CARDRUNNERS

What's Your Edge

 
David Benefield : Poker Blog
February 10, 2009

140pm : 1 cup kashi go lean high protein cereal. ¾ cup silk light vanilla soy milk. 1 whole banana. 1 scoop whey in shaker. This felt like a good meal, not too full, a good start to the day. Didn’t feel like doing the egg thing, felt like a lot of work. I got up at like 130 after sleeping at 7am, so was pretty tired. I had to set an alarm to try to get my sleep cycle back on track. Gonna try noon tomorrow.
 
420pm : half pound strawberries, 3 hard boiled eggs 1 yolk, small handful mixed nuts. Pretty hungry before I started eating, really really full now. Perhaps will make this meal smaller next time. Problem is, once I fix my sleep cycle, I want to be able to go to jiu jitsu at 11am and not have to wait around until 6. No baseball today, apparently official practice starts NEXT Monday. Basketball and soccer tourneys are going on this week, and a bunch of the kids are involved with that.
 
505pm : ok just wanted to say im not that full anymore. I feel great and healthy. Jiu jitsu at 630, probably going to eat a Lara Bar on the way there. I got like 6 diff kinds of em, and they seem pretty dece. All natural just fruit and juts nuts. Nothing processed like most snack/energy bars, so should be solid.
 
815pm : back from jiu jitsu, made a protein shake with 1 scoop whey, 1 banana, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 tbsp ground flax seed. Wow, was that workout hard. I am extremely out of shape. I got tapped 8 times, and should have tapped about 10 seconds sooner on one of them, but im a stubborn retard and decided to let myself suffocate in a triangle. When I finally tapped I could barely move and saw the asphyxiation stars. That was fun. I started getting nauseous after that and had to quit early. The head explosions didn’t really help either. Still got a good 105 minutes of class in with 7 5 minute rounds of rolling, but was hoping to go a few more rounds and really make myself wanna die. I sat on the ground in the locker room for about 6 minutes after class though trying to catch my breath.
 
I stopped off at the gas station on the way back to fill up and grab a protein bar, but I really couldn’t eat it. I left my lara bar at home I forgot about it. I dno something like.. I need liquid calories after super intense workout, I can barely chew and my mouth is always super dry so it feels hard to get a protein bar down. I figured I would just tough it out for 20 mins and come home and make a protein shake. Buddy and couple lady friends are coming over to grill out and hot tub. So far day 1 has been a success, let’s see if I can refrain from getting absurdly drunk. I feel absolutely fantastic 45 mins now after the workout, so I’ll go try some kettlebell swings and do 15 mins on the stretch machine.
 
11pm : 8 oz bison filet, shrimp stir fry with lots of veggies. Might have overeaten here, the stir fry was about ½ pound uncooked onions, peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, carrots, and some other stuff as well as 8 shrimp. Was really delicious though. Used a little bit of oyster sauce to marinate the filet, and used about 1/8 of a bottle of stir fry sauce, as well as half a tbsp of peanut oil. Delicious. Also had a glass of cabernet.
 
Hrm.. had a little company over at midnight and it was ‘celebration time’, so I broke into 4 crown and diet cokes. I suppose it could have been worse. There are worse things to drink, and this was sufficient to get me pretty tipsy. Part of my plan was to still go out and have fun with friends/party a little bit, so I am not really going to sweat this kinda stuff. I am going to work my ass off in the gym so it should be cool to go party 2-3 nights a week. Maybe not, but whatever, I will be in way better shape than I would be if I wasn’t on some kinda program, and that’s the point so ship it.
 
530am. Yea, I am still up. Long night, good times, whoop whoop. Only did 4 crown and diets, so that’s a victory in and of itself. I just ate half a pound of strawberries and 1oz of mixed nuts. After a night of a few drinks, I like to eat some fruit before going to bed. It keeps me from getting dehydrated and hungover. Needed a little protein and fat too, so the nuts felt good. Overall this was a very successful day imo. Obv drinking a bunch every night wont really be conducive to my health bet, but I’m single, rebuilding that social circle, and doin the damn thing. I am done with all my college apps, don’t really care to play much poker, and am trying to enjoy the whole being young thing a little bit again. Life is good.
 
Sorry for ranting a little, it is like 6:20 now. I am going to try to get some sleep and get up by 2. My body is bent and broken from jiu jitsu, I have bruises all over my neck from getting choked out. I am also starting to get sore from the kettlebell swings. When I wake up, I think I will do a bikram yoga session. That’s 90 minutes, 108 degrees, super intense. I feel SO amazing when it is over though, it is super sick. I highly recommend everyone does this at some point. Usually by the end of class, 2/3 of the people are gone. It is pretty intense. I will do that, then some extra stretching when I get home, and youtube another kettlebell workout. I will try to do one of these a night before I do my stretching.
 
That’s all I got today, I will def be keeping this going.
 
-David

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Feb 10, 09 07:38:55

I obviously don't know your caloric requirements, but the diet seems pretty solid. I would definitely try to drink less though, as alcohol lowers testosterone by up to 50%, and increases estrogen by the same, for up to a week after consumption. It's not the end of the world, but I'm sure if you cut down it would make your results skyrocket.

Also, read up a bit more on soy products. I haven't actually checked out any of the studies, but from what I can gather, it's not exactly the ideal thing for guys to consume, potentially lowering sperm production, increasing estrogen. Again, not sure on this one, but I personally think rice milk(all carbs, made with brown rice) or almond milk(healthy fats/protein/some carbs) taste better anyways.

eck ohs




Feb 10, 09 08:06:29

Good to see you're doing this.

You're an inspiration and keep reminding me what I SHOULD be doing.

Xizor




Feb 10, 09 13:38:15

Agree with the first poster, some soy experiments have shown huge increases in estrogen coupled with decreases in testosterone. It seems to me that your protein intake is lacking huge. You should definitely be getting at least 180-260 grams a day.

rosie2985




Feb 10, 09 23:26:27

Yeah, maybe add a dif bedtime meal? Try not to eat carbs before bed. Some good pre-bed meals include

Cottage Cheese + Flavored Protein Powder Mixed
Peanut Butter + 50g protein powder + water/almond milk
whipping cream(35%) + chocolate whey(makes a chocolate mousse)

eck ohs



2627 Views | Comments (4)
February 09, 2009

I suppose this is some sort of a log, journal, whatever you want to call it. I made a prop bet with Irieguy, and our goal is to get in a little bit better shape. The bet goes from today, February 9th, to April 16th. The only rule is to work out 40 days out of this time. Now, to some of those that are in a consistent routine, this is no big deal. However, I have been about as lazy as humanly possible over the last 3 months, so this should be a big change in the current lifestyle. It should be a pretty reasonable goal for both of us to reach, and if we do, there will be much celebratory partying. If one of us fails, there will be a significant monetary exchange, as well as a few fat jokes. There is no variance in a bet like this, so if you fail, its pretty sad.
 
I have been travelling a ton recently, and it is really hard for me to get in a healthy routine with a bunch of trips. I usually eat fast food a bunch more, and go out for fancy fatass dinners quite frequently. I am an avid bread lover, and enjoy it coupled with as much butter as possible. I also love desserts. I think brownie fudge sundaes are my favorite. What is your favorite? Anyways, these things are going to stop as well, which should be good. I have also been drinking an exorbitant amount over the last few weeks, so I will be cutting that down as well. I am trying to rebuild my social circle, so I will likely still be going out twice a week. I will try to keep it to just a few crown and diets though.
 
I always have a ton more energy and just feel better about myself when I am in a healthy routine of eating nothing processed and working out 5 days a week. Today, I went into my pantry and threw out basically everything that was prepackaged. I keep relatively healthy food around the house, so it wasn’t that big of an issue. I hit up central market and picked up a ton of fruit and veggies, some fresh nuts, and some bison filets. Bison filets are the locked up nuts. Super lean, super tasty, I highly recommend them.
 
