Poker Blog – icemonkey9 on PokerStars

I’m not sure how interesting it was for the readers of my blog to follow my progress during last week’s prop bet.  Judging by the dearth of comments, I’m guessing it wasn’t of much interest to most of you.  That’s fine.  But what I think might help is writing out some the lessons learned from participating in the prop bet, because I think I definitely benefited from putting myself through that torture.

For those of you that follow LOST I kind of feel like Sayid did after the episode where we see him learn to become a torturer.  He does what he has to do in order to save himself and his loved ones and basically tortures a bad guy commanding officer of his to get the information he needed.  At the end of it all, he’s changed and gets taken to outside the city by the Americans.  They drop him off in the middle of the road with the American tell him, “Looks like you picked up a new skill set.”  He handed him a wad of cash, then left him there and drove away.  I feel like that because I feel like I went through this very difficult process, gained a valuable skill (massively multi-tabling) but have been left out in the middle of nowhere (with some money) asking myself “well wth do I do now?!”.

Anyways, enough of the random and vague metaphors.

The first thing I learned is that as soon as you start a prop bet, you will, without fail, go on a downswing.  It’ll suck and be frustrating and irritate you and every end.  Life will seem dull, gray and horrible.  It happened to me, it happened to Zachvac and its happened to countless others.  I don’t know why or how it happens, but I just know it does.  If you ever decide to put yourself through something like this, just be ready for the fall-out.

One surprising thing I learned was that if you do add more and more tables, it doesn’t necessarily mean you just play ABC autopilot poker.  In fact, if you arm yourself with the right poker software you can definitely play a great thinking poker game.  Here’s what you will need:

• Holdem Manager or PokerTracker 3, with a HUD chalk full of stats
• TableNinja (or its equivalent) for assistance and shortcuts
• A good playlist for iTunes (or no music at all!)
• A great ergonomic mouse that won’t kill your wrist after long days of playing
• 2 monitors, with your main monitor at least being a 24″ 1920×1200 resolution monitor.  Your second monitor should be the same but if its a 22″ 1600×1200 that’s fine too.
• Experiment while not playing with table layouts and try to get it so that you can always be able to click on a table.  If you can do this you can jump to tables during short breaks and hit the fold button if there’s a hand that’s an obvious fold.
• Eye drops. Lots of ‘em.
• Comfortable chair with arm and back support

You have to create an environment where you can focus and you get a system down that works.  There’s no way that I could play even 15 tables if I didn’t have the dual monitor setup along with the shortcuts program.  We all operate differently and you need to experiment to see what works for you.  Make sure you save your table layout within the poker client so you don’t have to redo it every time you start a new session.

Another important lesson is knowing when peak hours are for your time zone.  For me in the Pacific Time Zone, I found that the tables were “best” starting around 11am and were good until about 10pm during the week.  Thursday nights were exceptionally good, and starting from about 10am on Friday through about 8pm on Sunday games were fantastic.  I think if anyone ever went “pro” for online poker they would forced to adapt their playing schedule around peak times at the sites.  Clearly, you can’t play 8 straight hours no matter who you are – you have to eat, you have to go to the bathroom and you need to simply close your eyes to rest.  Factoring in these breaks and creating the right schedule is really important.

One very underrated thing about playing “full time” or in my case undergoing a prop bet is pacing.  Setting the right pace every day and outlining your schedule a week in advance is very important.  For me, once I got through the first two days of the challenge, I realized I couldn’t just wing it.  I set myself a daily hand requirement schedule and stuck to it.  In the morning each day I outlined my time schedule to estimate when I should play and get other activities accomplished.  That was one huge piece of the puzzle for me in my success.

Before this challenge, you have to realize that I was used to playing 4 or 5 tables of 6max games, which I had done for the better part of 3 months.  When I last played Full Ring regularly, I think I only played 9-10 tables at a time.  By the end of the challenge, I was playing 19 tables without any issues and no time outs on any table.  You just have to push yourself, experiment and not get freaked out when your computer starts beeping and flashing.  Stay calm, make the right decision and quickly move to the next decision to be made.  I kept telling myself I do have a timebank which is automatically clicked, which helped me remember that I have time to think through my decision making process in a hand.

