"A stranger is being shown around a village that he has just become part of. He is shown a well and his guide says "On any day except tuesday, you can shout any question down that well and you'll be told the answer" . The man seems pretty impressed, and so he shouts down: Why not on tuesday? and the voice from in the well shouts back: Because on tuesday, its your day in the well."

Some of you might be wondering who the heck I am, since I have over 3,300 posts, am a SSFRNL "regular", but never seem to play any poker?? Well, here is your chance to find out some stuff about me...

I should be around my desk all day, so hopefully I can respond to questions quickly.

Fire away

poker story

favorite non premium hand

Ps3 or Xbox 360 or wii ?

/€ First

[x] yay me !

Day job?

Favorite movie?

Favorite band/artist?

I wrote my poker story on 2+2 in the MTT forums a while ago - it needs some massive updating as it has gotten better and more interesting since then...I'll dig it up and post it

My favorite non-premium hand is 43s LDO. Preferably diamonds for some reason, I really don't know why. It's one of those hands that people don't really expect but can win huge multi-way pots, etc.

I've never played PS3 for more than an hour so I can't speak for it. However, I am a big fan of XBOX360 - Halo/COD,etc. My family owns a Wii, but the only game I really enjoy playing is Wii Bowling. The system that gets the most use from me is PS2. My favorite game is FIFA. I used to play a decent amount of video games in high school, but they were always sports games.

Well, I'm a full-time student at the University of Illinois. I'm entering my senior year, so I have one more year to play lots of internet pokah. I work at a law firm in downtown Chicago over the summer as a paralegal clerk (read: UTILITY BITCH) and am the stud on the firm's 16-inch softball team I'm a history major and have no idea what I want to do after graduation. I was thinking about law school, but I really, really do not want to be a lawyer, so that's ruled out...

I seem to come up with new favorite movies every few years. The most recent is No Country for Old Men. I did enjoy the LOTR and Star Wars series as well. Donnie Darko was interesting as well. Favorite low-budget crappy movie is by far the CUBE series...if you haven't seen any of these, I suggest you check them out. They are just...so bad and funny. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/


My favorite band is Incubus. I love their style of music - it evolves with each new album. They have songs all along the range from mellow to hard-rock. I'm a big fan of most classic rock (LedZep, Rush, etc.) I've recently gotten into Muse - very good instrumentals and unique voice.

Female you would most like to ****?

Favorite TV show?

Average amount of time spent on 2+2 each day?

Favorite 2+2 poster?

Website you frequent more or as much as 2+2?

I'm old-fashioned for a young guy (21). The answer to the 1st question is my girlfriend for the rest of my life.

TV Show: I used to be a big fan of Sportscenter, but I'm sick of every damn segment being sponsored by something. They have just created a bunch of stupid parts of the show so they can make more ad $$$. I don't watch sitcoms or anything, but what I have seen of Entourage has made me considering buying the DVDs. Baseball Tonight is always good as well.

Time on 2+2: Depends. In the summer when I have nothing to do at work I might spend 2-3 hours on here. When I'm at school, most days maybe 30 minutes tops. Some nights when I'm up late or I'm sweating a friend in a tournament, a lot longer.

Favorite 2+2 posters: MT2R, Berge, kyleb

Only other website I go to a lot is Yahoo for fantasy sports.

Poker story is almost edited/finished...

I just realized I put Tuesday in the OP...oops. It's Monday...DOH

Ok...here is my poker story. If anyone has questions about it, let me know...thanks.

I originally posted this in the MTTc forum in April, 2007. I made a few revisions and updates for this post…here goes.

The following is a trip report of my poker career which might be of some interest for someone who is bored and wants to read a personal story…

My story begins with playing play money games on Stars my senior year of high school (2005). One afternoon, someone popped into the chat box and offered to trade real money for play money. People started calling this guy a scammer, but I didn’t really care if the guy was going to scam me out of play money chips…seriously, it’s not real money! So I ended up contacting him at another table on Stars and arranged a deal. He would trade me $.50 for 90,000 play chips. I really don’t know why he wanted play chips so badly, but I figured, why not. So he sent me two installments of $.25 and low and behold I was ready to play for real money online! Little did this person know what type of “career” he would set off

I grinded .02/.04 LHE for a few days and built up this meager 50 cent bankroll to around $8. I entered a few $1 tournaments for fun, but my first few were unsuccessful. Then, I hit it big. Having never played 7 card stud in my life, I entered a $1 tournament one afternoon. I ended up out-luckboxing the field of ~560 and won $140 for 1st. None of my friends believed me, and it took a while for me to explain to my girlfriend that I had won “real” money and not some fake online money. I finally copied the check I requested to show people my story was legit… Anyways, I ended up cashing all of my money out soon after and was on top of the micro-donkament poker WORLD.

