May 2013
1 post
7 tags
No April Showers on my Bankroll
As I mentioned in my results blog from March, the third month of 2013 was to date my most profitable month. With overall results more than triple my average monthly income in 2012 things started to look a little brighter. One month does not make a trend though, making April exceedingly important to keep the upward trend rolling. Sadly I wasn’t able to just copy and paste my March results into...
April 2013
3 posts
4 tags
Personally Financed Part 1
I’ve been looking hard at my non-poker money of late. I’ve spent a great deal of time focusing on building a bankroll to play cards with, the number of buy ins I have, how deep each buy in is, pushing to move up in stakes, driving to increase my hourly win rate and so on. All that planning and effort has gone into my operating budget without any real strategy for my personal finances. I don’t...
5 tags
Tweaking the System
The following blog post all stems from one simple act of carelessness and or douchebaggery. This past Saturday night I was grinding as always. After grabbing dinner I went to put my name back on the list for a 1/2NL game. Since it was Saturday night the poker room was pretty packed and there was a sizable list, so I put my name on it and sat down on a nearby bench to read a magazine. As I...
5 tags
Taking a Break
So here’s a fun fact for you, if you log tons of hours playing poker you may experience a fatigue specifically geared towards the game itself. You won’t physically be tired, but you’ll want to punch a hole in the wall if you see another K-rag hand. Having experienced this over the past few days I did what I think is the responsible course of action, and took an impromptu night off. I sat in my...
March 2013
3 posts
8 tags
First 200 Hours and the WSOP Circuit
The month of March finally comes to a close for me with a much needed 36 hour vacation. I wrapped up on Saturday what has been to date the most profitable month of my career. Sadly my run good had its limits as I failed to cash in the $365 WSOP Circuit event on March 30. Despite a bad beat in the later rounds of the tournament, my spirits are high and things seem to be moving in the right...
6 tags
Coming Up for Air
It’s been a busy month of March for me. Between traveling and settling back into my life on the east coast I’ve been running at a break neck pace. March is nearly over and I’m fast approaching my first full report of the year (which I will do at the 200 hour mark). Now that I have a few moments to relax it seems like a good time to do a quick update and get my bearings.
March has been a very...
8 tags
Setting the Standard
I’ve been toying around with some adjustments to my grinding schedule the past two weeks. My data analysis from last year showed me I wasn’t putting in enough days or hours when compared to a full time 9-5 job. In response, I’ve been working on a list of weekly to-dos. This will act as a minimum requirements list. There is no more gray area, I’ll know on each day exactly how long I need to...
February 2013
1 post
3 tags
Focusing on the Details
First order of business, I’m changing the nature of this blog. I’m going to focus more on me and my mental state during my travels along this career path. I find far more value in publically analyzing my persona and tendencies than I do in writing results oriented posts. This is going to be a place where you’ll get a scouting report on my mindset. I’m going to use this platform to vent and...
January 2013
3 posts
7 tags
Running Good in a Foreign Land
So my journey through the card rooms of California has pointed me north. Through the mountains of central Cal and past a few odorous cow pastures I made my way to the Bay 101 Casino in San Jose, CA. This is yet another room that I’ve heard quite a bit about back east, but it’s not exactly a stone’s throw from where I’ve been staying in Santa Clarita. The trip took about 5 hours to get to my...
7 tags
The Promised Land
So the road trip eventually had to end, and thank the heavens for that chestnut. Upon leaving our restful stop in Illinois it took us another 30 hours of travel to make it into a warm embrace from the City of Santa Clarita in California. Putting 3000 miles of terrain behind us and nearly 60 hours spent in the car together, we all finally made it around 2:30AM local time and all just plopped down...
9 tags
Road Trip
A belated welcome to 2013 all, since you’re reading this the world did not in fact reach extinction just yet and we get to back to our daily musings until the sun does in fact blow up and eat us. In the meantime, might as well go on a road trip. That’s been my mentality anyway. I’ve embarked on a journey across the country to play poker and to force myself out of my little bubble. Our plan was...
