Decided to take the plunge and join BPC and got in the CFP program. I will be posting my progress here.


My Situation

Hey guys, My name is Mike. I’m a 43 year old player from the US, currently living in Tennessee. Hobbies are Poker, Guitar, Music, Concerts, Video Games, Movies, Sports and i also take care of a bunch of animals.



My poker story

My first introduction to Poker was probably the movie Rounders. I loved the movie, but at that time didn’t know anyone who played poker. Up until 5-6 years ago, the only card games i had ever really played in my life were Euchre, Uno, and Phase 10.

I started playing in 09′ after a friend showed me Pokerstars and introduced me to 9 man SNG’s. i started an account but wasn’t too into it at the time. Then i got injured at work and eventually i had to relocate, and ended up having a bunch of free time. I bought a book by Daniel Negreanu which helped a bit as i was pretty clueless about any kind of strategy, and that led me to my first training site. Which at the time was pretty mind blowing as i had no clue this sort of thing existed. i started out playing SNGs and MTTs. I really loved MTTs but eventually got tired of playing for hours and ending up as the bubble boy or with a min cash, etc.



i came across a cash game book, and started looking it over a little bit, the idea of being able to get up from the table whenever you wanted was appealing and it seemed like there was more skill involved in cash games. Black Friday ends up happening, so i find myself on Merge trying to learn cash games. Results were not pretty as i am trying to learn a new game and have no idea what i’m doing. But i’m determined and i keep plugging away. i ended up finding Leakbuster which helped patch up a lot of stuff in my game, and also took some coaching which helped as well.



From there I started playing on Bovada and was doing pretty well on there at my stakes, but just wasn’t quite feeling like myself, ended up taking a break which turned into a year and a half. Turns out i had a few health issues i wasn’t aware of, but am finally getting taken care of.



So I started playing again in July, and ran up 18 buy ins, roughly following Gordon’s NO BS book. But started to slip a bit and felt myself kind of falling back into old habits again, and doing some things that i know i shouldn’t be doing. Which leads me to the next part.



Why i want to join CFP?

I first heard of Gordon, during a Leakbuster seminar they put together with a bunch of different coaches. Out of all that were involved i would definitely say Gordon stole the show. i found him to be pretty motivating. So i started browsing his thread. That led me to picking up his NO BS book, and since i started playing again i picked up a couple of other courses. i really like the materials and their approach, and that combined with the track record of guys who have started where i am and finished program. After browsing the thread a million times and thinking it over i decided to go for it.



Definitely have some holes in my game, mental game, just not doing things the right way, etc. i just have not been able to get to the next level on my own for one reason or another. I’m hopeful that being in this program will make me more accountable for doing the right thing rather than some of the stupid stuff i do on my own. Finally felt like i needed to do something different, so I am here to challenge myself and see how far i can take this.

Meant to post this the other day.

Ok, i have gotten a late start today. The new lesson materials kinda threw me a curve ball. I was pretty much prepared for starting with the NO BS ranges, etc

But now starting with the Advanced ranges, and they are a bit wider so a lot of new info to take in. Have written out some cheat sheets which i’m sure i will be using a ton at first. hopefully after getting in some hands it will start coming more natural to me. Finally gonna hit the tables here and start my first homework assignment!

Off to a very slow start with my first homework assignment. Finally starting to get rolling. was a little more comfortable with new ranges tonight, and starting to add tables, but it has just been a rocky start. Hit my stop/loss last night, and was up a bit tonight, but all went south in about 100-ish hands. Actually went a little over my stop/loss accidentally. Not very happy about that, but at least encouraged that my numbers as far as Aggression and 3bet, etc. are starting to look better than they were before starting with this. Tomorrow is a new day.

Hey guys, Has been awhile since i had any kind of update. Finally finished my 10k hands last night, and got them uploaded for review. Things started out pretty slow as i was trying to learn my new ranges and strategy. So was only 2 tabling the first day, then slowly adding tables. But now starting to feel pretty good and looking to add some more tables and try and get more volume. Currently stuck with 4 table limit, so gonna have to start on another site. and of course being a US player our options are pretty limited.

Here are my results from the first homework assignment.

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It wasn’t supposed to be so much about winning in this assignment, but you hate to start out in the hole right off the bat. I know i made some mistakes early on, and some pretty big ones in some 3 bet pots. So a lot of stuff to improve on here.



