Thanks glad to have you here!

First Post from the New House!

I am now completely moved in to my new place! I'm really excited to begin living on my own. With two roommates and a girlfriend who now lives close, I'll never really be alone which is a huge help and relief. The stuff that's small in the big picture but is stressful in the moment is that much less stressful when you've got good people around you helping out. For those familiar with New Jersey, I'm now located in Bergen County, which is the same county the college I went to is located (over 10 miles from where I'm living now though).

Some Pics of New Setup

I might throw up some more pics of the house later but for now I'm just going to include where the poker will be happening. Disclaimer: I still play on a laptop and should probably upgrade BEFORE it gives out on me but odds are I'll wait til the bitter end and have to scramble to buy a desktop after the laptop craps out .







That last picture was taken from the doorway of my bedroom. The way the house is set up is that there are two bedrooms on the ground level and one bedroom up here. That bedroom and a bathroom are both connected to the room my desk is set up in. And those are the only 3 rooms upstairs. When I plead my case to my roommates for why it would be really amazing for me to be able to use that extra room as a sort of office (especially since I don't think it could really be used practically by the 3 of us together) they agreed to let me have the room. It's really great to have friends who are on my side and who (whether they realize it or not) are helping me to pursue this. Having my poker setup outside of my actual bedroom seems like it will be really great for me. I've got my Wii U and TV in my bedroom so I can really separate work from play. The two rooms my buddies have aren't too bad themselves, but there's certainly more privacy up here for me to work the way I need to.

Not Much Poker-Wise Since the 24th

After obtaining the necessary points to achieve Diamond Status (they better not mess it up and tell me I didn't get there!) I took Christmas and the day after off. Christmas morning-afternoon was spent with my family at home. I then drove to my girlfriend's house and drove her back to my new place and we spent some nice time together and exchanged gifts. She got me a sweet pair of sweatpants and a new pair of shoes that I desperately needed (I'm wearing both things now!). The next day we drove to my aunt's house down in Holmdel and got to spend time with a lot of my extended family which was a good time. We then drove back to my place and I drove her home Sunday morning. I went back to my house in Bergen County, collected some overnight things, went on a run, then drove home back to Mercer County to put in a Sunday session. Think I played pretty well, ran hot early in the WSOP major before losing an 80/20 to bust for a good stack with 26 left for the mincash. I'm gonna run good throughout a Sunday major eventually! Also busted 11th in the $100 high roller (8 paid) after being unable to fade 9 outs going to the river for a good pot. Either of those hands goes differently and I probably profit on the day, but in the end I finished the day down about $500. Realized my back was bothering me since I didn't have the chair pictured above at my parent's place. Nice to be back in that chair and comfortable again to start the first real grind in my new house!

Running

Running has really taken a back seat with all of the travelling and moving I've been doing this week during the holidays, but I did manage a 3 miler on Christmas and a 4 miler in my new town on Sunday to achieve the 100 mile goal. I didn't run Monday or today which marks the 1st time this month missing consecutive days. No bueno. Tomorrow is a must run day! I'll also go grocery shopping pretty much for the first time ever tomorrow and really try to grab stuff that is healthier for me. I still eat WAY too much fast food and it really is a mystery to me how I'm still so thin. Not complaining of course, but I have to imagine eventually the pounds will just start coming on really fast and if I am not able to control how I eat by then I'll be in a lot of trouble. The running obviously helps in controlling my weight though so I'll just have to keep that up!

Total Distance Ran in December: 100 miles

Really enjoying this thread, especially the running part, as someone with that background. I have to convert everything to Kilometres though ha. Running def helps with the weight for sure.

You seem like you have the perfect support system to crush life and poker.

Thanks! If and when I start hopping in races again you won't have to convert it since we still label races metrically! It's a very weird system lol but 8 kilometers is almost exactly 5 miles and that's often how I convert any sort of metric distance into miles (or vice versa).

I've been blessed my whole life with how amazing my family has always been to me. I always knew I had it good but the more things and other people I experience, the more I realize just how kind and incredible my parents really were (and are) to me. They are both religion teachers at Catholic high schools yet are incredibly open minded and thoughtful. It's why they are able to support me now even though they really weren't very pleased with how much time I spent with poker when I was younger. They worried I was addicted; I did my best to prove to them I am not. They worried about me trying to play professionally without a backup plan; I agreed to finish my degree before anything else and they were okay with that, and now that I have my degree, they've offered no resistance to letting me attempt this as a profession and even offer me support and get excited when I do well. And then my girlfriend has worked really hard to understand exactly what it is that I do and to support me. It's truly unbelievable that I'm as lucky as I am with all of that. It makes me seriously feel ashamed when I whine about being unlucky with anything that has to do with this stupid game. I hit the real life lotto and am thankful for that every day.

Your indeed blessed to have both surporting parents and gf. Very rare combination, usually people already happy to have one of the two )

So now it is all up to you. If you really feel the desire for poker strong enough to make that your main source of work and income, then hehehe go go go.
Hope that you feel very early in your poker career if this is the right thing for you or not. At least i like in your post that you have this realistic type of mindset. There are already way enough of blogs of the type "i have no other perspective in life, no dedication for something else, but now for poker i will be disciplined and dedicated and want to be successfull....and then a few month later , blog closed and you never hear something". Your blog feels different, you not blindly optimistic and maybe that is what can make you really successfull.

