I am amused by the title of this blog rhyming with the blog two entries below.

When I got to Toronto around the first week of May I started playing two things: Zoom and SCOOP. I did not play any online cash games besides Zoom, a home game with Leggo members, and less than a hundred hands of Zoom PLO. I did not really anticipate doing this, but I two things probably contributed to me playing Zoom vs me playing anything else: 1. I did not have to deal with the politics of starting tables, people sitting out against me, and bumhunters and 2. I started winning.. immediately, and quite a bit. I was making $1/hand at Zoom, how is that even possible? Inevitably, some combination of me putting out a video and the regulars adjusting to me incurred a downswing where I didn't play very well. It was short. The downswing actually started in the middle of a day. I was +8k at Zoom through a few thousand hands and then I lost back 7k of it, all in the same day. I think this was primarily because I started focusing on volume: "Hey, I'm making $X a hand, I'm printing money, why not print more?" My quality of play deteriorated.

I kicked it back into gear, primarily by making a few videos actually [1]. I think I play better on video. Accountability is good. I flip the Camtasia switch and all of a sudden I realize: "Fuck, I'm going to have to explain to everyone why I'm doing this. Why I'm doing this. I can't explain this."

So I spent most of the last two and a half or three weeks oscillating between my A and C- game, never quite reaching the depths of my D game and probably never reaching the full enlightenment of my A+ game. Overall, I played well. I was also very lucky. This combination of things led me to be the biggest winner at Zoom in the month of May [2].

I've spoken and written about this time and time again, but it's difficult to evolve your poker game through the ages. I've been around for over 7 years now, a lifetime in poker years, and I've been left behind whenever I decided not to roll with the punches. In some ways, you lose when you cannot accept defeat [3]. I am in some ways proud of myself that I still consider myself a top NLHE cash game player for 2-4 to 10-20, but equally disappointed by the fact that I am not so much more. I'm still pretty average at PLO, haven't bothered learning mixed games, and am for some reason afraid to keep playing higher stakes. I never thought it was in me to be a bankroll nit, but lately I just enjoy winning much less than I hate losing-- it's a terrible mindset to be in when you're trying not to lose. Really unacceptable. My lack of motivation pisses me off [4].

I have no idea how I started ranting about things, but I like Zoom. That is all I was going to write in this blog initially. I hope they bring Zoom to HSNL. If/When I come back to Toronto [5], I hope to be playing 5-10 or 10-20 Zoom. Make it happen!







[1] To be released over the next 6 weeks or so, they're very good, imo... even by my incredible standards. I think the two coming out in June are probably the best.

[2] Probably not... maybe though.

[3] This makes absolutely no sense. When I first typed it, it was crystal clear. I read it a few more times and I still cannot recreate the magical clarity with which I had briefly solved all of mankind's problems. I now have no idea what it means.

[4] This is what every one of my shitty blogs winds up talking about.

[5] Tune in to the Leggocast, out in the next few days, about our time in Toronto-- one of the hot spots for poker players after Black Friday.

We've been on the top floor [1] of our complex in Toronto the last few months so I've had ample time to evaluate elevators.

First of all, people LOVE to look at their phone on elevators. I never know what they're doing on their phones. I'm pretty sure it's usually just refreshing twitter or facebook even when there are no new tweets or updates. I know no one is doing anything because they aren't on their phone when they get in the elevator, and frequently as soon as the elevator doors open they are off their phone. There is something comforting about looking at a phone I guess, though I'm not sure what it is. Personally, I refuse to look at my phone while I'm in an elevator. I prefer to look up and try to make eye contact [2] with the other people on the elevator.

Sometimes if I'm in the elevator with someone else I know, we'll go out of our way to seem like we're in the middle of an awkward conversation. "...but at least I think the assault charges are gonna get dropped to a misdemeanor, so that's nice." "...the doctor said it'll clear up in a few weeks if I keep putting this ointment on it." Occasionally people don't even react, occasionally people know what we're doing. I enjoy this kind of humor, and it reminds me of a cool TED talk I watched once (or twice) [3]. I've never actually done any improv, but I think I should. I tried twice (and Dan tried three times) [4].

