Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

Today was the day we got out on our own. We got a hotel room at the monte carlo because we couldn’t manage to another night in the tiny one bedroom with 4 people. It was just getting to the point that it was completely crazy. So now we have our own room for a pretty good price. We have our own pool which is pretty nice and actually that’s what we are gonna do after i finish blogging this.

Anyways, we get here and chill for a little bit. We got over to the rio and watch Ryan D’Angelo (g0lfa) take 3rd place in the 2k nl event. That’s fuckin awesome for him and i feel kinda bad since he didn’t get a bracelet and was definitely in a place to get one. He was chip leader with 5 people left but just couldn’t keep flipping good. Whatever, he still got 330k which is prolly enough to play poker for some time. I had never met the kid only heard of him so i’m sure he was pretty confused when i started talking to him and his buddies during a break in one of the hands. Anyways, me and vizer then proceeded to eat dinner at the slowest shittiest little restaurant ever. Its not typical that i leave a 10% tip but this girl definitely deserved it. She didn’t care for us at all. She wasn’t even refilling our water. So we head outta there and start trying to piece together the night.

We decide we are gonna play a sess at our hotel’s poker room. We get there and i start an interest list for 2/5nl and sit down at 1/2nl. Sure enough, I end up making about $150 at 1/2 after just brutally overbetting a river with a flush and getting the donk to call me. I love overbetting calling stations, it pays so well live. The 2/5nl game is starting up which is a first. I’ve been putting my name on a few interest lists in small casinos and haven’t managed to get an interest list full yet. So i take my 350 and go sit at that table. I buyin up to 500 and here we go. Its alot of young danish guys. I think ‘this can’t be good’. However, i notice these danish guys are getting bombed. They are playing 2/5 and pregaming before going out! Awesome. I start talking to them and they are down for the whole series and play 10/25nl online. Well fuck. They are creating so much action that i can’t very well leave though. They are just shoving everything around. I managed to double up right off the bat with 56cc. I opened to 15 from the hijack and get 2 callers from the blinds. The flop Kc63c so i’m happy obviously. It checks to me and i bet $45. I get pretty much insta check raised to $115 by one of the danish guys. At this point i figure him for likely a king. I shove over top of that bet, which is a pretty big overbet but i didn’t see too many other options as i was definitely getting it allin on the flop. The looks at me and calls. He tables AA. Well shit, he slowplayed the hell outta me, but we are flipping. The 9c drops on the turn and hes drawing dead. Ship the G. I then proceed to slowly and methodically over the next hour give it all back. I ended up breaking even on the 500nl sess, which was frustrating considering if i had made a real hand i was basically bound to double up.

So i cash out after i kinda tilted. I look over at vizer and he’s amassed about $550 in that 1/2 game. He’s pretty much running over the thing. I tell him that i’m ready to go. We were gonna go meet princessdonk and a few cardrunners guys and ride the roller coaster. He says he wants to stay a little bit longer and bust some guy. Well he should be knowing that targetting one guy at a poker game will get you in trouble. But vizer is just donk so he doesn’t know that i’m sure.

Anyways, i go kill some time and sit at a blackjack table. The table looks pretty depressed so i am kind of expecting to finally book a loss on the table games. I buyin with 100. First off, playing table games by yourself makes you feel like a degenerate so i really really didn’t like it. Anyways, i start betting and of course the table turns around. I run so good. I made a quick $100 there and left as i didn’t want to give any back. The rest of the table did pretty good while i was there as well. I go back to vizer and tell him to cash. He does so and grabs his 11th rum and coke. Oh did i mention, that i’m completely bombed while all of this is happening. I got tanked at the 2/5 table.

We walk over to the new york new york to go meet pdonk and ride the roller coaster. Sure enough we get there about 10 minutes after the ride closed. Shit. We then proceed to walk from casino to casino trying to find a table that we could play exclusively and get drunk at. We have no luck as it is late on a sunday and the tables are going crazy. Pdonk and friends decide they are tired and peace out. Me and vizer decide its time to play more poker before bed. Its roughly 2am at this point.

