San Diego Hangout + Worst Day Recovery

Posted by icemonkey9 on Dec 12, 2009 in zen | 3 comments

I recently spent a day with the guys in La Jolla at their house which was an absolute blast.  On hand were BW, Zach, Derek, FantasticCow, ChiacgoJoey and Dashornman and the energy level went up by about 8 notches once Joey showed up.  That kid has the perpetual energy of a six year old after eating a bag of Halloween candy.  After a spirited ping pong tournament (Icemonkey 3, ChiacgoJoey 0) we headed over to Seau's Restaurant.

Eating with 6 poker players is always an entertaining activity.  Derek, who is from Milwaukee, had never tried Sushi so Cow ordered him some California Rolls, which are not raw fish but avocado and crab wrapped in rice (good stuff).  He liked the rolls but then I introduced him to Wasabe which is a highly spicy green substance meant to be used in pea-sized portions. Well, it wasn't too soon that a prop bet came in from Cow for $10 for Derek to eat the whole thing at once.  Derek said $100 and after some negotiating, the bet was settled at $75. All I can say is Derek downed the thing and then looked like he was going to die.  He drank his entire Coke and then pushed me aside to grab my water and drank that and proclaimed that bet to not even be close  to worth the $75 he won.

At the end of the dinner we had a $190 bill and it was time to play everyone's favorite game show, Credit Card Roulette (CCR).  It came down to me, Joey and Zach.  Everyone was screaming and rooting, and fortunately for me my card was the next one picked.  It was down to Joey (who had just won a $32,000 prop bet) and Zach and gg but thanks for the dinner Zach!

After dinner the plan was to do a "LOCKDOWN!" but after 2 hours of watching beer pong with the guys there really wasn't much enthusiasm for the whole deal. When I did start playing ... well ... let's just say I had my worst day ever.  We're talking EVER.  It may not be in comparison with some other guys and their worst days, but experiencing this was one of THE most disheartening things I've ever felt.  Hands that made this happen include:

• QQ vs KK (against a LAG fish)
• Trip Aces + Nut Flush draw losing to boat
• 2nd nut flush vs nut flush
• Two lost big flips
• KK vs AA (BB vs SB)

The sheer magnitude of what losing 5.5 buyins means to me is definitely stronger than what it does to anyone (well, 99%) of people I know that play poker at these stakes.  I can count with my nutstack how many other people I know that play online poker that also have a Bachelor's Degree, which allowed them to get a job to make a decent wage to understand how hard you have to work for decent money to come in.  If you're a 22 year old living with your mom and dad and have graduated high school without holding a career job or college program down, I just can't imagine in most circumstances the same appreciation of an income for someone that works for a living.  Thus, I really have to not think about the money I play for as money and more as a "computer game score" that doesn't have the same meaning.

Anyways, a few friends were very kind and I think after sleeping on it I was able to shake it off fine.  The coaching with ChuckTs has been going real well.  The first two sessions, to be completely honest, I wasn't sure if it was going well or if I really was learning anything.  But then after our third session which was a sweat, things really clicked after watching the session over again (I recorded it with Camtasia).  I really felt myself slow down, pay attention and think about the things ChuckTs has begged me to work on.  I just felt something click and I think that's a real good thing.  It'll take a while to actually assess if that happens but there's no reason not to enjoy a positive feeling (while not allowing to read into it too much).

So that's about it for now.  I'll be playing, grinding, studying and watching.  Hope your poker month is going well readers!

Observations and a New Attitude

Posted by icemonkey9 on Apr 18, 2009 in zen | 1 comment

Funny thing happened the other day while online writing an article ... on AIM someone IMs me and said "jake" and I assumed it was my friend Jurn8, whose name is Jake. So I said hi, and it turned out (after what had to be a full 5 minutes of confusing conversation) that the person that IM'd me was looking for Jake, and was actually noted DeucesCracked.com coach "Nolan" who wanted to say thanks to Jake for the plug of his videos on his blog. Somehow, he ended up accidentally IM'ing me. Weird! Anyways was talked about downswings and stuff, and he rifled through my blog. I don't have the transcript but he basically gave me some quick tips:

• My blog reads tilted.  I've become really wrapped up in results.
• I need to get myself to a zen-like mental state and even convince myself "I deserve to run bad" if I have to in order to detach myself from downswings.
• 15-20 buy-in downswings will happen to regulars.

Although none of the information was new groundbreaking stuff that blew my mind, a lot of it I just had to hear one more time from a respected source.  I really appreciate Nolan for taking a few minutes out of his day for me like that, it was cool to briefly chat with him and get his advice.  I did take it seriously and made some alterations to my behavior.

I'm really going to just focus on playing smart and really thinking through every hand.  That means less tables.  Also I am going to play a consistent game free of distraction.  In addition I am going to hold myself accountable (as well as to someone else I asked for help) for my goals and game-play strategic improvement.

I have been using HEM 1.08 Beta 28 which has the slick features of Omaha plus the new Table Scanner.  The scanner is being built by the same guy that made the popular "Telescope" program and is almost identical in form and function.  It's super slick and I really like using it after fooling around with it for a couple of hours.  If you haven't checked it out - it's a nice feature probably worth getting if you play regularly at 100nl or higher.

Zen In

Posted by icemonkey9 on Feb 14, 2009 in poker, wpt, writing, zen | 2 comments

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.