am sure of is that I made 47K VPP in March which I am very happy about since it is by far my biggest VPP month ever. Works out to be 2.6K in rackback which is sweet. I figure to have played about 87K hands of 1/2nl to get the 47K vpp. I probably averaged around 600 hands per hour meaning I played approximently 145 hours this month.

Im at 99K vpp on the year. Im on pace and hope to make 400K vpp this year and use all the bonus money to pay down my student loan. We will see - still a long way to go.

Im on a bit of a downswing the last couple days droping about 15 buyins. My play has been good but not my best, Im getting a little caught up battling regs where my focus could be better spent on targeting fish. I need less FPS big multi-street bluffs and Hero calls vs regs. I gotta stay mindful of the fact that they probably arnt exploiting me as much as I think, they make hands too and are usally good at value betting them!

I had to take a big chunk offline to pay for my trip back to Vancouver in June and the upcoming trip to Amsterdam, aswell as basic expenses. So to start off April I sit 21 buyins above where I drop back to 100nl, my bills for the next little while are paid, and I got a little cash in my pocket. Gonna grind hard the next couple days and then Ill have a solid week off poker -OMG this hasnt happeened in a while - Going to celebrate Easter in Bea´s hometown Malacky with friends and family on Sun/Mon and then off to Amsterdam Tues-Sat.

And the CDs to reload my computer arrived today in Malacky so hopefully Ill be back grinding on my machine when I get back from Amsterdam.

Out of the Action!

2010-03-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Well not completely, but my laptop died on me two days ago. Restart after restart I was faced with the blue screen of death and there was nothin I could do. I called dell and got the run around for 2hrs getting swaped back and forth between support for North America and Europe - a north american customer located in europe is a serious problem for them. Finally I caved and paid the fifty bucks for their advanced online support, and the best this got me was them shipping the discs to reload my machine to my Dad in Canada who will then have to personally ship them too me here in Slovakia. Not sure how long this will take =0

In the mean time I am sharing Bea"s computer. It isn"t easy since she is in the thick of writing here master"s thesis, but she is super chill about letting me try and squeeze pokering hours in each day. To make things even more fun if I have more than 6 tables open her machine will freeze and most of my hands will be folded and then I end up posting out of position when I sit back in. Its funny cuz I now know this will happen but when a waitlist popup comes up and says a seat is ready for me I get so tempted at the possibilty of a good seat with a fish at the table I usually risk the freeze to scope out the table, not sure if it"s a plus EV play or not.

This whole incident has inspired me to look at new laptops. I have a new desktop at home in Vancouver but figured it will be a good investment to have solid reliable laptop as a back up and for traveling- which I hope to do alot more of!

Despite this computer BS Im in great spirits. Life is Awesome! I"m running the Bratislava marathon this Sunday and feel ready and very excited. On March 6th Bea and I are going to Amsterdam for four days. Were meeting up with a really good buddy of mine and will chill, party, and explore all this famous city has to offer ;)

Hi

2010-03-07T01:29:00.000-08:00

Finally Some time to Blog!

-note after typing up this whole thing my spell checker has decided not to work. I don't have time to proof read this so "Sorry" if you are typo/grammer nit :)

Olympics: Hockey Gold Baby! What a game what a game! I got up at like 1-3 am to watch all of Canada's preliminary games so it was a nice surpise to be able to watch the finals at 9pm local time. The hockey is the only thing that really really made me miss home when I was watching it. I knew all my friends and family would be togeather drinking and having a great time. Everyone I talked to said the atmosphere and vibe in the city was amazing, so that kinda sucks to miss out on. However, now everyone is complaining about the 'olympic hangover" -being broke, tired, and everything a big mess - so I don't miss that :) I know losing like that was a bitter pill for you Americans to swallow - especially having Crosby score the OT winner Btimm ;) - but Hockey is Canada's game and you where playing in our house baby!

Life in Slovakia is continues to be great. My girlfriend is basically awesome in everyway and I'm enjoying spending time with her and her family and friends. Havn't been partying too much, alot of chillin at home working and relaxing in the evening with good meals and watching Panelock - a Slovak soapopera that she loves and that I am a bit ashamed to admit I enjoy to - but only because it is another good way to learn the language ;)

I give myself a B- on my triathlon training. Not terrible but not good either. I am usually on-point with this but adjusting this to Slovakia has taken some time and the conditions arn't ideal like at home. I got the gym where I do lifting and short hard cardio workouts all figured out and this has been the most consistant part of my program. Next came my tempo runs - I found this park by the old castle in town that has a winding concrete path all through it with a 1.4km loop with every 100m marked off. It took me a couple weeks to find but now it's money. Long runs - I have done about 1/2 the long runs I should have. Ths is really effected by the weather. Most of the time I've been here there has been snow and ice on the ground. It was warm last week and cleared all the snow away, but then I got a chest cough and it is still very cold and windy. So I really don't want to miss any of these from now on, especially since I plan on running the Bratislava marathon - March 28 - and Prague marathon - May 8th - as part of my June 5th Half Ironman trianing. Swimming - it took me longer than it should have to find the swimming pool in town, but I've been 3 times now and feel good about getting all my swims in from now on. Biking - We knew this would be a big problem from the get go. I don't have a bike here, the gym I go to doesn't have any stationary bikes, so it has been pretty much non-existant. Jason and I are both getting a little worried about my lack of bike volume especailly since the bike makes up half the triathlon. I need to be more active in looking to find solutions to this problem.

Poker

Febrary- Very Solid Month and as good as I could have hoped for considering it was my fist month living in a new counrty and my first month of ever living with a girlfriend. I played 60K hands in Feb and clocked 98 hrs - 612 hands per hour. The thing I consider my biggest sucess of the month is that 53K of the hands were played at 200nl and the other 7K at 100nl. This was my big goal for the month, The last few months I was rolled for 200nl, I know I can beat the came there, but got a little too comfortable at 100nl. I knew it would be good for me in everyway to get out of the comfort zone and push a little harder towards my potiental. My winrate at 200nl wasn't great but I ran over 10 buyins below EV, which didn't discourge me from keep on grinding. I still managed to make a couple K from pokers and a couple K in rakeback so it was still a decent month overall.

March So far has been very good in everyway and hope it continues for a big month. I have been gettng up at 6am everyday, having breakfast and reviewing hands from yesterday, sitting down to grind for 3.5hrs, make lunch, review hands from morning, go do workout, chill with Bea for a couple hours and then grind antother 2.5 hrs from usually 4pm -7pm, relax in the evening and go to bed around 10pm. Rinse and repeat.

For study I have watched some of "the thin red line" and "ghost ship" vids. I have been religious about reviewing hands and making notes in HEM from last session before I play the next session. My pre-session routine of reading some Thich Nhat Hahn and meditating for 10-20 mins has been solid and has and continues to do wonders for my mental game - which in turn allows me to get the volume in that I have been. I finished LeatherAss's book and think its great! The strategy section at the end is also quite cool and way better than I was expecting from a book. But the main value of the book has been it has inspired me to press even harder on the path that I was already wondering down. Put in the quality time! Put in the Hands! You can get an big edge on the fields simply by outworking them and being consistant. Treat what your doing with the respect and dedication it deserves. I'm lucky to have poker as an oppurtinity so don't squnder it away with lack of proper effort. I have been averaging about 8 tables or so and when my bankroll gets to a certain amount I am going to reinvest in my business and drop the 1.5-2K on a 30inch monitor and teach myself to 12-16 table. Hourly rate is everything to a professional, hours played is second and winrate is a distant third. Unless you are Durrr - money is made through the brute force of grinding a shit ton of hands while table selecting as best you can.

And finally, I want to get some time in with a coach. It is easy to putt this off while running good but doing so is a mistake. So I hope I can make this happen soon.

Milestone Hand ????

2010-02-18T10:07:00.000-08:00

So I'm grinding away my usual 6-8 tables and one of my waitlisted seats is ready for me. I sit in at the table and before the first hand is dealt everything is paused by support - I look at the chat box and its a milestone hand!!! Woot! I say "So Sick" outload and my gf comes over - I'm excited! but then I'm not dealt in :-( Arrrg. So Close :-( I had to sit there and grind as the other 5 players at the table are chatting away about the free $1K they just got shipped. Had to shake it off and not let it get to me and keep grinding..

Maybe Next Time :-)

Slovakia

2010-02-16T10:04:00.000-08:00

Woot! Been in Slovakia for just over two weeks now. Life here so far has been awesome. I have been keeping super busy enjoying my new home, my girlfriend, and all her friends and family. Everyone is super nice and has made me feel right at home. When I have found time to actually sit infront of the computer it has been grind grind grind.

Don't have time to do a proper update but basically the food is great. It is considered rude to turn down a drink and everyone is eager to buy the new guy a shot of Hruska (Slovak pear brandy) so a few nights have been interesting. I love my apartment and Nitra the city I where I live. Finally being with Beatka after a long 5 months apart is obv awesome!!! I have actually been able to have a bit of a routine and this past week got about 6hrs of poker in mon - fri and hit the gym everyday!

A bunch of things on my mind about poker but don't have time to get into right now - going to a friends engagment party in 15min - Reading Leatherass's book which is awesome and inspiring, also Garry Kasparov Book is great too. Been playing alot of 1/2 nl it's been going well but I could be playing better. I want to get some coaching in soon.

Gotta run! Nazdravie!!!!

11 Days Till FlyPlane

2010-01-18T21:07:00.000-08:00

Only 11 more days and my butt is on a plane to Prague! I so freakin excited for this trip, and since it has been 4 months in the making -talking with Beata almost every day on skype- it feels surreal that I am a week and a half away. I'm really looking forward the the first few days we are spending in Prague. Bea and 5 of her friends are going to pick me up at the airport - I'll get to meet them all and then she and I will head back to the hotel and chill in our room for a while, then go out for dinner and then meet back up with her friends and party it up. I think her friends go back to Slovakia the next day, but Bea and I will stay for one more day to nurse our hangovers and check out the city a bit. Then on Monday we go to Nitra and sign the rental agreement for our apartment and pay rent. Then on Tues she is back at work teaching at the elementary school. Hopefully I'll have my Internet setup and will start the grind - don't want to get rusty! Anyway this is what I'm thinking the plan is but ya never no what will happen your first week in a new country! We'll just have to wait and see ;-)

The switches got flipped a few days ago in the pokers. I've been booming the last 12K hands or so. The added benefit to this is after running shitty at the start of the month I knew I was playing well and my roll was still very healthy so I jumped up to 1/2 nl just in time to hit this boomswitch wave. Lucky timing! It's always nice to have a bit of extra cash before a trip. Hopefully it stays on a while :)

So far this month I have played just over 40K hands. I'd be happy if I got in 70K hands this month. It might not be possible simply cuz I'm so busy getting ready for Slovakia and making sure I get in some good times with family and friends before I bounce for 4 months..

This hand made me disgusted with myself

2010-01-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this hand because it simply crushed my soul. I think I played it poorly in a number of ways. I was getting over 3 to 1 on the turn bet and figured my ace was also an out alot of the time. I just failed to consider that he may also have a flush draw - if I consider this I shove turn everytime.

Villain 36/27 over 160 hands , 3bet 12%

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 468377
The Official Hand History Converter

MP: $124.90
CO: $106.95
Hero (BTN): $236.10
SB: $102.15
BB: $186.55
UTG: $100.00

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN with A Q
3 folds, Hero raises to $3, 1 fold, BB raises to $9, Hero calls $6

Flop: ($18.50) 2 4 J (2 players)
BB bets $11, Hero raises to $28, BB calls $17

Turn: ($74.50) 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $45, BB raises to $125, Hero calls $80

River: ($324.50) 2 (2 players)
BB bets $24.55 all in, Hero folds

VILLAIN Shows 8h7h :-(

This month is proving to be a real test. This hand was the last hand of a 2.5 hour session where I ended up down 1.5bi, but up 3.5bi in $EV, putting me at running below 20 bi of $EV this month. Err gotta work really hard to stay focused and grind though this one, I know I'll be a better poker player for it.

Brrrrrrrr

2010-01-06T22:05:00.000-08:00

I had a great NewYears chillin at my friends Ross's cabin on Denman Island. The 8 of us hung out in the hottub, made delicious meals, played board games, and got shitfaced both nights. It was a blast! And ofcourse rocked a polarbear swim the first morning of 2010,, brrrrr!!!!!

Unfortunately the freezing cold from the swim followed me back to the virtual felt. I got back to work on Jan 3rd and have since put in almost 14K hands of 100nl and have managed to run 12.5 bi below $EV - glad I chose to start the year at 100nl rather than 200nl ;-) I'm not really fazed by this and actually think it is helping with both the quality of my play and my motivation to grind - I wanna get out of the funk - ya know!

I wanted to do a detailed "pokergoals" for 2010 blog post, but I think instead I'll simply say it would be cool to grind 200nl full time, take a shot or two at 400nl, and earn 400K vpps this year.

As almost everyone has blogged - the VIP program at stars is gotten alot better for us grinders, and like all of you I had dollar signs rolling in my eyes as I schemed how much monies I hope to make this year. However to properly scheme I need to know what the average VPP per hand is at 100nl 6max and 200nl 6max under the new improved system. After the small sample of 100nl hands I'm earning 0.3455 Vpp per hand. Anyone know if this is close or is there is any forum threads out there where a math wiz figured this out for 100nl and 200nl? Holla if ya do!

2009 Wrap Up

2009-12-30T13:11:00.000-08:00

GG 2009 - Some Highs - Some Lows

First some raw stats : 537K hands (102K 200nl, 431K 100nl, 5K 50nl) all 6max , MT ratio 6.28, 923 hours. 21/17.4/2.98.

The Good: I am very happy with my overall hourly rate on the year at more than 3x my wage at my old job. I feel that my mental game and grinding skills have come so so far this year and are definitely the most improved aspects of my overall game. I can proudly say that I really love and enjoy what I do for a living. My hunger to become a better player and grind more and more hands is as strong as it has ever been!

The Bad: I still consider myself a 100nl reg rather than a 200nl reg despite playing over 100K hands at 200nl at a winrate slightly higher than my 100nl winrate. As you can see in my yearly graph below I break even for about 250K hands. The downswing from hands 250K -280K simply crushed my confidence. It shouldn't have - it was merely a 20 bi downswing. But since it did crush my confidence I dropped back to 100nl, lost some passion for grinding and started playing infrequently from about June -mid Sept. In this time I was enjoying the other aspects of life and not working at all on my poker game. Thank God in mid September I decided play time was over and I regained my work ethic and passion for the game. The combination of all these factors led to this extended break even stretch. I really believe that if I persisted and kept learning and grinding I would have slashed this break even run in half. So the BIGGEST LESSON I take away from my year is STAY CONSISTENT and PERSISTENT and don't stray too far from the game for too long.

December Wrap Up

2009-12-30T11:56:00.000-08:00

Same basic grind routine as last couple months. The early morning starts are the difference maker for me and are what allow me to get that extra session in. I played 26 days -- 119 hours -- 75.5K hands (5.5K of them 200nl) -- 637 hands per hour -- MT ratio 6.75. My BB/100 was better this month than the past few months. With this volume I am very happy with anything over 2 pt/bb. I had one 15bi downswing and one 10 buyin downswing along the way and recovered from both of them is less than 10K hands. It is clear to me that these are simply a part of the game and attacking them head on and griding through them is the best thing to do.

I got my milestone bonus and cleared another 1.5K bonus along the way so I can excitedly say the I will be starting 2010 with a balance of $0 on my visa card! see how long that lasts :D

My bankroll is in good shape right now sitting at sixteen 200nl buyins before I would have to drop back to 100nl. Despite this I haven't felt the urge to play 1/2nl. My main goal was to get the milestone bonus and I was on pace and really just enjoying grinding 100nl, mixing in the odd 200nl session when I felt on my absolute A game - which isn't often enough seeing how I only played 5.5K hands out of 75K hands at 1/2 while being rolled for 1/2 almost the entire month. I suppose this is okay since I had another goal take priority, but now that goal is accomplished and I need to be sure to keep pushing my self and not become complacent. So I will be looking to mix in alot more 200nl in January and hopefully build to the point where I feel super comfortable grinding a ton of hands like I do at 100nl.

