dtools22

Relationships and Poker

dtools22 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:15:00 GMT

Well, this past week was probably one of the worst for me in a few years. Poker wise just hit some rough spots. I managed to have a few really crappy cash game sessions, dragging myself down around $460. The tournament this weekend didn't go as I was hoping. I made a mistake that cost me about 1/3 of my stack then got it in the next hand JJ v AA and went from an above average stack to out the door. These things happen though and part of playing this game is learning how and when to roll with the punches, but I was smashed in the face by something I just never saw coming. My girlfriend of 5 years, someone who I was openly talking about marrying in the next year or so, called me over the phone and told me she did not want to live with a poker player and ended our relationship.

Before you read any further I will warn you, this is going to be a sob story blog and I'm really depressed so levity should not be expected. This has been a conflict for a few years now. I've been trying to become a professional poker player since I was 16 years old. Even further back than that I was playing cards on the kitchen table with my mother just passing time as she did with her sisters when she was growing up. I met my now ex-girlfriend in highschool. We were in a ton of the same classes together and eventually started going out during Junior year. In a somewhat embarassing admission, she is as of this blog post the only woman I've ever slept with (had to throw you guys at least one bone here). We had been going out pretty steadily since then, with some troubles freshman year of college but we ended up back together sortly there after. She has been around to see my struggles playing cards, to see me grinding $2.25 SNGs and flipping out over bad beats. I've grown up a lot since then but my poker ambitions have only grown since our relationship began. I've been studying the game, logging the hours, asking for poker books for Christmas, everything you could imagine.

She has been around for all of that, but only until recently there was no serious consideration to turning pro. I was not able to even pay rent on a regular basis during this time period so earning a living was simply not possible. Then came the big score, chooping the $400NLHE HU for $50,272. She was stunned and thrilled to hear the news. I drove back to Boston to see her and we went out with some friends to celebrate. I was on cloud nine, it was everything I wanted. I could now graduate, live with my girlfriend, play poker both online and live, and "live happily ever after." Ok so I may be going a little overboard but I felt absolutely invincible. A week later she brought up the question about job searching and I said I had no intention to. We started to fight on and off about this over the next few weeks culminating when we were out to dinner.

I brought up the idea of wanting to buy a condo rather than rent an apartment to my ex before and her sentiment was, "I'm not buying property with you unless we get married." That wasn't a deal breaker for me. I know I'm only 22 but I'm very confident in what I want, and I knew I wanted to be with her. To me the condo was only an investment to be made, not a lock down future home. I just wanted to buy a place so that when I'm done making payments I own the property, investing rather than renting was how I looked at it. Flash forward to that night at dinner I brought up the idea of my buying the place and having roommates, looking back wasn't that well thought out but I didn't mean anything by this. She said, "You'd rather get roommates than just man up." I understand her point but again it's not what I meant. My responce was, "I have no problem manning up, but you have to understand that I'm a poker player and that 5 years down the line there can't be an ultimatum where you tell me I need to stop playing poker or you'll leave me."

I made that statement with a very specific scenario in mind. I was thinking that if I am successful and I win several hundreds of thousands I don't want to be put into a shitty spot where my now wife says I have to quit or we would get a divorce and suddenly 1/2 of my winnings are gone along with my house and custody of any children at that point. Apparently that statement stuck with her and on Friday this past week I got a phone call saying she couldn't be with a poker player and that it was over. After 5 years of being with this woman, all the effort and sacrafice, I was dumped over the phone because I won $50K.

I've spent the past couple of nights drinking and buying random people drinks at bars. This is a new low point for me personally since my grandparents passed away in 2007. I know a lot of you are thinking something along the lines of, "She's not worth it man, she doesn't accept who you are and that's not going to change. Better it happens now than later." While sound logic, that doesn't offer much consolation. I always thought that once I proved her wrong, everything else would just fall back into place but sadly it just doesn't work like that. I was hit completely by surprise here and it hurts, badly. That being said there's nothing left to do accept keep moving forward and working on my new list of poker goals. I can't change her mind, but I can certainly prove to her and everyone else that doesn't believe in me that I can and will do this. When I'm on ESPN, Leno, Letterman, hell even Larry King Live (I know I'm reaching here) they'll all know how big a mistake they made to doubt me. They should have stuck by me and given me the chance. Nothing left to do now but put my head down and move on. This will get worse before it gets better, but I'll do what I have to to move on.

