So I dont watch tv much, but im living with friends who do, and im of course totally bewildered by half of it.

so today im watching cash-cab, and this group of four tourist retiree types get in the cab. i am of course initially pre disposed to hate on them as they are all loud, overweight and not new york city model hot like 60% of the ppl on the show, and are wearing mumu type garments and fannypacks, but i digress.

premise of the show is that you get in a regular yellow nyc cab and declare your destination at which point the car erupts in psychadelic lights and you are on a game show. the deadline is when you arrive at your stop the questions end, or if you get 3 wrong you get booted onto the sidewalk, they ascend in difficulty and go up to maybe 150$ a pop from 25$ at the beginning,

the retirees are actually quite strong players and bink I believe 13/15 questions, ending in a 950$ win as they reach their destination, at this point you can go for video bonus question for double or nothing which is on average marginally harder than your previous questions. this smug fcking lady stares down the camera with her southern drawl and goes "Oh, well, we aren't gambin' types" and they run wiht the money. as this is a poker blog i will not discuss the EV of their decision, but what i found so infuriating was that they justified their retarded decision not with any kind of logic but just immediately as a moral certainty, these ppl must have elected george bush....

so i begin to tilt visibly to my friend who is watching it and explain the precious ev they are giving up, however, not satisfied to stop at the end of my traditional rant; i had to swing for the fences. my friend attempted to justify their decision like this "if the happiness ev they lose by gambling is greater than the happiness ev of doubling through, and the money isn't particularly large or small, then their quit is fine". though, i must add, my friend was a girl, so it was phrased a lil differently.

I say no! not taking such a logically imperative gamble just displays a profound ignorance about the way probability operates in everyday life. Or, to put it more succinctly "Lady, do you realize you're driving in a FCKING CAR RIGHT NOW". every time you get in a car, you deliberately risk your entire life in exchange for some value, whether it's getting to work quickly, seeing a friend, etc. whenever you smoke a cigarette you lose whatever it is, 10 min on average of your life i forget, what im getting at is just the fact that risk taking (read:gambling) is inextricably bound up with living, by blinding yourself to the relatively large risks you are assuming daily you are living a dream. gambling should be defined as what this lady and people like her have been doing their whole lives:: making unreasoned decisions without considering the myriad possible outcomes, both material and emotional of the things they take for granted.

im gonna need another non- 1am blog to flesh this one out, but i wag my finger at you, cash cab lady, don't judge me! grrrrr

I've had a ton of interest in the past, but in general have decided against coaching as my schedule was fluctuating so much and I felt I couldn't give the best value to students. for the first time in over a year however I plan on being in one place for the next 6 months, and plan on keeping a regular schedule as well as playing more hands than I have the past few months. Being more focused on poker I think I will be able to take on 1-4 students, perhaps more, in varying capacities.

First of all, I want to get one thing straight: while I do enjoy teaching poker, poker is first and foremost my job, so the goal here is to make any hour I spend coaching more +ev than time spent playing my main games (25/50 to 200/400 nl, sprinkled with PLO and HA)(note to me: say NO to 500/1k). I'm also adding to the fact that any time spent coaching people playing slightly lower than I play now will eventually make games tougher for me down the road. Spose' I sound like a bit of a Machiavellian fckhead, but there it is. In the past when I was making videos or coaching for well less than my hourly rate I constantly had this feeling of regret which caused me not to put 100% into the time I spent. So realize that while these rates might seem outlandish I have to balance my time so that coaching is a good poker-business decision. It's going to be up to you to see if my coaching is worth your money.

I also want you as the student to have a ton of options. Here they are:

1. Sweat via Mikogo/Teamviewer: $175/hr if you don't currently play in my 25/50 games, $1000/hr if you do. No skyping or direct interaction. If you can get a group together of enough people to supplement my hourly I will play as low as 2/4nl, though I'm guessing this would apply mostly to 5/10, 10/20nl regulars.

1b) Take notes, ask questions, note specific hand histories and send me an email after one of these sweat sessions with those questions. I will respond with descriptive answers of my reads and logical reasoning, but without in depth pokerstove theory discussion. I haven't thought of accurate pricing for this yet as I want to shy away from a $/hand type of thing as that would induce you to ask only a few specific questions and not for instance things like "why did u fold 97dd in the BB to X's CO raise?", I also want to shy away from a $/time spent by me because that would induce me to overbill you or work slowly and just leads to dishonesty. Any ideas?

1c) Sweat w/ discussion via Skype. 450/hr. I will try to answer your questions as fully and honestly as possible during the session, but reserve the right to say "I have to think!" at any time as I'll be playing 4+ tables usually. I also, will have the right to end the session at any time, but you won't be billed for the nearest hour to the time I stop it , for instance if we do a 40 min session and I decided I'm not able to continue talking you won't be charged a penny unless it's some ridic angle shoot where someone is blasting Britney Spears through their headset or something. Also, we will take a 15 min break at the end of the hour to talk through anything we might have had to gloss over. I donno, I've always wanted to do this, would be like watching a poker video, but instead you are able to control the discussion as the observer. You can also split this with multiple people with the base price being 425/hr+ $225 for each extra person.

2. HH analysis via email. Same problems as 1b regarding pricing. Don't really want to do $/HH just because that would again induce me to work quickly through your hand histories:: this needs to be different from regular forum posting and requires a lot of thought. I'm sort of shying away from this option right now, just because of the prevalence of forums etc but wanted it listed.

3. Private Sweating. The typical "poker-coaching" arrangement. I sweat you in your games while we talk on Skype and discuss hands post-session. Since my playing hourly is completely cut-out from this it all comes out of your pocket. $1600/hr. Includes sporadic AIM questions and email questions. Can also focus on theory.

