Don't know where to start really. Last blog was obv not written at a good time, and 2011 was the worst year I've ever had to go through in life. Not gonna write a book about it here as I remember regretting that blog almost immediately upon clicking send.
My situation is a bit different now, a bit better. I'm in school Taking 4 courses, mostly via the web, but it's going quite well. My English class in particular is going very well.
But my economy is fucked up, I now know what it's like to be one of those poor students you hear about. I haven't played poker in ~6 months, and I both miss it and I don't. At times it was a heavy burden to bear, but certainly it was also the best money I ever saw, and for that reason I'm now looking for a stake.
Never been staked before, so pretty clueless on the details. Kinda looking for the staker to set the conditions. I just hope my name still means something on LP, and even though past merits in this business don't hold much water, I'm hoping people remember me as a stand-up, honest and legit no-nonsense guy. Not gonna pressure anyone to vouch for my legitimacy, but if anyone wants to, please go ahead.
Poker-wise, tbh I'm unsure of my current abilities. Maybe it'll take some getting used to, but I hope I could manage to grind out a profit at something like NL100/NL50, I dunno. I will show my handbooster graph to those interested in staking me, but not openly on here. Don't think anyone on here can vouch for my skill or lack of skill as I always kept my nicks a secret.
If staked, I intend to play a LOT. My laptop can take up to 6 Ongame tables without overlapping, so 6 tables = maximum for me. Been a long time since I played 9-12 tables, and I think 6 is probably better anyway in today's game.
Like I said I don't know how stakes usually work, but I would be looking to cash out some of my eventual winnings relatively early, say end of March, as things in our household are pretty tight right now. Maybe cash out rakeback? I dunno.
The staker will always be able to get a hold of me, that's a promise. I don't fuck around with other people's shit.
Interested? PM me and we'll talk further. Really hope I can get something going again.
Peace
Edit: btw, all you people who sent me PMs on my last blog and I never got back to, I'm sorry, I was just basically emotionally spent at the time. I read every PM though and really appreciated hearing from some guys that I had only talked to for a short period of time on MSN back in 2009 or whenever it was. Warmed my heart
Going to move soon. Decided "for sure" or whatever that'll we'll move to Sundsvall in a few months. Basically going to be a a good boyfriend and help my girlfriend finish her degree and try to get a bunch of stuff done until then. Doing ok but not good with poker, it's not really embarrassing anymore but I'm obviously not content with it. Hoping to get to supernova sometime this summer and then play mid stakes this fall getting some volume in. If it goes badly I'll get a job of some kind after the summer and if it works out fine I might try to go for supernova elite next year. That's basically the main plan. Not really giving a crap about winrates and such before that, but it'd be nice to figure out how to play NL again. PLO going ok despite me having some huge leaks for deep play that I corrected fairly well after some study. Nl going weird, people vlauebets much more thin then I remembered. I think I'll have to start adjusting a bit.
Getting really itchy to take up BJJ or MMA or whatever again, so going to do that when I have moved. Thinking of maybe trying some Judo to for the take downs or some kind of stand up art.
Working out, playing poker and not really doing much except for that sounds like a good thing for me. Getting a long time plan done for my life, or at least some ideas about it.
As you can see the past week or so has been breakeven since I was at around 30k profit at the end of Feb. That's due to a 7k loss over 2 days and grinding it back over the next week. Also yesterday I ran AA into 66 on AK664 for a 4k pot and got one-outed with nut flush vs lower flush for a $2500 pot; would've had a monster day otherwise, instead I won 1k.
I've been stepping the hours up lately. Got a little over 40 hours in this week and hope to improve on that this week. I'll just break down a couple of the interesting stats below.
Hours left for 100k: 687.75
Means at the current hourly I need to play 687.75 more hours to hit the 100k mark which means an average of 8.2 hours per day over the next 84 days when I've been averaging 4.6. Which would be 56 hours per week, which is a bit of a stretch given that I've been at or below 40 so far this year.
