Busted bullet #4. Ran like crap on all four bullets and didn't play two well on the first two. Down about $2180 for the trip.

Going to take a long break from poker probably and concentrate on working at my business and buying the house when the bank gets back to us.

I'll resume poker by next summer. My goal is to play the main event next June/July.

Until then this blog will transition to personal and business for a while. Maybe some random poker content if I play a small game or something.

Haven't updated for a while, was very busy over the last week.

Business update: The new employee I hired three months ago quit, and I had to personally pick up his work. I'm conducting interviews all week this week, and hopefully I will get a replacement for him ASAP. I was considering hiring another employee once the one that quit got used to everything, but now I have to wait on that. I don't like hiring two new employees simultaneously because it's a lot of work training them at the same time, and making sure they both don't make mistakes.

I will also be hiring another new employee for scanning and my arbitration work in October. I need the files scanned and submitted, all my doctors keep asking when I will start their arbitration, but I have so many accounts that it's tough to do them all. A good problem to have I guess.

My turnover rate has been ridiculous over the last few months. I really hope I can finally find an employee that sticks with the company so I can build upon that.

I am also in line to get at least two more clients in October, so that should be good. Once all the revenue from these new clients, and the arbitration files starts coming in my debt will be paid off fast, and I'll be in profit land.

Poker update : Played a few 1/2 sessions online. Made about $500 or so, but had fun. Going to play a 100$ tournament tonight. It's much less stressful when the losses don't affect your life in any way at all. Going to keep playing 1/2 and small tournaments for a while until I get that $$$ up.

Personal life update: I've been enjoying life a lot. Went to the gym yesterday after a week of not going. Have to get back on schedule. My basketball leagues are over for now, but I'm still playing soccer on Sundays with my dad and brother.
Had a small gas issue with my stove, my girl called con-ed. They told her that they'll be there within an hour and if no one is home they'll break the door down. Then they'll pay for it. I have to now go home, to make sure they don't break down the door.

Why are so many doctors in arbitration?

What do you think is contributing to the turnover? Perhaps you can improve the interviewing process or it is the nature of the beast.

Personal Injury is 70% billing and collections and 30% arbitration.


I think what's contributing to the turnover is just the people. They interview well, have good resumes, but when it comes to doing the actual work they either don't want to work at the necessary pace, or they can't handle it. Different employees quit for different reasons ( 2 which didn't show up at all one day, one of the texted me though to let me know he was resigning, that was nice) and the others I fired because their work was nowhere near up to par. It's just variance, it's tough to land a good all around employee.

Some employees are very good in some things, but bad in other things. I have employees that are extremely fast billers but suck at collections and vice versa. I have employees that do collections real well, but bill at a very slow pace. The trick is to see what the employee excels at, and to give him/her work that is in that field. This produces the best bang for your buck, and you get the most efficient work in that area. It also keeps the employee happy because they are doing what they are good at and what they enjoy. Since the employee is making your business money, that is very important.

Business update: I decided to hire an intern or two. The job isn't too hard, and it will greatly reduce my overhead until my new clients and arbitration files start paying off.

I will hire one full time employee to replace the one that quit, one intern, and one office assistant at a small salary to help with scanning and organizing files. This should increase my efficiency and get my business on the track I want it to be on again.

The intern I will transition into full time work after a few months. Once they learn everything I want them to know, I'll put them on a small salary depending on their work output, or maybe I'll hire a new intern. I love America for the basic fact that "interning" is a real thing. Nowhere else in the world will you work for free, for a period of time in order to gain "experience".


House update : The bank got back to us and accepted the original offer of 210 K which is great news. Me and my partner are now going to go out hunting for mortgages, hopefully we'll find one where we can put 5% down and that'll be great.


Poker update: Got 3rd in the tournament on WED. Ended up winning $240. Was CL yet again all tournament, but ran into a nice setup hand for a lot of my chips.

1k/2k/300 3 handed

Hero (80k) raises to 4.2k on button.
SB (24k) folds
BB (60k) calls

Flop (10.1k) Js 9d 3h

BB donks out half pot. I call.

Turn ( 20.2k) Jh

BB checks, I bet 5400, BB calls.

River (31k) Ks

BB donks out half pot again, I think for a bit, and go all in. He calls with 99. Based on the action, I thought he had a J in his hand def not 99. Maybe Kj or J9s for the boat but other hands I think he'd raise me preflop. Guess not. I had a 200$ last longer with 2 players though so made an extra 400$.


Personal update : Started hitting the gym up again more consistently. It's easier to maintain a gym schedule now that basketball is over. I think in the future I'll only do basketball one night, soccer on Sundays, and the gym 4 nights a week. That should be a good overall balance. Heading upstate next weekend to celebrate my birthday, should be a nice and relaxing trip. Things are going very well for me all around, I'm looking forward to the future.

Going to resume playing poker online moderately. Going to play a much different style than I have been playing. Going to play TAG and hopefully print money. I swing too hard when I play super LAG. There will be more poker content to follow.

