Man I haven't blogged in a while. I was at my parents for a week, then had a cold for a week. But November is gonna be brutal because I take the CFA exam on Dec 6. I'll be happy with putting in 25 hours of poker this month. I really want to pass this exam the first time. It's not that it's a total monetary or pride disaster if I fail (I heard it's pretty tough). But I mean I'd hate to fail after putting in over 200 hours of studying so far.

I have some awesome HU footage for the dual video with Bobbo (sorry Rob, we'll def do it this week!). I hope November goes by quickly, because I'm really looking forward to December. I plan to put in 50k hands, design a new coaching program, and create a concept video series. Also gonna visit my wife's cousin in Chicago and hopefully skiing with the family for Christmas.

I've figured out a lot more about this game theory stuff. I'm not gonna write too much more about it though because it makes my blog posts way too dense and nobody reads it

I wrote my first article for the private strat forum. It's an expository introduction to game theory. I'm pretty happy with it considering it was kind of a rush job. It is light on math so should be readable for everyone. Other than that I've been busy with some other leggo/poker stuff and studying for the cfa. I also have the inkling to grind a bunch of hands HU. I'm consciously avoiding omaha because it will drain too much of my time from other stuff I need to be doing. I tracked down some game theory/poker papers co-authored by Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. I'll give them a quick read and post relevant comments in a few days.

I used to be a pretty passionate blogger, but things have gone down hill lately. Anyways, I am back now. The trip was great. I was in Dubai for over 3 weeks. We stayed at my wife's parent's place. Dubai is great for many things - shopping, food, and service is ridiculously better than in Canada. Most people there have maids and cooks... It is quite awesome not having to worry about the next meal. I don't have any good pictures. It's not the type of place where you can go around sight seeing (it was 45-50 celsius during the day). We stayed at a ridiculously baller hotel called Emirates Palace for my wife's birthday (each suite had 3 butlers lol).

While there, I had an interview with a banker at Citibank. They want me to pass the CFA exam (level 1) before bringing me on. I am aiming for a trading position in their forex division in Singapore (Singapore is their main trading center for currency). Thus I've been extremely busy studying for this exam. I apologize for the late replies to PMs. I am finally available for coaching!

That's all for now. I'm off to make a Party video (1/2 or 2/4)

I'm traveling to Dubai tomorrow for 3 weeks. My wife's parents live there. We are also going to Mauritius (Africa, near Madagascar) for a few days to celebrate my wife and her mom's birthday (it's on the same day). I'm going to mostly relax and eat tons of great food.

I made a sweet $100 NL video today on Party. It is 4-tabling the bad beat jackpot tables which are pretty sick loose right now. I won about 6 buyins and talked about the adjustments related to merging your ranges against loose players. There is more bluffing at $100 NL than I expected.

Leggo is really moving forward. Sauce and Unknown Soldier are great additions to the team, and more great things are coming in the future. It really annoys me when people on 2+2 give DeucesCracked and CardRunners so much love. I think pound for pound we have the best videos. Leggo almost never produces a subpar video. We are easily the best site for small-mid stakes grinders. Enough of the mini rant.

That is all for now. I will post trip pics when I get back. Be good.

So I did well on some of my May goals (reading books, some NLHE) but failed miserably at others (PLO 0 hands played, no poker reading). But that is OK I guess. I've been watching a lot of basketball and cricket which increases my life EV.

The coaching section is up and running now, and it is pretty cool. So I have been coaching a bit more lately. I also made a 2 part video series on the OnGame network. These should be up within a week. It was 2 tabling 1/2 5-max. I won about 5 buyins and the games were really good. But the software is life-tilt inducing so I probably won't make one on there for a while. Next video will probably be ipoker or HU SNG on Stars (the deep stack no blind increase ones).

I am no longer going to Vegas. I have to travel with my wife to visit her parents this summer, and I don't feel like going for just a week like last year. The up side is that I get to visit Dubai again, which is a really cool place. We will be celebrating my wife's and her mom's birthday (same day). Anyways, that is all for now. I will get around to reading Mathematics of Poker sometime, and will post a review when I do.

So I got my chair today. I absolutely LOVE this chair. It is so comfortable that I decided to just read/browse today instead of putting in hands. I'm going for a little live poker trip to Niagara Falls today. Spur of the moment thing...Maybe I am putting off putting in hands haha. I'll be going for 2 nights. I've heard there are juicy 5/5, 5/10, and 10/20 games there. Like poker trip report to come.

I'm gonna try to stick to some basic goals this month. They are not all poker related so that should help!