December 2012
2 posts
7 tags
Digging Out and Booting Up
So as I mentioned before I’ve been focusing lately on building my live roll back up to respectability, or at the very least taking some of the overbearing stress off my Atlas like shoulders. Last week I had a few monster days, 7+ buy in up swings, coupled with a few other sessions that we’re nearly as Cerberus sized but were a nice compliment putting me up nearly 24 buy ins on the week. I’m...
6 tags
Damage Control
So quite a bit has happened to me in between blog posts, I took some solid variance in the face both online and live and saw my live roll cut in half. Since that happened I’ve been dropping everything else as far as goals are concerned and trying to rebuild my live roll. I’m back to making 5+ trips to Foxwoods a week and grinding my face off. I also took a look at my books to see how successful...
November 2012
5 posts
3 tags
Life Just Ain't That Bad
As I’ve alluded to in previous blog posts, I’ve been going through a bit of a downswing these past few weeks. Nothing serious enough to put me out of action, but about half my bankroll went out the window in the span of a few sessions. Now couple that with the fact that many friends and family love to ask how I’m doing it usually makes for me performing some kind of “everything’s ok” tap dance...
7 tags
New Inspiration
I was going through my usual routine earlier this week when a buddy of mine sent me a message on twitter. He told me about a podcast series that PokerNews had put together about playing low and mid stakes live cash games. I decided that it was worth a browse and found that these players were telling some very interesting and inspiring stories. I found myself diving head on into the three part...
parabolparabola asked: Hey! I'm an aspiring poker player as well and a college student, so I thought I'd send you a message. Also I have a few questions! :) How did you build up your initial bankroll? Do you currently have a "real" job? Did you start out at 1/2? And I'm not sure if you live in the US, but do you play mainly live or online? I live in San DIego and play at one of the local casinos...
3 tags
November Goals
Like I said in my last blog post there has been an overall positive effect on my game by doing these goal oriented posts. Last month I found that with ideas down on paper it was easier to keep focused on my game and building myself up. I missed quite a few of the benchmarks I was aiming for, but now with a little more data I think I can be better prepared for the challenges each goal provides....
8 tags
Hurricanes, Politics, and Missed Opportunities
Well it’s officially November and I can now look back on October’s goals and start checking off what went well and what didn’t. The end of October did get a little strange for me. I found myself spending about a week researching American politics, about 85% of which was geared towards learning about all the candidates running for President in 2012. I would never call myself an activist when it...
October 2012
4 posts
5 tags
Revisiting My Goals
Earlier this month I laid out some goals that I would like to achieve by the end of October. With the month now roughly half in the books I think this is a good time to take some inventory of what I’ve been up to and try to paint a clear picture for myself of where I need to go from here. I feel like this post is going to be a lot more self-serving than most. As I type this now I really don’t...
8 tags
Streaky Start
So far, October isn’t going quite how I’d hoped. It hasn’t been a bad month yet nor is it time to write off all my big plans but things are not coming quite as simply as I was hoping for. Streaky would be the single best word for what’s been going on so far. Both online and live I’ve seen some pretty serious swings and as I look down the calendar a little ways at the start of the Foxwoods World...
6 tags
October Sky
As I type this up I’m less than 24 hours away from my 25th birthday and I’m staring down a month ahead of me that could be, and really should be, a launching pad for me. I’ve been working very hard just to get a shot here and there at making it into the bigger games, at putting some distance between me and the poverty line, and so far I haven’t had many opportunities to get ahead. This month is...
September 2012
2 posts
8 tags
Obligatory Poker Goals Post
Ok, as promised I will be posting my goals for the remainder of 2012 below. I do want to put up a bit of a disclaimer here first. I haven’t put a ton of thought into these goals before I let my fingers start typing up digital checks my ass will have to cash later. This is going to be more of a, “Here’s where I am, and here’s what’s on my radar” post than it is a hard and fast set of guidelines...
4 tags
Hiatus Explained
It’s been a little while since my last post so it only seems fitting that I take the time with this one to explain what’s been going on and why the blogs have been so inconsistent these past few months. The grind of live poker has gotten to me a little bit and my mentality towards poker got a tad warped as a result. I felt for a little while an oppressive sense of apathy towards righting about...
