Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

Alright, so i’ve been trying to be a healthier person. I was never a particularly unhealthy person but i always just used my metabolism to keep my thin in high school and never had gone to the gym.

I went through college with the same mentality til about my first senior year and realized i had put on like 20 lbs from when i first got to college. I mean granted i was 150 and 6′2″ when i got to college so its not like i’m big or anything. Anyways, i’ve gone through spurts at the gyms. When i first got to charlotte, i would go every day basically and was in really good shape for awhile and now have fallen back into the ‘don’t go, lets play poker instead’ category. I only have so many hours in the day, so 9 for work, 1 for the gym, 2 for poker, leaves about enough time to sleep and do it again.

I don’t mind that during the week tho. I also have stuck with a new year’s resolution i created at the beginning of the year, NO FAST FOOD. I’ve really done a great job sticking to that one, minus cheating like twice in vegas and once on a road trip when there were no other options. I am being more concious of what i eat which i never use to be. I now need to go to the gym at least 15 hours a month.

I know myself pretty well, and i know i won’t stick with something unless i have something to lose. I also couldn’t find anyone to take the size of bet that would actually keep me sticking to it. I decided i will give my roommate $1500 at the beginning of august. She will get it cash. She will keep it in her room and whenever i go to the gym, i get $100 back. At the end of the month, whatever is left she gets to keep.

Ideally, she doesn’t keep any of it. I don’t think i will actually be able to let myself not follow through on this one. Anyways, it will be in effect til february, hopefully, that’s enough time for the gym to actually stick as a habit again. My target is to be like 15 lbs lighter and more muscular so it shouldn’t be too hard in that time. Later guys.

This is kinda something i got into a conversation with one of my friends about last night. I have also had a number of people write to me on the subject of being happy and playing poker professionally. I appreciate everyone taking the time to write their thoughts on playing a game for a living.

I realized yesterday that i’m the happiest i’ve ever been. I pretty much love everything about my life up to this point. I do something I love as a means of income and have a normal job and life on the side. That’s pretty funny to say eh? I have a job as side income. Haha, still getting use to that one.

I have been tossing around this idea of going professional since the beginning of this year. I have posted a number of different tones on the subject, from planning out to a tee, to withdrawing, to holding off. That pretty awesome realization last night was just another chapter in the ‘Eric Burtzlaff going professional’ saga. I realized i’m already a professional poker player. I make more money playing poker than i do at work by 3 fold. I realize i do work because i actually enjoy it. Sure it sucks at times, but its fun and sharpens alot of my skills.

I have a no stress life. I don’t have to sweat if i have a 2k loss one night. I don’t have to sweat the future or anything. That’s a pretty awesome feeling. I am gambling with no gamble. I am as level a guy as there are and i don’t think i want to play games with that. I think i’m going to buy a house, and stop putting a date on going professional. I feel like if the time comes, i will know it. If i get laid off, or if i find myself really dreading coming into work every day, then i think it will be time to get my feet wet in the poker professional world.

I’m 24 and don’t worry about money, that’s a pretty sweet thing. I got an accountant this past week to take care of all my money so to make sure i don’t f-up my taxes. I’m not quite sure what to expect with an accountant, but i’m sure i’ll figure out.

The key to living is the be happy and have as little stress as possible, at least in my eyes. I think i conquered life for the moment with one game i love.

On the poker subject, my month has still been subpar. I have played a little under 20k hands. I am up around 4k on the month, which is very poor. I’m down at 400nl as well which is pretty unheard of. I have managed to play a decent amount of 200nl and made that make money for me. Its kinda ridiculous i keep going back to 200 considering I have 200bi’s for the game but its my comfort zone. Whenever, i feel like I need to iron out some wrinkles i just go back down to the comfort zone. I think there’s something healthy about that but also it keeps me from playing the correct number of hands at 400nl during a month. OHHHH well. I will post my month report in a few days so hopefully i just go on a nasty heater and win 15k in the next 3 days.

Peace.

AHHHHH. Its the worst feeling in poker in my opinion.

Getting outplayed is awful and last night that might as well have been my middle name. You might say but ringer i thought you were better than the typical 2/4 crowd? Spot on guys. I am better than the average 2/4 player because i think ahead of the current street and consider all sorts of crazy options most players don’t consider. I’m not more aggressive, i don’t have the world’s sickest reads and i’m sort of a calling station (but really who isn’t?).

