I'm with you 100%. As the older generation dies out, and people stop getting their news from TV, his ideas will get more traction. I think Rand will be successful if he follows in his father's footsteps. I still hold out hope for this year, but with Romney being shoved down everyone's throats I don't know if enough voters for Paul will turn out. Let's hope his delegate plan works out.

Zack - Just wanted to say that I'm very glad you've evaluated and decided to add $10s into your grind. I meant to mention this to you about a month ago when you told me your intention was to just grind $2-5's for awhile.

Despite your exceptional run bad you've experienced in $10s, you have still made more $$ per game in them than in $5s. They can definitely be reggier at certain times of the day, but I'd recommend scouting some of the non-primetime hours to grind as the $2-10s still load plenty fast to get 90-110 games/hour and are most certainly much softer.

Really looking forward to watching you succeed in March ! Crush it buddy.

It sickens me the way the mainstream media treats this guy, mostly because he's the one politician that won't sell out. He has been endorsed (or at least supported) by popular figures as far right as Glenn Beck, and as far left as Jon Stewart. This guy, as best as anybody can tell, has honorable intentions, and has thought deeply about what it takes to get our country out of this mess.

I urge everybody that reads this: If you are a voter and don't know much about Ron Paul, check him out.

-He is huge, huge on individual rights, state rights, and liberty.

-He's for the legalization of marijuana. He doesn't endorse it's use of course, but he feels people have a right to make their own decisions. He doesn't think it's the governments job to protect people from themselves, especially the Federal Government.

-He's from the Austrian School of Economics, meaning he's for getting back on the Gold Standard. This will get rid of fiat money (google it) and make it so that our government cannot over-inflate and devalue the money that you have in your bank accounts, which is happening at a ridiculous rate as we speak.

-He is very against the wars we've been fighting for the past decade, and he has been from the beginning.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The dude always knows what he is talking about, he is never caught off guard, and he is just so sincere when he speaks.

Ron Paul 2012



Blake, I really appreciate you popping in here and dropping these kind words for me man. And I think you're absolutely right. All too often, we let chronic runbad cloud our perspective into thinking we can't win, or that we would be better off moving down. I've really had to take a step back and evaluate things, and the fact is that I am a highly profitable player at the $10s, and I would estimate that I am a highly profitable player at any stake, given a big enough bankroll. I'm confident that even the -.9% at the $10s is mostly due to playing poorly because of runbad (something I do way too much), and that I am probably much closer to break even at those games, if not a tiny bit profitable pre-RB.

I'm looking forward to making March a fantastic month in terms of volume, which will hopefully translate to good profits. Positive attitude every day I wake up=success. Let's get it!

Good luck to you as well of course. You gotta man up those higher stakes games while I grind it out down low. No more running horri-bad!

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Probably going to bed pretty soon guys. With it being Thursday, I'm gonna try to treat today as if it's a day next month, and get at least 600 games. Hopefully I can do well and make some solid moolah

Oh yeah, I just read Phil Galfonds latest blog post. You should check it out if you have a few minutes. It's pretty cool. I'm probably gonna go through and read some of his older ones as well. I like his writing style a good bit.

http://www.philgalfond.com/

I was just telling my brother how I'm shocked that I've yet to get sick this year, since it seems like I'm constantly around sick people. He and his wife have each been sick twice. People at my church have been sick, including kids that I've eaten with and such.

Well, it finally happened. I'm feeling pretty much like garbage today. I'm still gonna play some today, but I'm probably gonna make it just a few short sessions, and I'll probably either take a nap or just go to bed early. I definitely wanna get better by next week. Ughhh

Ugh feel better soon broski

The presidency is not a powerful enough position to make the large scale changes that Paul wants to make. The most important job that the president does is temper the agenda of his party to make it passable through a divided congress. Paul is so far away from the agendas of either party that I dont see any way his presidency could be effective.

Add to that the fact that he's not a true politician. He's not willing to tell people what they want to hear or give tit for tat. In theory a man like that seems perfect for the presidency but in practice I think it would be a disaster.

So Ruseman, would you say that a president, by the nature of the position, has to be somebody who can be disingenuous with people?

I don't think Ron Paul is distant from conservative ideals by any stretch of the imagination. If he gets elected, I think that point will become abundantly clear. Most conservative people (and especially conservative libertarians like myself) really ought to align themselves with just about everything that this guy stands for, because just about everything this guy stands for is in strict adherence to the Constitution, to the ideals of small government (small Fed especially), and to the ideals of individual freedom and liberty.

As for him not being a true politician....do we really need another "true politician" running our country? To answer the question I posted above, I don't think you need to be disingenuous to be and effective president. I don't think you need to pander to the left, just for the sake of continuity and a false sense of cooperation.

Sure, I don't think everything that Ron Paul wants would come to fruition if he becomes president. Things in politics change painfully slowly. I think, however, that he can set a powerful precedent in a lot of ways. I think he can abdicate a lot of the powers that recent presidents have abused; powers that simply do not belong to the executive branch. I believe, especially in 8 years time, that he can prove how drastically reducing the size of the federal government and letting the markets work for themselves is effective. I believe he can get Obamacare repealed.

Who would you say is better suited to represent the GOP, or is more capable of getting things done in the white house?

Ron Paul can do many of the things he wants.

We have not declared war so he can bring the troops home.

He can continually pardon minor drug offenders eventually making it a waste and a cost to imprison them.

He also has the veto pen which will stop bills like the one that allows Americans to be detained without trial from getting through.

That's just a quick list off the top of my head, but there are plenty of things Paul could accomplish.

Yes foreign policy is definitely one thing he could affect. One which Im closer to him than any other candidate or Obama.

He could veto certain bills but stuff like the patriot act was so popular in congress that they would have had the votes to overrule the veto. Also the president can only pardon federal crimes and there are no such things as minor federal drug crimes as far as i know. The main things that Paul wants to do, like getting rid of Dept of Ed and Enery and Commerce and FDA, Fed reserve etc, are not gonna be able to be done away with by just the president or even if you have majorities in both houses of congress. The founders set it up so it's a very slow and tedious process to make major changes.

Zack, you say disingenuous I say diplomatic and pragmatic. Yes we do need another politician as president because that's how the system works. It'd be awesome to think that someone like Paul could come in an change the system around but it just wouldnt happen. There just isnt that much power in the presidency. I guess he could abdicate some of the power that the presidency has slowly gained but by doing that he'd make it even more likely that he couldnt make any of the changes that he wanted to.

He may not be distant from actual conservative ideals but the republican party is no more a conservative party than the democratic party is a liberal party. I really cant say who best represents the GOP because it is such a fractured party. That's why this race has been so sporatic and also why they have no shot of beating Obama unless the economy gets way worse or something else major happens. I'd say someone like Santorum best represent the radical part of the party and Romney best represents the moderate part of the party. Paul represents the small government Tea Partyish part of the GOP but he's at odds with a lot of what they believe too. I'd say the majority of the party wouldnt even consider Paul a republican because of his stance on defense, drug policy and numerous other things.

Im a hardcore liberal btw and actually find myself agreeing with Paul on a lot of stuff. I think the framework the founders set down for how government works and check and balances is great. But i think we live in a drastically different world that we did 230 years ago and living our lives by certain rules that the founders set is not only laughable but dangerous.

Eh i guess hardcore lib is misleading. I dont really care about the environment that much and Im not for welfare and healthcare for idealistic reasons but for pragmatic ones.

I've known for a while that Ron Paul supported the full legalization of online poker. What I didn't know was that he is the ONLY GOP CANDIDATE THAT DOES. The other three have openly said they do not support online poker.

Check the thread out. If you are a registered Republican and you play online poker, either casually or for profit, this ought to deeply influence your decision on who to vote for.

Ron Paul 2012

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/57...poker-1161940/

every 2p2 should get behind Ron Paul......Ron Paul 2012

Amen brother. I have been blowing up my Facebook in the past week with pro-Paul videos and support

It's all about the Paulitics!

Do you think Paul would support a bill that legalized and regulated online poker? I think he voted against or abstained from voting on all the poker bills in the last few years. I think poker legislation would be more likely to be passed with Romney than Paul.

Everyone else wants it legalized to make money. Paul wants it legalized cause he thinks the government shouldnt tell citizens what hobbies they can have. All these other supposed tea party libertarians (Bachman) were strong opponents of legalized online poker. The hypocrisy makes me sick

Check the links my friend. The other three are explicitly against the legalization of online poker.

"Romney also said he doesn't support legalizing online gaming. He's says he's against it because of the social costs and people's addictive gambling habits."

Ron Paul 2012

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If anybody reading this thread is annoyed by the lack of poker talk and the excess of political talk, I assure you that it's only temporary, and that especially once March gets here, I will be posting daily updates of my progress, graphs, and hopefully, success!

Screw poker, politics is way more interesting

Situations like this is where Paul's unwillingness to compromise make him ineffective. The only way a poker bill is going to come out of congress is if it has heavy regulation and taxation attached to it. Paul will never sign anything that creates a new governmental regulatory body and taxes.

Romney on the other hand goes whichever way the wind is blowing. He has proven time and time again that he has no problem having a stance that he at one time was on the opposite side of.

If Ron Paul doesn't get elected, I'm moving to Mexico!

So as it turns out, I don't think I'm sick at all. Instead, I think I'm just suffering from allergies. I've never lived anywhere besides the Pittsburgh area, and apparently the part of Indiana I'm living right now is known for having a lot of allergens, and needless to say, my nose and my eyes are not very happy with me right now. I've never had any problems with allergies, so I had no clue what it felt like. Well....it sucks!

Anyways, I'm taking some allergy medication now. Hopefully it's effective and I'm back to 100% in a couple of days. It's bad right now though. Like, I can't even focus on grinding because my eyes keep watering and my nose keeps running. I just played like a 30 minute session and I felt like garbage the whole time.

Might just lay in bed, watch some movies and catch up on my politics. I really want to be able to tell people EXACTLY why they should vote for Ron Paul and not those other fools, and to do that, I need to be well-informed.

I wanted to kind of finish this month strong, but I just haven't been able to play with the way I've been feeling. I'm thinking I'll have to get in some decent volume on Monday and Tuesday, just to make sure I stay in the top 25 on the leaderboard. I don't want to lose an easy $100 over something so stupid. Right now I'm in 25th, but honestly, I could probably climb a couple of spots just for comfort with 1 good day of grinding. The guys this far down on the list are not the high volume guys, so I can pass all of them pretty easily.

I've decided that I'm gonna shoot for 800 games for Tomorrow, Tuesday. I would shoot a little higher, but I usually attend a discussion group at my church Tuesday nights from 8:30 to 10, so that will cut into volume a bit. I'm doing this to hopefully close in on the top 25 on the leaderboard. I'm like 100K points out of 25th, and an 800 game day should close the gap a good bit, so that I can catch up all the way on Wednesday.




Gonna probably chill for the next ~2 hours, maybe play some COD or something else relaxing, and then hop on right at midnight for a couple of hours. I'll update tomorrow night, 800 games from now

gl man... would be pretty sick if you could earn a small profit pre rb from this.

Yeah I mean profiting pre RB is a pretty reasonable expectation, especially at the $2s and $5s. I think I can maintain a break-even ROI at the $10s as well, if not slightly positive. Thanks for the well wishes.

I'm still helping a friend of mine proofread a paper, so I might not get back on til 12:30 or so. I like helping people do well in school (which is kind of ironic). I'd like to say that I'm a pretty good writer, and an even better editor, which is why I have a few friends who like turning to me for help

Okay so I never really got started at all today. I'm still dealing with all of these allergies, and I didn't end up getting out of bed until 4 pm EST. Then, I ended up getting into some political discussions on Facebook, ended up talking to somebody who wanted advice...all kinds of stuff, and before I knew it, it was after 8. I don't even think I have 100 games on the day lol.

Anyways, no big deal. I'm certainly leaving some equity on the table by not placing on the leaderboard (first time since like May or June that I have not placed), but I'm not sweating it, because I'm about to destroy in March.

Speaking of that, we are now 25 hours away from the start of the biggest month of Zack Ryan's poker career! I'm almost 100% decided that I am going to move from where I am living right now (a small town called Mitchell, Indiana) and move back to Pittsburgh, probably in late April or early May. I'm either going to sublet a room in my buddies apartment for college summer months (May to August) or I'm gonna just get my own apartment. I'm hoping to do the sublet though, because they have a nice house on the South Side of Pittsburgh. Really cool fact about the South Side: There are more bars on the South Side, per block, than anywhere IN THE WORLD. When I was a kid, there were around 180 bars. I would say now there are probably around 250. The one building used to be a bank, and is now one of the most popular bars in the area. It's called the Carson City Saloon.

Anyways, this is going to give me a lot of extra motivation to grind hard and make lots of money. I think a bare expectation, provided I hit 180+ hours, is to make $5,000. I'd like to shoot even higher than that, but a big factor of course is how well I run. A $5K+ month will be huge though, since I'll need to buy a decent vehicle, and pay for rent, furniture, ect... when I get there.

I was really going back and forth on whether I should move so soon, but reading one of Phil Galfond's blog posts actually helped me to make the decision. I'm realizing that part of what has made me so complacent, so unsettled, and sometimes downright even upset, is that where I live now, it's very hard to have any kind of balance. There's almost nothing to do to get away from poker and unwind. Initially, like back in October, it was good for me, because I desperately needed to make money, but now I'm at a point where I want to be able to balance out my poker grind with a social life. Therefore, on to Pittsburgh!

The other good thing about the sublet option is the fact that I'll have to move again at the end of August. By then, I should have decided to either get my own place with a lease, or to pack up again and head out of the country to get back on Pokerstars. If I do that, I think the obvious probability is to head to Rosarito Beach, which is where several of my fellow grinders are at this very moment.

Things are looking good for me right now, and I couldn't be more excited about what the next few months have in store for me.

Here is the Galfond post I was mentioning.

http://www.philgalfond.com/it-always...nce-doesnt-it/

As for next month, my absolute biggest priority is going to be getting a huge number of games in. I'm going to try to keep things as low stress as possible.

I withdrew money multiple times in February, for a couple of reasons, but mostly because it's just prudent to not keep a big percentage of your money online. Anyways, right now, my total online roll is $1321 I'm going to stay just grinding the $5's and $2's for the first week or so, since they've both been running so well, and I won't start adding in the $10's until my online roll gets up above $2000. I think it's just a good way to avoid any form of tilt or negative thinking throughout the month. I know that by keeping this pace, I'll be poised for a top 3 or 4 spot on the leaderboard, and that's just money in the bank.

So yeah, by disclosing my online roll publicly, I can use it in my updates, along with cool graphs, possibly some discussion of hands, and hopefully lots of other entertaining things.

i thats case you need WAAAAY WAAAAY more of these






and some of these







and a few of these





hope they help

gl luck with your killer month

Haha I don't mind you posting threadsavers, but idk....There just not my thing. I don't mean to offend anybody, but I just don't see a whole lot of purpose in it.

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LAST BUMP BEFORE THE START OF MARCH! You guys know the rules: If I don't hit my volume, it's gonna cost me $$$. Of course that shouldn't happen to meee though . I'm looking to get on right at midnight and start crushing. You can expect fairly regular updates from here on out.


legoooooooooooo!

Gl this month!!