vroom vroom to the moon!

Weekly Update (12/6 - 12/12)

Better week in terms of volume and studying. Felt like I was actually doing my job again for the first time in a while. Not a lot to play on Wednesday but I grinded everything I could, got volume in Thursday and did well, took off Friday and Saturday and had some good times, then came back Sunday morning and fell asleep around 3PM before waking up around 7PM. Need to be getting started earlier on Sundays. Did session after that but came into the majors too late and didn't find the run good to have good results. Bad day results-wise Monday but played alright and studied beforehand, then good but disappointed results Tuesday. Played 5 days this week, coulda done better with start times and other things but am glad to see I did things properly again.

Wednesday the 6th

Had lots of potential for the day then busted 12th in the Party 10K (lost a flip) and 11th in the Stars 10K (lost JJ<ATs). I have not been great when tournaments get into the stage where you go all in pre and then watch the runouts, but have been finding myself with a lot of chips before that point which has been good. While doing a lot of thinking yesterday (Tuesday the 12th) I found some weird sort of clarity and peace in realizing that the early stages of most tournaments are made for giving yourself the best chance before you just close your eyes and gamble and the luckiest person wins. Obviously that's how tournaments work but I've never really framed it like that to myself, always wanting to believe there was more skill than there really is late in most tournaments. It's almost like they are a glorified version of those 888 knockoff spin n gos, I forget what they're called, but you play a hyper turbo for a certain number of minutes and then everyone is forced all in with any two until you have a winner. Sure, you can have small edges in actual tournaments when everyone is <20bbs deep, but in reality your edge is just going to be really small. You fight hard before then so that you have twice as many chips as everyone and it's going to take getting unlucky multiple times before you bust.

Anyway, I lost $9 on the day on about $800 in buy ins lol.

Thursday the 7th

I was near the top of the chip counts for most of the Stars 10K before losing AQ<AK with 5 left. That left me in the middle of the pack and I think I did well to ladder up into 2nd (and of course was fortunate that the big stack won the all ins vs the small stacks). Was not able to mount the miracle comeback but took 2nd for $1700 and made $865 on the day.

Friday the 8th

Tee Dubs, Kyle and Jane, and Jane's friend came over and we all hung out and drank and had a merry old time. I can't stress enough how much fun Picolo is as a drinking game if you have the right people. We ended up listening to Christmas music, playing some games, I wore my light up Christmas Red Sox sweater, and of course drank an unruly amount of alcohol. Went to bed around 4 ready for the shenanigans that were to take place the next day.

Saturday the 9th

Hopped on a train with Tee Dubs around 1:30PM and off to NYC's Santa-con we went. For those unaware of what Santa-con is, you dress up like Santa (or whatever festive thing you wanna do) and walk up and down 2nd Ave all day getting drunk at all the bars. The first and only snowfall of the season so far came down all day, never too heavy but also always noticeable; it was really nice. We pregamed around 4 before heading out around maybe 5 or 6. It was a great time with all the usual characters, and some of Greg's brother's girlfriend's friends (damn a lot of possessives in that sentence) joined us as well and they were really cool. We wandered around the city going to a few different bars, eventually going back to one of the friend's apartments, then back to Greg's, and since it was still only 10PM since everything starts so early, back out to some more bars! By the time it was all said and done I was asleep around 4-5AM again.

Undoubtedly the craziest thing of the day happened around 7PM at the Belfry, our go to bar. We were playing the bar version of Picolo now (we are really set in our ways) and two rules of note came up that make the story funnier/crazier than it already is. First, we are asked to vote who the top 3 smartest in our group are and they will have to drink 3, 2, 1 times respectively. Despite having not 1 but 2 doctors in our group, my friend argues vehemently that I am the smartest and I drink 3 times. Secondly, one of the new friends we met had clearly just gotten out of a relationship with her boyfriend, so we were trying to lift her spirits since she was doing a good job of being out and about and trying to have a good time. So a rule comes up that says she needs to give her phone number to a guy of our choosing, so we try to find a guy she's interested in and after pointing to one, she proves to be a great sport and goes and has a conversation with him. She comes back with a big smile on her face and says she's given out her number, hooray! Now with a bunch more confidence she says she's gonna go give her number to a guy she'd been eyeing earlier. She hurries off with her friend and a couple of ours while maybe 5 of us stay in the circle we've already formed.

Now for the actual story. I hear a thud, look over, and the guy this girl has given her number to not five minutes ago is on the floor. The stool he was sitting on is down as well, and I start laughing at this drunk bastard just passing out at 7PM. I stop laughing when I see his eyes are in the back of his head and he is shaking. I say out loud to no one, "yep, thaaaaaaat's a seizure" as everyone starts to realize what was happening and snap into action. I start looking for Chris, Greg's brother, WHO IS A DOCTOR, only to find he has already snapped into action and is assisting the guy. I look at my friend Jerry, and tell him to call 911, and he being ex-military is already on it. So after being voted the smartest in the group I sit back and do nothing while my dumber friends single-handedly safely and securely get this guy on his feet and talking as the ambulance makes its way to the bar to ensure he is alright.

As the commotion begins to die down our friend strolls back with a big smile on her face about having given her number out to another guy. I ask her what exactly it was she said to the first guy, and make sure someone's watching out for guy #2 that he doesn't go down as well. Alright bad joke but it was scary and I decided to laugh about it all once I knew he was okay!

Sunday the 10th

Tee Dubs and I leave the city around 1PM, get back around 2:30, and I fall asleep on the couch from about 3 until 7. Way too late to be starting but definitely better than not playing at all. I build up a pretty big stack in the half priced 6 max (normally $500 but $250 this Sunday for whatever reason) before just dumping it all off. I really should review that tournament because I have a feeling I played it horribly. Nothing else really gets going and I lose $1300 on the day.

Monday the 11th

Good study session before the actual game play but another disappointing day results-wise and I lose another $800.

Tuesday the 12th

I watch another RIO video and feel good going into my session. I manage to satty into the $500 on WSOP from $50 and also fire up the Stars $250 and $100, the Party $215 and $109, and just 5 table those and focus best I can on them. I bust bullet 1 of the $250 pretty quickly, 3 betting ATs somewhat large out of the SB and getting flatted by CO. I cbet the T94r flop and he raises massive effectively putting me all in and I cannot hold against the QJo (despite the Tx turn grrr). But I do run good after this and spin bullet 2 up. I felt that I played quite well in the early goings, and was very happy with my decision to start at 7PM sharp and play from the first hand. I felt I could really push edges and see leaks from other players that I haven't seen in a long time due to both not starting on time and not studying properly. It felt like a turning point for me, to the point that I wrote 3 notes while playing to remind myself to use this as positive momentum regardless of how the results went yesterday. They are pretty embarrassing but I like writing everything down here so I'll copy them word for word:

"9PM: For 2 hours you've been thinking quite clearly, breaking down ranges well, etc, and you feel good. Regardless of session outcome, this downswing will end soon!!"

"11PM: Amped to have played a few hands well, gotten lucky in a few spots, and have potential with <20 left in both the Stars $250 and WSOP $500. Even if you brick both, you're battling. Come back stronger tomorrow."

"11:23PM: I realized having 20bbs and being 6/13 with 6 paying simply means if I run good I'll cash and if not I won't. I am resigned to my fate and at peace lol. If it's meant to be, great, otherwise, I can wait."

That last one was in regards to the WSOP $500 where 1st was $8K, 6th was $1700, and 7th was 0, and I was in for $50. I believe I had 30K at 800/1600 at that point and stacks just get so shallow in that thing. I unfortunately ripped 25K at 1K/2K in CO with KJo, was called by 77, and did not win to bust 11th. Just moving up to 26bbs there would have made me 4/11, but it wasn't meant to be. As I said on that note though, I'll come back stronger today and I can wait.

However, the Stars $250 went better and I went to the FT 3/9. I reviewed that entire FT with my friend and crusher (shoutout to Max) who has been really motivated lately and putting in a lot of ROW volume which has also been motivating me. There were a couple spots that I think I missed but for the most part I think I did a good job of taking advantage of those who were playing too tight, especially preflop. The tournament has great structure too so until the very end I was over 30bbs for pretty much the entire MTT. I flirted with the chip lead for most of the FT before losing a couple unfortunate hands then 66<88 SB vs button for 340K each at 20K to bust in 4th for $2200, giving me a $1400 winning day.

I'll be taking Saturday off this week for sure to visit my family and do some holiday stuff, and I'll be going to the AC area to help my friend move on Monday. Other than that (and playing tonight) I'm not sure what other day I'll take off, or if I'll play live cash on Monday, or what's going on, but here's to keeping the work ethic strong and striving to be better again!

Weekly Update (12/13 - 12/19)

Since so many of my recent posts have had an air of sadness and negativity around them I want to get this post in while I'm riding a high. Before I get started though I wanna give a huge shoutout to Tremomey for taking a ton of time to send me a long and detailed message with a ton of inspirational stuff and great advice. I read it a few days ago while I was at my parents' house without my own computer to respond on but I promise I will get back to you soon enough!

Wednesday the 13th

Tried to put a full session in and started it on time, but made the mistake of not regging the Party 10K a full 2 minutes before 7PM so it didn't run. I was watching a RIO video from 6PM-7PM so it was extra frustrating because I was sitting at my computer that whole time but forgot the cutoff was a full 120 seconds before the MTT started, and when I looked at the lobby at 6:58 the tourney was gone. So I ended up only playing 3 tournaments and not cashing any, losing $220 on the session.

Thursday the 14th

Lots of disappointment on this day, including finishing 8th in the Thursday Thrill after getting KK in on the 7628 board and getting rivered by 99. I think 4 paid that day. Busted to the same guy with 10 left in the Stars 10K for a mincash, finished 9th in a $20 on Stars after having CL for a while, and took 6th in the Party 10K for $550. But I did have an extremely lucky hand in that tournament that made me feel like winning was still possible. I opened AA and got 3 callers with the flop coming Q52. I cbet small and was called by the SB who then checked the 3x turn. I had less than pot, stood up from my chair as I was clicking all in because my history with this player made me feel it was quite likely he had 55 or 22, but could obviously still have some combos of Qx, and AA is way too high up in my range to do anything but jam. He called with 55 and I double checked to make sure the river wasn't an ace as I walked away from my comp. It was a low brick so I walked into my room and just stared into space for a few seconds, doing a good job to just do nothing while I let the adrenaline come down.

I took a couple breaths and felt pretty good, and then a thought shot into my head. "I had a gutshot didn't I? And I think that might have been a 4. Is there any way I'm not out right now but actually have a bunch of chips?" I walked back to my computer and action was on me lol. I hit a 6 outter at a final table and hadn't even realized it at the time! I unfortunately did not get much going after that though and eventually lost a flip with 6 left to bust. $200 loss on the day.

Friday the 15th

I was on the fence about playing this day, knowing I'd be taking off the next day but also not having missed any days this week. However, I hadn't really put a session in Wednesday, so playing Friday might have been best. I decided to wait as long as I could to see what roommates/friends were up to and let that be the decider. Tee Dubs calls me around 6PM to tell me he won't be going to his parents' place as originally planned since it was snowing a bunch around here, so he asked if I wanted to go to the city with him. I declined and he said he still wanted to hang out even if it meant staying here, so I took that as a sign and hung out with him and Kyle. We had a good time as always.

Saturday the 16th

Around 1:30PM I left for my parents' place, arriving around 3:00. My brother and his girlfriend were already there and our day committed to A Christmas Story began around 4:30. We drove to a Christmas lights show it was $30 per car to drive through and see a ton of decorations. They were actually pretty spectacular and it was a good time. Then we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, and concluded the day with Christmas cocktails and attempted to make leg light cookies. The cookies turned out horribly but it was great spending time with my family. My brother has been with his girlfriend several years now and she is an extremely nice and warm person and it's always great to get to see them. I'm really happy for both of them that they have each other.

Sunday the 17th

As always, the plan was to start playing around 5PM and as always, I got caught up watching the football games and didn't get started by that time. I was watching the games all day with my dad and it was the semifinals of my Fantasy Football league. My 6-8 team with all the heart finished 4th of 8 and snuck into the playoffs with the 13-1, 11-3, and 10-4 teams. All year I felt like my team was good enough to win a bunch of games, and my managing with picking up the right kicker and defense seemingly every week made me feel like my record should have been way better. But taking Devonta Freeman, Mike Evans, and Amari Cooper with my first 3 picks never seemed to pan out and every week I found myself scrambling to find better players and to decide whether or not to start those 3 mentioned above. In fact, looking at the draft results now, I still have those 3 on my roster as well as Gronk with my 4th round pick, but outside of that all I have left of my original 15 picks are Davante Adams in the 6th round and Christian McCaffrey. McCaffrey's actually been quite reliable but Adams just seems to take a cheap shot every other week.

After switching between Matt Ryan and Dak Prescott for most of the season I finally dropped both of them to go with Phillip Rivers as my playoff QB. He unfortunately only found 10 points against the Chiefs on Saturday, and Marvin Jones Jr also picked up 10, so I wasn't feeling too great against a powerhouse team going into Sunday. Davante Adams did well to get 14 points before taking the 2nd brutal dirty hit he's seen this year in the 3rd quarter and being taken out for the game. Kenyan Drake and Baltimore's defense each put up 20 though to keep me alive against a team that features Aaron Rodgers, Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, Josh Gordon, Alvin Kamara, and Jordan Howard. CBS was playing the Patriots Steelers game so there was no way I was gonna stop watching that one, and when Gronk started to put up numbers AND Antonio Brown left the game with an injury my prospects for winning went way up. Add the fact that I worked my kicker magic again at 7:30AM before the games started and 24 points from Robby Gould locked up the win for me. Gronk finished with 23, Robert Woods with 13, and Freeman put up 28 Monday night to turn a big win into a massive 163-107 blowout. 4 of the 5 active players on my bench also put up 14+, and I'll now have to decide which 2 to start between Freeman, Drake, McCaffrey, Latavius Murray, and Dion Lewis (facing a Buffalo defense giving up the most points to backs and Rex Burkhead injured). Decisions decisions.