Ended up playing 49 hours and i hit my stop/loss in 4 of my sessions. My biggest losing session i had to quit after only 252 hands. Trying to just stick to the plan. I used to get myself in trouble by not sticking to my own stop/loss, so far have done a decent job of quitting when things aren’t going well.



I’m excited to play my next 20k hands and tackle the next homework assignment. Gonna really try and nail down a schedule. i want to play more hands, more hours, but just trying to figure out how to juggle daily obligations and still do what i need to do. Gonna have to really step it up if i want to get anywhere with this.

Just wanted to post an update. My start with BPC didn’t go so well, and i ended up down for the month of October Maybe was trying a little too hard, but can’t say i was super comfortable in the beginning. Was still trying to take in all the info and figure how out the way i need to be doing things. But now have been in for about 2 weeks and have had time to get my feet wet and am ready to get this thing rolling.


Been reading some of the other blogs and some of these guys are putting in a ton of work and sick volume. Have to say i am envious. I have never been able to really play that many cash game tables. Guess i never felt that comfortable and maybe was not very certain about what i was doing in a lot of spots, so didn’t feel the need to multiply my problems. But i joined this thing to push myself and see how far i can get, and have to say that i am feeling really good about it so far. I am finding the whole experience motivating. I am struggling with some things, and still trying to find time to fit everything in, but am really going to make an effort this month to get better at my homework, posting hands, blog updates, etc.


Don’t want to make any crazy proclamations, but my goals for the month are 45,000 hands, and 160 hours of playing time. For some this may be easy, but for me i think it is a good modest starting goal, and i think i can increase both the amount of tables i play and hours as well. Will be fun to see if i over or underestimated myself at the end of the month. Here is to a good November !

Well, first week of November in the books. Can’t say i am too happy with the way things are going. My results are pretty terrible at the moment. My main site is kicking my dick off right now, and it is really affecting my confidence. I did manage a tiny winning session on there tonight, and honestly after the way things have been going, i will happily take it. It has just been brutal. Luckily i am doing okay on another site, so will be trying to put more volume in over there in the meantime.



I am somewhat happy with the amount of hours i put in this week, but my volume is still really low compared to others in the program. I really need to work on my multi-tabling skills. Some of these guys are knocking out the same amount of hands in a couple days that i get done in a week. i downloaded Stack and Tile and also Table Tamer to try out. Hopefully one of those will work for me, and can help get me going with a few more tables. If i can do that and still put in the same amount of hours i think i will be on the right track.



Will leave you with one of the fun hands i ran into this past week. Believe it or not i wanted to snap fold here because my whole session was just full house>full house, etc. I was 99.9% sure what the guy had here, but that is crazy right?

The best part of this is that the guy cold called my 3bet from the BB.

Hey will be following, keep up the work. Best of luck!

Thanks man, appreciate it!

Haven’t felt much like playing the last 2 days. Last night was more of a confidence issue, but tonight i guess i’m sick. Just a cold/cough and sore throat. Wasn’t really feeling it, but i made myself play anyway. Glad i did, ended up having a pretty decent session. Nice little boost to the confidence and some rakeback and released a little bonus $.



Also got a chance to try out Table Tamer, and i love it so far. Seems like Table Ninja in a lot of ways, which i haven’t been able to use since before Black Friday. It was driving me crazy having to manually type in bet sizes in certain spots. Think this will help out a lot, and can finally start adding more tables and trying to catch up to these guys in terms of hands. Also gonna keep trying to work on a schedule as well. I don’t really like to play during the day, but right now i think i’m starting a little too late, and the games aren’t so good towards the end of my sessions. Work in progress i guess.



Gotta catch up on some homework, and unfortunately scoop cat litter.

Not my pic, but one of my fave bands. \m/

Meant to post this yesterday.


The Breakthrough!!!



Been going pretty rough lately, have been getting brutalized at the tables, and seems like everything i touch right now is just going wrong. On top of that my slight cold took a turn for the worse, so that has been kicking my ass too. I tried to take a 30 minute nap before my session last night, and i guess didn’t set my alarm right or slept through it. i didn’t wake up until 6am. Not quite what i was planning, but i guess i needed the rest, and the way it has been going a small break from the tables probably wasn’t the worst thing for me.



Still not feeling 100%, but felt like i needed to get back on the horse, so i thought i maybe i would try a short session and just see how it went, and re-evaluate from there. Started out pretty much the way it has been going, but then picked up a hand or two and got back to around even. Then things started to snowball. Am i back? fish on a heater? Either way, i’ll take it.



My confidence has definitely taken a hit lately, so i almost felt like i was waiting for the other shoe to drop or something. Took a few hits, but things kept on going my way. So i had to ride it out. My best session in awhile. Hopefully i can keep the momentum going.

Long time no update. November was pretty brutal for me, i think maybe somehow i squeaked out a profit due to rakeback/bonuses, but as far as actual $, it was pretty ugly. Started out pretty rough, and everytime i thought i was finally pulling out of it, i would just get slammed again. Pretty much one of my worst months of poker.



I think i did reach my hours played goal, but came up short on the volume a little bit. Seems to be a difference as to what i see in the daily dashboard where i enter my results and what i see in HM2, i guess due to time zone, etc. But in HM2, i ended up playing 162 hours, and 43, 691 hands.



Still pretty low volume compared to some of these guys, but i was mostly 4 tabling this whole time. But before this , the most i ever played was 30k hands in a month. Gonna try and ramp it up again for December. Plan on trying to add a couple more tables, and i’m shooting for 200 hours this month and 60k hands. But first and foremost need to start making a profit. I didn’t run that great, but still a lot of things i can do better.



Need to catch up on a few things, and start working on a video for homework, but will try and get better at posting here.

First week of December in the books, and i think according to the BPC dashboard i played 50.5 hours this week, and played 13,637 hands. I want to get more hands in, but my goal right now is just profit. Still gonna have to step it up to hit 60k hands for the month, especially with Christmas and New Years coming up.



The month started out rough once again. Had one ugly session where one of the highlights or lowlights was losing with full houses in back to back hands, losing with sets multiple times. I kinda snapped after that. Was super frustrated at putting so much effort in, and just not seeing the results. But took a break for a few minutes, and just got back to business. And lo and behold the clouds seem to have parted and i’m finally on a little upswing.



Last nights session

Wasn’t a great night. I was kinda fighting it the whole way. Seemed like nothing but 2nd, 3rd pair type hands with a few coolers mixed in. At one point was down almost 5 buy ins and was ready to pack it in. But won a stack and that gave me some new life and a little breathing room and i ended up getting it all back. Was up just under 2 buy ins at the end, but got stacked with my AA with 5 minutes left to go in my session. Not great to win only $3, but still happy i stuck with it and i guess you never know how a session will end up.

Update for the last few days. Had one spectacularly bad session. And this is why we can’t have nice things. Just need to get out when it is going like that. i dropped a bunch, but hadn’t hit the stoploss yet so kept fighting it. Got back about halfway back to even, and then just got slammed again. Just stupid to shoot myself in the foot like that. So gonna try and make sure we don’t do that again.




Last 2 nights i was able to get back on track. Just gotta keep it going. Been really enjoying playing, and in a groove as far as putting the hours in. If i can keep it up i should reach 200 hours this month pretty easy, but i’m sure will take a couple days off with Christmas and NYE.

One area where i’m slacking big time is getting my homework done. Need to get a couple videos done. I got some hands ready last night, so now just need to go over them with some notes, and then shoot a live session, and then hopefully can finally move to the next step in the course.

Managed to get some new contacts and glasses ordered. My contacts are way too old, and are killing me. The eyes have been working overtime. i actually cut my session short by an hour tonight because they were bothering me so much. Will be a relief to get them, but i’m blind as a bat so they are special order. Gonna be a couple weeks at least. Gotta go pay a couple bills, and get these things outta my eyes.

Session from Friday night. Lot of hours for not much profit, kinda fell apart at the end there. But still in the positive, so i’ll take it.




Didn’t play last night, watched UFC and prepped for my homework, and got up early this morning and started working on the videos.
Finally got all that finished so hopefully can move on to the next chapters.

Update from the last few days.




Played 9 hours yesterday and made a whopping $2. But today i was on fire, and at one point was up 9 buy ins.
Sadly the poker gods demanded a sacrifice, so……i gave a little back. But still an awesome day. i was definitely due for one of those.

Been playing a lot of hours, and some days not getting much out of it. Need more of these.
I did own myself in one hand with a full house vs quads. Although a few hours later i got to give it to someone else in the exact same scenario, so that made me feel a little better.

dammit, worst blogger ever! To add to my frustration this is the 3rd time i’m writing this thing. Accidentally hit the back button a few times, and erased everything. Got off track with thing right before Christmas, and just got really busy and was just trying to finish my homework/video, and still get my hours and hands in.

Month was going pretty decent, not exactly crushing it, but was up around 13 buy ins at one point. But then things took a pretty big nosedive, and i had several days where i hit my stop/loss, and has kinda been alternating days of good/bad ever since. Pretty demoralizing to feel like i was finally starting to get somewhere, and have the bottom drop out so close to the end of the month. But still struggle with my mindset, and just getting away from the table when things aren’t going well. Need to just realize tomorrow is a new day, and let it go. Until i get that **** under control it’s gonna be an uphill battle. Also started looking at my notes, and realized i was making some mistakes with my lines. So just going over all that stuff and figuring out where i was going wrong.

Trying a new strategy of mixing up my sites a little bit. I was mostly playing in one spot, and when things weren’t going well i was getting pretty frustrated. So now at least trying some other options, and if one spot isn’t going well, i’ll jump over and try another. We’ll see how it works out.

Got one more day to make something happen. I reached my goal for hours played this month, but am still 3-4k short of my volume goal. not sure i can pull that off by tomorrow, but am going to give it a shot

Finished the month with 216 hours played, and 58581 hands played. And ended up down about 10 buy ins, slightly less i guess with a few bucks in bonus and a tiny amount of rakeback. But pretty disappointing. Just had that rough week or so towards the end, and it kinda sent me into a tailspin, i couldn’t seem to get back on track.

Have a few new things i want to try, and gonna really try and focus on some mistakes i found and getting that corrected. And try and put an emphasis on getting my chapters done.

As far as goals for the month, i think i can play even more hours, and would like to get my volume up to at least 70k hands. But ultimately i need to win this month, so whatever it takes to get that done.

Taking it easy today, just gonna look over some hands and try and prepare some stuff for my next video. I have not really watched much tv at all since i started this program other than hockey. But today i started watching the Netflix show “Making a Murderer”. I am about 3 episodes in and completely hooked already.

Wasn’t really the way i wanted my year to end, but gonna try and shake it off, refocus and get back to work tomorrow. Hoping 2016 is the year i finally start making something happen with poker.

Got my first session of 2016 in, and am pretty stoked. I really needed this. Now just need to build on that momentum and keep it rollin’. Hoping this is gonna be my month.



Planned to play yesterday but really wasn’t feeling very good. I have a hypothyroid, and seems related to that. There are some days where i have zero energy. I’m on medication for it, and for the most part have been feeling decent the past month or two, but yesterday was one of those days. But instead of just laying around i went over a bunch of videos and took notes, and am really trying to get the homework stuff down and make sure i understand everything. Have a couple more videos to comb over, and should be ready to get mine done finally.

Seems like the studying helped out today, not sure i played them perfectly, but definitely won me a couple buy ins. So again, really gonna try and put more emphasis on the homework. I was kind of neglecting this a little bit and was more focused on playing, and while that is important, i need to do both.

Gotta do a few things over here and get back to it.

Ok, gonna try and reboot this thing. Things have been pretty terrible in all facets, so basically starting over. Hopefully will get things on track.

So i’m dropping back down in the program to where i probably should have started in the beginning. Not super thrilled to have to do it, but if it helps me, i really don’t care. I need to do whatever it takes i guess. i think missed out on some key info in this program that probably would have helped me get up to speed, so we will see how it goes, and if this clears up some things and gets where i need to be.

Spent the past 2 days going through all the steps and re-learning some info that i need, and am finally about to try and get on the tables. The only thing that is a little confusing is memorizing one set of ranges, to an entirely new set, and now back again. Might be a little confusing at first, and don’t want it to cause me a problem when i send in my db for review.

Finally back up and running again. Have only mananged a few hours so far, but nice to have a session like this to get things going.
Has been a tough month, and i’m pretty far behind, but going to do what i can over the next 10 days to make something happen.
Some more like this would help!

Yesterday wasn’t so hot, the ol’ 3 steps forward 2 steps back trick. Didn’t run that well, but didn’t feel great mentally, think i made a few mistakes with my ranges, and was just having trouble thinking through spots. Hopefully today goes a little better.