Ive had some money on there for a while (not much just testing out software and such) and was just browsing games to see if there was any decent traffic and I see some juicy games so I have a seat but dont have much funds on there to reload/multi table since I'm not a huge fan of the software but decide to load up some cash and go to deposit. Then there's this pop up box saying "you're depositing speak with a rep for a bonus!" So I figure why not.
I start talking with a girl named christinna, yeah with 2 n's but I compliment her on it anyway. So she asks how much I want to deposit. I reply "how much is the bonus", she answers "depends on how much you deposit", I come back with " well what are my options then, what amount warrants what bonuses?", she repeats "it depends on your deposit amount. How much do you want to deposit". So I respond " uh I was saying it would depend on the bonus amount" Then immediately the conversation is ended I assume cause she isn't supposed to give that info out or something but the etiquette was so absurd, she didnt even say a word in response and the chat box just stated our convo had ended.
I go over the process again to see if I can speak to someone competent and I get someone new but am immediately transferred back to the same girl who doesnt say a word and it just says conversation terminated or something along those lines. So at this point I decided to not deposit to a site that operates in such a way, a site that needs to hire some actual people that know how to do a customer rep job which isn't really that hard. I can only imagine what it would be like trying to resolve some kind of actual issue in the future with the site.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DRV-qwvbzY
Balance isn't always important in poker, but it doesn't quite work that way with life. Ask anybody you know and they will tell you how important it is to have balance in one’s life… I hold the belief that in order to be truly happy in life, it is necessary to find the proper balance within three different areas: health, wealth and relationships. Most people that are unhappy with their life tend to have neglected one or more of these areas. I’ll elaborate a little more about these areas first before I talk about my thoughts on how they can interact with one another and the impact it has on one’s wellbeing and overall happiness.
By health I think it’s fairly self explanatory. This area covers not just physical health but also mental. To be in decent physical shape and unaffected by any serious illnesses or afflictions etc. would all be categorized in this area.
Wealth is once again pretty self explanatory. Being able to afford the necessities of life or when things are doing well in this area, you would be able to afford a lot of the finer luxuries in life as well.
Relationships refer to relationships with not just romantic interests, but also with family, friends, pets and whoever else is in your life.
All three are interrelated and when one area is neglected or deteriorating, it will surely affect the others as well. If you are frequently ill for example, it is going to put a bit of a damper on your ability to work as well as your ability to maintain or develop friendships or romantic interests. If you are dirt broke, it’s not going to help out much in the dating scene or possibly even being unable to go out with friends since you can’t afford it and it could eventually become an issue to your health, both mentally and physically. Having poor or nonexistent relationships with family, friends or romantic interests can definitely impact one’s mental health quite a bit, but imo doesn’t impact one’s financial ability too much.
Having success in one of these areas will also lend a helping hand to the others. Having good health will allow one to work diligently towards any monetary goals and relationships without any hinderances. Obviously having money is going to help keep you in good shape since you can afford healthy foods, health care for emergencies, personal trainers, etc. and also is rarely seen as a negative thing by any gender. Having great relationships can often be beneficial to one’s mental health and can affect wealth in a number of ways. Perhaps the relationships can get you out of a financial jam you’re in, give you lucrative opportunities that you can pursue or just motivate you to work harder or longer to make extra cash.
I know for some reason when I’m in a relationship I tend to be able to be more motivated to work, possibly because I want to be able to afford nice gifts or vacations for us, but probably also because my head can focus on one place and not be thinking about who I’ll be dating next. Relationships can also be expensive for some and might actually be a negative effect on wealth lol. I guess it kind of depends if you are the kind of guy who pays for things on dates or not, but even in today’s age where women are equals with men, there’s still a lot of societal pressure for men to pay for dates. Going off on a slight tangent, I think this reason is usually a pretty good one to justify the gender pay differential. Men need to be paid more than women cause we usually end up paying for more stuff! Aside from paying for dates, for example, we don’t get the luxury of free drinks from the opposite sex when we go out to bars or clubs, although on occasion it has happened…
Anyways back to the topic at hand, so often people tend to have a lot of success in one or two of the areas and aren’t able to succeed in the rest. It’s a hard thing to do… to find the time and with all the distractions in life to stay focused, motivated and on track to fulfilling these goals… it’s no surprise that so many people aren’t able to fulfill all of them. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of told me that he’s going to start doing p90x and getting into great shape. I texted him the other day and surprise, he still hasn’t started yet. And for those who start, most end up quitting after 30 days and do not reach the full 90. Mini brag, unthinly veiled: I’m on day 87 as I write this.
Each person has their own standard of success for each area that they feel they should achieve; some can find happiness and balance much easier than others. Some people don’t mind making less than 40k a year and living a party lifestyle and workout regimen that you see on the Jersey Shore. From what I read, I believe the Situation was in a fair amount of debt before he got it made from being a guido on MTV. Others are only truly happy if they are making 6 figures a year and able to afford the finer things in life and indulge themselves in luxury.
Personally I can reflect on times in the past when I’ve felt the happiest and it wasn’t a certain time where I was at my highest net worth or been in the best shape of my life or dating a particularly stunning woman, but they were all times when I had each of the three areas prospering and doing well even if they weren’t at their peak moments. Having that balance I think helps take away from all the stresses in life, acting as a distraction when needed and being able to take your mind off something negative… to be able to recognize how many positive things there are still around you when times are rough.
For those without balance, for those who become consumed by poker when things go bad or a major downswing comes around and there’s nothing else going on in their lives, of course they are going to feel a lot shittier about how things are going for them. Devoting yourself to something is often essential to become masterful at it, but remember to never give up too much and to not neglect other areas of your life for too long. I think especially as poker players, you can get easily wrapped up in your own world if you play for a living and can be a lot tougher to find that sweet spot where everything gets balanced.
To sum up, if you’re feeling unfulfilled in life I would advise you to reflect on those three areas I’ve written about and ask yourself if you are satisfied with how each area is faring. Once you’ve identified what area you need to work on, then you can start planning out how to begin finding your path back to bliss.
I believe it's offically confirmed by poker news that GBT has pulled out of negotiations with the DOJ. Seemed all the things were in place for them to start up, but the DOJ imposed that they pay back players within 90 days. I think that kind of time frame seems a little harsh, im not sure what length of time GBT were planning to allow players to withdrawl all of their funds but I think 6 months would seem a bit more reasonable so they could start generating some revenues to cover costs and player balances but who knows maybe they were asking for another year or something which would be a bit more unreasonable... I dont think anyone except insiders really know the exact details of that discussion so it's pointless to speculate.
Seems PS is coming to buy the company which makes sense from a business stand point. A lot of ppl on 2+2 were questioning why Stars would want to buy the company when it has pretty firm control of the online market as it is, but I don't think that they are really able to grasp the bigger picture. PS is in a great position right now for sure and the one main competitor that they've always had was full tilt. If they do not buy the company, it leaves room for other competitors or new players like GBT to buy the software and become direct competition again. A lot of ppl prefer FTP's software and they had Rush poker as well which is really the only competition against Zoom right now. A company like Partypoker for example, could have bought the software, used it to upgrade themselves and become much better positioned in the market. They would have to absorb the debt to ROW players but also would likely gain new customers and also increased brand awareness as FTP had done a TON of advertising before they got shut down. A seemingly reasonable investment.
With PS buying the company, they will effectively wipe out any major competition and keep a great foothold as the king of the online poker world for the foreseeable future. They cough up some dough but prevent anyone from getting that valuable software and can still probably gain some customers who had the majority of their roll on FTP or casual players that really enjoyed the avatars/software. I envision probably having linked account balances where you would be able to transfer from your FTP to PS back and forth easily and be able to play on whichever software you prefer, but it's possible that they keep the brands separate with separate promotions however I would assume their promotions department would just run similar promotions to what stars currently offers regardless since that's what they feel is best for the business model.
I'm not sure if it is the "best" thing that could happen for players since having such large control of the market could mean that they start to neglect players and dont offer as lucrative promotions but stars has done pretty good by the players so far and I dont have anything bad to say about them in their years of doing business so hopefully it stays that way!
Edit: Seems some details have arisen about what GBT and DOJ were discussing and it seems like the GBT had a really one sided type of arrangement in mind which would have been horrible for players if it did become realized. I was expecting something along those lines, but not allowing players to play with their entire bankroll seems bizarre to say the least and the 5 year deadline seems absurd.
In this blog I'm just going to blast through a variety of topics with probably no transition. Like a lightning round of thoughts. Here's a song I've enjoyed listening to lately from the movie Drive
Seems like FTP is on its way to getting back on its feet. No official announcement yet but cardplayer did confirm that they were posting jobs and looking to hire customer service reps and applying for licenses so a very good sign indeed. I know I could use the money as I played mainly on ftp and I'm sure there's a lot of people who are in worse circumstances than me as well.
