Monday, December 27, 2010

New Layout

No idea what im doing but I think it looks a lot better... Wanted to post some pictures just to have em up but some of em aren't that good so most will get replaced.

Also have a couple of new gadgets, letting anonymous people make comments, etc... will fool around with it more in the future.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Such a good song

When i went to see the Wiz Khalifa show, his opening act was Mac Miller. I heard a couple of songs by him prior to the concert, but I didn't really hear too much of his shit. After the concert I did some research on him, and this song is fucking dope. Relates to my own life a ton, so i connect with the song more than most would, but I think most people would like this song anyways.


Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Happy Holidays

Yeah yeah, I really need to update this thing more often. The last 2 months have been going pretty great, and I have a lot to update.

First off, I went to the Steeler game a month or so ago in Buffalo. Nothing really exciting, but just wanted to post how surprised I was with the bills fan base. This team is literally the Pittsburgh Pirates of the NFL. They have sucked for so many years. My friends and I were full expecting their fan base to blow nuts, but surprisingly it was the best NFL atmosphere I have seen/been at (Although that is limited to two citys, which is Pittsburgh and now Buffalo, But Pittsburgh's fan base and atmosphere is insane too, so it does mean something). So hats off to Buffalo for not being bandwagons and rooting on your team no matter how shitty it is.

Also, last week I saw my favorite rapper, Wiz Khalifa, perform right here in Pittsburgh. The crowd was mostly teenagers, and a lot of them were coming up to us asking for us to buy them beer (we obviously said no), which was kind of annoying, but once Wiz got on the stage, the place was nuts. The venue only held like 2,500 people, which was awesome because it creates a more personal feel to it instead of a huge concert of 10k+. He played a ton of his classics, including my favorite "the thrill". The crowd for the most part knew every single one of the songs (the people i was with were bandwagons, knew black and yellow, and maybe 2 others, but the rest of the place was legit). I snuck in two blunts and there may be nothing better then getting high and listening to Wiz live. He had a ton of energy, the crowd had a ton of energy, and overall id rate the concert a 10/10 , was very pleased with it.

On to poker though.

I am very very pleased with how my motivation, and how I am playing the games has been going the past few months. I am fucking killing SNGS right now. I am up almost 12k alone for December right now, and I dont plan on slowing down to end this year. I have 2 big prop bets to win, and the extra cash would be oh so nice.

The first prop bet, which i explained in a blog post earlier this year, is with Msusyr24. The other Is with Thrash370.

The bet with Alex was for sng profit in 2010. We bet 2k on the first half of the year (Which he won, and he got his money in early July). 2k on the 2nd half of the year, and 2k for the whole year. If you won all 3, you would win 8k instead of 6k.

Coming into the Month I was pretty far behind, But with Alex being super busy (He just had a baby, among other things) and combined with me tearing up sngs this month, I actually have a legit shot at this now. I have a pretty big lead for the 2nd half of the year, so at worse the bets will cancel out and no one would owe the other anything. But if I am able to win most profit for the year, I will be receiving 4k from Alex (2k profit total for the bet, but that 2k i paid him is long gone, so Ill view it as a 4k profit at this point.)

The bet with Thrash370 is for 1k for most sng profit in the Month of december.

Heres a screenshot of the progress on both bets.




What saved me, SNG wise, is defintly lowering my tables. I see so many players, that are so stubborn (myself included before I made the change) that just wont lower there tables. Unless your going for SNE (and you 6-12$ grinders, this is especially true for you) and the rakeback you make is worth the lower ROI% and $$$ per game, then theres just no reason to 30-40 table. Play less tables, move up in limits, and you will make a ton more money. I wont get into how I play them as that would take forever, but let this screenshot be proof of how badly you can crush games (July 22nd is when I switched to 8-12 tabling, and I have not put in anywhere near the amount of volume as I could have)




MTTS have been a struggle lately, but the swing im on is super standard and I have been focusing most of my time on SNGS so I am not worried about it in the slightest bit. I will continue to play SNGS until the year is over, mixing in a couple of MTTS here and there, and i fully plan on crushing all games in 2011.

But yea, 2010 is ending, I am very happy with how I am ending it, but overall I am not happy with how the year went. This was the first year I played poker full time, and I learned a ton of stuff that will prepare me better for having a killer 2011 and so on. I don't have time right now, but soon I will make another blog post to see how badly I did on my goals lol.


But yea, the holidays are approaching. I hope everybody enjoys their xmas and new years eve,

take care,

Nick

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Im doin it

Ran some MTTS this morning, ended up getting stacks in a bunch and going deep in a few, I made 2 FTS (27.50 500 cap was 1 of them, and got sucked out on to finish 7th for very little $$) and I also 3 way chopped the 33$ 12.5k GTD

Playing just MTTS and not many of them really allows me to concentrate, def going to continue to do this in the future, 2 MTTS ive chopped in my last 2 MTT sessions now with this method. (lol sample size i know)

Monday, September 27, 2010

Music

Going to start posting music way more often. Music plays a extremely huge part in my life and it's what keeps me sane most of the time.

But yea, ill start with a few songs ive listened to religiously for almost a year now.







Sunday, September 26, 2010

Playing well

So a couple hours after i posted my last blog spot, I get motivated to grind a early morning MTT session. Like i stated in the last blog, I did not mix in SNGS. I filled up some volume by adding in some of FTP's early morning GTDS alongside stars. It was very relaxing to grind just MTTS and I was able to concentrate a lot. I ended up going very deep in the 8$ rebuy and 11$ rebuys on stars (like 50thish in both) and I also ended up chopping the 109$ 20k GTD on stars for 4.4k

I thought I played all of the tournament very very well, and in the 109$ 20kGTD I used my stack very well to take control of the FT and just mow every1 over. If it weren't for 1 hand where i tried to bluff all in with K high on a ace high board, I would have won the tournament instead of chopping it, but oh well.

I was down a lot more than i thought, so the score got me almost to breakeven for the month (down 250$ for the month as of now). Pretty frustrating that the last couple months I have hit big scores towards the end of the month and Im always xxx in makeup, and the score puts me like just over breakeven so I am not making a penny off the score basically.

But yea, I am going to continue doing sessions like this, especially early morning MTTS because theres some very nice ones that get good prizepools, and I dont have to deal with many sickos, and the games are just really really soft.

The main event of WCOOP is today, and it finally sank in just now that I should be playing it, sigh

Oh well,

Football in a hour, go Steelers :)

Thursday, September 23, 2010

My first 500$ and 1k buyins

This month has been crazy with WCOOP going on, and I haven't found much time to relax as MTTS are burning me out very badly, which is the main reason I haven't found the time to make a blog post.

First thing will be a sick variance story, which I don't like doing because I hate when players bitch about variance in general (and hate when I do it myself even more), but this is too sick to not tell.

WCOOP had extreme sattys prior to any events starting, and the ME (5,200$ buyin 10 mill GTD) had a 265$ extreme satty with 25 seats added to the prizepool (130k bonused to the prizepool, which is obviously insane value), so obviously I had to take a shot at it.

The top 91 ended up getting a seat, and I am keeping a healthy chip stack for the duration until it starts to get close, and then every1 is just staaling / nit festing, and I do the same. The blinds are at 600/1200, I am in the BB with a little over 7k in chips, and i have 10's. At this point in time, there is 120 people left, and If i get 1 more double up i will have a top 30 stack (at this time, people are blinding down so the avg stack was not even 10 bbs, i think it was like 10k), and I will basically be gaurnteed a seat. The cutoff shoves all in into 3 stacks smaller than him, me included, and i decide to call because the shover is a pretty well known player who is def capable of shoving here V wide, esp due to the fact he was a big stack and was shoving just about any unopened pot to him. He has Q9o and I am in very good shape. The board runs out J8499 and he hits runner runner 9's to beat me and I am out. If i had won that pot, I would have been playing in the Main event, and Would have a shot at winning over a million bucks, instead I will just be another rail bird. I was very upset for a few days about this, but at the end of the day its poker, and poker has variance, and that is what happened and i just need to shut the fuck up, man up, and keep grinding.

This month has had its up and downs thus far, mostly downs, but I am feeling very optimistic right now. I feel like I have been auto piloting for the whole month, which is why I am down about 3,000$ right now, down about 1.5k in sngs, and 1.5k in MTTS. In sngs I am just putting no effort into my game, I do not want to play, I am forcing myself to play, and the results are speaking for themselves. With MTTS its the same story, except for 500$ and 1k 2 day events that I have played.

When these events happened, I was so focused on the tables because first place is 500k, and It was my first 500$ and 1k buyin, and a lot of money being risked / to be won made me play very good poker. I ended up cashing in both, and running very deep in the 500$ one and ended up getting a 3k score in the 500$ one, and a mincash for 1.8k in the 1k one.

