Thoughts of an American Grinder

Whats up everybody ,

Last night i watched pretty much the whole final table of the WSOP 50k mixed event (no limit holdem final table tho) and i was very entertained . The final table was exciting the whole time and I was impressed with Phil Hellmuth's play even tho his normal antics were standard annoying .  The level of play throughout the final table was very impressive tho and you gotta give all the guys who got there credit.  In the end we were left with Brian Rast and the legend Phil Hellmuth .  Both of these guys knew all about WSOP heads up experience this year with Hellmuth having two 2nds and Rast having won a bracelet this year .  The heads up between the two brought a lot of excitement as well , with both having leads at one time .  Hellmuth had an interesting strategy where he was limping most buttons but playing really aggressive postflop.  Rast seemed to get frustrated and Phil took quite a large chip lead . In the end Rast made a comeback by fading 3 of Phils flush draws in all in pots on his way to winning the bracelet and somewhere around 1.7 million dollars .

I have also been grinding as much as possible the last few days , and the results have been decent.  I have won enough that i will be moving up to 50nl and taking a small shot there .  I am excited for the weekend of fish at 50nl and for sunday when i get to play the bodog 100k .  I also made a small deposit onto the a site on the cake network.  I deposited $40 on the cake skin PPN (CEO is Chuck Kidd whos on quadjacks a lot) and plan on grinding it up from 4nl like i did on bodog to decent stakes .  I won a couple buyins so far and the games seem super soft .  Overall im really looking forward to having a big weekend and getting my grind on !

GL and see ya at tables

quote from someone on twitter today

Hello Everyone,

Happy 4th of July , I hope everyone had a good weekend celebrating the festivities safely i hope !  I spent some time with the family over the weekend bbq'in , shooting fireworks, playing some volleyball, and just celebrating the 4th of July like every other year.  It was a good time , its always fun to see how excited the younger kids get about this day.  They want to shoot fireworks until the sun comes up . I was reminded of how much i used to enjoy running around in my small home town for that week or so we were allowed to shoot fireworks , oh the "bottle rocket wars".  Sigh those were the days , and now im getting old lol.

I have not been able to get around to playing a lot of poker lately as i have been busy with family stuff going on , but i was able to play a significant amount of hands today.  I played 3 sessions at 25nl for about 6 hours total , I got crushed early on but was able to make a solid comeback later on in the day and finish up 2 buyins :).  I was reading a post the other day that talked about always having a plan for everything you do , and it allows for easier decisions . The one thing ive been trying to do lately is plan my sessions and have an exit strategy for when i would quit . I stand up from the tables under a couple conditions ; TILT (many ways of this but mostly when i start to feel emotional in any way), a good reg with position on me , being deepstacked oop vs someone who covers (unless they are total fish), and if I have been playing over 4 hours straight .  The obvious one on this list for everyone is "TILT", I think everyone tilts some and differently .  I am a serious competitor , and I seriously dislike losing so , as soon as i feel myself losing control at the tables for any reason , i remove myself and go do something else for a little while.  This allows me to come back after an hour or so and sit back down with a good mindset and begin making the best decisions i can make again.  I think everyone should think about a having a plan for your session as well as each individual hand !

GL everyone and see ya at the tables

Shane

Whats up everybody,

Today was pretty sweet day , it cooled off a little bit here in Missouri.  Made it a nice day to be outside , so i spent a lot of this afternoon playing outside with our two dogs .  Then i took an early jog because there was enough breeze to not burn up instantly .  I think this gave me a good start to the day , and i was ready to grind . 