After the Patriots game ended in pandemonium my friend called and asked if I wanted to go see Star Wars. It was 7PM and I knew I had to be up early the next day for the 2 of us to go help our old cross country coach move in the morning so I decided to go and skip the session. Not responsible but I really enjoyed the weekend and I guess that fear of putting a damper on it with a losing session was enough for me to shy away from playing. I'm gonna have to do some mental game work to stop having that feeling that a losing session would somehow take away from a good weekend.

Monday the 18th

My buddy and former teammate Kyle and I woke up around 7:30 and then drove from my parents' house in Hamilton to Brigantine to move my old coach Ken from there to Galloway. There was a lot of stuff to move but I was happy to do it as Ken is one of those guys I really like and connect with. We're really similar in a lot of ways. We're both stringbeans with nearly identical 6'3" 165lb frames, both former runners (he was and still is much much better than I am), and both love strategy games, sports, trivia, you name it. He often listens to my poker stories and asks much more sophisticated questions than you get from a typical non-poker player, and we talk DFS strategy quite a bit (even though neither of us ever bets much on it). We also talk Jeopardy all the time lol.

Ken is actually 10 years older than me with a wife and a kid, but I'm reminded of the fact that I'm getting older when I think of him asking me what I thought about him asking this girl out who was on the running club team with him. We were actually in the Borgata food court and I had been dating Kelsey for a little while so I related some of my experiences with that relationship to any of the questions he had. Fast forward a couple years and Kelsey and I attended their wedding and had a great time. Then last year they had a daughter and now she's like 15 months old. When I think about my life I sort of break it down into phases: college life, dating Kelsey, living in this new house, being a professional poker player, etc. So I don't realize how many years have passed and how many milestones people can hit in what feels like a short time. The beginning and end of my relationship with Kelsey don't feel that long apart, and the time since it ended doesn't really feel that long either. But in between all that time my friend has started dating a girl, proposed to her, married her, had a daughter with her, and now moved into a new house together! When I look at that family it feels like they're miles ahead of me, but I remember each of them when they were single! It's pretty wild when I think about it.

Anyway, when Ken asked me to help him move it was a no-brainer that I'd be there. It was a decent amount of work but with Kyle, Ken, and me, along with Ken's dad, we did it pretty efficiently. It took a few hours and then I hung around the new house to catch up a little with Ken. His wife went to run a few errands and when we were moving everything I saw a little poker chip set, so we went and found it and Ken and I played heads up while he had his daughter Shawnee on his lap. We each got 100 chips to start and played 1/2, so we didn't need the blue chips, which we gave to Shawnee and she had a field day putting them in her mouth and throwing them everywhere. At one point I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe because she just started chucking them into the pot, and when she ran out of blue chips she threw her binky in the middle. I thought that was a pretty good tell that the 2 of them had a damn strong hand.

For perspective on how well Ken understands games and strategy innately, we played a pot where I opened button with J7 and then tripled off on a K546A board, going pretty big on river. He tanked forever and then folded a 5 face up, telling me "the ace seems like it's a good card for you to represent so I'm not buying it, and you wouldn't bet a king like that, so I can beat a bluff but I'm just not sure this hand is good enough to call." I was like ffs if you're tanking with a 5 then I hate my bluff, I was trying to make you fold a king! I then sort of broke down why his thought process was very good and how it's unlikely I'd double barrel ace high when it can be good at showdown and I might not go as big as I did with just an ace on the river, meaning I'm repping 2p+ and it's hard to have a hand that big, yada yada. But the guy plays next to zero poker and is telling me what a good bluff card the river is for me. I was impressed. I drove home that night and for some reason agreed to go see Star Wars again, and again with a Kyle, this time my roommate. We saw an 11PM showing and I found myself falling asleep throughout it; the lifting during the move really took it out of me!

Tuesday the 19th

I woke up around 11 today and ate a ton of food, watched some Netflix, and did some pushups. My muscles were all sore and I forgot how good that feeling is since I haven't been running much. Every once in a while I feel motivated to stop looking like a twig and start doing some non running exercise but like everything else that always seems to fade. In any case I'm probably just gonna do pushups every once in a while when I'm not doing anything else just because it can't hurt.

Around 3PM I fell asleep and didn't wake up until 8. I got started with my session around 8:30 and oh happy day, I finally had a good one. I won a bunch of flips early on and god damn did that feel good. It feels extra good when you get used to losing all the time, and you win a bunch in a row and realize how ****ing easy the game is when those are going right. I got off to an incredibly hot start in the $100 2nd chance on Stars, having 80K at 700bb at one point from 10K SS. I dipped pretty low with 4-5 players left but managed to make the comeback and won my first tournament in over 2 months, taking $1500 in the process. I had some chips in the $250 on Stars as well but that didn't pan out, as I bricked that, the Party $109 and $55, and the Stars 10K. But I had chips in the Party $215 that runs on Tuesdays before finding myself at around 25bbs on the bubble with 8 left and 7 paying. 1st place at this point had something like 300K of the 600K in play, and no one else was over 100K. I had 50K with blinds at 1K/2K, and I think I was 4/8 at that point.

I looked for my spots but stayed patient with the structure being way way too long and deep but allowing you to wait as long as you need, and when we got down to 5 or so I started to win a lot of pots. With 4 left the CL was up to 350K and I started to break away from the other 3 after being in last for most of the 5 and 4 handed play. In quick succession I knocked all 3 of the other players out (A8>KJ, TT>66, and K8s>QJ, god DAMN it is nice to win those!!!) and found myself down 350K to 250K or so with blinds at 1800/3600. Given it was 1:30AM and we were 75bbs deep I elected to agree when CL offered a chop. 1st and 2nd were something like $3300 and $2200, so I took my $2700 and called it a day. Finished the day up $3300 feeling good.

Today gets the bankroll back to $24,200 and has me feeling like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for getting back over $25K and being able to withdraw again for the first time in forever. The feeling I had after chopping the $215 is one I haven't felt in a long time, and it made me appreciate it more but also had me feeling weary. It truly is like a high, almost an addiction. It's easy to not realize that the feeling of winning, especially when money is involved, can be something you want to chase over and over again.

During this downswing I've done a much better job of finding ways to make myself happy outside of poker, and a James Obst video I listened to on RIO had me realizing that there are still a lot of things I need to accomplish outside of poker for me to really be happy. He said something along the lines of "if you find yourself getting frustrated with losing in poker, you might really want to take a deep look inside of yourself and make sure that there isn't anything else going on in life that could be responsible for those feelings." There was a lot more detail to it, but that was the gist of it, and it made me realize that when I was with Kelsey it was so easy to deal with losing because I could turn to her and feel better. There is no one for me to turn to now to get that sort of reassurance that everything is okay and poker is just a game and I'll get out of the rut soon enough.

But I'm slowly starting to find my own way of reassuring myself, and I'm beginning to thrive on the single life and that feeling of self-dependence. I love going to the city with my friends and seeing where the night takes me. I love being able to go to my friend Ken's house to help him move and having the option of staying the night there without having to answer to anyone about it. I love that I could just say **** it and take a trip to Chicago, or LA, or England if I felt like it tomorrow and I wouldn't have anything or anyone stopping me. I love that I can pay for my own bills by playing a game, and I love figuring out exactly who I really am by being able to be alone as much as I want. Today has me feeling rejuvenated and more ready to continue the work I've been doing with RIO, to continue to work harder and be more responsible about my sessions, and to continue living life and trying to squeeze everything out of it that I can before it's too late.

Just found this thread. Good stuff man. I like the fact that you don't just post about the ups but post about the downs as well. I know all too well what it's like to play tournaments as your sole form of income.

I love how everyone you meet is like "you play a game for a living, I'd love to do that." I'm instantly thinking, if you only knew what we put ourselves through, you wouldn't want to do it.

Thanks! I think being transparent makes for a better read.

I agree with you to an extent. I don't think people realize how frustrating and challenging it can be. But I also do actually play a game for a living and that's never lost on me lol. It definitely is pretty sweet

Weekly Update (12/20 - 12/26)

This week was essentially the opposite of last week, results-wise. However, I am pleased with the volume I put in, especially given it was the holidays, and I am trying to stay focused on preparation, volume, and how I'm playing, as opposed to results, so in that sense this week was much better than last.

Wednesday the 20th

Last Wednesday I got stuck 3 tabling some small MTTs and I was frustrated that I half-assed a session when I could have just taken the day off and relaxed, so I decided this Wednesday to just take off and go the bar with my buddies. We had some good talks and I had a lot of fun. I find myself feeling more relaxed about my social situation every day; there's still a lot of stress about finances and lifestyle to an extent, but as far as the ability to meet new people and have new experiences goes, I'm feeling like I'm back to my old self and that feels good.

Thursday the 21st

I lost $800 and I really can't remember much of how that happened. It appears I took 5th in a $100 on WSOP with 5 paying, and I remember having a bunch of chips in that and being disappointed in the result, but I'm not sure how I busted everything else. Maybe that's a good sign?

Friday the 22nd

Off day where I attempted to do a power hour (shot of beer every minute for an hour) with Tee Dubs. I made it about 45 minutes, then alternated every minute, and finally after finishing 7 beers (1.5 oz per shot, 90 oz in an hour, 90 / 12 = 7.5 beers for a power hour) I was forced to admit that I would not be finishing and gave up the ghost. We hung out with Kyle and Jane the rest of the night and had a good time.

Saturday the 23rd

Home game in Brooklyn! I mentioned meeting Ricky in a post here over a year ago during the 6 max at Borgata I FTed, and his progress since that post has been amazing. Not only has he FTed a Borgata Main Event but he's even commentated on the most recent one! Ricky is extremely professional and clearly treats the game like a business, and when I talk to him I feel like my head often gets put back on straight and my aspirations for being the best I can be come right back into focus. If only I could think that way all the time! We played a 5 handed 50c/$1 game, and 3 of us in the game were clearly comfortable playing much higher stakes, so it got somewhat out of hand after a while with straddles and showing cards and me turning the lights on my sweater on whenever I was claiming to have liked a flop. I instantly outflipped Ricky to spin $100 to $200 (AK>99 on both boards!) and then coolered him with 77 on T728; talk afterwards has me assuming he had AA or at least an overpair.

So after being up $300 very quickly I played a pretty absurd hand against the player who admitted to me is thinking about playing 2/5 but hasn't yet, so the stakes were reasonable for him. He open limps the SB and I make it $3.50 with 44 in the BB; we were also playing a $1 button ante fwiw. He calls and I call for a 4 to hit the flop, which comes T99hh and we both check. I again call for a 4 and turn my sweater lights on when the 4h hits. He bets $7, I tell him that he has been warned and call. River 7x and he bets $17, I make it $55, and he shoves for $123 total. Uh oh lmao, he is somewhat tight and you can probably argue this is a fold now but with what I imagine my image is in this game there's no world where I'm folding a full house. I lose to T9 and we all laugh about it.

I end up losing $230 on the session, one kid breaks even, the T9 kid loses $500, Ricky loses like $800, and the guy who bought in for $500 has over $2K in front of him . The rush he went on was unbelievable and hilarious, especially since he's a very good player who's more than willing to gamble and began showing 1 card in several hands; we were still unable to beat him and I still paid him off multiple times . All in all it was a really fun game and nice to hang out with a good group of guys.

Sunday the 24th

With both roommates home for Christmas I watched the Sunday day games as my fantasy team got annihilated by Todd Gurley for me to finish in 2nd in the league. I then fired up my session on time! All the majors' guarantees were heavily discounted and I managed to take 3rd in the $215 on WSOP, which was now a 20K, for $2400 or so. Same old story, I was near the top of the chip counts until about 12 left and then really bad to get short going to the FT. At one point button opens, SB flats, I 3b somewhat large with KcKs in BB, button calls with zero thought, SB calls, flop A86ccc checks through, SB leads Qx turn I call, then shoves on Ax river. I tank a while before folding and SB, a friend of mine, claims AQ.

Fortunately though I did run good at the FT before running 88 into JJ 3 handed against the purest human I've ever ran into on WSOP. Was funny too, I opened the button with like 25+BBs and SB shoves for >30bbs eff and my 88 has 2 outs. Who wants value anyway. I had potential in the Party major as well but lost a flip with 14 left and managed to ladder to 12th with my 3BBs. +$800 on the day. I finish around midnight and then drive through a rain/snow/sleet storm to get home for Christmas.

Monday the 25th

I end up sleeping on the couch and get next to no sleep, falling asleep at 3, woke up by the dog at 5, woke up by my parents/brother/his gf around 7 going to church (I would've gone with them but even though I told them I'd be getting home around 2/3 they decided to go to the earliest mass so fine, have fun ), woken up when they got back at 9, and then woken up out of the bed I moved to at 10 to open up gifts. Fine. My brother got me a sweet robe that I use all the time now and some nice slippers, my parents got me a good coat that I can wear out to the city now instead of my damn ski coat, and we all had a nice time together. I watched a ton of basketball with my dad and at 9PM decided to 2 table the Stars $100 and the Party $55. I found a way to fire 7 bullets from 9-9:55 in that Stars $100 and man did it sum up how I've ran the past few months lol. Was dealt QQ+ 3 times and busted all 3, lost a few flips, got it in good a few times, none of it mattered.

