Hi TwoPlusTwo

My name is Dan and I have decided to begin a blog about my experiences attempting to be a professional poker player. There are a couple reasons I think this blog will be interesting enough to publish, and even if it isn’t entertaining I know it will be very therapeutic for me to summarize some of my sessions when they are finished. The two reasons I think this blog can be quite entertaining are:

1) I am attempting to be a professional poker player. I’ve always enjoyed following the ups and downs of others who try this as a career path, especially when I was thinking of trying it myself. Hopefully some people will get something out of seeing the highs and the lows of playing poker for your income.

2) The bulk of my play will be coming on regulated online poker sites in the United States. I live in New Jersey and primarily play tournaments under the screennames RedsoxNets5 and mj23style. The player pool is small but I think it is just big enough to grind out a living but I’m not really sure that there is a way to tell if I can do it without just trying it on my own, so here I am.

Some facts about me. I am 24 years old, I live in the Trenton area, I used to be an avid runner and am currently getting back into running shape (I participated in the River to Sea relay yesterday, a 92 mile running relay consisting of teams of 7 and 14 stages. It starts on the Delaware River and ends at the beach in Manasquan.). I am tall and used to play a lot of basketball but it has been limited recently. I have a girlfriend I’ve been with for over 2 years who lives about 80 miles away from me. The distance makes it a bit difficult and also sometimes limits how much I can play poker, but I wouldn’t trade her for the world, and she is unbelievably supportive of my pursuit of playing this game professionally.

I went to Europe for 3 weeks starting at the end of June and got back on July 18. I have not had a winning day of poker since returning and am approaching my biggest downswing ever. However, my mental game has been better than it ever was and I have complained about this downswing to almost no one, other than letting my girlfriend know just how deflating it can be. The good thing is that I am properly rolled for the games I play so the only thing I really have to overcome is the dreadful feeling one can get when starting up a new session. Every day is a new day and it’s important to focus on playing your best and ignore how your luck is going.

I say I am attempting to be a professional poker player because since I still live at home, I don’t yet consider myself an actual professional. I pay a lot of my own bills (car insurance, phone bill, student loans, gas money, spending money, etc) but I do not yet pay rent and my parents occasionally help me with other expenses (my car needed some repairs recently that totaled $500 and they spotted the bill for me). My parents are also unbelievably supportive and have told me I can stay here for as long as I want, but as much as I love them, I do want to move out soon and get started with my own life. Because of their hospitality though, I’ll be able to really build up a “life roll” before moving out so that I will not have to worry much when I downswing when living on my own. The support system I have is unbelievable and is really making me feel like I can thrive at this profession.

I’ll wrap up this first post with some of my past results and a little bit more detail of my poker life. Black Friday hit when I was 19, but I had been having success before then. I got close to 6 figure scores a couple times (12th in the turbo takedown for $8000 with $100K up top, and 17th in the Sunday Warmup for $2500ish with $150Kish up top), and then recently came 20th in the Parx $550 Big Stax event (for $3500ish with $100Kish up top), but still have not even cashed a tournament for 5 figures. I do think I will earn a 5 figure score in the near future though if I continue to put in the volume.
So anyway that’s a long enough post for my first entry. I will try to update this somewhat regularly. If you have any questions for me feel free to ask and I will try to answer them ASAP. Also, if you think there is anything more I should include/things I am talking about that I should exclude, let me know and I will take those ideas into consideration. I look forward to writing this and hope I do not spiral out and go dormant like so many other blogs seem to do. This first post was quite long and I'll try to keep future posts shorter so as to keep them from being TLDR.

Cliffs:
--24 year old attempting to become a professional poker player primarily using regulated online sites in New Jersey
--Will try to keep this blog updated regularly to help demonstrate the highs and lows of a professional poker player

Good Luck Dan!

We share some common interests. Anyways, good luck!

Guess Europe really ****ed you up haha. Gl bro will be following

GLGL. Come to the dark side and play cash games with me :P

Hey love the transparency. IMHO the best way to make this entertaining is to be completely honest!
Most importantly Good Luck Danny Boy

Thank you!

Which interests? And thanks!

Nah man Europe was great and it was awesome meeting you there! I've wondered if my game has been rusty since I didn't play for the entirety of the 3 weeks but I don't think that's it; I did read all of Moorman's book while overseas. However I definitely should start studying more. Either way thanks for the well wishes Max!

Haha I've played cash in the past, at times playing games with Merson and .BEAST. Also played online against Beckley, and have known Joe McKeehen since we were both 18. That's a lot of November 9ers! Anyway, what's your name on there and what stakes do you play?

Thanks a lot! I recently started reading the blog of the 1/2 player who attempted to make 40K in a year strictly from live 1/2. He was incredibly entertaining and very open so hopefully I can make this half as good as his.

Thanks for the encouragement guys I really appreciate it.