In elevators you spend time in an enclosed space with people you wouldn't otherwise spend time with. Frequently nothing really happens, but sometimes a conversation starts about nothing in particular. Often you'll never see that person again. I think things like this in life are particularly cool. When I'm with an odd group, I always wonder what would happen if we got stranded in the elevator for 45 minutes or so [5]. Who would talk to who? Would I meet someone awesome? I doubt it'd be as cool as being stuck in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre [6].

It's the little things.

[1] It's the penthouse, I just didn't want to sound like a douche.

[2] I don't stare, how creepy do you think I am?

[3] Charlie Todd: The Shared Experience of Absurdity

[4] We were late by a lotta minutes, late by a few minutes, and it was closed because of a Canadian (not a real) holiday.

[5] And, of course, all cell phone service went out.

[6] A Friends reference, for you diehards.

What do people do while 2+2 is down? Browse Leggo, I hope, but maybe not—2+2 is a fix unlike any other. I don’t even think there is any strategy on 2+2 anymore, but you can sure get your fix for anything else. Everything from talking about how good people are at poker to sports to news, views, and gossip (speaking of which, where are people talking about how 2+2 is down now that 2+2 is down? Seems like a paradox or something [1]).

It came at a good time for me, as my internet time has been pretty limited the last two weeks. I went to Miami for a WPT last week, where I just barely faded the mincash and got 9th in a ~100 person 2k where first was like 70k. Losing flips in situations like that are annoying, but it’s encouraging that I’m multi-daying nearly every tournament I play these days, I feel almost as optimistic as when Chewy just thinks he’s going to win everything. Almost.

I then bagged for two straight days and kinda almost but not really bubbled the Main after playing pretty good poker and just having everything go wrong on Day 3. Day 3 is a bad day to have everything go wrong, but I guess Day 4 is a pretty bad day to have everything go wrong too. And I can say from experience that Day 6 is a bad day to have things go wrong as well, and it’s hard to say that you’d rather Day 3, 4, or 6 go well than Day 1, because the formers cannot be had without latter. But I digress [2].

From Miami I walked to Cancun [3], where I was standing up in a wedding. Destination weddings seem pretty hit or miss, but this one slammed it out of the park. My friend is somewhat connected to the poker community and used to play professionally, so there were some familiar Leggoites in attendance. Combined with our mutual friends from home, it was an elite crew of shenanigans at a resort where everything was free [4]. As I get older I think I write quite a bit less about my personal life in my blog, but I felt like this was a trip that had to be at least cliffnoted. The resort was a 5 star [5] couples resort [6] that was all-inclusive. The staff was insanely helpful at all times, and they were not shy about providing sufficient 24 hour room service complete with chicken nuggets and champagne [7]. I cannot stress enough how good the staff was. I anticipated some laziness or aloofness since everything was “included,” but everyone was personal—one girl must’ve seen me 4 times throughout the trip, I never recognized her because she was in a million different uniforms [8], but she always knew who I was. The name of the place was Sun Palace. I am not a Sun Palace affiliate, but if you’re looking for a long weekend getaway with your girl, you should go here.

On the trip we did a bit of an expedition where we went on ATVs, ziplined, and jumped into caves. I jumped from 52 feet, which was the highest platform they had, and I probably would have jumped from as high as they told me it was okay to jump from, because that’s my style. Most of the group jumped from 37 foot platform, but I’m a showoff and I like heights [9], so I couldn’t resist. The ziplining was pretty tame, but certainly cool enough, and the ATVs were fast. Most people told me not to leave the resort in Mexico because I’ll get abducted, but I faded that, so I’ve got that goin’ for me, which is nice.

I’m also excited to start playing online poker again. I keep saying that I just want to start playing 5-10+ again, but it always takes a few weeks for me to really get back in the swing of things, and by that time I’m going back to the States for whatever reason. I’m pretty set on going abroad next year and staying there for a good period of time (maybe 3 months) so I can just put in 100-200k hands on Stars and have that be that bulk of my online poker playing for the next calendar year. As always, I try not to plan too far in advance.

I am a little out of the loop I suppose, but last week was Mojito Tuesday, the day the we found out Stars is (probably? maybe?) buying Full Tilt, and in some way, shape, or form, we’re getting some of our pesos [10] back. Even if that solution does not turn out to be perfect, having Stars lined up to do something is better than having a French gangster lined up to do something, imo. Cheers to April 24th, forever known as Mojito Tuesday (assuming we get our pesos back—actually, even if we don’t, Mojito Tuesday will just take on an entirely different connotation, and we’ll drink until we can’t feel feelings anymore).

