Beats galore! (An update)

So I thought I'd update on how I've been doing lately in poker. I guess you can never complain if you're winning but wow I'm running on the wrong side of variance. The 1st thing I'll talk about is my quest for 100 buyins at $5/$10 nl online. Here are my results since I started...




















I guess I'm doing alright but running about $5k below ev. No single hand sticks out...just a bunch of flips lost, sets losing to draws, etc. I do want to mention I feel like my game's improved a lot in just the last 2 months (won't get too much into it because it'll make a good post for another day) even though I haven't been playing much. So I'm expecting to crush in the upcoming months at all forms of poker.

Here's my month so far at all stakes and games online....




















I haven't had the chance to put in much volume but I'm hoping to get in a ton of volume before the WSOP starts. Once the WSOP starts I won't have much time to grind online because I'm planning on playing a heavy WSOP schedule (bracelet one time?).






















As for live poker, I mentioned in my previous post it's going well. It is live poker after all. Also I've been playing a lot of tournaments this year, especially live tournaments. I've been playing extremely well in them but my results are just not there (yet). Here is the list of live tournaments I've played and how I busted...

$1k HPT main event... above avg stack late in the tournament, lost 10s vs AK aipf for half my stack, then bust AK vs 99 aipf, finish 10 away from money

$320 Venetian DeepStack... 4/5th way in busted JJ vs AK aipf button vs bb for top 10 stack

LAPC $1k prelim... midway, bad player limps utg, I iso w QQ, he calls, flop JT2r, he checks, I bet, he calls, turn 2, he checks, I bet, he shoves...I tank and began talking to him trying to gauge his strength....I say it's A2s or some random draw (he c/r's w/ Jx + on the flop from my read)...he comment's "Would I limp w/ A2 here?"...wow, if there was ever an answer screaming Yes to A2, that was it...yet I talk myself into thinking his range is wide enough to call profitably and call and is shown, you guessed it...A2s. So I would say this was the worst hand I've played all year in a tournament because he basically told me he had A2. But a turn 2 is the only card I bust on though, so a little bit of bad luck there.

LAPC $5k prelim... super tough field w/ about 90 entrants yet I feel like I'm one of the favs to win. Basically lost some chips w/ underset vs overset where most would've gone broke. I played 33 cautiously on a 743hh board vs 2 players inc. aggro preflop raiser who had 44, turn Th and everybody froze up, riv Qx and I called aggro's value bet. Later I bust w/ AK vs QQ in a postflop flip situation (nfd+ 2overs).

LAPC $10k main event... great tournament, great structure, great turnout...yet I busted in the last level of day 2. After chipping up some on day 1 on a pretty tough table I couldn't win a hand on day 2 on a softer table. Got to play some w/ Jennifer Tilly on that day and even though she's not that great, she tends to play big pots that increases the variance for her opponents. She just beat me every hand we played together. Finally I lost a key pot during the last level where a kid rivers a gutter w/ T8s (he turned a fd) vs my KK. I shoved w/ my last 13 bbs w/ KQo in the co and ran into button's JJ and couldn't win.
















Wynn $500 prelim #1...decent structure for a $500 buyin event and a great turnout..over 800. Played pretty well on day 1 to make it to day 2 and down to 100 players. I chip up and become the 2nd biggest stack on a very soft table. W/ 45 players left I run KK into cl's AA and bust. Sucked because 1st was $85k and the field was pretty soft. At least I have my 1st live cash of the year...for a measly $900. I had the pleasure of playing w/ Andy Frankenberger who was a really cool and nice guy (good poker thinker but needs a little work on the fundamentals).

Wynn $1k 6max nl prelim...If I'm not a big fav. in this one, I don't know what I'm a fav. in! I don't really pick up any hands all day (and especially don't get on the right side of cooler spots that allow you to get deep in tournaments) but manage to hang around w/ 15-30bbs in the later stages. Then w/ 30 players left I get in 99 vs J9o aipf and lose most of my chips. I manage to chip up w/ the best hands aipf and win a key race w 22 vs ATo (finally I win a flip!!) and get to 25bbs w/ 18 players left (9 get in the money). I get in my stack w/ AJo vs A7o bvb and bust.