Yeah I think this is definitely true and I appreciate you pointing that out. When I was younger I used to just think eventually I was gonna bink something big and then my career would take off and it'd all be smooth sailing from there. But binking something big just isn't as easy as it initially seems. I still have faith that I will eventually find that big score but I don't feel like I'm just going to will myself to make it happen or something; I'll have to put in a lot of volume (and probably play live a bunch more), play very well, and get very lucky to eventually get that bink. But it'll happen .

End of 2015!

I put my first session in at the new house on Tuesday the 29th and had a shot to bring December back to the positives but it didn't work out. Had a lot of chips at the final table of the $55 5K but ended up busting 6th for $300 ($1800 up top). I then took the 30th and 31st off to be with my girlfriend. So I finish December with a small loss! I'm not really that worried about it though. I took 12 of December's 31 days off. A big chunk of the month was committed to getting sng volume in, taking concentration away from MTTs. I was doing a ton of travelling back and forth from my house to Bergen County in order to successfully find a new place to live. And I got back into running! All of those things add up to a ton of exhaustion and not a lot of motivation to play poker. Now that I am settled in, I think I will be able to refocus, start studying again and really putting in the hours to play some good tournament poker.

Beginning of 2016!

I think goals are important but I definitely do not want a strictly profit goal for 2016. There's too many different factors that can change exactly how much money you make and can get you frustrated pretty easily. Saying "I'm going to make 100K this year!" only to begin July up 20K on the year makes that original goal pretty pointless. I wouldn't even really be upset if I was up 20K the first half of the year. But I do think I should have some volume goals. First of all, this needs to be a job I take seriously. Since I set my own hours and get to pretty much do whatever I want whenever I want, I need to really be my own boss. So I want to make sure I'm playing 5 days a week, with very few exceptions. There will be times where I want to hang out with my friends and girlfriend or I'm just tired and want to go lay down and play video games rather than fire up a session, but I've got to resist these urges and take my job seriously. I also need to stop feeling guilty about that! In the past, telling people "can't hang out, gotta play poker" felt selfish and rude. It's my job now! I think I'll just start saying "sorry I need to work tonight" in the future since it really is the truth!

Running

I'm sure I'll come up with some better poker goals but I'm pretty excited about running after this morning! I decided to run the Fair Lawn 5K (since I live in that town now), my first race since I really started taking running seriously again in December. I lost lots of motivation for running towards the end of the month in the new house and didn't run the last 4 days! So I ended up at 100 miles exactly for December. But this race got me excited again. I haven't done any sort of speed work so far, instead running just to get in miles in December, so I wasn't sure how it was going to feel to run fast again. But all of those miles and pacing really paid off when I hit every mile at almost the exact same time! 6:01-6:04-6:02 miles followed by a 35 second last 0.11 to finish in 18:41.4 for 15th place (maybe 450 runners?). I caught a kid with maybe a half mile to go and as I turned to see the finish line maybe 300 feet ahead I heard his footsteps. I picked up to what I thought was a full sprint until he pulled right next to me! At that point I ACTUALLY started sprinting and we were balls out side by side for a good 15 seconds. We crossed the line seemingly simultaneously but I had a feeling he got me at the line. In typical runners' fashion we both immediately turned toward each other for a hand shake/high five and were both grinning ear to ear. There's some amazing camaraderie you feel with someone who not only just ran 3 miles as hard as he could with you but did it in the exact same time you did. When I checked the official results Luke was given 14th in the same 18:41.4 time as me, so he did get me at the line!

With a 2 mile warmup and 1 mile cooldown I finish the day at 6 miles. I think this month the goal is going to be 125 miles. I also want to run 1000 miles for the year. If I stick with it throughout the entire year, 1000 should be easy (only 83 miles per month). But knowing myself there will be lapses so we'll set this year's goal at 1000. 6 down on day 1!

Happy Freakin New Year!

Made $2400 yesterday! I'm on pace to make $876K this year! Yesterday was one hell of a grind though. I started the day off not running great, losing my first hand and tournament of the new year after opening to 600 at 150/300 with KK and 5K to start, getting a flat, getting a small 3b to 1200, I shove, he calls with 55 and flops a 5. Whatever though we need that sort of random player to keep doing random things in order to be profitable. But the pattern of losing with kings was set! I end up getting KK in vs AJ and AJ for a huge pot with 2 tables left in a 10r and the ace is in the window, knocking me down to about 8 bigs. I then lose KK to TT in the Party 10K, and lose with it pre for a 4th time in another tourney. I just kept getting kings though! When I get it in for 10K apiece (3K starting stack) vs AT in the Party 5K I said to myself "don't be a superstitious idiot and start getting that bad feeling." Board runs brick brick brick brick ace!!

