Been a super busy month, as expected. Cash volume is slowly getting closer to goal, unfortunately I am running well below hourly expectation/goal. I've had a few bad sessions playing uncapped deep 2/5 games that have hurt my overall profit.

On the tourney front, I have played a total of 9 so far this month (counting each reentry as a separate tourney) and have 1 cash, and have just bagged chips to make Day 2 of the Goliath $700k Ultimate tourney at Planet Hollywood. They crushed the GTD and the prize pool is around $1.3million! We aren't near the money as we enter day two tomorrow/later today, but shouldn't take too many hours to get there.

My overall tourney play has been above average but I have made some pretty high variance plays deep in day 1s that were in an attempt to build stacks for a big stack to play with on Day 2 that I'm not sure I'm happy with.

Mistakes like misreading my opponents ability to fold in a few big spots have cost me my tourney life on more than one occasion. (That and not running good once all the chips were in the middle, LDO). One of the times the player was clearly on tilt and I should have discounted my fold equity a good bit before making the play I did. Another time, I was against a player type that just didn't have a fold button, and I witnessed this for hours and yet I still thought I could generate a fold. Again a bad assumption/mistake. Although I had nice equity with the nut flush draw and an overcard, I had a very playable near 30bb stack deep in the day, and was at a pretty soft table that certainly I could have chipped up a little easier with some small ball rather than forcing the issue. Perhaps being too hard on myself, and who knows if I would have reflected the same way had I binked the winning hand. All the same, I'm glad to take the time to look back and see spots where I can improve.

I am doing my best to battle some bad habits that my old MTT mental game used to contain. "Bad beat" knockout stories are so brutally painful to listen to, even from my close friends, and yet it is so dang easy to want to tell the world (and investors) how bad we ran to get knocked out. I've really worked hard the last two years to generate a solid foundation of positive reinforcement with my mental game, and I can see that foundation wavering a little as the MTT bust outs add up.

Stay calm. MTT on. Play mentally strong, play my technical best, and let the results come as they may. Take time to analyze and self reflect on my play today, and prepare to do it all over again tomorrow.

Put a rather large stack of chips in the bag for the Golden Nugget Main Event. Day 2 restart is Saturday at 11am! Let's goooooooooo!

(Still have WSOP Main Event shares available here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh....php?t=1606550 )

Awesome man, take it down!

Was only able to salvage a min cash in the Golden Nugget Main Event today. The two levels prior to the bubble bursting were not good for me, and I made it into the money with just 10bbs. I found a nice shove spot right away open shoving K6dd from the button and the BB called with A8cc and we were done. Solid tourney and structure and looking forward to playing more down there in years to come.

More importantly I was finally able to squeeze in some cash in their uncapped $1/$2 game and I am a fan of the game. The action was fair, not great both times I played, but the potential is there, so I will add it into my game selection scouting here and there.

As for my June overall, my cash game volume fell just shy of 100 hours. Not bad considering the long days spent playing 11 total MTTs in the month. 3 of the 11 I bagged chips and extended the tourney to 2 days. Quite a few hours invested in total. I was able to show small profit in cash, about $13/hr to be exact. Showing a negative ROI still for tourneys for the series, but still have a few big ones to go, including WSOP ME!

A pretty decent percentage of the cash hours was in 2/5, and mostly at RIO. I had 2 really bad sessions which are the main reason for my small hourly, and I didn't really have any "huge" profit sessions like I am usually able to sprinkle in.

Fun big pot moments of the month:

Biggest pot I won this month that I recall was stacking a guy for $500 profit ($1k pot HU) when he played AQ on a KQ5xx run out very poorly when I was the aggressor preflop and on every street with KQss. Biggest pot I lost (I remember very well, lol) I flopped bottom set, 3s on a K63r flop 5 way. The action went only 3 way to the turn, and I smooth called on the flop. The A on the turn brought the heavy action, and I 3b big to the barrel and then raise. The OR just 4b shoved and I called it off for $800 effective total on the turn. She asked if I had a set, and I said yes and showed my 33. She says, "well, I guess I need an A or a K, dealer." As if the dealer was a DJ at an empty night club taking requests from the one group of girls actually dancing, he promptly dropped the A on the river.



