So, my old friend Grimstarr decided to give me action again today. Nice! However, he hit and ran me at 5/10 pretty fast, so I thought I was going to break something. Luckily he was sitting alone at 25/50. We didn't play long, but it was funny:
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/8051/grimmyeo1.png

Didn't play much today, kinda sick and tired actually, but always fun to get some action from grim, even if it's not for long.

Well, it's been a while since I posted a blog update, eh? A lot of stuff has been happening, so to speak; I'll link everyone to the long overdue trip report on Europe I'm writing. I played a sesh while there on Pacific, and wow, you non-Americans have it easy
I played yesterday, which was actually the first sesh I played in roughly 2.5 weeks. Why? Well, again, a lot of stuff has been happening

I played 3/6 and 5/10 HU, and finished up 1.2k. What's funny about this though is I ran at 29% won at showdown at 5/10 (dropped 3 buyins) but ran at just under 50% won at showdown (that's HOT for me!) at 3/6 and made a bit over 6 buyins. One note is one of my opponents, whom I waited for at 5/10 to come back, a "babygrand" claimed his full tilt account was hacked and he'd contact me on LP (I assumed he ment Legopoker?) so best of luck with him not getting hacked.

Will post alot more about it later, but I'm here in the UK for a week filming a poker DVD series. It's pretty exciting; the people before me who have participated in this are Stoxpoker, Krantz, and Ed Miller.

When I come back to the States, that night I'm going to the Bucks vs Celtics, which should be a blowout. I saw the Bucks play the Warriors last year (not to mention countless games on TV) and wow they cannot match up at all.

Also, my girlfriend, who lives in CA, is flying in the following morning, which is wonderful. She's coming for the holidays and hopefully decides to move in with me.. We shall see!

So, last night (through this morning) I played in a home game at Harvard University. So much to say, I'll go right into the mix; I've never really liked home games. I don't like people dealing, I don't like the chips, I don't like the tables (not felt), and I don't like cheating. I especially hate cheating. I'll go on about that in a second.
One note is that clearly the people who GO to Harvard are intelligent. However, this does not mean they are good poker players. In fact, it's so strange hearing seemingly smart people talk about a game and get everything - and I do mean everything - so wrong.
A friend of mine dragged me (well, I was happy to go, even though I had a ton of work to do with regard to coaching, I didn't mind shelving it off for a bit) to this game which was 25c-50c with a normal buyin of 20$. But... The game is pretty unruly, (we dropped off some people, went out to dinner, and when we came back the average stack was "normal" - 80$ or so... Saying people were wild was an understatement) so a quick results tab is that I dropped 200$.
One statement about playing lower stakes; some people cannot play "well" when they don't care about the money. This is not me. I don't care what stakes I play, whether it's 25-50 NL, 2-5 NL, 25c-50c NL, or 2c-4c fixed limit (not a joke here) I play my "A" game. Winning is what makes me happy, so I don't understand people that play poorly on purpose. That's just not fun for me.
I digress. The "big" hand was effective 110$ deep, a kid raised a limp to 2.5$, I called with 56c, another guy called, and the flop came A 6 5 w/ 2 diamonds. Checked to me, I bet 7, the pfr checkraised to 20, I made it 50, he went all in, I called, and he had top set. Yay.
Nothing too special there, except, well, the reason I don't like home games is that cheating is rampant. In high school, when I first started playing, the only persons who did NOT cheat were myself and my best friend Dave. (Dave posts as "Green Kool Aid" on 2p2) Funny enough, we were also the 2 big winners during that time period. It was a messy experience dealing with people who would stack the deck, bottom deal themselves an ace, etc. What was most bothersome about all that was how no one really was THAT bothered that people cheated. (Well, it certainly bothered Dave and me!)
Anyway, the long and short of it is after thinking about the game last night, I'm 75% sure there was cheating, (and I was the victim along with my friend who brought me there, and likely others) and that just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I won't be going back there to play, at the minimum.
Normally the starts of a month are for reflection on the previous month, but I can't do that yet. I'm still awaiting the return of my laptop (expected back in 2 days) so that I can import the remaining hands from this month on PT and see how the month was! I didn't play all that much, and started pretty poorly, so I pretty much know it wasn't a great financial month, playing wise. Oh well.
I'm going to be making my 2nd video soon, and I'm not really sure what I want to make. I think people want to see a 5/10 6max, but I think I'm going to do a heads up video. I def. have an "unorthodox" HU style, which involves me not folding preflop. May garner some attention. All for now, going to the Celtics/Cavs game tomorrow, so excited for that!