So after my 12 hour poker day this past Wednesday that saw me buy into the Parx $330 at 12:30PM, grind the 30K starting stack up to 200K and then run KK into AA followed by QQ into AA to bust with 30 minutes left in the day at 12:30AM, I decided to take a mini break with 3 days off from poker. I spent Thursday with my girlfriend, went on a nice run with her on Friday before coming home, and did the 91 mile River to Sea Relay on Saturday before going to my friend’s party at her house in Point Pleasant that night. It was all a lot of fun. Side note: My team ended up finishing 3rd of 125 teams based on total time. We finished in 9:29:38, which comes out to 6:15 per mile for 91 miles of running. My last 2.5 mile leg I went 15:15 (6:06 pace) but my first 8.0 mile leg was quite slow and if I was in any sort of shape we would have gotten 2nd. Gotta train for next year!

Back to poker. I came back Sunday ready to put in a good session and reset my mind to be positive. I started a little later and after a half hour I was out of both Sunday majors New Jersey has. The WSOP $200 $35K guarantee ended when I got AJ in vs A4 pre and lost, and then I got the rest in with AK vs A9 and went busto. In the Party Poker $200 $50K guarantee I 3b KhKd pre and got flatted before getting stacks in on the J74hhh flop. His AcAs held. This all came after the first tourney I played in which a guy limp/called my 10BB shove with 87 and flopped T96 vs my JJ. The rim feels like there’s a lid on it to put this stretch of poker into basketball terms. I just cannot seem to get any sort of momentum going and everything feels like it is against me. Of course, this cannot be your mentality when putting in a session, so I shut it down that Sunday a $600 loser and lived to fight another day.

What I have been trying to balance through all of this is when to play and when to take time off. I imagine it will be a vital tool to have as a professional; judging when it is time to push through the struggle and when it is better to simply not put in the session. I took Monday off and went to the Bronx zoo with my girlfriend and had a great time. I’m now trying to figure out if I should play tonight or continue to wait. I feel like when I sit down I will be positive, but as soon as a few things go against me my mind might not be in the right place. The swings of poker are amazing; there are times where you feel like you can’t lose and no matter what you do you’re going to have a winning session, and there are times where it feels like the complete opposite. Right now it feels like the latter, but it’s amazing what one winning day can do for your confidence going forward. Unfortunately I haven’t had one of those in a very long time!

Some people have asked me about talking about my bankroll and other monetary issues and I’m not sure how comfortable I am about that. I might be more open about it in the future but for now I’m probably only going to be summarizing each session, sometimes talking about total win and loss and sometimes not. What I will say is I’m rolled for everything I’m playing online, and I’m being a bit of a bankroll nit by selling action to the upcoming Parx $550, but I’d rather be nitty while on a downer than spewy. I really feel like this downswing will end soon but while it continues, it really feels like there is a cloud over my head. Getting that cloud to evaporate is what encourages me to play tonight; making that cloud bigger is what makes deters me from putting in the session. My girlfriend and I are going to go on a run between now and when my session needs to start so I guess I will see how I feel after that. Running has really helped me to have something else to focus on while the downswing exists. Where many thoughts of “I’m bad at poker” can creep in, I can replace them with “nice run today” and the incredibly low variance of running is very comforting; you either run well or you don’t and it’s often all up to how hard you prepare. It’s a great outlet, and everyone who tries to go pro really does need to have some sort of outlet that allows them to get away from the game when it’s not going well. I’m lucky to have so many positives in my life outside of the game that allow me to put everything into perspective.

Quick extra note: If the blog seems a bit slow and boring right now just ride it out with me; it will get better. It's hard to be excited about writing when I have next to no positive news to report, but just like the poker side of it all, I will grind through the writing side when things aren't going well. I imagine it will be a bit more entertaining when I string a few winning sessions together but I guess we will just all have to wait and see!

We decided to run along the Delaware River on the path between the canal and the river tonight. I went 5 miles and my girlfriend went 4 and we ended at almost the exactly same time. It was a great way to start the night. On the ride home she suggested I just play fewer tournaments tonight. A simple suggestion but one I should have been practicing at least a week ago when the downswing started bothering me. Even if I’m playing optimally with 8 games up, why not just focus on the main 4 and put a cap on the amount I can lose? A min cash can be even more encouraging that way. So tonight I only played WSOP’s $30r $10K guarantee and the $100 $2500 (lol) guarantee, along with Party’s $100 $10K guarantee and $50 $5K guarantee. I doubled my starting stack in the WSOP $100 before getting AK in vs KK for 20 bigs each to bust. The 30r was pretty uneventful and I eventually got A7s in vs KQ for 10 bigs each to bust.

The Party tournaments went well. They actually went well! It felt like there was a non-zero chance I might win tonight! Every time I got the money in good in the 10K I realized that I expected to lose! Not in a “oh my luck is ****” sort of way, but more of a “there is a non-zero chance I will lose so I might as well expect the worst so I can continue playing well when it does happen.” After weeks of getting smashed my brain was simply expecting to lose so that I wouldn’t feel bad when it happened! But it didn’t happen and I ran my 10K starting stack up to 60K quite quickly. Unfortunately after I got KQ in vs KJ on KJ35dd (he took about 15 seconds to call the turn shove and in NJ that’s often more of a nitroll than a slowroll) I couldn’t seem to get any traction back. Fortunately though I was able to pull off the mincash for about $200, finishing 15th/115.

