LeggoPoker - Blogs

Staking You

Irishman07 — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:27:43 GMT

I'm looking to start a stable of 10-15 horses for cash games. I'm looking for successful players playing 25NL - 500 NL with the goal of moving you up throughout the stakes over time.

While I will consider applications for just staking, my primary goal is staking with a heavily intensive coaching regimen along with it, and thus I'm looking for serious players who really are committed and dedicated to getting better and moving up.

Why get staking/coaching from me?

I have never used a seat script, as 90%+ of my playing is at Zoom/Rush. I achieved my results without having to resort to extreme bum-hunting like a lot of other players. As my recent videos for Leggo suggest, I've spent a considerable amount of time using CardRunners EV and have worked through countless situations trying to come up with optimal strategies. Here are my Zoom/Rush results since March, when I cut down from 6-8 tables to 4 tables: (Stars SN Razed&Cnfusd, Full Tilt ApobatesRacer)

Given the variance in poker, what does this sample suggest about my winrate? It's 70% likely that my true winrate is at least 5.4 bb/100 and 95% likely that it's at least 3 bb/100.

I'm committed to making you a better player. I want to get more involved in staking, so it is extremely important to me that I succeed with my first group of players so that I can establish a track record of success. I've been a part of the Leggo community for almost 4.5 years and feel I've built up a record of producing quality videos and making sure questions were answered in a satisfactory and timely manner.

Given that I'm a cash game player myself, I know the variance that is involved in these games. I'll provide you the money so you won't have to worry about these swings, without hassling you if you have a bad session.

What the coaching will entail:

2-3 hrs/week with lesson plans covering different topics, ranging from a solid preflop plan to constructing overall ranges on different board textures. Also, video reviews of student's play and video reviews of my own play. While lessons may differ in complexity for different skill levels, the whole group will learn about basically the same topics at the same time so that the entire group can work together to improve. More skilled/higher limit players will be tasked with mentoring a small group of players playing the level beneath them and will have incentives in place based on the success of players they mentor.

I will spend time with everyone in the group no matter what level you play, but will have a special focus on the players I am staking at 400-500NL.

This is NOT a quick fix for you to get better and jump up in stakes. It will be a lot of hard work and studying away from the tables. Given how many topics I'd like to cover, the whole program will likely take 3 months. At the end of the process you should have a better understanding of what it takes to be a consistent winner at the midstakes level.

What I'm looking for:

-Dedicated, smart players who have the desire to learn
-Basic proficiency in math - my style of play is very much theory based
-Winning players - I want to see a significant sample showing you are beating the limits you currently play
-Trustworthy players - I will check references and will need your personal info before you can be staked

Staking Terms:

The terms will vary based on your skill level, amount of time you can commit to playing, and risk (i.e. a player beating 200nl for 4bb/100 over 150k hands will likely get a better deal than one beating it over 25k hands). Once I receive the applications I will give out personalized offers that will be competitive with other staking groups taking into consideration the value you'll receive in the form of coaching as well.

Start Date

Given that I'd like to start the whole group at the same time and will need time to process the applications, the tentative start date will be early August.

How to apply:

Send me a PM or email me at Irishmandan07@gmail.com with the following:

Name
Email
Phone #
Address
Skype ID
Facebook URL
2p2 SN
All your Poker Screen-names you've played on
At least 2 References and their Contact info
Your Poker History
Why you want to be Staked
How many hands/month can you play

The Human Brain

Apotheosis — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:43:57 GMT

So last night I played a live session at Fallsview Casino where I mostly played 5/10.

Naturally, the games were nice and juicy and I was cruising along quite comfortably to the tune of approximately a 3k profit before I played this hand.

Hero is dealt QdTd in one of the MP positions.

Hero has ~5500,
SB has ~3500

Hero raises to 30, a few folds, SB raises to 120, BB folds. I call the extra 90.

A few notes, on villain. He is a young asian guy (like 25 ish I'd guess).

Claims to have dabbled online a little but doesn't find it interesting. I've only been to the casino ~4/5 times but he's been playing 5/10 every time so he's probably a casino reg.

By far and away the 2nd most competent player at the table. He does have a limping range pre but that's probably fine since those of you that have play live poker know that raising to 5x doesn't necessarily guarantee you thin the field... they probably come along anyway. So all you do is bloat the pot multiway. He also probably has the occasional 3b bluff, though not many.

Flop comes AhKh7c. He bets 160 and I call.

Turn: Jd. He checks I bet 565, and he calls.

River 7s. He checks I bet 1380 and he tanks for a minute then shoves the rest.

I didn't quite get the stacks right because it was only about 1300 more to me on the river. Either way, I tanked for 3 minutes but couldn't see how he didn't have a boat.

I wasn't able to convince myself he didn't have a few 7hxh combos or a few overplayed AK hands, or maybe a few combos of chops and ended up calling the last 1300 off only to be shown KK (No surprise).

