I know it's been quite a while since I have posted. I guess I am just not that interesting of an individual right now. Most of my life is: school, work, school, work, little bit of self / social time, bed.

My Exciting Life!

An illustration of this fact is that I was struck with an idea 2 nights ago to reformat my hard drives. There was so much gunk and junk littering my hard drive. It's been collecting for 2 years and really building up. My computer was crawling, struggling to do basic stuff. So, I reformatted them (my laptop + desktop). It took me approx 6 hours in total from start to finish. The hardest part was crawling my hard drives and saving whatever I thought was important on an external hard drive (AIM logs, videos, website stuff, personal items, other stuff). It's interesting that I was so excited about it. Just goes to show how much my life revolves around this box of metal that connects me to the world.

Computer Security

After reformatting I had a stunning realization: security is kind of important. I have been SO HYPOCRITICAL regarding security. People ask me if anti virus software is important and I'd instantly say yes. But for me, nah its fine. Mine expired a year ago and I never renewed. So I did some searching around, read some reviews, and talked to some people I know. I decided to go with Kaspersky - www.kaspersky.com. It is supposed to be the better software right now (depending on what you do, etc). I'd recommend it based on what I learned recently. This was one of the reasons I reformatted. I had no idea what the program "hvXnfkmsknWElasnd9340" was doing running in the background (wtf eh?) and I thought that I was probably infected to the gills with adaware and spyware.

A Rant on AIM

Another thing I want to poke around. I am not sure how I feel about AIM at the moment. I know that its convenient to IM if that is what you want to do. I mean lots of poker players use AIM and if I want to IM someone AIM is probably where I'd go. But regarding security, I am not sure how much I trust AIM. Also, how efficient is AIM if you don't have a need to IM people? Honestly, I get a lot of IMs, and people usually tell me important things in AIM. Well,the fact is I forget 99% of what I talk about in AIM. I do not practice note taking as much as I should. Why do I forget? Because AIM is always up and I am usually doing something else when I get an IM. All the sudden I am taken away from my work, I lose focus, and have to force myself to focus on what someone is saying. I then say "ok" or something to that effect and return to what I was doing and my brain simply doesnt remember to do what I typed "ok" for. Theres a much better solution. Email. Just e-mail me if you have something important to talk about. If you IM it to me, please be aware that you are 90% to be forgotten. Conclusion: AIM is great for conversation between friends. Bad for important stuff.

POKER!

Sorry, nothing to update on here. I played a little but while trying hard to learn Memoirs of Aejones (Awesome stuff by he way). The bottom line is I do not have any time for Poker. If I were playing $5/$10+ or something then perhaps I'd find time but right now I have a lot of more important stuff that needs to take priority over playing $1/$2 marginally. I think when school is removed from my time equation I should really spend a lot of time on poker in replace of school and go for gold or quit completely and just play recreation once or twice a month. I do not love poker, I simply like the money, and if I can't make a decent amount of money then why play? Perhaps that is my problem in itself!

Our new website is now launched and live. The last few months (and particularly the last few weeks) have been a lot of work to get this ready between the LeggoPoker Team, our deisgner, and myself. I hope you are all enjoying the new features and the new look.

This is only the beginning of our changes and its an important step in the right direction. Keep on the lookout for new changes that will be made in the coming weeks to help make your experience on LeggoPoker even more enjoyable!

Below is a copy of the post I made in the announcements forum.

As for me... I now have some more free time to blog. I would like to update this blog more frequently but I seem to always get writers block. Is there any topics or questions in particular any of the readers would like to know about me, or about leggopoker in general?

It's interesting to note that the #1 item on my To-Do list today was "Put down your pet rat".

I know its pretty funny to note that I even have a pet rat at 20 years of age, but I do. I bought Herman when I was 18 on impulse at the mall and didn't think much about the long run of owning a rat at the time of purchase.

Rats are actually pretty cool pets. They are much more intelligent than other rodents. Mice, gerbils, hamsters are relatively incapable of forming bonds with humans, whereas rats can. Rats also can be trained to do things, kind of in the way dogs can, but to a lesser extent due to brain size limitations.