Finding Motivation

dtools22 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:40:00 GMT

Poker can be a brutal game sometimes. Variance is not our friend, just a mistress that rips our hearts out with a two outer on the river deep in one of your nightlies. Weeks and weeks of work can produce little more than a few hours pay at the local McDonald's and leave you questioning why exactly it is you enjoy this stupid fucking game. Then when you finally break the streak, the stars align, the doom switch is turned off, you have no idea what to do with yourself. When that score is a massive increase in your BR, it's very easy to get lazy and just not play cards at all. Well, it happened to me, and to break out of my funk I found myself in the audience of the WPT $10K TV FT at Foxwoods.

Yes for those of you that forgot during the WSOP ME, there was poker being played on this coast as well. I drove down to Mohegan on Tuesday afternoon to sign myself up for the $400NLHE event this weekend. It was my first time there since about 5 weeks after the room was reopened. I figured to get my feel for playing a new environment I would play some 1/2NL for a few hours. I left at around 9:30PM stuck $255 after taking some shots to the balls at the table (JJ<66, AA<Q9, the usual suspects). I decided I wanted to head over to Foxwoods to see if the WPT FT was still playing. By the time I arrived it was already down to HU play and the cash was already on the table. It was the first time I had seen that kind of money in person (yeah I've heard some are ones but don't ruin it for me). It was certainly a turning point.

The was an older woman their who seemed to be related to one of the players at the table. Since I wanted to get myself shamelessly on TV I started a conversation with her, sadly finding out that she was just someone who enjoyed cards and was watching the FT play out. She was a very interesting person to talk to and during play she just kept saying the same thing, "Boy is that a sweet moment." I have no idea who this woman is but she really put it in perspective for me. Playing poker is quite possibly the coolest profession out there. You have guys like Ivey and Negreanu that are celebs to the biggest Hollywood stars, poker players in general being not too far removed from professional athletes in terms of a level of fame and TV time. Watching that TV FT, seeing the set, the cameras, the cash in play, the people in the stands, it all just made me want to really push myself to get to that point.

For anyone who has serious poker aspirations, I highly recommendgoing and watching a televised event live. I know on some level it is a little lame to be the fan boy, but it's so humbling to see the stage set for the first time. Reading about it on the web, seeing it on TV, hell even playing in a prelim and making a deep run, nothing compares to seeing $910K on the table and realize what's at stake. I can truly say it helped me get myself focused up. Any gloating from winning my $50K is long past me at this point. Time to push the BR a bit and push the limits of my comfort zone. Maybe next time I won't need a seat in the stands.

Taking Some Shots

dtools22 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:28:00 GMT

After planning out my new schedule I realized that I've been very nitty with my BR to date. This is at least partly because I haven't really been paying attention. I've just played MTTs and cash games based on how a I feel and where I think my edge lies. I have no problem taking a few bigger shots now and then, so long as it was in something I felt I had an edge in. The other part has just been sheer laziness. I've been so comfortable with the stakes I've been playing in for so long that I never saw the need to change things up. All that is going to change a little over the next few weeks.

This has all been spurred on in the last couple of days. I found myself at Barnes and Noble browsing around and killing some time before my table was ready at the Chili's next door. I went to my usual stomping grounds, the Poker section, to see is anything good was on the shelves. I saw Deal Me In, the new book from Phil's House Publishing detailing how 20 pro poker players got their start. I immediately picked up the book, as it was something I wanted to read anyway, and skipped right to the chapter about Phil Ivey. The E:60 report still fresh in my mind, I finished the chapter in about 20 mins (not long and not tough reading) and the gravity of what he was saying hit me.