Business update : Still working on hiring a new employee to replace that clown that quit. Got a few interviews lined up for Monday. I'm also going to hire another person to scan and arrange documents so I can get the arbitration files out faster. I should break even for about 2-3 more months then see a huge uptick in revenue from a combination of my arbitration files and the new accounts I got. I'm fine with breaking even for a few months in order to increase the rate of me receiving profit from setting up the files for the lawyer down the road.

House update : Going mortgage hunting in a few weeks. Would love to find a good mortgage with a 5% down payment, based on my research this is the new trend in mortgages for first time home buyers. If I can pay 10-15 k for a house and put the renovations on my credit card that would be amazing. I'll see whats up once me and my partner research mortgages more.

Poker update: Don't feel like writing out any specific hands. I'm up about 2k since I started playing again. Slow and steady wins the race, I'm trying to make a few hundred a day and have it build up slowly but surely. If I'm up 1k I'm insta quitting no matter how good the game is. I know I sound like a broken record, but I have to keep repeating it more for myself than for anyone reading this.

Business update: So I found it I actually CAN'T hire an intern. I have to be affiliated with a university, I can't give them the same workload as paid employees, ect. There's a bunch of rules in the NYS labor laws that disqualify me from having an intern. That being said I CAN have a volunteer. This person will essentially volunteer his/her time to work for free in order to gain work experience in the relative field. Not too shabby. In return for free labor, I will teach said person everything there is to know about the medical billing field and then they can advance their career somewhere else, or I will hire them full time at the end of their volunteer period. Same concept as an intern, different job title.

Had an argument with my manager yesterday about various amounts of stuff. I actually lost sleep over it, because I was thinking of all the variable that were discussed. We had a meeting first thing this morning, and apparently my manager wasn't happy about it either. We hatched everything out, and now we're back to business. We discussed a few rules to implement to avoid further confusion, and it should be smooth sailing.

I have interviews lined up all day tomorrow and Monday, hopefully I can finally find 1 normal candidate who is willing to work for a long time so I can start building the business up again instead of taking two steps back every time someone quits.


Personal Update : I've been hitting the gym steadily and have been feeling great. I also started going grocery shopping and cooking at home more. I enjoy being home with my girl, and this is a great quality of life for me. It's my birthday this weekend so I'm taking up a trip upstate with my girl, my best friend and his wife. I'm looking forward to it, had a pretty stressful two weeks.

As mentioned earlier, I read in a book that a successful person has to set him/herself goals and makes plans to achieve those goals. There are three kinds of goals. I have some down time so I want to compose a list on here and then try to complete it throughout my life.

What you want (items)

1. House with a big yard, somewhere in westchester or further north from NYC
2. A nice family to fill that house
3. Two dogs, one has to be a northern inuit dog, the other we'll rescue from a shelter
4. Rolex Daytona all gold face with diamonds with brown leather strap
5. WSOP bracelet
6. Multiple investment properties
7. Multiple businesses
8. I want everything automated, so I can just print money and do very little work.



What you want to learn
1. Spanish
2. How to cook more meals
3. Business strategies
4. Tax law
5. How to make food that I enjoy eating at home ( dried salted fish, pickled food, jam, ect.)
6. How to garden (once I get a yard)
7. How to build things to improve my home (deck, fire pit, ect)

Where you want to go
1. Africa : I want to go on a Safari and explore the Serengeti. I want to see all the wild animals there that I always learn about and watch on TV. I want to go cage diving with great white sharks.
2. South America : I want to explore the Amazon rain forest. I want to hike to Machu Pichu and walk on the trail. Maybe stop by the Galapagos and Brazil on my second trip. I want to see the Andes and Patagonia.
3. Australia, New Zealand. I want to go on a safari there too and explore the wildlife there. I want to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef, even though most of it is bleached already. I want to go fishing and
4. Asia (Thailand, China, Japan) I want to experience the wildlife there as well. I also want to explore the cities and mountain ranges. I want to experience the culture and eat the food there. I want to see the Great Wall.
5. Greece - I think this is going to be my honeymoon trip. I want to explore the various islands and eat the amazing food there.
6. Eurotrip - I want to go on a Euro Trip, but this will probably be when I'm much older. Just a lot of walking around, drinking, and seeing historical sites. I've been to Europe before a few times, but I missed a few countries such as Spain and Italy.
7. USA trip - I want to take a road trip across America in an RV. Just camp outside, go fishing and see what each state has to offer. Definitely want to check out Alaska.
8. Iceland - I want to see the northern lights. I might stop there for 2 days on my way to Europe or something like that.

So far I almost made all my money back from my big downswing. I sat at 5/10 NLH last night.

There was a guy I always played and owned HU so I sat with him. He stacked off 1k then left. The hand went as follows :

Hero (1k) on button with 4 7

Hero : Raises to 24$
Villain (1k) : Calls

Flop ($48) : Q 7 2

Villain check, Hero bet $32, Villain calls.