Last night, I do what I do when i don’t want to play. Its what separates the best from the good. I was simply in cruise control yesterday. Blah! I catch myself about every 2 months getting into a rut where i’m calling too much not taking control and falling into my natural tendencies with poker. The natural tendency of just about every poker player, me included, is ‘Make a hand, and then make someone pay you’. At 2/4+, this type of strategy will make you a break even player at best. People don’t spew (as much), your villain’s read your hand better, and make bets that gain better information. Therefore value betting your 33 after 3 streets of checking on the 277J8 board, won’t get a call from AK like it will at 200nl. It will get a call from 99, and get folds from every hand you beat.

I get outplayed when i don’t take control. Its the most important concept in playing position power poker. An example would be me smooth calling a 17/14 raising from the CO with 8Ts from the button. This is a raise or fold. This player will barrel a T high board so often it makes me you incredibly uncomfortable even with top pair. Where a 3-bet gets you where you want to be and lets you control the streets to come in position.

I played 1/2nl where I don’t actually respect anyone’s game except a very elite few, last night and got the thinking after just running over each table i was on. I realized I have too much reverence for the regulars at 2/4. They are people who aren’t doing superhuman things… typically at least. I catch myself just thinking they will always know what i’m doing. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I am quite confident i think deeper about the game than alot of players. Don’t get that confused with the math of the game. I need to get the math down… that’s my one monstrous weakness. I don’t know a thing about calcs at the table. I just play by feel and numbers usually.

I own 1/2 completely and throughly own it. I had 2 set over sets last night and still won $500 at 1/2. This led me to thinking about what the difference between 2/4 and 1/2 really is. I’m still not quite sure… There’s more positionally aware opponents. Less dead money. If you know the answer, or think you do, leave it but i will continue to dwell on this at work today. I just know i need to get outta cruise control so you might see me at 1/2nl over the next few days and i will likely be 8 tabling max of 2/4 til i catch myself thinking and analyzing hud numbers better.

Also, I applied to be a Cardrunners Coach today. I can’t actually envision myself not getting it. I am probably in the top 5 of the winning full ring players on CR. If i do become a CR coach, I think my rates might increase slightly due to the fact there is now a middle man. I will keep you guys updated as to how that goes, but it should be a cool way to give back to the CR community that pretty much gave me 10k a month until i die and lets me live the lavish financially secure life i live.

Peace.

So its been awhile since i last updated, and I apologize for that guys. I’ve been spending alot of time with my friends and have tended not to get too much my time in for poker. Thus not too much time for the blog! So lets blog…

Its been fun and poker really hasn’t been going swimmingly. I do however, feel like i’m getting alot better as i am winning an excessive amount in 3-bet pots. I have played 12k hands this month so far! Whoa, i know its the end of the month basically and i haven’t gotten a decent amount of rakeback nor a decent amount of real cash from poker. I’ve been running very poorly in 2/4nl, however this has been thankfully compensated by running really really well at 5/10 and 3/6. Granted i’ve played roughly all my hands at 2/4 this month. I’m running 1.03bb/100 at 2/4 and weirdly i actually am not tilted. I have just hit alot of ugly spots and made about 3 bad played in pots. I lost a complete ridiculous cooler, with quad 8’s vs. a straight flush. I didn’t see it coming as i lost the $1100 pot!

How about this for sick?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2916212

Anyways, that tilted me in the middle of a good session. the only session i’ve played over 2k hands on was a 3k session which carried me outta the red. I haven’t played over 1k hand on a session even 12 tabling yet, for some reason. My roll is hefty now so i’m never really stressed but i think unless i go on a massive heater to finish out this month, its safe to say i won’t have another 10k month, which is depressing because its really not that hard to have a 25 buyin month, but i just can’t seem to motivate myself to play.

Over the weekend, I saw ‘Dark Knight’. Let me say this movie has stuck with me to the point that i am going to see it thursday because i can’t seem to get it outta my head. It was amazing. I’m one of those guys who likes to make fun of dead people and take all the reverey out of it. So take this as the absolutely truth. Heath Ledger gave the best performance i’ve ever seen in a superhero movie and it will likely be the best performance of the year. The joker was incredible. The movie is dark, like i love a movie, the bad guy ended up basically winning, like i love in a movie. For being such a nice guy, i tend to live my evil urges through movies so i love a dark movie! Anyways, definitely go see the movie. If you like batman, you’ll love it. If you like dark ass movies, you’ll love it. If you like awesome characters, you’ll love it.

Enough Pitching this movie.

I don’t really think i have anything else. I am going to go home and try to play a very decent number of hands so hopefully i don’t get outrageously coolered and have to get up from the tilt of it. I’m starting to get to the point where i might start taking alot more shots at 5/10 due to my bankroll really starting to get a little too large for 2/4 or 3/6. I guess you can never have too much bankroll, but i never really agreed with being a complete pussy and staying in your comfort zone for all time. Alright that’s it.

I’ll try to update tomorrow because I really have been bad with the blog. Also i will be starting up alot more coaching soon, so if you are interested in being a student, please feel free to leave a comment or im me if ya know it.

Alright so my july hasn’t been going too well. I’m up about 2k so far during it which has by far been the worst month i’ve had so far at mid month. Anyways… I spoke of a 1000nl video.

Here’s the video i did. Basically speaking, its a good video. I did the audio post video again so i missed one kinda important hand while i was on a rant. I value bet the river for 155 assuming that the K was a good card to push my opponent off any mid pair or missed draw. And its a snap fold to the min-raise.

Please enjoy watching me take a shot at 1000nl. Lata. PS make sure you just ‘download now’ on the webpage. Watching it in their viewer is just awful. Its worth the time to download it. Please enjoy.
1000nl Video

Its sunday and its a pretty good day for poker. I am completely out of the poker loop this month i feel like. I had 4000 hands this month before today. I added about another 1k to that. I am definitely going to come up short of my goal though. I am not going to make 30k hands which is usually very easy to do in a month.

My weekend was fine and ended to no avail. I feel like I’m doing good stuff at work, and we are back doing a big draw which is awesome. It was so slow before I left, I’m pumped to get a lot of my time spent on drawing one item and not just a bunch of little random tasks. I went out on friday night. We had a great time. I decided to do somethign a little different than i usually do. I decided to go with katelyn and her 2 friends that were visiting to a knights game. The knights are the minor league baseball team here and it was pretty fun. Kind of a boring game, and we missed all the action in the beginning of the game. We got to sit literally behind home plate tho. Our seats were 3rd row, not that it mattered anyways. The girls knew the visiting team so they got free awesome seats. Before we got to the stadium, we decided to rip shots and the only place we saw that we could do that was RUBY TUESDAYS!

So we looked ridiculous walking in and demanding tequila shots. It was pretty funny tho. I managed to get pretty drunk at the game with $6 beers. We went out to dixies afterwards and met the group of friends. It was like 30 of us there. It was pretty awesome as everyone was having a great time and dixies plays the best music in town. I really liked one of katelyn’s friends. She was cool and it looks like she is gonna move to Charlotte so perhaps we could have more fun!

Oh and i had a $1300 losing day before i went out. Ugly friday. I was pretty tilted and managed to make one bad play for $400. The others were just ugly spots where i got the money in good and i didn’t hold. I was down $600 on the month at the end of friday.

Saturday, I woke up a bit hungover but puff came over and we had a poker session. He’s got no internet so he’s been coming over alot and just grinding it out on my pimp computer. He helped me get unhungover and I played another frustrating session of $400nl. I managed to win $120 but it was really really annoying how i couldn’t get anyone to play a big pot with me. I decided i was gonna steal a page from FoldTOcash’s book and go ’tilt shopping’. I rounded up puff and katelyn and off to the mall we went. I managed to buy all sorts of awesome new cloths. Shopping is something i never really do, so I did it right when i went out. I really actually enjoyed getting all new shit, i definitely should do it more often. I managed to spend about $500 and got 2 new jeans, and 6 new dress shirts. It was all a pretty good deal, cause i could have easily spent more. I felt epically better and spending $500 there instead of dropping it on the poker table made me feel damn good. Anyways, i came back and was pretty exhausted. I made a decent attempt to pull together a poker game for the night and when that fell through i was just bored and tired. I opted not to meet all my friends out uptown, and acted like a 30 year old and went to bed at 11:30.

Today, I woke up at 8am very bright eyed and motivated. I hopped in the shower and went out to dunkin donuts to grab some coffee. Man, not being hungover is fantastic. I managed to come home and squeek out a session. I ended up running well for about an hour and a half at 2/4. I made about $300, which is mediocre, but whatever i’ll take it. I then got off the tables and was just checking forums and i glance back at the tables and see 2 ridiculously juicy 5/10 tables. I decide, fuck it, i gotta take a shot here. There was a 54/18/2 with $3k in front of him! I was one of only 2 regs at the table as well. It was a great table and i managed to make about $1000 on 2 tables of 1knl. I mainly attribute that to catching AA vs. KK. I stacked actiondegen who is a guy i met in Vegas while i was partying. He clearly wasn’t happy about it and stormed off the tables. It was the first time i’ve taken a shot at 5/10 seriously. I played about 200 hands and actually recorded the action. The audio is F-ed up at the moment, so i’ll have to go back and rerecord that, but i’ll make sure i post the video soon enough.

I also just got a 5k check from FTP today! Damn, it came in 3 days! Kudos to full tilt on the fastest checks i’ve ever seen. I will cash that baby next week and have a monster bank account . If things continue like this, i’ll be able to buy a house with straight cash! Anyways, i’m off to try and find something interesting to do today, as i’m bored outta my mind and happy from a poker stance. Alright, i think that about covers everything poker and life related.

I am up very little money this month so far. I just haven’t played many hands at all. I am not all that motivated which is really not a promising thing because if i do end up doing this full time, this kind of lack of motivation will be completely untolerable. I am definitely starting to think it might be a better life to just have the constant and not try and retire at age 24.

Ok, i’m starting to rant now. I will still try to win at least a few grand this month, but i just hope i can manage to play at least 10k hands and i’ll settle for making 5k this month. Alright, That’s all i got. Peace.

DAMN RINGER VIDEO!

i won’t make it quite as accessible… but please click download on the site and hope you get permission. I respond quickly. Its a great video guys!

if you watch it please leave a comment at least saying you got it. GL.

So today was my first day back at work. It was actually pretty busy as far as my days at work have been. I am now crazy tired thanx to the fact that my body clock is still all sorts of messed up from vegas. I couldn’t real really sleep last night but finally managed to get to bed around 2:30, so that might explain why i’m tired now at 11:30pm. I think i’m gonna get to bed as soon as i’m done blogging this.

I get to work today and am trying to get my bearings back and my boss shoots me an e-mail to support his daughter in a bike ride for cancer. Its a pretty awesome event and i found myself wanting to help out especially since i wasn’t in a financial place to do it last year at this time, and now i’m in a much happier spot. My boss’ e-mail says ‘donate some of the vegas winnings to his daughter’. I still had about $500 extra laying around after vegas. Of course, i’m sure he was expecting $20, but F that. I went big instead. I’ve never donated to charity and figure this was as good a charity as any. I gave him a $250 donation and feel pretty damn good about it. As soon as I submitted it, i get a phone call from him asking if i mistyped the number. Haha. I just laughed and said no no.

I played a little bit of poker today, but i was honestly too tired to even consider playing for real. I lost about $140 but it was a total cooler against an aggro player by the name of admiral T will. I was down at $200nl today cause i didn’t feel like dealing with the metagame of 400nl. I pretty much played perfect minus that one hand.

I finished that, and went and watched the simpsons movie with my roomie. It was my second time seeing it but first time really getting to see it since the last time was in bootleg form. Its really a mediocre movie, as i kinda classify most of the simpsons stuff as mediocre with the exception of the ‘Tomacco’ episode. That is the funniest piece of television ever. And that leads me to here. I am now getting into bed and you guys have a good night.

How about that uneventful, brag post blog?

Alright, so i’m back from vegas and i gotta say. I’m very very happy to be back home. Last night was completely ridiculous. I got to hangout with the best of the best of the poker world. Beat up some great poker players in beer pong, hang with the great nutedawg, and generally have a blast. It was a suitable ending tho. Vizer actually is staying at least one more night. He keeps putting his trip off. I personally just can’t do it though. On my trip final tally, i won a little bit of money after trip expenses and travel so that was the goal. I ended up making about $2k while i was in vegas this time, and pretty much spent it all on balla stuff. Also a big shout out to AceCR and Pdonk, I appreciate you guys taking me and vizer under your wing and showing us the town.

After this trip, I am tired of drinking everyday, and i miss my dog, charlotte, and my job. I had a good trip and a blast but i think this trip really did take me into perspective. I saw all the young guys who were professional players who had more money than they knew what to do with, i saw what i would likely be if i did this for a living. I’m honestly not that excited about it. It just didn’t seem glamorous to me. Between this vegas trip and being sick, i haven’t been to work in 2 weeks. I can’t wait to go back to work, and just have some sort of constant in my life again.

On an online poker note, my month of June ended while i was in Vegas and it went pretty well. I had another 10k month in poker. I ran pretty well at 2/4 which i am very proud of. I had a 3.5bb/100 winrate there and think that’s where i should be. I only got in about 35k hand this month which is definitely not what i should be shooting for. I won 9.1k in poker and over 1k in rakeback again. I have a swelling bankroll again but am kinda tired of poker for the moment. I might take a few day break and just ease back into real life. Anyways, here’s my graphs and happy 4th guys.