January 22, 2012
1000th Post Well on the DC Forums
Hi guys, check out my well in the Full Ring forum on DC!
Hi guys, check out my well in the Full Ring forum on DC!
Hello guys, I haven't posted in a few months but I thought I'd give a little update on what I've been up to.
Poker - I've been grinding away on Merge, and had a pretty solid month of August. I increased my hours devoted to poker to 110 from 90 the previous month, and got in about 60k hands. I hit my target of 2k MGR and felt that my game is still improving. September has started out nicely, as I won $2.5k on the second day of the month. I wish that motivated me but it has actually kicked on the lazy switch! I have been more interested in football and madden 12 than grinding since that day :(
Life - Had my 10th anniversary with my girlfriend Amanda. I can't believe it's been that long already - glad to have someone i gel with so well to accompany me in life. I bought her a diamond and sapphire bracelet (those are our birthstones) to match the earrings I got her a few years ago. We had dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant, and went to the beach (although we got rained out).
I also returned to college classes for the first time in about 2 years. It is wierd being in college after 30, luckily I think I look kinda young, probably late 20s looking. I enjoy having school to balance out poker, because in school hard work is always rewarded and can not be taken away. A's can't be lost by a downswing, and you won't study 12 hrs for a test then get an F cause of a suckout. It is satisfying to me to work hard, get an A and understand the material, and then move on having that on a permanent record.
Lastly, I have been trying to work out more and have tried to lift and swim several times a week. I'm also avoiding junk food as well as I can. Swimming is so great for working your whole body and relieving stress. I have been tired though from working so hard in the pool, I want to sleep about 10 hrs a day but hopefully once I'm in shape it won't take such a toll.
September Goals -
120 hrs of poker time (grinding, coaching, studying)
Increase exercise workload incrementally
Stay on top and ahead of all school work
Best of luck to everyone and have a great month!
May has passed, and it certainly has been a tough month for most of us. The majority of my roll remains frozen on Full Tilt, and the chances of being paid anytime soon are starting to look bleak. I spent the month working on my game and putting in a decent amount of grinding on Carbon Poker. I happened to play the VIP Ether freeroll and took 1st place for $1400 - only a 50 man field but it was pretty exciting and a needed boost.
As for my normal play - I started with $500 and playing 50nl and built up from there. Now I am playing 100 and 200nl and 50 and 100 plo regularly. Had a decent month -
#Coaching - On the coaching front, I am still offering $50/hr coaching sessions for the time being. Contact me if you're interested!
#NBA - The playoffs have been pretty thrilling - I am pulling for the old veteran team (the Mavs) - the young guys will have their day some other year, I am hoping that this year it goes to all those 30somethings on the Mavs who have never won!
Been a while since I have entered the blogosphere (do people still use that term and think it sounds techy and cool?)
Black Friday was a kick in the nuts for me - I was having a pretty solid year at the tables and was really getting into Rush Poker. My goal was to be playing 400 rush by the end of the year. I was keeping an unreasonable % of my worldly funds on FTP so I could take shots at 400 and hadn't put in a withdraw for awhile. Consequently, I have a lot of money stuck on FTP and I'm a bit worried about it. I also just gained readmission at my University, and was relying on poker to pay my bills and pay for school, so I wouldn't have to get a job and go to school full time. Now everything is in limbo again. I have been grinding on Cake and Merge since Black Friday, but withdrawing from either of those sites is a big question mark. The only ewallet that seemingly remained for Americans - UseMyWallet, was basically shut down for US business the other day. It is no longer an option for most poker sites, and some people's money is in limbo now. The only reliable method of WD for now seems to be checks on Merge, and who knows how long before that is cracked down on?
My coaching business has also suffered - more than half of my students have been American, and now almost NO Americans want to invest in coaching, for obvious reasons. Luckily I still have some European students taking advantage of my new lower rates, and I thank you guys.
I think that my coaching and playing are better than ever, it's unfortunate that the climate is so terrible for the profession I've worked so hard to attain skill at. Hopefully brighter days are ahead for American online poker, and hopefully I can find some way to make a living now and go to school - I am worried and stressed though.
