CARDRUNNERS

Lots of people have been asking me for some of the resources I've used to get ahead with trading so I figured I'd just throw them in my blog.

There has been one resource that has been the best I've come across, and it's free!!  It's really amazing that someone out there is kind enough to share his hard earned secrets with the masses for no cost.  I have yet to find what his angle is, but after spending a ton of time on his site, I don't think he has one.  Anyway, the site is www.yourtradingcoach.com.  I know the name is a little cheesy, but it's seriously chocked full of really good advice.  I highly recommend starting with the articles.  Any articles he links to are gold.  I definitely recommend revisiting these articles every so often as you progress with your trading as they will make more and more sense.

Trading has been going really well.  I'm still in simulation as I am forging together pieces and parts of my overall plan.  I plan to solidify what I can over the weekend and spend the next few weeks sim trading some more until I feel comfortable going live.  My initial goal was to be trading real money profitably in two months and I think I will end up being just outside of that goal... obviously if I'm successful.  I want to stress what a ridiculous goal that is.  I'm not special or anything, but I've spent the last 2 months getting up at the crack of dawn to look at price, putting in 8-12 hour days trying to learn this stuff.  So for the average person with average responsibilities that's like a few years worth of cramming, condensed.  As of late, time is on my side.  I also had some really good resources.  My good friend was also getting into trading and he found the aforementioned website.  Not only that, but I have some other friends a little further down the road with trading that could confirm that it is a phenomenal resource.

People tend to go in stages with trading and they will often depend on your background  You must be careful not to get pinned down to any one stage, especially early on.  One of my favorite blog entries that I've written was my  Evolution of  a Poker Player entry.  Basically it humorously pokes fun at the old man at your local casino who has been playing longer than you have been alive, but is still terrible.  How is it that someone with that much "experience" can be so bad?  It's for the same reason that sitting on a physics textbook won't make you the next Einstein... neither will staring blankly at price tick buy on a chart.  In any pursuit, quality of study is important.  There are lots of people who "study" lots of things, but make no advancement because their methodology is all wrong, or they simply aren't actively learning.  I experienced about a week in my trading study where I had stopped making advancements.  I had learned very quickly, but I couldn't put it all together.  And although I put in the time that week, the quality of study was horrid.  I needed a few refreshers to get my head on straight, and the following 2 weeks were my biggest advancement.  The point being, I could have literally done anything else that week and have been just as productive.  Don't let yourself stagnate.

Some pitfalls that often beguile the office traders are the following:

1. Belief in Systems:  There are lots and lots of trading systems available for sale.  Some are offered for free.  Some make little money under very specific conditions, but very few can beat the rake and slippage.  This was hardest for me to accept because I am a programmer, and obviously everyone falls in love with the idea of a program automatically making you thousands of dollars every day.  Here's the truth... if this were possible, why would Goldman Sachs employ traders?  Why not just hire a sea of programmers and make it rain?  It's for the very same reasons that the best poker players are people, and not bots (with the exception of limit).  I'm not going to say that there does not exist a very profitable system, I'm just saying it's the most difficult route to take.  Furthermore, on the topic of for-sale systems... if you had a system that could make thousands of dollars a day/week/month, why would you sell it for hundreds or even several thousand?  A business is generally worth 10-20 times its annual revenue (very very generally, this can vary wildly obviously, just look at P/E ratios of stocks).  So if a system could make someone $2k a month, that system is equivalent to a business worth $240-$480k... but I'll offer you it for $19.95.  But wait, there's more!!!!!!!!    It's just silly to think they work.

2. Trading is Simple:  Like poker there's a massive culture surrounding trading that hype it up, make it seem like this sexy craft.  The more I played poker, the more I learned the value of ABC poker.  People's psychology did the rest of the work for you in that they thought you were bluffing enough to still call.   The reality is that successful trading (at least on the day trading level) is built upon simplicity and objectivity.  If it's not objective, it's wrong.  If it's not simple, you should not do it.  Trading is far superior to poker in this way.... you can be the biggest bumhunter ever.  You don't have to post your blinds, you are in complete control of the risks you take.  Unfortunately, you cannot make risk go to 0, but you can be pretty close. As I've always said in poker, the biggest cure to negative variance is a high winrate.  It's ridiculously hard to have massive downswings if you continually play in games where your edge is 10ptbb.

3. Trading is Tough:  Obviously this directly contradicts #2, but the point is that the basics of trading are somewhat difficult to learn.  At the end of the day the concepts are very simple, but what most people don't have is a filter on what is a good fundamental to learn, and what is bad.  There is a ton of bad information out there and very little good.  Furthermore, as a novice you will often not be able to discern between the two.  The poker analogy here is that you could teach someone the basic rules in a day, make them a micro stakes winner in a few months... they can learn 80% of what it means to be a profitable poker player in a few months/years, but it takes a lifetime to master that last 20%.  Trading definitely falls into that category.

4. The Indicator/Strategy Trap:  Indicators are not the market.  Indicators give you information about the market.  Indicators alone, are not enough to trade from.  Good trades come from good ideas about the market, and areas of low risk and high probability.  Just because a fast Moving Average (MA) crosses a slower one, does not make a profitable trade.  In fact, I would highly recommend that anyone learning to trade absolutely not use indicators for the first few weeks/months.  On the same token, as alluded to, there is no Holy Grail of indicators.  There isn't going to be a magic set of signals, that when combined, give you a 100% guaranteed trade.  Hell... most aren't even going to be profitable.  The few that are, enjoy wild swings and do not make much.  Indicators are best used to help you refine your beliefs on that market.  By that I mean they should be highlighters, not decision makers.  They should help you to identify regions in the market that fit your trading plan and core ideas of the market. 


Best of luck to all that are trying to trade!  If there is one concept (well... actually two) that I can't stress enough it would be to make sure that the quality of study is good and that you do not stagnate, and that you stay as far away from the indicator trap as possible.  I fell down that route for a while... honestly I think the vast majority of people do... but I was able to correct myself in reasonably short time.

All that being said, I will say that I was able to learn quite a bit from the markets during that phase, where I was programming a lot trying to make my own strategies/indicators.  It turns out that I sort of luckboxed an indicator that turned out to be very helpful down the road when I understood the markets better.

Anyway, best of luck... on the charts!

Poker has been about the furthest thing from my mind lately.  This break certainly constitutes one of my longest breaks I've taken from poker, but more importantly, I can't stomach the thought of playing.  Generally, by this time I would have at least had some itch to play... but nope.

I am not big on "good-bye poker" type blogs.  I don't think there's any reason why I should cut poker out of my life completely, or completely remove the option from playing in the future.  I withdrew the majority of my bankroll, leaving me a healthy amount online to re-start if I ever get the inkling.

I imagine some people are wondering why I am so against poker lately... if you read my blog it outlines my last 7-8 months.  It really just has been one beating after the other.  Triple digit amounts of BIs below EV, and coolers to boot.  Largest losing month, followed by 3 breakeven months, followed by one moderately successful month, followed by two more breakeven months... all the while moving down in stakes.  I really feel like I couldn't have done anything more than I did to get back on the successful track.  I began to hate my time playing poker.  I began to feel that I was no longer a poker professional, but a philanthropist, sprinkling my hard earned winnings amongst any taker brazen enough to get their money in behind.  I felt as if I was the sole source of a lot of people going from below EV, back to EV, or above.  I dared to look at my all-in EV for my career and found that I had breached 200 BIs below for the stake of 2/4.  70 of those occurred over ~140,000 hands of 2/4 6max during my attempts to re-learn the game.  This didn't even begin to address the coolers.  I was proud to have broken even during that stretch of playing 6max, but the fact that breaking even, given that run of cards, was one of my biggest accomplishments in the preceding 6 months, made me even more depressed.

I had reached my personal breaking point.