NHL playoffs are about to start so I'm sure that will be taking up a fair bit of my time as well. I live in vancouver but I'm a pens fan first and they are favs to win the cup if they can stay healthy. The canucks are pretty big favourites to win the west but honestly, there are a ton of great teams that could make it to the finals from the west and it wouldn't be all that surprising. I'm just hoping that there wont be a riot this year but I should be still in town during the finals hopefully unlike last year so I can go downtown and stomp some punk's faces in if need be.
Diablo 3 is also expected to officially launch may 15th so I'm sure there will be a lot of us on battlenet instead of the tables for a while. It is going to be a real test to see how much grinding will get done with that game on the market!
I've been trying to learn omaha again lately and it's a really fun game to try to learn. I think I'm starting to get a feel for it and there's certainly a lot of bad players at the .5/1 and 1/2plo games but the variance is high and volatile. I've dabbled in omaha a while ago and didnt really put in a big enough sample to learn anything about if i'm a winner or not, and also didn't learn too much about the game. This time around, I'm a bit more focused and doing a bit more homework away from the tables so we'll see what happens. I wont abandon NLHE though as I feel it's a game where I have quite an edge and understand game theory extremely well. I know my buddy dogg11 has pretty much given up playing holdem as he just enjoys having twice the cards twice as much.
I've also been doing p90x and am in the home stretch final month in my quest to get that 6 pack. Last time around I ended up dropping a lot of weight and had a good toned 4 pack but couldnt get the last two. This time around I'm eating super clean and doing a much more scheduled approach with tougher workouts so if I dont get the washboard abs, it will likely mean I never try again and will just eat whatever the hell I feel like. It's a great workout and I'd recommend to anyone no matter what their level of fitness. Right now I've had the most toned abs I've ever had but am still trying to get those bottom two. About a month left to go so almost there! Apparently most ppl quit after 30 days so I'm well ahead of the curve.
In my next post, which I promise to do soon I'm going to be talking in a more focused manner. I already have the topic in mind which is speaking on the subject of balance in life and how that leads to finding happiness so it should be a good read.
I'm putting a club together for the EASHL, could use some more members. If you are fairly good and interested, feel free to let me know in comments or PM and I can get you the details.
Definitely great value on Pens winning in regulation oven sens tomorrow. Sens played today and have been doing horrible lately, pens haven't lost in regulation in a long ass time and have been scoring 5 goals a game on average while are hungry to take the top spot in the east. They also have one of the best players in the NHL on their THIRD line. I got money in at almost even money and it's a huge steal, try to get in on it if you can. Probably the most +EV bet I've seen in a long time, maybe the odds makers know of some undisclosed injuries lol. Pinnaclesports ftw
If you dont want to read a few paragraphs about hockey then you can stop here.
I've had a big bet down on either the pens or flyers winning the division this year, was really rooting for the pens since I'm a huge fan (and it actually paid better). Obviously I ended up running bad as penguins had their roster decimated throughout the year losing top defensemen and having crosby come back only for a handful of games before being sidelined again. I was banking on him coming back around december to help salvage their season but didn't expect him to get reinjured for a long period of time again so soon. But I had a backup plan in the flyers winning the division. Unfortunately their top defensemen Pronger was injured and probably is done with hockey now. Then their high paid star goalie for whatever reason played like complete shit. which has cost them a number of games this year. They also lost their top scorer Giroux for a while to a concussion so no help there. But even with all that, the pens would probably still be in first if not for the rangers running super good this year. I was expecting Gaborik to get injured at some point but he's been super healthy and a lot of players on the Rangers have seemed to have breakout years. Lundqvist was stellar this year as usual though but I was expecting that lol. There's still hope though with the Pens going on a huge run and can still win the division especially if they beat the rangers in regulation in the last game they have so I got my fingers crossed on that.
I'm also a canucks fan, so tough to see top scorer Daniel Sedin go down to injury w/ a likely concussion from getting elbowed straight to the face by Duncan Keith when he didn't even have the puck. Tough pill to swallow for the canucks. No idea when he will be back or if he'll even return in time for the playoffs.
I believe hockey is the greatest sport just because of all the elements it has which can't be found in another sport. I've been told by a number of Americans that they can't follow the puck which I find strange since it's the one black thing on the white ice. But hockey has got physicality that a lot of other sports don't have other than football and even then, hockey players have it a lot worse. For players to throw themselves into a piece of rubber going 100 mph is just crazy to think about while also wearing a helmet that often doesnt protect a lot of the face other than the eyes sometimes. Not to mention it's the only sport that condones fighting and there is always a place in the game for it. Even superstar players will usually drop the gloves at some point in their careers. It's got a good amount of scoring, I find soccer to be tough to watch sometimes with a lot of games ending 0-0 or 1-0 but also has low enough scoring that each goal really means something.
