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.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
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
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.
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.
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
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
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