[1] The author is aware this is a bad example of a paradox, but it does seem a little paradoxical, or something.

[2] I hate when people say “But I digress.”

[3] I did not walk to Cancun from Miami. I actually flew (in a plane).

[4] Everything was actually $400 per night.

[5] I don’t actually know if this was true or not, but GirlChewy mentioned that it was, and although women are almost exclusively the devil, she seems to be on the straight and narrow.

[6] I went stag and chopped a room with a friend; a few bridesmaids went stag. It all worked out A-OK.

[7] At least a dozen bottles of champagne were ordered during and half-drank or not drank at all. At one point we ordered two to the room complete with 8 glasses for pre-gaming and we completely forgot about it.

[8] Or maybe I’m racist and all Mexican women look alike. But seriously, she hosted karaoke, put on a fire show, and dealt blackjack. Everytime she said my name I was taken aback and tried to figure how who she was and why she remembered my name from a 37 second conversation on the first night of my stay.

[9] Relative to the rest of the population. No one likes heights, but I don’t necessarily dislike them, and I like things that get me out of my comfort zone, that is why I bluff a lot (and in bad spots).

[10] I’m still in Mexico.

The biggest leak in the poker training industry is the disconnect between what people are willing to pay and what the information is actually worth. To expound, the market is incredibly inefficient: there are people paying $30 a month (or getting training for free through VIP programs) to watch poker videos, hundreds of dollars an hour for coaching, and thousands of dollars to read poker books by famous online players. Not everyone is getting linear bang for their buck.

That, however, is logical. Information is difficult to quantify, and any single line, thought process, or mathematical revelation could trigger an exponential increase in hourly for a poker player. People are paying for efficient transference of information. If you watched every poker video I’ve ever made, probably 100 hours worth of video, you would gain tremendous insights into what I think about every situation (information is time sensitive though and the angle that I approach poker changes by the month, week, and even day). You could piece together ‘aejones’ words of wisdom,’ but you might have a few gaps to fill in. If you listened to the Memoirs, however, you’d hear me babble about everything I had to say on any given poker subject, probably 10-20 hours (including some of the conference calls we did answering questions). You could thumb through each chapter and mark where I talk about how (and why) I play every position preflop—which is a lot easier than listening to me comment about approximately what hands I open on the button in different situations for a few seconds in any given poker video.

The diet version of expensive ebooks is power point presentation videos (Directed Learning videos on Leggo, for example). Videos like this are incredibly helpful if you’re having trouble in specific spots, but some people have trouble grasping specific concepts in theory without seeing them in application.

Since poker is a game with such immense possibilities, many types of information exchange have advantages. Although I may say “when an overcard comes on the turn, I’m betting here almost always,” in the Memoirs, I very well might get a situation in a video that is the rare exception to the rule and a chance to explain why it’d be a bad bet. Another great reason to watch videos is to see how a video producer prioritizes gameflow, balancing, frequencies, etc. in making real time decisions. Active video watching is certainly one of the most effective tools to teaching someone to play online poker.

In many ways training is actually at a premium—it’s more important than ever to keep up with players winning in the current environment if you're a serious professional. With some training sites struggling since BF (ultimately, many will be forced to close their doors unless there is a boom in the poker industry), I suspect many are looking at adjusting their business model to more properly reflect the amount of money the information they are releasing is worth. I’ll address successful business models and possible changes in the industry in the next (and probably final) installment.

This month we sent out an email to Leggo members informing them of what to expect this month and from LeggoPoker going forward as an organization. This is the letter, followed by an explanation from me:

Let me start at the beginning. Poker training is not the cash cow that some people think it may be. Of course that does not mean that producers and owners are not adequately compensated for their time and efforts, simply that the monetary compensation is frequently not immediately equal to the amount of time and effort that is put into the product. Compensation from owning a poker training site and producing poker training videos frequently comes in many shapes and sizes: [1] it is easier to become friendly with a group of poker players (in this case, most high stakes players will directly attribute their success to their poker circle), [2] the level of recognition and affiliation with a training site can be seen as more of a real "job" to peers in the real world (this is not necessarily something that I can relate with, but I could see how someone would value it), [3] producing poker training videos is a tremendous way to stay on top of your game-- you have to be held accountable for your actions and if you are taking bad "standard" lines, your video viewers will be quick to question your thought process, and finally [4] some people just decide they are very interested in giving back to the community which helped them (I think this is particularly true of a guy like Sauce, I hope he doesn't mind me singling him out) and feel a great sense of pride in showing their work. The reasons people produce poker training videos are not limited to those above, and some people definitely do it for the money.