We go back to the monte carlo. We sit down at a 1/2nl table and start spreading the 1/2plo seed. There are a surprisingly high number of people who wanted to play the game. Awesome. So we get floor to move all the people that didn’t want to play and get the players who did over. We get about an 8 handed game of plo and are off. I was sitting with about 200 flat when i started plo. Me and vizer proceed to absolutely rape the game. PLO is surprisingly easy to kill when you are playing guys who have no idea how to play. this is probably why it will never catch on like holdem. The shittiest players can’t even really draw well because they don’t usually draw to the nuts, and just get run over. I end up felting like 3 of the players at the table and shipping about $800 in the process. Vizer i think made $200. Still a pretty good idea to get players who play holdem to go play PLO.

Anyways, we are off to the pool. Peace.

Vizer fondles kittens but his day 3 blog is what i wish to say.

So check it out.

Welp day 3 was a doozy.

We did nothing til 5pm as we were all hungover as shit. So we ended up pulling our life together and hitting the strip around 6. We loaded into billy’s shitty car. Let me know i don’t mind a shitty car. Its standard with people our age but his car doesn’t have air conditioning and we are in vegas. We got stuck in vegas traffic on the way into the strip and god damn we were literally 4 guys cooking in a civic. I am ready to take a damn cab from now on. Seriously its so worth it. Its like 110 degrees out, i need air conditioning. Anyways we finally got there tho.

We went to ceasar’s palace first, which is a pimp place. Me and vizer saw the frozen drink bar and were like ‘fuck yeah’ I got a frozen marguarita and it was the shit especially after sitting in a damn car that might as well be called the oven. We drank those and walked around the courtyard out in front of the place. We walked into the poker room and it was packed. We decided not to play there and walked over to harrah’s. We all sit down and play cash games there, i was actually in the mood to play 2/5nl but that would soon change. I sit down and immediately already don’t like my table. The people are shitty, like really shitty. I hate playing with people who have no idea what they are doing let alone what they should be doing. I manage to build a few nice pots with straight flush draws and completely blank twice. Well fuck. I am not in the mood to play this table. I text vizer and say we should go play some table games. He seems for it. I found out his table was playing huge and he wasn’t a huge fan of it either. He said his game was the reg game and it was like 1/2/4/8nl haha. That’s right, a double straddle the whole time!

Anyways we sit down at the blackjack table and i’m ready to get ripped. A little history about me and blackjack, i am the worst blackjack player on the planet! period. But last night was different. I was hitting everything. Me and vizer proceeded to go completely lights out at that table! We both made close to $400 at a $10 table! We played for about 3 hours and made off like bandits! So we were obviously in a great mood at that point. We decided we were in the mood to play poker again. I say lets go check out the Wynn. So we go play at the wynn.

First the wynn is a ballin casino and the poker room is GREAT! I found my favorite place to play. Its 1/3 game but they give you $3 chips which is wild. So I wasn’t betting numbers or seeing the amounts. I was just seeing units the whole time similar to the way i play online. It was awesome. The game was amazing too. The players were good! Very good. I love that kind of play. I am better than good players so i am never worried about playing with them. I managed to win about $400 and shipped some big pots. The wild thing about their poker room is that there is no cap on the no-limit games. So I could have bought in for 35k if i had felt like it. Anyways, i set some traps and got paid. Notably, i got owned by a girl getting 2 streets of value from me with Q high. I was staggered that she showed up with that hand. We are going out with AceCR and PDonk tonight, and getting some dinner and hitting mandalay bay. So I will have another report for you guys tomorrow.

oh and i got my plane ticket moved back to leave a day later so i can go to the cardrunners party on the 2nd.

3 hours of sleep. Standard in vegas. Today, i’ve woken up the second time after 3 hours sleep and it looks like we are up for good. I love vegas but the red bull is gonna be my friend.

