Hello freaks!

This weekend marked the first time I've ever really achieved a goal that I had set in poker, and I'm now getting ready to take my first shot at moving up. Personally, this is a big deal because I've never really been a big goal setter in life. Personality-wise, Ive always been someone who gets his happiness from instant-gratification things, artistic & creative explosions, and the small things in life.

That's why I never really gave myself a chance when it came to success in poker. I was smart enough to see how much time, effort and intense analytical thinking it would take to get better. That wasnt really something I was prepared to commit to. The good players, they were all math guys, people who did excellent in school. Long ago, I figured if was to ever get good at cards, it was only going to come from experience and playing. In the early days, that was enough to beat the 5-10 limit game or the 1-2 NL game at the local casino.

Around December of 2009, after years of donking and watching everyone around me get better, I started wanting more. My experience wasn't taking me anywhere, and I love the game too much and had spent way to much time in life to just give up. I was seeing guys I used to play 1-2 at the casino with at final tables of the WSOP on ESPN, and while I was super happy for them, I was also sad and even felt DUMB.

Despite playing 1-2NL successfulyl at the casino back then, years later online I was a nitty micro loser. I had seen almost all the situations you could encounter at the uber micro stakes, thousands of times. I just didnt know how to react. I was probably the best break-even to small-loss player there was, hahaha. But i was going nowhere. Forums & training sites intimidated me with their maths and hand ranges and equity and . Reluctantly I got a subscription and just started watching any and all videos I could. I played 10000 hands and posted them in the RedJoker stats thread, and carefully thought about his responses to my numbers. Here and there I would find a spot that I recognized and thought, "Hey, maybe I should look at this, maybe I can play this better than I always do." I started thinking that maybe there were things I could do to open new doors for myself. Consequently, walking through those doors opened even more doors. I wasn't learning how to play better, I was learning how to think better. A new emotion- hope- started creeping into my thinking regarding poker. "Lets take a shot," I thought.

About 3 weeks ago I set my first two goals:

1. Grind my bankroll from about one buy-in to 50 buy-ins at the micros. 2NL.
2. Qualify for the Iron Man status on FTP. Not because it really meant anything to me, more because it would ensure that i would be playing regularly, and putting in the hands I need to
to think and evaluate my play better.

As of this past weekend I have achieved goal #1, and within a few days will have qualified for #2. I discussed my stats with other players and sometime this week i will start playing 5NL. My new goal is to push my bankroll to 50 buy-ins at 5NL. This may seem a bit conservative to a lot of players, but it suits me just fine. I feel a lot more comfortable having more buy-ins behind me if I run bad, play bad, and need to move down again. I'm not looking to move up that fast. 2NL was a surprisingly easy 3 weeks, but believe me when i say I don't expect it to happen that fast at 5NL. If it does, fine, I'm not sure what to expect. But if it takes me 2 months or more, then fine also. All I know is that I set a goal that would be difficult for me and I did it.

This whole post was to pat myself on the back and to relate the idea that even the worst of players can get better with a little bit of effort.

So, let's set my new goals right here and now.
1. Grind to 50 buy-ins at 5NL.
2. Continue achieving Iron Man status
3. My job ends next Friday (about 350 of us are getting laid off, thanks Chase!), at which point I will be taking at least six months off to enjoy life, travel, and play more. I can survive on my severance package & savings for, at the very least, triple that length of time. So I will develop a schedule to follow every day, going to the gym in the morning for an hour, studying and taking notes for an hour or two, and also however many hours i will be playing daily.
4. Keep watching the NY Mets win!


I would also like to thank Whiskeyfish and Luvr who railed me, late night styles, while I went deep in the daily dollar Friday night. It's been a while since I had played a donkament, and I registered for something different and so I could watch the Mets play and donk around, not have to worry about being constantly in tune. Well I ended up with the opposite, and came in 21st out of ~8900 runners. I was so close to making a big score for myself. But it was a nice little reward for all the work Ive done, as there were multiple spots where I would normally be lost, and I wasnt so lost this time around. So thanks to those two for keeping me awake and making sure I just didnt say FUCKIT after 7 hours of play and wanting to go to bed.

