Persistence pays OFF

Waking up in the morning was always hard for me. Ever since I was a little kid my mom would be constantly yelling at me to wake up. I used to hide under the blankets and tell my mom I was looking for my socks and would go back to sleep. My laziness carried on into my teenage years, I was always in trouble for being late in high school, it was like pulling teeth to get me out of bed. As a young adult I was always getting fired for coming in late or missing days at work. It was like I had no self control.

Finally something clicked and I learned about sacrifice. I was working for a crappy agency but the job I was assigned to was really laid back. I would see the guys that actually worked for the company making good money, driving nice cars, and relaxing it up while I was stuck working outside. One day I made it my goal to come into work on time, never miss days, be a great worker, and get hired on directly to that company. 10 months later I accomplished that goal and I’ve been with that company for 6 years making a decent living.

It wasn’t easy but I was persistent and it it paid off. I did the same with poker and I had a similar result. I was successful at tournament poker because I realized that if you had a solid strategy and a decent bankroll to withstand the variance, you could make money if you kept coming back and playing day after day win or lose. Persistence is key.

This week reminds me of those early days. I had a tough go at the virtual tables. It’s been hard to find tournaments for the stakes I want to play running on my favorite site so I’ve been jumping around to different sites, trying to find good games. Early in the week, I was playing some micro stakes and didn’t have any success. I managed to find some higher buy-in games later on in the week, but getting used to the players, structures, and software does have a learning curve.

This week I ran and played horrible, thank god I was playing mostly micro stakes. I played 8 tournaments/sngs and min cashed in 1 for -$127. I was feeling kind of bummed out because leading up the final week before the WSOP I was playing and running bad. I felt like I should be crushing the game especially at the lower stakes but that totally wasn’t the case. I was playing very fast, losing focus, making bad hero calls, pretty much playing the worst I’ve played since I started writing again.

I didn’t give up though, I stayed persistent. I knew that if I played my game and ran my strategies against my opponents success was inevitable. Saturday I hit my local Casino and late registered a $65 buy-in 86 player tournament where 1st place is a Colossus seat and $600 spending cash. Right away I was seated at a table with some drunk crazy guy that was playing any two. I doubled up against him with A-K vs his 6-4 all in preflop and few hands later busted him with A-J vs his 2-5. After that I opened up and started playing my game, picking up pots with little to no resistance.

I cruised through the middle stages, and I was never really in trouble until around 22 players left. I was card dead and I began to get short, so I started to shove in spots, to pick up chips to keep me alive. In one key hand, it was folded around to me on the button, and I shoved my 10 big blind stack with A-10. The small blind folded and the big blind quickly called, turning over A-J. Luckily I hit a 10 on the flop, and doubled up. This give me a decent chipstack that allowed me to accumulate chips again, get through the bubble, and make the final table.

At the final table I started 8 out of 10 in chips, but the structure was pretty good, so I knew I wasn’t in trouble. I maneuvered my chip stack nicely, and kept moving up the pay ladder. I had a couple chances to build a monster chip stack, but I lost a flip with my A-Q vs J-J and another with A-K vs 7-7. You have to win these type of hands to win tournaments, I kept losing the big pots, but winning enough small pots to stay alive. Finally 4 handed my 3 remaining opponents played a pot where pretty much all the chips got in the middle, and the board read 4-10-6-10-2, one guy had 10-J, the other had 10-8, and the winner held 4-4.

Talk about a cooler. One guy was out, the other was crippled, and the chip leader had about 70% of the chips in play. I busted the crippled player with K-J vs K-10 a few hands later, and started playing heads up against my opponent with 20% of the chips. I could never get anything going and keep getting re-raised all in, so I started shoving hoping to double up and get some chips to make some moves with. Unfortunately, I shoved with K-7, and my opponent woke up with pocket 10’s, and they held. I was a little bummed out, but not that much. I played a great game, I made 2nd, and won $805 in a little over 5 and half hours of play.

Overall I finished the week up $613 profit, a good way to enter the final week of my preparation before the WSOP. My successful week wouldn’t of came without persistence. I wanted to give up and take the rest of the week off when I was playing bad, but I kept playing, and hit a nice score. You can too, just be persistent, put in the hard work, and I promise it will pay off.

