Meh, really not liking this whole finals thing.

I have 2 tomorrow, so of course I'm procrastinating just a bit more by updating my blog. In all honesty I'm just looking forward to finishing up finals so I can get back to grinding, and then head up to Turning Stone with a bunch of 2+2ers.

For all you leggo guys who are also dying from finals, good luck.

(The smaller pictures are all thumbnails since they're massive, so if you want to see bigger just click on them)


Alright, here we go. I haven't posted to my blog since January, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I'll keep it as interesting as possible since I doubt anyone wants to read about all my fun tests and papers I've had at school over the last few months.

So back in January I was talking to one of my good poker buddies PJo336, just chatting it up as we usually do. He mentions something about how none of his IRL friends can make it out to a ski trip in VT with him and some of his family, so he invites me to come along. I snap this offer up since pjo+skiing sounds amazing.

I buy an arsenal of skiing clothes (jacket, pants, gloves, hat, goggles, everything that you can't rent), since I haven't been skiing since I was 10. I was hoping that when I got there my hockey playing would save me and give me some sort of idea of what to do on the mountain. I fly up to NYC to meet PJo and his dad, and we go to his family's house for the night before heading out to VT (Okemo Ski resort).

PJo driving:


View of the mountain:


View from the house:


On skiing; I had an amazing time. I felt like I wasn't doing it properly (I kept my body real low to the ground, and my knees very bent like I would in hockey), but it allowed me to go much faster without a fear of falling so I had fun doing it. The conditions on the mountain were amazing. It was cold, but snowing the whole time we were there. For living in southern VA and not seeing snow all year it was amazing to be getting this much snow in such a short period of time.

We skied a few green circles to get the hang of skiing the first day, and I did somewhat decent. I was really wobbly on the skis at first, but most of my issue was from going very slow or standing still, I rarely fell while actually skiing.

We went back in to take a break and I decided to take my camera with me to capture some of the awesome scenery that I saw as we were at the top of the mountain, but of course it started to snow heavily so our visibility was horrible and I didn't get those pictures.


We kept skiing for the remainder of our trip, I tried to grind some, but my computer BSOD'd on me and I was stuck computerless for most of the trip.

During the trip I did manage to go from skiing green circles to getting up to black diamonds, skiing almost every open non double black trail on the mountain (even skiing on one closed run).

Some more pictures from the trip, because pictures make blogs awesome:

Picture while near the base of the mountain:


My BSOD:


Another view from the house:


PJo while on the lift:


Me on the lift:


Cool icicles while leaving:



So all in all I had a freaking amazing time in VT.

In terms of poker I was continuing to have very marginal winning months at 400nl at this time, putting in 25-35k hands and only winning 5-9 BIs a month. So in February I decided to move down to 200nl and open my game up a lot and just crush and grind some lower variance money.

This was the result:




Since then I've been playing 100-200 and my game has just felt meh, I've tried various things to pick my game back up, but nothing seems to be working right now. I'll start getting back into the groove and then it feels like something breaks. But, I'm a very determined and competitive person, and I know from how I work I'm not giving up at all, but I'm going to keep grinding and improving my game until I become a bigger winner at the levels I play. Thinking about just nitting it up at 200 in the meantime and rebuilding my roll since it took quite a hit (I've had a breakeven and marginal winning month since feb).

During my Spring break I decided to go back down to SC and visit up with a bunch of 2+2ers I met back in December, and hang with them. Originally it was just going to be me Zak (kaz2107), and wade (dawade). Then I get a call from trevor (thac), saying he's coming down for sure, just booked his tickets, and if I can pick him up on my way down. Thac also brings his roommate Pete (millimeterpeter) with him. Kevin S (fopah) also decides last minute he's going to be coming in. Finally one of thac's roommates decides to drive down with his gf and friend, so now our tiny meet up just got pretty big, and pretty awesome. Of course all the guys that came that I already knew were awesome continued to be awesome, but the new guys I met there were also really cool guys (shout outs to fopah and pete, ldo).

While there I didn't play too much poker, but spent a lot of time helping pete work on his game, railing MTTs that others were in, and having a lot of discussions with thac (both poker and girl related). Drank quite a bit, partied a bit, and had all in all an amazing time.

I'll quote on of my posts from a while back just to demonstrate some of the shenanigans one night included ( I may have been intoxicated while writing this):
...

I haven't posted to this in a long time, but my last stretch of blog posting I had an incredible upswing, so maybe I'll reenact some leggo rungood.

I've been playing 200nl on stars, and ****ing around with nl50 HU on FTP when I get bored.

I'll try and post a much longer collaborative post covering my last few months (pictures of course!) after class and a session.

So I haven't posted to my blog for a few weeks. I kept on telling myself I was going to put in an awesome TR for my uNL 2+2 meet up in SC, but I never got around to doing it, so I just kept on pushing back updating my blog.

But anyways, I'll give a quick overview of my last two weeks (mainly poker related).

Thursday the 4th I left my college in southern VA to drive 8 hours to SC to meet up with some 2+2ers I talk to in the micro-stakes forum and over AIM. The drive there sucked since I had to go by myself, and I lost my ipod right as I was leaving so I was stuck listening to some old CDs the whole way there. Grabbed a few 5 hour energy shots, and took to the road, making only 2 gas/food stops.

When getting to SC I met thac, LetMeLive, kaz2107, and bobboufl11 that first night. We hung around the house chatting it up (with some of kaz's IRL roomies too) and grinding a little bit of poker, until late when we decided to head to IHOP for some food. We crammed 6 of us into a car (throwing thac in the trunk) and had a fun little breakfast at IHOP, where our service sucked, and made half of us feel like **** the next day.

(LetMeLive)



(Thac in the trunk)


That night I stayed up pretty late grinding, then eventually railed LML and helped him out a little as he took a 200nl shot on stars. I think he ended up around a buy in, but felt like we were playing pretty optimally. Went to bed that morning around 9AM after saying good morning to my girlfriend over AIM.



Day 2

After getting about 3 hours of sleep and being woken up around noon we started the preparations for that night's party. We headed out to buy some alcohol from the liquor store, and picking up a keg for the party. I don't really drink all too often, but I had a good ol' time drinking that night.





(jello shots)



I bought a camera only a few days ago with intentions of documenting my SC trip. As I drank more and more, I turned into a human strobelight taking pictures.

As the party started filling up I met BevilTheDevil (2+2) who's also a pretty awesome guy. I continued drinking waiting for pjo336, and Dawade to make their appearance at the party. As soon as pjo got there we started hanging out a little and drinking. We talk quite a bit online, and we were immediately pretty chill IRL, so that was really awesome. Wade came in a few hours later, offered me some Jagermeister, and I don't remember too much after that for a few hours.

Sometime in that time period I started calling up my girlfriend while drinking, and apparently while on the phone I was the sweetest guy in the world while drunk, and also made a whole bunch of drunken poker analogies to my girlfriend (lol?). PJo lit some incenses on fire, and I took a whole bunch more pictures until the party died down.

(me and PJo)


(PJo lighting stuff on fire)


(2+2, kaz, wade, thac)


(me on the phone with girlfriend)


(hanging out afterwards)




While still pretty drunk I decided it'd be fun to play poker, but didn't want to actually risk any of my money, so I played a few $5 sit and gos, and then 25NL. At 25nl I played a very ABC 42/37 style with about a 27% 3b over 1k hands. I would open shove PF and on the flop with a huuuge range, and made some pretty fun plays when shoving T6s PF into AA 150 BB deep and sucking out, then flopping the nut flush against a nit and proceeding to slowroll him (sorry poker gods, I wouldn't do it while sober, I swear).



The next day we bought some more alcohol for a smaller 2nd party, but I had already decided I didn't want to drink again since I had to make an 8 hour drive back to school and study for a final when I got back. So the 2nd night me pjo, thac, and then random friends came to hang out mostly sober while a smaller party went on. Wade was drinking pretty much from waking up til sleep, and got pretty crazy, freestyling about internet poker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_axKGAAtXU - amaaazing), and just being wade.

(wade and LML 2nd night)




All in all I had an amazing time in South Carolina, and definitely want to hang out with these guys again (and I will in my next blog update ). I'll leave you with some more random SC trip pictures.

(kaz LML)


(kaz thac)


(wade freestyling)


(thac's jokes do not amuse pjo)


(me, wade, wade's roommate, and kaz)

I've had exams this week, so I've been putting off updating my blog. I had an awesome weekend at the 2+2 uNL meetup in SC which as soon as I get through most of these exams I'll work on starting to write a huge trip report.

In the meantime I'm dying being forced to study more than I can grind

Doing pretty well on pace for hands this month. Already at 5250 hands my 3rd day into the month.

My hand goal looks like I might be able to attain it, right now my issue is on another goal of mine: playing optimal poker at all times. I just had 2 sessions where I spewed off probably 4 stacks worth, I still ended up up less than a quarter buy in, but if I could have folded when I knew I should have instead of being a station about it, I'd be up nearly 4 figures just for today.

I'm not going to post any of the spew in order to save a little of my dignity, but if I start doing it again, I'm going to humiliate myself and post my spew to show how bad it can be.

Today's 2 sessions:







And I leave tomorrow after class for South Carolina. Super excited about that.

Put in a little session while in my physics lecture today.

I just sat in the back row of my class, and 6 tabled 200nl for about an hour, putting in 466 hands. For the short amount of hands I felt like I played extremely well, starting up nearly 2.5 BIs very early. Of course the variance train hits soon, and I lose AKo > TT when I squeeze from the BB a CO open, SB flat, SB 4bs me small and I shove. Cards brick off and TT takes it. Then a little later this BBV hand goes down:


Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BB: $349.00
UTG: $200.00
MP: $200.00
CO: $408.00
Hero (BTN): $203.00
SB: $337.25

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BTN with Q Q
3 folds, Hero raises to $6, 1 fold, BB calls $4

Flop: ($13.00) 5 Q 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $9, BB calls $9

Turn: ($31.00) 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $21, BB raises to $68, Hero raises to $188 all in, BB calls $120

River: ($407.00) 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $407.00
BB shows J T (a straight, Eight to Queen)
Hero mucks Q Q
BB wins $404.00
(Rake: $3.00)



I mean, pretty straightforward hand, it just sucks when the fishy player catches his gutshot when I have top set.

Anyways, still ended up $110 for the session, but already 2.5 BIs below EV for the month in 2k hands. I can't complain though being about 8 BIs above EV last month.


Anyways, trying to outline a few goals for myself for December. Most of these are so I can get used to grinding more/playing better for next year, as I'm looking to up my volume played (aiming for 20k VPPs/month starting in January):

• 35k Hands this month, minimum
• Play optimally, not results oriented
• Update my blog at least once a week, but aim for more
• Have a great time at the twoplustwo uNL get together in SC

Let me start by saying I've been looking to start a poker blog for a good amount of time now. I decided with the start of a new month, my winter semester about to be over, now would be a great time to start one.

Let me give a little introduction about myself:

I'm a 19 year old college student at Christopher Newport University, spending most of my time split between school, ice hockey with my school, my new girlfriend, and playing poker.

(and here comes the massive tl;dr)

I discovered online poker during my senior year of high school. I played play money SNGs, and the freerolls on PokerStars. The freerolls back when I played were structured as 10,000 players max (always filled), top 27 advanced to a tournament with a OMG-Cash payout! I played in probably 10 of these freerolls a week, struggling to learn how to play poker better, reading whatever I could find online to figure out how to become the best player. I slowly progressed into a better poker player gaining a few top 27 spots, but never cashing in the higher tournament.

During pokerstar's 10,000,000,000th hand promotion they were having $1000 freerolls, and of course looking to make my first real money I jumped at the opportunity. The freeroll started at midnight that night. I grinded through it, playing what I thought was amazing poker, and winning all the coinflips I needed to. At 6 AM that following morning I busted out in 4th of 10,000 runners, cashing for my first ever real money of $44.

I was scared to touch that money, and to actually play anything with real money, so I decided that I would study, and learn poker, and at the start of my freshman semester at college I would begin to play poker.

August of my freshman semester in college I decided to finally hit the cash game tables for the first time ever. I played a very tight passive style at Full Ring .01/.02, but it worked for me. I made a little over a hundred dollars, before deciding to move up to .02/.05, and into 6 max games. The transition was very rocky for me, taking me up and down on swings over the next few months. I managed to move up to .05/.10 by January of 08, having a bankroll of about $300. In February I was still grinding 10nl, being extremely strict about bankroll management. I played in one of the twoplustwo sponsered PokerCast freerolls, nailing first place making $100, and an additional $650 if I could grind out 4500 VPPs in the next month (I had less than 4500 total FPPs to date to put it in perspective).






In order to make the required VPPs, I moved from 10nl to 25nl (which the freeroll win made me rolled for) grinding that for the first week of the month. I ran well at 25nl, and moved to 50nl very soon after. Towards the end of the month I had been winning at both 25 and 50nl and moved up once again to 100nl. I released my bonus the day before I needed my required VPPs, and successfully managed to increase my roll from abut $425 - $2100, moving from nl10 to nl100 in a month.

(February 08)


From there I continued to grind 100nl for a few months, moving up to 200nl late June of 08. Since June I've been at 200nl, taking a month dedicated to playing HU, receiving coaching from Casper who really helped me accelerate my HU game quite a bit.

I'm now looking to finish out the year, make SuperNova, and start looking to 400nl shots sometime at the start of next year.


Lifetime graph to date: