Fish On A Heater...

It's been awhile since I blogged and a good bit has happened since the last time. I got a new backer the end of October and have been getting back to the grind since. It started out a little slow but after a few days things really started turning around. 

I've played about 170 tournaments over the two weeks I've been with my new backer and made eight final tables, of those eight six were top three finishes. Two first, two seconds, one third a seventh and an eight. I'm up almost $2K and feel like I'm playing better than ever. 

I would like to thank my biggest nemesis for my recent success. Without the constant struggle this nemesis was causing me I'd have never turned my game around like I have. I hope this nemesis is always by my side because this adversary makes me step back and reassess every aspect of my play and make the necessary changes that enable me to vastly improve. Who is this nemesis, variance. I just went through the a worse bout of bad variance that I've ever before experienced but I persevered and worked hard and most importantly I stuck it out. I've come through it so much stronger and so much better and it's really showing in my games and my overall mental attitude. 

I replied to a couple of posts lately where someone was asking what makes a winning player. I'll copy my top list here:

• Fearlessness
• Adaptability
• Aggression
• Extreme tenacity - and I do mean extreme, to get through some bouts of bad variance it takes more tenacity than I could have ever imagined
• Hard work
• Focus
• Positive mental attitude
• Disregard for the money

I'm sure there are thousands of people who had the basic ability to become great players but they lacked too many of these attributes to stick with it and become great at it. Mostly they lacked the ability to push through the long and brutal bouts of bad variance without giving up the game. They didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with the negative side of playing. 

First, I list fearlessness as the most important because I believe that it is. It's not just the lack of fear of busting by pushing our chips in the middle on a stone cold bluff to put pressure on our opponent, it's not fearing what others think of our game. All that matters in poker is how well you play each hand. If you're playing correctly there are going to some embarrassing spots where you get caught with your hand in the proverbial cookie jar, oh well consider it meta-game and move on. What others think of your game is totally irrelevant. There is a fine line between genius and spew and between a real sicko and total fish. Mediocre players will always think your a fish for some of the plays you make because they lack the experience and knowledge to understand those plays and why they work. 

Second, I list adaptability, this is a very close runner to first and I think they are very close to being tied. Poker is a rapidly evolving game, what was done even six months ago may be totally changing and turning around today. Our opponents change to some extent as well and we must be able to change and evolve our game or we get left in the dust and go from winning players to losing players without even realizing what happened. Often when this happens players are way too quick to blame variance when what is really going on is they got stuck in the way they play and didn't adapt to the changes. They're running the same as they always have but the game has changed. 

Third, I feel is again closely tied for first or second and that is tenacity. If you go back a few post you'll see several times where I've been close to quitting. Thankfully I was way too stubborn to follow through with my quitting threats. Sometimes it was the hardest thing I've had to deal with to just get up any motivation to play but I toughed it out, stuck with it and came out stronger for it. 

Fourth, is hard work, it's often said that poker is a hard way to make an easy living. Nothing is more true! We have to review, study, read and play a ton to just keep up and continue to improve. Days are long and hard and on top of that we should be spending several hours a week working on our play. It's honestly never ending and it takes a very strong work ethic to be able to put in the constant work necessary to do well in this game. 

This blog is long enough so I'm not going to go to deeply into the next two but it's very important to stay focused and keep a positive attitude. Try not to play when you tired or upset or worried, it can really be a game killer. Don't dwell on the bad beats, try not to even talk about them. Believe you are a good winning player even if your graph looks like a plunging ski slope. Many of the tournaments where I've finished in the top three I just believed the whole time I was going to make that deep kind of a run. Don't let disappointment get you down. Figure out what part of it is play and what part is variance. Fix the play part and the variance will eventually fix it's self if you can just maintain a positive attitude. 

Lastly, disregard for the money, what I really mean is a detachment from money. You'll never make the right plays if you're focused on losing your buy in or making it through the bubble so you're not out the money. If you're playing within your bankroll you should never have to worry about losing your buy ins. 

"Everyone will eventually run worse than they thought was possible...

... The difference between a winner and a loser is the latter thinks he doesn't deserve it."

This is my favorite poker quote, no idea who said it but they were so right. This is my worst year since the first year I played but the year is not over yet and I still have time to turn it around. I have 3 months to change this from my worst year to my best!