So till next time, good luck out there.

Putting in WORK

I cant wait for the WSOP…It’s something different to play bracelet events. The sound of the giant rooms filled with poker players from all around the world and there chatter. The sound from all the chips shuffling and all cards being dealt is something that catches you off guard if your not ready for it. Plus the thought of winning millions of dollars is constantly gnawing at the back of your head pushing you to play your best or fold under the pressure.

I’m going to need luck. All kinds of luck. The once in a lifetime luck. I know that with these huge NLH fields I will need as much volume and practice leading up to the series as possible, so I’m currently at the virtual tables putting in the work. That’s all I can do for now.

This past week I hit the tables hard kind of like back in the days. I played 10 tournaments, cashed in 3, winning 1. I started the week off right and won my first tournament I played. I late registered and started short with close to 10 big blinds. I shoved in the right spots and with a few key double up’s I became chipleader with 6 players remaining. I played aggressively putting my opponents to the test and got to heads up holding a nice chiplead. I made quick work of my opponent and won 28 mbtc equal to $218 usd in today’s Bitcoin price.

That win set a tone for the next couple of tournaments I played. I was a bit overconfident and busted the next few tournaments because I was trying to outplay everyone and also ran into a couple coolers. I was trying to make too many moves when I should of just played my game. Finally I got it back together and got 3rd and a small cash in a daily tournament that I should of won but I lost a big hand 3 handed holding A-K vs K-3 all in pre flop. That totally tilted me and I shoved the next hand with J-9 when I should of waited and that same opponent woke up with A-K and busted me.

The following days I late registered a few more tournaments but I had no luck. The thing is if you dont double up right away when you late register tournaments you have zero chance to cash but finally I doubled in a $10 buy-in 892 player field and made a deep run. With 100 players remaining I was sitting pretty in 11th place with 200k in chips but I literally made the same mistake I made last week and tightened up when I should of used my big stack to bully my opponents. I waited a bit too long for my rush to come and I paid for it. I shoved my last few big blinds with J-9 and the big blind with an average chip stack called with K-9 eliminating me in 22nd for $40. Fail. 1st place was $1470.

I finshed the week up a whopping 14 mbtc equal to $109 usd. I probably spend more than that on coffee for the week but a profitable week is a profitable week no matter how much money you make. Dont let anything or anyone tell you different. The WSOP is two weeks away so make sure you’re putting in the work and getting that volume that you need and remember every penny counts.

Till next time, good luck out there.

Sticking to the SCRIPT

Stick to the script, and follow through….

People would be surprised what they could accomplish, if only they would follow these simple rules. When I didnt have a plan in poker, I was drifting like a ship with no sail in the middle of the sea. I entered whatever tournament or cash game that was currently running, without any knowledge of my opponents, structure, or little nuances, about that certain game, that make a break even player a winning player.

In my early days I was a total live fish, around February 2014 I finally made a change in my life. I started seriously studying, and working on my game, but the most important decision I feel I made, was making a plan and following through. I made the choice to play online poker for Bitcoin, and only play NLH freeroll tournaments until I felt I had the skills and a bankroll, to move up the stakes. No personal money. I stuck to the plan for about a year and a half, and I totally crushed. That allowed me to move up to actually stakes, and eventually get to the highest Bitcoin tournaments (at the time) and build a bankroll of close to 77k at the high point of Bitcoin. Thank god I cashed out some.

That year an a half of playing freerolls and following my plan, showed me that with hard work, dedication, and sacrifice, your dreams can become reality. A year after the freeroll grind a made it to the biggest Bitcoin tournaments and was a winner because I followed through. When I eventually strayed from the plan and started playing cash games and learning new poker variants I started losing again. I played whatever was running. I became that ship with no sail in the middle of the sea again. Dont be that ship.. Make a plan, continue doing what your good at, and you will capitalize.

This week a I told myself no more drunk PLO cash games, only tournaments, and that’s what I did. I played four $30 tournaments/sng and cashed in three for $210 profit. I also played a $10 buy-in, with 795 entries, and I finished 38th for $30. Fail. I had my eyes on the top prize of $1324, but with around 50 players left, I tightened up a little bit too much, and let myself get down to 7 big blinds, and I had to push with A-J pre-flop and got snapped off clean by A-Q.

