I can't bring myself to play on the merge networks, or bodog, or whatever else is available, so I have been playing live, and lots of it.
I have played 7 of the past 8 days since April 15th, and I have logged in roughly 65 hours. I have had 4 winning days, and 3 losing days. The most I won in 1 day was 1,300, and the most I lost in 1 day was 1,500. Overall I am up about 700$ since the transition. I should be up over 2k, but I am such a huge degen and blackjack / roulette / craps have taken me for almost 1,500.
My plan moving forward is to play as much 1/3 as I can at the casino. I have logged in 10 hours or so playing 2/5 and just don't feel my hourly will be higher at 2/5 than 1/3. It sounds crazy I guess but the 2/5 games there are awful. Old guys who don't play a single hand, combined with the rake problems. If i steal the blinds, which happens a lot when I raise at that game, they take 1$ for badbeat jackpot every hand, and 10% up to 5$. This means when I steal the blinds, my 5$ gets added to the 7$ in the pot, which makes a 12$ pot, and they take 2$ from that (1$ for rake, 1$ for BadBeatJackpot). So when I steal the blinds, I make a 5$ profit off the 7$ I stole. If there was action, and big pots happened a lot, the rake would actually not be that bad as they max it at 5$ (which is actually 6$ if you include the badbeat jackpot). The problem is big pots don't really happen that often though, and when they do I lose almost all of them due to the old guys only play the nuts.
I plan on doing live hard for the next month or so, I will leave for Chester, PA (Near philly) in about a week. From there I will travel to New Orleans. Both of those citys will have WSOPC's there and action should be extremely juicy. After doing ST Louis I can't wait to get back into that kind of atmosphere where 2/5 is extremely soft, and live tournaments that are 350$+, that play like a 3$ MTT online, with very decent payouts.
I need to move out of my place by May 15th, I will move out most of my stuff this upcoming week, and finish when I get back from Chester. After I come back from New Orleans I will probably be at my parents house. I really hate living with them, and It really sucks but it wont be long. I may just hotel it for a couple of weeks to be honest.
My cousins wedding is on June 4th, and after that I have nothing keeping me in Pittsburgh so moving out of the country is a option, well see what happens.
I regret my last blog post because who am I to bitch about my situation when it can be a lot worse. I consider myself great at adapting in all kinds of situations, and that's really all I gotta do right now.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkk
Just one week ago I was in ST Louis with Bigbluffzinc. We both did very well down there. He got 1st and 3rd in two tournaments for a combined 45k, and I got 8th in a tournament for 4k, and did very well in cash games and ran very good in blackjack and roulette(lol). I left the trip profiting close to 15k (before expenses) and I was very eager to start grinding online again.
My plane landed Tuesday night in Pittsburgh and for the next couple of days I grinded a lot of hours. Friday morning I woke up around 5 AM, showered and ate breakfast, and for the next 6-7 hours I grinded online again. I wrapped up my session and left the house to run some errands. I grocery shopped, had some bills to pay, and I was on my way to the mall to splurge on myself since I did well in St Louis and then got a text from a poker buddy of mine saying "Dude, we are so fucked".
The text came from Mr.Paintball, who is a business partner of mine for staking. In my head I was thinking we got rolled for a lot of money, or maybe we had like 10 horses needing reloads or something. I called him up and he informs me the FBI made a move on the big online poker sites, and that online poker was getting shut down. I really had no idea what to think or say, but thought splurging on myself at the mall was probably a bad idea and proceeded to drive home to figure out what the fuck was happening.
I get home and sign on pokerstars, the same pokerstars I was playing on just 2-3 hours earlier, and I got the message that I am unable to play real money games, cash out money, or transfer money due to my government. I was shocked with the reality that was setting in, and to be honest it hasn't completely hit me yet that I have no job.
As most people know, Pokerstars, FTP, and UB were charged with bank fraud and money laundering, as well as other things but those are the major charges. The FBI seized domain names, bank accounts, processors, a bunch of shit. I have spent the past couple of days grinding live cash, and every minute I have been home I have been doing as much research on this as I can, here are my thoughts on the situation.
First off, this is a shitty shitty situation for all of us poker players living in the USA, especially those of us who stake people. A lot of us keep our money online opposed to bank accounts because we feel our money is 2000x safer online then in a bank account. Between my own funds and what my shares are worth in the staking project I have, I am out more money than just about all of my friends make in a year, some two years.
These online poker sites are facing serious serious charges, and people who think funds will be unfrozen shortly, or are safe period, are delusional. Your funds can no longer get to you the way they have been doing it. In order to get our funds poker needs to be regulated and stars and tilt need to allowed to get a license. If they dont get a license I have 0 idea what happens from there. I am not sure if the government will seize any USA players funds, and if so I dont know if they will give that money to the people or just keep it. I also don't know if they aren't able to seize funds that these sites will pay the players as they will no longer have a market here, and it makes no sense to pay people who will no longer have business with you.
What pisses me off is that it is very clear Stars and Tilt, especially Tilt, have known this was coming for some time. Think about everything Tilt has done lately. Rush poker, Multi entry tournaments, Double gaurnteed week + FTOPS happening way more often. Not too mention a app for rush poker so you can play on your phone. Obviously one can say thats just good business, but its also the best way to get as much rake possible before the storm hits. Stars is no saint either, Changing VPP programs to make SNE way more appealing. I know more grinders that were attempting SNE this year than ever before, and it wasn't even close. Not too mention making more tournaments + upping GTDS. Of course this can also be just good business, but I am not buying into the coincidence, many credible people have said these two sites have been stashing money away for quite some time now in case something like this happened, they knew it was coming.