Mid Month Update

2009-12-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

Just a quick mid-month update. I've binked off about 16K vpps so far this month in about 48K hands and 75 hours. I got 9K vpp left for the bonus. I have been grinding hard and haven't had a day off this month, although I have played 3 or 4 half days. I figured it would be better to taker easy over the holidays in the second half of the month and bust my ass in the first half. I have been running and playing good, maybe a bit too nity at 18.5/15, I want to get it up to 20/17 territory and will do this by opening more in the cutoff and button. My att to steal is at an embarrassing 28%, so I really am missing some +ev spots. I usually run this stat around 32%.

I have played a few K hands of 1/2 nl and have had it go really well, recouping my 1/2 nl losses from last month and adding a few buyins in the green. So my roll is well over my 1/2nl threshold, however I won't now all of the sudden just start grinding 6hours a day of 1/2nl. I'll still mostly grind 100nl and mix in a 200nl session when I'm really feeling on my absolute A game. My main goal is still grinding out this bonus, as I badly need it to throw down on my visa card. I'll worry about playing more 1/2 nl after this goal is achieved. I actually have really been enjoying the 100nl grind lately, it is a good limit.

Life outside of poker has been good.. Getting most of my workouts in. Occasionaly partying with friends. Really enjoying playing beer league hockey with all my highschool buddies. And Getting So Damn Excited for SLOVAKIA and BEATA. It keeps getting better - now we have our own apartment right next door to her old apartment. So instead of being squished in a 3 bedroom apartment with 6 girls, I will be in a 2 bedroom apartment with just my girlfriend - this is great since we'll use one of the bedrooms as an office. It is also awesome that it is right next door to her old place since she is really close with all her roommates and we're only a few steps away from chillin with them..

Some Hands

2009-12-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

I play a ton with this villain "Beta77" 18/16 nitty guy,, only cr flop 5%. I actually found this spot very gross because although I have a very sexy hand, I really think most of his range is 2pair and sets here. We hold both the Ah and Kh and with lower flushdraws I think this player usually calls. With that said I decided to 3bet get it in on the flop thinking I have good equity regardless what he has and I do think it is possible he does this rarely with air or worse flushes just not often. I also though if I wait until turn and he fires like 3/4 pot I would be in such a gross spot - I guess I would have to fold! Can I really fold in that spot?

http://weaktight.com/1762843

Here is a spot I found kinda interesting. I like my play but want to see if others agree. MP is 21/18 and cbets 70%. Co is 33/25, raise cbet 15%

http://weaktight.com/1762847

November Wrap Up

2009-11-30T20:16:00.000-08:00

This Month I stuck to the same routine/schedule as last month (see "October Wrap Up") with some minor differences. I only took only 4 days completely off from playing -the 1st, 14th, 15th, and 28th. I had one or two days where I only played for 2-3hrs and the rest were all between 4-7.5 hrs per day.

I knew that to achieve the milestone bonus I would need to go big in November in terms of volume. And that's exactly what I did to to put up my biggest volume month ever - 138hrs -- 91K hands -- MT ratio 7.18 -- 663 hands per hour -- 31.5K vpp's. My bb/100 is okayish considering getting massacred for multiple buyins in a rough 1/2 nl shot, and then shortly after going on an 18 bi downswing at 100nl. I'm actually happy with how I handled this bad run - I know it would have affected me much more a year ago than it did now. The work I put into my mental game allowed me to grind through this storm. It just shows me that being able to grind through sick variance is a key ingredient to success. I think one of the reasons why I didn't make any money this summer was because I would hit a downswing and then not feel like playing and only play like 20K hands in the month, this killed my overall volume for the summer which killed my bottom line. Anyway I have already ranted about volume see "Volume Is Underrated Imo"..

So I got 25K vpp's to make in December to get my 2k milestone bonus. It won't be an easy task - Xmas will surely make this more difficult in ways I won't even be able to anticipate, and I am feeling a little bit burnt out tbh. So to make this happen I gotta go big at the start, but if I do decide to take a day off I gotta make it count being productive (urg xmas shopping) but also making sure I give myself the rest I need to function at the optimum level.

QQ 140bb deep vs 4bet?

2009-11-25T22:27:00.000-08:00

This hand just feels gross to me. Just looking for advice, criticism, comments and better lines to take. UTG is a 19/15/2.9 who I have 5K hands on. From utg he is 19/19. He folds to 3bets 58% and 4bets 16%. The sb is fishy and Utg can definitely think I could be squeeze a hand like ATs here to make him fold, but also for value vs the fish.

Ugh just Butchered and embarrassed to post :p

http://weaktight.com/1728226

Mental Toughness

2009-11-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

Don't usually blog at this time of day - usually save it for at night when I'm tired - but I gotta get this down while it's on my mind. I was talking to someone yesterday about being mentally tough. They were asking me about it in the context of marathons and triathlons and wanting to get into doing them. It is true in those activities you have times when you have to push through pain to achieve your goals knowing to could stop and give up at anytime and stop the agony. However I told them that this is actually the easy part to "mental toughness". The part you have to worry about sounds simple but isn't. This often underestimated aspect of mental toughness is consistently doing what needs to be done day in and day out in your training. It means not missing workouts no matter what BS excuses your mind is telling you that day. It means not returning to workouts too soon after an injury even though you are dying to get back into it. It means properly doing ALL your stretching before and after every workout. The reason all this seems hard is because there is no reward what so ever for doing it, you only get punished when you don't do it. If you are the last 5 miles of a marathon and are in pain there is a huge reward for pushing on. You know at that time that the finish line is close, your family/friends are waiting for you, other runners are cheering you on, and you know you will feel awesome for accomplishing it. You don't get any of that for doing your stretching that day!

So this ^^^ conversation leads to a light-bulb moment for me today when I am playing. Basically I had a strong hand on the river and villain checkrasied shoved. I didn't snap call (I have done well with this), I went through the hands he could have in my head - slowplayed floped sets, backdoor flush, worse two pair, air. I was getting 2.7 to 1 and called with my toptwo he had the set. What I should have done is actually count the possible combos of each type of hand - 9 sets, 6 reasonable backdoor flushes, air maybe only 1 combo because of the line and my read on him, worse two pair say 12 combos but really he will just call with most of these fearing all the hands I have already listed so say 3 combos. So looking at this I actually lose to 15 combos and beat 4, so should fold.

^^^Up there is two levels of hand reading --what I did and what I should have done. I know that if everytime I face a big river bet I take the time and try to count all the combos I will get better at doing it. And If I get better and more consistent at this I will become a much better hand reader and thus a much better pokerplayer. But doing this is feels alot like stretching before a run does. I'm not very good at it, I don't see the immediate benefit of it because I haven't practiced it enough for it to be really effective, so sometimes I lose my mindfulness of how necessary this is and just do what I did - I beat two categories of hands and lose to two categories of hands I'm getting odds so I call.

So basically consistently being mindful of this and DOING this EVERYTIME I face a big river bet is my challenge to myself. I don't care if I don't do it right or if I time out - I just need to do it and the benefits of this practice (just huge imo) will just start to click one awesome day in the future.

Tides Have Turned

2009-11-22T09:37:00.001-08:00

The doomswitch got turned off a couple days ago and I have been running/playing much better. I'm not fully out of the woods from that downswing but I am close. The downswing consisted of 9 red sessions in a row and I now have played 8 green in a row. Whenever I go through something like this it always shows me how sick the variance in this game is. People think they know, but they don't - Including me ;-) And I am sure I will relearn this lesson time and time again in the future :p My goal is to handle it a little better each time.

Other positive news - I cashed out a bonus I badly needed to though down on my visa card. One of the few superstitions I have is the cash out curse - it seems to always get me. However this time I was already doomswitched so I figured cashing out couldn't make it any worse and it didn't. hehe.

About 3 months ago I lost my money clip and have just been rolling around with cash and cards floating in my pocket. On Halloween I lost/drooped (litterally) $80 at the bar it was gone like 20 min after I went to the atm. So I decided to order the custom stainless steel money clip from the fpp store and am stoked for it to arrive. They have flashy gold and rhodium plated ones for more but I opted for the basic one - it was already costing $80 in fpp equity, and I would just feel like a douche with the flashy one anyway. I also order the stars scarf/beanie (in Canada we call them tuques ;p) I had it last year/ really liked it and actually got alot of compliments wearing it. It is one of the few items that doesn't actually say "PokerStars" but just has the spade logo. This is way better because it is more subtle - people who are in the know may say something - but idiots who arn't won't be like "do you play for real money? my brother's friend went to the WSOP etc etc etc -- insert random badbeat story" lol.

DoomSwitch

2009-11-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

Wow -- I have just been getting housed the last couple days. After the failed 1/2 shot I took I was able to keep playing well and broke even for about 20K hands. The 10k hands after that stretch (where I am now) is when the doomswitch got cranked to full ;-) So far it's an 18 bi downswing and I am running at least 9bi's below $EV. That doesn't really matter because I have run above $EV before too so I can't really complain about it now. My mindset remained strong yesterday where I finished the day -5bi's but +1 in $EV. The icing on the cake came this morning, I lost 5bi's and about 4bi's in $EV. The sick thing about this session (1500 hands) is that I won a stack and lost a stack, and other than that all the pots I played were for 50bb's or less. This has got to be the most soul crushing way to lose alot of cash =0 It did get to me and I made a couple bad plays towards the end. One bad 4bet bluff where I opened in Mp and the CO 3bets and I 4bet bluff with AJo, he only had a 6% 3bet from the CO and a 33% fold to 4bet overall, so he shoves and I fold.. Total spew. And the hand I got stacked on I have 5h3h board is 2h9h6s I cbet and get peeled by a nitty Tag. turn is a Ac I barrel he raises 1.5x and I shove, he calls with 66. TBH at the time for some reason I thought my straight draw was a double gutshot instead of just a gutter. Either way against this player it is still a way better play to call and try to hit, since he has such a strong range for raising this turn and I got very little fold equity here.

After the session I took the time to review every hand where I lost more than 7bb. Other than the ones mentioned above I didn't see any mistakes - Some marginal spots where I usually chose the consevative option, and a few spots I felt I played really well and saved bets or got away very cheaply. Some spots that made me feel dirty - example I have AQ and isolate limping fish - flop in 885 rnbw he checks I cbet and he minraises and I fold. This fish only folds to cbets 33% of the time, but I hadn't yet seem him checkraise the flop either. Probably the correct play but it just makes me feel sick knowing he could be owning me on such an inexpensive bluff.

So I'm going to cut down the tables and be hyper aware of tilt creepin on me. Other than the initial disgust I felt looking at HM right after I feel better now and am just going to keep grinding.

Loving Tha Grind

2009-11-10T21:54:00.000-08:00

November thus far has been great pokerwise. I've busted out 35K hands and 12.5K vpp's. I have 44K vpps to go on the year for my bonus quest. I started off the first few days of the month on a heater and built my roll back up to where I like it to play 200nl. On Sunday I took a shot and played about 4K hands in 3 sessions at 1/2nl. Results wise it went terrible and I dropped about 8 bi's - 5 being in the last session. As discouraging as this may seem it didn't really get to me and I took away a ton of positives from the experience. First compared to previous times when I have jumped up to 200nl I played really well, I really just go housed losing flips and getting coolered - I was down less than 3 buyins in EV but lost 8 so meh, I guess my heater had ended and it was time for me to get some of the other kind of variance. Second, I recorded the last session of the day (the one I got decimated in) and am going to ship it to Hielko for a review. It will be awesome to get an objective look at the quality of my play and my mindset when things we going so badly - how did I hold up and did my play deteriorate and if so in what way? And finally my month overall is still a good month results wise so I really can't complain. I just have to keep putting myself in the position to take good shots and one of these times I will run well and get back to playing 1/2nl more regularly

I am also very pumped because I am running very good in life right now. Just a couple days ago I booked my plane ticket to Slovakia to visit my girlfriend Beata. I leave on Jan 30 and am set to return March 31 (which is flexible, it only costs $90 to change the departure date, I just need to be back in Van by June for the 1/2 Ironman triathlon). So BooooM I'll be living with Beata in Slovakia for 2 months and I leave in less than 3 months.. Haha kind of out there - but fuck it - I'm young and in love and I got nothin to lose! One thing I am happy about is that this is no vacation - she is in her final year of her Master's degree in Psychology and Pedagogy (child development) so will be very busy with classes, writing a thesis, and a practicum teaching in an elementary school. This means that I will be pokering and working out all day during the week - ie being productive in life! But I get to chill with her in the evenings and weekends. It's freakin perfect. I also have to acknowledge how lucky I am and how me being a poker player has made this possible. If I worked a normal job I couldn't just leave for 2 months, and even if I could I would be out 2 months of income because I wouldn't be legally allowed to just go to Slovakia and start working even if I could find a job. But because of poker I can go there and work my grind just as well as I can at home. It's hard to put a price tag on this kind of flexibility, but there is no question capitalizing on this opportunity will be of great value to my life in so many different ways.

And finally, I got my new triathlon bike - the Cervelo P1. I'm so stoked it is an awesome and sexy bike and I'm sure it will serve me well in many future triathlons to come. It didn't come cheap at $2.5K - which I threw onto my visa obv.. All the more reason to grind and get that milestone bonus!

October Wrap Up

2009-10-31T16:57:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up October - my first real month back on the grind after a very chillin and eventful summer. My goals coming into October were to play longer more structured sessions while maintaining a good poker mindset, and just generally to get back into the groove of reading hands, making good folds and reducing spew. This month I played 24 full days (5-6 hrs) and 2-3 half days (1-3 hrs). Generally I would get up at 6am and be playing by 7am for 2-3 hrs, then take a 1hr break for breakfast and a walk outside, then another 2hrs, then usually a 2 hour break to workout, skype with Beata etc.., then another 1.5-2.5 hrs before dinner, after dinner is time for videos, chillin, reading etc, then bed around 10-10:30 pm. This structure worked great for me since I am much more productive and alert in the morning hours of the day. I plan to stick to it for the rest of the year.

So with this routine I played 125 hrs, 78K hands (all 100nl), MT Ratio 6.7, 620 hands per hour, 26K vpp. I don't post winrates/graphs cuz I always run like shit after I do, my bb/100 was averagish nothing to be excited about but nothing to complain about either. My largest downswing of the month was 15bi's.

I have 56.5K vpp left to make the 2k bonus. So I'm actually going to have to play a day or two more per month than I did this month to make it. Actually I think it comes down to November. I need to go big in November because December is a busy month in life and I could be feelin a little burnt out by then too. So a good target for Nov is 28K vpp, intense but possible. If I miss this by any margin I will just give up on the bonus but still keep my volume up and stick to the same routine.

I actually have decided I want to try to keep this as a consistent work schedule for 2010, with chunks of time off here and there for vacation obv. I want to play 22 days per month. It's time to take poker more seriously and be more consistent in terms of years not just days, weeks or months. It is an awesome opportunity and I want to know at the end whatever the results may be that I did everything in my power to take full advantage of this opportunity. You never know how long online poker will last, it will probably go as quickly as it came and we would be wise not to take it for granted in the now.

Volume is UnderRated Imo

2009-10-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

The grind continues to go okay. All the work I have put into my mental game over the last year or so is really helping when in comes to playing longer sessions. If I need to quit because I am tilted I still will, but lately I have been able to keep my focus and let go of the variance related part of the game. I know I have to keep working and improving this part of my game as it is so important.