At the tables today i played for about 5 1/2 hours and won a little over a buyin , a swingy day but ended up overall so i will take it .  The good part of the day came in playing the "lucky draw freeroll"  on Bodog.  It had about 280 runners with a seat to the Bodog 100k guarantee ($162 buyin) for every 5 entrants .  A 1/5 shot at a seat this big in a freeroll is pretty sweet so i was pumped for this tourney.  I was able to run good at the start of the tournament , and build a little cushion.  Down the stretch i couldnt win a pot anywhere and was super short when the exact bubble came .  I was 52 of 57 with 56 paying seats lol.  But i was able to hold on and sneak in and get my seat for the 100k.  The ticket is good for two weeks (really glad), so i wont be using it until next weekend as i have family obligations for celebrating the 4th of july.  I am really looking forward to playing a tournament this big again , its been a while :) .  Well guess thats about it for now !

GL all and see ya at the tables

shane

Wats up everybody ,

Today was a long day ,  I had to get up way early and help my cousin move a washer and dryer from storage to his new place . The dryer is light but the washer is the opposite , it made for a long day of lifting and sweating my balls off .  I also think i strained a muscle in my lower back and I will be feeling that for a couple weeks im sure , I just hope its not anything serious . 

In other news I will be moving from my small town (laclede, mo) to move to a college town (columbia ,mo) with a couple buddies .  Im ready to actually have a little more of a social life especially when Columbia is so packed with college girls YAY !  Our duplex is right in the middle of college town USA for Missouri , so should have endless oppurtunities to meet some new people and have some fun.  The move will only increase my bills a relatively small amount and if i have to i can always move HOME lol.

On the poker front i grinded about 5 hours of cash earlier today after we got back from moving cousin's shit .  The session started off well but went downhill from there ,  I ran pretty bad in the important spots .  Overall im very happy with my play lately , just have not had the best of luck lately.  I had to skip those 2 tourneys i had been playing and making runs in today because of the move but am ready to play them tommorow , people just play mtts so bad lol.  I also have a ticket from Bodog to win a seat in the sunday 100k , i am excited about that because it has been a while since playing a big mtt with a monster 1st place at the end .  Ready for tommorow and the grizind !

gl all and see ya at tables

shane

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-online-poker-20110701,0,6054543.story

Well everyone this article made me much happier today than i was yesterday , it seems FTP has found a buyer and will soon begin paying players out again .  Im still a little worried about what went down yesterday with the AGC but i definately have alot more hope then yesterday .  A couple of my mtt buddies showed back up on aim today breathing a nice sigh of relief .  It was good to hear them be more upbeat , i just hope it all works out in the end !

The pokerz today went pretty ok , i played some more tournies today but didn't have much success but was able to make one semi deep run by getting 50th something in the merge 3r.  I shoved 15bbs in mp wit ajo and ran into jj and couldn't bink the ace :( .  But the good news is i was able to recoup most of my tourney buyins today by winning a couple buyins at 25nl . I have noticed that starting tables on Bodog seems incredibly profitable .  Ive been doing that more lately and having much better luck to start sessions , definately gonna continue this strategy.  Well thats about it for today bankroll still stands at about $1,400 and will be playing 25nl until i reach $1500 and feel comfortable to take a shot at 50nl . 

End of month report to come tommorow ! (i was lazy this month don't be too excited lol)

GL and see ya at the tables

shane

Well today i woke up to get my day started , and the first thing i see is the FTP debacle .  I have a decent amount stuck on ftp and ub/ap , and it is incredibly frustrating to see all this go down at such a huge company.  FTP was obviously ran by some horrible business people and i feel truly sorry for all the people who are worse off than me right now , as i was smart enough to whole away some of my early success in savings accounts.  I really hope Americans can motivate politicians to stop taking away our personal freedoms in the next couple elections.  Now is the perfect time to step up and remove any politician who opposes personal freedoms !!! 

On to poker for today , I just got a nice jog in (damn its hot in missouri lol) and I am about to start my day with a session at 25nl to build back up to take another shot at 50nl .  I could probably still play 50nl if i wanted but i am going to take the conservative route and continue to take 3 to 4 buyin shots once i have 30 buyins for next level.  Off to the grind results to come later ............................