Most people don't understand how serious this is. People need to understand we will not be able to play poker for at least a year. These cases need to happen, regulation needs passed, and then how to regulate it, who gets the licenses, making the software for the sites, etc, needs to happen. We are looking at a best case scenario of early 2012, and as far as a worse case scenario goes, it could literally take 5+ years.
So yea, now what? I am a 24 year old unemployed bum. I don't know when my job will be back. Many people are saying to play on bodog, merge, and cake. My instincts tell me no, and that when USA is done with the big boys, the smaller sites are next on the list. These sites are just trying to make as much money as they can before they are shut out too. People already have cashout problems with those sites, shits just gunna get rockier and I wouldn't recommend anybody playing on those sites.
Continuing to play on stars or tilt is still possible, but every option to do so is 150% illegal. I know ways to do it, and there are quite a few ways to do it, but the risks that come with doing so are very high. Do i really want to risk jail time, embarrassing my family, etc, just so I can make money for a year or so?
Going back to school and getting a part time job isn't really a option for me, I don't want that lifestyle and know that lifestyle doesn't make you money.
So yeah, no fucking idea what I am going to do right now, I have a few options and worse comes to worse I will get a job, but hopefully it doesn't come to that. I have enough cash to give live grinding a shot I suppose, but I know how hard of a grind that can be. I should have everything figured out in about 2 weeks hopefully.
GL to you if your in the same boat as I am, it fucking sucks.
My plane landed Tuesday night in Pittsburgh and for the next couple of days I grinded a lot of hours. Friday morning I woke up around 5 AM, showered and ate breakfast, and for the next 6-7 hours I grinded online again. I wrapped up my session and left the house to run some errands. I grocery shopped, had some bills to pay, and I was on my way to the mall to splurge on myself since I did well in St Louis and then got a text from a poker buddy of mine saying "Dude, we are so fucked".
The text came from Mr.Paintball, who is a business partner of mine for staking. In my head I was thinking we got rolled for a lot of money, or maybe we had like 10 horses needing reloads or something. I called him up and he informs me the FBI made a move on the big online poker sites, and that online poker was getting shut down. I really had no idea what to think or say, but thought splurging on myself at the mall was probably a bad idea and proceeded to drive home to figure out what the fuck was happening.
I get home and sign on pokerstars, the same pokerstars I was playing on just 2-3 hours earlier, and I got the message that I am unable to play real money games, cash out money, or transfer money due to my government. I was shocked with the reality that was setting in, and to be honest it hasn't completely hit me yet that I have no job.
As most people know, Pokerstars, FTP, and UB were charged with bank fraud and money laundering, as well as other things but those are the major charges. The FBI seized domain names, bank accounts, processors, a bunch of shit. I have spent the past couple of days grinding live cash, and every minute I have been home I have been doing as much research on this as I can, here are my thoughts on the situation.
First off, this is a shitty shitty situation for all of us poker players living in the USA, especially those of us who stake people. A lot of us keep our money online opposed to bank accounts because we feel our money is 2000x safer online then in a bank account. Between my own funds and what my shares are worth in the staking project I have, I am out more money than just about all of my friends make in a year, some two years.
These online poker sites are facing serious serious charges, and people who think funds will be unfrozen shortly, or are safe period, are delusional. Your funds can no longer get to you the way they have been doing it. In order to get our funds poker needs to be regulated and stars and tilt need to allowed to get a license. If they dont get a license I have 0 idea what happens from there. I am not sure if the government will seize any USA players funds, and if so I dont know if they will give that money to the people or just keep it. I also don't know if they aren't able to seize funds that these sites will pay the players as they will no longer have a market here, and it makes no sense to pay people who will no longer have business with you.
What pisses me off is that it is very clear Stars and Tilt, especially Tilt, have known this was coming for some time. Think about everything Tilt has done lately. Rush poker, Multi entry tournaments, Double gaurnteed week + FTOPS happening way more often. Not too mention a app for rush poker so you can play on your phone. Obviously one can say thats just good business, but its also the best way to get as much rake possible before the storm hits. Stars is no saint either, Changing VPP programs to make SNE way more appealing. I know more grinders that were attempting SNE this year than ever before, and it wasn't even close. Not too mention making more tournaments + upping GTDS. Of course this can also be just good business, but I am not buying into the coincidence, many credible people have said these two sites have been stashing money away for quite some time now in case something like this happened, they knew it was coming.
Most people don't understand how serious this is. People need to understand we will not be able to play poker for at least a year. These cases need to happen, regulation needs passed, and then how to regulate it, who gets the licenses, making the software for the sites, etc, needs to happen. We are looking at a best case scenario of early 2012, and as far as a worse case scenario goes, it could literally take 5+ years.
So yea, now what? I am a 24 year old unemployed bum. I don't know when my job will be back. Many people are saying to play on bodog, merge, and cake. My instincts tell me no, and that when USA is done with the big boys, the smaller sites are next on the list. These sites are just trying to make as much money as they can before they are shut out too. People already have cashout problems with those sites, shits just gunna get rockier and I wouldn't recommend anybody playing on those sites.
Continuing to play on stars or tilt is still possible, but every option to do so is 150% illegal. I know ways to do it, and there are quite a few ways to do it, but the risks that come with doing so are very high. Do i really want to risk jail time, embarrassing my family, etc, just so I can make money for a year or so?