Hielko reviewed and shipped back the vid I sent him the other day. As per usual it is awesome. I have just watched it through once without taking any notes. On Sun/Mon I will go over it again and make some solid notes and get back to him about anyspots that need to be discussed further. There wern't quite as many spots in this one as usual - part of that is due to the fact that this month I only recorded 2 vids of myself (usually I like to pick the best of 3 or 4), but also partly because I am playing better and spewing less :-)

As for the whole 200K vpp quest - the feedback I have received seems to go against doing it. I get this and partly agree with this as well. Last year I had a crappy December partly because I was going after this same bonus. However, this quest compliments two major things I have been working on with my game. About a month ago I decided to tighten up and play less hands. For most of the year I was playing 22/20 and this month I am playing 19.5/16.5 (I still want to tweak this a little more by closing the vpip/pfr gap by 1%, and increasing my att to steal a bit). Anyway this tighter style will allow me to play more tables and isn't as taxing mentally since I find myself is less marginal spots. Volume is the other thing I have been working on. TBH I don't think Volume gets the respect it deserves from ssnl and msnl grinders. The common attitude is to play less tables so you are paying more attention to specific hands and reads etc - this will make you more skillful and you will able to move up faster because of this skill and thus make more money in the long run. However I think Volume is also key in moving up. The more volume the more money you make at your current win rate, the more money you make the bigger you bankroll will be and the more shots you can take, the more shots you take the more you will be out of you comfort zone , and the more you are out of your comfort zone the more you will learn. This obviously assumes you are beating the game as this won't work for a breakeven player. Anyway there is my volume rant. If I start to burn out and my mental game falls apart I will just give up going for the 200K vpp, but until that happens I am just going to keep on moving towards it at the pace I have been going this last month.

Enough with the poker - Its one of my best buddies birthdays tonight. His girlfriend is having a Keg party that starts at 4pm when the Canucks play the Leafs, when the Keg is empty well hit the bars and hopefully catch some of the UFC fight.

Vpp Grind?

2009-10-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

My Volume wasn't what I wanted it to be this last week. Its cool though since it was mostly due to events out of my control. It has been the week of my Dad's 50th Birthday with a dinner on Wednesday and Big Party last night. My body was beat up on Mon and Tues from the Marathon and I could barely walk. Then on Wed, Thurs and Fri I was super sick with this chest cold/flu that's going around. I feel much better from the cold today but am hungover from the party. I'm really hoping for a big week volume wise starting tomorrow.

As of right now I have 130K Vpp on the year. I really want to get to 200K Vpp for the $2K bonus. Hitting this bonus will put down a nice chunk on the new triathlon bike I want to buy. Still that's 70K Vpp in 10 weeks. That's 1K vpp per day without missing a day. Pushing it that much may border on the line of diminishing returns so it is a tuff spot.

With all that said I think I am playing some of the best and most solid poker I have ever played. I have stuck to my game plan of tighning up and am happy with how things are going.

Poker and Running Good -- Literally

2009-10-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

Wow its been a while but I have been busy.

I grinded hard for the first ten days of the month and got in 27K hands for a modest profit. I was able to implement my more structured approach to the day. Most of my sessions have been 2-2.5hrs long and have been able to get usually 3 sometimes two of these in a day with a workout after the second one. I have yet to watch the Razor Edge Vids but am still very much dedicated to doing so once things chill out.

So besides averaging nearly 3k hands per day this month I managed to run the Victoria Marathon in 3:09:24. My previous marathon time was 3:11:24 so I was able to shave 2 minutes off, but more importantly I qualified for the Boston Marathon. Qualifying was my main goal going into the race. I had a great first half to the marathon doing it 4minutes faster that last time, but just over halfway I pulled something in my left hip and injured myself. I actually yelped out in pain when it happened and ran the second half in pain (the last few miles were grueling). It is now 3 full days after and I can still barely walk and am popping Advil's like candy. It may not have been the smartest idea to continue but I'm sure glad I did.

My Dad also qualified for Boston with a time on 3:22:00. So we are heading to Boston in the spring on 2011 to run. We are not doing it in 2010 because it is too close to the Oliver Half-Ironman and waiting also gives my stepmom more time to try and qualify and run it with us. I also gotta brag about my Grandma. She was originally signed up for the half-marathon but had a minor injury flare up in training the week before so she ran the 8Km run instead. She did it in just over 41 minutes winning her 70-74 age category, but also running it faster than any women in the 60-64 and the 65-69 categories as well. She also beat all the men in her age group too. Way to Kick Ass Grandma!

Quick Hand - Thoughts Please

2009-10-03T13:24:00.001-07:00

Want to get a general update in soon! In the mean time I like to hear your thoughts about this common spot:

http://weaktight.com/1557862

Villain is 19/15/2.5 over 10K hands. He checkraise the flop 10%. Basically my plan was to call the flop and get it in on safe turns. Is this a reasonable plan? What are your thoughts on 3bet getting it in on the flop or even folding the flop?

More Hours

2009-09-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

I just finished the Professor Plotkin series. I still think episode 1 is the best episode. Episodes 4, 5,and 6 were also good. Episodes 7 and 8 were more analysis of specific hands which were interesting but I feel Stheif was running thin on material by the end of the series and stretched the last couple episodes way longer than they needed to be. Gotta give him props on an excellent job making this series, it clearly took way more time and effort to make than a typical poker vid series.

So so far I have watched "Rewind", "Math of NL" and "Prof Plokin" for a total of 23 vids, mostly PowerPoint slides and some HH review. I got 5 "Razor's Edge" vids left to watch, Im going to give it a couple days before I get started so I go into them refreshed. I think it will be the most challenging series of the lot.

I keep feeling better and better about my game and results wise I had my best day in a while so that was cool. My biggest poker related goal right now is actually working on my grinding skills. One of the biggest problems I have had throughout my poker career is lack of volume. My volume may be decent for a few months then I hit a downswing or get busy in life and it turns to shit. Then it takes me a month or so to back back in the grinding groove. Basically to really feel like I am working towards my potential as a poker player I need to be playing 30 hrs per week (6 hours - 5 days a week) and I need to do this consistently! Another important piece to this is it must be 30 hrs of quality poker. In the past part of lack of volume comes from me making really good quits and taking days off when I should etc. So I'm not about to just fill these missing hours with C game, it has to be A game! So my plan is to restructure how I use my time with the focus of getting maximum A game hours in. I am also going to have to gradually train myself to be able to play longer and more often. While I get used to this I can play less tables or drop down a limit if I have difficulty sitting and grinding like this. I am also going to constantly work on my mental game because the more I grind the more opportunity C game play has to creep on me.

Some More Nitty folds?

2009-09-23T11:26:00.000-07:00

A couple hands

Hand 1:
http://weaktight.com/1526640

This villain is playing 18/8/3 over 69 hands. His line just screams he has a jack to me, nothing even overpairs or bluffs with Ax make any sense here imo.. Don't know though rarely to I fold boats for $9 getting over 2.5 to 1.

Hand 2:
http://weaktight.com/1526642

This fold just seems absurd to me but I made it and think it may be decent. Villain is "Fayvren" 24/20/35% reg. Over the last 10K hands I have him at 58% W$SD which is redic high. I don't think he is valuebetting worse here very often and it just doesn't seems like a good spot for him to TB.. But then again maybe he just owned me.. Also I floated the flop because he has a very low cbet turn (30%) and this seems like a decent spot to do it with my gutshot and backdoor flushdraw. I also think I look stronger peeling with the bb still to act.

Hand 3:
http://weaktight.com/1526651

And Finally this.. AKs is usually easy to play preflop but I found this spot kind of tough. villain is 18/9/1.8 over 1.2Khands. UTG he plays 17/11. He folds to 3bets 57% and 4bets 21%. Is flatting pre better here? Or do we still like 3bet/getting it in?

Pluggin Away at Plotkin

2009-09-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

I have kept busy the last few days doing all the stuff I need to do. I'm on the third Professor Plotkin video (fyi episode 1 is awesome, episode 2 meh). So I'll knock off episode 3 today and may even get to episode 4. As for the math mission in general it is going great! I'm using my notes and things I have learned way more in my session reviews and am having fun doing it. There are still one or two concepts/methods that I think are excellent that I have yet to work in, but plan to in time!

I got a video review back from Hielko yesterday and it is freakin awesome!!! Kind of an eye opener because - there way very little "dead" time in the video - if ya know what I mean ;-) So I now see tons of space for improvement in my game. When I get his reviews I watch it once without taking any notes or pausing it too much. Now today I am going to watch it a second time and really take my time thinking about the spots and taking notes I can keep on my desk as reminders of the mistakes to avoid.

On Monday I went for my last super long training run before the Victoria Marathon on Oct 11. So yesterday I was very sore - I made it into the gym but only stretched. I'm getting excited for this event. My Dad and Walter (a family friend) are both also running the marathon, and my Aunt and Grandma are running the half-marathon. That isn't a typo - my 71 year-old Granny is running a half-marathon lol.. Another bonus is that we are staying at the Empress hotel - which is by far the best hotel in Victoria. It will also be cool because I did live there for 5 years so Victoria is like my home away from home.

Project Poker Math Update

2009-09-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

So far I have been on point about my overall plans. I've been in the gym everyday (except today =P) this week. I'm eating fairly healthy. I have meditated at least twice a day everyday this week. I have watched zero TV. Best of all I am on pace for my poker plans.

I have watched all 8 episodes of "Mathematics of NL Holdem" and 5 of 6 "Rewind episodes." I watched most of the Math NL series a couple years ago. Since I had seen the episodes I thought I would just blow through them and get the formulas. This was not the case! I ended up basically watching the entire episodes again, actively taking notes and practicing concepts on my own hands. It wasn't fun but I'm happy I stuck it out -It's really a great series - Props to WiltOnTilt!!! I ended up watching most of the Rewind series on my iphone so I didn't take as many notes as I could have. I'm planning on keeping this momentum going and attacking the Prof Plotkin and Poker Razor vids by Stheif. Tbh I'm dreading this but know I gotta stick it out. Hopefully I can power though the Plotkin vids since I watched them all less than a year ago (wish I took notes then =p). I have seen a bit of the first episode in the pokerrazor series and not only was it by far the most boring poker vid I have ever seen, I found pokerrazor to be a really intimidating program - it came off like you needed a math degree from Yale just to work the fuckin thing. Hopefully this isn't the case!

On top of the videos I have played a couple hours everyday this last week trying to get back on the grind. It hasn't gone well :-( I'm down a few buyins in about 9K hands this month. I'm not happy about it but not really too worried about it either. I just gotta keep working hard and stick with it and the results will swing back in the black. I actually just finished recording a session I think will make for a good coaching review vid. So hopefully in the next few days I go through this vid and get it reviewed. In the past I have shyed away from coaching when running bad which is a mistake I won't make again.

Finally Super Focused on Poker..

2009-09-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

In the next week or so I want to review as many math related videos as I can and compile a comprehensive set of notes with everything I have learned (formulas, hand examples etc..) Currently I would say I have a good but not great understanding poker math. I can certainly get by with what I know, but at the same token knowing this inside out and backwards can only help my cause to avoid real work by playing pokers :-) Two things inspired this mission. The first was watching some of NoahSD's rewind series on DC (if you want to see dirty soul crushing pokers WATCH THIS!). The second was yesterday I tried to explain some of the math based concepts to another up and coming player. Afterwards I felt I could have done a better job - what I was saying was correct but I was kind of jumping around from one idea to the next. If I presented these ideas in a more linear order I think it would have been more clear. Its funny how you can know something but when you teach it to someone else - You really know it..

This up and coming new player I speak of is my new student Rafael. I met up with him in person yesterday, making him the second person from the internets I meet in real life. Thanks Btimm for sending him my way.. He will be starting at 10nl and building from there. I'm excited to work with him- I see alot of potential and think he will be crushing through the limits alot faster than most!

As for the poker math videos, I don't plan on watching these front to back as I have already seen many of them. My plan is to skip trough them as best and fast as I can and dig out the gold! If you got any suggestions on videos that should be on this list please comment! I may even ship you a copy of my notes!

-NL Holdem math series, Wilt on Tilt
-Rewind, NoahSD
-Anything By Sthief09 (Prof Plotkin, Razor Edge, etc)

I also made a video yesterday where I think I played fairly decent. My plan is to review it - write up some Q's or comments. Then if a few days I will make another vid and do the same. Then I will pick the most interesting of the two and ship it to Hielko to review..

From Station to Nit??

2009-09-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

The last HH post I made was about me being a station,, and now we have the flip side.. Am I a weak nit in these hands? Played this session after watching NoahSD rewind episode six where he makes some sick soul reads,, and a bit of FPS I got from watching a HSNL pro may have carried over into my SSNL session.. lol.. You be the Judge..

Hand 1: http://weaktight.com/1498147
-Villian is Simona75.. 22/20/3.8 alot of hands.. Given that the table just dropped to 4 handed I don't want to 3bet here because we have a dynamic where I expect him to bluff 4bet a ton in this spot and its a very gross spot with AJ. I would 3bet/shove AQ in this spot fwiw.. Do you do anything differently postflop?

Hand 2: http://weaktight.com/1498154
- Villian is 26/19/2.0 over more than 10K hands. fold to 3bet 60%.. I expect to get berated for not betting the turn here. I see it sort as a way ahead or way behind spot on the flop and when he checks the turn to me nothing has really changed, there isn't alot to protect from, if he does have JJ or something I will prob only get one street of value anyway, and by checking I can induce him to bluff the river, so I check.. Basically the river overshove looks like pure value to me,, he may have donked the flop to intice me to raise and get committed with an overpair or he may have binked big hand on the turn or river.. I don't see a ton of air in his range that he is donking flop with and the overshove bluffing river.. I also think a good chunk of the time he choses to bluff he bets like 2/3 pot rather than shoving, and I don't think he would overshove a made hand worse than mine for value..

Hand 3: http://weaktight.com/1498264
Again one of those folds that is either genius or retarded - probably the later.. hehe
The BB is a huge fish 65/15/1.8 over 200 hands.. the HJ is unknown playing 21/21/6.0 over 30 hands. His line just reeks of a monster to me, if I had a boat I would play it almost the same way since it gets max value out of the fish. I don't expect him to play a draw this way really (if the fish overcalled maybe) but he shouldn't think Im light here given the fish and the mulitway action and should also fear a 4 being in my range.. And against all made hands other than 42 and AA which should be heavily discounted in this spot Im crushed, 43, 46s, A4, 33, QQ

Please comment - berate - praise or whatever..

I'mmmm BACK

2009-09-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

Cha Ching -- That's what you like to hear.. Time to make some money - cause this summer was expensive and when it comes to getting greedy I got green eyes..

Haha seriously though my life is now changed from 65% social/girlfriend, 15% poker, 15% triathlon training, 5% personal (family, sleep, meditation, reading, tv..etc..) tooo.. 40%poker, 40% triathlon, 10% social/girlfriend, 10% personal.

I'm not about to write up a stupid "what I did this summer" report like you had to do in school at the start of every year, but here are the bullet points

-I met Beata - an amazing girl from Slovakia at the start of the summer. Started out as a fling but turned into alot more. I'm extremely sad to see her leave and can't wait to see her again in about 10 months when she finishes school and I visit Slovakia. We are going to try and keep in touch as much as possible over the internets,, I may be a bit naive, but I love her and am hoping for the best!!

-Partied like a rock starr all summer long,, loved every minute of it and regret nothing..

-Enjoyed the beautiful weather by being outside as much as possible chillin at the beach or in the neighbourhood.

-Just completed the Vancouver Triathlon (Olympic distance) last weekend. My previous time at this distance was 3:03 last March. I busted this one out in 2:45 and am super happy about improving my time by such a chunk!

I'm back on the grind -- hit me up for chat, email, sweats whatever..