Turn ($112) : 6

Villain check, Hero Bet $69, Villain raise to $280. Hero calls.

River ($672) : Q

Villain ships for about $400 and hero calls. Villain shows A 5 and then quits.


I was happy and went to lock up my win for the day, and I was waiting for my $100 tourney to start. I then saw a guy sitting at 5/10 who is absolutely terrible. I thought to myself "Do I really want to lock up $800, or win 5k against this guy". I said F*** it go big or go home, so I sat him.

Hand 1

Hero in sb with K Q

Villain on button raises to $30.
Hero makes it 99$, Villain Calls.

Flop ($198) A J 3

Hero Bets $102, Villain calls.

Turn ( $402) : 4

Check, Check

River ($402) : 6

I put him on a weak ace, I think he might fold to an overbet. I bet $740, he calls and shows A 8. This was bad because I lost, but good because I set myself up to overbet big hands and get paid.

Hand 2:

Hero Q Q on button.

Hero raises to $24 Villain Calls.

Flop ($48) Q J T

Villain checks, Hero bets $31 villain calls.

Turn ($109) 3

Villain checks, Hero Bets $69 Villain Calls.

River ( $247) T

Villain checks, Hero bets $560, Villain calls.


After that hand villain got a bit tilty. He started 3 betting me a lot and trying to run me over. I 4 bet his 3 bet a bunch of times and he folded, so he was getting fed up.

Hand 3

Hero gets J J on button.

Hero makes it $24. Villain makes it 90$. I make it $240. This is the perfect spot based on our history to 4bet him. I anticipate him shipping light moving forward. Just as I predicted, villain shipped 1k. I snap called. He flips A 7

Runout : 5563 and I dodged the 7 outs on the river with a T

Villain reloads.

Hand 4

Hero on button with : AK

Hero makes it $24 Villain makes it $90. Hero makes it $240, Villain Ships. Hero Calls. Villain Shows KT

Runout : A K 4 6 3

Villain Reloads

Hand 5: Hero is BB with 86

Villain raises to $30 hero calls.

Flop ($60) J T 7

Gin. Hero Checks, Villain bets $60, Hero makes it $180 villain calls.

Turn ($420) : 5

Hero checks, Villain Bets $250, Hero ships. Villain calls and is drawing dead with 89

I thought if I checked, he would bomb any turn because it looks like I might have a combo draw or maybe just A in my hand. The hands play themselves though. After I stacked him the third time he quit.

Being very results oriented: I am happy with my decision to sit this guy at 5/10. I could have ran bad and easily lost every 70/30 I was in, but things went my way that day. I made back about half the money I lost over the last few weeks, and that was perfect timing. I don't expect a home run session like this every time I play, but this one helped for sure. My plan is still to make my money slowly, and put it all towards the house.

Played a crazy session yesterday. I was down $3500 at my low point, but came back to be down about $500. Played HU 2/5 and the guy I was playing against literally 4-bet all of my 3 bets when he was on the button, and then he smashed his hand. He would 4bet with K6o and hit trips. KTo vs AK and hit the T. He ran this way the first hour of HU so I got buried. He's has a lot of leaks though, and I knew if I hung in there I'd be able to exploit them. I don't feel like typing out any hands, but it was a frustrating session to say the least.

I'm interviewing a few more candidates for the volunteer position in my company. I also decided I would hire one of the candidates that interviewed for the volunteer position as a full time employee. I would pay her a small salary, and teach her everything. This would save my business a lot of money, and her job requirement will be pretty simple. She would be doing the same work as an experienced worker, but I wouldn't have to pay her for that experience since I'll be teaching her myself. It's all data entry and matching so it shouldn't be too hard to pick up. Hopefully the plan works how I envision it working in my head.

Played the same guy from the last post HU again. This time I won about 1800$ from him. Ran like crap in Omaha though so I'm up maybe 700-800$ for the session. This time things didn't go his way, and I owned him. He over bet in wrong spots, bluffed when I had pairs,a and most importantly his hands didn't get there when he was trying to pull big bluffs. There was a lot of 3-bet and 4-bet dynamic. When we had this dynamic before I had him shipping $2500 with As 7s if you read my earlier posts. I decided to call it quits up $1800 though.

A big omaha hand that didn't go my way :

Everyone has 500$ effective

Hero in MP with Q89T

Folds to hero. Hero raises to $15. Button calls. SB Calls. BB pots to 98$. Clearly AA here. I call and button calls. SB folds.

Flop ($311) Q82 Love it.

BB pots, I ship, Button folds, BB calls. Shows AA73 I think his chance to win here is about 15%.

Turn : 2 EASY GAME

River blank obviously. Ship the 1k+ pot the other way.

I definitely love poker for moments like these.