Anyway, this is not a whine but more of a brag. I didn't really let it get to me at all and still felt confident. It helped that I just kept getting kings though lol. They began to hold and I began to run good, eventually getting KJs in vs AQ for 45K apiece in the WSOP 10K...I had already been running good so I had 100K back if I lost, which was a huge stack on its own. The board runs Q64hh, Tx, 4h! I now had a large chip lead in that 10K with about 40 left. I had also continued to grind those 8BBs I was left with in the 10r and managed to bring that back to a good stack at the final table. I was also building in the 5K. By the time there were about 5 left in the 10r ($600 up top), 9 left in the 5K ($1700 up top), and 20 left in the 10K ($3700 up top) I had a really really bad headache. I had been feeling really tired after the race I ran that morning and now I began to feel incredibly ill. I went to get Advil and then realized I'm in a new house and have not yet picked those sorts of supplies up yet! With a potential $6000 to be won, I was considering giving up and going to lay down with all the lights off in my room. That's how bad it was.

I kept drinking water and on the break I hobbled downstairs to look behind the mirror in the bathroom my 2 roommates use (they were both still at our other friend's apartment after new year's festivities in NYC). I found some Ibuprofen and took 2, praying they'd allow me to continue. I struggled through the next half hour or so of play but slowly the ridiculous pain in my head began to subside. I still felt a little nauseous but it was so much better than that throbbing headache. I finished 3rd in the 10r for $250 and then focused my attention on the other 2 games. I ran good and went with all of my instincts (since I just didn't have the energy to deeply think through hands) and eventually ended up heads up in the 5K down something like 210K to 180K with the BB and 2K. Thank God he checked the "Make Deal" button at that point and I just took a chip chop for $1470. I then focused on the final table of the 10K, where I still managed to have the chip lead. Stacks swung up and down and I had a slight lead 4 handed before being severely chopped down to 12-15BBs and the short stack. I managed a pay jump and had about 240K at 24KBB with 3 left--chip leader at 1.5M and 2nd around 800K. WSOP's structure is incredibly top heavy, so the jump from 4th ($970) to 3rd ($1250) paled in comparison to the jumps to 2nd ($2100) and 1st ($3700). I played proper push fold strategy and actually lasted pretty long before jamming 300K OTB with TT (found a real hand this time!) only for BB to have JJ!

So my day was over with $2900 in earnings on $500 of buy ins. While you always want to win and there was $2500 more I could have made had I found a way to move from 3rd to 1st, I was incredibly pleased with yesterday for so many reasons. What a great way to start a new month and year! I've been falling behind early in months for whatever reason and this will be a great kick start. The way I was able to overcome feeling as sick as I did to not only turn a profit but to turn a big one was something I'm really proud of. I also just had a good feeling the whole session. I felt less emotionally attached to the results and when I lost in big spots with big hands I didn't let it make me feel bad. When I made a bad decision I didn't let myself get down. And I also realized how often I made hands and how dominant I felt over other players because of this. I mention this because a lot of the time when I'm losing and get down on myself it's often because I feel I'm getting "owned" and I just can't beat people in a pot and they must just be outplaying me. Odds are, they are often just smashing the deck the way I did last night, and since I find myself folding a lot (since that would be the correct play when they're getting hit with the deck and I tend to make more correct plays than not), I start to convince myself I'm getting owned since I'm losing chips. Just because you're losing chips doesn't mean someone's running you over. In fact, if you're losing the minimum (and you might not ever have it confirmed that you are in fact losing the min), you might actually be the one owning your opponent. This was all a bit rambly but I think my main points are clear. I'm excited about how things went yesterday!

Running

Just got another 6 miles in this afternoon. The great thing about being able to run long distances in a new location is I can really explore all the neighboring towns while doing something productive. I got a little bit lost around 4 miles but managed to realize it before I was too far from home. I'm going to want to construct some actual routes at some point but for now I'll just wander around all of these towns with my GPS watch letting me know how far I've gone. 42:19 (7:03/mile) for the 6 but I expect my runs will probably be a little bit slower when I don't know exactly where I'm going or where I want to turn. I'll continue the same trend as last month and update how many miles I've ran in the month in these posts. Next month I might track monthly and yearly miles.

January Distance Ran: 12 miles

Keep it up man! I've had the same sort of thing happen when I was deep in a tournament online where my vision got super blurry and I got a huge headache and felt horrible. Way to grind it out and have a great day! GLGL

Nice Start! Any live tourneys this month? I think I'm heading to the borgata for $500/$2mil guaranteed

Thanks a lot! It definitely sounds like you were having a migraine. I get migraines maybe once a year; it's pretty weird that they're so infrequent but you definitely remember them when you have them! Blurry vision (I see spots like a flash camera just took my picture but I can't get the light out of my eyes) followed by an intolerable head ache that forces you to go to a dark room and lie down with as little stimuli as possible. I'd say my headache last night was slightly less painful than that, but close. The Ibuprofen wouldn't have made it go away if it was a full blown migraine and I don't think I woulda been able to finish had it been.

Thanks! That is a good question! I'm now located slightly over 2 hours away from AC so my trip would really have to be planned and I'm leaning towards skipping the series to really focus with online poker and getting used to living on my own and paying for everything by myself. So cutting out hotel expenses and gas for the car and all that, along with the high variance of live tourneys, seems like the best move. I haven't ruled it out yet though, maybe I'll just go for a few days for that 2 mil. Good luck to you though you'll have to let me know how it goes.

you got yourself another NJ reader!

Keep it up!

Thanks for the support!

