Evolution of a poker player...

I've been playing poker for about 6 years now. The last 3 1/2 years were the more serious years. I never cease to be amazed at the difference in my play and thinking from one year to the next. I might even say just 6 months to the next 6 months I see many changes. 

I've occasionally looked over hand histories from the first few years I played and I couldn't believe I played some hands like I did, not to mention the limping. I've always watched videos and read poker books and even had some coaching from time to time. What's really telling is how I learn from those things now versus how I learned from them in the beginning. In the beginning I tried more to emulate what I was seeing in the videos or reading in the books. At that time if I learned something I took it as an absolute, as in never raise/fold with a 10 to 15bb stack, never limp the small blind with those stacks, don't defend your BB with those stacks etc.

As time went on and I became more experienced and more confident in my play, I learned not to emulate but to take certain parts from what I was learning and mesh that into my own style of play. I learned there were absolutely NO nevers in poker. There is a time and spot for all sorts of unorthodox play. That to do the unexpected will daze and confuse our opponents causing them to make misreads and mistakes. 

Another thing is mental game, people will tell a player who's only been playing for a year or two to read books like The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2 (Jared Tendler) or The Poker Mindset (Matthew Hilger, Ian Taylor) and tell them how much things like tilt, unrealistic expectations, etc. will improve, even tell them those books will rid them of these things. While I'm sure a novice player will get plenty of useful information from those books, until they've played tens of thousands of hands and been through numerous downswings will they really see a drastic change in their mental game. Newer players tilt, rant, mishandle a downswing, are result oriented and don't understand what long term really means. They play more in the here and now so how can anyone expect them not to be results oriented, after all aren't results how society measures success? 

I've been beaten every way imaginable and at every "worse" moment. It's after experiencing these beats over and over and over that we start to become immune to them. Each downswing I've had I've been able to better handle because I know eventually it will end. I remember my first real downswing swing back in 2010 on PokerStars. Of course it happened to hit at the worst possible moment, don't they always? I had been playing in the PokerStars Women's League and at that time I was in the top ten and had a great shot at the number one spot. That spot paid a ladies package to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, including expenses. I think it may have also paid out some bonus money. Well the last month comes and so does my first really bad, and what I thought at the time, prolonged downswing. I still managed a 7th on the leaderboard, out of over 800 women who participated, and earned a decent bonus but had that downswing not hit I had a great shot at the number one spot but as every poker player always says "that's poker". 

I handled that downswing awful, I did everything you shouldn't and thought it would never end. It ended and between the first of March until Black Friday hit I had won over $6K. That was a lot for me back then and was so welcome after what I perceived at the time to be a horrible downswing. Boy was I wrong, I'd give anything if some of my other downswings were that short lived with that little money lost. 

So, the next time your responding to a forum post or talking to a novice player and you want to tell them not to be results oriented or not to post bad beats or to stop whining about those beats, realized they really can't help it. It's all part of their evolution and until they have the experience to understand how negative, and annoying, whining about bad beats or being result oriented is it will really do little good to scold them for being that way. Chances are a very large percentage of now experienced poker players were exactly the same when they were new to the game. 

I've been thinking recently how many players, who showed a good amount of talent, aren't around anymore. My first Skype chat group is pretty much down to two or three people when at one time there were probably at least 15 or more active players in that group. Poker is a tough game and only a very small percentage of players are winning players over the long term. Another small percent can manage to be around break even but the vast majority of players just don't last that long because they can't handle it or get tired of all the losing. It's tough to lose money, it's tough to stick with it through a downswing that lasts for months, so many people just give up. I've wanted to many times. If you search this blog you'll find the evidence of that. 

This blog is actually a testament to my own evolution. Sometimes I go back and read early post and have a big laugh over how dumb my thinking was at the time. In a year or two I'll probably be reading my latest blogs thinking the same thing. 