House update: I went mortgage shopping yesterday. The difference in monthly payments between a 5% down mortgage and a 20% down mortgage is a joke, something like $130 a month. I think it's a no brainer, and I would rather save the cash to buy another house. After the renovations the house value should increase drastically. The plan is then to refinance it for cash, and buy more property in the same area. I would like to free roll 2-3 houses from this one house. That would be ideal.
We have until the end of October to get the funds, but I think they'll extend the deadline once they see we have the mortgage application going. Hopefully everything goes according to plan, and I only drop like 6k in cash, put the renovations on credit, and own 2-3 houses from that investment. Living the dream.

Hi only and he calls that? No diamond flush draw?

You are good at math. I checked the odds and it is at 15%. You can show your cards and people won't fold. Especially with two aces.

In his defense, after he pitted flop he had about $100 left so he's not going anywhere. Just a very dumb runout.

I played my guy HU on Thur night.
2/5 no limit 500$ stacks.

Second hand we got it in AA vs 66 and my hand holds. I was on the button, opened to 15$ he made it $60, I made it $135 and he shipped.

After that he ran hot against me and win a big hand to get his money back.

Hero : Ad Ks on button

700$ effective stacks.

Hero : opens to 15$
Villain calls


Flop ($30) Ad Ks 3h

Villain checks, hero bets $23 villain calls.

Turn ($76) 6h

Villain checks, hero bets $34 villain calls.

River ($144). Jd

Villain checks. Hero bets $240 and villain ships.

This screams nuts. He calls with any two pair or A hands here. I over bet to induce a call, I've over bet plenty before and showed bluffs against this guy. I fell in love with my hand and called and he had QT obv.

I then proceeded to abuse him and get my money back, but that's the second time in the last two sessions he pulled a miracle on the river and I had the perfect hand to pay him.

I'm up over 10k on him at least in our heads up sessions, but hands like that drive me crazy. I also recently found out that's he's a known pro and he made an appearance on one of the WSOP main events seasons that he ran deep in. Everyone tells me he's good and to not play him hu, but I think he's pretty bad. My biggest leak is calling his over bets because I fall in love with my hands. Easy fix.

Sounds like a fish. Getting +$10k isn't going to be a smooth line up. If he plays garbage hands like that, you will win 80% of time. And lose 20% which will always suck. He may a live pro but terrible on line. Would keep that one on the hook for as long as possible.

On the business side, what is your take of:

California Assembly Bill 72.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...-medical-bills

Is this a good measure and will it work?

I think the measure has more benefit to providers than harm for many reasons.

1. Patients are the business' customers. Even though most medical providers don't treat them too well, and make them wait much longer than the appointment they scheduled, patient's still return if they like the doctor. If a patient gets a "surprise bill" and then is referred to collections, due to the billing department being unresponsive (response rates obv varies with billing departments) they will NEVER go back to that doctor again, and will make sure everyone knows how bad of an experience they had.
2. Most medical facilities' income is based from direct payment by insurance companies, and co-insurance/co-payments (depending on what they work out with their patients). You can make up literally any charge you want for an out of network patient, and send them the bill, but it's terrible practice.
3. This line from the article is the most important in my opinion "In addition, the measure would give out-of-network doctors the chance to appeal payment disputes with insurers through an independent third party, and the decision would be binding, another important change from previous versions of the bill, Norman says." This makes everything eligible for arbitration and is binding. That should increase your revenue much more than sending patients bills for made up outstanding balances.
4. From my experience it takes a lot of time, money, and resources to haggle with patient's over their part of the bill, go to court, submit bills to collections, ect. This bill will make the entire process smoother and more automated.

Cons

This will standardize how everything is settled, and will make insurance companies motivated to pay out much less because of it. This might be the first step to uniting insurance companies together, and for them to keep lowing reimbursement rates as a united front. This probably won't happen due to the crazy amount of insurance companies that exist, BUT the fact that by law it can now be a possibility is scary.

Played my guy HU yesterday at 5/10. Didn't play too well and got outdrawn so started off -2k or so. Then I battled, back and got some of it back.

Effective Stacks 1k

Hand 1

Hero on button: 89

Hero makes it $24, Villain makes it $ 68, Hero makes it $140, Villain calls.

Flop ($280) 335

Villain checks, Hero bets $120 Villain calls.
I put him on nothing here, maybe A high at best.

Turn ($520) : K
Villain checks, Hero Checks.

River ($520) : Q
Villain bets out $180. I ship. He calls with KJ

I play AA or any monster the same way, so I'm fine with the results. He should've folded Flop but whatever, he calls me with nothing a lot and hits his pairs frequently. The guy runs good.

Hand 2:
1k effective

Hero in sb with AT
Villain makes it $20, Hero makes it $68 Villain calls.

Flop ($136) T56

Hero bets : $78 villain calls.

Turn ($292): K

Hero bets $166, Villain calls.

River ($624) : 9

Completes 78 combos along with 9T. I lead for $300, and he goes all in. I should've folded here but I called for $300 more and he had QJo for the win. This guy pulls miracles out of his ass every session we play.