So yesterday We met up with Vanessa (PrincessDonk) and Luke (Fold2cash), and luke gave us the tour of his place and the typical vegas tour. It was actually pretty awesome and luke couldn’t have been cooler with 3 people he had never met before. I’m sure he gets to give it like 3 times a week tho as he actually lives here and is a popular guy online. We started at his place, which is just pimpin. He’s got a pretty sick view of the city and kinda makes me wanna move to vegas (which i would never actually do). We went to lunch at a pretty good asian bistro and i actually tried a ton of stuff i’d never tried and was being really adenturous with the food. They took us to firefly and it was delicious.

We went to the rio next. It was time for me to see the world series! Awesome. It is awesome and to make things better, it was the 50k HORSE event. The tables were just sick!! They had all the TV pros which i’m hardly one to get starstruck but it was a pretty awesome time seeing all those guys. Anyways, after we did that we called it a tour and split ways.

We came back home and killed some time. We then met back up for dinner at a thai restaurant. It was a pretty under the radar sketch looking restaruant but apparently it was amazing. It was good. I personally have never had thai food before but this food was great. I tried everything at the table even the shrimp in the crazy green sauce. So for no base in thai food, that was the best thai i’ve ever had haha.

We then picked vizer up and headed off to the casino. We chose the paris this time. they have a small poker room and we were rolling 4 deep. The table is full but wait there’s a waiting list. Fire up a new table. This is my shit. I love when I get to mold a table myself. I personally get to show everyone the right table raise size and keep everyone in check. I typically like to let everyone at the table know that i know what i’m doing so they will follow what i’m doin. There are so many more benefits to that way than playing dumb in my opinion.

I can kill an internet style game if i get the casino donks to play within those general rules and i do. I manage to get the standard up to $10 at tops. The game wasn’t seeing 7 people limping but in the first hand 3 of the donks just let themselves known. They get in a big allin pot and none of them played the hand well. This is good cause all 4 of us need action. We all played pretty well minus billy (coastalpgm) making 2 or 3 poor plays against a calling station. I ended up making $200 even but should have easily made more. I was up $400 at one point but went card dead for about the last 2 hours of the table. 5am rolls around and the table shuts down (which is ridiculous but that’s how the paris is). Vizer ended up being the big winner at the table and made over $350 which was good. I like watching us win.

Anyways, that’s basically the end of it. Another good night.

Onto day 3!

Alright so I get on the plane sick yesterday. I started feeling a little better before i got the airport but when i got on the plane and was seated next to a lovely fat couple, i started feeling the sweats. Fuck. Luckily, it passed in about an hour and i didn’t manage to puke or anything. I actually feel great today with a little sore throat.

Ok enough about how my health is, cause hoenstly who gives a shit. I got the vegas and my boy picks me up from the airport. I hadn’t seen billy in ages since like my last AC trip 3 years ago. I throw my shit in his car and we are off. He is clearly already a little buzzed and i’m pumped to see what his place is like. We get to his place and to be honest its not what i was expecting. I was expecting him to be kinda ballin out but its more the opposite. Its definitely not terrible but I actually considering getting my own hotel down here cuase its plain not big enough for me and them, let alone vizer when he gets here. I spoke with one of my friends princessdonk (whose blog you can find to the right here). She is here in vegas staying at a balla condo with her bf. She said me and vizer would likely be fine to crash there if we were cool with sharin a bed.  That’s a monster upgrade compared to what i’m lookin at in this place. There place is so ridiculously nice too. I think i’m going to find a way to do their place or get my own hotel rooms because i think it will be well worth it to not have to cram 4 people to a tiny 1 bed place. Its good for them, but taking on 2 more people is likely too much for their place and i want to be big pimpin while i’m here in vegas. So that will likely work itself out or i will work it out. But staying here the whole trip isn’t an option in my book.

So lets stop ripping on my buddies place.