Going back to school and getting a part time job isn't really a option for me, I don't want that lifestyle and know that lifestyle doesn't make you money.
So yeah, no fucking idea what I am going to do right now, I have a few options and worse comes to worse I will get a job, but hopefully it doesn't come to that. I have enough cash to give live grinding a shot I suppose, but I know how hard of a grind that can be. I should have everything figured out in about 2 weeks hopefully.
GL to you if your in the same boat as I am, it fucking sucks.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Lupe
So Lupe Fiasco's CD came out a week or so ago and ive been listening to it a lot lately. Overall the CD is very very good.
I am not happy with how many beat samples he had, and his hit single "The show goes on" has a hook that resembles Float on by Modest Mouse way too much. He wasn't original enough when it came to how the music sounded IMO, but having said that the CD is still very good, and every song has a powerful message and I respect Lupe and how he goes about making his music a ton. Its tough to get into mainstream nowadays as a rapper if your not rapping about weed money and woman, and its exciting to hear somebody like lupe that goes outside the box and has actual lyrics to the music.
If you haven't heard this song yet, your missing out.
I am not happy with how many beat samples he had, and his hit single "The show goes on" has a hook that resembles Float on by Modest Mouse way too much. He wasn't original enough when it came to how the music sounded IMO, but having said that the CD is still very good, and every song has a powerful message and I respect Lupe and how he goes about making his music a ton. Its tough to get into mainstream nowadays as a rapper if your not rapping about weed money and woman, and its exciting to hear somebody like lupe that goes outside the box and has actual lyrics to the music.
If you haven't heard this song yet, your missing out.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Money Money Money
I am mixed with emotions about how the past couple of months have been going for me. I feel my poker game is improving at a high speed, and I never felt better about how I am playing and approaching the game. Everything else, including results in poker, have been awful.
SNG wise im on a STD downswing, can't really complain as I have been there in SNGS a bunch. But god have MTTS been a disappointing. I feel I am playing at a very high level, just to get fucked late in MTTS. I am on my biggest downswing right now in MTTS, and combined with my SNG downswing im on over a 10k downswing which has never happened to me before. At the stakes I have been playing, it happens to everybody, so I won't really bitch about it, but poker really is very hard mentally and be extremely frustrating at times. I have 25k in cashes for my bap with 30k in buyins (roughly). I have some ok 1-3k ish scores while this BAP has ran, but I just haven't been able to get anything going consistently, or a huge score to put me up a decent ammt. It sucks but it is what is it.
My one roommate Adam moved out in mid Feb about a month ago, because our lease was ending at the end of Feb, and his dad is rich and bought him a house so he moved there. Dave and I chose to do the 2 month extension which puts us here till the end of April, to help give us more time to figure out what to do, and I personally am struggling to figure out what to do.
Dave is hands down one of my best friends, I love the kid to death, but he is impossible to live with. Hes cheap, he doesn't clean up after himself, and he can't be alone. I hate living with him, and he hates living with me. My schedule is weird, and he has alone issues so that sucks for him. With Adam, he was a neat freak. I would do my part, clean the two mutual rooms, do my dishes, clean my pots, and just let daves sit. Dave and Adam got into so many fights about it, because Adam couldn't stand dishes or pots in the sink and ended up cleaning up Daves stuff cause Dave literally just doesn't clean up after himself. Now here I am, stuck doing what Adam had to do and bitching about it. I wont even get into the cheap part because its redic at how much the kid mooches. We need a 3rd roommate, or living with him with just us 2 is not a option. Im pretty sure he feels the same way so it shouldn't be hard news to break or anything. Were great friends, nothing is going to change that, but we both know were not compatible to live together with just us 2. Clock is ticking though and I need to figure out where I am going to be living in a month and a half.
Moving on,
I just got back from a 1 week trip to Atlantic city. Atlantic city had the Harrahs WSOP circuit there that week, and I went out there with 3 buddys, 1 who plays poker semi prof, and the other 2 just went to have a good time. I don't want to drag this post on with the storys I have from AC, so ill keep it short.
Poker wise I got 13th in a borgata 120$ tourney for about 400$. The next Day I won a 120$ tourney at caesars for about 3,250. I played 2 circuit ring event 350$ buyins, another 120$ caesars, and I also played the main event for 1650. I only risked 700$ in the main cause I had pieces sold, So in tournaments I won about 2k. I also won about 1k in cash games which puts me up about 3k for the trip in poker. Due to degenning in blackjack and roulette, plus somewhat high expenses, I walked away from the trip up 100$.
I felt great with how I played live, made 2 deep runs, and played my first big live buyin, which i played amazing in. I built up a big stack quick and then lost a bunch of flips and 60/40s when blinds got a bit higher, people were making light light shoves on my aggressive image, and everytime I got it in it was a flip or I was a 60/40 favorite, I lost all 4 showdowns I was involved in. Nothing I could have done about it, I feel I played 1 hand bad that whole tournament, which was a pot i won with aces, and just overall loved the way I played my first big live tournament.
I want to practice live for the real show, which is Vegas, so me and a poker buddy of mine (bigbluffzinc) are going to go down to st louis april 1st - april 10th to play the WSOP circuit down there.
Shout outs to the people I met in AC, especially phillycoach, AJ, and Rooney. Nice meeting all you guys.
