PLO Pimpin'

What's up Degens? 

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic, so let's do a quick review. First, I got a nice tourney score a couple of weeks ago for $90k at the Heartland Poker Tour. Here's the link http://www.heartlandpokertour.com/playerbio.php?pid=4994 in case y'all wanna check it out. 

I'm super stoked about the score, but am a little disappointed with how it finished. I was 2nd in chips going into the final 6, proceeded to knock out every player at the final table, and then got a little unlucky in the HU match. I started the match with a 2/1 chip lead against a guy that I'd been playing with throughout the entire day. He'd been playing really tight basically the entire time, and during the final six players I was kind of running the table over a bit, because it seemed like everyone else really just wanted to move up the payscale. Here's an example:

-6 handed At 20k/40k, UTG opens to 120k, I had her covered with ~1.1M and 3b to 265k w/A2ss, SB with ~8bb's tanks for a few moments and then folds. After UTG folds he looks at me and says "that's the second time you've made me fold AQ". 

Anyways, to make a long story short, I thought the guy I was playing was very tight passive, and incapable of taking any non-standard lines. The only hand we had played up to HU was when we were three handed. I had ~4.2M in chips, blinds were 50/100k. I min opened the BTN, he 3b to 400k straight leaving 900k behind, and I shipped it in with KJo. He tanked for a sec and folded. 

Then HU, I min-opened the first button w/56o, he shipped ~1.6M and I folded. Very next hand he limped the BTN and I had A8o in the BB. I figured that he would always raise a good hand, and that he would fold basically always if I shoved it in, since most passive players limp the button with a super wide range, and against that range I'm probably even shipping A8 for value. Plus playing postflop when I miss is kind of awkward I think, and I don't like checking my option given what I already said. Plus, he had just shipped the hand previous to that (and I expected him to be strong), so the likelihood that he picked up two hands consecutively that are willing to play for stacks is pretty unlikely. Long story short, I ship, he snaps my face w/AJo and holds, and now I'm the one at a 2/1 disadvantage. 

At first I thought my ship might be bad because I felt like I had a very big skill edge on this particular player, but hindsight always seems to be 20/20 in tourneys. I honestly just figured he would fold basically always, and that the likelihood of him trapping me was very low. Plus he had just shipped on me, and I felt like he picked up some momentum there, and if I shipped it in and took the pot down it would swing right back in my direction. Oh wells. 

A couple of hands later, I have ~1.8M and min open the btn w/AKo. He calls and the flop is AQTcc. He checks, I bet 3/4, he ships on me and I call. He has A3o... Turn T, River A for the chop. Ouch!

I lost a pot or two and then shipped over his 2.5x open w/K9s, he called w/A9 and I bricked. vul I guess, but 90k is nothing to be down in the dumps about. The only thing I don't like is how steep the pay structure was. It seems like a $1650 buy in should have a smoother pay structure at the top, but I suppose that's how it goes. First got 182k, so I felt like I missed out on a ton of equity by not taking that down. Overall though it was a great experience. I learned a lot about both live play and tourney play, and it definitely gives me a lot of confidence for playing more live tourneys when I move back to Vegas in February. I highly doubt I'll be playing any more live tourneys until then, because the only ones that are worth playing reside in Blackhawk, and the structures there are pretty terrible, so I'm not even sure if the edge is worth the trip. 

Ironically since the score, I've been getting destroyed in cash games. Lost a ton of bi's playing HU, and then playing and running bad in six max. Can't complain though, just need to focus on the mental stuff and trying to play my A game more consistently. 

I've also been reading and listening to a ton of audio books lately; namely Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I've read bits and pieces of it in the past, but never really sat down and took it all in. All I have to say is WOW! Awesome book. I think it should be required reading for all poker players, and anyone who's interested in being successful and happy with their lives (basically everyone?). Written in the 1930's, Napoleon Hill was a journalist who was hired by Andrew Carnegie to interview over 2500 of the most wealthy people in America at the time, and then devise a formula for acquiring great fortunes. 

To give you an idea of what the book is like, I decided to type out one of the more powerful excerpts from it for y'all. The reason I included this part specifically is because ALL OF US want to make more money right? But are you really doing everything you can to improve your game? Do you honestly have the desire to do what it takes? We all agree that everyone wants money, so why the hell doesn't everyone have it? I don't have any empirical evidence to back this up, but I think one of the main reasons is that most people simply don't know how to reach their goals, or more simply, they just don't know how to plan for it. Or perhaps they're just unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to reach their goals.

I heard a quote awhile ago that said "Comfort is the enemy of success". I think that's pretty awesome. Do me a favor and reflect on your life for a moment. What periods of your life did you experience the most personal growth? Humans are beings of necessity, and unfortunately, if the environment you're in makes things a little too easy for you, then your natural inclination from a physiological standpoint will be to just "take it easy", which can make achieving your goals challenging.  It's one of the reasons why so many poker players that get to the top of high stakes end up going broke, moving down, or just fizzling out of the scene for whatever reason. Their motivation to improve is gone; all of their needs are met. It's similar to what happens with music artists and entertainers. That's why it's such a treasure to find someone like Kobe Bryant, Phil Ivey, or Roger Federer that can continue to perform at such a high level after they've already "made it". I mean... This is just a guess, but I find it hard to believe that someone with a 1M bankroll isn't going to sit down and watch every poker video on all of the training sites, post on the forums, read poker books, review HH's with a group of other learning players, and devote hours to their game with the intention of moving up in stakes as someone who's bankroll is on life support, works a shitty job, and who's dream is to make enough money from poker to quit their shitty job. That's why most of the players at the top started from the very bottom and worked their way up. They were fucking hungry, man. They wanted to be the best. And so do a ton of the players on this site, which is why I love it here! Better watch out durrrr... We're coming for you!