First Week of the New Year/New House/New Life

Meh maybe not a new life but I definitely feel like more of an adult now with added bills to pay and no mom to cook me dinner anymore! The first week of 2016 has gone very well. Picking up after the first day, which I already reported on, I was planning on taking off the 2nd to hang out with my roommates but they never came home! They decided to stay in NYC another night after NYE and New Year's Day. I was now in an empty house with a day I planned to take off. I was really borderline on whether to play or not but decided I'd only play the 2 10Ks and the Party 5K and call it a night after that. I bricked all 3 but still felt fine about the decision to play.

The next day was Sunday and a wild Sunday it was. I ended up with $1350 in buy ins and after a couple of small mincashes for about $150 total I was left with 3 MTTs: the $100 high roller, where we were down to 6, ITM, with $1300 up top, the Party 5K, not quite ITM yet with $1700 or so up top, and the big boy, the WSOP $200 30K, where I had the chip lead with 10 left! With $450 locked up and $9000 to 1st the day was looking to be huge. 10 handed play lasted a long time and while I wanted to really pick on the shorties clinging on, I had a solid very aggro player on my direct left who was only going to let me get away with so much. The only time I 4b him light he 5 shipped in my face and I was forced to fold. Stacks shifted up and down but I still had a very small lead when this hand occurred. The button opened, I'd estimate we were playing 50BBs deep. I 3b QQ from the BB only to be met with a 4b, and very big one at that. With some other hands I might take a lower variance line, but I think QQ is just too strong to do anything but shove and shrug if you've ran into AA/KK. I shoved and shrugged as he snapped with aces and held, leaving me with 1BB to be eliminated the next hand. What a painful feeling that was. Ready to break the NJ Sunday major monkey right off of my back and instead he held on tight. I busted 4th in the high roller, didn't cash the 5K, and ended up losing over $300 on the day. Pretty painful but I think I handled it quite well.

Monday I booked another loss of just over $300 before playing a wild session on Tuesday. I was alive in the Party 10K and 5K and the WSOP 10K and 5K at 11PM, which is pretty absurd. I've never had so many tournaments with legit potential deep in the MTTs all at once before. I eventually busted 17th in the WSOP 10K and 18th in the Party 5K before busting 8th in the Party 10K for another bit of pain. I was really hoping to break through on that one, especially with my girlfriend over that night who stopped in to watch me finish up that 10K, but it wasn't meant to be. After a couple more hours (the WSOP 5K runs incredibly late) I busted the WSOP 5K in 17th. I cashed an additional 3 tournaments (cashed 7 of 13 MTTs that night which is absurd) I did manage to profit over $900 on the day. When I checked my records and added everything up I realized that over the course of those 4 days (the 2nd through the 5th) I had over $3300 in buy ins and my total net winnings came out to a $4.44 loss! The old -0.1% ROI. However, I felt like I was really in grind mode, and was 8 tabling MTTs for most of my sessions, filling in whatever MTTs were running whenever I busted one. The process of getting back in the rhythm of doing that on a regular basis was worth all of the work, even if I just broke even through it. I took the next day off as scheduled and prepared to grind today and...

Today Went Well!

I've been running good. However, I think I've been playing well and staying very composed after I run BAD in order to give myself the CHANCE to run good. If that makes any sense at all. In the Party 10K today for example, I ran QQ into KK and rivered a queen, which was sweet, getting myself to 24K at 1KBB (10K SS). I then 3b jammed AJo over a 3K open from an aggro player with a high fold to 3b%. BB woke up with JJ and board ran 248AJ. Old Dan might feel like he got robbed, cheated, can never catch a break, why can so many players bink there but I just get teased with a 3 out turn followed by a 1 out river! But new Dan legit just shrugged and went to focus on the other games. He had the best hand, seems fair enough to me. Old Dan would worry that he had been "gifted" all of these chips after binking a river 2 outter and now just "wasted" them; new Dan is getting better at understanding all the different facets of variance that exist. I'm very happy with where my mental game is right now; I haven't even felt tempted to throw something, hit something, or really even get upset in general. It's a good feeling, and part of it can certainly be attributed to the book I've been reading, "Buddha's Brain," that was suggested by Ben in a post above.

So I only cashed 2 of my 13 MTTs today but they were 2 of the bigger ones, the WSOP 10K and the Party 5K. I ran exceptionally in both. I think one of the big signs that my mental state just keeps getting better is that there were a couple of big spots that I actually ran bad in, but my focus was fully on feeling fortunate to still be in the tourneys in the first place. I may have legitimately been in last in the Party 5K for the entirety of the final table. At one point I was 4/8 but 4th-8th were all bunch up and 3rd had over double me. Somehow I just kept laddering and staying alive when the chips got in. I got AT in vs QQ at one point and it ran xxxxA. Then got KK in vs AQ and held. Then I'd chip down a bunch (didn't get down on myself about this as I often do, instead just trusted that I was making good plays and they simply were not winning me chips this time) and then either find a double or just chip up from winning blinds. By the time the thing was over I'd somehow gotten to heads up, down 300K to 30K and just thrilled about it. I finished 2nd for $1100.