After graduation (May 2005), I had the urge to play online again, but I had no means to deposit. My parents were against online poker at the time, so using their credit card was out of the question, and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of setting up a Neteller account (thank goodness in retrospect). I found another poker forum that ran some freerolls on Stars (usually $100 prize pools). So I registered for the site – made a few posts and got the freeroll password.

Around 150 people showed up for the tournament, and I eventually made it down to 4 handed. One player was sitting out, so we all agreed to fold around to sap him of chips and knock him out ($2 pay increases were HUGE!). One player starting raising other peoples blinds to try and take advantage of us, so I re-popped him all-in once. The other player who was sitting in tanked and said he had AA and folded after I told him I would transfer $2 if I won – he folded. Sure enough, my AQ held over the original raiser and I went on to win. I received a whopping $30, and I did actually transfer $2 to my opponent as I had stated.

With this slightly larger starting roll, I dove into the wide world of online micro tournament poker. I built this $28 roll up into the hundreds by grinding SNGs, playing low-limit MTTs, and dabbling with 4-tabling 25NL full-ring, but never kept more than $500 at a time online. From May 2005 – February 2007, I made ~$1800 from this meager start with a few nice $500+ tournament scores. This is a drop in the bucket for most posters here, but for a small-time college student grinder, this extra money was excellent to buy books, go out to dinner, etc.

In February 2007, I decided to cash my remaining $400 or so out because the climate for online poker seemed to be getting unfavorable (UIGEA). I was lucky and cashed it out using e-check a few days before Stars cancelled the ability to use that service (at the time).

I didn’t play online poker from this withdrawal in Feb. 2007 until May 2007. However, Stars ran a promotion for the 10 billionth hand in May 2007. I decided to redeposit on Stars using Moneygram ($250). I was grinding .25/.50 and .5/1 limit to clear the 25% bonus, then I started playing my bread-and-butter cash game, 25NL Full Ring, and ran at a completely unsustainable 14 BB/100 over about 5k hands. Reading NLHE Theory and Practice really, really helped...

By the beginning of June, I had improved my online roll to about $750 from my initial $250 deposit. I had been playing an hour and a half or so each night after I got home from my 9-5 summer job in downtown Chicago (paid internships FTW!) By the middle of June, I was hardly playing at all. My girlfriend and other friends finally got home from school and I didn't have too much time to play, which is probably a good sign that I have a life.

Anyways, I started playing tournaments again the last week of June 07. I continued my amazing streak of not cashing in a 4/180 (23 in a row now!) [7/21/08 update: I finally cashed in one! I’m 1/40!] and was mixing in some of the larger $3.30s and $5.50s on Stars. One Friday night I was stuck home babysitting my siblings, so I decided to fire up a bunch of tournaments. I went 1/8 in cashes, but that cash was a chopped first place in a $5.50 big multi for $1130, my biggest score ever. I cashed out about $750 from my roll to get it back into my hard currency bankroll in the actual bank and have left the rest online to continue playing tournaments.

7/21/08: The above is what I wrote last summer in the MTT forums, and a lot has changed from then…

I went on vacation at the end of July and vowed to get into cash games for real when I got back. Tournaments just take so damn long and I figured I could actually try making some consistent money from this game if I learned how to multi-table cash games. I had about $1000 in my bankroll and jumped into 4-tabling 50NL full-ring. I had some great initial success, which made me think I was a lot better than I really am (I think this happens to all poker players at some point). By the time school had started in the fall of 2007, I was starting to flirt with 100NL as my bankroll approached. I was playing 8-10 tables and running hot. In October (I think) of 2007 I had the biggest downswing of my life…nothing went right. I dropped $1000 (half my online roll) at 100NL on a 10 BI downswing – which isn’t that terrible in the grand scheme of things, it just was something I had never experienced before. I ran about 4 BI below All-In expectation, which contributed to the downswing, but I just wasn’t playing well and I knew it. With my bankroll is some disarray hovering around $1200-$1300 – I tried out short stacking 100NL 6-max and won like $300 back after grinding out about 10k hands. At one point at the end of 2007 I resolved to study my play, review hands, post more strategy responses on 2+2 and really try to revamp my game and get back to 100NL. I humbled myself and slid back down to 50NL and grinded out a bunch of hands to get myself back to 100NL. I set a bankroll goal of $3000 before I even looked at 100NL games – I wanted to be sure I could beat 50NL and play well enough to win at 100NL. In February of this year I played almost 40,000 hands of 50NL, which is my monthly high for hand totals – my next highest month is almost a third of that! I got my roll back in shape (I’m kind of a nit when it comes to this stuff) and started playing 100NL again in March. Thanks to my stepping down and re-assessing, I have not had a losing month since last October (although I’m a $150 loser this month over 2,000 hands ).