I'll try and post other picks that have been really good value in the future.
Stay Zoomin
-Jma
Update:
End of 2nd period, lots of run bad for pens. Sens tie it on Staal's stick getting stuck in the net and then take the lead when their goalie dives to draw a penalty. Sens took a 2 goal lead on a flukey double bounce in and then their goalie got injured which actually puts in their starting goalie who is better than the rookie starter =/
Basically Rush poker on Stars, pretty fun to play and to kill time with since you never have to wait. Only downside atm is there's no HUD for HEM (may be an upside possibly as well) and there also isnt much of a resemblance of gameflow. Since you'll maybe have metagame with someone only every 30 hands or so when you see them again, it's not that big a deal if you have been 3betting them a ton etc.
I think the optimal way to play these games is to take exploitable long term lines that work really well short term. Using that special line once against each player, if it's working a high percentage of time is going to rack up a lot of chips. So far i've been getting coolered a ton though which isn't too fun! There's also a lot of players who I think are over adjusting and can be exploited as well
Can't wait till they get the higher games running to see what that is like, right now they only have up to 100nl but I dont think zoom/rush would ever really become my main game. I just dont really enjoy it as much as a normal game of poker but it's a great way to test out strategies quickly.
I was thinking about success recently and wondered what it was that made the difference for me. Why I am able to be where I am today and what do I need to do to preserve it or to continue growing not just as a poker player but as a person... I think there are a number of things that have made me successful and will outline them in this blog post and maybe some other players who have been more successful than me can also give their input as well, I’d love to hear it. I also want this post to be more than just poker oriented as I think a lot of those things that make you successful can be applied easily to many things in life. A few of these concepts are similar to Arnold’s rules of success, if you’ve heard his speech, but he was dead on. In poker, many important skills are already fairly well known (hand reading, math skills, game theory, great sense of game flow etc), but there are other intangibles away from the table that are just as important to succeeding and possibly more important for some. Those are the points that I’ll be focusing on.
To Be Successful:
Find out who you are and what you want to be. This is not an easy step by any means, but an essential one. You must know what you want to be able to get there. Don’t worry about what others think about your goals or ambitions, look inside yourself and find what makes you happy. Not your parents, teachers, or friends, but you. If you only try to please everyone around you, it’s usually a recipe for your own unhappiness.
Prepare for the journey. You should figure out how best to achieve your goals and what you need to do so you can reach your goal faster and will be prepared for any problems along the way. For poker, figure out when or if you will pursue personal coaching, if training sites or books are a good investment, set goals and timelines to help you monitor your progress and allow you to reach your goals faster. Don’t worry about monetary goals, I think that only clouds your ability to focus on the task at hand but set goals for hours or hands to be played.
Believe in yourself. No matter how crazy your dreams or goals are, believe that you can accomplish them. Remember once upon a time, it was crazy to believe that the sun didn’t revolve around the Earth. Ignore the naysayers and trust yourself. Surrounding yourself with positive people for reassurance is extremely beneficial when things aren’t going well or you begin to question yourself. Having people around who believe in you and your ability to accomplish your goals will help you stay focused and on track.
Think Outside of the Box. It is difficult to create a new standard when you only follow society’s rules or everyday norms. Be willing to try new things and experiences. Often to achieve the most success or succeed at a greater level than has been ever done, you need to do things in a way that no one has ever done it before.
Don’t be afraid to fail. I think this is one of the most crucial pieces of advice I can give. A lot of time in poker, people quit when up to prevent that bad feeling of ending a session down money and feeling like a failure even if it is extremely +EV to continue pushing oneself and continue playing. Almost anything worth doing always comes with some chance of failure. Don’t be paralyzed by the fear of failure or you will only box yourself in and limit your options. Looking back, all of my greatest accomplishments in life have come with a reasonably high chance of failing, but somehow it worked out. I’ve made mistakes as well, but it was worth the risk and I made the best decision I could at the time. Society has conditioned us to believe that failing is a terrible thing that we should set out to avoid at any cost, but it plays a very important role in achieving success. The more you fail, the faster you learn and the more you learn. Be willing to fail, you can’t always win but don’t be afraid of making decisions. You can’t be afraid of failing or you will never push yourself to your full potential.