Regardless, I finished the week up $230 profit in about 7 hours of work. I know it’s not much, but it’s still about half of what I lost last week, and a $32 an hour win rate, is not too shabby. I’m one week closer to the WSOP and I feel like if I continue down this path I laid out for myself, anything is possible.

Till next time, good luck out there.

Back from the DEAD

I’m back like Freddy Kruger or some grotesque 80’s horror villian in a lowrent splaterhouse film your mother warned you not watch or you’d get nightmares.

The virtual poker tables have never left my mind, I knew I had to return. The allure of making money doing something that I’ve always loved is just too strong. I’m rusty but the ability to win is still there and that’s what has been been driving me lately.

I expected to play 6 days this week but I could only muster 3 days of play. Honestly I love poker but the boredom of playing at an elite level is something I’m not looking forward to. It’s funny before all I could think about was grinding my ass off at the tables now I cringe at the thought. The bottom of the glass has helped me fight the monotony but at the same time it has been a double edged sword.

I had a deep run in a small stakes tournament early in the week. I finished 23 out of 232 players and I probably would of made the final table but I ran my KK and healthy chip stack against QQ all in preflop and lost. First would of been like $800.

Couple days passed and I decided to get drunk and play heads up PLO. Keep in mind I’ve gone on some runs and won 3k over a couple sessions playing PLO heads up drinking. This day was different I was hammered and lost about $400 and busted my account but I happened to buy into a small $25 tournament/sng right before and easily won it for $150. So what did I do?

Yeah you guessed it. Jump right back into that same PLO heads up game and lose $150 more to the same guy. Talk about a dumb move. I late regged two tournaments on Sunday but didn’t really get anything going and busted before the money.

So my first week back was pretty shitty. I won a small tournament/sng and made a deep run but I lost my ass playing drunk PLO. Moving forward I will continue deploying a similar tournament playing style but minus the drinking and no more cash games for a while. I want to build some momentum leading up to the WSOP and drunken PLO nights (while fun) are definitely not going to help with that.

So till next week, good luck out there.

Where has the time gone?

I can’t believe two years have passed since my last blog. How have I let this happen? A better question is what has happened? Why have I ignored writing and my first love Poker?

The simple answer is despair. Poker has given me and taught me so much but at the end of the day all the money that I have won hasn’t given me the ability to accept the losing. The best tournament players are cashing about 33% of the time that means about 66% of the time there losing. On top of that even if you make the money but don’t win the tournament you feel like you lost.

Tournament poker is a bitch but in turn the feeling of winning a tournament and being the last player standing is exhilarating and one of the most rewarding feelings I have ever encountered. Video game hunting has been a substitution for that rush. Finding hundreds of dollars worth of games for pennies on the dollar is very satisfying but will never compare to winning a poker tournament and there lies the problem.

That fire to play again has been building over the past few months and has grown as the WSOP approaches. I have played 2 small stakes NLH tournaments online and made plenty of mistakes but got lucky and cashed in one. I also got up today and played a live $65 WSOP qualifier at my local casino where 1st place gets a seat for the Colossus and $600 spending money. I late regged it and played weak for 3 hours mostly folding and trying to slow play big hands.

I was playing bad but I still doubled up verses a aggressive player. I was making a lot of stupid mistakes but nothing major untill I misread that same aggressive player for being weak and shoved my middle pair into his top pair and got crippled. I blame it on rust and mental fatigue. I used to be able to play my “A” game for hours on end but when I first started playing seriously I couldn’t focus for longer than 2-3 hours.

I’m back on that same boat. I have to condition myself and get back to that elite level I was once at. I wont reach it without hard work and sacrifice so I’ve decided to focus and start working on my game 100%. I went ahead and took some time off of work with the intention of playing the 2019 WSOP. My goal is to play 5-6 days a week until May 31, 20019 and be prepared to play 3 WSOP tournaments at an elite level in Vegas with a goal of winning one.

I will write a weekly update to keep anyone reading this in the loop but most importantly I will write to hold myself accountable. In the past writing about poker has helped me grow my game immensely and most importantly to be honest with myself. A problem many poker players have. I noticed as soon as I started writing and being honest to myself my game improved and I became a winning player.