I haven’t been able to play any online poker at all this summer. I wake up around 7 each day, work 8:45-4:45 downtown and get home around 6:00. I then eat dinner and do something with my girlfriend/friends and I go to sleep 11-12 each night and do the same thing the next day. The only time I really get to play is on the weekends. I have ambitions of Supernova this year. I only have around 28,000 VPP this year, and I think I can grind out the remaining 70,000 or so in less than 5 months (August – December). So to anyone who has wondered who I am since I never seem to play – here is the reason why… I guess I’m on a hiatus for the summer – which isn’t a bad thing. I’ve found that decent-sized breaks are actually very good for refocusing and re-motivating myself to play.

So, when I get back to school I will be playing 100NL again with a few tournaments sprinkled in here and there.

I know I’m going to get asked for a lifetime graph, but I don’t have PG on the work PC (LDO). I’ve made almost $10,000 lifetime profit from poker (online and live), which is pretty damn awesome for a hobby. The majority of it is from cash games, but a big chunk is still from tournaments. I’m still amazed that I’ve accumulated that much. I don’t keep much online because I want to slowly build up the roll and cash a little bit out to put in the bank where I can directly access it.

So…I wonder if that guy who sent me the 50 cents for my 90,000 play money chips knows what he started

I don't know about the rest of you, but I love reading about everyone's poker history...it seems like all of us had some unique starts to our careers, though selling play money for 50 cents has to be the weirdest one I've read so far.

Most memorable hand of your poker career?

Highest limits you've ever played (yes, drunk shot-taking counts)?

Do you like living in Chicago? Does it piss you off that it takes nine hours to get to work each day?

Any interest in poker as a career, or is it strictly a hobby?

(Purdue >>> UofI)

TAG,LAG or Nit?

Biggest pot ever played?

Highest Winning/Losing day?

Biggest Weakness as a poker player?

Yeah, play money -> $10k is pretty ridiculous. I think I'm going to give a play money player 50 cents to pass it on, so we will see what happens.

Most memorable hands were:
1) When I was short-stacking 6-max to blow off some steam and try and rebuild my roll. I had 55 and raised on the button and one of the blinds called. Flop was A65. We got it all-in. Turn 5, river 6 - he shows 66. I laughed out loud considering it was only a 40BB pot...

2) Biggest pot I've ever won was like $330 at 100NL. I had AA and got all-in on the flop with two other players on a A4x board. One guy had 44, the other had AQ??? Ok...

3) Highest limits I've played...no joke - 100NL. I've never played a hand at a cash table higher than 100NL, although I did sit once at a 5000NL table next to Joe Hachem so I could take a screenshot The biggest tournament buy-in I have ever played is $27.50...seriously. I'm a total bankroll nit. I think that's why I have never busto'd my bankroll. Bankroll management is IMO the best skill a good poker player can have. You might be able to beat 600-2000NL, but if you can't manage your money or play games you are -EV in, it doesn't matter how good you are.

4) I live at home in the western suburbs and take the train to and from work everyday. It takes about an hour total to drive to the train, ride it downtown, and walk to my office. One hour from my house 20 miles away to my desk isn't bad at all. I love working down here and want to live here after I graduate.

5) I don't want to play cards as a career just because I would rather be doing something productive for the world rather than sitting in front of a PC or at a casino playing cards for 8 hours a day. It will probably always be a hobby for me, but it's nice to know that I at least have something to fall back on if I can't find anything to do. Of course I have the fantasy of moving to a suburb of Vegas and playing professionaly both live and online, but I think I would get sick of it real quick. The hours favor my personality though - not a morning person... I can never see myself playing higher than 200NL online simply because you can park it at that level and make a nice income by playing a lot of tables without risking a ton of money (relatively speaking). Plus, I think a lot of fish populate the 100/200NL games because that's what they play live, so hey! it must be the same!