We got ripped last night and hit up the flamingo as i guess they have really good drink service. They were spreading 1/2nl only basically. I sat down at a table with 300 and was ready to go! First hand i get dealt 33. I think well this is good. I open to $8 which sucks because i have no idea what the standard open at the table is. I get called by 2 players and the blinds fold. I must not be far off i think. This is good. For those that have never played 1/2 live, a $20 standard open isn’t ridiculous. I was very pleased with the table once i started talking. It sounded like i had 4 internet players at my table. I love this table i thought. I know i’m better than any internet players who are gonna be play 1/2 at the flamingo. I get dealt AA about 3rd orbit. 2 limpers and i make it 11. I get called by the one older donk at the table. This guy is the manly man type. Kinda looked like gus hansen with tattoos, and he wasn’t gonna be pushed around. We see the flop headsup. Flop comes Qc Th 4c. Perfect flop i think. That hits his range pretty good without giving him the nuts. he checks and i bet $20. He snap calls. Turn comes 4d. He leads me $30. Well that’s interesting i thought. That’s too big for a flush draw lead i think. I start to put him around the Q or a flush draw. I raise as i know he doens’t have be beat here. I raise him to $85. He thinks and calls. Well that’s interesting. Now no club. River is a 6c. Well shit i think. He is gonna lead allin i think. He thinks juggles his chips and checks. Well now i go into the tank. He’s not the kinda player who would set a trap here with a flush. He’s more the type of player who gets a hard-on from making me fold on the river. I decide he doesn’t have a flush and then decide what bet is the right value bet. I have about 160 left at this point. I start to consider just throwing in 100 even and watchin him call then i realized if he raised i was commited and if he called he would likely call my last 60. I then decide i want to shove. I shove allin and the guy gets a look on his face like ‘wtf are you doing’. Oh i like this line. This looks like a bluff i think. He thinks for about a minute and stares me down, he then announces ‘i call’. At this point, i’m pretty sure i have him. I annouce ‘aces up’ and he flips his hand and doesn’t say anything. They are black… SHIT i think. The dealer then mucks his hand and starts handing me the pot. Whoa, what was that blur, wtf hand did he do that with. It was the JT of spades. Wow. I owned this guy. He insta-rebought but the table broke about 10 minutes later. I really loved that value bet in that game and really glad i trusted my read of him not having a flush.

On the new table, the first hand was the only one of notice. I move to the new table with close to $600, and there is one guy who is not happy about it. He is asking why i’m allowed to buyin higher and i should go cash down to $300 as its not fair. The dealer tells him to fuck off but he’s clearly not happy and thinks i’m gonna bully the table. I’m not really one to break people’s hearts and not live up to my look. UTG raises to 7, UTG+1 calls. I look down at AQcc. I decide to repop as to not have 9 people see the flop and get some info. I raise to $25. Angry insta calls as if to tell me ‘you are bullyin me, younggun!’. The other to players call and everyone else folds. Flop comes a beautiful Qd 4c 6s. ‘This is gonna be a nice hand to really set my image for the rest of the table’ i think. Both players check to me and i make it $50. Its a little small but the board isn’t exactly scary so i want to keep one player around with worse and give people room to make plays. Before i even get the $50 in, the angry guy announces he’s allin and does it with an angry ‘fuck you’ kinda tone. The other two players fold and i tell the dealer to start counting. I know what that tone means. It means he’s trying to look strong but is actually weak. I am not folding and am just waiting for the number. ‘$200 even sir’. I shove in 2 stacks of reds and he isn’t happy. I love it. He says ‘you got a set of queens’ and i say ‘no, you got a set of 4’s’ and he responds ‘no’. I got him then. No set, i own him. He doesn’t flip up his hand. I keep mine hidden as well. Turn is an 8d and River is an As. Oh ship it i think, I have top 2 and that’s gotta be good. I flip it up just glowing thinking i just shipped a monster. He quietly flips up 57os. I smile and look at the dealer to hand the pot my way. WHOA?! the 57os!? whoa, that’s the nuts. It hits me. This guy wins. Whoa, that’s awful. Guy ships the pot and says ‘that should teach you to bully’. i think ‘yeah that’s what that just taught me’ lol. I was back to even after that hand.