The WSOP 10K was more of the same. I ran good and definitely won some pots where I got it in behind before winning a few huge hands that again, I think I played fine, but needed help. First I got 65hh in on a T97hh5x board vs a guy who limped AA UTG. River was an overkill 8h to give me the flush for a big knockout with about 14 left. I then c/jammed all in on a JT5 board with Q9, thinking my opponent's value range was mainly Jx and Tx and feeling very surprised when he showed QQ, so I'm guessing he didn't raise pre either. Turn brick river 8 and I was near the chip lead going to the final table. I didn't force anything with 9 left, especially with a few solid players still in. It eventually folded to my button with 6 left and a very solid player in the BB. There was no SB since a player was just eliminated. I had A9o and I believe he had about 15BBs. Open shoving is an option but with how aggressive this player was I opted to r/call it off. In any case, he had AK so the money got in, and I hit a 9 to chip up nicely and knock off one of my toughest opponents, who was on my direct left. Talk about running good.

When we got to 4 handed I had 2 weaker players on my left and one of the 2 super high volume sng guys on my direct right. For perspective I had 16K hands on him on my HUD lol. He eventually got KJ in vs my KQ to bust and I was left with a dream spot, half the chips in play vs 2 guys I thought I'd do well against. They made me work though and eventually one of them took the chip lead from me, but I held a small advantage when we got to heads up. We went back and forth a little until I pulled ahead to about a 3:1 advantage, at which point he started tightening up! The best thing he had going for him was I didn't really know which button he was going to click because it really felt like he was sorta just making it up as he went. But when he nitted up it became pretty easy to just run him over and I was able to win the tourney for $3300! Such a great feeling and great way to end the first 7 days of this new year. It's really nice to get some confidence like that and see immediate results after really putting volume in the way I should be. It's also nice because I've hit the tough side of variance before so it's not like I'll be incredibly unprepared when it comes. But until then I'll just keep riding high on confidence!

After 7 days I've got a little over $4600 in MTT buy ins. I will probably base my future poker goals off of what I do this month and really really try to play 5 days per week. It's difficult to balance time to hang out with my girlfriend, hang out with my roommates, and play poker at night, since they all work during the day, but it is something I will have to simply work hard at. The one thing I do need to keep in mind is that this is my JOB, and I can't feel guilty about doing it often. While it does suck to tell people I can't hang out at night, it's what I've chosen for myself and it's what I love to do, so I need to actually do it now, and do it with consistency. The streak that I'm on now cannot be an excuse to slack off. Whether I'm running good bad or somewhere in between the passion needs to stay high to keep playing and doing what I do. As Tommy Angelo says, "The Professional just plays." So my goals are going to be oriented towards how much volume and time I put into the game, not about the results. But being up a shade over $6000 after 7 days of 2016 isn't exactly something I'm going to ignore either

Last little brag: It's obviously a very small sample but I'm leading the WSOP POY at the moment online. It hasn't yet accounted for today's results, which I'll obviously get a lot of points for. They've decided to exclude sngs this year, so it's gonna be all about MTT volume and results will come into play if some regs all put up similar volume. I'm just going to play the same amount as I planned to but this could be a nice little impetus to grind if I continue to stay on top:

Running

No matter how poker is going, running needs to stay consistent. I want to get in great shape and be a competitive runner again. With all the free time I have in the day I have no excuse to fall back out of shape. Ran 6 miles Monday with warmup--5K--cooldown, ran 6 the next day just exploring my new town, took Monday off due to my legs feeling really sore, ran 6 in 41:30 (6:55/mile) on Tuesday in the good ol 28 degree weather (for my non American friends, 32 degrees F = 0 degrees C), took Wednesday off because it was colder than Tuesday (!), ran 4 with Kelsey on the track Wednesday--she kicked ass and ran it in 33:23 when we've just been trying to focus on her running sub 9:00 pace, which she was 2:37 under!!--and then ran 5 miles today, making up a route online before going out and running it on my own. Took the 1st mile out a little faster than normal (6:57), 2nd mile felt relaxed (7:03), 3rd mile was downhill and felt good (6:43), 4th mile was a little uphill but felt fine (6:41), and 5th mile was mainly around my new neighborhood to stretch it out to 5 (6:44) for a total of 34:09 (6:50/mile). Things are feeling good when it comes to running!

January Distance Ran: 27 miles

Good start to 2016...well done!

Thanks Stella! Nice to run good to start the first full year of trying this professionally.

Poker

Well a couple bad sessions are only to be expected after running as hot as I did to start the month. I busted everything I played on Friday to lose a little over $500, didn't play Saturday, and then just had an AWFUL start to Sunday. Busted the WSOP $200, busted 2 bullets of the $215 on Party (had it up to 35K, got unlucky to drop to 25K, then lost a flip for all of that, all at the 600BB level). Decided to play the $200 re-entry 30K on WSOP (which is a part of their "series"). WSOP is so anti freezeout it's just unbelievable. Re-entry is fine, but they decide after 2 hours there will be a random add-on period. 5K starting chips, 10K add on. So you really can't play this tournament and not add on. I late regged as it was closing and added on to have 15K chips for $385 ($185+$15 and they don't charge the rake on the add on). Busted that pretty quickly as well. Also KO'ed from a 20r, 50r satty, $30r freezeout and $109 on Party and I had 3 MTTs going while being in for $1600 on the day!! Thankfully I ran really good at the final table of one of them, the $100 "high roller" on WSOP. By running good I mean the fish who had all the chips proceeded to suck out on every solid reg at the table (I think I had 6 of the other 8 to start the final table marked as good regs) and I won the hands I needed to to be down 3:1 starting heads up. I doubled and took a small lead before he started beating me every hand and I couldn't seem to find a spot where he spazzed AND I had it, so I took 2nd for $850ish. I was 2/30 in another $100 MTT, with this one having 3K up top, but could only manage 18th for a $165 mincash. So Sunday ended up being a surprisingly okay feeling $600 loss.