The final tourney was the Party 5K in which I ran GREAT! It was such a relief to see that I could not only win showdowns but even get lucky from time to time again. I shoved 25BBs with AQ over a limp and a 4x from a very aggro player and got cold called from the BB for less and called by the aggro player. BB had 88, aggro had AK, and the board ran Q high for the almost triple. I then ran queens into kings (vs someone who limp/raised huge from MP, allowing me to probably fold my 88/99 and maybe even TT hands, lol NJ) to drop back below starting. After that it was 99>AA and QQ>AK back to back hands to have 4x starting!

The structure on the 5K is actually amazing and really allows you to abuse the bubble if you have chips and know what you’re doing. Fifteen paid (112 entrants) and by the time we were down to 9 I was in 2nd with “Jermz” leading the way. Jermz is ranked 4th in NJ on P5s and has begun streaming his sessions again, so I had that up to check on any hands I was curious about. The final table took forever and short stacks didn’t seem to want to bust, but given I had over 50BBs the whole way I wasn’t really concerned. Jermz and I went about our business picking on the shorties who had tough ICM spots while avoiding each other for the most part. I noticed he was opening often on my BB so I threw in a light 3b with J2 to cut that out, which got through.

By the time we reached 3 handed Jermz and I were 1-2 but 3rd place was close so I offered a deal. It’s probably not a great thing for me to do EV-wise given the 3rd player seemed weaker, but I was tired and decided sacrificing a little dollar EV would be good for some life EV to allow me to wake up a bit earlier and get my run in earlier. Jermz did not want to though so we continued. I put in a light 4b vs him bvb and he snap ripped, so that knocked me back into 3rd, just behind 2nd, and naturally that is when my internet gave out. When will it end! I did everything I could to turn it off and on, switched to my phone, phone wouldn’t validate my location, and by the time I got back I was in a distant 3rd. However, I lucked out when Jermz KO’ed the other guy, so I now had $750 locked up and was going to play for about tree fiddy more for the win. Jermz had a 10:1 lead, but I did have 10 bigs, so there was a glimmer of hope.

When I regained the chip lead I decided to offer him a chop one more time and he declined again. I’m starting to realize that Jermz is a lot smarter than he lets on in his stream. He acts like a goof and “talks strategy” but I think he knows A LOT more than he lets on. His sizings are a bit strange sometimes but he has a great feel for the game and I think he notices things that he does not say on air. It was interesting to watch while playing heads up. I began 3 betting a ton because he was opening about 95% of buttons. We swung back and forth for quite some time before I found ATo in the BB and 3b Jermz’s open. When he 4b ripped 35BBs effective, while covering me by maybe 5BBs, I knew this was what I’d been attempting to set up, but had the feeling that my hand wasn’t in good shape against his 4b shove range, as crazy as that sounds, which makes me wonder if I should be flatting AT. But if I’m 3 betting a lot than I should be thrilled to get it in here right? Maybe I’m just being results oriented, but he showed up with AJ and that was that. However, today we WON MONEY! I should be ecstatic, and I am! The lid is off the rim and I am ready for an upswing of epic proportions now! For anyone who wanted monetary specifics I can definitely say this: Sunday I lost $604.10 and today I won $609.96! WE ARE IN THE BLACK THIS MONTH PEOPLE!

I like to take 2 days off per week from poker regardless of how I’m running, so tomorrow will be that 2nd day and then the rest of the week will be back to the grind. I’ve sold a bit to the Parx $550 and will certainly be firing 2 bullets (well hopefully 1). I’ll play Thursday and bag then, BUT if on the off chance I don’t bag a million chips on day 1A, I will try again on day 1B (Friday) or again on 1A if I bust before the dinner break. So if I don’t play Parx on Friday then that will be an online night, as well as Saturday, and Sunday will be day 2 of Parx (or online poker on the off chance that I don’t bag the overwhelming chip lead on day 1). Should be a fun week of poker!

Dan I was referring specifically to your London visit haha!

Always nice to hear about another fellow NJ grinder. I really liked your intro cause I'm trying to play for a living too. Good luck sir. Jeeeeeeersey!!!

My sn has something to do with heat transfer. Played 400nl earlier this year where I was running hotter than the sun (23bb/100) but now retired back down to 50-200nl. The +/-$1500 swings every session was too much for this bankroll nit.



EDIT: we'd love to see some pictures along with your blog, chip porn would be awesome.

Hmmm have I ever played with you? I'll have to check the lobby to figure out if I can determine who you are!

If I run up a stack in the 550 tomorrow I'll take some pics. I sold half of my action for 2 bullets at 1.2 mu so my somewhat nitty bankroll guidelines have been obeyed. No poker tonight but we grinding tomorrow!

Nice to read about another NJ player. Play on party mainly and cash for the most part but thinking about starting to play the bigger tournaments. Done pretty well playing the lower buy ins without knowing all that much about tournaments and figure buying tickets to the bigger majors is probably better than using my points for heads up hypers.

Good luck man if you have any questions feel free to ask! As you play the higher stakes more you start seeing the same people over and over and interesting situations start arising...makes it quite interesting. Though you might have already seen this at the lower stakes.

I'll try to post again either tonight or tomorrow morning. I did not bag on bullet one of the Parx $550 so will be trying again tomorrow. I'll write about that and the session I'm currently playing right now (just 4 of the bigger NJ nightlies).