I am not sure if I will remain 19 tabling (or more) Full Ring moving forward, but I know I can do it.  Most likely at 50nl FR I’ll remain 19 tabling to keep myself in a groove.  My upswing out of the downswing didn’t really take off until I started doing the 19-table sessions and that allowed me to get in a lot more hands per hour.  I played 30,000 hands in 30.5 hours which is just crazy.  Last year I think I played 180,000 hands total, so to get 1/6th of those hands in for a year within the timeframe of a week is quite an upgrade.

Sometimes you have to push yourself in order to make leaps in your game and often times it will be very frustrating and uncomfortable.  If I didn’t have money on the line in my prop bet, there’s no way I would have finished the challenge because I would have bitched and moaned about the break-even stretch that was just destroying my mindset.  That tilt would have forced me to “take a break” and come back later rather than fight through it, which I have so often struggled to do.

I’m not sure what else there is to say but I am hoping this long entry helps a few of you learn some of the lessons it taught me.

By the title of this blog post suggests, I’m not going to give obligatory monthly updates anymore.  One thing I observed while mass multi-tabling full ring games was the highs and lows that each session can bring. It’s still amazing to me to look at a session played where I lose.  Rarely did I misstep during those sessions, but would see things like me losing to two 2-outers (last session) or something like a W$SD (Won Money @ Showdown) percentage of 20% (which means opponents just kept showing up with huge hands or drawing out).

Anyways, it’s not my point to make a thinly veiled brag, the point is that I see how even from session to session there’s highs and lows and you can’t even look at one session to the next and totally read into the results.  I say that comparing 1,200 hand sessions to my 500 sessions from the past.  Even small pockets of data like the weekly results and gameplay stats aren’t quite enough of a barometer for me to look into. That’s when I thought a monthly update comparing “Month X” to “Month Y” wasn’t going to work for me anymore.

What I plan to do now is just do a running check starting from the year and moving forward. So when I look at my stats now, yes, I’m checking my month and how it’s going.  But at the end of February I’ll be checking for two months and so on for the rest of 2010. I have a feeling this will make the swings of playing a little broader instead of thinking “AHHHH crap I’m down $XXX already this month!!” I will just see that I’m looking at a small rough stretch of a very long haul.

It’s just something I am experimenting with but I really like the concept after thinking about it.  So I will be giving updates on my game play at the tables, but I won’t be saying things like “Well this week I have won X!” and “Wow this month has taken me for such a BE stretch…” etc etc.

Still No Word from PokerStars

PokerStars is the world’s largest poker site and has more action than anyone else. I did predict about six months ago that they were prime for the plucking and that Full Tilt Poker could challenge them for the number one spot.  I was met for the most part with laughter and dismissal (Zachvac), but given that Full Tilt made huge strides in narrowing the gap between themselves and Stars it looks like I was on to something.

Fast forward now to present day and the entire industry is talking about Full Tilt Poker. It’s the site that gives you rakeback. It’s the site that just got rid of the ratholing shortstackers.  It’s the site that innovated the game that the fish love, Rush Poker.  For someone who has been writing articles for two years now across what has been about a dozen websites, I’ve never written more stories about Full Tilt Poker in my life.  PokerStars is undoubtedly taking a back seat which is totally unfamiliar country for them.

Part of the problem is that the January promotions at PokerStars weren’t all that impressive.  The Stellar Rewards is a good system and something that gives the micro and small stakes players something to shoot for as they make their way to SuperNova.  The problem is that the full ring players are making less VPPs per hand, so once again PokerStars gives you something while taking a little bit away.  Another huge issue is the absolute lack of response PokerStars has had toward changing the buy-in structure and Rush Poker.