Wynn $1k prelim...this was a very fun tournament for one reason. A "name" live mtt pro tweets "other than Vanessa Selbst, a soft table" early on. He happened to be on my direct right, Selbst on my direct left. Let's just say that he didn't think it was a soft table....after I busted him! I 3bet him relentlessly all day until he took a stand and 4bet jammed JTo...into my KK. At this point I was one of the chipleaders w/ about 40 left and 15 itm. Then I lose a flip postflop (go figure), go card dead, then cl (w/ about 120bbs) opr utg, I jam w/ 20bbs total w/ QQ in the co, and he tank folds AQ faceup! Are you kidding me??!! Very next hand, aggro hijack opr, I jam AJs w/ about 25bbs, button wakes up w/ AK and that's all she wrote. Obviously the cl who folded AQ the previous hand regrets folding that when he sees my AJ...obviously I regret it more!! So I busted 23rd, and 15 get in the money.




















That's it for live tournaments. Now my online tournaments... jk. I've played a bunch and I know I've been running as bad in those as I have in live ones. I just finished playing the $109 multi entry miniftops where 1st was $181k. W/ over 9,300 entrants I busted 250th. Here's the hand....

No-Limit Hold'em Tournament, 2500/5000 Blinds (9 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP3 (t350817)

CO (t72109)

Button (t104344)

Hero (SB) (t179784)

BB (t225496)

UTG (t159480)

UTG+1 (t178998)

MP1 (t172561)

MP2 (t266073)

Hero's M: 23.97


Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, J

7 folds, Hero bets t10000, BB calls t7500

Flop: (t25000) 10, Q, 8 (2 players)

Hero bets t15500, BB calls t15500

Turn: (t56000) 4 (2 players)

Hero bets t32500, BB raises t196896, Hero calls t118684

River: (t358368) 9 (2 players)


Total pot: t358368

Results:

Hero had Q, J (straight, Queen high).

BB had K, J (straight, King high).

Outcome: BB won t363768

Winning this pot would've put me in the top 15 but it was still a long ways to go...but still!

So that's about it for poker. Other than that, life is great!

New Goal

In conjunction w/ my new video series over at Cardrunners I will try to win 100 buyins at $5/$10 nl online. This includes full ring, 6max, and hu. I expect most of my volume to be at 6max since most of the tables that run are at 6max. In the series I will try to capture some of my play and also talk about what it takes to beat these games on a consistent basis. I will also focus on non showdown winnings since everybody is always trying to improve that aspect of their games.

I'll admit I'm not the best when it comes to non showdown winnings but I have improved steadily over the years and I am still working on it and will relay some of my thoughts and ideas. Also $5/$10 is definitely not a limit where people are pushovers so it'll definitely be a challenge holding my own in regard to my red line. I expect to make some mistakes along the way but I expect myself to learn from them and that's the best way to get better.

Why $5/$10? Well that limit is considered the entry to high stakes online. I want to show that even in today's state of games that if you work hard enough you can succeed. Granted I have a ton of experience playing that stake and I'm a decent poker player but everybody knows $5/$10 is pretty tough nowadays. I'm not going to think I can achieve it easily...all I'm going to do is play the best I can and work hard at my game along the way.

I used to play $5/$10 on a regular basis, even 16 tabling 20-30hrs/wk (2 years ago) but I've slowed down and played stakes anywhere from $2/$4 to $5/$10 the last couple of years (for reasons mentioned in an earlier blog post). Now I'm not going to eschew the lower stakes because I'm still planning on multitabling and sometimes there are just not many $5/$10 games going.

As for time frame I'm not going to set one. The reason being that I've devoted some of my time to live play including playing some big buyin live events this year. Also the WSOP is right around the corner and I'm planning on playing a full schedule. This goal may take me 2-3 months or it may take me 1 year. Another reason I'm setting this goal is to push me to work hard at my game and put in the time that I've been lacking the last couple of years.

















The only thing I haven't done is think of a name for this series...if anybody has a good idea feel free to let me know.

So the 1st video in conjunction w/ this goal comes out today. I actually started playing in February and captured the 1st video during a session. Hope you guys like it and get something out of it. Expect more in the future and hopefully some of my new ideas and growth as a poker player helps those that watch them.

Oh, and I will post $5/$10 graphs from time to time to show my progress, starting w/ the hands I've played since I decided to do this....























Yeah, 97 buyins to go :)

A day in the life

As per request from a fellow tweeter (or twitterer, not sure what the proper term is), I'm going to talk about a typical but busy day for me. That day also happens to be today. Today was busier than usual for me because I'm leaving for a wedding in Santa Barbara this weekend then heading to Los Angeles for the tail end of the LAPC where I pursue my adventures in live tournaments (plus live cash games). I will be updating my progress on my trip include all my tournament runs on twitter for those interested. You can find the link to the right for those interested. (I always say there's better things to do than follow twitter but I guess millions of people think differently...tbh I've become more active on twitter so I guess I'm falling for that twitter bug).























Anyway I woke up at 8am today (gasps from all the new generation of poker players, some thinking that's when they go to bed) to see my kid off to school. I've talked about this before but I like to take care of my family duties before anything else and that includes poker. The last thing I want my daughter to see is her father immersed in the world of poker...poker is just a means of providing a good life for my family and myself. I want to show my kid that poker is just a job and I want be the best dad that I can be, especially in her eyes. Naturally the next thing I do is head straight back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep. I'm one of those people that needs 8hrs+ of sleep or I'll be cranky all day. Somehow my wife loves talking to me while I'm snoozing even though she realizes this. I guess the trade off of having somebody "listening" to her is worth me being cranky all day. Women.

So I woke up again at 11am, do a little prep work for the podcast I cohost w/ Jeremiah Smith called "Cash Plays". I also drink my French Vanilla Slimfast for lunch. Losing weight is hard. We interviewed Greg "FBT" Mueller about his recent appearance on Poker After Dark. Greg and I actually go back a long ways. When I started playing poker for a living 13 years ago in Vancouver, Canada I tangled w/ him often in the limit hold'em games around town (yeah, the dark ages of poker, before nl hold'em became popular, before online poker was introduced). I knew then that he would become big time in poker because of his loud personality but more because of how sick good he was at poker. We also interviewed Jared Tendler, a poker mental game coach. Also we did our hand 2 hand combat where we break down a hand or two from cash games. Anyway for those interested the podcast will be available on PokerRoad and Cardrunners next Tuesday.

Then I spent the next two hours coaching a student, actually my only student currently. I've been hesitant to jump into coaching for a few reasons, mostly because I can't match my hrly coaching vs. playing. I'm coaching this particular person because she's a good friend of a good friend (and I am getting paid). I've been mulling getting into coaching on the side and will announce it here if I do decide to do it.



















After this it's time for dinner and my wife, kid, and I head off to Hot 'N' Juicy Crawfish for dinner. We invite a friend of my wife's and her 2 kids and order a few lbs of juicy crawfish and crab. I shy away from the crawfish...just seems like too much work for too little meat...plus sucking the juices out of the heads doesn't sound appealing to me. I order 2 lbs of snow crab legs, medium spice, 1lb in garlic butter flavor and 1lb in hot'n'juicy flavor.

I come home and see how my bets in sports did. I have a guy that has been a handicapper for years and has a winning track record so I bet his plays. He put out Nashville -115 and Edmonton +115 and both won (dingX2). I bet relatively small compared to what I make in poker so even if I run bad here I don't lose much (compared to my poker bankroll). This is the mini degeneracy in me..but very mini...and again I actually expect to come out ahead in the long run.