Below are some pics.. (Beata and I,, and My Dad and I,, Hope you know who is who.. haha)

Am I a Station??

2009-08-27T17:42:00.000-07:00

Had a swingy session where I payed off in a few spots and made some other possibly questionable plays. Just really looking for a sanity check and any comments about the hands

Hand 1.
This villan playing 34/26/4.0 over 500 hands.. Basically what do u think of this semi bluff? Against this range: TT,77,AcJc,AhJh,AsJs,KQs,KcJc,KhJh,KsJs,JTs,T9s,98s,8d7d,7d6d,6d5d,5d4d,AcQd,AhQd,AsQd,KcQd,KdQc,KdQh,KdQs,KhQd,KsQd,KcJd,KcJh,KcJs,KdJc,KdJh,KdJs,KhJd,KhJs,KsJd
I got 41% equity. When I shove its costing him 82 more with 194 in the pot. I’m risking 113 to win 80. I think given his weakish bets he often has a weak hand here and will fold and if he callz with a weak hand I got tons of outs..

http://weaktight.com/1443761

Hand 2.

Same villain from Hand 1.

http://weaktight.com/1443762

Hand 3.
Villain is 35/21/2.5 over 80 hands. His fold to 3bet is 0% (5), his fold to cbet 40%, and a 17% flop cr (6). I think given his stats and loose play I can 3bet for value. When I get min raised here I think it could be a monster, air, or weak ace either way I’m not ready to fold yet. Then he open shoves turn and i’m not sure to call or fold. I was originally going for value but now am scared b/c the min cr - shove turn is usually a strong line from a fish. On the other hand he is very lag and could be spazzing with something random or just overplaying a weaker ace.. Thoughts?

http://weaktight.com/1443764

Hand 4.
Villain is 21/18/2.5 over 65 hands.. 50% fold to cbet.. No read on him for 3bet pots.. Shove or call or fold?

http://weaktight.com/1443765

Hand 5.
Villain is 30/26/8.9 over 400 hands. Has a 95% cbet, 67% turn cbet, and 50% river cbet. W$SD 41%. I had an aggro dynamic with him and recently won a 120bb pot off him

http://weaktight.com/1443768

RR55 Will Return Mid Sept

2009-08-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

Got some time to kill before my haircut and figured it's time to update this mofo.. Havn't been doing much pokering as per standard this summer.. I'm down about 8 bi's at 100nl in like 13K hands this month, havn 't been watching vids, posting forums etc.. Just spending most of my time in real life where I have been running good.. Beta (hot slovakian girlfriend) is here until Sept 11th so I basically plan to take the rest of the summer off and just have fun chillin with her.

Mark my words - Come Mid Sept RR55 will be fully back on the grind - ready to sweat, learn, improve and make monies. Poker and triathlon training will again become my main focus in life. I've got all the chillin out, partying and girls out of my system and am ready to get back to a physically, mentally, and financially healthy lifestyle again..

August

2009-08-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

We'll fuck.. Few things on my mind.. Due to lack of volume and withdrawing 7K of my br in the last 60 days I am officially back at 100nl due to being under my predetermined roll size for 200nl.. Not a big deal really.. I'm only a few buy ins at 100nl from getting back over the mark, and I had been playing mostly 100nl anyway because of runbad and poor play.. Also in the last 60days I have played like 45K hands, which is less than I'd play in a normal month. Despite this seeming lack of progress I don't really regret anything. I have been living it up hard enjoying a sunny summer, my friends, going on trips, partying, and my temporary Slovakian girlfriend (she leaves on Sept 11, and we'll be getting freaky till then).

As fun as this all is I am really looking forward getting back in my normal routine of poker and exercise and NOTHING else come mid-september.. I seriously will only go out to party once or twice a month and will not allow myself to get caught up with any chicks. As gay as it sounds women are the biggest possible drain on my time and money. To get a really quality girl I need to have both those things sorted out and to do that I need to spend less money and dedicate more time to myself.

A few poker things on my mind:

First - as many of you know I play somewhat lag about 24/20/2.5. This has allowed me to get comfortable in alot of spots esp preflop. However I know and others have pointed out that I do get carried away and spew. So my goal is to eliminate the more marginal spots and play a bit more solid, maybe like 20/18/3 type game so I can take advantage of my experience in these spots while at the same time lopping off the spew. I also think this is the right direction to move in terms of how the game and regs have been playing and adjusting lately.

Secondly - Stars added a cash credit at 100K vpps for $800 for 50K fpp.. Awesome, same fpp value as a 4K bonus but no clearance time.. Also they are changing how vpp's are awarded and interested to know if anyone thinks this will be positive/negative for ssnl and msnl grinders.. link: http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/earn/

Heat Wave..

2009-07-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

There is a heat wave going on in Vancouver right now and it makes it impossible not to go to the beach and sip cold beers all afternoon. Obviously not conducive to pokering in multiple ways.. In fact the only pokering I have done in the last week or so is go over Heilko's and Brian's reviews of my last video.. Big thanks to them both! I think I learned more from this vid than any other past vid reviews.. It just seemed I was blind to sizeable leaks having to do with my preflop 3bet range, the amount of respect I give other players preflop 3bets, my preflop sizing vs short stackers, and my postflop bet sizing in general.. So I have alot to change about my game and am very stoked since I was already beating the games at a decent rate and this can only improve upon that..

My biggest problem is still lack of volume.. But between this heat wave, dating a new girl, and partying with friends there isn't much I can do about it anytime soon.. This summer has literally felt like one big vacation in my own city.. haha..

Review Vids

2009-07-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

I made a video a couple days ago and have gone over it and written up and timestamped some spots and Q's.. as suggested by Wilt on Tilt in his Haj School series. I also checked to see if you can hear my audio and at the same time record you own audio in a camtasia while recording over the vid,, and it works.. This just allows the reviewer to verbally make his points rather than have to type them out, which leads to more in depth analysis imo. I also think it is better for the player because they will be able to watch the action and hear the reviewer simultaneously rather than have to pause the vid to look at the text doc..

I think this is a good one -- lots of spots other than a card dead lull 20-30min. If anyone wants to go over it great! as usual I will hit you back...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QD3KCN59

My Hud Layout
Vpip/pfr/hands
Cbet/foldtoCbet/Steal/foldBBtosteal
3bet/foldto3bet/4bet/squeeze
Agg%/W$WSF/fold flop cbet to raise/ bet river

--2:02—Table X—How is my bet sizing? Worried it might induce and cr from villain with overcards.. What’s our line if he checkraises to $69? Fold?

--5:58 – Urg such a sick spot, getting over 4 to 1.. and I don’t think he has a Q often.. Does he have a club often enough to fold here? How is my turn bet? Sizing (given stack sizes)?

--8:40—Talble X--Do you agree with my reasoning for not valuebetting the ace, and hoping to induce, then check calling?

--General—Please feel free to question my bet sizing in any spot.. Is there more optimal sizing given their range?

--9:00—Table 4—Do we like cbetting into these two villains on this dry board?

--13:28—Table 1—I think I can actually valuebet against the co here with my underpair, but now I think a check fold may be best in this spot?

--16:00—Table X—is it okay to get the tens in here against this aggro TAG who 4bets 12%

--16:55—Table X—FWIW I do fold the 65 obv..

--18:36—Table 1 – Giving up after the cbet is best right?

--19:25—Table 1—I say in vid I should have 3bet, but now I like the call more.. Is that right?

--31:00—Table 4—Hmm looking at his betsizing it looks like he is leaving himself with more than pot.. Am I insane to think about calling turn and shoving river if checked to? He is repping a very narrow range..

--42:45—Table 1—In retrospect I think I like a bet on the turn after “Bernie madof” checks back the flop and the fish checks twice..

--45:00—Table 2 -- Meh,, I actually think it is a fine 4bet bluff, esp given the note I have on him. I think flatting there isn’t good since we don’t have his stats up yet.. His 3bet size was a little weird though and I did take a while to make the 4bet... Should have added to the note not to 4bet bluff his odd/weird sized 3bets..

--46:01—Hand Hist from Table X-- Ya obviously a shitty play. TBH it was prob due frustration from the last few moves I tried not working. The villain in this hand is a station if I remember.. He is never folding a 9 imo..

Low Volume

2009-07-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

I think I'm looking at my lowest volume month of the year :( I'm only at 13.5K hands this month, mostly at 100nl, and 4.7K vpp.. I guess it makes sense though - I didn't get any hands in until the 8th b/c of my NYC trip, and since then I have been busy camping, hitting the beach, and partying with friends.. Fuck it's summer and you only live once so no regrets..

Despite the lack of volume, I think I am playing better this month then last.. I want to get a good consistent run in at 100nl before I jump back up and give 200nl another shot.. Constantly taking 2 or 3 days off destroying brain cells partying hasn't helped this... I also have been spending alot of $$$ in life, which makes the situation that much shittier. The thing that sucks about it is every time I try and build up a nice solid 1/2nl bankroll I always gotta take out money to pay off visa etc, so I'm always hovering a few buyins above the point I need to drop back to 100nl, but not b/c of poor play.. However, The solution to this problem is simple - play more poker and spend less money.. Easier said then done!

On the positive side - The night before I left to NYC I was out partying and started talking to a couple girls outside the club. It turns out one of them ( the hotter one!) is visiting from Slovakia for 3 months until Sept. She said she hadn't gone out much since getting to Vancouver so I was like "Hey this is my hometown, I'll take you out and show you a good time" Her face lit up with a smile and she gave me her #. I texted her when I got back and we have since met up and gone on a couple really fun dates.. On the second date, she mentioned she had a boyfriend back home and I was kind of like "O that sucks" and then she says "don't worry he's not here" score! But then later that day were back at my place making out on my bed and she says " we can't do more than kiss because it's not fair to her BF and she feels guilty" FUCK. Didn't see her over the weekend b/c I was camping at Paisly Island with my buds. The general consensus among my friends was I should give it one or two more shots and if she's firm on her only kissing rule then cut it off. So I went and saw a movie with her last night (Harry Potter - flame on pls) and she seemed way more down to make out etc, but I'm not really sure if that was b/c there wasn't alot of pressure since we were out in the public the whole time, or if I'm slowly making her forget about her BF.. So tomorrow we have planned to watch the fireworks competition at the beach near my house, and I'm guessing I'll get to find out where I stand with this girl.. Wish me luck!

Back From NYC..

2009-07-08T22:16:00.001-07:00

Got back from my Mom's bday NYC trip a day or so ago.. All in all an awesome time obv. We checked out the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, hit up a Yankee's game (10-8 win vs the Jays), went to Sept 11 Ground Zero, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, got lost in Harlem, saw a big July 4th fireworks celebration, went to West Side Story on Broadway, wandered around Time Square a bunch, and jogged in and chilled out in Central Park. I could go off about how awesome each one of these things was - but I don't feel like typing that much.. Also, I had a chance to shoot the shit with Malfair at the Newark airport for a couple hours and had a blast..

As standard for me when I get back from trips poker goes crappy.. I've played about 3K hands and dropped over 5bi's, thankfully at 100nl and not 200nl.. Not really too bothered buy it, a little bit of spew but have mostly just had big pots go against me in coolers and flips.. Still though need to play better. I got some video review notes to go over from both Marc and Btimm. Gotta say thanks to u both, watching sessions I played before I left for NY with commentary is a great way to get back into the rhythm of things and help me flip the boomswitch on..

In the whole triathlon training thing I'm gonna be getting into it more than ever basically starting now. I got the Vancouver Triathlon in September and the Victoria Marathon in October. My Dad is doing both these events too and having him come aboard as a trianing partner makes it way more fun and challenging. He is also way better then me at putting training plans together and all the nutritional stuff aswell, so huge bonus! One frustrating thing is my right knee has some sort of repetitive/chronic running injury. Its weird - it doesn't stop me from swimming/biking/playing hockey etc,, it only hurts after I run for about 20 minutes and longer. I actually entered and did not finished the Vancouver 1/2 Marathon at the end of June, I quit after about 2.5 miles because I knew my knee was fucked and would get even worse if I pounded on it for another 10 miles.. It was especially frustrating because my Dad was running in it too and I felt like a bitch for quitting, but knew it was the smart thing to do since I got bigger goals to protect. I'm going to set up an appointment with my physio/acupuncture lady and see if she can fix me up, I got alot of confidence in this women. Her name is Weng Peng and was a medical doctor in China, when she immigrated here her MD licence wasn't valid so she went back to her roots in acupuncture, acupressure and traditional Chines medicine.

New Spot + NYC Trip

2009-06-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

What's UP... Poker has been meh since the last update, I have been in the 100nl purgatory since I dropped down after my last blog post. Basically an 18K hand break even stretch down here. On the plus side, I do feel I have been running bad and actually playing good, not my best but still good. I am also still very happy I did drop down, as the wave would have been much ruffer to ride at 200nl. Still I think the boomswitch is gonna be flipped again shortly and I'll be ready to insta hop back up to 200nl when that happens..

Also, I made a video of a 100nl session. I felt I played solid in this vid, and think it will be a good vid to find smaller leaks and fine tune a few spots. So the link is

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=41LOXWJE

As usual I greatly appreciate anyone who takes the time and goes over this for me. I will ofcourse return the favor! This vid does have my real time audio commentary. However I still think the best way to review is to download the vid, play it and with camtasia recording over the vid and just add you audio in the cantasia mic. I suggest muting my running audio while you are laying out your thoughts and if a wierd spot comes up and you want to hear what I said go back and un-mute it for that part.

Now for the Good News: I just booked a trip to New York City from July 1-6. My mom wanted to do a trip for her birthday and NYC was her pic, sweet!! Its over a weekend, I may have to go to one or two Broadway shows b/c she loves live theater, but other than that I plan to go to a Yankees game, go to the World Trade Center memorial on July 4th, and all the rest of the standard tourist stuff. Also hope to party it up as per usual on the weekend!

Since my last post I have moved into my new place in Kitsalino for the summer. It's fuckin awesome! both my roommates are very chill and I'm in the best summer neighbourhood in Vancouver. Below are some pics of my room, the beach I walk to in under ten min, and my new tattoo.

June Pokers

2009-06-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

First of all another Congrats to Btimm and Jasmine on their beautiful new son!! Well done!

As planned I have been playing alot of pokers this month! About 25K hands already about 90% at 1/2nl , which is fucking awesome. I attribute this volume to two things - First - I am truly a single man right now, I can exercise and poker out all week long and then party and hit the beach on the weekend. And since I'm just doing my thing on my own during the week I get extra motivated to socialize and PU hotties on the weekend. Second- For the most part I am playing 90 minute sessions. I know in the past I was a big advocate of shorter sessions but the bottom line is that its hard to get the volume in playing 45min sessions. If I'm tilting or the games are terrible I still will make good quits. However, with all the effort I`ve put into meditation I now find I am able to stay off tilt and remain focused and in the moment for a longer period of time that in the past, basically stay on the A game longer.

As for results - I started this month on a big 13bi upswing and then a couple days ago the doomswitch came and served me my worst -$$ day eva with -8bi at 200nl. So yesterday and today I dropped to 100nl just to not stress so much and try to rebuild some confidence and make some ground back on the downswing. I`m still not playing as good as I should be so will prob stay at 100nl until I feel I have my true A game back!

Also, I made a vid of myself having a terrible session. It is up on megaupload and going to get critiqued by Marc and Alex. Get ur vids up too boys! I actually make 1 or 2 horrendous plays in this vid that I know for sure are terrible ect so berate me for them pls, but don`t just focus on those and try to spot out smaller leaks too ;-) link is below.. If anyone else wants to critique, just download it and then record over it with camtasia while you watch it and then upload the recorded version to megaupload. I`ll be sure to return the favor and try to make u as lagtarded as me ;-)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3VYZFKA2

June Is Here

2009-06-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

May has come and gone in a blink of an eye. Pokerwise May was good to me. I played 35K hands and ran several buyins above expectation. I didn't put as much time into the learning side of things, but still managed to do one sweat with Btimm and watch several videos. I also stayed consistent with my post session reviews. I played about 70% of the hands at 200nl and am starting to feel more comfortable with it becoming my main game. However, I do notice that from time to time I get soul crushed by some of the better regulars, something that happened much much less often at 100nl. Its not necessarily a bad thing but just shows me I got alot of work to do to become one of the better regs.