I tweeted earlier "to blog or not to blog" and when I was looking for a picture to begin this blog I found the one above. I also found the one below and had trouble deciding which to use.

Now back to the subject at hand, I have to say despite the comically bad year I'm having I think I'm actually handling it better than I would have expected. I do think my game is suffering and I'm making a lot of common "run bad" mistakes. I feel like I tend to push it too hard in a lot of spots and I'm concentrating way to much on the end result, making money and rebuilding a bankroll, instead of just playing each hand the best I possibly can and making the right decisions. I have a tendency after I start a session and take a few brutal beats to start thinking negatively. The old "oh great another shitty night" thing. I think this is really making it hard for me to even manage to play my B game much less my A game.

I'm going to try to make a very conscious effort to focus only on each hand and not worry about the end result. Speaking of focus, lack of it is definitely part of the problem. So I'm going to work on getting rid of the distractions when I play. I'm going to completely log off Skype, close down the internet and turn off my phone during my next session. Distractions are hard enough to deal with when things are going well and I'm playing well more consistently but they are game killers when I'm having trouble focusing and playing well.

Of course this year has taken quite a toll on my confidence, which has never really been that great to start with. I'm really going to try to improve in that area as well. I know that for the most part I know what I'm doing and I really need to give myself more credit than I do.

Hopefully the next time I blog I can report some major improvements and some good results. I know that this too will pass and I'll come through it a much better player...

But seriously, let it end already :D

The quote may be from Irieguy on 2p2 in this post (definitely worth reading):
It's also quoted by Gigabet here: also definitely worth reading

Run it up update: obviously not going great, pretty much staying broke on Carbon despite making a few deposits and down to $175 on BlackChip.

Run it up update...

The run it up has been slow but steady. It's been almost a month and here's how it's gone:

 

Friday, Aug 2
I played 420 hands of micro cash. I started at a 2NL full ring table (.01/.02) and ran that $1.42 up to about $7. That table went cold and I moved to a 5NL capped 6 max table and made another $3. Bankroll at the end of Friday $10.15. 

Saturday, Aug 3
I played a $.50 rebuy step satellite to the $50K gtd. Total invested $2.00. I finished 4th, 3 seats paid, for $7. Bankroll at the end of Saturday $15.15

Sunday, Aug 4
I played the $5.50 $3.5K gtd and finished in 5th (719 runners) for $174. Bankroll at the end of Sunday $185.75

Monday, Aug 5
I played a re-entry satellite to the $27.50 $10K gtd - 2 entries = $6.60. I didn't win a seat or cash.
I bought directly into the $10K and finished in 46th for $45. Bankroll at the end of Monday $195.25

Sunday, Aug 11
81st in the $215 $100K (satted in) for $354. Bankroll at the end of Sunday $420.16

Monday, Aug 12
3rd in the $6r $2K for $221. Bankroll $600.39

Wednesday, Aug 21
Not a lot happened and I haven't play a lot for the last few days. I got down to about $460 but finished 1st in the $12 $1K tonight for $255. Bankroll now $664.48

Saturday, Aug 24
Played a few things today and felt like I played well. BR got down to about $594 but I finished 6th in the $33 $1.5K for $140 soBankroll now $734.23

Sunday, Aug. 25
Had a rough and expensive Sunday, lost $169 and bricked everything. Bankroll $565.98 

Tuesday, Aug. 27
Finished 15th in the $27.50 $10K gtd for about $100. Bankroll back up a bit to $663.91

Sunday, Sept. 1
Finished 6th in the $44 $3K for $213. Bankroll now $775.87

I also deposited $50 on Carbon on the 25th and it's now up to $330. Today was decent but overall kind of brutal. Lots of deep runs and small cashes. I feel I'm playing better but I still need to up the aggression in several spots. 

So here's to running it up! 

Run it up...

I've been a long time member of PokerVT and I've been the forum moderator for the last 3 years or so. Things around PokerVT are pretty dead as of late so I decided to post my run it up challenge on BlackChip Poker there. 