I decide to put in a session of online poker. After winning $1800 last night playing $5/$10 at the Venetian (thank you pocket Aces and old man gone wild syndrome) I decide to test my mettle vs. the virtual world tonight. I hop into some $3/$6 and $5/$10 nl 6max games on FTP and run pretty good and win $2200 in about an hr (only if I can sustain this hrly). Graph of my session tonight...























Now I have a couple of more things left to do for the day. I need to finish up my next video for Cardrunners. I will probably use the footage from tonight's play and just add my commentary for a nice polished product and ship it to my bosses at CR. Believe it or not but making a poker video is quite a lot of work..not just from my end but from the editing department and management before they put out the final product. So I thank you guys that put in the time and effort to put out the final product.

After this I will go through all my mail and bills and make sure everything is up to date. I had a personal assistant before that handled all of this but it didn't quite work out. I'm on the lookout for a PA actually so if anybody knows of a good one for a reasonable price, feel free to let me know.

Things that I didn't do today that I wish I had include getting in a workout, watching a poker video, doing some poker analysis, or reading something about poker theory/concepts, doing that Pokernews article Kristy asked me for (postponed til tomorrow), and spending some time w/ my kid...after all I'll be gone for a couple of weeks and away from my kid.

Realistically my days aren't this busy (eg the podcast is once every 2 weeks, along w/ making a video for CR) but having to leave town for a couple of weeks, and being the procrastinator I am, today just turned out to be a very busy but productive day.

So is my life baller? Probably not, but hey, my family is taken care of and I'm enjoying my life and really, that's all that counts.

Finally a shout out to my buddies Adam Friedman who got 2nd in the $1k FTOPS 10 game mix for $38k (but seriously, how did you not win it after having a 6-1 chip lead hu??!!) and Jaymes Rosenthal (you need to come to CR from that other training site) for taking down the recent Venetian Deep Stack tournament for $15k and a trophy...both occurred today. Hopefully I can make my own magic happen next week in Los Angeles.

Oh, here is my setup/grind station as requested @PokerLawyer ;) A few months old (there's a football game on tv) and a lot cleaner than it is right now.

Road Bump

So I started off the new year w/ a major goal in mind...achieving sne. Well that didn't last long. After 2 weeks and being ahead of pace I decided to give up that goal for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that I didn't think being tied to one poker site for the entire year is beneficial for my long term earnings. I enjoy playing different games and stakes across Stars and FTP. Also I keep hearing about how soft the games are on different sites so I want to check those sites out. Also living in Vegas, I have been playing more live and have really been enjoying it (not to mention the games are softer). Another reason I gave up sne is that I can't stand Stars software!! It really started bothering me multitabling 15-18 tables after a couple of weeks. I know everybody has a preference and I prefer FTP software...it is what it is I guess.

I started the year grinding $2/$4 nl on stars w/ the intent of building my roll on there and moving up stakes. I started adding in some plo along the way w/ a little bit of success. Everything was going ok until I had a nightmare session. Well here is a snapshot of my HEM for the past 3 weeks...I'll let you figure out where that nightmarish session is...












I seem to have 2-3 of these sessions annually and hopefully this will be my lone one this year. I know I ran incredibly bad during this session but I contributed to the destruction by playing past my bedtime and playing while my focus was wavering. I've talked to a couple of guys and have mentioned my results suck when I play past 2am. This isn't because the games are tougher after that time, but because I'm usually tired and not in a 100% state of mind to play my A game. I preach playing one's A game all the time and I'm susceptible to falling off that path because I'm human like everybody else but damn it I should know better!! I do a better job than most when it comes to consistency but I still need to work on some things, notably quitting at 2am or quitting when tired (this should apply to just about everybody, except for maybe the times a game is so good that even playing tired is +ev).

Here is the graph of my night...Doh!!