That's it for now, I'm going to think on this a bit more and see what else I can think of. Probably the most advantageous thing for most is going to be some kind of sweating me. The only other option not covered here is some kind of arrangement where I take a percentage of your winnings over the long terms in exchange for coaching, probably 5hrs/week+ at the start and downhill from there. this is just plagued by trust issues, so if I don't already know you well, probably not. Have heard so many horror stories.

I'm a good poker player, that doesn't necessarily make me a great poker coach. If your looking at value per dollar spent, for SURE your best bet is to watch all of the video coaching sites, 50$ for the amount of videos on Leggo is just such a steal if you put in the time to study them thoughtfully. Nothing I can do will guarantee you getting to the next level, but I probably think about poker a bit differently than anyone who you have talked to before. I've been happy with all the poker coaching I have ever received in totally different capacities, from Krantz and Tommy Angelo.

Again, people have asked about coaching, I have the time now, just wanted to write this down at least in rough form so that your questions are answered. If you think of anything else, float it by me.

-Ben

Day One- wasn't that bad


Two days ago, call it a Tuesday I arrived in LA. All hotels were booked so I've sequestered myself at the Ramada 8 mins down the street.

Next morning (Wednesday) I hustled on down to the Commerce to register for the 10k hu no limit event. I first haggled with a few people at the front desk in order to receive the 100k wire I made here, there was one moment of nervousness where the two tellers were conferring in the back utterly confused as to whether it had arrived or not. It did though, sweet. Cashed out 40k for walking around money and went to register a full 3 hours before the event with great success. Finding myself bored with 3 hours to kill pre-event I wandered downstairs, happening upon a 20/40nl game, with 200 BB ante and a 300 2-7 bounty. Naturally I sat. Things zipped along smoothly with me opening a pot here and there, winning a few continuation bets, but mostly just sitting on a tight/solid image. The table was just awful for a live game, the lineup was the Bermans, Keith, Kevin and a couple of other live pros playing tight. Not one mark.

7 handed, the weakest player at the table opened UTG+1 to 200, Brad Berman called, Keith called, and Lyle called from the small blind. I picked up QQ in the BB with a 20k stack or so and after some quick internal debate made it 1500, the PFR folded, Keith called and Lyle called from the SB. Pot 5k or so on the flop of 8s 4x 3s. I again had a bit of a tough decision as betting commits me to the hand, but I thought they might think I would bet AK here as well as some of my SC type hands and sometimes people are more apt to put you on a bluff the first time you show aggression (specially if you're a scruffy young kid). I bet 2500, which coincidentally was the number of white ($100) chips in front of me, mostly because I hate talking when I'm in a big pot OOP with money behind, declaring 3400 or so while tossing in a flag I'm not really sure what kind of intonation to go for to project weakness to two strong live players. Keith thought for 4 beats or so and called, Lyle folded. The turn came an offsuit ace which presents a couple problems. Pot is around 11.5k with 16k behind so my only real option if I decide to bet is to bet/fold. This is of course completely fine if I expect my opponent to never re-bluff, never spazz with worse pairs, and to never ship an 8-out draw. I'm not sure if that's the case, also I had seen Keith make some floaty/bluffy plays in the past, and I was sure he was capable of turning pairs into bluffs. So I checked. He thought for a bit longer and bet $3600 (leaving me 11.6k I remember behind). As a continuation of my previous reads this meant one of two things: he had a draw/bluff- hands like 55 or 65, or he had a set. Sets are difficult to get, so I called, taking an appropriate length of time to do my live-poker dance and make a variety of weak looking gestures, hopefully subtly. River came an offsuit 2, improving hands like 65, 55, I checked and he pushed for 11.6. I decided at this point to put him on JTs, QJs type of hands or perhaps 66, 77, 99, TT, JJ as he shoved very quickly. Getting 2.5 to 1 I called, though it's very close, I also discounted hands like AQ AK and A4 A3 which were a part of his range on the turn, so let's not think this river card was TOO terrible. He had 888.

Then I headed upstairs for the 10k hu. They had the most idiotic table assignment system imaginable. There were 110 entrants, and maybe 20 first round byes. Instead of simply creating a bracket and letting us look at it, they had 110 degens lined up like highschool graduation to listen as they announced each match individually in monotone. Zzzzzzzzz. Also, in a miraculous coincidence 19/20 (or 1 less than the total, I forget the exact number) of first round byes were given to various live pros of differing significance. Sure seemed like a hundo in the right place could net you +10k equity, though this is of course completely unsubstantiated and is a conspiracy theory. I was lucky enough to not even be assigned a table, such is my stature in the live poker community. After finding my opponent we convinced the tournament staff to give us one.

My opponent was Jason Griffin, who I believe is a live-pro playing 10/20 and 20/40 at the commerce. Not surprisingly he folded quite a bit too much preflop and called too much postflop, but otherwise played reasonably solidly. The match went back and forth and we eventually got all the way to the 500/1k blind level with 20k starting stacks, which actually remained 20k stacks. He limped in for 1k, and I made it 3k instead of jamming with KQo. He called and the flop came 732r. I knew he was getting it in with any pair or draw, and occasionally bluffing and so thought bet/folding or calling would leave me in a terrible spot. I checked and he checked behind pretty quickly. The turn came an offsuit queen. I thought for a bit and checked as I thought he would put me on ace high at best as the match up to this point had been playing very straightforward and I had been aggressive, caught jamming over his limp with Q6o for 10bbs, etc. He bet 4k pretty quickly and I called med-quick. River was some blankish card, an 8 maybe and I checked. He jammed quickly again, I of course snap and won against T6hh, boo-yah!

