So july was pretty good, was a good grind, quite a lot of hands for me and had some good fun. Missing america, but got fiji in a couple days to relax with the girlfriend. Work's great, poker's great, girlfriend's great. Love it. Anyway here's results.

Not really any interesting hands, all pretty standard.
July - $1584


August - $218 Edit after this afternoon's run good, $364


Fun hand, didn't put the donk bet on JJ, but guy calling behind me, seemed quite polarized. Wasn't sure what to put him on so just wanted to get the money in and if he had JJ i would pat the table and say nice hand.
http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertool...719571/replay/

How the the fuck are things leggo? That is what I want to know. It's been a while since my last blog, it's been a while since I've posted much on leggo anol, seems as if the forums are slowing up a considerable amount which is sad, seems as if people are reluctant to post advice as much as they would a few years ago which I suppose is natural considering the games are getting harder and all that. I'm not really sure what the future of leggo is with the Ivey League thing going down, hopefully I can keep my blog because I quite enjoy writing down some random thoughts in here once in a while. I can guarantee that I will always cherish and wear my leggo hoody with pride as it reminds me of a younger version of myself who had a good amount of money for a young man and clearly did not give a fuck about what he did with it, which accumulated in some extremely turbulent circumstances which I can now look back at and laugh.

I recently graduated from uni with a 2:2 bachelors degree in statistics with honours which is a decent degree, definitely nothing special, but fuck it, I never really cared the first few years and if I'm honest I was lucky to end up with anything since I was such a wreckin baw of a man.

In poker news, about a year ago I wrote a blog when I came back from my first trip to vegas talking about how it was such an eye opener and that I wanted to be playing high stakes by now and make my living from playing cards. I realise that for a predominately 50nl grinder that was and extremely ambitious target, but I said to myself that if by the time I left uni, if I was playing 100nl and had a decent roll and some money in the bank then I would give poker a real shot for at least a year whilst I figured my shit out, and you will all be happy to hear that I managed to achieve that. Between January and May I was playing 100-400nl on lock and grinded out a decent bank roll with a little but to spare, but as many of you may know it's pretty fuckin hard to get your money out these days which has slowed things down.

Telling my parents that I would not be applying for jobs as I was determined to peruse a career in poker was not that easy. My dad took it well, he seemed pretty cool about it and even offered to give me money so that I could keep most of my funds online and wouldn't have to withdraw which is pretty much as good as I could have hoped for. My mum on the other hand looked at me as if I had just shat in her kettle, she was not impressed and has continued to make it hard for me to feel good about my decision. She recently told me I would be required to pay digs now that I've left uni, I asked how much and she replied £200 per month lol I can guarantee that I will no be paying that. I rejected her offer and made a counter offer of £60 per month which would include her putting sky sports onto the sky package and that the £60 would include payments towards me being put on the insurance of her car as I have my driving test on the 25th of September. I'm hoping to do some travelling so buying a car seems unoptimal at the moment.

Anyway, my results haven't really been great recently. I've lost small since I left uni, and today I lost ten buy ins at the 100nl which got me thinking that maybe I can't do this, maybe I'm just not good enough. I am a 50nl soul crusher and have been for the last four or five years, but I have always struggled to make the next step. Ironically I have a really good win rate at 200 and 400nl over a small sample, but unfortunately over about 100k hands at 100nl I am a considerable looser. In fact if I remove 100nl from my lifetime results I would actually have made quite a substantial amount of money.

Which brings me to my main point. Whenever I have a losing session I normally go a walk, or sit my arsehole on the couch and stick on some kind of comedy programme or movie. Tonights movie of choice was The Watch which I found to be very funny, prob a 7/10 and I would recommend it. So I finish the movie and I think to myself "rite, what the fuck am I going to do now? what am I doing with my life? am I kidding myself on? can I really do this?". I go for a piss, come back and stick on BBC news and some report was on about China, something about Chinas economy of something, I wasn't really paying attention, but they interviewed this student just out of uni and he said, and I quote "people in China are now starting to follow their dreams, all they need is the courage to make the first step, once they get past that the possibilities are endless" which obviously got me thinking about my own situation. The reporter than wrapped the story up by saying something like "The people of China are calling this the Chinese Dream".

So inspired by the great people of China I say to you, that I have a dream. I dream of a world where I am self sufficient, make my own money, make lots of it, answer to know one, see the world, and do it all with complete control of my life. Fortunately for me I am in a position where I can take some risks, I've also found a passion in my life which ticks all the boxes and I am going to work as hard as I can in order to follow my dream. Haters gone hate, fuck the world, The Shuvners on tour!

Peace out!

Okay guys,

Nothing too fancy for this blog entry. I'm just going to use it to keep track of my FTOPS results this series.

Event 1- 1 Bullet used. Cashed 385.33.
Event 2- 1 Bullet Used. No cash.

Event 1 I busted shoving 8s from somewhere in MP with 5.5 BBs and lost to the button's A3s call.

Event 2 I bluffshoved a river BvB and was insta snapped by 2p so c'est la vie.

Obviously not a spectacular weekend by any stretch of the imagination but at the same time it could have been a lot worse.

Will update next weekend after those events.

I'm trying to sell my Herman Miller CN122 used for two years accepting offers. Any questions or offers msg me them plz.

If you share this status and find me a buyer at a reasonable cost I will give you $50 cash/paypal/check whatever.

http://www.hermanmiller.com/content/...0_embody_1.jpg

If you need pix of chair let me know and ill email them.

I'm not sure if I've posted this song yet, but the whole album "Intense" is really good. Armin Van Buren-This is What it Feels Like

It's pretty easy to say but hard to do, balance is really everything for me. I feel I've achieved it the last couple weeks and feel extremely good and motivated to do things. It's easy to slip off one way, and get too lazy, or work too hard to the point where everything else suffers (health, relationships etc). I was for sure on the hard work side of it recently, and I almost think it's worse than being on the lazy side of it (where I normally end up). I guess it's different if you enjoy the work you're doing, but for me I was having a rough go as I've mentioned in previous blogs.

I'm fairly certain I will make a return to poker on a more serious level soon. My life feels kind of blah without it. I used to be able to fill it with friends and other things, but I don't have too many "good" friends in the area... at least none that are available frequently. I think the key, once again, will be balance. If I get too wrapped up in poker to the point where it's all I can think about, then I will probably feel miserable again like I did toward the end of my playing days.



Right now my internet is even more horrible than normal (keeps d/c and tested at .18mb/s), so I have just been watching some old Leggo favorites.... right now going through Steel108 who was my first and only coach. I was reminiscing about that group and remember learning a ton, and crushing everyone after that. The 3-4 months during/after that were by far the peak of my career (so far).

Now I think about how far I've fallen. I have trouble answering hands in the forums, because I just have no idea what to do most of the time. For the first time in a while though, I have a hunger to learn again. A big reason I never got back into the game, was I felt like I had to relearn everything, and I knew how hard I worked the first time around. However, I feel like I have a much better grasp on how to think and approach the game this time around.

It will be a slow process for sure, but I'm hoping to relive my old life. A life where I worked, and then came home and won monies at the tables. Eventually I would like to not work again and have another go at poker for a living, but that is pretty far in the future, and I might have a job I actually don't hate at that point.

So my main focus going forward, will be school, poker, and work. I don't have much interest in making time for my friends around here anymore. If they want to hang out that's fine once in a while for balance purposes, but l'm not going to plan a bunch of things and have no one show up or want to do something else (which almost always happens). I'm trying not to put down my local friends, they are fine people, but as I've probably said before, I don't have much in common with them anymore.

It's possible I have a change of heart about all of this, but I've been thinking about it for a while. I could probably make this blog 4x as long explaining more stuff, but it may sound like rambling and there are some things I'd just rather leave out anyway. It will depend on how much time school takes though, because I'd like to make that a priority for the first two semesters.

It started out just like most other Saturday's for a mid stakes reg. Grind online and slowly work your way towards a profit before punting it off with T high vs Q high to some random dolt who probably has his roll on the table. (notice the preflop action...)

(See hand history below)

http://weaktight.com/6016221

Somehow despite being called my T and 9 were both pretty live unfortunately it bricked off and Q high was good in a cold called cold 4b pot for 1100. You know... as it tends to be.

That and a few coolers convinced me that sitting behind my computer slugging it out with other competent players was not what I needed today. What I needed was some good old fashioned live poker where people truly do play like "they're just chips".

Traffic was good on the 401 and by 6:30 I had arrived at fallsview casino with $2500 in hand ready for what would hopefully be a fun and profitable evening at 5/10.

I will cover some of the medium/large pots I was a part of in chronological order.

Hand 1: UTG limps, CO limps, I make it 55 on the button with AhKh. Sb calls 50. UTG folds, co calls.