August 2012
1 post
7 tags
Protect Your Damn Hand, Part 2
A few blogs back I posted a story about protecting your hand at the table. To give a quick recap, a gentleman tried to bet into me on a T-high board containing all red cards, and while doing so mistakenly flashed his cards to me showing a black king and another black card underneath. I called and my K-high outkicked his K-high winning me a modest pot. Well yet again the players at Foxwoods...
July 2012
2 posts
9 tags
The Case of the Missing ID
I think most of the people on a poker forum have at one point or another in their lives tried to get into a casino underage. It’s not as though we aren’t all interested in the glitz and glamour of it all. We are a demographic that is naturally attracted to these high profile and high roller destinations. That’s not to suggest this is a bad desire. If anything, people that are serious poker...
8 tags
One Shot One Drop
So for those of you who are unaware, the WSOP 2012 edition made history with an unreal $1,000,000 buy in tournament. At final tally, 48 of what must be the sickest individuals on the planet put up what some people consider a retirement plan’s worth of wealth to play in this historic tournament. When the dust settled it was a well-known pro, Antonio Esfandiari who took home the first place prize...
June 2012
3 posts
6 tags
Losing More Than Money
Ok, I’m just going to cut to the chase here. I left the poker room from my first session of the week on June 14 around 3:00AM. At around 9:00PM that night I was being wheeled out of the OR of Backus Hospital in Norwich, CT doped out of my mind and sans one appendix. Poker wise, not much happened for me this past week but man oh man do I have a story to tell.
So I left the poker room at around...
8 tags
A Modern Education
Right from the day we are able to talk and really understand how to communicate with others, we are placed into school to help develop these skills. Most of us will spend the next phase of our lives working from learning our colors and how to read and write all the way to graduation day in high school. Even a more select few will then head to the next glorious step of education, college. Up...
5 tags
Being Yourself at the Table
I’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch of late. For some reason my mojo is all off at the tables. I feel out of the proverbial zone. Doing some reflecting on my most recent struggles I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not a problem with my game. I think I have reached a point where I know enough about the game to beat the stakes I’m at on a consistent basis. I feel confident in my...
May 2012
4 posts
5 tags
Flashes of Brilliance
We can find motivation in almost anything. The power of the internet and the instant transmission of information it provides is so powerful that entire communities can be inspired by the plight of a people half a world away. We can marvel at engineering feats that we may never get the chance to see in person. We can see pictures of the deepest depths of our planet. What may be most important...
3 tags
Tim Tebow Told Me To
I’ve been getting shelled the past couple of weeks at the table, plain and simple. Since starting back up on the grind this is probably the worst stretch I’ve gone through. Times like these it gets hard to keep your head up and keep going. I know your told when you get into this business that you need to handle the swings and you’re not always going to get the best of it day in and day out. I...
3 tags
Protect Your Cards, Because I'm and A**hole
So this past week I found myself in an interesting situation. It was the first time in a little while I had encountered something completely new to me at the tables. Therefore I reacted without really considering my options as carefully as I should have. I reflected on what went down later that night and decided that not only did I feel like I handled the situation as best I could, but I was...
2 tags
Setting Goals
I’ve been trying to set regular goals for myself. Laying out milestones for me to achieve has allowed me to keep focused on the task at hand. Having a laid out track helps greatly. The problem is the nature of poker doesn’t really lend itself to being restricted to a straight and narrow path. There are probably dozens of ways to get to a particular milestone, each one of them valid in its own...
April 2012
3 posts
4 tags
Poker: The Stuff Divorces Are Made Of
Spending a lot of time in the casino you tend to see the same types of people. There are the guy who’re doing the same thing you are, putting in hours upon hours at the tables. You’ll see the “after work crowd” who like to come to the casino to get drunk during happy hour rather than head to the bar across the street from the office. My personal favorite is the couple. Yes the couple, usually...
7 tags
Did You Piss Yourself?