I’ve personally emailed and PM’d four different PokerStars contacts that I know and even off the record haven’t learned much of anything.  All I know is that they are talking internally and trying to come up with some solutions.  A huge issue for them with the shortstacking issue is that some of their “Team Online Pros” are the ratholing shortstackers, so a change to their buy-in structure would probably kill them off.  Clearly, everyone knows where I stand on the issue.  Playing No Limit Hold’em (the Cadillac of Poker) is not sitting at a table that has five people that buy-in for 20 big blinds who leave the table immediately if they win a pot.  I don’t understand why people who want to play “regular” poker and sit down and enjoy the game have to navigate through to find special tables to do this.  I think those people that want to play this specialized form and theory of poker should find THEIR own tables.  Regular tables should be 40 big blinds to 100 (or even 200), and let the people that want to play short play at special short tables.

As it stands now, on February 1st, is that PokerStars has made no comment about what decisions it will be making or even when a decision will come (if any is coming at all).  In the meantime a flood of SuperNova+ players are moving their bankrolls to Full Tilt Poker to enjoy the 27% rakeback and from what I hear fantastic low and mid stakes games without the shortstackers.  We might point to this period in the history of online poker as the time that PokerStars “timed out and folded” when the chips went all in against the competition.

If you are curious about how to win your share of $600,000 in real money by not paying anything and participating in free poker, read on.  You’ll be reading about how I’m planning to win it all and pay nothing down.

There is a point to the whole post though and that has to do with the MiniFTOPS tournaments running at Full Tilt Poker right now.  See, I’m actually going to have a Sunday afternoon completely free for the first time … well … probably in all of 2009.  The good news for me is that this is the same day that the MiniFTOPS Main Event $50+$5 No Limit Texas Holdem tournament will take place.  It should attract well over 15,000 participants which would eclipse the guaranteed prize pool of $600,000.  I’ve never played in a Sunday major tournament which usually costs $215 to enter.  I don’t fare well in tournaments and don’t play particularly awesome in them either which is a pretty bad combination.

The good news is that thanks to me grinding it out at the tables this month, I’m actually going to buy in completely free.  Yes, you read that right, I’m going to play for my share of $600,000 completely free without having to pay a single nickel.  The catch is that I can buy in to the event for 11,000 Full Tilt Points which I have been saving since the dawn of time apparently.  Now, you can spend these points in the store for things like apparel or electronics.  For example for 10k-12k Full Tilt Points you can buy:

• V-Neck Windshirt
• Velour Bathrobe
• HP Thin USB Powered Speakers
• Wine accessory kit
• Professional Pool Cue
• Doormat
• Garmet Bag
• Checkpoint Friendly Compu-Brief

I have plenty of t-shirts, I can’t imagine myself sporting a velour bathrobe (thank you Zapp Brannigan), I don’t need speakers, I don’t drink wine, I don’t play billiards, I already have a doormat and I got a garmet bag.  The checkpoint friendly brief thing might be handy, one day.  But not today.

So, I’ve deemed it a-okay to spend these points to enter a tournament where I hope to play and run well, but expect to bust out slightly short of the money having wasted hours of poker on nothing.  Such is the poker life, but hey, you never know maybe it’s finally time I made a great run in an online poker tournament after all these years.

By the way, the title might be a tad general but I’m testing something out with the title and tags and content.  I’ll report back my findings to see if Online Free Poker did what I think it was going to do.

Can’t believe it’s been a week since updating my poker blog.  I remember there were months where I would update twice a day!  I guess without a raging inner beast to unleash, the venom behind a lot of the posts just isn’t there to fuel my desire to post something.

Computer Stuff

My order from TigerDirect came in to upgrade my main PC rig.  Unfortunately for me, my new Video Card is on backorder.  I was told by the agent on the phone that they were due to come in and ship out on the 15th.  Well today is the 20th and they are still on backorder. Sucks for me.  Windows 7 will be here on Thursday but I am sure I will be so dead tired I won’t have a chance to upgrade my computer for what looks like weeks. It might even be a Thanksgiving time activity. Just too busy with stuff.

Work Stuff

Work is going well.  I am still doing a ton of writing for various poker sites and that’s decent income and I’m very grateful for all the work I’ve gotten. It’s afforded me a lot and I definitely hope to keep it up as time moves on.  Right now my business (I actually own/operate a small interactive website design/development studio) is picking up and I actually agreed to work in-house at a large ad agency here in Orange County for the next few weeks.  The pay is good and more than anything doing it for the contact and ideally building a relationship that could bring in some good projects for 2010.