I'm cross posting my post on the PokerVT forum:

First a little back story, I had a backer for MTTs for about 10 months from July 2012 through May 2013. I was on a really bad downswing and I'm sure had some bad play thrown in there and lost my backing. I haven't been playing a lot since the first of June. I had a little money over 3 sites and June wasn't any better than the few months before and I lost most of the little bit that I had. Starting the first of July I felt like the best thing I could do was take a long break. I didn't play any, well with the exception of a couple of very small cash sessions and 3 MTTs one night, until the last week of July.

I had finished 2nd in a Carbon Poker - Poker Maximus tournament back in May and a friend had staked me for that game so I owed him 1/2 of my profit. It takes forever to get withdrawals from Carbon so the check for his part didn't come until about a week ago. I kept $300 of it as a stake on Bovada and that's been going just so so to date. If anything good happens with this roll I'll post here as well.

It's been a long time since I've had to try to run up a bankroll and at first I had no memory of how I used to do it. I have to say though that it's proving to be really good for me to have to do this. I'm learning to deal with lots of bad players since I'm having to play very low stakes for the most part and this was something I had trouble with. I seem to have difficulty learning that you can't bluff fish. I would get really impatient when I played low stakes and spew a lot. When you have no bankroll you can't do a lot of spewing or soon you'll have no bankroll so I'm learning to contain the spew. I also used to hate to play any MTT with under $1K up top and I didn't appreciate the small wins of $200 to $500. Now I'm getting really excited over just $100 win. The $5.50 $3.5K gtd I played on Sunday (see below) is a total donkament and I had never gotten really deep in it before because I generally managed to spew off my stack. I was very pleased with how patient I was able to stay to make it to the final table.

I really like BlackChipPoker on the Winning Network and I played there a lot during the time I was backed. I had about $50 on there after I lost my backer but I'd managed to lose all but $1.42. On Saturday I decided to see if I could actually run that $1.42 into a bankroll. Here's how it's going and what I've done so far (don't try this at home, it is not good bankroll management but it seems to work for me)...

Friday, Aug 2

I played 420 hands of micro cash. I started at a 2NL full ring table (.01/.02) and ran that $1.42 up to about $7. That table went cold and I moved to a 5NL capped 6 max table and made another $3. Bankroll at the end of Friday $10.15.

Saturday, Aug 3

I played a $.50 rebuy step satellite to the $50K gtd. Total invested $2.00. I finished 4th, 3 seats paid, for $7. Bankroll at the end of Saturday $15.15
Sunday, Aug 4

I played the $5.50 $3.5K gtd and finished in 5th (719 runners) for $174. Bankroll at the end of Sunday $185.75

Monday, Aug 5

I played a re-entry satellite to the $27.50 $10K gtd - 2 entries = $6.60. I didn't win a seat or cash.
I bought directly into the $10K and finished in 46th for $45. Bankroll at the end of Monday $195.25

I'll keep updating this with my progress. I just thought it would be fun to share this bankroll building journey.

If anyone has any comments or idea for doing this please let me know. 

Fish Fodder aka My Bovada Experience...

This picture says it all. Got back to the grind today after taking a long, well 3 week, break from playing. I only played 3 times during that 3 weeks and only for about 4 hours total but I'm really ready to get back into it. 

I started playing on Bovada today. It's taking some getting used to but the fields are noticeably softer. Of course that could be because I was playing only $16.50s and under so fishy fields are to be expected. The anonymous tables take some getting used to but the tournament schedule, prize pools and soft fields make it worth it. 

I busted everything out of the money except the $3.30 $1K which I final tabled and finished in 6th place. It was nice to have the change of scenery and hopefully I can make some money, it's been way too long since that's happened. 

I'm suffering a bit from lack of confidence since I've had such a long crappy run but hopefully that will improve after a few more deep runs. At least my mindset has greatly improved. 

I'm pretty much broke on all the sites so I'll be playing mostly on Bovada for now. Let's run this shit up, okay!

I've lost that lovin' feeling - and the job...

I got a part-time job working at the Open Door Children's Home here in town. I work 25 hours a week for an organization that really does provide a great service. So far I'm enjoying what I'm doing and there is a lot of potential for the job to develop into something I love doing and that's fund raising for a great cause.