How about ILL/PURDUE >>>>>> Indiana! Can we agree on that?

Absolutely. After all, who can hate on a guy named Juice?

I like to think I'm a TAG (or a tagfish as the higher limit guys call them). When I'm playing well I run like 14.5/10.5/3ish. I will do all sorts of crazy **** at the table, and I've been working on making my ranges less obvious, which in turn helps you get paid off more and bluff, etc.

Biggest pot was $330 at 100NL (+$230) when I stacked two guys with AA on a A4x flop (vs. 44 and AQ). That was a fun day.

Biggest winning day in cash is probably in the $500-$600 range, but I've never played more than 3,000 hands in one day so this can't be super high. I think I've lost 7 buy-ins at 50NL in 1,000 hands (like 6/7 I got $$$ in ahead), but I wasn't even mad because I was still playing well. I'd say probably in the $400-$500 range at 100NL is my worst day. Again, I don't play massive sessions so it's hard to win/lose more than that amount in one day.

Biggest weakness is not studying/reviewing enough of my hands. I wish I did more of this as it makes you critique your own play and spot leaks. I'm not tilt-prone which is pretty good and I think comes from my relatively laid-back personality. Tilt is an issue for a lot of players, but I don't get affected when I play - I think this has to do with my conservative bankroll management. I think people tilt because the money still means a lot to them. I only want to play at a certain level if I'm comfortable losing a stack - i.e. I'm not ready to lose $200 at a time yet even though I am rolled for it... Once $$$ becomes units or "the score of poker" I think I play a lot more relaxed and focused. But I wish I had the time to review more hands...

This was my Facebook picture for a little while...

biggest table presence u have encountered

Best and worst regs

What are your notes on me

Craziest bluff or call down u have had

siihp or siihb

90s hip hop or 70s rock

I haven't played a lot recently, but RyanCMU always was tough at the tables because we knew who each other was at the table so it would be us 3-betting each other light at a table full of nits. He always seems to have a big stack too...

I don't have my database in front of me, but a lot of the good regs I have played against are 2+2. EurekaKid/RyanCMU come to mind first. I haven't been super impressed with anyone's game that much, but again playing time has been hard to come by the last few months. If anyone was THAT good at 100NL, they would move up pretty damn quick IMO. There are a lot of bad regs who are FPP pros, too many to name...LOL. I love playing against the uber-nits and shortstackers because their ranges are SO SO SO easy to define. It's fun stacking people with SCs and pocket pairs when they won't fold overpairs on a like a 678 two tone board...

I think the only note I have on you is 2+2...very descriptive.

IIRC, I won a hand once getting it all-in with 76s on a 245 board (combo draw) and ended up beating some donk's 33 when the turn and river came 4 then 5. 7 kicker baby! For some reason I remember 4-betting Berge from the button with 76 of diamonds and him folding at 50NL. I'm sure there are some other crazy ones in there.

Well I think this is a trick question as I think these things mean the same (p is usually pooper?) But when choosing P or B - P for sure.

70s rock for sure.

if I told u in good authority eureka and cmu blew goats would that alter your opponion

No, not really. I've posted before that 100NL is sorta the cross-roads of online cash games. If you can play well at 100NL, you can move to 200NL and start making serious money. If you don't suceed at 100NL, you don't have a lot of things figured out yet and aren't ready to beat 100NL for a ton or move up to 200NL.

100NL "regulars" are usually three types:

1) Players who can crush 100NL for large sums of money and play very well but don't want to move to 200NL for some reason (very few of these)

2) FPP Pros who grind out marginal win rates and make a bunch of money off the VIP program (lots of these)

3) People good enough to beat 50NL decently but need work before getting to the 200NL threshold (I consider myself in this range)

If you told me with authority that X and Y 100NL regs suck, I wouldn't be suprised because it doesn't make a ton of sense to not move up to 200NL if you can beat 100NL consistently.

As far as "regs" go at 100NL, those are two that come to mind that were better than the other players at the table.

Wait, you're black?

Thanks for the poker story.

You every play live?

What are your goals in poker?