Poker Stuff – Putting the LAG in … uh … LAGuna

Okay I don’t really live in Laguna Beach, but I am very close at about 5 miles away. The wife and I get down there to the beach to eat and walk on the boardwalk quite often.  Our pug, Mr. Duke, loves it down there. Anyways, I didn’t mean to mention that, just wanted to write about totally re-vamping my game.

The last few months I went back to full ring, played like the nittiest nit who ever nitted up online poker and carved out a good solid win-rate for 100nl games. The advantage was playing a relatively low-variance style and winning modestly.  All was good.

Sadly, the 100nl FR experience started to dim. I wasn’t getting paid off when I had the nuts and coolers wiped me of the small pots I would win, which sadly, didn’t come in often enough.  Between the coolers and static play, I decided to move back to 6max this month full time. Clearly the move was a good one as I’ve really re-fueled my love for playing the game (hahaha, just WAIT for my next downswing to rue the day I said that!).  I’ve gotten back in touch with Clean from Stox Poker and we’ve resumed official coaching. What’s he telling me to do?

Well, I was playing 6max at 16/13 which is clearly way too nitty to be surviving full time as a 6max player. There’s just too many spots to be missing playing like that, so we put into practice a real method for opening up my game.  So far – so GOOD as I’ve been playing a lot looser (I’ll post some numbers after I play 8-10k hands at this style) and picking my aggression spots very well. It’s more fun to play this style, a lot scarier, but I am definitely seeing a difference in the way I’m approached and played back at while in a hand. Interesting.

Final Thoughts

Not much else. I’m f’ing drained from work haha.  See you all next time.

I have a good online friend, Nick, who plays small stakes Sit n Gos and was really successful last year in building a bankroll.  Unfortunately this year has been terrible for him results-wise and he’s very frustrated about his current poker state.  He asked me some good questions and I’m posting his email and my responses (with his permission).  It should make for a great read for microstakes players.  Enjoy.

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With pure unadulterated discipline is it possible to play consistently x hours per day and x tables per session and come up in the black every month. Factoring things such as natural variance, bad beats and emotional tilt, if someone plays the best style according to the information they know that works, is it possible to do so?

It’s possible for good players at a level they’ve proved they can beat.  If you can reliably know that you can beat a level, you can grind it out for an income so long as you’ve buffered potential downswings in your bankroll.  I write a bit about this in my last post, about specifically about how many hands does it take to know you’re beating a level consistently.  I made the case that for a low variance style and a low variance game, it doesn’t take many hands, maybe 30,000 or 40,000 (pulling that number out of the air).  For a high variance style and a high variance game (say, Heads Up PLO) it takes a ton more hands, like 200,000 (or more!).  There are other factors to consider, like a potentially dwindling player pool for online poker at some sites and players generally being better than they were 2 years ago.  For the most part though you’ll see guys at 100nl play their 30-50k hands a month and see the same “x” amount of guys in the black.  The amount of “full timers” that are actually above the 2BB/100 would shock you. I’d say it’s less than 20% of the full timers are that profitable.  A lot of people win marginally and add in rakeback/rewards and that’s their income. The big winners are the ones that seem to play less but more focused and profitable poker.

Why is it the best players online multiple table, is it because they know poker has now become more of a cash transaction game and are purely relying on the luck of maths?

Playing online poker on one table is easy, especially with a HUD.  There’s not much to pay attention to, at least, not TOO much to lower your maximum abilities. It absolutely is not “the luck of maths” because if that was the case we’d all even out in the long run (actually we’d all lose because of the rake).  So good players use their skill and win.  Since they are able to, they can add tables until that maximum threshold is reached.  Sometimes players go above that threshold because the more tables, the bigger rakeback or rewards, and thus more bottom line money.  At the end of the day, the only reason that people add tables is to increase their take-home $$/hour (or session).

The reason for all this, I’ve suffered serious and I mean serious variance in my sng’s and I’m unsure if I made the right decision in playing them. Maybe its emotions talking but I am at the point where I do need to be drawing some form of income from the game, the hours are going in, the heart is there, yet the results are not. I remember playing abc @ 10nl and overall being up, not much but up nonetheless in the long run.