Anyways, i ended up playing against the drunkest group of donks ever the rest of the night and couldn’t manage to pick up a hand and managed to bluff off $300 more in random places and ran into one set agianst my KK (the only other good hand i had all day). So shitty day but whatever, there will be more and to by only down $300 ain’t a bad place to be. Lets hope i can make it back in one pot today.

I’m on my way to meet princessdonk at her place and go grab some lunch. Vizer gets here at 10 and who knows what else happens. Until Day 2.

If you had the slider as much as i did, check out this link and hidden feature within Full Tilt. It makes a betpot script worthless and also can make your bet sizing like pokerstars’ bet slider… Enjoy. Also, Please heed the warning about creating registry keys. If you don’t know what you are doing, please feel free to ask me and i can give you a little insight, or you can just google ‘edit a registry’. Basically you will be creating 3 new ‘d_word’ registries.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=192941

One of our programmers managed to sneak a few changes to the bet slider into this most recent update. We didn’t have time to make nice options out of it, but if you’d like to try it out, instructions are below.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: These instructions will be suggesting registry changes. If you don’t know what you’re doing you can seriously mess up your system. My suggestion is don’t do the below unless you’re confident it won’t melt your computer and/or kill your dog.

Here are his notes:

“To activate the mouse wheel / bet slider functionality (where you can control the bet slider with your mouse wheel):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Full Tilt Poker\TableView\

REG_DWORD SliderWheel 1

I have also implemented 3 different slider algorithms for deciding how to map a bet amount to a slider position, and vice versa:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Full Tilt Poker\TableView\

REG_DWORD SliderMode {0,1,2}

SliderMode = 0, is the “classic” mode, i.e. the same old mapping. This divides the slider in two equal halves with linear interpolation on each half around the pot-size as fulcrum. Lame.

SliderMode = 1 is a pure linear slider from 0% = min to 100% = max. This is what most sites use.

SliderMode = 2 is my favored algorithm. It is borrowing the same logic as the slider algorithm from Poker Academy Pro. It uses a logarithmic scale, so that moving the slider at the start is less sensitive, but as you move it towards 100%, the amount increases exponentially.

And finally:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Full Tilt Poker\TableView\

REG_DWORD SliderClick 1

In the regular slider, clicking anywhere on the slider instantly moves the slider nub to the spot clicked. With SliderClick active, clicking to the right of the nub increments the amount by a big blind, and clicking on the slider to the left of the nub decrements the amount. Clicking and dragging the nub still works as before.”

So give the various options a try and let us know which you like. It’s likely we’ll just offer all possibilities as options anyway, but some idea of what you guys prefer would help us choose what the default settings should be.

The setting is Friday night. Me and about 8 of my friends get all dressed up and go out to one of the new clubs in charlotte. We decide that we will get a table for $400. We get a bottle of goose and makers for that. Not such a bad deal. We obviously kill both of these and decide we aren’t finished yet. So we are getting ripped. My buddy orders a $400 bottle of champagne (which i’m pretty sure he thought was $80). We kill that and tell them to bring out another bottle of goose. All in all, the final tab ended up being $1000 and I had one of the best nights of my life. It was so fun being behind the DJ both waving up girls to our booth. We also had our own personal bartender girl that would sit at our table and pour us drinks. This was pretty awesome too! Regardless, we were incredibly balla for the first time and i had a good time. I will likely be doing more of the same stupid shit in vegas.

I have been getting back into the 2/4 scene and really focusing on my game. I am concentrating and my edge over my opponents and i think its really starting to show. I have a new aura of confidence on the table making some fantastic plays that i’m pretty sure have my villains wondering what’s happening. I am up around 4k in the last 2 days. Its been pretty nice! That puts my month so far at around 9k in profit. I am running 4bb/100 at 2/4 and 6bb/100 at 1/2. Overall a pretty good month but i haven’t put in that many hands. Close to 30k and that’s about it. I’m not gonna have alot more time for playing either. I am going to vegas in 2 days and will be there til the end of the month so likely i will not break the 10k mark this month. No biggy tho.