I'm not thrilled by my call but at the same time when playing live it's difficult to gauge who is stupid enough to overvalue hands in these spots, so even though he's never bluffing my call might be okay against a lot of guys. I doubt this guy is one of those guys but obviously there's really no way to know the correct answer unless you call and get shown 7hxh or AK/AJ etc.

Anyway, I left the casino 15 minutes later stuck ~2k.

This is the thing that I found interesting about the whole experience.

Earlier that day, I lost >2k online, and chalked it up "a bad day at work". When I win 2k online, it feels like a good day at work. When I go to the casino and drive home at 2 or 3 am having made 2k it once again feels like a good day at work.

However (and this is what's interesting), when I lose 2k at the casino and drive home at 2 am it doesn't feel like a bad day at work. Instead it feels like I'm some sick degenerate gambler.

Somehow my brain doesn't feel the same about losing live and losing online. Maybe it's because there's a long lonely drive home after, maybe it's because it's late, or maybe it's because I actually had to ship the chips across the table to the other guy instead of just watching numbers move around a screen. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's fascinating how my brain views the two similar events as completely different.

I tried....

Zaza — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:45:39 GMT

No milestone for me:D

Update Grind

federpecussi — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:36:47 GMT

June has been pretty meh/shitty overall. started playing on the 3rd/4th of june,directly getting the doomswitch at stars and losing like 30-35ish bi's at 50 so dropped down at nl25 where its pretty lol. Played close to 30k hands and put in around 36hours of grind. Took a day off to review game/hands/spots etc. Also went over a vid i made with adam001 and deff pulled out some 'oldskool' stuff like cbetting flop too much wich deff is bad these days and some other stuff. Hopefully I can get some nice upswing going. Thanks all for reading/posting comments !

one drop action

klink10k — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:27:38 GMT

going to try to play the 1 drop, selling action at face. Have 65% remaining, if anyone wants a % pm me.

good day gentlemen

WSOP Trip Report So Far (Runner up finish)

TwoSHAE — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 23:38:31 GMT

Just want to drop a little update from LV.

I arrived here on the 27th and used comps to stay at the Rio for 3 nights. Since then, I have been staying at Vdara, and wish I didn't spend 3 nights at the Rio. Vdara is just so much nicer-- it's smoke free, there is no casino, it's connected to the Bellagio, across the street from Aria/Crystals... I would way rather pay to be here than stay at Rio for free.

As far as tournaments go, I have played 5 so far.

Event 2: 5kNL 8max
This event I busted early-ish on day 2. I had ~double starting stack at end of day 1. I did not play any hands that were very interesting the entire tournament. I had a very good starting table with 2 fish to my direct right. Unfortunately for me, they both punted to other regs at the table.

Event 4: 1500NL 6max
This was a quick one. I got to play heads up with a donk to start. There were also two dead stacks blinding away. Unfortunately, I ran AJhh into K2o on K22hh7h6x. The guy raised K2o in the cutoff vs me on the btn with the two dead blinds. I did not expect him to be as wide as K2o here :/ This left me with about 400 chips which I busted 55 < QQ.

Event 6: 1500NL Millionaire Maker
The Rio was an absolute zoo for this tournament as expected. I busted bluffing it off to a donk on the last hand of level 4 (antes start at level 5). The structure was obviously pretty fast for a tournament like this. This event also convinced me to never play 10 handed live poker again, so I have deleted all of the 1500 events from my schedule.

Event 9: 3kNL Shootout
Here is where it gets interesting. On day 1 I had what seemed like a very good table draw. The only person I recognized was Noah Schwartz. There were 3 obvious fish and the rest were probably pros/semi-pros. I got my first punt of the series in this at 50/100 when I 3bet red KK to 725 in the CO and had one of the donks cold call the sb. The flop came J72cc. The sb donked 2200 (more than pot as the PFR folded), I jammed for like 7500 effective (I covered) and he called with 99. I held. Not much else happened until I got HU with Noah. Pretty early on in the HU, I x/c, turn x/x, river x/r Ah5s on 3h6h7xQxTh. He folded after about 4 minutes and I showed the bluff which had him absolutely steaming. I won some pots and took the chip lead as we entered HU with me down 45k to 26k. The final hand I raised A2o from btn, he flats. Flop 345ssc. I cbet, he raises, I 3bet, he calls. Turn 2x. I call a lead for 7400. River 8x. He quickly jams 16,600. I think for about 30 seconds before calling and he says "Fuck" loudly and throws what I assume was a missed flush draw into the muck. This was my first cash-- I was guaranteed $7,384. There were 60 players left, so we got to play 6 handed shootouts to make a final table of 10.