But on to the end of this long post, and the thread title says it all... MONEY MONEY MONEY.
I have to pay my taxes, move into a new place and probably upfronting 6 months of rent, staying in st louis for 10 days, and living in vegas for 5 weeks. Not too mention the bills I already have. Did I also mention this is all happening within the next 2-3 months?
Luckily I have a good ammt saved up, but this is really going to hurt me a lot. I never get more motivated in my life with poker then when I need money though, so I am planning on everything working itself out with a sick work ethic grinding bread and butter games.
I am grinding 16$ 18 mans right now for a prop bet that I can get 20% ROI over a 5k game sample before the end of April. Just a small friendly prop with a few closer poker buddys. I am getting some shit for it because A - they think its money down the drain and its not possible, and B, and more importanly, - they think its a waste of my time, and Im better off just grinding the 27-114's.
Maybe there right, maybe Im in over my head and think the 16's are way softer than they actually are. I dont know, time will tell to see how good of a idea this was, or if it was in fact, a complete waste of time.
I still plan on doing 100 or so MTTS a week too, so who knows what can happen there.
Its going to be all work for me, life and poker, from here till the end of April. The ST louis trip will be somewhat of a vacation I suppose, but I still plan on playing poker 12+ hours a day down there, whether its live or online, so I wouldn't really classify it as a full vacation.
But yeah, I am motivated, I am ready to grind, lets do this.
SNG wise im on a STD downswing, can't really complain as I have been there in SNGS a bunch. But god have MTTS been a disappointing. I feel I am playing at a very high level, just to get fucked late in MTTS. I am on my biggest downswing right now in MTTS, and combined with my SNG downswing im on over a 10k downswing which has never happened to me before. At the stakes I have been playing, it happens to everybody, so I won't really bitch about it, but poker really is very hard mentally and be extremely frustrating at times. I have 25k in cashes for my bap with 30k in buyins (roughly). I have some ok 1-3k ish scores while this BAP has ran, but I just haven't been able to get anything going consistently, or a huge score to put me up a decent ammt. It sucks but it is what is it.
My one roommate Adam moved out in mid Feb about a month ago, because our lease was ending at the end of Feb, and his dad is rich and bought him a house so he moved there. Dave and I chose to do the 2 month extension which puts us here till the end of April, to help give us more time to figure out what to do, and I personally am struggling to figure out what to do.
Dave is hands down one of my best friends, I love the kid to death, but he is impossible to live with. Hes cheap, he doesn't clean up after himself, and he can't be alone. I hate living with him, and he hates living with me. My schedule is weird, and he has alone issues so that sucks for him. With Adam, he was a neat freak. I would do my part, clean the two mutual rooms, do my dishes, clean my pots, and just let daves sit. Dave and Adam got into so many fights about it, because Adam couldn't stand dishes or pots in the sink and ended up cleaning up Daves stuff cause Dave literally just doesn't clean up after himself. Now here I am, stuck doing what Adam had to do and bitching about it. I wont even get into the cheap part because its redic at how much the kid mooches. We need a 3rd roommate, or living with him with just us 2 is not a option. Im pretty sure he feels the same way so it shouldn't be hard news to break or anything. Were great friends, nothing is going to change that, but we both know were not compatible to live together with just us 2. Clock is ticking though and I need to figure out where I am going to be living in a month and a half.
Moving on,
I just got back from a 1 week trip to Atlantic city. Atlantic city had the Harrahs WSOP circuit there that week, and I went out there with 3 buddys, 1 who plays poker semi prof, and the other 2 just went to have a good time. I don't want to drag this post on with the storys I have from AC, so ill keep it short.
Poker wise I got 13th in a borgata 120$ tourney for about 400$. The next Day I won a 120$ tourney at caesars for about 3,250. I played 2 circuit ring event 350$ buyins, another 120$ caesars, and I also played the main event for 1650. I only risked 700$ in the main cause I had pieces sold, So in tournaments I won about 2k. I also won about 1k in cash games which puts me up about 3k for the trip in poker. Due to degenning in blackjack and roulette, plus somewhat high expenses, I walked away from the trip up 100$.
I felt great with how I played live, made 2 deep runs, and played my first big live buyin, which i played amazing in. I built up a big stack quick and then lost a bunch of flips and 60/40s when blinds got a bit higher, people were making light light shoves on my aggressive image, and everytime I got it in it was a flip or I was a 60/40 favorite, I lost all 4 showdowns I was involved in. Nothing I could have done about it, I feel I played 1 hand bad that whole tournament, which was a pot i won with aces, and just overall loved the way I played my first big live tournament.
I want to practice live for the real show, which is Vegas, so me and a poker buddy of mine (bigbluffzinc) are going to go down to st louis april 1st - april 10th to play the WSOP circuit down there.
Shout outs to the people I met in AC, especially phillycoach, AJ, and Rooney. Nice meeting all you guys.
But on to the end of this long post, and the thread title says it all... MONEY MONEY MONEY.
I have to pay my taxes, move into a new place and probably upfronting 6 months of rent, staying in st louis for 10 days, and living in vegas for 5 weeks. Not too mention the bills I already have. Did I also mention this is all happening within the next 2-3 months?
Luckily I have a good ammt saved up, but this is really going to hurt me a lot. I never get more motivated in my life with poker then when I need money though, so I am planning on everything working itself out with a sick work ethic grinding bread and butter games.