I also am really beginning to loath the poker community.  There is nothing the community loves to see more than failure,  It's sort of disgusting in a way.  People hating for no other reason than because you once had success and now you don't.  My ego also got in the way... if no one knew who I was I'd have no problem playing nl200 to rebuild.  I didn't want to deal with the stupid threads, the haters, game selecting at such a low stake, etc.  I have also always said that playing sub nl200 as a professional is pretty dangerous.  If games get even a little bit harder and you're stuck having to move down to nl100 or nl50, you really are just barely scraping by, especially if you have a family to look after.  It's fine if you're a college student, not when you want to get ahead in life.

There's something about the culture surrounding poker that leads people to change.  I've seen it within others, and I've seen it within myself.  I won't mention names (although I freely admit I, at one time, fell into the following category) that poker players tend to drink more the longer they play professionally.  Some posters I know used to be totally straight laced... bright eyed and bushy tailed, excited to play poker... then they moved up in stakes, got more involved with the community, and now you'd see "sssooo fk drnke rght nOw", along with various beratings and asshole-ish behavior..  You begin to spend more time on 2+2 while waiting for games, all the while more and more stuff on 2+2 pisses you off.  It was all something I had to step away from.


Enough with the negative!  Lol, it's bumming me out just writing all this stuff.  The good news is that I'm 1,000 times happier than I was while I was playing poker.  I have left myself in a decent financial position giving myself the opportunity to explore other areas of profession without too much pressure.

For the last 6 weeks I've been studying trading 8+ hours a day.  I've been getting up at 5am, working out, and working really hard.  I've put a decent amount of pressure on myself to succeed.  I really like the freedom that poker provided, and would love to continue with that type of career.  On top of that, trading appears to have a lot more positives than poker.  You can control your risk, and decide which trades to take and which not to.  It's not impossible to have a 90%+ winrate on your trades.  It's certainly not easy, nor am I trying to give the illusion that anyone can do it, the sole point is that no one can do this in poker.  If you 3bet AA preflop and see a flop of JhTh2c, you cbet, and your opponent jams... you have to call and you are just never going to like what you see.  You'd be stoked if your equity were 60% in that spot vs their entire range.  I don't have to do that with trading, I can decide to sit that one out if 60%/40% edges are not my thing.  I pay no overhead to stay in the game (blinds), although I obviously have to pay rake via commissions.  Also, the money just scales so much better with trading... potentially anyway.  Some of the richest people in the world are a flavor of trader, the sky is the limit.

There is a mystique about trading similar to poker.  Trading isn't as hard as some folks like to make it sound (overthinkers) and isn't as easy as others suggest (those who just slap on random indicators and buy when X crosses Y, sell when Y crosses X).  You have to learn the (correct) basics, and build upon that keeping in mind that simplicity and objectivity are your best friends.

I'm still a few months a way from being able to see if trading is a viable option for me.  I'm trying to do what takes most people years, in months.  That said I really think I've come a long way in short time.  In the last week I think I've laid a foundation that I can build upon profitably.  If anyone wants links to some good resources I'd be more than happy to share.  If you are a poker player you have major advantages when it comes to trading.  I've read all of the "Market Wizards" series of books, and in quite a few of the interviews (it's basically a book of interviews with successful traders) that a lot of them love to play poker.  In fact, in "The New Market Wizards," (the latest one I know of), the author even makes it a point to mention that a lot of the traders he interviews play poker.  The reason being is that we already understand that risk is to be embraced when reasonable rewards follow.  We understand that hope is your enemy.  When you are hoping something happens in poker, it's almost always because you made a mistake (unless you hope that your AA holds!!  But then again, you could argue that you aren't embracing risk if you're hoping/expecting hands to hold!)  We understand the value of information in an arena of incomplete information (which is pretty much any arena, but I digress).  We understand the nature of 0 sum games.  We understand that in order to make money, you must be able to pinpoint exactly where profit comes from.  We understand stress!  You can adjust your style in trading to deal with downswings/drawdown a lot more than you can in poker.  Trading is certainly a stressful way to make a living  but when you come from poker, nothing really compares... or in the worst case, it's on par.  If you're the type of person that wants a winrate of 80%+ in your trades, you can do that... if over time you begin to drift from that mark you can shut down your trading, study for a bit and hopefully fix the problem.  Again, I don't want to mislead people into thinking all of this is normal and easy, simply that it's possible and lots of people have succeeded at doing so.

All that said I've learned a valuable life lesson.  When you work for profits/paychecks that you cannot count on, whether you are a Commercial Real Estate broker, a futures trader, a poker player, a sandwich shop owner, or what have you, it's super important to have more than one income stream.  It's a mistake I made, and if I get to a point where I can, I will definitely look into some RE investments for some passive income.

As for CardRunners, I have been toying with the idea of making some HU videos.  It's very likely that if I do return to poker it will be at lower level 6max, where I can build confidence and blow off some dust... so that said, a lot has happened in the HU world since I last made a video and I wouldn't be shy to hold anything back.  This will likely become a reality if there's demand for it, and if poker is enjoyable again (which it's not right now).

Best of luck at the tables!

Definitely putting in volume this month.  I think I'm pretty close to breaking my hands in a month record already.  Seeing that we are only half way done, this is exciting.  Hopefully I'll hit 100k this month.

That said it would be more exciting if I wasn't working for free.  I hit my career low of 200 BIs below EV this month at nl400.  Of course it's a crazy stat to cite, while in reality I ran about 50 above at 5/10 HU, which was canceled by like 8 BIs below EV at 25/50 and about even at 10/20.... as someone said, it always looks worse when you cherry pick, which is certainly true.  I'm more posting that fact so that all of you aspiring professional gamblers out there can know what awaits you if you play this game long enough.  Hopefully it also sparks some of you closet +EV people, since most of you don't make yourself publicly known, to re-evaluate your true poker potential.  The current runbad stemming from the last few months is a total of about 60 BIs below EV at nl400.

No runbad discussion is complete without a dismissal of EV stats and they're effectiveness of gauging a net "run", and to that I agree.  This month has been chalked full of both EV runbad and cooler run bad.  That said, I'm pretty happy to only be down the amount equal to that of my -EV, which means in the scheme of things I've made enough money to compensate for the nasty coolers as well.

Mentally I still have a long way to go.  I tend to autopilot and make some decisions very quickly after a long stretch of hands.  My game is fantastic so long as I'm actively thinking about each an every hand.  One of the most difficult things to accept is that I'm just not top dog any more.  One year ago I could pretty confidently say that I could sit with anyone at 2/4 and do well, if not even dominate.  I'm sure there were some 0 EV matches and what not, but for the most part I'd have an edge.  That's just not the case anymore.  There are a lot of extremely talented players flooding the tables.  Some of these guys play fairly mistake-free poker.  While I certainly wouldn't adopt the extreme end of bumhunting, it's not really doing my bottom line any good to sit and play with these guys, so I have to learn to quit people again, as I did when I was first learning HU.

You also used to be able to make mistakes.  But with the prevalence of hit and running, along with tougher games in general, it's not often that you can lose a buyin to anyone and have much of an opportunity to get it back.  If nothing else, it's obviously much more frequent to experience a hit and running now than it was back in the day. 

This year I hope to average 75kish hands per month of HU, which is going to be an exhausting feat, but I am prepared.  Poker really isn't as lucrative as it used to be, and I would strongly recommend that those of you putting a ton of time and effort into lower stakes games with the hopes of going pro, would reconsider.  You can always play poker on the side.

For me I am starting to blow the dust off my programming "skills" or lack-there-of.  I started to learn C# which is an amazing language.  My college experience was pretty poor in terms of real-world programmer skills.  My University was much more theory-driven.  But I'd be lying if I blamed it all on the University... what I was supposed to do was fill in those gaps on my own and take internships etc to learn how to code, while school was for learning how to be a Computer Scientist and the fundamental principles of computation.  It's much easier to teach yourself how to code in a new language, then it is to teach yourself core principles of algorithms and data structures.