But then I managed to cling on to life on that 7th bullet, always getting shoves through when needed and sometimes finding a double. I made the FT and with 7 left caught a ton of heat to take the chip lead, and really capitalized on a ton of mistakes that were made by my opponents to take the chip lead into heads up play. My mom actually watched me from 5 down to the end which was a lot of fun as I explained to her the ups and the downs and what was actually going on. My heads up opponent was a guy I've played against a bunch before but I never realized how desperate he was to make sure I didn't win any pots without showdown. I went 0-5 on getting c-bets through on ace high boards, most of them quite dry. He would fold pre a decent amount, but I think he folded post literally 1 time the entire HU match, which lasted quite a while. It was extraordinary. Talking out the strategy to my mom actually helped, as I informed her that since he never folds I'll open up my value range and bet 3 streets with 2nd pair, etc. I think she actually understood what I was talking about to some extent lol

The 2 hands that stood out to me and really boosted my confidence about my game overall as I was able to describe out loud exactly what it was he was doing wrong and why it would cost so much money came up during heads up play. First I open with about 40BBs to his 60BBs with K5s and he 3b's pretty big. He'd 3b me quite a bit to this point so I decided to peel this one. Flop comes KJ4 and with how this guy was playing I decided that it was extremely unlikely I'd be folding at any point in this hand. He checks, I bet 70K into maybe 175K, and he x/r's almost the min to 155K or so. I decide I'll call flop and never fold turn, but I make sure to inform my mom that there is a reasonable chance I will be eliminated this hand

The turn is a 5 so I now beat AK/KQ/KT etc, he shoves, I call, and he has 77. Pretty mind blowing to see that hand. The river is a brick and I now lead 800K to 200K as the blinds move to 12Kbb. I chip him down to maybe 130K and then lose KTs<44 to double him back to 250K. He goes on a run and takes a small lead back from me before we play ridiculous hand #2. I open JT he defends and flop comes J84. I again tell my mom that the chips will be flying here. I cbet and he calls, the turn comes 9x and he x/c's once again. The river is an 8 and after he checks I feel it's pretty close for me whether or not to go for value. He certainly has some 8x in his range and maybe some Jx (although if you're going to x/r all these really random bluffs then you prob need to start adding QJ/KJ in for value here), but he also has a bunch of straight draws on flop that now have a pair of 9s and might pay off. I decide to check and I lose to QJ. Immediately I go on a tirade to my mom about how this guy wants to x/r 77 on KJ4 but x/c down with top pair. The tournament should be over and I should be out but because he wants to max exploit and never try to have any sort of balance, it is easy to play against him, and this is how I make money playing poker; people make mistakes I won't make and I capitalize on them. But it's so easy to go on downswings since sometimes you just lose all these hands anyway, but are able to lose less than most would!

Anyway, the tourney ends when I open 22, he 3b's BB as he has been at a really high frequency, I shove 30BBs and he tanks lol. 3 betting nonstop and not knowing what you're gonna do against a shove is silly as well, but eventually he calls with A9o and I lose the flip for the tourney. What can you do? Another +$800 on the day and the bankroll is now $24850 and I can see the light at the end of the withdrawal tunnel.

Tuesday the 26th

Back to Fair Lawn for the Tuesday session. I bust bullet 1 of the $250 on Stars 88<AhJx on 789hh4h, then bullet 2 AKs<AA of the same guy. I then bust bullet 3 QQ<77, and bust bullet 4 KQs<KK of the same guy. Bullet 5 goes down ATs<AJs, and on bullet 6 I get in AQs vs TT of the same guy, but the poker gods decide that I will not be busting 2 bullets each to 3 different people and I win the flip. I chip up nicely on bullet 6 before opening A2dd and getting called by the button. I check KT4 with 1 diamond planning to shut it down most of the time but he checks back and the turn is the Jd. This is not a good turn when your opponent has AQ. I bet, he raises small, I have odds to peel, river is Jx and he checks back lol. I keep my foot on the gas though and continue winning a lot of small pots before opening ATs and losing to a 10BB shover who has TT. A few hands later I shove AT and am called by the same guy's 99 and lose that too. Finish 21st with 15 paying.

There is still hope though in the Party $215 as I'm near the chip lead for most of the thing before losing JJ<QJ along with some other standard hands to fall back into the middle of the pack, 6/12 with 7 paying. There's something about having 10-15 people left in an MTT that means I don't get to win hands anymore. At our 6 handed table a player opens HJ and I elect to 3b AJo on the button about 40bbs deep. His fold to 3b is very low and I think getting money in with a hand that will be ahead of his calling range, in position, all seem good reasons to 3b. He calls and flop comes J65dd, which he x/c's. Turn is a 4x and I have a pot sized bet left so I make it. Since he doesn't fold to 3b's I think he'll have some 87s, 66, and 55, which make up 10 combos, and probably all of the AJ/KJ/QJ/77/88/99/TT as well, which make up 46 combos. I shove and he has 55, one of the 10 combos, and that is the end of my day. -$2100

Recap

So we're back to $22.7K or something and it's frustrating, but I'm choosing to focus on the fact that I played my sessions and I think I played well. I'm also focusing on making sure I play the rest of my sessions the way I'm supposed to, but as I was writing this post Jane's friend texted me asking if I wanted to go to trivia night with her Kyle and Jane! If it was Thursday or Friday I think I would have declined but given how slow Wednesdays always are online I'm taking it as a sign to go. Between now and leaving I'll watch some RIO videos and maybe play some spins or cash, but probably just eat and watch vids. Thursday and Friday will be must play days before I head to the city on Saturday to prepare for the absurd NYE festivities on Sunday. I'm finding it easier to sit down and play as the weather gets colder and colder. This seems to happen every year; less to do outside and the sun going down early leads me to having an easier time playing. I'll try to post some New Years goals at some point, and I'm really hoping I can get this train rolling the right way again soon!

Minor Thoughts on 2017 and the Year Ahead

Happy New Year everyone! I've had a rough go of things from a poker perspective but I'm ready to get a fresh start on the year in 2018, my 3rd year living on my own, more or less completely supporting myself solely through my poker winnings. While downswings/breakeven stretches can be mentally draining and make self doubt more likely, when I take a step back and realize that I've become good enough at this game to support myself that long, I feel good. I may not be the best but I'm doing enough to get by with a comfortable lifestyle. I'm also very happy with the way the rest of my life is going, and the financial stress that a prolonged tough poker stretch can have is really the only thing that's been bothering me at all. I do feel like it will end eventually, I do feel I have the tools to stay competitive (at least in the NJ online world), and I do feel that January will be a great month for me for the 3rd year in a row.

In 2016 I had my biggest month ever, which sadly is still my biggest month ever. But aside from the obvious massive positive variance, I think a big factor into that was the excitement I had about living on my own and having the opportunity to play poker for a living with nothing holding me back! I want to try to find that fire again, since the last few months I've mainly just felt like I'm going through the motions and the game has not really excited me much at all. In 2017 I was coming off of a bad stretch to end 2016, where I started to feel the same things I've been feeling to end 2017. In January of 2017, I think I lost $1000 or something, but I ran every day, I started to feel better about everything in life, and I made sure that when I played poker I did everything I could to ENJOY it. That led to a very successful February-April.

So this month will again be about focusing on my physical health and staying active, which will lead to better feelings about poker, more motivation to play and get better, and eventually better results. This year will be about focusing on the game no matter what is going on around me. It will be hard, but I need to work on making no excuses and staying motivated. That might not necessarily mean playing 5 days per week (though playing 5+ days per week should be happening way more often than not). The more important focus is going to be to not let those stretches of days and weeks go where I avoid my responsibilities simply because no one is looking over my shoulder telling me to do my job.

I also want one of my goals to have something to do with taking a major step toward bettering my career. That might mean signing a backing/coaching deal, or making plans to move into a poker house, or just something as simple as scheduling a specific day each week to do an extensive hand review with a friend. But when I took a step back and thought about this past six months or so, "mediocrity" was the word that summed it up the best. I think I really get what it means to be in a Sophomore slump. The excitement of being on my own and being able to brag about a somewhat taboo job has completely worn off and complacency has taken its place. While year number two had me feeling a bit bored about being a poker player, I think year number three is going to find me getting bored about being average. This might end up being a make or break year where I decide whether I'm going to shoot for the moon with this game or if I'm going to give it up completely. Because I don't think it's going to be acceptable for me to make $49K in the NJ streets again, not to mention losing money in live poker and to expenses and taxes. I paid my bills and got by and had enough left over to go have a lot of fun, and while I still want to do those things, it's time I start thinking bigger picture.

So anyway, I'll be thinking about more concrete goals for this year in the next week or so and might post them in here if I feel they're worthy of sharing. But the main idea is that I want to better myself and my work ethic this year.

Weekly Update (12/27/17 - 1/2/18)

Wednesday the 27th

As stated in the last post I went to trivia night and had a really good time. I was surprised how packed the bar was and we got our asses handed to us but overall it was nice.

Thursday the 28th

Lost $600 on the session, really don't remember it well at all. Apparently I took 27th in the Stars 10K and 10th in the Party 3K. Shrug.

Friday the 29th

Tee Dubs elected to stay home instead of going to the city so I hung out with him. Probably should have played. Not gonna beat myself up about not playing anymore. Shaming myself clearly does not work, so maybe not worrying about it at all will make it easier for me to just play when I'm on the fence.

Saturday the 30th

Possibly the craziest day of my life. Get into NYC around 2PM. Head over to a pretty sweet brunch place called Carroll Place on Bleecker Street near Washington Square Park. Two hour bottomless brunch. This place would not only bring over pitchers of mimosas, but made sure they were never ever empty. And the steak and eggs was really good. The four of us who went had been to this brunch place once before and both times we left laughing at just how messed up we'd gotten off mimosas. We head over to another place called Three Streets and play beer pong in the upstairs area they have there. I think we went back to Greg's place after that and hung out until we were ready to go out for the night.

The night that follows was one of the most insane things I've ever experienced and I'm not going to write everything that happened down here. Cliff notes include having a really fun time at our go-to Belfry and Beauty Bar hangouts, taking an uber to Brooklyn at like 3AM, the good time changing to a bad time in an instant (I remember everything and have racked my brain countless times trying to figure out what happened and still cannot), me being shaken awake by a stranger, then about 10 minutes later that same stranger slapping me in the face. Hard. Twice. Me ending up wandering this neighborhood in Brooklyn I've never been to before at 5AM while it's 15 degrees trying to figure out what to do next, and luckily not only finding an uber but finding a way into Greg's place before 6AM. All the night before New Year's Eve.

Sunday the 31st

Luckily nothing out of the ordinary happened on NYE, I don't know if I would've been able to handle it lol. We purchased tickets for an open bar quite some time ago and stayed at the place, called Lexicon, from maybe 9PM-1AM, before obviously doing what we always do with the Belfry Beauty Bar combo. Eventually Tee Dubs and I, along with his little brother (who was in the city for the first time being 21), head out and get some Artichoke Pizza. Definitely check that place out if you've never been and you're in the city.

Monday the 1st

My other roommate Kyle convinces me to stay and do brunch again so away we go to a different spot. Brunch not as good as Carroll Place but still fine. Later head to Three Sheets and then to Belfry around 7PM where it was still a quite laid back environment. Eventually Tee Dubs and I head out and catch a train that's somewhat delayed before getting an uber that takes a while to get there and finally getting home around 11:30PM. The reason I'd wanted to skip brunch and get home earlier was I wanted to try to run every day like I did last year for as long as I can. So now I go upstairs and grab my watch to see it is dead. I plug it in as I get changed to run, still somewhat buzzed, knowing it's 15 degrees outside. At 11:55 I take the watch which is still at low battery and go outside to start the run. As I'm putting my hat and gloves on and whatnot the watch changes to 11:59; if I start at 12:00 it will register as a Jan 2 run and there will be an empty slot on Strava for Jan 1. So I just start running with 1 glove on, earbuds not in (I realize my phone is dead anyway so couldn't listen to music), hat still not on. My somewhat drunken dazed run goes as well as I could hope for.

Monday 1/1 Run: 1) 7:54, 2) 7:51, 3) 7:27, Total: 3.0 miles, 23:18, 7:44/mile

Tuesday the 2nd

I do my run around noon, come back and feel pretty good. Fire up my session around 7:30 and I already feel better than I have been the past month while playing. I build stacks in pretty much every tourney I'm in before finishing 17th in the Stars 10K, 12th in the Stars $250, and 10th in the Party $109. The Party $109 had $3500 up top with a lot more entries in it than usual. I sorta clung on at the bubble with 21 paying and had 8BBs when we hit the money. I ran good to spin it up before running bad to drop to 2BBs. I then ran amazing to spin it back to 30BBs before defending 33 in the BB with 10 left. Flop comes K32r and I x/c a bet, turn comes 5x and we get it in and I bust to A4o. Pretty devastating. Managed not to get very frustrated though. Finished out the 10PM $50 turbo I played for a 3rd place finish to get the day back to -$28 on like $1400 in buy ins. Oh well. Always tomorrow.