Keeping calm, grinding on.

Added another small cash in the WSOP online bracelet event yesterday as part of my Imawhale stable backing agreement and I'm ready to cap off the series with a deep run in the WSOP Main Event.

I'm playing today's Day 1a flight, and looking forward to the long steady grind utilizing discipline and patience, while taking advantage of my improved mental and technical game in a field and structure that should be very conducive to such skills.

Got a great night of sleep. Enjoyed some coffee and now an espresso and consumed a small amount of bacon to help manifest...more bacon!

Let's do this!

We put some chips in a bag for that little tournament happening at the RIO! Day 2 for me is Tuesday!

Bacon consumption run good tactic engaged. Updates to come!

What is some?

Exactly 29,500 going back to 300/600/75 level tomorrow.

Part way through second level on day 2, and just getting crushed every pot I play. Went 0-3 with AK and JJ, including my bust out hand with a shot to triple to 60bb stack with AK vs TT vs (he cold called pre then folded to the dry side pot bet by TT on 885).

Was an awesome experience and really amazing turn out which is awesome for poker in general. Wish things had faired better, especially today getting a great table draw but not having any chips to do anything with it really hurt. Gave it my best, and will get back to my day to day battles and continue to work on every aspect of the game and be 1 year more prepared and 1 year closer to making a run at becoming a world champion when the series rolls back around next year! Had awesome Twitter rail support so thanks to all for that!

More updates to come in this clowns' journey as July presses on!

It's been a surprisingly busy post WSOP for me as I close out another solid volume month on the cash game grind.

I am at 115ish hours currently with a solid long weekend ahead of potential grinding. Battling back from the small tourney losses that I accrued from the series, and should be back in total poker profits soon, maybe even by this weekend. I had a decent percentage of all my prelims and main event action so it definitely took a chunk of change invested that I did not get a positive return on. That's how the summers can go from time to time. Looking back, I've had many more profitable summers than losing Summer's while grinding out the WSOP, but it's never fun having a losing stretch of tournament poker.

I can say it continues to help keep me motivated while still be grounded in understanding the true nature of the beast. Tournament poker is a long, mentally draining grind that can produce no positive results for seemingly impossible lengths of time, especially in LIVE tournament poker where it can take many months or even an entire year just to get even an inkling of a sample size of volume in. I look forward to playing some more series here and there throughout the year, but in the meantime, it is nice to get back to the daily routines and rituals of flexible cash game grinding!

I'm accruing some nice chip porn to have a solid picture update soon, so hopefully that will be something fun to look forward to as my journey continues on in a somewhat boring (perhaps) storyline to the average reader.

Finally got back into some online grinding this month as well, after nearly 6 weeks of not playing a single hand!! The first several sessions I found myself fast clicking a ton, and probably playing too many tables and made some poor decisions and mistakes along the way, and added in some severe run bad to go along with. For whatever reason, we were the ones getting coolered in every 3b 200bb pot to start things off for the month. I had some funny blind vs blind spots also, same session where we either flopped nut straights or nut flushes vs a "target" player, and then proceeded to lose the 200+bb pots. Fun! Anyway, needless to say, as my sample size in volume starts to slowly climb as the month rolls on, some of the variance has evened out, but still down a few buy ins overall as we near the end of the month in my online numbers.

As is per the usual though, my LIVE cash games continue to keep my numbers looking better, as we slowly and steadily and consistently churn out the profits in that department! My dedication to playing mostly 2/5 has improved as well. I've actually been challenged by my coaches and backer to completely avoid 1/2 and 1/3 and stick to playing exclusively 2/5 (and shot take above when the time and game is right).

