CardRunners

Hey all, happy holidays.  Before getting out to the fam's I just wanted to pass on these two "gifts":

1.  A very inspirational video that helps put some things in perspective

2.  I'm sure some of you had read this in a 2+2 thread but I'm also sure many of you haven't since it's in the high stakes LHE forum.   I think it's pretty good:

"Heads-up poker is vampire that sucks the life out of all who play. Here is the problem:

When you win a hand, you are somewhat pleased, but after all you deserve to win your share including 3-outers like this one.

When you lose a hand, you are rather more strongly displeased, since this guy is such a luckbox you can't even begin to describe it, and just now he hit yet another effin 3-outer when he should never have even been in that pot in the first place for #*$@ sake!

Now over the course of a session, let's say you finish up even, but each of you has suffered 200 agonizing, knife-twisting losses that are not nearly balanced by the 200 mildly pleasant wins that you deserved anyway. Both of you feel like you have lost! There is a net destruction of utility and human happiness. Vampire poker!!" -pygmyhipo


Happy holidays once again and be safe!  And some good movie comments from my previous blog, I'll address them when I have a few more minutes and am not on the go-go-go.

Having been a Minnesotan all my life, there are a few things that are almost a certainty to happen every year.  Snow...check.  The Vikings build up your hopes and expectations, only to let you down...to be continued.  It is really tough to be a Vikings fan sometimes since they are notorious for building up your expectations, only to shatter them in some amazingly woeful fashion.  Every year the season ends painfully and I tell myself, "you knew this was going to happen, don't get attached to them next year."  Yet here we are a week before Christmas, my Vikes are 9-5 and atop the NFC North, and quite frankly they've been pretty impressive lately.  

Last Friday afternoon, a friend and I took a flight to Phoenix for the game and to visit an old friend from high school.  The environment at the game was almost surreal and it felt like we were in Minnesota, right on down to it being "the coldest it's been all year in Phoenix."  I would guess that 30-40% of the stadium was wearing purple, and the cheering was definitely louder for the road team than the home team.   Plus the fact we pounded the Cardinals from the first minute on made it a really exciting game to be at. Skol Vikes!  Tough last two games, these'll really be a good indicator of if the Vikings are for real or not... Home vs the Falcons, and home vs the Giants (who could potentially be playing for something if they lose to the Panthers this weekend).  SKOL VIKES!

Saturday we went to Casino Arizona for a few hours and I played some 60/120 that became 75/150.  Solid card room, with some great games at those limits.  At least I know if I ever go busto I could probably grind a roll back up at Casino Arizona.  Har har.  I won $4400 while playing and another $200 via staking Thorvy into their $5-150 spread game.

Last night I brought my Dad to the Minnesota Wild game, and though we lost 3-2 in OT to the Calgary Flames (bummer...we NEEDED that one to keep the distance behind Calgary smaller), it was still a super fun game to be at.  Derek Boogaard laid one of the hardest looking hits on someone I've ever seen at a hockey game, and lucky for us our seats were super close to it.  I haven't heard the glass make a noise that loud all season!  If you're at all into that kind of thing, go to gamecenter.nhl.com/nhlgc/console.jsp and you should scroll down to "play by play ice tracker" and first click 'video highlights," then click 1st period and then watch "derek boogard hit on rene bourque."

Poker is really going well, September thru the present months have been fantastic for me both online and live, which is good for me because I'd like to get into more investments in 2009.  Also I've managed to bang out like 10,000 words so far for my ambitious LHE book that may or may not ever get finished.  I'm pretty proud of the content that's been produced by me for it thus far, I don't think much of it has ever been in any LHE book to-date (/end teaser).

That's it for now.  Stay warm...it sounds like most of the country is experiencing colder than normal temperatures!

It's been awhile since my last blog.  Here's the latest...

The Cardrunners Ft. Lauderdale trip was a blast.  The house we had rented was huuuge and gorgeous and with a ton of bedrooms and bathrooms and places to sleep and at least a couple "living room" type rooms, a huge patio with pool on it and large grill, and the ocean directly across the street. 