The Being sick portion of this blog title is not to be confused with the fact that i’m sick on the table. I’m actually sick! I went to bed last night feeling pretty shitty and woke up in the middle of the night to a whopping 101 degree temperature. There’s very little more lame than a fever. The sweats and the chills are just terrible. I also had a cough which pretty much kept me from sleeping well at all. And by sleeping well, i of course mean for more than 10 minutes at a time. I woke up this morning and called out of work as i would have been sent home if i tried to go in anyways. My boss would have heard me coughing and told me to get outta there. Anyways, i really can’t afford to take anymore days off, so i’m gonna try to take some more medicine and fight it off tomorrow. Hopefully i don’t get sent home and hopefully i’m well by wednesday when i’m gonna be in vegas just polluting my body for a week!

Alright lets cut these depressing sounding/thought provoking garbage posts and go move onto something a little more fun for today. I want to get on the topic of Vegas. I am very pumped about going down. Basically my plan is to stay for a week and party a lot. I obviously plan to some gambling.
I’ve been to Vegas twice before. The first time i went was with my dad. We went when i was 21. I played poker while i was there then. I was only a 50nl player and a recreational one at that time. I played 1/2nl like i had done countless times in atlantic city before. I ended up paying for the trip and then some from poker. I put in a 15 hour session at the Paris’ new poker room (not so new anymore). I had a $1600 session there which was huge back then. I left that session only because I had to GET on the plane! I literally walked back the bellagio, packed my bags and left for the airport. I crashed so hard at the airport it was ridiculous. My dad like couldn’t wake me up to get on the plane and i was so drowsy, i don’t even remember leaving the las vegas airport before we were back in Maryland.
The second trip was the fun trip. I went with 3 of my very good friends. Blackjack was my nemesis on that trip. My friends didn’t really play poker, and when they did they weren’t winning so i was forced to go hang out with them at the blackjack tables. I ended up still up on the trip but that’s only due to a big session in poker in the beginning in which i actually stacked one of my friends in the first night we were there. He got pissed and left to gamble and so therefore i left cause i really hate being that guy who is gambling while his friends are having fun. We went to a show, and generally had a fantastic time seeing the sights of Vegas.
So going into this trip, i’ve seen everything that Vegas has to offer. I’ve never played above 1/2 live either. I am going to be playing 2/5 in vegas i believe. I will definitely being giving it a number of shots. I might even sit a 5/10 game if all goes good. I am not quite sure yet where i will be playing, Its basically open to whatever i want as we aren’t staying in a casino/hotel. We are going to be tripping to vegas. I think i’ll like give the bellagio 2/5, the wynn 1/3, and the rio’s poker room a shot. I really want to see what all these games. I know the 2/5 at bellagio will be awful as its the cheapest game the casino offers at no limit. And i hear the wynn’s game turns into deep stacked awesomeness. The rio poker room is just gonna be cool and i love that casino.
Going to vegas in a pretty baller style this time will be something really fun. My poker bankroll is finally big enough for me to actually play the games that are out there, so i will likely play a very good style and i’m far better than i’ve ever been in the past. Donks in vegas are terrible, so i will hopefully not run terribly and making a ton. I am so pumped about doing the damn vegas thing again. I love the city and the fact that there are alot of poker friends, who i have never actually met, that will be down there. That will be awesome too. I love meeting new people, and throwing down with good players should be a fun new experience from having my donkey friends ask me ‘why i don’t buy them all shots and pick up their tabs cause i won money the night before’. If you are gonna be in vegas that week, or wanna come out for the week and party ‘ringer’ style, you definitely should, we are gonna have a blast all week.
That should end the streak of those kind of depressing posts. I went back and read my blog, and it sounds like i’m a whiny girl in the middle of a 20 buyin downswing. I’m running fantastic, and have no idea why I am coming off as so whiny. I hate reading blogs about people’s shitty poker existences. I guess i just like considering the possibilities while everything is going good, before everything goes bad.
I played 1/2 last night, due to the 2/4 tables being pretty bad. Seriously, there’s so many regs on those tables these days, we need some new blood. It looks like 2 of the donkeys have run for the hills and done something else which sucks. One who i will call dino21 i haven’t seen in ages. He was the lowest variance player to beat up on ever, and would literally just take your abuse and never attack back. And one player who i will call bajunk, i haven’t seen in awhile and he use to be on the tables all the time. Both of these players are a pretty big loss imo. I hope the US lifts its stupid shit on the poker games soon, cause i think the good higher stakes games, are starting to dry up and are just such a grind nowadays.
God and even that paragraph sounds whiny! haha. Alright i’m done typing. I made a whopping $67 last night after making one of the dumbest donations ever to a cat by the name of fresh_spade with no underscore (i’ve recently come to the understanding that regs love to google their own name, so i don’t want the kid to see me calling him a donk.) That’s right i’m talking shit behind his back… if you see him at the table tell him we are beefin.
Done.

