I've been pretty back and forth on the idea of starting a blog for quite a while now. So I've decided to compromise with myself and start one here. Not really sure how this blog is going to work yet, but here it is..

I'm a 19 year old professional poker player. I'm primarily a live player now, playing a strong mix of 1/3, 2/5 and a lot of nightly $65-$330 local mtts. I don't know how else to put it other than, poker is my life. I eat, sleep and breathe poker. My entire life revolves around it.

I love the game of poker. I really do. I love waking up and playing a 12-16 hour session. I love talking over hands and running through situations. I truly feel like I'm doing what I was meant to do, and I'm just getting started. The sky is the limit.

However with all that being said. I find I live a very unbalanced life. The majority of my friends are poker players. I get up every day and go to the casino where I eat breakfast with other poker players. Then I play poker all day and night, with my only breaks being for meals. On these meals I usually go with another player and discuss hands. Then I come home and relax for a bit with my 3 roommates. All three of which are poker players. Then on the rare nights I go out it is usually with my roommates anyways, so our main topic of conversation remains on poker.

I find that this doesn't really allow me a whole lot of room for feeling of self accomplishment. Also my entire day/week/month is defined as successful or unsuccessful by how I do at the tables. As well as my mood for that time period. This has caused me some long stretches of unhappiness. It has also caused me to feel very lonely at times.

I think that is my goal for this blog. While I expect this to contain A lot of poker. I want it to be more about the personal side. I want to work on balancing my life out, and I think this can be a great platform to constructing that on. I plan on sharing my daily ups and downs as I progress my way to consistent happiness and success in and out of poker.

Ill probably write a post tonight giving some background on how I got into poker/ how I got to this point in my life. Pretty proud I accomplished that first post though, so I might just do it sometime tomorrow instead. Who knows.

I've been struggling with a minor form of tilt for about as long as i can remember. Most days/weeks I don't play a single pot that I feel was altered by the emotions i was feeling at the table, however tonight I felt like I gave away about an entire buy in due to playing unnecessary spots, and I'm still quite upset about it. So I decided what better use for a blog that to vent away your life issues.

The size of a pot will never affect how upset I get over a hand. A $300 pot and $2,500 pot can get me the same high and the same low depending on the situations. I am also at a point in my poker career where bad beats just don't phase me. You hit a 1-outer on the river for $1000? who cares, because i know I got it in good and that is my goal.

That being said, what does get me, is when I make an error. I don't care if I run a bad $20 bluff into a $25 pot in a 1/3 game, or make a horrible $600 hero call in a 2/5 game. If when the hand is over I can look at the hand unbiased and feel that i made a mistake, or passed up on a +ev spot, it takes me a bit to get over it.

I think the logic behind it is that i know I'm better than the people i play with. I know that when i sit down I'm the favorite to leave with all the money, and no matter how well they play if I'm on my AA game, they can't win. So when i make stupid errors, I'm allowing them to have a chance to profit off of me in a way they should never have.


Tonight This leak of mine came out and cost me a couple of bills i just didn't need to lose.

Playing in my local casino, our big game only runs at night. It usually starts around 8pm and ends around 6am. The big game can sometimes be plo, but it is usually 2/5 NLHE. Which means that if I plan on putting in a session it's important that i be there by 7:30pm with my name on the list so i can maximize my time in this game, thus maximizing my hourly win rate for the week.

Tonight this did not happen. I had to go out today so i got up early to meet somebody. when I got back home at 5pm i was exhausted so crawled into bed and set my alarm. at 7:15 my alarm went off, and I hit the snooze button. I did this 3 more times until i decided that I just didn't want to get out of bed and I turned my alarm off. I ended up waking up at 11pm, rushed to the casino and played in the 1/3 game until 1:30am when i finally got called for the 2/5 game.

At this point i was pretty upset at myself. By me not having the self discipline to get up when i was supposed to I have now missed 5.5 hours of action at this table. Am unable to grab a seat that has position on the spot, and a bunch of action players have already left broke. To top that off i made a very Iffy C-bet in a 3bet pot at 1/3 that i was not happy with and was already stuck $80.