Finally finished the "Thanksgiving Weekend". I suppose I should go in chronological order even if it's jumbled.
1 - Thanksgiving was great. I needed to be there at 2pm, so I decided to leave the greater boston area around 10:30. Of course, I ended up getting out of my apartment around 1130... My GPS said I should be there 15 mins early, but there was a ton of traffic (expected) and I only was 15 mins late. (So 30 mins lost to traffic, not shabby)
2 - The food was excellent. I had about ~25 other family members there, and mainly got to enjoy a mix of ages. The ages ranged from 7 months (my cousin Mack) to 92 (my grandmother Ethel). I spent the majority of the time talking to my cousin Jason about basketball. My sister, who is 25 and lives in Manhattan, came back with me so that she could see my apartment and Boston
3 - The weekend was great. Ignored business in order to cook, shop, and spend time with my sister. I bought her her birthday gift - (as she gave me mine - my birthday was back in September, and hers was in early November, so this was the first time we could exchange gifts) I got her shoes. (She picked them out, for those that care, they were black Marc Jacobs shoes... My sister works in the fashion world, I have a feeling the bulk readers of this blog are poker concerned guys and don't want to hear about fasion so I'll stop talking ) I got 2 things, a bathrobe (didn't really need one, I have a few) but it was inscribed with "Bobbo", so that was cool, and Uggs slippers, which are incredibly comfortable.
4 - We saw No Country for Old Men Friday night, which was... Unusual. Don't know if I would recommend it, because the ending was so bad. The beginning and middle was amazing, really roped me in, but to give all of you an idea - the theatre was packed - after it ended no one moved or said anything for a solid 15 seconds after the ending credit came up. In short though, it's certainly a rental, and falls short of Fargo and The Big Lebowski in terms of "films by the Coen brothers I enjoyed"
5 - Saturday night we went out and I got to meet up with a few of her friends. At first we went to a restaurante in the north end, which was solid. I had veal and ziti. Then we went to a dessert place, and I had a canoli and latte. Then we went to a bar. (The food was ok as was dessert, off tangent but I really dislike hopping around various places) At the bar I basically enertained everyone. I don't mind this, but basically when the topic comes up that I am a professional poker player, (conversation is... "Oh, I'm a corporate accountant. Oh, I'm a lawyer. Oh, I'm a teacher. Oh, I'm a poker player. Oh, I'm in Med School. Wait, what the ****, you're a poker player???") everyone asks me a million questions. It's really not that bad, and sometimes I enjoy it, but I need to be in the mood for it.
6 - Sunday was a chill day. Drove her to the train station. Fast forward to today (or, technically, yesterday) and I went with Gary Stevenson to an accountant. We met up in Manchester, CT (kind of a long drive, but it's a long story) and it felt good to get that underway. Further, we were close to an outdoor shopping plaza (the evergreen plaza or something like that?) so we both were able to get some shopping done. I got a few scarves at Brooks Brothers, a few shirts at JCrew, as well as some stuff at Banana Republic. Best thing about it all was Gary (real name, Alex) drove, so I got to just relax.

Going to put in a lot more hours coaching starting in 2 days, so I'm primed for that. Good luck all!

So, I should have gone to bed 2 hours ago, but I was eager to work on / comment / etc. my first video. I should probably NOT post about individual hands here, (there weren't even that many interesting ones ) but I will include a screen shot of my stats and an overall feel.




Hopefully that converts well. I think I played fine. I was a bit rusty, and ended up playing LOOSER then normal (I'm typically 32/25 or so) but I wish I booked a bigger session so that the video "looks" cooler. I don't think I ran so hot w/ all in luck, but that is overrated

So, I have a bunch of updates to make. Further, going to be more active with both comments and poker related thoughts here, since I really like the idea of a blog. Here goes:

#1. My laptop (It is really well made - I used to have an IBM Thinkpad, but have upgraded to a customized HP) broke. I used it so much that the fan broke which caused it to overheat, so a hinge melted. I had to send it in, which means in the interim (roughly a business week) I am using my house mates desktop to both play poker, read the forums, coach, etc. This does mean for videos I wont have "my" notes, which may be a blessing in disguise.

#2. Yesterday I went out to my good friend Gary Stevenson's house, where they had a party. My house mate Dave and I are a pretty good beirut team, but we ended up losing 100$ each facing Gary and one of his house mates. (Sorry for the irregular wording, just trying to get everything out, since at this juncture I care more for content then structure!) It was somewhat sick, the last game we ~ran out of beer so we used rum shots (mixed with whatever beer was left). We had an early lead and it looked like we would win it pretty easily up 3 cups to 1. I sank the last cup, putting the pressure on them to make 3 in a row. Inexplicably, they made 3 in a row! This forced a 3 cup overtime. They were too much for us and got all 3 pretty fast. On our final rebuttal, I was able to get 2 in a row, leaving Dave to sink the last one to force a 2nd overtime. It was not to be though (plus we had run out of alcohol) so we were the losers. Oh well! Quick note here, I was planning on filming my video last night, but when I got home I played a little bit drunk and was pretty awful at the table. Luckily I made some money, but that video was not something to be proud of, so I'll make one tonight that should be better. I have one somewhat interesting hand to post at the end of this blog. *Quick note is I run at 31% won at showdown, so I'm kinda surprised I made any money at all. Sweet!