Ya, I am actually at a bit of a crossroads myself too about bringing in income from playing poker.  Unfortunately here in the United States it’s nothing we can solidly rely on.  I would recommend you take a page out of BelgoSuisse’s book.  He’s a poker mind I hold in the highest regard, and he played Sit & Gos regularly until he took an extremely nasty slide.  It’s why players like him, me, Chuckts, and others simply couldn’t stay with SNGs – the results were too unpredictable and the wild swings you go on as a full time SNG grinder are too great for many to handle (myself included).  Full ring no limit Texas Hold’em is a low variance game.  Playing a nitty style is a low variance style.  Low Variance = Greater Chance of Expectations Being Met.  At 10nl and 25nl you don’t even have to play ABC poker to be a marginal winner.  At 50nl you should be an ABC Poker master and still win nicely and be able to start to handle things like 3betting with position.  At 100nl ABC poker will keep you at least breakeven, but monsters like me will exploit you to no end.  Ideally by the time you are at 100nl you’ll have the experience to handle all of it, but that’s just my cash game perspective.  From what I understand at $33 SNGs and above, the play is extremely robotic.  Mistakes from your opponents are rare.  We win money when our opponents make more (and bigger) mistakes when we do.  Since a lot of SNGs are ICM and math based, the edge we have in mistakes being made is very thin.

I’m a little all over the shop and really REALLY want to sit at a game type, play the situation accordingly and know that whilst I will cop horrendous beats, in the long run, I will be up. Long run being far more important than anything else.

It’s always a tough thing to juggle “short term variance” vs “leaks in your game” and figure out which is which.  That’s where your internet friends come in and why having a support group of poker analysts is something that the profitable people are able to do.

End of the day, I’m putting in the hours and work and want to start seeing some fruits of my labour come through.

Winning is a by-product of playing well.  Your job is to play well.  I know you want to win.  Your opponents want to win too.  The only way you can win is if you play optimally and make fewer (and smaller) mistakes than they do.

I trust, value and respect your opinion hence me sitting here at 9am asking you. For me its time to get serious, make some big personal adjustments and stick to them.

We’ve had similar conversations to this before, specifically with moves for you to cash games and getting to a point where you can draw from poker a small income.  In the end though, a few times over, those things have gone by the wayside.  Failure is a part of success and not seeing immediate results and then quitting is the sign of a player that doesn’t have the chops to last in the long run.  After seeing a lot of small and mid-stakes pros now, I can tell you that “poker skill” is probably 50% of what it takes to be a long term winner.  Fortitude, a thirst for knowledge and a level head are the other 50%.  Do you think you’ve demonstrated what it takes?

My mate/neighbour (Dr.G) I’ve spoken of in my blog said my problem this year, is I’ve ‘chopped and changed’ way to many times which is so true, I’m either grinding sng don’s 1 day or playing 1 table of 100nl the other day. We’re at August 13th and I am actually down like $X for the year, that’s just wrong on so many levels.

Maybe it’s right on so many levels (literally).  There’s a big danger in life when you become a “jack of all trades” – you are versed in many trades but a master of none.  Big winners or highly successful people in any field aren’t people that can do everything, they are people that do something specific better than anyone else.  The best baseball player on Earth is paid $20 million USD because he’s the best BASEBALL player, not the best athlete in the world.  You have to think of poker as something as vague as “sports” and something like NLHE Cash Games or PLO SNGs as as specific sport to specialize in and absolutely master to the best of your abilities.  That’s my 2 cents, I hope it helps.

If you remember my blog entry regarding the ridiculous deposit caper, you’ll now realize I was actually hinting at a story that I was in the process of breaking for the last week and a half. It wasn’t hard to do the math, with Instant eChecks suddenly being taken off the site (brutal for the games) and then paper checks cut by the major poker rooms bouncing left and right. The kicker in this case was the absolute deathly silence by the PPA and both poker rooms regarding the matter and once I started investigating, it became plainly obvious that something major had gone down. Although when I alerted my editors at pokernewsdaily.com about what I believed to be happening I was somewhat put on the backburner, in a days time my story suddenly got #1 priority. I have site editor/manager Dan Cypra to thank for his support and lending his resources to me for my research.