I miss winning and being successful in poker and I want it back so bad. It’s time to put in the hard work and get what I want. It’s time to hit the tables and start studying. No more excuses. If you dont grind you dont shine.

Good luck out there and I will see you next week…

A year passes by…

A whole year has passed since I dusted off the computer and shared my poker experiences with the community. The main reason I haven’t chose to share is simple, bad play. It’s easy to write when you’re winning but damn near impossible to recap your losses when you have no financial reason to share your downfall.

After a quick and disappointing Colossus at the 2016 World Series of Poker ( QQ<KK ) I came back to California with no desire to play poker at a competitive level. I played one local tournament and became an early chipleader, but my erratic play lead to a fiery bustout before the first break. I knew then that I needed a break from the grind. If I continued to play, I would of lost every cent and bitcoin to my name, plus more.

At first all I did was watch movies and TV shows on the couch and eat. I was depressed a little but not to the extent I was sick, just a little sad. I devoted my entire adult life to a game that I no longer had a desire to be part of, it was tough to accept, but relaxing was easy. I stored away all my poker books, closed my poker training accounts, and withdrew any funds I had online.

During all of this I rediscovered my love for video games, but not playing them, collecting them. I couldn’t really fall in love with playing any game other poker, I probably never will, but all of a sudden I had that passion again. Instead of waking up early to hit the Casino on Saturdays I was at garage sales, thrift stores, or searching online for deals on retro video games. I was successful buying and selling video games and on top of it I had zero stress. During this time I would repeat a saying I heard somewhere a while back “if your smart enough to beat poker, what else could you be smart enough to beat? ”

This went on for months but from time to time my friends or relatives would ask me about poker. They wanted to know how I was doing, keep in mind I’ve been playing poker since I was 17 and I’m 32 now, the last 15 years of my life have been devoted to poker. So I would tell them I was done. That I had found something that I was more interested in. But what I didn’t realize is that talking to these people and telling them my poker stories was slowly rekindling the flame.

One day I had a couple beers and grew some courage and played a small tournament online. To my surprise, I easily won it. It felt like I never took anytime off but I understood about variance and didn’t think much of the victory. A couple weeks later I played again and after a long heads up match won again! So now my mind was in it again but I was so used to not playing, I still didn’t want to jump back in.

It took the record breaking raise in price of Bitcoin to get me back in. One day I woke up to see everyone on Twitter in a frenzy talking about bitcoin and sure enough I logged into my wallet and found out my bitcoin bankroll was worth about 3 times more in value…

It is so rewarding to know all my past hard work playing low-limit poker tournaments for bitcoin is paying off and that I won more money NOT playing poker relaxing collecting video games. Life is a trip.

Till next time, good luck out the there.

Live POKER

Walk into a brick and mortar poker room and you’ll see the small nuances that make poker both extremely beautiful and horribly ugly. They play out like a scene out an award-winning Broadway musical right in front your eyes. You definitely miss out on this experience sitting at home in front of a computer screen. If you stay long enough at the tables you get to experience, witness, and appreciate this theater firsthand. The lonely widower buying in for the maximum over and over and donating to the game. The crazy gamblers with nothing to lose playing any two cards and owning heads. The nits and there leather asses, the pros, the props, the degenerate dealers and the over the hill cocktail waitresses are all part of the show. Then there’s me, sweaty palms and all.

Middle set holds

I sit in mostly silence, headphones in, about 4 months in on my journey of giving live poker a real shot, albeit part-time for now. I’m down $376 in about 70 hours play. A couple misplayed hands and 1 unprofitable event at the LAPC and I would probably be a winner but I still tilt and occasionally break the golden rule at the low-limits…don’t bluff. I guess old habits die hard and something about piles of checks in front of me bring out my degenerate side and make me go for the gusto even though we all know the negative outcome waiting for me on the other side.

Sometimes I win!

I started out slow in January and February winning $250 in the two months combined, nothing major, but I was winning. Everything was running along smoothly till March hit. I had a few losing sessions and I guess I lost focus and bluffed off $260 in profit one night with pocket 10’s on a jack high flop and was snapped off by my opponent’s pocket Kings. After that I had an other -$200 session where I played every hand and again bluffed off my stack like a fish. Finally back to back $-200 losing sessions where I got my aces cracked both times for all the money. That shit hurt. I’ve never experienced that much losing and despair all in such a short time, honestly it made me want to quit.

My play has been a dumpster fire as of late

I’ve brushed myself off since then and taken a little break on the cash games. I’ve started to play a live $65 mini deep tournament on Thursday nights and have been having some success. 5 tournaments played, 2 final tables with a near win 3rd place finish. Even though it’s a small sample size, all my records show that my success has come in tournament poker.

What we think..

Even though I love cash games I have to be honest with myself and admit that I’m not ready for the live grind yet, but with plenty of training, practice, and a little bit of desensitization to losing money I’ll be back at it. I can’t let a bad month get in my head and ruin my goal of eventually supporting myself through poker. I have to prove to myself that all this time I’ve devoted to this game hasn’t been a waste.

Ticking away

So till next time, good luck out there.

2015 A year in REVIEW

The year has come to an end and I have a few stories on my low-limit journey to share. Some ups, mostly downs, but at the end of the day I got to play live and online poker whenever I wanted for a small profit and I throughly enjoyed myself doing so.

Poker is fucken tough. You can study everyday, practice strategy, watch all the training videos, and still lose. Luck plays a huge role in the equation, a turn of one of those 52 cards can make or break you and as we all have witnessed, most players including myself receive the latter.

One of the biggest things I learned in 2015 is how to control my anger and frustration when taking bad beats or playing bad. I simply realized that bad beats are part of the game. If the best players always won the bad players would go broke, leave the game and never come back. Now when I take a bad beat I laugh it off and tell myself “This guy had to pull it out of his ass to beat me” and that always makes me feel a little better. Bad beats tend to show up at the least opportune time so be prepared but always remain confident, the coin lands on the the other side too but we tend to forget.

I also learned when playing bad there’s no reason to get mad. You spend all this time and energy being upset when you should be studying and learning from your mistakes. There isn’t a better feeling in the world than improving your game by working hard and turning the tables on opponents that you couldn’t beat before. You have to be honest with yourself and work on your deficiencies or be prepared to be left in the dust.

Overall 2015 was a horrible year for my “live” tournament game. I played 28 events and only cashed in 5 for a total loss of $-1120. My highlight was finishing top 80 and in the money in two back to back LAPC events, one had a 900+ player field the other had over 800 runners and were less than a few weeks apart. An other highlight was playing my first WSOP event the $565 buy-in Colossus event. Even though I didn’t cash, it was a great learning experience and I can’t wait for my next WSOP trip Summer 2016.

My live cash game stats this year weren’t equally as bad, but were still sub-par. I played 17 sessions and only won 5 for an overall loss of $-375. My highlights were learning Omaha 8 high-low and holding my own at the $4-8 limit kill tables plus I had a couple nice $1-2 and $2-3 no limit sessions where I won a couple hundred dollars. My problem in the cash games was the lack of discipline needed to make the huge fold. I could of easily showed some profit in my live game if I could have made a couple key folds in pots where I had a strong feeling I was beat but I tried to get lucky (and pull it out of my ass). My #1 priority in 2016 will be to drastically change this and keep a level head when making decisions with piles of chips in front of me.

Now time for some highs! I totally crushed the low-limit Bitcoin tournaments online on Nitrogen Sports and SWC Poker. I took a shot at the 26 mbtc buy-in 750 mbtc guaranteed tournaments early in the year on Nitrogen and won, after that any tournament in the 5-100 mbtc buy-in range I consistently beat. I totally used the smaller field sizes as an advantage by using 6 max strategies as MTT’s on these sites only reach 15-20 players. My stats show I won 33 tournaments, 15 2nds, and 10 other ITM finishes while roughly playing 150 tournaments for 4410 mbtc won equaling $1908! I used a basic ABC style and pretty much just waited for the fishes to make mistakes and capitalized on them. I also learned and was competitive at mixed cash games and will use the experience I gained as a stepping stone moving forward and build on the skills I acquired and use them to take advantage of the players behind the learning curve.

Overall I finished the year up a disappointing $413 and it really feels like I lost. Yeah it was great to win those 33 tournaments online but I didn’t win a live tournament and I got throughly handled almost every time I stepped foot in a casino. But the future seems hopeful, I crushed online and will continue to search for ways to improve my win rate. I’ve also added a few tweaks to my live game and I have faith that my hard work and dedication will take me to the next level in 2016. Wish me luck as I’ll be heading out to the city of Commerce to play the LAPC as I have the past 3 years in 2 weeks and I got my eye on a final table. So till next time…..Good luck out there.

Knocking off the RUST

A little bit more than 2 weeks have passed since my last post and truthful I haven’t been looking forward to writing because I haven’t found much time to actually sit down and play! I’ve played 9 online tournaments and cashed in zero for – 560 mbtc but two of them were bubble finishes, so it’s not as bad as it seems. I blame most of my failure on rust and the lack of volume needed to fade the variance that comes along with playing tournament poker. But I’m not going to sit here and lie to you, mental mistakes and lack of preparation have also lead to these few bad weeks. I preferred to catch up on missed TV shows and socialize with friends instead of working on my game and putting in the hours at the table to improve my game and my results definitely show that.

Not all is bad though! I successfully backed a great tournament player that was going through some tough times and as a reward that player won the biggest weekly tournament on Nitrogen Sports and my cut received was a little bit more than 200 mbtc! I also played two live freeroll tournaments at Lake Elsinore Casino. Both were $1500 guaranteed prize pools and capped at 100 players with hyper-turbo structures. I got lucky and had a deep run in the first to finish 25th and made the final table in the second one. Yes I was extremely short stacked as was everyone else but I refused the $165 chop and opted to play out the final table to everyone’s dismay. Sadly lady luck wasn’t on my side and I busted in 7th for $90. I play to win and a couple hundred dollars isn’t going to change my life good or bad, but a live tournament victory is hard to come by and will greatly increase my confidence level even though it was just a local donkament lol.

Finally a played two live cash game sessions, both 4-8 kill limit Omaha high-low. The first session was uneventful and I lost $150 barely winning a few hands and losing $100 just on one hand when my top set was chased down by the nut flush. The second session was the complete opposite, I crushed from the get go. I played aggressively and was hit by the deck, I stuck around and played my rush and I walked out with a little more than $300 only getting up after two tough players took the player’s seats I had just put a thorough beating on.

Overall I had I couple crappy weeks online mixed in with moments of success but the good thing is I found my long lost passion for the “live” game and I’m definitely going to pick up the volume and study time to continue improving on my overall poker game!!

Sorry for the late post and I’ll definitely be back in two weeks with my next update, so till then…Good luck out there.

Back into the RING

Way too much time has passed without putting out a quality blog post but honestly I’ve been dealing with a huge break up, so I decided to take a little bit of time for myself to relax and get my mind right. Prior to this time away I was consistently beating the biggest Bitcoin NLHE tournaments on SWC. Just a year ago I was playing mostly freerolls and grinding the 5 mbtc level but once the original Seals with Clubs went down I took my game to Nitrogen Sports and ran my measly 200 chip BTC bankroll into over 5000 chips!

I owe my low-limit success to hard work. I’ve identified deficiencies in my game and found podcasts, training videos, and articles online to plug those leaks and turn the tables on my opponents. Bankroll management is also key, fuck what anyone says skill don’t mean shit if you can’t hold on to your money. I take pride in watching my bankroll swell and make it my number one priority to work on my game at all times to stay sharp, so I can continue moving up the stakes and eventually play poker full time. Being consistent is also key, luckily grinding the low limits is easy, playing ABC poker with the occasional variation play shows huge profits at these limits.

The problem is I work full-time, 40 hours a week and I commute, so grinding those 2-5 hours nightly add up. When fatigue sets in as it has lately I take these breaks where I do everything that makes me happy, I see family, I travel, I rest, I golf, I joined a softball league, I generally enjoy life and get my mind away from poker. These prolonged breaks feed my hunger for escape from the monotony of the full time job and the countless hours of poker played on computer screens.

But the time is now. I feel the fire burning inside of me and I must return to the tables. I plan to be the biggest tournament winner on SWC and continue to improve my on my mixed games, all while protecting my bankroll. I plan to post a weekly to bi-weekly blog so stay tuned.

So till next time, good luck out there.