Everyone else seems to be selling theirs here, so I will too. $50 and you send first over pokerstars or paypal please. I can send first, but only if you seem trustworthy, thanks.
Also, I don't check my LP very often so if I don't respond to a PM just add me on msn: KeeperRichard@hotmail.com
Thanks.
I'd like to buy about 10 million play chips on pokerstars. PM me with price and I'll tell you how many I want to buy. Lower price = buy more I guess... thanks
On January 03 2009 09:42 DustySwedeDude wrote:
If there was a HU game between you and Neilly like Bo7 for 200bb or so I'd take Neilly and I'd give some odds I think. At least if payment wouldn't be a hassle.
where are my odds and what is the most money you will bet?
First and foremost, I'm currently a losing poker player. I think if you can take the times when im playing in the right state of mind and not tilting/spewing/playing games i can't afford that I have at least a 5ptbb/100 edge over my competition (nl25). I used to beat the games over 100k+ hands at that winrate like 2 years ago as my only source of income plus sngs and I'd have to say I think im about 2x better now than I was then, same skill as far as sngs though i was actually probably better at sngs then because i was even nittier.
I dunno wtf im doing wrong but I keep repeating the same stupid chain of events.
Deposit 200-500 -> Win 100-500 -> Go broke.
I KNOW that I'm doing stupid stuff that is bad for my bankroll like playing in $50+ tournaments or playing 25 $25 sngs or something and then if i lose in those/do bad I play heads up and degen it up or play heads up sngs. The money doesn't mean anything to me and I chalk it up to "Well I can afford it, it's a good investment in the long run anyway" Which is probably true but it's completely way off. I CRUSH live games because I can't spew at all in bankroll management. Online though, it's too easy to find a game or two that i can't afford to play in online and jump in. Also in real life I can see my money coming and going much faster so maybe that has something to do with it although if anything at a 1/2 table I am by far the person moving the most money around so it's not like im playing scared at the casino because im playing like 35/20 fullring winning like ~$33 an hour which is probably a pretty decent ptbb/100.
I want to play poker and play high stakes it's something that I'm really interested in and i've put so much time into playing poker that I just can't see how it can't be a goal for me. Maybe I have the same problems as neilly and i don't have the patience to wait for it and i'm rushing it. In a lot of ways I can relate to neilly but I'm so much more realistic than him and SO much better at poker that it's not really comparable.
How the hell do I break my habits, I need bankroll management help so badly it's ridiculous. It seems that there is no way for me to ever overcome my mental situation and i'm doomed and should quit playing poker but I don't want to do that. I want to succeed i fucking hate losing ugh.
so i cashed out all the money i initially put in ($175) on both my sites... so now i am playing with only profits.
which is like $18 bucks on cake and $21 on pstars.
=/
BUT...after reading about SAKISAKI's win and FRINKx's year, i have been remotivated to grind it out. The sky is the limit. I want to be a tournament player, and to do that, i have to have the br to support it. time to grind 4nl on cake and 2nl on pstars. (btw i had a profit of 720, but blew most of it, which is why i needed to be remotivated)
HELLO YOUTUBES! It's been a while. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, you obv have not witness the musical genius of Ronald Jenkees so go youtube his ass asap! One of my New Years Resolutions was going to be to start updating my blog again, but since I'm super bored right now and my sister's house has the worst internet in the history of internets (can't even 1 table without getting disc every other hand) I thought that I might as well start updating my blog today. I've had a pretty rough last couple months in my life. A couple days after I came back from Mexico, I got a call from my dad that my mom had a stroke. At the time I was stuck in the middle of the 2k at WSOP going into Day 2, so I couldn't head back but my dad assured me that it was minor and she was going to be fine. Then a few days later my mom had another stroke, this one much worse. I'm not really good with the medical terminology and shit but my understanding of the situation was that the 2nd stroke was causing pressure to build up in her head so they had to do some brain surgery to remove the pressure and fix the swelling. After the Main Event (which was a disaster on it's own, that ended on the 2nd day for me) I immediately headed back home. My mom was in a coma for 3 weeks, and it was just really tough for me to see her like that. My mom eventually woke up at the end of August and was stable and coherent of her surroundings. The stroke had taken a toll thou, as she is bed ridden for a while, and is in the process of learning how to talk again. I stayed in the Bay Area for most of August, before heading back down to San Diego to move in with my new roommates: FrinkX and [vital]Myth.
Back in San Diego, things are chill as always. I spent most of September, October, and November surfing and playing poker. Raidan909 constantly told me over the summer that I was the laziest poker player he'd ever seen, since I would only log in 30-40k hands a month, and compared to my roommates over the summer, yea I was lazy caz they are all the sickest grinders of life. But I play WAAAAAAY more than both FrinkX and Myth combined lol. I swear if FrinkX replaced Diablo 2 / Call of Duty with just poker grinding he'd be such a monster. And if Myth takes a 1/10 of the time he spends trolling LP and turned that into serious grinding times, he'd be at nose bleed stakes by now.
In October we met up with a bunch of 2p2ers that lived in San Diego, along with Clayton and the ever so infamous carrotsnake. Meeting carrotsnake was pretty awesome actually since he was my arch nemesis back in the NL100-NL200 grinding days on stars. We found out that there was an entire house of 2p2ers that lived 3 mins from us, of which included: Tommyhawkers (aka ONEFINEAZN on cereus), TJorTeeJay (aka: RunHotBaby on cereus), Jfish (aka: SmartLAG on FTP), Sponger, and ktrieu (aka Mr_Tea). Had some fun nights chillin with those guys. In November, Rekrul decided to move his ass to downtown San Diego, and got a place in the same ballin' building that Markus (LURPED) lives in. It's pretty sweet having so many poker players in San Diego, esp to hang out with caz they really understand what you do. Like, I can't be complaining that I just played 5 hours only to make $500 after being up $3k to my college friends who have some $15/hr job caz then I sound like a douche bag. But the other poker players get it!