Phil talked about being a kid growing up and wanting to play poker from a very young age. He recalled the days just after high school when he would take the 2 hour bus ride to Atlantic City, blow his paycheck in a weekend, then go back to his telemarketing job back home. Phil mentions how he was never too proud to simply move back down and grind his way back up if he needed to. In the early days he would just go back to his telemarketing job and bring the paycheck back with him to AC. That confidence and discipline to take the shots, and if they miss just work your way back, never really hit me until I read that section and read Ivey talking about it.

I've been very focused on planning out schedules, finding the hours to put into the game, keeping my risks low so I could continue to grow in this industry. Yet every story I have heard from a poker pro starts with them going broke, working, going broke again, working more, and repeating this cycle for years until they got it right. Now in today's world there is the distinct advantage of online poker. I don't need to take a 2 hour bus ride to go play cards for 15 hours a day and that is a huge edge for my own development. Long story short, I plan on putting a little bit more of my BR on the line and trustung in my abilities to win in the long run. Much like all the others that did this before me, I have the confidence that I can put things together and get this done. Now all I need to do is figure out what shots I feel like taking.

Closing Out 2009

dtools22 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:06:00 GMT

It's a bit strange to think that at the beginning of this year I had a BR of only $65 bucks. Grinding out $2.25 9 man turbo and 180 man SNGs on FTP to build myself up while using up my FPPs on Stars to win enough $T to take a few shots in some $4.40s. To go from that to finally breaking through and getting my first $1K+ score, then doing it two more times in a 6 week period, coupled with my first ever live FT and first major cash for $50K at Foxwoods, let's just say it's been a pretty good year. That being said we're now into November and 2009 has nearly come to a close. In the next 8 weeks I will have 3 full weeks off from school as well so I plan on going out strong in 2009.

Cash game grinding I'm trying to get in 10+ hours a week. Win, lose, or draw I think it's important to log in the hours and improve. I do need to get used to playing 25+ hours a week at some point, that way I can grind out the cash games and rely more heavily on them for income. If I can get 10+/week right now, I can maybe bump that up to 15+/week by the year's end and maybe get myself into the $100NL level. Ideally that would be the result, to move up to playing for some decent money by year's end. The process of moving up isn't a quick one for me though. Usually what ends up happening is I'll make the jump, take an initial hit, move back down, grind up again, and try another jump to the next level. It takes a few weeks normally but I find that it is certainly doable and the transition usually takes about 2 weeks. That would give me about enough time to make the jump to $100NL by Christmas this year, which would be a great way to start off 2010.

As far as MTTs are concerned I'm still tinkering with my schedule right now. Right now I'm looking at a nightly rotation of:

$26 $35K Guaranteed @ 20:00

$3.30 $10.5K Guaranteed Rebuy @ 20:35

$12 Daily Double A @ 21:00

$12 Daily Double B @ 21:02

$26 $5K Guaranteed PLO @ 21:15

$26 $28K Guaranteed @ 22:00

$26 $4K Guaranteed HORSE @ 22:15

There are a few holes in the schdule right now. First off I need to add in at least one more MTT in the schedule. I try to play 8-10MTTs/night when I do play so I'd like to find at least one more MTT to get myself into. Preferably one that starts before 22:30 server time. I thought about the $55 Fifty Fifty @ 21:30 but I don't think mixing that in and bringing my average buy in up that much is a good idea just yet. I maye end up still adding it in anyway, but for now I'd like to keep the buy in's more around $26 than $55. I have been playing in the $26 $2K Guaranteed Razz @ 20:15 but I don't think that is an MTT with a whole lot of value to it. I could be VERY wrong but regardless my Razz game is a little rusty anyway ATM so I'd like to mix in something else. I thought about maybe just putting some satties back into the mix and trying to win my way into some $55 and $109 buy ins, still on the fence about that. For right now my MTT schedule stands at 7/night, but I'll be playing more cash games in the next week so I'll have some time to think of what I'd like to do.

The year 2009 will be my last full year as a student and 2010 will be my first as a poker pro. I've had a great year so far and moving forward I can make more trips to Foxwoods and Mohegan for live cash and some more $400 buy in events that they will be running. For arguably the first time in my young poker career, I have plenty of options moving forward. Right now I just have to plan out my next few moves and really get after it. Would be nice to hit another $50K sooner rather than later.