My next opponent was The Grinder, along with his entourage of maybe 10 friends who hung out on the rail talking sht. I booked a 5k sidebet with one of them pre-match to spice things up a little. The first hand I misplayed kind of badly, Michael 3bet my open with 98dd to 1500 with 20k stacks. I decided to call and float some flops. KT7 one diamond, he bet I floated. Turn was something random, a ten I believe and he bet some tiny amount I think 3k into 7k or so. I called again. River was a blank and checked. I probably should have checked here as I need him to fold hands like AJ AQ 22-66, 7x, which I'm not sure he will. I bet 3600 as I had no showdown value and he tank-called with 97o. NH Grinder I guess. He won a bunch more pots grinding me down to 8k or so when I won a flip 55 vs AJ aipf. I stole a few more pots and got my stack up to 21k, opened KJs otb at 200/400 and Grinder made it 2k (over my 800). I called. Flop came J74ss I believe, grinder made a med-sized bet, but a big bet for him as he had been min bettng and just generally making tiny probing type bets all match, mostly with weaker hands. I called. Turn was an offsuit queen and he bet med again. This was actually kind of a tough spot as I thought he was likely semibluffing this card a ton, but not necessarily betting weaker jacks or hands like 88-TT but what can I do but call? River was a king and he bet 4500 or so. I jammed and he thought for easily 10 minutes, drawing a crowd of maybe 20 people to the rail. I decided to do the stoic stare at the table thing as he seemed pretty intent on eliciting tells all match. He did all the live pro tricks, clanking chips to see if my eyes darted, fake moving in or betting in different spots, stacking and unstacking. Finally he called with Kx.

My third match was against Vivek, Psyduck of 2p2 fame. I expected him to be a bit overaggro in certain spots, and perhaps to play overly ABC. I'm not sure if I was right. This was my third tough match of the day, starting at 11pm...

Notes: 1) The Leggo software is messed up, anytime I do a draft of one of these it automatically shows it as posted. Don't click! From now on I'll throw out a DONE! or DRAFT in caps beforehand.
2) I could do a lot better with editing. I tend to write pretty sloppily, but usually I just bang one of these out and then I'm pumped to post it so I just fire it out there. Good luck.

Part 3: Grindcore


Starting on January 28th 2007 I pretty much geared my head up to become a poker-pro. I had my island-journal filled with 6max tables scribbled with ranges and a variety of bankroll management goals. I only remember #1: Don't move up limits until you think you are the best regular at your limit and have 25 buy ins. This was at the persistent urging of Danny and Max, who had recently introduced me to the world of 2p2, and put the tools of learning winning poker in my eager hands. They also seemed ok with lending me money and so the day after my plane landed back on Cape Cod I borrowed $500 and went to work at 25nl to make $10,000 by December 31st.

Sitting down to play poker is probably the most exhilarating thing I've done in my life. Sex can definitely be better, drugs too, but for pure consistency of enjoyment without baggage or side effects, poker does it for me hands down. Poker rarely has the extreme peaks and valleys of life experience. I've never felt as whole playing poker as I have staring at the moon in Yosemite, but for pure sensory gratification the bumpy uphill ride of moving chips can't be beat. Contrary to popular belief, poker has gotten consistently more boring as I've played for more and more money. Probably more stressful in some real-world ways, but when I was starting out every hand was a puzzle, and everywhere I turned my attention possibilities abounded. In 2007, no one knew anything, the players beating the biggest games were shooting from the hip just like the rest of us, but with faster reflexes. So in this climate I thought that with enough dedication, anything was achievable. And failure would be expected, while being a successful gambler would blow my friends' minds.

I think I played 25nl for 3 days. I'm 100% sure that at no time in my now long poker career have I been a winner at 25nl or 50nl. For some reason the style of play at 50nl in 2007 caused me to tilt almost instantaneously. I think it was almost TOO soft. I was interested in a high tension battle of check raises and bluffs, and instead what I found at 50nl was tables full of passive weekend warriors idly tossing in chips from any position trying to flop something good. This infuriated me for some reason and I found myself trying to just rip every chip on the table from their lazy faces. And you can't do that, cause they were playing tight. So I found myself repeatedly getting in big pots with say 92ss which I had 3bet against someone playing 20/8, and then stacking off on a 94J flop because he had to have AK. Each session I would review my hands and realize that most of my equity at these tables came from my ability to win tons of small uncontested pots with big raises in position. And I just couldn't do it, it was like waving red in front of a bull, I'd charge in guns blaring and when the turn checkraise came I was steaming forward so recklessly I couldn't get out of the way.

On day four I played 50nl. I saw no substantial difference. On day five I played 100nl, where a few regulars were starting to mess around. So I played 200nl. I revised my bankroll management strategy by only buying in for 100$ as I could not yet envision a run of bad luck occurring where I would lose five times in a row. I began to play like a nit, and on day seven I went broke for the first time. I borrowed another 500$ from Max and Danny which coincidentally was the balance of my bank account and dropped down to 100nl. Though at the time I thought I was sure to win, this was actually one of the points in my life where short-term luck was an incredibly important factor. Had I lost this money, I would probably have never played poker again in a competitive manner for at least six months to a year and would have had to get a job. It was more or less a fluke of running white-hot on my first trip to the casino which brought me back to poker for my second go-around, and a chance meeting with Danny and Max which gave me the tools to win. Had those tools seemed to have failed I probably would have walked away disgusted, and I have no idea whether my life would be better or worse as of now. For me losing has always felt much worse than the joy I feel winning, so I would not be funneling paycheck after paycheck into poker if I had lost.