Me & Clayton from 2p2/Leggo
As for me and my poker, summer was a disaster over all. I was up 18k in the first 3 days of playing cash games at Wynn 10/20, and then spent the next 2 months bleeding it away. I ended -24k live, and -12k online (FUCK U FTP DOOMSWITCHING!) along with -40k in WSOP tournaments (Sorry peachy ) After summer thou has been pretty solid. I put in the grind, been playing upwards of 60k hands a month online, and have had constant 15-20k months in August, September, and October, before hitting a looooong break even stretch in November, ending in -2k for that month. December was one of the better months of the year for me. I moved a lot of my roll to CEREUS and other euro sites to grind (thanks Tommyhawkers for the advice), and been doing some sick heads-up grinding of 2/4 - 5/10. Live poker went awesome for me at Bellagio, as I ended up 12k at 5/10 and 3k at 10/20 along with being up 5k online all before the 15th of the month which was real nice. Only played 4 tournaments during the Bellagio series, of which 2 I bubbled then I cashed in the last one which was 13th in the 5k for basically nothing. Went back home only to see myself come back a week later when Evan made his WPT final table. Ship the life-shippin' shit hollaaaaaaa~~ Ended the year up somewhere between 175-180k which is some lol since I only made 63k online while spending most of the year online grinding. I need to play more live imo
Some more random pics of my friends from SD visiting Vegas during Bellagio series:
@ The Bank
Reppin' the SD in Vegas ez
So right now I'm just back in the Bay Area chilling. I'm stay at my sister's place playing with my lil nephew whos closing in on 11 months old. I'm trying to get the lazy ass to walk, but he has the thunder thighs which makes holding himself up difficult. I was walking at 10 months so this kid better get walking before I leave to SD. He can stand on his own, but now he needs to start moving in one direction. Visited my mom in the rehabilitation center and she is doing better. She is still in the process of learning how to talk, but is awake, very coherent, and is very emotional. The doctors are really optimistic, saying that it will be a slow recovery but she is making big leaps in rehab and will be able to come back home in 6 months.
Me and my boy Mike (the guy who did the cliff jumping earlier in my blog) who is moving back to San Diego in Jan.
My New Years resolutions:
1. 2500+ hands a day. 6 days a week. MINIMUM! I don't see why this can't be done. Poker is my job now, and the time it takes to play 2500 (~3-4 hours) is like nothing.
2. Work out more. Going to lay off the surfing for Jan and Feb caz the water is pretty fuckin cold, but recently in replacement of that I've been going to swim work outs at UCSD 2-3 times a week. I'm going to try and make that atleast 4 times a week and make better use of my 24 Hour Fitness membership during the nights when I don't go out. I really feel like I play better / more poker when I'm active with my life.
3. Update my blog. This is just the begining bitches...
4. Stop tilting my roommates. Somehow I find ways to keep them on infinite amounts of tilt.
5. Get more New Years resolutions.
One last pic, finally got the bigger size pic from Blair's WSOP Bracelet win from the summer, here you go LP:
HELLO YOUTUBES! It's been a while. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, you obv have not witness the musical genius of Ronald Jenkees so go youtube his ass asap! One of my New Years Resolutions was going to be to start updating my blog again, but since I'm super bored right now and my sister's house has the worst internet in the history of internets (can't even 1 table without getting disc every other hand) I thought that I might as well start updating my blog today. I've had a pretty rough last couple months in my life. A couple days after I came back from Mexico, I got a call from my dad that my mom had a stroke. At the time I was stuck in the middle of the 2k at WSOP going into Day 2, so I couldn't head back but my dad assured me that it was minor and she was going to be fine. Then a few days later my mom had another stroke, this one much worse. I'm not really good with the medical terminology and shit but my understanding of the situation was that the 2nd stroke was causing pressure to build up in her head so they had to do some brain surgery to remove the pressure and fix the swelling. After the Main Event (which was a disaster on it's own, that ended on the 2nd day for me) I immediately headed back home. My mom was in a coma for 3 weeks, and it was just really tough for me to see her like that. My mom eventually woke up at the end of August and was stable and coherent of her surroundings. The stroke had taken a toll thou, as she is bed ridden for a while, and is in the process of learning how to talk again. I stayed in the Bay Area for most of August, before heading back down to San Diego to move in with my new roommates: FrinkX and [vital]Myth.
Back in San Diego, things are chill as always. I spent most of September, October, and November surfing and playing poker. Raidan909 constantly told me over the summer that I was the laziest poker player he'd ever seen, since I would only log in 30-40k hands a month, and compared to my roommates over the summer, yea I was lazy caz they are all the sickest grinders of life. But I play WAAAAAAY more than both FrinkX and Myth combined lol. I swear if FrinkX replaced Diablo 2 / Call of Duty with just poker grinding he'd be such a monster. And if Myth takes a 1/10 of the time he spends trolling LP and turned that into serious grinding times, he'd be at nose bleed stakes by now.
In October we met up with a bunch of 2p2ers that lived in San Diego, along with Clayton and the ever so infamous carrotsnake. Meeting carrotsnake was pretty awesome actually since he was my arch nemesis back in the NL100-NL200 grinding days on stars. We found out that there was an entire house of 2p2ers that lived 3 mins from us, of which included: Tommyhawkers (aka ONEFINEAZN on cereus), TJorTeeJay (aka: RunHotBaby on cereus), Jfish (aka: SmartLAG on FTP), Sponger, and ktrieu (aka Mr_Tea). Had some fun nights chillin with those guys. In November, Rekrul decided to move his ass to downtown San Diego, and got a place in the same ballin' building that Markus (LURPED) lives in. It's pretty sweet having so many poker players in San Diego, esp to hang out with caz they really understand what you do. Like, I can't be complaining that I just played 5 hours only to make $500 after being up $3k to my college friends who have some $15/hr job caz then I sound like a douche bag. But the other poker players get it!