What are your thoughts about the future of online poker?

No, that is Juice Williams, the QB of the Illinois football team...I'm your average white guy - except I am pissed off by a lot of white people.

I've played once live at Majestic Star in Gary, IN. I played 1/2NL for about an hour and a half and ended up -$10. Hand highlight: Raising KK to $10 after a limper in EP, getting re-popped to $30 by a lady with a big stack, and pushing over the top for $100 more and getting called...by KK. I want to get out there once more before school starts up again - maybe even try and qualify for the Heartland Poker Tour event coming up next week???!

My goals in poker revolve around always learning something new. The game is so complex and there is a ton of information out there that I can use to improve my game. I want to eventually branch out to other forms of poker (Omaha and if 7 Card Stud makes a revival...). Of course I want to make a ton of money at this game, but that isn't my sole motivation for playing. Ideally, I'd like to eventually beat 200NL online. I can't see myself playing any higher than that. My old ceiling was 100NL, but I think I can eventually venture into the realm of 1/2 unlimited hold'them. I don't really have any financial goals - just as long as I stay in the black.

I honestly think online poker will be around for a long time. It all depends on if the US government strikes a deal with US-casino companies to launch their own websites based in the US, taxed, etc. I think the only reason the government is so anti-poker is because it is a cash-cow that isn't padding their pockets. If Harrahs or some other big company launched their own site that was taxed by the government, there wouldn't be all this fuss over online poker. However, the money flow is away from the government, not towards it, so it is going to put up a fight to get a hold of this market.

I honestly would not be suprised at all if there were US-based online poker rooms run by the big gaming companies and "monitored" by the US government (hello taxes) within 3 years. I think the industry is too big and makes way too much money for it to ever go away.

Ok, objectively please. Chances of Cubbies winning the Series?

Do you go to a lot of Cubbies games?

The Sex Cannon is one of my favorite football players(even though I'm a NYG fan). Does ANYBODY in Chicago like Rex Grossman?

I think Harold Reynolds needs to come back to Baseball Tonight. Agree?

Since no poker for profession, what do you plan to do in 9 months (assuming a timely graduation) IIRC you are a history major?

How long has Ms. Illini been around?

I read your blog too cool stuff.

Chances of Chicago Cubs winning WS: I'd say they are the best team in the NL right now and hopefully will hold on to make the playoffs in a tough division that will most likely have the wild card winner as well. Realistically, I'd say 22.5%.

I have been to 4 games this year, but not within the last month and a half . Tickets are hard to find and cost a ton, but hey...it's the Cubs. Tickets are hard to get when we suck.

I actually like Rex Grossman and hope we give him another chance. He gets way too much flack in Chicago for stuff that he isn't responsible for - old O-line, no RB last year. I don't think he will be an elite QB, but he is definitely serviceable. I think most people hate him though. It's really easy to be hated here, but public opinion shifts real fast - Sammy Sosa was a god for years and now everyone hates him, Favre was hated but if the 1% chance he comes to Bears comes through, people will love him if he performs, same with Jim Edmonds. If you do well, people change their minds, if you suck, everyone hates you even more.

Reynolds needs to be back on Baseball Tonight. Best group is Ravech/Gammons/Reynolds/Kurkijan.

Yes, I am a history major. No idea what I want to do in 9 months when I graduate. I'm planning to go to Europe before (if) I work, so that should be fun. I want to try and work for a non-profit or something (I don't care about money) that actually will help people. My job right now pays me $18/hour to file papers on cases where big companies are suing each other for millions of dollars - corporate wasteland. Ideally I'd like to work for myself, so we will see how that goes. I'm very low maintanance, so a big salary isn't necessary. Teach for America is also an option I have considered.

"Ms. Illini" (I've never though of her this way ) has been around for a little over 4 years. We went to junior prom as friends and haven't looked back since. We go to different schools, so that sucks, but I guess if there is a model for a succesful long-term relationship - ours would be it. She will almost certainly be Mrs. Illini in a few years, but let's not get ahead of ourselves

Someone actually reads it! YES! It still is pretty boring, I like finding things to spice it up. Do you have a blog? If not, you should start one...

Am I really that boring?

It's been like...an hour with no more new posts! I'm freakin' out!

Have you considered playing poker professionally?

Opinion on the Chicago Blackhawks giving the 'C' to Jonathan Toews at 20 years of age?