Perseverance is essential. Continuing to believe in yourself and pushing yourself when things are going terribly is a hallmark of someone who is ready for success. There is always going to be adversity in whatever journey you embark on, an obstacle that you need to overcome. Usually when you put in effort and hard work, you are going to see positive results. However, further down the road with the same levels of effort, there can be the opposite effect with a drop in results and this discourages a lot of people. They end up quitting or giving up when they are experiencing that rough patch, but need to continue pushing even harder to make it through and to achieve their goals.
You must make sacrifices. You have to be able to give up things you enjoy to achieve your goals. When you are partying or horsing around, someone out there is working hard, getting smarter, getting better and winning. A lot of people say they want something, but then they don’t put in the effort and sacrifice required to get it. Don’t give up everything you enjoy, but be willing to make concessions.
There is no substitute for hard work. You need to give it everything you’ve got. This is probably the most important piece of the puzzle to achieving success. People are born with some degree of talent, but are not born skilled. Skills are only crafted through hours of hard work, honing and perfecting one’s natural talent. In the end, hard work can often beat talent. There are plenty of examples in sports where players are drafted low or not even drafted at all, but they turn out to be some of the best players in the world. I’m a firm believer of working smart as well and optimizing the way that you do things. Whether you are studying for an exam, working on a project or trying to improve your poker skills, there are going to be some ways to do things that are going to be more productive. From my experience in school, there would always be people that spent twice as many hours studying as me, but usually my grades were as good if not better and I think my study habits/techniques played a large role in that. As mentioned earlier, this ties in well with preparing for the journey. I think one of the worst things in life is looking back and regretting not working or trying harder and feeling like you could have done more so do your best to not let that happen to you.
These steps are not easy to accomplish, but are definitely worthwhile in pursuing your goals and ambitions. I am still working on some of these steps myself and trying to continue bettering myself in some of these areas. It should be a continual work in progress and I believe following all these tips will pretty much guarantee you success in any path you choose.
I first saw this not too long ago and its been a large inspiration in helping me push myself so I thought it would be good to share with you guys and I'm sure it will help get you pumped too. Just watching the video, every time I see it...it stirs something up inside of me, helping me aspire to greatness... without further ado
I was going to write more here, but I think that video would just overshadow anything else I have to say in this post so I will write the rest in the next blog installment. I'll do a brief writeup though, haven't played a lot of poker lately due to issues that are out of my control but hoping to be able to put in some good volume soon once thats sorted. I've been trying to find a better life balance recently as well which I think is essential for anyone who wants to be happy in life. That topic will probably be enough of a writeup to stand alone in a future blog post as well. So things have been pretty busy and hectic but I'm doing my best to stay focused and do the best I can. It can certainly feel sometimes like there's just so much I want to get done each day and it can start to feel overwhelming at times... but I realize that you have to start somewhere, chip away at things the best you can and you'll be that much closer to accomplishing your goals.
Some music for you guys to listen to while reading the blog, a nice instrumental song I've been listening to lately ... Somebody can teach me to embed vids into a blog if they like I have no idea.
I was reading over my previous blog entries from years past and I thought it was pretty interesting to see all of the highs and lows that I went through, as well as the way I wrote and how I feel I've matured since then. I found it extremely therapeutic and would encourage others to do the same. Life is a long journey and its amazing to be able to look back and revisit past experiences and feelings. In the past, I had really only viewed blogging helping out by allowing me to gather my thoughts or share ideas with others, while never reflecting or looking back at my own posts. Rereading things, there's so many experiences that I had completely forgotten about and some stuff that I still can't recall even after reading about it. It's pretty cool to be able to look back and see the road I've taken to get where I am today so I'll definitely try to keep blogging in the future.
I was going over my past entries and reading over posts about the breakeven stretches or downswings I encountered... I remembered all the despair and stress I've felt from those bad downswings and how I thought things might never get better but somehow they always did and things always worked out...it was kind of empowering in that I'm still here and made it through all those rough times, giving me confidence that things will always get better no matter how bleak things seem.
I think as poker players, we certainly experience more than the normal person's share of highs and lows. I think those experiences though will make us stronger in the long run, and will benefit us if we choose to leave this game behind in pursuits of other ventures. Anyone who plays poker long enough has gone on downswings and know how difficult they can be to go through. It's not even always about the money, but just the aspect of simply losing day in and day out can really affect one's mood and confidence. But somehow we find the confidence in ourselves to keep pushing because we believe in ourselves and that eventually with hard work we will prevail.
And I believe that is one of our biggest edge's in life, we have experienced more rough patches than the average person and always continue having faith in ourselves to get back up again to strive for success. We believe in ourselves and that hard work will help realize our goals. I'm reminded of the quote from Rocky Balboa, "The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"