Me & Clayton from 2p2/Leggo
As for me and my poker, summer was a disaster over all. I was up 18k in the first 3 days of playing cash games at Wynn 10/20, and then spent the next 2 months bleeding it away. I ended -24k live, and -12k online (FUCK U FTP DOOMSWITCHING!) along with -40k in WSOP tournaments (Sorry peachy ) After summer thou has been pretty solid. I put in the grind, been playing upwards of 60k hands a month online, and have had constant 15-20k months in August, September, and October, before hitting a looooong break even stretch in November, ending in -2k for that month. December was one of the better months of the year for me. I moved a lot of my roll to CEREUS and other euro sites to grind (thanks Tommyhawkers for the advice), and been doing some sick heads-up grinding of 2/4 - 5/10. Live poker went awesome for me at Bellagio, as I ended up 12k at 5/10 and 3k at 10/20 along with being up 5k online all before the 15th of the month which was real nice. Only played 4 tournaments during the Bellagio series, of which 2 I bubbled then I cashed in the last one which was 13th in the 5k for basically nothing. Went back home only to see myself come back a week later when Evan made his WPT final table. Ship the life-shippin' shit hollaaaaaaa~~ Ended the year up somewhere between 175-180k which is some lol since I only made 63k online while spending most of the year online grinding. I need to play more live imo
Some more random pics of my friends from SD visiting Vegas during Bellagio series:
@ The Bank
Reppin' the SD in Vegas ez
So right now I'm just back in the Bay Area chilling. I'm stay at my sister's place playing with my lil nephew whos closing in on 11 months old. I'm trying to get the lazy ass to walk, but he has the thunder thighs which makes holding himself up difficult. I was walking at 10 months so this kid better get walking before I leave to SD. He can stand on his own, but now he needs to start moving in one direction. Visited my mom in the rehabilitation center and she is doing better. She is still in the process of learning how to talk, but is awake, very coherent, and is very emotional. The doctors are really optimistic, saying that it will be a slow recovery but she is making big leaps in rehab and will be able to come back home in 6 months.
Me and my boy Mike (the guy who did the cliff jumping earlier in my blog) who is moving back to San Diego in Jan.
My New Years resolutions:
1. 2500+ hands a day. 6 days a week. MINIMUM! I don't see why this can't be done. Poker is my job now, and the time it takes to play 2500 (~3-4 hours) is like nothing.
2. Work out more. Going to lay off the surfing for Jan and Feb caz the water is pretty fuckin cold, but recently in replacement of that I've been going to swim work outs at UCSD 2-3 times a week. I'm going to try and make that atleast 4 times a week and make better use of my 24 Hour Fitness membership during the nights when I don't go out. I really feel like I play better / more poker when I'm active with my life.
3. Update my blog. This is just the begining bitches...
4. Stop tilting my roommates. Somehow I find ways to keep them on infinite amounts of tilt.
5. Get more New Years resolutions.
One last pic, finally got the bigger size pic from Blair's WSOP Bracelet win from the summer, here you go LP:
or many of you this is going to be a tl;dr (too long, didnt read). i dont care, read what you want, just gotta get all the random thoughts in my head out.....
-i liked how wandy looked at points during the fight. he still has that insane focus and drive to murder his opponent. he is a bit slower nowadays and his wildness doesnt work out as much anymore because of his decreased speed. this will hurt him in title contention fights but hes still a very exciting guy who people should love to watch and he could definitely put out good fights still, just not top 5 205 ones. i think a move to 185 could be fun, as well as some good fights vs some other 205s that arent rampage/shogun/rashad/machidaanderson if he moves up and a couple others
-rampage looked soooo nervous coming into the fight. im a huge huge wandy fan but coming into this fight i felt like rampage had every advantage. better technical boxer, better cage suited style, has improved, wandy has gotten slower, etc. but as they were doing their cage entrances, something looked really really off in quinton. he was scared to death of wandy, you could tell. in that walk my confidence in wandy was reborn and i was pretty sure wandy would finish off the threepeat and tko him. it took a minute or two but he calmed down, settled into his own and looked good.
this win will give rampage a huge amount of confidence and to me its clear that right now hes the best 205 on the planet (unless shogun comes back 100% and says otherwise). he says he wants to rematch forrest and i still think hes a huge favorite against forrest. he will KILL rashad. this isnt a "forrest has a better reach than rashad so he should be able to pepper and have an advantage", this is a "god poor rashad is going to die if he fights rampage". the only people who have what i think is a decent shot (>30% of winning) vs rampage are shogun (who at 100% is still a favorite) and machida (who gives anyone fits).
-ill take the first tangent and talk about how good rashad looked. hes so quick, so accurate with his punches and extremely composed. forrest was doing a really really good job round 2 but rashad never faltered, stayed really confident and eventually found a spot. now, as stated above i think rampage will obliterate him. but it appears as if his first title defense will be against machida. that should be a pretty fun to mma fans (but might be kinda boring to casual fans). rashad is real fast but doesnt have the reach machida does, and should have some problems hitting machida cause of lyoto's own speed. i suspect it will go to a decision and either machida will win because he peppered a lot more, or rashad will win because machida didnt pepper that much more and rashad controlled the octagon.
besides machida/rampage i think he matches up really well vs a lot of other guys in the division. extremely well vs jardine (who leaves his face open for rashads quick striking), well vs wandy (same thing as jardine), not THAT well vs chuck: lets face it, chuck is a passive outboxer with good reach, good takedown defense and really pinpoint striking. if chuck could come back 100% i think rashad vs chuck is a tossup. in either case though, rashad has earned his #2 spot in the 205 division and has most certainly earned his belt so congrats to him. of course he will be ranked #1, but we know the true #1 is rampage.