So karma has a funny way of working sometimes. When I started this blog the original conception was to tell funny stories that happened to me on both the virtual and brick and mortar felt. As I began the ritual typing of my keyboard again last week it seemed like the crazy people started coming out of the woodwork at Foxwoods. Maybe I’m just more used to it but I’m very rarely surprised by...
6 tags
Breaking the Silence
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. There have been a handful of instances over the past few months where I had some thoughts, started writing a blog post, and then after about a paragraph or two would just run out of steam. Without the everyday adventures of online poker I guess I have a little less to talk about. With that said, it’s not like I’ve been loafing around not...
February 2012
2 posts
3 tags
So Apparently I'm a Woman
It’s been a while since I’ve had a really funny story coming from the casino floor. I actually started this blog off with a couple of stories; one of them being how there was a gentleman who literally lost his pants at the table. He got up and suddenly had nothing on but his tighty whities down below. This time around things were a bit less graphic, and I was actually the center of most of the...
6 tags
The JV Circuit
The poker world as it turns out is a very big place. Most of us got interested in this industry from one of a few tent poles. We saw Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP ME on a $40 online qualifier or we watched Rounders and got very interested in the prospect of playing cards for a living. Whatever the case may be, the poker world has a lot more going on in it than people think of at first glance....
January 2012
3 posts
5 tags
Eerie End to the Weekend
Every once in a while you hear these strange stories coming out of casinos. Some are so outrageous and fanciful that by the time they reach the ears of the outside world it’s just assumed that they have been over exaggerated and details have been drastically skewed as would be expected when playing a bad game of Telephone. They range from people dressed in funny costumes to serious medical...
3 tags
Kick Off Weekend
This weekend marked my return to the felt as a full time grinder again. Right now I’m more in a 6 week trial period. Keep winning and I keep playing, lose and I just head to get another job, which I have connections to so I’m safe as far as that’s concerned. It’s a bit of a gamble to do this but now seems as good a time as any to try and build myself back up. That was of course before I hit...
5 tags
Grinding in Milford, NH
A buddy of mine told me about a small poker room about 10mins from his house. The room is called “The River Poker Room” in Milford New Hampshire and they were running an interesting promotion for their first tournament of the year. It was an $80 event with a maximum of 2 rebuys that could be used at any time, each buy in and rebuy worth a 15,000 chip stack. Also, if you went ahead and put in...
5 tags
The End of 2011
It’s New Year’s Eve as I write this post. I decided to take a night off from partying, even though this is one of the big nights to get shitty. I’m sitting in my parent’s house, spending the last holiday of the year with them, drinking some cheap champagne and combing through some 2+2 threads. This year, has been a wild one for me. I started the year off lousy with regards to poker, took a...
December 2011
6 posts
3 tags
Reflective Thoughts
Back in high school, my varsity football coach loved his catch phrases. He would always go on about how, “There was nowhere to hide on the football field” or that, “football is an uncomfortable game, you should be uncomfortable.” While a lot of what he said could be chalked up to just some tired cliché that has been worn out from overuse in every sports movie, TV show, and uttered by every coach...
7 tags
Returning to the Felt
Man does it feel good to start playing again. I’ve been largely on the shelf since the end of July, when I went on a solid 10 buy in downswing and had to stop playing in order to replace my eviscerated bank roll. Starting earlier this month, I made a few return trips to the felt. One break even sessions, two sessions stuck $300 each, then one solid $800 session round out the bottom lines for me...
November 2011
3 posts
3 tags
Back to Work
The title says it all, I’m back on my grind. Let’s get a few preliminary thoughts out of the way first. No I don’t really have a serious bankroll, right now it’s just loose cash that I can play with and try to grow into a more proper roll. No I’m not playing for a living again just yet, because I don’t have the BR to be playing anything bigger than 1/2NL. No I don’t really have illusions of...
8 tags
Doing Interesting Things with Poker
So recently I’ve been spending some time trolling around the local poker establishments to see who has the best action and when. What I’ve been looking for is what I’ve been calling the “JV circuit.” I don’t mean this as a slight to those that play in these events on a regular basis or to challenge the validity of the tournaments themselves. What I mean is these are events that will have first...