At this point I probably should have stopped myself, realized that it was only going to spiral downhill from here and walked around for 20minutes. Instead I sat down and within 3 hands i picked up Queens on the big blind. Button opens, i 3bet and he 4bets. Right here i know I'm behind. This player is way to tight to be 4betting anything but AA/KK but i stick in the extra $75 anyways. flop comes 9 high he cbets and i fold. Boom! $75 down the toilet for no reason at all. literally just handed it away. I try and convince myself that most players at this table lose $500 there, and I'm probably right. If I'm going to pat myself on the back for not being as bad as them I've got no chance tho. So now I'm really mad at myself going into this session.

Over the next little bit I played pretty good poker. Scooped some medium pots, and picked some well timed 3bet spots. I was still a bit upset at myself and it showed by me making some fairly loose calls from blinds/LP in multi way pots which just got me a little more tilted at myself as it was clearly cutting some dollars off of my hourly.

That's when it went downhill. I picked up pocket 4's in a 3bet pot and decided to cold call in position. Why? I can't tell you. My implied odds were probably close, but in no way was it the correct call. actually it was probably a very trivial fold. Anyways it ended up turning into a very odd pot and I made a river hero call on a J952Jddssx board and he was turning a 5 into a bluff and won the pot. This pot ended up costing me $315. While outside of the $65 i lost by cold calling I'm happy with how I played every street. It's just knowing that i shouldn't have even put myself in that position to be losing a pot that big.

From there I continued to spew by making loose calls and folding my second pairs, and top pair weak kickers in small pots. I turned a couple bottom pairs and draws into bluffs and was still playing a +ev game but i definitely not maximizing my profit in the game.

From there i went on to play a giant 3 way all in pot With my KK vs AA vs AK for a whole $700. This pot really tilted me. It tilted me for two reasons. First, i probably could have found the hero fold. I was down, and upset and stuck it in there without giving myself enough time. More importantly is the $315 i lost earlier would have been on my stack at that point. Meaning AA would have had me covered for 2 whole buy-ins making his 6bet much scarier and leaving me more room to make the hero fold.

After that hand i went for a walk and cooled down. Sat back down and played some great poker. I made a giant A high hero call at the end of the night to turn my night around and left with a $35 profit after 6 hours of play.

In the end I'm just really frustrated that I allowed myself to continually have things spiral downward and hurt my play all night long. Not waking up, making a bad C-bet at 1/3, to making a terrible preflop call with qq, to getting involved in a bad spot with 44, leading me to not making the hero fold with Kk. It felt like it all spiraled downwards costing me from having what very well could have been a $800-$1,200 night. This is something i have to work on and am not quite sure how I am going to go about yet. Tomorrow is a new session though!

Cultivate outside pursuits and some outside friends.

Getting involved in something outside of poker is a big part of the plan over the next little while. I'm very unsure as to what I want to get into though. I just don't have A lot of things that interest me at the moment.

I did train MMA for two years and BJJ for 4 years. In BJJ I was even competing very competitively every weekend for quite a while. I just stopped training at all around 6 months ago. So going back to that is an option although I don't know if I would want to do it if not committing myself 100%, an I'm just not willing to do that right now.

As far as friends outside of poker, I just don't know what to do about that Issue. I moved back to the city I'm in right now just two months ago. Which means all my high school friends, and everyone I knew before I got to seriously involved in poker are 5 hours away. I did have a pretty serious girlfriend down here (which is the reason I moved back) who was my escape from poker. However we broke up 3 weeks ago. I do make an effort to try and do non poker related things with my poker related friends though. Maybe that's the key for now.

I am actually really excited about today though. After putting in somewhere around 25-30 hours over the weekend I am taking an entire day away from poker. Which is extremely rare for me.

There's a girl I've been casually talking to over the last two weeks. At first I viewed her as the perfect rebound. She's super cute and was just looking to have a good time before she went away for school. Now I've started to gain some feelings for her, and sadly she is moving away tomorrow. However as her last day in Windsor she asked if I could spend the entire day with her.

Not really sure what we are going to do yet, Probably just hang out at my place and keep it low key. Think it will be good for me to spend an entire day without thinking of poker to much though, and as a bonus I am doing it with a cute girl. So pretty excited about it.