Tuesday 1/2 Run: 1) 7:30, 2) 7:12, 3) 7:14, Total: 3.0 miles, 22:02, 7:19/mile

Woke up this morning with the first bloody nose I've ever gotten in my life, like flowing and dripping and all that. Was scared I was gonna be light headed or something but took some time to get some food and relax and then ran! Didn't use it as an excuse. Good sign going forward. I will try to use some of this momentum to have a good next week!

Some 2018 Goals

First, some general goals. This is actually pretty hilarious, I wrote this in a Word document at 5:28 AM on December 30th after a night of pretty heaving drinking with my roommate. I haven't edited it at all since writing it and it cracks me up how articulate and somewhat well written I am despite being pretty plastered while writing this. I also agree with everything I've written looking at it now stone cold sober! Here it is word for word:

ASPIRE TO BE SOMETHING—Work towards being someone in poker. Do what needs to be done to find inspiration EVERY DAY. Every day doesn’t mean playing every day. But be better every day. Think about the people who are playing every day, working every day, doing interviews every day. Think about those who have won the Main Event and how insanely common it seems now and achievable it seems. Make yourself better at poker in some way every single day.

FEEL GOOD PHYSICALLY—Run every day. Look, you are not going to run every single day in 2018. But run every day that you are physically capable. “I’m tired” or “I’ll do it after I eat” or “I’ll do something now and then run later” are not excuses. Run when you can. When you hit the barrier of “I’m semi-injured but am not sure if I can run,” be smart. Run when you can, take off if it’s absolutely necessary, but don't use potential injury as an excuse to take off.

HAVE NO FEAR—So many levels to this, from being the best you can be to the day to day of making necessary phone calls. The idea of you being able to talk to anyone when you’re drinking vs feeling uncomfortable in some situations when you’re sober is absurd. Channel your little brother in the way that he walks into your house without knocking, acts like a clown, doesn’t care, etc. You are like this when you’re drinking and you like that. It bothers you that you’re crazy outgoing when drunk and slightly more reserved when sober. It isn’t some crazy character difference but it’s enough to be noticeable. Just be crazy all the time! Love life no matter what and have fun always! Don’t be afraid of acting a fool or getting embarrassed! Embrace that ****!!!



I read this document the next day and just started laughing and dancing around my room for no reason. Life is too short to not try to be happy as often as possible and to worry about looking dumb!

Now for the poker goals, I wrote these down a few days ago and I like the idea of all of them. No concrete dollar amounts, but goals concerning volume, preparation, and big picture stuff. Controlling what I can control and letting the rest fall in place is of course the way to attack this profession. I'll post the original document and add notes in between each goal.

--Achieve 1M milestone by end of year

PocketFives tracks total earnings so it seems to make the most sense to me to stay motivated to put volume in using this metric. I started the year around 665K in cashes so I'm trying to cash for $335K this year. Let's say I play an average of 9 days per 2 weeks (I want to aim for 5 days per week but also give myself a little bit of leeway). That would mean 234 day of play (9*26) to earn 335K, meaning each session I need to cash for an average of
$1431. Given my average buy ins each day should probably be around that number, reaching the 1M milestone should be a lock if I do my job properly, even if I have bad results or run under EV. I like the idea of this goal.

--Take care of business before each session. Random chores, eating well, RIO videos, get your run in, etc.

Just a simple goal to try to stay in a routine no matter what. Eating well is huge, and after I make this post I'm gonna dash out to the grocery store for food and try to get back in time to make something and start session at 7. Exercising has been huge for me this past week and I find myself with way more energy and motivation than when I don't run. I've also been doing 50+ pushups per day just for the hell of it. Nice to throw 10-20 in on the 5 minute breaks to try to wake myself up when I'm starting to feel groggy.

--Do one or two big things to advance your poker career. Sign a coaching/backing deal, invest more, advertise coaching, go to the WSOP or other far away venues, etc.

Touched on this already in an earlier post, but I certainly want to take more shots live and probably try to start coaching more players. The only person I've coached, who I've worked with on and off for over a year now, has gone from playing $10 MTTs to grinding most of the NJ schedule I play. I run into him quite a bit now in my regular games and I'm proud of the way he has moved up. I'm sure it mostly has to do with him being very smart and a hard worker, but I do feel some pride in helping him with some technical stuff that I think has allowed him to open up and plug some leaks. He's an awesome guy too so I'm sure he'd be willing to vouch for me if I were to start doing some advertising for coaching so it might be time to get going on that.

--Keep my energy level high. When you feel tired you often start getting anxious about the long-term idea of playing poker every day and running every day and you start to lose focus. Keep the energy up: eat a lot, run a lot, do your pushups, stay active all day rather than lying around too much. Relaxing sometimes is okay and is part of the luxury of being a poker player, but doing it too much becomes very detrimental to long-term success.

Eating is huge, not only do I not eat healthy food most of the time but sometimes I just skip meals because I don't feel like putting in effort to prepare food. The good thing is that running makes me hungry to the point that I can't ignore it, so it's important at the very least I start eating a lot, and then gradually start adding in healthier options. Running every day will be very important for a bunch of reasons, the push ups afterwards won't only help me to go from looking like a twig to looking like a twig with some slight muscle definition, but will help with my running. You'd be surprised how tired your arms can get after 5 miles from constantly swinging them, and how helpful it can be to use them when your legs start getting heavy.



The last thing I added today was this:

LIST OF THINGS TO BUY, IN ORDER OF PRECEDENCE, AS YOU MAKE MONEY:

--New computer ($1000-$1500, can be written off)

--Surface Pro ($300-$600, can be written off)

--New Cell Phone ($300-$1000)

TOTAL: $1600-$3100, most of which can be written off

GOAL: Profit $3000, use $2000 on computers, tax does not need to be paid on these items, take $350 off for taxes on last $1000, use $650 for new phone.

I've ran and played quite well this first week of the new year and have eclipsed the 25K mark I need to withdraw money. I took some off and need to use it for tax purposes, but can now withdraw anything I make tonight and onward. I desperately need a good computer that won't freeze up when HEM is open (literally if I open anything other than the poker clients and HEM the comp will freeze for 60 seconds and time out all of my games). The Surface Pro won't turn on which is really frustrating since the guy I coach sold it to me at a nice discount last year and I feel like an ass for not taking care of it properly. And my phone gave up on me today and won't turn back on, so I've ordered another cheaper one (this time making sure there's a 60 day warranty on it) until I have the money to actually go buy a new one. Probably gonna switch away from iPhones.



So there are some 2018 goals. I don't want to get complacent as the year goes on so I'll try to update these goals and add new ones as often as I can. I'm proud of how I've played and prepared this week, minus yesterday, but I got incredibly lucky yesterday anyway which was pretty sweet. I'll update the week in full on Wednesday.

Gonna try read through this shortly, gl.

You have got to learn how to play poker uncomfortably cause things constantly go wrong. Try not to make excuses not to play show up every day ( your not wimp you done this for 3 years you got the heart to pull through tough times). Work on your game every day. Taking days off is for losers. I only take a day off thats planned not cause I am running bad. That is what got me good at poker is to play through bad swings. I invited them to happen so I could challenge myself. I have friends make excuses all the time telling me their burned out things aren't going well etc. They cover their eyes when they are all in pre or post flop scared to see bad beat card. Its like geez. They are much smarter then me but I am the better player cause I grind every day making more money then they do and with all the volume I put in it gives me an edge over them. So imo grind through the tough times cause you will get used to it if you don't run away from it. That is actually how to get rid of most of your tilt. You have to take it head on and challenge it.

If you keep running from it you wont ever get rid of it. Its like a fear of heights and until someone takes on that fear and challenge themselves they will continue to fear it. I see you are dedicated to this so i wanted to give my 2 cents gl on the tables.

Agree strongly with the above, know I've said similar in the past

Gl in 2018 boss, hope it's a good one

Weekly Update (1/3 - 1/9)

A very good week overall, though I guess I jinxed it by saying how well it was going in the last post as the last couple days were pretty frustrating. Overall I like the way I've been re-entering / firing up more tourneys regardless of how the day is going, and when I find myself feeling very frustrated I wait to refill the screen until I've calmed down a little, or sometimes I stop regging. Whatever I think makes the most financial sense.

As far as preparation and and exercise and volume go, I was happy with how I did every day except for Sunday, which is the day I got very lucky anyway as I said in the last post, so let's get to the update.

Wednesday the 3rd

Lost about $800 on the day. Can't remember much about the session, maybe I should start writing summaries down again so I've got a better idea of the day . It appears I mincashed the $50 6 max on Stars and the $55 turbo on Party. I do remember being happy about my mindset despite a frustrating day in terms of results.

Wednesday 1/3 Run: 1) 7:16, 2) 7:10, 3) 7:06, Total: 3.0 miles, 21:38, 7:11/mile

You might notice the pace is always a shade faster than the math would suggest, I always add about 0.02 to the end to make sure the website I input the runs to gives me credit for 3.0. If you run 3.00 it sometimes says 2.9 which is annoying.

Thursday the 4th

Blizzard outside. Found a way to get my run in, couldn't believe I stretched it out to 3 miles. Very little footing with a lot of roads yet to be plowed.

The session went well yet I was more frustrated at the end than the day before! I made $950 with potential for a lot more. 2nd in a $30 tourney I rarely play on Stars for $251, 4th in the $50 6 max for $277, 7th in the $100 2nd chance for $235, 2nd in the Party $215 turbo for $1160. That tourney was absurd. 3500 starting chips and I had 20K in the blink of an eye and then ran like **** and was one of the short stacks with 5 left and 4 paying. The massive CL was ICM aware and was putting proper pressure on as the other 4 of us essentially played it like a satty. I think all of us were in 2nd at some point and in 5th at some point, but I eventually got lucky and not only survived the bubble but spun the stack back up, and ended up heads up with one of the other bubble shorties, who was arguably the worst of the 5 players remaining. I got it in good for the win but lost and had to settle for 2nd. I believe I also took 3rd for $678 in the Party $55 that day. Given the difficulties I'd been having in winning tournaments I was pretty damn frustrated with 2nd 2nd 3rd 4th 7th, but getting the losses back from the day before was a reasonable consolation.

Thursday 1/4 Run: 1) 8:04, 2) 8:52, 3) 8:26, Total: 3.0 miles, 25:32, 8:27/mile

Again, I was amazed I was able to finish this run. The snow was a pain in the ass but manageable on the first mile, which was all uphill, but when I turned around to head home I realized the wind had been at my back on the way out. It was standing me up, I mean it had to be 30MPH+. Add to that the unplowed roads and you get an 8:52 mile. I almost stopped at 2 miles but willed myself to finish a 3rd.

Friday the 5th

Was on the fence about playing but decided I'd put no pressure on myself and take the day off if I felt like it, and play otherwise. Tee Dubs ended up going out on a date that night and Kyle didn't seem to have any plans so I put the session in. Haven't ran this good in a session in forever. Final tables went my way! In fact, I had stacks in all the $100s I played and did not cash any of them. Legit had over 30K in 4 different $100s and either ran bad or punted them all. In one the button opens and SB, who has a 15% or so 3b from SB, puts in the big 3b. I look at button's stats and he opens button wide and has a seriously high fold to 3b%. So I rip 40bbs with A4s and get more or less snapped off by SB's 77. Eek.

But did I pure the $50s. 1st in the $50 6 max on Stars for $737, 1st in the $50r on WSOP for $1925, and had a chance to get over the $25K bankroll barrier with the Party $55 turbo but settled with a 3rd for $553 to get the roll to $24.5K. Cashed out my Stars Coin to get it to exactly $25K, knowing I wasn't going to play the next day but setting up Sunday to potentially be a day to start making money again!

Friday 1/5 Run: 1) 8:07, 2) 7:57, 3) 7:51, Total: 3.0 miles, 24:00, 7:58/mile

Bitter, bitter cold due to the bomb cyclone. 15 degrees, felt like -3, 21MPH winds, and I ran to a park where there is a loop to run around. The first 3/4 of the loop was clear but wind had blown a ton of snow on to the last bit of it and I ran completely through it thinking it was just a small section. Could barely move through the 6 inches of snow by the end. Again, slow times due to all this nonsense. Proud of getting through this run though.

Saturday the 6th

Went on my run a bit later, 4PM, and it was now colder than the day before. 11 degrees in the middle of the day, good lord. This run felt much easier though since the wind wasn't as fierce and the snow had been cleared off a little more.

My friend came over around 9PM or so and we hung out and drank some wine while watching TV and talking. It was the first time we'd hung out just the two of us and it was actually a lot of fun. I know her through Jane (Kyle's GF), and around 11 Jane and Kyle (one of my two roommates) came back from a dinner they were at and we all hung out a bit. The two of them went to bed around 1 or 2 and my friend and I continued hanging out until 6 or 7! Nothing more than talking but it was some really good conversation and I enjoyed it a lot.

Saturday 1/6 Run: 1) 7:36, 2) 7:35, 3) 7:12, Total: 3.0 miles, 22:30, 7:28/mile

Felt good on this one despite the cold but was definitely ready for some above freezing temperatures again.

Sunday the 7th

I woke up around 12:30 and immediately asked Kyle and Jane if they were DTB. They were very down to brunch and off we went to a new place in Ridgewood we hadn't tried before. They were disappointingly out of mimosas, but we saw one waiter bring another table orange juice so we asked if they could just make us screwdrivers even though it wasn't listed as included in the bottomless brunch. They said they could! The omelette I got was delicious and I was starving so I very tentatively asked the waitress for another one. I then started telling Kyle and Jane how me and this waitress were clearly going to get married one day and we would look back and laugh at my two brunch beginnings. After I scarfed down that second brunch with probably 5 or 6 screwdrivers we were all in a pretty giddy mood so I decided I clearly need to leave my phone number on the check. Jane suggested I leave my nickname with it, so "Two Brunch" Dan left his cell number while we all finished up. We hung out another 5 minutes before the waitress came back to take the check. We sat around another 10 seconds before all simultaneously realizing that she had the check with what I just wrote on it, and I grabbed my coat and sprinted out of the restaurant. Shockingly I still haven't received a text or call. I'm sure it's on its way.

Tee Dubs was home when we got back and we started drinking more and watching football and playing this game similar to Cards Against Humanity. It was a blast but I looked at the clock and it was 5PM and I still hadn't ran yet. I decided not to put pressure on myself and just had a great time with my friends until 9:30. I watched a show with Tee Dubs and then everyone went to bed around 10. I'd missed my poker session which is not good on a Sunday, but 2018 Dan isn't shaming himself anymore so I just shrugged and said I'd max late reg the Stars 10K with 12 big blinds and then go on a run whenever I busted to keep the streak alive.

3 hours later I finished in 3rd for $1800 but it was 1AM and I'd technically missed running on Sunday. At around midnight my plan was to run anyway and just count it, but I was tired enough at 1 that I just went to bed. I knew I wasn't going to run every single day this year, and while it was disappointing to miss a run so early on, I decided it would be a good test of my real resolution for the year. Missing out on a streak or faltering could not lead to just giving up. I would have to run the next day, and I'd also have to play poker, despite doing poorly in both departments this day.

Monday the 8th

Went on my run at 3:40 after having a tough time getting going all day. It was snowing outside but was still the warmest day we'd had since Tuesday or Wednesday. The run felt good and I came in ready to relax a bit and then session. I put a short session of 100NL in while watching a RIO video then got some food and prepared for MTTs.

Ended up 6th in a $20 turbo on Stars for $85, and had 2 tables remaining to try to save the day by the end. Things were looking good though as I was near the chip lead for most of the Party 10K, and was in good shape to cash the Stars $50 turbo. With 10 left in the 10K button opens and SB rips 20BBs, which is a decent amount of chips at this stage in the MTT. With the Party 10K, the shorties get shallow around the money bubble, and then again around the FT bubble, and then you usually get a few quick bustouts at FT and final 5-6 are quite deep. So 20BBs now was probably in 3rd or 4th. I was either in 1st or 2nd with 35-40BBs and I had AA in the BB, so I elected to play my hand. SB had KThh and we got a pretty nasty AhKc2h7c6h runout to drop to 9/10. I hung in though and made the FT before getting a few shoves through to move back to 6/9 with 12BBs. Folds to my SB and I rip AT, get snapped by A3, and the 3 on the flop takes me out in 9th for $300ish. 30 seconds later I flop top pair in the turbo and bust to top 2 to finish 4th for $200. $250 loss on the day.

Monday 1/8 Run: 1) 7:02, 2) 7:26, 3) 7:18, Total: 3.0 miles, 21:55, 7:15/mile

First mile was faster because I was sort of weaving through cars at one spot, to the point that a guy leaned on his horn, I think to alert another driver I was there. It's a weird intersection, where there's a red light and the cars back up, and in that back up there's the main road but also an off ramp that has a yield that's supposed to be merging. But the people in the yield lane often just push there way into traffic even though they don't have the right of way, so this guy was doing that as I went to run in front of him to get across the ramp, and a guy in the main lane leaned on his horn. At worst the guy was gonna hit me going 3MPH but before that happened I was just gonna smack his car lol. Anyway, I blasted through that part and then blasted across the street with the light and ended up faster than I probably should've been for that 1st mile, not that it really matters.

Tuesday the 9th

Did my run at 11AM and it was over 40 degrees, which legit felt like a summer day. I also ran on some paths not having to deal with traffic which was awesome and the run went well. I again played a short 100NL session after the run and then geared up for the MTT sesh.

Playing the Stars $250 I decided I would re-enter inf times up to 500/1000 (25K SS) but once we hit 600/1200 there would be no re-entering. I was down to 8K at 800bb but spun it back up to over 30K by the time we were playing 1K/2K. It folds to the button who is a nitty reg who rips 32K and I have A8o in the BB. Think this is a pretty clear call against a normal shoving range but against this guy in this MTT, blah. I call and lose to AQs and decide to gamble and re-enter. It wasn't a knee jerk decision, I thought for a few minutes and decided I didn't like busting like that and wanted to give it another try. In hindsight, if I go onto win the MTT I love it, if I end up with a big losing day I'm annoyed, idk. I should probably just stick to the plan from before the session started!

2nd bullet, EP, a fishy reg, open limps off 12BBs, I complete Th9c in SB, BB checks, flop comes 983hh, checks to the limper who shoves 23K into 7K. I think this spot is one that comes up more in NJ than other markets and it tilts the **** out of me. A few things to consider. 1) Fish like to limp aces in EP with short stacks. 2) Fish don't like going for value, they just like winning pots. However, this might contradict point 1, as wouldn't they just go all in with AA then? 3) Shoving AA here seems like a disaster, losing value from a bunch of hands that are clearly going to call a bet otherwise. 4) Fish play hands bad, so what does point 3 matter?? 5) Folding a 9 here makes me question if I should complete T9 in the first place. 6) Folding a 9 here means I might literally only be putting 98 in here, as I might actually jam every other combination of hands pre that beats a pair of 9s on this flop.

Eventually I say **** it and call and lose to AA. After playing with this pool and this type of player for a few years, I genuinely think this spot might be a fold. It's so bizarre but it's so rare that I see JT or hearts or A8, even though you'd think that would make up a large part of the range of this dumb line. Well I can't end the tourney like this might as well fire bullet 3!

I open shove 22, get called by an overpair, and flop a 2. A few hands later I 3b shove 77, get called by JJ, and flop a 7, and am over 100K just like that. I then run a bad bluff that drops me to 60K, and then lose a flip to drop to 1bb. I do get that back to 7bbs but lose 99 to KK for the rest. Oh well.

Two shots at redemption with the Party 10K and $55 turbo. I bust the $55 in 5th which is a bit sad since I had heaps throughout, then lose a flip in the 10K with 10 left for back to back days of annoyance in that MTT. $1260 loss on the day, later Sunday profits.

I'm frustrated but not going nuts so I go to my room and play some Rocket League on my PS4. I lose like 8 games in a row and end up in the weirdest mental state ever where I'm like not only frustrated but I'm just fuming and feel like everything is horrible. It's enough to make me think I have a serious mental issue. I turn the game off and take 10-15 minutes to just sit there and calm down. The night before I had a really horrible dream that involved me getting the **** beat out of me by the police and my eyes being swollen shut and my teeth hanging out of my head by a thread. I'd also come home from my run earlier in the day to find our dog had pushed his way into Tee Dubs' room and **** on his clothes and spread the **** all over the room while trying to get out (the door shuts behind itself). So I was really mad about that and had to clean it all up. I think those negative feelings were deep in my subconscious all day and when I added a losing poker session and getting my ass kicked in a dumb playstation game (where everyone talks a lot of **** and tells you how worthless of a person you are when you play bad), my brain just sorta melted lol. Realizing all of this helped me calm down and I tried to just ignore all feelings and emotions and fall asleep.

Tuesday 1/9 Run: 1) 6:56, 2) 6:59, 3) 6:52, Total: 20:54, 6:55/mile

The warm weather, the path with good footing, the lack of traffic, all led to me speeding up on this one. I wouldn't say I was pressing on the 3rd mile but it wasn't easy either. Good run overall and we're getting close to wanting to up the mileage.



So anyway, we're up over 3K to start the year. We've got 2 x 4 figure winning days and 1 x 4 figure losing day. My mindset and work ethic has been good overall. I had a bit of a lapse on Sunday, and had a strange freak out on Tuesday night, but have acknowledged both and am moving on. There will be more of these and I'm done pretending there won't be! But the key is to make them as infrequent as possible and to keep working hard to improve myself as a poker player and person. The plan this week is to play tonight, to go see Billy Joel at MSG tomorrow and stay in NYC on Friday, and then to session Saturday-Tuesday. It's all flexible though, other than the Billy Joel of course . Bankroll is back to 23.5K which is a little annoying, but I did get to withdraw $1500 after the Sunday 10K, all of which is being used for taxes. Good news is once I get back over 25K I won't need any of it for taxes, other than a third of those profits. It is important though to not worry about where the bankroll is and to just play my best! Looking forward to this week!

Good to hear. What is your ABI nowadays and what sort of ROI% do you think is achievable at about a $50ABI?

It's hard to say because I re-enter everything so much. Average day is $100 10K on Stars, $109 10K on Party, $100 2nd chance on Stars, $55 on Party, and then filling in whatever else is running to play 6 tables at a time. Crazy how long late reg is for most stuff so the 10Ks are just not going off the screen until 10PM, worst case scenario, after starting at 7. I guess the average buy in is probably in the $60-$70 range? Sometimes throw in $20s but kinda hate doing that. Tuesday there's a $250 on Stars and $215 on Party I always play, Sundays there's a bunch of $200s I'm always in and the $100s also run so Sundays are probably in the $150 ABI range.

Not sure about ROI, I've never been one to get too crazy into trying to figure that stuff out. My HEM doesn't seem to record tourneys properly and skews them (at one point it said I was down money lifetime and I'm pretty sure that is incorrect ).

Weekly Update (1/10 - 1/16)

Incredibly frustrating week results-wise. Did not do a good job getting volume in either. Also missed a ton of running days. Had a lot of fun but not a good week productivity-wise. I want to get some sleep as I'll be driving to AC tomorrow morning but I wanted to get this update in before leaving, so the post may be shorter than usual (although every time I say that it's still longer than 99% of posts in PG&C).

Wednesday the 10th

Lost over 1K this day, ran pretty bad and was left with a WSOP $100, 5 paying with about $1K up top. Was 4/6 for a bunch of it, watched the shorties double then lost a flip to bubble. So it seems to go way more often than it should these past 6 months.

Thursday the 11th - Sunday the 14th

Virtually no poker played so I'm gonna lump these days into one section. Took the train to Greg's place in NYC to go see Billy Joel at NYC. Played 4 spins on the 30 min train ride to Secaucus. Broke even on the $10s losing one and winning a $20, but won both of the $25s, each which had 4x multipliers, to make a quick $150. Think the tickets cost just under that so sweet free concert!

Got to Greg's and it was just us, everyone else planned on meeting us at MSG, so we got red wine drunk, took a shot, and headed out. Got to MSG and chugged a tall boy and was ready for some Billy Joel. Concert was great, he's obviously an amazing performer despite being 68 now. We headed out afterwards and the rest of the night is a bit of a blur. I think my friends all got annoyed with each other but I didn't notice? I do remember sitting in KFC scarfing down a bunch of chicken while everyone around me yelled at each other, and the only interaction I had was when someone asked to see my chicken and I yelled at them.

At some point I left the bar we were at and walked like 8 blocks to a deli to get a panini, eventually finding my way back to the bar despite my phone dying.

The next day we went back to Carroll Place for brunch. We had a bigger group and I think that took away a bit from the ambiance of the place. Either that or it was Friday and it was pretty empty lol. By nighttime only Tee Dubs, Greg and I remained and we headed out for a pretty standard night. My friend has been talking to a girl who I went to college with who I haven't seen in forever so I caught up with her a bit and realized she was friends with another kid I know from Ramapo who is also one of the top NJ online MTT players. She thought it was funny that more than one of us was actually playing poker for a living.

Saturday I got up and cabbed back to Penn Station before heading home on the train. My friend Aaren was gonna come over and watch some football so I was on the fence about playing or not. Eventually I decided to skip (surprise) and drank a bit with them. Jane and her friend were also there and it was a good time but I felt like I was gonna pass out at 11PM. I was seriously struggling to keep my eyes open so I was handed a 5 hour energy and told to rally. 9 hours later I fell asleep at around 8AM after we all got sloppy and did what we do.

The Return of Two Brunch Dan

A couple hours later I woke up and we decided the 6 of us would all head back to the brunch place from last week. I walk in and see the waitress from last week and start to laugh, and then she comes over to our table and makes it clear she will be our waitress. I'm also sitting next to a girl I've been sort of talking to; she knows I'm not looking for anything serious but it still felt weird to openly flirt with someone while I was sitting next to her, so while the waitress is telling us the specials I look at Kyle and Jane and they are both clearly trying not to laugh just as hard as I am. I look at Tee Dubs, who knows the story but not what the waitress looks like, and his eyes are clearly looking at me trying to gauge if this is her. "Oh yeah" I tell him and we both just start cracking up.

She goes and gets us our drinks and I inform the uninitiated at our table about the legend of Two Brunch Dan. The waitress comes back, puts our drinks on the table, and I **** you not, grabs my arm and says "hey wait...Two Brunch Dan?" The fact that Kyle, Jane and I had joked about this exact moment actually happening made it surreal. The brunch could not get any funnier.

The waitress is killing it with the drinks, bringing them out quickly and in large quantities, and around maybe her fifth trip I can see she's struggling a little carrying 5 of these wine glasses filled with orange juice and mimosas. She goes to put them down in front of me and I can see what's happening but just can't reach out quickly enough to stop it as a full glass of mimosa lands directly on my lap. Everyone at our table is howling including me as the thing that Two Brunch Dan loves more than anything turns on him and soaks him in cold sticky orange juice. The waitress is horrified and can't stop apologizing; I'm trying to tell her that she spilled on probably literally the best person she could have picked as I am really not one to care about this kind of thing and I am quite drunk from all the mimosas.