I made a pretty neat little program I call the "Randulator".  It looks a lot like the calculator that comes with Windows, except it has percentages for buttons like 50%, 33%, 30%, 25%, etc etc.  You press the button and it provides you "Yes" or "No" with the corresponding frequencies.  Seems it's a nice tool to help randomize frequencies etc, and is better than flipping a coin or looking at the second hand of your watch.  I'm still awaiting a reply back from FTP customer service to see if it's OK to use... I don't really see why it wouldn't.

But the idea is that I want to eventually make some programs to analyze market data for markets... with the hopes of possibly getting onboard with a trading firm.  A lot of people talking about it in BFI has made me excited at the prospects of a non-poker related job.  It seems my experience is pretty much custom tailored to being a programming analyst for a hedge fund or whatever else.... and those experiences definitely include poker.

Oh yeah... the blog title.  So my goal for the rest of the month is to break even, that simple.  Keep playing good poker, keep my spirits up and not autopilot.

Best of luck at the tables!

The 6max grind has been going strong.  I've already played 35kish hands this month.   But let's be real here, 6max is boring.

I've been doing a LOTTTT of studying, looking at ranges etc.  I've found out a few things.  First, 6max winrates are tiny.  Just search PTR for yourself and try to find a 3ptbb winner, there are hardly any.  Furthermore, there are hardly any over several hundred thousand hands.  Further Furthermore, I'm down 50 BIs in EV over my 100kish hands of 2/4 6max which got me thinking... is it harder or easier to run bad at 6max? 

Intuitively, you have a lower standard deviation, so that should mean no... right?  Well not really.  Standard deviation only measures how far from the mean you are in a normalized way.  The way we use it in poker is by 100 hand chunks, so it's even more misleading.  The reality is that you play for stacks far less in 6max.  In that 100 hand period you've had less all-ins which actually means that your results are even more skewed than normal due to sample size.  After all, most of your variance is going to come from larger pots which are few and far between in 6max.  Today I played roughly 5500 hands of 6max and was all-in for a full stack less than 20 times.  In HU all-ins come fast, and you are in a lot of spots where you gain non-showdown winnings.  In that 100 hand sample you are on average far away from your average winrate, but you've covered a lot more ground in terms of sample size.  Even though the average standard deviation for 6max is roughly half of what HU play is, it doesn't mean you are immune from breakeven and downswing stretches, you are actually more prone to them.

The most important thing to consider is that the cure for "variance" (the negative stuff) is a high winrate and lots of non-showdown winnings.  That isn't because non-showdown winnings are better in any way to showdown winnings, the sample size is simply much larger.  In HU how often are you cbetting flops?  Probably hundreds of times an hour right?  Hopefully at a profit....  In 6max you see 100 hands/hour, let's assume you play a 20/18 game, you only have the opportunity to cbet 20 flops in that time and probably only actually cbet 10-15 times.  In HU you see 200 hands/hour and are cbetting 50%+ of the 100 hands you saw in position.  The Law of Large Numbers says that you are going to converge towards your "true" non-showdown winrate more quickly playing HU just in the same way you will converge more closely to 50% if you flip a fair coin 100 times as opposed to 10.

What does this have to addiction?  Well... I miss HU... and I played a little tonight and it will be difficult to return to 6max.  The only problem I've had is putting in the hands when playing HU.  It's many times easier to put in 6max hands, but the winrates are depressing. 

I played fairly well, made two largish mistakes, but it had been a while.  One was trying to bluff a fish and calling a large turn raise with a draw.  Was kinda weird that the fish checked back to me on the river, but he snapped with trips.  The other was getting in tens pretty deep.  I knew my opponent wasn't bluffing, I just didn't know what his value range looked like.  His fold to 4bet was about 16% over about 8 times and he had done a few things to make me think he way overvalues small pocket pairs preflop... oh well, best to avoid those situations vs bad players anyway as your EV will be small in the best cases when deep with TT.

Anyway, I hope to possibly split my time between 6max and HU so don't be surprised if you see me splashing around!

Best of luck!

It's not very often in life where you stumble across something that ties together so many pieces.  Thankfully this just happened for me the other day while reading Curtis M. Faith's The Way of the Turtle.   It's basically a book about investing, and how two successful investors had a bet to see whether they could train others to replicate their success... Curtis was one of those people, they called themselves turtles, and was very successful.

The excerpt that stuck out must to me was the following:

"Unfortunately, in most fields the number of people who really understand what’s going on is very limited.  For every true expert, there are scores of pseudo-experts who are able to perform in the field, have assembled loads of knowledge, and in the eyes of those who are not experts are indistinguishable from the true experts.  These pseudo-experts can function but do not really understand the area in which they claim expertise. 

True experts do not have rigid rules; they understand what’s going on, and so they do not need rigid rules.

Pseudo-experts, however, don’t understand, and so they tend to look at what the experts are doing and copy it. They know what to do but not why it should be done.Therefore, they listen to the true experts and create rigid rules where none were intended.

One sure sign of a pseudo-expert is writing that is unclear and difficult to follow. Unclear writing comes from unclear thinking. A true expert will be able to explain complicated ideas in ways that are clear and easy to understand.

Another common characteristic of pseudo-experts is that they know how to apply complex processes and techniques and have been well trained but do not understand the limits of those techniques."
 

These paragraphs were magic to my eyes.  If this doesn't describe the poker community as a whole, I don't know what does.  It goes deeper than that.  I know it's a fairly basic book, but Rich Dad, Poor Dad enforces some of the same principles.  Instead of calling them "pseudo experts" he calls them naysayers.  Naysayers embody the majority of society.  It's your Uncle when you share your dreams of opening a restaurant.  "It's hard.... do you know how hard it is?  So many fail... you shouldn't do it."  Although Uncle Bob may have visited a few too many restaurants in his lifetime, I'm not sure he qualifies as an expert.  People love to naysay.  Why?  Because people also like to sit back comfortably and collect a pay check from someone who is making a lot of money off of them.

Whenever I share these views with my dad he calls me an outright Marxist.  I always think in very literal terms, and I can't see the working-class situation being anything but exploitative.  It's not because I'm a Communist, it's because I'm the ultimate Capitalist who believes in the potential of people.

One magic ratio appears over and over whenever the idea of success is discussed.  95%/5%.  95% will fail, 5% succeed.  How many restaurants fail?  90% in the first year, 95% by the 5th, etc.  How many poker players are long term winners?  5%.  How many traders are successful?  5%.  How many people are check collecting naysayers? 95%.

It's important to describe who makes up that 95% of the population.  It's not 95% of the general public, it's 95% of people who actively try to succeed in whichever their respective realm of pseudo-expertise.

The reality is, even if you asked someone deeply entrenched in a particular field of expertise, you run a massively bad chance of getting bad advice, 95% to be exact.  While that person might be deeply embedded in the culture, the catch phrases, the flavors of the week, the technical details of our given field, they still are not someone who should be sought out for any kind of advice.  In fact, they often will create a culture of mediocrity because their mediocre/losing views get shared and praised amongst their 95% losing peers.

Let's apply this directly to poker.  How many serious poker players would claim to have knowledge of pot odds and implied odds?  Let's call it 99%.  Of those, how many actually know how to calculate both (the latter being more difficult obviously, but both are basic math)?  Let's call that 33% of the original 99%.  Of those, how many actively calculate pot odds and implied odds?  Let's call that another 33% of the 33% (1/9th of the original 99%).  Now we have a very rough figure of about 11%.  Starting to look familiar?  I can pretty easily imagine some situations where half of that 11% just don't have other skills to make them a winner.  They tilt... they don't manager their bankroll etc, and therefore they don't win.  Leaving us with roughly 5%.  Obviously this was a contrived and simple example, but the point remains the same.  As a coach I can tell you that the vast majority of my students did not actively calculate the most basic odds in poker.  Hell... to be 100% truthful there was a long time in my career where I didn't and I was even misapplying some very basic principles (to be fair ranges in HU are immeasurably difficult to calculate and therefore calculating implied odds is often impossible).

