I agree with jlost

I'm looking to book some sort of nofap challenge. Doesn't have to be for much and I'm ok with just competing vs myself and maybe if I lose I do something for charity.

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Comments (44)

Hi,

I was wondering if anybody was interested in subletting my place in vegas. It's at the veer, which aside from the vdara (cheaper than vdara) is imo the most convenient place to grind live cash in las vegas from (>panorama, martin, meridian, etc). It's not super furnished but there is a sofa bed + additional mattress, and new dining table which i picked out that I double as my computer desk, and a sick 72x40 double sided rolling whiteboard (lol). Its a small space (studio) but <3 it and its very nice/modern.

Lease goes through August 1st so you are good to grind from start to end of World Series of Poker. Also you will be able to grind the games in mid march during march madness which are the nuts.

You can stay for a couple months. Only thing would be that since I am just gauging interest on here I am not going through the landlord so I ask for some sort of discretion with that.

I'm paying $1,350 and would be willing to sublease for less as I am not really looking to make a profit margin or anything. I'm willing to go lower depending on the length of your stay.

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Comments (3)

As I am writing this I'm not sure what I will do in the following month.

But I do want to make some blog about goal-setting, how I approach decisions. I think that naturally my mind approaches decision making kind of like Conway's game of life. I'm not sure if I understand it 100% correctly but I think you have these binary squares of two different color with some initial state. Rules are set in which based on the squares interact with each other the successive state changes, etc etc and through this you can glean some kind of insight into dynamic/complex systems which I guess is a cool concept and can be often analagous to life? (I haven;t studied it indepth or anything, so correct me if I am wrong).



For me, I there's a reason goal setting is hard/elusive is because life is really really complex and ever changing. Rather, if you focusing on the rules that make up alot of your goal it becomes much more manageable and easier to implement into your day to day life. Iunno, perhaps as I am writing this I might focus a bit too much on the rules, but not so much on the goal or the "stable state?"

Anyway I think I have alot of rules. Rules within rules, etc. Weird starting points into the essence of my character. "I just know I LIKE this, I Like doing this,
I think this is good, I think this is bad, etc." love/hate. Some rules are good some are bad. I use these rules when I meditate at some subconscious level and just decide what I am going to do that very day and just try to do it the best I can possibly do it.

For example:

The Korean-Rule : Never go busto! Koreans frown upon gambling, especially if you lose. My dad gave me alot of shit a few years ago because poker to him was absolutely unacceptable. Anyway this is probably a huge influence for me not just like going crazy with shot taking, being a life nit, etc. For me I had to balance my Korean-Rule with my love of the game of poker. I mean if I am a losing player, or just not making xyz a year this rule just kind of hovers over you like a ghost. If I ever go busto this rule would be like a kettle of boiling water!

Some Rules I guess are just a consequence of variance, but nonetheless etched into you as a person. For example the past, people you have met, things that have happened. I think some rules you draw inspiration from philosophy, literature. You may browse, see what you like, etc. There's some moment for me...I LIKE exisentialism...Sartre says..So for me...I will do this, that, shape my life this way, that, etc. Some rules are useless.I have spent probably past 5 years thinking of what my GTO Pet strategy is, what type of pet how to name it, etc countless of countless times to no avail. I have no pets. I have no plants.

Furthermore, rules can be general like those I mentioned above or more specific. My game selecting algorithm has looked like the following of late.

1. Start the day trying to play my honey-pot player at 10/20. LOGIC - daytimes aren't the best times for game selection. However you can rely
on said player for consistent routine and action. Furthermore, athletes like Kobe Bryant, Reggie Miller, etc are the first ones in the gym before the game/after the game. Before they start playing a game, there is shoot-around, warm-up, etc. Why should poker be any different? Starting out at lower stakes as a warm-up might be a good idea, especially for players that seem to start sessions with losses. You need to put in alot of hours. Early bird gets the worm. Night times are best and you give yourself till the night time to play the bigger games and by starting early you can potentially play more.

CONDITION
--Either I am UP alot BEFORE the honey-pot player leaves around 1pm, or I am up decently, up alot, breakeven, down, down alot when honey-pot player leaves.

2. Alot of the times starting out I would hit and run essentially based on Condition. Avoided 20/40 completely for awhile until past month or so. Also, moreso than not,
my tendency has been to play 20/40 kind of to get unstuck? I mean that is kind of meh because of my logic for playing 10/20 in the first place. Furthermore when I have lost
a bit of money and I'm not on tilt it kind of gives me some competetive fire to play some bigger games.