So, what a workout consists of, is a wide variety of things. It can be a jiu jitsu class, which lasts anywhere from 90-120 minutes, and is usually quite intense. We start off with a 20 minute warmup of various stretches and often sprints, or lots of shrimp drills to get loose. Then we drill some old techniques for 10 minutes, then work on a few new ones for 20. Then we roll a bunch until everyone is too tired to move. This seems to be a good recipe for getting back in shape. I am thinking 5 days a week or so of jiu jitsu should do the trick. I am also planning on lifting 3 days a week in addition to this. I will far and away destroy the 40 workout goal I think.
 
Something I am going to try and do is find a jiu jitsu tournament to go to towards the beginning of may. I figure in 3 months I should be in good enough shape to at least not get beat because I gassed out. My technique will prob get smooshed by some of the better white belts, but I want to work really hard on my game and at least be competitive. I read daut’s story about his jiu jitsu tourney a while ago and it inspired me a bit.
 
As far as dietary restrictions, I am going to have 1 big cheat meal a week, where I go out and gorge myself with dessert, buttery bread, and fried food. It will be glorious. For the rest of the time, my meal plan should look something like this..
 
1. Wake up : 6 egg whites, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers omelet thing. Bowl of strawberries, hot green tea, bottle of water.
Go work out like an hour later.
2. Post workout shake with whole banana, 1.5 scoops whey, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 tbsp ground flax seed.
3. Handful of mixed nuts, almonds cashews peanuts brazil nuts pumpkin seeds sunflower seeds, jazz apple (cuz they are the best)
4. 6 oz bison filet, 16 pieces of asparagus
Lift heavy weights, stretch for 20 minutes after.
5. Protein shake again, this time with half a cup whole grain rolled oats instead of flax seed.
6. Romaine lettuce with 4 oz grilled chicken, half handful sliced almonds, and 1.5 oz guacamole. Glass of red wine.
 
That is just what I have worked out in my head, I haven’t run any numbers or really planned anything out yet, but that seems like a solid enough start, though probably a little light on the veggies. I need to add in copious amounts of steamed broccoli or something. I will also consume a large amount of salmon, lentils, quinoa, beans, For those of you big into nutrition, feel free to offer some thoughts on what I am eating on a day to day basis, or something I should add/remove from my diet. I am a fan of cereal, and picked up some kashi go lean high protein stuff and some soy milk, but I will try to keep that to a minimum. As far as cereal goes though, it is pretty decent as far as overall nutrition.
 
I think I need around 2500 cals a day, perhaps more to maintain. I don’t want to be running out of energy in the middle of workouts, and being on too much of a caloric deficit can be counter productive. At first glance, what I have layed out seems like it might be a little short. I might have to add a little more peanut butter or get some extra rolled oats into my diet. I am 6’2 190 and around 13% body fat (I think, I have one of those scales that supposedly sends an electrical impulse through your body and measures how long it takes to get back etc etc, seems accurate enough based on visual comparisons). You can kinda make out my abs, but they aren’t exactly defined. This past summer I was around 175 and 9%ish body fat at my best, so getting back in that zone would be good, and would be good for making weight in the jiu jitsu tourney as well, so I suppose we could set the goal somewhere around there if we want to look at numbers. Perhaps pack on a little muscle while I am at it, I get a little on the skinny side when I do a ton of mma workout stuff.
 
I am debating whether or not I will post daily updates. Part of me wants to for at least 2-3 weeks to keep me on track during the early stages. This is the hardest part. Once it becomes part of the routine its automatic, but getting to that stage is sometimes difficult. I don’t struggle too badly with will power or anything, and having a decent sum of money on this will definitely aid my struggle. If there is any interest, I will be happy to keep a daily diet and workout log, breaking down everything I eat and all of my workouts. I have never done anything like this really, and am usually pretty informal about it, but I think if I did a ‘journal’ or exercise and nutrition log thing it would help me stay on track a lot easier.
 
Anyways, this is just a preliminary view of what I am looking at for the next few weeks. Baseball coaching will be in full swing as well, and I figure that will burn off a few more calories throwing 200 pitches of batting practice every day. I also want to work really hard on increasing strength and stability in my shoulders. Both of them are extremely loose and seem to want to dislocate more often than they should. Stuff like rubber band exercises, medicine ball pushups, etc should be very helpful for that, and I will work those in when I do my lifts.
 