However, we are talking about the most basic of basic poker skills.  In theory, no serious poker player should ever make a pot odds/implied odds mistake.  In reality players often cite "implied odds" as a reason for a shitty call, without ever knowing how much they need to make on average when they hit, how clean their outs are, and how the clean outs applies to their implied odds.

Just yesterday I had a really terrible hand.  Unlike HU, ranges are of huge importance in 6max.  In HU I'd say that 50%+ of the time it's "this is a spot where he will normally 3 barrel," which if translated into more presice terms says, "I have no fucking clue what his range could be but I know that a lot of players like to significantly widen their multibarreling range on a board of this texture.  Does this include bottom pair? I dunno... Does this include under pairs... I dunno?  How often is this the type of air where my A-high is good?  I dunno".  You end up flying blind a little, using your call as an information gatherer and  deterrent of future aggressive actions.

In 6max you can vividly define ranges.  Multiway pots can make some ranges even more narrow.  The presence of a short stack both pre and post flop can also expand or contract ranges, so can the presence of a fish.  There was recently a 6max player who absolutely crushes who came out and did some "The Well" type posts on 2+2.  One of the most critical things he said was that hand ranges are pretty clear and people still don't do the right thing in spots.  Now, you might stop me right there and say "well, why isn't he part of the 95%?"  Unless he's making up his results he is certainly something special.  I am certainly still skeptical though, and furthermore I have come to similar conclusions in both HU and my recent exploration of 6max.  But then there are some who would certainly question my label of "expert" vs pseudo-expert and I guess you got me there =P.

Anyway, without further delay I give you a really nasty hand I had the other day.

http://weaktight.com/1848285
Let's talk about ranges and how they apply on every street...  Obviously it looks like I'm squeezing preflop, and we're 125BBs deep with a fish who is likely to join us without shoving preflop, hence UTG+1 can be calling reasonably wide pre.  I'd say a tight/standard range would be 99-AA, AQs, AKo,AKs.  It can certainly be argued that he gets his AKs/AKo in pre, and maybe his AA/KK/QQ too, but I think the majority of regs would flat their monsters her probably including AK.  If UTG+1's range is wider I'd argue that it widens in terms of pocket pairs he calls with and not much else (calling with AJs here seems pretty awful).

The flop is obviously a fist pumping cbet/get it in vs either of them.  Why?  Remember... pseudo-experts will just say to get it in "because"... we want to be better than that.  The answer is because we look like we are full of shit and squeezing pre, so we will nearly always be cbetting in this spot, maybe even with a hand like QJ or whatever since the shorty only has $60 behind, he doesn't have to fold much and we have equity.... certainly we'd cbet with any  hand that has decent equity.  Also, UTG+1 should be getting it in with his flatted over pairs here, and there are a lot that we beat.  So in UTG+1's mind my cbet range is fairly massive in this spot.  Probably slightly less large given the presence of the shorty, but not by much.

UTG+1 flats my flop cbet.  What does this mean?  It's actually a spot where I'm not really expecting him to flat very often.  To me it means one of two major things.  "I have a set or AA," or "I have an overpair and no idea how to play it."  Secondarily it could be a draw, but since we don't figure him for having too many drawing hands in his pre-flop range, save for AKs/AQs, which should jam flop if they have a FD, we must focus mainly on our first two reads.

CO calls all-in behind UTG+1's call.  What does this mean?  This really could be a lot from a donkfish.  It could be any overpair, possibly 2 pair, and of course, any draw.  I'm not really worried about it but it does tell UTG+1 that if I am still betting turn I'm just about never bluffing.

The turn is AIDS.  Qd.  Given our assumptions about UTG+1's range, this is the nut worst card.  Unless he's capable of super hero calls in pots where he has to also beat an already all-in short stack to win a big portion of the pot, we are just not getting called by worse.  Granted, he doesn't have many flushes in his range... he should really be getting most in on the flop and should very very rarely show up with like a 9 high flush given how the hand went down pre.  If he has a flush it's AdJd - AdKd, all of which would probably just ship the flop.  I'm not counting out flushes entirely but they are a small part of his range.  So what's left?  77-AA where 99-JJ doesn't call.  Therefore, he never calls with worse and will bluff almost never.

What are my options?  And this is where the pseudo-expert comes into play.  I really want to shy away from 2+2, but was about to post this hand hoping and praying that I might get one good comment on it out of dozens.  But the more I thought about it, the more I already have the power and know the answer here.  Wading through posts of "lol u squeezed pre and have overpair, getitin!", "lol wtf you gonna do C/F??!?!"  I have the analytical tools I need and don't need outside opinions.

Did I make the right play?  Of course not.  It was really tough, and I'm proud of myself for not autopiloting here.  I tanked for my entire timebank while massively multitabling because I understood what was going on and how just utterly disgusting the spot was.  But why was this hand even relevant?  Because my thought process went from rational to irrational.  My inner pseudo expert kept thinking of things like, "what are you gonna do, c/f?", "exploitable" and "lol terribad".  It seemed like check/folding is a play I should never ever make with an overpair, but everything is telling me I should.  I took all of my careful observations and flushed them down the toilet due to a culture of mediocrity and a moment of personal weakness.  I shoved my stack.

In the same way that when you are learning poker you overvalue suited cards, only to find out later that they are in fact, awesome... but of course, for reasons you can now describe (on average slightly better equity vs a range, more barreling/semi-bluffing options, widens your raise-get-it-in range on drawy flops etc)... people often under value the results.  I'd say I made a HU career off of results, and so do most good HU players. 

There is one sure fire way to tell you fucked up in a hand by the results, when villain shows up with a hand you didn't assign to their range.  So while it's by no stretch definitive, if you do assign them to a range and they show up with a hand in that range it's obviously much more likely that you estimated their range correctly.  Now it's certainly not THAT significantly important because generally speaking when you  misjudge someone's range it's probably because you went too tight (reg vs reg anyway) than too wide.  Meaning that let's say I c/f my KK and dude shows up with 56 to blow my mind... he probably did have 99-AA in his pre-flop range, but also the addition of 56.  Point being, it's not a significantly worthy observation, but it's not entirely worthless. 

My entire point is that the successful have confidence.  We all have a little pseudo-expert in us, but we can minimize it and start finding ways to find answers ourselves instead of relying on others.

Needless to say, I'm glad 2009 is over.  I had a mediocre start. followed by an amazing run of cards, followed by an absolutely awful run.  Takings shots and pushing yourself is always this weird psychological phenomena.  If it works out, you never question your decision to do so.  When it doesn't, you think it was a horrible choice.  In hindsight I'm really glad I made the decisions I did.  There is something dangerous about feeling like you can just print money playing poker, an in a lot of ways early to mid 2009 felt like that for me.

I played some extremely talented players this year, and for the most part, beat them.  The two big exceptions were jungleman12 and UrNotInDanger2.  There was a period of a few months where I took on all comers.  My goals were not to scrape by bumhunting 5/10 and 10/20, they were to be the best at 25/50 and higher.  I learned a lot during that period of time.  Unfortunately I was plagued by the run bads verse very weak opponents.  It started on Cake, where lack of action and aggregate bankroll lead me to make the decision to either take all of an opponent's money, or bust the account.  I busted that account.  The player was not horrible, but he wasn't great either.  On FTP I found a spot against a fish at 25/50 and he ran like God.  Also, in the final days of August I was not running well vs decent regs either.  That sort of thing just happens and lead people to re-evaluate their goals.

My August was a humbling experience.  I did not like the swings involved in playing good players HU, nor did I ever really find a way to crush my opponents.  In fact, I think it was like that for my opponents as well.  No one dominated eachother, but they sort of broke even and let variance do the rest.  There was only one player that I truly felt I understood how they approached HU.  Although I ran my absolute hottest vs said person, I still think a good 25-50% of my success vs them was solid play and out-leveling.  I remember jamming AK for 350BBs quite comfortably after dude 5 or 6bet me pre.  I guess I don't really need to preserve my read on said person since 1) I will probably never play them again, and 2) I haven't mentioned who it is.  Basically, if there was ever a spot in which if he raised, would put me in an absolutely terrible spot, he would.  100% of the time.  So if you were preflop with AK for 200BB+, he would 5bet you a huge amount of the time etc, because it's just so easy and I would "have to fold" everything but KK/AA.  But I digress...