Felt pretty good in the live tournament today, played a few hands that I could have changed a little bit but for the most part just made good hands that were 2nd best. My online session was frustrating as his been the norm for the last 2 weeks. I just keep running up stacks early and running bad late. Busted JJ<AT pretty late in the $50 tourney on Party for 4 starting stacks and then ran my last 10 bigs with 33 into 88 in the 10K, 5 from the money, against the same kid who busted me in the $50. Lost 2 huge flips in the 10K that each would have given me the chip lead, kept my head on straight and kept grinding but it just didn’t turn around. It’s really difficult because the kid busting me from both tourneys is telling me about how he ran bad late in the almighty stack, while we’re on Skype together playing these tourneys. He made like 20K in that tournament but here I am listening to how bad he ran as I go through my biggest downswing and have no 5 figure scores to my name.

I think a big key in being a professional and keeping your sanity is just shrugging off the beats. In fact, if you can just not talk about them at all it’ll be better for everyone. You’ll continue to focus on the important things (the actual decisions, rather than the run outs) and everyone else won’t have to hear bad beat stories. I even feel a little guilty posting the bust hands above but I just wanted to get the point across that listening to others complain as they get there against you is beyond frustrating. I think going forward I need to just leave Skype off while I play. I’ve been doing that but then I see the messages pop up on my phone about a hand I just played vs someone and hop right back on! Gotta stop doing that so that I keep my mentality the best that it can be as this downswing continues. Made the final 8 of the $100 tourney on WSOP before busting in a standard hand. $1300 up top in that and 6 pay, so just another bubble on the record and another -$350 session that consisted of 4 tourneys (the 4th was the WSOP 10K in which I really got no traction before busting about 15 from the money). I am a bit worried about how I seem to be short stacked pretty often late in these tourneys, but in the 10K today I just lost 2 massive flips and was forced to navigate the short stack. I do remember passing up on a spot that I thought would be close EV-wise when I had about 17BBs (the kid mentioned above opened from MP and I had ATo in the SB with 17 bigs. Think this used to be an auto rip for me but I never get called by worse in NJ so most of the value of shoving is in getting folds. Not sure what’s best but it might be better if I just start jamming in these spots and dealing with the variance so I don’t end up having to rip 3s with 10BBs later on).

Anyway, on to the fun stuff. Played the Parx $550 today and I just really enjoy playing live tournaments when I get the right people at my table. Recently it’s been nice; I either know a good player on my table and we have fun conversations, banter, gameplay, etc, or I don’t know anyone and most of them are bad and I should be more profitable. Today I got to talk a lot with Eric Suarez and another guy who seemed like an intellectual with a personality. It was a fun time. 40K starting stack and 45 minute levels, and after nitting up really hard I opened QQ UTG to 1K at 400BB with about 32K to start the hand. A kid I’ve known of for a couple years, Ed Petrella, 3b’s the SB to 3500. At this point I feel like his range is very strong but we’re obviously not folding queens pre, so I flat, and the flop comes QT4. Ed checks and given the strong range I put him on pre I decide to just go ahead and bet 3200. He c/r’s to 8K and I flat to see the 6x turn. Ed bets 10K, I jam my 22K, he calls with AA and I hold to get to 64K. Ed busts soon after and Chris Csik takes his seat, playing somewhat actively before eventually opening the button 1200 at 500BB. I 3b to 3300 with AK and he flats and I ask him how many grays he has as the AKJ flop comes out. He says 5 and I try to figure out what my sizing should be to set up a river shove. I believe I bet 3200 on the flop (he called), 6500 on the 2x turn (he called), and all in for his 18.9K on the 6x river. He made the oh-so-professional call with the QT for the nutter butters to knock me back down below starting stack. Unfortunate.

From then on I didn’t win many pots. I flatted JJ pre vs an old guy’s open, which in hindsight was a must 3b because this old guy did not play like an old guy. I didn’t know this at the time since he had just been moved to my table, but he ended up winning the hand at showdown with TT and then proceeding to open Q5s and other funky stuff. I made it 3500 over 2 limps at 800BB with QQ from the CO and got 3 callers, including the intellectual guy who had noted that he thought I was tight. He seemed to be pretty competent about the game and just flung the call in from the SB, which seemed pretty strong to me. Flop came KJ7 and it checked to me with 16K in the middle and me with 38K in my stack. I need to study these spots because they don’t come up frequently but I never know what to do. Check and give up? Check and call some turns? Bet and shut down if someone calls? We only have to fear Kx and sets (which can be discounted since JJ and KK are going to be 3 bets sometimes), but if we bet and don’t get 3 folds it’s going to be tough to win the pot. I bet 8K and I think checking is probably better long term. In the short term it didn’t work either as the SB flatted, we checked the brick turn and he led big on the brick river. He later hinted that he had it and I think he did, but the range of hands he has there is pretty thin that beat me (AK/KQ/KJ/77, and I think he folds KJ/KQ sometimes and 3b’s AK sometimes. So I really don’t know). Anyone with thoughts on that hand I’d love to hear!

