It was a good day.

[IMG]http://images.leggopoker.com/1245791053-1026.jpg[/IMG]

That wraps up my first live event. Finished 84th out of 2600 in the 1500 NLHE. What an intense day. I started with 9400 chips or about 6 blinds expecting to bust within the first few hands. Surprisingly though people were folding to my shoves :S and I built up like a 20bb stack before doubling up with 97s against TT for a beautiful suckout. It kinda exploded from there as I was finally able to start playing some poker again, at the peak I had about 160k a short while after a bluff that almost gave me a heart attack.

Blinds were like 1200/2400 with 300 antes and the co an older rich looking obv non professional poker player trying to steal my blinds every orbit. I flat his 3.5x in the bb with AJo. Flops K44 2flush. I c/c like 8k. Turns the T completing the flush. I bet out 17k, he calls. River bricks, I shove like 65k or whatever just under pot was which is why I only bet 17 on turn, and he had me covered, he tanks for like 5 minutes while my hearts beating out of my chest then finally folds AK. He was asking me for a while what I had and I kept quiet until later on near the end of my day I get transfered to another table he's now on. He asks me again, so finally I tell him I had the nutflush with AJ of spades...he had the ace of spades though, so he didn't really like that comment I don't think. Anyway, near the end I was on a pretty soft table with like 40bb and feeling very comfortable. In a matter of 3 hands I get wiped out. TT v KQ that doesn't hold, then my A8s v K9o that got rivered, and that was basically the end of my stack.

All in all was a pretty fun experience, thinking of playing the 2k tomorrow if I can get up in time.

Cheers

Well day 1 of the 1500 NLHE is over and I'm just in the running for the money. Obviously last hand of the day I'm in the big blind and am forced to lose half my stack, but whatever. Whether I cash or not it's kinda meh, was definately a fun experience though and I definatly need some work on my live game before the main event. I've played like 3 tourneys in my life, and have played live like 4 times, so I'm making so many rookie live mistakes. So much easier clicking a button.

I had a pretty notable hand early on against a young seemingly skilled guy draped in Full Tilt gear. After I busted him others on the table told me he's Jordan Morgan, not sure who he is but he definately seemed decent.

Anyway limped pot 4 way, I'm in the bb with 85o. Jordan is in mp and has like 40-50bb or something and I have him covered. Flop is 873 rainbow. I've been pretty aggresive in these spots and most people are folding, he had just sat down a couple orbits ago though. I bet 500 into like 800 or something, 2 folds, he makes it 1900, I call. Turn is a 2 completing the rainbow, I check. He bets 2100, I call. River is a king, he shoves the rest in. I tank and call, he shows 44. Unfortunately I couldn't capitalize on the relatively big stack earlier on, and I generally just didn't really run well and most of what I won was just trying to open some crap and cbet, or 3bet and take it down.

I'm going into tomorrow without much of a stack, and wouldn't be surprised if I show up and bust fairly quickly, but, whatever, will try my best. All in all, the field is extremely soft. Most of the people there have more live experience and are more comfortable handling their chips, cards etc, but so many insane mistakes postflop it's shocking. Anyway, hopefully good news tomorrow, would be nice to cash in my first live event.

Other then that, I've seen everyone from Eastgate to Hellmuth around, Phil Ivey won another bracelet while we were playing. Also in our tourney is the owner of the lakers, gg :S. K chilltime.

Cheers

After being in Vegas for a short while now and finally meeting old online friends and other Leggo coaches, I've decided to jump into the tourneys. I wasn't really expecting to play but being in this atmosphere definately draws you in. I've never played a live tourney before, and barely played live, so I'll have to make the adjustments quickly.

Luckily my first event is the 1500 NLHE, so the field shouldn't be too strong. Will hopefully get a few more of those under my belt before the main event. All in all this has already been really fun, putting faces to the names and meeting people you've known for so long but have never even actually met. Good luck to whoever else is in the 1500 today, and definately gl to anyone in the 10k HU, that's gonna be fun to watch.

Cheers,

My life has completely changed in the past few months. Add a girlfriend, new home, new environment, completely different everything pretty much, and you get some novelty-producing emotional swings. And what do we do when we're completely out of our emotional equilibrium?...Well, of course, us smart ones, we try to grind the greatest month of our lives and essentially ensure we dig ourself into mental turmoil.

April was definitely the worst poker month of my short career. Not only did I actually run pretty dam bad, I also gorged in the most insane tilt ever. Playing horribly, thinking worse, and somehow feeling even lower then all of the above combined. Needless to say, it's been quite the experience. In the face of something like that though, you definately get another crystal clear reminder of how "immature" you are pokerwise, and how much there really is to learn not only about poker, but poker life, just another manifestation of the fact that it very well is a "career".

In any case, it really is amazing how much your performance relies on how you're feeling, and how much "run bad" is really bad play, and how much bad play is really feeling down. Trying to maintain your positivity etc while having sessions with students during something like that is really something. I mean if there ever was a test of spirit...that would be one of them. Dropping 40 buyins in a couple weeks is not very fun, but to be expected.

Having started my career reading through 2+2 stickies, maybe my thinking was a bit out-dated. The mentality that, however "possible" losing that much is, it probably won't happen, is actually unrealisitic. Why? because in reality, it's not just mathematical variance that's at play (which is really what we're thinking when we carry the above mentality). Throw in just a smither of emotional disturbance, and the statistically improbable now becomes significantly possible and likely.

We can't forget to blame the good old ego either, when it runs amuck. When you think (even after a couple months of hardly playing and dealing with real life stuff), that you can hop on 12 tables and crush stakes again. Aejones mentioned in one of his videos once, that rangle exploration really needs to be continously practiced. I mean yeah that's obvious...but it really is truer then a simple nodding acknowledgement can convince.

It's funny, but even at the end of april, I would tell myself, as soon as may hits, I'm gonna start owning poker again. As if I couldn't start that day...but I'd still play, and I'd still lose, and I'd still suffer, but, mentally, for some reason, my redemption had to wait until some arbitrary date...go figure...Well may 1st has come and passed, and it's funny, cause my graph spikes down for a bit, as soon as may 1st hits, it takes a sharp acute angle in the opposite direction and hasn't faultered all that much since.

A strong reminder that poker isn't sitting down and winning. It's playing a certain number of tables, of a certain sort, at certain times of the day, sitting in certain seats...until most importantly, we are feeling a certain way. "A" game, highly touted but probably hardly practiced, is so super important, I don't even know where to begin.

We can stretch this all the way to something so often mentioned by the people at the top, and hardly practiced by those at the bottom, that studying is so important, that it is the school, and our sessions just the exam (Phil Galfond article). A coach from another site, a man who is a Harvard Law School graduate, a top litigator in the U.S. and at an "older" age, left his job to pursue poker full time, said, that the thing that separates him the most from most other high stakes players, is that he has logged more hours off the tables then on. This should be so obvious as to be standard, but it's not, and I've been guilty of not doing it for quite a few months now. But last month has definately changed that. I'm back studying whenever the conditions for play mentioned above aren't met. It's meant a lot less hands, but also a lot more profits, higher hourly rates, and definately a ton more enjoyment. Not playing when "A" isn't possible and actually using that time to study, it can mean so much more in the short term and long term it's not even funny.

I think, reminding ourselves it's a climb, and it will always be, that staying stagnant is not a choice, that this is a sport that continuously gets tougher, that our competition won't stop improving and changing, that we have to work just to maintain, is almost essential. Add in the prospect of excelling and growing faster then the competition, and this might as well be the olympics (when you're still climbing the stakes).

Anyway, this month has gone amazing, I'm amongst the top winners at my stakes this month on Party, but really most importantly, I'm having fun again and excited to improve and grow. Hit quite the snag, but the goals haven't changed, it's back to being simply a matter of time...and statistical reality. Don't faulter, do what you have to do to keep yourself psychologically in-line, and you'll probably "run bad" a little less and for shorter periods too...after all, we're just glorified robots.

So I'm going to start sharing some goals, should make for a more interesting (and contentious) blog. Seeing as how things have been really crazy recently and this year has not gotten off to a really great start, it's time to kick it into high gear. April I'm going to try to get 150k hands, realistically I'll get 120k, but aiming for 150 definately can't hurt. Will pretty much just be grinding the midstakes on Stars, and hopefully get that roll back up there to meet my high stakes goals this summer.