Even w/ that bad session the month wasn't all that bad and I'll be doing a January wrap up next time (thanks live poker, rakeback, and staking!).

2010 Recap

Before I get to my 2010 recap let me do a quick recap of December. I started the month off playing a $10k WPT event and cashing in it for $13,725. Unfortunately that capped off a weak month in mtts where I played a bunch of online mtts for once and only cash a couple of times. In cash games it was just as bad, if not worse...























I played 41hrs and ran pretty bad as evidenced by the graph. My all in ev lies at $6141 while my actual $ won was -$314. Overall after rakeback I made $1905...not exactly the way I wanted to finish 2010.

Now on to recap my 2010. I guess the best way to describe my year is underwhelming. It wasn't a disappointment because I did set a lofty monetary goal of $1million and got about 1/4th the way there. I thought I made more and recently said I made 1/3rd of my goal on my recent CashPlays podcast but I was estimating and I was off . For the year I made $264,500 in poker. The breakdown is on the right of the blog. Sure it wasn't close but hey let's not kid ourselves, that's a lot of money.

2010 Graph 1st...



2010 snapshot of my online NL cash game results for 2010...

A detailed breakdown on # of players...


I am ok w/ my overall winrate (in PTBB) at around 2.65 BB/100 for a few reasons. One being that the games are supposedly the toughest they've ever been. Also the fact that I play 15-16 tables at once and can maintain a 2.65BB/100 doing so is pretty good. Finally I was not very selective when it came to game selection and pretty much played on whatever tables were going. Sure I might have chosen a softer table when I had 2 options but for the most part really didn't seek out softer games. Also I played everybody when it came to hu and am proud of holding my own considering this was the 1st year I really started playing hu.

A couple of observations regarding my HEM...I went through all my hands at $5/$10 and felt like I ran bad and actually had my worst run of the year (in April) while playing $5/$10 only. Yes the games are tougher but I feel like I can win at 2+ BB/100 at $5/$10 w/ normal variance. I do think I will need to cut down on tables if I want to maximize my earning power at $5/$10+ since the games are tougher. I did not show my PLO HEM because I had minimal hands at the game. I played 2772 hands at PLO stakes ranging from $1/$2 to $3/$6 and won $2204 for a winrate of 24.5BB/100 which is obviously unsustainable. I will be looking forward to studying the game and getting better at it in 2011. I will talk about my 2011 goals and outlook next time.

Also I played 760 hrs and won at a rate of $253/hr, or $295/hr if I include rakeback. For sake of simplicity I will say my hrly for 2010 was $300 which I'm happy w/. Now let's talk about what I am disappointed w/ and most of that is the volume I put in. Sure I played 720k hands online and that is a lot but I really can and should be playing more than 15hrs/wk in cash games. Now I did play a bunch of tournaments and I'm not exactly sure how much time I invested in them but I really should be able to double my hrs/wk in cash games (maybe even triple them if I scale down on mtts and push myself). Again next time I'll go into how I'm going to approach 2011 and find a way to at least double my volume from last year.

W/ my results out of the way, I'm gonna mention some things that happened to me in 2010, mostly all positive. I did start my own blog and thank everybody that spent time reading it and followed my life/career in 2010. I also expanded my network in poker after having spent most of the past few years sitting behind my monitor grinding away w/o really trying to get to know others. I never felt alone though because I did have friends outside of online poker and I have my family that is always here w/ me. I do think it's important to have a good network of friends that understand poker and play it to the degree you play it.

I met a few guys over the summer that I play vs. online and it was cool to put faces on players I play vs. on a daily basis. Granted almost all of them were 10-15 years younger than me but that is the sign of the times I guess. Also I met Jeremiah Smith during the summer, at church of all places, and I duped him into thinking I can make a good cohost on his CashPlays podcast...actually he asked me but still a great dupe job on my part (probably had a lot to do w/ the extravagant lobster/crab/steak dinner we hosted for him, his wife, and a few of his friends).