Another hand I think I botched came when I opened the CO with Ac5d and got a flat from a very tight player in the SB. Flop comes T72ss he checks I bet he calls. The turn is Ax and he checks. I pot control and check back (think that this sometimes lets draws get there for free, but I feared having to release on a c/r and making worse hands fold. Not sure what’s best here but I don’t hate my check). River is the 3s and he leads 2/3 pot. Think I just need to fold here. I’m not sure what I can be beating aside from 98 and one of those weird bluffs with Tx or 7x. The thing that drove me to call was when I saw him bet 77 on an A933A board vs the guy who had TT (I had folded JJ on the flop this hand vs the bet and call). The bet seemed strange so this time I figured he could have something of similar strength. I think my call is bad and he turned over AQss revealing that he just had me destroyed the whole way. No 3b pre was interesting to note as well.

That knocked me down to 14K at 1K BB and I folded for 3 orbits with A2o being my best hand. People were limping, raising, and flatting a ridiculously high % at this table so I had no chances to open shove marginal hands. I eventually 3b jammed A7o for like 8 bigs because there were just no spots coming up and I now had 20% of a starting stack. Eric on my left had AQ and that was that. I will go back tomorrow and try to play better!

One cool thing from today’s live tournament is that the blogger (Will O’Connor, who is an exceptional writer in my opinion) did a little write up on me for the blog. I assumed he was taking a picture of Eric on my left but Suarez pointed it out a little while later that he had actually taken my pic.

Here is a link to the post: http://parxpokerbigstax.blogspot.com...g-running.html

It was a very kind article given how bad things have gone recently but I was up 5 figures exclusively from online NJ MTTs in the month span between graduating in the middle of May and leaving for Europe near the end of June so I guess things were going pretty well then. I’ll expand a bit on my past successes/failures with NJ MTTs in future posts but for now I’m feeling a bit bummed about poker and want to get some sleep. That does remind me though, when I got home from the Parx tournament I went on a 4.5 mile run and it was one of the best I’ve had in years! I stopped running in college in the middle of my senior year when I decided to take a semester off from school to get my head on straight. I then took 2 years to finish 4 or 5 classes and student teaching, which is why I only recently graduated. I got out of running shape since being away from the cross country and track teams but have been working hard recently to get back to where I was. Today, my 4.5 mile run was ran completely with negative splits (each mile faster than the last). Mile 1—7:27, mile 2—7:11, mile 3—7:04, mile 4—6:39, and the last half was 3:15 (6:30 pace). Overall that comes out to 31:37, or 7:02 per mile. It’s a great feeling to be getting back into shape and it really helps me to not focus too much on poker results and rather just realize that if I do continue to play well, study, and make sure I improve rather than blaming the downswing all on luck, things will get better. I hope poker is going well for everyone reading this and I’ll post again soon!

TL;DR: Click the link above to see Parx blog post about me!

I think I am making my posts too long for a new thread in which people haven't really gotten to know me or the journey yet. No one wants to sift through 6 paragraphs per day so I think I'll start shortening these until there is more interest in the thread. If there isn't more interest then it'll just be nice to track how I'm doing for myself.

Just busted Parx again. Played well and made the 2nd best hand a billion times. This is a theme that has stuck with me for 3 weeks now. I value bet at the right times, found some big folds at the right times, and eventually ended up in a hand with a middle aged guy whose VPIP had to be over 50. He had a good feel for when to bluff and what plays to make but his fundamentals were pretty awful. He opens to 2200 (for the 3rd straight hand) at 1K BB and I 3b to 5500 with JJ from the HJ. He flats and the flop comes 542r. He c/c's my 6200 chip bet, then leads the 7x turn for 12K. I jam my 28K in and he just has 55. This type of villain can have 33 66 88 99 TT 76 65 and even weird 73 53 43 stuff. He'll also occasionally have 2 pairs and sets. It's pretty frustrating but for 3 weeks I feel like I've exclusively seen sets whenever any sort of hand like this arise. Five hands earlier I had flatted JJ in the BB and then c/f'ed the T74 flop to a woman I've known for a little while now! Might be the tightest fold of my life! And then she showed QQ!! There's only so much you can do until the cards dictate if you're going to win today or not.

I'll go on a run now and then probably torture myself with another online session tonight. I've really had a good time playing live but have probably won win less than half of my JJ+ hands in the last 3 tourneys I've played, and given it's been about 20 hours of poker I've probably seen those hands 10-15 times. I've think it's safe to say this is officially the worst run I've had in my life in poker, but at the end of the day, life is good and money comes and goes. If I want to really be a professional I have to simply keep my head up and strive to be better. Maybe I'll win both of the 10Ks tonight! To be continued...

Personally I like the long posts to read.
Keep your head high and continue to play your best, things will start to turn around soon.

3rd of 125 in the River to Sea Relay is impressive, congrats to you and the team!

Best of luck in your attempt at playing full-time. You mentioned shrugging off beats is a necessary skill, couldn't agree more. Easy to play reasonably well when running well, much more difficult to keep composed after getting kicked in the nuts a few times in a row.

Do you think your live hourly is greater than your online hourly after factoring in travel time and transportation costs? I've heard people say that it's not very practical to grind full time off live tournies alone, even for people with 100% + ROI. The hourly EV would also take a big hit if variance is factored in (in financials, variance is a huge part in pricing stock investments).

