Weekly update - April 9th

Lets see - I used the $1330 from last Thursdays win to take a shot at a bigger tournament at the weekend - the 200k prizepool $75k first place guarantee Hustler main event. I played on Day 1c and Day 1d without any success.

It was frustrating to say the least because on Day 1c in particular I chipped up nicely and played great for 5 hours or so, then went card-dead for about 2.5 more hours. Finally I got KJ and a flop giving me straight and flush draws and a short stack pushed all in so I gambled and lost. Now I was short but the very next hand I got AA and pushed all in. I was called by Q9 suited who rivered a flush.....nice one!! Game over!!

I played a mid-day tournament at The Bike on Tuesday and finished 19th out of 100 (they pay 18 but had also decided to pay the bubble boy). When the agreement was made I had plenty of chips but playing aggressively was my downfall as I finally went out with pocket 3s.

I also played Oceans11 tournament (morning and evening) on Weds but had no luck and was busto in them both.

Finally this week I played a whole bunch of cash at Hustler, Hawaiian Gardens, The Bike and Oceans 11 with mixed results. Sessions were:

Hustler 8/16 - win $400

Hustler nl50 - win $135

Hustler nr50 - win $23

Hustler 3/6 - lose $20

Hustler 8/16 - lose $320

HG nl40 - win $120

TheBike nl40 - lose $40

Oceans nl40 - lose $200

Oceans 3/6 - win $60

Oceans 4/8 - lose $200

Yes it was a brutal session at Oceans on Weds - I lost the morning tournament, played NL and lost a bunch of cash, played the evening tournament and lost again, and played some limit and apart from a small win on 3/6, lost a bunch more when that table closed and I was moved to 4/8.

So I pretty much spent all my winnings from last week but am not too disappointed as I got to take a shot at a much bigger tournament than I normally play.

Not too much else happening - I played a little online yesterday alternating between Rush Poker PLO and Limit NL for very small stakes. I win a bit, lose a bit, win a bit, lose a bit.

Name dropping

So I don't normally name drop but reading through my last post, I mentioned TIMEX and then I realised - maybe someone reading my blog has no clue who he is. So here's the names of some players I have some attachment to:

1. Timex - aka Mike McDonald - here's a young guy (prob 21 now) who I first saw play in the Aussie Millions a couple of years back. He came 2nd in a side event I came 33rd in. He looked about 14 years old and had braces. I was railing atimos (see below) who was the young guy who knocked me out of the tourney - another guy railing was called bond18 (see below) and he gave me some history on this young poker wonderkid. Supposedly this 18yr old (timex) had won a bundle in online poker and was a real star - he was now staking a bunch of other young pros. I watched him come 2nd in this event, then enter the 100k high-roller event and lose, then ON THE SAME DAY enter another event and win it banking 67k (but still a net loser on the day!!). Since then I have loosely followed timex online - he seems to do pretty good. Certainly the online community seem to love him and he staked bond18 for a while.

2. Atimos (or atimAs??) - aka Yevgeniy Timoshenko - another wonder guy. I playing on the same table as him for about 8 hours in the Aussie Millions and chatted for a while. He seemed like a nice enough guy but I had no clue who he was. I was winning a bunch of chips off him tho....until we had 51 players left and 50 got paid. Yev then went all-in about 9 of the next 14 hands and amassed loads of chips as everyone folded. He had no fear whatsoever. Eventually I took him on from the button with A-10s - he was in the BB with KK...oops! I was out in 33rd. Later I railed him on the final table - he eventually went out in 6th place but was still playing super-aggressive. I was talking to a guy called bond18 on the rail and he told me all about Yev. He told me he thought he was the best player there (even better than timex) - told me he was Atimos on pocket 5;s and a bit of an online legend already (he was only about 20 yrs old!!). Anyways I have followed his career ever since and he won over $4m in 2009....so I guess yeah...hes pretty damn good!

3. bond18 - aka Tony Dunst - I also met Tony at the Aussie millions and chatted to him on the rail of the final table. I had noticed him earlier int he day chatting to Atimos and other young players and Tony was also reasonably deep in the tourney. He stood out because he was dressed in a suit and looked quite slick - and everyone was calling him Bond so I assume he was modelling himself on James Bond. When I chatted to him he was really nice and seemed to know everyone. He told me a little about Timex and Atimos who were playing the final table. As he knew everyone and was a nice guy and also published a blug I have followed his career. It seems he was staked for a while by Timex and heavily in makeup but finally won a decent sized event to pay it back. His blog talks about dating, women, poker players and his exploits travelling the world and is both entertaining and somewhat educational (poker-wise). I've met Tony a couple of times at events around the world and he always says hi but does not really remember who I am. Of course, I know him a little better because of his blog.