Although I can’t reveal all my sources that assisted my efforts, I am honored to be the individual that broke the story for the poker industry about the US Government seizing bank accounts belonging to payment processors. They did so, according to the PPA, without as much as a seizure warrant – which would be a blatant disregard for constitutional rights. The US Attorney’s Office out of New York is citing the Wire Act (circa 1964) as their means for acting but at the end of the day, with all the legal gray area in regards to “Gambling vs. Poker” and the UIGEA, there’s no way to know where either party really stands.

The PPA has finally come forward now that they have a prepared statement and gathered their resources to start fighting the acts of the US Government in court. It looks like the ammunition is in favor of the PPA with a slew of legal victories in multiple states where poker playing was attacked – such as the recent bid by the state of Minnesota to block internet poker (among other possible internet activities), which was recently dropped.

For years since the UIGEA was drafted, we’ve all been waiting for the legal showdown to determine poker’s legality in the United States to finally get out of the gray area and into the light of day. The issue is one mostly met by absolute indifference by most of the American public, with this story not even cracking the CNN.com top-15 stories (some of which included a puppy rescue, a 100 year old woman eating at McDonalds and a story about birds diving and attacking people walking to work). The point is most of the American public could care less if people are playing online poker, and if you suggest to them that it can be regulated (prevents industry fraud) and taxed (raising sorely needed revenue for states) they are all for it. The only people against it are the hardened right-wing side of the government who are dogmatically rooted in the “moral fight” to keep “gambling” away from children. Their arguments rest around “fighting money laundering to keep funds away from terrorists” and “keeping our children safe from the evils of gambling addiction” which are both over-sensationalized attempts at propaganda to swing the average person (who again, cares more about old ladies eating at McDonalds) to think that legalizing and regulating online gaming is something we should avoid at all costs.

I salute the PPA and am very happy I became a paid member of the organization some months ago. I know that the very small contribution I made is now working towards a voice in Washington that would otherwise be unheard in our democracy. The big fight for our online freedom has finally come and history is about to be made. I’m glad that I had a very tiny role in bringing the truth to light and (ideally) help jump-start people to become activists for their cause.

Reading a now revived blog from ChuckTs has me focusing more on my Zen like mental state when playing poker. ChuckTs (an awesome guy and player) posted a great checklist for Warming Up and Warming Down which I blatantly stole and copied into a word file and keep on my desktop. I thought the next time I played a session, I’d use it and see if I like it.

I have to say the difference in my mental state from the last time I played to this time is a dramatic turn around. I had time to let the steam cool off, as well as do breathing exercises and write down goals for the session. The goals I set for myself were:

• Only play 6 tables of 100nl Full Ring, not 9. Just get back into the swing and give your brain time to ease back into playing.

• Play tight in EP, and look for good steal situations in the CO and BTN.
• Look for good 3betting opportunities in late position.
• Take your time making solid reads at the turn and river.
• Play 45-55 minutes once 6 tables are up and active.
• Stay positive and level headed.
• Stay focused and only have tables open on the computer.

I really liked being able to set goals like this for each session and it’s a habit I’m going to invest time and money (via paper notepads!). The results were good, the first session I took what I thought was a bad cooler, but turns out I just made a marginal river call and lost. I stayed calm, focused on breathing and staying positive and playing one hand at a time. Fortunately that paid off, and I focused on playing well and not slow playing anything and got paid off for a couple of great hands and ended the first session up 1.5 buyins.

The second session went pretty well in my opinion in terms of my gameplay and mental state. I pretty much went card dead for 40 minutes and ended up -$15 but what helped is that I hadn’t looked at my results at all until after the session was over, so I really don’t know how that might have fluctuated. Anyways I wrapped up the night happy about my game.

In other news regarding March …

In March PokerStars is changing their VIP program and attaining PlatinumStar will only be 7,500 VPPs, which makes it very attainable for me (playing approximately 23,000 hands in a month) so I am definitely going to go for it. Once that happens I’ll probably just save up for the 50k FPP bonus instead of the 25k, because this one is worth $650 and by the time I clear my recent deposit bonus I’ll be closer to 50k than 25k (specifically once I hit Platinum and that bonus becomes available to me).