It was somewhat humorous to me that it wasn't until December that someone mentioned I was having a downswing on 2+2.  Naturally, haters gotta hate.  It's always funny to see talentless players who have accomplished so little, trying to berate someone because of what tableratings says.  Not to mention that my FTP TableRatings is still in the positive.  Overall the thread was a good thing.  I self banned myself for 2 weeks because you begin to learn what kind of place 2+2 is.  It's like peacocks trying to mate.  The biggest display of prowess, wins.  A few weeks back Zimba wrote a nice blog about the quality of 2+2.  I believe he said 98% is shit followed by 2% that are gems/entertaining.  I think that's about accurate.  I'd add that the 2% is 90% entertainment and 10% solid strategy... so if you aren't interested in entertainment 2+2 is 99.8% bad.

So what's worse than a big downswing when you are trying to push your game and move up?  To run even worse when you move down.  I stuck at 5/10 HU for a while after my shots at 10/20 and 25/50.  These went horribly to the tune of about 25 BIs.  I then moved down to 24/ and 3/6 HU.  This finally started going well, but waiting for games was quite annoying.  I decided to finally polish my 6max game.  My first month of doing so I ran 30 BIs under EV and broke even.  Obviously this is a good result given the 30 BI below EV, but you can imagine the frustration of the sum of the events.  It's always extremely difficult to know whether you are playing bad during a downswing.  You want to believe you aren't, but the reality is that you really can never play your A game after taking a really bad beating.  Although I'm sure that's not the first time you've heard that, but what I never hear, is a solution.  OK, so we know we can't play that well during our downswings, so now what?  Move down?  OK, I've done that 3 times?  Not play?  Well... I have to eventually work as I do this for a living.  In truth, I don't really know what's best, but time off is mandatory.  Getting excited about the game also helps.

All that aside I probably learned the most important life/poker lesson this year.  You can't just say "I need to change my mental game," or "I want to change [fill in blank] about myself" and hope that it happens.  It's a constant effort.  About the time I started getting a handle on my mental game was when I'd remind myself every 5-10 minutes that "this game sucks some times, and you aren't going to win, just be happy with getting it in in good situations."  Literally, every 5-10 minutes... remind yourself that suckouts happen, nasty coolers happen etc.  Just know where your profit is.  If you don't know, study.  Don't take other people's word for things, Stove them yourself.  Test your own assumptions.  Fwiw, I now feel I am one of the better 2/4 6max players and it didn't take me long.  One of the reasons I feel I am up there is because people make bad assumptions about ranges etc, and not only that, a lot of those bad assumptions are re-enforced across places like 2+2.

So I guess that gives some idea of where I stand at the moment.  I am happily grinding MSNL 6max.  For one, the real dollars per hour is massive.  For two, weaker regs must play with me if they want access to the fish.  For three, the variance is far less than HU.  For four, the online bankroll requirements are far less, allowing me more opportunity to put money into other things (a house for example!).  And finally, I can make a lot more money.  I really think I've blown a lot of money over the past few years in not pushing myself to play more and more often.  So although I can make a lot more money, it's going to take more time invested than I've ever put towards poker.  I'm OK with this as I definitely spent quite a few days in 2009 waiting 10+ hours to play 500 hands of HU.  

Last year I had laid out some goals for 2009, they were as follows:

1. 400k hands played in all formats: 

I actually came pretty close to achieving this goal.  I think I fell slightly short in terms of my HEM, but if you add in MTTs I think I probably got close.  I give myself a B-.


2. Begin the Transition Away From Poker:

I definitely dedicated a lot of time towards "what I want to do when I grow up." 

I became proficient at what makes a good real estate deal tick.  Unfortunately, that skill is only good if you can find the deals, which is truly hard.   I also learned a ton about trading.  I learned so much that it overwhelmed me and caused me to freeze.  A good friend of mine put it best when he said that books don't really help.  I think he's right.  You need to get a baseline of knowledge and just get out there and either start backtracing systems, or trading on paper, followed by "betting the min" after that.  The more I learn about trading the more I realize it is 90% analogous to poker.  The answers and winning strategies are available to all, but something about our human brains does not allow us to achieve those goals.  I see this all the time in poker.  If you are interested in trading, I highly recommend "The Way of the Turtle" as a good starting point.  Anything you don't understand in that book, research, and you will be well on your way.

I also explored the idea of opening my own restaurant.  I love to cook, and it would be awesome to be in an executive chef type position.  This is an extreme dedication of time and therefore might not end up being right for me, but we'll see.

I give myself a solid B.

3. Back to the Gym:

I bought a really nice piece of gym equipment as I have a gym quality recumbant bike, and have been using it.  Probably not as much as I should.  I have lost a little weight, but most importantly, I have quite some really bad habits.  I have been smoke free for about a year, and I haven't had a drink in 3 months.

I've definitely been meaning to do a blog on addiction and the poker player, but haven't really found the correct segue but this is as good as any.  Lots of poker players have massive addiction issues.  I can even tell by the way some people interact with the 2+2 community.  They started out nice and constructive, then about the time you see the posts of "im s fk drrrnku rght nw" in the LC threads across various forums, that they become more aggressive.

So I'll I will say is that it's good to check yourself when it comes to these things.  They will hurt your game, they will hurt you psychologically and they are not the answer.  I remember I used to drink to sort of tone down the "good feelings" from a good session.  Then I'd drink as a result of a bad session.  Then I realized I was drinking every day because that 10k hand day where I went from 0 to -15 BIs and back to 0, I drank because I just had a long day.

Getting back to the actual gym, I give myself a C, but the underlying goal is to "get healthy" I give myself an A-.

4. (Optional) Buy A House:  I now know what I want and where I want it.  I've done a ton of research and feel really good about my general real estate knowledge.  I also am stoked for two reasons... although I still had a decent year in 2009... much better than any job I've ever had by a multiplicative factor, I didn't make a ton.  This means I qualify for the $8k first time homebuyer's grant, which was extended to June.  So it's pretty much a certainty that I will pick up a house between now and then.

I really don't think this is a category that deserves a grade.

5. Spending Less

Fail, Fail, Fail.  I bought two boats this year.  I lost somewhere around $20k playing stupid table games at casinos.  Granted, I sold one of my boats at a profit, I spent a lot. 

There is something good about a young man coming across a large sum of money, and blowing it.  It should prepare you for when you really get a good amount of money (hopefully on the back of your own success), you will know what to do with it.

I was up almost 200k by Summer this year.  I was stoked to possibly reach $500k.  But alas, things went in the opposite direction fairly dramatically.  As a result we ate out way less, we cooked almost every meal at home.  No more trips to Tahoe/Vegas.  Only a few ps3 games here, and a few airsoft guns there for discretional spending.  Finding cheaper places to get groceries etc.  I don't want people to get the wrong impression... and specifically, I don't want to deal with haters.  I wasn't because I was broke, it was because things had gone so wrong for 6 months that I needed to make everything last.  I had a decent chunk of money in the bank, I had my first two quarterly tax payments paid (which should turn into a massive refund!!!), and I had a super strong bankroll.  But it was a good fear, and I probably won't revert to careless spending.  My future and my family's future is far too important.

So for the first half of 2009 I give myself an F-, for the second half, a solid B.  Overall, C-.



6.  Poker Goals

To be honest this is the first time in a long time that I actually read my 2009 poker goals.  I guess it wasn't a mystery, I wanted to tackle 25/50.  I wanted to crush regs.  I definitely did this in 2009, but was not able to sustain it and/or deal with the variance.

It sucks to feel like you are "limited" in any way, but for now, I feel that is the case.  I give myself a solid A for trying this year.  For putting myself out there, getting rid of game selection in one of the toughest era's of poker, and for overall playing very well.  I give myself a C- for my mental game.  In a lot of ways it degraded in 2009, not strengthened.  It's funny that when I made my 2009 goals last year I even knew that my mental game had to increase, if only I had the wisdom to make that reality lol.