I enjoy playing live for more reasons than just earning an hourly income. Things such as CET properties diamond level point mongering, playing with friends or in rooms I know and enjoy the dealers, or just to have a few drinks and unwind perhaps after a long mental grind from a tourney or some serious 2/5 hours. For me, although my goals and motivations are to achieve more great life adventures through playing poker, I don't prioritize the hourly income as my top motivation on a daily basis. Perhaps I should a little more, as I know in turn that will open up the doors for me to travel more, afford to keep more/all of my action for some shot taking tournaments, and to just overall enjoy a better (personally speaking) quality of life.

A bit of a rambled post today, but felt like there are some things I've been thinking about that are good to get down in writing so I can reflect on my 2016 goals and the results I've achieved a bit more honestly with myself as I look to tweak some of those goals going into the 2nd half of the year to challenge myself a bit more, and to really make myself work that much harder at achieving said goals, and be a bit more in tune with those life balance big picture goals down the road.

I know a little more effort and push today (as for example playing more 2/5+ hours) will result in reaching some life goals faster tomorrow (upgrade to newer house, travel to Caribbean for extended stay, play more MTTs in other parts of the country/world, etc).

A game on; bigger games on; in July and beyond!

Closed out July strong with several big sessions, and we needed it. Covered our losses for tourneys for the most part for the series.

Now that we are in August, I might as well try again. Arizona State Championship here I come, bring on the MTT whipping stick and smack me around some more. I enjoy it

Serious note tho, looking forward to spending a few weeks back in Az with friends and family and goofing around some, while playing a solid schedule of cash games at TSR with the masochistic tournaments mixed in.

Will do next chip porn update after this trip, and hope to have some more midget chip porn from some LOLLimit and Omahahaha.

And the 2016 Arizona State Poker Champ is...

And the 2016 Az St Champ is...

...almost one of the early posters in this thread, and one of my previous LIVE MTT backers, 2+2r "John_Locke", a local reg in the high stakes mixed games at TSR! Congrats on the HU and 2nd place finish John!! The actual crown goes to Pat Lyons this year. Don't know anything about him, but well done as well.

So my trip was actually a really good one for me in terms of life balance enjoyment, as well as in terms of learning curves in my latest mental game endeavors. The actual results were not great, playing a few MTTs total and getting no cashes, as well as having a slightly losing trip in cash games overall (due to 1 specific session that netted one of my bigger losing sessions in quite some time). The time and experience playing a lot of the 3/5 game this time around, however, has helped opened my eyes even more to a few things that I have been most likely just taking for granted for some time now.

An interesting aspect of always seeking out continuous improvement is also realizing that we often times battle the same battles over and over again in our lives. Everything I am about to post as far as my current learning focus being on specific mental game weaknesses, are things I have already had to work on in the past. Granted, the stakes are higher now, but the root cause of the leaks I have found, are ones that I have already (successfully) battled in the past. This just helps to illustrate the need to never become complacent in our thinking and our execution of what we know. It also helps reiterate that we don't always know as much as we think we know.

Every time we as players move up in stakes, its always full of learning curves, and lessons that can only be garnered through experience. Even though I am already playing a lot of 2/5 in Vegas, lately I have made the jump into playing bigger capped games ($1000+ buy ins). This in turn creates much deeper starting and playing stack sizes than what I was originally used to when I was just playing in the Belagio 2/5 $500 capped game. Bigger stacks means bigger pots, which in turn means bigger swings. It is here where my mental game weaknesses starting showing back up again, as they have done similarly in the past each time I moved up in stakes. The fear of loss, BIG LOSS, finds a way to rear its ugly head in such situations.

Doing some review of specific hands played by me each and every day has really helped me to see some leaks that have shown back up, and are most likely closely associated to these fears. Having a network of great poker minds to work with is of course invaluable to me. If I didn't have these resources to talk poker with on a near daily basis, my game would be so much further behind! Anyone who goes about the day to day grind of poker without doing self analysis, and then taking it one more step and bouncing it off resources that are proven trustworthy in their knowledge and experience in the same games is only doing themselves a disservice to their growth. For me, right now, it is all about growth. Personal growth, poker growth, life growth. Determining and discovering such fears and leaks in my game is a huge step in me successfully achieving the sort of growth I seek in all avenues of my life today.

Now is the time for me to make the necessary adjustments and corrections to the mental side of the game that has currently thrown a road block in my way in my current desired path of success. Understanding the difference between overplaying the wrong types of hands, and underplaying our highest value hands, especially when against the mentally or technically weaker opponents we have been targeting all along in our sessions, AND THEN actually acting correctly in all such situations without that fear of BIG loss is going to be what separates the big winners from the small winners/'break eveners'/losers in the games I'm playing. I do not want to be a small winner, or a 'break evener' in these games...

...I want to... I CHOOSE to... I WILL be a big winner in these games. The rest is now up to execution and pushing past the mental roadblocks obstructing the view!

Yeah, Jon is a great guy and min bet beast.
Gross last hand too.
Play any LHE or just spread at CAZ?

I've never played any timed games at CAZ, but I've played every other limit game in the room at some point yes... Got my start putting my opponents to the test for 1 min bet at a time! I will still play some white chip Omaha and Hold em for happy hour fun on occasion as well! Great room for it!

Just got caught up, great reading. Wishing you continued success and development in all phases of life and poker!

Thanks much!!

Up to near 100 hours so far for the month and have been teetering between being break even and down all month long so far.

I'm basically sitting on a negative 1-1.5 buy ins (depending on if I'm playing Belagio 2/5 or deeper stacked 2/5 & 3/5 in Az) for the month.

Part of that negative winrate has come in my few hours of online play for the month as well. Literally only played a handful of hours there though. Not much to see there, and that is going to be the theme moving forward at least for now.

I am going to be focused on 'some' WSOP . com volume but just here and there, while the majority of my hours will be live 2/5+. Losing Bovada next month (even though the accounts and player pool is just moving over to "ignition" poker, they are taking a stand and not allowing Nevada residents have and use an active account on the poker skin) means that the focus will continue to be very LIVE cash specific.

I of course do have some other online options should I choose, but I am very happy and ok with the focus shifting heavily into midstakes and beyond in the live scene, again at least for now. Things change, goals and objectives are met and change constantly, and I adapt to change very well.

I am going to have opportunity to travel to Scottsdale monthly since the GF travels there for work a lot now a days, so excited to possibly get some semi regular hours in the deep 3/5 game there, and of course the games here can always generate a good game day in and day out. I also look to finally add some SoCal to the mix with a few options opening up for me there with people to visit and stay with.

September has some other travel plans mixed in so my hours are going to be down for the month next month, so going to really try for a solid number of hours to add on to the end of the month to help counter that and to help keep me on or ahead of my yearly goal of 1500+ hours. I think since I am going to be heavy on live vs online hours, I will even push that number up a bit more since we know the number of hands is drastically less in live sessions than that of online. It would be amazing to push 1800 hours for the year, but I'm not going to put that number in writing just to push for quantity at this late stage in the year. Especially with so many other life balance things that will be factored in to my month to month time away from poker.

Battling the mental games daily and continuing to work on overcoming that fear of BIG LOSS. Having had a few big losing sessions this month has sort of helped, however backward that may seem. Now it's time to string together a few of my patented BIG WINS and then compile some chippr0n for the thread. Mental game on! August on!

So the last few days have been going well for me, and my late month solid close trend continues. After a solid semi big win at Belagio (+$1.2k) and a decent little online session, I found myself in a game at The Orleans as I like to do on occasion for some 'jackpot hunter' hunting; if you will. Haha.