In all cases, people are making quite a bit more than their hourly, so making videos is immediately +EV for someone who isn't afraid to be on camera. However, a poker video producer is now a bit of a public figure in the poker world and will have to deal with their opponents' adjustments against them. For me personally, I've always been fine with this for a number of reasons: [1] you can make videos at stakes lower than you play (someone with 400-600 NL as their main game can make a very relevant video at 200NL with a few of the same players in the player pool without giving away any of his reads on tougher regs), [2] it's a cool challenge to have to reinvent yourself as a poker player, I've done it probably a dozen times now, and the periods of my poker career where I was resistant to change have been met with downswings, and [3] I've always felt like I got more action as a result of making videos, people underestimate how bad regulars are that are taking a shot at playing you now that you're a video producer or just random fish who happen to hear you on a podcast talking about poker training.

Why isn't poker training a cash cow? After all, we've giving up incredibly valuable information that far exceeds $30/month. In fact, I don't think there is a better value on the planet than poker training. I'm not kidding. It's better than value than dollarshaveclub.com. Hell, you can get it for free. It's impossible to quantify, but anyone who puts effort into watching poker training videos from good poker players is accessing information that can either turn them into a winning player or improve their winrate between a little and a lot. $30 is less than a buy in per month for most of our members, and is a fraction of a buy in for some of our members. If you're a budding standup comic you may want to pay the $30/month just to listen to my videos.

Truthfully, I blame Taylor Caby for this. Haha. But seriously, I blame Taylor. He set the industry standard for poker training a bit too low. $75/month or even $100/month would have been a much more appropriate price for the services provided, but it's awfully hard to come in to a competitive market and charge significantly more than your competitors without having a serious competitive advantage. Although I'm confident in the product Leggo offers, I'm not sure that we've ever been 2.5-3x better than our competition! In the end, I'd imagine poker training will go away from the subscription based model, but who knows where it will end up? I'll speculate more in future parts.

As I mention in the letter, Leggo held steady after BF. Thankfully, we had much more of our business from outside of the US than I would have guessed. We did not reduce our video producers' pay. We continued to put out 5 full length poker videos, a Leggo Lite, and a chess video every week. I don't care about making money (this is a blatant lie, but I'm using it to illustrate a point), I am hellbent on making (and keeping) Leggo awesome. A year after BF, we can't sustain 5 poker videos a week without losing quality, so we're going to 4 and I'm going to make sure there is more awesomeness in those four videos than the previous 5. April alone will feature 4 videos from Denny, 3 videos from me, and 1 from luckychewy [Full April Video Schedule]-- so you'll love our videos whether you're a raw vegan or you eat meat (I feel like this is the part most people would put a smiley face to indicate an inside joke, but that's not my style).

What am I doing? Thanks for asking.

I'm watching basketball, mostly. I'm lifting. I'm also trying to lose a few pounds to fit into these dress pants I have to wear for a wedding I'm standing up in at the end of next month. I'm playing a bit of basketball myself.

I have been pretty terrible at execution lately. I have decent self control and ambition, but it's a bit misplaced sometimes. I set lofty goals and I fall a bit short, but I still wind up doing alright. I'm sure that's standard. I like balance, I do not expect to wake up and live like a robot, I'm alright with adjusting and getting a little lazy from time to time.

I feel like I'm blogging about the same things all the time. I need a real topic, anyone have any suggestions? I am a jack of all trades and could write about a bunch of stuff (maybe even poker?!)-- let me know!

Ok first of all, Erick and Erica, lol, let's get that out of our system.

Now that we've moved past that as mature adults, I'd like to make a PSA to the poker community. As you may have read in Klink's blog or here on 2+2, Erick Lindgren is a scammer. The cliffs are that he's ~6 months behind on some fantasy football debts (in the low 6 figures, afaik), and while he has taken a while to pay in the past (people said due to sheer laziness), he is no longer milking the FTP cash cow for (a reported) 250k/month.