We played beach volleyball the first day I got there, and again on Saturday before leaving.   Those who know me well know there's few things I'd rather be doing than playing beach volleyball. The CR crew has some guys who can play, and on Saturday we ended up playing three games with me, Taylor, Daut, and Stinger versus Cole, Wiggins, Raptor and Menlo.  All three matches  were fairly even.  We won the first one by one point after having a huge lead, and then in the last two squandered a big lead once and came from behind to take the lead before again squandering it.  I feel like I played pretty well other than the last 5ish points in our third game, which I played woefully bad and in my opinion cost us the match. Blaaaah I want a rematch in Vegas this summer, I feel like our team is a huge favorite even if the results don't suggest it.  I can dig like a champ, and hopefully come summer I'll have gotten enough games under my belt before Vegas so my set-passes aren't so sporadic and I can actually use my pretty wicked overhand serve (in our CR games I abandoned trying for my overhand after about 4 tries of hitting it into the net and not feeling like trying to battle the wind and my own rustiness).

Our first night out we went to a combo Sushi/Thai restaurant and then off to a dive bar a few blocks from the house and had a blast playing beer pong/pop-a-shot/shuffleboard.  Me and Daut played Raptor and his friend Jeremy the first game and got off to a quick lead only to lose it after sitting on one cup for about 100 shots.  Near the end of the night me and Cole played Stinger and Wiggins 3 times and won the first two and lost the third.  Also, Taylor is a pop-a-shot champ.  I hope this doesn't kill any potential prop betting action he can get in the future, but I would advise not playing him for money :-P

 The last night out we went to a swanky Chinese (I think?) restaurant in Miami that was locally famous for its roasted duck.  I didn't try any duck because I just can't get past my mental block of eating that bird specifically, but did enjoy some super good beef and chicken items.  After that we went out to a club and all of us managed to get very drunk – though I think after talking with everyone it's funny that really none of us are huge club-types in the group, and everyone had said they'd go to a club thinking that it was so-and-so who likes clubs so we'd go because they wanted to.  I know my preference is going to a small dive bar, being the only group in there, and feeling like we're owning the place.  

In other news, this weekend Thorvy and I are flying to Phoenix to visit another high school friend who lives there, Goodson.  The main reason for going is to go to the Vikings-Cardinals game on Sunday, and I think we'll be making a visit to Casino Arizona too Friday or Saturday.  I've never been there yet so it'll be fun to see, plus by going it becomes another trip that can be written off :) 

I finally got around to using a whole bunch of FPPs on Stars to order a slick digital SLR camera and a few nice lenses and accessories.  One of my many ambitions for 2009 is to get into photography and take some pictures that worst case are good enough for me to be willing to hang them on my own walls – best case to create a website and try to sell some of my pictures online and maybe even see about getting a booth at the Uptown Art Fair in 2009 or 2010.  I don't expect I'd be able to make much money on such an endeavor; however, it's a challenge and something to strive for and would for sure give me an excuse and another reason to travel to places I've never been to. 

Also in 2009, I would like to copy Cole and Tri and make my own e-book, but for LHE and charge something like $200 for a copy.  I want to try to do this for the same reasons as the photography project – though I see this one as being a little less likely because it's not as "fun" and would probably take more actual focused work (not to say that photography doesn't take effort…it's a different kind of effort).

Plus it'd be neat to be able to say that I am a poker pro and teacher, real estate mogul, entrepreneur, photographer, and author.   Hopefully within a few years I can have about 18 million different titles of things I do and make money on.  :)

Poker has been going well.  Swingy, but good.  It's a shame though that the best and most plentiful action has been in the 1am-6am time ranges (and also sometimes like 9am-1pm), I'd really like to get to fully fix my sleep schedule.  I wish though that the tracking sites that exist out there were at least close to accurate, if they're going to exist at all. 

Finally, before I forget for the 50^th time (I told him last May I'd give his blog a shout-out), if you're ever bored and want to check out an entertaining blog mainly filled with drunken debauchery stories, check out www.michaelmoller.com/ which is a high school friend's blog.  Maybe they're entertaining to me just because I know him and some of the people referenced in his stories, but I think overall they're pretty funny. 


I leave this blog with two "mashes" I've found when up late at night searching for music.  A "mash" is basically combinining two songs into one.  I think both of these ones work very well together:


The Killers & Muse - "When you were a starlight":
www.youtube.com/watch


The White Stripes & Prodigy - "Voodoo Blue Orchid":
www.youtube.com/watch

There really has been a lot that's happened in my life since my last blog, so I guess I'll go point by point through some of the highlights and/or interesting parts:


- I've been to LA and back twice now.  The first trip, I won about $60,000 in 3 days of playing mostly $400/800 at commerce.  The second trip the games were even bigger than that, and when all was said and done after my own action selling in them (1000/2000 and 1500/3000) my second trip was a $45,000 loser. 


- The second trip I signed a lease on a place in Long Beach.  I'm still living primarly in Minnesota, though it'll be nice to have a place of my own out there so I can get away from Commerce Casino.  Since typically when I go out there, I stay at the hotel and basically am either awake playing poker, awake sitting in my room, or asleep.  That kind of hotel-lifestyle makes you feel like a zombie after a few days.  A friend from high school went to school at USC and has lived in Long Beach since graduating, and she was having roommate issues so she convinced her old roomie to move out, and I am taking over.  The lease is like $1780 a month, and I'm responsible for $500 of it and can come and go as I please. I have my own bedroom and bathroom with shower, and feel like it's a pretty solid setup for me.  I also have a garage space.


- Along with all that above, I bought a lexus ES 300.  It's got a lot of miles on it but otherwise is great and feels a lot like my beemer I own in Minnesota. 


- Some of those live LA players are such sick action junkies.  Like seriously, maybe I'm just a busto nit compared to them, but I can't imagine playing $1000/2000 while having my action booked against two people (meaning that person was playing $3000/6000, essentially).  The first time we kicked it up to 1k2k from 5/10, I objected to it jumping that big cuz I didn't want to play that high on my own, so Ali Eslami who was in the game says, "Schneids I'll take 200/400 of you, lets go."  I asked if anyone at the table objected to Ali being in the game and having a piece of me, nobody did, and the game continued.  Then the next day I went to Commerce after talking to the floor on the phone and being told the game was 1k2k, and show up with my chips and learn it's 1500/3000.  Uh what?  Ali again aware I don't wanna play that high, says, "I'll take 250/500 of you, Joe you want 250/500 of Schneids also?"  Joe says sure, and once again problem solved.   Also, two of the players in this game played it for 2.5 days straight, and a third was in it about 1.5 days straight. 


- Ali Eslami has the most amazing headset I've ever seen.  In addition to his headphones that cost about $1000, he also has this attachable base or sub woofer thing or I don't even know what it is but all said not including the ipod all that stuff it's connected to is about a $2000 setup.  If you played as much live poker as he does I'm sure it's well worth it.  


- Also have been playing some 500/1000 and 1000/2000 online.  For a few days there, it really screwed up my sleep schedule, but I've fought to get it back to respectability.  I think it was last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I was about to go to bed around 6am, then Busterstacks started playing a sesh on full tilt, so obviously I have to try to chase his tournament score dollars (he finished 4th I believe in the $5k ftops for around $200k).  The few nights prior to that, he'd start at 100/200 and lose and move up to bigger limits and lose, and basically martingale his way up to 1k2k and eventually win back his losses there.  That Wednesday morning he started immediately at 500/1k and lost about 20-30k and moved up to 1k2k.  By about noon we were still going, and he was down, and it was pretty apparent to me that he was going to either bust his account or get it all back.  By this point my fatigue was really setting in but I knew I had to press on, so I debated my options and decided to put up a facebook status msg saying something along the lines of, "if you're in the minneapolis area i'll pay you good money to bring me mountain dew asap."  A few minutes later someone from my high school graduating class that I haven't seen or talked to in like 6 years msg'ed me and said she was pretty sure she lived near me and could do it, how much?  I said I'd pay $30 if she could get me 2 liters asap, and 15-20 minutes later, she had mountain dew to my place.  Best $30 I've ever spent.  By about 3 or 3:30 Buster was down $100-150k or so and he moved to a HU table with Boosted J, and was down to $13k on the table and somehow managed to run it back up to $200k and insta-sat out.  This was about 6:30pm.  So I waited a few minutes and he didn't return and started getting myself ready for bed, and sure enough sometime between 7-7:30pm Buster returns, right as I'm about to go to bed and waaaaay too tired.  I debate playing in it again and decide not to because I was nearing the point of delirium, and instead get 10% of Dean's action in the game.  About 2 hours after that, Buster lost all $200k, and Dean was a $67k winner so at least I got an extra $6700 while I slept.  


- Here is a screen from my marathon online session described above: 
http://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=overnight...

- Next blog I'll have to put up a few pictures, such as of my new work out set in my bathroom and my California car.
 

- Since being back to Minnesota, I'm still listening to California's "Indie 103.1" station from my computer.  The music they play reminds me of the now defunct Drive 105 (for you Minnesota people).