That being said, if you are over the age of 12 I wouldn't recommend buying one. They aren't all that entertaining after a month or 2. While they do keep themselves clean, you would need to clean out the cage multiple times per week and occasionally give him baths or it will get pretty smelly. They also need some room to run around and some things in their environment that they can do that will challenge them somewhat. I know people that have had pet rats that were trained to freely run around the house and come to the owner when called. Herman didn't get this training and whenever I let him run loose he would chew on clothes, wires, and other important stuff that you dont usually like to have bitten.

So after 2 years, he will be put down today because he has cancerous tumors that are making him pretty sick and I am moving away on Sunday. I figure it would be best to put him down rather than take him with me.

I brainstormed with some friends the methods in which I could dispose of him. Some pretty violent ideas were thrown around that would be painless but after a few seconds of thought I am just going to pay the $10 for the vet to inject him for obvious reasons.

So, if anyone in the world is still reading up to this point: I haven't played too much in the way of poker lately. Working on LeggoPoker, packing, and getting things done around the house in order to move have been more of a priority for me. I start school next Wednesday after I move in on Sunday/Monday to my new Bachelor Apartment in downtown Halifax. It's going to be a good year. I plan on playing SOME poker when I have time, but school, leggo, and social activities will probably not leave much time. I will make a post after I make the move!

I have a pretty embarrassing storey to share with you guys. I need to get this off my chest and embarrass myself as punishment for this stupid stupid event.

So this past weekend I went on a trip with some friends. I had to go to Halifax (Canada) to sign some papers and get registered for school and such for September. A few of my friends came with me and we spent the first night in a hotel. I then went camping with my GF and such for the next few nights, and that was really fun, but this storey is relating only to the first night. We planned on heading down the casino for 5-6 hours and just play some poker. I brought $700 with me and that was my absolute cap because we were drinking and I didn’t want to risk any more than that on a few hours.

I probably had a few shots before going down and I was feeling pretty good. I like drinking for live poker and I think having a few shots is fine and actually makes me focus/play better. I’m not afraid (live tells?) to pull moves if I think it’s correct and it helps socially.

Anyway, I registered for the $2/$5 game and sat in, and bought in for the $500. I told myself I wouldn’t drink anything for the first hour or 2 and then I’ve have a minimal amount more because we were planning on going out after playing. I got aces about 3 times in the first 2 hours and made some money (mostly preflop, at least twice I had 3 callers for $65 preflop after someone raised before me to $15 and then I took it down on the flop). I gathered a pretty aggressive and seemingly crazy image which is what I wanted. I was playing good and winning what seemed like every pot I was involved in, live poker is the nuts.

After about 3 hours I had built my $500 into a stack of over $3k. I was happy and in the zone.

At this point I made the mistake. I proceeded to order double after double to the point where I no longer knew what was happening. I can’t remember much after this point, but I left the casino with $40. My friends told me that I refused to leave and that I was playing almost every pot and playing super aggressive in many stupid spots. I was not surprised to hear this given the state I was in.

The administration pulled me aside after I almost fell asleep at the table and told me I was cut off. I said something along the lines of, “Alright that’s fine, but can my friend drink for me?” “Okay I’ll just get him to drink for me then.” Numerous times during the end of the session I was asking the dealer how many were left in the tournament, and if this is a cash game or a tourney and if I was in the money.

Winning $2.5k would have been a great thing for me, but because I couldn’t handle my drinking I left the casino down almost $700. I know drinking is bad for poker, so I don’t need to hear a lecture. The lesson was learned and it won’t happen again. But damn do I ever wish I could go back in time. So depressing to think about how idiotic those few last hours were.

Losing $700 doesn’t bother me. I didn’t care about that. I care that I lost it (and the money I had previously won) in such a stupid manner. I don’t think I will ever stop beating myself up for that. ****.

Small Score Attempts: A few MTTs

I played in a couple of MTTs this week because I was looking for a big score. I also mass tables Party when the jackpot was over $900k also looking for a big score.