#3. I am watching High Stakes Poker season 4. What a great show! I would love to play in that game, but if that was to happen I'd need someone or some group to take a substantial amount of action. If I get my act together I'll try contacting a producer or someone through twoplustwo who could help me get on there. Kinda unfortunate what happened to Jman (being promised to play more, but then shutting him out) but at least he got a little bit of air time and made some money. I suppose that's standard. One note is in the recent episode (wish I knew how to link things... I'm blog-retarded!) in which Farha had AA vs Gold's KK has gotten a lot of commentary (mainly criticism) because of soft playing. No question about it Farha soft played, but it's his money (or loss) so it's his own decision. I certainly would've made a huge bet there to stack Gold... Going to hold off individual commentary on some players until after the season, I think.

#4. I'm going out to pick up a GPS for my car. I'm terrible at directions, so this will save me a lot of anguish. Pretty stoked, the model is a "garmen C-340" or something like that. It was recommended by a friend, and I've seen it in action, so it'll help.

#5. I am so backlogged on coaching, I'm blaming it all on the holiday season. So - for those who are waiting on emails, PMs, AIM, etc. you need to wait a little longer. Sorry!

Here's the hand - Hopefully it formats correctly. Anyway, I play every hand HU on the button, I'll explain this either in the forums or in a future blog or a video (or if you've gotten HU coaching from me, or bought my book, you would know ) but the gist is a random hand vs a random hand with pot odds and position makes everything playable. This opponent, "loosefer," is a solid tight HU player, the reason I sat I think is because I wanted to play some HU and since I was kinda tipsy didn't want to lose a lot. He wouldn't play me at first, but I told him I was a little drunk, which was true, so he agreed to play me. I won the first 12 of 14 pots we played, so I was running him over, which is my modus operandi HU. So, I raise first in and he cold called, which was his 2nd time doing that out of now ~7 hands. He had yet to 3bet me.

Poker Stars, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players

LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter



Hero (SB): $447.50

BB: $446.50



Pre-Flop: T 3 dealt to Hero (SB)

Hero raises to $12, BB calls $8



Flop: ($24) 9 T 5 (2 Players)

BB checks, Hero bets $21, BB calls $21



Turn: ($66) 7 (2 Players)

BB checks, Hero bets $53, BB calls $53



River: ($172) 2 (2 Players)

BB checks, Hero bets $135, BB calls $135



Results: $442 Pot ($0.50 Rake)

Hero showed T 3 (a pair of Tens) and WON $441.50 (+$220.50 NET)

BB mucked J 9 and LOST (-$221 NET)











I bet ~3/4 pot on the flop on what I call a "type 3 board" clearly for value. I expect any pair or any draw to play (call or raise) and that's ok, since I have the nuts. (*Quick note, the HH is too spaced out, really bothers me)
I probably should have potted the turn, but I felt he most likely EITHER picked up a draw (with a pair, like 56) OR picked up a pair (with a draw on the flop, like 87). Of course its possible he improved to 2 pair (rare, but 97 or 57) hit a straight with J8, or had me on the flop with T7+. I still liked my hand - if I got check raised here I'd feel sick, but against this player I would've folded and not felt bad. When matches get crazy, I'd stick it in to a check raise, but again against a tight solid player their range is weighted towards the nuts, so that when check raised, especially the lower the stakes, it's a fold.
On the river he checks again, and it's a clear blank. Well, time to bet again, and get looked up by all those pairs. Yay - I think this hand set him off a little bit, but he quit me soon afterward, and I realized I wasn't in a good condition to play. (I rarely - RARELY - play when I'm not in my "A" mindset, but I made the exception because...

So, I'm here in my apartment finishing up with a student who took my "program". I'm unsure how I feel about this program - (in short, the student lives with me, we cover my book, and during the time I sweat him, or he sweats me) because it's quite a lot of poker to learn in the span of 3 to 4 days. Also, I feel very tired day in and out, because I'm used to waking up when I want, but when a person is relying on you (literally hiring me during this time 24hrs a day!) I feel obligated to serve, so to speak. Which, incidentally, is polar to my being as a "poker professional," since after all freedom is what I seek most.
This was the 2nd of the "4day programs" this month, so unfortunately I haven't even been able to play that many hands this month! I'm still 1k VPP away from supernova, which is pretty funny, I suppose. I also haven't had good results thus far this month, which further compounds my desire NOT to play. (Started Nov 1st dropping ~12 buyins at 5-10 HU) I'm very eager for Leggo to launch, though.
Will have more to say later!
-Rob