I wasn't that happy with how i played in the 500$ event, but the 1k i felt i played insanely well. I landed a good table draw early, and took full advantage and built up a top 100 stack after about 6-7 hours of playing. I then switch to a table where there were 6 guys who were up at least 300k, including two pokerstars pros (chad brown and Jason mercier), and I felt i played the table as well as I could. I wasn't being outplayed or exploited by any of the guys, and to be able to say I held my own against a table that tough, really boosted my confidence. As we just get ITM i ended up getting it all in vs chad brown on a J10x board, with 2 spades, with KK to his AQ of spades and he hit his flush on the river, pretty standard hand.

But just thinking about this month so far and how I played in the those two events really made me do some self thinking. If i am willing to put that much concentration into those events just because of the buyins, then there is no reason I should not do it in lower buyins. I am auto piloting way too much and I am just costing myself a lot of money in the long run by not playing as well as I could be. I have a few things planned for how I plan on running my sessions, and I think the results will speak for themselves from this point forward.

I am going to load MTTS or SNGS only, I am going to stop mixing them. When i do play I am not going to surf the web, or talk on skype/aim/ w/e. Full 100% concentration on my tables like I should be doing.

Its crazy at how easy you are able to get into bad habits when playing poker, and with the games today, bad habits will lead into downswings very easily. I thinks its very important for people to look at not only how they play poker, but to also evaluate habits that they may or may not have while playing.

As far as life goes, I am going to have a pretty exciting few months coming up. I will be going to state college the first weekend of october to party, and my friend dave is going to be having a pig roast that Saturday afternoon. Im really looking forward to going to State College as that place is probably the best party town in the world, at least in my experiences. I will also be going to buffalo for a steelers game, Atlantic city, Washington DC for a pens game, Seven springs, and the Bahamas for PCA. I dont travel at all, especially out of the state, so having like 5 things planned in the next 3 months is pretty exciting for me. 3 of the trips are out of the state, and 1 of the trips is out of the country, I haven't been out of the state in honestly 3 years, when i Went to Atlantic city when i just turned 21. And as far as out of the country, I have only been out of the country once, and it was Canada when i was like 13 years old, and Canada doesn't really even count as far as out of the country trips are concerned.

But yea, thats all for now. I will def make more of a effort to start posting more, I have a lot of stuff I want to write about and I never get around to it, and then by the time i actually do make a blog post, I forget about all the stuff I wanted to write about.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

I really dont understand MTT variance.

I ended up finishing 2nd in the 20$ Rebuy last night for 4.6k, which was great obviously, but it made me do some thinking.

Every time i feel I am playing well, building up big stacks etc, I end up failing. My last 3 big scores (14k in 55 cubed, 5k in 27 turbo, then this 4.6k in 20$ rebuy) have all been extremely lucky. They haven't been lucky as in me just playing awful and suck out after suck out per say, but in each tournament i was really short and ended up coming back.

In the 55 cubed, i was under 5 BBS with 2 tables left, for me to come back and win that, pretty lucky. In the 27 turbo i was down to under 2 BBS and came back from that, again, lucky. In the 20$ rebuy last night, I ended up losing a huge pot with about 50 left which left me with about 7 BBS, and again, I came back.

I feel like i played the 55 cubed FT very very badly, but managed to stay in it due to pure luck + coolers etc for sure. The 27.50 Turbo i played amazing, but I play those kind of FTS (every1 less than 20 bbs) day in day out, so that should be expected. and then last night in the 20$ rebuy, again, like the 55 cubed, it was a hard field, and I felt i got outplayed completely. There is so much I need to learn at the FT in MTTS. I came in 1/9 and I should have been the aggressor, but I let everyone walk all over me. Last night the FT was just super super aggro and I was folding to 4 bets like everytime, and wasn't picking up big hands etc, so i nitted up a ton. Luckily for me though these kids were putting in 30-60 BBS like it was their job and it allowed me to move up pay spot after pay spot. I literally had less chips heads up then when i started the FT with (came in 1/9, but still). I ended up doubling up quick in the HU match with JJ vs A4, and then got it in with A8 vs A6 for the CL, but he spiked a 6 and that was that.

Anyways, all I am saying is that I am hitting my big scores when i shouldn't, and I am not hitting big scores when I should, it is 100% backwards. I am not bitching, Ill obviously take the money, I just dont understand it at all.

Monday, August 16, 2010

I hate hospitals

I started having pain in my stomach area, about 4 days ago. Saturday night i drink a couple beers, and i spent the whole night puking, and i just overall felt awful, I wasn't drunk, so i knew something was up.

So yesterday i wake up and the pain is worse, so i decide to go to the hospital after scaring myself to death reading on the internet about a strangulated hernia, which i thought i had because I do have a hernia, and the stuff i was going through was v similar to a hernia strangulation (vomiting, nausea, fever, etc)

So anyways, I was in the hospital 2 years ago for a appendectomy, and the memory i had pre surgery was just a lot of waiting, and of course the same thing happened again. I go in and waited like a hour to get registered, then another 2 hours for them to take me back, then another 30 minutes for a nurse to take my vitals and draw blood and make me pee in a cup. Then another hour for a doctor to see me, then another hour for them to take me to get a cat scan, then another 2 hours for them to come back with the results and tell me everything is normal and that I probably just have a virus or a gastrointestinal upset and that I should just go home and rest. I went in around 4pm, and I wasn't out of there till midnight, what a fucking joke. On the upside im just glad everything was fine, and luckily i have health insurance so all i am going to have to pay is 100$ for the ER visit.

So yea, i scared myself to death over something so dumb, thats the way i was a lot when i was younger, but I haven't been that way too much lately. But for whatever reason i scared myself to death over this. I should probably just get my hernia fixed, but after going through surgery 2 years ago its something that I do not want to do because it is just awful. Im sure ill man up sometime soon, but not now.

Anywho, this month has been going pretty decent in poker. I am winning money in sngs, which is great. I finally feel like i got my groove back, and I am up 3,500$ on just 340 games. I really need to put more hours in... playing the way I am now (6-10 tabling) wont get me a lot of volume, but 340 games is roughly 35-40 hours, which in 16 days is just unacceptable. If i treated it like a real job, I could be up double that so far, which is 3,500$, so im just burning money, and lots of it basically at this point.

MTTS have been going meh meh meh. I have built up stacks in a lot and I just haven't been able to close. MTT variance is the most brutal in anything you can do poker wise, so i just have to keep my head up. Only noteworthy score this month is 6th in the 109 turbo for 1g. I am currently still down about 1,500$ in MTTS thus far this month, but I will keep plugging away, especially on the weekends, to try to hit something big. With WCOOP right around the corner, I need to put a lot of volume in this month if i expect my game to be where I want it to be for the start of WCOOP in early September.

But yea, nothing too exciting going on right now

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Been a good July thus far.

Been the best month of my year by far. Ill try to recap it best I can.

First, starting with RL shit, i went to see Tom petty last Saturday. Concerts never really appealed to me, and tbh this is the first real concert I have been too. It was soooooooo much fun and i regret turning down concert invites in the past from friends. Tom Petty has always been one of my fav bands and Im glad I got to see them, because they're getting pretty old and prob wont be doing this much longer. They were amazing.

Besides that, nothing really too exciting, just the same old stuff mostly. Had a few all day in the sun and pool drinking days, which are the best imo, but yea nothing too exciting.

About 2 weeks ago, I ended up going over a poker buddys house (eljay42 on stars) to grind. He lives like 30 minutes away from me and we have been tryin to meet up for a while, and it finally happened. Jcar9271 was also there, who is a 18 man grinder from Australia, but is in the USA for the summer just traveling city to city, which is awesome. It was the first time i ever grinded with other poker people in the same room before, and it was a interesting, and fun experience. Playing with other people in the same house really motivates you to play more, and its awesome to actually get to talk to people about poker while your playing, and have people share your beats and your suckouts etc. It also makes you play better I think. Eljay and Jcar were both really really cool people, and similar to myself. Laid back, sarcastic, etc. TBH i have this mentality that every online poker player I am going to meet is going to be very awkward and socially inexperienced, but all 3 that I have met so far (including Gonewiththedogs from a month ago) have been really really cool, and I think its very judgemental of me to think that way and I should probably stop that. But yea, was a awesome time, I ran bad as hell but eljay ended up making a somewhat deep run in the milly, and Jcar shipped the 5.50 rubix for 7k, and i had swap with them for 5% for any 4 digit score, so the extra 400$ reduced the variance a bit. Jcar will be back in town soon and we are planning on doing it again this upcoming Sunday, so should be fun again.

As far as poker goes, to start July i was playing / running soooooooooooo bad. I was down about 5k. I really reflected on my game though, and made some changes. SNG wise i really cut down the # of tables I am playing. I am used to 20-40 tabling, and it just has not been working for me. so i started to 6-10 table and I have seen waaaaaaaay better results. I feel I am finally playing great, and i expect this too continue. Here are my stats since i decided to switch it up

Frenzuh Click for details 220 $11 $18 64% $2,372

As far as MTTS go, i was down almost 4k in them earlier, but just one bink and your right in the black, and thats what I did. I ended up shipping the 27.50 turbo a few days ago for almost 5k, and i am ending the month up about 750$ in MTTS. I am not going to play anymore MTTS till August 1st over eljays.

But yea, poker has been a decent month, I am not up a ton per say, but I know what I am doing is going to increase my profit / results, and I am looking forward to seeing how much money there is to be made 6-10 tabling. After i get a decent sample, i will switch it to 12-16 tabling till I have a decent sample in that, and determine which is better for me for my optimal hourly.

Also grats to Msusyr24 for winning the first half of our prop bet. 2k is a lot of money to me, and it went right to him. He seems like hes super motivated going into the last stretch for this year, so i need to step up if i want any chance of winning, or at least doing damage control and winning the 2nd half. Worse comes to worse ill buy out at the end of september, but i really need to step it up.

But yea, thats it for now,

Nick

Monday, July 12, 2010

Month or so recap.

Last few weeks of my life poker wise have been going pretty well, and i can't really complain about life a whole lot either.

About 2 weeks ago i hit my biggest online score to date, I won the 55$ cubed on stars for 13,775$, on the same day I also got 2nd in the 44$ turbo for a little over 2k, as well as winning 1.5k in sngs.

I am still down in sngs the last couple of months, it has been mentally frustration, so I really needed this score to boost my confidence. I have been working a ton on my MTT game lately, and with the coaching from scaphism, it has been paying off. I have several 4 digit scores since i decided to get coaching, and to take MTT's more serious, and it has been the best decision in my poker career. There is so much dead money in MTTS its unbelieveable, and by the start of next year i really hope i set myself in a posistion to where I am not grinding out SNGS the way i am now.

All is not lost in SNGS though, i honestly feel like I know what is causing my breakeven stretch. It easily has to do with focus, and # of tables. I am a 18% ROI player in the 27-38's this year for 45's. I am one of the top earners in those games on stars, but i have been struggling with 45's. The reason is because when i play those games, either i move them aside and focus on them more if im mixing them along with 12's or w/e, or i am just playing those games with fewer tables. I am playing 6/12's sooooo robotic that its not even funny, and i am not giving enough credit to the new regs that play those games, and it is showing in my stats (a whopping 3% ROI for the year in 6/12's).

I am tired of being in makeup with my SNG backers, I am tired of letting them down month in month out. I haven't put a ton of volume in July yet, but i know i will, i feel as motivated as ever right now. I am actually looking forward to grinding, a feeling i haven't had in a long time.

Enough with online though.

Rivers casino opened up with table games on Thursday, and i must say i was both pleased and dissapointed with it, mostly dissapointment.

Heres my good n bad list about the place

Good

- Local live place 5 mins away
- Soft games
- Plenty of players
- Plenty of action, biggest game was 10/20 NLHE
- Free parking

Bad

- Dealers are awful, there were 2 dealers who would be accepted in any other casino basically, both were chicks.
- Rules are stupid, especially the no bet line. The travelling button rule is retarded too.
- Pay for drinks

It was very disorganized, which should be expected i guess in the first month or so. But hey, with games as soft as those, i cant really bitch, i just hope they get their shit straight asap. They don't have tournaments yet, which is a bummer, but i can't wait till they do, should be very very +ev fields. I ended up winning 300$ on thursday night, and i also went Saturday night too, but lost 400$ that night (AK of hearts < 104 of clubs (yes 10 fucking 4 lol) on a Q105 board, 10 and 5 of hearts, for a 600$ pot, all in on the flop, bricked turn river)

I also met gonetothedogs on Saturday, who is a member on parttimepoker.com. I have been on that site for a year and half now, and he was the first person i actually met from there in real life, so was a cool experience lol, and fwiw hes a really cool and great guy.


As far as life goes, im done with my rambling that i have done in the past. Life is good, life will always be good. Too many stories to fit into one blog post, so i wont bother.

One thing i am upset at myself with, is my weight though. I had a goal at the start of the year to be down to like 180 right now, and i am nowhere close. I have actually gained weight. I started to diet yesterday and i am calorie counting which is a pain in the ass. I am trying to stay around 1,500 calories each day for this week, and after the first week a lot of the water weight should be gone, so I will start to excercise a lot more, and increase my calories after that so i have energy. My lifestyle is just so unhealthy right now, eating a lot, not excercising, which causes me to sleep all the time and get bigger in the process. I need to change my lifestyle now or I am going to wakeup 1 year from now weighing almost 300 pounds.

But yea, I will def start to keep this blog more updated, especially with all this motivation i have been getting lately, def want to write all this stuff down on my progress with poker and with my life.

But thats it for now,

Nick

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Last month rant

It has been one month since my last post, which is way longer than i would hope, but oh well, ill try to recap 1 month in 1 blog post. A lot of downs, so this is going to sound like a rant than a actual well thought out post.

First off poker has been such a fucking grind, I am not making any money at all playing right now. I have been drinking / getting high a ton since i moved down in south side, a lot of the times by myself, and im worried about it TBH. I am playing fucked up a lot, or when im not fucked up im hungover from the night b4. I am not in the right mindset being down here.

Some of my friends have said "Your living the dream". They dont know shit. I agree being my own boss is awesome, but how can i expect to do that when all i want to do is play, and not work? Poker is just like any other job, its a grind, its boring, and to be the best at what you do it requires a great fucking work ethic which i do not have. I am currently down a little over 3 grand since the start of April. I am not reaching my 3k game quota for my salary deal, which means im making dog shit in SNGS. I bank around 500-700 a month in rakeback for SNGS, thats all i have been making the last 2 + months in SNGS, which is fucking pathetic.

However, for whatever reason, I am doing well in MTTS. I picked up a MTT coach (scaphism) and since then i have been doing decent. I am up 5k since the start of April in MTTS. I am running deeper a lot more often, and MTTS have so so so much more dead money in them than SNGS. If it was up to me i would quit my deal with draqqs PF group and just own dime low buyin SNGS, and just mostly work on my MTT game, because theres so much more money in MTTS than sngs.

But no, im over 5k in makeup to draqqs PF group, and i cant leave until i actually start winning. I am almost possitive once i get the makeup back, they will cut me. I have shown them 500$ profit in about 4 months, and im basically making their money sit. Eventually i will obviously win it back, but for now i am losing their money. So yea, dug a whole and now the next 5k i make will go to them, then once their breakeven i am 99% sure they will drop me.

I am putting in just enough effort into everything right now poker wise, and its pissing people off, its pissing me off. I am pissing off my backers for sucking, and i am pissing off my students off for sucking. Who wants to back somebody who loses money, who wants to be coached by some1 who is losing money?

My work ethic has really declined over the past few months, and its showing in everything i touch poker wise. I made a promise to myself on Friday that i would start to turn everything around Monday. I am going to start giving 150% and hopefully the results will speak for themselves.

I am also going to start actually using my gym membership to start to lose some weight (currently weigh 215 pounds). With the life style of drinking 2 cases a week and not excercising at all, obv gaining weight is going to happen.

But enough with that rant.

As far as life goes, i am still unhappy right now. Me performing so poorly in poker has caused me to not be as upbeat outside of poker. That is why i am changing my ways mostly, to have a happier life. I dont really give a fuck about money, and could be happy broke as long as i loved the job i did, but sadly with poker, you aren't happy if you lose money, because losing money means you are not beating the games. And just like any game, whether it be a sport, or a video game (at least for me) , it is no fun at all to lose.


To make it worse, i don't think i am going to make it out to vegas, which sucks. With me sucking the last couple months at my job, and me running into bank problems, etc, it has caused me to be somewhat tight on money. i still have a ton invested online in players (almost 10k) but sadly i am unable to cash that money out. I have about 3 months of bills / expenses saved up and it would be so dumb / degen to go to vegas and blow that and then have no bill money.

Anyways, i made a small withdrawl today from stars using echecks. I depo'd 20$ and it cleared today so i was able to cash out using it. I should have the money by tuesday - wednesday in my bank account. Every1 says im fine, but with what happened with me at PNC im expecting to get a call tommorow or tuesday asking where the money is coming from, etc. And then they deny it and i have to go find another new bank and start over, and keep cashing checks out and cashing them at walmart (which blows btw). Hopefully everything is fine though, because a wired cashout that takes 2-3 days is a lot more convient then cashing out checks that take 1-7 days to process, and another 5-15 days to get mailed to me.

Anyways, im done with this rant, going to bed, tomorrow is the day for change

Nick~

Friday, May 14, 2010

Life is sucking

Well not really, but its been a hard few weeks.

To continue on the bank situation, i went into PNC a few days after the incident, and bitched them out for a few minutes and closed my account there. I looked around for a Bank of America around Pittsburgh to be my new bank, but i found out that all of the locations i found on goggle, have been closed for a couple years, and that there is no BOA around Pittsburgh, or at least the part of Pittsburgh i am from. I ended up choosing a small local bank in the South hills of Pittsburgh, so hopefully its better. Just got my checks and debit card, going to deposit onto Poker Stars with echecks tomorrow, and then sometime early next week i should be able to cash out with echecks directly into my bank. Takes 1-2 business days for the funds to get into my bank, so im crossing my fingers that everything goes smoothly and my new bank does not give me problems, because i do not want to deal with this again. In the meantime, i have been mailing checks, and cashing them at walmart. Walmart is a beautiful thing. I will probably use both echecks, and cashing checks at walmart for about a month, just incase my bank decides to be gay and refuse the money because the activity is "suspicious". As far as walmart goes, they could give a fuck, so its nice knowing i always have the option to cash checks at walmart.

Life hasn't been too exciting lately, my good friends are getting way too old for their age imo. We had a big party this past Saturday, where we had around 20 people over, and partied till 4 AM, had a ton of fun, and had 4 people call the cops for noise complaints, etc, but those kind of nights will happen maybe once a month or two, and i want to do that shit 2 times a week (minus the noise complaints obv).

But yea, were all 22-24 years old, most coming right out of college, and they are all settling down already. Every single one of my best friends, with 1 exception who is up at PSU all year, is involved in a serious serious relationship. Most have real day jobs now, working the 9-5, and spending the majority of their free time with their GFS. No1 wants to go out and party all night anymore, there all in relationships now so when we do drink its always at some1's house playing NHL or something because they dont feel the need to go to a bar because they dont want to talk to chicks anymore, and its too expensive, etc. And when we do go to a bar its some dive bar to play pool or sit and watch TV or something. No strip clubs, no dance clubs, just old men bars.

Im not sure if they are growing up too fast, or if im growing up too slow. I dont know if its because they have "real jobs" and GFS, and i dont. I don't know what the reason is, all i know is they are all content with settling down, and i am not ready to settle down, and it sucks that all of my best friends are not on board with me. I am 23 years old, who the fuck wants to settle down at 23? I am not going to be able to make it out to vegas for the whole month of June, due to the bank problems + my DUI classes, but i need to get out there for a week or two, i really need it.

As far as poker goes, its just adding to the pile of things that i am not happy with. I am down almost 2 grand since the start of April in SNGS. I ended up losing a couple hundred in april, and i am down like 1,500 in May so far. I am running so fucking bad. I am looking over my HH's about 2-3 times a week, and i am honestly playing fine each session. I get 2-3 outted so much, cant win flips, cant win 60/40's... nothing at all is working out for me. I have been lucky with not hitting the bad bad side of variance, ever, and now i am experiencing it. I keep grinding each day, i cant bitch, i just got to grind through it.

On the bright side of things, i picked up a MTT coach, Scaphism (joemac17 on stars).

I have had 1 session with him so far, and it was awesome to listen to him explain his thought process behind hands, and just hearing a pro MTT player talk about MTTS in general was awesome. In the 1 session i felt i learned a ton, and cant wait to own MTTS soon. I am down like 500$ so far in May in MTTS, which isn't too bad considering i have played a lot of MTTS. I have FT'd a couple MTTS, gone to final 2 tables in a couple more, getting rlly close to 5k+ scores etc, just unable to close it out etc. But yea, hopefully my game progresses the way i want it too with scaph's help, and i can become a very solid MTT player, cuz the hourly in MTT's fucking owns the hourly in SNGS. Would be so much more money for me in the long run if i got really good at them.

To end this horrible ramble of a blog post, i am going to need to add on to the ramble.

I went over my parents for Mothers day Sunday. Out dog chance looked awful, was walking into walls, pissing on the floor, and what hit me the hardest was, he didn't even recognize me anymore. Hes been deaf for about 3 years now, and has had impartial cataracts in his eyes for about 2 years. But he always wagged his tail and still recognized me and showed me love. It really hit me hard to see him like that, hes been in life since i can remember, was a part of nearly all of my child hood, and there he is, in front of my eyes, dying.

My mom and myself were the only two people who ever cared about him, my other two brothers, and especially my dad, never liked him. So obviously at the dinner table, My mom and myself talked about him while they just carried on. My dad actually made a joke about it, and i flipped on him for a good minute. My dad can be such a asshole sometimes.

She said she was going to put him down for his 16th birthday on May 26th, if he makes it that far. I agreed and said theres no way he should live like this, he cant even see anymore. So hopefully he makes it till then, and My mom and me will go to the vet to get him put down. Im pretty emotional about it, and dont know how im going to handle myself when it actually happens. But i would hate myself if i wasn't there for it, so ill just be a man like im supposed too and hopefully hide the emotions in front of my mom.

But yea, hopefully future posts arent this depressing, im usually optimistic + care free + full of fun etc. I will always love living life, and even though my life is pretty miserable right now, my spirits are still high, as they always will be. Hopefully shit just turns around in a lot of the shit in my life, thats all.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

So fucking pissed right now.

I get my pokerstars check yesterday, i go to cash it this morning.

When i hand the teller my deposit slip + check, she questions it about 15 seconds later, asking who issued this, and why is it from the royal bank of canada.

I respond that all of my checks in the past have been from the RBC, i don't understand.

To make a long story short, they threatened to freeze my account if they did not know the company that issued the check, so i told them a poker site (Dumbest thing i could have done, but i had no idea what the fuck to say, and i was nervous as hell)


They deposited the check, told me to have a good day, and i thought that would be the end of it.

wrong.


I get a call about 2 hours later from my bank.

"Hi nick, im calling about the check you deposited today, its no good"

im like what??????

"yea this check is fraud, and we can not deposit it for you"

At this point i start questioning why etc, and they give me some bullshit excuse about how its different then the RBC checks, even though i have deposited a dozen others that look just like it. She then tells me about how online gambling is illegal, and that if i tried to deposit another check that my account would be closed.

So i told her that the UIGEA has not kicked in yet, and its only illegal to deposit onto a online gambling site, which i have not done, and that it is perfectly legal to withdrawl money from a online gambling site and deposit it into a bank until the UIGEA goes into effect, which isnt until June.

She didnt really know what to say, she just repeats herself and says the check is fraud, and that if i tried to deposit another one that my account would be closed.

So yea, a 2,200 check not cashed, and PNC threatening me about cashing in those checks period. I understand your the 5th largest USA bank, and you have a lot to lose in the situation, but come on the UIGEA isn't even in effect yet.

Im not as mad at them as i am at myself, i should have just told them i work for a guy in canada and i do stuff for him on the internet and he pays me through the RBC. But no, im a fucking moron, and had to tell them the truth. Theres no fucking way they could ever trace it to online gambling if i just lied, im a fucking idiot.

I emailed stars to try to get this resolved about a hour n half ago, they forwarded the email to the cashier specialist, and i am still waiting to hear back from them. Hopefully they can just reimburse me my 2,200, cancel the check, i can open up a account at a new bank, poker friends are recommending a small local bank, close out my PNC account, and i can be on my fucking way.

I did not do anything illegal, and i have to put up with this bullshit. Im going to be smarter about this in the future and probably will have my money spread out between 3 banks, 1 just for cashing checks, one for savings, and one as a checking account. Writing checks to myself from my poker account to my other 2 bank accounts. All at different banks. With the USA being as retarded as they are when it comes to online gambling, i have to make sure my money is safe so they and the banks cant fuck with my life.

Sigh...

End of this rant, sorry for the poor grammar, thats how i type when im pissed.

Ill Post when i find out more from Stars, hopefully they aren't pissed and this can get resolved easily.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Running good at running bad.

April has been a very weird month for me as a poker player. I have not had any motivation at all to play, and when i do play i seem to lose just about every session so me makes me that much more unmotivated. A lot of players get more motivated when they run bad, in hopes to turn around the variance. It does the opposite for me, when i run bad the last thing i want to do is play poker.

That being said, SNGS for me this month are going just awful, every session i play i lose money. Here are my stats so far for the month.





Yea 200 games in 2 weeks, fucking awful i know. I do not want to do what i did last month, and kill myself in the last 3-4 days of the month to reach 3k games. I need to start putting in 200-300 games a day to make it easier on myself when the month ends. Its so hard to be motivated though when every session i play is just run bad. I have a new computer now though, its awesome and wont crash on me like my old 1 did, so with knowing theres no worries about my comp crashing mid session, that should help me play continuous long sessions instead of the 2 hour sessions i have been doing.


With that all being said, with my SNGS going to shit, which is all i play normally, i have been making a lot of money this month in games i normally do not play. Between the 2 live sessions, im up about 2,500. And then last night i got pretty high and was somewhat drunk and felt like gambling, so i entered in a couple of MTTS on poker stars. I played in the 5.50 FL08 Re buy, the 55$ turbo, a 4.40 PLO, and i accidentally reg'd for a 33$ deep stacked tournament. I spewed in all of the tournaments, but ran insanely good in the 55$ turbo, and i was 3/3 in chips, but pretty close to the top 2, and we decided to 3 way chop it for 2944.04 a piece. Go figure the biggest MTT score I've hit thus far is when i am completely fucked up and had no idea what i was doing. Here's a SS of that.