When I read high stakes players stories half the time I hear "So I won a freeroll for $500 and never looked back. Within six months I was beating 2knl." What people so often forget is that to ever reach high stakes gambling, it's almost essential that you run better than average, pretty much forever. I take the opposite view of most gamblers who attribute their success to some genius combination of intelligence, balls, and personal style, which has somehow vaulted them out of the seething millions of poker players world-wide who want to be high stakes players. I'm sure that of all the people who have studied poker I'm probably in the top 10% in terms of logic, discipline, and emotional control, but I'm sure there are hundreds just as smart as me who have failed because they did not run as well at important times. And there are some people who are worse than me who are playing higher. In any profession involving randomness, you just HAVE to get lucky to be extremely successful, there is no other substitute, and if you think there is, you're fooling yourself.

With that last $500 I got lucky. Very lucky. I started playing almost every day back at school, usually for two or three hours six tabling 100nl. I probably spent another 3 hours initially posting in forums and just studying. I also had five academic classes to daydream about poker, and really whenever I was alone and my mind was adrift poker began to sail through in slow circles. I only have a timeline of my forum posts at flop turn river to tell me how well I was doing as that old database has long since been deleted, but using my various posts as markings for my increasingly vague recollections of those early grinding memories seems to be as good a place to start as any. This is one of my first posts ever, on February 18, 2007, 30 days after I began playing online. http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ns-t50896.html. It's interesting because it's such a mixed bag. I'm not concise at all, or particularly specific, or even correct, but I'm somewhat impressed that I had been check bombing rivers so early into my poker career. I suppose I always relied mostly on empirical evidence when playing poker which is the miracle of pokertracker: does this play work in practice? Then I'd try to pick out some kind of explanation of why that might be the case. Especially when beginning in poker it's easy to get stuck in some circular morass of theory-talk. There was just so much to think about.

In most Well threads people ask the question "Did you have any 'Aha!' moments as a poker player?". My basic answer is that there is danger in 'Aha!'. Usually these moments are bi-products of doing something terrible and...

That's a quote from my new favorite radio show Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan. The week's theme? Luck. Warning: it's more or less all Americana and a lot of it's old so you better like blues/folk/jazz really everything, cause Bob has only played one Wutang song so far. Though if you like hearing Bob Dylan talk about WuTang than maybe this is your thing too. It's on XM or you can just torrent obv. Some good themes: Blood, Cars, Lock and Key, Money, but they're all good.

gl,
Ben

As to hands, I played an extremely frustrating session today and I'll share a few hands, cause they are pretty difficult spots, and because I feel the sting still (-190k) and I want to exorcise it! Today WSOP ME champion Peter Eastgate made his entrance on to the Stars nosebleed tables, playing anyone and everyone on 100/200 and 200/400 nlh. Up early and coffee in hand I sat down scanning my usual FTP haunts, but seeing his sn Lsser sitting this high made me decide to run up my 49k stars roll via 200/400 nlh. A quick aside, before his WSOP victory his screen name had been seen on stars playing 25/50 for about a week, where he had been forming games around him and playing crazy. So this was the same idea, but for 8x the stakes and he was insisting on HU NLH, my best game. My friend was playing him at 100/200 at the time, and after winning a few stacks from lsser, lsser demanded 200/400. He has been running awful lately and so passed the option on to me. And so here I went spamming my aim list for people to send me money. One friend acquiesced and shipped me 120k + another 20k from a friend and so off to the races I went playing one or two tables of 200/400.

I'd like to say that this is the best game I've had in the last 4 months. Not because I had the biggest edge, but because I had a very clear fundamental edge that I could hold on to, and I knew he had just won the friggin WSOP ME, and I knew that meant he was young and rich and European, a deadly combination in high stakes poker. He wasn't gonna quit, and I thought this my chance to make 300k+ in my best game.

I don't know that I think about hands in quite the same sense as some people. I mean they aren't isolated at all. So this is my sort of profile on Eastgate psychologically, and then over the course of today I learned exactly how he plays NLH. I sort of wrote down all these reads stream of consciousness style, I usually build a player profiles rather than just analyze hands in a vacuum.

I'll start with three, though there were many more interesting spots on the day (as their usually are when you lose a lot, interesting=close), but I'll use these three as they are probably the most fun.