Ok so the small hope that we can realize any amount of EV that comes from table shares, room shares, or binking a bad beat jackpot hand is also a nice bonus, but the action in that room, especially on weekends, when the jackpot is big is nuts! People let their emotions get the best of them over and over in situations and games like that where there is some big money potential, yet they keep missing the 'big one'! There is often as much money on the table in this game as there is in the Belagio 2/5 $500 cap game in these instances. When my session began, there were 3 stacks over $2k at the table! One of them was small time TV celeb Chumlee, from Pawn Stars, who sat to my right for several hours at the beginning of the day. He made off with over $2k in profits after a sick hand where he over bet the river in a 3b pot. His $700 River shove into a pot of $480 had his opponent perplexed. The board read 3xJd9d8x2x and Chumlee had bet the pot on flop and turn. After a 5 minute tank, the V made the call showing his KJo only for a second to Chumlee as he happily turned his QQ face up for the win! Yeah, it's this kind of action today! Happily, I grind on...

Cruising right along, and up nearly $1k in this amazing game, I had the following hand come up:

Hero is in CO with 4d4s. Two people limp in, and hero over limps, and big blind is in as well. 4 way to the flop we go.

4hQs6h. It checks to me, and I throw out a $10 bet. Only 1 caller comes along, an MP limper.

Turn is 6s. Checks to me again and I bet $20. The MP V now counts out the min check raise, and slides in $40. Hero evaluates his demeanor while going through hand ranges for most likely holdings for V. With the double flush draw and small straight draw on board, and also his heavy 6x range, he is definitely weighted to high equity semi bluffs and made 6x hands. Hero sticks in the 3b to $120. V just calls, with $240 behind.

River is the 4c.

V takes about 20 seconds and then leads out for $120. He is strong, he is confident. Hero makes the shove and V snap calls and in same motion turns up his 6x hand. X=6.

Quad 6s!!!!!!!!!!! Without even flinching I snap my hand face up right in front of me, and as the entire table leans in in anticipation of what could be....

JACKPOT!!!!!!!!!

Many high fives from everyone around me and several hours later, the hand is made official, and paid out. Strong ending to a strong day, as I ship the big share of the $81,000 bad beat jackpot!

fuuuuuk ya!!! thats ossum!

Time to take a shot in Bobby's Room and run it up!

Back to back nights/early mornings visiting Belagio, Bobbys Room empty. Everyone confirmed busto?

Started using snapchat a little more to share some Vegas lifestyle pics and more chippr0n as well. Same name (RockstarRossi) over there for anyone who wants to follow the pic version of "my story" for pokerz and Vegas!

Couple more sessions to go before we close out my biggest profit month to date...lolBBJ!! I'll take it

So what does it take to become AND REMAIN a top notch poker player? Can we reach a certain level in our mental and technical game, and then just coast through the day to day grind, expecting our results to climb? Certainly not! But, even if we spend countless hours away from the tables working on and improving our mental game and our technical game, when the money is on the line, and we are in game, are we going to be able to play our A game? Of course not all of the time. So what gap now presents itself that we need to be careful not to overlook? It is the gap in play associated with us when we are playing our best, our A game, and when we are playing our worst, our C game!

Improving our C game in poker is not always easy, as it is the type of poker we are playing when we are dealing with the things that adversely affect our minds the most.

Exhaustion that leads to lack of ability to focus, one of the many forms of tilt that we still must battle on a day by day basis, external distractions such as watching a sporting event while we play, friends or family situations not poker related that need attention during a session (via text, email, phone call, etc), and the list goes on and on. Of course most of this creeps into my game during longer live sessions, and my reaction(s) to these external situations can have a very big effect on my session results.

I have found lately especially, that I start to lose focus and fall out of my A game after several hours of intense focus, attention to the technical details of every street of every hand I am in. This will result in me making incorrect sizing plays later in a session. It also leads to folding a spot that I otherwise would have capitalized on. And conversely, it leads to me playing a hand/spot that if I was in my most focused mind I would not be playing. True, some of these situations might have very minimal consequences, depending on how tough and good my opponents are playing, but the overall and lasting effects of sliding deep into my C game while still playing is something I certainly wish to avoid if possible.