A little bit later I pulled an even bigger dupe job by convincing Cardrunners management I knew how to teach poker and make nl videos. Seriously it was a big decision I made and I feel good about it. I had been holding back on joining an instructional site for a couple of years and finally decided to take the plunge. Why not w/ the biggest site and w/ guys that know what they're doing and do a great job putting out a great product (man I hope they're read this and I get brownie points for all the kiss ass here).

As a professional poker player I'm going to experience the ups and downs that come w/ this job and there are a lot more ups and downs in poker than in just about any other job. One of the early high points was being the biggest winner at $2/$4nl across all sites in January. I made about 100 buyins in January and PTR had an article of who the biggest winners were across all sites and they had me topping the $2/$4 games. Next I started grinding $3/$6 and $5/$10 and continued to do well, capped by a +$17k day (more like a sick 3 hour session) in March. Sidenote (and brag) I won $100k at $5/$10 back in March 2008 so that was another month I won 100 buyins in a month, but the games were a little softer back then. I guess March is annually a good month for me!

Well along w/ good runs comes bad runs and boy did I run bad in April. I went from $12k winner to $27k loser in 2 weeks but managed to lose only $12k for the month, which turned out to be my worst month of the year. I had a decent May and was ready for the WSOP.

I ended up going in w/ high aspirations, mostly because I felt like I was one of the favorites in every event I entered. Like every poker player I dreamed of winning a bracelet. Well I played 17 events and cashed in 5 including the main event, which isn't shabby but none of my cashes were very significant. My largest cash was in the main event for about $24k. I did show a profit at the WSOP which most poker players won't do. Actually this was the 4th of the past 6 years that I showed a profit just off WSOP events so I have a fairly good track record in the WSOP although the bracelet still eludes.

During this time I didn't play much online, but played some live, which is a great time for it. Anyway I resumed online poker in August and had a good month clearing $62k, helped by my best mtt score of the year when I won $25k (3rd place finish) in a $540 tournament at the Hard Rock of all places.

Well, as it happened the last 2 to 3 years, complacency took over the final 4 months of the year and I jogged, well more like walked, to the finish line. Part of that had to due w/ football season and the holidays but mostly it was my fault. I'm hoping to not get into that state of mind again...the scientific term for this condition is laziness. I did win about $25k the final 4 months but the volume was just not there.

In terms of life outside of poker it was mixed. The family was great and I really do have a great wife and kid and love the fact that they support me to the fullest (I guess it helps that I do well at poker so they can spend the money). I have a great core of friends that I hang out w/ and some of them did well in poker. For somebody that lives in Vegas, and "gambles" for a living, I'm blessed to have a good group of friends that are genuine.

The downer part outside of poker is that I was pretty bad when it came to my health, notably improving it. I started off the year w/ a bang, going to the gym 2-3x/week for 3-4 months then the WSOP came around and I fell off the wagon. I'm sure lots of you guys can relate w/ me, but it's hard keeping a routine every week when it comes to exercising. I'm hoping to get back into a regular exercise routine and also looking to eat healthier (more organic, drink lots of water, no sodas..well maybe diet only, more fish, vegetables, less shellfish...damn the Vegas buffets!).

Also I had a profitable year when it came to ventures outside of poker. I won in sportsbetting overall and did well in fantasy football. I lost in pit games, mostly craps, but it was minimal compared to what I made overall. I think I lost a little bit backing people in tournaments though, which is unusual because I tend to run really good when I buy pieces of people (I've won $50k, $25k, and $20k in the past taking pieces of people in single tournaments so all my poker playing friends think I'm good luck and ask me to buy pieces).

Finally I just want to say I write about poker in general and offer some advice from time to time, just so people know it's not all about how I am doing in poker. However poker does not encompass my entire life and it probably shouldn't encompass anybody's entire life. Also I like to think I lead a well balanced life where poker is a means of providing for my family and living a comfortable life and I really do believe that's the best way. Anyway I thank everybody that reads my blog and continue to do so and hope you guys learn from my mistakes, conquests, and experiences to possibly enhance your poker ventures or even your lives.