- This week I've got meetings Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday pertaining to a company me and a few friends are starting up.  I'll talk more about that in another blog too but I'm pretty excited about it (as well as a few of the other companies I've invested into the past year).  Obtaining several sources of passive income and getting myself set up for life is definitely becoming a priority and challenge and source of fun and a way to occupy some of my spare time during the day since I certainly don't have the passion for poker that I once had long ago.  



Until next time, g'luck at the tables and happy turkey day.

Last week I got these two pictures that're great additions to the walls of my game room (sorry about low photo quality, the photos were taken with my cell phone camera):


http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/8056/sspx0015gk...
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/1908/sspx0016qw...

In other news, last weekend I ordered some exercise equipment from Sports Authority.  On Monday they called, and we set up a 1pm Tuesday delivery, though they told me depending on traffic and how the day goes it could arrive as late as 3pm.  So then Tuesday, by 3:30 I haven't heard from them at all, and call the phone number they had given me.  No answer.  So I leave a voice mail.  Try again at 4:30 and 5:45pm.  Still nothing.  If you read my blogs back in like May 2007 when I was starting to furnish my new home, almost every time I had a delivery of some sort there was some kind of mess-up in it.  Sooo frustrating when it happens every time.


So I did what I think most people would do in my spot, and drove to Sports Authority with my receipt and asked to cancel my order.  They looked in their schedule book and saw they had me written down for 10/29/08 (Wednesday), but I'm sure that is not the case.  I am 100% certain that the guy I was on the phone with had said either "tomorrow," or "Tuesday," and that "Wednesday" was never mentioned or that "the 29th" was never mentioned (it's tough to confuse Tuesday for Wednesday, and if he had said the date I would've certainly asked what day of the week the 29th was or had to look it up on a calendar cuz I don't often know what the date is).  They tried to keep my business by offering me half off my delivery/assembly fee, but my principles cannot be bought for that little since I was genuinely pissed that I wasted the whole afternoon sitting around doing nothing/starting nothing because I didn't want to get engaged in something and then have the doorbell ring. 


Also, WTF with a $230 delivery/assembly fee?  I'm curious to see if this is standard for expensive exercise equipment.  My view is if a customer is spending a lot of money on a product of yours that they probably cannot get home on their own, this type of thing should be a courtesy (or a small charge) and not some outrageously large fee.  Like, between drive time and assembly, it could take no more than 1.5-2 hours tops, right?  $230?  I remember when I got my pool table the delivery/assembly of that was comped -- which, in my opinion is the best thing to do for customer relations when you are dealing with an expensive purchase.  Or like how a few days ago I was at the Mall of America shopping in "Field of Dreams" (where I got those two pictures above) and asked about their autographed Michael Jordan "Wings" picture that is 7'x2' and costs $3500.  My question was, "Do you guys do shipping?  I'm thinking about coming back here some other time to get that Jordan picture, but I know it's not going to fit in my car." Their response: "No we don't normally do shipping, but since that's a pretty expensive picture, we can drive it out to you if you just throw us a few dollars for gas since gas isn't cheap these days." Very reasonable.  $230 shipping/assembly fee?  Not so much. I'll report back about if this is the norm after I find another exercise store to try my luck with.

Gotta get going now. Tonight BK, Pickett, Dave P and I are going out to dinner in St. Paul, and then to the Wild game (which us four have season tickets to).  Go Wild!  Hopefully they can bounce back after last night's first loss in regulation of the season. 

As my blog title would suggest, I'm not having a good run in tournaments... Last year I was Canterbury Park's Fall Poker Classic player of the year, which has made me play the events this year in a quest to try to defend my title.  With two to go, I've cashed in 0 of them (played all of the points-qualifying ones but one...).  The good news is that If I go first and 2nd in the last two, I could still retain that title if nobody else accumulates any more points than the current #1 ;)  Oh well.  I think I've been actually playing them pretty well, but have ran bad at times -- specifically with regards to rarely winning flips, and being in standard reshove spots with hands such as AJ that commonly get ran into aces, etc.  The structure of these tournaments are such that they would probably be more accurately labeled as turbos (apart from the main event and perhaps the two $500 NLs), and I think I've been gambling appropriately without going overboard. I can't complain however, I ran well enough to win their $1500 tourney in August. 