I am grinding 16$ 18 mans right now for a prop bet that I can get 20% ROI over a 5k game sample before the end of April. Just a small friendly prop with a few closer poker buddys. I am getting some shit for it because A - they think its money down the drain and its not possible, and B, and more importanly, - they think its a waste of my time, and Im better off just grinding the 27-114's.
Maybe there right, maybe Im in over my head and think the 16's are way softer than they actually are. I dont know, time will tell to see how good of a idea this was, or if it was in fact, a complete waste of time.
I still plan on doing 100 or so MTTS a week too, so who knows what can happen there.
Its going to be all work for me, life and poker, from here till the end of April. The ST louis trip will be somewhat of a vacation I suppose, but I still plan on playing poker 12+ hours a day down there, whether its live or online, so I wouldn't really classify it as a full vacation.
But yeah, I am motivated, I am ready to grind, lets do this.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Weeeeeeeeee
Since my last update, aside from the Winter Classic, it has been all poker for me basically.
First off, the Winter Classic was amazing, yea the pens got owned, but it was easily in the top 3 of the best sports experiences of my life. My camera broke during the game because i dropped it, so no pictures sadly. I still have the memory card so the pictures aren't lost, but for the time being I can not upload them. I have some really good ones too.
I am up roughly 3k in SNGS for the year so far. I have had a awful start to the games which are involved in my prop bet (16-35$ 4-6 tables, 16-35$ 2-3 tables), but have managed to kill the 60-114$ 18 mans, as well as 9 man non turbos and turbos. I have lost money in just about every other type of SNG though.
I managed to bink a 3k score for a 3rd place finish in the 27.50 30k GTD a few days ago for my first real MTT session in a looooooong time, which was nice. Then last night I plugged in my 2nd MTT session for the year, and I ended up making the FT in the 109$ Turbo, and the 215$ 2x chance turbo. I managed to win a little over 10k in the 215$ turbo for 2nd place, and got 6th for 2.7k in the 109$ turbo. I also finished 12th in the 5.50$ rubix, and 17th in the 33$ 18k. I played insanely well, but with 4 deep runs, one being a 5 digit score, obviously I ran pretty decent.
Heres a screenshot of the two FTS
But yea, I am starting off the year pretty well, as i expected to do so. I also have earned 20k VPPS and am on a nice pace to start the year. I may go for SNE if I am able to keep somewhat of a pace for it and get some cash game coaching to help with the VPPS. I banned myself from cash for the time being.
Thats it for now, I must get back on the grind :)
Thanks for reading,
Nick
First off, the Winter Classic was amazing, yea the pens got owned, but it was easily in the top 3 of the best sports experiences of my life. My camera broke during the game because i dropped it, so no pictures sadly. I still have the memory card so the pictures aren't lost, but for the time being I can not upload them. I have some really good ones too.
I am up roughly 3k in SNGS for the year so far. I have had a awful start to the games which are involved in my prop bet (16-35$ 4-6 tables, 16-35$ 2-3 tables), but have managed to kill the 60-114$ 18 mans, as well as 9 man non turbos and turbos. I have lost money in just about every other type of SNG though.
I managed to bink a 3k score for a 3rd place finish in the 27.50 30k GTD a few days ago for my first real MTT session in a looooooong time, which was nice. Then last night I plugged in my 2nd MTT session for the year, and I ended up making the FT in the 109$ Turbo, and the 215$ 2x chance turbo. I managed to win a little over 10k in the 215$ turbo for 2nd place, and got 6th for 2.7k in the 109$ turbo. I also finished 12th in the 5.50$ rubix, and 17th in the 33$ 18k. I played insanely well, but with 4 deep runs, one being a 5 digit score, obviously I ran pretty decent.
Heres a screenshot of the two FTS
But yea, I am starting off the year pretty well, as i expected to do so. I also have earned 20k VPPS and am on a nice pace to start the year. I may go for SNE if I am able to keep somewhat of a pace for it and get some cash game coaching to help with the VPPS. I banned myself from cash for the time being.
Thats it for now, I must get back on the grind :)
Thanks for reading,
Nick
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Ending the year on a high note.
Wow, what a way to end the year. 2010 was filled was a lot of ups and downs, overall I am pretty let down in the year as a whole, especially poker wise, but it was a very very needed learning experience to help me be more successful going forward.
And just a FYI, This is a pretty long read!
First I will talk about MTTS. For the past couple of months I have been mixing in MTTS very rarely and not really dedicating much time to them. I have been playing 1-2 high buyin / high risk MTTS along my sessions and it has caused me to rack in a bunch of makeup. Just like most days, I ended up mixing in a 109$ turbo MTT into my SNG session. During the dead hours there a few really nice turbo MTTS and it allows you to keep your tables up when game filling is slow. Well I ended up winning it for 5,002. I still have roughly 2.5k of makeup to work off, but it feels great to get the majority of that out of the way. Going into 2011 I plan on playing mtts a lot more regularly, but I will get into that later at the end of this post with my 2011 goals.
Heres a picture of the win.
Now onto SNGS.
December was by far my best month in SNGS. I ended up winning 14,300$ in sngs, on only 1,166 games for December.
Heres the stats copy and pasted off sharkscope.
Frenzuh Click for details 1,166 $12.26 $35 55% $14,300 - N/A PokerStars 12/1/2010 12/31/2010 SNG Only
Obviously winning 12.26$ a game is quite unrealistic, but it gives me great confidence going forward.