Flop: Qd Jh 8d. (180)

Sb checks, CO checks, hero checks.

Turn: 6c

Sb checks, CO checks, hero checks.


River: Ks

Sb checks, CO checks, hero bets 85. Sb folds, CO raises to 335. Hero calls 250.

Hero shows AhKh, CO shows 5s5d and mucks.


So the first hand has 2 interesting decisions in it. First is whether or not to cbet the flop. Given I had just sat down at the table I felt I wasn't a) going to get a lot of credit being some young kid b) didn't have a good grasp of the COs overlimping range. (For those of you who play live you know some guys overlimp baby pairs, suited connectors and suited aces only while others also choose to over limp hands like KQ/KJ/QJ etc...

Also given the fact that I had a backdoor flushdraw and a nut gutter (and I can make them fold small pairs later) I elected to check.

On the river I'm like 99% certain I'm winning as live players are especially hesitant to let free cards come off with decent made hands on extremely wet boards so I think anything reasonable gets bet on the turn (along with most things which improve on the K to hands that beat me). Given they most likely have almost nothing I bet ~ half pot to try and induce either a) a hero call b) some spew.

Thankfully the latter happened and I made a relatively easy bet call and was good.


Hand 2: Hero opens UTG to 30 with 6c6h. 6 calls and 1 fold (lol).

Flop: (210) 3d6hJc.

Sb checks, BB checks, Hero bets 135, 2 folds, CO calls 135, 3 folds.

Turn: (480) Qs.

Hero bets 335. CO calls.

River: (1150) 8d.
Hero bets 785, CO raises to 1380 and is all in. Hero calls.

So, everything seems pretty standard up until the river shove. Nothing more complicated than raise speculative hand--> smash board--> take random 55 year old asian dude in chicago bears cap to value town.

By the time he shoves the river it's pretty fucking gross. I don't really expect him to be bluffing here like ever and I'm not sure if he can shove worse for value (possibly 3s or QJ).

I had a really sick feeling I was completely screwed but at the end of the day needing to call off only another 600 to win ~4k I can't really see how I can ever fold.

Villain showed 9cTc and I mucked.



At this point I had ~900 on the table (thanks to some smaller uninteresting pots that didn't make this blog) and had to reload my last 500 on (max buy in is 2k).


Hand 3:
Hero raises UTG to 30 with JsJd. 2 folds. MP raises to 110, 5 folds. Hero calls 80.

Flop: Ac7d7h (235)
Hero checks, MP checks.

Turn: Th. (235).
Hero checks, Mp bets 135. Hero folds.


So preflop I can't see any merit to getting in 1600 pre with JJ vs a nitty ish guy but I cant also really fold since worst case scenario I can straight up set mine.

Flop is straightfoward.

Turn feels kinda nitty just check folding but I don't think this guy is sophisticated enough to take this line as a bluff so I'm just always beat here. Whether or not he has AA or KK/QQ/Ax is a different question but given that I have little equity, don't understand his range very well and am unsure I can get him to fold QQ/KK or Ax just giving up/ trying to showdown the winner seems best.


Hand 4:
Hero raises AhKs UTG to 30. Villain (from hand 3) raises to 110. 5 folds, Hero calls 80.

Flop: 8d5c2s (235).
Hero checks, villain bets 135, Hero calls 135.

Turn: 3s (505)
Hero checks, villain bets 315. Hero calls 315.

River 4s. (1135)
Hero checks, Villain bets 465, Hero calls 465.

So preflop, the same logic applies as in the JJ hand though at this point I'm a little suspicious this guy's range isn't as nitty as most people's (read: QQ+/AK or KK+).

Flop seems like a mandatory check call. I can possibly be winning vs this guy and I need to protect my range on A/K turns.

Turn gets a little dicey but I felt like there was an okay chance I was still winning and I have reasonably equity vs most hands if behind.

River I obviously can't fold. Raising seems meh but not ideal. It's not impossible for him to have some backdoor spades or a random 6. I also think it's nearly impossible to assume he's going to call worse (though given he's a live player it's definitely not impossible). Seems like the best play is to call.

I actually ended up sucking out huge vs AA which makes me feel better about my play in the previous hand. Still a little unsure about this hand. Pre seems good and flop seems fine as well. Turn is probably a fold but I don't hate my call given the information I was working with at the time.

Hand 5: Hero raises MP with Ah7h to 30$, sb raises to 130$ (really really fast). Hero calls 100$.

So, sb had just sat a few hands ago, bought in for 2k and won two medium sized pots so he had ~3k in front of him and I had chipped my way back up to 2250 at this point so I think peeling a suited ace and playing smartly postflop deep and IP is the way to go here even though I'm almost certainly up against a damn strong range.

Flop: (290) 8h9s6d.
Villain bets 240, Hero calls.

I didn't feel like raising accomplished anything here. There's no way in hell I get him to fold any of his overpairs and he's going to check fold AK on all but 5 turns if he even has it in his preflop range and cbets it. Obviously cant fold an open ender and an overcard though.

Turn (570): 5s.

Villain bets 535. Hero calls 535.

His turn bet perplexed me a little to be quite honest. Generally I expect live players to be terrified of that card as I think they sort of understand that my range contains infinitely more 7x combos than their range, along with sets 2p etc. It made me think he either a) also had a 7 somehow (in which case my turn action doesn't matter since we're chopping) b) he had nothing (I should call and let him spew it off) c) he had an overpair and just lacked any sort of sophisticated thought process (I should probably call and keep him unaware).

I think the most likely case is either b or c. I think some arguement could be made for raising turn if you think its c) since he's likely to call it off anyway but given it could potentially have been b) and there's no need to set off alarm bells in his head with a turn raise, river shove I think calling is clearly best.

River (1600) 9s.
Villain bets 465. Hero raises all in. Villain calls.

So this river is obviously far from ideal because a) it's no longer impossible for me to be beat but more importantly b) it's likely to scare him.

I decided to shove the river based on the fact that I was pretty sure he had mostly large pairs pre and it was only another 700 or so to him on the river so it made me think he could potentially bet/call a hand like 2p here.

He thought for about 5 seconds and called it off. I declared rather sheepishly "I've got a 7" and flipped up A7hh. He paused for a second and said "A 7?" rather quizzically as if he was inquiring as what exactly a 7 did for me. The dealer declared "Straight, 9 high" and villain angrily mucked what I assume was an overpair while simultaneously declaring "Fucking internet kids. What the hell was he doing". As if it was somehow my fault he was incapable of hand reading or putting together multiple clues to come to a logical conclusion.

Hand 6: Hero raises KsQs to 30$ from UTG+1, MP calls, sb calls (villain from hand 5).

Flop (100): Qd7s3h.
Hero bets 65. MP calls. sb calls.

Turn (290): Kh
Hero bets 205. MP raises to 575. Sb raises to 1500 and is all in. Hero folds, MP calls.

So flop and turn bets both seem pretty standard. When MP raises me I think I'm sort of stuck sigh calling turn and soul reading river especially given he had raised a few turns before (zaza if you're reading this you would have fucking hated this guy). Anyway, once donkopolous just straight up jams from the sb he always has a set given how horribly he played the previous hand and that means my top 2 might as well be a mcdonalds coupon and a skip a turn card from uno. I insta mucked my top 2 and MP called off the rest.

MP showed JTh and sb showed 33.

River Ac.

Much to my dismay, SB tilt left after that hand and did not return.


Hand 7:(I'll wrap it up after this one).
CO raises to 45 (there was a post). Btn calls 45. Hero raises the sb to 165 with AsKh. CO calls 120. Btn folds.

So, CO is probably the 2nd or 3rd most competent guy at the table. There were two-four guys that weren't completely clueless and both of these villains were in that group. Either way, given the dead money, the fact I have AK, I'm OOP etc... it seems like a pretty clear squeeze spot.

Flop: (390) Ah2s4c.
Hero bets 205. CO calls.

Turn:(800) 7s.
Hero bets 435. CO calls.

River: 1670 7c
Hero bets 935. Co tanks and folds.

Anyway, the hand is rather uninteresting from my point of view after the preflop decision. I get a spectacular turn/river combo (probably 2nd best behind Kx) As his Ax that flopped 2p are counterfeit no draws come in to scare off his Ax etc...

After he folded the river I asked him what he mucked. He didn't answer and I asked if it was AQ. He said "I'd snap call you with AQ" which makes me feel better about my river bet. For a second while he was tanking I was worried he had found a hero fold with AQ which would mean my sizing was terrible.

Perhaps I should have made the river 1150 or so (but there was 2350 behind otr and wanted to potentially give him room to sicko jam if he had 33 or 55 (though I wasn't sure he'd do that).


Anyway, that should wrap up the blog post for now.