But anyway yeah, the 20/40s have almost entirely when I am either Breakeven State of Down State at my 10/20 game. Furthermore, I play longer when stuck as opposed to unstuck.Today, I was stuck alot at 10/20, my fun-player left the game. I looked for a 20/40 at some point but there were no seats and the 40/80 lineup looked OK so I bumped it up, and was unstuck and it was pretty fun playing.

Not sure how good of a habit this is! It has been translating into a high % of sessions won, an upwards trending graph, but what happens when I take a huge loss at 20/40 40/80?!



(Graph is filtered out nolimit, which I lost a bit at, so all limit games mostly all Limit Holdem).

Anyway liferoll has been assisted lately by a nice check from the insurance company (property damage), some moderate winning at poker, and just putting in autopilot hours on uber when I had time, though I haven't done it the past week and am kinda feeling bearish about it overall. There's also a chance I win a nice check for personal injury so there's that. One time! On another note I have made small deposits on both lending club and prosper. If I am playing a really nitty bankroll game I shouldn't have so much of my funds in cash holdings which makes sense. I had the idea actually sometime last year and I had shopped around CD rates and Treasury EE Bonds, stuff like that but interest rates were obv so so low so I didn't think it made any sense. It seems LC and Prosper carry more risk, and I am still weighing what that risk would look like in an economic downturn.

I think I am a investing fish at the moment I put some money on tradeking but I don't think I have enough experience. For example the start of 2016 I was freaking out. Also the shit I had contributed to my IRA lifetime has not been dollar cost averaged and I don't think it's a GTO approach and I haven't really gotten in particularly good at all from an exploitative perspective or anything. As someone who entered the markets POST 2008 crash (I had no money back then) I have never experienced a true bear, etc I think there are many dangers with that. So for many reasons this is something I think about alot alot and I am starting at a big disadvantage somewhat kind of like poker starting out post boom/black friday crash. I plan on making a trip back to NJ sometime this year, not sure when. I'd like to meet-up with perhaps a few of my old buddies that work/worked in finance and perhaps gain an ear or two on a more seasoned approach to long-term value investing.

Anyway, that's it for now. Overall I think next month I'll try to grow the bankroll somehow, doesn't have to be specifically poker or it might be. TBH I wouldn't mind dealing the wsop or something I just don't care for now I just want to make monies.

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Comments (2)

(roughly past 45 days, lost other phone which is why it says all dates)

Last time I blogged I had lost a bit and had dipped 37k. Took some time off. Since then bought a car, 2011 nissan sentra, increased roll to 50k, and have been focusing on mix games.

Ive made money over this time but i havent played alot of poker and instead did a lot of uber...like alot while I wasn't playing. I'm not sure how I should feel about that it is somewhat cheating but I mean part of being good at poker is managing your money and I do feel like I am good at that. The way I figured was that I could just grind money anytime I wanted while being able to shot take freely / while getting better at poker. I just wanted a business plan to get to high stakes as soon as possible. No idea if cop-out.

Anyway, if you want to know why I'm so upset Superhighroller event has been going on at Aria. Anyway I decided to do an uber ride and sure enough it's insert millions hendonmob crusher and to boot 22 years old and I just felt like a huge idiot to be honest.

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Comments (14)

Here are my May stats. It was really frustrating overall I was doing okay and on pace for ~190 hours at 2/5 but an incident where I broke my glasses made me uncomfortable playing long without good vision. I realized that 200 hours probably is unsustainable long term for me and I decided with the world series generating traffic it would be a good time to try to make 5/10 my main game long-term. I think the world-series has definitely given me some drive to take shots overall. Seeing huge games of all different types run has alot of allure. I have a feeling that the sky is the limit and I feel that there is a certain level of glamor associated playing the bigger games around in Vegas (although different people might have different opinions about this). My plan was to take a few days to ease into it by playing short sessions but unfortunately today's session did not go well at all. No idea if I am ever going to get out of low-stakes and build a decent net-worth.




UTG woman opens to 3x to 30. UTG+1 Calls. Hero 3-bet small from MP with KK to 100. CO cold calls, folds to BB who 4 bets to ~750 with 80 or so behind. Hero all-in, CO Folds. Axxxx lose to AK.

Hero ~1350, Villains both cover
UTG+1 opens 4x to 40, MP Calls, Hero SB with AcAs 3-bets to 140, Call-Call. Flop 9s7c3s Check-Check-Check. Turn 2c Check-UTG Bets 260, Folds, Hero raises to 520, Calls. Hero announces all-in (blind) with ~1500 in pot and ~700 behind, river comes Club and villain takes it down with Kc9c

Anyway I'm not entire sure what my play is at this point. Around 45k at this point.


Poll: What's my play?
(Vote): Try to keep grind 5/10
(Vote): Venetian 2/5, Wynn 2/5, Aria 2/5
(Vote): Other

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Comments (17)

boinggg

I first came out here basically because I had nothing better to do having very little experience with actually playing poker for a living, and any sort of plans despite having been really interested in poker as a hobby. I actually started off playing 1-2 1-3 out here but switched to playing 2/5 per the advice of people and have done at okish at that for a while. I mostly play softer games at Bellagio, MGM Grand, and Venetian, have avoided the 1500 deep at Wynn, and dislike the lighting at Aria as it intimidates/throws me off my natural comfort zone. Right now I have around mid 40k to my name and am trying really hard to get better at managing my expenses, improve at poker, and get better at other aspects of life.

So I've been reading the old Matt Moore thread on twoplustwo a bit and I suppose he is a paragon of recent success in the livepoker scene out in Vegas. Since I am not a twoplustwo guy and I am a liquidpoker guy, I'm going to try and use my blog here to put myself out there by writing more, and take bettering and challenging myself to a new level. With the wsop coming around in a few weeks I think it is a great time to start. I am going to focus mainly on poker, but I'll try to actively blog about anything else interesting or noteworthy that I am doing, so nothing really is out of play.

WSOP 2015:

First order of business I guess, since it is one of the biggest events in poker of the year. I don't really have much to say about it actually and am planning to just do alot of really boring shit. For the WSOP I intend on playing strictly cash games and zero tournaments. So that means no Colossal, no Aria event, no millionaire maker, etc. I just don't see much of a reason to just punt away buy-ins when my tournament game isn't great and my hourly would probably be higher in cash games. I've been playing mostly cap 500NL but I think I'll venture a bit this series, try my best to zone in and my plan to start the series is to play the Venetian 2/5 1000cap and go from there. If I run good I'll play the Wynn 2/5 or Bellagio 5/10, and if there happens to be a great game I might hop into the Venetian 5/10. I'll also play a bit on wsop.com probably just 50NL and 100NL during the daytime.

Personal finance, Budgeting, Bankroll Building.

I guess this is boring stuff, but really its the way to keep score in poker and ultimately a big part of the reason we play and the ultimate way of keeping score.

Its simple really, save more than you spend. Right now I'm trying to reduce food expense from $600 to around $250. For just myself $600 is way too much. I also switched to a 49cc scooter a few months back which saves me alot on gas/insurance and I recently installed a trunk on that so I should be able to buy groceries and stop eating out. I might just chronicle this on a monthly basis, but I am not sure how great revealing income and expense information with 100% transparency will be from a legal perspective. I would however like to have a great deal of transparency in this regard and not just with my revenue but also spending. Rent is high for vegas at $1100+utilities but the location and facilities are just what I need (great location, no-roommates, nice/clean/secure, good community, no roaches or anything like that). I think right now total expenses I think if I am entirely GTO with my current set-up I can leave expenses at somewhere in the range of <$1,800 which I think is pretty reasonable.

Considering More Options:

Traveling for live poker.

-bay101, Commerce, MarylandLive! Florida, Parx/Sands, Borgata, Foxwoods, Winstar, etc
Not only is this a good idea to see the country, would be great for improving my game, meeting new people, and getting better at game selecting so as long as you can manage to keep expenses low. I do however think Vegas is probably the best home base overall if you are playing live poker. I would also like to venture somewhere like Playa del Carmen or Rosarito or just Latin America in general. Latin America offers low-cost of living that places like Vancouver simply does not imo. Also helps that women are probably a lot lower maintenance. I'd be going to just get better at poker probably and be able to play more varied game selection but long-term and overall the money in live poker is a lot easier for most people. Still think with traveling that its important to keep expenses low.

Fun Stuff

For the most part I kept things about "business" stuff only. Just happened to be that way I guess but I'll try to blog about more varied things as they occur while I am out here. Here's a pic of what I look like and my scooter thing for fun/in case you run into me somewhere.