The New Grind Begins

dtools22 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:22:00 GMT

As cool as it was to win the $50K at the World Poker Finals, in the grand scheme of the poker world I have achieved very little. I have only play 3 live MTTs lifetime, I have one WPT prelim FT, and my biggest online score is $1500. What the $50K really does is allow me to play in some bigger stakes games. I now have a proper BR to handle the swings of everyday life as a small stakes poker pro. Now with this start up money the question becomes, how do I put it to use?

I just spoke with a good friend of mine who just so happens to be a CPA. She walked me through my tax situation and showed me that I owe a grand total of about $12K in taxes by year's end. That is assuming my gross earnings on the year hit $60K (currently at about $55K). So I'm going to have about $44-48K left over to play with and plan out my next few moves. Right away my instinct is to squirrel away as much of this cash as possible, saving the 6+ months of living expenses as well as starting up some savings and investments for later on in life (in case for whatever reason I decide I'd rather not play poker for the rest of my life). This is still far more money than I have ever had so saving a big chunk won't be too hard, the question is how much to I keep out for poker BR.

My online roll right now sits at about $4.5K. What I've done is simply keep the money I had on FTP, around $2.7K, and just started played more $26 buy in events in my nightly MTT schedule. Over on UB I decided to reload $700 more so I could bump up my BR and play the $50NL cash games over there. I could jump more than that, but I feel like that would be a mistake. I was playing $25NL and was winning, but not at a terrific rate (about 2.5BB/100 for those with poker tracker). I'd rather not totally skip the $50NL games for the $100NL just because I have the money, I'd rather do things the harder way, take some bumps and bruises at the $50NL level, then grind my way up from there. Just because I have the money to burn doesn't mean I should just jump to bigger games. There are skills that you learn at each level of buy in and as you move up in limits and put in more hours, you become more adept at the game. Regardless of the money I have, I still need to put the hours in to get better.

Live poker now is really the fun topic of discussion. My plans for the near future in the poker world had nothing to do with live poker. The $18K in 8 months challenge I laid out for myself was to build up a $9K poker BR onling and a $9K "life roll" for the 6months of bills. I never had any real intentions of playing live poker on a regular basis, but now I can not only afford the luxury of playing in these softer NL games at Foxwoods and Mohegan, I have a proper BR for them as well. I have not totally settled on the number for my BR but whatever stakes I plan on playing at I need to have at least 20 buy ins to handle some of the swings. I figure I'll play some 1/2NL ($300 max buy in) but I'd also like to take a few swings at 10/20 and 20/40 FLHE (10/20 for a regular game and 20/40 for taking some shots). The number I have in my head is somewhere between $5K-$7.5K, more likely leaning towards the lower end. I'm not totally certain about what to do there but I have a week or so before I'll be able to return to foxwoods anyway so it's not a huge issue right now.

All in all things are definately looking up for me. I'm excited to get started with my new found roll and to grind my way into bigger and better games. I don't really have a target number I'd like to hit just yet before graduation to replace the $18K in 8 months challenge that I put on myself. I'd like to just get myself situated at my new stakes before I try to set a goal for myself. Right now though, I have my eyes on playing in some smaller buy in live MTTs over the next few months and all throughout 2010. Maybe, if things go well, I can donk my way out to vegas this summer for the WSOP. I'm a long way away from that being a viable option, but there's pleanty of time to book my ticket.

$400NLHE Score Part 3

dtools22 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:15:00 GMT

We came back from day 2 with 12 players remaining. After I drilled the "sexy 2-outer" as Brandon was telling me the day before, I had 329K when we returned. It became clear right from the start that Ryan, who was 2nd in chips at the time, was planning on avoiding people and that Brandon our chip leader was going to be the table bully. One hand I might have wanted to play differently was in the SB with AhTc. Brandon raised from the button to 25K (blinds still at 1K/5K/10K). I reraised to 70K to try and get him to stop raising my SB every time, he shipped all in on me and I was forced to fold. I understand that the fold there is not spectacular but at this stage Brandon has been the table bully, but he's also been showing down big hands when 3-bet pre, so it's not likely the AT is ahead here.

