Finally takin a Break

Well, well I am so sick of playing online. I am going to Atlantic City cause my friend Derick has a room at the Taj where I can have my own bed and its only costing me 7 bucks a night, which is pretty much the same as free. Played really well online the other night woah! I was so calm a collected and peaceful woah! Can u believe how great I played? It might have been the best online poker of my life the other night. I didn't win a lot of money or anything just a few hundred but I just played so well. I was almost down to under 100 bucks, now I have 5% of my bankroll (250-300 bucks) back into my account and put almost as much into my other account where I store my money to be cashed out. So I did real well but then yesterday I decided to risk 216 dollars and try to make some life changing money. 6,500 people entered the sunday million and I finished 3,300th. My worst performance to date, the other two times I finished in the top 1500. Anway here is a really interesting hand I played. I had about 9,000 in chips and was kind of shortstacked, you start out with 10,000 and by this point some stack had around 25-30 thousand. The blinds were 200-400 and 4 people limped in, making the pot 1600, I limped from the small blind for 200 more with 4 2 offsuit. The flop came Ace 5 3 with no flush draw. I had the nuts! I check big stack bets 400 and there was one caller, I raise to 1200 and the better folds quickly but the caller called the extra 800 very quickly. The turn was terrible, 3, making the board A 5 3 3 and now I didn't have the nuts because a full house beats me. My gut instinct was I was beat so I checked, and the caller checked. The river was a Queen and I bet 2000 and he immediately shoved all in. Wow! He does have the boat was my first instinct. In the sunday million the structure is very strange you can't really afford to be too loose preflop, your really only playing premium hands so I had to put him on a flopped set here, which gives him a boat after the board pairs. I really didnt want to fold because my hand was so so so good but if he limps in preflop and then flat calls the first bet after the flop and then cold calls my reraise without even thinking, and pushed all in on the river with no hesitation I just have to give him credit for better than a straight. It did run through my mind that he had a pair of aces and the river made him aces and 3's with a queen kicker and he knew if I had an ace the worst he can do is split the pot in case I had an ace. Or he had AQ and felt he just made a better 2 pair cause I had an ace. But even in that situation he has to be afriad I have a 3 cause I was in the small blind so he may not bet so much with AQ and just decide to call. If he shoves in here he has a boat. Case closed. He either had 5's full or quad 3's. I folded. I know you wouldn't, excuse me most of you wouldn't but I did. And you think it's crazy cause you don't play up here, on my level. So I was left with 5,000 and so shortstacked. I fought back up to 9,500 and then pushed all in with 99 when the dude I put on the fullhouse opened for 2,000 when the blinds were at 400, 800. He had about 18,000 and called off half his chips with big slick, he hit the Ace and the King and I was out. No life changing money, (167 thousand for first place) and I get to start off the week down 216. Today I won back almost all of the entry fee playing people heads up for cash, so I'm only down a little bit. I don't even want to think about online poker for a while, I'm going to AC and I'll be back on the 4th of July most likely, can't wait to play live. I haven't been there in moneth and I have a feeling I'm going to play really well like the other night. Woah! I'm so excited.

Running bad

Played a short session the other night and made a quick 100+ but became very frustrated by my opponent. I mainly play heads up cash games. That means 1 on 1 for those who don't know. The blinds are 25cent 50 cent and you start out with a maximum buy in of 50. However after a short period of time there can be 500 dollars on the table easily. I run my stack from 50 to 200, 300, even 500 all the time, got close to 700 once and saw a guy with 1200 yesterday. Anyway I stopped playing and went to sleep cause I literally had steam coming out of my ears, I have never been so upset to make a C note. Weak No Limit Holdem players often lack the aggression necessary to really win big. Guys who play to many hands and limp on the button and have to make a small bet everytime you check, they drive me crazy. They don't have a very sharp understanding of the game and their approach does nothing for them except put everyone on tilt. Which obviously is a good thing because you want your opponents off thier game, but these weak players don't even know there doing this, it's not like it's their plan all along. They keep making these small probe bets that don't build the pot at all, and can't help them win big with thier good hands, which is what ur suppossed to do. So even though they may tilt their opponents their still not accomplishing their main goal for being there, like winning some money. I have no respect for weak non aggressive players, if you play like that and you wanna explain to me why your strategy works I'd love to hear it. This one guy who kept making these stupid little bets had me so angry I literally would have physically attacked him if I saw him in person. This is bad, I don't want to be like this, I want to never go on tilt, I want to always feel calm, cool, and collected thats what a true poker professional can do. I am still working on this and 90% of the time I can do it, but some players just really get to me. These weak probe betters I've been talking about are also call stations of course. If you bet with nothing they call it, if you check they make a small bet, if you have something good they tend to go broke, and when they have something good they bet real small or try to checkraise you, it's really pathetic. I'd rather play a super aggressive maniac type who threatens my entire stack every pot than deal with these numsculs.
Anyway I'm running bad my last few sessions and am on like a 700 dollar downswing, sucks. Yesterday I was putting a good session together and getting back to winning form but the dude I won that 100+ off the night before was still on my mind. The ridiculous amount of steam coming off me really made me sick, and I was still upset that I really got that mad. Poker in general was discouraging me and I made a few bad plays and started losing for the day. I fought through it and did well again until this one opponent but was sucked out on on two monster pots. After over an hour of play we are both deepstacked with like 400 dollars on the table between the two of us. He was all in with A9 suited against my AK and caught a lucky 9. There he was a 70-30 underdog, in the long run I will win this pot 70% of the time, but this time it didn't work out. So he had alot of the money on the table after this hand, I fought back again and had him all in again with my JJ against his 88 after the flop came 246, he caught a miracle 8 on the river to save his ass again. I am an 80-20 favorite here, meaning I will win this pot 80% of the time, so this was an even tougher beat than the other. If the best hand held up there I would have profited for the day but instead I lost money and wound up down hundreds, winning or losing those 2 huge pots pretty much determined the outcome of the entire session. However bad luck like this can usually be overcome when your really on your game, but since I'm in a mini slump right now Murphy's law seems to be in effect. It's actually like this is many sports, you just can't get the ball to bounce your way on some days. I did receive some horrible beats but throughout the session there was obviously some hands that went my way (not crucially huge pots but still) so I am not going to blame luck, I know I'm off my game right now and thats why I am on a downswing. It's jsut the downward spiral I talked about in the first blog, good luck or bad luck is not going to stop it, it's my mindset..... I'm not saying I wouldn't have gotten sucked out on so badly if was on the upswing, I'm saying everything would of just been different and it wouldn't of mattered. This will all pass like it always does. But I'm definately going to report it here, so if I lose money everyone is going to know about it. This way there is more incentive not to fuck up. I cashed out a G from pokerstars and most likely will be taking a short trip to Atlantic City soon, probly July 1st and 2nd. A break from online poker and these extremely swingy Heads up cash games in in dire need right now. I can't wait to go to Atlantic City and school these fish who play 1,2 No limit there. I still got about 6k to my name so I have the 20 buyins to play 300 max no limit, which is the general bankroll management cliche for cash games. "Don't play any stakes you don't have 20 buyins to your name for" I still think 12k is a better bankroll for these 300 max 1,2 NL cash games because then you can bring 600 bucks, have 1 full rebuy, and still be adhering to the 5% rule. So i may be using 5-10% of my bankroll which is cutting it close but not to big of a deal. What else can I do, not play live? Yeah right. So the journey to save up 12k continues after this recent set back........ I really should just shell out the 216 dollars and play the sunday million tomorrow, I've only played it twice and came in 1300th and 14ooth place out of 7000. Top 1000 make money. I've gotten pretty deep both times, I feel I am very capable of going big money deep. First place is 200grand........................................................

The First Blog Entry

I definately need to be able to write about my daily life. This is why I'm starting this blog. I'm going to tell whoever wants to read about everything that happens to me. One reason I wanna do this is because there has to be some way to express my daily poker ventures and most people I know don't like poker enough to really understand what I'm saying. And I want some kind of public forum to discuss my daily wins or losses so that there is more of a reason to keep winning. I consider myself a superb poker player however maintaining a consistent flow of income relying solely on poker is very difficult. It's really easy to get burned out and not play well, keeping your A game day after day is the most difficult part of it, and one bad day tends to take you on a downward spiral than lead to a significant financial hit. However there are steps you can take to avoid such disaster. The most important is bankroll management. You need to have a poker bankroll in one bank account and and use another bank account for spending money, or expense account. You must only use 5% of your bankroll each day. Right now I don't really have an expense account cause I need to keep all my money in my poker bankroll because the 5% rule must be followed! I try to spend as little as possible, my money pretty much goes toward poker, but I do spend a lot on so much other stuff. Well the goal is to run my poker account up to 12 thousand and then stick some money into my expense account and start really living it up. But until that happens I'm not to interested in buying myself a bunch of stuff I want. Anyway I have now been a full time professional poker player for 5 months. There's good news and bad news. The bad news is I have roughly the same amount of money in my bankroll that I did 5 months ago when I started. The good news is I have spent so much money! So however much I've spent is how much I've made. However this is not good enough, the only way to be successful is to be making moeny, spending money, and saving money. The whole point of being a poker player is to increase your bankroll, which increases your wealth, which improves your life. As your bankroll increases, 5% increases, and then you can play higher and higher stakes comfortably! So I need to be more consistent, or spend less? Well I don't wanna spend less so I need to make more. All in all let's try to keep a positive outlook, I have enough money to live on my own, I've been without any source of income besides poker for 5 months and I'm living well enough, obviously I wish I was saving also and making more. But thats what this blog is all about, writing to vent my frustrations to someone so I can do well in my chosen occupation. I feel things will keep progressing and I will eventually get my bankroll up to 12k and have a few more thousand in an expense account. I am about halfway there anyway... And anyone who knows me Frank at 21, 22 is alot different then the Frank of today. If I tried being a professional poker player back then I would of been broke in a short period of time. Poker gets better as you get older, part of being a solid professional at anything comes with maturity and understading all the talent in the world does not make you a pro. So in the past 5 months I've had a couple of downswings where my confidence was shaken and I couldn't seem to win for a week or so. But they always wind up in my rearview mirror as I'm back to my winning ways. Downswings aren't really as big a deal as I thought, they happen but I always recover. So anyway it's my job as a professional to stay focused and just stick to money management principles, since I don't play with over 5% of my bankroll (example: 250-300 dollars) my only goal is to increase my bankroll each day by that same amount, anything more is a bonus. And obviously if I lose more than 5% in a day I also stop, losing this much in one day is rare though. If you are want to be a successful player listen to my advice, don't try to get rich over night that will just make you broke. I'm going to start playing online in a little bit, going to make 250-300 and then quit. If I increase my bankroll by 5% each day imagine where i'll be in 4-5 years? When my bankroll reaches something like 100thousand dollars and I'm struggling to make 5 grand a day, the way right now I struggle to make 250 a day but usually get there after enough hours, and then I'm upset if I only make 150 in a day, imagine being upset cause i only made 3 grand for the day? Sticking to the system, being mature and professional, not gambling foolishly, and staying off tilt is the way to do it, take it slow, day by day and I'll be there eventually. Hey and there's always that off chance that you go deep in a big tournament and skyrocket your bankroll with minimum risk!