She continues apologizing, eventually bringing out this kickass brownie cake ice cream thing and giving it to me. If I got a free one of those every time a drink got spilled on me I'd be taking a shower after every brunch with a stomach full of cake. It was delicious. After apologizing a hundred more times and me telling her to not worry about it we got the check and headed out. This time it was the waitress leaving a note on the check for me. When I saw this note I was about ready to tell this girl that I was in love but it seemed inappropriate so I abstained and got in the car looking forward to a shower.

The back of the receipt:



We get back and are all watching football and I'm feeling not only drunk now but also like I'm getting a sore throat and sick so I once again skip a Sunday session. I'm gonna have to take a new approach to Sundays, and clearly not drinking is going to be part of that. But it's pretty inexcusable to keep missing the biggest day of the week.

Monday the 15th

I don't feel great when I wake up but I've scheduled my first coaching session with a guy I met on P5s so I do a little prep to have a bunch of questions to ask him and try to get us comfortable with each other. I offered him this first lesson free to see if he wants to continue with me, so I wanted to put my best foot forward. We start talking on Skype around 2:00 and about 5 minutes in I realize he's driving somewhere with someone else in the car. A bit frustrating to hear since obviously it's near impossible to concentrate in that situation and I told him we could do whatever time he wanted! I think the session went as well as I could hope for given that situation, but I just tried to make it clear that he's gotta at least be in front of a computer next time if he wants to make the most out this process. If I'm going to charge money for something I want to make sure the person I'm charging is getting their money's worth!

The session was frustrating again with another 10th in a 10K. Open limped K2o 20bbs deep bvb, stabbed min as I tend to do with range on K55hh, got it in on brick turn and lost to 65. Played 5 handed forever in the $215 turbo with 5 paying; open shoved J6o (was shoving any two) when I was in 2nd with the BB at the same stack size as the other 2 shorties and he woke up with AK. I did not get there and eventually stone bubbled. Prettttty common stuff lately. Lost $350 on the day.

Tuesday the 16th

Still not 100% this morning, made sure to drink a lot of water and eat as much as I could. Hopped in some satties to try to qualify for the $1K Stars was running later that night. Lost a flip in a $200 with 7 left for CL with 3 paying in one; busted shortly after. Busted another $200 before running very good in the hyper $100 they had to get to the final 4 with 3 paying. Lost a flip that woulda ended it but still had chips remaining; tried to find the comeback and did not. Stone bubble for 0. So -$500 in the satties where winning flips could have me at +$1500! Yawn.

The satties ended around 7:30PM so I walked away and played some video games and watched some basketball. After eating some dinner I decided I'd stay determined and not make excuses and start this session up. I was in for heaps but found myself with good chances in both the Stars $250 and the Party $215. After winning T9s>AA for 18bbs each in the mid-stages of the $250 on Stars I thought things might be going my way this time. With 13 left and 12 paying in the $250 I was chip leader at my table and 2nd overall, as I often find myself because I'm constantly looking to chip up instead of playing like a nit like I used to. I'm opening a lot of hands and my table is somewhat tight usually, and the 3 players that would often give me trouble are for the most part ICM aware and not going wild (one of them still was but I was ready to just stack off against him if need be). Eventually I 3b stuff AQo over an open and guy calls off for 22bbs with 99 and I lose the flip, dropping to 225K as a result of losing the 300K pot. He and another player at my table run better than anyone on Stars NJ and I swear to God when we get deep in the bigger tourneys I just watch their hands, hoping to see them lose an all in in a big spot so I can stop with this nonsense about them running better than everyone else. I still have not seen them lose one lol.

Despite the set back I keep my foot on the gas and chip up pretty nicely. The bubble takes forever, the FT bubble then takes forever, but finally I end up at the FT around 5/9. I get dealt KK pretty early on and lose most my stack with the hand to bust 8th. I open UTG, button rips 180K at 10K, I call and lose to AQ. Leaves me with 60K and I lose one last flip for the rest of it (22<K9). I cash the tourney for $750 with $6200 up top. Maximum pain through and through.

I do stay composed and play pretty well in the $215, finishing 2nd for $1900 or so, bringing the total for the day to a whopping +$200. The bankroll now sits at $22K. Win the $250 and roll is not only back to $25K but I'm withdrawing $2K and have some spending money again; lose AQ to 99 for heaps and KK to AQ for heaps and I continue to stress about money. Kinda sick to pick my spots and chip up well throughout the MTT and at the end of the day the standard spots that 8 year olds could figure out determine my financial stress level. Pretty sick profession really.



Tomorrow I will drive to Atlantic City and play the $600 opening event, $2M guarantee. What an absurd crap shoot that tourney is. Sold 40% at 1.3 for as many bullets as I want so will effectively be in for a shade under $300 per bullet for 60% of my own action. No excuses this time; I will get there as early as I can tomorrow, will keep registering until each flight is over (might not max late reg one if the night flight has already started), and will just launch off as many bullets as it takes for 2 days. Hopefully it's one but after having played this MTT as many times as I have, that's really tough to do. Maybe tomorrow is the day though. In any case, I need to get some sleep. Til next time.

Dude, I think I am in love with that waitress too. Epic brunch tales. We need more brunch content in PGC. Avid bruncher myself (@mealereviews).

Cool. You still think there's enough spastics at the $100 level to cop maybe 20% ROI there? Or all just solid regs/variance fest?

I'm contemplating going full MTT myself.

Also thought about firing up a 3rd/4th site to find more $100s and keep ABI higher? Or just happy with Stars/Party grind?

$100s on NJ are a joke.

More brunch tales are sure to be had in the near future
I'd be surprised if ROI is below 20% in NJ for any buy in level but again, I don't really know how to check those records given HEM is pretty off with a lot of those tourneys.

I'll be posting an update of last 2 weeks either today or tomorrow, a lot has happened and I've been on the road for most of it so haven't been able to get anything up here in a while.

Past Two Weeks

A lot has happened in the last two weeks. I played the most I’ve ever played of any one given live series before and while it went very poorly I’m happy with how I stuck it out and kept grinding. I’m also happy with things that went on away from the table during the series.

BWPO Event 1, $600 $2M Guarantee

25K starting stack, 30 minute levels, play through level 17 (2500/5000/500) on day 1. I arrive for 1C and the day ends up being one of the most pure grinds I’ve ever gone through. I go from 25K to 80K quickly and then lose a bunch of hands and find myself floating around 10BBs for a long time. I decide not to punt no matter what which leads to me having 15K at 3Kbb at one point! I double AJ>A9 and eventually get JJ in for 32K at 4Kbb vs 44 and am unable to hold. The next day I hop into 1E, spin it up to 80K, lose a flip to drop to 60K, lose some chips to drop to 40K, then lose a flip for that last 40K to bust. The next day I bust one on 1F, re-enter with a somewhat short stack and bust, re-enter at the last second and do not find the spin up. 0 for 5 in the opener.

BWPO Event 2, $400+$100 Bounty $200K Guarantee

25K SS, 40 minute levels, I get there for level 1 and we’re playing 50/100 without an ante. Kid in EP opens to 3K. I am excited for this tournament. I fold for an orbit and watch 3K kid continue to make it 1200 blind and all sorts of stuff. Eventually the girl next to me loses a pot to a different guy and is left with 50 chips and is in the big blind the next hand. I’ve never been so excited to watch what happens at a poker table. I fold air UTG, kid makes it 4K, 2 guys get it in, he snaps with 73s, one guy has T4o, I forget what other guy had but it wasn’t great, 73s kid wins the side pot but girl wins the main for 250 or whatever. Crazy kid now has 50K and girl has 250 and posting SB next hand. Next hand kid opens to 6K, T4 guy shoves again, girl folds, I have AQ in BB can’t get it in fast enough, crazy kid has TT! Other guy has K9, board runs 4 hearts, I have the Qh but K9 has the Kh so it appears I am busto. I visually count his stack and he has exactly 25K, I know I have less than starting so I walk away. Guy at table yells to me when I’m 30 feet away “Wait you might have chips left come back!” I come back and bad dealer is still struggling to count chips, but now I closely count his stack again and am positive I am covered. I get 30 feet away and the same guy screams “No I really think you still have chips!!” I scream back “**** off!” and go re-enter.

Next table is good again, I 3b KQ against a guy playing a ton of hands with all the chips he peels, flop comes Q74cc he leads big as he’s been doing I call, turn Tx he shoves for my stack effectively, 2x pot, I call, he has J9cc river is Kc. I go re-enter.

I run reasonably on bullet 3 and have about 70K late on day 1. The structure of the tourney is great and we’re still only at 2Kbb or something. I open A6dd in EP with 55K at 1K/2K, button and SB call, flop K83dd I bet button goes all in I forget exact specifics but I decided I was getting the price and call and lose to KJ. On to the next one.

Sunday Session

I go home and put in a Sunday session online, cash the Party $215 and FT the Party $109 for a potential day saver but rip 88 into KK with 8 left to bust. I think I was 3rd in chips, guy on my left was 3 betting me every time I opened (as he should be as the chip leader), and we run into KK which is pretty dumb but what can you do. $1500 loss on the day.

BWPO Event 10, $400 $150K Guarantee

40K SS, 40 minute levels, decent structured tournament. After 8 unsuccessful bullets in earlier events I bag about 140K back to 5Kbb the next day. With 4 hands left in the day, EP goes 10.5K at 4Kbb, next seat calls, CO calls, I shove 96K in SB, everyone tank folds. Opener claims TT, next seat claims AQ, CO, who had 12BBs to start hand, claims AK!!! I had QQ!!! WTF is going on?!?!?

I feel pretty relaxed for day 2 but unfortunately and completely card dead. It folds to me in SB with 77 and 120K and I have a very aggressive live reg named Will Givens on my direct left. I think shoving, raising, and limping are all viable options, and how you proceed should be dictated by your general strategy to some extent. I had decided to limp SBs against Will, but even when I play a limping strat there are hands I will just open shove with 20BBs and down if I don’t think it can be exploited. Shoving here I think would be fine, but given how aggro he is I decide to limp and expect him to raise a large percentage of the time. I limp, he goes 22K, I shove, he folds quickly.

Unfortunately nothing got going after that and I end up shoving 81K at 8Kbb with 97dd in HJ. Will iso’s pretty quickly and I am up against KK. I let him know I think I’m going to win this one. Dealer attempts to spread flop but one card sticks to the other so only the Ad and 4d are revealed! I have 3 chances to make my flush! How often can you say that in poker? No dice though and I walk back to the cage to play the Almighty. I’ve been firing everything on my own dime after event 1.

BWPO Event 11, $450 $1M Guarantee Almighty Stack

100K SS for this gimmick tourney with 30 minute levels. I bust bullet one on Tuesday, bust bullet 2 on Wednesday, bust bullet 3 on Wednesday night flight and re-enter at 3Kbb for bullet 4. If I don’t cash this I am down heaps in the past week and starting to feel anxious. I get KQcc in vs A8cc on K8xxcc and fade the river to get to 170K and our table breaks. I move to my next table and the 2nd hand I’m dealt goes 9K from EP, 2 flats, I have AKo in SB with 165K. This is a somewhat interesting spot in a tournament where people just don’t fold pre in the early levels. Part of me wants to just go all in to avoid getting a bunch of flats and whiffing flop, but I decide that’s too face up and is just me being dumb and not wanting to play postflop so I make it 42K. After talking to people about the hand afterwards, shoving might actually just be fine! There are big 1K antes, so 10K in antes, 9K*3 for opener and calls, 3K SB, 6K BB, there’s 46K in the middle we can just scoop without a flop, and when we’re called we’re not necessarily dead. I make it 42K, opener and 1 flatter call and there’s 148K in the middle and I have about 125K back. I start offering my first born son to the poker gods if they’ll flop me a pair and sure enough we get the AJ9hh flop. I go all in, opener tank folds, flatter calls with AJ and it is time to go back to hotel room and think about life.

Big Decisions To Be Made

I see my friend Ricky during the Almighty tournament while I’m reeling from being on a 5 figure downswing. My mindset is great but I am feeling stressed about money. Ricky’s always fun to talk to and a nice familiar face to see at Borgata and the last couple of home games I’ve played at his place have been a lot of fun. One of the guys I got to know from those games had actually just won the $400 tournament from Monday (shout out to Mike!) Without me telling Ricky anything about the financial stress I’m feeling and the long term anxiety I’m afraid will come with it, he offers me a live backing deal. He tells me he’ll put me in the main and we split profits, and he could pretty much put me in anything I wanted to play up to $3500s for this year and possibly beyond. Woah! I’m not really one to believe in signs that sort of come from randomness but this absolutely seemed like it’d be one of those times. Ricky has no idea I’m feeling financial stress and just seemingly out of the blue offers to basically let me play anything I’d want to live with no monetary pressure on me.

But I do realize that while this deal sounds amazing, it might just be the idea of being backed that sounds amazing now that I’m getting stressed about money, so I begin to think of the previous deal I’d been offered. I don’t regret going for it in this Borgata series, but after a total of 13 bricked bullets in $400-$600 events, almost all of which I had 100% of myself, and a $1500 losing Sunday in between it all, I decided it was probably time to get backed, get coached, and start really improving. My goals for this year were to do something bigger than just sit at home and grind out 50K a year online. I think I could make a lot more if I were focused yearlong and really took it seriously, but I either needed to do that or make some sort of change. This seemed to be the sign that it needed to be set in motion.