I feel like I had another excellent table draw. I didn't know who any of the pros were and I also had the famous film critic Richard Roeper at my table. One of the best things about a shootout event for me is I get to play shorthanded as people bust. I have a massive amount of experience heads up and 6 handed as well as 3-5 handed so I feel this format gives me a significant edge as I can play all numbers of players well. I was mostly coasting along chipping up here and there and had 110,300 at first break from 71,000 starting. We were down to 5. My breakthrough came when I busted another pro when I raised btn with K5ss, flop JT9ddh. I opted to cbet in position and was called. Turn Qh. I barrel about 3/4 pot and he calls again. There is now about 50k in the pot and we started the hand about 110k effective (I slightly covered). River was 5o. I overbet jam. He tanks for a bit and eventually calls with what I assume was 8x. I now had over half the chips in play 4 handed. Two people were short including Roeper and the other guy had like 130k. I busted the other pro when he jammed BvB for 20bb with A2o and I called with A8o. Roeper coolered me to double on T98 J7 > T9 right before break. 3 handed coming back from break stacks were 220k, 60k (Roeper), and 150k (Italian pro). The Italian won a flip vs Roeper to bust him and we entered HU with approximately even chips. I immediately took control of the HU winning the vast majority of the pots and making a lot of bluffs as he was folding a ton. I got him all the way down to 98k at 2k/4k. I look down at AhKh and minraise, he shoves, I snap. He ends up having KK (sick cooler) and holds to get almost even again. I lose another pot where he finally bluffcatches vs me and I'm down in chips. I keep chipping up until we are about even. I then get 77 on the btn and minraise, he flats. I see the 7 in the window and I am delighted at the 79Acc flop. I cbet, he calls. Turn 5x. I barrel pretty big and he raises just over a minraise. I jam pretty quickly and he snaps with A9. The river is a 7 for good measure and I won my table. I was now guaranteed $18,600.

The next day was the final table. It was full of well-known players as FTs in shootouts often are. It was me, JohnnyBax, Tmay, Bakes, Klodnicki, Zugwat, Max Steinberg, and a couple other pros. I took an early pot when I double barreled AQ on A79cc2 into 2 people. Was pretty happy to get a fold as it was going to be tough to value bet a ton of rivers and if I got raised on the turn I was likely behind. From then on I mostly coasted along pretty card dead. Bakes and some other guy I didn't know got AI in a weird spot where Bakes QQ > AQo. This left the other guy with under 100k from 430k starting. I ended up busting him after flatting Max's EP raise with JJ and calling his squeeze AI. Max folded, and I won vs AQo after seeing a Q in the window but there was also a J on the flop. This got us to 9 handed. Honestly not a lot happened after that and we were down to 4 (me, Tmay, Zugwat, Bax). Bax had over half the chips and was generally running like God hitting a set vs Max's TPTK to bust him, a straight vs Bakes overpair for a huge double, and a couple other pots. Tmay was short, so me and Zug were playing pretty tight hoping to coast into top 3. Tim eventually did bust when his 66 < JJ of Bax (zzz Bax gets another setup). Entering 3 handed, Zug and I had similar stacks and Bax had most of the chips. On the first hand after dinner break, I jammed 25bb over Bax sb open with J8cc and was called by KQo. This jam was standard as he was opening almost every SB as evidenced by him raise/folding BvB vs an 8bb stack earlier (WTF?). Flop QJ3, turn J and I win. I now had about 1.25MM. Zugwat lost a pot with a straight to a flush to Bax to go down to 570k or so and I jammed on him BvB with ATo. He snapped AQs and I ended up winning to bust him in 3rd for 123k. I entered HU with 185.5k in the bag playing for 299.5k and the gold bracelet. Stacks were my 1.7MM to his 2.6MM.

I ran very bad in the HU which is unfortunate since I should have a significant edge on a tournament player who hardly ever gets to play HU. It is hard to be disappointed though when I ran so good 3 handed to get 2nd. The most interesting hand of the HU was when I flat Q7ss pre, x/c 245ssc, lead Ac, bet Jx. He raised me on the river with what I later found out was 68o :/ My bluff probably should have worked but he game-theoried me right in the face. I'd often have it here so it was fortunate for him to run into the bottom of my range instead of 3x or aces up. I actually didn't think he had a 3 when he raised but I probably lost vs a lot of his bluffs anyway and had horrible blocker in a 7 to many of his bluffs (67). I've talked this hand over with a bunch of people, all but 1 of which thought my line was best. The one dissenter is actually the one I agree with the most (Ben86). He brought up a very important point in that when I am likely to have a big edge playing someone like Bax HU, I should be making every effort to keep my variance down. Therefore, I should have planned to x/c the turn (and there is a strong chance he does not bet this turn at that high of a frequency). I feel like my line is much better in a cash game or if stacks were like 3x as deep. Oh well, 2nd place prize really eases the pain and I'm delighted to get off to such a good start this summer.

Event 16: 10k HU

This tournament was a disaster from the WSOP. They decided to give people who didn't have byes half of their $ back so they effectively played a 5k satellite into the main draw of 128 (got 162 entries). This is annoying because it reduces the overall prize pool. The byes are random, so I really don't see why so many people care about them. They also had to redraw the tournament at 128 because they didn't do it randomly and Scott Seiver had a fit about it.

I got Layne Flack in round 1 and beat him. The most important hand was when I made quads on 44Q64 with 46 vs Qx. He opted to x/r the river after I played it tricky checking back flop and just calling turn. It ended up working out perfectly as he snapped my huge overjam. That gave me a little over half the chips as I was running bad before that. Not much else happened and I won.

My next match was vs. Michael Mizrachi who is literally terrible. After 3 hands he was up 140k/100k, but I quickly took control and got him down to 47.5k after making a huge x/c x/c x/c with A high after I 3bet pre. The next hand I figured he was tilting after he 3bet to 12k at 1k/2k and I jammed QQ. He snapped and actually had AKs. Flop T55, turn K sigh. He doubled to 95k and I still had a nice lead. I chipped him down again this time as low as 12k! I had a 19:1 chip lead. I jam 6bb with Q4s and he snaps 89o. Flop 832, turn 5, river brick and he wins and doubles to 24k. He gets all in 2 more times (tho these times he's ahead). He wins KK > A8 and 99 > A6. I have now had him all in 4 times for his life and lost all 4. I later get him all in again at 2k/4k. I had K7 on K728 with 2 fd's. Of course he has K8 :/ Was shocking I didn't have the best hand given how wild/spewy he plays. I lose that one too and now he has the chip lead. I get KK in on 8453 with 2 fd's and he has 35! I lose my 6th of 6 all ins and I'm out and extremely tilted.

That is about where I stand now, as that was last night, and I haven't really done anything today except sleep in, eat breakfast, and type up this massive blog entry.

I play the 5k PLHE tomorrow at 5PM. This is an interesting tournament being pot limit since there are no antes. It should get a pretty small field so is a decent opportunity at another FT/bracelet. I'm playing the rest of the NLHE events 2500-25k and will type up further trip reports later in the series.

Good luck everyone,
Evan

Dieting/Cooking/Return to Poker

robbyd86 — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:34:02 GMT

My buddy told me about this station for streaming, I likez it.

The lady has some friends in town this weekend, so our date has been postponed to next Sunday... which is actually Father's day, but it was the only day available before she goes on an East coast trip for 2.5 weeks. So I explained that to my pappy and he obv understood. It also worked out nice, since I ended up working about 6 hours today. Since coming home I've been cooking a bunch which I'm getting better at.

I've been making a couple really good spicy dishes

They're pretty much modified recipes from what I've been doing, but soooo much tastier. It's starting to get to the point where I prefer to cook than go out. I weighed in at 190 the other day which means I've lost nearly 10 lbs since ballooning up over the winter, but I think I'm still close to 195 most of the time. My soda drinking is gradually decreasing along with my cravings for it. I probably average one every other day now, and I rarely crave it. The weekends I ride my bike everywhere, and during the week I've been doing hard work.... so all in all I'd say the dieting/exercise is going well and will hopefully get down to 180/185.

I've deposited a small amount onto Bovada and intend to run it up. I don't want to put a ton on since I can't afford much and it's not 100% I can get it out. I actually have $70 stuck on Lock right now, and the min cashout is $150... and then you wait 6 months or forever. So I'll likely play a $70 sng or something since it's lost money anyways to me at this point.

I'm not sure what my poker goals/intentions are at this point. I just want to start playing a bit again, and hopefully if it does get regulated Nationwide I'll be ready to crush. I'll likely just play micro HU sng and the occasional Sunday donkament for now. I don't really have a roll or a lot of time to play cash games consistently... but that may change soon.

The money situation is slowly getting better. I actually have a small amount in savings right now which I haven't had in over a year. Still got a lot I need to take care of, but it's nice to not be sweating my funds as much from paycheck to paycheck.

Between work, my restart in poker, learning mandarin, and having a female activity partner (not sure what our status is at this point) I've been keeping real busy. Life is certainly a lot better than it was since first coming back from Thailand. Things are on the up and up, I just need to keep fighting and working hard.

Mind on the grind

federpecussi — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 03:23:55 GMT

Hey there,

I'm a pretty new member on leggo but not so new to poker. I'm making a blog as I'm currently not running so well and I wanted to write down some hands/toughts/ things about life and some goals.

So abit about me,I'm 26 years old, I used to play midstakes back untill a year-year and half ago and recently starting to get back into poker.Currently playing nl50 zoom ! Main plan for this year is to play like 1k end of the year wich should be doable i think with some good studying/coaching/volume.
I hope to be supernova like end of july if things go well and dont go broke or something lol. I started playing the 3rd of this month and currently have put in 24hours and 20k hands with last 2 days being kinda low volume as ive been doing some work on my game.

So goals for june :
[] 100hours (hopefully more)
[] 100k hands
[] nl100

Selling Action for Various WSOP Events

aejones — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:31:29 GMT

I am going to sell action to the following tournaments in packages:

Package A

16 NLH HU $10,000
19 PLH $5,000
32 NLH 6-max $5,000
41 PLO 6-max $5,000
57 NLH $5,000

I am definitely going to play the HU, and I will play 3 of 4 of the other tournaments. I would say I'm most likely to skip either #19 or #57. I will definitely play #32 and cannot conveniently leave it off the package since its my best event and play the others. Selling at 1.2 markup so $3000 gets you 10% and that's the minimum you can buy. If anyone buys all of it, I'll sell at 1.15. I will play the events even if I don't sell my intended target. PM me if you have payment questions but I would prefer cash at WSOP or a bank transfer of some sort. If you sweet talk me, I might take Stars.

Package B

52 NLH 6-max $25,000

Selling 60-75% to this at 1.1; if anyone buys all of it, I'll sell at 1.05. Same deal with payment. Min 10% = 2750.

Package C

47 NLH $111,111

Will play this only if I can sell 90% at face, so if you know anyone looking to make a large and swell investment let me know.

I've never won anything and I've never sold for WSOP so I feel like this is the time both of those things will coincide.

Also, if anyone can let me know who I have to PM or sleep with to be able to post in the 2+2 marketplace that would be sweet in case I don't snap sell out here.

School and other options

Apotheosis — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:11:57 GMT

This will be a slightly shorter blog entry than my last one.

If 6 months ago you'd have asked me when I was going to be finished school I'd have told you that the answer would be somewhere around the age of 30 when I finally graduated medical school.

Now, here I am, 6 months later, still aged 20, and I'm not currently in school.

It's quite interesting when I think about it how all this came to be.

I grew up in a family where education was stressed above almost all else. My mother is an M.D. My father is an accountant. My grandfather has a PhD in Biomedical Physics and did cancer research his entire life. My grandmother was a school teacher and has a masters in teaching (and you have to understand that she grew up in a time period where just getting out of high school was an achievement for most women.)

Bearing all that in mind I think it's easy to see that I grew up with the expectation that I would attend university and continue on with school beyond the undergrad level. Whether I went into medicine, law, dentistry, or scientific research I didn't think anyone cared, but it seemed those were the only choices.

Now, keep in mind, no one ever told me I couldn't be an electrician, or a plumber, or a teacher or a professional poker player or a rapper and I think if I had selected any of those professions my parents would support that decision. Understand that I grew up in a family where school, and lots of it, was the only path ever chosen. As a result, these were the only careers I was really exposed to. It just sort of seemed natural in my mind then that I should follow along down the same path. As stupid as it sounds. I knew how to become a doctor. I didn't have a clue how to become a welder. I wouldn't have even known where to start.

My main reason for posting this blog post is that up until 6 months ago I was in school, and I was unhappy. Not suicidal or depressed unhappy, I just didn't enjoy the courses I was taking as much as the other students. My program wasn't for me and I just didn't realize it at the time. However, I felt stuck. On the one hand, here I was, not particularly enjoying myself, but on the other hand, what was I going to do? Leave? That seemed completely unfathomable. I didn't even realize there were any other options until I actually dropped out of University and started to play poker. The original plan was to simply take a semester off and then return back to school in September. That still may be the case, however I think it absolutely astonished me that the day term started and I wasn't registered for classes the world didn't just suddenly end. All I knew was school and it felt so weird to see/hear my friends returning to classes/writing midterms and have me just sitting at home "working".

Playing poker for 1 semester made me realize that there are so many options out there that don't involve lots and lots of school and you may not even realize what they are.

I think it's important to think about what you're doing with your life and think about whether or not it makes you happy. Currently playing poker makes me happy. I plan on continuing to play poker until it no longer makes me happy, at which point I will do something else -that may involve returning to school, it may not-.

I simply wanted to write this post to illuminate some of you that read this who may not realize that there are other options out there that are completely unrelated to the current path on which you are travelling and another path may make you significantly happier than you previously were.

Please understand that just because your parents have PhDs doesn't mean that you have to endure 10 years of University like they did. At the same time, realize that if your parents have little education that doesn't mean that you cant go out and get a PhD after 10+ years of University.

I think we are exposed to what our parents do as we grow up and it is possible for us to develop tunnel vision and miss that the world is full of choices for us, and what we chose for ourselves doesn't have to be even remotely related to what anyone else we know has also chosen.

P.S. If you do drop out of school and your parents find out and get mad, you didn't hear it from me.

The snail avatar and always being your best.

Apotheosis — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 08:01:54 GMT

I've always wondered what it would feel like to write a blog. For a while now I've randomly browsed other blogs I've seen written by other poker players. I've always felt their content was quite poker heavy. I guess, if you stop to think about it even briefly that makes a lot of sense. However, I think most people who will read this blog have plenty of poker related events going on in their life so with that in mind I will try to keep poker related topics to a minimum. I will however, post some poker related content. I felt like a good first blog entry will answer a question that has been asked of me on multiple occasions. What's with your avatar?

I have been asked on several occasions why my avatar is of a snail. It seems not to fit the mold of many of the common avatars chosen. Famous people, a favorite sports team, luxury cars, cash, pocket aces, gorgeous women or funny cartoons are often selected for a variety of reasons. A snail however, does not fit this mold. Snails do not strike fear into the hearts of your opponents, they most certainly have nothing to do with poker and they are by no means associated with wealth. So why a snail then? My response is usually a short reply of, "Ain't no one ever got a read off of a snail before." While a true statement in of itself, it is far from the reason I have picked a snail to be my avatar. So why the snail then?

To explain the significance of the snail I must tell you about a girl i used to know. When I was in grade 11 I had a crush on this girl that was in a couple of my classes. Being shy I didn't make a move or anything but I at least had the sense to invite her over to my house when I threw parties when my parents were out. The second party I threw in the summer of grade 11 this girl brought her friend along to the party. I don't imagine she'd appreciate here name being used in this blog so for the sake of the blog we'll call her Kate. From the moment I met Kate I stopped caring about her friend from my classes. She was still great, don't get me wrong, but Kate was something else. No matter what I write next in this blog I won't be able to do Kate justice. There was just something about her. She was pretty, but she wasn't the prettiest girl I've ever met. She was smart, but she wasn't the smartest girl I've ever met. She was weird though, certainly the weirdest girl I've ever met. I'd like to take a minute and quote Robert Fulghum who said:

"We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose
weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually
satisfying weirdness -and call it love- true love"

That was this girl. I'm not sure why, but I was instantly intoxicated by her weirdness. Unfortunately, I'm unable to describe her in any sort of way other than just the perfect kind of weird.

She was one of the last people to leave the party that night. After spending a few moments doing a preliminary clean up of the empties strewn haphazardly around the basement, in the pool and over the lawn I went and sat at my desktop to listen to some music before going to bed. When I reached my computer I found she had added me on MSN and we quickly struck up a conversation. For two people that had only met a few hours earlier we talked about many things. We talked about our views on God and Religion as well as what we wanted to do when we grew up. -You know, typical conversation topics when you've only known each other for a few hours.- I think normally I'd feel uncomfortable about discussing such things with someone that as nearly a complete stranger but I felt oddly comfortable talking to her. It was as if I already knew her, and somehow knew we shared similar points of view. I quite clearly remember her deciding that she was going to become a scientist and would strive to invent a sober up pill which would allow you to instantly recover from a drunken state. Speaking of a drunken state, she then confided in me her love for the MSN snail. It was a little emoticon with the keyboard shortcut (sn) that displyed a teal and pink snail. It didn't do anything. It simply was. I never understood her love for this little teal and pink fellow who I imagine, if he could move would have left a trail of snail slime in his wake. To be quite honest, the little bastard looked completely ridiculous. But he was inexplicably important to her, just as she was already inexplicably important to me. I'd only known her for a few hours but I immediately fell in love with her weirdness. From then on, I decided I would initiate our MSN conversations with a (sn) instead of a "Hi" because then at least I was certain to have done something right.

From then on I endearingly referred to her as my snail girl (in my head anyway, I'm not sure if she'd have appreciated if I used that term publicly with any but our closest friends). We spent the remainder of High School together on excellent terms and then went off to University together where unfortunately things deteriorated rather quickly.

Obviously since I'm writing this blog I'm expected to tell you it was all her fault. Two and a half years ago I would certainly have told you that. More than likely up until a few months ago I would still have maintained that was the case. Realistically that's simply not true. She certainly made mistakes. A lot of them in fact. However, I was not innocent in all of this either. I was hurt by some of the things she did and I reacted rather poorly. I can recall feeling lost, hurt and confused. I didn't understand why some of the things were happening or what I could do to stop them from happening. There were many instances I said things I should not have said. I lashed out in frustration with the current circumstances. I certainly stopped treating her the way I had in High School. The way someone that important to you deserves to be treated. Always. No matter how hurt you are. Things quickly went from bad to broken. In short, first year was a complete nightmare. Eventually, the grind that was first year came to an end with Kate dating some guy in 3rd year and me wondering what I had done wrong and if there was any way to fix this.

Since then, on many occasions we have mistreated each other either out of spite, stubbornness or accidentally without even realizing what we were doing. Each time one of us have attempted to right things the other party has been unwilling to do so. I am certain, looking back now, that there were several times that she attempted to mend things and I was too stupid or angry to listen to her. Other times I felt like I was going to teach her a lesson and show her I didn't need her. I know I also attempted to mend things on many occasions and for whatever reason she simply wasn't interested. Probably the exact same stupid reasons I had. Unfortunately, at this time it seems from her point of view, the damage has been done and I have to say that I agree. There is certainly a distinct difference between how I felt about her before first year and how I have after first year. I'm not sure why that is, but the difference is clearly tangible.

Some people might look at everything that has happened since the days of High School and deem it "Not worth it." I do not regret meeting her at all. What I regret most is not always having been at my best. Without a doubt there were things that she did to me that were wrong but I didn't react well to them. I ended up pushing her away without even realizing it.

It is impossible to go back and do things over. If I could, I would make sure I was always at my best though. No matter what she did, no matter how hurt I was, I wish I had been at my best. Maybe then things might have turned out better. If they didn't at least then I would know there was nothing more I could have done. Things were simply not meant to work out.

So, why then the snail? Well, the snail serves as a reminder to me that if you are not always at your best it very well may cost you in the end. If you are not always at your best, you can end up losing the things that matter the most to you.

So, why the snail you ask? To remind myself of her every time I sit at the tables? To torture myself for mistakes I've made in the past? No. Sometimes,in life you can get away with not being at your best. Just as in poker you can make mistakes and get bailed out by the river. The snail is there to remind me that sometimes however, you don't get so lucky. Sometimes not being at your best can cost you the things that matter the most to you. Three years ago, that was Kate. Now, that thing is my bankroll, because with out it my poker career will be over. The snail reminds me that I cannot control what others do at the tables. All i can control is how I play. It reminds me to not tilt. It remind me not play when I'm not feeling well. Most importantly it reminds me to always be at my best, because I know how painful the consequences of not always being at your best can be.

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Sorry this first post was a little long and a little depressing at times. I promise future posts will be happier and shorter.

I would encourage people to post in the comments what their avatar does for them. Is it a car you dream of one day buying? A cartoon that cheers you up? Or the team that you love to watch every time they hit the field even if they aren't the best.

Cheers everyone.

- Chris

I got a job!

clayton — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 05:23:34 GMT

This post has been about 4 months in the making, feels good to finally be able to write on the topic.

I'm moving to Chicago this summer to begin a trainee class with a futures trading firm in Chicago!

To backpedal, this started in February. I had made the conclusion that Rosarito was not a long term option, and for some reason 1/2 and 2/4 PLO action sorta just died on Stars and FTP. I experimented with smaller sites and grinding MTTs but neither of those options felt good after a month.

The plan was to either go back to San Diego or move to Vegas, with no real specific plan beyond returning to live pro life and growing my variance-free money tree.

Around this time, fellow Leggo and San Diego friend craigthedeac let everyone know that his futures trading firm was looking for poker players. He had been hired last year and I assume made a good enough impression.

I went to work and cranked out the best resume I could for someone that left school primarily to play poker. A couple of phone interviews followed over the next couple months, then a live interview in Chicago two weeks ago.

The process made my day-to-day sorta challenging. I had some weeks pass where I figured they would call me any given day to schedule the next interview, which meant lots of days spent over-preparing for interview stuff versus actually playing poker. I also figured I'd have to run into some fun mental challenges (like being asked how many ping pong balls could fit in a 747) so I had to sharpen that skillset as well. It was like practicing for the SAT all over again.

Now that it's all said and done, there's going to be a few poker players in this next trainee group (including Leggo friend jaymesbond), so it will be fun to see how good we are at this new game. I have a few months of training and then some more months of supervised trading.

This job, if I do well at it, would solve pretty much all my work-related gripes with live poker, online poker, and Mexico poker. I'll be in a great city where I could walk to get anything I would need, I'd get to work in front of a computer, and my job wouldn't be at home. Also I'm sure Chicago has more single women than Rosarito by just a smidge. The lifestyle would be a great fit, so I'm psyched to work my hardest and crush it.

The one downside is that I'm skipping the WSOP to pursue this (and of course I'd be leaving poker in general) but I'm okay with these things. Should trading not work out then I could always return to poker in some capacity. Frankly I don't have a very high opinion of the WSOP right now anyways.

I know that at some point this interface is going to switch over to IveyPoker, but I hope that whenever that does happen then my blog will still remain intact.

So anyhow, thanks for reading. I will probably be leaving this blog alone for a while, I have many months of learning/punishment ahead. Should be a fun beating. Can't wait!

Hola Leggoland!

ssells73 — Wed, 29 May 2013 04:38:57 GMT

Hey Guys,

Haven't logged on here very often at all in the last year or so unfortunately.

I see a lot has changed and that Ivey is buying the site, awesome!

Anyways, felt like I'd update anyways....

Been a pretty good year for me, got married last November and we just moved in to a new/awesome condo and also joined a country club (yay, lots of golf!).

Since black Friday I don't play poker and coach full time anymore, been back in the real world since as a sales manager--I was fortunate that even being young (27), before I started playing poker professionally I had a couple years of successful experience in sales so was able to land a job pretty easily.

I hadn't been playing any poker at all aside from the occasional Potowatomi (Milwaukee Casino) poker trips to grind a bit, but that was super boring. About 2 months ago I randomly saw an email that I had been given $50 on a sportsbetting site that was now offering poker, so I thought it would be fun to challenge myself and see if I could run it up (kinda cool doing poker more as a hobby now with working full time).

Anyways that was about 2 months ago and I started at NL5 (Lol), but have now grinded it all the way up to $2,700....it brings me back to the old days of when I first started playing in college and trying to move up, etc etc. My wife always makes fun of me and says why don't you just deposit X (fortunately we both do pretty well so $ is swell right now), but I try and explain the grind, etc etc but she doesn't seem to get it.

The coolest thing about this is that now I only play poker when I really want to, versus when I had to play X amount of hours day/week/month/year....so I feel like I'm playing when I'm sharp/excited to play. Either way this should help to keep my game sharp if/when online comes back.

Maybe I'll try and update in another month or so with progress.

In an unrelated story I've been playing a lot of golf (good thing about sales) and had my handicap down to 5.3 index and somehow/some way I've developed the shanks with my wedges. Anybody that plays a lot of golf knows this is a very scary thing, it happened to me in high school once right before sectionals---sooooo gotta get that figured out ASAP.

Hope everyone is well!

Vegas/Wsop high roller

TwoSHAE — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:23:06 GMT

Just made it to Vegas yesterday. Saw the cirque show zarkana at Aria which was very good, and ate dinner at Joe's Stone Crab at the Forum Shops which was also excellent. I'm really looking forward to the start of the WSOP. The first event I will play is event 2, a $5000 NLHE 8max tournament. I expect this to be extremely soft for a 5k field given that there is a 1m HKD tournament in Macau soon such that many of the top players will be there instead of here. Hopefully will get off to a good start.

I will be tweeting updates throughout the summer as well as dropping the occasional blog. Follow here: http://twitter.com/RealTwoSHAE.

Additionally, I've just found out that the One Drop High Roller has only 3% fee instead of 10+% last year. In my last blog I mentioned that 11,111 was going to charity, but this is actually not the case this year. As such, this is going to be an extremely high value event. Faraz Jaka on 2p2 said he expects over 120 entries, including many of Guy's wealthy friends and the regular businessmen from bellagio 100k events. Comment or PM if you're interested in taking a piece! Whether or not I'll play will depend on how I'm feeling at that point in the series. If I'm doing horribly and 0 for, I will likely skip it. If I'm feeling as good about my game as I am now, I will try to sell 85-90% and play.

I am also very excited for the 6max/HU events this year. There seems to be more of them this year. Instead of a 10k 6max there is a 5k and a 25k-- very excited for both of these as well as the 10k HU even though the structure is terrible (rebuy lammers, stack sizes, payouts, you name it...).

Anyway, this marks the beginning of what I hope will be a great summer at the WSOP.

Graduated, Future, Etc

LT22 — Thu, 23 May 2013 03:11:29 GMT

Graduation
I graduated from college for the second time! I am thankful for all of my experiences, but happy to be done. School can be a major grind. Now on to bigger and better things.

Future Plans
Continuing to work at current job until end of July. Getting a little frustrated and bored with that job. I am too loyal to do this, but I would love to snap quit. I also do not want to burn bridges as the connections as this organization may aid me in finding employment in the future. Quite a few of the parents are higher ups in the community, though we have a wide array of low to upper middle class families. I have a great reputation with those who have seen my work and would hate to taint that reputation.

I start my new career path in September with an area firm. I am anxious and excited about this transition in my life. Big changes ahead, but I think they are for the best. Over the next months, I will be studying for the CPA exam. The exam (well, four exams) is more of a long-term project, but should be able to get a fair amount accomplished before the end of the year.

Poker
Did not play the interwebs poker in April. So far in May, I've played just over 10 hours, which is not too bad considering finals just got over. I have a goal of playing 50 hours/month. I think this is attainable, but it's definitely NOT a sure thing. If I get myself in the habit of playing, I will get it done. I am definitely a creature of habit. I am conflicted between focusing all my energy on CPA exam or splitting my focus between poker and the CPA exam. Part of me wants to give all my effort to the exam, but meh. The money of online poker is drawing me in. I was not too keen on playing much until I started to put together a budget of income from job and monthly expenses. Not a lot left over at the end of each month, so poker can obviously help significantly.

Nevada dealt the first hand of regulated, online poker in the United States which is exciting. New Jersey should be coming online by the end of the year. If we can get a few more states to combine player pools, I think the implications are exciting. I am considering going to Vegas in August to grind some legal online poker before I start my new job.

That's all I got. I'll prob try to update the end of each month to see if I am meeting my goals. GL at the tables.