Alright results for today pretty much sucked lol , i played a couple different sessions and ran like crap in both.  I also played a couple mtts that seem to have good value for the times i play and the entry fee .  Since i like to play at night from 7pm ct to like 12pm ct or so because that is when bodog seems to have the most players and best games.  I played the $3.30R (4.5k guarantee) on Merge that start at 7 or 8 ct and the Bodog $11 (3k guarantee) that starts 30 mins after the Merge tourney.  Both fields were incredibly soft and i think im gonna make these two donkaments a regular part of my daily schedule bc of the value they present imo for cheap.  I got early chips in both but got much deeper in the Bodog 3k , got down to about 80 left with 40 or so paying and i had about 40 bbs and run ak into aa .  I had been 3betting a decent amount including the previous hand when a ep opener opened , and i 3bet again folded back to ep opener and he just shoves 40bbs in , i thought with the aggro dynamic i had to call and :( .  Its close some people will say fold here but if i win this pot i got  a great shot at top 3 and thats what mtts are about.  So all in all i had a slight losing day of about $20 but thats not too bad and there's always tommorow :) !

gl and see ya at tables

Today i played 2 seperate sessions , one at 25nl that went pretty well ( + almost 2 buyins)  and one taking a shot on a 30 buyin roll at 50nl (-3buyins).  Lately i havnt been having any luck when i move up to take a small shot at 50nl .  Lady luck just has not been on my side at 50nl so far lol .  The play on Bodog is remarkably bad at all levels up to 50nl so far in my experience so far . So tommorow i will move back down and grind out some more hands at 25nl and when i get 30 bi again for 50nl take another shot .  I think aquiring 30 buyins for next level and taking a small shot is good way to move out the micros without huge chance of going broke .  I need to get a hand grabber for bodog so hem will work but its kinda expensive so guess it will have to wait for now . Well off to bed looking forward to better day tommorow .  Ready to close out the month on an uptick !

gl yall see ya at tables

Hello everyone !

This is my 1st ever blog post , so being that my 1st post as well as not being around DC very long I'm goin to start off with an introduction.  My name is Shane I am 26 yrs old , and live in the middle of nowhere Missouri , USA lol .  I have been playing poker now for about 4 years , the last 2 of which it has been my main source of income .  I am a college dropout due to some bad decisions i made freshman year , and my family never had a lot of money which meant you only get one shot in my family.  So i worked shitty jobs for shitty pay until i found poker .  I worked really hard at learning the game at micro stakes , and had only deposited one time in my life .  I found some early success grinding 180s on pokerstars and was able to put together a decent starter roll from those games .  I then started playing a lot of mtts , i once again had some early success and was able to make a decent amount of money for where i live .  I then decided to quit the shitty job i had and go at mtts full time .  I had moderate success for a yr playing midstake mtts and then a downswing came that was worse then i thought was possible (trust me it can happen to anyone esp at mtts) and i had basically a losing year over a pretty decent sample of mtts , my frustration and laziness made the situation worse than it should have been.  I was still however motivated to continue to pursue poker because of a love of the competition and the lifestyle .  Then .............

Well you all know the rest of the story . After "Black Friday" i was pretty discouraged and very worried about what i was going to do , and thought about going back to slaving a shitty job for "the man" but then i thought about how much work i had put into becoming semi decent at this game.  So i decided I needed to move to cash games to survive the current poker climate until online poker is fully legalized for US citizens.  I re-subscribed to Deuces Cracked and started watching some videos .  I then made two small deposits on two US facing sites.  I went with the two that i could get money on the fastest at the time and deposited $40 onto bodog and $40 onto carbon.  I have played almost 80k hands so far and have ran the 80$ into around $1500 as of today.  I have went from 4nl to 25nl and 50nl mostly.  I have found that all of this change has sparked a new interest in the game after grinding mtts for a living . I plan to update this blog with daily reports from the tables as well as any poker ideas or experiences i might go through on a daily basis .  I am excited for what the future holds and am truly happy i came here to learn from the best ! thanks DC , best of luck to everyone at the tables.

If anyone would like to discuss hands or just bs holla @ me on skype = permatilt420

Sincerely

Shane