So after a lot of thinking and talking to everyone involved, I decided that while I respect the hell out of the other person offering me the online backing and coaching, and I think he’s one of the best MTT players in the world, the idea of playing live and traveling and not withering away in my house for another year sounded too good to pass up. While it was a little bit scary to hop into it, and my pride took a little hit now that I would be taking backing for the first time ever, I was excited to get started. However, I’d already sold off 50% of 2 bullets of the $1090 Six Max, one of my favorite events, so I was going to play that Friday and try to make a run before our deal started.

BWPO Event 13, $1090 $200K Guarantee Six Max

Things went about as poorly as possible and I busted 2 bullets, each of which I had 50% of myself. I was disappointed but ready to go with the main. I went home to see my parents Friday night and hung out until Monday morning at which point I drove to Borgata for the main. I played a Sunday session at their house. I think I played quite well, cashed the Party $215 and busted in really tilting fashion, also busted 4th in the Stars 10K in a similarly frustrating way, but was happy with my play and excited for the next day.


BWPO Event 18, $3500 $3M Guarantee World Poker Tour Main Event, Day 1B

30K SS, 60 minute levels from levels 1-10, 75 minutes from 11-16, 90 minutes 17+. I arrived at Borgata around 2PM but had to wait about an hour to register for funds to come in. I took my seat after the 2nd break where we were playing 150/300/50. I recognized Justin Liberto on my direct right, my friend Alex Jim across the table from me, and no one else so things seemed pretty good. One of the first hands I played I opened J9s in the HJ and flop came J92r. Looked like it was gonna be the start of a pretty sweet day! Sure enough I had 50K at break and we’d be coming back to play 250/500 and 300/600 and then bag for the night. There’s something just so relaxing about playing poker tournaments where you feel like you can sort of settle into a level. We’re playing 250/500 and that’s what we’ll be playing for a long time! I genuinely have 100BBs! 30 minute levels really never feel like you have that many chips because the level always feels like it’s about to go up.

I play the most crucial pot of my day 1 at the 250/500 level. I open to 1200 in EP with QQ. There was a fish on my direct left but everyone else seemed relatively competent, no one was just giving it away. Fish flats, guy playing a lot of pots flats CO, and my friend Alex squeezes to 5300 in the SB. He has about 40K to start the hand. I’ve played with Alex a bunch, we’re both nits but I think we both have a decent understanding of how to play more aggressively and just sort of choose not to, if that makes any sense. So while this is a pretty good squeeze spot for him and QQ should be crushing his range, I don’t feel great about it. Where some people are going to 3b squeeze A2s-A5s every time here, I think Alex is going to elect to call. Some people are going to squeeze broadway combos, I don’t think Alex will (and I block KQ/QJ/QT anyway). He’ll certainly have AK, and I have to imagine he’ll have JJ and TT sometimes, and I do think he’ll find some bluffs, he might 3b some of those suited wheels at some frequency, but I’m not in love with this spot by any means.

However, I don’t like calling either given the 2 players behind me are likely to call as well, though in hindsight maybe that’s not the worst thing. I’d avoid going broke to KK+ sometimes, there’s a nonzero chance one of them back raises and then I’ll know for sure if Alex has me beat, and I’d probably be able to fold the K and A high flops. In game I elect to 4b to 12K, the other 2 fold, and Alex flats. I’m not sure what he’s doing with AK in this spot, not sure what he’s doing with JJ, but I do feel confident AA is in his range, and I do think KK probably shoves pre. Flop comes 532r, he checks with about 28K back and about 30K in the middle. I bet 8K, he goes all in; I sigh call and lose to AA. It’s funny that you might be able to make a case for me folding to the jam on flop despite the insane price I’m getting with a huge hand! At the end of the day this is just QQ<AA so I’m not gonna beat myself up over it, but it’s possible there was something else to be done here. I’m left with 10K after the hand.

The way I felt after this hand was incredibly encouraging for me and for my poker career in the future. There was no stress, and it had nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t have any money invested. It had everything to do with the fact that my backer could absorb this loss as if it was nothing, and he understands that this is how the game works, and that I felt no sense of guilt about losing. I don’t think I ever realized it in the past, but when I sold action to something like this and had each individual person giving me money and wishing me luck and “relying” on me in some sense, I’d feel like **** when I lost a tourney like this, regardless of how it happened. But now I was backed, and the other couple of guys who were also backed by Ricky were firing 2, 3, 4 bullets and no one was phased by it. They’d often just laugh the whole thing off when something unlucky happened, or even when someone just punted off a stack. I cannot put into words how calm this all made me feel.

So when I looked down at my stack of under 10K, with none of its original blue 5K starting chips, and then I looked around and realized I was playing a $3500 with the option to re-enter if I busted(!) with no judgment from my backer, this incredible feeling of relief and comfort sort of flooded into me. It’s hard to describe. I decided I was going to grind the **** out of this 10K stack and bag a nub if no good spots came up and just live with it. I felt really good! So I started joking with Alex and telling him he’s a jerk for doubling through me, I kept talking to the guys on my left, my demeanor did not change from when I had 50K and if it did, I might have been even more positive than before!

Back to the poker, a guy doubles JJ>QQ then wins a nice pot after and starts opening a ton of hands, 3x’ing most of the time. He opens to 1550 at 500bb in HJ and I shove A7s on the button. I think it has to be making chips and I’m so much more confident doing it while backed! When other people invested me I’d almost feel “bad” to say I busted like this but it’s clearly making money and that is clearly a ridiculous way for me to think. He tanks and then shows AJs and folds!!! Everyone agrees I’m a nit and he’s flipping at best; I show the 7 since I know they’ll all agree it’s clearly 77, which they do, and we continue on. Folds to Liberto’s button and he opens to 1050, I shove 9500 in SB and he calls off with A2o which seems probably way too wide. He needs 44% to call off and has 41% against {22+,A2s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,A2o+,KTo+,QTo+ ,JTo} so I can’t imagine the call can be winning. I have AK and hold to get back to 20K and bag 20.8K after an uneventful 300/600 level to go to day 2 with 26BBs.

BWPO Event 18, $3500 $3M Guarantee World Poker Tour Main Event, Day 2

Day 2 table draw looks pretty reasonable, only names I recognize are former Super Bowl winning Patriot Richard Seymour and Chris Limo. I don’t know either of these names because of their poker prowess so I’m feeling good and ready to spin up my stack. Early on I open J8s in HJ, both blinds call, flop comes T97r and the BB donks 3500. Is that good? I could definitely raise here and it’s probably better but given I’m short I elect to call. Turn is a diamond bringing BDFD I call another bet, again should probably just get it in, river is Qd he bets I shove he tank folds for my last 6K. I probably missed out on that 6K but if there’s any chance he was bluffing I’m okay with my line. I chip up back to the 30K SS.

New player sits down at 500/1000, the last level of late reg. I find the ol AA UTG and open to 2500, he 3b’s to 5900 UTG2 and I decide the small size is nutted so I just rip the 30K in and beat AK to double to 60K. Our table breaks and I sit down to see my old buddy Nick Palma tripling up to over 300K at 1200BB with AA>KK>QQ lol. The KK belonged to Jack Duong, a guy who grinds everything live and he’s sort of laughing at the whole thing. I really respect Jack and his game and he still had 80K left so it was clear he had been crushing up to that point. I’m in the 4 seat, Jack is in the 5, Scott Blackmon is in the 6, Thai Ha is in the 7, Anthony Spinella is in the 9, and Nick is in the 2, so a lot of familiar faces at this table but for the most part it was pretty tight throughout the day. Thai was short stacked so our most likely person to be blasting off had to just sit and wait for his spots.

A new player comes to the table and I have chipped down to around 60K at 2400bb. I open HJ with K9s to 6K and he defends the BB after making a really strange inquiry about my chip stack. I tell him I have 45K in blue 5K chips, to which he responds, “No but exactly how much are you playing?” I’d been shuffling maybe 8K in other denomination chips so it’s clear I for sure have between 50K and 55K, but I put the other chips down and show him because there’s no way I’m gonna sit there and give you an exact count when you know approximately how much I have. He then says, “I’m only asking because we have the same amount of chips.” He had at least 80K to start the hand. Idk, very weird.

Flop comes 775 with a club, he checks and I believe I bet about 6K into 15K. He calls. Turn 9x and I decide I’ll check back and then call a decent amount of river bets. River is Qx and he goes all in for 45K effective into 30K rather quickly. It’s a dumb spot but there just isn’t much I have beat here. I don’t think he’s gonna turn ace high into a bluff, he has a lot of 7x, he has 86, I guess he can bluff 64, but everything about how he went all in and the speech before the flop had me feeling like this was not a guy who was going to bluff all in without giving it any thought, so I folded and was left with 45K at 2400bb.

Fortunately a few hands later CO opens, Palma 3b’s the button, I wake up with JJ in the BB and double through Nick’s TT in a standard cooler. I go to dinner with 100K exactly.

After dinner I make some hands! I go 70% on river for value with AxJd on A95dd brick turn Ax river after checking flop and betting turn and get called by a guy I assumed was not folding this river. I also open 9d9x and get 2 calls. Flop comes J73dd, I check, MP checks, button bets, I call, MP calls. I swear to God I say to myself “no problem, I’m gonna turn a set anyway” and the turn is the 9c. It was freaky. Turn checks through and I bet river and get 2 folds so I think I probably had the best hand anyway, but I’m starting to feel pretty good. In one hand Nick opens button I defend J8o in BB, I x/c a 1/3 pot bet on QT7, x/x on Tx turn, and I lead 70% on Ax river. He folds and as I go to muck he tries to make me show. I try to muck again and he almost grabs my cards and tells me I can never be bluffing. I shouldn’t show but I do because I can’t help myself now and the table gets a kick out of it. Meanwhile people are dropping quickly and with the new WPT payouts paying like 13% of the field we are surprisingly close to the money given it’s day 2. Our table breaks with 40 minutes left in the day at 2K/4K and I have about 240K in front of me, something like 15 from the money with 171 left and 156 paying.

I move tables and am glad I’m only gonna be here a short time as I have Ryan McKnight, a live guy who’s game I really respect, on my direct left; Amnon Filippi, live grinder from way back in the day on his direct left; and my buddy and fellow NJ online grinder Mike (JohnnyDrama) 2 to his left. The only real pot I played involved me being really tempted to get jiggy with it with Amnon as I open J9cc to 10K in EP at 2K/4K, Amnon 3b’s to 26K in MP, I call. Flop QQ3 with 1 club and Amnon bets 32K into 64K. I was really tempted to click it to 78K then shove any T or club turn but given we were now 7 off the money that seemed way to punty for my liking so I just folded. But I do think I’m gonna potentially start doing **** like this in the future. It’s so unlikely Amnon has a queen when he goes this big and I certainly have a bunch of Qx in this spot (AQ,KQ,QJ,QTs,Q9s are all most likely in there when he 3b’s as small as he did). I bag 240.5K coming back to 10 minutes of 2K/4K. We stop it there because we are 3 off the money and the shot clocks need to be installed as part of the WPT bubble procedure. We will also be playing 90 minute levels the rest of the tournament. Three other people in my group also bagged, with one being top 10 in chips over 500K! Day 3 adventures will be posted soon.

BWPO Event 18, $3500 $3M Guarantee World Poker Tour Main Event, Day 3

We come back to day 3 with 159 remaining and 156 paying. My 240,500 is just a shade above the 235K average and 10 minutes remain at 2K/4K/500. I check my table draw to see Nick Palma once again with me, along with Shaun Deeb on my direct right. Two players have 130K, another has 200K, and then I am the shortest remaining stack! Deeb and Palma have 300K, the other 3 all have more with one over 500K. So much for abusing the bubble. I check other stacks to see that over 30 people have less than the 130K of our shortest stack! As I open my bag the dealer passes me 4 time extension chips and I realize this could be pretty interesting to play with. I wasn't sure if it would affect me at all but certainly a fascinating thing to mix things up.

I sit down and Nick makes fun of my haircut for the third time in three days so I start making fun of him and asking if he'd recovered from me showing him a bluff the day before and we go back and forth for awhile before Deeb starts making fun of Nick too, eventually turning to me and saying, "I think we're gonna get along pretty well today, I'm Shaun" and extending his hand lmao. In my admiration for his poker ability I'd forgotten what a top notch troll Deeb was and I was laughing so hard when he just joins in with me talking back to Nick. Side note about all of this: I've become numb to being star struck by the poker players you see in the limelight. On day 2 I found my friend Sean who is friends with Greg Merson and introduced me and while I'm happy to meet these guys because I respect them a lot, I just don't feel anything else with it now. It's a really good feeling because I've seen it so many times where people start showing these guys their big folds and playing differently and way more weakly against them and it's obviously just such a big leak to not continue to play your game and treat them as just another opponent.

We get to hand for hand pretty quickly, and I'm dealt two big hands on the stone bubble and I lose both. First I open to 12K with AhKd from MP, big stack on my left flats, Palma calls BB, flop QJ4dd checks through, turn 3d checks through, Nick leads brick river we both fold Nick shows KTo. A couple hands later I open JJ in EP and Nick calls again, I elect to x/c 997r, turn 2x goes x/x, river Ax I check and Nick bets 24K into 60K. I've thought about this spot quite a bit since it happened and I'm still not sure what I think of it. There's a bunch of dumb live stuff that goes into it, like me showing Nick a river bluff the day before, Nick showing me KT high in an earlier hand, me and Nick constantly trash talking each other, etc. I chose to use my 30 seconds trying to get a live read rather than breaking his range down anymore than I had up to the turn which is probably not great, but I thought I might really get a reaction from a guy who loves to talk at the table. But I will admit the shot clock got to me and I should have used some time extensions.