On pace for: 70,282.63
This stat takes my current (hours played) divided by (the amount of days that have passed times my hourly), times (the total amount of days in the challenge) to predict what I will make if I continue this pace of hours at this hourly.
SIDE CHALLENGE!
I've decided to do another challenge that involves something that is kind of ignored in the poker community because of how much money flies around constantly: Budgeting and lowering my expenses!
Last year we averaged like 8k per month in expenses, which is ridiculously high. After cutting out some unnecessary stuff, we got it down to 7200 per month in January. February was even better, lowering our expenses to about 6500. By the end of the year I'd like to get that number below 6k as an average for the whole year but that might be difficult with fixed expenses like a mortgage and 2 car payments/insurance/health insurance, but I'm going to get quotes on those to try and get the rates down. I'd also like to pay off one of the cars by the end of the year with some aggressive debt paydown, but for now, I think the money is better leveraged in my bankroll paying the vig on the loans until I'm more comfortable with a couple years worth of expenses built up. http://i.imgur.com/Rjfap.jpg
Okay, words cannot describe what I just experienced. First of all, I am not one of those guys to just make things up or to paint them all pink or anything, I will tell you EXACTLY what happened.
So, I was asleep and I woke up. I am currently using a technique for astral projection that is basically this - when u wake up u go back to your dream or dreamstate without moving (at least not much) and then your astral body and physical body separate just like when u dream. So just after waking up the connection is not strong so you can easily manipulate it. That's exactly what I did. So when I felt that detachment i rolled over with my asrtal body (that's the technique) and it worked for the first time in my life. This is when it gets extremely fucking interesting.
I went to the end of my room and I looked at my body - it was CARTOON!!! Hahaha it was more cartoon and more vivid than I can EVER imagine, it was like living in a cartoon. I have never ever experienced something like this but I have watched a short clip on youtube that describes lucid dreaming and it was EXACTLY like they say it, EXACTLY!!! So, I thought it was pretty strange that everything was cartoon because in astral projection you are in real time, at least at the beginning, and it can't be cartoon at all. Now I realise that it was lucid dreaming but when I looked at my body I just felt strange and didn't get why everything was cartoon, I just enjoyed it. It's interesting to say that just prior to going to sleep I talked to a friend of mine about lucid dreaming and he gave me advices and shit. He told me I should levitate things and I told him that I will levitate bitches on my cock. I wonder how cartoon those bitches would've been had I thought of it.
So I crumbled outside my block through the balcony and I just did a spiderman descent on the wall, like a bug, ya know. I started flying around and there were cartoon cars and people and all kinds of vivid world. It was 100% vivid and real for me, I was living in it, amazing! The cartoon people looked a bit like Fandango but not really skulls, just sort of like them. One was hit by a car and I laughed I think. I was having lots of fun just flying around and I entered a building. In this building I saw many superheroes fighting with eachother and flying. I remember Batman and Spiderman very well. It was like a big empty tower full of floors and I remember experimenting with my superpowers. First, I received a few hits by someone and he was doing something to my foot. I think it was Batman or someone looking like him but it wasn't very pleasant. So I was like "now it's my turn". I saw Spiderman standing on a floor and someone told me to drop him, I think it was Batman, so I did it - I made a hole in the floor and Spiderman dropped on the next floor lol. I heard big laughter. Then, I went on the lower floor where Spiderman was again sitting so I decided to just make a small hole big enough to make his body a bit uncomfortable but not really leading to the lower floor. I did it with my mind powers and it instantly made the hole and I remember Spiderman just looking at me like "WTF, man?!?" It was a hilarious moment.