+ Show Spoiler +

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Comments (17)

I just played 9/18 mix and I got crushed really hard. Played a really long session and am stuck 50 Bbs. Been trying to learn bit by bit but also jumped into it against regulars. Really torturous, experience. I got owned and have no idea what happened.

Mix was badugi, baducy, badacey, holdem, pineapple razz, pineapple stud8, 5 card o8, triple draw, two flop Omaha, pineapple stud Hilo standard.

I'm not sure how to feel about the session. I've been playing some o8, limit holdem,, and mix somewhat often like this to learn and mix up my routine. Overall I am down not insanely down but down a decent amount in my limit/mix sessions. I had a bad 20/40 limit holdem session and this mix session both really bad. I have read a bit but for the most part have not studied these games a ton and I guess I could do things but I'm not sure how worth it it'll be.

I have been doing ok at 2/5NL the past few months I think averaging 4-5k a month with ok volume. But I ventured into limit/mix because I feel like just grinding 2/5 is really not an end game sort of thing. I am not sure how I will fare being a regular at 5/10 nl, and I guess the 40/80 mix game/playing mix games&o8 on pokerstars kind of was this exotic backup type of idea that would make me feel better about myself and my options to move up in the food chain, but right now I feel naive about the whole thing and somehow feel like I am the lemon type that will never be able to beat the big (5/10nl and 40/80 as "big" ) games at all, never get the courage, talent etc.

Long term i know i need something outside of poker, but right now I could use the money. If i can manage to increase my earnings it would help me immensely. Sustaining current winning is also important. So, Not really sure where to go from here. It would be nice to be a winner in the 5/10 games at Bellagio as a start, but it's hard to muster up the courage to change something that has been working ok. I took a shot a few months ago but was playing short and won a half buyin in 2 sessions and then got nervous and lost a full buyin the third. I've ben playing the softest 2/5 in town which is the Bellagio and it is a big jump from a 500cap to 1500cap and i would be curious about the difference in play. I could move up to the deeper 2/5s in town at aria/Wynn. I could also just stick with where I'm "winning" right now, swallow my pride/ego and just try my best to be a lame 2/5 grinder guy.

feedback is welcome. thanks.

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Comments (6)

not sure what i'll do going forward.

since i have been in vegas i have earned income in the mid 30kish range with something
like a ratio of 21k poker 9k earned from job and some bitcoins monies. i'm using when I arrived here in oct as my calendar month so i have 2 months left to claw out a pretty average, high variance income with questionable sustainability. i moved into the meridian apartments a couple of months ago and its a pretty convenient location. but id say id attribute my savings rate mostly due to a lack of paying taxes. I drive a shitty car and I also feel skeptical of finding a woman of sufficient standard.

been playing poorly of late and I have had a bad session today. I have noticed that alot of people burn out nearing the completion of 1 year, and I am going to being my 11th month out here now. I mean even if I do everything right long term, what can I accomplish? I am starting to meet and talk to more regulars and also starting to see how the 10/20+ level winners operate here and they seem pretty beastly. It is also difficult meeting all of these rich tourists and rich locals at the wynn and not introspect upon myself and feel some sort of anger/drive/guilt/envy etc. I really would not like to be one of those grinders turned dealers despite it being rational in many ways. I love what's going on in downtown las vegas and I want to be a part of it but I wonder if I have the savvy and will have the financing from poker to accomplish something noteworthy in that arena. still got 30k but its distributed all over the place in multiple checking accounts, cash, ira, bitcoin, etc.

no idea what I'm going to do. any suggestions?

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Comments (20)

I'd rather not go into too much because I am really pissed right now.

But I got pulled over by a cop 2 months ago. She said all I needed to do was show up in court and that it was a no fine thing. I've been really busy and made the mistake of not showing up.

I get notice in the mail today of a massive fine amount + interest. What to do? I can't go into speak with anyone either on the phone or at the admin building because it is the weekend. But I'm going to try and speak with anyone I can to reduce the amount. Willing to do alot of community service as well.

Am I drawing dead?

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Comments (13)

How much do you guys pay in rent? Curious what most pay in terms of fixed amount, % net worth, and % Income. How much value do you guys place in a nice/flashy/baller house, apartment, and neighborhood?

I am looking for apartments right now and I am not sure if I should do it like LemOn or Joeingram1. Someplace in between for sure but curious what your strategies are. Obviously it's a bit different for homeowners...you can still post your reasoning as it is still similar unless you have it primarily for investment/rental income purposes.

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Comments (19)