With how well I did in December, I was able to win both of my SNG profit prop bets. I had a 1k bet with thrash370 for most profit in December, which i won by about 6k (he was up 8k or so), and I also won 4k off msusyr24 for the 2010 prop bet we made prior to 2010 starting. I ended up losing 2k to msusyr24 for the first half of the year bet, and i lost 500$ to thrash370 for a november bet we made, so Im only up 2,500$ for the bets total, but that money I lost earlier is gone so to me it feels like I won 5000 instead of 2500. It really sucks for both because I dont think I deserved to win either bet, especially the one with msusyr24. Ill be the first person to say he should have won the bet. Its unfortunate with how busy his life became for things he couldn't really control. Was a fun prop bet and it got pretty exciting towards the end and msusyr24 is as stand up of a guy when it comes to this shit as possible, would def do business / other props in the future with him in the future for how he handled everything.
But yea, December was great, heres how I ended up doing for the whole year.
The top 1 is overall, 2nd is sngs, and 3rd is MTTS.
Like I said earlier, I was let down with the year as a whole. Coming into 2010 I was expecting to make so much more money. I realized halfway through the year the shit I was doing wasn't working (which is where my downswing happened in SNGS) and that changes needed to happen. I am so happy that I did not get stubborn about shit like most of the regs (especially SNG regs) do. I changed my game completely. I stopped playing 30-40 tables and now i play 8-15. I got MTT coaching instead of thinking I knew what I was doing. I stopped playing cash games (for the most part) because I can just admit to myself that I am not a winning player in them. And I will continue to not try and grind cash until i receive coaching. I stopped a lot of my bad habits, and replaced them with good habits, which is why I think my 2011 will be way better then 2010 went. And I think how my December month went, is not only a sign of things to come, but also a example of what hard work and dedication can do for you. I dont feel I ran good for the month I had like some people are telling me, I feel I EARNED it.
Anyways, I am going to reflect on my 2010 goals that I had. This should be fun as I haven't looked at them since I made them and im sure i prob failed on just about every single one. Ill copy and paste the goal list... lets do this lol.
SNGS
- At least 3-4 leaderboards on sharkscope - Right now I am on 4 leaderboards, but 3 are average profit leaderboards lol. I made 1, which is 17th in 16-35$ stakes 4-6 tables.
- At least 75k profit (including rakeback)- Up about 60k with rakeback, another fail.
- Play on own dime By July - This did not happen, but with the December that I had I will be starting to own dime in 2011 for SNGS (which I could have done earlier, but I was only giving up about 15% of my SNG profit for a while so wasn't a huge deal) and MTTS too once I get out of makeup.
- Win the prop bet vs Alex (msusyr24) - First goal I succeeded in :)
- Find a coaching website, whether it starting my own, or joining somebody elses, and make some extra $$ by coaching and making videos. - I am happy to say that this is also accomplished. SNGReasons is doing awesome, and is by far the best business decision I have made with poker ever.
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) - Yea i failed here
MTTS
- Hit at least 1 score over 10k - 14k in the 55$ cubed in June, boom
- Hit 10 scores over 1k - I hit a few, not sure if its 10, but its close.
- Play on weekends only (except turbo mtts) - Mostly
- Keep my volume in MTTS small, and focus on SNGS mostly. - yes
- Play in at least 5 events for wsop 2010 - Did not do.
Overall in MTTS my goals were small, and I am very happy with how much better my MTT game got and if theres 1 thing I can say good about my 2010 poker, it would be my MTT game.
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 - I ended up getting down to about 190 pounds like right before I moved to southside in March with my 2 buddys, but I have done nothing but gain since then. I am up to almost 220 pounds right now, and this is by far the biggest I have ever been. This will probably be my main life goal for 2011.
- Pay off my car (about 8k left on the car loan) - Nope
- 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. - Did not do this either.
- Work on my relationship with my family - Yes... It still needs a lot of work, but It has improved so so so much and I am looking forward for it to keep getting better as family is by far one of the most important things in ones life, and should never be taking for granted.
Now I am going to put up 2011 goals, and see If ill be able to do these. My goals for 2011 are way higher as far as self expectation goes then 2010, but I am feeling motivated as hell right now and don't plan on that stopping for a while.
Poker goals
Win my prop bet (will explain at the end of the post)
Cash - play 0, I am going to email stars today and tell them to ban me from cash.
MTTS - 50k + profit, play in the WSOP, and have at least 2 scores of 10k+
SNGS - 75k+ profit, be considered one of, if not the best reg in my games.
VPPS - 400-500k minimum
Sngreasons - Keep doing what weve been doing, Its been going great and I expect that to continue. I would like to get a better website for it, but overall its been a very fun experience.
I really want/expect myself to make a name for myself in poker in 2011. Setting high goals for myself will help me stay motivated hopefully.
Life Goals
- Weight... I am aiming to reach 185-190 by june (30-35 pounds) and then losing another 15 pounds in the last half of the year. I want to be down to 170-175 by the end of this year (about a 50 pound drop in 1 year, which isn't the healthiest thing to do, but I dont care) I may prop bet this in the near future as well.
- QUIT FUCKING SMOKING
- Pay off my debts
Other than those things, I am pretty happy with everything else in my life. So another goal would just to keep on keepin on for the rest of the stuff.