I want to put alot more time into poker in June than I did in May. Some goals or "targets" as Tommy Angelo likes to call them: 50K hands, 2-3 sweats/vid review swaps (holler if interested!), Use the 2 coaching session w/ Improva that came with his book ( I finally finished it, but haven't done any exercises or been in the book's forum), and other than that just keep being consistent with the zen practices that have been so good to me this far.

Yesterday I finished "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching" by Thich Nhat Hanh. It was very well written. Although it took me longer than normal to read I really enjoyed it and learned alot about what Buddhism is all about and its core ideas and teachings. So for my next book I'm deciding between another Nhat Hanh book called "Zen Keys" or The Ashman's "shorthanded no-limit book". I really want to read Zen Keys but think I will save it and just try to power through the poker book first and then read Zen Keys after as a reward. Also- I have watched the first two videos of Tommy Angelos "the Path to Poker Enlightenment" series on DC and have to say he has done an excellent job of applying Buddhist principles to poker theory, something I consider a very difficult task. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the videos on the eightfold path - especially the one on "right livelihood" something I sometimes question about making a living playing poker.

I move into my new place in Kits on June 15th. Its the top floor of a house and I'll have 2 roommates - one girl and one guy who are both university students. I'm so stoked to move - I went to the beach both days this past weekend and can't wait to live a short walk away all summer!

Camping

2009-05-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

Quick Update -- haven't been in the blogging mood much these dayz..

* I broke it off with the mexican chick, it was harder than I anticipated. I always underestimate how fast girls become attached and feel possessive over you, and the the whole time this is happening there saying how everything is all cool etc.. lol.. fool me once shame on them - fool me twice shame on me ;-)

* Poker - ran hot at the start of the month at 1/2nl and then since broke evenish and played about 21K hands total. Ideally I'd like to get in 40k hands this month, but will realistically be very happy with 35K.

* Got a Tattoo yesterday -- sick pirate skull with cross swords and "Fortune Favors the Bold" written in latin on my left sholderblade. Took about 2 hours - definitly did hurt getting it. But it is bad ass and im very happy with it! pics to come in future post...

* Going camping with the boyz this weekend. Were going up to Pentiction - this really hot desert like beach town in the interior of BC. I'm stoked but kinda hesitant at the same time since I feel like Im getting strept throat and know every night of this trip will be a big gongshow. I also won't be able to go in the lake because my tattoo is still healing and the guy said no pools or lakes for 2 weeks. But I don't want to bitch out at the last minute - so i'll go and try to taker easy - haha wish me luck on that ...

* I landed a cool place in Kitsilano for the summer. Its a sublet, so I'll have it for June, July, Aug. And then I'll prob move back home for a few months or move to another spot. This place is perfect - fully furnished - big room with wrap around desk by window, shared kitchen, bathroom, and living room with 1 guy and 1 girl roommate I've yet to meet.

Organized Chaos

2009-05-13T20:01:00.000-07:00

Wow time fly's, its already been 2 weeks since my last half assed blog post.. Err where to start...

- I continue to party like an animal 3-4 nights a week. I'm sure alot of great and funny shit has happened but its mostly a blur and just seems to blend together in one big gongshow night in my memory.

- I'm still seeing that Mexican hairdresser.. Safe to say shits getting complicated,, my buddies and (Malfaire too) have/will give me shit for continuing this escapade. All I can say is its the best sex Ive ever had in more ways then one. This girls is like a coke addiction - destructive and addictive but awesome and one hell of a party all in one.. :-l

-In terms of triathlon/running goals I ran the Vancouver Marathon on May 3rd. I was a bit worried before because 2 weeks before the marathon my knee was giving me shit and I had acupuncture/physio done on it. So I didn't know what to really expect on marathon day I was hoping for a time around 3:30. I went out and took the first 6 miles easy and my knee felt great so I gradually picked up my pace. With about 3 miles to go a girl running next to me asked if I was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I was like "no this is my first marathon" and she was like "go go you are very close" So I basically sprinted the last few miles and finished in 3hrs 11mins and 25sec,, I missed qualifying for the Boston Marathon by 26seconds lol.. That's cool though, I'm going to try and qualify for it in the Victoria marathon in October with my Dad and then we will run Boston together. I also have a few new goals and events to post in regards to the triathlon / running stuff.

-Poker -- The frustrating part is I have been playing about 1/2 as many hours as I should be playing the last month and a half. The cool part is the last couple months I have been running good so have been okay money wise despite the lack of hours. I know this will catch up with me sooner or later and I should get back into a good groove before the run bad starts. I still am playing a mix of 100nl and 200nl about 50/50 depending on how I feel before I sit and how the games are running. I have fallen off the wagon in terms of sweats/study groups but am still doing session reviews and watching the odd vid.

--Moving - been having a very tough time finding a place to rent in Kits :( The affordable places get rented like 20min after the add is posted. I'm a bit worried I won't find a place for June 1st and will have to stay out in Burnaby for another month. On the flip side I talked to my Mom today about our New York trip this summer and she said the weather will be better in June than July so we may do this trip in June which means not moving won't be as bad.

Grinding Between Levels.

2009-04-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

My life is still on the crazy train. This new girl I'm seeing is like crack! We have an awesome time together partying, fooling around, chillin in this nice weather Vancouver's been having etc. But multiple days will go by where I don't do anything else that is productive in my life, Specifically working out and poker. But on the other hand I'm having fun and u only live once.

On the poker front the hands I have been getting in have been okay. I'm just at 28.5K hands this month and am trying to break 30K hands this month. About 12K of these hands @ 1/2 nl where I ran it up a bit at the start and then had a couple back to back shitty sessions and ran it back down to about even. The rest have been at 100nl were I feel like I have been crushing, and has been my bread and butter souce of $$$. There is such a difference in my comfort level and confidence at these two different levels. At first I thought this was a bad thing, but then realized it's bound to happen and the more experience I get at 1/2 the more my comfort level and confidence will build. I will be crushing 1/2 at some point in the near future, I just gotta be patient and dedicated and it will happen.

Back To It

2009-04-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

Finally a blog post.. My life has been fucking crazy last couple weeks and I could probably write like 10K words on what I've been up to but instead I'm going to quickly sum up what I been up to and then talk more about things to come.. More value in looking forward than backward imo.

I have been spending a ton of time with this new girl I met. Over the last week and a half I've chilled with her for prob 5 nights. She's 1/2 Canadian and 1/2 Mexican, works at a hair salon, has some sexy tattoos, and likes to party hard. We have a good time together but I have made it clear that I'm not looking for another girlfriend. We'll see what happens..

Marathon Training took a bit of a hit because of ^^^. I still got most of my workouts in but I was slightly hungover and tired from..... I also fucked up my knee on Monday and am worried it will prevent me or drastically fuck up my time if I am able to run the marathon. I had physio on it yesterday and got about 12 acupuncture needles put in it. It feels a bit stiff today, but the marathon isn't for 2 weeks and my psysio lady is really good.

Poker: I have played 18.5K hands this month :( Just under 8K vpp on the month :( My results have been good and I have been running a few hundo above expectation so I have no complaints other than I need to get more hands in! Ideally I like to play at least 50K hands per month so really want to be more disciplined about it in the future. Lack of hands mostly due to new girl + marathon training + partying like an animal with the boys + Vancouver Canucks in the playoffs!

Once the marathon is over I will have more time to focus on poker and finding a place to move to for June 1st, so I'm excited that it is coming up and really hope my knee will let me do it.

I am in the middle of doing a video swap with Marc. So far he has reviewed my vid with commentary and shipped it back and then we discussed some stuff over email. More recently I have reviewed his vid with commentary and shipped it to him and he has just got the discussion going on my commentary. I am about to get to that after this, and just gotta give Marc a shout out, I thought his play and critique of my vid were very solid and am glad to work with him.

I really want to do another coaching session with Heilko this month. The whole plan I put together at the start of the month was awesome but I am having a bit of trouble sticking to it because its very time consuming and my life got crazy. But I gotta make this happen, it's such a good resource and there is just so much value in it.

Also kind of excited about tying something different to make $$$ on pokerstars. Gonna get to that in the next day or so and will lay out my plan in next blog post..

Good to be back

Been on a Bender

2009-04-15T23:38:00.000-07:00

The last 7 days have basically been a complete bender for me. Been partying alot, met a new girl and chilled with her a bit, playoff hockey just started, and just getting my motorbike back on the road for the summer.. So on top of all this stuff I really havn't got in as many poker hands or good workouts as I normally would. When I havn't been partying I've been too tired to really grind or exercise and just chill out or catch up on sleep. Hopefully I will get back into some sort of groove with the pokers and marathon trianing in the next week.

Its Monday - Back On the Grind

2009-04-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

In a sick way I almost look forward to the start of the "work" week. All I really do Mon-Thurs is exercise, meditate, and poker, and read/learn more about all 3. Between these three things there is so much to do that I never really accomplish everything I want to in a day, this is both frustrating and awesome at the same time.

The pickup/self-help stuff is also very interesting, I left a comment on Malfair's blog about this crazy visualization exercise you can use to improve on any facet of your life. It seems kind of crazy or out-there but seems logically sound. I read material on how professional athletes use visualization techniques, and this just takes it one step further. So I hope to give this stuff real go over the next few weeks and see if it works!

I also started reading another book called "Thrive Fitness" that has an awesome nutrition section. I won't get into the details, but I am fairly blown away by the material and am going to make a focused effort to really eat healthy. It just makes so much sense, I want to perform my best physically, socially and mentally and the fuel for all these things is food. You don't put shitty gas in a high performance race car, so I shouldn't put shitty food in my body and expect to perform at a high level.

I Fucked A Mermaid!!

2009-04-05T02:04:00.000-07:00

"I'm on a Boat Motha Fucker, Don't U Ever Forget" soooooooo money and LOL --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yfISlGLNU

^^^ what more can I say..

Err,, nothing poker style to report, other than I have finally gone though Heilko's vid review of our last coaching session and I got a few good Q's for him.. There are a few interesting questions because I slightly disagree with a couple points and really want to dig deeper and hear why he gave the advice he did. But on the whole I am very-very impressed with his review and definitely took a way few things that I know will dramatically improve my game from the get go. I have to say - I have tried a couple coaches before him and although these guys may be more "well known" or "qualified" I am so stoked to be working with Heilko and he is the best yet. His style is similar to mine and he knows the games I want to beat like the back of his hand. Hielko + Improva = deadly combo and RR55 m8king $$$ hopefully!

As u can prob tell from my typos I am drunk posting after a fucking awesome weekend! this pic basically sums it up!

Need to Help Myself Help Myself Poker Style..

2009-03-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

Last Night I realized one area of my poker learning habits that need dramatic improvement. In the last post I mentioned slacking a bit when it comes to doing a video review with Hielko. There are two categories of stupid reasons I have been using to falsely justify this laziness and I'm going to address and debunk both right now.

Downswing/Not Playing A game - So I never got around to working with Hielko the last couple weeks because I haven't been playing my A game. The flawed thinking goes something like this "I know I'm not playing my A game right now, and he will just tell me stuff I should already know if I were playing my A game, so it's not really worth it.. Also my bankroll has dropped a decent amount in this last downswing and I can't really afford it. I'll wait until I'm playing better and my bankroll is bigger" Fucking Gross I let myself fool myself with this bullshit logic. First not playing my A game is all the more reason to have a lesson. He will push me out of autopilot mode, out of my comfort zone and make me answer for the non-Agame plays I am making.. And if I know they are not A game plays then I will deservingly look like an idiot for making them. And about the $$$,, The cost of one lesson is 1/35th the amount of my last downswing! So in the big scheme of things it really can't make things too much worse than they already are, but it has the potential to make things soooo much better, that's what I call a good investment!

Time, Getting in Hands - I know to get the full value out of these lessons takes a lot of time. I need to make the vid, go over it by myself and prepare questions, go over it with coach, and then go over it with audio recording a couple times afterwards and make notes and think critically about the advice I have received. One session is hours of work. And when things aren't going well I fall back into the trap of just wanting to play a ton of hands, and there is never enough time in the week to play x number of hands, stick to my workout schedule, interact with family and friends, and do everything I need to do for a good coaching/vid review session. So when I get time stressed I drop the vid review coaching session. This is a mistake! The # of hands I play should be the first to go, if I don't like it too bad, just more motivation to make the hands I do play higher quality and really count!!

So here is what I'm going to do about it: I'm going to record 4 videos per week, sessions around 50min. I'm going to review (prepare notes and questions) 2 of these videos by the end of the next week. Then every two weeks I am going to choose the best of the 4 videos I have made and do a coaching session. I am then going to review the coaching session audio and video 3 times before my next coaching session 2 weeks later. When I review a coaching session I am going to type up notes and follow up questions. I will do this whether I'm playing shitty or great, whether my bankroll is big or small, and whether I have played a ton of hands or none. This is just one of those things that if I am disciplined and stick to it, good or atleast better results are almost guaranteed.

Also if I am also open to doing video swaps with whomever, so if ur interested lettme know.

Excited about Life..

2009-03-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

Where to begin.. Life been a little hectic the last little while but hectic in a good way!! I have several interests/projects all on the go at once and there just aren't enough hours in the day to progress as much in each one as I'd like. However I am enjoying and excited about each one on its own, and figure if I stay motivated and manage my time well I eventually succeed in all. So in random order here goes:

Exercise: Some bittersweet news to report. For Xmas I got 10 personal training sessions w/ our family friend Jason who is the owner of Fitness Science. He gave my Dad the "friend" discount and only charged him for 6 sessions. Today was the last of the Xmas gift sessions, if I want to continue to work with Jason its now $75 per hour. I considered sticking with him four 4 more weeks until the marathon but had to realize I'm working with a limited life bankroll and the four hundo would be more effective if spent in other areas. I have a general idea of the type of training/ tapering Jason would have me do this final month anyway and also know that there is a ton of resources online that can fill in any blanks. Clearly not as awesome as working with J, but still very doable. I appreciate all that he has done for me up to this point and am fucking excited to run this marathon on May 3rd.

Triathlon: I am becoming more and more fascinated by this spot and the long term goal of working towards an Ironman is beginning to burn in my belly. The earliest I could consider it is August 2010 for Canadian Ironman, and am the first to admit I am bounds away from really even being able to consider it seriously. However, I am excited by the more immediate possibilities of getting a good road bike and biking a ton to improve my weakest link. I also ordered a self help "freestyle swimming" dvd that will help me improve my swim stroke. I am also considering volunteering at the 2009 Canadian Ironman this August in Pentiction BC. Volunteers get advanced sign up for next year, which is huge since this event sells out in hours despite making people sign up in person in Pentiction.

Social Life/Moving: The little time I am spending socially has been super fun and I definitely crave more. Between poker, training, and living out in bby I have only been getting out to chill/party with friends about 1.5 days per week. This is way less than ideal, but I haven't let it get to me because I have been so busy enjoying other things, and know the end is in sight. Only a couple months and I'll be out @ the beach in Kitsilano chillin in the middle of the party all summer long :)

Girls/Game: Same deal as social life. Nothing major to report,, when I do go out I'm having a blast meeting and talking to cool and attractive girls. Definitely wish there was more of this going on but also know this will get better when I move. Been listening to the pickup podcast, specifically their "toolbox" episodes , which are awesome, and am learning a ton and can't wait to get more practice in the field.