All in all I cashed out 4760 which means I made a reasonable profit of 2260 (not bad for ~5 hours work+ some driving).

I'm extremely pleased with how the session went. I think I played all hands quite well except perhaps the turn call with AK vs AA (still up in the air on that one). It's really nice to win live... I'm not entirely sure why but losing live is just so much more painful than losing online.

The last time I played live (was written up in a blog post as well) I lost a ~8k pot with a straight vs a boat which meant I finished -2k or so for the session.

I remember leaving the casino and for some reason that loss felt more painful than my worst ever day online (which is somewhere around -20k or -25k). So, for all these reasons, I'm happy to get my live revenge ( I also could hardly make instructional videos with a good conscience if I couldn't beat live...)

On that note, I'm off to make my next video of MSNL cash hands. I've got a couple of interesting ones picked out so hopefully you enjoy it.

Please comment on the blog if you enjoy reading stuff like this and hearing about my thought process etc... as it will tell me whether I should write more or perhaps address other topics.


Cheers for now.


Chris

Whilst trying to establish official residency in Italy, I have been grinding government offices the last few weeks. It has been a patience game, and a pain sometimes, cause of extreme waiting times unhelpfullness and language. Today I am are taking it to a whole new level. Been sitting here for 4 hours already and my brain is melting, I am going for the record!

I need a document which they call un carta santitario or healthcard before I can register with a medico generico. All offices close at 12.30 except this one on Tuesdays. Opening hours are between 3 and 5pm today -just 2 hours-. I obviously happen to go there on a Tuesday morning 10 o clock, so let the waiting begin allright. People are passionate in Italyand even more so in Sicily. Every 15 minutes an argument breaks out despite it being packed with people and 35-40 degrees celcius in here. The main reason is the list they are keeping themselves on the order in which everybody came in. It sounds like an ok plan you may say. Except that there is at least 4 of those lists right now. As I typ this there is a lot of screaming going because of a woman that was here this morning; she got on the list and left with her 2 small kids. When she came back she was not on the current list we were holding so needless to say hell broke lose. All kinds of people are getting involved now, it's crazy. I would probably be crying by now if I were her.

My personal strategy has been befriending all the listkeepers with great charm and despite the language. As far as I can oversee I am high up there on all of them. That said I am anticipating fire in an hour or so when the office opens. There is definately a non zero percent that it will get out of hand, at least this place is not just close to a hospital but located inside a hospital..

for BB(left) and SB(right)
green=raise, peach=call, white=fold. number=%of raise instead of call/fold. pokersnowie's model takes into account rake hence difference between 50nl and 1knl

@1knl that's roughly 80vpip from the BB, 20% 3bet
@50nl - 54% vpip from the BB, 19% 3bet

they're from ~100bbs effective.even when stacks get slightly deeper tables change a bit so these are not terribly accurate but they give a general idea..

I'm in Florida where everyone else is for this mega bajillion dollar tournament. I'm scared to leave the airport for fear of suffocation by way of humidity. I will await the wolfpack to show me around his neck of the woods (excellent pun there).

I just finished the GOAT flight: I was on an aisle seat in the middle of what appeared to be two rows of the same family, complete with little kids [1]. I was closing my eyes thinking about teleporting to somewhere else so that I didn't have to listen to the screaming, climbing 2 year old next to me, when I heard them talking about how they had some rogue seat in the back. I immediately offer to take the rogue seat in the back in exchange for this one (nicest guy EVER), which ends up being a window seat in an 3 seat row, where there's a woman on the end and no one in the middle-- the middle seat never shows and I'm the hero Air Tran deserves.

I'm probably a third through the first book of the Fire and Ice series, aaand I was going to give you a brief synopsis of my thoughts but they're not really important and the TV series is very true to the books, and now I have to leave the airport on short notice so bye.


[1] If I call them the Jeffersons, does that make me racist? Note: I have black friends.

School starts in 2 days so I've been getting ready all week. I thought that would take about an hour, but it seems to be a lil more involved. I had to buy $500 worth of books and I didn't even get 3 of them. It's pretty tilting that I need books for online courses about computers. My financial aid covered it, but I still would've been able to spend that money on something else (like a new computer, which I've been wanting for a few years now). I'll still end up getting a decent amount of cash back I think. I'm really glad I dropped a couple courses or probably would've ended up paying out of pocket.

I needed to get Microsoft Office 2013, so I tried d/l that, but couldn't find a good copy. My buddy said he had it, turns out it was 2007.... only 2 versions since then. I ended up d/l a virus in the process which was a really dumb mistake. I was in a rush and my buddy yelled across the house "d/l winrar". So not thinking I just went to the first page of google results and click clicked. Then about 5 seconds later I remembered I had winrar, so I went to stop the d/l and figured out I d/l something bad. It gave me like 4-5 "computer sweep" type programs, as well as the "delta search virus". It took me a good 2 hours to clear everything up over a really bonehead move.

Today I've cleaned out my room so I can walk around and have a spot for school stuff. I am also in the process of moving all my movies/tv shows to my external hard drive... I've fallen way behind on this and am down to like 40gb left on my laptop (normally operate with like 100gb). I still have to install Office and email a couple teachers, then I should be all set.

I haven't had much time for poker. I watched another vid or two, but haven't played at all. Also, my internet finally stopped acting goofy only like 2 days ago. I still intend to take it seriously, and excited to get back on the grind. I'll probably just work with the micro roll I have on there right now, might deposit another $50-!00 if get low.

Tomorrow I have a family party, which are always decent. Then right after heading to another mexican fiesta... well really it's just my friend cooking a bunch of homemade mexican food, but it will be amazing I'm sure. I took Monday off since it's the start of classes, I'd like to gauge how much work I'm in for. The plan is to take one day off during the week, then do the rest on nights and weekends.

I am done cleaning my hard drive, so now it's time to install office, do emails, and if I get ambitious finally do my taxes. Other than that I plan to relax a bit, since this will probably be my only free Saturday for a while. pz out!

Yesterday was one of the most productive days off I've had in a long time. Cleaned the room, cleared my hard drive, installed office, sent out emails, did my taxes, and went looking for a new (used) car. I greatly miscalculated taxes in my favor. I thought for sure I was going to owe a bunch, and it turns out I was owed that much. I did realize however, that it might effect my financial aid for school. I updated my forms as I was told to do after I filed taxes, and they might be giving me less money. Overall though, I should make out with at least $500 more than I was expecting. So with this new found money, I can actually buy a car and be one step closer to not being a total bum ;) .

I started looking for some cheap stuff around me, and one of the first things that came up was a 1990 Toyota Celica. My first car was an '89 Celica, so I was intrigued. It was actually almost the exact same, both were a 5 spd manual hatchback and had a sunroof. Only difference was color, and the rear spoiler was higher on this one. They were asking $1900 so I was assuming it would be in mint condition.... it was not :p . Tires were terrible, it was rusting, and it smelled like gas when I drove it. It was however a ton of fun reliving the past for 45 minutes.



The guy gave me the keys and said to have it back by 5, so I took that as I could drive it for 45 minutes until the gas was gone :D . I looked at the blue book value and it was $650 for a '93 Celica in that condition (blue book only goes back to '93). So basically, the guy is a tard. If I had some money I would probably buy it as a pet project and make it mint, but I want something I don't need to dump an additional 2k into right away.

I realize my options in this price range aren't great, but I'm not looking for much. Just need something to get me around town and to school. It really only needs to last me a year or two until I figure out something else. I started searching online again, and it seems like I can find something reasonable. There's actually a few cars that seem undervalued, so I will check them out next week sometime.

Other than shopping for cars, not a whole lot else has happened since I blogged less than 24 hours ago. I forgot to mention, I was invited on the annual rafting trip over labor day weekend. I will not be going yet again, for many reasons. I was actually on the fence this year, but the dates coincide with my fantasy football draft, which has money on the line. It's also a 6 hour drive, sporadic meals that include non-delicious food, and 3 days of no internet... so those are all really hard to deal with. It would be fun for many reasons, and like I said I was on the fence... just not in the cards I guess.

I'm in really good spirits today, taxes were a huge stress relief. It's a huge financial burden that's been pulling at me for months. That and the fact I drove my old car again made for a pretty good day. I don't know what it is about driving a manual transmission, but It makes me feel good... like a race car driver or something. Now I just need to find an old Tiburon and test drive that ;)

So, a few days ago I made the decision to return to school this September where I will hopefully work towards completing by Bachelor of Science with an Honors Specialization in Biochemistry before heading off to Medical School (ideally).

This decision stemmed from a few realizations that occurred in rather quick succession. I won't bore you all with the details but essentially I realized that I'm better off continuing towards becoming a doctor (I've still got a whole lot of school to go) whilst playing poker on the side to pay for my education and ensure I'm not living as a completely broke student instead of solely focusing on poker.

Fear not however, I am not disappearing from the poker world completely. I still will offer coaching, continue to play part time and continue to make videos for you guys (assuming you guys still want me to do so). I expect to play around 50k hands a month while being in school which is certainly more than enough to keep me relevant, and also leave me in a good position to take up poker full time for an extended period of time should that ever be required.


I decided to write up this blog post to walk you through the Highs and Lows of my 8 months test run of full time poker. Some of these will be $ milestones and others will be more personal. I'll also include a list of 5 or 10 of the toughest moments of these last 8 months.

The Highs:

Number 10: "My first ever Royal flush:"

I'm not even sure if this one counts since I ran it twice and only got there on the 2nd run but regardless, I'm including it.

It's the only royal I've ever made playing NLH I think (certainly the only one I made in the ~725k hands I've played since January 7th.)

It was the first time I had ever played 3/6 and I was playing HU vs Maloyd late at night after a table had broken. You can see from the chat how green I was... I literally had no idea what the etiquette was for playing/not playing HU etc.

I'm fairly certain I didn't play the hand correctly either but I digress.... this blog post isn't going to be about strategy, It's going to be about milestones and this is one of them. So, without further ado, here's the HH.

http://weaktight.com/6038295



Number 9: "What else would I do with it?"

So this past weekend I went to play live at a casino in Niagara falls Friday and Saturday night. I was planning on playing 5/10 Friday so I brought 5k with me. I made 4700 that night, so Saturday afternoon on my way to the casino again I stopped at the bank with both packets of 100s. I told the girl working behind the counter that one bundle had 47 bills and the other had 50 but I wasn't sure which was which. I first needed her to count them (you know, in those machines they have for counting bills super fast) and then I needed to deposit the one with 47 into my savings account. She looked at me and said "And what would you like to do with the bundle containing 50?" (Which, looking back is a completely reasonable question). However, since I knew in my brain I was taking it to the casino again that night and I said, "Oh, I'm just going to keep it obviously" (not in a rude way, but just in a tone of voice like "What else would I be doing with it"). I'm never going to forget the look on her face after I said that. For those of you that don't know me, I'm 20, and while I don't look super young, I definitely don't look old enough to be carrying 5k in cash out of the bank. The look on her face was a mixture of "Wow, didn't see that one coming" and "Holy shit, I think I just spoke with a drug dealer..."

Maybe next time to ease their anxiety I should reassure them that I'm just taking it gambling?

Number 8: "My biggest online tournament score ever"

This is certainly not that impressive of a score compared to the types of numbers a lot of guys can throw around but it's still a personal best so I'm going to include it.

I took 8th in the 1k Tuesday on Stars the first time I ever played it for ~13.5k. I wasn't even planning on playing it to be quite honest. I was going to watch the Blue Jays home opener on my laptop, but as baseball games tend to do, it ended up being dreadfully boring. As a result I decided to play the Super Tuesday while watching it. 8 hours later I found myself sitting 4th in chips at the final table. I lost two small pots before reshoving 8s8x for 20 bbs over a psychopath's open (he was playing like 70/55/20 since he had a huge chip lead with about 15 players left). Unfortunately I was cold called by the Btn who showed up with QsQx. I was dead on the turn after it came AsKs2sQh7s and that was all she wrote.

Number 7: "You're a pain to play against"

For those of you that know my story you'll understand I didn't even know that such a thing as skype groups full of regs existed so I didn't know to even look out for them. Then one day, out of nowhere a reg messaged me while playing 500 zoom and told me to add him on skype since I was a pain in the ass to play against. It was through this reg that I was introduced to many other regs some of whom I'd consider myself quite good friends with.

The most rewarding thing about that whole experience was that it was nice to know there was someone that wanted to talk to me because they wanted to see what I was doing. They didn't want to talk to me because they had to, or because I had some sort of street credit because I had won a tournament, had a friend that played high stakes, or made a video for a training site that didn't contain anything useful but people who didn't know any better thought was useful. This was a guy that I battled with day after day and he was struggling against me. It's like winning a peer reviewed award. It's a confirmation of sorts from the people that you play against on a daily basis that what you're doing is quite difficult to play against and they want to learn with/from you.

Number 6: "Joining Leggo Poker".

This one is pretty simple. I learned how to play this game through online training sites from video makers exactly like I am now. While I'm not naive enough to assume they were doing it for me, I owe a lot of those video makers more than they can know. They've given me a lot of opportunities that I am very thankful for, and they let me learn a game that among other things is incredibly fun. I think it's quite easy to forget how much fun you can have playing this game when we're all so caught up in being unexploitable, maximizing EV, grinding 1500 hands an hour to get to Supernova Elite etc...

I'm happy that I've finally gotten a chance to put some videos out there that may give future players a chance to learn this game and if not play it profitably then at least play it enjoyably.

Overwhelmingly the responses to my videos have been positive and I'm always happy to see the impact I'm having on people's games.

One comment in particular I was particularly happy to see.

"I enjoy pretty much any video you put out. I'd like to see something on 3b defense, maybe primary focus on how to exploit people in those situations or specific things you look for before defending 3bets. Your the best man hope you stick around with leggo for a long while!"

This helps me to confirm that maybe I'm giving some people the tools they need to enjoy this game like I do. If I've managed to achieve that for a few people then it's been a productive 8 months.

Number 5: " I don't even watch the all-ins anymore."

When I started playing in January at 100 NL I'd watch every runout of every all in. I'd sweat every river. Fist pumped every time it bricked and cursed my luck every time they binked. I'm pretty sure if I kept that up I would have had a heart attack.

One of the proudest moments of my career though is the day I was comfortable enough with my game and with the variance of flipping that I stopped watching the cards run off. I'd still pay attention to his hand because I wanted to know whether it was in his expected range or not (cause if it wasn't then it meant I probably had to rethink my play, or look into why he possibly made the play he did). A lot of this comes with bankroll management and just getting used to the stakes you're playing but for the longest time I could remember every all in and it's run out for entire sessions because they mattered to me THAT much. One day I realized I couldn't remember a single all in run out for an all in pot. This was particularly surprising to me because it happened reasonably soon after I moved up to 500 NL (so it's not like I had just moved down in stakes to where the money stopped mattering to me). All of the sudden I was flipping for 1k and didn't even care enough to watch the cards run off, when just two weeks earlier a couple suckouts for $200 pots left me looking at the ceiling exclaiming "WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I didn't realize it at the time (I remember being concerned I had started to develop Alzheimer's and that was why i couldn't remember anything) but that definitely marked the day where I started to become very confident in my game.

Number 4: "My first ever Winning Month."

In December I planned to take a semester off of school because I really wasn't enjoying myself (see my first ever blog post for more details on that). I had barely convinced my mom to lend me a starting roll of $2500 to play 100 NL. If I lost it, I would be faced with the proposition of a) not having much to do in my 8 months off b) having to get a job at a fast food place or something similar to pay rent c) be $2500 in debt to my mom.

Dear Lord did I need a winning month in January and did I need it badly.

Coming off a rough exam period, and only sort of assuming I could beat 100 NL from my limited experience without any real proof to back it up didn't exactly lend itself to high confidence levels. A winning January was the one thing that could fix all those problems. I made sure I limited my session lengths, worked out every day and didn't play in the first hour after waking up (I always feel very groggy and make dumb mistakes just after waking up).

A winning January is exactly what I got.

Here's a link to my results from January. http://i.imgur.com/R2vv569.png?1

I'm not sure I could have asked for things to have gone any better in my first full month off from school. I went from "Holy shit, I really went hope this works and I'm not flipping burgers at burger king in a week wondering why the hell I dropped out of school" to "Wow, this was a damn good life decision" in about a month. The amount of stress that takes off you can't be put into words.

Number 3: "The first day I ever made 10k at midstakes".

This is cool for the fairly obvious reasons. (I made 10k. I did it in 1 day. I did it playing 500$ Buy in poker. Etc...) But it also has special meaning to me. For those of you that read my first ever blog post you'll know about the girl behind the snail avatar. I remember so clearly the first time I ever cashed a tournament for a non insignificant amount of money ( I finished 5th in a 24+2 on FTP for $1600.) It was one of the first tournaments I had played (like first 5-10 I'd say) so I naively extrapolated that to assume that I could win one of these each week etc... Anyway, it came up in conversation with the aforementioned girl that I had won this and she said she was impressed and happy for me. I remember telling her that If I ever made 10k total I'd take us both on vacation wherever she wanted. I remember her laughing and agreeing to the terms (though you could tell she had absolutely 0 faith it was ever going to happen. We haven't spoken in 4+ months now so I guess it's unlikely she'll ever take me up on the offer but it's nice to know not only have I done it, but now I can do it in a day.


Number 2(A two-parter): "Sitting at the highest game running online" and "My first ever 5 digit pot"

A friend was trying to rail me so I was telling him to go to fulltilt, filter for 6M etc... and then look for the table named _______. At which point he responded to me, don't worry man it was dead easy to find... it was the highest game running online at the moment.
This is definitely when it sank in how high I was playing... You have to understand none of this felt that out of line to me... it felt completely normal for me to have been playing 100 NL with a $2500 roll at the start of january and be sitting 25/50 in an absolutely deadly lineup ( that I wouldn't sit now knowing who they all are) only 2 months later. It's only now looking back on it all that I realize how absurd it was.

Either way, here's the hand history. Nothing fancy/complicated on my part, I just 4b/call QQ CO vs Btn against hayley and hold both runs.

http://weaktight.com/6038305

Number 1: "Playing the EPT"

In just a few days (this Friday) I will be leaving for Spain to play the EPT in Barcelona. I am looking forward to this for so many reasons but first and foremost, I get am looking forward to meeting the guys that I grew up watching play poker after dark, the pokerstars.net big game etc... These are guys that I idolized sitting there watching almost every episode either on TV or on youtube.

I think i now understand what it's like to make the NFL or the NHL or w/e and have grown up your whole life watching guys like Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher run around and muck people (I'm a bears fan, can you tell?) and then one day you're line up next to them. I get that in poker it's a little different than in the NHL or the NFL because in the NFL you have to earn your way onto the roster, you can't simply "buy in" like you can in poker where simply being a really successful businessman, or a doctor lands you the credentials to sit with the best of the best. I am not a businessman or a doctor however. I worked my way up from 100 NL (the poker equivalent of pop warner) and now I'm in the NFL and I'm proud of that. I am still massive fan boy at heart and I can pretty much promise that if you're one of those famous guys and you're at EPT I'm going to be that annoying kid that comes up at asks you for a picture.

Hopefully the EPT is all I hope it will be. I'm going to wrap this up with the 5 lowest moments of these 8 months and call it a blog since it's getting kind of long at this point. I'll probably keep these a little shorter.

Number 5: "The 2nd week ever."

This one is tied in with "The first winning month." In the first week I played I was up ~8k (all at 100 nl and 200 nl.). Obviously that was a start that I couldn't even have dreamed of and I was excited to see how things were developing. However, as they say... whatever goes up, must come down.

The 2nd week I played I lost 7k back. That's when you really start to question your decision of playing poker for a semester off... That was my first downswing and it was a really rough one.

Obviously things turned out great overall in January but there moments of concern for sure.

Number 4: "My first real downswing."

Right after stars introduced the zoom games > 500 NL I tried 6 tabling zoom for the first time ever.

In case any of you were wondering, playing 4 tables of 500 zoom while simultaneously 2 tabling 1k zoom in insanely tough fields, on a 16" laptop 2.5 months into your poker career is a recipe for disaster. Combined with the fact that the heater I was previously on came to an abrupt end I managed to lose ~35k in a week and a half. That's got to be one of the least fun things I've ever done. I can safely say I look back on that week with the same fondness that I tend to look forward to dentist appointments with.

Number 3: "SCOOP"

I nearly skipped the entire SCOOP series to just grind cash. I was unsure whether I wanted to play a reasonable tournament schedule or just play none at all. For whatever reason playing just a few seemed to be completely off the table. At the very last minute I decided to play ~10 events.

I bricked every single one of the Hi's. I cashed 2 mediums (1 cash in the HU shootout and a few KO bounties.) I think i cashed for ~$600 and played ~25k of tournament buyins.... What a miserable two weeks.

Adding to the frustration was the apparent lack of ability to play a flop from even some of the best tournament players out there. I got suited connectors 6b Jammed into me more than once for > 100 BBs when they could easily just have taken a flop both times. It's just so frustrating to go from cash games where ability and complex thought processes are front and center into a shit flinging competition where the only way to win is through a combination of the biggest dick and the most sunrunning.


Number 2: "If you're going to go out, go out with a bang."

So, right after the two week stretch that I dropped 35k at mid/high stakes I considered calling it a wrap on the whole poker experiment and going back to school. At this point it was late april so exams were finishing up. The plan was to take what I had removed offline and invest it, and then get a job teaching an MCAT course for the summer.

Somehow due to this decision the ~12k I still had online at the time didn't feel like money I needed to be withdrawing, it felt like money I had to try and either grind back a mid/high stakes roll or go bust with.

(Apparently this is how I reacted to my first real downswing).

Either way... I remember considering what my options were.

At that point I had already played 25/50 6M so that didn't seem too appealing... I wanted to try something I hadn't done yet. I toyed with the idea of playing nosebleed PLO but the attractiveness of the variance was outweighed by the fact that the logical side of me knew I had virtually no idea what I was doing in a game of PLO.

I remembered watching saniker take durrr apart a few days earlier at 200/400 on FTP so I decided that's what I'd do. I'd ship my 12k roll onto full tilt and play saniker at 1 table of 50/100 until I ran up 50k or went bust. I had a buy in and a little top off and I decided that if this was going to be the last time I played poker for any sort of significant money i didn't want to do it vs some no name. I wanted to either crush the best, or be crushed by the best and saniker seemed like the right man for the job. I emailed FTP to get me permission to play their high stakes tables and two hours after they had said they would verify my account (through some miracle) they still hadn't done it.

I ended up 3 tabling a reg at 10/20 for a few hours and ending up down ~1 Buy in for the session (and about $500 in EV).

Thankfully my roll was intact and I was able to rebuild, but I the fact that I even considered playing saniker HU with ~ my whole roll tells you that was not a good day.

Number 1: "The 5 digit pots that go the other way."

In the same way that shipping a 10k pot is awesome, losing a 10k pot is equally not awesome.

Sometimes when playing it's easy to forget that 10k is a lot of money (I feel like I'm on the Jessica Simpson level of stupid when I say that) but damn does it suck.

I've lost 2 of them so far in my career (making me 1/3 in pots > 10k for those keeping track at home).

Maybe one day I'll learn to not even watch the runouts of the 10k pots I play and only the 100k pots will feel "big" but who knows. Right now that day is not here yet so these take the top spot.

I'm going to wrap it up for now.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed the read. I know it was a little long. I'll probably have some interesting cash hands to post next time in between live sessions in Barcelona!

Cheers everyone.

So I wanted to get this out quickly before I left for the EPT in a few days time.

Since I am going back to school this year I will be offering coaching for profit sharing.

This will be in addition to my coaching for hourly (so if you don't meet the criteria or would rather just buy a few sessions at my hourly feel free to do so.) This will be geared more towards players who a) play full time. b) play at least 100 NL. c) Are looking for something long term, not just one specific aspect of the game (i.e. if you want to learn how to defend vs 3bs, just buy 1 or 2 sessions, don't sign up for profit sharing).


So, each situation will be discussed privately as far as the number of hands and the split, but if it sounds like something you'd be interested in please pm me an application on here, or email it to me at: kruk.star@hotmail.com.

To be considered you must:
1) Be rolled for 50 NL (I am not offering stakes, just coaching).
2) Play full time (~75k+ hands/month)
3) Play on stars or fulltilt.

If you're interested please contact me and we can discuss further details over skype.

So I'm leaving tomorrow night for spain.

I'm super excited to say the least. I will hopefully be able to post a couple updates in here at some point.

So, the plan for this blog is to cover poker--> soccer game--> rest of spain in that order since I assume that's the order people who read this blog are interested in reading them.

I arrived at Casino Barcelona at 11:15 this morning to play Day 1B of the Estrellas main event (1100 euro Buy in). I had originally registered for Day 1A yesterday but decided to move to Day 1B so that I could watch the Atl. Madrid vs Barcelona game that happened at 11 o clock local time last night ( more on that later).

Anyway, it took ~ 40 minutes to register ( the place was a zoo) but I was able to get to my table ~5 mins before dealing started. Blinds started at 25/50 and the starting stack was 20k. I got to play 3 handed and 4 handed for about 10 minutes total which was a pretty nice start. It was clear immediately that of the 4 of us there was one completely recreational player who was playing way too tight, one guy I'd say was comparable to a live cash reg (I.e. He has some sort of strategy and has some general ideas of what he should be doing but is still completely terrible) a kid about my age who I'm just going to assume was an online tournament reg (from what I could tell he was nothing spectacular but he was also decent) and then myself. Things started out quite well and I was able to chip up to ~35k. The only hands of interest were as follows.

Hand 1:


I open T8cc at 25/50 to 100 OTB (4 handed). The completely recreational player 3bs to 450 and I have a pretty easy call 400 BBs deep, IP.

Flop Ks8d3c. He cbets 500. I call.


Not much to analyze here. I have middle pair, 5 outs vs most anything, backdoor clubs and possibly the best hand (though unlikely).

Turn Js. He bets 500 and I call.

This is a little more interesting. It seems unlikely I'm winning at this point given his bet sizing I assumed he had some sort of weakish made like AJ or something. I think all 3 options are viable. (Call and try to bink/bluff rivers/showdown, just fold, or possibly bluff raise.) I do think call~fold > raise turn though.


River 3d. He bets 600. I raise to 3100.

I mean... I clearly rep nothing and I'd never try this vs an online reg but I just assumed he didnt have much but he had me beat but I could possibly get him off it. No such luck as he thought for about 15 seconds and then called it off with QQ.


Hand 2: Villain from previous hand opens to 200 playing 25/50 from CO. I call sb with 66. BB calls.

Flop 2d6sTh. check. check. CO bets 600. I call. BB folds.I think given the fact that he likely has bet sizing tells, the flop could possibly be a raise however we had only played a few hands so I wasn't 100% confident in my bet sizing read, BB is still behind who can possibly try to make a move or overcall, and I have villain crushed so if he has nothing I'd like to let him catch up.

Turn. Kd. VIllain bets 1200. I call. I think you can make an arguement for raising here as well, and I would have if villain had potted it again, but since he only bet 2/3 pot I wasnt convinced he had something so the plan was to peel and raise the river.

River. 8d. Villain bets 2100 I raise to 6750. Villain calls.

River isn't spectacular as I now lose to some flushes along with TTT and KKK (and I guess 888) but it seems like given how he played the last hand it's a pretty clear raise for value and snap muck if he jams. He ended up having AA and I shipped a decent sized pot.

Hand 3: I open MP with AJ, Sb calls.

We're playing 50/100 at this point and playing 8 or 9 handed.

It comes KJ8r and I cbet 400 into 700. He raises to 1150. I call.

I mean, I straight up don't believe this raise. I doubt he raises worse than KJ for value. I think he has KJ and 88 that I lose to and then a whole bunch of 8x that has decided to play montenegro style and some gutters/open enders.

Turn 2o: He bets 1550. I call.

Sick turn. Easy call with the plan to fold river since I doubt he just closes his eyes and tripples off this early in the tournament.

River 6o. He checks. I check. At this point I'm nearly certain I'm winning. I think throwing out a tiny bet of like 800 so he a) cant see my hand or b) does something stupid is not a bad strategy but I also think betting 800 and watching 5.5k come back over the top would be pretty gross. Combined with the fact that a) the only part of his range that can call is some random 8x b) he may sometimes have a weirdly played Kx type hand c) I dont think most of the guys at my table are going to be able to gather any useful information from seeing my hand I elected to check back.

He showed 78s and I shipped a decent pot.

Hand 4:

UTG opens to 300 (the guy I played with 4 handed that I would describe as a live reg). Some 50 year old rec player flats the open in MP and I squeezed the CO with KQo to 1100. 2 calls.

It comes QsJc4s. UTG bets 1600. MP folds. I call.

Not a great spot. I kind of wanted to straight up fold since I think he has an overwhelming amount of AQ here with possibly some QJ but I think its also possible he has some draws and some random button clicks (given how he had played some previous hands).

Turn 8d. He bets 2200. I call.

I mean... Turn is still a shit spot... But he bet so small I decided I was going to call, and try to check behind on bricks/ fold when draws came in and he bet and turn my hand into a bluff if a draw came in and he checked.

River 9h. He checks. I bet 5700. He tanks 2 mins and folds AQ face up.

This isn't exactly the ideal card to turn my hand into a bluff since the FD missed and I really don't have an abundance of Tx in my range here but given he's probably not going to figure out how deficient my range is of Tx and he's also not going to assume I'm turning many made hands into a bluff I elected to go for it. Also, fishier players tend to just be absolutely horrified of 4 straighs. Combine that with the fact that after he checks he rarely has > AQ except maybe some combos of QJ (But I'm blocking it and he probably x/r it a decent bit).


Hand 5:

This hand I still have no clue about.

Playing 9 handed. UTG who is in his early 20s and I have seen open Q8s and call a 3b OOP opens to 250. I get QQ in the CO and 3b to 800. Btn who is some 65 year old drooler makes it 1600. The BB (who was the "rec player" from 4 handed play) cold calls 1500 more. The original raise calls 1350 more and I just start laughing at the ridiculousness of the spot.


I honestly had no idea what to do.

Folding is out of the question as I can simply setmine for another 800 if I decide the old guy only has KK+ here only. However... I'm guaranteed to be crushing the cold caller and the original raiser who I assume always have
I nearly just piled the rest in but decided not to spew off my tournament right away (don't worry that comes 5 hands later) so I just called.

Flop comes Jh4c2d. The Cold caller in the BB Leads for 1800. UTG folds. I fold. Btn makes it 4200. BB calls 2400 more.

So, I have no idea what this dude is just cold calling from the BB and then leading 4 way into a cold 4b but I was moderately concerned he just had JJ and flopped top set and decided he wanted to stack the old dude who had what he assumed was AA. I honestly have no idea what this line is, but I thought it was probably reasonably strong, and given I still had the old guy behind me I decided to fold.

After the old guy raises and the BB calls the raise I'm feeling pretty good about my decision to play the Queens the way I did. Until....

Turn 3s: BB checks. Btn bets 7200 (leaves himself 4k behind). BB folds. Btn shows 55.

So... I have no idea what the hell just happened. I mean... I was pretty concerned that JJ was part of the BBs range given how he played it (you can take stupid lines with the nuts, cause you have the nuts. Where as when you have air you can't take stupid lines because you have to rep something). Then when he folds the turn I just have no idea what he has, but I'm still fairly confident this old dude has AA.... and then he triumphantly shows 55....

At that point I just started to laugh because I honestly couldn't comprehend what just went down...

At least I had a lot of information though.


Hand 6:

~3 hands after that last hand

I open A9cc UTG to 300. Old guy 3bs to 600. Dude who cold called the BB in the QQ hand cold calls the 600. It folds back to me and I decide to just take a flop. (I have 32k, old guy has 25k and the other guy has 13k.)

Flop Kc6d5d. I check, Old guy bets 1750. Cold caller folds and I raise to 4250.

So I mean... this is far from standard but I had some reasons behind it.

1) this dude can have all sorts of crap (he cold 4b 55 last time)
2) This dude is probably going to be on one of two levels. 1--> He's going to think I'm bluffing but just have nothing and decide theres nothing he can do about it (so I'm risking 4250 to win 3700) or hes going to think I'm bluffing and decide he's not going to have any of it (and make it like 7k) in which case I can just jam into a still presumably wide range (even with little to no equity) and I think it's still + chip EV.

I also have a deceptively nice hand when you really think about it. I have backdoor nut clubs, and a backdoor straight draw (which isn't amazing, but it's better than nothing) More importantly, my A blocks 3 comobos of AK and 3 of AA Which is going to be a large chunk of the range he's going to want to stack off with. (So now he only has 3 combos of AA and 9 combos of AK instead of 6 and 12). I can also possibly have A high be ahead some small % of the time vs a few draws.

Don't get me wrong. This is far from the ideal hand here, but at the same time it's significantly better than a hand like JTo which just has complete nothing.

Anyway, He makes it 6750. I jam and he calls the rest off with AA...

Unfortunately sometimes these button clickers wake up with hands too and this happened to be one of those times.

It bricks off (not surprisingly when your only outs are backdoors), and I have 6500 left.


Last hand:

I started this hand with ~5200.

A recreational guy that had been opening way way too wide opens HJ to 250, I 3b Btn with A3cc to 725. Old guy (from the 50k pot with AA hand) cold calls the SB. Recreational player calls.

Flop Qd3d3h. It checks to me and I check.

At this point, I've got no problem getting my stack in in 2 bets and I'm more than committed. I think by cbetting I mostly get action from Qs and a few other hands like FDs or maybe 99. By checking, I'm still going to get the same action from most of those hands but I also let the old guy just randomly stab with whatever crap he has or I can let one of them pair up on the turn and put 1 or 2 bets in that way.

Turn Jh: Old guy bets 2350. HJ calls. I mean this is a dream spot. I've got them both their ranges totally killed and I have less than a full raise left so I know I'm getting called in at least one spot if I jam (I also think it's pretty likely I'm getting called in both spots given old guy bet > pot and HJ called) So, I shove. Old guy insta calls. HJ tries to jam 20k more, but the dealer won't let it happen cause I haven't made a full raise so he just calls instead.

River Qc: Well.... Fuck.

Old guy checks. I still think I'm screwed. HJ tanks and checks behind. I actually thought I was in reasonable shape at this point since I think old guy leads Qx (just cause he has a boat, so why not) (and and I think HJ mostly has worse 3x [which I now chop with] after trying to shove turn and checking back river). After HJ checks he rolls over 53o (not surprisingly) and the old guy just casually rolls over QJo for the stone nuts....

Oh well.... c'est la vie.

I honestly don't know how I feel about the QQ hand. I think I'd have been more mad at myself for putting in 18k pre and seeing the old guy roll over AA than I am for having nitted it up and seeing the old guy roll over 55 like he did.

As for the A9 hand... I wish I could get that one back. I'm almost certain the play is + Chip EV simply because of how much crap the guy has in his range, however the variance of that play is probably through the roof and it's just so unecessary to put in 230 BBs with 7% equity when I can just fold and go back to running the table over 300 bbs deep and slowly chipping up.

That's definitely a case of me not having adjusted properly to the tournament format.

I'm still looking forward to the 5k in a few days and I will use what I learned today to help me in that one. (i.e. my strategy early should be as simple as "make nuts--> bet."


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Soccer:

So, last night I watched Atl Madrid play Barca in Camp Nou. What an atmosphere. The game itself was okay but not spectacular (0-0) but it was still fun to be at.

I got seats 6 rows up at what I believe was the south end of the field, about as far away from the goal as the penalty spot.

I was at the end of the field where Messi casually walked up and rung a penalty off the crossbar.

I'm not a huge soccer fan (it's not bad, but I the sport I follow religiously is the NFL, followed by the NHL) but as I said earlier the atmosphere was great. It's incredible to see how loud it gets when 90k people cheer as the players are announced, or a sub comes on or w/e. I can also appreciate watching one of the best in the world play. I'm not much of a tennis fan, but I could happily sit through a match of Rafa Vs Federer simply because you're watching the best in the world.

The same applies for soccer, and it was nice to get to watch Messi live once in my life.

I will try to upload some videos/photos from the game later when I get a chance.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of Spain:

Honestly, Spain has been quite nice.

The food is good, the weather is nice and there are things to see/do. It is interesting to see the church that is still under construction that was designed by gaudi (it's been under construction for like 100 years and will be under construction for a long time to come... it's just that epic/complicated).

I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head but I'm sure if you googled "Gaudi's Church' it would pop up.

I also got to go through park guell, which was nice as well. I'm probably going to go to the royal palace gardens tomorrow and see what those are like (now that I've unintentionally freed up my afternoon).

For me personally anyway, I can definitely spend some time looking at these things and I appreciate how special they are. However, I'm the type of person that once they've seen it, and had their "fill" they want nothing to do with it anymore.

(i.e. I quite enjoyed the first 30 minutes of my visit at gaudi's church, but after that it's sort of like ," Okay, yeah, I get it, you designed some cool pillars or towers or stained glass windows etc... and I really did enjoy looking at the first couple, but the 18th stained glass window is not that interesting anymore, because even though it's different than the last 17 it's really no different in my eyes. (I.e. I appreciate the fact that they thought of this, and managed to build it more than the actual pictures etc, so the fact that the picture in stained glass window 16 is different than the picture in stained glass window 4 doesn't really matter to me.)

I guess in summary, It's a really nice place and I'm certainly happy to have come, but I think 1 week sans poker is plenty for me and I'm glad to have gotten into the poker phase of my trip. I'm looking forward to a deep EPT run before heading home and going back to school.

Also, as an aside. The cash games here are horrendous.

When I tried to play last saturday, they had 0.5/1 running up to 2/4 (about 1 table of each) and the rake (for the 0.5/1 game) was 4% capped at 10 euro which is just insane.

When I went back a few days ago they had 1-2 to 10/20 running but there was only 1 or 2 tables of 5/10 + and the waitlists were literally 35-50+ people long and they didnt have any more dealers to open more tables.


I think I'll wrap up this blog post for now and go get myself some sangria.

I will try to get some photos/videos of the tournament room/TV table/Soccer game in the near future.

I just finished my fantasy draft and fairly happy with my team, but not elated. If there's one thing i've learned from my past terrible seasons though, is that the draft is only half the battle. If CJ and Mcfadden actually produce this year i should absolutely crush... but that is unlikely

1st rd (3rd overall): Ray Rice
- I wasn't sure which back i liked best after AP and Foster... was debating between Lynch and Mccoy as well. Hard to say

2. (18) Jimmy Graham
(NO - TE)
- A lot of the RB's I wanted for RB2 were gone, so I figure I'd take the #1 TE and have a huge edge at that position every week

3. (23) Chris Johnson
(Ten - RB)
-might bounce back... it was pretty much him or Reggie Bush, and it was a lil early for Bush.... also a lil early to draft Reggie Bush :p

4. (38) Dwayne Bowe
(KC - WR)
-I like Bowe this year

5. (43) Tom Brady
(NE - QB)
-I didn't really want Brady, but I didn't expect him to fall into the 5th round... really wanted Stafford who I could've picked in the 6th but didn't think he'd be there :(

6. (58) Reggie Wayne
(Ind - WR)
shoud be good

7. (63) Darren McFadden
(Oak - RB)
I don't like Mcfadden at all, but he's still the primary back and i decided to gamble on him since RB depth is terribad this year

8. (78) Steve Smith
(Car - WR)
-Flex/WR3 not too shabby

9. (83) Daryl Richardson
(StL - RB)
-again, RB depth is bad and this guy should get the majority of carries

10. (98) Cecil Shorts
(Jac - WR)
-I've barely heard of him, but i needed a WR and not too many were left

11. (103) Rashard Mendenhall
(Ari - RB)
-starting RB, maybe he'll breakout with his new team

12. (118) Chris Givens
(StL - WR)
13. (123) Andy Dalton
(Cin - QB)
-Will probably pick up Carson Palmer since i think he's gonna bust out this year... Dalton is a fine back up though

14. (138) Alshon Jeffery
(Chi - WR)
Was surpised no one picked him, since everyone in the league is Bears or Packers fans... I'll take him tho since someone besides Marshall will get the rock
15. (143) Pittsburgh
(Pit - DEF)
16. (158) Mike Nugent
K

Other than Fantasy Football, I've pretty much just been working and doing school. School is kinda fun, I have 2 classes that are just awful, and 3 I enjoy. It's been taking about 15-20 hrs/week to complete all my assignments, and I'm 100% except for one class i have like 95% or something. So pretty easy so far, guessing it will get slightly busier in a couple weeks.

Next week I have a friend coming in from New Orleans (the same lady i visited earlier this year). I have mixed feeling about it, I don't really want to spend money, but it should be a good time. We're staying in Chicago for two nights, so that can be pricey. I also need to get school done and want to put in hours at work, so not really the best timing. However, it should be a good time and they're many places I'd still like to check out down there.

I haven't had time for poker the last two weeks :( . I was afraid this might happen, but I guess it's ok. I'd like to play more, but any free time I have (which isn't much) is spent unwinding in front of my computer watching tv shows before bed.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...lenge-1368401/

Pretty excited for this, rooting for my good friend WCGrider to beat the god of poker known as sauce. I want some side action, betting on WCGrider's side. PM me offers, poker is exciting once again.

Had a pretty solid month in August despite running pretty terrible at high stakes, looking forward to getting into more $25/50 and $50/100 6 max games as they have been popping off quite a bit recently. My HU results aren't the best as of late, mainly due to taking some time off this summer to play tournaments and live, coupled with the fact that everyone that is willing to battle at mid to high stakes is going to be very good. Going to work hard to turn it around so i can feel comfortable batting 25/50 regs sometime in the near future.



... give me a couple months this is what my 25/50 graph will look like by then.

Other than that, the NFL season starts today!! Unfortunately a lot of the high stakes action in fantasy football didn't run this year but i still managed to get in some $1ks and a $2.5k. No more $5k and $10k leagues that ran every year before makes me a sad panda. Regardless, NFL season is the best time of the year and I am loving life, and you should be too.



also, i apparently suck at fantasy football now :(

Found this oldie but a goodie. Jim Croce - I got a name

Last week New Orleans girl came up for a visit which wasn’t great. I spent 2 days being extremely tilted in Chicago with her and her friend. The amount of time they spent on simple decisions, and time spent getting ready left me flabbergasted. Thursday night we came back from dinner at 8pm to the hotel room to change… because apparently every time you change a location you have to change clothes first. I figured they’re girls so it might take 45 minutes…. I was wrong. 10:30pm rolled around and they decided they were ready, at which point I was half asleep and watching Peyton Manning make history. This was the theme for the whole trip and I doubt I’ll be seeing Nola anymore (this has to do with other factors as well that I won’t get into here).

I’m feeling pretty good today though. The Bears pulled off a final drive victory in a game they could’ve won by like 20, but a win is a win I guess. I actually heard they were favored by 6 this week which seemed high, I would’ve for sure bet against that if I would’ve found/sought out action. My fantasy team is pretty much doomed already, especially if Rice is injured for a while (knew I should’ve drafted Mccoy). Tom Brady is awesome, but his receivers are not. I really want to re-draft and stick to my initial strategy of drafting 2 RBs then 2 WRs and waiting on everything else…. I guess I just jumped on a couple spots and it didn’t pay off. Granted it’s only week 2, but it doesn’t look great.


I had a bunch of school to finish this weekend which I rocked. I actually went ahead one week in my Unix/Linux class, so I only have 3 classes to do this upcoming week. I’m getting all A’s now and should maintain that aside from one class that will be a little tight. For some reason my Excel teacher is insane and knocks off 10% if you have one thing wrong in an entire worksheet (I’m pretty sure mine are 100% accurate and she’s on crack). She’s also not very flexible, her office hours are Tuesday 3pm-6pm and Wednesday 12pm-3pm…. Yup that’s it. She’s probably the laziest teacher I’ve seen, all of our coursework is submitted in an online program and graded by a computer. It would be 10x easier to not use the online program since it is slow, but it helps her so we use it. At any rate I should still get at least a B in that class, and probably get a low end A.

This is me for the first 2 pages of studying a school book


Then I have to look at this image


I handed in a bunch of documents for financial aid, and will hopefully get that resolved soon. I had to spend $300 on books out of pocket which really sucked… I’m basically broke again. I do still have my vacation stash which is growing handsomely, but I don’t want to touch that unless it’s for a boss vacation. Once the financial aid gets sorted I should get like $1.2k or more now. Hopefully that all works out the way I want it to.

Work has been terrible, it’s all been painting which is probably my least favorite thing to do. I did have one day that we dug a 4’x 6’ x 4’ deep hole in 95 degree heat, that wasn’t much better. I need hours so I’ve been soldiering on, but I think about quitting on a daily basis. If there is a job I don’t need a car and has flexible hours that I’m qualified for I will gladly take it…. But those are not too prevalent.

I haven’t bothered much with poker, the little time I have off is usually spent sleeping or watching tv. I always know I’m busy when I have a lot of movies/tv shows in my “queue”. I’m glad this is the case since television is about the cheapest option out there. I’ve been getting a little hyped up for NBA this year and thinking about getting the $140 NBATV package that lets me stream 5 teams online. It still seems like a lot of money to me, like $60 I snap buy it, but anything more than $80 seems like a lot to think about. I would imagine they would get a lot more business by making this more affordable, but I’m not in marketing I guess.

Poker just seems like too much work for me right now. My mind is pretty overloaded with school/work as it is, so I can’t really study poker right now. I could dedicate like 30 minutes a day to it, but that’s not much. I still enjoy discussing hands in the forums, and I’m hoping we can get some more traffic there. I hope during breaks in school I can get on the grind.

Really tried to resist making this post, just because I know a douche with such a huge ego will only thrive on it. Nevertheless, I sorta want paying now and have run out of options. Lol.

History:

Chris (apotheosis) is selling FTOPS action. Klink trolls in and says he'll sell his action at 1.26. I buy 5% of the $10k package off Klink, shipping him $500.

Chris doesn't cash in many (or any), and aborts playing some events. The refund comes to 72.5%. This is detailed at length in this 2p2 post. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/16...ckage-1356089/

Now, Klink initially was iffy about the potential knockout and rebuy events. He claimed that as the results of these are not public, he would need verified FTP results or something. Fine, I said, or something along those lines.

So upon Chris's refund, I contact Klink to ask for the $352. But he won't send, he needs the 'verified results' for the rebuy and knockouts. After some back and forth, it transpired that Chris didn't even play a single knockout or rebuy event.

Case closed you might think. But he still didn't send the money. I point out that all the information is available from the client if he really wants it, (as an aside, quite why Chris would be hiding the fact that he secretly did worse than advertised in the thread when this would cost him much more than any potential scam involving him and I is a mystery).

Klink still wants screenshots, even though he could just look himself, and even though this is not what was agreed. At this point I realised that he was delaying for the sake of it, and resolved to make this thread. Before I did though, Chris sent me FTP verified results, which I forwarded onto Klink.

Several days later, still no reply, and still no money. This should have been settled 1 month and 4 days ago when Chris refunded his backers.

Although I'm sure he's had plenty of OK trades in the past, I can only give my opinion that he is not to be trusted handling your money in trades without an escrow. I notice he's pretty active in threads such as offering to sell action on Sauce & Rider, and active in the HS transfer threads. I've hopefully got a decent reputation, which can be vouched for by several other reputable people, and I would like to re-iterate, I would HIGHLY recommend not dealing with him without a neutral escrow.

At this point I consider the money stolen, have the PM trail and transfer history to prove it, and am considering all options.

There are other details of this episode that I'll make public as when they're needed, and perhaps I'll have to end up just shipping everyone the PMs and transfer history.

Threadsaver

http://www.leggopoker.com/blogs/grog...eal-11532.html

In response to the slanderous report posted here, I'll tell this story from my perspective and you can take from it what you want. Some time before ftops, i was browsing leggo or 2p2 and came across that package that seemed like it was super -EV:

"The planned schedule looks like this:

Aug 4th FTOPS 1- 645 Re-entry, SS (3 @ 215)
Aug 4th FTOPS 2- 320 SS, Escalator
Aug 10th FTOPS 16-530 HU Shootout
Aug 11th FTOPS 20- 960 Re-Entry, SS (3@320)
Aug 11th FTOPS 21-215 Escalator, Deep
Aug 12th FTOPS 23-1050 Double Chance/ SS/ 6M
Aug 16th FTOPS 33-215 SS/6M
Aug 18th FTOPS 38- 765 Re-entry, KO, SS, 6M (3@255)
Aug 18th FTOPS Main Event- 3175 (5@635)

This makes the total cost of the package--> 7875*1.26 ~10k after rounding.

That makes 1%--> $100 even and I'll make that the minimum purchase"

I haven't played tournaments in a while but, all those tournaments are going to be pretty tough tournaments. Poker isn't as easy as it used to be, and 26% markup is absurd to charge in a package that includes $500hu and $300r type tournaments. FTP prize pools are also pretty small these days, and i imagine everyone is pretty good (or at least not 26% worse than a mediocre small stakes 6max reg). I saw he had a leggo blog and i post here so i posted i would cross book against if he sold out. Grog decided to take me up on my offer so we booked 5%. I made the stipulation that he had to ship the verified results directly from full tilt because there were multiple rebuys/money allocated for buy ins and i didn't understand the nature of the names of a lot of those tournaments (reentry, double chance, 3x, 5x, etc as illustrated above). He agrees via pm so we are on.

edit: here is the pm incase there was any discussion this didn't happen:



So middle last month, Grog pms me to inform me that his buddy selling the package has thrown in the towel and given up playing tournaments and it was over. I say ok, ship me the results and ill ship you back the appropriate amount. He then continues to argue he doesn't need to and i should look up the results myself. I would prefer to just have a spread sheet sent to me so i could compare it to the exact action i had and send him back the appropriate refund since i have no clue what he played or didn't play, but also this was part of our original agreement seen above. This goes on for a month, until 3 days ago when he pmed me his results. Since then I have been busy and saw the info this morning and did the book work comparing it to the action i had. Grog had already posted on 2p2 and in that blog entry about me "stealing his money".

For the record, the total from his thread did not match the verified results, WHICH IS THE EXACT REASON WHY I WANTED THE VERIFIED RESULTS. There was a tournament that was randomly refunded because he didn't know it was a limit holdem tournament or something, in which i would be getting free rolled selling action to that tournament. I think this illustrates why I wanted the verified results for myself to prevent this exact thing from happening to me.

Anyways, I am happy to send you back the $350 out of the $500 action you had, if you didn't just directly attacked me, along with a full month of being extremely rude instead of just getting me the results. So remove all the posts about me, agree this is the correct course of events, and I will ship you your money simple as that. Regardless of if i even have the right to do this, you have very little recourse, and if your goal is to ruin my reputation then good luck with this crusade.

Also for the record, I could find a bunch of people that would trust me above almost anyone in the poker community, and it took YOU a month to get the verified results to me in the first place, so you are going to have to accept the blame and take this slander down. The real title here should be:

"How grogheadflow tried to steal $10.50 from me, hide the results of a wager from me, and was a douche in the process", as seen here:



Edit: on a side note, as poor as grogheadflows poker skills are, he is still employed by Leggo and his post accusing me of stealing gets directly sent to to the front page because he is a "coach". If i was not clear i will repay what i owe you after this and your 2p2 posts are removed, thanks.