Writing News …

I got word that I’ll be part of the team for a new website called www.DurrrrChallenge.com, which will follow the hotly contested challenge that Tom Dwan put out and was taken by Ivey and Antonious. It looks like my part in the site will be breaking down hands and getting some analysis from some top internet heads up specialists. Should be fun.

And finally …

I am headed to Commerce next Friday to interview a few poker pros, and plan to really just interview anyone I can get my hands on. The video interviews will appear on Gaming Illustrated, and other interviews will show up around the internet on the various sites I write for. There’s also a media tournament I get to play in, so winning that would be AWESOME because it would get me a seat at the WPT Celebrity Invitational.

I’ve been playing online poker for a year now. It started with a $240 deposit and now it is what it is – a healthy bankroll for playing 100nl hold’em. I’ve been building up the bankroll to basically get to 100nl or 200nl and start actually winning and withdrawing money. Now that I’ve hit the bankroll milestone of $5k, I’ve enacted my 2009 goal of once hitting said milestone to split my winnings 50-50 with myself. 50% will stay in the bankroll to pad it, and 50% will come to me so I can use it towards my life.

I have wanted to talk to my wife about playing poker a little more seriously. I want to be able to put in 20k hands without sweating it and ideally take a stab at 30k hands a month regularly. I showed her my HEM stats for the month, how much I’ve been making an hour so far this month, and historically my career graph. I put it pretty logical to her that I’d like her to know and support me and that I do NOT plan to have poker take the time of anything else in my life (our marriage, work, community service, time with family).

Fortunately my wife understands I love poker and knows I’m pretty good. She ain’t bad herself I might add, she does well when we have home cash games. Anyways she was supportive and stressed that she didn’t want me “losing the $5k I’ve made” and “letting poker take over my entire life” which of course wouldn’t happen. I was really happy and am constantly reminded why I married the right lady – she’s understanding, sweet, but stands her ground for what she believes in at the same time. The truth regarding all this is that poker will probably be no more of a commitment in my life than it is already, I can just play and get the hands in.

So this definitely makes for a shift in playing poker. I’m not just playing because I love playing the game and want to “level up” as a challenge. I’m playing as a part-time supplemental income now with the support and following of my spouse. It does seem like the circumstances around playing are a lot more “real” but I am not feeling any added pressure at all (is that odd???). Anyways my wife is going out of town Sunday afternoon and will be gone until Monday night, then she is gone for another 2 days later in the week, giving me 4 days of play … I’ve done the math and even if I played 8 hours per day I would still come up short of Platinum but I might give it a run just to see.

Of course after my brag from last post the doomswitch DID get pushed (just slightly to be honest) and I enjoyed YET ANOTHER AA losing to KK AIPF (all in preflop) and it’s been a wacky month … I can’t remember a month seeing so many KK facing to AA AIPF and AA losing to KK or QQ AIPF. Ah well, I only have little room to complain! Here’s my doomswitch hand from the session right after my brag post:

I found a post on CardsChat in regards to a post on FullContact Poker, the site that famous poker pro Daniel Negreanu announced that he is going to uber-grind $10 and turn it into $100k. You can track his thread progress here. Keep in mind this is the same guy that posted earlier that 2009 was going to be a step back because the players had gotten tougher and the games not worth his time, and that he wanted to spend more time enjoying his own life.

Now, I’m all for enjoying your own life especially when you’ve literally won the millions that this top table-poker (meaning live casino action) professional has done in his career. Perhaps his mindset is that he needed a challenge that he can get excited for and this was the trick. Now you might wonder why the title is what it is, and why I am Ha-Ha’ing right in this top (and well respected) pro’s face (not literally mind you) about this “challenge” he is putting himself through. Well, as you know I’m all about the bullet points …

• DN (Daniel Negreanu) says that he is going to use the “500bb” (meaning 5 buyins) rule when playing 2nl, 5nl, and 10nl … and maybe even 25nl and 50nl! That is so absolutely absurd and immediately makes me think he’ll go busto around 10nl or 25nl due to simple variance and inevitable “pro tilt” thinking he is so much better than he is. Who’s to say some smart-ass higher stakes pro won’t jump down in his game just to piss him off. MAN that would be classic.