Nov Results, Dec Start

November was a whatever month in poker. I really never got anything going meaning I never got in a flow of playing daily because so many things kept me busy. I had family spending days at our house at various points of the month, especially during the Thanksgiving week, and when you live in Vegas it's almost obligatory to show them around Las Vegas. Anyway here is my HEM and graph...




































Yeah I ran a little bad but I'm not going to complain because everything evens out in the long run and that's what it's all about. I avg'ed a nice $500/hr in online cash games though so I'll definitely take that (20hrs total). Also I lost $2k in live games, chronicled in earlier posts in the month and another $3250 in tournaments (live and online). Overall after rakeback I made $7760.

Now w/ 1 month to go I'm planning on trying to get in 100 hrs of cash game play, just to try to make up for the last couple of months. I am in the midst of the WPT $10k main event at the Bellagio right now though. I finished day 1 today w/ 41k after starting w/ 40k. I had a really tough table w/ Randallin (kid won Festa al Lago few months ago for $1mil+), ADZ124 (high stakes cash game player and well known online kid...who surprisingly wasn't too active...maybe he was card dead, idk), some online kid named Chances Cards, Eric "BaseBaldy" Baldwin, Freddie Deeb and a couple of other competent guys.

I had a few good starting hands but never got any action on them. Also the players on my table were not giving it away so there were very few big pots. I guess I was the only one w/ a 3bet light mentality because I probably 3bet 3-4x more than the next guy all day and I didn't have a hand all the time. This probably kept me afloat above starting chips as I never won a medium+ pot. Even ADZ asked me late in the day if any of my 3bets were light because I was 3betting so much (esp. vs rest of table) and I asked him what constituted a light 3bet, and he said AQ or worse. I gave him the usual answer of I don't remember but I'm sure I could've thought of a more clever answer like I'm asian and I love to gamble, or aces and fours look the same to me so I get more aces than anybody else.

Anyway I'm gonna keep this short because it's midnight and I'm resuming day 2 at noon tomorrow. Hopefully I get a better table draw (because that really does matter in tournaments). The tournament has over 400 entrants and the neat thing about it is that registration is open til 5pm tomorrow, which is around level 8 of the tournament. You get starting chips of 40k and blinds are probably 500-1k by then. I know of guys that have registered on day 2 of a major event, and most do not end up doing well for obvious reasons.

Finally another video comes out on Cardrunners on Friday where I play 5/10 6max and hu. I end up getting pwned in hu...lol...but not because I was outmatched. You'll have to watch to see.

Hopefully my next blog post will be about me winning $1mil+ and this WPT main event!

**For those of you that want a good sweat of me winning this thing, you can follow me on twitter at

https://twitter.com/#!/NicolakPoker

or id NicolakPoker if you already have a twitter account***

Online poker

Screw live, back to online for me. Live poker is my mistress while online is my girlfriend. After awhile I miss the comfort of online poker and being able to play 1000 hands/hr. Results wise it's been up and down, and running below ev. I've been playing more $5-$10nl which is always a challenge but one that I look forward to. I'm feeling really confident in my game at this point and as long as I put in the hours I feel like the sky's the limit for me in poker.























Also played 2 FTOPs w/ no success. It's been awhile since I've played online tournaments as well so I'm enjoying that. Also I was really in the middle whether to go to Los Angeles for the NAPT main event this weekend and possibly play some live cash games there and passed because I didn't feel like driving 4-5 hrs and I didn't really prepare for it, like not having a place to stay overnight. I will plan on playing the $2500 main event at the Venetian next Sunday though (and miss NFL!). Also I'm planning on playing some of the events at the 5 Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in a couple of weeks including the WPT $10k main event.