If you have been following my lifestyle, up to this point you likely haven’t been doing it since i was beating 100nl at the beginning of this year. Here’s a little history on the ‘Pro Considerations’. In February, I decided that i would go professional after running math and weighing my options. I said that in 6 months, i would go professional. I setup requirements before i went professional. I will fish out the Cardrunners post as soon as i get home and quote it here. Basically here were my requirements:

1. Have a bankroll that had 60 buyins for 200nl
2. Have a year’s salary in the bank
3. Have the blessings of my parents

Well i’m proud to say, i have all of these and then some. I have succeeded previous to my goal date. I still like my job. I still love poker after logging more hands over the last 6 months. I still am a very substantial winner. I never dreamed i’d be playing 2/4 by April this year but it happened. I have a bankroll more than double what i thought it would be when i went pro. I’m proud to say I can quit my job today, and comfortably play poker. I had a revelation though. I need to buy a house. It will be absolutely impossible to buy a house after quitting my job and going pro.

As a matter of fact, i basically won’t be able to get a loan ever again. I keep my credit very solid, and i will likely be able to find someone willing to finance a car in the future for me but a mortgage is an entirely different scenario.

With all this in mind, I’m aborting my August date. I’m not aborting it because i didn’t meet my goals. I’m so glad i was able to do that. I am making my new date March 2009. My current lease runs out in February of 2009. I will have a house purchased by then. I will then pay monthly payments into my equity rather than a blackhole called renting. I plan on bring pro for a long time so I want to make sure that i have a place before i’m able to pay for my next house with duffle bags of cash (my true dream).

Same rules apply. I only have to make my down-payment and closing costs back, so i will likely have more than a year’s expense’s in the bank as well as a nice bankroll. I will keep working at my job, i will keep making a good engineering salary as well as all my poker winnings.

This is my plan. I honestly am one of those people who hates editting longterm plans i make, but I think this one only makes sense. Why wouldn’t i just wait for another 6 months and have no worries at all? So there’s that. I’m now going pro in March 2009, and who knows where I’ll be then in poker. I also have time to adequately prepare for my 401k, and benefits since that’s one thing i was going to just wing a month before I quit.

Also, I went out last night for one of my friend’s b-day’s last night. We went to Mac’s BBQ in charlotte. It is honestly just fantastic. It is a biker bar and the bbq is deadly good. Its an awesome atmosphere with everyone from grudgy bikers to wachovia bankers in suit and ties. We had about 5 beers so obviously i was feeling toasty. I got home and decided i wanted to play a little poker. I played some 1/2 as i was toasty and do not like to try to out think players when i’m drunk (or remotely close).

I actually felt like a celebrity at the tables today! There were 4 people who said hello at the tables and recognized me, not just from the blog but also from Cardrunners. I always love meeting poker people, so if you read this and i sit down at your table, feel free to say hello.

I ended up making a little under $600 on the session and played pretty well minus like 3 crazy plays, 2 of which turned out terribly. Not a bad result though.

VEGAS IN 1 WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO PUMPED ABOUT THIS I’m meeting vizer02 out there and we are likely going to be getting blasted often and playing poker a little (likely alot haha). If you are gonna be out there, please feel free to let me know.