I experimented a bit more with my powers and flying and I remembered that I needed to remember this astral projection (not realising that it wasn't AP) so I began using a technique in AP to think of my body and repeat my success saying "I astral projected" many times. This is done so that you don't fall asleep after reentering your body and forget everything. It would be a pity. So, suddenly I reentered my body and I woke up. The first thing I did was to go tell my mom about it. She was in the kitchen with a few friends of mine cooking something. I waited for her to stop talking but it never happened, they just kept on talking forever. The next thing I know - I woke up for real. I was like "Holy SHIT, what did just happen?!?!? I wrote everything down on a piece of paper and couldn't believe what I just experienced. Then I started analysing why it was cartoon and chills went down my spine when I remembered this clip:
The only difference was that the cartoon wasn't fluid-like, but it was exactly the type of cartoon as in the clip. My face was the same type of cartoon but other people's faces on the streets were more like a mixture between Grim Fandango and South Park (the canadians in SP). Unfortunately, I was a ginger cartoon boy in my dream even though I am nothing like ginger at all in real life. I looked like this http://i.imgur.com/n6sp6.jpg but with a different hairstyle and had a few freckles. My grandmother has a doll that is 100% like my cartoon-self lol.
The interesting thing is that I am making my own product (like the one on the clip). I've been taking it for like a week straight and I already had a failed attempt of AP two mornings ago when I moved with my astral body but did not exit my physical body and now this crazy motherfucking cartoon lucid dream. I had never had a more lucid, in control and vivid dream in my whole life. It's 8:53AM here and I haven't slept much but I am pumped, this shit was intense and crazy. Damn, I should've fucked a few cartoon characters but whatever, Fandango bitches weren't really my type. I've read a few blogs on here on lucid dreaming and I will search for them to see similarities but guys, please, tell me if you have experienced anything like this - a cartoon lucid dream. I am gonna shit some bricks now. Bye.
My apartment is a mess again, so I spent 2 hours cleaning it up. Like the common stuff, vacuming, kitchen, bathroom, clothes n stuff. And now all that remains is cleaning up my sticky notes, but I can't force myself to throw them away, so doing that trick I do from time to time. I go through them, and I toss all the stupid ones, and I put the cool ones over here in my blog.
- It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.
- Timing, right when something positive happens is the time when it's most awesome to say it, affirm it, compliment it. Makes you link positive patterns to when it's occuring.
And when we do poorly, take it up afterwards, then go through idea, tips and tricks to fix.
- Reward yourself every day, lots of short term goals. Reward yourself each time you take action instead of worrying.
"what you link pain to and what you link pleasure to shapes your destinty."
"A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary."
"There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion."
"Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings."
"Men live by intervals of reason under the sovereignty of humor and passion."
"It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean."
"Under all that we think, lives all we believe, like the ultimate veil of our spirits."
"All perception of truth is the detection of an anology."
"Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention is the supreme master of art, as of life."
"The belief that becomes truth for me.... Is that which allows me the best use of my strength, the best means of putting my virtues intoaction."
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
The 4 most important things to look for in a partner + Show Spoiler +
What they say, they do.
INTEGRITYis paramount. It is linked to self worth within that individual and it builds trust. Someone who isn’t integral is more likely to be dishonest or to never follow through on their commitments.
Smart
This could range from someone who has an excellent education or is smart in other ways of life. Ultimately it comes down to being with someone who challenges you and pushes you to be better.
Love
A strong emotional connection is an important factor in building a sustainable relationship. You must be able to connect with your partner on an internal level for it to with-stand time. This is why they say best friends tend to make great partnerships as they have a strong foundation on an emotional level. Love can be defined in so many ways and only you can really determine what it feels like or looks like in a partnership.
Physical connection
Aside from having a strong emotional connection it is also paramount that you have a strong physical attraction. This is then broken down into two conditions. The external image isn’t everything but being physically attracted to your partner is very important long-term.
(i) Good Physical Condition: Not only for sex appeal or “eye candy” but because someone who is in physically good condition can perform better sexually. In general someone who is in good physical shape has better stamina and hygiene.
(ii) “Make Good Sex”: What he means here is learn what the other needs sexually in order for them to have maximum satisfaction. If your partner isn’t getting what they need sexually then they will likely look outside of the relationship in order to find it.
- will unconciously distance themself (distance language, like that woman).
- Much more to it than speech, we all chatter with our fingertips.
- Body language slips (throw assumptions away).
- Liars look a little too much in their eye.
- Eyes can't conciously smile.
Honest people will be on your side, cooperative, brain storm, provide details, infuriated through the entire course if honest, and when asking for punishment, they'll say strict rather than lenient.
While a deceptive person may be more withdrawn, look down, herky derky, lower voice, pause, pepper with way to much details in all kinds of irrelevant places.
Then go at it in chronological order, ask them to tell their story backwards, we rehearse our words, but we rarely rehearse our gestures, (just words)
Dupe delight:
(make one expression well masking another that leaks through in a flash)
Expression of contempt <--- when anger turns to that, you've been dismissed, very hard to recover from,
one lip up and in.
More indicatiors:
shift their blink rate, feet towards an exit, barrier objects between, alter vocal tone, often lower. Not proof, just redlights, don't mean any of themself, but when you see clusters of them, look probe, ask questions.
Have a little dignity, don't be too aggressive, it doesn't work.
The most common wishes from people on their deathbed + Show Spoiler +
Wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
Wish I didn't work so hard.
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
going to be in vegas for a few days, looking for food recommendations. mostly looking for places that are like <$30/person but if you feel strongly about some place that's a little over that go ahead and tell me. i like pretty much all kinds of food.
right now all i know is that i'm going to Bouchon just to try the chicken and waffles everyone raves about. i'm sure i'll go to chinatown at some point so any suggestions for there would be great. i've heard lots of great things about lotus of siam but also some mixed reviews and i think it's a bit out of the way?
Keeping a blog can't be a bad idea, though I feel like one of those "DeadJournal" or "LiveJournal" kids from when I was in middle school... lol.
Anyways, this being the first entry and all, I suppose this should have a little background tied to it. Back when I used to play on PokerStars (I say used to because I live in America), I was never a winning player... Binked a tourney for 5k here, 6months later bink for 2.6k there, you know... something "life-changing" (for a broke college kid). But me being the broke college kid I was, naturally I was immature and blew all my winnings.. Yada Yada, you know how the story goes.
Fast-Forward to late November 2011. I start to get "the itch" again. I hadn't played since Black Friday, and was wondering how things were going to shake out with the poker scene in America. After reading some an extensive Q and A on 2+2 by Dwan (big thanks btw, he didn't have to do that), I started to get a better grip on where things were going and began to see how this was all going to pan out.
Fast-Forward a little further to late December 2011. I finally threw down a deposit on Carbon poker... Started playing around, trying to bump up big from $100 on 50PLO-HU. A pretty great idea obviously... Needless to say, I went busto time and time again after like 4-5 redeposits.... STANDARD.
Until one day I made a forum post here and ABSOLUTELY got my asshole handed to me by JohnnyCosMo... He incepted the shit out of me better than Leo ever could (or that little mousey girl either btw). He prattled on about "being honest with yourself" and "how he used to be in my position years ago" wtc... and it didn't really hit me at first, but I remember reading it over and over again.
It finally resonated. I checked my ego at the door and decided I was a fish, plain and simple. I knew a lot about poker, but compared to others I really only knew a little more than the basics.
Where to go from here? I guess since I just burnt through $400, I could definitely see myself doing it again. So I counted that additional $400 as a sunk cost and decided to get lessons.
But for what area of my game? SnGs? Boring... Cash? Meh... MTTs? I did have some success there. They ARE very exciting when you run deep... Ok so MTTs it is!
Finally some direction, some positive energy and a great attitude. A willingness to give my money to someone in exchange for their poker prowess. That itself, as a poker player, is a pretty humbling experience. It is almost like admitting, "I need help." It's a pretty big step.
So I hopped on pocket5's coaching section and did some research, read some reviews, and looked at what I could afford... BOOM! BRANDON SHANE (ShaneTrain22) was the CLEAR standout pick. Soon I'd realize this was LITERALLY the best coach I could have picked (given all determining factors). I'll plug him more at the end, but back to my story, lol.
Coaching went great. Now it was time to hit the tables as a professional. And when I say professional I don't mean someone who is a poker pro (obv), I mean someone who is approaching the game from the standpoint of a professional. Taking the game seriously, respecting broll management, staying disciplined. etc... having a professional attitude. All the key factors that made Pro players what they are today.
INSTANT SUCCESS! How good does that feel?! Oh you like that?! Talk dirty to me poker! lol... seriously though, final table after final table, top 3 after top 3, win after win. It was like the flood gates opened and I finally realized how this thing is supposed to be done. GRINDING the micros, NOT getting out of line with my broll, NOT tilting. Letting my SKILL govern my success.
I hit $1K profit last night after starting with $100 at the beginning of FEB 2012 (And if I'm being honest I had a -$200 degen relapse at PLO, but I think that was a good thing cause it convinced me to never try it again. Helped me see my path clearer if that makes any sense).
Those interested can find him at premierpokercoaching.com ... If you buy a lesson with him and mention me, TampaBayManning, he said he'd give me a free hour so... Please and thank you! Here was the review I wrote for him on P5s...
Brandon really is a great coach. Instead of handing down mandates from the poker heavens on what is right or wrong, he has an intelligent and respectful conversation with you. He helps you realize WHY a certain line of thinking is better than another, and HOW to get the most VALUE for any given situation. He is very invested in his students' successes. VERY DOWN TO EARTH. Cool dude. I can't give him enough credit for straightening me out.
Thanks for reading, all. Hopefully I'll be doing this once a month. Lata!
here is my last 86k hands at 6max 50nl...feel like ive been playing ok but not really improving all that much.
im curious as to why my redline is decreasing at such a rate and want to investigate this further.
how would i go about this in pt3? maybe im playing too many hands OOP or not being aggressive enough on later streets.
I know alot of people say redline is meaningless but im thinking i might not be playing 'tough' enough.
Random thought: The only way for dominant species to exist is to have intelligence. Otherwise they will overmultiply, consume everything and die out. There is no other way. Like a virus that kills its host also dies. So we have a chance. We can come up with ways to be sustainable, farming and shit. GLHF.
So these are obviously dominant asses. They probably dominate many mens' minds. Hopefully they will never die out ^^.
Pokerwise i didnt play very much at all, im still at 1k, really bored with NL, probably played like less than 2k hands in feb. Trying some PLOL without hem or any software. Probably better to improve in the long run anwyay. Been playing heaps League of legends. Jax ftw.
by the way my touchapd went back to work normal just by itself. Aliens imo
PokerStars Hand #76558671620: Tournament #526231126, $58.74+$1.26 USD Holdem No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (10/20) - 2012/03/03 4:30:01 BRT [2012/03/03 2:30:01 ET]
Table 526231126 1 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Hero (500 in chips)
Seat 2: Fociuuu (500 in chips)
Hero: posts small blind 10
Fociuuu: posts big blind 20
Holecards(Odds) Dealt to Hero
Hero: raises 20 to 40
Fociuuu: calls 20
Fociuuu: checks
Hero: bets 25
Fociuuu: raises 235 to 260 and is all-in
Hero: calls 235 and is all-in
Showdown Fociuuu: shows (two pair, Nines and Fives)
Hero: shows (two pair, Nines and Fives - King kicker)
Hero collected 1000 from pot
Fociuuu finished the tournament in 2nd place
Hero wins the tournament and receives $117.48 - congratulations!
Summary Total pot 1000 | Rake 0
Board
Seat 1: Hero (button) (small blind) showed and won (1000) with two pair, Nines and Fives
Seat 2: Fociuuu (big blind) showed and lost with two pair, Nines and Fives
Even thought you guys seems to be ignoring my blog since i've started talking about game programming instead of girls, i'll post anyways.
I just programmed a pong game, but whats interesting about it is, i programmed 2 AIs for the computers.
The first one, called "Basic" just follows the ball around. Super effective while its as fast as the ball, but quickly gets useless.
The second one, called "Perfect", right after hitting the ball instantly calculate where the next ball will be, and goes there and wait.
needless to say the second AI is very difficult to beat.
The game allows you to customize your game. Right now you have the following options:
Ennemy size and AI
Ally size and AI (yes you can have a computer to help you)
Your size
Helping walls size (you can have small walls in the back. they doesnt move but they can be usefull)
Even by giving myself a super big handicap (i get helping walls, a basic ally with 150 size, myself with 100 size, ennemy with just 30 size with 0 help), the AI is still near unbeatable.
Even thought this game isn't the most fun thing ever, i am happy i programmed a perfect AI for a "real time" game. Next i might try to make some sort of 2d shooting game (maybe tanks or something). Any idea is welcome.
Note: Beginning screens offer you the options. The default option is good and shows how good the perfect AI is. If you want to mess around with it do it, but don't do stupid things such as entering letters, or negative values, or stupidly high values (the screen is 350 wide, so no need to put anything bigger than 350) things like that will make the program crash (no big deal, it will just tell you there was an error and it close, i tested it )
However you can put "0" in an option if you want to remove it.
As I'm sure a few of you are aware I recently posted a rather embarrassing whine blog, my apologies to those it annoyed. It was a moment of frustration borne out of losing a significant portion of my roll through short-term EV. Many will simply state you shouldn't play with a short roll in PLO but I've firmly come to believe that escaping the rake trap is far more important than prolonging ones stay at low stakes with rigid BR management.
So here's the simple storyline. I've had 1k trapped on FTP for ages, the vast majority of my online roll. I've also had 150 on Pokerstars just sitting there untouched since Black Friday happened. I've always wanted to return to poker but for whatever reason made excuses not to. I had trouble committing real time to working on my game and had always been just a casual grinder. That much is self-evident in my 175k hands played over the last 4-5 years. I played 20k hands in February in addition to my full-time job. I started by 1-tabling at PLO50 and eventually I was 8-10 tabling with around 1750 in my roll. I was running about even on EV until short-term variance struck. I ran very cold for an extended streak of 3-bet pots and all-in pots. Anyone who plays PLO is bound to know when you start getting badly out-flopped after 3-betting 20% of your stack it's trouble. The variance hit hard and my roll is down to a pithy 350. Some will ask, why didn't you just move down? Well I've always considered my bankroll to the combined amount from my FTP frozen funds and what's left on Pokerstars. Similar to how players on multiple sites think of their bankroll as one unit rather than small chunks.
I mostly believe my mistake was allowing myself to play more than 2-4 tables before escaping the rake trap. All I did was encourage variance to slap me in the face and reduce my edge in the games. This was utter foolishness and for the most part I got what I deserved for my over-aggressive attempt.
What I'm looking to do now is to consolidate my bankroll. I'm looking to gain early access to my 1k stuck on FTP by having someone transfer me 1k on stars. I have a long posting history and no blemishes on my LP record. There are players from this site who know me in real life who can vouch for me if need be. If FTP does not eventually pay me the 1k to forward to whoever helps me out I will simply pay the 1k myself. If anyone is willing to help me out with this please PM me immediately.
Contact Users: 765 Active, 0 Logged in - Time: 13:06
Taking 4 courses, mostly via the web, but it's going quite well. My English class in particular is going very well.
(two pair, Nines and Fives)
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