Thanks for the kind words! I've realized I like writing a lot and it seems therapeutic but I think I will start to summarize it a little bit more unless other people agree that the long posts are better, or until it gets more popular and more substance would be better. Either way they'll still be a couple paragraphs.

Thanks the race was a real grind! There are some cool pictures of me having to outkick a guy who decided to put the jets on with about 200 feet to go, after I took 2.5 miles to track him down after starting 3 minutes after him. We sprinted hard to the finish and I ended up beating him by a step.

Yeah it's probably even more important to play well when running bad since it's so easy to punt since you get into that "well what does it matter anyway I'll lose whether I get it in good or bad" mentality.

Yes this is a very good point that I really keep in mind. I love the Big Stax events and Parx is less than a 30 minute drive from my house so I am able to go there and back each day, only having to pay for gas (no hotel expenses or anything like that). I also try to limit how much I order drinks from girls, how much I eat at dinner breaks, etc to make sure the little stuff doesn't add up too much over time. It's also frustrating to 1 table a tournament and then bust after 12 hours only to realize you just lost x amount of dollars AND the opportunity to play online that night. BUT, the upside is that you can win 100K in a few days of poker. So while the downside is clear, the upside is much bigger than what you can pull off online, AND I think playing live is much easier when it comes to getting reads and 3 betting light and whatever else you might need to do to succeed. So it becomes a balancing act. What I do plan on doing in the future is going to Parx in the mornings/early afternoons some days to play the 1/3 game they have. I think it would be very profitable (hopefully somewhere in the $25-$30/hr range) and if I play early then I'll still be able to come home and play the online tourneys at night. I've only played the 1/3 game once and made over $500 in 3 hours. Small sample, but the game was very soft.

Gonna write up the post for how tonight's session went now and then go to bed. Spoilers: Had my best poker night since returning from Europe!

It’s actually pretty wild how close I could have come to winning both 10Ks tonight after commenting on that in the last post. The WSOP 10K is a $30 rebuy in which $30 gets you 4000 chips, you can rebuy with 4K or less for another $27.30, and after 2 hours (at 140/280) you can add on another 8K chips for $27.30. I ended up in for 4 units ($111.90) with a stack of around 20K. After a few fun hands I had it up to 75K and was rolling when I totally botched a hand that I just shouldn’t have let happen. However, what I am happy about is that I did not shy away from the big pot just because it was big, and made a read and went with it. I opened AQhh from UTG+1 to 3200 at 1600BB and was 3b to 8K by a player from the BB who I have notes on that say he has 5b me in the past without the stone nuts, which is rare in NJ, so I don’t think he just has to have it every time here, but his 3b from the BB vs my EP open does seem quite strong. Anyway I flat and we see the K92 with one heart flop and he continues for 6750. I should note that he started the hand with 70K and I covered by a tiny bit, and we were both in the top 10 with about 50 left. I decide to float here with backdoor draws and the potential to rep strong hands if he has any TT-QQ or AQ/AJ hands here. It’s tough in NJ (and maybe ROW online, not really sure anymore) because their ranges are really tight here and it’s rare to see someone show up without a value hand in this spot. This particular villain might be able to but I’m not so sure. The turn is the 6h and he bets 14K and with my added equity I decide to rip 54K effective in hopes of getting him to fold any of those strong-but-not-too-strong hands to my line, which I think looks quite strong at this point and even may be uncapped since a 4b with AA/KK pre would look SO nutted that I might flat those hands. He called pretty quickly with AA and the 150K pot went to him when the river was not a heart. So, probably unnecessary from me, could flat turn and have 45K to play with after I whiff river. In these fields it has to be better to just be a bit more straightforward. But then again, I’ve been doing that for a while now and beating myself up over whittling down too often, so maybe these lines are better. At least in this case I give myself a CHANCE to have a massive stack. I’ll have to keep playing with those ideas as time goes on.

In the other 4 tourneys I played I busted 1 and finished 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the other 3. The 5th was disappointing as it was a $55 1 rebuy MTT on 888 in which 5 paid, and I had the CL going to the final 9. One player was quite short when we got to 5 handed and when my AA went down to 66 on Q65 I missed a payjump as well as missing out on a chance to win my first tourney in a very very very long time (if you can call a 26 man MTT a tourney). So 5th got me $220 while the winner got $750. The other 2 I played were the Party Poker 10K and 5K, $100 and $50 buy in tourneys respectively. Both had nice overlays with 84 and 88 players (and the $100 and $50 entries including the entry fees) so it was a good day to run deep! When we got 6 or 7 handed I was 2nd in the 10K with the overwhelming chip leader being none other than Will Tonking, last year’s 4th place finisher in THE main event. He played a lot of cash on the NJ sites before final tabling that, and I’ve seen him in a few tourneys lately. Grinders gonna grind. He was incredibly aggro and I watched as he got there again and again and again to bust people repeatedly. By the time we were 3 handed it was his 650K to my 120K to other guy’s 70K. Other guy got it in with 98dd vs Tonking’s A8 on AT8 on diamond flop and turn and river were diamonds. Next hand he won a flip, and a couple levels later I was busto in 3rd for $1220. Unfortunate since 2nd was $1550 but Tonking ran so hot against the shorties earlier that there’s no way I could complain. I had heads in the 5K early on as well but never got much going at the final table. I was probably too focused on the 10K and missed some spots I should have taken in the 5K and eventually busted QQ<A5 to get back into 2nd place in chips with 4 left. That netted me $505 and the overall day ended up at +$1208.10, including the $220 I lost of my own money for the Parx buy in.