Hand 3
1.1 k effective

Hero on button : A8

Hero makes it $24, Villain makes it 69$, Hero calls.

Flop ($138) J 8 4

Villain checks, Hero bets $62 Villain raises to $188 hero calls.

Turn ($508) 8

Gin. This put two flush draws on the board and made the board SUPER wet. I think villain had air, or maybe or a draw or a pair. I thought if I checked back here it would seem like I had a J at best, maybe a draw. When I show weakness, villain likes to put me in a decision for all my chips.

Villain checks. I check.

River ($508) 2

Villain goes all in for 800$ or so and I snap call. He has K5

Thanks for the response.

Out-of-network do charge whatever they want. Insurance companies first hit back at forcing the facilities to collect the co-balance of 20% without writing it off. For example, on a $80,000 surgery, patient needs to pay $16,000. Facilities always figure out a way, so they would either pay the $16,000 for the patient (illegal) or work out a payment plan of $5 a month for thousands of years (quasi-legal).

Agree that we can't get rid of insurance companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people. Even if the price was all the same for services rendered.

That bill creates an "independent 3rd party" system. There is no such thing as independent. This will create more administrators that are only focused on bills. I don't know how the can come to a decision that a doctor deserves more than the in-network rate. If the "system" started granting exceptions, it would open the flood gates to everyone doing it.

Haven't updated in a bit, been pretty busy.

I'm quitting one game that I play online, because Holdem doesn't run anymore. They do 5/10 Omaha and I can't mess with that. I'll be playing 2/5 Holdem online on Sunday and Tue moving forward, I found a decent game that runs consistently with pretty bad players.

I lost 5k in the game I'm quitting, which sucks. But the partner is a good friend of mine so there's no rush to pay it back.

Here's a few hands from the new game I'm playing in :

Hand 1

5 handed 500 effective

Hero has KK

Hero raises to 15$ from cutoff. Aggro player in BB makes it 60$. I have history with him and I 4bet him and raise him when I think he's bluffing, and he's very aware of this. I make it $130, leaving enough room for him to ship if he thinks I'm full of it. He obliges and ships 500$ I snap call.

He turns over Q4

Flop : Q46

Turn : Q

River : 2

I reload. Easy game.

Hand 2

8 handed. Hero has 1k. Villain 1 is the villain from previous hand and has $500. Villain 2 is a donkey but chipped up somehow and has 1k.

Hero is on button with AK

Folds to villain 1 who raises to 15$ from MP. Cutoffs calls. I make it 64$. SB folds and Villain 2 calls in BB. Folds to Villain 1 who ships 500$. Cutoffs folds. I go all in over the top and Villain 2 folds.

Villain 1 shows K5 ( he hates the idea that I can be squeezing him and goes nuts as per previous hand)

Villain 2 shows JJ (terrible call facing two all ins in my opinion)

Flop ($2500) A23 Good sweat

Turn : J EASY GAME

River : 3

I ended up battling back and was +250 at the end of the session, but those hands really hurt. Could've been up 3k if things went my way. I'll be playing this game frequently, and I can't wait to hit a heater.



Business update: Hired a new employee to help scan files and medical records for arbitration. We'll see how she does.

The other new employee is working slower than I'd like her to be working. Maybe she just has to get used to everything? Hopefully she picks up the pace, I need someone who can work and type fast. So far that doesn't seem to be the case with her.

Got two new accounts that I'll start billing for next month which is also nice.



House update: We applied for the 5% mortgage and now we wait. I also found out that there's a 8k lien on the house AND that we have to pay another 10k or so for closing costs. So my total investment going in will be 14k or so. This isn't counting renovations which should run me about 20k I estimate. Once everything is said and done, I'll be in the house for around 40k. Hopefully after we complete all the work, we can refinance it ASAP and I can get the money back that I put into it. I anticipate the house value going up at least 100k once we're done.


Personal update: I played soccer on Sunday. I went for a bicycle kick, but totally whiffed it and landed on my ass. I wish I saw it on camera. It was a pretty windy day, so I'd like to think the wind took the ball off my foot midair, but who knows.
Yesterday I played basketball at Brooklyn Bridge park. They built a park with piers going over the water, and a beautiful view of Manhattan. When you're waiting for next game, you can just sit back and enjoy the views. That's normally my go to location for basketball. The games were weak at first, but we played some pretty good ones towards the end.
I've been hitting the gym pretty steadily. I can do 3 full sets of 10 dips now and I'm up to 3 sets of 5 pulls ups. This is a big upgrade from being able to do 0-1 pull ups and 2-3 dips. I'm getting stronger and I feel great. This is probably the best shape I've ever been in.
Overall I'm very happy with the way things are going in my life. I'm going to be broke for a bit after buying this house, but that happens. As long as I can get by for like half a year until A. I get tenants in the house and refinance it AND B. have my business start finally caking it (which I project will happen in about 3-4 months), I'll be OK.
I have half a year of living expenses set aside after all my investments, and worst case scenario I can always borrow money ( get a business loan, personal loan, loan from friends, ect.) Hopefully I can make a steady 1k or so a week from this game, and that'll take care of everything. I'll be on extreme lock down mode, once I'm +$500 I'm quitting and taking the Win.