The home only takes kids over about 10 years old so there is mostly just teenagers since it's hard find foster home placement for them. It's pretty sad seeing all the teenagers who've been through so much in their short lives. It pretty much puts my petty woes into perspective.

On another note, I played a few MTTs tonight and I really didn't enjoy it at all. I haven't played any since my "I'm quitting" blog entry. I've been doing some reading, The Mental Game of Poker 2, which is great and Easy Game and I'm really enjoying both. I hope my love of poker hasn't gone away for good. I really hope to play again soon but I just have zero desire right now.

If anyone has been through this before and was able to get their love of the game back please let me know how you did it. I really don't want to give up the game after all the work I've put into it but I want to want to play and enjoy it again.

Mad World

I've made it one week. A few times I've had the desire to play but lost it pretty fast. I've been watching the WSOP coverage all week and even that hasn't motivated me to play. I thought about playing a little today but Sundays are way too soul crushing when things go badly so I decided against it.

I have however discovered Open Face Chinese Poker and I definitely see what all the buzz is about. It's a great fun game. I've only been playing on the Android ap but I really can't wait to play for some real money. That is after I get it figured out. It's some sick fun though.

I'll be doing some serious job hunting this week. I'd love to find some really good temporary fill in type work because I really don't want to be tied down to a regular job. So hopefully I can find something that suits me.

I might try to play a bit this coming week and then again I might not.

Good luck to everyone playing the WSOP main event.

I Dreamed a Dream...

Almost five years ago I discovered poker and fell in love. Like too many loves in our lives things don't always go as we hope. We fall in love but who or what we love doesn't love us back or things just go wrong or we fall out of love. Sometimes we have to know when to say goodbye and when to hang on. I fear the time is coming for me to say goodbye to poker, at least for a good while.

When I first started playing I felt I was better at poker than anything I'd ever tried in my whole life. I studied and worked hard and things were really going well for awhile. Black Friday happened and everything changed. I ran so good on PokerStars and there were so many opportunities to make money. Since Black Friday it's been a constant struggle. A struggle to get paid, a struggle to find decent games to play, a struggle to even beat the games available. 

About a year ago I got my first backer and overall the experience was a great one. I learned a lot from the other players in the stable and it was an experience I'd recommend to anyone serious about their poker game. My backers were the greatest and I couldn't have asked for a better situation. I was with them for ten months but after a couple of bouts of runbad, and maybe some playbad, it just didn't make good financial sense for them to keep backing me. I didn't really lose much money for them at all, everything considered. Probably not even much over $1,000 but they didn't make money from me and that's what they're in business to do. We parted with no hard feelings on either part and I'd go back to them in a heartbeat. 

Since losing my backing, and looking at other offers that I just haven't found appealing, and trying unsuccessfully to play on my own dime for the last 5 weeks or so I've decided it's time to give it a rest. I can't begin to tell you how much I hate giving up on my game but it just seems inevitable right now. 

I wish I had the money, and/or backing to play live, it's so much more fun and live is so much easier than online. There is just so much information available as opposed to online and the fields are generally softer in relation to the buy ins but alas that's just not a financial option right now. 

One of my favorite quotes is "You will eventually run worse than you ever thought possible, the difference in a winner and a loser is that the later thinks they don't deserve it". It's certainly not about deserving it, it's just part of the game. You weather the storm as long as you can and when for whatever reason you can no longer weather that storm you get the hell out of it's way. 

I'm hoping to find a part time job soon, wish me luck - I need it, and spend sometime away from the game. Maybe sooner or later I'll be back, maybe not, who knows at this point. I can't imagine giving up the game completely even if it may actually be the best thing I can do. I hope I can find my love for the game again at some point down the road but for now it's time to say goodbye. 

I'm sure I'll still blog occasionally, hopefully about my adventures back into the work-a-day world but until then adios. 

...and just to be clear this isn't a poor, pitiful running bad me post, I'm serious. 

Parting Ways and Staking...

I'm no longer with imawhale staking. Overall it was a great experience and over the ten months I was with them I met some great people and learned a lot. If feel my game has improved significantly over this time. Basically I want to be with a staking group that can provide more player development, mentoring, coaching and support. While Shane has a good staking group none of those things are really provided for the players. 