So for Poker Goals I'd say the good outweighed the bad for a B+.




Upward and Onward:

The end of 2009 brought a revelation to me.  The best way to make good money playing poker is to grind in a low variance environment against weaker players.  I know I know, ground breaking stuff.  But more provocatively I realized that there are a lot of players that give up on hundreds of thousands of dollars in their career pursuing the ability to make millions/year instead of hundreds of thousands.  For people like me, that actually cut my income significantly and made me realize that I will not likely ever be a player that makes millions in a year, and if I were to become that successful, it would be because I put in the hands at a reasonable stake.  

So to that end I want to be a grinder in 2010.  I haven't set any hard and fast goals yet, but tentatively I'm looking at 1.5M hands of 6max.  This is going to be very difficult for me.  On paper, it's pretty simple.  Grind slightly north of 120k hands/month and you will bink 1.5M.  I have obligations, a son, a desire to travel, a fiance etc.  I'm not a college student, who besides 10 hours of class a week, has nothing else to do.  I'm hoping for a Euro trip in March, which will eat up a month.

So if I'm going to put in that many hands, why not go for Super Nova Elite?  Of course!  It would be silly not to, since going from 999,999 VPPs to 1M is worth about $24-$40k.  To boot, Stars has made it even easier this year.

For those who play on Stars, I was told there was a lot of retardation in the 2+2 thread on the new system.  It's this simple... mid year 2009 Stars implemented a new system for calculating VPPs.  You get 5 VPPs per $1 raked split between everyone at the table.  At 6max, a $3 raked pot means 15 VPPs generated, divided by the 6 people at the table for 2.5 VPPS.  The system that preceded this system was a cap type system.  The most you could ever earn was 2 VPPs for a $3 raked pot, and they allowed for a 3rd VPP to be awarded (this was per person, not summed then divided) if the rake reached $5... which I guess happens at super high stakes.

For 2010 Stars has implemented a new change, this muliplier is now 5.5 instead of 5.  For every $1 raked you get 5.5 VPPs instead of 5.  For full ring players, it's now 6, to make it more fair.  This translates to it being 10% easier to reach SNE in 2010.

To book. they've added $2k more in milestone bonuses on the way to SNE.  Although they've redistributed how it's divvied out, it is $2k more for free.

In sum, SNE is 10% easier to attain, and is worth $2k more than last year and I will be giving it a shot.


In summary, my goals for poker in 2010 is to make the most money possible, working the hardest possible, with the least variance possible.  I'm not going to change my playstyle to favor lower variance, but I will play at stakes where my winrate is such that lower variance is the norm.  For example, 2.5 ptbb at 2/4 is the same as 1ptbb at 5/10, but you will have more negative variance/losing sessions at 5/10, therefore, why ever play it?  Of course if you are learning and are honest with yourself, and can improve from that 1ptbb... it's pretty clear why you'd play.  But the reality is that a lot of players would rather be a lifetime 1ptbb at 5/10 than a 2.5 ptbb 2/4 player (of course 1ptbb at 5/10 is worth more due to VPP/FPPs generated but I'm trying to make a point here).  So if I can crush 10/20 and put in a bunch of hands there, I will play there.  If I can't, I will play lower.  It's that simple.  But all that aside, if I'm able to make a very modest winrate even at 2/4, play 1.5M hands, and make SNE, it will rival my best year playing poker, and I'm totally OK with that.

That said my plan of attack will be crazy.  Given my schedule and life commitments, I can only make SNE if I grind an insane amount of hands during the time I have to dedicate to poker.  I will know by the end of February whether or not it's a reality.

Aside from all that I really love FTP's new policy of 30BB games.  I think that's fantastic and am hoping Stars follows suit.  Although, if Stars does follow suit I don't really see any reason to ever play on FTP again, save for the odd tournament here and there.



I'm not going to call the other things I want to do in 2010 "goals" but the short list is:

- March Euro Trip.... this can only work if I have a monsterous January.   If I do, I book the tickets.  If I don't, I will be grinding.

- Buy a house.... this will be a reality in 2010 as it's probably going to be the year (at least in my region) where people look back and say "this was the best time to buy a home in the last 100 years"

- Have Fun/Enjoy Life



Best of luck at the Tables all!  Have a happy and safe New Year

I host Food and Fight pretty much every UFC, UFC 107 was no exception.

I don't think I've ever shared with my blog readers, but I love to cook.  So on Fight Nights I usually invite a bunch of people over and cook a bunch of really good food.

If you like ribs there are none better than Alton Brown's:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/who-loves-ya-baby-back-recipe/index.html

Make the rub yourself.  If you really want to get crazy, make the chili powder for the rub yourself as well.  Really simple:

• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder

.
Then use Alton's 8-3-1-1 recipe for the rub.  I tend to double up on the chili powder to give it more spice, so it's 8-3-2 Brown Sugar - Kosher Salt - Chili Powder.

You can also take some liberties with the braising liquid.  It's super vital btw, so don't skip it.  Once you try the recipe you will never BBQ ribs again.  For the braising liquid I add Whiskey if I have any and it's ridiculous.

I've found that you generally need to cook them a bit longer than the 2.5 hours perscribed.  I usually go 2 hours 40ish minutes at 260 and the meat just melts off the bone.  For Spare Ribs you should go 2 hours 45 min to 3 hours.

Another thing that most Americans really suck at is hummus.  It's fucking easy and delicious, but the shit you buy at the store is absolute tasteless garbage.  Just take 2 cans garbanzo beans, throw them in the food processor.  The only "weird' ingredient you need is tahini which is like a sesame seed paste... it's kinda of peanut butter-like and slightly bitter.  For $8 you can buy a jar that will last you years, even if you eat a ton of it.

Put in about 3 Tablespoons of Tahini, too much makes it taste bad, to little and it's missing something.  Get the juice from 1.5 medium/large sized lemons and pour it in.  Put a tsp of cumin and paprika and let it whirl in the processor.  To serve put it on a plate and spread it flat, drizzle olive oil on top, finish with paprika, cumin and a slight tough of cayenne paper.  It's traditionally served with pita bread, but chips work just fine.  You can get fancy with the pita bread too by cutting them up, making a garlic butter, and toasting them. 

For those who like really simple, really good food you can make the easiest carnitas in the world, by throwing a pork shoulder into a crock pot on low for 8-10 hours (or 4-6 hours on High) with 2 taco seasoning packets.  This is really good for students in a dorm or people who are lazy but love good food.  You can make tacos, burritos, whatever else you want with the meat... it's even good on sandwiches, just mix with BBQ sauce and you have yourself a pulled pork sandwich.

So yeah... the fights... They were good!  I kept missing all of the big action.  Pretty much every time a big hit went down I was looking away.

Semi-Spoilers:


Struve bugs me.  Buentello definitely won that fight in my eyes, but he's stupid for not finishing the fight and if I were his coach I'd have beat  him.  I know some dudes are about showmanship, but FFS, just do your job, finish fights and take advantage of situations that are gift wrapped for you, especially when you're like a foot shorter than a guy and you have him on the ground, GROUND AND POUND HIS ASS!

Struve reminds me a lot of Big Baby from TUF.  A physical specimen, not much talent.  To be fair I really liked him in his last few fights and thought he had potential.  His strikes were precise, but slow and lazy... his ground game was awful... he just wasn't doing much right.  I guess it really bothers me to see fighters in a weight class with absolutely no prayer of beating a top 5 fighter.  I understand some guys just like to fight, but these guys don't get paid shit... if you can't contend, why bother?  Obviously that's just my opinion, hopefully people follow their passion but I think they're nuts.