Anyways, check out this excerpt from the book that I typed out, and then go buy this fucking book. PLEASE! Hopefully everyone is doing well.

GL,

John

It is the same difference that distinguishes practically all who succeed from those who fail. Every human being who understands the purpose of money wishes for it. Wishing, will not bring riches. But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches. The method by which desire for riches can be transmuted into it's financial equivalent consists of six definite practical steps:

1. Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say "I want plenty of money". Be definite as to the amount. 

2. Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. There is no such reality as something for nothing.

3. Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.

4. Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire, and begin at once whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action. 

5. Write out a clear concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire. Name the time limit for its acquisition. State what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it. 

6. Read your written statement aloud twice daily. Once at night, and once in the morning. As you read, see, feel and believe yourself already in possession of the money.

It is important that you follow the instructions described in these six steps. It is especially important that you observe and follow the sixth instruction. You may complain that it is impossible for you to see yourself in possession of the money before you actually have it. Here is where a burning desire will come to your aid. If you truly desire money so keenly that your desire is an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself that you will acquire it. The object is to want money, and to become so determined to have it that you convince yourself you will have it. Only those who become money conscious ever accumulate great riches. Money consciousness means that the mind has become so thoroughly saturated with the desire for money that one can see one's self already in possession of it.

To those who have not been schooled in the working principles of the human mind, these instructions may appear impractical. It may be helpful to all who fail to recognize the soundness of the six steps to know that the information they convey was received from Andrew Carnegie, who began as an ordinary laborer in the steel mills. Despite his humble beginnings, Carnegie managed to make these principles yield him a fortune of considerably more than 100 millions dollars. It may be a further help to know that the six steps recommended here were carefully scrutinized by Thomas A. Edison. He placed his stamp of approval upon them, as being not only the steps essential for the accumulation of money, but also for the attainment for any definite goal. 

The steps call for no hard labor. They call for no sacrifice. To apply them calls for no great amount of education. But the successful application of these six steps DOES call for sufficient imagination, to enable one to see and to understand that accumulation of money cannot be left to chance, good fortune, and luck. One must realize that all who have accumulated great fortunes first did a certain amount of dreaming, hoping, wishing, desiring, and planning before they acquired money. 

You may as well know also, that every great leader from the dawn of civilization down to the present was a dreamer. If you do not see great riches in your imagination, you will NEVER see them in your bank balance. We who desire to accumulate riches should remember that the real leaders of the world have always been people who harnessed and put into practical use the intangible unseen forces of unborn opportunity. They have converted those forces or impulses of thought into skyscrapers, cities, factories, airplanes, cars, better health care, and every form of convenience that makes life more pleasant. 

Tolerance and an open-mind are practical necessities for the dreamer of today. Those who are afraid of new ideas are doomed before they start. Never has there been a time more favorable to pioneers than the present. There is a vast business, financial and industrial world to be re-molded and redirected along new and better lines. In planning to acquire your share of the riches let no one influence you to scorn the dreamer. To win the big stakes in this ever changing world, you must catch the spirit of the great pioneers of the past, who's dreams have given to civilization all that it has of value, the spirit which serves as the lifeblood of our society, your opportunity and mine, to market and develop our talents. If the thing you wish to do is right, and you believe in it, go ahead and DO IT. Put your dream across, and never mind what they say if you're met with temporary defeat, for they perhaps do not know that every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success. 

Henry Ford, poor and uneducated, dreamed of a horseless carriage. He went to work with what tools he possessed without waiting for opportunity to favor him. And now evidence of his dream belts the entire Earth. Thomas Edison dreamed of a lamp that could be operated by electricity. Despite over 10,000 failures, he stood by that dream until he made it a physical reality. Practical dreamers DO NOT quit. Lincoln dreamed of freedom for the slaves, put his dream into action, and barely missed living to see a united north and south translate his dream into reality. The wright brothers dreamed of a machine that would fly through the air. Now, one may see evidence all over the world that they dreamed soundly. 

Marconi dreamed of a system for harnessing the intangible forces of the ether. Evidence that he did not dream in vain, may be found in every radio, TV, and cell phone in the world. Moreover, Marconi's dream brought the humblest cabin and the most stately manor house side by side. It made the people of every nation on Earth next door neighbors, by creating a medium where news, information, and entertainment could instantly be disseminated throughout the world. It may interest you to know that Marconi's "friends", had him taken into custody and examined in a psychopathic hospital when he announced he had discovered a principal through which he could send messages through the air without the aid of wires or other direct physical means of communication. 

The dreamers of today fare better. The world has become accustomed to new discoveries. Indeed, it has shown a willingness to reward the dreamer who gives the world a new idea.