As far as the actual hand goes, I don't think Nick flats preflop too wide, so I give him a bunch of pairs, probably like AT-AQ, maybe some suited Ax and suited connectors but not a ton of it as Nick is generally pretty tight despite his nonstop beaking. He'll also have some suited broadway, KQo, and I don't know how far down he'll go with off suit broadways. I also don't think he's going to 3b bluff this spot often, maybe never, so I don't think he'll be 3 betting off suit broadways or suited wheels or anything like that, but I do think he'll often 3b TT+ and AK. Flop comes and he bets 1/3, I think he probably is going to check back some Ax (I did not think about this in game for some reason), bet Ax sometimes as well, bet some bluffs and bet anything nutted like T9s,98s,77 and probably check quads. Thinking more about this hand now it's starting to feel like I want to call again. The problem on river is finding bluffs he can have. I do not think he's bluffing smaller pairs than JJ. Which leaves broadway combos basically. And I have JJ. I think I'd rather call 88 on river than JJ. I block AJ which is a decent chunk of value range (though he might check that on flop). But if he only calls pre with suited broadway combos then he has 2 KJs 2 QJs and 2 JTs (the latter of which might barrel turn with gutshot). But he might flat KQo pre and have 16 total KQ. He also might flat some offsuit broadway as well.

At the end of the 30 seconds I elected to fold, deciding Nick didn't pull the trigger often enough, and he showed me KJo which kinda sucks. But talking to people on break they seemed as surprised as I did that he found the bluff there for that sizing so I don't feel awful about it. Nice hand in any case Nick . When we got into the money nothing really went right either! I continued to chip down to the point that I 3b shove AQo over an open to chip back up to 120K at 6Kbb. I continued looking for spots but also realized that panic did not need to set in with 90 minute levels. A player a few to my right gets crippled and shoves 20K from MP; I find AJ in the SB and reshove 80K and lose to A8s and now am down to 60K and 10BBs! Never had a more painful 3bb loss before lol. I don't get any spots before my next BB and now post 6K of my 54K in the BB. UTG limps, MP limps, SB completes, I check Q7o in BB, flop AQ2hh checks through. The turn is 6x and I elect to just shove my 48K into the 33K pot. It looks weird but I think it's fine, and luckily this time it gets through and I somehow chip back up to 80K with Q7o in the BB.

I get another shove through, fold another orbit, and eventually find T9s with 87K at 6Kbb in the LJ. Chart says it's a shove, a certain past Main Event champ disagreed with me on break, but in any case I sent it in and the player on my left snap sent his chips in as well. He turns over AQ and while dealer is getting ready to spread flop I ask him which hand he thinks is gonna win this one. He tells me mine and I tell him I agree! Flop comes AK2 and I no longer agree. We count down the stacks and I have 14K remaining. The next hand UTG opens and I fold K3o UTG1, and then the tourney goes on break! I look at the clock and see 90 people remain and 89th gets a pay jump and my biggest fear is starting to come to fruition. I am going to have to tank for 2:30 UTG with no intention of putting chips in to try to get this $500 payjump lmao.

I come back from break and board says 89 left! Thank God! I actually have decided I'm not going to put a ton of hands all in from EP but when I find AQ I clearly do not fold it. Guy on my left snap iso's all in and despite him flopping a royal flush draw I fade vs his ATs to get back to 44K. The next hand folds to the button who makes it 20K at 4K/8K and while deciding on which hands I'm going to put in I find KK in the BB. Can't make this up. I shove and hold vs KTo to double to 98K. The next hand folds to my button and I shove K5s and it gets through and I now have 117K. The next hand EP opens to 20K I shove JJ in CO, BB flats, EP folds claiming AQ, BB has AK, board runs QQxxx and I double to 250K. Back to where we started the day!!! When I'm about to post the BB floor comes over and moves me to another table to balance. Wow.

The Monday night after we bagged day 1B I went to Buffalo Wild Wings as part of a group of 8 that I've recently joined up with as part of my New Year's goal to stop coasting along without improvement in this game. Of the 8 of us, 7 of us fired the main. When I got moved to my new table I look up to see Stephen with a mountain of chips at my table, and I turn around to see Ricky and Ali doing fine at the table right behind me! Of 1244 entrants there are 80 left and 4 of this 7 are sitting within 10 feet of each other. One of the 3 who wasn't in (shoutout to Mike who actually won that $400 I made day 2 of earlier in the week) was standing on the rail and could watch all four of us from one spot! I lose a couple pots at the new table before it folds to SB who is this really aggro kid I've played with before. I'm down to a shade over 200K and he opens to 20K in SB. I plan on peeling a very wide range vs the 2.5x but when I see JJ I obviously want to get it in. I make it 52K and before I release the chips he says all in, and before he says the word in I put another stack in to call, and before my stack hits the felt he has turned over AK. So if we can do it again we'll be nearing 500K in a WPT main on day 3! Unfortunately the T96AA runout ends a nice run and I settle for $8600 for 77th place in my 2nd ever WPT (made day 3 of the first one too but did not cash).

So overall it was a fun ride and I really enjoyed it. I felt way more comfortable playing than I usually do and I wasn't afraid of making mistakes. I think the plan this year will be to play a ton more live and really work hard at bettering myself again. Tomorrow my buddy Max from England comes in and we might just have to drive down to AC to rail Stephen Song at the FT of the main!! He is 1/11 on dinner break of day 4 right now and is a crusher so let's get it done!!! Also gl to Joe I guess

Two Week Recap

Lots to get to but I think I'll just be brief in this post and maybe expand later.

So Long, Backing Deal

It appears that I have tied the world record for least tournaments played under a backing deal. At least my ROI was through the roof! The day after I busted the WPT the person who bankrolled Ricky, meaning he provided the funds to back me, suddenly passed away. I didn't know the guy, but first and foremost this sucks for him and his family. As I have heard it he was in his 40s and this was pretty sudden, so I'm definitely thinking a lot about the loved one he left behind. It also sucks for me personally given how excited I was to have this opportunity. After being on the fence about taking it, I played the WPT, talked a bunch to a few of the other guys, and got really amped about travelling and freerolling a bunch of tournaments I wouldn't otherwise be able to play. That will not be happening now. But the first thing I thought after I heard the news I wouldn't be backed anymore, combined with being in my worst downswing ever, was "nothing is going to stop me from making this poker thing work. I'll hit plenty of valleys in my career but I want to live this life too badly to ever just give up." So that I suppose is a positive.

Week With Max

My friend Max made the trip over to America from England again for the 3rd time since September of 2016 and we had a fun week together. We went to a BeerFest the second night he was here and some Spanish news channel was walking around covering it. I got their attention and told them Max came all the way from England to be here so they interviewed him and then I hopped in the shot as well for a very strange interview that ended with the host trying to stick the microphone in my mouth; not sure if he was trying to imply that I liked to drink or that I was gay. Either way it was funny as hell and our friend filmed the whole thing so we have that to hold onto .

That Sunday was the Super Bowl and we decided we'd just one table the $200 on Stars on a tablet and Max would take 50%. We ran like god and won the thing for $7800 so Max was freerolling his trip and then some. The next week we headed to AC and got crushed at 1/2. Watching a Euro who plays Stars ROW for a living trying to acclimate to how people play 1/2 at Harrah's was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. "HOW DO THEY ALWAYS HAVE IT??"

That Friday I drove Max back to the airport and he headed out. Me and four of my friends will be heading to London in the beginning of April to see the city and Max again!

Poker

Barely played at all over the weekend, came back on Monday and took 3rd in the $100 WSOP tourney that they have as part of their series. They're actually doing a great job with that series and if they don't bring back the daily 30r 10K after crushing all their guarantees in this I'm going to be pissed. Made $800 Monday then immediately lost $1400 right back on Tuesday. Lost 3 bullets of $250s, 1 bullet of a $215, and a bunch of $100s. Don't think I played horribly but definitely had some spots I could have played differently. Had a lot of chips in the Stars 10K but bubbled it after rivering a set with TT on Q843T and losing to J9.

Wednesday I played some spins in the day then went to the bar with my roommates at night and had a great time. We sat around in our garage and drank and played 5c/10c poker after the bar and it was really enjoyable. Thursday my buddy Jake came over for a coaching session that I think we both really got a lot out of. I can't describe how good it is for me to teach the game, especially to someone who can really understand more intricate concepts. It forces me to explain why I do what I do and sometimes I'll find something I've been doing that I don't agree with. I always feel in control of my session the night after doing a coaching session with Jake. Yesterday was no different as I won the Thursday Thrill on Stars NJ and took 2nd in the Party 10K for a +$4K day. With the roll all the way down to $13.5K this was really needed.



Finally Going to Vegas!

The plan for the rest of the week is to play tonight, NYC tomorrow for friend's bday, play Sunday, then head right out to the airport to fly to Las Vegas Monday morning. In a sick twist of fate it's going to be warmer here in NJ the first 3 days I'm there than in Vegas, but it should be in the 60s the entirety of my 2 week stay which is sweet. I'll be able to get some running in (I've ran 3 of the last 4 days) without feeling freezing cold and like I'm getting sick. There are several MTT series going on out there, which would have been so sick to play if I was backed, but I should be able to at least sell off a bunch so that I'm comfortable with the stakes. Really frustrating to think I could just rip all these live MTTs with no financial burden or stress but such a freak thing prevented that from happening, but at the end of the day I'm lucky to be able to play poker at all. Regardless of how things go it will be fun to finally actually get out to Las Vegas!

Damn man that is super unfortunate obv for both you and for the guy who lost his life. Maybe you can ask around and try to find another live backer? Or do the other backing deal with the jersey guy? Hope you bink something off in vegas, gl

Just found this thread and it's a fun read.

I've played a ton with you on Stars, btw. Keep grinding, will sub.

Cheers.

I think right now I'm at the point where I'd rather either rather really know the person I'm being backed by or not be backed at all. It's all good though hopefully I'll just bink something on my own and not need one anyway . I was definitely tempted to consider doing the NJ online backing deal again but with the 4K Thursday and 2K Friday I had yesterday my roll isn't as decimated as it was beginning to feel so I think for now I'll keep all of myself whenever possible.

Yep I definitely remember playing with you, thanks and gl to you!

Think I'm gonna start pivoting to more basic and frequent updates again. I enjoy writing long posts but I think they can get to be a bit much and some more basic updates could be more entertaining. I also don't get as excited about recapping each MTT I play everyday since at this point they should all be somewhat routine.

Saturday I headed to Parx with my buddy Jake. We played the $230 weekly tourney they have there and I got to check out the new room. We were seated at the same table to start and both of us won all ins in very exciting fashion before our table broke. Jake got AK in vs 99 and found the 34532 runout, while I got JJ in vs QQ and found the Q92TK runout. We broke tables and Jake busted around maybe 70th of the 200ish entrants the tourney got. I manged to spin the 25K up to 125K before chipping down and eventually busting KT<QQ for my last 60K at 8Kbb, finishing 30th with 23 paying. It was a pretty relaxing day and I thought it'd be a fun way to play poker while at the same time not feeling like it was work. Jake, being the only student I've ever coached before, is playing great and really picking up on a lot of concepts quickly. I think he's playing leaps and bounds better than when we started (not that he was lost or anything then) and it's always cool to hear when he's succeeding.

Played a good session today (Sunday), started on time at 5PM and finished around 2:15AM. Nice little 9+ hour day, shade over 2000 hands, it's been too long since I've grinded like this, and I know many people wouldn't even consider this a big/long day. Cashed the Stars $50 warmup, Party $215 40K, Stars 10K, 4th in Party 10K for $1200 or so, and ended up 1 tabling the WSOP $30r 6 max they have running as part of their series. Since there were still 30 left at this point, I went and checked my daily log to see that I was up about $150 regardless of result of this tourney, so we had the nice Sunday dream of freerolling a tourney we're already somewhat deep in. I was very happy with how I played and I certainly ran well also, winning A7s>KQ with 7 left and A6o>KQ with 4 left, each knocking a player out. Stacks were somewhat even 3 handed and a dynamic had been building between me and another player, which didn't really matter when I was dealt AQ and he was dealt 99 3 handed; we were each happy to get 40+bbs in pre and flip for 1.3M of the 2.5M in play. It didn't go my way unfortunately, which really sucks with the absurdly top heavy WSOP payout structures. There are very minimal payjumps outside of 3rd to 2nd and 2nd to 1st, so while 4th was $1000 and 3rd was good for $1200, 2nd was $2200 and 1st was $3800!!

So another 4 figure winning day to get the last 4 days profit total up over $7000. Add another $1000 to the roll after I realized I forgot to factor in the freeroll I got from the 1 tourney I was backed for, and my roll went from $13K to $21.5K in 4 days. A win in the 6 max would have been massive to get it back to $24K and be very very close to the 25K threshold where I feel comfortable withdrawing money again, but the weight off my shoulders is still very really when comparing how I feel now to how I felt when the roll was half of the 25K I like it at.

I've decided I won't be sleeping tonight since I need to leave in a half hour to go to my friend's house anyway. We'll take an uber from there to JFK then head out to Vegas on an 8:30 flight. So hopefully in less than 12 hours I'll be in Las Vegas. Leggo!