-machida is fighting thiago silva next. i dont have much faith in thiago silva's proclamations that he knows how to beat machida and i see machida winning a UD. then he will fight rashad and we get to see an interesting chess match that people will sadly boo. im really excited to see machida vs top competition. he matchs up really well vs wandy/chuck/all wrestlers/all bjj guys/most of the division. i do think machida can beat rampage because rampage still hasnt shown he is going to deal with leg kicks and machida wont get hit very often, but rampage can cut off angles and control the fight. i think machida can beat forrest, but again thats not an easy fight for him. same with shogun. same with rashad. only the fights happening will really tell us what will happen.
-i talked a lot about a 100% shogun in the previous paragraphs and yes its all speculation and praying, but i think shogun will come back very strong. if he doesnt, well, just delete his name from all those paragraphs and hes not who he used to be. if he does come back well.....he is a nightmare to fight against. really aggressive striker like wandy, but also has better wrestling, faster, is still young, and has better reach and slightly more technical punching. every fight fan should pray he comes back 100% because then it adds another element to the 205 division and will make things a lot of fun to watch. if he doesnt....lets just remember him for what he was and how much potential he had.
-i think forrest looked excellent the first two rounds. his lack of a spectacular area in fighting is really going to hurt him vs a lot of guys. hes kinda good in every area, but lacks the power, athleticism, speed, and doesnt have amazing wrestling or bjj so its going to be hard for him to beat really really tough guys. however, he is a smart guy who has learned to use his size/reach very well, will outwork anyone, and never gives up so he will continue to compete at a high level in this division for a long time.
-i think nog just looked awful. he looked old, slow, depressed, worn, everything that we knew would eventually happen but didnt think would happen when he was only 32. i hope (and dont hope cause its a morbid thought to want him to have depression so he has a brighter future than we think) that he had some depression or something going on mentally that prevented the old nog from coming out and fighting because he looked really really bad. it made me want to immediately drop him from the top 10 hws because it looks like he just cant cut it anymore, sometimes youre only as good as your last fight. it wasnt like wandy who was still ferocious and focused but a little slower, or chuck who got flash ko'ed by an extremely quick handed fighter in september, he just looked really bad. this is what made me the most sad of anything from ufc 92.
people get old, their bodies break down and they arent the same anymore. its a sad thing that happens in heavy contact sports and fighting sports. it was only a matter of time till the massive amounts of abuse took its toll and i hope this isnt the last we have to see of nog. thankfully a guy like fedor hasnt taken much punishment (because hes just that much better than everyone) and will continue to fight at an extremely high level for a long time to come, allowing us as fans to see some of the fights we've always wanted to see without having to wonder how it would have went 5 years back.
-mir looked really good. not "OMG HE WOULD DESTROY AA, BARNETT AND FEDOR", but very good. crisp boxing, decent kicks, obviously improved cardio, very relaxed and composed. i think hes definitely the #4 heavyweight in the world right now and should be a favorite on brock given his size, newfound cardio, good boxing, and his obvious submission advantage over brock. i think mir will give trouble to anyone in the ufc, and hes similar to a gonzaga right now, but a little better mentally and with much better cardio. will be fun to see how the ufc hw division unfolds with gonzaga/kongo hopefully starting to step up to a higher level so we can see some fun fights and matchups.
-i tried to rank the heavyweight division after saturday night and couldnt get past #4. it was so hard for me to rank. my top 4 is fedor, AA, barnett, frank mir. after that it became a blur. lesnar and sylvia have to be in the top 10 in my opinion, and preferably #5 and #6. after that, having to choose 4 fighters out of werdum, gonzaga, kongo, sergei, overeem, crocop, nog, randy, aleksander, and ben rothwell. (imo cain, carwin and junior are not ready). i guess ill just type rankings and not be a copout, but imo theres a top 6 then a pack of guys who are either over the hill, unknown potential, and solid fighters.
my top 20 in order: fedor, AA, barnett, mir, lesnar, sylvia, sergei, overeem, gonzaga, kongo, randy, ben rothwell, crocop, nog, werdum, aleks, junior, carwin, cain. for #20, bleh who even cares, gilbert yvel? i moved nog so low because of my above arguments about how it looked nog was done and not just a fluke fight. if i thought it was just an off fight id have put him #8 and waited to see how he turns out, but i just dont have any faith in his standup/reflexes/speed anymore.
-im really excited for k1 dynamite and you guys should be too. here are some of my breakdowns on fights (who gives a fuck what i think!):
aoki vs alvarez - really cool fight. at first thought eddie would handle aoki because of great striking, good sub defense, good wrestling, but seriously, i thought the same thing about jz vs aoki back in may. what makes this different? really hard to call but im gonna say eddie UD or TKO but would not be surprised if aoki subbed him, or got control of his back or something.
hansen vs JZ - i think JZ wins pretty easily, either by TKO or UD. hes stronger, great wrestling, great bjj, really good sub defense, i just dont see hansen having an edge here. i was surprised to see joachim is 5'10 because he always looked really small to me and i always thought he should fight at 145, but i guess he has a reach advantage? i dunno, i think JZ wins this. lets not forget he was widely considered a top 3 155 before the aoki fights, and his skillset is very diverse and hes great everywhere.