I actually feel like someone that matters in the poker world now w/ the stuff I've been doing the past few months. Doing the "Cash Plays' podcast w/ Jeremiah Smith is a blast and I'm excited to be a part of Cardrunners and teach members how to improve their games and help the company grow. I don't care about feeling like someone important, because the only peoples' opinions that matter to me is my family's (along w/ my employers now) but I like the sense of knowing that I could be helping others in poker. I spent the 1st 11 years of my poker career improving my family and my lives and now I'm at a point where I can help others and I hope to do a good job at that and I'm looking forward to more of it. The only thing I haven't decided on is coaching. It's not really about the money because I can probably get paid ok coaching. It's the time commitment now w/ various things going on. When I coach somebody I really root for that person to do well so I feel like I need to invest a lot of myself and my time to see that happen. That's why I've been sticking mostly w/ my friends when it comes to coaching, because they're friends and the time we spend together is , well..like male bonding I guess.

Anyway I'll show a couple of recent hands I played online for those that like to look at hand histories.

Try to guess my mistake in this hand......

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($680)

UTG ($1621)

MP ($2136)

Button ($1000)

Hero (SB) ($1445)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 8

UTG bets $20, MP calls $20, Button calls $20, Hero calls $15, 1 fold

Flop: ($90) 9, Q, 8 (4 players)

Hero checks, UTG bets $90, MP calls $90, 1 fold, Hero raises $275, 1 fold, MP raises $915, Hero calls $730

Turn: ($2190) Q (2 players)

Hero bets $420 (All-In), MP calls $420

River: ($3030) 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $3030

Results:

Hero had 8, 8 (full house, eights over Queens).

MP had J, 10 (straight, Queen high).

Outcome: Hero won $3026

For those that thought not shoving the flop is a mistake is wrong. The mistake was not folding my set when the MP player 3bet to $915. This particular opponent's range is 99, QQ, or JT here like always and I felt like I had to fold but the fact that I had a set made me call (actually bad logic in this spot)...I thought I was calling all in but saw I had $420 still left on the turn. It probably worked out better because the board paired Qs on the turn and after my opponent called all in we had run it twice on but unfortunately for him he was drawing dead no matter how many times we ran it. If I shove the flop maybe I just win the 1st run w/ the Qs pairing. Also my opponent tanked forever when I shove $420 into the $2600 pot because he was good enough to realize that I probably had a full house. I could tell he really wanted to fold but given the pot odds probably felt compelled to call. Sorry dude.

Now most people complain about getting sucked on and losing a hand after they played the hand perfectly. I misplayed this hand and got rewarded so it's basically the reverse. I will not complain even though I misplayed my hand (who ever complains after misplaying a hand and winning the pot anyways), but I'll be honest, I can't make mistakes like these if I want to maximize my profits in the future. Chalk this one up to playing bad and getting lucky on my end.


No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($3456)

BB ($1251)

UTG ($1000)

Hero (MP) ($1082)

CO ($1249)

Button ($1277)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 5, 5

1 fold, Hero bets $30, CO calls $30, 3 folds

Flop: ($75) A, 3, 6 (2 players)

Hero bets $50, CO calls $50

Turn: ($175) 5 (2 players)

Hero bets $140, CO calls $140

River: ($455) 7 (2 players)

Hero bets $225, CO raises $1029 (All-In), Hero calls $637 (All-In)

Total pot: $2179

Results:

Hero had 5, 5 (three of a kind, fives).

CO had Q, K (high card, Ace).

Outcome: Hero won $2176

No description really needed on this hand...just that I'd like to give thanks to the guy that floated w/o much of a hand and decided to rep, ummm, I guess a 4 at the river.

I guess I have a whole bunch of hands where I got it in good but got sucked out on but really no educational or entertainment benefits showing those. It would just serve a purpose of saying hey look at me and how bad I run (sometimes). I usually leave that for my wife to listen to...after all, what are wives for?