Meditation: Still reading a little about Buddhism everyday and practicing meditation. I'm reading "The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings' by my man Thich Nhat Hahn, and am constantly impressed the the wisdom and truth this monk shares in his books. I've been getting in short meditations before every poker session and a couple longer meditations per week. Doing this undoubtedly helps my poker mindset and my general life mindset. Its gotten to the point where I want to do it, where before I just did it because I knew it would help.

Poker: RiverRock55 has finally joined forces with Improva! I talked to him today on skype and purchased his book and two 1hour lessons. I'm going to read the book/do all the exercises and once this is done I will take the lessons with him. I think I will get way more out of the lessons once I have a base idea of his concepts and how he approaches the game.. Really excited to work with him! I am also still excited to work with Heilko and still think there is a ton he can show me. I have been kind of slacking with getting a video to him for review for a number of silly reasons, but the bottom line is I want to make this happen again and soon. Fuck the silly reasons. Other than that I have been running much better, and playing a bit closer to my A game. So no real complaints "on the felt" other than the fact that I can be a much much better poker player and just need to get down to the nitty gritty of improving myself.

Pokey Psychology and Security Tokens..

2009-03-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

The tides are slowly beginning to turn for the better both in the way i'm running and the way I'm playing. I think I'm going to mix in some 1/2nl again in the next day or two. Gotta give thanks to Ladymuck (and indirectly Malfair-for directing me to his blog) for putting a link to a great article about poker psychology and the best way to approach this crazy game. This article seemed really relevant for me right now because I haven't been playing my A game at 100nl, despite being over my bankroll bench march for 200nl. This article just reinforced my decision to drop down - When talking about the level you play it emphasizes it's not about the size of your bankroll or your winrate over x amount of hands -- The level you play should ultimately be dictated by your concentration, focus, confidence, and comfort in that moment.

I impulsivly ordered the "security token" from the pokerstars fpp store today. I saw it in the popup, read the info link on their site, contemplated ordering it for 2min, and then ordered it. It cost 6K fpp's which to me is worth about $95. Part of me didn't want to order it because I've never had a problem before, I am careful about security with my poker computer, and it may be a big inconvenience to have to use every time I log in. But then I thought about how I would feel if my account got hijacked and my bankroll stolen all because I didn't ship 6K fpps.. Tbh I would probably want to jump off a bridge.. So in the end the decision was easy.. Interested what anyone who reads this thinks of these things and if you ordered it also?

Fun Weekend

2009-03-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

I took it easy on Friday and stayed in and played.. Fri night was okay poker wise and it was nice to put a pause in my downswing even if I just broke even :) Saturday the raping continued and I dropped 7bi's at 100nl,, geez.. For some reason the downswings I experience usually tend to be a bit worse then the one before it which sucks, but on the flip side the upswings are usually better as well... Lets hope that trend continues for my next boomswitch!!

Saturday Night was awesome.. It was a buddies birthday and he had about 15 guys over at his pad downtown to get rowdy and watch the Canucks game. After we rolled out to the Caprice, one of the sleazier night clubs that appeals to the first year university crowd, I hadn't been there in a few years. My buddy had a bunch of tables reserved for us and the crew I was with quickly became the center of attention for all the ladies.. I can now comfortably say the the rust from having a girl friend for so long is finally gone.. I was having a good time talking to cuties and running some game. I actually got to utilize some tips I got from the pickup podcast and had them work in action. As wacky as it sounds it involves giving a girl a fun nickname, a compliment, and then then pulling away ending the interaction on your terms and leaving her wanting more.. So here's what went down: I was rolling in from outside (ya I smoke when out drinking) with my buddy and this super hot blonde chick wearing a cheetah print shirt and short black skirt is waiting in the coat check line and catches my eye. Before I can hesitate I roll right up and say "Hey cheetah, ur looking cute as hell tonight, blah blah blah" she giggles and responds "blah blah blah" I bounce and catch up with my buddy. (Yes I know how lame it sounds) Twenty minutes later I'm standing at the bar solo about to grab a drink and she and her friend pop up through the crowd and I start chatting her up and her friend just leaves (this is actually crazy because they came up to the bar together, and then the friend just disapeard on her own without even getting a drink,, usually "the friend" can be a big problem) . After five minutes of small talk she leads me on the dance floor (every guy we walked by wanted a piece) and we start dancing/making out etc.. I ended up blowing it with her later, when after getting her number and building some rapport she pulls a "whats my name" outta left field on me and of course I drew a huge blank and she stormed off. Either way it was cool to see some of this pickup stuff work in action. It no doubt felt good to have one of the hotter girls in da club go after me,, usually they're not as hot and its me going after them lol.. So just like poker I made a mistake and gotta learn from it so it doesn't happen next time. And just like poker you don't have to be expert to win you just have to be better than the next guy trying to game the level you play.

At the end of the night me and two buddies tried to pull some girls last minute, and it didn't work out so I ended up crashing on my buddies couch.

Sunday was rough, I woke up at my buddies house and had to bus and skytrain back to my house in my bar clothes. I then stuck to my workout plan and actually did the 1:40 hr run I was supposed to. Usually I don't run over an hour and don't need to bring water, so I didn't. This was a big mistake and after about 80minutes I felt like I was going to die.. Then I came home and vacuumed my house, something I had to do. After I was so dead I didn't play any pokers and just chilled out rest of day..

Today was a standardish Monday. Jason punished me in the gym making me do 6 - 1/4mile hill runs on the steepest incline on the treadmill. In between these I did 20pull-ups, 40 lunge-steps with 50lb sandbag on shoulders, 20 dips, 25 squats with 90lb sandbag, and 40 step-ups with 15lb dumbbells. This ass kicking along with still being sore from the weekend meant that I got about only 1K hands of poker in because I was soo tired. I was running better but still don't think I am on my A game.. Hopefully I get it back soon..

Keep On Keepin On

2009-03-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

Still running cold today.. I drooped about 5bi at 100nl. The good news is that I feel like I played much better today than yesterday. I'm doing all the things I know I need to do to minimize the impact this downswing has on me both in terms of $$$ and my sanity. So my plan is to just keep doing all these things for as long as it takes to turn around. Often times when things seems bad but we think were doing everything right we get frustrated and feel wronged. The truth is if we weren't doing all these things we know to be good our situation would be much worse. But because things are bad anyway we fail to appreciate how much worse they could be. For example, I am so fucking glad I dropped down to 100nl as quickly as I did when I saw the signs of the storm coming. If I waited another day to drop down this downswing would be about $1K worse than it is, that is huge. I even considered dropping to 50nl today, but settled for playing 4 tables instead of 6. If it continues to rain on my ass tomorrow, Lord have mercy on the 50nl regs because I will be down there destroying them :)

Did the weekly Btimm + Malfaire sweat today. Gotta give Mark props as I think this was probably the most fun I've had sweating him. He has really opened up his game which is always more exciting to watch. After sweating him, I actually realized that this downswing has quashed my preflop aggression a bit and I need to pick it back up.. We also went over some good spots that were fun to talk about. I'm gonna try to work in some float flop, raise turn barrel small bluffs lines into my game.

Life off the table is simple-- just the way I like it.. I've gotten all my workouts in this week and really feel back into the routine. I finished reading "The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh a couple days ago and was basically blown away by how awesome it was. It wasn't even written as a book but as a guide he wrote to help his fellow Buddhists during the Vietnam War, after he was exiled out of Vietnam to France. Years later this manuscript was translated and turned into a book. This and some of his other works actually inspired Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. to nominate Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He is an amazing guy and I highly recommend this book to anyway looking for a introduction to Buddhist style meditation. I have since started another one of his books "The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings" and am already impressed.

Doomswitch Yesterday - Bad Play Today

2009-03-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Been getting shitkicked on the tables last couple days, I guess I was due and just gotta try to make the best of a bad situation. The damage was -5bi @ 200nl yesterday and -2bi @ 200nl + -3bi @ 100nl today so far.

Yesterday, I think I handled the thrashing rather well. I tried one huge river bluff I thought was a decent idea at the time. It was a move I saw in a "remix" episode where you check and then shove river on a five straight board. I ended up posting the hand here: http://www.balugapoker.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 and learning the flaws to my thinking. Basically when I saw the opportunity to try this new sick move I just did it without really thinking deeply enough about it first. Lesson learned.

However, the thrashing I took yesterday did negatively effect my play today, and I would say that the 2bi @ 200nl and 2 of the 100nl bi's I lost today were basically spew.. :( This sucks and it is frustrating when I know I lose money because I played poorly. However, as a pokerplayer this is just something I need to learn to deal with and improve upon just like any other part of my game. And when I look back at the last downswing so far I am handling this one a bit better, making better quits and dropping down quicker. So I'm just gonna focus on solid fundamentals and grind out until the boomswitch gets turned back on :)

I had the first session w/ Jason since the triathlon on Monday and he gave me the green light to sign up for the Vancouver marathon on May 3rd.. So I am all registered and pay'd the $100 fee so there is no backing out now..... Part of me is thinking "O fuck-- a marathon is a long fucking way to run! What did I get myself into? " But on the other hand it will be fun to participate in, it will be an accomplishment, and Jason's training really complements poker and other life things so I really have no good reason not to do it..

Weekend Wrap Up

2009-03-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

I had a decent weekend. On Friday I went over to my buddy Dan's place and watched the Canucks win over the Kings. Over the course of the game the group of us slammed some beers and got rowdy. After, one of the guys was wanted to play poker. Not exactly what I wanted to do but whatever. We all buy in for $20, I drop two buyins in the first ten hands, and my buddies all gave me a hard time etc.. Two hours later, when the game ends I'm up 5 buyins and took my friends for a hundo.. I felt like quitting after a hour when I was up like $40, but I didn't want to quit them while I had their money so just kept playing. Tbh, playing poker with friends or family is basically a lose-lose situation for me and I don't really like it. If I lose $ I have to deal with people thinking their so good, and comments like "why don't I quit my job and play poker" type shit, essentially not appreciating that grinding out $$ online isn't easy. If I win money, it's like I hustled my friends, since they expect to lose going into the game.. It's the whole " I knew I shouldn't have played with Josh in the game" shit. And finally it's boring, having $20 in front of you when you are used to playing 6+ tables of ssnl doesn't even come close to getting the gambling juices going.

On Saturday, wan't too hungover and played a few hands. It went okay I think,, don't really remember. Saturday night I rolled out with the same group of guys to an Irish bar for a little pre St. Patty's day celebration. It was a fun time, I got sloppy drunk on double Crown and Cokes and made out with a fat chick,, weeee.

Yesterday, I played about 2K hands and mostly played well. Usually I can't play at all when I'm hungover, so 2K hands is an accomplishment in my books.

Today I'm going to see Jason. I not looking forward to it since I slacked off all week and expect him to punish me. It will suck, but it's also the quickest way to get back in the groove. It will be interesting to here what he has to say about me doing a marathon on May 3rd, I haven't signed up yet because I wanted to get his advice first.

Tonight I'm meeting my Mom and sister for dinner and then we are going to go watch Ironman. I've heard good things so am stoked..

Boring Week

2009-03-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

This week was kind of "meh" in basically every aspect and I'm glad the weekend is here!! Pokerwise, I only feel like I have been in my groove since Wednesday and haven't felt I've been playing my A game as often as I should. I have also only played like 4.5K hands since Monday which is crappy, but quitting and not playing when I'm not feeling it are more important than hand volume..

Last night was the bi-monthly late-night-hand-review group (we need a better name imo) and then weekly sweat with BTimm and Malfaire. There was some great discussion in both and a few laughs to boot. I didn't feel completely on my sweat game, kind of similar to how I have been playing all week, and when my hand in the hand review came up I didn't really know what to say. It was a weird hand where I turned bottom set in a 4way pot after the flop got checked though, I then bet when checked to call a checkraise, and then fold to a "insta" shove on the river, upon review it may have not been so 'insta" lol, more like ten sec. I guess I was more or less expecting to get berated for butchering the hand ( I think that's what I was looking for) but everyone was just kind of quiet and gave vague opinions. I guess I wasn't the only one to be caught off guard by it.. After reviewing it with like six people and then going over it again with Brian and Mark, I still don't know what the fuck to think about it.

In the Btimm and Malfaire sweat we went over a video of me playing 4tables of 1/2nl. There were a couple good spots to go over, but a big lull in the middle of the video where not much happened, and then a spurt where like 5 hands happened at once and then nothing again. At least everyone got a laugh when I type in "trying to induce squeeze" into the chat window for the video and then accidentally hit "enter" when the hand was still going on, haha.. Brian actually called it right before it happened which made the whole thing even funnier. The vid review was okay, but next time I think I will be going back to the live sweat format. Also, I was planning on going over this video with Heilko on Monday, but think I will try and make a better video before then..

Exercise wise I kind of slacked off a bit this week since I didn't have a set schedule from Jason. I don't really feel too bad about it, because I go see him on Monday and am planning on telling him I'm doing the marathon on May 3rd. So I expect him to emphasize the fact that its only 6 weeks away and we need to start training hard.

On the Job front, I typed up my resume and made a list of 17 bike shops in Kitsilano, and called about 10 of them to find out who I needed to talk to and if they were hiring. The shop I probably want to work at the most is the only one hiring right now, so I gotta get on it and go see the guy soon.

Not too sure whats in store for the weekend.. I'm looking to go out either tonight or tomorrow and party it up. Besides that, hopefully I can get some poker and a couple workout in..

Triathlon

2009-03-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

The triathlon went down yesterday, and I am stoked to say I can check it off my list of goals as a success. My total time was 3:02.. To break it down, the 1.5K swim + the transition to bike took 39:58, the 40K bike + transition to run took 1:34:23, and the 10K run took 47:42. It being my first triathlon I learned alot and think I could shave off a few minutes from my time in just the strategy I learned and experience I gained, training aside..

Couldn't rearrange pics,, they go finish to start..

Yesterday it was zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit r for u Americans) and windy as hell. In my original plan for the transition was to just put my running/bike shorts over my swimsuit because I didn't think their would be time or a place to change. To my surprise they did have change tents set up, so when I went in I thought "sweet I can get out of this wet bathing suit and just go commando with my shorts" (I didn't have any underwear b/c I didn't think I'd get a chance to change). So this is what I did, and as soon as I was zipping down the hill on the bike at top speed I realized I had made a mistake. To put it bluntly this freezing wind was freezing my balls, and it wasn't just funny it actually started to hurt and made me want to slow down to stop the pain. I improvised by tucking my tee-shirt into my shorts and wrapping it around my package, the rest of the race was still damn cold but not unbearable. This is a mistake I will never make again :) Other than that, the swim went better than expected but I think I had more to give on the run and didn't completely empty the gas tank.

It was a great experience and I will definitely be doing more triathlons in the future. The whole atmosphere of the event and all the people there made it a really fun time. Up on my list of goals I have the marathon and 1/2 Ironman. I think I'm going to try for the marathon, but wait to do the 1/2 Ironman until I have more experience and practice on the bike. The bike was definitely my weakest link yesterday and I realized that I wouldn't have made the 90K distance of the 1/2 Ironman, and still been physically able to run. So it gives me a longer term goal to work towards, and in the mean time I'll be marathon training :()

I'm also stoked because I have a new goal to put up onto my list. When I move out to Kits this summer I wanted to get a part time job, something that gets me out of the house and interacting with real people (Internet bloggers only partially count as real people imo :( haha) and will help with the rent if I run real bad for a month.. I wanted something stress free and chillin, like 10-18hrs per week, and don't really care if the pay sucks. So I'm going to try and get a job in a bike shop, tuning up people bikes etc. This will get me more involved in something I'm interested in and enjoy being around. The motorcycle maintenance and mechanics class I took last fall should help qualify me for the job. So I gotta get my resume together and get out there soon, because these shops will probably be looking for more help as people start to get their bikes out of the garage for the summer weather.

Just chillin playin pokers..