So given the live and that MTT bink, i cant complain really. I am making money, which is obviously my #1 goal as a poker player, but i could be making so much more if i had motivation. I know i will start putting in good volume to end the month, my salary depends on it. Hopefully things will turn around, as they should. If not it would be the first month since Feb of 2009 that i would have a losing month in SNGS.

But yea, here is to a good rest of April

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Mouse trap draft!

Before i get into the oh so exciting game of mouse trap, i will first talk about a purchase of mine that i made today.

My computer for the past few days has been crashing non stop, i will load it up, crash 20 minutes later, then wont restart for hours. This continued for a few days, until i said fuck it im buying a new computer. Im fairly certain my computer is having overheating problems, as the fan is broke. But the harddrive sucks too, its almost 4 years old, its time for a new one.

So i went to office max first, and was sold on this computer. its a HP, it has a AMD Athlon quad core processor, 750 GB of harddrive space, 8 GB of system memory, a DVD drive, etc. It also came with a decent 20 inch LCD monitor. After taxes + the 2 year warranty, i ended up spending a little over 900$. A great fucking deal imo. I hooked up my 23 inch samsung monitor to it instead of the 20 inch that came with it, but i plan on fixing my old computer sometime soon, and using the 20 inch for that whenever i decide to do that. I played some poker tonight + surfed web etc, and the computer is super fast and im pretty happy with it. Windows 7 is also loads better then vista, so thats nice as well.

Now for a game my roommates and I are going to be playing. To make a long story short, we have mice in our place, our landlord is ignoring us, so we decide we are going to get rid of them earlier today. Its kind of bullshit that Jason won't answer us about the mice, but he seems like a lazy fuck so go figure. Whatever though, its just mice, harmless things that will run if they see you.

We decided to do a mouse trap draft. 12 Mouse traps, and we drew names out of a hat to decide who gets to pick first, and the person with the first pick gets to pick first on where he wants his first trap, n so on. so the order went like this

Dave
Adam
Me
Me
Adam
Dave
ETC


We put peanut butter on all of them and placed them in our spots, which were mostly next to vents because thats where the mice are living. At first we were going to do the person who catches the most in 1 week wins, but Dave does not want to re use his traps at all, he just wants them thrown away once it kills a mouse. So instead we are going to do first to catch 4 mice, 1 in each trap, wins. You can move traps that haven't caught any mice to other spots that have caught mice if you want too as well. We all put a few dollars in each and the winner will win the pot, just to make it more fun and competitive lol.

I can't wait till i wake up in the morning to see how bad of a problem we actually have. If all 12 traps have mice in them, i will shit myself. I know that mice reproduce super fast so if theres mice living in our house, which we are like 99.9 sure that there is, the chances that theres a ton of them are pretty high, unless they just started living here like less than a month ago.

Should be a good time though, at least i have roommates that are laid back enough, like myself, to get a kick out of playing a game that involves catching mice that live in the same house we do, cant put a price on that.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

ARD classes

So i just got home from my 2nd ARD class, which i had to take 2 of these due to the DUI i got last year. All in all, the classes were pretty useless, and a waste of time. The only thing i really learned was how retarded some people are.

The first thing we did yesterday morning for our first class, was blow in a breathalyzer to make sure we weren't drunk at 9 AM. The first person called, goes up, blows, and our instructor just looks at her and says yeah, get your stuff you cant stay here. There was 21 people total, and 3 got kicked out for being drunk at 9 AM. I know to some people, making fun of people with a drinking problem is just wrong, but i am not sensitive at all, i personally find it hilarious.

The next thing we did, was announce to the whole class our names, age, and our DUI story. Where we were at, how much we drank, how and why we got pulled over, what our BAC was, etc. Some of these story's were absolutely gold. The one girl starts off by saying the same thing every1 else did, i was drinking xxxx and decided to drive. She then says she saw a cop pull behind her and start to follow her, and eventually started to tailgate her real bad. So she decides that giving a break check, while she was drunk, to a cop car was a good idea. The cop smashes into her and the rest is history.

Another good story was this girl, who was 18 years old, was drinking etc etc then starts to drive home. She said she was drinking in the car, and wasn't paying attention to the road, and proceeds to slam on her breaks as she was approaching a accident scene, and ends up crashing into 2 cars that already crashed into each other. There were already cops at the scene, saw her with the beer still in her hand, and yea the rest is history on that one too. There were a couple of other good ones, but those 2 were by far the best.

But yea, we watched 28 days, a bunch of useless handouts, etc. It really was a waste of time, and im not saying this because im in denial of a drinking problem or something, it really was a waste of time.

The only thing i did learn from it, was seeing first hand how being a alcoholic can ruin lives. Between the 3 messes that got kicked out, some of the storys, and a TV show we got to watch, it really did open up my eyes on how bad it actually can get for some people. We watched the show intervention, which followed a woman who was a successful actress / interior designer in her good days. It was really sad to see someone like her go through about 15 bottles of mini vodkas a day, chugging 2-4 at a time like it was water. And then carrying on her life, always yelling at herself, not having custody of her kids, etc. I have no one in my life, no friends, no family, no one, that has been a alcoholic, so i have never really seen it first hand, and to understand how much of a serious disease it can be to people if it gets out of hand. I never plan on being one though, and i would hope no one im close too would ever become one either. But yea, it was eye opening as far as that goes, but the rest was indeed a waste of time.

I am almost done with this DUI business, in about a month i will start my 6 week program, where i am going to have to meet up with a small group for 2 hours a day, once a week. I do not know exactly what i will be doing in these classes, but hopefully they are something that i would be interested in. I also have to go to 1 AA meeting, which i am looking forward too actually. I have friends who have been to AA meetings, because of underages, or DUI's, etc. And from i have heard, it is very very depressing to see some of the true alcoholics first hand. Knowing the way i am, i will probably laugh on the inside, but i am also hypocritical because i know if some1 close to me ever became a alcoholic, i would be very emotional about it, and i would take it a lot more serious. But yea, I am very interested to get a better understanding on alcoholics. If the day were to happen where some close to me was in bad shape with alcohol, i would want to know what to do about it. So hopefully between the AA meeting, and the 6 week program, i learn a good bit about it so i am ready just in case the situation were to ever happen, and also to prevent myself from ever becoming a alcoholic.


On the poker side of things, i am down about 1k in april so far this year online, And i am up 2,500 live (lost 300$ this past thursday, plus the 2,800 win on the first.)

With my struggle online as of late, i have put myself down about 7k behind msusyr24 for our prop bet. i have about 2 and a half months before the first half of our bet is over, and i really need to make up some ground soon if i want to have a chance.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

End of march, Start of April

The grinding i had to end March was very very exhausting.

I played about 1,300 games between monday and wednesday, with 725 of the games coming on my 24 hour session on tuesday. Heres a screenshot of the last 3 days of the month, plus each day seperate so you can see how i did on each day.



March as a whole was a big dissapointment for myself. I did manage to get the 3k games in, but i was playing too many 6's to get volume in, and long hours, etc, and my profit for the month was very low compared to what it should be. This will only motivate me to do better in April, and i will. Here is a screenshot for my graph / stats in March.



In other news for March, i was very pleased with how the PF went. We picked up a few more guys, and i did a crazy amount of coaching in March. We didn't need a ton of money out due too not that many people + the horses weren't playing big buyins. But we still saw a 35% ROI which is not bad at all, beats any real life investment (MF's, stocks, cds, etc)

To start the month off in April, i have been playing 0 online poker. After what i went through to end March, i felt like i needed a break. To switch it up a bit, i went to play live poker on thursday night. I sat down with 200$ at a 1/2 PLO dealers choice omaha table (first time i saw this game around my area for a looooooong time)

Basically, if your unfamilar with what games are included, Each time its your button, you get to choose the game. The selection of games are as followed

- Single flop PLO
- Double flop PLO (the pot gets split in half between the winners of each board)
- Single flop PLO8
- Single flop Pineapple
- Double flop Pineapple


I think we played about 2 hands of pineapple, and maybe 10-15 hands of PLO8. The rest was all PLO and PLO double flop. I obviously felt like my biggest edges were in PLO single and PLO8 single, so i stuck with those games every time it was my button. The guys i was playing were so so so so bad. They played their hands like it was holdem. My strategy after figuring out they would all be calling stations, was too obviously play really tight, and just put a lot of money in with the best of it knowing i would get called if they had anything decent. I ended up getting the nut flush vs the 2nd and 3rd nut flushes 3 times, and each time i got paid off for a lot of money. Towards the end of the night, when i already had a big stack, i got a guy to pay me off for 700$ with the king high flush when i had the ace high. People were betting small boats, and trips, like it was the nuts as well. I was running good for sure, but in my defense i made a few 2nd and 3rd nuts folds when i knew i was beat. But yea, it was 10 handed the whole time, and the only 2 people who were good were having rough nights. The one guy, to my immediate right, was running so bad the whole night, and a younger kid who was 2 or 3 seats to my left, put it in with a huge draw on the flop, got called by 2 pair and didnt hit and then he left. But yea, soft ass omaha game = me winning almost 3 grand (up 2,800 excatly). Rediculous.