Oh yea as to what I will be lifting, I will be focusing a lot on lower body stuff. I don’t care about looking huge, I want to be deceptively strong and not really bulky. My home gym is almost finished, and I have a power rack and O-lift platform. I will be doing squats, deadlifts, power cleans, bench, incline, and weighted pullups. I will provide breakdowns for that as well. I am extremely weak in all of these things, mainly because I don’t really ever do them, partially because of my shoulder being a constant problem. I haven’t had any issues in almost a month though, so I think I can stop with the excuses now.
 
That really is the biggest problem. So often, if I don’t get my workout done right after I wake up, it doesn’t happen. I can come up with infi reasons to avoid it. Oh, well, this would throw off my meal plan. I have to eat a big steak and asparagus in an hour, so if I lift now, I have to eat a protein shake, then steak later, and that’s just weird yo. Or, well, if I do jiu jitsu at the 630 class, I wont get home till 830, then will have to eat a protein shake and shower and stuff, and if my friends want to go out to dinner I have to skip. It is usually the most bullshit logic imaginable, but its usually enough to keep me from doing a workout later in the day. Oh also, a big one for me is if I already took a shower in the day, there is v little chance I will work out after, as 2 showers is a big drag. Yea, that’s a good one.
 
Anyways, this will be a good period of time for me I think. I don’t think I will be playing much poker, instead I will be focusing on restoring my social life and getting back in shape, as well as hopefully growing a little bit as a person coaching some baseball. Hopefully I can stay the path, and I think after writing all this I decided that I will keep a daily log. I hope this doesn’t bother those of you that are only reading the blog for cool poker hands and awesome life stories (of which I really don’t have that many).
 
Oh also, someone told me I was on tv today, so that’s kinda cool. It is neat watching yourself on tv, though I have only done it for like 20 seconds during the wsop. Apparently they are running WSOPE coverage now, but I missed it. Feel free to link me so I can feel cool watching myself. The poker after dark Taylor, Cole, and I played on should air pretty soon also. I remember it being a ton of fun with lots of cool hands, so it might be worth checking out.
 
That’s all I got for tonight, I am going to try to get my sleep cycle back on track. Last 2 nights I went to bed at like 8am and woke up at 3pm. Fun times yo.
 
-David

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Feb 9, 09 04:57:44

looking forward to the PAD!! guess you can't say if you were winnner or loser or anything, but hope you cleaned! xxx

markchantler




Feb 9, 09 04:57:50

looking forward to the PAD!! guess you can't say if you were winnner or loser or anything, but hope you cleaned! xxx

markchantler




Feb 9, 09 08:47:51

http://www.menshealth.com/eatthis/index.php

perunjd




Feb 9, 09 10:56:38

Yes, it was WSOPE coverage last night, you were seen several times. Your A's got cracked by A,K in one scene, you are in the background a bunch then at the end of the episode it showed you walking out after your bust out.

btw, you could totally do gay porn...no homo

Zimba




Feb 9, 09 11:19:26

Man, I am 6'2, 175, and I would love to weigh 190. Can we switch?

gatorblood9




Feb 9, 09 11:35:35

2 scoops of whey right when you wake up would go a long way, also, I'd include an apple and oatmeal/brown rice in your breakfast for more slow digesting carbs. The problem with your diet is it looks like it takes a decent amount of time each day preparing your meals, and that's where laziness comes into effect. You'll just start feeling lazy and not wanting to prepare a meal, so I would try to add stuff that you could cook in bulk. ie I usually cook 2 dozen hardboiled eggs, 3 cups of rice and keep them in the fridge for the entire week...Just throwing in my 2 cents. Good luck!! Hope you meet your goals!

rosie2985




Feb 9, 09 12:02:59

PAD airs next week I believe. Checked the schedule and it said week of february 16.

chardukian




Feb 9, 09 13:34:01

BJJ

Yo David, I'm a Gracie Jiu Jitsu blue belt, i trained in Gracie Jiu Jitsu Academy in Miami, FL under the Valente bros. Where do you train at?