• He stated he is apparently going to play no limit and I’ll assume he means full ring because he doesn’t state if he will play 6max or fullring. I actually think there’s a chance he doesn’t feel there’s a difference. I really think he has no experience at these microstakes and he is overwhelmingly going to under-estimate the competition around 50nl to 200nl where there are legitimately superstars of online poker grinding out an amazing living (obviously more at 100 and 200nl and probably never at 50nl).
• When he doubles up on a table he’s going to leave. It actually coincides well with his “5 buyin bankroll” policy but he’s losing out on tables with juicy action. I mean, does this grind-a-thon have an end date or will we be checking in on August 31st, 2041?
• He’s recording some of the sessions for PokerVT.com, his online poker school. I imagine about 3 of these videos will see the light of day. He’s thinking for a 1knl game and playing 2nl … that’s just going to be a train wreck.

Anyways, I am positive DN will fail if he keeps the bankroll requirements the way they are. I also tend to think players will inevitably play wild against him to “take him out” and thus he will experience an ever higher degree of variance that normal players would enjoy. WHICH – again – makes my theory that his BR requirements will be his undoing carry more weight. Irregardless I’ll take some of the 100nl and 200nl online pros in a 6max cash game any day of the week over DN. Now, if we’re playing a $2.5k WPT live casino tournament, of course I got DN’s back for sure. And don’t think I dislike DN at all, I met him once and he’s the same approachable and nice guy in person as he is on TV. I just think he’s going to crash and burn on this one.

Today was Super Donkfest Sunday and featured two of the largest online poker tournaments ever (I did not participate), and the most traffic I have ever seen on Stars (at one point 250k). I also enjoyed a FullTilt Poker flashback when Stars crumbled underneath the weight of the traffic and the ring games got shut down basically (nobody could sit down at a table once someone left).

Once that all got taken care of and before and after the Chargers decimating the Broncos, I got in 2,132 hands and also had another coaching session. This time my coach brought along another one of his students, Jesse, who is a pretty smart guy and a good player. During the session, Jesse said the sentence I hate to hear the most (no offence against him, he dind’t know):

“You run horrible” – direct quote (twice during session)

It’s well documented that my coolers are definitely from the twilight zone but today definitely takes the cake for “top 5 all year WTF hands” … and somehow I ended up in the positive. The good thing is that my coach was very impressed that I didn’t tilt at all during the session. Yay for me.

You would like to see some of these hands? Okay. First I have a pretty section just for KK!

Standard KK Cooler Part 1

Standard KK Cooler Part 2 “Revenge of the Shortstacker”

Standard KK Cooler Part 3 “Cardrack 76/26/2 player hits”

That one really bit but she had been hitting EVERYTHING within the last 30 minutes there which is why I slowed down. Can’t believe her PF play with AT off. Unreal.

KK … OMG WTF ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Again, I can’t believe the preflop play of the villain here. The stats just don’t matter but I take pride in getting it in way ahead here. Just a bad cooler.

So that is it in terms of just KK coolers, but I got a 1 more that you’ll love…

Worst Cooler IMO of my entire career

Yep. I was being sweated during this hand too and all of us just said “NO F’ING WAY” all at the same time. I think we were even in harmony when we said it. Pretty unreal to have a boat and lose to the straight flush.

Anyways I imagine after all that negativity you’d like to see one or two hands where I win. Sure, no problem!

Huge Win for KK

Yes yes yes, turns out I can win ONE hand with KK afterall. Yay.

AA Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I liked this one, I can watch it over and over again.

So after all those ups and downs I ended up a winner today. Kinda amazing! The good news personally is that I somehow managed to retain goldstar for the month. I really wanted to keep goldstar, the FPPs are definitely worth something (right!?) and who knows what promotions are in the works at Stars that I might benefit from.

Anyways, that’s today and the crazy up and down day I had. Hooray!