One of the things that's refreshing about Canterbury is that there's a person there who is honestly the most happy-go-lucky person ever.  I mean like in the, "I'm just happy to be on Earth, breathing" type of way -- in a way that seems totally 100% genuine and is really likeable.  It makes me ask myself how long has it been since I've felt that impassionedly blessed, just to be in the here and now, with that sort of giddy-euphoric sense of joy for no particular reason.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm a happy person, and I'm grateful for who I am and what is in my life -- that said, I think the last time I've ever taken a breath of air, and felt that ever so rare happy-chill-go-down-my-spine for no real reason of jubiliation other than just because, was in 7th grade.  I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so. 

The moment I'm thinking of was several months after I broke my leg (pretty badly... think of the break like a jar of pillsbury croissant dough, the break spiraling all the way up my tibia) playing football, and I was finally able to take my first walk without stumbling over.  If you've never had a leg in a full cast for 4 months, let me just say that you lose almost all your muscle mass and your leg becomes an unsightly twig.  I remember the doctors sawing off my cast and telling me that it'd take probably a week or two before I'd actually be able to walk, to which I obviously assumed they were idiots and tried to take a step, only to topple over under my own weight.  I remember feeling so dejected that those crutches I had used for four months, wouldn't be put away in the closet and that I'd still be wearing a removable-walking cast. And then, I remember the first time I was finally able to put all my body weight on both legs and successfully take a few steps without losing my balance or toppling to the ground.  In that moment of time, I took a breath, and truly felt a sense of euphoria and feeling of aliveness like what I tried to describe at the beginning of this story. 

I don't think I really have any point in typing that, other than perhaps my thoughts showcase one of the downsides to living a life which you spend too much time striving for more and more and thinking of the future and never being truly satisfied with where you're at -- rather than taking the time to relax and soak things in for the greatness they often are.  I sometimes consider whether I should try working some grungy, horribly unsatisfying and tiring job with crappy hours for a few months, just so my eyes can be opened up to the real world that so many people face, to remind myself how awesome of a life that my poker playing provides -- and maybe even get another one of those spine-tingling-giddy-feeling-for-no-reason feelings after the fact.

All of that said, things are still going super well online.  Here's a link to how things have been going in $50/100+ since I started my 'grinidcore' quest on September 2nd (and probably the last image link I provide in awhile because I've done enough bragging lately in this blog):

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1148/sincegrind...

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/6479/20086maxte3....

The above link is to my 2008 in $100/200 and $200/400 games online.  I'm showing it for a few reasons:

1) I read on forums occasionally things about how the CR pros only blog about their wins and not their losses, and how those wins are only replacing the losing sessions that aren't blogged, and how we're in fact all break even players (LOL).  Yeah, it's true I've probably done more poker related blogging during winning streaks.  That's because I try not to harp on negative stuff.

2) I figure it might be motivating to some of you LHE players.  Yeah, even I've experienced a 600BB downswing this year.  LHE is painful, why do we play it?!?

3) I'm really hoping that my downswing is over with... 

4) I'm really happy that even with a 600BB downswing, I still have a 1.4BB/100 winrate in virtually all six max games.  I only know a few people with any amount of sample size this year who are winning more than 1BB/100 in them. 

And to change gears a bit, people have asked me a few times, "why do you like the Twins so much?"  Here's why: win or lose, at least the Twins are our baseball team with our own guys. Our guys are players we develop in our farm system, or trade for.  We don't go out and spend zillions of dollars on big names, simply because we are a small market team and can't.  How many other teams in MLB, or any professional sport, can make that claim year in and year out, all while still being extremely competitive almost every season?  I can't think of too many (in the MLB, us and the A's have a longstanding tradition of this, and this year's Rays also fit that mold).  So, yeah, as a sports fan, it's fun (and amazing) getting a front row seat watching young talent develop and reaach their potential (and in the case of this year's Twins, drastically overachieve).  Am I bummed about the way our season ended? Absolutely.  I'm also peeved that major league baseball hasn't changed their tiebreaker procedures, since there is no way we should've had to play the tie breaker game at Chicago when we beat them in the season series.  But regardless, this year's Twins team provided our state with a fantastic, captivating season -- and certainly high hopes for the next 2-3 years (until we are again stuck trading away our talent because we won't be able to resign them, repeat and rinse this same farm system process...).  There's truly a lot to look forward to when the new stadium opens in 2010. 

When driving home a few days ago, I heard this song on the radio and at about the 1:30 mark it gave me shivers, cuz they play the chorus of it at Twins games before the start of the bottom of the 9th when we're down by a run or two... The shivers caused by a sort of out-of-body type flashback to many awesome comebacks this past season.

It was a fun run in 2008, here's to 2009!