Poker is so tough these days and players need every edge they can get. I really hope to find a backing group that really does what's necessary to help their horses be the best they can be. 

One thing I learned while being with imawhale and while looking for a new backer is how haphazardly so many people apply for staking. Shane would get applications with tons of spelling and grammar mistakes. I read threads from backers on Two Plus Two and Pocket 5s stating exactly how to apply and then see people posting doing completely the opposite. 

Applying for staking is the same as applying for a job. If you write a resume you always make sure it's properly formatted and grammatically correct with no spelling errors, why would you not do the same when applying for staking. Since so many people don't seem to get this I thought I give some advice here:

Most backers post threads on popular poker forums like those linked above. They will state the information they need from you and ask you to send this to them in a private message. Most staking groups also have websites with staking applications. When you fill out the application or message the backer make sure you provide all the information asked for in a organized manner. Be sure you double check your spelling and grammar. Be sure you give them all the information they need to check your poker statistics and results. 

Stakers get numerous applicants and if they get messages and applications that are a disorganized mess they aren't going to bother to read more than the first sentence or two. If you can't follow simple directions how are you going to keep spreadsheets or data for them to keep up with your play and results if they back you. 

Do something to make your application stand out or make your results easy to access. I created a Google presentation document with information about my playing history, links to all my stats and screenshots of my tracked SharkScope results and graphs. I set it to share with anyone who has the link. I can use it to link in private messages or applications and on Twitter or forums if I'm selling live action. You can view it here for an example. 

Most importantly make sure you have good references and don't do things to hurt or destroy your reputation in the poker community. If you roll on a stake or play things you aren't cleared to play or other sketchy things you're going to have trouble ever getting backing again and these days serious players need backing. 

If you're new to the poker world get active on either of the above linked forums and post and be active. When it comes time to take your game to the next level and apply for staking or sell live action if you haven't been active on the forums you're going to have a problem. 

As for me I have one offer on the table and possibly one or two other good possibilities. I'm trying to take my time and be sure I go with the right group. For now I'm playing on my own dime, which is actually no fun. I hate having to worry about bankroll management and those things playing on your own dime require. I'll be so happy when I have another backing group in place.

Procrastination

I'm so awful at updating this blog. It's not that I have nothing to write about because I do. Lots of things have happened since my last blog. So much that it'll probably take 3 blogs to write about it all. So why do I never write in this blog. Well it's obviously because I'm such a huge procrastinator. Why do today what we can put off until tomorrow.

Maybe it's because I have several things to write about and I can't decide where to start. Maybe there is so much in my head that I can't sort it out enough to get it written down. Maybe I'm ridiculously unorganized. Maybe other things are more fun to do than writing a blog. I mean really, had you rather write a blog or get sucked out on a minimum of three hundred and fiddy times in under two hours. Now that's just too fun to miss. If that's not good enough I can rail the assclowns who got it in horribly bad when they make the final table of the tournament they busted me out of. I mean nothing is more fun than watching a completely incompetent moron win lots of money with the chips he won off you when he called your 21BB reshove with 67o and hit trips, right?

No seriously, I've just been on a pretty brutal downswing and haven't really been motivated to write. Especially since I vowed not to write whinny blogs. Tonight however, I was pretty down and disgusted after another particularly brutal Sunday grind. I was on Skype talking to a friend and said I was beginning to wonder if I was even capable of beating these games. He's coached me a good bit and knows my game better than anyone and we had a session the other day. That session was really enlightening because I saw so many things I had reverted back to doing. I had basically gone back to many of my old nitty ways. I ask him if he thought I was capable of being a winning player. His response was if you'll get back to way you were playing a few months ago and not the way you're playing now, yes you are. That's when it dawned me...

I'm a huge fan of Jared Tendler's The Poker Mindset, in the book he talks a lot about conscious and unconscious competence. Being that unconscious competence are things we know so well they are second nature like folding 72o and things like that. We don't really have to think about a lot of plays we make because they are very basic and we've made them so often we just do them without thinking. Conscious competence are skills we've learned but we have to think to utilize these skills. When our emotions reach a certain level it becomes really hard to make our brain function properly and we tend to revert to the things we do without much thought. This is what happens when we tilt really bad, our brains go on some kind of overload and all we can manage are the things we just do but don't have to think through. What I think is going on with me is while I'm not tilted in the obvious sense of the word, the emotions from a prolonged downswing have accumulated and cause me to have trouble doing the things that I've learned but haven't mastered and I've reverted back to the those things I don't have to think about. So I'm going to have a couple of poker free days and get my head straightened out and come back and do some reviewing and studying for a day or so and then get back to poker with a clear head and better attitude.