As for my 2011 prop bet, i have about half of it sold and I am taking bets up until the end of tomorrow (Jan 2nd). I will run it regardless of how much sells, I am not motivated over the prop bet, I am motivated for diff reasons, so how much sells is not a issue. Heres the thread link for it
http://forum.parttimepoker.com/shooting-off-sponsored-truly-free-poker-training/794358-frenzuh-2011-prop-bet-interest.html
Or if your lazy, heres the standard outline for the rules of the prop bet.
What I need to do to win this bet:
- Top 5 on sharkscope for 4-6 tables 16-35 stakes for the year 2011
- Top 5 on sharkscope for 2-3 tables 16-35 stakes for the year 2011
- Top 3 on sharkscope for any game 16-35 stakes for the year 2011
- Must also be in the top 20 for 2 other categories... It doesn't matter what leaderboards, they just have to be for the year 2011, and must be in a NL holdem game of at least 5-15$ stakes. (avg profit leaderboards do NOT count)
- Sharkscope leaderboards include tilt players obviously, this is not rankings for pokerstars only. (I will be doing all of my playing for this bet on Pokerstars, if I am to make a leaderboard on tilt, which is extremely unlikely to begin with, It will not count)
All leaderboards are for the whole year, not if i get to em at some point in the year. At the end of 2011, If I am on all of the required leaderboards, I win, If I am not on all the required leaderboards, I lose.
As of now, I am ranked 17th in 4-6 tables 16-35$ stakes for 2010, I am currently not on a single other leaderboard (except a couple of average profit leaderboards for 180's). I was also ranked 6th in 2009 for 4-6 tables 5-15$ stakes.
This is something I have never even come close to doing, and making all of those leaderboards in different types of games / etc is pretty unrealistic.
5 to 1 odds, I am willing to put up my 5k to betters 25k.
Its a insanely hard bet, a lot of people think I am crazy, time will obviously tell.
Thats it for now, I need to get ready for the Winter Classic!
The game got moved back to 8 pm, which is actually awesome that way nobody is hungover at 8 AM on new years day to tailgate. We are starting to tailgate when the lots open up at 2:30 PM, and I got a bunch of stuff I need to do up to that point, so i need to get moving.
Will def take lots of pictures and upload them tommorow.
Hope everybody had a good New year and GL to the grinders in 2011!
Take care,
Nick
And just a FYI, This is a pretty long read!
First I will talk about MTTS. For the past couple of months I have been mixing in MTTS very rarely and not really dedicating much time to them. I have been playing 1-2 high buyin / high risk MTTS along my sessions and it has caused me to rack in a bunch of makeup. Just like most days, I ended up mixing in a 109$ turbo MTT into my SNG session. During the dead hours there a few really nice turbo MTTS and it allows you to keep your tables up when game filling is slow. Well I ended up winning it for 5,002. I still have roughly 2.5k of makeup to work off, but it feels great to get the majority of that out of the way. Going into 2011 I plan on playing mtts a lot more regularly, but I will get into that later at the end of this post with my 2011 goals.
Heres a picture of the win.
Now onto SNGS.
December was by far my best month in SNGS. I ended up winning 14,300$ in sngs, on only 1,166 games for December.
Heres the stats copy and pasted off sharkscope.
Frenzuh Click for details 1,166 $12.26 $35 55% $14,300 - N/A PokerStars 12/1/2010 12/31/2010 SNG Only
Obviously winning 12.26$ a game is quite unrealistic, but it gives me great confidence going forward.
With how well I did in December, I was able to win both of my SNG profit prop bets. I had a 1k bet with thrash370 for most profit in December, which i won by about 6k (he was up 8k or so), and I also won 4k off msusyr24 for the 2010 prop bet we made prior to 2010 starting. I ended up losing 2k to msusyr24 for the first half of the year bet, and i lost 500$ to thrash370 for a november bet we made, so Im only up 2,500$ for the bets total, but that money I lost earlier is gone so to me it feels like I won 5000 instead of 2500. It really sucks for both because I dont think I deserved to win either bet, especially the one with msusyr24. Ill be the first person to say he should have won the bet. Its unfortunate with how busy his life became for things he couldn't really control. Was a fun prop bet and it got pretty exciting towards the end and msusyr24 is as stand up of a guy when it comes to this shit as possible, would def do business / other props in the future with him in the future for how he handled everything.
But yea, December was great, heres how I ended up doing for the whole year.
The top 1 is overall, 2nd is sngs, and 3rd is MTTS.
Like I said earlier, I was let down with the year as a whole. Coming into 2010 I was expecting to make so much more money. I realized halfway through the year the shit I was doing wasn't working (which is where my downswing happened in SNGS) and that changes needed to happen. I am so happy that I did not get stubborn about shit like most of the regs (especially SNG regs) do. I changed my game completely. I stopped playing 30-40 tables and now i play 8-15. I got MTT coaching instead of thinking I knew what I was doing. I stopped playing cash games (for the most part) because I can just admit to myself that I am not a winning player in them. And I will continue to not try and grind cash until i receive coaching. I stopped a lot of my bad habits, and replaced them with good habits, which is why I think my 2011 will be way better then 2010 went. And I think how my December month went, is not only a sign of things to come, but also a example of what hard work and dedication can do for you. I dont feel I ran good for the month I had like some people are telling me, I feel I EARNED it.
Anyways, I am going to reflect on my 2010 goals that I had. This should be fun as I haven't looked at them since I made them and im sure i prob failed on just about every single one. Ill copy and paste the goal list... lets do this lol.
SNGS
- At least 3-4 leaderboards on sharkscope - Right now I am on 4 leaderboards, but 3 are average profit leaderboards lol. I made 1, which is 17th in 16-35$ stakes 4-6 tables.