A few times I pick up AQ and 77 in the SB and BB and when Brandon raised I just shipped it for around 225K. He started getting a little aggrivated, telling all his buddies there was no way I was ever going to want to play a flop with him now (he's right, but it's because I have no chips and I'm OOP, not because he's been beating up on me). When we make it to the official FT of 10 players, I was 6th in chips with 248K and the blings just about to increase to 1.5K/6K/12K. The grind began from there. My only pots were pretty much just shoving hands with another raiser in the pot to try and chip up. I just found so few hands and so few spots to make any kind of moves that it was nearly impossible to get any big traction. It wasn't until we were 4 handed that I got involved in any really big pots.

During this stretch of waiting around for hands I noticed and older woman on the rail behind me. She was there pretty much from the start of the FT. I found out later that she had played in the event yesterday and was just trying to learn how to play by watching the FT. She started asking me some basic questions, she knew terms like M and talked about floating so she had at least read some books on the subject. By the time play had reached 5 handed, she was the only person in the audience that was actually rooting for me to TID. I felt very much like Ivey with the Humphry's on the rail watching him play. Yeah it's kinda lame, but I still think that was really nice of her to start cheering me on and stick around to watch.

The guy that came in 4th, Paul, opened for about 50K with the blinds at 2K/10K/20K. I looked down at Kc9c and make a somewhat suspect shove. Paul calls with JJ and I flop top two to end his day in 4th place and give me about 700K in chips. A few hands later came the turning point of the match. I am in the SB with 8h8s and Brandon makes it 50K to go. I raise to 130K and he decides to call. The flop comes down:

7s7c6c

Pretty solid flop for me so I bet out 155K and Brandon ships it in on me (he had about 2mil to start the hand). I go into the tank for a few minutes. I figured he hasn't really tried to play too many pots like this with hands like 99+ so I don't think he has my pair beat by an overpair. It came down in my head to do I think he has a 7. I decided he didn't so I made the call and he showed Ac3c for a good old fashioned sweat. The board bricked off and I raked in the 1.5mil chips. That hand right there changed the entire MTT.

I has the CL for most of the rest of the MTT. I lost it for a bit when Ryan hit a 6-outer to really put a hurt on Brandon's chipstack and give himself a slight CL. He didn't keep it long though as Brandon was calling down bluffs with K-high, I was hitting hands on him, and eventually he bled down to 300K or so. Blinds at 3K/15K/30K I opened from the SB to 80K with Jc7s and Ryan shipped all in for 253K more. My thought process was that he's shoving here any pair, most any ace, most Kx, SCs down to 65, and unsuited down to T9. His range is just so wide here and to add to it if I call and win, I'll have a 1 million chip lead HU playing for $66K and I lock up and extra $15K in prize money. If I lose I still have 1.6million in chips and am still the CL 3-handed so I opted to make the call. Ryan showed A9o and was unhappy to see my call, particularly when the board came

7h7c7d

and ended matters with little sweat for me. Ryan took the $20K for third and I started the HU battle.

Brandon right away came up to me and said he thought he was the better player (I agreed on that one) and he wanted the trophy. So he asked to chop the money evenly and he gets the win. I said there was no way I was doing that when I have you covered by 1million. We played HU for about 45 minutes or so and he cut the gap to 2.1 v 1.7 million when I opted to take his deal. Yeah I gave away the CL and trophy for an extra $15K locked up but to be honest, I don't think there was really much of an edge for me once the stacks get even. He was such a tough player that it wasn't work risking the extra cash on trying to go for the win. I was pretty pissed at myself initially, and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but it's hard to complain after winning $50K.

Cmuparty1 asked in the last blog's comments where I go from here with the money. To be honest I'm still not really sure. My tennative plan for now is to leave my FTP BR alone at about $2.7K and just start mixing in the $26 buy in events, I put another $700 onto UB to bump my BR up to the $50NL level and start playing those games, and take $5K out of my winnings to use as my regular live poker BR. The rest of the money will sit in some form of investments, either savings account or mutual funds, until I need it to pay off bills and whatnot. I think the harder part of being a pro is locking up the money for those 6 months of bills, so that's where most of this money is going to go. I don't really see much else changing, or even me buying anything really cool like a nice TV or something (no where to put it being the main reason). Now that the luster has worn off somewhat, I can get back to playing my regular rotations and finish up at WPI. My career is now ready to begin, and I look forward to grinding my way to the top.

$400NLHE Score Part 2

dtools22 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:30:00 GMT

I'll just pick this one up right where the last post left off. So after getting my new found chips the BB from the AA hand looked at me and said, "I thought you had a big hand. I had MP on the flop, woulda rivered two pair." Now in most of the cases where someone has said this to me in a live event, I've just brushed it off. This guy however isn't trying to lord anything over me, he actually is just making conversation. He and I had about the same chip stack with now around 45 players remaining in the event. That's when the fun started.

The dude in the BB was Brandon, a 40/80FLHE grinder at Foxwoods (all the dealers verified this for me during the breaks). He was maybe 30 years old but if I was setting a line I would say the over under would be 27. He's a funny dude to talk to and play with and from 45 players on down to the final 20 he and I started dueling back and forth. He would KO someone, then shortly after I got it all in with TT vs 77 and held. Then he busted a shorter stack, and a few hands later I called a nutball shortie with 33 and held vs his A3 after the KJJ flop. Brandon looked at me afterward and chuckled, "Every single time I get some distance you just match me." We actually started keeping score at the table of how many big pots we raked in.

Play like this continued until we were left with 20 players and the floor had us redraw for seats. I had around 290K when we got to this point, with the average stack around roughly 190K. Play resumed until we had 13 players left at 2:10AM. We were supposed to play until 2AM or until the final 10 were reached. Brandon, the chip leader Ryan, and I all combined at this point for over 1/2 the chips in play (all sitting at the same table no less). I had about 450K in chips at this point when all of the players agreed to play on for another 20 mins to try and reach the FT tonight. That decision almost cost me my tournament.

With 12 left Ryan raised UTG 6-handed to 31K with the blinds at 1K/5K/10K. Brandon raised to 80K with about 275K at the start of the hand. I looked down in the CO at 9c9s. I thought about it for a bit, Ryan is only going to call a 4-bet shove here with AA or KK, for certain he folds QQ jut by the way he was playing. I didn't feel like Brandon was all that strong so I decided to ship my stack for 450K. Ryan tanked asking how much, which was the first time so far in the MTT where I was legit nervous. After a few minutes he smirked and laid his hand down, Brandon then snapped off with KK and I lost a big chunk of my stack. Looking back on it I feel like this was a big mistake. This was Brandon's first three bet, but since it was 6-handed and he has proven to be a competent player I figured he could be making the move with 77 or something here just as easily. Ryan later said he had TT, which I didn't figure him to be that strong either. I then licked my wounds and went back to work with my 175K remaining.

About 5 minutes left before the end of the day and still 12 players remaining I saw 44 UTG+1 (6-handed remember) and shipped it for my last 150K or so. The guy to my left reshipped all in and flipped his AA proudly. Flop came down KQ2 rainbow. The turn was an 8, and then the river I binked the 4 to ship the pot. I wasn't even really excited to be honest, I was just pissed at myself for getting involved in the 99 hand and then being coolered like that. We ended the day with 12 players and I had about 329K left behind. We would come back Thursday and play the 30mins left on the clock at the 1K/5K/10K level. All I could think was that I needed to put the shitty hands out of my head, I made it to day 2 and the FT was in reach. Anything can happen when I get to the FT, I just had to hold on from there.

SPOILER ALERT AGAIN: I obv made the FT and even had a very Phil Ivey moment involving an apple, a nearly 1million chip pot, and an older woman on the rail who became my only fan. Part 3 I'll wrap this up then it's back to the old grind stone.

$400NLHE Score Part 1

dtools22 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:25:00 GMT

Well the title pretty much says it all. This year's World Poker Finals at Foxwoods just started for me and already I have done what I set out to do and then some. I had one simple goal in mind, get the terrible taste out of my mouth from my choke job last year in the $300 Shootout. I decided to skip the Shootout this year and play in the $400NLHE event on 10/21/2009. Boy did I get what I wanted out of it this year.

I've got a tone of funny stories from this event so I'll do my best to get everything up in blog form. The first couple of hours in the MTT were as expected slow and uneventful. Starting stacks were 5K each, blinds at 25/50, increase every 50 minutes. The structure was a little fast paced early but it provided for a fantastic structure late in the event. I kept track of my chip stacks at the end of every level in a little notepad, not really sure why I did to be honest but I remember watching Raymer do it and for whatever reason it made sense to me to keep track.

I chipped up very nicely and was able to keep my M hovering around 9-12 range for most of the first few levels. I had very few hands to real speak of. I was just playing hands late in position, stealing blinds, seeing cheap flops, and trying to take down as many small pots as possible. I was cruising right along and even the dealers took note. After I shipped another pot having raised on the button and taking the blinds, the dealer leaned into me and goes, "You're making this look easy." All I could think was I hoped no one else heard that and took notice that I've probably had air every time.

Things went great right up until my table broke. I had to move from a table where maybe every 5th pot was raised preflop to every single pot being raised. Just before the dinner break I had an M of 4 in the BB. Folded to the SB who limped in and I shipped my stack with 88. I got a speech from the SB telling me how big a mistake I was making shoving on the BB there. He then mucked his hand and continued to "teach" me about my mistake. We got one more hand in where it folded to me and I shoved from the SB again with 88 and again walked away unscathed. With 125 players left at dinner break, 80 of them would be paid, I was simply happy to have played far better than I did the year before. I felt proud of simply playing this MTT for real, and even if I bubbled in 81st I would have said oh well (obv easy to say now because I actually made a very deep run but I was calling people and saying this during dinner).

I managed to get my crappy stack into the MTT when I finally found a hand. I had AdAh UTG+1 and decided to limp in. Both the blinds were my only takers. I've made this play online many times before as a short stack against weaker players, the idea being I'd rather try to with a big pot and run the risk of getting stacked by a small PP or suited connectors than just ship it and take the blinds. The flop came 4h5cQh and the SB shipped. The BB tanked before making the lay down and I snapped off. The SB had the nightmare hand 5h3h. Thankfully the turn and river bricked off and I was able to bring myself back up to respectability.

There were many many more sick details that I want to save for another blog post but I'll cliffnotes this one. SPOILER ALERT: I ended up chopping the event HU for $50,272 and the official 2nd place finish. Also, I did take an even chop as a chip leader. I will explain my logic and how I got to the FT in the next blog, stay tuned.

$18K in 8 Months Week 3

dtools22 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:53:00 GMT

Hopefully this past week was a sign of good things to come. I managed to rebound from a lack luster week 2 and made a strong push in week three. This week was however finals week for me (WPI runs quarters so I get a break the week of the 19th) so the hours were down overall. I had to make the most of what I was given and I feel like I did that and then some.

Cash Games - $25NL FR on UB

Sunday -> 2.3 hours of play, -$5.81 on the session

Cash game action unfortunately again took a back seat for most of this week. My normal cash game grinding hours, some time in the afternoon hours here on the east coast, have been subject to longer hours in the school library and review sessions with TAs. The only session I was able to log was on Sunday. It had been so long since my last real cash game session I expected to need to knock off a little rust. Couple that with a less than notable run of cards and I ended up pretty close to even on the session. I did get my rakeback money added in so I still wind up with a couple more buy ins in my account at week's end.

MTTs as has been the theme so far have dominated my schedule

Monday -> $68.05 in buy ins, $1,332.35 on the session

Tuesday -> $87.55 in buy ins, $6.40 on the session

Friday -> $74 in buy ins, -$72 on the session

Monday I found myself having just a monster day. I played in a smaller schedule than normal, only 6 MTTs due to a late start. I managed to go 5/6 on the night including a double cash in the daily doubles and two final tables. I managed to get 3rd in the $3 rebuy good for just under $1K and got a little unlucky HU to finish 2nd in the $2.25 cubed good for $320. Tuesday night I followed my strong showing up with only 2 cashes on my full 8 MTT rotation. I just missed the top 100 in the Daily Double B for a small cash and then in gross fashion bubbled the FT of the $26 $5K Guaranteed PLO when my AAc7c3 fell against the nutball chip leader's AhKhTh4. A win in that spot puts me 2nd in chips and gives me a great shot to make another big run at the FT. Unfortunately I had to settle for breaking even on the night.

Final totals at the end of the week:

Cash Game BR: $761.13

MTT BR: $2,784.38

Total BR: $3,635.51

With the WPF going on this week I'm not sure what I'm planning on doing with my MTT BR. I have enough right now to rework a few more $26MTTs into my nightly schedule. The other option would be to take another $500 or so out and play in another WPF event. For now I'm planning on leaving my MTT schedule alone with the intention of reworking it if things go well for me this week at Foxwoods or on the virtual felt. One thing for sure is that I plan on getting in far more cash game hours this week to make up for some lost time. I'd like to try and log 10K+ hands this week and really make a push get get the BR up into the 4-figure area.

Anyway you look at it, this is just the show that never ends.

A First Time for Everything

dtools22 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:49:00 GMT

This week so far has been a very profitable one. While I still have yet to get any cash game action in, I have been on a mini heater when it comes to the MTT circuit. This past Monday night I managed to break through for $1,300 bucks between two final tables and I followed that up on Tuesday with a FT bubble of the $5K PLO (AAc7c3 < AhKhTh5 all in preflop). I've been picking up some steam hopefully at the right time as next week I find out if my run good transitions to live poker at the $400 NLHE event on the 21st at the WPF. October has been treating me well in the first half.

As a minor down side, I did have a streak come to an end on Monday. I found myself for the first time coming up just short and busting a tournament in 2nd place, something I have never done before in my poker career. Before I get too far ahead of myself, it's pretty hard to be upset about a 2nd place when the payout is about 50x your buy in. Yeah it sucked not to take down another MTT but when you show a big time profit on the night you certainly have reason to celebrate.

Monday was one of the sicker sessions I have ever put in in terms of results. Because it's finals week my volume has been down, which for me is saying something since a normal MTT grind is 8MTTs in a session. I got to the session late so I only got 6MTTs in on the night. I was out quickly and quietly in the $5K PLO but I managed to find my way into the money in all 5 of my other MTTs including a double cash in the Daily Doubles. The most impressive feat of the night by far was getting myself to the FT of the $3rebuy and $2.25cubed.

This was the first time I've ever been at two FTs at the same time so it was a little jarring to start off. I was short stacked in both going in so the cards were easier to play. I was just looking for spots to jam it in and try to chip up. I found several more in the cubed than I did in the rebuy and with 3 people left in each I was the CL in the cubed and a distant 3rd in the rebuy. Despite chipping up a bit I had to ship my 1mil stack in with K9 vs KJ in the rebuy and had to settle for a consolation prize of $980. After that bustout I started HU play in the cubed at a 2-1 chip disadvantage. After taking the CL just grinding it out I got it all in with 97 on a 723 rainbow board only to find my opponent show up with K7. He polished me off 3 hands later with his A4 trampling my 77. My first second place finish netted me $320 bucks and put my nightly total to just over $1,300.

On the whole it's hard to complain about Monday night. Yeah I would have liked to win but at some point I figured I would have to taste a 2nd place finish. Sucks that it was a gross one but oh well, that's poker. Now with my finals history I can concentrating on getting myself back on the cash game horse and really trying to push my momentum to carry me even further along my BR quest. May is coming up faster than I'd like and even with this success here, I still have to maintain it down the stretch.

As a side note, nugman I apologize for making it seem like MTTs are impossible to make a living off of. They are for sure but I don't think at the volume I play much money will come from it.

Also, props to my buddy sglidea25 for taking down the best double finish in the Daily Doubles on Monday night. He talked about it in his blog, go check it out at www.pocketfives.com/sglidea25