Running

I sometimes find myself dreading the grind or worrying about having to play poker 5 days a week whether I want to or not. Today I was feeling that a bit, and I really do think it's linked to the fact that I haven't ran in the past 3 days. I took Friday off after feeling a bit tired and my leg bothering me. My roommates and I decided to go to a bar that was walking distance from my house around midnight, since I'd busted all my tourneys somewhat quickly. It was fun and we picked up a 12 pack on the way out to try to create a new drinking game in our basement when we got back. As we were drinking I think we realized just how cool it was that the 3 of us had our own place and were living together again, so we took a couple shots of whiskey and finished off the 12 pack. I didn't get to sleep til 5 and when I woke up it was 330PM!!!! I haven't slept past noon in a long time and here I was waking up at half past 3. The sun would legitimately be going down in an hour and I was way too hungover to try to run. I couldn't fall asleep that night because of it all and had to be up early, and now Sunday I've gotten 5 hours of sleep and need to put a session in, so no running that day either.

The point I'm getting at here is I simply cannot be getting drunk like that anymore. I did that a bunch in college and paid for it when my grades dropped and I decided to leave a semester earlier than I would have liked to after failing a couple classes. I think most poker players don't mind being out really late and sleeping past noon, but I don't like it, and it clearly affected my running this weekend. So today I went and ran 5 in 34 minutes flat (6:48/mile) and it felt good. When I got home I wasn't feeling as stressed about poker and the overall grind. Things felt more normal and like they should be. I need running in my life to balance out my thoughts when I start feeling depressed. It really is therapy and keeps me sane. And I truly do believe it clears my head when it comes to poker.

I listen to the 2p2 podcast and on a recent episode Mason Malmuth came on and basically said that all of the extra stuff that poker players worry about (diet, meditation, exercise, etc) is not important. What makes you a good poker player is studying and getting better at poker. Terrence Chan did a good job of responding with his input without coming off as offensive to Mason. He said something along the lines of "well, if you're new to the game, I think what you (Mason) are saying makes sense. But for those guys who are the top in the world at the game, if doing that extra stuff makes their ROI 1 or 2% higher than maybe it is worth it since they already are doing the poker preparation." I think this applies to me to an extent. Obviously I'm not one of the best in the world, but I do consider the game my profession right now and I do study it and work hard at improving. I obviously put the hours in to playing, which is a sort of practice in its own right. And I really do think running allows me to more clearly focus on all of those concepts and principles I have learned in the past from studying, and without having that clear head I would be unable to perform at my peak ability. Basically I might play my B game instead of my A game without that exercise. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this but my main point is that running helps me in many aspects of life, one of which I do believe is poker.

The Heater is Real

I am just sun running to start 2016. I didn't play the last 2 days due to feeling pretty sick. Unfortunately I think it is due to something in the house. Not sure if it's dust or if living on a 2nd floor where the furnace is unusually located is the issue. Been feeling a little dizzy and stuff so actually haven't ran the last 3 days and today was my first day of poker since Monday. I was even on the fence about playing today but decided I'd put in a relaxed schedule of the 4 bigger MTTs. I really like that as a compromise when I'm not feeling up to par since I feel relaxed and less like I'm working, but those are still the big money makers on the NJ schedule. I played the 2 10Ks, one on each site, the $100 high roller on WSOP and the $55 5K on Party. I busted the latter 2 before heatering my way to the final table of both 10Ks. I didn't bust either of them until 12:30 when I finished 6th in the Party 10K. I hung around short for a very long time and then finally got called when I ripped QJs for 15BBs from HJ...somehow found a flip vs TT! Didn't win it though to bust for $630. That was the last tournament of the night I would bust however, as I managed to pure my way to another WSOP 10K win.

I went through and counted how many times I've played and cashed that tourney so far this year. I'm 6 for 8, and have finished in the top 5 of this MTT that usually gets 160 or so runners half of those 8 tries. One 5th, one 3rd, and 2 wins. I'm in the rungood mode where you expect to win flips and get there when you get coolered and all that. What a great feeling. I'm handling adversity well too; when I lost AJ to A5 for a dominant lead with 5 left (but was still CL after losing), it didn't really bother me at all. You have to shrug those spots off to be successful, and it's soooooo much easier to do when you've been running good for the whole MTT. With 4 left I got 99 in vs A7 and the board ran A82ddKd7d. I had the only diamond, and that would prove to be the biggest pot of the tournament. When we got heads up I doubled him once but then chipped him right back down to where we started. With about a 7:1 lead I jammed A7 for 11BBs, he had KK, ace in the window and the MTT was over. $3100 for the win.