Bro, if you're going to do this insane work out schedule you need to eat a ton of lean stuff. Up your calories to like 3-3.5k from lean sources. You will still lose body fat, but you will decrease your chances of losing muscle and overtraining your body and crashing.

vladkgb




Feb 9, 09 13:43:33

As to the preparation stuff, i have an amazing personal assistant who takes very good care of me and is going to help me out on the diet side of things. i am going to record my first day, then do caloric breakdowns and see where im at to figure out if i need more calories. i am thinking i will. it is actually pretty hard to get 3k+ GOOD calories a day, and i dont want to start eating crap food just to get my calories. I may have to add some whole wheat spaghetti with lean ground beef or something, might not be a bad idea. Thanks for the comments

David B




Feb 9, 09 14:52:44

"I am going to have 1 big cheat meal a week, where I go out and gorge myself with dessert, buttery bread, and fried food. It will be glorious. " three times a week for me imo =[ lol.. well the friend food, luckily im not big on breads and desserts

i think for being as 'active' as you are planning, you should take in more than 2500 calories to maintain. with all that BJJ, lifting, and baseball, i am taking a wild guess that you will need more than 2500 cal.. im as lazy as they come and definitely dont do as much work as you plan to do but I maintain well with 3k calories +/- 150 cal..

good luck sir

busto_in_hawaii




Feb 9, 09 14:57:55

Your diet looks solid, but I would definitely add some complex carbs early in the day. Oatmeal with your breakfast meal is a great way to go. It will increase healthy calories and give you alot more energy throughout the day. I generally mix in a scoop or two of whey protein with my oatmeal in the morning as well, helps alot for recovery.

Also I'd switch your shakes and use the rolled oats earlier in the day. Again for more energy for your workouts, and because if your looking to lean down you don't want to take in alot slow burning carbs late in the day/evening. Doing a log is a great idea, it will help keep you honest and motivated.

jarvisEG54




Feb 9, 09 15:28:41

does your new healthy regime mean no dota?

doginthefog




Feb 9, 09 16:02:02

hey dave, i lifted for the first time in 2 years last thursday due to shoulder injury...i still have d.o.m.s as severe as ever 4 days later! take it easy to begin with!

iplayer1




Feb 9, 09 22:47:18

Carbs

Similar to what a couple others have a said, I think it would be very beneficial to add in some slow digesting carbs with your eggs to help give you the energy to get through the day, especially since you will be working out after that meal.

gign




Feb 10, 09 00:01:41

re: your favorite dessert

banana split

p.s. If you're doing enough to get really fit you won't need to count calories imo

red_deck




Feb 10, 09 02:53:13

info

Ive been a personal trainer for 7 years and have trained a lot of people for MMA. Thought I would throw a little info in. I would do your squats on dina disk. They make you balance more and give you functional strength plus work your abs big time and thats where most of your power comes from. Also I would get on Univera products. Mostly there "juice". gives you tones of energy, mentail foces, and your fruit and veggeis you need for the day. If you have any questions I would be happy to help. Even if you want a program ment for MMA fighters. thanks for all the great stuff on CR.

nordlaw




Feb 10, 09 02:53:21

info

Ive been a personal trainer for 7 years and have trained a lot of people for MMA. Thought I would throw a little info in. I would do your squats on dina disk. They make you balance more and give you functional strength plus work your abs big time and thats where most of your power comes from. Also I would get on Univera products. Mostly there "juice". gives you tones of energy, mentail foces, and your fruit and veggeis you need for the day. If you have any questions I would be happy to help. Even if you want a program ment for MMA fighters. thanks for all the great stuff on CR.

nordlaw



2944 Views | Comments (17)
February 08, 2009
WARNING: not suitable for work or children. Second 2 links have Christian Bale going ballistic and swearing a lot.

Ok, so I don't really have much to contribute today, but I wanted to share some videos real quick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs&feature=related

This one is great. I had my wisdom teeth out when i was like 12, and I think i acted pretty similar to this.