I think it was Friday night when I fired up 2 $100 buyin MTTs. I love the $109 6max deep on full tilt. Although I am not a solid MTT player I feel my edge on the 6max deep is pretty significant. I started off pretty slow, losing a few small pots in an attempt to gain some chips early. About mid way through I doubled up twice with AKs in resteal spots and just kinda coasted from there. I got up to about 100k in chips with about 14 left (avg was prob 60kish) and I lost with AK to a 20k shortstack after he shoved (I believe blinds were like 800/1600) and then I attempted to steal into a 24k stack with J9s when blinds were 1/2k and I tilt called his shove getting 1.5-1. I am still not sure if this was an ok call. I suppose it was though because I wanted to gain a good chip position for the final 2 tables and I was willing to go in to this as a 40% dog. Anyway I lost this pot too so I was down to 45kish. I held on to my stack until final 12, got in with QQ vs AK and busted in a 100k pot for a decent stack. Standard tournies.

The $109 on stars was a full ring tourney which I steadily increase my chip stack in the latest stages and eventually busted 26th I believe.

In both tournies I entered I felt I played ok, and I ran pretty good obviously because of my placements. I just wish the poker gods would shine on me and let me actually get to a final table some day soon. A big score would be so awesome. (Oh and by big score I mean like $4k+, I'm still a SSNL chilla).

I bought 2 books on MTTs before this. Kill Phil and Kill Everyone. Kill Phil I read for about 20 minutes until I realized its meant for absolute beginners. And although I am not a seasoned pro at MTTs, this book is just very basic and basically an extension of Sklansky's push system. My education in MTTs is much better suited with my second book. The follow up of Kill Phil, which is Kill Everyone. I am not too far in to it but I really like this book. It goes into some detailed mathematical and strategic options in the game which is pretty interesting to me.

Party Jackpot Dream Chasing

Looking for a massive score though, was me 13 tabling $100 NL jackpot tables on party over the weekend. I normally would not do this, as my EV is drastically cut, but I was in it for the gamble. I wanted to sit on a table that hit (or hit myself) and score a $50k+ day at $100 NL. The jackpot was at $700k when I started late last week. Eventually it did get up to $930kish before it hit and the winner got $330k. I heard a rumor it hit at $25NL. thank god it didn't hit at $100 NL or I'd probably shoot something.

The experience of mass tabling taught me a weird but obvious lesson for poker. Nitting it up at $100 NL can be mindlessly profitable. Although this approach is not optimal in the long run because you aren't learning much of anything, its interesting to note that a solid preflop game accompanied by smart post flop aggression can yield some easy money. I ended up making like 7 buyins or so during the few hours I could stand mass tabling (on 3 different occasions). I spewed a lot at the beginning and didn't really enjoy it, but as I played more and more it kind of got "easy" to play. I don't think I will play any more than 8 tables in the near future but the lessons are to just play a solid (fairly tight) preflop game and think about decisions post flop - thats all that is required for me to do to beat $100 NL and I am happy with that for now. I want to build a bankroll in this manner and then when I am comfortable, drop tables significant to focus on improving and move up, possibly with some coaching from a Leggo Pro.

Bigger Score Attempt Coming: $1M guar. on Party

Party Poker has a cool $640 buyin million dollar guaranteed tournament coming up, with satellites to enter at $77 a piece. I opted to play in 2 sat's and ended up winning in the second one. So I will be playing in a big tourney on august 10th looking for a big score there. Hopefully I can come through with some luck and jumpstart my learning curve by getting to avoid all this mindless bankroll building and jump right in to learning.

Future Scores?

As for the future. I won't be playing in many MTTs. I think that if I have a free night with no work to do and nothing on the go around town I might opt to buy in to a few of these per month (especially the 6max deep on FTP I love those things). I made a few hundred on MTTs last weekend so I don't feel terrible about the investment.

Cliff Notes

A big score would be sweet. Played a few MTTs, got semi-deep, and lost out. 13 tabled $100 NL on party trying to nail the jackpot and came up with winning sessions but no jackpot winnings. My goal is to build up a bankroll at $100 NL and then cut tables and focus on improving my game as I (hopefully!) move up in stakes with the aid of a coach. I am playing in the million guaranteed on August 10th at party and would ask if you would please pray to the poker gods that I run goo0t.

Overall this seems to me like a pretty boring post but that's fine by me. I just want a place to write down my thoughts and maybe I'll look back in a year when I am playing $10/$20 and be content with my progress. Or, more likely, I'll be still playing $100 NL and still be swinging with both arms. Let's see!

Tickner is a Moron.

