For some reason I have been having trouble getting my own mortality off of my mind. I try to imagine what it will be like to cease to exist, but (obviously) its impossible. Then I think about if I did somehow manage to not die, the idea of living for infinity despairs me just as much as dying. Why do I have to waste my time contemplating the unknowable? If I could just Matrix blue pill this bullshit I would in a heartbeat.

I have found a way to temporarily escape this mental hangnail: pokers. I have been grinding with almost all of my free time. I took a few days off to hit Macau, but besides that I have been on the tables 8+ hours/day.


At least I can win at poker O_o

I feel like I'm in a constant state of mid-life crisis. Poker has been going well for me but I feel as though (and the general consensus is) that making a living playing poker will not always be possible. Thinking in terms of lifetime $ev it probably makes the most sense to ditch poker and start concentrating on something else. Beyond that, finding some other passion could provide greater funEV/lifeEV than playing poker longterm.

I love playing games, competition and logical thinking. These personality characteristics make me well suited for being a professional poker player. The main goals in my life is to avoid obligation to stupid shit I don't care about and fun. Being a poker pro, I achieve both of these life goals more so than I could have ever imagined. Its something that so many poker players seem to forget, something that gets lost with the monotony of the grind, and its something that a friend recently had to remind me of: Poker is fun! Inducing a 3 street bluff or finding a new spot for a c/r bluff is fun. Value-towning donks and going deep in tournaments is fun. Experimenting with new lines and trying to determine how your opponents with respond to them is fun. Money is nice but only as a means to avoid doing shit I don't care about.

As I wrote in an earlier blog, I feel as though I could play poker every day of my life and feel fine about it. This is how I feel now, but its the 30 year old Vincent that I'm worried about. I am also concerned that I am set up so well in this comfort zone of poker. At times I think I am missing out on the breadth of life, but then I remember that most other professions, most other regions of the world and ways of living totally suck. The fact that I feel that way about so many other ways of being makes me disappointed in myself and wary of my comfort. Have I really found the best way to live a life? Or something near it? I have to doubt this. Should the quality of life be judged by how comfortable someone is? I need some sort of expansion of consciousness to feel that it should not be judged in that way. Is it worth it to seek out said expansion of consciousness (live alone in the forest, hike the Andes, build schools for children in Nepal??) Or should I just keep living the same life I am now and quit when it starts to be unfun?

no
fucking
clue

been luckboxin it up in Korea, made day 3 of this donkament with 505k. 3rd in chips of 16 left, avg is like 350k, field was a lot softer earlier, but I'm def a solid favorite still. I can't get the internet at the venue to work on my phone so no twitter, but I'm getting decent coverage on pokernews. ONETIEM

Really wish I were winning more, but eh, its going alright.


Could bolster up the WR a bit if I participated in the rampant tableblocking, insta-sitting out and insta-join-table script usage. Harangutang recently made a new thread in the Zoo regarding these issues so hopefully we can convince Party to make some changes. I wish people would just play a few fucking hands against some regs, because at certain times (peak hours) when there are no open games, the 3-4handed game gets filled within minutes usually. I end up just playing regs who are better than me HU on the 6max tables for far too long while playing too many tables. It probably is costing me a bit of money, sigh. Now that I'll be playing mostly 2/4+ I should also be making a bit more in the coming months hopefully.

Out to Japan in a couple days so I'm done for the month. Wish me luck for the donkament I'll be playing out in South Korea also. peace

When I moved out to Canada to grind my mindset stunted me. To truly crush poker, one must be 100% present in every decision. For whatever reason, I was not. When my results were lacking, "Oh they were just always at the top of their range," "What am I supposed to do when they just win every flip and I get set up every hand?!?" The truth of the matter is that the game has changed. We all know that as time goes on everyone gets better: regs give off fewer bet sizing tells and don't miss value as often and the donks make fewer obvious desperation bluffs and limp/call K3s less often. I was clearly a favorite in the 1/2-3/6nl games I was playing in but I had not maintained the same edge I had had in the months and years prior. I was falling behind and I did not realize it.

The disparity between my expectations and results left me feeling apathetic and I lost the will to grind. I spent my last month in Canada watching Breaking Bad, eating Doner kebabs and waiting to drive home. I lived in Sacramento for a month(wanted to be near home but not at home, Stockton is one of the most crime-ridden and depressing places in the US D: ) and I put in some hours on the live grind. After about 80 hours of breakeven live grind I decided that life was not for me (again, obviously a huge favorite in those games but wtf@25 hands/hour, how are you ever supposed to converge doing that.) I decided that if I were to continue with poker, I would definitely have to continue online and I booked a flight out to Taipei.

I had withdrawn a bit to pay for some expenses and I had ~5k on my party account that I decided I would just run up at 1/2. Over my next 50k hands, I broke even. The problem: My game was not 100%, I wasn't considering all my options at every decision point, I wasn't thinking about the increased rake at the bbj tables and was playing very low EV games, I was not scanning the donks' every move to find out each of their unique quirks and leaks (same for regs I suppose.) I was being lazy and I expected to just crush it from square one. You can't do that in poker nowadays, not even at 1/2nl.

I now realize my flaws (and I've been running a bit better ) and my results have improved. My results are still below expectations, though, because I don't just expect do alright and to get by. In the past weeks I have been thinking about what I need to do to be at the top of NLHE online and I have come up with a million ideas for changes to my game. One thing I have come to realize is that although regs may be making fewer mistakes, they still suck at thinking. Most people have a default game and stick to their gameplan except under the most ridiculous circumstances. This is not how to play poker for maximum profit, this is a recipe for breakeven rakeback grinding (which is how most regs make their money, surprise surprise.) This strategy of consensus may be the closest we have to a GTO approach, but you have to remember that a GTO strategy will not yield the greatest profit vs any opponents. Unorthodox and exploitative strategies will prevail against the vast majorities of regulars if implemented by a fully present and thinking player. For those looking to crush the midstakes in unlimited texas hold them today, this is the path.

While 2011 may have been a terrible year for poker, with my new perspective on poker and a sense of ever-improving my game, I am feeling confident. I'll dump a few pics from my phone onto here, for fun.


Breckenridge, CO in february

La Paz, BCS in May

you may recognize some of these guys! vegas in june

haircut in december :-/



some pics from my messy ass apartment, setup and pics from the roof.

Enjoy and gl at the tables all

Thanks be to the Frenchies for saving Full Tilt Poker, my roll there and of course rush pokers. I cannot wait for FTP2s launch and to get back on that RUSHHH grind crushing at 1700 hands/hour. The past few weeks have been tumultuous. I've since left Canada, spent some time grinding the cardrooms out here in Sacramento and headed out to Vegas for a weeklong grind trip. As for my plan moving forward: Miami at least for a while, considering Taiwan following that. I'm going to need a solid spot to live from day1 of ftp2 until the WSOP. To maximize grinding ability I need to cut down on the travelling and get a set place to live and a concrete life schedule.

I don't have much else to write about... I've just been hanging out and wasting a bunch of time, since I don't enjoy live poker very much and I can't play internet poker. Some things that I'm looking forward to include http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=336 random hot taiwanese chicks, RUSHHHING, chipotle obv. Although I doubt they have Chipotles in Taiwan so I'd better OD on it while I can.

LIVE WELL AND PROSPER

Obv jinx graph was obviously a jinx graph. This fish came and sat at my ipoker 2/4 hu table with a little more than $100 and ran it up to $5k, one tabling against me. He then taunted me and peaced out. Same thing happened the next day against a different fish, but it wasn't as bad. He only ran his $100 initial buy in into ~$3k in a few hundred hands. I had a few friends check over the HHs and I played fairly well. Standard negative variance I suppose. I checked my HEM the other day and filtered for results since I came to Canada. The last time I posted results (prob mid late august, posted stats of winning at ~5ptbb over a 50k sample) def jinxed me as well. The following 50k hands of nlhe, BREAKEVEN. Its sweet to be professional poker player, login every day and just sit here and lose to braindead fucks.

I've been keeping my cool while on the tables, but whenever I finish my session and see that I lost again, I feel like a waste. I moved to Canada to play poker, I hang out on the forums all day, watch poker videos, sleep and have poker dreams, and I can't win at the game. To have your life revolve around poker and to lose for a few weeks is hell. I'm ok with losing to fish (keeps em coming back), but losing to stupid regs just tilts me to no end. Every time they 4b call it off with AK93ss and get there, every time they flat that 4b oop with 22 and flop a set vs my toppair+, I just get this picture in my head:



I know, I know, I should feel awesome playing against these guys and seeing these nonsensical/buttonclicky plays, I'm winning in the long run right? Its just when it happens over and over again, week in and week out, you lose sight of the long run. And the long run is very long. Like I said, I'm keeping it under control, but I have to vent somewhere. A few things that have been helping me from just laying in bed all day (for fear of waking up and playing 5-6 hours of poker to lose to morons,) include singing while playing (lol my neighbors def hate me) and watching south park while playing (helps me laugh off the unluckiness.) The vid is super ghey status, but this song is f catchy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxVNOnPyvIU&ob=av2e. Every day, just sitting here, yelling 'HOWWW DOES IT FEEEEEEEEEL' while blasting off stacks. Its been pretty tight. I'm sure I will win again one day, maybe.

On a completely random side note, I watched Momento for the first time the other day. If you haven't seen it, in the movie the main character has no capability of forming short-term memories, so he has to take pictures of everything and caption them to remember what he is doing throughout the day(SORTA LIKE A 'MOMENTO' AMIRITE) While watching it, I remembered visiting an old college friend a few weeks ago. We did the standard reminiscing and nostalgia clogged my veins. There were so many times in that conversation in which I thought, man, the money I would pay to have a video of that, or to have a photo of that instant. I thought about how tragic it is that those moments are lost forever now, without record, and how almost all moments in time are like that. The problem for me has been that I just never think to take pictures, and taking pictures seems like a vaguely girly endeavor to me in the first place (most of the time people who suggest taking pictures are girls so it seems girly to me :P) I'm going to try to start taking a picture a day, to remember that day by. Something unique has to happen over the course of an entire day, right? I'm sure... and I'll try to either screencap it or take a picture of it.