I'm going to start with the good and move to the bad. The first hand against him was relatively early in the match, I had been minraising because he was 3betting maybe 38% of hands, and my goal was to play a bit more postflop and try to reduce my variance a bit when my options were close in value (so less 4bet bluffing and more flatting in pos). I min raised to 800 with Qh 9c and he predictably 3bet to 2800 with effective stacks of 29k. Now, this isn't one of my best preflop calls, and unfortunately not even close to one of my worst and I called. The flop came 9c 3s 6s and he led out 3100 into 4800. My read on him at this point was that he can have almost any bway combination, some small and med pairs, and some suited connector hands which have hit the flop in some way. I just stoved my hand against what I think his range is preflop and I'm a 68% favorite which is actually pretty substantial when you consider how wide ranges are here preflop. I don't think him betting out changes that in any meaningful way as he is apt to check and call with some of his weaker pairs and bways, but let's say against his betting range I only have maybe 65% equity as an estimate (I stoved this too, but against a player as arbitrary in his decision making as Peter it's not as strong an assumption). So, I made a small raise on the flop to 7200, which should leave him some fold equity on a jam and may allow him to pull some kind of silly stop n go with a 55 or AK type hand if he decides I'm on a draw. Again, with a med-strong made hand I want to allow him to get the last bet in. To my surprise, he flat called the flop with 19k behind in a 19k ish pot. The turn came Ad and he checked. I thought on the flop that flat-calling was the least likely action he would take with any of his range, and so I had to reevaluate. I still don't think he has Abway, because it's a huge disaster to allow me the last bet with a bluff or draw when he has overs which beat a draw and one pot sized bet left, and I don't think he plans on check/calling down AQo on this board. I also think with any small trace of fold equity he would jam a draw on the flop, so I discounted OESDs slightly and more strongly flushdraws from his range. That left weak made hands, weak gutshot type and 87 type str8 draw floats, and slowplays. Against this new range, betting only is valuable for protection, and risking a PSB on the turn when I'm likely to only be called by better and I estimate his non-slowplay range has 20% equity or less is a weak play. He also can have A6 or A3 occasionally which improved. I made a med-long timing tell which I think can indicate anything from a FD to a bluff which gives up on an overcard, to a slowplay. I'd also like ot add I don't think he was thinking nearly this deeply about the hand, I get the feeling his postflop play consisted mostly of mashing buttons and trusting his "gut", it was my job to make sense of his gut. The river came down a Js and in less than a second he jammed for 19k. Other than the big bet he had just made this didn't change my assesment of his handrange in any meaningful way from the turn. And the more I thought about the hand, the more it actually narrowed it, and pushed me towards calling. Peter rarely acted instantly on later streets, especially when the board changed, and the flushdraw coming in on the river given my line is just very important even if he doesn't think I have it particularly often, I certainly should have it more than he does. So when he insta-jammed I figured his slowplays had to be discounted as none of his slowplays beats a flush, and he's not tricky or stupid enough to snap jam an Ace or med 2pair on the flush card without thinking about it for a second. What that left me with was him turning a pair into a bluff because an A + flush fell, or him bluffing with one of the random str8 draws which all missed. I called, he showed T7cc. Ship.


The second hand I think I misplayed slightly. Lsser opened the button for 1200, I made it 4000 with TT, with 55k effective stacks. I had been 3betting more frequently as stacks got deeper but it probably wasn't too noticeable to him. At this point he made it 11000, with 45k behind, giving me 3:1 ish preflop and 8:1 ish on his stack. This was his first 4bet in 580 hands total so his range has to be something like JJ+, AK, and the occasional bluff. First of all, getting it in sucks. I ship in 55k to win 11k and when called I have 36% equity or so. Before I call I need to run some postflop situation through my head in order to play profitably. Any non AK board I'm considering a blank and so peeling or CRing has to be an option. The big sticking point here is that in only one specific scenario can I peel preflop profitably and that scenario is if he does not bet AK on the flop so that I can play perfectly on the turn/river and maybe get a bet from AK unimproved (which is 50% of his combos btw so this isn't trivial). I expect him to always bet overpairs on the flop so in this scenario of checking AK unimproved and betting overpairs I can win with TT, but then I can win any pair as well. Since I had no 4bet pot play with him, my only info was that...

So from the spring of senior year following my tilt cash-out I didn't play poker for almost nine months besides the occasional home game. In the fall I started school at Umass Amherst where I was in probably the most ridiculous dorm on campus- Van Meter. I'll gloss over this area as poker was the furthest thing from my mind.

The only times I would occasionally play poker were when kids would come down my dorm hall and round up interest in home games. Just as I had in New Hampshire I managed to crush these, making 25 bucks or so most nights mostly through just relentless aggression. One memorable game happened downstairs along a long plastic beer-pong style table with me and 8 friends around it playing a cash game. The setting was just unbelievably cliche, long fluorescent lights, that cardboard-like industrial cieling with the mystery black and brown stains all over it, and dorm-staff coming by giving us the evil eye every few minutes. I raised basically every hand preflop all night and just ran hot as the sun, before eventually busting all seven other kids at the table in order, some multiple times, before it was left hu between me and the organizer of the game. He just looked across at me, said "I'm good," and I had the satisfaction of cracking open the plastic pokerchip case and taking a crumpled wad of 5$ and 10$ rebuys adding up to around 100$. Now obviously these kids were pretty clueless, and I was probably slightly less clueless, but I certainly felt very in control at these games in a way I definitely hadn't been in high school. One of the kids at the home game in casual conversation let it drop that he had been to a REAL CASINO, and that you didn't need to be 21. Turning Stone Casino in upstate NY, a 4 hour drive from school along 90 west. I was intrigued.

Looking back on my first trip to Turning Stone, I initially thought that I went with this kid who introduced me to it at the home game. It seems perfectly logical that this should have happened. In fact though, I went alone. This then looks to be the place where my degenerate tendencies diverged from the masses of kids who Moneymaker inspired to fling money to each other while sipping beers every Wednesday night. The beginning part of this memory is admittedly pretty hazy, I think it occurred on an early November Friday night. I set off from Umass prepared for an adventure, I'm not 100% sure how much money I brought with me, I think $300, which was the majority of what remained from previous playing. I did not book a hotel room, I did not know what games they spread, I did not know one shred of live-poker etiquette, and I definitely was not very good at playing poker. I believe my entire preparation was re-reading my one and only poker book Play Poker like the Pros where Phil Helmuth tries to create his own form of Supersystem except the advice begins and ends with playing 10 hands preflop and then descends into self-masturbatory stories where he calls large bets with AA and wins tournaments. I also had recently acquired the Mike Caro book on tells which I actually think is worth reading if you can get beyond the schtick. More on this later.