Let me start this by saying mental control is the most important thing to me to be a winner. If you want to be a winner at hold’em and be a constant winner with very few losing times, you have to be able to understand how your mind works under stress. I do very poorly with a losing session and amazing with a winning one.

I personally get far more results oriented than i really should. I know I do. I always break the cardinal law of not looking at my account balance while i play. Well I seem to be unable to stop myself from doing it. Its a problem but i’m aware I have the problem. I also seem to play better when my account reads 29,995 than when my account balance reads 30,036. For some reason mentally there is a threshold there. Once i’m above that 30000 number, i don’t want to see the number go below that. This is all just terrible poker. Just awful. I can’t continue doing this.

I’m sure i’m not the only person who is this way. I’m actually convinced this is the sole reason there is a ‘cashout curse’ for most players. The players sees a lower number and subconsciously plays a different style to try to compensate for the lost money. That style tends to dictate the type of player someone is. I personally find myself playing a number nittier style, trying only to get 100bb in with the nuts or damn close. I know some players who seem to fly off the handle a bit and try to pick up too many pots. Again, I understand how my brain functions.

I play 200nl completely worry free. I kill 200nl. I have 150+ buyins for that game and am completely comfortable with the meta-game there. For some reason having the 75 buyins for 400nl makes me nervous. This doesn’t make any sense for me. I personally would view going below 27500 as a complete failure. WHY?! Why is a 7 buyin swing failure and a complete determent to my mindset? This is the question i don’t understand. I could play 400nl perfectly with 14k but not with 30k? It makes no sense. The only logical answer i can come up with is that I didn’t have anything to lose back then. I now feel like i have something to prove. I feel like i need to set the bar for a 10k month every month.

When i was scaling the ranks, i was playing fantastic poker. I was constantly filled with positive reenforcement because i was winning so much and was getting so little resistance from players. I would have moved up to 1knl if I hadn’t decided I wanted to go pro… i decided i was going to go pro and started withdrawing 5k every time i hit 35k. This has torn apart my mind. I think I have inadvertantly created a barrier and put myself in a category. That stand-still and categorizing myself as a 400nl player has really made me lose vision. I am no longer thinking about making a move to 1000k nl.

I know this post sounds like i’ve had a horrible downswing. I absolutely have not. I have had a great month so far and am right on schedule to make another 10k this month. My question is… at what cost? I’ve done a number on myself mentally. I haven’t taken that 7 buyin downswing i was talking about but if i did, i would likely be mentally devastated for no good reason. I could handle the swings before and now that i’m thinking about becoming pro, I can’t? wtf.

I need to get myself to that place i was before. I found myself dropping to 200nl to get my bearings after a 1k loss the other day. I love playing 200nl because i make money. There is however, no challenge there. There’s no player constantly contesting my opens. I think getting comfortable is the only way to make yourself a winning poker player. I simply don’t understand why my comfort zone is 200nl. This is more a post for replys, for the people who have caught themselves in this thought process and come up with a way to battle it. I am going to have to battle it many times when i become professional so is dropping stakes really the way to make myself comfy again?

OK. On a completely different note, I am doing well this month. I have still been running poorly at 2/4. I have run at about 3bb/100 this month but that’s all mainly due to one big winning session. All my profit but $500 came from that winning session. I have made a good amount playing 600nl and run very well at 200nl. My hourly rate at 200nl is higher than my rate at 400nl however. The question is do i stay at 400nl to get better or do i stay at 200nl to make more money? Can i do both? Should i do both?

I know this blog is very ominous and sounds like I’m depressed. I’m really not. I’m in a great place mentally, but i am simply recognizing where i go mentally when i lose and what’s been going through my head recently. I am a rock mentally but that’s because i am too conservative. I don’t take shots I don’t think i’m god’s gift to poker. This is good and bad imo. Anyways, this one is pretty open ended so all your trollers make a comment if you got any nice words of wisdom or amazing one liners on the subject. Til next time later guys.