On to less gloomy matters though! Playing on Merge has actually been pretty fun. I deposited only $500 because I didn't want to risk much. I started out playing 50nl full ring, and now I am grinding 50-100 full ring and 50-100 plo 6max, about 75/25. Here is my graph so far at Merge - crushed 50nl for 17bb/100 over 15k hands and have taken it from there!
If anyone has questions about Merge, Cake or any other networks that are
options for US players right now, feel free to PM me. Also check out my
latest two videos - one is a 100nl Rush video 4 tabling. The other is a
'Tool Time' which is a powerpoint going over the options for US players
post-black friday. You may find it informative if you are looking for a
place to play in these dark times.
Crossposted from Full Ring Forum -
What's up guys - I noticed that a majority of the posters in this forum
are playing the micros, and I'd like to extend a special offer to you
guys for a limited time. My usual rate is $75/hr and may soon increase
to $100/hr. For April only, I will offer $50 coaching sessions to Deuces
members who are playing full ring cash games up to 50nl.
I feel
that many players spend way too much time toiling in the micros, or
perhaps never get beyond them. My goal is to help students move up and
beyond their expectations - I believe that being a winning player at 100nl
is possible for 90+% of the students I have had, if they are willing to
invest their time and effort.
My coaching can be tailored to
the students desire - HEM or PT3 review, HH review, session review,
theory discussion, it's all fair game. If you want to leave it up to me,
I usually will first check your largest relevant sample in HEM or PT3
for basic leaks and go from there. I have rebuilt the games of several
micro players lately, players who thought they were solid and just
unlucky, but who actually had a bunch of obvious leaks. I am quite sure
they have already paid off their lessons by leak busting and increasing
their theoretical understanding.
I have been a coach at DC for
nearly 3 years, feel free to reference some of my recent videos if you
haven't before. Here are my results for 100 and 200nl FR regular tables
in 2011 so far -
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/2689/90310496.png
Here is the link to my Coach's Bio -
http://www.deucescracked.com/coaches/goldseraph
If you are interested, please PM me and I will respond promptly.
In other news I have been playing on Stars again the past few days, because for whatever reason I have an eternal runbad at FTP and I've given up trying to fight it. Just needed a change of scenery and Stars is treating me well so far. I've been trying to polish up my PTR on Stars for coaching purposes. It was always a secondary site to me that I kinda screwed around on and dumped money. My 100 6max winrate was horrible, I was down $1400 in like 10k hands, and I've made it my mission to turn that around. I've already got it down to -$390 in about 5k hands. I'm quite pleased with the games on Stars, at any time of day there are more fishy 100nl games than I can handle. It's actually been tough sticking to playing 8 or less tables because there's usually 30+ great tables going. I don't want to autopilot click buttons and grind though, part of forcing myself to play 6max and less tables is to work on my game. I am liking that 6max gives me many more opportunities to make non-standard plays, and more chance of tilting/owning people. Metagame basically advances much faster at 6max and I think that benefits my aggressive style.
Hi guys - it seems I found just what I needed to resurrect this month - it was in the Stars all along! Stars sent me a reload bonus offer for $150, so I threw some money on there and got to work. I have this half-baked theory that when you leave a site for a long time, then come back and try it again, you will get a nice dose of rungood (for a time). After a month of misery on FTP, I've found myself winning every single sesh so far on Stars while clearing this bonus. I finished off the bonus just now, and here's the rundown of my Stars vacation -
8k hands played for +$2150 (10 PTBB)
Bonus = +$150
Four Stellar Rewards unlocked = +$40
$25 Cash reward bought with FPPs = +$25
Total = +$2365
Add that to the $500 I won in my 2+2 NCAA Bracket pool, and the month of misery is getting a serious shot in the arm!
For the rest of the month I will probably be back at 200nl Rush on FTP. Here's to ending March with a bang!
How's everyone doing? Hopefully your March went smoother than mine! This has been so far my worst poker month to date in 5 years. Consequently my volume has been bad as well, which just makes it draw out longer :( I don't want to jinx myself but the past 3 days I actually booked some winners. I wish I wasn't so results oriented, but poker is definitely much more enjoyable, and I am much less stressed out when I can book even a modest win more days than not. There's about one week left in this month, and I'm going to try and make it count. Tomorrow I am having my nephew over, and will watch some college basketball, but after that I am grinding hardcore the rest of the month. Who knows, maybe I will run good and play good, and turn this month around to respectability.