I just read over my last blog post and almost started laughing. No, nobody said anything to me or pointed anything out, but I noticed something.

Let me post two paragraphs from my last blog post here.

First of all, these 2 sentences are funny. I don't know where this came from but it isn't me. I seem to put on a mask to try to sound cool to myself or something, I don't know. Maybe I wish I was the greatest but never will be.

Secondly, while it is true that I watched a lot of videos, and I put a lot of time in to learning, it’s not even possible to watch some videos and try to learn, then immediately go from a losing game to "... in no time I was killing the limit." I just pulled that one right out of my ass. Ok ok, so I started winning and paying more attention. Yes, I played better, that is all I should have said, but I had to add in that extra spice didn't I? Truth is I am not "killing the limit". I am winning, just like many people are, but I am certainly not killing it, as much as I want to think I am.

Third, this is self explanatory by now, but I'm actually laughing at the last sentence. You are a moron Tickner.

Ironically, the next paragraph says the following:

First, I don't even talk like that. LOL @ me trying to write.

Second, let me state that I did not "crush" $200NL. I went on a mini-heater as I moved up the stakes. WOWW.

Third and this is the irony of the post, I said "Unfortunately, as we get proud and lazy (while running hot) we tend to focus less on improving and start paying less attention to the tables." See what happened here? In the paragraph JUST before this line, I claimed to be one of the best regs at $100 NL. Talk about learning from mistakes.

Humbling Myself

The fact is I am playing $100 NL. 4 years ago, I was playing $100 NL. I've had ups and downs but honestly I am sure it was a bunch of mini-heaters. I am not crushing anything. While I agree that it’s good to be confident, overconfidence is the worst. I experience overconfidence, "learn from it", and do it again and again. And that's why I still suck.

My point is, what I need to do is accept that I am not a great player. Many would say that if I am not a great player by now, I never will be. There's certainly a valid argument in that sentiment. In fact I believe it to be true.

That said there's still money to be won. I am surrounded by great players, I am involved in an amazing poker training site, I have all the tools and resources to win. My goal is not to become a $100/$200 HU specialist. My goal is to play my best game and see what happens. My goal is to learn. I have SO much to learn and I feel like I've wasted the last years of my life. Most people realize what I am experiencing right now within 6 months of playing.

Just Play That Next Hand Right

So, what is there to learn from this? It took me a while, but I think I finally did learn that I am not going to get good by thinking I want to be good. I need to study and practice, I need to humble myself and admit that (gasp) I am not good at poker. So so many people are just miles ahead of me. I'm not even close. I need to be confident in my game but never become ignorant or arrogant. It's just wasting my time, my money, and my life.

My Return

Sorry about my little "break" from my blog. It seems that when I start losing at poker my whole world crashes and I just stop caring about a lot of things and start focusing on tilting more and more and spiral even further downward.

I have learned from this mistake and do not plan on re-entering that phase. If I stop blogging in the future please just PM me and tell me I'm a moron.

Although losing at poker was not the whole reason it was a part of it. School, life, and LeggoPoker work was bogging me down quite a bit as well. In any case I don't have any legit reason and I don't plan on stopping again.

Poker to Date

My poker game has grown a lot. If you recall from my previous posts I had started a HU Adventure and I failed miserably. I did not do well overall and I was not trying to learn. I was not talking to my poker friends, I was noy watching videos, and I was noy reviewing my game. I just assumed I was awesome and kept playing (and losing) and tilting buyins to regs. Eventually I quit HU, got angry about it, and stopped playing for months.

About 5 weeks ago there was a Party Poker promotion where you could get 80 hours free from rake if you played 240 hours in a 30 day span. I got about 77 hours free from this so it turned out to be a little over 30% rakeback in effect. I would like to thank fellow Leggo member somnius and his blog post to give me the heads up about this promotion and inspire me to do it. It was a long and hard road with many ups and downs but well worth it.

What it did was force me to play a lot more. I would never do this again because it forces you to play even when you shouldn't. I was playing every day for about 8 hours and most of that was 6-8 tabling $100 NL (six max). I started off by losing about 15 buyins over my first 15k hands. I decided if I was going to continue I needed to learn more. I watched a lot of videos on LeggoPoker and reviewed my sessions and in no time I was killing the limit. I am currently one of the best regs at $100 NL and I can say that fairly confidently.

About half way through the promo when I was running hot I opted to jump up to $200 NL where I crushed. I mean I was literally running every reg over and owning the bountiful fish while getting prouder and prouder. Unfortunatly, as we get proud and lazy (while running hot) we tend to focus less on improving and start paying less attention to the tables. In no time I was back down to $100 NL cursing myself. Oh well, such is life.

I cashed out a lot. I had some debt to pay and I paid most of it off. I now have a good bankroll for $100 NL and I plan on continuing my journey to crush Party Poker in the following months. I hope to be playing $200 NL within a month or so but we will see how that works out.

Leggo, etc

Get ready for some big web site changes at LeggoPoker. I can't specify but I am confident you will all be pleased with new features coming. I work hard and long on LeggoPoker web development and I am happy to see that even though we are still working on our new pros and video services (which will improve greatly) my work as a web developer is starting to really take off. Just the other day we released an (imo) awesome new blog home page which should be very useful to all blogers and readers. I will be reporting and asking questions in the following months about the webiste and such as a whole. In any case be prepared to see changes to the website in the following weeks, months and beyond.

That's enough for now. But I have a lot to say and I promise to update more regularly from now on.

I don't play too well when I play more than two tables so I am going to cut that out and focus on just two tables for a while. Looking back I think my decision to 3 (and then 4) table was definitely a bad one. The only time I should ever consider 4 tables is against 4 short stacks that I can really just auto-pilot against. And the only time I should consider 3 tables is when its all against one player and I am confident I am significantly better than him/her.

Recently I have been playing a lot of $100 NL Heads up, and my adventure to date looks something like the graph depicted below.



Note that this is wrong. I am actually only down $65 and am up $130 in rakeback. So I am slightly ahead after rakeback but basically break even over all so far.

They tell me variance is greater in heads up play, and I shouldn't be results oriented, but I just can't help myself and feel quite frustrated. 14,000 hands heads up with a graph like the one above makes me feel like I'm playing a break even game. When winning I feel untouchable and when losing I feel so depressed. Losing at heads up is so much worse than losing 6 handed.

Something I must stop doing is playing against so many regulars. I always challenge regulars and I always sit with them and try to beat them. I have a very ambitious ego and that is not a good thing - especially heads up. You can't have grudges, you can't get angry/mad or let any emotions creep into the game and fog your mind. This is true in all forms of poker and heads up is certainly no exception. If a regular catches you on tilt he will not hesitate to take note and continue to play you until you lose a few buy ins and steam close the program. This has happened to me while playing a particular opponent on 3 tables (this happened actually, vs 3 separate regulars in the last week).

Anyway just thought I'd give you a quick update on my mediocre results. I play with the name "Tickner" on FTP and there's a good chance that someone reading my blog will sit down with me in the next few days. I will be two tabling and I will own you.

Let's hope the rest of March goes better!!

A Beginning: My Heads Up Adventure
I decided I am going to take on a new adventure and come up through the ranks of Heads Up No-Limit and destroy the poker world.

Okay that sounds pretty cliche and optimistic but nonetheless that is my goal. Will I get there? With hard work I hope to give it a good shot.

I have dabbled in HU in the past by playing some random games on FTP. I used to sit on a few tables vs. short stacks (you know, the $20 or $40 buy in hit and runner type players) and stack them within 20-30 minutes each (unless they doubled up and quit me). I never really gave it a serious shot though as I've been playing 6-Max for the better part of 18 months now and I never really had any motivation to learn a "new" game.

I've been watching a lot of the heads up poker videos here on Leggo lately and they have given me a game plan for the small stakes games. I used to play very weak-tight in a heads up match - I'd try to play it tight, similar to a 6-max game. Turns out this strategy is pretty bad against most players simply because most of the time nobody has anything. I was getting bluffed and giving up way too often, especially OOP. I have revamped my whole approach to the heads up games and have opened up a bit in position, am bluffing a lot more (on multiple streets), and value betting thinner in general. I don't give people credit for top pair all the time and I try not to let my opponent run me over. When I am playing heads up - I want to be the one in control.

An Interesting Session Tonight
Tonight was an interesting session. It started out with me playing two tables ($100 NL Heads Up) on Full Tilt. This will be my "normal" game until I feel like I am one of the best at this level and can profitably move up. I expect this to take 2-3 months or so but the time invested should pay dividends later and hopefully make me some decent money to start. Anyway, back to my session tonight. I started out 2 tabling against one $60 stack and a $100 stack. The full stack had an Iron Man icon so I assumed he was going to be a decent player and I wanted to get some experience vs some regulars while also playing the short stacked fish to keep a good mix. The short stack took about $140 off me in two river beats with most of the money in on the turn, and the big stack lost about $50 to me. Pretty standard hands here and not too interesting.

Soon after I was 3 tabling and one of the guys was VERY aggro preflop and postflop. He got all in with KQs vs my AQ after a few 3bet battles and he won with a K on the river and called me a fish. It was on. I did a quick search and he was 8 tabling (yes, EIGHT TABLING) heads up games at $100 NL. I amped up my aggression since there's no way he would notice anyway and I ended up stealing about $40 from him in small pots. I closed out my other 2 tables and opened up 2 of his other tables which were empty and started 3 tabling him. I took about 2 stacks off him before he realized what I was doing and started chatting at me. I did another search and he was now only on our 3 tables.

We played for probably 2 hours on 3 tables. It was overall a VERY aggressive up and down variance filled session in which I was up or down a few buyins at pretty much any given time. Game flow was something I really learned as there were stretches where we played pretty tight/passive and then other spurts where we were both very loose and aggressive. I think I did a pretty good job at noticing when the flow was changing and I think I adjusted pretty well to him. The end result was me up 2.5 buy ins and him quitting while saying "Ok I am done, dude you are good, GL." I can't help but say I felt pretty proud of winning. Heads up has a weird sense of personal emotions and you just want to win win win every match. This post is getting too long already so that's all I will say about it. I am sure I will have lots of stories like this coming up in the future which I can make more interesting.

Future Posts
None of the content in my blog will be revolutionary. If you are already well versed in heads up NL then most of the things I talk about won't be too interesting. That said I plan on talking a lot about heads up NL as I grow and learn more about it. I will post results and stories of my adventure once in a while and use this blog to keep a journal that I can look back on.

You've seen me make announcements in the forums, you notice I am "RED", you've seen my user title "LeggoPoker Admin", but you probably don't know who I am.

My name is Chris Tickner, I am 20, and I am a Co-Owner of LeggoPoker (along with Greg Brooks whom you definitely know from his videos, coaching lessons, or from reading about his vast poker knowledge).

I am the guy who makes sure the videos get put online, the guy who is in charge of web development here, and the guy who couldn't wait to finish these blogs so he could finally write in one. Actually I can't take all the credit for the blogs (or for much of the "look" of LeggoPoker). I certainly have the final say in these matters but ultimately it’s the brain of Craig Bauer, our designer, who makes our ideas look pretty. Craig posts on LeggoPoker under the screen name Efficent and is also the mod of the Psychology forum here at Leggo.

This isn't my first blog. Actually LegoPoker.com (the original site before lawyers told us we should change our name to LeGGoPoker) was originally created as MY POKER BLOG. This website has a very interesting history, which I am sure I will post about in the future. Quickly though, it went from being my poker blog, to a FTP hand converter, to the best converter on the internet, to the best training site on the internet today, and I'd love to expand on all of that in the future.

If any of you actually read my blog back in 2006 you would know my poker history. I don't want to bore you too much on this first post so I will expand on my poker history also in a later post - but quickly: I started "bonus-whoring" full ring limit hold'em in 2006 and by June started playing No Limit where I went from $25NL -> $600NL in 6 weeks ($500 BR to just over $17,000) before I went on monkey tilt and lost most of it back before starting to grind back up to $200NL since. My history hasn't been all that great in the mean time and I spent most of my time developing this website rather than playing. I 12 tabled $100 NL this past summer with marginal results (although I did make enough to scrape by and had a few good months).

I think that's enough for one post. I like to keep my blog posts pretty short and to the point for the most part.

As a final note about me: I am currently in my 2nd year of a 4 year business degree at my home town's university (Cape Breton University) and I plan on double majoring in Economics and Finance, while at the same time making LeggoPoker even more awesome and hopefully making some sort of name for myself on the poker tables.

Let's begin.