Also, Christian Bale decided to go nuts on some camera guy or whatever on the Terminator 4 set. This video is pretty awesomely funny. He absolutely loses it haha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLXVuy0h29c&feature=related

Ok, so these are nothing new, I saw these a week ago or something and thought they were both really funny. However, Hac dropped this bomb on me just now, and it is one of the better mixes i have ever seen on youtube. Really awesome and just had to share it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70r-Ca8wcVg&feature=channel

Cheers.

-David

Feb 8, 09 23:29:40

That Christian Bale clip never gets old.

vampa




Feb 8, 09 23:29:49

That Christian Bale clip never gets old.

vampa




Feb 9, 09 00:11:43

check out this flying car!

I read in your blog that you hate driving because of the trafficjams so i found this one for you:
http://www.terrafugia.com/
Its yours for 200 000\$

mr_suspekt



1320 Views | Comments (3)
February 05, 2009

For some reason, I absolutely hate driving. I have no idea why. I mean, it is such a common thing that everyone does, seems so simple, so standard, doesn’t really take that much effort, etc. I constantly am thinking about how cool it would be to have a helicopter. I mean, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, stopped completely on the 15, all I could think about was how cool it would be if my car was a transformer named onyx blade (or something similar, im not too picky), and I could transform into some sort of flying instrument and laugh at all the people stuck in traffic below me. Or a teleporter. Teleporter would be way cooler, but less practical. Transformers are practical.
 
Anyways, the reason I was driving was because I spent the last few days hanging out in Claremont. I had a great time. Everyone I met was super cool, smart, and just fun to be around. I interviewed at CMC, as well as did a campus tour and info session. Interview didn’t go as well as I would have liked, but I feel like it went ok still. For some reason I was really nervous, and stumbled over my words in a few points which seemed odd. I try to analyze why I do things like that, what psychological reason I should be nervous just sitting there talking about my life with a nice guy I had never met before. I guess I felt a lot of pressure since I really want to get in, blah blah. Seems like a strange thing to happen though. I feel like our DNA coding or whatever should allow us to perform better in situations like that, not make our mouths dry and make us lose our train of thought easier. Interesting indeed.
 
So, at Claremont, I actually hung out with mostly Pomona kids. We got a poker game together playing .25-.5 NL, and I managed to lose around 1200. Yeah, 2400bbs, apparently I am not very good at this game. I got tilted towards the middle, Jeremy had position on me and was restraddling all my straddles, reraising me every hand, and basically owning my life. I started straddling progressively bigger, 2 dollars, 5 dollars, 10 dollars, and finally, on last round, Jeremy agreed to straddle whatever amount I straddled back to back hands. So I put out 50 there. I had around 600 stack, Jeremy had like 500, and the other stacks were 250, 100, and 100 respectively. Jeremy folded to the 50, and the 250 stack shipped it in. Mike called in the bb with 100, and I flipped up 1 card. 5d. I said I would call if it was a 3d, 4d, 6d, 7d, 5, or Ad. It was a 6d, so I snap called. I was up against AQ and KQ, so I was like, a huge dominating favorite. Somehow I lost though. Rigged.
 
The next hand was Jeremy’s 50 straddle. AQ guy that just won 600 pot folded, Blake with 100 stack shipped it in, mike folded, and I reshipped with K5o. Jeremy looked down, thought for a while, and folded K6. Bwahahaha what a fish. Other guy had AJo, and asked to run it twice. I said lets just chop jeremy’s 50, 25 each. That was wayyyy more fun and we got to needle him for being a fish and folding the nuts. K6 would have won also, we ran it out. Anyways, after that, we flipped for stacks, and I went busto. It was lots of fun though.
 
After the game, we went to a bar in the Village and had some healthy food. Greasy cheeseburgers, curly fries, and some of the biggest beers I have ever had. These things were enormous. It wasn’t like, the big half yard kinda style that you think of when you think of a big beer. It was like, beerfest giant mug things. Was good times. After that Jeremy was feeling pretty crappy and went back to the room to sleep, and we hit up the liquor store and headed back to Mike’s room for some beer pong. I lost a lot, so I drank a lot. Good times. After a few games, we went to an on campus party. Seems strange to me that they have club/bar like party setups on campus. It was pretty fun, and after we picked up some more beer for more beer pong. Me and Blake did a megastomp late night and won 2 huge games, first one for 20 dollars, and second one for 40. So we shipped 60, then hit and ran and I went home to sleep. Good times.
 