I have yet to play online poker yet in April, i plan on starting tonight after golf. Im about to leave to go pick up my buddy Jeff to go play 9 holes at south park. It's going to be the first time ill get out to golf this year, and i can't wait.

But yea, i am running late, take care,

Nick

Monday, March 29, 2010

Grindddddding

The bar tour at Penn State was awesome. We all went to the Brewery Friday night, which was cool just to be with friends that i haven't seen in a while. Then Saturday, we started drinking at 11 PM. It was my roommate Dave's cousin Nate's bar tour, there was about 40 of us. Just about all of us got shitty by 5pm, and didn't end drinking till about 11 PM. The bouncers weren't letting a lot of us in by the end of the night. I remember leaving The Den to go out for a cig, and i was rambling with the bouncer for like 5 minutes, and i was pretending to be a bouncer with him whenever people were trying to get in (why? i have no idea). When my cig was done, i was like soooo, am i allowed back in? He just looks at me and laughs, "no chance". I took a bunch of pictures, ill probably upload them on facebook soon.

My deal with draqq's PF says i need 3k games a month in order to keep my salary. Right now I am at 1,700 with 3 days left. 1,300 games in 56 hours is redic, im basically going to have to play non stop. I know i can do it, and i will, i just started loading games, and i dont plan on stopping until about 10 pm tommorow night, which will be about 30 hours straight. Im hoping to knock out 1k games in the 30 hour session, then do the other 300 when i wake up on Wednesday.

Its really unfair to draqq's PF to put this kind of volume in with a short amount of time left. I was super busy this month, so hopefully he understands. I will probably throw them some extra money, especially if i lose a good bit in the next 3 days. I feel really bad, and i will make up for it next month with good quality volume the whole month.

Ill throw in some updates on my progress in this marathon of a session, its going to be a looooooong grind, but im up for it :)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

3 weeks

Can't believe i haven't updated this blog in three weeks! Its been a busy 3 weeks though, so understandable. I had a lot of stuff i wanted to blog down in the past three weeks, but wont be able too because its not fresh on my mind. I am for sure going to start blogging more often, its nice to put my thoughts on paper, it relaxes me and it feels good to put my emotions into writing. For now though, ill try to recap the last 3 weeks as best i can.

I am very happy with the new place so far. Adam and Dave have been easy to live with roommates for the most part, and i have no complaints thus far. We are in the south side of Pittsburgh, so I am loving the location. I haven't gone out too much since the move, but, its awesome not worrying about who the driver is going to be, or how were getting home, because I am just a few blocks away from my bed. The only thing that I am disappointed with so far, is how lazy i have been committing to the move. I am so fucking lazy it makes me sick sometimes. I have yet to put curtains up on either of my windows, i am using a bed sheet to cover one of them. I have yet organized my clothes, i piled a bunch in my dresser, hung some up, still got a bunch that are in my car, and a lot that are dirty and need washed. The list goes on and on, basically aside from my computer desk, everything else is so unorganized for me. I am making a promise to myself, that i will get everything done, that needs done, before i leave for State College on Friday.

So yeah, im going to go to PSU this weekend for the yearly bar tour that my roommates cousin (Dave) Nate does every year. I am SOOOOOO excited, I haven't been at PSU in what seems like forever, and im excited to obviously drink my face off Saturday, but more importantly, see a lot of my friends that i don't get too see that often anymore. Should be a blast.

As far as poker is concerned, March has been a awful month for me so far. My volume has been AWFUL, and i am not running so good either. First, the move and everything that goes with that obviously took up a good bit of time. Also with my PF that im managing, i had to take on a lot more students to coach. Plus hanging out and drinking with my friends etc. Even with as busy as i was this month, i could have put in more volume, and i need to work on having a better work ethic.

On the flip side of things, I am very happy with how the PF is going, and how my students have been doing this month. Theres about 10 guys total that we have signed for deals with staking + coaching now. About 6 of them have been with us the whole month, and those 6 guys are up about 7k total for the month. A couple of them are making more money than i am this month. I cant wait to see my students and the PF to progress. For such a long time, SNGMentors had a hammerlock on the biggest staking/coaching site. The goal is not to compete with them obviously, but I think what we have going will become better than SNGMentors. I feel we have better coaches, better organization, etc, and i think it will show on the horses. Even though my play has been unmotivated as of late, i am really motivated when it comes to coaching and making my students better, and i cant wait to see how they turn out.


But yea, that will do it for now, heres my graph in SNGS for the month so far. With me being gone most of the weekend, and having to reach 3k games b4 the end of the month, i will be pretty busy busting out some games to end the month. Cant believe im not even halfway to 3k games yet, sigh.




Wednesday, March 3, 2010

New Deal

So i re worked my backing deal with Draqq's PF group. My current deal right now is 75/25 cut my favor, which is good, but i got a new deal that fits me better imo.

The new deal is a 2k salary, that i can cash out at the start of each month, so im gaurnteed 2k a month no matter how good/bad i do.

After i make 2k in a month, i ship them back 100% of the first 2k, and then any profits for the rest of the month go 60/40 my favor.

So if i made 6k in one month, the first 2k would be my salary, and then i would keep 60% of the other 4k (2,400) and they would get 1,600. On the old deal 75% of a full 6k is 4,500$, so i would be losing out on 100$ if i profited 6k, and more than 6k i would lose out on a bit more.

I also have a game requirement i must reach in order to keep my salary, which is 3k games, which i fully plan on making each month. So with that kind of volume, making over 6k each month in sngs should happen just about every month, but this deal is better for me for a few reasons.

A - the game requirements. 3k games is about 100 a day, which is about 5-6 hours of playing, or about 40 hours a week, just like a real job. Without this game requirement, i wouldn't have the motivation, and i would fall short of 3k games on most months. This will make me play more, which will increase my profits/rakeback for the month, which should make me more money.

B - I am moving out, and i need to start be responsible with my money, and my profession as a poker player. The 2k a month alone would alone cover bills / expenses. Not too mention with 3k games, i would be making somewhere around 1.5k a month in rakeback, plus with my PF that just kicked off, that should be at least another 1k a month. So if you do the math, if i profit 2k or less in sngs in a given month (which would be running extremly bad), I would still be making roughly 4.5k a month anyways. So with this kind of a deal, it doesn't matter how badly i run, i gaurntee myself to make 4.5k a month, which is 50k a year, not too shabby.

So basically, 50k is the absolute worse year i could have, but my goal for this year is twice that. I am aiming to make 100k by the end of the year, and i fully intend on doing so.

So time to grind imo

Monday, March 1, 2010

Moved in my bed last night, which is probably the hardest thing to move into a new place, and all went good so happy about that.

I met up with Adam at the place last night around 6 pm to help each other move our beds in, our friend Jarred came to help as well. Somewhat funny story before i get into that though.

We dropped off the money Saturday night before going out, and he said that he would leave the house keys in the mailbox for us the next day. When we got there, there were no keys in the mailbox, the front door was unlocked but there was something behind it that was keeping the door budged in.

We call up Jason and he says yeah, i put a 2x4 behind it because the house got broken into and that he would be right up. So while we wait, we were second guessing ourselves that this was the right area to move into, who the hell would want people breaking into your place?

When Jason got there, he made it sound like no big deal, and that it happens to him all the time. Adam and myself just looked at each other like we need to back out of this place if its that bad. Jason then continues to go on and say its nothing we need to worry about, because these guys break into vacant homes only. Here's how the conversation went basically.

Me: So if we were living there they wouldn't break in?
Jason: No no, you guys are cool, they only do vacant homes
Me: Why vacant homes?
Jason: Well, basically, there a bunch of crack heads who need to make a quick buck so they look up vacant homes in the area and they steal the plumbing
Adam: Just the plumbing? They don't take anything else?
Jason: Nah, just the plumbing. If you think about it, with a refrigerator or something, they need to move it, then get it on a truck, and its just a lot of work and time. Basically there just trying to make a quick 50 dollars so they can get high as quickly as possible.

So yea, crackheads stole our plumbing so they could get high, Jason is obviously taking care of that though.

But yea, got my bed into my room with no problems and the move has begun. I have a CRN evaluation tomorrow morning (need to get it done because its court ordered because of my DUI) at 8 AM and its down on Forbes ave, so ill be close to our place so i plan on moving some more stuff in tomorrow morning. I bought a new computer desk which ill build there tomorrow, and hopefully i can get some other stuff in like my night stand, some clothes, etc etc. I wont be moving my computer, or living there for that matter, until the internet is up. My job as a poker player pretty much means i can not live without the internet. Dave called today and set up a appointment, not sure when it is, but hopefully its done within a week.