4. SNG-Nick aka Rainman aka Nick Rainey - so I've never met this guy and some people on the forums think he is an egotistical a-hole. I don't agree. I've followed him online where he is VERY successful at Sit NGo tournaments and has proved beyond doubt this is no fluke. He has also published a few videos and for a while was a coach at pokerVT.com. He used to play as Stinko_Mikko on Full Tilt and currently plays as MI_Turtle on pokerstars. His website details his current results and also his training of a bunch of online players who want to be as successful as he is. His training method is pretty smart - he stakes each player for $200 and helps them grow it, then takes 50% of any profits for a period of time. I think this shows he is a smart business person as hos downside is $200 and his upside is massive. Some of his students have made $10k in 3 months..!!!!

There are more players which I will talk about in a later post.

Re other resources, I like to read certain blogs including Luke Kim, poker Dave, BonusGrinder, Hammer Players poker and also the exploits of certain pro players including Daniel Negraneus blog and Phil Helmuths Twitter videos.

Theres plenty more blogs I follow - Pokernews, Cardplayer, Bluff, Tao of Poker, Pokerati etc. I could write about these all night so I will save them for another post. I will also save the poker podcasts I listen to for another post.

Emotional control

So I just read Timex's blog where he is thinking about quitting poker. Its interesting because:

1. poker is emotional game - when you are winning you are invincible, when you are losing you feel terrible and doubt how good you are and sometimes if you should be even playing at the level you are playing.

2. the online poker grind is hard work - people who travel to work, work 8 hours then come home in crap traffic must laugh at this concept that its hard to stay home and work on the PC for 11-12 hours multi-tabling 8-12 tables of online poker, but it IS mentally exhausting. And you have to put in the volume to overcome the variance in the game.

3. the live poker grind is also hard work - if you travel for business you know its initially fun but gets old very quickly. Imagine you are doing the poker tournament circuit (WSOP, WPT, EPT etc.) travelling 9 or 10 months of the year constantly upping and moving to new hotels, living out the suitcase, arranging all your own flights and hotel bookings, dealing with large money transfers in different countries/currencies to buy in to events, not knowing if you will last 1 day or 7 days etc. Initially this is fun, but very quickly it becomes hard work....

4. poker is a loners game - especially if you are at home grinding online for 10-12 hours each day. When do you see people and chit-chat like you would in a normal job? Although you may have online friends and instant message/texting conversations most of the time you are working at home alone. Or travelling alone. Maybe you can travel with some poker friends some of the time but often you are alone in your hotel room or at home playing online. If you are not comfortable with your own company you will struggle playing poker.

5. poker is socially isolating. Although you can mix with other poker players 90% of people do not understand the game and probably see you as a degenerate gambler. They cannot really discuss it at a level where it makes sense to them. Often weekend events with friends can clash with the Sunday grind for the big online poker tournaments. Also your weekend talk becomes quite boring - "Whats new with you? Errr, just playing poker, same as last week, at home on my computer, same as last week, grinding, same as last week...." Quite boring!!

I think Timex is somewhat sensible to recognize he needs other choices in his life outside of poker. Even though you can earn crazy amounts of money playing poker, money is not everything. An old saying comes to minds - do everything in moderation. I think a lot of poker players play way too much and do not have time for other things.

My final point is poker is a hard game to play and stay in a relationship. I am lucky to have a very understanding wife but I think a LOT of poker players are single or in very flexible relationships (as in I might make the date or I might not depending on how I do in the tournament). An example - I was out last night playing a tournament and did not get home to early hours of the morning. If I did this 3 or 4 nights a week...I think the wife would get rid of me. While I was at the casino a chap was playing cash games. His girlfriend was sitting behind him - suggesting quite strongly that it was time to leave...he wanted to play just a few more hands....I see this again and again - how many of those girlfriends are going to stick around?

Weekly Updates - April 2nd, 2010

No blog update last week so I guess I will cover 2 weeks here. I did not play a huge amount of live poker but what I did play is shown below.

Weds 24th - normally I play at Oceans11 but I decided to watch soccer instead - possibly the only thing that stops me playing poker is watching my home team or country playing soccer on the TV.

Thurs 25th - played Hawaiian Gardens evening bounty tournament. Had a bad night - lost the tournament, lost a shootout 3 table sng type tournament right after, then played most of the night and lost $100 despite being up $350 at one point.

Weds 30th - again I did not play at Oceans11. Getting lazy....

Thurs 1st - played Hawaiian Gardens evening bounty tournament. Finally cracked it and won the tournament (actually 5 way chop based on chip count and I had the most chips (183k). Second place had just over 100k chips so I won $1330 for my $75 investment).

Thats it. I will try to play a bit more over the next week.