More next week!


Song of the day:
"Here I Come" - The Roots

In an effort to make friends and explain my foolishness, decided to start a blog here. I've only been with Leggo a short time but I am thoroughly impressed with the people here, the participation of the pros, and the quality of videos. Most of the videos are a bit over my head but the ones that are helping so far are exactly what I needed. I have a hard time learning. Call it a disability, call it being dumb as a stump or whatever you want, but it takes me a long time to learn what others learn in a fraction of the time. Math, even simple math, terrifies and confuses me.

Other things, like humor, music, eating sandwiches, sex, they all come easy to me. I'm a fucking Einstein with that stuff. But none of that can help me when facing a 3bet OOP with AJ in a loose game full of maniacs.

I started playing poker around 2003, like most, when my exwife had gone and R.U.N.N.O.F.T and left me reeling. Luckily poker had come along. I dove into it with an insatiable hunger for knowledge regarding the game. I was one of those who figured out really quick that just by using a decent preflop hand selection, you could make tons of money playing poker online. For the only time i can can remember in my life, my dreams at night were affected by my waking life. I was thinking about and playing so much poker that i was dreaming about it. I devoured WPT episodes, and every book
they had at the bookstore. Lee Jones was my hero. I even moved back home because there was a casino 10 minutes away. I was doing very good. I bought a car to replace the one my ex took. Killing online at True Poker. Murdering the 5-10 limit game at the casino. Winning a donkament on the prima network for just over $5000. Railing Fossilman on 2+2 while he made his run at the big one. Spending the summer next to a pool reading my poker books. Enjoying my life.

I ended up moving down south later that year. Got a job with Chase Bank. Rebuilt my life after the ex took everything. The job took over, I didnt play as much. When I did, I noticed everyone was getting good. Really good. All of a sudden I wasn't winning. I took one look at the math & theorems the good players were discussing and figured out I wasn't going to get any better. It was just beyond me. Just like school used to get. Since then Ive just been donking for fun. The only game I could beat was the home games I attended. I struggled with tilt, with playing too tight, playing too loose. I just wasnt any good anymore. Everytime I decided I was going to start paying attention and play for real instead of just flying blindly, I would have a bad day and go back to those self-defeating thinking patterns. Everytime I tried to dip into equity, formulas and odds i was lost and frustrated.

I'm entering a new phase of life now. My job, along with about 350 others at my site, has been eliminated. I'm taking some time off, focusing on my DJing business and poker. This site so far has been surprising in that some of those key concepts that held me back are starting to make a little sense. The powerpoint presentations have been so accessible and well taught that a lot of it is starting to click. My graphs for the first time are trending upward. You call it variance, I call it my second chance. I'm starting to believe in myself again regarding poker. When my job ends, I'll have a nice schedule of study time, gym workouts, eating better, putting in the hours required to get better. I'll never be an AE Jones or a LuckyChewy but I think I could do pretty well relatively. I do have a fantastic background of experience to resource from, and Ive noticed during my learning already that there are a lot of spots where I was making the correct decisions, I just never knew why. And now that Im spending time studying the game, there are things clicking into place. That is giving me the faith that I can get better, despite what Ive been telling myself since 2005-6.

OK so this was a little long-winded but I figured it was good to put things down in writing. I'll be updating this blog with my successes and shortcomings.

There are other sites that Ive lurked at but always resisted posting because of the risk of sounding like a clueless dumbass. Leggo so far has been welcoming and doesnt take the attitude of "how could you not know that?", which is fantastic for someone like me. The value alone of the videos and the community far outweigh the subscription price, even when that monthly price is a big chunk of the bankroll. Hopefully one day I'll be posting here about how it made me a winning player again.

If any of you are even still reading this sob story fanboy horseshit, please dont hesitate to pm me or look me up on skype to discuss poker or schedule a sweat. I'm really looking forward to getting to know more of you.


Peace
OldSchoolDonk

Song of the day:
"Sobb Story" - Leaders of the New School