As a player you learn and you evolve or you'll won't make it for long. Play and play some more, study and study some more. Stick it out and find your leaks and figure out how to fix them. I think the difference in a decent player and a great player is commitment and study, and no playing doesn't take the place of reviewing and studying. You should be reviewing, reading and studying at least 20% of the time you play. If you play 5 hours a day then you should be studying at least an hour. I have to admit this and bankroll management are my greatest nemisis. I just plain don't review and study enough and I suck at taking shots and not practicing proper bankroll management. It's not easy but it's a must. 

Good luck and here's to evolution....

As usual this got way too long, hope you all made it this far. 

Disclaimer: I'm writing this late at night, after playing and super tired so please excuse any errors. 

As a reward for reading all this, here's a video of something that reminds me of many poker players I know... 

Drunk monkeys. 

Choosing to be Victorious!

First thank you to my friend Kelly for posting this on Facebook. By my last bust of my first WSOP trip I was feeling all these negative feelings. I was feeling totally defeated and had decided I could never be good enough to beat this game of poker that I so love. After getting home and having time to rest and reflect I realize that I spent a lot of time "saying" I work hard at poker but do I really?

What is working hard? Is playing a lot working hard? Do I even play a lot, or nearly as much as I should? Do I spend enough time reviewing my game and looking for reasons why I lose?   Do I spend enough time studying and watching videos or reading to learn new ways to approach the game? The answer to most of these things is no, I don't.

So instead of blaming my losses on variance and other things it's time to figure out what I need to do to win. Time to stop talking and start working, really working. Time to realize I do have what it takes to beat this game if I just spend more time playing my A game and a lot less time on auto pilot playing my C game.

We all play our C game at times but the real winners play their A game much more than their C game and as we improve our A game our C game improves as well so that those times when we slip into our C game we are still playing a winning game. Right now my C game is not a winning game. My A game is but I don't play it often enough. I'd venture to say that I play my A game about 30% of the time I play and the rest of time I'm playing my B or C game. Then I complain about running bad when in reality I'm just not playing as well as I'm capable of. 

In Vegas I really did get the bad end of the cards a lot of the time but made plenty of mistakes and some times I just totally spewed. I do the same online and I've gotten to where I play much too loose in the wrong spots. So instead of giving up and feeling defeating I hope to turn this experience into inspiration and use it to get my game where it needs to be and end victoriously. 

Vegas and the WSOP

Well I don't want to spend time blogging about how god awful I ran, even though I did. I bricked everything, the only cash I had was chopping a $125 sit n go for $540. I could do nothing right, constantly ran good into better, rarely got even my best planned bluffs through and just generally couldn't have run much worse. Of course I made some mistakes as well but nothing huge that I could put my finger on. 

I played 21 tournaments and/or sit n go satellites and had only that one small cash. It was discouraging at best and soul wrenching at worse. My game obviously needs lots of work. While I truly don't seem to be able to win flips where it counts most. I truly believe no one can have the bad results I've had for the length of time I've had them and not be doing quite a few things wrong. 

I'm sure at this point my total lack of confidence in my decisions is having a huge impact on my overall game but I also think I just have some leaks I'm not seeing. 

The time has come to step back and re-evaluate everything. I don't know if I'm even capable of beating this game anymore to be honest, at least not without a lot of work and effort. 

Vegas was fun, I got to meet a lot of people I'd only known online and they were all the greatest. We had several fun nights and overall that part of the trip was really fun. 

One of the best things was seeing a friend from online make two really deep runs in two bracelet events, one of which was the Millionaire Maker where he finished 7th for over $211K. He later finished 3rd in a $1k buy in event for another $204K and chopped a daily deepstack for $20K. I can only imagine how he must feel. He's a very good solid player so combining that with the cards just lining up and things going right for him must be an amazing feeling. Maybe some day I'll get to know how that feels, right now it seems so unlikely. 

I got to meet my backer, who is a great guy and I really appreciate his support and backing for this trip more than words can say. He's the best backer anyone could ever ask for and I feel so bad that during the whole time I've been with him I've never been able to make a dime for him. Luckily he understands variance and how truly brutal poker can be. 

What now? I'm going to take a break from everything poker for a few weeks. No watching it, reading it, thinking about it, talking about it. No poker forums, no poker conversation on Skype. Absolutely no poker at all for a minimum of 2 to 4 weeks. I just really need to remove myself from it all together for awhile then come back with a clear head and spend the next few weeks doing nothing but studying and reviewing and maybe getting some coaching. I'd like to find someone who will take some hand histories and really spend the time breaking them down and seeing what I'm doing wrong. Unfortunately most coaches just seem to want spend time going over a hand history or two that they've never previously looked at and this has just done little to really get to the bottom of the issues, whatever they may be. I'd also like to get someone who specialized in live coaching as well, since live truly is a different animal than online. 

Good luck to everyone still in the main event and to everyone still grinding it out online. 

WSOP Cherry Poppin' Time!

Cherry Bomb 

Well as we say here in the south, God willing and the creek don't rise I'm finally going to Vegas and playing in some WSOP events. I'm excited, slightly nervous and just can't wait to get there. I'm trying to play online some but just can't focus too well right now so I think most of my time will be better served studying, reviewing and preparing for the trip. 

Currently sitting here watching the live stream of the casino employees final table.  Last year I was running bad, disappointed that I wasn't going to get to go to Vegas and didn't even start paying attention to anything going on until the week before the main event. This year I'll be watching all the live streams and trying pick up everything I can. 

I'm leaving on June 18th and staying until July 6th. If things go well and I'm winning enough I may try to sat into the main event and stay longer. Unfortunately, I'm doing a lot of moving around and staying in 4 different places but it's all good, I'm just glad it worked out for me to stay that long. 

I'm joining in with some people from CardsChat forum for a team for the Little One for the One Drop. Each team member gets $222 to cover the rake and charity amount and the one who last longer gets the rest of their buy in back. We will all wear CardsChat hoodies and tweet and Facebook to help promote CardsChats. It's a great team and I'm really looking forward to participating with them in this event. 

I'll also be in Vegas for ladies week and I'll be playing a few ladies events, including the ladies WSOP event. I really enjoyed playing the ladies event in Cherokee and I'm really looking forward to playing these. Several women I've know online for a few years will be there and I'm looking forward to meeting them in person. 

I plan on doing some blog updates all along during my WSOP journey. I'm really trying to keep a positive attitude and make the very most of this opportunity without worrying about the end result of each game. I hope to do my best to play each hand and make each decision the best that I know how and just stay patient and focused.

Bottomline I just want to....
(language warning)

Sexism alive, well and thriving... WARNING RANT!

Many women and even men may look at these ads and find it hard to believe people really had these type of attitudes towards women. They may even think things like "thank God it's not like that anymore". Well I have some news for you, it's not that much different now than then. Then men thought of women as inferior and expected them to stay "in their place". While that's bad and wrong at least back then men showed women respect. They didn't call them names, unless it was their wife in an angry moment, and they honestly, for the most part treated the women in their lives with respect. 

I find it amazing that the generation of women who fought the hardest for female equality raised sons who are more sexist and more disrespectful towards women than any generation of men before them. 

Poker is a very male dominated field so when you play a game that is very male dominated you have to expect and tolerate a certain amount of sexism, it's just the price we pay. 

I love how men will say when talking about the WSOP or especially the WSOP Main Event "well how often do you see women get deep in those events". I find the fact that they don't even realize the statistical odds of a woman making a final table in a game where only 15% at best of the field are women ridiculous. The odds for a woman making the final table of the main event are something like 10:1 or worse, yet men use this fact to say women just aren't as good as men at poker. 

Then there is the way women are treated on many poker forums, it's deplorable. I have to say I only run into this issue in off topic/news/gossip areas of forums (which I generally stay out of for this reason) but some of the things I've had said to me and the way some moderators acted like, "if you're gonna post here you gotta live with it" is just inexcusable and totally outrageous. 

Here are a few recent quotes from one forum for your enjoyment: 

• "I'm actually surprised everybody agreed you suck. your vagina has no power here, OP. a few pics might change the score tho."
• "skipped last post, woman again. sigh, guess i'll have to X thread"
• "You should just go back to Facebooking and building your Pinterest wall."
• "skipped dixis post because i know she is a woman. someone let me know when it has been removed and the thread is safe again"

This was all in response to a comment I made regarding Game of Thrones which was in no way a spoiler, those idiots wouldn't know a spoiler if it jumped up and bit them in the ass. 

Even when some guys are buying action from women they are more willing to invest in ladies events versus mixed field events.

Sorry it's just all piled up on me lately and I'm likely taking exception to things that are not meant the way they come across but this is the 21st century and you'd think things would actually be different for women by now, unfortunately while sexism may be wearing a new face it's still there. 

It's March Again...

Well with the exception of last year since 2009 March has always been my best poker month of the year. Last year it was one of my worst, if not my very worst month of the year. Here is a recap of all my Marches since I started playing.

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 - Down -$3400 and biggest cash the entire month was only $730. I only made 8 final tables and out of those only 3 were tops 3s and they were all 3rds. 

So.....

March 2014 - Here's to hoping the March rungood returns

It's so time for that long overdue 5 figure cash! In all honestly though there is no DUE in poker. It is what it is and the cards fall as they fall, I'm just hoping they fall a little better for me this March than last. 

I know my mental state is much better than it was last March. I didn't even realize it at the time but I was in a pretty bad frame of mind. I wasn't really happy with a lot of things at that time and I'm sure it had an affect on my play. 

It's so different now and my attitude in general is so different. I know when we choose to play this game we are going to lose a large majority of the time. I now have a great backer who seems to really care about his horses and not just how much money they can make for him. I really want to win and improve. I still have tons to work on especially mental game wise but things are coming together well. 

Good luck to all, let's make this a great month. 

Choosing to Win!

I am in charge of whether I win or lose at poker, 

and at life for that matter, me and only me. 

I can't control the cards, only the decisions I make.

I choose to stay positive and I choose to make good decisions. 

The road of negativity, frustration and blame is a dead-end. 

I will turn around and make winning happen!

Making this change from negativity to staying positive isn't easy and it takes constant work. I've had a pretty good 3 weeks since the coaching sessions and I've had 26 cashes. I've made 9 final tables and 5 were top 3 finishes and one of those was my first win in awhile. It felt so good to win one but for the first time in a long time I think had I finished 2nd instead of 1st I would have been okay with it. I played well, made good decisions and that is all I can do. As I say above the way the cards fall are out of our control. 

I'm getting much less frustrated late game and I'm letting the action happen as it will instead of trying to push it. I've stopped feeling like I have win every big pot and when beats happen and I lose a large chunk on my stack instead of going on major tilt I just get to work to try and build my stack back. Of course it doesn't always happen and when it doesn't I move on. 

A couple of things the guy I had the coaching sessions with said that have really stuck with me is 1. When we choose to play tournament poker we have to accept that most nights we go to bed a loser. 2. You know who cares about your bad beats? NO ONE! 3. It's all about choices, we choose to make the right decisions and play well or we don't, we choose to stay focused or we don't. 

I learned that I have nothing to prove to anyone and I don't care what anyone thinks of my game, except my backer of course, how I play is no one's business but mine. The goal is to play winning poker and how I manage it is my business and my business only! 

Tonight I saw a really good player make what at the time I considered a really bad play. I mentioned this play to some people in chat and they agreed it did sound like a bad play. This play was against me and he hit his card and because of the SPR I had to pay him off when he jammed the flop over my c-bet. So the play, even though it seemed bad and may not be a play one should make that often and it may actually be a losing play over a large sample, it got him doubled up. The more I talked about it the more I understood that just because the majority of players and even poker theory consider something fundamentally wrong doesn't mean you can't ever do it. With the small edge we have sometimes doing the most unexpected awards the greatest result. 

So all that said.....

Life is good today!