On that note, UFC fighters get paid fucking peanuts.  I can't find UFC 107's, but look at 106:

Forrest Griffin — $250,000 ($150,000 to show, $100,000 to win)
Tito Ortiz — $250,000 With numbers like this, I wonder if Tito would have been awarded an additional 100 grand to win…
 

Josh Koscheck — $106,000 ($53,000 to show, $53,000 to win)
Anthony Johnson — $17,000  

Paulo Thiago — $16,000 ($8,000 to show, $8,000 to win)
Jacob Volkmann — $6,000

 

Amir Sadollah — $30,000 ($15,000 to show, $15,000 to win)
Phil Baroni — $25,000

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira — $100,000 ($70,000 to show, $30,000 to win)
Luis Arthur Cane — $19,000
 

Ben Saunders — $20,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 to win)
Marcus Davis — $27,000
 

Kendall Grove — $44,000 ($22,000 to show, $22,000 to win)
Jake Rosholt — $15,000
 

Brian Foster — $12,000 ($6,000 to show, $6,000 to win)
Brock Larson — $25,000
 

Caol Uno — $20,000
Fabricio Camoes — $10,000
 

George Sotiropoulos — $20,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 to win)
Jason Dent — $8,000


Compare that to De La Hoya getting a $23M guarantee to fight Mayweather ($10M gtd) and you realize that MMA is a long ways away.  But aside from that I don't think that the scale is correct.  If a top MMA fighter only gets a $500k guarantee, then that implies boxing is 46 times more popular (De La Hoya's $23M divided by Lidell's $500k = 46).  Pacquiao/Cotto had 1.25M buys where from what numbers I can gather, UFC PPVs have 500-800k.  Holy fuck the promoters are just raping these guys.  I really hope something is done about this as the popularity to pay ratio for the fighters is so lopsided.

Anyway, the rest of the fights were fairly enjoyable.  I really like Florian and respect Guida.  I'd love to see Florian/Edgar and I'm guessing that's what will be next, the winner possibly advancing to get slaughtered by Penn.

MIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  I like Mir.  He's a beast.  I really think the best thing for a fighter is getting the living shit kicked out of them.  Obviously Mir has lost before, but he came back super hungry.  And Jesus fucking Christ he was eating.  264.5!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And he looked more cut than normal.  Off the top of my head he was like 235-240 when he fought Lesnar and Nog.  I could be wrong but holy shit he filled out.

Penn/Sanchez, not going to lie, I don't like Sanchez.  He's just too weird for me.  He's a ridiculously good fighter, and he was clearly in the best shape of his life.  He looked like a mini-GSP, but man did he fail.  I really wonder how the fight would have progressed if he had not been rocked in round 1.  That must have devastated him as it was his first knockdown ever, and I'm sure it took a tole physically.  I'm not sure which was worse for him.  It was yet another example of a fighter who needed to get his ass whooped by his coaches afterwards.  On second thought, BJ Penn gave Sanchez a forehead butthole, so perhaps he should be spared a beating... but his takedown attempts were horrible.  I guess I'm not sure what else to recommend as BJ clearly was dominant on their feet as well as stuffing takedowns.

Poker wise, life goes on... adapt and rise above.  I've been working on my mental game more than anything.  Sometimes it helps to tell yourself "shitty things happen on these tables, be ready."  I've been putting in tons and tons of volume, so virtually everyday I see something nasty.  It's somewhat frustrating that in my 6max attempts of the last few months I'm not a collective 35-40 BIs below equity, but I'm still up a tad.  30 of those were from my last attempt so these recent attempts haven't been that bad, plus my winrate is still respectable.  Most importantly my game is improving humongously, and although I'm struggling at times, my mental game is better than it's been in a while.

Best of luck at the tables
 

The one who makes the most money.

The definition of "best poker player" has always been contentious. 

The first thing that has to be discovered is that poker "bestness" is not transitive.  Because Durrr is better than Patrik Antonius and Isildur1 is better than Durrr, doesn't then mean that Isildur1 is better than Patrik Antonius.  Obviously some players have play styles that are better suited to deal with different players.

But none of that matters.  The guy who is the best at this game has made the most money.  Peter Eastgate, Jerry Yang, Jamie Gold... they are our "best".  Of course they came to poker riches in a single tournament.  There is no doubt that is much easier to do than to be a top tier nosebleed player who makes 7-figures a year, but it is irrelevant.  Money is king.

Beginning this year I had shared my goals in my blog, although I hid one important thing.  I wanted to be the best.  I knew I still had a long way to go to be the best HU player in the world, but I wanted to put a massive dent in that goal this year.  I wanted to be up there with the big names, pulling 6-figure months and 7-figure years.  

As I wrap up a disappointing year I have been lead to what really matters, making money.  But money is such a shallow pursuit unless it's directed towards something that truly matters in life like family, friends, your future, your dreams, other's dreams.  To that end I've learned some painful lessons, although I've had a lot of fun learning some of them.  This year started out pretty poorly.  I had a long breakeven stretch followed by my biggest upswing.  Before half the year was gone $500k+ for the year didn't seem unreachable so I pushed harder.  I also played harder in my non-poker time.  I think I lost nearly $20k at table games in Tahoe and Vegas.  That's pretty pathetic for a guy who understands those games are a losing proposition.  In my defense I cut it off pretty quickly... at the time I could easily afford it.  But just because you can afford to lose it, doesn't mean that I shouldn't use it elsewhere.  The summer reminded me of the importance of saving money by bringing a huge downturn.  My promising year went to shit rather quickly, and the recovery was even more difficult.  $500k became a delusion, and keeping a 6-figure year seemed to be the new goal.

November went fairly well, followed by Day 1 of December.  A trying day in which I stuck it out and grinded back to a small profit.  December 2nd came and it was also horrible.  I decided it was time to play a little 5/10 HU again.  I played well but lost a few buyins.  I was stuck 11 or so at one point.  I spent the rest of the day grinding back and ended up at -2200 at one point (big improvement from -11).  I ended up putting a marathon 3/6 session vs a decent player.  He coolered the crap out of me for the beginning of the match and we traded buyins.  The "run it twice" option saved him an countless occassions, and in all others it did not favor me.  So I began to whine and berate.  Not characteristic of me, and I won't pretend to make excuses.  He didn't deserve it and has a lot more class than I did.  Naturally, luck favors the whiner.  Before long the run it twice flipped in my favor, and the coolers came fast (for me).  At one point we got AI with QQ vs KK (my QQ) for 300bbs, and I hit a Q in both runs to scoop.  I lost focus around the 8k hand mark and about 4 in the morning, I definitely had some bad plays mixed in, even moreso in the end... and I ended up losing my lead and ending back at around -11 for the day.  I also made honorable mention on Tableratings for top loser on FTP.  I lost quite a bit on FTP but had won some on Stars so the TR figure wasn't wildly off, but certainly not accurate.

The next day wasn't pretty either.  I wanted to get back on the horse and I did.  The only hand that wasn't a cooler was vs oldjude at a deep HU 3/6 table.  I had a pretty good feeling for his rhythm of play and decided to flat with 4h5h to his 4bet.  The flop came down 7c Qh Jh, which is a fantastic flop for me for a lot of reasons, but most obviously for the flush draw.  He cbets for half pot and I jam, he has Kh 7h giving me about 3% equity.  I'm not sure what you call this hand as I could have easily either jammed/folded pre-flop, and 5-high is hardly a cooler.  It's just a spot where I'm supposed to have at the very least 25% equity, and almost never 3%.  Just to get the flavor of the other type of hands I had 44 OTB in 6m, MP opens (very tight player), flop comes 6c7c4h, I raise, he jams, I fistpump call... he has 5s3s that holds.  One hand would probably be viewed as questionable was at a deep 3/6 HU table where I flat a 4bet OOP with JJ and get it in on a 8 high flop.  I think shoving pre was probably better as the history was about as crazy as you can get and thus made getting JJ in pre for 200BBs the best choice... I decided to play it in a way that maximizes value from his bluffs. 

Anyway, the point of this blog wasn't to whine about beats, bad luck and bad play, it was to share a new chapter in my poker career as the content grinder.  I no longer desire to play high stakes, nor do I really desire to play HU anymore.  The games are in such a shit state that even at 3/6 I'm often playing people where my edge is small, if not negative.