2009-03-05T23:21:00.000-08:00

Life has been simple and I can't complain. The last few days I have just been chillin, playing a ton of pokers, fixing up the bike for the triathlon, and other random stuff. Just trying to be as strees free as possible and do what I feel like.

The tablz have been good to me, and I continue to just focus on those same fundementals I talked about in the last post and try not to get distracted by all the other shit that goes on when you ride the rollar coaster called NL Holdem.. I made one fairly horrible mistake today when I was playing. Basically I had about 8 tables going, (yup I know I should only have six) and a few big hands happened at once. On one of the talbes on my other monitor the co ( a regular tag) opned the cutoff and I 3bet AJ, he 4 bet smaller than standard and I shipped and he called. An A binked on the flop and @ showdown he flipped up KK and the pot got shipped to him.. I was like wtf, I binked the A?? I looked at the hand history and I actually had KQo, it was the talbe next to it that I had AJ. The fucked up part about it was when he called I knew I was crushed, but I thought I binked the A, and when I saw KK I thought I won the hand. Also, as bad as 5bet bluff shoving w/ AJ is and I can be reckless, I never would have done it with KQ ever.. So basically after this went down I felt really confused and quit. I made 2 huge but different mistakes in one hand. One just being on too many tables and reading my own hand wrong, and two turning AJo in a bluff shove.. Other than this horrible hand have made less mistakes the past few days than I normally would, I guess I have been playing close to my A game and it feels good.

Pho Bo = Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup

2009-03-03T22:58:00.000-08:00

Nothing exciting to report.

I went a saw Jason on Monday (the last time I see him before the triathlon). I though he would take it easy on me because this is "taper" week where the training is less intense the week before the race. Instead he had me do a very difficult circuit, that involved me alternating exercises on the floor and this big crash mat. I had to do it three times, the first time exercises for 45 sec w/ 15sec in between, second time exercise 40 sec w/ 20 sec in between, third time exercise 30sec/30 rest in between. The stuff on the crash mat was way harder than I expected, even though it looked silly. For example jumping laterally side to side on this mat for 40sec (it is like jumping in sand), then resting 20 sec and then doing push-ups for 40 sec and then resting 20 sec, and then back on the mat doing squat jumps and it went on like this for like 15 exercises. Afterwards Jason lent me his road bike to use for the race, I didn't ask or anything he just had it there and told me to take it, which is super nice of him since it is prob like a $4-5K bike and is obv better than the one I was going to use. He hadn't ridden it for a while so it need a bit tune up- new tire and change the pedals. I was actually stoked it needed some work since I miss working on my motorbike, and a bicycle is the next best thing.

Today I went to the pool and swam half the distance I'll need to on Sunday. The weirdest thing happened in the pool. So some chick swimming in my lane started a conversation with me about how some other guy cut her off or something, and all of the sudden it dawned on me, this is the chick from the Steve Aoki night that I hooked up with. But I couldn't remember her name and wasn't really sure if it was her (swimcap and goggles), so I just acted like I was tired and didn't really look her in the face, and swam off. What the fuck are the odds of that happening, I definitely fumbled the ball on that one, mostly just because I was caught so off guard because of the location. I don't really care though, she was attractive and friendly, but no bombshell and I never really planed or wanted to see her again anyway. It was just a funny moment. Afterwords I hit up my sauna-meditation-coldshower session and left the pool feeling like a million bucks.

On my way back home, I walked by a Vietnamese hole in the wall type restaurant and had some pho bo, which is Vietnamese beef noodle soup. The stuff is awesome and I hadn't had it since last spring when I was in Vietnam. Mmmm good.. The husband and wife who ran the place were really friendly and I had some good convo with them.

Pokerwise, things are going kind of neutral. I'm not running good or bad, I'm not playing my best, but I'm not playing poorly either. I find the state I'm in right now a dangerous one if I allow myself to be complacent. In the past I have been in this place and let my game slowly slide and not done anything about it until I have some sort of disaster session where I lose 4-5 buyins. This happens when the run good ends and I'm on my b game. So to avoid falling into that trap, I'm trying to fight the complacency by staying focused on the fundamentals I know I need to execute to be on my A game. These include: not running too many big bluffs, not making bad payoffs, not making bad double barrels, focusing on fighting for small pots, limiting the amount of tables I'm on and focusing on the ones I'm playing rather then the lobby, constantly thinking in terms of hand ranges, and being a nit about making good quits. So my main challenge is to stay somewhat conscious of all these things while I'm playing, and continue to do all the other important poker stuff (sweats, vids, forum, handreveiw) when I'm not playing.

GG February..

2009-03-01T00:07:00.000-08:00

Well February is over and although is was a good month for me I'm stoked it over.. February is by farr my least favorite month of the year. Tbh, I'm usually mildly depressed during most Februaries, mostly because I'm sick of the shitty winter weather, the short days, and the let down after the holidays. This year I didn't get into my normal February funk. Probably because it started off with a week in Vegas, I then rebounded from the 15bi downswing in like 2days, been running good since, and have been doing tons of exercise for my triathlon training. So although it was good I'm planning on March being even better!!

Today, I went out to UBC and did a sprint triathlon (1/2 the distance I will do next Sunday). It went well and I felt great afterwords. I definitely had more gas in the tank, which I was nervous about before I did it because if I felt burnt out after today next Sunday would be a real struggle. But so far it looks like my training will pay off..

I'm happy to be working in some 1/2 nl sessions into my playing. Although I'm over the amount I in my bankroll I decided I need to play 1/2nl I still sometimes play .5/1nl if the games are clearly better than the 1/2 games. I will also play .5/1 if for some reason I'm not feeling in the zone when I sit down or had a tough session previously. In the past I never did this, I would just say to myself "I'm at 1/2 now and play there regardless" this was definitely a mistake, and I gotta give Btimm props for opening my eyes to it. I only noticed I should be doing this when we were about to sweat him and he was playing 1/2 but decided the games sucked and just played .5/1, a good show of the discipline needed to be successful in poker.

Since that downswing when I first got back from Vegas I have been working on the mental side of my game alot. I review my notes everyday and just try to focus on playing short focused sessions, concentrate on fighting for small pots, not making bad payoffs, less crazy bluffs, and quiting well. I've basically turned into a nit when it comes to quiting. If I detect the slightest amount of anger, frustration, or boredom while I'm playing I just quit right away. The cool thing about doing this is that usually I feel fine again very fast if I go do something to take my mind off of it. By not letting these negative thoughts and feeling build up, it doesn't take much time or effort to get rid of them, and I'm back to grinding 20min later...

All the reading and work I've been putting into learning about Zen Buddhism and practicing meditation is also benefiting the mental side of my poker game and many other aspects of my life in general. Last night I went on amazon to buy "rules of the game" on Marks recommendation and ended up buying it and a few more books by respected Zen author Thich Nhat Hanh. So I'm stoked for this shipment to arrive in a couple weeks..

So for March I just want to keep things simple and work towards the goals I set out to accomplish.

It's the weekend..

2009-02-27T12:59:00.000-08:00

Allrighty then... First off, the Late night coaching style sweat group that Rasputin put together had it's first meeting last night. I don't know how but I fucked up the time and was about 45min late,, ( I thought I was 15min early when I signed onto skype lol).. I was impressed and definitely thought it was a success. I think all members are going to learn and improve because of it, and am stoked to be a part of it. After, Mark and Brian did our weekly sweat. Malfaire was playing and about an average number of interesting spots came up. The discussion was very good as usual and I think I learned a couple new spots to checkraise dry flops with air that I will try and work into my game. The 3 of us all agreed that we should be checkraising, bluff raising, and stealing limped pots more than we do, and this will help out our redlines..

After the sweat sessions I decided to play some 1/2nl. I have been running well lately and felt really "in the zone" after talking poker with other intelligent people for previous few hours. These two hands came up.

He are my reads..
-the button "Umpa21" is playing 18/16/3.9 over 2.9K hands.. He's stealing 32% on the button. He has a 56% fold to 3bet
-the sb "RiverRd" is an 24/18/4.1 over 550 hands. He has a 4% 3bet stat, a 54% fold to 3bet stat, and a 24% 4bet stat (small sample, but he does 4bet).

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/317125

He is what I wuz thinking: both players are solid Tagish regs. The flop is super dry and the sb knows that I will be squeezing here preflop alot. I also don't think he would peel the squeeze w/ 33 or 55 that often. JJ is in his range.. Although I don't think QQ-AA will be in it that often as I think he will backraise 4bet preflop most times with these hands if he didn't 3bet them to begin with, but it is possible he shows up with AA here once in a while. So for the rest of his pr range I think is made up of 77-JJ and suited broadway and suited connectors type hands. And if he's calling oop with these hands his intention is to make moves on me. When the flop came out this dry I immediately thought to myself that he may checkraise me here since this flop likely missed my wide pf squeezing range. His mistake was that he can't really rep anything here either, infact I can rep way more than he can, and if I jam with the last bet the only thing in his entire range that can call is JJ, and maybe AJs. I think he folds JT, QJ, KJ if he has them, although cr these hands is also a mistake on his part.. And if he does call w/ AJs I still have decent equity..

Hand 2: http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/317122

The table was about to break as the fish just left.
-The cutoff was a 28/24 lag stealing 40% and folding to 3bets 50% after 155 hands. I'm not in love with this 3bet spot but am sure it is profitable..
-The bb "Ham77mer" is a 19/13/2.5 over 2K hands. He 3bets 9% in bb vs steal, and has a 15% 4bet over 37 oppurtunities.
What I was thinking: I think in a vaccum I would be very lucky to break even on my shove over his cold 4bet. However I had been battling him in 3bet pots for about half an hour on this and two other tables, of these 5 or six battles none had gotten to showdown. I laid down to him a couple times and he laid down to me. Because of this I think he views me as aggressive but in control of what I'm doing, basically he has no reason to think I will tilt spazz.. (just to add, this session was going good and this play wasn't tilt induced). I also know that he knows 3betting the co in position with a wide range will be profitable, so given the spot and our dynamics he thinks I am very lite here,, and he is right. I also found his 4bet sizing to be on the small side. If he is doing this for value there is no reason he shouldn't make it closer to $56. So when he makes it this size I ask myself which is more likely, is he making it small to induce a spazz shove, or is he making it small to save money on bluffs. In this spot I think the latter is more likely. And finally, I have the A blocker which reduces the number of AK's and AA in his range. So I shipped it. Just to add, I think it is also possible that he 4bets this size for value with 99-JJ and then chickens out when I shove and he's not getting a very good price b/c of his small 4bet size.

So I am interested in what others think of these two hands. Although they both worked out for me and I think I have sound reasoning for what I did, making these plays at 200nl may still be a leak or at least not the optimal way to play. Some times I get carried away with big bluffs and end up hurting my winrate, so am not really sure if I should be running plays like this. At least probably not while I'm trying to break into a new limit :)

In life news,, a bunch of my buddies are headed up to Whistler to snowboard and party this weekend. I was invited up, but sadly had to decline because it's my last weekend before the triathlon, and I know if I go up I won't do any exercise and party way too hard every night. So I'm kinda bummed, but on the plus side the triathlon is only 1 week away and I get to play against the drunk weekend fishies..

*** And I gotta says thanks to Mark for tying to help me get the hand replayer up on the blog rather than just the link.. Shit like that is never easy :)

It's Fucking Snowing

2009-02-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

I'm bummed that it's snowing out, because I had plans to go biking out at UBC today and now I'm stuck inside on the stationary bike. But other than the snow life is good. I went over my coaching session yesterday and cotinue to learn alot. I have been running good on the tables, and have that new late night style coaching group tonight. Also, I have discovered the iphone app store and think I will be wasting alot of time and money there :-/. But atleast it's fun.

-- Post From My iPhone

Coaching with Hielko

2009-02-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Just had my first coaching session with Hielko from duecescracked this morning. It came together really quickly. About a month ago after seeing him in Omakase I messaged him on DC, but because I'm a DC messaged nube I didn't realize for like a month he messaged me back saying he was available. So I got back to him a couple days ago. I made a 4table vid on 200nl 6max. As soon as the vid was recorded I was excited because I knew it would be a good vid to go over with a coach,, and vids like this usually take a few tries to get a good one. So I put it up on megaupload before I went to bed last night, and when I woke up I found him on skype and we were both good to go.

Overall, it was by far the best coaching session I have had on several levels. The format was me sweating him over teamviewer watching my vid. There wasn't any real problems with connectivity or lag so we were both always on the same page and could stop and start the vid to discuss hands. He was also cool with me recording the audio, so this morning I downloaded "pamela" for skype and it seemed to work well. So I think I will get sooooooo much more value from this coaching session than past coaching sessions just because I can go over it 3 or 4 times, make notes and really drill in what he told me. Recording was also useful because I didn't have to worry about making notes as I went, which is distracting and slows the session down. Onto the content. It was very good, he helped me with the spots I knew I was having trouble with, but also pointed out 3 or 4 things that I never would have noticed. Hielko, himself is a cool guy who is easy to get along with and explains his thoughts and ideas clearly. I think his general playing style also goes well and is similar with my style, which is a very important and underrated aspect of finding a coach imo. So I hope to work with him on a regular basis over the next few months and really progress my game.

Not a bad Monday..

2009-02-23T20:37:00.000-08:00

So I've decided to do a couple coaching sessions w/ "Hielko" from duecescracked.. He is a stars reg who solidly beat 1/2nl and is now at 2/4 trying to move upto 3/6 and 5/10. I first found out about him in the "Omakase" series where he was coaching by 8 different DC pros. Watching the series I liked his attitude, commentary, and playing style and shot him a pm a few weeks ago to see if he coached. He does and were going to get started soon. I'm really stoked because I just made a 1/2 nl 4table vid and alot of interesting spots that I regularly have trouble with came up. I also think this vid provide him with a good general idea of my play and allow us to get into the good stuff right away. In other coaching sessions I've had in the past, the coach had no idea where my game was at etc and would waste alot of time on topics I already knew etc..

In other news I had my weekly session with Jason today.. After my warm-up I did the following circuit:
-1/4 mile run on treadmill at 15% grade
-1 min rest
-15 step-ups (each leg) w/ 20lb dumbbells
-15 pull-ups
-1 min rest
-1/4 mile run on treadmill at 13% grade
-1min rest
-45 consecutive lunge-steps w/ 40lb sandbag on shoulders
-10 dips
-1 min rest
-1/4 mile run on treadmill at 10% grade
-1 min rest
-15 step-ups (each leg) w/ 20lb dumbbells
-45 consecutive lunge-steps w/ sandbag on shoulders
-1 min rest
-1/4 mile run on treadmill 7% grade
-1 min rest
-8 dips
-8 pull-ups
-1 min rest
-1/4 mile run on treadmill 5% grade
-45 consecutive lunge-steps w/ sandbag on shoulders
-cool-down.

^^^^ this was far more brutal than it could ever look on paper, especially after a weekend of partying very hard. But I survived and tomorrow I get to go to the pool - sauna so I'm stoked.

My Iphone finally arrived today, it was actually lucky I was here when the UPS guy rolled by. But it's up and running , just gotta figure out how to put poker vids on it now. (bascially the reason I got it)

Life is good.

Zen + Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

2009-02-22T20:10:00.000-08:00

I have finally finished "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" An Inquiry into Values By Robert M. Pirsig. This book is about 430 pages long and has taken me about 2 months to complete. I have read books with this many pages in much less time in the past. This book took me so long because of it's deep discussions of complex philosophical ideas and often depressing mood.. Despite this, I loved it and understand why it's the classic that it is.