40k hands 6-max
20k hands HU
10k hands PLO (I've never played before!)
Figure out how to use Holdem Manager
Read Game Theory section of Mathematics of Poker (at least skim)
Read Elements of Poker
Watch minimum 1 video per day
Review days daily (or at least every 5k hands!)
Read 4 finance books
Get back to daily reading routine (finance news mostly)
Train for basketball

Meh, I'm being way too ambitious this month for no particular reason.

April has been a pretty good month poker wise (got in 22k hands yay!). I've been working more on my HU game and I think I will crush the HU games next month. I also made a 2-tabling .5/1 HU video which should be released next week or so. I did the pause and record format, and it turned out being 1.5 hours long. I think I will make a 1/2 or 2/4 6-max video next time. Also, some have requested I play on a Euro site next time. I only have an account on Party, but perhaps I can set up a OnGame account or something.

Since I suck so much at getting in hands, I decided to upgrade my office setup. I ordered the Freedom Chair ($1050) and a keyboard system ($300). I've been using a crappy Staples chair which can't be too good for my posture. I also have carpel tunnel problems in the wrist and elbow, so the keyboard system should help with that.




I'm going to really grind for the next 6 weeks. I want to play at least 50k hands before I go to Vegas in middle of June. I also gotta get in basketball shape before Vegas. Bobbo is going to enter our house into some kind of rec league, and we will probably play a lot pickup as well. There was a prop bet in HSNL about Krantz dunking a basketball (which is pretty funny if you've seen Jay in real life). But apparently he has some hops, and can actually grab the rim. He could probalby win the bet with some plyometric training.

So I finished watching the Krantz DVD today. Overall I was impressed by it. Jay was my first coach, and obviously he is a terrific player. Overall the video was very well made, and was better than I expected. On the other hand, the video isn't going to help a winning 5/10+ player that much. The target audience is small to mid stakes players, or live/full ring players looking to make the transition to aggro short handed games.

The first half of disc 1 is an overview of Jay's approach to short handed NLHE. He talks about aggression, position, implied odds (or lack of it), a bit about preflop selection. I didn't learn much from this section. But I imagine new players will up some new philosophies about short handed poker. The second half of disc 1 and all of disc 2 is about hand reading. This is the meat of the video, and is very well done. Jay uses real hands that he has played for all the examples. The examples are mostly 10/20 and 25/50, both 6-max and and heads up. The hand analysis is pretty thorough, and mostly correct.

There are some spots where I think his hand ranges are a bit incomplete. He makes some assumptions about ranges (like player won't c/r for value with a certain type of hand), which is fine but I would have liked to hear more discussion about alternate lines players can take, and how to adjust to it. Although the hands are mostly pretty interesting (there are 2 HU hands vs durrr!), it definitely feels like he was leaving some high level stuff out. That is understandable since the target audience isn't the winning 10/20 player, but this is also a bit disappointing. Also, some hands seem like brags more than anything else. Overall the selection of hands is ok, but could have been more well thought out.

Is the video worth it? Most players would benefit from it. And for $50, I'm pretty sure it will be a good investment for almost anybody. I'd imagine it is still a lot better than most of the garbage material released (Phil Gordan/Hellmuth DVD's etc). Furthermore, how can you resist those shades?

General update today. I've been pretty busy with grinding (my version hehe) this month, and also thinking a lot about poker strategy. Sometimes I get in that mode where I think I already know the great secrets of the game. But it's always good to step back and try to improve your game. I've been sweating a few friends lately, and this has opened up my eyes in some subtle areas.

I ordered the Tommy Angelo book (Elements of Poker) this week. I've heard good things about the book. Apparently it is an awesomely written book on poker psychology. I ordered it from the site professional poker.com. I also ordered the Krantz DVD while I was at it! I don't think I'll get much out of it.. but I'll post a review sometime.

Man I am excited about Vegas. I'll be staying for a month June to July 15th, with bobbo and some other 2p2ers. Our house is pretty sick. More importantly I think it will be a great chance to talk and learn from other poker players. I stayed about a week last year, and it was great fun. I may also do some live (ie in person) coaching, so message me if you'll be down at that time and want to do some sessions.

Last week was my birthday. Day was pretty standard. Went out for Japanese and then watched the movie 21. 21 is a movie about the MIT blackjack team that won millions in Vegas by counting cards. Watching the movie was kind of eerie for me. Before poker I studied blackjack. I learned to count cards and made some money in Vegas one summer (like 5k which felt huge back then!). That summer I discovered poker, and haven't played more than a few hours of blackjack since. The movie was entertaining, although not too realistic IMO.

I'll be making a few extra videos this month. So leave a comment if you have a recommendation on stakes and format. My last one was full ring. Even 6-max players may find it useful. Especially since live poker is full ring. That's all for now. Good luck at the tables.