crocop vs hmc - wow, hmc is so indestrucible (only ko or tko was broken rib vs badr), and this is an mma fight. i dont know if crocop can ninja an armbar like fedor did but who knows, he seems pretty confident in his grappling skills; didnt he agree to a sub grappling fight in one of the dreams vs a gracie??? really weird fight, im going out on a limb and say crocop by armbar (hahahaha sick pun amiright)
badr hari vs overeem - k1 rules. sorry alistair, badr is the man. his combos are so incredibly fast and i dont think his chin is THAT bad. does anyone know if there is a weight limit to this? theyre both big guys, badr is about 6'5-6'6 225-230, overeem 6'5 235-240. i just see badr winning by tko or in a decision, hes just too good.
sakuraba vs kiyoshi - i honestly dont know lol. i dont know much about kiyoshi so ill avoid this one! my rant/thoughts, my dodge!
jerome lebanner vs mark hunt - weird fight as well. both have been fairly inactive lately. jerome has had knee problems. who knows how his knees will be this fight and if it needs to be stopped because of it. i assume jerome would win by UD if both were 100%.....but that seems impossible. mark hunt by either ko or ud.
and NOW its time for a small rant about this card. while k1 dynamite does have really great fights and cool matchups to see, it bothers me that the fights dont really mean anything. the only implication to anything on the card is that if alvarez wins he should auto win fighter of the year. besides that....if aoki wins what does it mean? he gets to fight another cool fight in a couple months? ok....if he loses? same shit. i really love that the ufc fights mean something in terms of stepping stones for title shots. everyone's goal is to win the belt and to get there they have to put together a series of wins. when people are fighting over in japan in 2 or 3 different promotions, its just a bunch of fun fights that fans want to see without much meaning besides overall ranking in the division and possible awards for fight of the year, fighter of the year, etc. how to fix this? i dont know. have dream get bigger and have fighters defend belts, have obvious depth charts with who gets next title shot etc.
hmm anything else i can rant about?
-diego at 155.....really excited to see diego vs sherk, diego vs kenny. i think sherk beats diego because of better standup, close ground games. diego vs kenny......kenny might just outfight him on the feet and keep it close enough on the ground to not lose. not easy fights for diego but definitely head asploding ones that icant wait to watch.
-my first thought after the thiago vs kos fight was that thiago matched up perfectly vs gsp and had a good chance to win. well im back to reality and i think gsp will set up his takedowns much better than kos did, and also will come up with a good gameplan to fight him. i still think thiago matches up well....just not as well as i originally thought. i say gsp -160 to win this.
before we get there though, gsp has to get through bj. gsp should win with good legkicks, avoiding boxing, using his wrestling smartly. obviously bj can win if he controls the ground, gains top position, is allowed to box for extended periods of time. really cool fight and should be a really really good one. but i would much rather see gsp win just because of the future matchups in each division (and possible moveups to 185 to fight anderson) are better if bj is at 155 and gsp is champ at 170.
-and finally the 185 division is a wreck. why is leites getting a shot over okami/maia? i understand okami is kinda boring but he beat anderson and has definitely earned his shot. he had a shot and had to pull out because of a hand injury give it to him again . anderson by murder over thales.
and why are rich/hendo fighting to be TUF9 coach for middleweights. rich moves up to 205, fights hendo at 205, then winner comes and coaches tuf and a 185 fight vs....bisping? can we please have maia tuf9 coach, that would be so much better.......
-TITO FIGHT IN AFFLICTION VS BABALU OR LITTLE NOG. TY
-and finally, some awards for the year, mostly stolen from mma live's categories
fight of the year: 1. carlos condit vs miura 2. hansen vs alvarez 3. torres vs maeda
fighter of the year: depends on k1 dynamite..... if alvarez wins hes #1. if alvarez loses, thiago alves is #1.
breakout star: gegard mousasi. nobody knew who he was last year. went 6-0 this year, won dream mw gp, and beat a sick striker and sick bjj guy in same night.
ko of the year: 1. rashad vs chuck 2. kos vs yoshida so many other great ones i cant pick after that
sub of the year: 1. palhares armbar vs salaverry 2. miguel torres vs chase beebe (torres was jockeying for a sub for like 2 or 3 minutes and there was some sick technical shit going on, highly recommend you go back and watch this) 3. asilva vs hendo honorable mention: dustin hazelett reverse armbar, nate diaz triangle, frank mir leglock brock, cb peruvian necktie, the aoki top position gogoplata was cool as well
upset of the year: forrest vs rampage was huge and also had great meaning. mir vs nog i was so sure nog would win but i dont know if it can be considered an upset with how bad nog looked. if i knew how each fighter would look in the fight i dont think this was an upset at all. and huge underdogs winning like junior dos santos, and the guy who beat gomi should also be considered. overall i give it to forrest for 2nd year in a row lol
or many of you this is going to be a tl;dr (too long, didnt read). i dont care, read what you want, just gotta get all the random thoughts in my head out.....
-i liked how wandy looked at points during the fight. he still has that insane focus and drive to murder his opponent. he is a bit slower nowadays and his wildness doesnt work out as much anymore because of his decreased speed. this will hurt him in title contention fights but hes still a very exciting guy who people should love to watch and he could definitely put out good fights still, just not top 5 205 ones. i think a move to 185 could be fun, as well as some good fights vs some other 205s that arent rampage/shogun/rashad/machidaanderson if he moves up and a couple others
-rampage looked soooo nervous coming into the fight. im a huge huge wandy fan but coming into this fight i felt like rampage had every advantage. better technical boxer, better cage suited style, has improved, wandy has gotten slower, etc. but as they were doing their cage entrances, something looked really really off in quinton. he was scared to death of wandy, you could tell. in that walk my confidence in wandy was reborn and i was pretty sure wandy would finish off the threepeat and tko him. it took a minute or two but he calmed down, settled into his own and looked good.
this win will give rampage a huge amount of confidence and to me its clear that right now hes the best 205 on the planet (unless shogun comes back 100% and says otherwise). he says he wants to rematch forrest and i still think hes a huge favorite against forrest. he will KILL rashad. this isnt a "forrest has a better reach than rashad so he should be able to pepper and have an advantage", this is a "god poor rashad is going to die if he fights rampage". the only people who have what i think is a decent shot (>30% of winning) vs rampage are shogun (who at 100% is still a favorite) and machida (who gives anyone fits).