Yesterday was a good day for me. It was hard saying goodbye to that girl, knowing I may never see her again. However at the same time I'm happy it worked out this way. There were some pretty clear signs we would have never worked. This way we just get to end on good terms. I also resisted my urges to go to casino after she left, and sat in with roommates and watched a movie to make it a full day off from poker.

Today should also be a pretty good day for me. I'm going to be putting in a online MTT session. It's been a long time since I've done one of these. I'm actually really excited. I'm not at all sure how profitable I am in online mtts anymore, or if I even am passed a certain buy in, so I've decided to keep it pretty small buy in wise. I won't play anything higher than $33, and with estimated rebuys the schedule I put together should add up to a total of $605 across 37 mtts. I'm sure it will be a bit higher as I won't be able to resist but play some $5.10 hypers as well.

I've got a buddy who is going to grind all day with me on Skype, so it should make it pretty entertaining. Also think one of my roommates is going to come up and grind out a session in my room a little later in the day. So hopefully today can be +ev but also a lot of fun.

Caught the online bug again today. Didn't really do that well playing. Made two deep runs that sadly both busted with two tables left. Ended up dropping $290ish in the end :/. It ended up taking me back to when I was still in high school grinding long mtt sessions just for the love of it tho. Which is something I really enjoyed. Also I'm Pretty sure this is something I want to do much more. In fact I'm waking up early tomorrow to grind another session. It also works out really well that I have a buddy that is grinding back up a roll right now playing micro/low stakes online everyday, so I can just grind with him over Skype all day to add to the enjoyment.

Unfortunately I'm really unsure of which levels I am profitable at playing mtts anymore. I know for a while I was beating everything $55 and lower over a decent sample size. However my game has changed drastically since that point with me transitioning to cash two years ago, and 90%+ of my volume being live now. So I think what I'm going to do is start playing micro/low stakes and have a completely separate roll for these games. This way I can build this roll up and find out which games I can still beat comfortably.

The only issue I did have is that tonight when I finished my session I went to play live cash. I jumped in a 1/3 game and I got into a perfect spot where I grinded my stack up to $530ish and directly to my left was a giant fish with $700 in front of him. However I was so tired from being up at 6am to grind that I knew I wouldn't play well and left at 11pm card change, giving up an insane amount of EV I would normally kill for. Which means if I continue to have long mtt sessions somewhat regularly I am going to need to start napping afterwards. This could also be a problem as I really do need to be at the casino by 7:30 to get into the 2/5 game if it runs. Maybe the answer is just to play a slightly shorter mtt session, not sure yet. Will need to figure that out soon though.

Thanks for the blog bro! Always interested to hear of the Windsor action these days.

Glad you're enjoying it. thanks for reading. Are you from Windsor? I only started playing here 11 months ago, any chance we've played a session together?

Played another online mtt session today. Made two really deep runs that unfortunately I was unable to close after losing a monster 40bb+ flip in each of them with AK. Ended up facing a small loss on the session.

After that I spent an hour or so relaxing and watching training videos before heading into the casino to play a 4-5 hour live cash session. The session went horribly losing two 1/3 buy ins and some change. Was happy with my session outside of one hand where I got stacked with top top vs a set. Feel I gave villain way to loose of a range to be raising me with and cost myself a stack.

My coach/live poker cash game backer was really unhappy with how I played that hand as well. He didn't have a lot of feedback for me this time though. Just told me it was horrible, which was a bit discouraging for a bit. Feel he is pretty unhappy with A lot of the plays I've been making lately though. Think some of that has to do with the fact that I take some very unnecessary high variance lines. him being my backer he would like to minimize variance, and not deal with me “swinging like a monkey” as he calls it. He may also be a little upset with my inability to click my fold button in certain situations, although I truly feel a lot of his frustration comes from the fact that he is trying to coach someone with a very different playing style than his, and has a very different table image than him. For him it makes it difficult as he is trusting me with his money, however for me it makes it a pain to constantly have him criticizing my plays when he can't always provide a stronger argument than mine against the play.

This recent trend of him just ****ting on a lot of my lines, and getting seemingly really frustrated at some of my higher variance lines that have a punt like look to them without a solid breakdown, have me somewhat worried about my future with them. I've been with them for 23months now. The coach has been the only reason I was able to make a successful transition from mtts to cash, and then from online to live. It's been a long road with a lot of up and downs from $0.01/0.02 all the way to $2/$5 and I would be pretty devastated to see that come to an end. This is something that has me pretty on edge lately. We will see though. Maybe I'm worried about nothing.

Getting up in 5 hours again to grind another online session though. Then will do another night time session at the casino. Hopefully I can pick up some momentum heading into the weekend.

Today when I was grinding my online session I got a text from my old BJJ coach asking if I was in town and wanted to come train for a bit. As a part of my goal to get involved in non poker related things again I jumped at the opportunity and showed up. It was a bit disappointing to see how far I have fallen off since I quit training. I must have got tapped out 15 times in six rounds, which was a bit embarrassing. However I loved being back in there and training again.

Think this is something I will be getting back into. I will probably never compete again, or at least in any sort of major competition. I think continuing to stay involved in it will be very good for me though. Also that gives me the option to go back to teaching someday, which I something I was really enjoying before I quit training.

The only negative thing is that i just got home now and by the time I get to the casino the 2/5 game going on is going to take forever to get on to. I'm on my way now though to go grind some 1/3 and hopefully be able to put in a strong 2/5 session towards the end of the night. Wish me luck!

I was doing the Windsor Grind for a while after Black Friday, but I slipped away to the beach.

Nice. Bet it's much better there than here lol

Decided not to play online today as I needed to catch up on some sleep. That's one area going back to playing online daily over the last couple days has majorly affected me in. getting up early to grind all day, then going to the casino and grinding all night there is really reducing my sleep.

However I got a full 12 hours today which was good. Spent a few hours today reviewing all the sessions I've played over the last few days online. After running the math I'm pretty upset with how tight I've been opening, folding. There have been a couple somewhat close but pretty obvious bet/calls that I've just been folding to. Also maybe firing to many second barrels when deep stacked. Besides that I'm fairly happy with my play and feel that with some adjustments it's a matter of time before I get that big Bink.

After that headed I to the casino to play a live session. No 2/5 tonight so I Reg'd a $120 nightly mtt. Busted right after first break and headed to 1/3. Saw a super fish infested table and was lucky enough to be able to table change within 5 minutes of sitting. From there I went on a terror. Was running pretty good getting dealt decent starting hands and hitting most flops. Really took control of the table and was able to get guys to make stands against me at the wrong times. Managed to make $975 in about 4 hours. Within that 4 hours all the fish went broke though and I was unable to table change with my stack so I opted to go home early and call it a night.

Saturdays have been 200k give away draws at the casino starting at 12. It's created pretty good games early, and even had a 2/5 game go last week by 1pm. So think I'm going to get up early and grind out a nice 8-16 hour session depending on how good the game is. Hopefully I can carry todays momentum with me into another big night.

So as I mentioned in a different post, I decided to move back to Windsor for a girl. After taking a year off of high school to play poker full time as an online cash grinder I decided it wasn't the life I was interested in. I was 4 tabling 50nl full ring zoom for crazy hours and got to a point where I just hated poker. After making that decision I applied to St.Clair college. As you can guess I hated it, and quickly returned to poker. Turning 19 when in Windsor was perfect as I became a live cash game reg and fell in love with the game all over again. I had decent grades but made the decision to drop out after one semester.

However when living in residence I met a girl. She was a university student, however her best friends lived across the hall from me, so we met that way. We dated casually for a while but When my lease ran out I had no intention to stay in Windsor. I left right before my lease ran out and went to Montreal for 3 weeks for the WPT. During this 3 weeks we stayed in touch talking on the phone and texting every night. I went straight back to Windsor the night that I busted the main event to go see her. From there we got pretty serious.

I moved back home though as I was unsure of what I wanted to do. I was getting free hotel stays at the casino in Windsor every week, so I would train down and go see her every other week until eventually I decided that instead of moving to Niagara for poker, I could just move to Windsor. I was already a proven winner down here and this way I could be with her.

Obviously when I got down here we just didn't work the way we thought it would. We broke up, and it was pretty rough on me. Spent a couple nights getting completely wasted, and even more nights laying awake all night thinking of her. I threw myself into poker pretty hard as a way to try and keep my mind occupied, then I got lucky and met a pretty perfect rebound.

It's been about two full weeks until I thought about her until today. I decided to take the hotel exit out of the casino for some reasons and I rode down the escalators where I used to meet her, and a million feelings just rushed through me. I don't really know how to describe it, I just felt numb for a while.

Being the idiot I am I decided to look up her instagram. Seeing her face just made it that much worse. Started wondering if she has thought of me lately, or if she has looked me up. Started wondering if she would be mad that I had the rebound so soon. Then started to wonder if she had one of her own. It's so crazy that one day she can go from being my rock, and the person I truly believed I might spend the rest of my life with. To just being a nobody. Someone I haven't talked to or seen in a month.

Not really sure what I was trying to get at here. Just a little lost on exactly how I am feeling, and thought maybe venting out over words could help a little. Sorry to bother those reading with the love problems of a 19 year old... On the other hand though, it's my blog, so you can just deal with it!

Anyways. On the positive side, I logged 14 hours today, where I started my session down $900 right away and came back to only lose $15 on the day. Obviously an ugly day for 14 hours, but when you drop two buy ins within 30 minutes, it's hard to complain. Going to grind an online session in the morning, then I'll be back tomorrow night to try and finish up my month strong on the live felt.

Off to get a good night sleep. Hopefully when I wake up my thoughts on her will be gone and I can go back to crushing.

So i woke up and was immediately over whatever i was going through last night. Actually didn't even think about it until i came on here right now. However today an incident happened in poker with a good buddy of mine that has me feeling really uneasy. Really lost at what to do. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

So 6ish months ago I meet this guy who has started coming in regularly and slowly playing more and more 2/5 with us. Me and him kick it off right away. Turns out he is from an hour away and trains to Windsor every week and grinds for 3-4 days. He has just recently turned very little into over 10k and was riding pretty high. We start talking A lot, and picking each others mind quite a bit. We both had planned to hit up Montreal for the WPT event so we went down together with one more guy.

Down there he goes on a pretty rough downswing. I also find out from the other guy that we came with that he has grinded up rolls many times and busto'd them, this is just the biggest one he had done it with. Then one night he comes in and gets put on my 2/5 table. I have direct position too him. Now when grinding in Windsor me and him had played many giant pots together with no hard feelings. Also I got way the better of them, and was up many buy ins on him. So this is a spot I'm loving. I do know he is on a downswing though and try and ask if this is the best idea for him as we are playing with a 10 straddle, and he is just underolled to be playing. He says yes, so it's not my business to tell him to leave.

Right off the bat I take him for two big pots equaling almost two buy ins.. He tilts hard, and after I ask him to get up and go back to the room with me to cool off, he says no and gets pretty pissed at me for asking. At this point I decide that if he wants to sit and tilt off money to me, that's on him. I did my best to be a good friend, but this is my living. From there I use my position to iso him every hand I can, I play big pots in position with him.. and well I just smash him. I end up having one of the best nights of my life, and I take him for half of his roll.

This turned out to be a big blowout after he got drunk. He left Montreal and headed back home early. He spewed pretty hard online between the time he left and I came back to Windsor. However we were texting again and I invited him to come up to windsor with me to play and we could share my rooms. Sadly within two days he punted multiple stacks at 1/3 and 2/5, and went broke. From then until two months ago I haven't heard from him.

Two months ago he shoots me a text. Sounds like he started to get his life back together. He worked for a couple weeks to get some money, and started grinding micros again. We talked on and off until one week ago when he asked me to grind online with him as he builds his roll. From there we have talked everyday.

So tonight he decided to come to Windsor. I booked him two nights, and someone else booked him two nights. He was way under rolled to do this, but you can tell his mind was made up so I didn't say anything. He came with 4 mtt buyins and 3 1/3 buy ins.

After he busts the tournament he goes and plays 1/3. I bust the tournament several hours later and notice that he is sitting with a giant fish who has 1k in front of him. Of course I run to the table. When I get there my buddy tells me that the $350 left in front of him is it. The fish stacked him twice. I immediately ask him to go on a meal with me next orbit. Obviously my intention is to tell him to get the hell out of there. He agrees to the meal and we were going to leave next orbit. Of course as it works out I raise the button on his sb to iso the fish, he 3bets, fish calls, and I call. I flop gin, my buddy fires out, I jam and he calls. Ended up he was way ahead. Which was fine. He gets my $300 we go on a meal no big deal.. except life doesn't work like that all the time. I river my 3 outer and ship the pot.

Now what? I just broke him again. A good friend of mine that I truly want to help out has now just blown a huge % of his roll again, and once again I'm the guy to take it from him. What do I say? He text me asking how I was in there with that hand. Clearly was mad, and even though he said he wasn't mad at me, he has to be. I just feel super ****ty, and don't know how to try and pretend like this didn't happen when talking to him. I mean he's going to have to go back to grinding micro sngs when im playing 2/5 every night. How do I talk to him now? How does he not just stay pissed.

Not sure how I always put myself in these spots :/

My last two nights, and two posts, have been pretty negative. Don't have much to say tonight, but i had an amazing night and figured i would add some positive vibes to this thread with a sexy chip porn pic.... Also showing off my swag purple sweat pants. So it's a 2 for 1 kinda deal lol.

So all my problems with my buddy pretty much fixed themselves. He was pretty choked about the situation but wasn't mad at me at all. Guess I just over thought the whole situation. Besides that poker has been pretty quiet. I went off and shipped a nightly tournament for $800. Besides that I haven't really played much live cash, and have just had a bunch of break even days.

Heading into this weekend I think im going to grind really hard. My birthday is coming up on the 18th so if I go back home to see some buddies (one of which has a birthday that weekend too) I might lose a lot of volume. Also have a $400 bounty coming up next weekend. Have a bunch of satellites that will be running to that. I like to play them and sell my extra seats as they are super soft. So will be putting a lot more volume in those than in cash.

Almost three peat'd that nightly tournament. Went on to win it Wednesday, Thursday and then lost HU on Friday. Profited my last three cash sessions too. Just overall an amazing week for me poker wise. Not really much to report besides that though. Have WCOOP coming up which is exciting despite my fairly weak schedule. Also have a $400 two day tournament running next weekend that had 20k up top last time it ran. Super soft tournament. Probably my best chance of the year at a 20k bink. Have a birthday in two weeks as well, although don't have any real plans for it. Probably won't go home as WCOOP will be running. My birthday is the Friday and roomates birthday is the Sunday, so maybe we will go hard on Saturday if nothing is going on.

In October I'll try and focus on some more things outside of poker, especially considering November there is a soft 1k in Windsor, and WPT Montreal. I am excited for all the poker related things going on right now though.

Haven't really posted in here for a while. Partly because I just haven't had much to say, Also didn't want this to be something I continued to update on a nightly basis anymore.

Things have been going really well live though. I have Ft'd over 70% of the nightly tournaments I have played, shipping 4 of them. Cash has also gone amazing, as I'm currently riding a 6 session win streak with 5 of those 6 sessions being 2+ buyins, and the other being just over a buy in. Obviously have been running great, but Feel I'm playing my AA game as well.

Online not so much. Took some pretty reckless shots at Wcoop that didn't work out. Moved back down to playing $33 mtts and lower for now. My edge is clearly a lot smaller in these games and due to field size, variance is much higher, so feel this is a good way to go until I can prove to myself I am profitable.

Besides poker my life has been pretty quiet. My birthday is tomorrow which really doesn't excite me at all considering all my good friends are hours away. My roommates want to go get drunk. Doesn't really interest me but I'll go along with it because it is probably the right thing to do.

Guess that's it. My life is pretty dull right now. Nothing outside of poker has me very interested, and poker is going great, so it's not like I don't want to be playing right now. Hopefully next month I'll be more focused on balancing out, but as of right now I'm pretty happy with where I am.