I-90 is a long windy gloomy stretch of road by night, but beautiful in the daytime. At the time it seemed I was going down a long dark tunnel to nowhere, when finally I saw gleaming to the left of the road, the neon lights of Turning Stone. It's actually pretty striking, cause it just pops up in the middle of this rugged upstate NY farm country, with no accompanying town or infrastructure, this sprawling parking lot, complex, and 20+ story hotel. Having already shelled out $11.00 in tolls, and a tank of gas which was at this point around $20, I knew the parking garage was going to be well out of my price range. I also had time to let the adrenaline seep out of me into the 10 degree New York evening, or to at least convince myself I was shivering and not just twitching.

Turning Stone is shaped like a gaudy small intestine, and after wandering through its various convolutions I found myself in the poker room. I suppose my initial impressions of a casino poker room was one of glamour. After all I had just waded chest-deep through chain smoking mother-in-laws feeding slot machines interspersed with bellowing guidos throwing dice. This was a welcome relief: it had the rich golf degens populating the 30/60 limit hold em game, a smattering of local pros wearing 150$ hoodies, Elks club type fathers with nervous twitches wishing for beers and puffing out their chests, nerdy academic types reciting pot odds mantras under their breath without realizing it, and a giant contingent of 18-30 year old kids in all shapes and sizes from frat boy to emo shuffling around the 1/2 no limit tables. I then had to contend with deciphering what the board was and how to get a seat through these screaming floor people without looking like an idiot. I think I actually asked someone, who was overly nice and baby-fed me a few poker etiquette nuggets. Smallest game was 100$nl, so off I went, 300$ bankroll in tow.

My memories of play are just so hazy of this Fall Turning Stone period. I know I went up there multiple weekends with similar thoughts and experiences but I don't know where to intersperse school between them and cut them up. So here goes. One thing I believe is that its extremely possible for bad or mediocre players to play great. And I'm convinced I played the best live poker of my career that Fall, before I learned how to actually play poker and became acquainted with math or boredom. I was just playing with a mix of instinct, running well, and my magic tell. Back to Mike Caro. This was 2006, before pros were red, and just after ESPN had attempted to deify them, so I didn't know any better. Anyways I read this Mike Caro's Book of Tells a couple times at rest stops, most of it washing through me cause of my intense nervousness, but I held onto a few tells like some kind of talisman. Strong means weak. Ok. Subconscious vs conscious actions. And then its application: If someone flicks their eyes down at their chip stack or your chip stack upon seeing a flop/turn/river immediately and not ostentatiously (subconscious), this often means they are thinking about winning your chips and so have a big hand. So this was my initial live poker strategy, nit it up, and see if they ever look at their chip stack during a hand. First night I profited 50$ and settled in comfortably enough that I knew I was not leaving Turning Stone until I bustoed or had to go back to school Monday morning. Around 6am I decided it was time for some rest, and bankroll nit that I am, I went out into the 20 degree NY morning and pretzeled myself into the backseat of my white Ford Taurus in time for sunrise. I assume the early bird crowd looked at me and made sympathetic and fearful noises, but I was in heaven.

The rest of that weekend I grinded specifically 100nl with 1/2 blinds, building up a 1000$+ stack Saturday night. I don't remember one hand from this session, I just remember exploring the various configurations and architectural wonders I was capable of with 200 red chips. By the end of the night I was drooping in my seat and had positioned my chip stack dead center of my space so I actually could not see the action 80% of the time or see my cards without making some grotesque leaning motion. But I thought this drew attention...

I've always had a bit of an obsessive compulsive bent, but then don't we all? When I was younger this manifested itself in a rock collection, yes stones, no, not rolling. Also, a coin collection, a ninja turtle collection, and a dinosaur obsession. As I got older these classics dropped away, and so I've sort of been idly collecting songs while procrastinating ever since. Then I go through phases, where I furiously download music, and phases where I appreciate what I already have. So anyways I think this is pay dirt:

1. Ever wanted to make a sweet Christmas mix but then been way too lazy? I have, so instead I google searched a bunch of other people's and this one is nasty. Has Dan the Automator mixed in with the classics Ray Charles Nat King Cole Sinatra etc, and then some oddballs. Checkitout.

http://www.bbqchickenrobot.com/2008/...stmas-mix.html

2. 2008. I'm usually way way behind on new music, I'm just not prepared to delve through all the crap and overly trendy **** to get to what I like, I figure if it's still around in 5 years I'll hear it. But I was deluged with year end retrospectives and whatnot, so I downloaded a few albums. Favorite so far is The Kills- Midnight Boom. I actually had their other two albums but lost them, cause they made this ridiculously minimal snarling I don't know punk with blues/rock or something. The new album is just a lot lighter (sounding) and more creative, added some actual beats, and just seems less self consciously aggressive than the other stuff: which by the way is pretty sweet too. And it's still pretty damn intense.... In second so far are some old The Black Keys albums I picked up.

I'll leave it there.


Funny poker hand: I open 8652 spades clubs UTG+1- 120bb deep? Btn calls- tight solid regular, certainly capable of moves, not a ton of history but I have a crazy image for sure like always (the_Houdini). BB calls- mark in the game, very passive preflop, stationy/fit or fold post when facing aggression.

flop 754r. BB checks, I check (this is probably bad, but bear with me here), btn checks.
turn 7 bringing diamond draw. BB bets 1100 into 1100. I hem and haw and regret a bit but of course call, one reason I checked flop was that BB will put too much money in with weaker hands given deception whatever. Btn overcalls....hmmmm
river 8d. BB tanks maybe 3 seconds and checks, I bet 2800 into 4400. Good/bad/why?

I play in a pretty epic homegame. Or at least I do whenever I return to my hometown of Durham New Hampshire which I did for the past week. A giant ice storm hit the day I got there covering all the power lines as well as really everything else in a thick layer of ice. Apparently this is heavier than snow by a lot cause trees and tree-limbs started falling everywhere. My friend's step dad was kind enough to give me a valium and we spent the early morning poker-player insomniac hours blissfully wandering through nature which was falling down all around us. Transformers were exploding every few minutes as well, sending yellow and orange glowing lights which looked like UFOs as there was low cloud cover which kept all the light shimmering just above the treetops. My friend's house got hit by a tree as well as his car, snapping off a side mirror. Luckily I remembered the movie Twister and slept that night in the basement safely enclosed in concrete. So really what I'm trying to get across is that no one had power for the entire week.

But we had poker and alcohol, the savior of shower and media deprived kids since the dawn of time. We usually play 4 handed or so, starting with a dealer's choice medley containing PLO, NLH, with the slow addition of extra streets, triple turns, wilds, and bonus cards. The area where we really excel though I think, is in the creation of new games and elaborate methods of flipping with the illusion of skill and incredibly intense sweats. Cause who wants to win money from their friends, I just wanna luckbox breakfast. Here's two examples:

1) Potbeaned- this is just an example of an elaborate flip with multiple sweats: 5 cards are dealt facedown to every player. Each player alternates flipping up one card rotating clockwise. The player clockwise to you is your board, you are the player behind you's board, etc. At the end there are 3 facedown community cards. If any of them is a 7 or 2, the order switches.... It's pretty mindbending to figure out if ur drawing dead or not. Also, when my friends are losing they forget that probabilities exist sometimes, so every ****ty board for their neighbor becomes a personal attack which is of course key.

2) The Royal Yacht- First, The Royal Yacht is just the sweetest poker hand ever. Quads over trips. Full boat with a twist. Royal Yacht. Of course we had to create a game based solely around the creation of said Yachts. So we created: Yacht Race.:::: Shuffle two decks together. Deal one card faceup clockwise as fast as possible. First person to get a Yacht wins! and a new hand is dealt.

But::

Yacht payouts are as follows: 2222=2 units, 3-9 is proportional, T-K is ten units, Ace is 15. At any time you can choose to decline a Yacht though, and from here you get a few perks: 2 cards faceup per round, 3 if it's 4 handed+. You can make a different Yacht at any time, provided your quads are different from the Yacht you declined. Also, and this is very important, you can go for the Super Mega Yacht, or Titanic which is 5 over 4. Payout for a Titanic is to roll a 6 sided die, and multiply payouts by that. 6 over 5 you roll two 6 sided dies and multiply them. Remember, when going for ultra super mega super yachts, that if anyone hits a regular royal yacht, they can take it, and the round is over. This is the heart of correct flipping a 2 to 90 payout swing is pretty likely, and a 540 payout is possible. Yessssssss.


Last thing: people commented saying second installment of poker story wasn't coming up. this is because i did a draft, and i think i am the first person in the entire history of leggo to do a draft. i think the original reason for the draft was i wrote one paragraph and then decided to go to bed, but then next morning left for new hampshire which was out of power for a week. so yea, this is a glitch in the software, but im back at the parent's house for the holidays so ill try to get some installments up and coming soon, thanks for the feedback, glad ppl have enjoyed my meandering, that definitely makes it more fun to write. Gl all.

-Ben

Failed shot at Rail Heaven, unsurprising. Also been just mercilessly owned by every mega donk ive played lately, mostly the dynamic duo of joker-jsb and aadmad or whatever. they are collectively up maybe 160k in 2500 hands at 50/1. etc. aadmad is my personal favorite cause each time he sucks out on me i get dyslexic and see his name as MAD MAD MAD in flaming red letters across my screen but this has not helped me bust him thusfar. And by suckout I mean I get it in dead vs some absurdly improbable holding and he sits out to "change his baby's diapers" while I steel myself for a glorious comeback which has never come.