I'm even considering playing at night again, but I probably won't. I used to get a sweet $200 for buying in for 1k and playing at least 3 hours. I would just play super tight and clip up about 500$ or so a night. That's how I built up all the money I had to do everything I'm doing now. I just hate the atmosphere/hours and not spending time with my girl so I'll pass on it unless things get really tight.

So I've come to the conclusion that I'll be taking a break from poker until I start consistently making money from my investments and business. I simply can't afford to take the swings anymore. I have 5 months living expenses and the rest of my money is tied up in this house and in my business. My remaining poker bankroll is mostly going towards my house. I played last night for the final time and here are a few hands from memory.

Hand 1

2/5 $500 effective stacks. Cutoff is new player and posts 5$ and is very aggro.

Hero is on button with Q9

Fold to cutoff who makes it $20. I call. SB and BB fold.

Flop ($47) Q J 3

Villain bets 35$, I call.

Turn ($117) Q

Villain bets $55 hero calls.

River ($227) A

Villain bets 200$ hero calls. Villain shows 68



THE VERY NEXT HAND


Hero picks up AA

UTG makes it $15. One call. Same villain makes it $50. I make it $115. Folds to Villain who shoves 300$ I call.

Villain shows JJ

Runout : J 9 3 T 5

Someone even told me that they folded JT. That's fun.


Hand 3 : Hero picks up AA in cutoff.

UTG limps. MP ships for $16 (he just got clipped and was going to reload I assume). Aggro villain from last two hands calls. I make it $55. Folds to UTG who makes it $200. I put him on QQ-AA obv, hopefully AK even. I ship he calls and flips KK

Shortstack has A3

Runout : J 4 2 8 (don't even need to sweat river it comes out right away) 9

I was playing aggro villain HU at another table too. This is the hand that did it for me for the night. $500 effective stacks

Hero : A8 in BB

Villain raies to 15$, Hero makes it $55, Villain calls.

Flop ($110) 8 8 k

Hero bets 65$ villain calls.

Turn ($240) : J I check to induce, he checks.

River : J

I ship. I chose to go all in for many reasons. One is that I have history with villain, and have bluffed him big a lot of times before in a similar manner. I thought he had a K and would call. Well I was right, he did call. But he tabled A J I can't make this stuff up. I rage quit.

Then I went over my finances and realized it's probably a bad idea to keep playing poker based on my current finances, and investments. I need to lay low for a bit until we get tenants into this house and my business starts making much more money.

My plan for the time being is to put all my monthly profit towards debt, fix up this house and refinance it to pull out about 40 k or so. Use that 40 k to pay off all my debt. Maybe take out a business loan if I need to, and buy another house with it. I initially planned to just use the refinance money to buy a house, but I think it'll make more sense to pay off my debt and just have one new loan under my business to buy my next house with. This keeps me operating at a loss and I slowly build up my equity with real estate.

Moving forward this blog will be mostly updates of my business, personal health, and real estate situations. I might throw in some random poker content if I play a tournament here and there, but that won't be for a while.

I plan on laying low, and hopefully in July I'll be revamped and play the Main.

I took a bad turn business wise. I lost 2 big accounts due to them closing, and a 3rd maybe closing. I had to layoff an employee that worked part time for me. This sucked because when I started managing medical offices, she was the one who taught me how to do everything. Then I eventually hired her to work for me part time. Laying off people sucks, and I hope to never have to do it again.

I acquired two new accounts that are going to start next month, but they won't make up for the ones that might be closing. If the third one stays open, then I'll be OK. Also I've been speaking with these doctors I'm friends with, and they might open a medical facility that I'll be billing for. If that works out, that'll be great.
I'm also chasing a lead from my friend. I took out this big cardiologist in Harlem to a nice dinner, dropped like 1.2k for the night. He told me he was unhappy with his biller, he wanted to switch to me, blah blah blah. His biller basically never gives him monthly/practice reports (this is a report that shows him an overview of his business, how much he's getting paid, what insurance pays what, ect.), and he doesn't do collections. I told him I can probably increase his revenue by 20% from collections alone. This was half a year ago, and we've still been going back and forth. I'm going to try a more aggressive sales approach, and hopefully I can hook him. He makes a very big revenue, but he's very dumb business wise.

Everything will work out in the long run, just dealing with things day by day is stressful.



House update: Our mortgage broker is a complete idiot, but the process is almost complete. We submitted all the necessary forms, and now we just have to wait for the bank to approve the mortgage. Once that's done, we pay them and the house is ours.
I think a car salesman is currently using the house for parking and storage. There are like 40 new tires in the backyard. Once the house is legally ours, I plan to sell all the tires to the tire shop I have next door to my business. Maybe make like 1-2k and free roll my attorney fees.

Personal life update: Me and my girl are going to check out wedding places in a few weeks, there's this one place we really like. Hopefully everything about it checks out, and that'll be one less thing we have to worry about.
Gym has been steady, I've been going at least 3 times a week, but my goal is to maintain a steady 4 times a week. I feel great after a good workout, and I like being in good shape.


FYI : Good writing takes a long time, and a certain thought process. I just give quick updates here that sum up the course of my day, or a few days, depending on the last time I posted. This blog isn't going to have in detailed stories with emotions and descriptive images, it's going to have basic daily recaps, basic updates, and business/ real estate strategies.

I stayed in the office until 10:30pm last night fixing network problems. When you have a small business you have to do everything. Luckily, I'm pretty good with computers so I was able to figure everything out, it just too me a little while.
I have all my computers sharing files on a network. This makes it very convenient for anyone to see medical records they need, or any other piece of information. The computer I set up the network on as a host was having connection issues. I had to remove all the computers from the network, make a new computer the host, and rejoin all the computers to the network. Unfortunately, it was not as easy as it sounded. I ran into 3-4 different problems along the way which I had to fix. It was very frustrating, but it got done in the end.
The problem with my business, is that it's still in the stone age. Everything is done by mail and there's a crap ton of paper. What I did to counter this, is to hire 3 employees to basically scan everything and put it on the network. This way we have minimal paper, save room, and everything is easily accessible. This helps keep our office organized, and makes setting files up for arbitration a breeze. As I was staffing up however, we didn't have this system in place. So now we're catching up. We literally have about 20 boxes full of paper, that my employees need to go through and scan. I feel in a few months everything will be up to date and scanned. Once we're all caught up with scanning the paperwork, my business will be flowing super smoothly. Then I can finally start building up from it.

I had a productive meeting with my manager yesterday, we went over a few points to make the business run smoother. The problem with this business, is that everyone has been doing everything the same for 20+ years. When I started my company, I saw a lot of inefficiencies in the business, and I'm attempting to change them. People don't like change though, and I am basically making up more efficient ways to do things as I go along. I can easily outdo my competition once everything is set up how I want it to be set up.

I also managed to tweak my lower back somehow, so I'll be skipping the gym today and maybe tomorrow. I literally sat all day, and out of nowhere my lower back started hurting. Is this what getting old feels like?

My girl got us couple massages as part of my birthday gift, so we're going to use them today. Will be perfect for my lower back, and to just de-stress in general. I am a huge fan of massages, and if they were cost effective, I would easily get them once a week or more.

I've been pretty busy over the last week so haven't had too much time to update.

I picked up 2 new accounts that I will start billing for next month, and hopefully 2 more that I will start billing for the month after. This should more than supplement the two accounts that closed this month. Business wise everything is going fine, and now I just have to rack up my profit and pay off my debts. In a few more months, I'll finally see the fruit to my labor.

I've been playing a 100$ poker tournament once a week online to stay sharp. We also make a last longer pool each week, and I've been getting 2nd-3rd place in the tournament for the last 3 weeks, which is good to win the last longer and some extra money from the tournament itself haha. Made about 1k or so in the last two weeks playing this tournament.

A few issues arose with the house, which I am trying to figure out now. The bank sent an appraiser to confirm the condition of the house. The appraiser told us that the house has to be livable in order for the bank to give us a loan. This means it needs a functioning boiler (which it currently doesn't have), running water and electric. It's interesting because this is a short sale and we agreed to buy the house as is. We're now trying to figure out if it's worth doing these repairs, how much they would cost, and if it even makes sense because we don't even own the house yet. If we can do everything for under 3k and get the appraiser to come back and approve the loan then we're in business. This should be the last hurdle though, once this is figured out we'll be good to go in home ownership.

My personal life has been great. I've been working out and doing more stuff around the house. I also started cooking more, which is nice. I'm really enjoying life and don't have too many complaints to be honest.

Bumping this thread up since my last post last year.

Health update: I got a home gym in my apartment which consists of a pullup/dip bar and bowflex adjustable dumbells 5-50 pounds with a bench. I can do most of my exercising this way, and I love that I can do it all at home. I also got a jump rope, and it's super hard to do it for a long period of time. I should be good to go in a few months. I'm staying steady at 4 sets of 5/6 pull ups, 10 dips, 10 inclined puships, 10 body squats.
I'm trying to get back on track and do workouts in the morning to start off the day instead of after work, but so far the latter is trending. I'm also trying to maintain the 4x a week workout plan, with a sport or two mixed in throughout the week.

Business update: I have 16 clients currently, a few offices closed, and a few offices opened. That's how business normally goes. I have 9 employees, but things are getting hectic this month. My manager is leaving due to health issues, and my second most senior employee is missing too many days for my liking so I will probably be letting her go. I have a trip planned from 8/24-9/5 so I will be implementing all changes after I get back from it, so I can have an easy transition and not worry about anything while on vacation.
One of my best friends, who is a beast salesman, is going to come work for me in November and be the head of sales for my business. That should work out great for me and for him, and it's going to be a great time working together.