I played poker at the hotel in Claremont on my macbook air, and managed to run pretty hot and make like 140k in the HA games. I was buying in for the min and running stacks up, and managed to get in a pretty big one vs ivey, then a pretty bigger one that I managed to win.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3810030 – honestly I am not 100% sure about this one, but think its ok. Check raising is an option I guess, but I feel like I get more respect and more folds by leading out here. Basically a flip anyways, but w/e.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3810061 – life is so much easier when you win those pots. PLO is dumb because theres a billion spots like that that are 100% standard. I mean it really is ridiculous to be playing for so much money on the internet. That’s 151 THOUSAND dollars. I mean wtf am I doing. That’s like triple a good starting YEARLY salary for a college graduate who worked their ass off for 4 years getting educated. I just clicked some buttons and ran good. How stupid is this fantasy world we live in.
 
I leave tomorrow to go back to TX. It will be my last night in vegas for probably 3 months, unless I decide to come out here for spring break (doubtful, I like beaches). Baseball starts up next week and I will be an official working man. I am really looking forward to it. I have been doing lots of shoulder stability/strengthening exercises, and my shoulder feels great. Hopefully that continues and I don’t have any more incidents. I will get around to the 3 years ago today post soon. Also, check out me and Jeremy’s last video, part 2. I think it’s really really good.
 
-David Benefield

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Feb 6, 09 08:57:13

"Transformers are practical."

lol

mason00




Feb 6, 09 11:47:23

I spent five years in college and graduated with a bachelors in accounting and a Masters degree in taxation. My yearly salary is 55,000. The fact that you look at four cards and in 30 seconds ship more money than I'll make over an entire year's time is hillarious. Keep leaving the dream, and keep this fantasy world as absurd as possible.

SkinnyBrown




Feb 6, 09 15:14:32

It's somewhat comforting to know that at least you realize the money you're making is super sick and ass backwards in this world, don't forget about us little guys! :D

Twentytwo




Feb 8, 09 13:01:39

life is so much easier when you win those pots. PLO is dumb because theres a billion spots like that that are 100% standard. I mean it really is ridiculous to be playing for so much money on the internet. That’s 151 THOUSAND dollars. I mean wtf am I doing. That’s like triple a good starting YEARLY salary for a college graduate who worked their ass off for 4 years getting educated. I just clicked some buttons and ran good. How stupid is this fantasy world we live in. LMAO! gold

mmfb



3764 Views | Comments (4)
February 02, 2009

So I figure I should do a recap on the month. Not really sure what all happened, it was definitely a blur. I did a whole lot of partying, which is quite a change from the last few years. Since I am living the single life once again, I am trying to rebuild a social circle around TCU. This hasn’t been TOO difficult, but I definitely fell off the wagon a bit and have been out of touch.
 
I decided to come to LV for the super bowl and to watch the GSP Penn fight with some friends. Let me start by talking about the fight. Wow. What a sick card. I haven’t read daut’s blog in a few days so have no idea if he talked about it, but just wow. First of all, I bet all the money on Machida, who absolutely destroyed Thiago Silva. Talk about a beating. Silva really didn’t have a chance with his fighting style. He couldn’t touch Machida, who just picked him apart then knocked him out effortlessly.
 
I was super amped up about the GSP Penn fight, and wasn’t planning on betting on it because I really didn’t know what I wanted to happen. I am a big time fanboy of Penn’s jiu jitsu, and have even read his book. I don’t really like the way he carries himself, though it is certainly tough to hate his game. However, I am a gigando fan of GSP. He is just a mutant. Truly one of the best athletes alive right now. It became pretty clear after the second round that this wasn’t a fight that Penn could win. He was simply outmatched. GSP was passing his guard at will, which was astounding to me as Penn has one of the best guards in the game.
 