On the poker side of things im very excited for March. February was a god awful month for me and i only made about 5,000. I really need to put in a lot more volume and i plan on doing that all of March.

Im in a team 45 man competition and the only buyins that count are 12$ and under, so i plan on playing nothing but 12$ 45's all month long, and i hope to make at least 7-8k doing so. I know its stupid to not grind out the 27-38's as well, but when playing higher buyins i get uneasy about being in for over 1,000$ every session, and i end up quiting the session to avoid potentially losing over a thousand dollars. With 12$ 45's, its almost impossible to ever be in for more then 500-600$, let alone 1k. So i figure with playing this way, ill play more games, longer hours, and make more money.

Heres a link to the competition

http://forum.parttimepoker.com/shooting-off/672483-45-man-contest-progress-thread.html


Also another reason im excited is because of the launch of the PF i will be managing.

Basically a online friend of mine (Reasons14) and myself are pooling students for this, and we will be staking and coaching them. Xboxlucas / tbonelv3 and possibly wynnkid will be other investors on it as well. Reasons threw 4k into it, xbox and myself threw 2k into it, and tbone and wynnkid havent thrown anything in it yet, but both are supposed to be in it for 2k. This is a good way to invest some money, and our goal is to see a 100% roi each month on our initial investment. So basically each month ill have 2k invested, and at the end of the month is when we will see profit returns It wont be a 100% ROI for 2k on the first month, and then the 2nd month 100% for 4k, it will just be the same each month. Im not sure if we will reach 100% roi, but i def think at worse it will be 50%. Either way i should be making at least 15k off this project a year, possibly more if its as successful as it potentially can be. Ill have more info on this in a few days or so and will def keep blogging on the progress we are making with this.

But yea, thats it for now, heres my FEB graph for SNGS. Also made a good bit in cash this month + a little profit in MTTS. About 5k total for the month.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Moving on out

We got a call from Jason last night, and we are moving out! pretty excited.

The move out won't even be that expensive which is nice. My brother and his girlfriend bought a new bed when they moved in together, so im buying my brothers old bed for 200$. Its a queen size, mattress bed frame bed skirts etc all included, so saving a ton on that. My parents are giving me their old pot and pan set, 2 couches which are really nice leather couches, they are kind of old though and they have been wanting to buy new ones for a while, so this gives them a reason, and also im allowed to take my dresser and night stand and some hangers as well.

Adam is bringing his cup and china set, which has silverware too, and a knife set.. He also has a toaster / coffee maker / a huge TV for the living room. Im pretty sure he has other things like a lawnmower and snow plow too.

So basically all i ran the numbers, this is what im expecting to spend immediatly for the move out.

Bed - 200$
New Desk - 100$
Misc items Shared(garbage bags/garbage cans/cleaning stuff/etcetc) - 100$ , i figured 3 ways max wed spend is about 300$
Misc items to self (lamp/lights/mini fridge/hygiene stuff/etc) - 200$
Food for 1st week or so - 100$

But yea, we pretty much have all the biggys, so normally one would spend somewhere around 1,500 - 3,000$ to get all the stuff they need to move out. Furniture, TV, bed, potspans and china. And basically, we have all of that stuff covered. So i am looking at less than 1,000$ for the initial move out, which is awesome. Ill upload pics when i get a chance, i should be moving throughout the week, i prob wont rent a uhaul, so however many trips it takes me is fine. I dont plan to live there until we get internet up anyways.

My friend Brad got engaged this past week, were going out tonight to celebrate, should be another shit show. I have a lot of friends who have had long time girlfriends etc, this is the first one who actually got engaged, guess im getting to that age now where a lot of my friends will be popping the Q.

Last night my friends didn't want to go out because of the snow, and i didn't feel like staying in, i was too excited about the news of moving out, so i went to library firehall to play some live poker. I forgot how bad live poker was, i dont think i played that well, but getting KK vs 66 on a K 10 10 6 5 board helped. Ended up winning 300$ in 4 hours.

But yea, playing poker until i go out tonight, wake up hungover and play poker all day tommorow, thats my weekend gameplan. And i should start moving my shit into the place first thing Monday, cant wait :)

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Good fortune.

Ok, so im up almost 2,000$ in the last 4-5 days on stuff that i normally don't do (aka non sngs) and it feels pretty damn good.

First, Thursday night last week after i got back from the moose, i sat down at 3 tables of PLO/PLHE against the same guy in order to try and hit a milestone hand. If you don't know what a milestone hand is, basically Poker Stars was having a promotion for dealing their 40 billionth hand, and every 1 million hands between like 39 bill and 40 bill, they had a "milestone hand". All players who put their money into the pot would receive a portion of the winnings. The winner receives like 66%, and the losers split 33%. And how much they bonus depends on the size of the pot.

Anyways, so there i am 3 tabling this guy, we were at two tables at 25/50 cents. and 1 table at 50c/1$. After about 5 minutes im up 50$ at the 50c/1$ table, and about 40$ between the other 2 tables, about 90$ total, and all of a sudden our 50c/1$ table becomes full and the game was paused. I was shocked i was actually dealt into the milestone hand, and the fact it happened at the bigger stakes game we were playing was good fortune too. Theres literally thousands of cash tables up, and i was at 3 of them, and our table hit. So there i am with 63o for the milestone hand, talk about a monster. You dont receive any bonus if you fold your hand, so obviously we get it all in. He ends up boating with Q10o and i lose the hand. He, as the winner, received almost 1,800$ in bonus money, and me as the loser, received almost 900$! Felt pretty damn good.

Then last night, i was playing my friend Justin (xboxlucas on stars) in 50$ PLO heads up last night, we were playing 4 tables at a time. I ran pretty hot and took him for almost 400$. I was running pretty damn hot and i remember thinking like i was unstoppable, so i late reg'd into the 55.00$ Turbo at 2:35 (late reg ended at 2:40). If you ever late reg'd into a turbo MTT then you would know you start off with less then 10 BBS. i tripled up like my 3rd hand into it. And i ended up final tabling it. I lost a flip (i shoved K9 of diamonds on the button with 8 BBS, got called by 5's from the BB) and i went out in 6th place for about 850$. First place was almost 4k in that tourney, and if i would have won that flip, and with my edge on a soft table like that, my chances to take that tourney down were pretty high. Sucks, but im not complaining.

On the life side of things, Adam is going to call Jason (landlord) tonight about the place we want to move into, and is going to tell him Dave is back in. So hopefully we get the place and can move in sometime over the weekend. Adam and myself are looking at another place tommorow night anyways just because it looks very nice based on the ad on Craigs list. We already decided that if we find a better place than the one were probably going to move into, that well take it. We will sign the lease tommorow night if we like it enough. So yeah, well see what happens, but i really want to move out, so hopefully i am packing this weekend if everything goes according to plan.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Week recap

So the week went pretty good. Adam and myself looked at another place on Wednesday. It was right in the south side flats, which is nice. But everything else about the place was unattractive. It was old, bedrooms were small, living room small, etc. For 1,200 a month i think we can do so much better so were not even going to consider it.

Thursday night we go to the moose for free wing night, and it was Dave Adam and myself. Dave is now saying how he changed his mind again, and he wants to move in with us. Seriously, we could have had house keys already, now your changing your mind when they are on vacation for 2 weeks (the landlords). I understand moving out is a big decision, but he lied to get out of it the first time to sign the lease. If he did that a second time, i would flip. We will see what happens though, Adam and me were planning on taking the place anyways with just us 2, assuming they let us. With Dave as a third person, it would make things cheaper. Basically Adam and me decided count Dave out, and if he decides to come along then so be it. Were not going to depend on him being a 3rd roommate anymore until he hands over cash and signs a lease.

Last night I went down to buckheads for the beer olympics (lol) with a bunch of people. Adam and me were partners, and they had 3 games. 3 legged race / beer pong / nerf arrow. It was so gay but it was fun too. We came in like 2nd to last in the 3 legged race and i have a huge bruise on my upper right calf today. We won our first round in beer pong then get destroyed in our 2nd game. And i have no idea about that nerf arrow.

It was a pretty fun night until i got too drunk. I was drinking heavily the whole night, kind of hard not too when so much stuff was free there. We got free pitchers of beer for each game in that beer pong tournament. We got free drinks from 8-10 for participating in the beer olympics. Basically i drank 10$ worth of stuff when we got there at 7, and then the rest of the night was free basically. After 10pm was over, I ordered 8 shots of patron, 4 of us were gunna take 2 each, which came to a total of like 50$ or so. I had a tab open so i told them to put it under that, and when i closed my tab with my waitress, my bill was only 10$. So i guess some1 was mad when they see 8 shots of patron on their bill that they didn't do. I was feeling sick and Adam could tell so we left around 10:30 or so.

When we got back to his place i told him im probably going to puke, and he said yea i know. So he got me a trash can and put it right next to me and said puke in here, im like yea obviously, and then i passed out.

I wake up with puke all over me of course, dont remember puking at all. It was all over his couch and white carpet too. He still lives with his mom, and i have done this before, so i knew she would flip on me if she saw it. I looked at my phone and it was 4:30 AM, so i was happy when i saw that because i knew i had time to clean it up. I was still hammered, had puke all over me, and im trying to clean up my puke. I dont really remember how i cleaned it up, i just know i looked at it and it looked pretty clean, so i left and jumped into my car.

I turn my car on, was still drunk and i already have a DUI so i didn't want to risk that, so i passed out and woke up at 7:30 with about a 1/4 tank of gas gone, and i text Adam on my way home.

"A - i puked
B - I cleaned it up tho for the most part, i dont remember puking tho"

He sends me a text about a hour later which i couldn't stop laughing at for a while

"A - You did a awful job at cleaning it up
B - I cleaned it after Tina freaked
C - She said you cant come over ever again"

Cant blame her i guess. Second time puking at her house, i also accidently put a pretty nice sized hole in their wall.

At least Adam puked inside my car last week and i dropped him off and had to clean it up the next day, doesn't make me feel as bad about this.

Was supposed to drive up to State College today and spend the day / night there, but i feel like shit. I miss State College and i really wanted to go, but oh well. Ill be there in late March for a bar tour, so cant wait for that.

Probably will just grind some SNGS today, and play a full MTT schedule tommorow. Had a pretty good week in my SNGS, and Saturdays are the best day to play them, so even as hungover as i am, i should still make some good money, well see though.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

February

Had a good day yesterday, which is great because my month has been going awful so far. I haven't been putting in the volume that i should be all year, and the last few days my volume has been sub par. I'm not mad for the last few days because i have been very busy with a lot of stuff and Sunday i did MTT schedule and went pretty deep in the Sunday million and the F40 40$ 1 mill tournament. Cashed for about 600 in both, pretty frustrating but what can you do. I fully plan on meeting my 150-200 games a day goal for most days, and i just hope things turn around. Yesterday was a good start, didn't play a ton but i had a pretty good day. Here's my stats for Feb 1st - 15th. And then my stats for just Yesterday (Feb 16th)


Thursday, February 11, 2010

Where is my motivation????

Poker has been such a grind lately, and i am not even playing that much. I played very low volume for most of the start of the year, ran pretty hot and won a good bit of money, and now the heater is gone and im breaking even on like the last 2 weeks, and im putting in the same shitty volume. There is no excuse for the lack of play so far this year, i really need to step it up.

Poker is my income, my job, my life right now, yet i find it hard to get motivation to play more. I have prop bets, people doubting what i do, etc, and i can't find the motivation to play more? Its a fucking joke.

With more volume, obviously i will make a lot more money, give myself a better shot to beat Alex in our prop bet, and with more money, it will prove to the doubters that i have, that this was the right path for me to take.

Dont get me wrong, i am still making good money, and i am on pace to make about 100k this year, but should i be content with that? Its honestly a fucking joke that more than half the time i am at home and on my computer, i spend the time playing video games, surfing the web, or just bullshitting on aim or skype. If i spent those hours grinding, i could be on pace for 200k this year, there is honestly no excuse for me to not do it.


Enough of this play when i feel like it bullshit, i am going to force myself to play 200 + games a day everyday starting tommorow. I am not going to set a schedule just because i know i would never keep it. But i will meet my 200 games a day mark every day that i play poker. I got to quit being lazy, every hour i dont play is like throwing away 80-90$ because thats what my hourly averages at when i play poker, only a dumb ass would throw away that kind of money, daily. This stops right now.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Blah

So me and one of my best friends Adam have been looking at places to move into the last couple of months. The location we want is in the south side of Pittsburgh. We have looked and looked and there honestly isn't too much up for grabs. We found a nice 3BR place that we wanted, and it was the first place we actually filled out a application for.

So we bring along Dave, one of our very good friends, to fill the 3rd bedroom and to make things cheaper. Plus he is looking for cheap rent, because hes cheap (literally, his nickname is cheap), so we thought that giving him the smaller 3rd bedroom would be perfect for everybody. We all filled out applications, and they were really concerned with mine, as i have no "official" source of income. But Dave and Adams credit was good, both have jobs in good standing etc, and my dad came along as a cosigner for me, so it was all good. (seriously tho... like 1k a month between 3 people, i offered to show bank statements, why the fuck do you need a cosigner)

Anyways, me and Adam sign the lease yesterday afternoon, and Dave was there but did not sign the lease, he planned on doing it today because he wanted to look at his room more. Hes a cheapo so he was taking the 3rd bedroom which was smaller, if we pay early we get a discount on the rent (920$ a month instead of 995) and he would pay 220, and me and Adam would pay 350.

We all met up for dinner last night at Rock Bottom to talk about things, what we all had to bring to the place, and what else we were going to need, etc. Dave was worried about the size of his room, and was thinking about how he was going to fit everything into his room. Adam and myself we were coming up with a few ideas to make it work for him, honestly it would not be hard at all, the room isn't even that small. He was thinking of every little detail excuse he could to counter us, he said his hockey bag would be knocking shit over in his room when he came home from hockey... honestly, your hockey bag comes up, are you fucking serious dude? He lived up at PSU with a roommate in a smaller room, so i honestly don't know how hard it is to fit everything into a room that's bigger, just for himself. That was a red flag for me right there that he was backing out, especially since hes known for doing this kind of shit all the time, especially with breaking plans, but i was being hopeful. Adam and myself gave him our part of the security deposit and first months rent so when he would go to the place today he would be able to get the keys.

But obviously, he goes to the place today, and calls us earlier today saying that his shit wouldn't be able to fit in such a small room, and he wasn't going to sign the lease. And to boot, the landlords (husband and wife, private owners) say that without Dave, we can not move in because of my situation. Me and adam are perfectly fine with paying a extra 110 a month, but they wont do it.

Are you fucking serious? I offered to show u bank statements, i have a fucking co signer for fucks sake. What is the big deal??? I Know a few poker people who moved out as their only source of income, and got the place because of advanced payments/bank statements. So i know this is just the landlords being anti gambling or something, hopefully for future places the landlords are more understandable.

But yea, thanks to Dave for dragging as along for something you knew you weren't going to do. You saw the place before, you saw your bedroom already. I do not buy for 1 second you are worried about the size of the room, you lived with Matt at Penn State in a smaller room and made it work. Your one of my best friends, I have known you since 2nd grade, but seriously quit thinking for yourself. You lie about everything, and we have caught you in your lies so many times yet you still do it. Its one thing to break plans, oh fucking well i guess your not coming, no big deal. But its another to make my dad and I drive 45 minutes to south side on awful roads to sign a lease, plus making Adam drive down 20 minutes on the same road conditions to sign a lease. A lease you knew well before we went down that you weren't going to sign. You wasted our time + made us drive in risky conditions for something you knew you weren't going to do, good job pal.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Goal update

So i made a list of goals that i wanted to achieve in 2010. This is how i am doing so far.

SNGS

- At least 3-4 leaderboards on sharkscope - (on 2, almost on 2 others)

- At least 75k profit (including rakeback)- up 7,144 without RB, with RB i am up 8,235, way ahead pace.

- Play on own dime By July - still playing backed.

- Win the prop bet vs Alex (msusyr24) - Our prop bet is most SNG profit for the first half of 2010, and the last half of 2010, and also for overall 2010, each one is worth 2k to the winner, if some1 wins all 3 they win 8k... currently he is winning, he has almost 8,500 in profit, and i am sitting on a little over 7,100

- Find a coaching website, whether it starting my own, or joining somebody elses, and make some extra $$ by coaching and making videos. - this is in the works as we speak. not giving any info out on that yet though

CASH

- Play 0 online cash games the whole year, this has cost me a good bit of money in the past, and i do not want to play any cash at all in 2010. (except live)

Already failed as this, im down about 200-300 $ in cash so far this year, up about 400 in mixed, and down like 600 in NLHE - PLO

MTTS

- Hit at least 1 score over 10k - no
- Hit 10 scores over 1k - no
- Play on weekends only (except turbo mtts) - yes
- Keep my volume in MTTS small, and focus on SNGS mostly. - yes
- Play in at least 5 events for wsop 2010 - obv hasn't happened yet

LIFE

- Get my weight down to 170-175... i currently weigh 205, would do this by running 5-6 days a week, and lifting 2-3 days a week, plus eating healthy - currently down to 193, and going to keep working

- Pay off my car (about 8k left on the car loan) - not yet

- quit smoking, i do not want to stop immediatly, i would like to sort out some other things in my life first, but i would like to be done with smoking b4 June. - not yet

- Work on my relationship with my family - its improving, lot of work still to do

- If everything goes well in 2010, i would like to purchase a house in the later part of the year. - haven't done yet.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Blogaments

I will be posting here about shit in real life, but mostly a boring poker blog. I had a couple blogs in the past that i never committed to, and really want to make this one work.