Poker update : I'm going to be playing on asian sites, where I hear the money is easily being printed. This will be a side project for when I have down time. I should be playing 1/2 or 2/5 and am shooting for about 500$ a week in income. I will have to play TAG which I hate, because naturally I play LAG. TAG style has the highest win rate in games where people ship 100 bb with ATs preflop for no reason though, so I will adjust begrudgingly. I will be investing about 6k initially and would like to make at least 20-30k by the end of the year.


Ever since I was 14 I always wanted to be a pro poker player like the ones I saw on TV. I made friends with top pros before they became famous and played with them in high stakes games in the city. I know I have what it takes, but business is more important than poker. Unfortunately, I never took a real full time shot at it so I don't know how it would've turned out. One of my good friends from poker is shipping tournaments every other month, and I sometimes get envious because we are at the same skill level IMO.

Business is a long term investment, that if played right can lead to my early retirement and maximum enjoyment of life. I felt that I definitely made the right choice, but there is always that lingering "what if" thought.

The closest I came to going full time pro, was when I was playing 4x a week at poker clubs and grinding up money to essentially live from and start my business with. I made 60k or so over the course of 6 months, and within that time frame I moved into a 2 BR apartment (used the 2nd BR to start my business) and opened up my business.

Fast forward, and I have 9 employees and a growing well oiled machine of a business. I ran through all the money I have made from poker and put aside for life while my business makes money, so now I am taking a small amount out of my business to cover rent and general expenses. Not something I want to do, but it's a necessity for a few months.
I moved all my business credit to 0 Interest accounts, so that buys me 15-21 months of having 0 interest debt which will be more than enough time for my business to grow to fully profitable. A great move that I recommend to anyone with any kind of high interest debt (this of course also assumes you have good credit in order to obtain these cards).

It is always in my best interest to operate at a loss for tax purposes, and this is a timing game. You have to more or less estimate how much money you will make and when you will be profitable, and essentially spend that money on business related things before it happens in order to minimize the taxes you have to pay once you are profitable.

I learned a lot about business, just by running my own. Business school/classes can teach you some basic facts and strategies but the real reason they exist (IMO) is for connections. Business is all about 1. having the right connections 2. having the funds to execute. Unfortunately, I am not blessed with "rounds of funding" and raising millions of dollars. I started my business with a 30 k bankroll and and am using every strategy in the book to maintain it until it starts printing money. This is fun, but also challenging and stressful.

I will update this thread with poker history, random stories, and business strategies that I see fit to share. Feel free to PM me any questions. I chose to revive this thread, because it should be interesting seeing my thought process progress throughout time.

I also do a lot of reading on this site, and figure I might as well write and keep some kind of log. In a few years I won't remember anything about today, but if I write some stuff down I can look back on it and reflect.

Poker is a pretty crazy game. After so many years of playing, it's still tough to get used to the swings.

Some days you can be playing well, cards are falling your way, and you feel like you're the best player in the world. Other days you lose every hand you play, get coolered non stop and it feels like no matter what you do you're going to lose the hand.

I guess it's very comparable to life. Some days you feel great, and things are going your way. Other days you get hit by a brick in the face.

Played a nice session yesterday won about 1600$. Then my last hand in got KK vs AA and lost 500$. That's fine, it happens.

But I really struggle to remember a time where I just win in a session, and I don't get coolered or sucked out on. I guess that's what people call a heater?

I did run well and make a bunch of final tables last year in live events, but then proceeded to get sucked out on in huge hands for big money jumps. Poker always teases, things can never be easy.

I feel that no matter how much money I have or how long I play, I will never be emotionally numb to losing or winning in poker. I'm pretty competitive, and I can take a few losses on the chin, but after a certain point I get very annoyed.

This mind set always has me thinking about whether or not I should continue playing poker. I've been playing for over 10 years now, and I ask myself " Do I really love the game?" Sometimes I have an itch to play, but other times I feel like I'm forcing myself to play to make money.

Multiple times I told myself that I would just play big MTTs for fun, and stop grinding. I told myself that it was stressing me out (which it was) and I should just relax and do other activities and played poker when I feel like it (which is why I loved the game to begin with). Then I play on these oversea sites, and the players are SOOO bad that it's basically free money. Then I lose huge pots at a 70/30 or 80/20 favorite repeatedly and get furious and tell myself I'm going to quit. Then I take a break for a week, and decide to play again lol.

Overall I'm up a lot of money from poker and it financed my life up until this point. But at what point will playing it become unsustainable for me? I guess this is only a question I can answer.

For now I'm going to grind the oversea sites and try to make some additional income. If I bust my roll, I think I'll take a break until the WSOP and just play some tournaments and cash games for fun.

Joe Walsh said it best " I can't complain, but sometimes I still do"