The book is broken down into 4 sections. The first section is the most simple and mostly just builds a framework for the plot and develops the characters. The second section (my least favorite) takes an unexpected nose dive into the dark realms of insanity. It was almost like reading about someone's bad acid trip, this part took the longest to get through and I thought about giving up more than once. In the third section, the author makes light of the second section and discusses a variety of general philosophical ideas. This section was my favorite by far and is really what makes the book great. The first two sections were definitely necessary to set the groundwork to fully comprehend and appreciate the third section. If I ever want to reread the book I would probably only read the third section. The final section discusses how individuals can apply these ideas to enrich there existence. This section also provides closure of the plot and resolve of the characters. I'm very glad I stuck with it, it definitely wasn't easy at times. I feel like I learned a lot from this book, but that a fair amount of it probably went over my head. Some of the ideas are very abstract and complex and it gets very complicated when these ideas are compared/contrasted to one another, or used in the explanation of another complicated idea. I definitely think at some point in the future I will reread the third section.

So now I'm either going to start "The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh or wait for Danny Ashman's 6max NL holdem book that should arrive any day from amazon. I'll probably wait and read the poker book just for a change of pace. All this zen stuff is no doubt improving my poker playing a lot, but it's not going anywhere so I'll mix it up..

Aoki

2009-02-22T09:59:00.000-08:00

Haven't been productive at all this weekend in any aspects other than partying, having a good time, and spending money.. I actually did get a few hands in on Friday, I assume it was a standardish session since my account is at about the same and I don't really remember any specific hands.

My good buddy, Rob arrived back from a 4month South America trip on friday, he messaged me the day before and told me Steve Aoki was in town playing a show on friday.. We went to his last one and had a blast so I went online to get ticktets.. It was sold out so we decided to just go out and grab a beer on Friday.. While out we swung by the club Aoki was at around 9 and lucked out getting some of the tickets they held at the door, we hardly had to wait in line. We went and grabbed a few beers somewhere else for a couple hours and then rolled back to the club. The show was awesome,, Aoki was tearing it up and there were way more people and hot chicks there then the time before. The two hottest chicks in the club started making out right in front of me on the d floor for full minute until some idiot tried to get in on it and ruined it for everyone. He got coldly shot down. Then toward the end of the show I bumped into a girl that lived in my dorm/residence in 1st year UVic. Rob and I chatted up her and her friend and the girls suggested we get out of there and go swimming. So we end up swinging by one of the girls places, grabbing some towels and then cabbing out the the Jericho yaght club were we hop the fence and chill in their hottub for like an hour. After ended up crashing for a couple hours and then heading home where I basically slept all day. I knew I was too fucked to play pokers, but I registered for the supernova freeroll and couldn't even play that, lol. Retarded.

Saturday Night - I have to go out because one of my old roommates from Victoria and his gf are going to Africa for four months and were having a going away party. My other buddy, Dan, also just got back for South America that morning so wanted to hear some of his stories too. We wind up just moving from the restaurant to bar to bar. It was a solid Saturday night..

So I'm hungover and contemplating whether to even bother to try to play today, I'm also supposed to run for 1 hour and then bike for 1 hour and realistically don't know if that's going to happen. I skipped my workout yesterday, so should at least do something today, and I see Jason tomorrow which is even more reason not to slack off. BAH...

Last two days Doomswitch -- Today Boomswitch

2009-02-18T21:05:00.000-08:00

As the title suggests I have recovered from the downswing much quicker than I ever anticipated. As unlucky I may have been to run bad a few days ago, I am very lucky to run good today. Despite obviously being happy about this latest turn of events I need to keep in mind what I learned and not forgot the 3 buyins of spew that started the whole downswing in the first place. Everything else being the same, the bottom line is I pissed away 3 bi's on Monday and that's 3 buyins more I'd have today it I didn't. So despite having a good day I'm not about to forgot or forgive myself for spewing away $$$ and will remember what I learned.

I'm not huge into posting results/graphs in this blog mostly because they are somewhat personal and it will likely come back to bite me in the ass if I get into the habit of posting my good results, because I will feel so much shittier and guilty about bad results when I do/don't post them. With that said, here is the downswing and the upswing. It's cool just to see how cruel this game can be and how important it is to keep ur head on straight when things aren't going ur way.

LOL swings..

2009-02-18T11:40:00.000-08:00

The day is still early but I think I am on my way to rebounding out of this downswing,, in last 4 session I managed to win back 9 of the 14 buyins I dropped. I can attribute this to running better/but mostly doing the things you know you should do in a downswing but don't want to. I played a sessions at 50nl, been playing 4 tables instead of 6 @ 100nl, and being a nit about quitting well. I also think I did a good job of not getting super down about it and just focusing on fundamentals and being happy away from the tables.. Hopefully I continue in this direction.

Gonna go do my exercise.. Today I have 6x 4minute hard runs (heart rate 170+) with 2-3 minutes rest in between.. Fun..

Downswing..

2009-02-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

I'm officially in a downswing. In the last two days I have played 7 session and they have all been in the red for a nice -14 buyins.. Weeeee. Despite this I'm actually feeling good and optimistic. That stupid 25billion hand tilt session started the whole thing. Since that session I have stayed off tilt and played well but just run horrible. It happens and I'm not really feeling down about it. I'm just going to put in some extra time into off the felt poker stuff and maybe play a few sessions down a limit just to build confidence.

In other news,, I did my favorite workout of the week today. I went to the pool and busted out 6x 150m swim sprints and totally gased myself. I then went into the sauna and had a solid half-hour meditation. Left the sauna and stood under a cold shower for as long as I could take it, then got changed and left the pool feeling like a million bucks.

Quitting Well is an Important Skill

2009-02-16T16:47:00.000-08:00

So I've been thinking about what I blogged about this morning alot in the last few hours.. Mostly while on the skytrain (its like the subway) on my way to work out w/ Jason.. In a sick way I'm actually glad this happened. I think in terms of my mental game I have had a "ahh ha" moment today. I semi-realized the difference "quitting well" and "playing just to play my A game" make to my overall success, in early January where I went on a heater at the beginning of the month. Part of this heater was due to the fact that all November and December long I was just trying to grind a ton of hands to earn a milestone bonus. I got the bonus, but had horrible months in terms of winning monies.. Then in January, I didn't have to play a ton of hands and decided to play less hands and focus more indepthly.. Not only did I win alot of money but I think I improved alot in this time.. So to make a long story short, I realized that I need to spend as much energy trying to ensure I maintain this attitude towards quitting well, as I do trying to improve other parts of my game.. The benifits of this snowball into other areas of my game and my life in general..

Fuck the 25 Billionth Hand...

2009-02-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

So I let some tilt that hit me late last night carry over to this morning and bite me in the ass. I basically feel disgusted with myself. I have gone through losing and break even stretches in the past that would have been much shorter and less painful had I stopped myself from playing tilted. I was also only a couple bi's away from my next 1/2nl shot which will know have to wait that much longer :(

The one positive from this happening is every time I try to learn from it and usually take something new away. Here is what I learned this time. It started last night when I was wired on coffee grinding late into the night for the stupid 25billionth hand on stars. I was on autopiolot mode and knew I wasn't playing well, but I kept playing because I was running decent and wanted to have a chance at the 25 billionth hand (yes I realize how pathetic this is). So I ended this super long session down just over a buy in, in a session where I probably should have won a buy in. But -1bi sessions happen all the time so I didn't really care.

So I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning because I was up way later than normal. I decided that I wanted to get a bunch of hands in before I have to go work out w/ my trainer earlier this afternoon. Well, the bad play from last night continued into this morning and I ran a horrible bluff early in the session. When this happens I know I should insta quit, but instead I decided I wanted to get a bunch of hands in and decided I could just win back this spew. We all know what happens next,, I spew off another couple buy ins and quit down 3.5 buyins. ( I also won a flip w/ AK vs JJ) which makes a -3.5bi session that much worse.

-So the most important this I can take away from this is not to allow myself to talk myself into playing when I know I shouldn't for stupid reasons like 25 billionth hand, or getting a bunch of hands in just for the sake of getting hands in. I will always be able to find stupid reasons like this and need to shut them out.

February 14th...

2009-02-15T00:29:00.000-08:00

I broke up with my girlfriend of 3years on Thursday, so needless to say I've had a low key Valentines Day. Nothing drastic happened, it was just time for us to go our separate ways and the pressure leading up to Valentines Day just kind of forced the situation. There are clearly both negatives and positives to come out of all this, so I've decided to just focus on the positives and move forward. Also, there are no hard feelings between us, I really think she is an awesome person and wish her all the best..

So with Carla and I splitting up and most of my good buddies away travelling I'm planning on being a hermit for the next month or so and just immersing myself into poker and triathlon training. I will use this time to really progress towards my goals and set myself up to have an awesome summer.

Pokerwise I think I'm playing well overall. In the last couple sessions I've run a few bad bluffs, something that I have let hurt my winrate in the past and need to get on top of right away. I also think I could be going with my reads more, especially when it comes to paying people off on the river (this includes making unstandard laydowns for good reasons and making some hero calls when I have a solid read).. The inspiration for really focusing on my river reads came for hearing DJ Sensei talk about how the river is the street where good players edge should be the greatest.

Just Grinding

2009-02-11T23:31:00.000-08:00

Nothing too exciting since my last post. My mindset is basically back to where it was before I left for Vegas. It took a few days but I'm there. Luckily over the last couple days I have been running above expectation and managed to make some $$ while getting my game back. I am also basically back to even for the month which is good, since I dug myself into a 5-6 buyin hole in the first couple days of Feb...

There are a few thing that have come up that I need to work on.
-The first is the problem I have been battling for the last month or so and that's not letting a gazillion tables pop up at once and then start playing them to get stats and end up playing 10 tables when I only want to be playing 6.
-Next, I'm identifying good 3betting/4betting steal spots but need to be a bit more disciplined about the hands I'm doing it with. This ties into the whole idea that there are a number of factors that can lead you to choose to run a big expensive bluff, but if even on of these factors says to not to do so you shouldn't. It can be annoying when you have like 3 reasons to 4bet this guy but you have T6 (no blockers/cardremoval) and should fold. I guess all factors aligning together is a rare occurrence, which makes running good profitable big bluffs also a rare occurrence.
-I also think I am making some bad payoffs on the river in spots where I read villain's range as weighted to strength but wind up calling just because my particular holding is decent in relation to the board.
-And a few loose ends/minor problems I could improve on are: occasional bad cbets, bad peels of little gay bets by fish, spots where calling w/ a draw is better than raising, betsizing w/ nutted type hands to exact max value, and making sure not to insta act on big decisions.

The sweat session I did with Btimm and Malfaire yesterday was good as per usual. It was my turn to play which is always fun. They were able to point out a few things I mentioned ^^^^^. I didn't think I played great but managed to win almost a buyin b/c some dude decided to donate a stack to me.. In one hand where I had AA in a 3bet pot a fishy guy donked the flop and I raised to some atrocious amount like 1/2 his stack. In this spot I need to either repop small so he has room to spazz over the top or just ship it and hope he thinks it looks bluffy. Reraising to a committing amount looks almost stronger than shoving and gets like 1/2 the value.. The fish got off the hook..

Life outside of poker is treating me well, I have just been enjoying chilling w/ my girlfriend/friends/family and staying focused on them goals I have posted off to the right.

Shaking Off The Rust..

2009-02-09T21:59:00.000-08:00

I think I'm just starting to get back into the poker groove. I played 4 sessions on Sunday, 3 @ 50nl and 1 @ 100nl just to get a feel for things. It's weird that taking a week off from online pokers actually sets me back a bit. It was probably the partying/lack of exercise and junk food that fucked me up more than the time, but either way it felt I was playing in a daze I couldn't shake. Instead of looking for quality spots to steal/3bet/4bet and exploiting players in spots they wouldn't expect, I was just playing my cards autopilot style (but I wasn't autopiloting) lol..

Today was better, I have played six very short sessions (about 1/2 hour each) for about 1600 hands, and -1bi :( I made 1 or 2 mistakes I wouldn't have if I was on my A game, but whats important is that I'm getting the reads/feel of being able to own people back.. The super short sessions keeps me away from any sort of tilt and allows me to really try to focus the entire time I play. Ideally, sessions of 45min to 60min would be better, but just getting back into it the short ones are okay.

So far I'm down 5bi in February after 4K hands and have a measly 1.7K vpp. So now that I'm done with my Holiday it's time to focus, put in a ton of hands and play good poker.. I'm looking forward to turning the shitty start to the month around and hopefully make some $$$ and play some 1/2nl.

I'm also looking forward to dedicating myself to my triathlon training since its a few weeks away. I'll probably be training 2hrs a day, 6days a week for the next few weeks. It will be hard work, but will payoff when I'm in feeling great and confident going into the race. My trainer Jason punished me today with a grueling hour long workout of various lunges, squats, stepups, pullups, pushups, crunches in a rotating circuit.. It was a tough one and thankfully tomorrow I hit the pool which is one of my favorite workouts of the week.

Back From Vegas..

2009-02-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

I'm back baby.. Vegas of course was a fucking blast. To answer the question everyone asks is how did I do? We'll I left with about $70 more in my pocket than I arrived with. I didn't actually play as much poker as I thought I would, but finished about $600 ahead in pokers, and blew it all on partying, eating like a pig, and craps/blackjack/roulette. We arrived @ midnight on Monday night and checked into our room at Hooters Resort. The first two days I played a decent amount of 1/2nl @ Hooters, the Bellagio, and MonteCarlo.

I had the most fun live session I ever played on the second night at the MonteCarlo. I bought into the game at around 10pm and grinded out a buyin over the next 7 hrs. There were 3 guys sitting at my end of the table who were all characters. I had a Mexican gangster dude to my right, A hick from Reddeer Alberta on my left, and some rich guy from Dallas in seat 9, two to my left. The four of us hit up the cocktail waitress every time she walked by and were all fucking plastered. The rich guy from Dallas was playing like drunk rich people do, and the rest of us were just chillin waiting to double through him. Anyway over the course of the night some really funny shit happened and it was just good conversation all around. Also, I cashed out at about 5am and later that day around 7pm and had to kill an hour so went back to the MC poker room. The hick from Reddeer was still there!! Lol. I was like dude " have you been here the whole time?" and he said that he left at around 7am to go to his concrete convention, but after 1/2hour stared to crash and decided to go to his room. On his way back he walked by the pokerroom and rather than go to sleep sat back down. He was there before I joined the game on tues night, so his session was atleast 21hrs, but probably longer since he was still there when I left. And he was still ordering drinks like a maddog the entire time,, this guy was a true beauty. So not going to dive into all details of the rest of the trip.. It was mostly a blurr anyway, but an awesome time.

On Friday our flight back was delayed and we wasted alot of time in the airport which was obv annoying. Finally got home about 4pm and had to unpack and get ready for one of my good buddies CD release party. He is in a band and there trying to "make it" so me and the rest of my friends always go out to support them. The show was really good and they keep getting better, I really think if they get that one lucky break they could go all the way. So anyway the party was at the sharkclub downtown and turned into one huge gongshow (just what the doctor ordered they day I get back from Vegas obv..) I was smashed doing shots with the boys and buying rounds with my girlfriend. At onepoint I was standing there chatting with this girl I went to high school with and she's like "My drink tastes funny, I hope no one spiked it" So I did the shrivelous thing and traded drinks with her, because I'd rather get drugged than have her get drugged, and I wan't about to waste a drink that could absolutely fine. After I drank about 1/2 she decided that my Crown + Coke tasted worse than her original drink and traded back with me. Well after I left the bar, I was pretty out of it, Carla basically led me back to her place. I didn't eat the usual drunken munchies and when we got to her place I puked and went to sleep. So I'm not really sure if the drink was spiked with something or my body was just shutting down after a week of partying. Either way, yesterday was a complete write off and I still feel out of it today. So I'm probably just going to grind 50nl today, just to make sure I have my bearings straight and am playing well. I think dropping down in stakes when you are not feeling well or haven't played for a week or so is a very smart thing to do. Hopefully, I'll be feeling good and back on the grind tomorrow.