I've been playing quite a bit of Rush, but I have to admit that the normal tables are juicier and I'm torn. I have had little to no success at Rush this month - part of that is running terribly, but also I think Rush is very nitty and winrates there are definitely lower than normal tables. People just pot control and nit it up so much more, and its harder to get someone tilted, or build up metagame. Therefore you get less FPS stackoffs and spite calls etc, basically less money goes into every pot. The tradeoff is the convenience, which is considerable. If I could win 2ptbb at Rush, and 3-4 ptbb at regular tables, I might still play Rush just because the hourly volume is so much more efficient, and its so easy to start or stop a sesh.
In other news, I am probably beat in the $100 NCAA tournament pool I am doing with a bunch of other Full Ring grinders from 2+2. I have been hanging strong at 3rd place out of 14 guys, with a shot at 2nd (top 3 get paid). However, I picked Ohio St. to win it all, everyone else picked Kansas, and Ohio St lost tonight :( GG me. Just rooting for the Gators to take it down now - Go Gators!
What's up guys. Goldseraph here, in the middle of nasty downswing. The first half of the year so far I was crushing, but the second half of the year I've been ICE cold. Approaching 100k hands breakeven and it's getting pretty tilting. I have been making sure lately to review hands after every sesh, and have dusted off my poker workbook and put it to use, taking notes on videos and any good strategy ideas I come across. I am tired of variance, and besides being lucky which I can't count on, the only other answer is such a high winrate that downswings rarely happen. To that end, besides my personal efforts to improve my game, I am doing something I haven't done in a long time - get coaching myself!
I decided to work with Eric 'Damn Ringer' Burtzlaff of Cardrunners, because he I've known him a long time and respect his game. He is currently beating 400nl FR pretty solidly which is what I aspire to be doing by 2012. He specializes in Rush poker now, and I'd love to be 4-tabling 400fr rush for a living, so he seems like an obvious choice. It should be exciting to have someone looking over my HEM and HH's, and hopefully DR can tighten some bolts and give me some new weapons in my arsenal as well.
I am currently cutting down on my coaching schedule as I am extremely motivated to improve my game and have some big months. Sorry to the number of students I had to turn away lately, but I consider myself a player first and coach second. When things are going smoothly and I have free time and energy, I will coach for sure. Right now, however, I am at war with poker, and to quote Charlie Sheen "I'm on a quest to claim absolute victory on all fronts".
I was working some numbers today to estimate how much it costs
per year for basic bills. It seems rather hard to make it as a poker
player in the US, unless you SNE or grind midstakes with a good
winrate. And I have no idea how schoolteachers and low-wage workers
make it. I make well over what many college grads and even engineers
make, but I feel like I'm not saving nearly as fast as I'd like, and I
consider myself sort of a nit. I'm a single guy with no kids btw. So
life should be cheap right? But here's the numbers I came up with
(roughly) for a single guy living pretty modestly (like myself). How
the hell two schoolteachers/social workers or whatever making 30-40k a
year can start a family and buy a house etc is beyond me.
Yearly Bills - Single Male in pretty cheap part of the US
Rent (modest 2 bedroom condo) - $10800
Power/Water - $2400
Cable/Internet - $1400
Cell - $1000
car insurance - $1900
gas - $1400
minimal health insurance - $2500
food/eating out - $6000
total - $27400
This is without considering a car payment, which many people have. Many
families have 2+ car payments. This also doesn't take into account
investing, emergencies that eat up money (always happens), car repairs,
co-pays, buying clothes/furniture, travel, entertainment or any other
such costs. And it's with post-tax dollars one must spend this 30-40k
to live as middle class, so you'd better be pulling in 60k+ salary.
Anyways I had been thinking how damn expensive life seems but I've
never been one to do a budget or figure out how much my life costs per
year to subsist. Curious to hear how much upkeep you guys have in other
parts of the world, and how you think liberal arts grads and
non-college grads manage to make it?