I am not personally owed any money and I am not good friends with anyone who is owed money, so I have no dog in this fight. I had taken some interest in the thread because these things are important to the HSNL community-- you have to know who is trustworthy and who isn't (not that I would have ever trusted Lindgren with any money in the first place). The HSNL community sort of polices itself and there is a mental blacklist of people who are not trustworthy.

At this point I remain optimistic that Lindgren has assets [it's reported that he's playing relatively high stakes and has house/car(s)] and despite being a losing poker player, will eventually pay back the money he owes. After all of his lies (there are some lol-worthy chats) though it seems like it'll be later rather than sooner (which is absurdly embarrassing, considering he was making $3m a year for the past few years).

In light of all that, I thought it was particularly inappropriate that Erica Lindgren (former gf of David Benyamine, who I believe upgraded and traded in for a younger model) tweeted the following (and deleted it 30 minutes later):

If Erick really is cash broke and is planning on paying back the money, the only responsible thing to do is to take something like this seriously and issue a statement to your close friends that you're working on it. Tweeting something like this (or letting your woman do it) is a joke, which is how Erick's reputation should be viewed right about now.

Cliffs: Cunts gonna cunt.

I started to write a blog about motivation for poker, but it was nonsense. I was just mashing random stuff about how some poker player's care about money and some don't. How some say they do and don't, and how some say they don't and do. I lost my motivation to write about motivation.

I've been grinding sports (recent wrote an article for PPP about Jeremy Lin) and poker (playing more lately, but still not much this month) and weight lifting (pleased with results). My life has been decidedly uneventful in the last several weeks. I made a short trip to Montreal to visit but have nothing to report. I've been in Toronto for almost a month now and am just starting to actually be productive (I couldn't even tell you what I did with all the time I've been here).

I got a bad haircut today. It's too bad, because I was really excited about getting a haircut, it was long overdue and I figured I'd feel productive. I guess I wasn't descriptive enough, but I just don't really care. It grows. Getting a bad haircut is a very temporary problem. Future Aaron's hair will be sexy as always. I don't think I've ever gotten a good haircut, it always looks better after I let it grow for a while.

Jesus what a lame blog. I'm playing poker well, that's all you need to know. I will be visiting with my parents for a few days and then I will make some sort of challenge to myself to get a good amount of hands in before I have to be stateside again.

So yea, I'm back in Toronto, where it's incredibly cold. I knew it was gonna be like this for a few months, and I honestly don't mind the cold UNLESS it's windy/rainy/crazy and/or it fucks up travel arrangements. So far there was just the one day when it started snowing sideways out of nowhere, before that I think we were having a pretty mild winter. I don't care really, I went to some fine dining last week but I honestly plan on spending the rest of this month trekking to the gym 5.5 days a week and nothing else. It sounds a little silly but it'll help me grind, hopefully.

I should be playing more poker, but I've spent my first two weeks up here sick and tired and lazy. I've played some Sunday tournaments but really hadn't played much cash. I have put in a few 1k hand sessions and am determined for them to come more frequently over the course of the next month. I am pretty confident I can get 50k hands in before I leave at the beginning of March. It doesn't see like much to most of you but it'll definitely take some extra work for me. The good news is that I played today so we're trending upwards! Didn't play anything too interesting, luckily I won at 5-10 and 10-20 and got punished at 2-4. I had some grand plan of playing more 2-4 again this time around, but I just don't think that's gonna work out...

We're finally live with LeggopokerVIP, so make sure to hit up Matthew Young for full details. Time consuming projects are always the most rewarding when they are finally completed, but you can't fake effort or it'll show in the results.

Chewy has been wearing his tinfoil hat lately so we've been watching documentaries about pretty much everything. Knowing how absurd our FDA is, we watched Super Size Me today for some good lols. I know I'm almost a decade late to the party, but a really entertaining movie with a good pace, worth the watch if you haven't seen it yet.

Working on a Leggocast this week to have out for February 1. This month I'll interview Chewy about his back to back televised final tables, so if you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments section of the blog as I'll probably do at least part of the interview tomorrow. I'm looking forward to asking about some general differences in production and gameplay of both tournaments (WPT 5 Diamond and Epic Event 3, in case you've been under a rock). Next month I'll have an interview with the King about winning the 100k tournament in Australia and playing a 250k tournament (lol). I should be able to Leggocast monthly from here on out! Apologize to our several hundred (dozen?) listeners that we were slacking.

According to my roommate in Indiana: