From Busto to Robusto

Hey everyone,

Sorry its been forever since my last post. Im finally back home in Vegas after being in PA for a couple months helping out some family. Feels good to be back out west and moved into the new house (pics to come). We drove straight thru again (same as when I originally moved out here) and it took us just under 31 hours total, not bad. Perfect weather and not much traffic to speak of, good stuff. Bad new is, since being out here Ive pretty much been bedridden with some sort of stomach flu the last 3-4 days. Puking, fever, soreness type crap. All 4 people living in the house got it within a few days of each other.. On the bright side Im starting to pull out of it and feel miles better today, really looking forward to getting in some quality hands the rest of this month… Im gonna keep this post short but I have a few interesting hands to put up in the next couple days as well as a few new pictures… Less than 2 weeks till the series starts, life is good =)

till next time,
belikewater

Can you smell that? Yep, its Augusta in April, the Masters is here… Im excited to take in some coverage of the first major of the year.

On the topic of golf, Im looking forward to getting back to Michigan for a week or two this month and watch my good friend and highschool teammate Laddy play one of his last few competitive rounds of golf as a senior for Michigan State. They have a couple events in East Lansing to close the year and I hope to make it out to at least see one round. Kids got some serious game, Id love to see him in contention in one of these events to finish his career for the green and white.

As for poker, its been going pretty well lately.. Havent been able to get in the amount of hands Ive wanted to as Ive been quite busy with some family stuff, but as far as winrate goes, it continues to really improve as I pick up on some new things thru some coaching and studying off the felt. I feel like Im playing some of the best poker Ive ever played which is really encouraging.

Ima keep this one short,
Till later, take it easy yall,
bk

I wanted to make a quick post giving a big congrats to my good friend Ozgur who called me yesterday letting me know he just won a $12k package to the WSOP Main Event for this year! He actually took it down using only his frequent player points on AP, pretty sweet return on investment! He was my roommate in our old house in Vegas and has since moved, so I told him he can pocket the extra $2k they gave him for travel/accommodations and stay in our new place here while he freerolls in the $10k main (although he said maybe we’ll use some of that 2k to get a suite in the bellagio or somethin, we’ll see).. =) Really happy for the Ozzman, hopefully he can do some damage at the Rio during the series this year, maybe even get his hands on a bracelet, or at least some serious loot… However things pan out, it’ll sure be a great experience and will definitely be fun to sweat. November 9 one time????

Stay on the grind,
Talk to yall later,
bk

Its with a heavy heart I make this post, today at 2:17pm a great friend of the family passed away. Mrs. Barbara Cyterski, wife of the late Len Cyterski, my fathers baseball coach all thru his youth, passed in her home in Erie, PA. Most every trip I would make to see my family in Pennsylvania either started out or ended with an afternoon trip to see Mrs. Cy. She was a wonderful woman, so positive and caring for toward anyone she encountered, its very sad to see her go. I will never forget the long conversations and great meals enjoyed at her house, talking about anything and everything. She was one of my biggest supporters through years as I began on my career path and like a second mother to my Dad all through his life as well. Days like this really make you take a step back and realize what’s truly important in life. Taking a bad beat in poker, getting cutoff in traffic, waiting in line at the grocery store, all totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Barbara was a person that just being in her presence made you appreciate the important things in life. You’ll be greatly missed Mrs. Cy, you were a ray of sunshine and breath of fresh air to us all, rest in peace.

..My new favorite show is ‘Southland’ on TNT. If you havent seen it and enjoy police type action shows, I highly recommend it. New eps are on Tuesdays at 10pm est. Ironically my favorite character, the young cop in the show, is named Ben..

Looking forward to getting some productive hours in on the virtual felt tmrw, games should be good as the drunken st.patty’s day celebrators come home from the bars ready to blast thru a few buy ins =)

take it easy-
bk

Oh hai friends-

I just scooped up a new note mod from tiltbuster.com for stars and im really liking it a lot. Instead of the standard tiny little note icon below the player name it makes a whole ring around the noted player, compatible w the color codes, and with my HUD it makes it much easier to see if i have a note on someone or not. Along w my card mod from fozzy i think it looks pretty snazzy, check it out:

I watched the new “Busto to Robusto” that featured fellow michigan native Andrew Robl (aka good2cu) this week and thought it was pretty good. I liked the first one w Capt Zeebo a bit more as I thought it went more in depth and had a better, happier ending. I thought the new one w good2cu left the viewer with mainly just the “busto” part of the documentary. I was waiting for it to come back and have the good robusto happy ending, but it ended up focusing mainly on the struggle, etc more than anything else. I thought it was really cool how they did the one-on-one interviews w his parents and found a lot of that stuff very interesting. Even though Andrew plays muuuuch higher stakes than myself and lives a much different life, we have quite a similar story, moving from MI > Vegas around the same time in our lives and obv dealing with many of the same struggles pursing this career path. All in all i thought it was a cool documentary and i will definitely watch it again. Ep. 1: Capt zeebo – 10/10, Ep. 2: good2cu – 7.5/10. Props to Krantz and Ryan Firpo for making another VERY well edited and put together documentary and I look forward to more episodes in the future (hell maybe Ill even be featured in one of em a few years down the line).

Currently reading: Phil Galfond (aka OMGClayAiken aka Jman28)’s Well on 2p2
Currently listening to: DubFX. Pretty neat stuff imo. “love someone” or “soothe your pain” are pretty sweet..

In Galfond’s well he states something very simple, but something that is of utmost importance to understand. He says, “bascially it was the idea that every time the action is to you, its an opportunity for you to make the perfect play.”
Real simple, but real solid. A bad turn card isnt naturally “bad”. Its just the card that fell, another chance for you to make a perfect play. Stripping emotion out of the process and relying on skills youve developed over hundereds of thousands of hands. Logic, math, understanding, game flow.

I was watching tv last week when a new Nike commercial came on – I was listening to the song playing during the commercial and really enjoyed the lyrics to the chorus: “Everybody gets knocked down, how fast are you gonna get up?”. Gonna try to remember this line when things arent goin so well for a little kick in the ass and to remove any bits self pity =) Everybody runs bad from time to time, come back w a clear head tmrw and keep fightin..

Till later -
bk

Whatup -

So as a little incentive to break the habit of checking my cashier or HEM results/EV during play I set up a little negative freeroll for myself with a couple of my friends. Any time I glance at HEM in the middle of a session I have to ship them each $2. I know its not much, but it certainly makes me think twice about it. For the record Ive only had to ship money once so far (and dont plan on doing it again!)…

I watched the MSU vs UofM basketball game yesterday and really enjoyed it. It was senior night in East Lansing and it was really cool to see some scout-team/pine riding seniors get some well deserved PT toward the end of the game… Good stuff

I did my first ever sweat session yesterday with my friend Jim and found it to be really productive.. I hope to be able to do a couple of them a week with him here in the near future. Its super helpful being able to get input on some tough spots or marginal situations that come up in game where I feel kind of lost. As was the case throughout my coaching in golf, another set of eyes (especially ones more highly trained than your own) on the issue is always a big help. Being more perceptive to reasons why I am betting in certain spots I think is really going to be beneficial for my game. Making sure I can get called by worse and/or fold out better are obviously the two main reasons I should be putting chips into the pot, rather than just mindlessly autopiloting and putting chips in the middle cuz its my default or “standard” line.

On a sidenote – I scooped up a new mouse a couple weeks back and have just been loving it. My old one was going haywire, disconnecting every 5 minutes or so (in the middle of pots and such) so I went down to BestBuy and got a corded Logitech MX518. I must say, this thing is money, highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new mouse.

Thats all for now,
Until later, Ill be trying not to burn any $2 bills =)
bk

Got another wisdom tooth out yesterday, swollen like a chipmunk today… Poker and sleep in my near future… Changed up my HUD a bit, (top line: VPIP/PFR/3bet/Foldto3bet. Bottom line: Cbet/FoldtoCbet/Steal/Hands) little easier on the eyes:

Been talking with a new roommate of mine who went from 25NL → 1kNL fullring in under a year… Really been picking his brain as much as possible the last few days and am going to start up some coaching with him very soon. Just being able to sit behind him and sweat his 200-1000NL games is insaaaanely beneficial for my game.. Really excited about what 2010 has in store…

Till next time,
bk

By the way, is this not the most fun you could have for $0.75 in the whole world? Super shot for the win…

Yo -

Had a pretty fun and busy weekend this week. My roommates family and friends were in town for their wedding this weekend and everyone had a great time. The wedding went really well, and it even came with a little run-good too… While the bride and her family were getting ready in their hotel room at the Golden Nugget the AC went out in their room.. The bride’s mom called down to the front desk and explained the situation and got insta-upgraded to the “Presidential Suite”… Needless to say everyone was pretty excited about that… The suite was absolutely insane, a place i could easily get used to living in:

Must be nice being the pros on “high stakes poker” as I believe this is where they stay whenever they film a new episode of that show… We found a couple decks of cards and two racks of chips in one of the rooms in the suite, needless to say – 10 minutes later a 4 handed chinese poker game started up… surprise surprise =)

Speaking of poker, things have been turning around a bit lately.. Been booking some winners my last few sessions and also cleared an fpp bonus i scooped up in january so thats been a little boost to the roll as well..

Woah just noticed the time, Ive gotta run to my dentist appt,
Take er easy,
bk

-Currently watching: Prisonbreak, im thru the first 10 episodes of season 1 and am really enjoying it so far. Every episode, every season, all free – internet streaming ftw.
-Currently listening to: Beatles: One. Found my old CD case w/ 75+ discs or so in it and threw this album on for the first time in years.. Forgot how solid it is.

Life goes on amidst a downswing/b.e. stretch that is February… This friday is my birthday and the next day on Saturday I will be the best man in my roommates wedding.. The following weekend Im moving, needless to say I’ll be pretty busy the rest of the month..

Im interested to see how everything shakes out in the NBA after the trade deadline, im looking forward to watching the postseason…

I was reading an old entry from BalugaWhale’s blog where a friend of his described poker and I thought it was a very good description of the game: “Every day you play chess for a dollar, then you flip a coin for 10 dollars. In a month you can be up or down a lot of money, but in a year, it’s whoever’s better at chess.”

So – I keep showing up and putting in my hours on the felt. I feel like Im continuing to constantly learn and pick up new things and feel Ive implmented them into my game fairly well, but still have a lottt of work to do. Im trying to restructure my daily schedule a bit so that Im awake and playing later in the evening/night during “peak hours” as ive found the games to be quite a bit better during the later hours…

Im going to make a point of posting more hands of marginal spots i run into in the forums for discussion. Having a few sets of eyes and any type of discussion on a hand can be way valueable… Anyways, i find these turn spots to be particularly gross:

(villain is 14/7/3 over 510hands)

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold’em – 8 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $24.95
BTN: $25.00
SB: $28.35
BB: $25.00
UTG: $13.80
UTG+1: $41.75
MP1: $26.30
Hero (MP2): $26.35

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is MP2 with A A
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, 3 folds, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($1.60) 4 K 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.25, BB calls $1.25

Turn: ($4.10) 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $2, BB raises to $6.25, Hero ?

Am i almost always beat here? ak is about the only hand i beat that i feel might raise here (and those hand combos less likely obv as i hold aa)? Thoughts?

David Sklansky made a guest appearance on the 2p2 podcast this week and talked about his new book “DUCY?” among other things. The book is basically about applying EV to all everyday decisions, showing how you can use math, logic, reasoning to solve common everyday issues and achieve all sorts of things. It also has some other logically thinking minded/math puzzle type content in there.. Definitely going to order this in the near future, it should be a great read.

I think im forgetting to mention something i meant to put in here, but im really tired, kinda tilted, and that’ll be for another day.. Until the next time, I’ll be in the yellow submarine under the radar somewhere trying to belikewater and find my way outta this downswing =)

Dont move until you see it…
Ben




and for the chess reference (and a tribute to my favorite movie ever, “Searching for Bobby Fischer”), gotta throw in a picture of my man, one of the sharpest minds of our time, Bobby Fischer