-ill take the first tangent and talk about how good rashad looked. hes so quick, so accurate with his punches and extremely composed. forrest was doing a really really good job round 2 but rashad never faltered, stayed really confident and eventually found a spot. now, as stated above i think rampage will obliterate him. but it appears as if his first title defense will be against machida. that should be a pretty fun to mma fans (but might be kinda boring to casual fans). rashad is real fast but doesnt have the reach machida does, and should have some problems hitting machida cause of lyoto's own speed. i suspect it will go to a decision and either machida will win because he peppered a lot more, or rashad will win because machida didnt pepper that much more and rashad controlled the octagon.
besides machida/rampage i think he matches up really well vs a lot of other guys in the division. extremely well vs jardine (who leaves his face open for rashads quick striking), well vs wandy (same thing as jardine), not THAT well vs chuck: lets face it, chuck is a passive outboxer with good reach, good takedown defense and really pinpoint striking. if chuck could come back 100% i think rashad vs chuck is a tossup. in either case though, rashad has earned his #2 spot in the 205 division and has most certainly earned his belt so congrats to him. of course he will be ranked #1, but we know the true #1 is rampage.
-machida is fighting thiago silva next. i dont have much faith in thiago silva's proclamations that he knows how to beat machida and i see machida winning a UD. then he will fight rashad and we get to see an interesting chess match that people will sadly boo. im really excited to see machida vs top competition. he matchs up really well vs wandy/chuck/all wrestlers/all bjj guys/most of the division. i do think machida can beat rampage because rampage still hasnt shown he is going to deal with leg kicks and machida wont get hit very often, but rampage can cut off angles and control the fight. i think machida can beat forrest, but again thats not an easy fight for him. same with shogun. same with rashad. only the fights happening will really tell us what will happen.
-i talked a lot about a 100% shogun in the previous paragraphs and yes its all speculation and praying, but i think shogun will come back very strong. if he doesnt, well, just delete his name from all those paragraphs and hes not who he used to be. if he does come back well.....he is a nightmare to fight against. really aggressive striker like wandy, but also has better wrestling, faster, is still young, and has better reach and slightly more technical punching. every fight fan should pray he comes back 100% because then it adds another element to the 205 division and will make things a lot of fun to watch. if he doesnt....lets just remember him for what he was and how much potential he had.
-i think forrest looked excellent the first two rounds. his lack of a spectacular area in fighting is really going to hurt him vs a lot of guys. hes kinda good in every area, but lacks the power, athleticism, speed, and doesnt have amazing wrestling or bjj so its going to be hard for him to beat really really tough guys. however, he is a smart guy who has learned to use his size/reach very well, will outwork anyone, and never gives up so he will continue to compete at a high level in this division for a long time.
-i think nog just looked awful. he looked old, slow, depressed, worn, everything that we knew would eventually happen but didnt think would happen when he was only 32. i hope (and dont hope cause its a morbid thought to want him to have depression so he has a brighter future than we think) that he had some depression or something going on mentally that prevented the old nog from coming out and fighting because he looked really really bad. it made me want to immediately drop him from the top 10 hws because it looks like he just cant cut it anymore, sometimes youre only as good as your last fight. it wasnt like wandy who was still ferocious and focused but a little slower, or chuck who got flash ko'ed by an extremely quick handed fighter in september, he just looked really bad. this is what made me the most sad of anything from ufc 92.
people get old, their bodies break down and they arent the same anymore. its a sad thing that happens in heavy contact sports and fighting sports. it was only a matter of time till the massive amounts of abuse took its toll and i hope this isnt the last we have to see of nog. thankfully a guy like fedor hasnt taken much punishment (because hes just that much better than everyone) and will continue to fight at an extremely high level for a long time to come, allowing us as fans to see some of the fights we've always wanted to see without having to wonder how it would have went 5 years back.
-mir looked really good. not "OMG HE WOULD DESTROY AA, BARNETT AND FEDOR", but very good. crisp boxing, decent kicks, obviously improved cardio, very relaxed and composed. i think hes definitely the #4 heavyweight in the world right now and should be a favorite on brock given his size, newfound cardio, good boxing, and his obvious submission advantage over brock. i think mir will give trouble to anyone in the ufc, and hes similar to a gonzaga right now, but a little better mentally and with much better cardio. will be fun to see how the ufc hw division unfolds with gonzaga/kongo hopefully starting to step up to a higher level so we can see some fun fights and matchups.
-i tried to rank the heavyweight division after saturday night and couldnt get past #4. it was so hard for me to rank. my top 4 is fedor, AA, barnett, frank mir. after that it became a blur. lesnar and sylvia have to be in the top 10 in my opinion, and preferably #5 and #6. after that, having to choose 4 fighters out of werdum, gonzaga, kongo, sergei, overeem, crocop, nog, randy, aleksander, and ben rothwell. (imo cain, carwin and junior are not ready). i guess ill just type rankings and not be a copout, but imo theres a top 6 then a pack of guys who are either over the hill, unknown potential, and solid fighters.
my top 20 in order: fedor, AA, barnett, mir, lesnar, sylvia, sergei, overeem, gonzaga, kongo, randy, ben rothwell, crocop, nog, werdum, aleks, junior, carwin, cain. for #20, bleh who even cares, gilbert yvel? i moved nog so low because of my above arguments about how it looked nog was done and not just a fluke fight. if i thought it was just an off fight id have put him #8 and waited to see how he turns out, but i just dont have any faith in his standup/reflexes/speed anymore.