- At least 75k profit (including rakeback)- Up about 60k with rakeback, another fail.
- Play on own dime By July - This did not happen, but with the December that I had I will be starting to own dime in 2011 for SNGS (which I could have done earlier, but I was only giving up about 15% of my SNG profit for a while so wasn't a huge deal) and MTTS too once I get out of makeup.
- Win the prop bet vs Alex (msusyr24) - First goal I succeeded in :)
- Find a coaching website, whether it starting my own, or joining somebody elses, and make some extra $$ by coaching and making videos. - I am happy to say that this is also accomplished. SNGReasons is doing awesome, and is by far the best business decision I have made with poker ever.
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) - Yea i failed here
MTTS
- Hit at least 1 score over 10k - 14k in the 55$ cubed in June, boom
- Hit 10 scores over 1k - I hit a few, not sure if its 10, but its close.
- Play on weekends only (except turbo mtts) - Mostly
- Keep my volume in MTTS small, and focus on SNGS mostly. - yes
- Play in at least 5 events for wsop 2010 - Did not do.
Overall in MTTS my goals were small, and I am very happy with how much better my MTT game got and if theres 1 thing I can say good about my 2010 poker, it would be my MTT game.
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 - I ended up getting down to about 190 pounds like right before I moved to southside in March with my 2 buddys, but I have done nothing but gain since then. I am up to almost 220 pounds right now, and this is by far the biggest I have ever been. This will probably be my main life goal for 2011.
- Pay off my car (about 8k left on the car loan) - Nope
- 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. - Did not do this either.
- Work on my relationship with my family - Yes... It still needs a lot of work, but It has improved so so so much and I am looking forward for it to keep getting better as family is by far one of the most important things in ones life, and should never be taking for granted.
Now I am going to put up 2011 goals, and see If ill be able to do these. My goals for 2011 are way higher as far as self expectation goes then 2010, but I am feeling motivated as hell right now and don't plan on that stopping for a while.
Poker goals
Win my prop bet (will explain at the end of the post)
Cash - play 0, I am going to email stars today and tell them to ban me from cash.
MTTS - 50k + profit, play in the WSOP, and have at least 2 scores of 10k+
SNGS - 75k+ profit, be considered one of, if not the best reg in my games.
VPPS - 400-500k minimum
Sngreasons - Keep doing what weve been doing, Its been going great and I expect that to continue. I would like to get a better website for it, but overall its been a very fun experience.
I really want/expect myself to make a name for myself in poker in 2011. Setting high goals for myself will help me stay motivated hopefully.
Life Goals
- Weight... I am aiming to reach 185-190 by june (30-35 pounds) and then losing another 15 pounds in the last half of the year. I want to be down to 170-175 by the end of this year (about a 50 pound drop in 1 year, which isn't the healthiest thing to do, but I dont care) I may prop bet this in the near future as well.
- QUIT FUCKING SMOKING
- Pay off my debts
Other than those things, I am pretty happy with everything else in my life. So another goal would just to keep on keepin on for the rest of the stuff.
As for my 2011 prop bet, i have about half of it sold and I am taking bets up until the end of tomorrow (Jan 2nd). I will run it regardless of how much sells, I am not motivated over the prop bet, I am motivated for diff reasons, so how much sells is not a issue. Heres the thread link for it
http://forum.parttimepoker.com/shooting-off-sponsored-truly-free-poker-training/794358-frenzuh-2011-prop-bet-interest.html
Or if your lazy, heres the standard outline for the rules of the prop bet.
What I need to do to win this bet:
- Top 5 on sharkscope for 4-6 tables 16-35 stakes for the year 2011
- Top 5 on sharkscope for 2-3 tables 16-35 stakes for the year 2011
- Top 3 on sharkscope for any game 16-35 stakes for the year 2011
- Must also be in the top 20 for 2 other categories... It doesn't matter what leaderboards, they just have to be for the year 2011, and must be in a NL holdem game of at least 5-15$ stakes. (avg profit leaderboards do NOT count)
- Sharkscope leaderboards include tilt players obviously, this is not rankings for pokerstars only. (I will be doing all of my playing for this bet on Pokerstars, if I am to make a leaderboard on tilt, which is extremely unlikely to begin with, It will not count)
All leaderboards are for the whole year, not if i get to em at some point in the year. At the end of 2011, If I am on all of the required leaderboards, I win, If I am not on all the required leaderboards, I lose.
As of now, I am ranked 17th in 4-6 tables 16-35$ stakes for 2010, I am currently not on a single other leaderboard (except a couple of average profit leaderboards for 180's). I was also ranked 6th in 2009 for 4-6 tables 5-15$ stakes.
This is something I have never even come close to doing, and making all of those leaderboards in different types of games / etc is pretty unrealistic.
5 to 1 odds, I am willing to put up my 5k to betters 25k.
Its a insanely hard bet, a lot of people think I am crazy, time will obviously tell.
Thats it for now, I need to get ready for the Winter Classic!
The game got moved back to 8 pm, which is actually awesome that way nobody is hungover at 8 AM on new years day to tailgate. We are starting to tailgate when the lots open up at 2:30 PM, and I got a bunch of stuff I need to do up to that point, so i need to get moving.
Will def take lots of pictures and upload them tommorow.
Hope everybody had a good New year and GL to the grinders in 2011!
Take care,
Nick
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