Until next time, peace out fish

It started at the beginning of the month. I would open up 1 or 2 huplo tables on ipoker while I was on my grind at msnl on party. I played anyone who sat and games were good, I ran well, huplo is fun, so a few days ago I thought I'd try grinding just plo. I started grinding the midstakes 6max plo on ipoker and party and I've put in a few thousand hands, ran like Jesus-son-of-God himself and now I'm hooked. gg me.



LOLsamplesize, broolstoryco, doomswitch imminent etc etc. still feelsgoodman.jpg right now
The true test will be when the runbad comes. I'm geared up and ready for it, but I wouldn't mind if I kept running as I am now.

I will preface this by saying that I have not played much PLO. Just taking a shot in the game bc there is a vvv good spot.

Villain is a winning reg, his standard pf raise was 3x so it may have been a misclick pre by him. I would flat with AAxx with these stacks and positions usually, because I assume that villains assign you a range of AAxx always until you have shown down otherwise in this spot. The caveat is that the button is a megadonk, 90% vpip, 40pfr and could backraise pre with 4 uno cards here (he had shown a tendency to do these sorts of things.)

The hand is really annoying post because my hand is so faceup. Flop cbet is standard I suppose? As well as the turn? I'm going to assume so. On the river I feel like he has me on AAxx squarely and so can value bet very well vs me. He can bet anything that beats AAxx, so any two pair+. However, I also feel that he can bluff with any hand he gets to the river with. I'm going to assume that when he gets to river with a hand worse than twopair, he bluffs 80-90% of the time. Fair assumption? Should 5xxx be discounted a bit pre given positions?

Given all of this, wutdo?

Party, $5/$10 PL Omaha Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: $5,426.63
CO: $2,108
BTN: $1,456.25
Hero (SB): $1,704
BB: $2,902.50

Pre-Flop: J 9 A A dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG raises to $20, CO folds, BTN calls $20, Hero raises to $90, BB folds, UTG calls $70, BTN calls $70

Flop: ($280) 6 3 J (3 Players)
Hero bets $200, UTG calls $200, BTN folds

Turn: ($680) 2 (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $310, Hero calls $310

River: ($1,300) 4 (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $1,297, Hero ?!?!?!? A smidgen more than $1100 behind for me

Full Tilt, $50/$100 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $15,333
BTN: $18,600

Pre-Flop: K Q dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $225, Hero raises to $850, BTN calls $625

Flop: ($1,700) 8 7 8 (2 Players)
Hero bets $1,100, BTN calls $1,100

Turn: ($3,900) 2 (2 Players)
Hero bets $2,950, BTN calls $2,950

River: ($9,800) T (2 Players)
Hero bets $10,433 and is All-In, BTN calls $10,433

Results: $30,666 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed K Q and LOST (-$15,233 NET)
BTN showed A Q and WON $30,665.50 (+$15,382.50 NET)

Hand played out december 2010. Regarding the hand itself: its pretty whatever. I do have a few missed draws in my range and I'm not sure if I would play an overpair like this on the river, but I still think the turn call is too loose by him. I posted it because I thought of the feelings associated with this hand. It was the second time I had run up a roll that could stand playing high stakes and I just recall how accomplished I felt. A true busto to robusto story, I remember once having $15 cash to my name and thinking "FML." I spent it on a burrito. I probably would not have had my own computer at school had I not won an scholarship essay contest from a Republican womens group from back home (written in 1.5 hours in the 1.5 hours before it was due, didn't believe a word I wrote and felt like a fraud when they put in the essay in the newspaper.) Times were tough but I persevered.

I ended up busto-ing a decent percentage of my roll in the following months shotting 25/50 and then I had to pay a bit in taxes. BF busto'd my FT and Cereus rolls (yes I'm a fish and had a little under 10k cereus.) I bricked off every tournament at the wsop, bar mincashing a 1k and here I am again grinding the good ole 1/2. Some days I feel like I'm lacking the willpower necessary to just buckle down and put in the hands necessary to move up again, but then I remember that I am made for this game. The necessary personality characteristics for a winning high stakes poker player reside within me. More so than anything in the world, I want to win. Every play I make on the tables, I analyse to death: how could I have sized this better, would a false timing tell work against this guy? What about a reverse false timing tell? How can I best exploit his strategy of 'x'? I also am prone to be a bit delusional at times. You can tell from the tone of this blog Despite those tendencies, I remain extremely self-aware and I try to be as truthful to myself as possible. Obviously these things alone cannot guarantee success. Its also the case that if I do grind up a decent six fig roll and start shotting big again, I could find myself in a poker version of Ground Hog Day: forever trapped in a poker purgatory.

As a non-poker friend once said to me, while I was trying to explain poker swongs, "You gotta spend money to make money and you gotta fight to survive." My ego would never let me quit poker so I am left with only one option. How does Bill Murray get himself out of Ground Hog Day anyway?