Damn Ringer’s Poker Blog

So lets get the obvious question on everyone’s mind outta the way. Have i started to run better? Yes I have. I went on a ridiculous heater last week and am now up 9k on the month. Its been a hell of a good time. I knew i wasn’t playing that bad and its nice to see the reward for good flow. Ok… So the last 4 sentences there might have been a complete lie. That was just a test to see who reads past the first 4 sentences.

I have still been running bad but basically break even while still running like total garbage. I am just getting use to it at this point. Its probably pretty good for me, because i’ve started asking a ton of questions to the roommates and getting some interesting feedback. June will be my first losing month of 2009 (and hopefully the last!). Ok enough of that, cause the downswing is boring as balls.

Cake is completely desolate recently. I made the mistake of cashing my entire roll on FTP so i could invest in the market with the monies. I think the FTP games are leagues better than cake right now. Yesterday, The 1/2 full ring games were the highest games running and there were 15 people spread between 12 tables. There was maybe one truly juicy “cake” fish. The tables never run for more than 3 hours a day either. I have been playing alot of .5/1 this month due to the 1/2 tables not running and me having a whopping $12 on FTP. I am going to be taking alot of money off cake in the very near future.

I haven’t deposited online in so long I got a question for the masses. How in the world do I deposit an amount over 10k in one deposit on FTP? Is it still possible to do? I need help with that cause lord knows no one wants cake money these days, let alone over 10k worth. I have thought about maybe just getting a stake and running that up on FTP, but I figure that’s retarded especially since i have the money to have my own roll.

Either way its clear, the “seizing of funds” that has become so popular in the media is scary fish away. There seem to be only new regs coming into the games and no new fish. Its a sad sad day for cake. I need to get to FTP cause i keep eying up the games and seeing ridiculously awesome fish i wish to sit with. Its gonna be weird getting use to a hud again though.

On the vegas front, its been an awesome time. I finally met storm god and he’s a really chill dude. He is such a sicko these days and has run his awesomeness up to the 10/20 level. I have deviated from the style I use to have when I studied his play, but i still have a ton of respect for the kid. I’ve met so many players since i’ve been out here its been a hell of a time. I have also decided to come home 2 weeks earlier than I orginially planned. I need to get my moving situation all setup plus drive back across the country plus be at my parents beach house by August 1st. So that said I will be leaving early from vegas.

Shouldn’t be a big deal though considering there’s not relaly gonna be anyone here after July 15th anyways. So that said… if you are planning to visit in late july… i probably won’t be here.

Hopefully next blog i can report massive run good.

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My serious apologies to you guys for blogging so depressingly while in Vegas. So lets talk how incredibly awesome this trip has been.

This trip has consisted of doing some the craziest things i’ve ever done on a complete spur of the moment basis. We have been all sorts of places and i’ve seen just about every casino in vegas now. I have played golf and eaten at crazy ass restaurants. I’ve had some of my best friends visit, and even my family. I’m only a month in too! This is going to be the time of my life i think. I will look back in 10 years and be glad I went to vegas for 3 months with people i hadn’t met in real life.

My roommates really couldn’t have been any better. To be honest however, I haven’t met a poker player I didn’t like yet out here. Everyone is so cool. I was like secretly hoping that a ton of these sickos who make 30k/month+ were totally douches… so i could feel good about being normal and quasi-wealthy. Instead, its like the opposite. The more money these guys make, the cooler they seem to be. It’s pretty awesome for them… and makes me think maybe i can have months like that soon.

We had a BBQ last week at the house and it was awesome. It was a touch of a sausage fest as only one girl came, but it was still a pretty good time. I met BossmanisMe and a few other 2p2ers. I also went to sushi tonight with about 15 2p2ers. We played credit card roulette for the $400 bill, and I was second card drawn so i didn’t even get to sweat. That was nice.

On the sushi subject, I’m completely converted. I think I have tried every type so far and it has to be one of my favorite kinds of food now. My girlfriend has been trying to convert me, but it took undugu to get me to realize it’s actually really good stuff. /sushi rant

I haven’t yet played a WSOP event yet either. My plan was to play like 3, but since i’ve been running so horrendously I think i’m gonna put that off. When I start to run better, i’ll play an event or 2. I have put in pretty decent volume this month though. I have played almost 25k hands so far, so I’d argue this is gonna be one of my highest volume months, clocking in at 50k hands. I play with a ton of guys who play like 3x that so that’s hilarious.

I can’t wait to see what the next month brings, as I can’t possibly run worse at poker in the process. So whatever, I don’t know why I go into “woe is me” mode when I blog. It tends to help me verbalize everything i’m thinking, because i’m definitely not the type to mope around the house. So instead, I mope around the blog. You guys will have to deal with it, but I assure its just a small portion of my total thought process. Stressing out for a few weeks a year, is a pretty small price to pay for not having a real job.

Also congrats to vizer on running sicker than any human can run (or so i thought). He shipped a trip to europe for free.

Welp, I would love to say i pulled outta this downswing… but definitely have not. I have had 2 winning days so far this month. Its just getting into the realm of ridiculous at this point. It’s pretty funny right now, because everytime i get in a 100bb+ pot I somehow lose. It’s awful to run this bad, but its interesting to see how bad it is possible to run in the short term.

It’s starting to get to my head though, so i’m trying to keep a positive attitude. However, I am missing some value in a few obvious places because I’m assuming I’m up against the nuts. Not to mention that I’m starting to play a little gunshy too. And most of the times i decide to not be gunshy, its a total spew. Once it’s gotten to a 20bi downswing now, I gotta assume i’m doing something that’s too predictable. I’m taking a big step back from my game over the next few days and focus on going back to how I was for the rest of the year.

Needless to say, being down this month and not playing last month has derailed my 6-figure plan for this year. It’s sorta depressing but what can ya do? I’ll just try hard all year and hopefully I run ridiculous hot for a few months… and backdoor the 6-figure thing. I had to assume this would happen at some point this year though. It can’t be smooth sailing all the time right? That said, this is my worst downswing in my poker career to date.

However, if this continues for much longer, I got no one to blame but myself and mistakes.

Well it’s official. I’ve been holding out for 2 weeks to say it, but I’m in my first downswing of 2009. I just can’t make anything work, and am getting annihilated on the tables. Since getting into vegas on May 17th, I’m down $430. With a wonderful winrate of 0.04 at 1/2 over 20k hands.

I’ve had downswings before, but this is by far the shittiest time to have one. I want to be living the dream out here, but I don’t feel like spending a dime when I dump crazy money on the tables. I think its mostly my own fault though. I’m getting leveled by the feeling that I need to keep up with the house. I made a point today, that i would slow down and relax. Sure enough I play 22/18 on the FR tables and dump 1k in a complete spewtard manner. I even went to bed early last night, so i could grind superhard today. Sure enough, an hour and a half in I tilt and need to get up. Very very frustrating.

Also last month ended up only being a 3k month… which is just horrible. I hate poker at the moment weirdly enough. On that note, I’ll try not to bring up the downswing but it’s hard not too when its basically all i’m thinkin about for the last few days. Alright enough about poor me.

My family came into town this past weekend and it was pretty cool. I can already tell ya though, i’m getting sort of tired of showing the whole Vegas thing. Its nice but good lord, is it exhausting and expensive to go out on the strip every night of a weekend. I also was trying to show my brothers and sisters a good time, while in a downswing. It was more than annoying.

I saw the show “love” which was a good show, but i think i still liked zumanity better as far as cirque shows go. I just like the risque theme better. Anyways, I’m gonna go lay down and see if i wake up untilted. PC.

I had a wedding to go to this weekend in DC. So I had to fly out in the morning early on friday to get there as the time zones really F you when you fly across the country. So what do we do thursday? Get shitripping drunk of course.

We started by going out go-carting at pole position. This isn’t that go-carting you are use to. These were the real thing. They went 45 mph and the course was an awesome twisty turny track. So of course we put down $50/race prop bets. I managed to finish last and 3rd (by 0.01 second)… so i was the go-cart fish. After that, we ended up going to the palazzo to watch the cavs games in the what use to be the 40/40 club. Honestly, that is the best sportsbook i’ve been to in vegas. It was like a lounge of just pure awesomeness. We managed to play some tables games first before we went though just so “we could get some beers”. That has to be the worst excuse for degening it up i’ve ever heard however. As you have to bet at least $50/drink even at a $5 minimum table. So, For the record, i think you are always better off not using that logic and just paying the $8 for a beer. Either way, we managed to play casino war… which might be the worst game in the casino. It requires no thought and goes ridiculously quick. No fun at all so we promptly got up from it. We soon moved to a $10/min roulette table. Muk managed to light the table up taking down about $1200 in a matter of 30 minutes. I basically broke even on gambling for the night. We got drunk and walked over to the sports book.

The game was good, and vizer was so I thought the drunkest member of our party. He challenged me to pool, which i was more than happy to oblige. We played $10/ball at first, and it was me and Muk vs. him and tiltbad. Me and muk absolutely ran the first game. They had 6 balls on the table, and so vizer yelled about how he was such a sicko at pool and for us to rack them up again. This time we break and tiltbad knocks in the 8ball on his second shot leaving 5 balls on the table. At this point, they are pissed and want to do double or nothing. So we agree to play for $20/ball. As fate would have it, Me and Muk managed to whip them again by 4 balls. It was a shellacking the kind of which no good pool player could take. That said, Vizer is a billiards fish.

The night ended up winding down with a beer pong tournament at the miracle mile. I managed to win my first match pretty handily but the alcohol was beginning to get the best of me. It was 1v1 10 cup beer pong so after you slay 2 beers in 10 minutes, ever match it hits you. I got my second pairing and saw it was a girls name. I was pretty excited and thought “i will crush this broad”. She walked up and was roughly the size of a refridgrator. She then proceeded to crush me and all the other guys laughed but they had busted out of the tournament in the first round (well except tiltbad, who beat up some dude who was dressed like he loved guys).

I then come to to the beeping of my alarm clock at 7am because I have a flight in 2 hours. I stumble out of bed go slap vizer around for him to take me. I manage to make my flight and be hungover as hell. The rest of the weekend, I was in DC for a friends wedding and it was pretty awesome. The highlights were a reception at ballin’ congressional country club and an appearance by the real hokie bird. Sick wedding life!

Anyways, back in vegas now, and looking to win mad loot. Peace ya’ll.

Alright so my friends Josh and Klein came to visit this weekend which was the first weekend we were in vegas. We went out thursday night to wynn and played live poker. If you have seen vizer’s blog, he owned me. There is nothing else to it other than i got owned… but it was only half him being a genius and the other half was the booze. Either way, it was by far the hardest i’ve been owned. See his blog if you want the run down.

Friday, we layed by the pool all day and then went to o’sheas for some beer pong. It was a pretty sweet time, and i sat down at a 1/2 game there, which i proceeded to get shit on for about 3 hours until I finally turned it around. I ended up making around $200 there, and we left at 9am. It was pretty awesome. It’s so ridiculous how living in vegas completely throws off your time. It is perfect normal to come home at 6am and party til 10am. Either way, we’ve had great times at the house so far.

Saturday night, we decide that we want to go clubbing for the first time here. We went to tryst which is a pretty awesome club in the wynn. We got a table for 11 people and hopped over the line. We got led to what had to have been a showcase table of the club. It was in the back corner of the place under a waterfall. It was awesome. We didn’t deal with anyone walking through our area, all night. We ordered 4 bottles, which went for a whopping $600 each. The night was an absolute blast but we ended up dropping $2900 on the bottle service. It’s to be expected though. Either way, its ballin! Next time we do it however, I’m totally bringing more people to pay as me and vizer took a hit for most of it. Either way great night, but I don’t have a ton of reason to do it as i already have my girlfriend so i’m doing it mostly just to be a balla with my friends. Here’s a few pictures of the night (and yes I know a few are douchy… but we like sappy pics)…

This summer is gonna be an expensive one, I can already tell. Oh well, you only live once why not drop excessive money in vegas.

On the poker front, I really haven’t played much recently. I have been breaking relatively even. I think this month is only gonna be around 5k profit after all is said and done. Either way, I don’t have an import converter to see how I am doing on cake. Oh and also congrats to get on getting Lee Jones. That is gonna be epic.

More to come later.

Its been a few days in vegas. I’ve had a great time. There is absolutely nothing better than waking up with a pool in the backyard and nothing to do. I have been just rolling out of bed, putting on a swim suit, and rolling out the door. It is the best cure for a hangover ever.

Princessdonk also managed to move into our house. She saw our place and all the dogs and got excited for bringing her dog over, so we told her she could move in until coordi got here. Its been pretty fun. Also, Tiltbad just got here today. We had our nosy neighbor call the owner of our place cause she thought his U-haul was being used to rob the place. Pretty ridiculous, but good to know she’s watching our house for robbery. However, it could be a serious problem if she’s too nosy cause the last thing i want is a neighbor who is constantly spying on our parties. Oh well, nothing we can do. Either way, it got the owner out so we got to talk first hand to the guy about all the problems with the house. We have two problems… the light in the pool doesn’t turn on, and the waterfall doesn’t always work. Tough life right?

We went to the strip last night. We played .5/1 plo at the excalibur. The problem really turned into p-donk owning me and vizer. We left that and decided to go to o’sheas for beer pong. It was a blast, and i will definitely be going back to o’sheas.

Two of my best friends are getting here tomorrow for the weekend. The utter debacle begins tomorrow around 1pm. I can’t wait. Hopefully, i’ll be taking alot of pictures. Easy Life IMO.

We finally made it around 5pm today. The drive today was completely painless. We woke up and drove to a denny’s, had lunch and drove straight to vegas. The drive included going literally over the hoover dam which was pretty awesome. I didn’t actually get to see over the edge, but good lord the traffic came to a complete stop. It was about a 45 minute crawl until we got over it.

Tons of tourists as you might expect. I’ll have to go back there at some point while i’m out here. We also passed two other places i’d love to check out on the way home. The meteor crater and the grand canyon. Honestly, I passed more things in the 4 hour drive today that i wanted to visit than i had on the whole trip. The drive wasn’t nearly as painful as i thought it was gonna be. I was planning on it being just horrible horrible, but it really wasn’t. 12+ hours of driving isn’t that hard for me apparently.

We got to the house, and started to unpack. I got everything setup and realized the tables were pretty good. I fired up a session and managed to dump $600 in my first session in vegas. I then tilted and told vizer we could go shopping for groceries now. I spent about $115 on all the shit I needed for probably the next month. All the little things like condiments and that sort of thing add up. The walmart sells liquor which shocked me since i’m so use to them being sold only at an ABC store or a liquor store. Pretty awesome though.

The house is pretty much exactly like the pictures made it look. It is nicely sized, and didn’t come with any really shitty surprises other than whatever dish network package they bought has no channels i wanna watch nor have a channel showing me the basketball game tonight. Oh well. I managed to play one more session tonight, and actually broke even and then some. I ended up making probably a buyin or two on the day.

Tomorrow, I think i’m going to lay around by the pool and just chill the F out. I’m pretty much gonna take it easy til thursday when 3 of my best friends come into town. I think me and vizer might be the first full ring pros out here for the summer, which is totally cool with me, as I really have been planning this trip for basically the last year.

Sweet poolage tomorrow, I’m passing out now.

I am in oklahoma city currently. I had a great drive today, and managed to put in 16 hours. It was alot easier than i thought it was gonna be… granted the last hour of the trip was a total storm. Oklahoma has some crazy ass lightning. I actually knew that alreay cause I grew up in arkansas, but still its been awhile since i’ve seen that.

The other states went great. This was gonna be the boring part of the trip. The next leg is gonna be awesome with crazy deserts. I’m pumped about it.

I spoke with vizer a few times during the trip and I started to realize he was gonna arrive in oklahoma city around the same time i was. So we decided to split a hotel room, so its a dog fest in the room currently. Either way, it’s already been a sick adventure so far. Lots of driving. SEE YA IN VEGAS!

Alright so I am going to be packing tonight, for my trip tomorrow. I am doing the trip in 3 days as explained previously. The first leg is from Charlotte to Little Rock, the next is Little Rock to Albuquerque and then onto Vegas. I posted my planned route here. I was planning to hang out with an old friend Little Rock, but he had something come up so I will be just stopping in a hotel there. If anyone else who still lives in Little Rock wants to grab a drink feel free to drop me a line. Either way, the big leg of the trip is the second one. It is suppose to be a 13 hour trip, but it shouldn’t be that big of a deal since I will just be driving to a hotel. Here’s the planned trip in map form:

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I’ve never done a drive like this so I am curious to see how well I hold up. If i’m completely miserable, I might just ship everything back home and fly… but somehow I have a feeling its not gonna be that bad. I am kind of a robot when it comes to driving. It’s soothing to me. I am a little scared though, because alot can happen in 2200 miles. I went through all the precautions of getting new tires and getting my car checked out, but somehow I’m still nervous about getting out there with no problems. I think i’ve planned for everything though, and covered all bases.

I am planning to download some audiobooks for the ride as those always seem to help me. Please please please if you have some suggestions for books, tell me now. I really like thinking books, with some action in them. Something along the lines of ‘angels and demons’. Also i’m pondering booking hotel rooms prior to driving, but if anyone who has done this before tells me otherwise, i might just wing it… cause who knows what kinda mood i’m gonna be in.

Once I get to vegas I will have very little time to get setup as 3 of my best friends are coming into town on thursday, and will wanna throw down. I’m very excited to just get everything setup and get into the pool. I am gonna relax I think from monday til thursday and probably try to put in some decent volume online. We’ll see how I feel when i get out there tho. So that’s basically all there is for the drive. I am ready to go! No bad beats in 2200 miles, one time!

On the poker front, this no hh converter thing for cake is driving me batty. I don’t know how I’m doing for the month. If i had to guess, i’m up about 3k and have played 18k hands. That’s just a stab in the dark though. I am running ok, but i keep taking bad beats in pretty crucial spots. Either way, I don’t care at this point. I will be taking a 3 day break from poker for the drive.

Talk to you guys in vegas!