This heater is nice to say the least. I'll remain on top of the WSOP POY standings (I'll have more points for that win than shown below):



PocketFives tracks all NJ sites when it comes to rankings and I'm number one in both monthly...



...and yearly...



leaderboards for NJ there (slightly different formulas for each).

And the best part of it all is I think that I am completely in touch with just how much of it is luck vs skill. Living on my own and truly having a schedule where poker is one of the main focuses is going to help greatly. But I don't expect to make 9K every couple of weeks. I'm clearly running incredibly hot. But why not enjoy it while it lasts! I really think the video I watched a month or two ago about proper GTO play has helped me greatly; for the most part, I don't need to play GTO in NJ fields. But when I'm up against the solid players, it's nice to really think about my entire range and think practically about whether or not I'm being exploited. I got too emotional about it all in the past, and if someone raised me a few times in a row I'd decide I need to take a stand, and I'd do it randomly. Now there's a sort of formula in place which allows me to just keep folding sometimes, and to push back very often in other instances. I've also been defending my BB way more liberally, and I think I've seen some real tangible results coming from that, especially against players who are going to play postflop more face up.

Anyway, it's bedtime for me. I moved up to 11th in NJ according to P5s rankings this week. I've been top 10 before but this is the most points I've ever had and the highest I've ever been worldwide (1402nd). I think a lot of the grinders were in Vegas when I hit top 10 earlier, and with a 5th in the 10K, a 2nd in the $100 high roller, and another win in the 10K, all of which haven't been counted yet (rankings updated each Wednesday), it's all but a lock I'll be top 10 next week and with another couple results top 5 is possible. Time will tell!

Nice to see you're crushing the New Year! Keep it up

!

Hey Dan, how is your schedule looking today and tomorrow? We know each other somewhat OK from live grind from AC to Parx to a few other venues/locations. I just decided to go for TLB 2016 now that I saw SNGs aren't included and someone like Bballwiz doesn't just get the easy, free, scammed win.

I'll give you a few guesses who I am and then obviously I'll just tell you, so you playing today or what?

I'm gonna guess Brad Mac given the SN.

The Heater Continues

As for my schedule, I'm begrudgingly taking tonight off since I made plans a couple weeks ago. I only say begrudgingly because the heater of my life continued last night. For the 2nd time this year I won the Party 5K, good for $1500 last night. It's also the 3rd time I've finished top 2 this year in that MTT. And for the 5th time this year and 2nd night in a row I finished in the top 3 in the WSOP 10K, finishing 2nd this time for $1900. I played a pretty big fish heads up and he had a big lead to start...I eventually got 88 in vs 76 on a 732 flop for a pot that would have gotten me back to a 3:2 deficit but for the first time in forever I ran bad in a big spot when the river was a 6. But I was that close to back to back wins in the 10K! I also finished 10th in the Party 10K, meaning the last 2 nights I've finished 10th, 6th, 2nd, and 1st in the 4 10Ks the 2 sites offer. I don't think I've ever ran this hot in my life. Back to back 3K+ nights.

Looking Forward

If I were to skip the last 16 days of January I'd still end up booking the most profit for one month I ever have. But that's not how being a pro works! Tonight will be spent with friends and then it's back to the Sunday grind tomorrow. I feel really thankful for how things have gone so far this month/year. I think I have really improved in the last few months, especially with how I play against regs and how I utilize my HUD. I've been peeling from the big blind way more often and really trusting my ability post flop in the spots where I flop bottom pair and other tricky situations. I'm very aware of what my range is in most spots, especially against other thinking regs who will exploit me if I take the same line with only a very small, limited range every time. That all being said, I'm completely aware of the incredible amount of luck I've had thus far. There's this trap people fall into, including myself, where they feel that they've "figured it out" when they have a stretch like this. I've gotten past that point since I've had my fair share of peaks and valleys in my poker career. I can look back at my MTTs and point out that vital flips early on that set up the runs to begin with, and I realize that when you're downswinging you simply don't win those flips. So while I'm happy with how I've been playing, I don't have some delusion that I'm playing so far above the rim as to "deserve" these results. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel really great to be obtaining them!!

Correct, I really enjoy reading and following FWIW, hope to see you at the tables, gl

Plans for Borgata starting soon?

Sick thread! Good luck and subbed!

Thanks man...not sure what my Borgata plans are as of now. With travel and hotel expenses it feels like there's more equity in just staying home, especially since they make day 2 of event 1 Saturday and day 3 Sunday, making hotels even more pricey since you'd need Friday/Saturday nights. That's obviously by design and I really am pretty oi trying to either pay or find roommates. Haven't totally ruled it out yet though.

Thanks man appreciate the support!

I Don't Even Know How to Describe the Heater Anymore

So I was going to post a chart over the weekend to show off my 3800% ROI in the WSOP 10K this year but after last night's 10K that ROI went up. I won it again last night. That puts me at 10 times playing the 10K, 8 cashes, 6 final tables, 6 top 5s, 5 top 3s, and 3 wins. The tournament averages about 160 runners. On Saturday we had a housewarming party that actually went much better than I expected. We fit a bunch of the cars in our driveway and the ones that didn't fit didn't get ticketed for overnight parking, no one caused any real damage to the house, no one threw up anywhere (I think), everyone treated us and our place with respect. It's like we're growing up! The next day, one of the two roommates I had in college who does not live with me now decided to stay the whole day. I haven't spent a ton of time with him and the rest of our group in a long time, so I decided to take Sunday off. I felt a bit guilty about this but decided that with the heater I'm on and the situation I was in, it was an okay time to skip. Then on Monday (yesterday) I geared up for a full session. Before I go into that session, here's my results in the WSOP 10K this year (click the bar to see the image zoomed in):



I'm pretty sure this site doesn't account for rebuys so the ROI is higher than it should be but screw it I'm counting it .

