I'm about to head to the airport to leave for Malta. The plan right now is to live there for 2 months, do a bit of traveling in Italy, then live in England for 3-6 months. Barring any unforeseen circumstances I likely won't be back in the US until at least July. Even though I've lived in Canada for the last 6 months, leaving now just seems a bit different, likely because Toronto was just a short drive away from America, and well lets face it, Canada is super similar to America in a lot of ways, just with higher taxes and milk in bags.

I'm really excited for Malta though. Irishwife and I are splitting a big 3 BR/3 Bath apartment right on the water with 3 of our friends - including another married couple which is great since the women will be able to hang out while the 3 guys play poker. While it will be somewhat weird to have roommates at this point in my life it should be a ton of fun. I've always been somewhat of a poker loner in the sense that I haven't had a group of people to regularly talk about strategy/hands/etc so poker-wise I think this will be a great experience.

I'm sure 2011 was a mixed bag for a lot of players, myself included. I started out the year playing almost all Rush Poker on Full Tilt and was probably one of the biggest winners through Black Friday. Luckily I had cashed out a decent amount by the time everything happened. Moving to Canada was definitely a very difficult decision but its one I'm glad we made. Even though poker didn't go as well as I had hoped, I'm still optimistic about the future of the game and definitely still love playing even though some days I hate it. I'm sure that makes sense to anyone that plays a lot.

Well I guess I gotta jump in the shower so I'm not the smelly kid on the plane. Hope everyone has a great New Years.

I know we've got some problems, but.....









































































































http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.co...about-america/

Poker-wise November was pretty tough. After getting off to a very hot start the last 2/3 of the month was breakeven. I played fairly well just couldn't get hands to hold up.


I played pretty much an even mix of 1/2 and 2/4. I'm pretty proud of my play overall, although I do think I did some dumb things toward the end of the month as I continued to run badly. Still, with an EV adjusted winrate of 4.85bb/100 I think I did pretty well on the whole.

I definitely see a marked difference in the level of play at an average table between the two limits. I think there are certainly times where my EV is at least twice as high at 1/2 than 2/4 so I'm doing my best to put my ego aside and drop down to 1/2 when the 2/4 games aren't that good.

It would be really nice to run hot in December. It's my last month in Canada and while my time here has definitely been productive, its a bit frustrating that I made the decision to leave my home in North Carolina to play poker and then proceed to run 50 buyins below EV during my time here.

So here's hoping for some Christmas rungood!

There are still some really bad players in today's games. Some fish play wayyyy too many hands but its still somewhat hard to stack them since they don't necessarily get it in too light. This guy was not one of those players. I am thankful for players like him.


Poker Stars, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

CO: $519
BTN: $561.40
SB: $1,203.65
BB: $1,046.90
Hero (UTG): $499.60
MP: $640.20

Pre-Flop: A K dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $12.40, 2 folds, BTN calls $12.40, SB raises to $28, BB folds, Hero raises to $86, BTN folds, SB raises to $1,202.25 and is All-In, Hero calls $413.20 and is All-In

Flop: ($1,015.20) 3 5 T (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($1,015.20) J (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($1,015.20) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $1,015.20 Pot ($3 Rake)
SB showed 6 2 and LOST (-$498.20 NET)
Hero showed A K and WON $1,012.20 (+$513 NET)


Poker Stars, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

CO: $1,043.60
BTN: $538.20
SB: $746.50
BB: $538.25
Hero (UTG): $1,168.80
MP: $915.90

Pre-Flop: A Q dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $12.40, MP calls $12.40, 2 folds, SB raises to $22.80, BB folds, Hero raises to $78, MP folds, SB calls $55.20

Flop: ($172.80) T 2 A (2 Players)
SB bets $668.10 and is All-In, Hero calls $668.10

Turn: ($1,509) 9 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($1,509) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $1,509 Pot ($3 Rake)
SB showed 6 4 and LOST (-$745.10 NET)
Hero showed A Q and WON $1,506 (+$759.90 NET)

There was a lot of Game Theory talk last month in the High Stakes thread on 2p2 and it got me thinking about Rock, Paper, Scissors. Its probably pretty obvious to most that the game theory optimal approach to RPS would be to throw 1/3 of each at random.

So while it would seem that it would be impossible to actually have an edge playing against someone even remotely intelligent, after watching enough episodes of Wheel of Fortune, (note on the vid: if you are offended easily there is some colorful commentary at the end you may want to avoid), I have come to the conclusion that the average person is pretty terrible at anything even remotely strategy related. That clip isn't even strategy related either, its just someone being dumb, which happens a lot too.

Thinking about this naturally led me to start wondering what kind of edge at RPS a winning midstakes poker player would have against a person of average intelligence, given that poker players by nature are adept at strategy and picking up patterns in opponents' play.

So my first question would be, if you knew you were playing someone of average intelligence, do you think there is an optimal choice for your first throw?

And how big of an edge, if any, (i.e. what percentage do you think they would be expected to win in the long run) do you think a winning poker player would have over:

Best of 9?
Best of 99?
Best of 999?

If you assume that the winning percentage increases over the longer series, is there a cap to the winning percentage that couldn't be increased by increasing the series length, and if so, at what percentage?

I'm not exactly sure how I would answer the latter questions, but in my mind I think the clear choice throwing first is Paper. Discuss.

Its been quite some time since my last blog post, so I apologize for that. I often go through stretches where I neglect certain things that I shouldn't. I think some of that is from the mindset of a poker player and having a natural disposition to think of things in terms of EV, so that little things like spending 30 minutes to write a blog or email a friend to catch up get continually put off to do other things, very often poker related, as that gives the "best" hourly return for our time. Playing poker for so many hours a day does sometimes make poker take over my thoughts, as even when I'm not playing I often think about hands I've played and whether I could have played them better.

In one sense I do think most players drastically overstate how much their hourly rate with poker is, since there is so much more time dedicated to the game, even subconsciously, than time spent actually at the tables playing. Studying, reviewing hands, watching videos, reading forums, or even just having your mind occupied by a hand you played instead of focusing on whatever you are doing is all time given to poker that most don't account for.

Poker players, for how logical they are overall as a group, still have many flaws in their way of looking at the game. The biggest flaw I think is an overconfidence in one's own game. See someone else at the tables make a bad play? Man they are terrible. Make a bad play yourself? Oh I was just tilting, I normally play better than that. See someone with a 100k breakeven stretch? Meh, they're just a mediocre reg. Have one yourself? I can't believe how badly I've been running. While having confidence in your own game is certainly an asset, I do find it funny how often people criticize other players over one or two observed bad plays or a relatively short run of bad results.

Sure many of you have seen something like this, but visual representation of how much luck can play into results over what most would consider a large sample size:








It definitely can be daunting to think that as a 2BB/100 winner there will be times where you break even over 250k hands if you're running in the bottom 1 or 2%. And as much as you might like to think you are a 3 or 4 BB/100 winner because you've won that much over a 100k hand sample, I hate to break it to you but there's a pretty good chance you've just been running hot.

I'm probably no different than most in having an inflated view of my own game. I've had results I'm pleased with in the midstakes games and have been playing them for almost 6 years now, but I should realize that if I don't make an effort to stay active in the poker community most of you won't even recognize me if you're not somebody I play with on a day to day basis. Heck, I look at some of the pros on other training sites and I have no idea who they are, although I'm sure a lot of them are very good players. So I think as a Leggo coach I will have to try harder to keep you all up to date on how I'm doing because obviously its important to you to watch videos made by people who are having success in today's games.

I'll try to get a graph up at the end of the month, but don't wanna jinx the good start I'm off to so far (clearly more logical thinking). I think I'm up something like 30-35 buyins so far, probably like 70% at 2/4 and 30% 1/2. I've been playing with Aaron every now and then at 2/4, which is fun especially when I get AA vs his KK, which has happened twice in probably the 1k or less hands I've played with him. It'd be nice though if he stopped being so nitty and just moved up.

I've managed to get 40k hands in so far which is pretty good for me, especially since I'm studying to take the CFA exam Level 1 this December which has taken up a lot of my time. Despite that I'm still getting in way more hands/month than I ever did pre Black Friday (not counting the few months I played rush poker at least). Looking back I guess its kinda unfortunate it took something like Black Friday to really get my ass in gear and put in consistent 100k hand months. 60k/month was good volume for me a year ago.

I've got a little more than a month left here in Toronto before my 6 month stay is up. As of now, my wife and I are uncertain where our next move will be. We are definitely going back and forth on what our best options are. As of now, we are considering Thailand, Malta, or perhaps just choosing a few different places in mainland Europe and trying to do a one month stay in each. Its definitely a stressful situation trying to find a place that is the best fit for us. Any suggestions are welcome...

Thats it from here. Enjoy 11/11/11.

Well it's official... the wife and I are headed to the land of James Ma. He'll still be pretty far away though since we decided on Toronto. Convenience-wise it just made the most sense. It's only 5 and a half hours from my family in Pittsburgh and since we're planning on driving it's the easiest trip from North Carolina. We're planning on heading up in a month to look at apartments and then move in the beginning of July. Hopefully I can get a bank statement or utility bill set up by early July so I can start playing again.

We signed a lease agreement today to rent our house for a year so that's one big step taken care of. So after our 6 month stay in Canada we are looking to head to Europe for 6 months - most likely England for 3 months and perhaps Spain depending on the poker situation there.

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna sign up to take the CFA (chartered financial analyst) Level I exam in December. I've got a degree in finance so I should have a head start on a lot of the material and it'll look good on my resume if I need to get back into the workforce. There are 3 levels to the exam - if I pass them all on the first try I could be done with them by June 2013. I think even having passed the first level though would be a positive thing for me in the interview process while explaining my resume.

Anyway, if any of you live in Toronto and have advice on anything from where to live to where to shop/eat let me know! We don't really know anyone there so we would love to meet some new people as well.

Well it's coming up on two weeks now since Black Friday and I've tried to not to make any rash decisions on anything until things have settled down a bit. While there still is a lot of uncertainty I think the smoke is starting to clear a bit so here are a few thoughts of mine on the present situation:

- By all accounts it looks as if we'll get our money back from Full Tilt and Stars sooner than we had anticipated. Based on the past Net-teller history many thought 6 months-1 year might be a reasonable time table - now I'd guess it'll be quicker than that.

- Still looks like it's gonna be a while before poker gets legislated/regulated in the US, and it's not even a certainty it will at this point. While I was hoping the DOJ crackdown might have been some conspiracy to give companies like Harrah's a way into the market, it doesn't look like there are any plans for that to happen at the moment. Knowing how slow the government works I think it'll be at least a year before we could play here again, with 2 years perhaps being a more reasonable hope. Although I would guess it's more likely to get regulated than not, I still doubt the probability of it happening is any more than 75% and if I had to give my gut feeling the likelihood is probably somewhere around the mid-60's% range. Just my personal estimate. It makes so much sense for it to happen but I'm just not sure it's really a big enough deal for a lot of voters, especially considering there's the other side - the fanatic right wing conservatives who equate playing poker to doing the devil's work.

-Even if it does get regulated I'm not sure Stars and Full Tilt would be allowed back in. Here I do think companies like Harrah's will put a ton of pressure on the government not to let it happen so they could get their own brand running in the online arena. And who knows what kind of system/rewards they might set up so high volume players like SNE on Stars or Rush Poker grinders on Full Tilt might be facing a letdown.

So after all those factors are considered I, like many others, am facing a decision - do I go play overseas and hope this mess gets sorted out in the US sooner rather than later or do I abandon this game and get into something else?

I think the deciding factors are going to be different for everyone but again here are some of my thoughts:

-Monetary situation - both current wealth and future income streams. Luckily my parents raised me to be a saver so I've got enough money where I really don't have to worry about immediate needs like food or bills for quite some time. Unfortunately I don't have quite enough to retire at age 26 so at some point I will have to start making money again. Short term, poker makes the most sense - I could probably make 5-10 times what I would in an entry level job somewhere. Longer term is a bit murky - if the US regulates poker relatively soon it should make poker much more profitable with new weaker players easily being granted access to the games. If that doesn't happen though the games will continue to get tougher as some American regs flock overseas and there just aren't as many fish to go around. Ideally if I went overseas I'd have one or two very good years and would have much more financial freedom when I came back, potentially enough to 'retire' with income from investments being enough to offset expenses.

-Personal situation - while an early twenties single guy probably is less tied down to staying, I'm married and will be 27 in a few months. I really don't have much time to go running around the world before I'd like to be settled down and start raising a family. Irishwife also has a job here in sales for a new home construction company so we'd have to leave that and the health benefits that come with it. She is pretty good at her job and would be pretty likely to get promoted to Sales Manager from Associate within a year or two. While my projected income would still probably be above that it's much harder to up and leave when you've got some good reasons to stay.

There are certainly other factors but I think these are the main two. I'm still weighing our options and hoping for some type of news, hopefully good, that will make the decision easier.

In the meantime I'm certainly keeping busy. I've been doing a lot more work around the house including cooking and yard work. When your income is xxx/hr it just doesn't make sense to do some tasks when you can pay someone else xx/hr. Now that I have so much unpaid free time mowing the lawn and looking for deals in the supermarket seem to make much more sense. Instead of losing to a 2 outer on the river, now a bad beat for me is when they advertised canned corn buy 2 get 3 free and when I get home I noticed they only gave me 1 free. So currently my shopping EV graph has me $1.50 below.

I'm glad to still be a part of Leggo and producing videos so that I can contribute somewhat to our income. The ones I've done in the past using Excel for calculations generally have gotten good reviews so I'm looking to do some cool ones like that focusing on different situations.

Given my abundance of free time I'm looking to get back into coaching. This year I've been playing primarily Rush Poker, both 6max and full ring so I think I'd be a pretty good coach for either of those for anyone playing up to 2/4. Here are my results year to date:



Again, I primarily 8 tabled Rush and I'd argue that more focus was paid on 2/4 resulting in the higher winrate than 1/2, but I suppose it could just be variance.

Anyway, I'm very flexible in my coaching style - you can check out my profile:

http://www.leggopoker.com/coaches/Irishman07/

Or feel free to send me a PM with questions.

As for now I'm looking to charge $100/hr but depending on demand and how many sessions you are looking for that could be lowered. Right now seems like Paypal would be the only payment option and I'd absorb any fees from that.

Well I think thats just about all the thoughts I have right now...back to housework and reading up on finance books in case I decide to put my degree to use!

Unfortunately I haven't been able to log in nearly as many hands this month as I would like. I took a few days off with a trip to New York. A few days after getting back from that I started getting sick and for the past week I haven't played at all due to not feeling well. At least I got to watch a ton of basketball... although my bracket is completely busted there have been some very good games.

In typical Notre Dame fashion the Irish failed to show up for their game vs. Florida State and made another early exit. Just not sure Mike Brey is the answer at coach. Was hoping they'd make a deep run this year so I could talk some smack to Aaron this summer about who the best team in Indiana is, but of course Butler is overachieving again.

The morning after the BBall loss I wake up to the news that ND's best football player is suspended indefinitely due to a DUI. What an idiot. It'll be interesting to see how long they suspend him... a lot of schools out there would find a way to give their best player a slap on the wrist but at ND they usually are pretty harsh about these things.

Now that I'm starting to feel a little better I'm hoping to grind a ton the last week or so of the month. As soon as I get my voice completely back I'm also overdue for a video as well. Per a request I think I'm gonna try to focus on playing OOP from the blinds. I'll most likely do a HH review of my own hands, but if any of you guys have hands you want me to talk about feel free to PM me the hand histories and I'll be pretty likely to use those in the video.

Hit a new personal best for hands played in a month: 270,000. Kinda crazy to think I almost averaged 10k hands a day. Guess 8 tabling Rush will do that. Also I didn't take any days off at all, though several days I only played an hour or two.

For me I think it's almost easier to get so many hands in because once I start logging serious volume I know the profits become much more steady, if that makes sense. It's like I know if I get 250k hands played in a month I'm very very likely to have an excellent month, whereas if I only play 50k I might not. So if I'm 6 tabling regular 6max it's almost like I don't have extra motivation to grind the extra 500 hands a day because the results don't come as fast. Not too logical I know.

I'm very pleased with my results this month. It was either my biggest or 2nd biggest month ever - they both were close and I can't remember exactly if this one was higher. It certainly helps to have ~10k in profits come from rakeback and bonuses alone. I made pretty much exactly 1.1 million full tilt points which is convenient because that's how much the 5k bonus costs in the black card store. With Full Tilt reducing the rakeback it places a bigger emphasis on accumulating points so I try to maximize the amount of time I play during Happy Hours.

I don't like publishing exact figures on how much I've made, but you can probably get a general estimate:

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I played both 1/2 and 2/4 with a little more than half of it being 2/4. They just introduced 2/4 Rush 6max so I've been playing that when it runs along with 2/4 full ring. As you can see I ran pretty well this month which more than makes up for running under last month. Unfortunately I couldn't quite catch a hot streak at the end of the month and came up just short of a milestone I was shooting for.

As for my plan of not checking results til the end of the month, it went according to plan for the first half of the month. I checked once halfway through just to see how the month was going and from there I checked sporadically. I think it helped somewhat but it's pretty hard to not see how you're doing! So from here on out I'd ideally like to check once a week or so which will limit the focus I put on results but still keep me aware of where I'm at.

The plan for March is just to keep on grinding. Hopefully the 2/4 6max Rush will run pretty regularly as it would be nice to play only 2/4. I did just order a 30" monitor so I may see if it's possible to play any more than 8 tables. Right now it's too hard for me on 2 24" since I like to tile the tables and any more than 8 and they get too small.

I've got a small trip to New York planned in a week or so. Irishwife and I are headed up for a couple days to see some friends and check out our Irish in the first game of the Big East Tournament. Still don't know what our plans are gonna be during the day or where we'll eat so if anyone has any recommendations let me know. We're staying at The Surrey in the Upper East Side so we're gonna try to walk around a bunch from there.

Hopefully I'll also get a video or two done this month. I made 3 in January and then didn't get around to doing one in February. It's hard for me to decide what to do since I don't want to do one of myself playing Rush. At this point it's just not worth it to give my thought process out for the games I'm playing so much in. I've got a couple other theory -ish things I have ideas on but those seem to be getting mixed reviews so not sure what I'll do. The Leggo guys were kind enough to just get me a new microphone/headphones so I feel like I at least owe them some use out of it.