Will update here and there, see you guys around the tables.

After a long drawn out string of horrid experiences, I'm finally set up and ready to go. Can't wait to get back on the grind. First order of business is to get back to my students and finally continue that video series for you all, really sorry everything worked out like this.

So, will be seeing you around the forums etc again, and getting back to blogging (as I'll finally have stuff to blog about again).

Cheers,

Hey everyone, been a while since you heard from me, things are absolutely crazy atm. Was making plans / getting things settled to move to Vegas, finally here and setting up the house, building a new office etc. So there might be a few more delays, but the next parts of my series will be recorded and out there as soon as I possibly can. Also apologize to you students, thanks for being patient.

The house is amazing so far though, will show pics soon or whatever. Vegas is a surprisingly peaceful, chilling place to live (when you don't live on the strip obviously). This place is in a great location about 15 minutes from the strip right before summerlin. Great to finally live somewhere where you have great weather and a pool to enjoy it, beats shoveling driveways that's for sure.

Anyway, really itching to get back to work and start going at poker again, this distance has been driving me crazy, and I can't wait to be back it. Talk to you guys soon.

cheers,
somnius

"Our eyes met across the crowded hat store...I, a customer, and she a...[I]coquetish habitish[/I]. Well I pursued and she withdrew then she pursued and I withdrew and...so we danced"

[IMG]http://images.leggopoker.com/1233468613-288.jpg[/IMG]

So I left Party and moved over to Stars. What a relief. Party is Stars on steroids, what a different beast. I'm fairly certain my blood pressure has decreased considerably since making the transition, and I couldn't be happier. I can 16 table less frantically then 12 tabling on Party. Sure, there are less hands an hour per table, but it's also greatly a consequence of the style of the games on Stars. Everything's just a lot more passive, so many small pots to pick up, so easy to find the fold button, not nearly as many semi-bluffs and insane lines and aggression. Whoever says Party is a lot easier definately does not know the behemoth that is Party. Especially these days, where 3/6+ is dieing there, and many top regs are devastating 2/4. Sure, you can still multi-table 6ptbb with some skill, you could do at least that at Stars with less intensity and pressure. Maybe I'm speaking early, it's only been 8k hands, so looking forward to whatever else Stars has to offer in the future.

Which leads me to my next series that should be starting very shortly. It will be a 4 part series of MSNL at Stars (starting at 2/4 and maybe moving to 3/6 if I feel I know the Stars games well enough by then but no promises). The meat of the series will come in a couple of different forms:

1 - It will be a 6 tabling live series, so tons of hands to discuss later
2 - I will be digging deeper into the differences between Party and Stars as the series progresses(and my knowledge of Stars increases), and highlighting transitional adjustments.

Should definately be an interesting series, will be lots of fun to make and offer us lots to go over in the forums.

Look forward to seeing what you guys think, until then, good luck at the tables.

P.S. Can anyone guess what show that top quote is from and who said it?

Finally settled back home after flying around a bit. Haven't played in about 3 weeks now and I'm itching to grind. I decided in December that I'd grind 100k hands of 2/4 to get my roll back up before going back to higher stakes. This break has definately hindered that goal a bit, but not worried, will be grinding like mad for the next couple months.

Here's the 2/4 results from December, this was over a 2 week timepsan 9-14 tabling.

[IMG]http://images.leggopoker.com/1232232229-196.jpg[/IMG]

The rest of the hands should be done within a month max, I'll post them up when ready.

In keeping with all this 2/4 business, I will be making a 2/4 6 table series. I was very happy with the positive responses to the 200NL series and am glad you guys found them informative. This next series will be even better thanks to your comments/criticisms.

One great thing about being an online poker player, is trying out new gadgets and advancing your state of cyborgism. In keeping with this luxury we have, I wanted to show you this new Belkin gamepad I got that Probability told me about. It's not quite setup and ready to go with betpot yet, but I can't wait to get at it, will definately post a review soon.

[url]http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=018070&cid=PE.468.448[/url]

There was also a one day deal at Dell.ca yesterday for 30 inch monitors, huge deal actually, so I got 2 more, will have to see how a 3x30inch setup works, will have to make it look like a cockpit and utilize some peripheral vision, should be interesting :D.

up and "aut'thum"