The piece to all of this that I am trying to highlight is that naturally we are going to have to learn to play while approaching or even in our C game. The interesting fact at play here, is that if we truly are a top notch player, even when we are in our C game, we are still going to play better poker than many of our opponents.

Human nature doesn't allow me to completely avoid playing in my C game. However, what I CAN control is minimizing the external distractions IN GAME and also to submit my brain to solid sleep and exercise patterns in between sessions. These are examples of how I can improve my C game. There is no doubt, if I am going to achieve the volume and profit goals I am aiming toward, I am going to have to battle these things on a near daily basis. Learning how to play better poker for longer amounts of time isn't going to just be some Ah-ha training tool I put to use. It is going to take constant effort and reevaluation IN GAME. If I find that I am in a slightly tougher than usual game (perhaps a few more good solid regs than I normally like to have in 1 game), table selecting away from the game becomes even more critical as some of the C game triggers start to show up.

One of my strengths, I believe, is my ability to recognize when I am starting to slip in my play, and I act and react to it wisely in taking some form of a break. Sometimes yes it is a table, game, or even casino change that is just what the doctor ordered to regroup and regain my concentration and focus. Other times, especially in games where I realize that the conditions are optimal for having a big profitable session based on my opponent types in the game, just a simple few minutes away from the table is all I need.

One of the major weaknesses I see in the lukewarm and complacent poker players is their inability to even see when their own game is slipping deeper and deeper into C game habits. On top of this, and one level further, another major weakness is that some of these players do actually see or realize they aren't playing well, yet they do nothing about it. The final group of players I will lump into "complacent poker players" are the group that can't even see past level 1 of ABC thought while in game and just trudge along on hitting their volume/promo goals regardless of how much money they are leaving on the table by not even trying to improve their game.

My self awareness and my personal goals won't allow me to be a part of the group that is ok with complacency. I choose to work hard to improve my C game and recognize all the external forces at work that cause me to enter it sooner than I wish and react to them as quickly as possible. I choose to be HOT, not lukewarm, when describing my desire to improve and succeed in this game, this career path that I have chosen.

Awesome post, good to see your fire to succeed has seemed to only grow since I met you

Glad Vegas is treating you well, keep at it!

Thanks man!!

It's definitely been a fun road since moving to Vegas. Really enjoying my options for life and poker in this town, for sure. Hope things are going well in NorCal, assuming you are still up there! Perhaps we need to plan a visit to our newest Floridian pal, Mr. Duke one of these upcoming months next year!


Surpassed my volume goal and hit 137.5 hours for the month of August. Very happy with my work ethic there. I was only able to put together a break even month as far as cash game profit goes, not courting the BBJ of course. Looking at my actual profits from a standard poker hours perspective I am not to unhappy with managing just a break even month. I was unable to get much volume in online, and the hours I did put in I got crushed on Bovada. We showed profits on WSOP.com and also in LIVE pokerz, so was still a well balanced month in those regards. I always seem to pick myself up with one area when I seem to struggle in another. It will be interesting to see how the remaining months go now that Bovada is almost done for me. I am definitely going to miss the overall big picture of getting to play there, but quite honestly, my recent results there have been pretty meh. I certainly will never forget the sheer volume and study I was able to put in with my coaches by playing full time cash games on Bovada for nearly two years. The foundation of technical game fundamentals and advanced play is certainly invaluable to my overall poker game moving forward.

It is with such sweet sorrow that, at least for now, I will say goodbye to this option at the close of September. With the ever changing climate that is poker, and specifically online poker, however, the future is always wide open and no one knows exactly what is in store.

Getting ready for a weekend of relaxing on the beaches and amusement parks in SoCal starting tomorrow and returning home on Monday. A much needed rest and recharge weekend after a long and busy August!

Bring on cooler weather. Bring on football. Bring on a solid stretch run to an amazing year. Bring on September!