Cry for me,


Full Tilt Poker Game #9312788205: Table GusHeaven (6 max) - $500/$1000 - No Limit Hold'em - 3:25:56 ET - 2008/12/04
Seat 2: Sauce1234 ($74,504)
Seat 3: Gus Hansen ($174,642)
Seat 4: whitelime ($79,186)
Seat 6: durrrr ($218,996)
whitelime posts the small blind of $500
durrrr posts the big blind of $1,000
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Sauce1234 [Kc Kd]
StoicEmperor (Observer): I just came from the corner
Ryds88 (Observer): Anyon
Sauce1234 raises to $2,000
MARIWUAN (Observer): Ryds u know u will be on tomorrow
StoicEmperor (Observer): now what
Gus Hansen raises to $7,500
whitelime folds
Bubble_BoY23 (Observer): whos playing durrr
Ryds88 (Observer): MARIWAUN WHY NOT NOW
durrrr has 15 seconds left to act
Ryds88 (Observer): I WILL GIVE RIGHT BACK IF I WIN
HeartLess_Fool (Observer): you probaly got pimp if u r still begging
wildcardhendrex (Observer): lol if
durrrr has requested TIME
HesaJewBob (Observer): punish him sauce
durrrr calls $6,500
wildcardhendrex (Observer): u wont win
wildcardhendrex (Observer): u turd
pokerelliot82 (Observer): gus send me 50
Ryds88 (Observer): U CANT GAURUNTEE A WINE
Sauce1234 has 15 seconds left to act
EL COHIBA (Observer): SPREAD THAT SAUCE
StoicEmperor (Observer): SAUCE!!!!
Ryds88 (Observer): ITS POKER
letsplaypokerrr (Observer): hey
StoicEmperor (Observer): GET EM!!!
EL COHIBA (Observer): SHOOT IT
Sauce1234 raises to $74,504, and is all in
Gus Hansen has 15 seconds left to act
Gus Hansen folds
durrrr calls $67,004
Sauce1234 shows [Kc Kd]
durrrr shows [Qh Qc]
HeartLess_Fool (Observer): oooooooohhhhhhhhh
StoicEmperor (Observer): YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!
DeezAzzStarr (Observer): HOT SAUCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*** FLOP *** [3h Qs Ad]
Ph4se (Observer): gordy
Ryds88 (Observer): MARIIII
*** TURN *** [3h Qs Ad] [7h]
EL COHIBA (Observer): HAHAHAHA
StoicEmperor (Observer): ooooooooh
*** RIVER *** [3h Qs Ad 7h] [6c]
DeezAzzStarr (Observer): oOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Sauce1234 shows a pair of Kings
dain375 (Observer): lol
sklimov3 (Observer): wow
durrrr shows three of a kind, Queens
poker_dude25 (Observer): OMG
durrrr wins the pot ($157,006) with three of a kind, Queens
StoicEmperor (Observer): no
Ph4se (Observer): bahhhhhhh
DeezAzzStarr (Observer): HAHAHAHAHAHAHAGHAHAHA
arise chicken (Observer): OOOOOO!!!!
V772 (Observer): QQ ?
poker_dude25 (Observer): wowowow
Sauce1234 is sitting out
EL COHIBA (Observer): LOL
rakanisshu (Observer): great fold by gus
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $157,008 | Rake $2
Board: [3h Qs Ad 7h 6c]
Seat 2: Sauce1234 showed [Kc Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 3: Gus Hansen (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: whitelime (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: durrrr (big blind) showed [Qh Qc] and won ($157,006) with three of a kind, Queens



Seat 1: Sauce1234 ($12,648.50)
Seat 2: aadamd ($10,588.50)
Sauce1234 posts the small blind of $50
aadamd posts the big blind of $100
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Sauce1234 [8c Jc]
Sauce1234 raises to $300
aadamd raises to $900
Sauce1234 has 15 seconds left to act
Sauce1234 calls $600
*** FLOP *** [Qh Qc 3c]
aadamd checks
Sauce1234 checks
*** TURN *** [Qh Qc 3c] [7c]
aadamd has 15 seconds left to act
aadamd bets $1,800
Sauce1234 has 15 seconds left to act
Sauce1234 raises to $6,000
aadamd has 15 seconds left to act
aadamd calls $4,200
*** RIVER *** [Qh Qc 3c 7c] [4c]
aadamd has 15 seconds left to act
aadamd bets $3,688.50, and is all in
Sauce1234 calls $3,688.50
*** SHOW DOWN ***
aadamd shows [Qd Qs] four of a kind, Queens
Sauce1234 mucks
aadamd wins the pot ($21,176.50) with four of a kind, Queens


Full Tilt Poker Game #9286372432: Table Masters (heads up) - $50/$100 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:11:55 ET - 2008/12/02
Seat 1: Sauce1234 ($11,548.50)
Seat 2: aadamd ($19,576)
aadamd posts the small blind of $50
Sauce1234 posts the big blind of $100
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Sauce1234 [Ac As]
aadamd raises to $300
Sauce1234 raises to $920
aadamd calls $620
*** FLOP *** [9c Qd 5h]
Sauce1234 has 15 seconds left to act
Sauce1234 bets $1,420
aadamd has 15 seconds left to act
aadamd raises to $3,000
Sauce1234 has 15 seconds left to act
xO_oDoNKeRo_Ox (Observer): wow huuuge pot
Sauce1234 has requested TIME
Sauce1234 raises to $10,628.50, and is all in
aadamd calls $7,628.50
Sauce1234 shows [Ac As]
aadamd shows [Qs 9s]
xO_oDoNKeRo_Ox (Observer): wowwwwwwwwwwwwww
*** TURN *** [9c Qd 5h] [Jh]
xO_oDoNKeRo_Ox (Observer): huge
*** RIVER *** [9c Qd 5h Jh] [Kd]
Sauce1234 shows a pair of Aces
aadamd shows two pair, Queens and Nines
aadamd wins the pot ($23,096.50) with two pair, Queens and Nines
Sauce1234 is sitting out


Full Tilt Poker Game #9281104471: Table Janell (heads up) - $50/$100 - No Limit Hold'em - 10:45:52 ET - 2008/12/02
Seat 1: ThisComesLast ($16,001)
Seat 2: Sauce1234 ($9,999.50)
Sauce1234 posts the small blind of $50
ThisComesLast posts the big blind of $100
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Sauce1234 [Ad As]
Sauce1234 raises to $200
ThisComesLast raises to $655
Sauce1234 has 15 seconds left to act
Sauce1234 raises to $1,666
ThisComesLast has 15 seconds left to act
ThisComesLast raises to $3,925
Sauce1234 has 15 seconds left to act
Sauce1234 raises to $9,999.50, and is all in
ThisComesLast calls $6,074.50
Sauce1234 shows [Ad As]
ThisComesLast shows [Th Td]
*** FLOP *** [6c 2c 7c]
*** TURN *** [6c 2c 7c] [Ts]
*** RIVER *** [6c 2c 7c Ts] [Jc]
Sauce1234 shows a pair of Aces
ThisComesLast shows three of a kind, Tens
ThisComesLast wins the pot ($19,998.50) with three of a kind, Tens


Full Tilt Poker Game #9281424150: Table...