-im really excited for k1 dynamite and you guys should be too. here are some of my breakdowns on fights (who gives a fuck what i think!):
aoki vs alvarez - really cool fight. at first thought eddie would handle aoki because of great striking, good sub defense, good wrestling, but seriously, i thought the same thing about jz vs aoki back in may. what makes this different? really hard to call but im gonna say eddie UD or TKO but would not be surprised if aoki subbed him, or got control of his back or something.
hansen vs JZ - i think JZ wins pretty easily, either by TKO or UD. hes stronger, great wrestling, great bjj, really good sub defense, i just dont see hansen having an edge here. i was surprised to see joachim is 5'10 because he always looked really small to me and i always thought he should fight at 145, but i guess he has a reach advantage? i dunno, i think JZ wins this. lets not forget he was widely considered a top 3 155 before the aoki fights, and his skillset is very diverse and hes great everywhere.
crocop vs hmc - wow, hmc is so indestrucible (only ko or tko was broken rib vs badr), and this is an mma fight. i dont know if crocop can ninja an armbar like fedor did but who knows, he seems pretty confident in his grappling skills; didnt he agree to a sub grappling fight in one of the dreams vs a gracie??? really weird fight, im going out on a limb and say crocop by armbar (hahahaha sick pun amiright)
badr hari vs overeem - k1 rules. sorry alistair, badr is the man. his combos are so incredibly fast and i dont think his chin is THAT bad. does anyone know if there is a weight limit to this? theyre both big guys, badr is about 6'5-6'6 225-230, overeem 6'5 235-240. i just see badr winning by tko or in a decision, hes just too good.
sakuraba vs kiyoshi - i honestly dont know lol. i dont know much about kiyoshi so ill avoid this one! my rant/thoughts, my dodge!
jerome lebanner vs mark hunt - weird fight as well. both have been fairly inactive lately. jerome has had knee problems. who knows how his knees will be this fight and if it needs to be stopped because of it. i assume jerome would win by UD if both were 100%.....but that seems impossible. mark hunt by either ko or ud.
and NOW its time for a small rant about this card. while k1 dynamite does have really great fights and cool matchups to see, it bothers me that the fights dont really mean anything. the only implication to anything on the card is that if alvarez wins he should auto win fighter of the year. besides that....if aoki wins what does it mean? he gets to fight another cool fight in a couple months? ok....if he loses? same shit. i really love that the ufc fights mean something in terms of stepping stones for title shots. everyone's goal is to win the belt and to get there they have to put together a series of wins. when people are fighting over in japan in 2 or 3 different promotions, its just a bunch of fun fights that fans want to see without much meaning besides overall ranking in the division and possible awards for fight of the year, fighter of the year, etc. how to fix this? i dont know. have dream get bigger and have fighters defend belts, have obvious depth charts with who gets next title shot etc.
hmm anything else i can rant about?
-diego at 155.....really excited to see diego vs sherk, diego vs kenny. i think sherk beats diego because of better standup, close ground games. diego vs kenny......kenny might just outfight him on the feet and keep it close enough on the ground to not lose. not easy fights for diego but definitely head asploding ones that icant wait to watch.
-my first thought after the thiago vs kos fight was that thiago matched up perfectly vs gsp and had a good chance to win. well im back to reality and i think gsp will set up his takedowns much better than kos did, and also will come up with a good gameplan to fight him. i still think thiago matches up well....just not as well as i originally thought. i say gsp -160 to win this.
before we get there though, gsp has to get through bj. gsp should win with good legkicks, avoiding boxing, using his wrestling smartly. obviously bj can win if he controls the ground, gains top position, is allowed to box for extended periods of time. really cool fight and should be a really really good one. but i would much rather see gsp win just because of the future matchups in each division (and possible moveups to 185 to fight anderson) are better if bj is at 155 and gsp is champ at 170.
-and finally the 185 division is a wreck. why is leites getting a shot over okami/maia? i understand okami is kinda boring but he beat anderson and has definitely earned his shot. he had a shot and had to pull out because of a hand injury give it to him again . anderson by murder over thales.
and why are rich/hendo fighting to be TUF9 coach for middleweights. rich moves up to 205, fights hendo at 205, then winner comes and coaches tuf and a 185 fight vs....bisping? can we please have maia tuf9 coach, that would be so much better.......
-TITO FIGHT IN AFFLICTION VS BABALU OR LITTLE NOG. TY
-and finally, some awards for the year, mostly stolen from mma live's categories
fight of the year: 1. carlos condit vs miura 2. hansen vs alvarez 3. torres vs maeda
fighter of the year: depends on k1 dynamite..... if alvarez wins hes #1. if alvarez loses, thiago alves is #1.
breakout star: gegard mousasi. nobody knew who he was last year. went 6-0 this year, won dream mw gp, and beat a sick striker and sick bjj guy in same night.
ko of the year: 1. rashad vs chuck 2. kos vs yoshida so many other great ones i cant pick after that
sub of the year: 1. palhares armbar vs salaverry 2. miguel torres vs chase beebe (torres was jockeying for a sub for like 2 or 3 minutes and there was some sick technical shit going on, highly recommend you go back and watch this) 3. asilva vs hendo honorable mention: dustin hazelett reverse armbar, nate diaz triangle, frank mir leglock brock, cb peruvian necktie, the aoki top position gogoplata was cool as well
upset of the year: forrest vs rampage was huge and also had great meaning. mir vs nog i was so sure nog would win but i dont know if it can be considered an upset with how bad nog looked. if i knew how each fighter would look in the fight i dont think this was an upset at all. and huge underdogs winning like junior dos santos, and the guy who beat gomi should also be considered. overall i give it to forrest for 2nd year in a row lol
Every poker players would give anything to know the recipe of success and figuring out yourself is pretty much your own interior graal quest. Some say it's only luck, others say it's only hard work and skill, the fact is nobody knows 100% what this game is about, you can come with all the charts and stats in the world but you'll never be able to prove your point.