Monday's Session

Started the session off with a mincash in a little $25 MTT, then took 3 of 30 in a $55 for $300. Ran bad in an important spot for maybe the first time this year when I lost JJ<JT on the stone bubble of the Party 5K, but my last 3 tourneys ended up being a ton of fun. My competition at the 10K final table was a bit tougher than it's been in my first few deep runs this year. With 6 left I 3b squeezed 77 all in for 14BBs over an aggro reg's open and a random's flat and the aggro reg had TT. It's the first time I can remember getting my entire stack in bad at the 10K final table thus far this year but I smacked a 7 in the window. Think my play is standard and it's more of a cooler than anything but it's still obviously amazing to hit a 2 outter in that spot. When we got 3 handed I ended up getting QdQh in on a 883ddJd (something like that) vs 8x against the same reg who had the TT, and the river was a diamond. Again, with how aggro he is and how shallow we were there isn't really any getting away from my hand, but to get there is so big.

Meanwhile, I had built a huge lead in the late high roller on WSOP at the final table and I had chips in the WSOP 5K. By the time I got heads up in the 10K, I was heads up in the high roller (and with $1300 to 1st and $800 to 2nd in that one it needs to be paid attention to as well) and was 5 handed in the 5K! It was quite an interesting experience to be heads up in 2 MTTs and 5 handed in another after 1AM on a weeknight. I don't think I played as well as I could have with all of this going on and eventually busted 2nd in the high roller. My opponent was 3 betting me over 50% of the time I opened button and eventually I had a stack size that allowed me to just start 4b ripping. It got through a few times but eventually he won, and to be honest I can't really even remember how it ended. I slowly chipped away in the 10K and when I got my opponent down to 15BBs or so he just woke up and started ripping it in every hand lol. A few times he 3b jammed 25BBs over my min, so I was just sort of waiting to find the hand I could pick it off with. Eventually I found myself facing a bet with A7dd on a 349ssd6d board. I had a bad feeling that a shove wasn't going to get through but I felt I had too much equity to just flat and fold river if unimproved. I shoved, he snapped with A9, and the river was a beautiful 5 to give me a straight and my 3rd win of the year. The last 3 times I've played that there have been an average of 161 players and I have an average finish of 1.33. The run has been absolutely unreal. I eventually finished 3rd in the 5K for another $600 or so to end the day up about $4400.

So through 18 days of this new year I have profited almost double of what my total rent will be for the year. While talking to a few friends about it all I realized that the best word to describe the feeling I've gotten from all of this is "relief." I decided to take a shot by moving out of my parent's house, which financially didn't make a ton of sense but life-wise felt like the right move, and I almost instantly get blessed with the biggest heater of my life. My analytical side knows it's just a random upswing that has a small part to do with the studying I've done and the changes I've made to a game but a huge part to do with random luck, but my emotional side feels like everything's falling into place and this is meant to be. When the rankings update tomorrow I'll absolutely be in the top 10 in NJ on P5s, and if all of their MTT results were up to date I'd be pretty damn close to top 5, but unfortunately the WSOP results seem to take 3-4 days to show up so I'll have to wait until next week to try to get there. I'm actually back home in central Jersey right now; I asked my mom for some help with recipes and making some of the same meals she used to make me when I lived here, and she told me to come back this week. My aunt is coming over tomorrow night as well so I think I'll stay here until Thursday. I won't have the comfortable setup I'm used to for playing poker so I don't know what kind of volume I'll be putting in. It'd probably be better to spend time with my family now anyway. Maybe I'll start around 8:50 and late reg the majors and play all of the later MTTs as well.

Running has been non-existent. With how sick I was feeling last week, the party this weekend, and the freezing cold of yesterday and today, I've had no motivation. While I'm not happy about this long break I've taken, it doesn't feel like the breaks I've taken in the past where I feel like I won't be able to get back into it. I don't think I'm going to be as motivated as I was to run everyday, but I'm definitely going to continue running, and with the base I built I'll make sure to get out there and do 6+ mile runs whenever I feel good. I'll definitely make sure to take advantage of the warmer days, but when it's 26 degrees outside (below 0 Celsius) and the wind is really strong (our garbage can blew about 200 feet down the street this morning it was unbelievable) I just cannot see myself enjoying a run. It's also possible that me running with shorts on in that freezing cold is part of what made me sick. I do vow though to get through the winter in somewhat decent shape so that I can start crushing it again during the spring!

So to wrap this post up, I couldn't be happier or more grateful for the results I've seen so far this year. I'm proud of how I've played but I understand the incredible amount of luck I've needed to post these results. I'm excited to continue the grind and to try to continue to crank out these wins!

Seriously amazing heater, keep it up!