And this all came after my 5 mile run with my brother! We were very close to splitting all negative again (the 2nd mile was 2 seconds faster than the 3rd mile doh) and finished the 5 miler in 36:07. I feel myself getting stronger on the running front every day and it’s a great feeling. It’s going to help me get out of the downswing and it’s going to keep me positive when everything is back on the right track too. And no matter how fast I get I’ll always have my little brother to run with since that crazy bastard has ran a 14:35 5K (3.1 miles) in the past. Yes, that is 4:42 per mile. For 3 miles. Freakish.
Anyway, tomorrow’s schedule involves me probably playing 3 morning/early afternoon tourneys (that’s about all the good ones they have) while maybe trying to throw some sng’s in if they run. No night session for me though as my friend is having people over so I’ll head over there for a nice night out before coming home to put in the big Sunday session. Maybe I’ll write up my schedule for Sundays at some point to give people a good feel for exactly what is being offered here in one of the first states to regulate online poker in America. I know I said I would make these posts a little bit shorter but once it starts flowing it just all comes out! Maybe I'll trim it down a bit more with the next post.

Back to back winning days! Today was still pretty damn frustrating though. Played a lot of tourneys and sit and go’s starting around noon. I sat there for a while and just regged for everything from $5-$100 buy ins in sng’s and a decent amount went off. The big event of the day though ended up being the $50r $5K guarantee that went off at 2:00. I played pretty well, won some flips, and ended up in 2nd with 5 left, way behind 1st but way ahead of 3rd. Of the 39 runners only 4 got paid, and since there was overlay the min cash was really inflated. Payouts ended up being $2000, $1250, $1000, $750. I ended up putting a ton of pressure on the short stacks and eventually got A8 in vs the A9 of a player who has been rated in the top 5 in NJ since he joined Pocket Fives last year. He open shoved SB and I called from BB and he held. I then lost a flip to bust someone else and was starting to get a bit low but was still in 3rd. Bubbling this tourney would be a DISASTER, and luckily I eventually called off a 10BB shove with 66 in the BB and held vs A6.

I end up with 20BBs and it’s folded to the A9 guy in the SB who mins. I shove my 77 in and after about 10 seconds he calls with A9. A 9 on the flop ended my tournament and the guy with 10BBs laddered up above me. I flipped a bit in the chat; I thought I was done with that immature attitude but it all came out after this hand. Why did it come out after this one? Well I think this actually has to do with a pretty deep concept that I have noticed since playing tournaments in New Jersey and seeing how the “best” players tend to play.

Before Black Friday poker was a preflop game. 3 betting, 4 betting, and 5 betting light was not uncommon because when others are constantly trying to steal the pot from you, you have to fight back, and you can’t just have it every time. This game does not exist anymore in New Jersey! The game is now a post flop game. Today one of the everyday regs opened button, I 3b SB, he flatted AQ. It just seems to be how people play these days; keeping villains’ ranges wide is more important than getting immediate value to a lot of these regs. I don’t know if it’s better or worse but it is certainly different than what I got used to all those years ago. “Top” regs are opening 9BBs and folding to 3b’s. Their 4b %s are almost 0 and when the 4b comes you can almost be sure it’s the goods. Everyone wants to prove that they are better than everyone else after the flop so they sacrifice the equity they can have pre. The A9 villain is one of these players, though I do think this specific villain is one of the best at doing among those who want to see all the flops.

So back to the hand in question. Maybe r/c’ing 20BBs with A9o is not tragic bvb. Against my range he can’t be doing awfully, but A9o finds its value only from the fact that it is ace high. It has no straight potential and no flush potential. If my range is dominated by A2-A8 then it’s a call. But I DEFINITELY have AT-AK here and I probably just stuff the top of my range too to make sure that it’s not obviously the nuts when I 3b small. So if I had to assign myself a range I think it would be somewhere along the lines of any ace (though I do flat some of these to reduce variance since there is a shorty there and I’ll take my chances post flop in position), KT+, QJ, and any pair. A9 flips with a lot of it and is dominated by the rest. This time I had 77 and actually have 57% equity vs A9o (another thing to consider about being up against the small pairs; you don’t really have 50% equity) and he won the flip. Some more history as to why this hand made me go bezerk:

My heater after graduating college in May began with a 5th place finish in the $200 $40K guarantee on WSOP on Sundays. I cashed for around $2500. First was $11K, and while I might be content with 5th place, I had 1/3 of the chips in play with 5 left. I open CO with KJ, button flats with AJ (again, pre BF this is obvious 3b; these days people just seem to flat), and flop comes JJ5. So that knocked me down into a tie for 3rd and I then played a similar hand with the same villain as above from the A9 hand. He opened button, I shoved 18BBs from the BB, and he called with 22 for his stack. I had A8, I did not win, and he went on to win the tournament for the 2nd time in a one month span. That **** gets so frustrating! While the A9 spot might be close, the 22 spot is not. The call there is awful. Now you dominate NOTHING other than A2 (which I might even find a fold with) and you are dominated by all the pairs, which are all in my range. This is obviously all short term variance but when you’re trying to get a bankroll started those hands are painful. Add to that the fact that the guy who is making the mistakes (or what I think are the mistakes anyway) is DOMINATING in NJ and getting praise from everyone for doing it, well, I guess that’s what made me spaz out today. When I say spaz out, I mean I just wrote in the chat box that I thought the play was awful and I can’t believe how often he wins tourneys. Still, that’s rude and completely unprofessional. I yelled a couple times and then vented to a buddy on Skype. Again, none of that stuff should happen. I should just be shaking it off and shrugging at variance (and mentally noting that villain is min/calling 20BBs with A9o and 22 in these spots), but I so badly want to get my career started that I overestimate the actual importance of these tournaments. At the end of the day grinding hard will get you there in the long run, but I want it now! I need to learn to be more patient.

What I have found through my downswing is that when I am losing I might actually be better at shrugging off the bad beats. When I start to win I start to feel entitled. “Well yeah of course the best hand should win!” It’s a dangerous way of thinking and will be really detrimental to a mindset to assume that you deserve ANYTHING in this game. When it comes down to the short term, we are all GAMBLING! You can never really guarantee a win in any sort of short term period. However, long term (and this term is relative, it could be days, months, or even years) the skill will win out. I think I have been playing the best poker of my life, and the last 2 days have showed that. I’ll just have to keep grinding hard and realizing that these 2 days are an example of what’s yet to come. Ended up cashing for $1000.07 today on $434.40 of buy ins over 15 MTTs/sngs for a $565.67 profit. Gonna go get drunk at my buddy’s place near the beach tonight then back at it for the Sunday grind tomorrow!

Oh and another thing I wanted to start doing with this blog was posting a hand I found interesting each day and letting anyone who wants to speculate on what the best play is. I might not do it consistently but I had a fun one today that I wanted to bring up.

This hand comes from a $30 re-entry tournament with a strange format in which you get 4000 chips and up to 3 re-entries for $27.30 each, but after 2 hours you can add on another 4500 chips for $27.30. 47 played and the top 5 paid and this came with 19 left. I could post the hand history itself but I think it'll be more fun to type it up and talk about thoughts on each street. In this hand the blinds are 300/600/75 and I am in the BB with 19.6K. The table is 6 handed since 3 tables need to be balanced with 19 left.

HJ limps 12K to start, CO limps with 20.4K, and I check my BB with JThh. Don't see much point in raising here.

Flop comes 654hh with 2550 in the middle. I check, and feel like a bet would have been better as soon as I did it. Don't auto check sometimes leading is best! 2 overs and a flush draw on a board that can pretty easily smack any 2 that checked the BB is a monster and we should just start getting money in the pot. HJ checks, CO bets 1912 (3/4 pot). CO is running 19/13/5.4 over 1002 hands so I'm not totally sure what to make of his overlimp, though I would expect to see some small pairs, suited connectors, and Ax kind of stuff. Broadway combos might be in there too I'm not sure. I decide to call here to realize my equity. I could certainly c/r and then call off vs jams but I'm almost certainly only drawing to the flush at that point so I decide to keep his one pair hands and bluffs in there. The HJ folds.

The turn is the Jd, so the board is 5c4h6h Jd with 6374 in the middle. I now have top pair with the flush draw but decide to proceed cautiously for the reasons listed above. I check and he bets 4180 (about 2/3 pot) and I call.

The river is the 2d, completing the 5c4h6h Jd 2d board with 14.7K in the middle. I check and villain jams my 12.9K. I think that very good players will be value betting a lot here, but random players are going to check back almost anything with showdown value, sometimes as strong as sets that fear I slowplayed a straight or just got there with 3x. So his range to me is feeling like missed flush draws, missed straight draws (both of which can be combo'd with a pair that is now bluffing, such as 5x of hearts, 76, 75, etc), and straights. I think he would jam a set here but there is a nonzero chance he'd check, and I think a lot of the time he will check his one pair stuff (which discounts the 5x stuff above but it's still possible). So when it comes down to it his value range feels thin, narrowed down to flopped straights, weird 3x stuff, and maybe sets. For those reasons, I made the call with my pair of jacks.

Before posting results I'd love to hear what everyone's thoughts are on this. I think there are many spots where my line might be bad and where my thinking might even be off. These are the types of hands that make me love the game; there's so much thinking that can go on in just one hand.

Is the parx $550 the buyin or guarantee?.... also you mentioned you were rolled for the levels you play like the $200bi ...... for your time and money why not play cash games? also why not include $50 SNGs HU/6man/9man lower V and not as time consuming... I only ask because iv been playing low stake stt/mtts looking to grind a roll for Live SSNL and you seem to already have that roll and im certain your playing tougher opponents than those at a casino, idk maybe your sacraficing a higher win rate for a higher variance format idk just wondering your thoughts