Why talented players bust ? Why donkeys hit huge scores ? Call it variance or luck, karma or destiny. Ket wrote a nice article about your mind set when you play the game, how to handle swings, what should be your attitude towards the game. But before your quest begin you have to accept losing, over and over and over.
I'm a very competitive character and i'm stuborn to no end, but does it make you a winner ? Perseverance is not always the answer it's just the beginning, a must have that probably the top players share in common. I realised i hate to lose, and poker is about losing, learning from your mistakes and improve, but if you hate losing too much then you'll probably quit the game early. So far i've been spending almost 2 years playing it on a daily basis, whenever i can and as much as possible, im a winner long term but if you take this to $/hour, my hourly rate must suck donkey balls. So i just wanted to make it official: Fuck you poker, you keep slapping me in the face but i'll NEVER give up you mother fucking bitch i'll figure you out.
I have no idea what happened in the starcraft world in the past 1.5 years but jesus tapdancing christ starcraft is on a ridiculous level.
I used to be like top 20 in the usa on the ladders and stuff with little effort, B rank on pgt whatever i didnt game that much competitively i just gamed to talk shit and play ums but i was still good at the game relatively compared to the rest of the population of starcraft players.
I've recently gotten really interested in the game again watching every english casted game i can find in my spare time and eventually it just came down to me saying "Man i fucking love this game, i gotta put the time in to be good again"
Little did i fucking know how hard of a task this is to accomplish. I'm currently 32-35 C- on iccup. I rematch everyone i lose to or try to anyway, and i obviously am not dodging anyone cause this isnt me trying to make some run at the top of the ladder I just wanna get good so I prefer losing but fuck at least let me do it at a respectable level, having a <50% winning ratio at C- is stupid as fuck and embarassing.
I played 20 games today and for the first time in my life my wrist is killing me. I never used to have issues with wrist pain but I'm hoping it was just the angle i was sitting at and I don't have carpel tunnel syndrome.
last time i posted this i got cursed but i think the curse only works for the fiscal year so i'm nearly positive i can't possibly curse myself here.
as per usual, i did much better than joe this month.
as you can see, i made much more $ than him in NLHE.
I didn't put as much volume in as normal, because I spent a week playing live at foxwoods. I played a ton of 20/40 and 30/60 limits because the games ran shorthanded and seemed much better than the 5/10 NL. I realized that limit is probably the best live game. You can play many more hands/hour in general (not saying you get dealt more hands, but rather its appropraite to play more hands in this game dynamic than it would be in NL). Assuming my preceived massive edge, any game that allows me to play higher VPIP is probably best, so I think I'm going to stick to limit sessions whenever I play live. FW went pretty well, I made a decent chunk of big bets, but nothing crazy.
I didn't play as much PLO as I have in other months, but the times I did I was super focused and played close to my best PLO game (which is probably a good players D game, but I digress). I've been watching a lot of videos, and although I find little things I disagree with in every one I watch, I certainly am learning a lot. In a recent lefty vid he said there shouldn't be more than a ~5% disparity between VPIP and PFR at PLO, but he was talking about 5/10 games at the time I believe. At 2/4 there's pretty rampant limping and I limp behind a lot, so I'm hoping that's the reason for my semi big gap.
I'm a little leary of posting stats, but I dont have pokergrapher or whatever I don't think so here's my humble small sample size of PLO for dec.
I was a very marginal winner before this month, breaking even more or less over my first 50k PLO hands, so hopefully this will help me keep the ball rolling into 2009.
It's worth noting I'll always be better than Joe at PLO because he is a sick nit and could never handle the variance.
Anyways, I leave for PCA basically right after New Years, and it should be a nice vacation. I haven't qual'd yet for the event but I luckboxed like 3 sattelite tickets so I got two sat's to play today and an extra $650 W$ to figure out what to do with. If I don't qual before going I've heard the live qualifiers are soft so I'll prob set aside 3k for a shot in those, regardless I'm pretty confident I'll get into the event one way or another. I'm more focused on sitting on the beach doing nothing, as I haven't taken a day off from poker basically at all since last summer.
Anyways, hopefully I'll run into some of you at PCA. Take care.
Contact Users: 4710 Active, 1 Logged in - Time: 04:57
) After summer thou has been pretty solid. I put in the grind, been playing upwards of 60k hands a month online, and have had constant 15-20k months in August, September, and October, before hitting a looooong break even stretch in November, ending in -2k for that month. December was one of the better months of the year for me. I moved a lot of my roll to CEREUS and other euro sites to grind (thanks Tommyhawkers for the advice), and been doing some sick heads-up grinding of 2/4 - 5/10. Live poker went awesome for me at Bellagio, as I ended up 12k at 5/10 and 3k at 10/20 along with being up 5k online all before the 15th of the month which was real nice. Only played 4 tournaments during the Bellagio series, of which 2 I bubbled then I cashed in the last one which was 13th in the 5k for basically nothing. Went back home only to see myself come back a week later when Evan made his WPT final table. Ship the life-shippin' shit hollaaaaaaa~~ Ended the year up somewhere between 175-180k which is some lol since I only made 63k online while spending most of the year online grinding. I need to play more live imo 
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