I look back at my contributions to the HU games and am constantly troubled.  I sold a lot of valuable secrets that I worked hard to discover.  Did I do the right thing?  Did I get a good price?  How long before someone else came along and sold them?  People tell me all the time how they started playing HU because of me, or how they improved because of me.  I realize they are being polite and it's impossible for them to know, but it makes me feel sick sometimes. I have never fully grasped my impact on the HU games.  It certainly wasn't 0, but it also isn't 100% and a lot of people seemed to have watched my videos... and if 10% of people I play are telling me how much I helped them, how many are silent about it?  My conclusion always seems to be that I helped kill the game I love, or at least sped up its impending doom.  There are tons of great poker minds out there and it was only a matter of time before people figured it out.

So what now?  While I definitely want to get away from poker in the long run, I think it will be my best option for the next year or two.  I definitely want a minimal presence here and on 2+2.  While I think it's a great sight for the right person, it's poison for others.  I think the ego-trading going on on those sites has sent many players into bustoville.   I'm not sure if that means my blog will be taken down from the main page.... to be truthful I really don't care.  I think the smartest people in this game are those who make discoveries and keep silent, those who watch videos but don't make them, read posts but don't contribute.  If it's there to be exploited, why not?

2010 is going to be a selfish year.  It's going to be about my family, my friends and me.  I hope 2010 is also a resurgence for poker.  I can definitely see that happening in the next 12-24 months and I will keep being optimistic. 

Best of luck at the tables

Yeah I know, the title is weak.

So most of you probably already know that ChicagoJoey easily cruised to victory in his 50k hands in a day prop bet.  He won about $800 at nl25, and my $2500 along with about $30k more in action for the bet itself.  I don't know what to say other than congrats. 

To be frank the bet stressed me out a ton.  I really have learned not to trust people through forums and stuff and taking any bet is probably bad for a variety of reasons.  That said the escrow, ChicagoJoey, and CJ's roommate (who was like a liaison for bettors) were all very trustworthy.  I don't think people put out many bets that they can lose in those forums, it just so happened that CJ had an insane skill for grinding.  I had previous knowledge that he was capable of going on 50BI downers which made the bet all the more easy to make.  He did everything right, got the hype, practiced etc so he'd have the drive to do it.  I had run my estimations and figured he'd never cap 2400 hands/hour and that he'd slowly trickle down into the low 2k range.  Turns out that making the 50k hands was never in question.  Once I saw him put up nearly 2800 hands in the first hour and 2600 in the subsequent three, I tried to buy out for half to no avail.

Congrats to CJ! 

It appears that there's a 1 million hand in a month challenge from some quasi-"famous" World of Warcraft Paladin guy.  I think that is an absolutely insane bet.  I've learned my lesson about betting against these guys but I will be keeping my eye on the progress.

I booked a decent win in November.  I wish I had stayed away from PLO and propbets though as they took a chunk  of my profit.  I was also down a little bit in tournaments until last night.  I played a small $50 tournament (along with others) on Stars.  I grinded my way into the money.  I sucked out once with A7 vs KK in a pot where KK completed OTB (probably to get me to shove) and the dead money in the pot was like 75% of my stack, so I'd have to run the math but I think I still want to get it in vs KK in that situation.  Deeper in the tournament (8 left) we were 4 handed and I ran JJ into AA.  Some of the guys at the table were ridiculously tight but not the original raisor.  He was like 50/45 over 60ish hands.  I knew going in to the hand there was just 0 chance I was ever folding JJ to that dude.  He amassed his stack by sucking out when he got it in with 88 vs TT and spiked a set, so he was capable of craziness.  It goes without saying that I'm trying to justify my suckout =P... but in retrospect I'm never ever ever ever folding JJ to that guy in that spot.

I went on to the final table (6max event) with a massive chip lead.  My chip lead was 4 to 1 to second place at one point, but disaster struck.  I lost everything.  I couldn't win flips, dominations, me being dominated... and then I ran top 2 into bottom set on a J53ss board.  I also decided to flat AA BvB when my opponent had about half my stack.  Just as I flat I see in chat "good to see you're using my chips well".  This came from the guy I sucked out on JJ > AA AIPF.  Needless to say my slow played aces fail miserably as the SB spiked a set and took a huge chunk of my chips.  I did suck out with KdJd when I called a 3bet and the flop came K high and I got it AI vs a medium stack.  I was crippled 3 times at the final table and took back commanding chip leads twice, so I played pretty well.  I made a loosish call with J8 BvB... I raise and BB calls, flop is J34r.  I lead, he raises, I flat.  Turn is Kc bringing club draw, I check and he snap shoves.  I tank/call.  He tables JT and it holds.  Very strange hand.  My final hand was vs the guy who just absolutely had my number when he won a flip for all his chips and 90% of mine 55 vs A9... I took 3rd and he went on to take 2nd.  The winner was obviously the JT guy who was very short stacked going into 3 handed (I had like 330k, he had 100k and the other guy had 180ish).  All in all I am pretty disappointed with the results as I have been working on my tournament game a lot and would have liked to ship a tourny, even a small one.

Finally, I have a rant.  What the fuck is wrong with Stars HU players?  I've played on 3 major sites now and Stars players are a breed of their own.  When these guys get massively owned, they ask for more tables.  It's the strangest thing.  I can understand wanting more tables when someone makes a ridiculous play and sucks out, but when I snap call correctly with A-high for stacks after I see through your absolutely retarded play, why do you want to talk shit and get on more tables? Don't get me wrong, I'm quite thankful for their action I'm just absolutely boggled by their thought process.

Best of luck at the tables.  Happy Holidays and a profitable December!

Not a whole lot to say.  My son came was with me over Thanksgiving and we had a really great time.  Did a bunch of family stuff, took him a bunch of places and just had fun.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, a mix of Armenian and American food, good company and PIE!  Pumpkin pie is the best.

Speaking of pie, and all the other shit I shouldn't eat.  I'm considering a weight loss prop bet.  I suck at losing weight.  I'm about 6'2" 230... when in peak shape in college I was about 190 so I have some room for improvement.  I can't stick to any excersize plan and I love to eat so it's probably +EV for anyone to bet against me.  But that's neither here nor there.

Poker has been really good.  I haven't played much given my son being in town, but the few sessions I put in were fantastic and this month yielded a decent score just in time for the Holidays.  I really feel my HU game is top-knotch right now and continues to improve.  The best advice I can give is that if you don't know where the profit is you need to get to work.

I just booked a prop bet today.  Some guy is trying to play 50,000 hands in one day at Stars nl25 6max.  I think it's doable but it will take every ounce of concentration.  He wanted 2.5 to 1, which I think is pretty fair.  Even money is probably somewhere between 2.5 and 3 to 1 imo, as it's more of a challenge of will than anything else.  Considering the previous record for hands played in one day is 40,000, I definitely like my chances.  Since Stars has a 24 table cap, the bettor needs to average ~ 2100 hands/hour.  Seems like most 6max tables around those stakes average in the high 90's... so it's possible... but it assumes you always keep 24 tables up, which I think is going to be a huge challenge.  Also, whenever you have someone massively multitabling it's going to slow down all the hands/hour at your tables by a significant amount unless he's some sort of crazy ninja.  I'm guessing he'll be able to stave off the hands/hour slippage for 10 hours max and then he'll probably drop to the 1800-2000/hour range.  He also has to end the day with positive winnings.  I just did some quick math and if he averages 95 hands/table assuming 24 tables (2280 hands/hour) and holds that for 10 hours it's 22,800, then if he slips to 2000/hour after that for the next 14 hours it totals 50,800.  It's entertaining in that food/bathroom breaks might make the difference for this bet, although I think given that he booked 5-figures worth of action he's probably going to have a bucket (although he's also webcamming this lol).

I will update on the prop bet after it goes down on Monday.  His screenname on Stars is (edited so no one messes with him)

Best of luck at the tables!