...and in my next blog update, which I promise will be soon, I will talk about my first WSOP circuit event and my first tracked live cash. Until then remember "You will eventually run worse than you ever thought possible, but the difference in winner and a loser is the loser thinks he doesn't deserve it". No idea who said this but it's all too true.

"Tied To The Whipping Post"

I guess you can tell by the title of this blog that March hasn't been so marvelous so far. I have 9 days left this month and after sending the most stupid email ever to my backer and getting his quite to the point reply I've had a long talk with myself and pulled my fish brain back to reality. I thank him for his "you're being a fish reply" because he was right I was totally being a fish and I'm embarrassed by stooping to sending the email I sent him. No, I'm too embarrassed to tell you what it said but believe me it was total fish thinking. 

Runbad sucks but it happens! When we're dumb enough in the first place to choose to play MTTs we have to learn to deal with variance and playing mid-stakes in the US just makes it worse. I've hit a rather rough patch of runbad but honestly I've been through a lot worse and come out of it so I'm not sure why this time had such an affect on me as it did. I think it's a combination of a few things, I had a really nasty flu a couple of weeks ago and I'm having trouble getting over it and I've let some silly things bother me that I should have been able to just blow off and deal with. I also have been pretty slack about getting in any decent volume and the combination of those things are a recipe for disaster.

So hopefully now that I've dealt with my attitude and stupid fishy thinking and embarrassed myself royally it's time to move on and win some money. So here's hoping to a much better end of March! 

March is without a doubt my favorite poker month. All of my very best cashes have happen in March. Every March since I started playing has been better than the last one. So I have high hopes and great expectations for this March. Maybe March is always so good for me because I expect it to be. Positive attitude does go a long way but I really have no idea why I've always seemed to do so well every March for the last four. Below are my best March moments.

March 2009 - My first real money cash for $645 on Players Only in the $250K guarantee where I finished 49th out of 909. I was such a huge fish back then. I went through this hand history awhile back and found it hilarious.

March 2010 - My first MTT win on PokerStars in the 1000 cap $4.40 4 max 2K guarantee. I talked about this one a bit in this post. Again I was still quite the fish but not quite as big of one as the previous year. I made some more money this month and made my first withdrawal in early April.

March 2011 - My first 4 figure cash and large MTT final table on PokerStars in the $11r $50K guarantee for $1541. It was all uphill from there and finished the month with my biggest profit ever which I believe was at least $4K. Unfortunately two weeks later Black Friday happened :(

March 2012 - My biggest cash and most profitable month to date. I finished 3rd out of over 2600 runners in the Poker Maximus Event 23 for $6,600 and had a profit of over $8K by the end of the month. 

March 2013 - TBD, stay tuned but I'm really hoping for that first 5 figure cash...

It ain't about how hard ya hit...

It's been awhile since my last blog, quite awhile but I'm going to start trying to update this blog at least every other week. I've always been bad about only blogging when I had something brag about or whine about. Right now I really have neither. 

Things have been better and they've been worse. I just finished my second positive set over the last 600 games (300 games per set). The one before this, set 5, was pretty decent for a low to mid stakes tournament player with over $4K in gross profit. The last one started slow, picked up nicely in the middle and the last week was murder so finishing up at all was an achievement, at least that's what I'm telling myself.  

If I wanted to make a steady income I'd have stuck to cash games I guess but I'd be dead from boredom by now. Choosing to play tournaments is such a dumb decision but I just love them. The variance is disgustingly gross and very hard to deal with. Making consistent money is super hard but the thrill of playing against the blinds and having to push all my chips in the middle and pray somewhat makes up for the downside.

The clip above is for my own inspiration and yours and nothing is more true when it comes to tournament poker: "It ain't about hard ya hit, it's about how hard ya can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward, that's how winning is done" 

Let's go do some winning!