On to the super bowl. I took the money line at +260 like 12 days ago, and was pretty happy to have that on the cards. It was a great game. I really thought I was going to win towards the end, but somehow Pitt pulled it out. Irieguy had a super sick party at his house, and at peak there was probably 45 people or so. We got there about 3 hours before the game started to play a 10 handed 1k sng. It was quite honestly one of the toughest sngs ever to run, but it was a lot of fun. I ended up winning of course, and beat Irieguy HU which made it all the sweeter. We let Daliman buy in late because he is a fish, so I shipped 6k for the victory. The bragging rights are worth way more than the money though.
 
Last night we went to XS, the club at Encore. It was super sick. It was a lot like tryst, just better in every imaginable way. It was open air, and you could walk outside around the heated pool, chill in cabanas, or gamble it up on some blackjack on an island in the middle of the pool. Seemed like it was a bit of an older crowd maybe, seemed like most of the women were mid 20s ish, not so many youngins runnin around. This is fine with me though. Anyways, I recommend checking this place out it was pretty sweet.
 
On more of a poker side of things, I haven’t really been putting in a ton of hours. I am game selecting extremely nitty, and really waiting on perfect conditions to jump in. The big HA game has been running quite a bit, but I just am not really comfortable with 500-1k yet deep. I try to avoid having more than 20% of my net worth in online poker, which I think helps me sleep at night, but damn this game is so big. I have run OK thought, nothing special. Managed to make like 150k in January, which I am super happy with. It is funny to think about how that is only 150bb’s in that game. I mean cmon, that is ridiculous, the kind of money that is being thrown around by these guys. It is just a completely different world, and one I don’t think I can be a part yet of quite honestly, and I am not sure I ever will. I am ok with this though.
 
Lets see.. what else is going on. Oh, I am driving down to Claremont today to do a campus tour, info session, and ‘meeting’ at CMC. Apparently it is way past the deadline for admissions interviews, but I managed to secure a meet with one of the admissions people there. Alan was supposed to drive down there with me, but he punked out. Jeremy was in town from Miami for the weekend, and I somehow managed to convince him to head down there with me. I haven’t really done the LA thing in a cpl years, so it should be fun to go out there, have some nice dinners, run into Vince and E, and maybe hit up a couple clubs. I heard there is a place called ‘my house’ that is supposed to be the place to go. Hopefully we will have a chance to check that out.
 
Baseball officially kicks off next Monday the 9th I believe. I am really looking forward to this season, and I think coaching will be something I will get a ton out of. Also, getting on some kind of routine will be good for me as well, I have sort of let myself go the last few weeks with too much partying, eating unhealthy, and not really getting enough sleep. For some reason I wake up like 6 times in the middle of the night every night and I’m pretty sure this isn’t optimal.
 
And wtf I think im sick again. Perhaps it has to do with partying a bunch, not getting enough sleep, and not eating well. I suppose these things can cause teh sickness. I had a sinus infection or sinusitis or whatever for like a month, and apparently it isn’t fixed yet. It was bugging me during the Bahamas, so I went to the doc when I got back from that trip and got on 2 weeks worth of meds. I finished that up like 4 days ago, and the symptoms came back like the day after I stopped taking it. Very rigged, might have to go back and get on something different. I really hate medicine and doctors, but I suppose they are necessary if I want to live to be 170.
 
After giving my shoulder ample rest, I went to jiu jitsu the other day out here at xtreme couture. I am certainly out of shape. I think what killed me was running sprints at the beginning of class. We probably do this maybe 1 in 5 classes, but when we do I am always exhausted for the rest of class. I guess the point is to tire you out so that you are put into situations where you have to dig deep and push through and show some mental toughness. I am ok with this, and obviously its good long term for me, but my hedonistic mind certainly hates it. I rolled with another poker guy, Dane, for most of the class. He ownd my life. He’s a pretty big dude, but my technique was way off and I didn’t give myself much of a chance.
 
I am pretty excited about getting healthy again and getting on a routine every day. I haven’t really had any obligations or a set schedule to follow in like 4 years. It will be cool to wake up every day at 10, go to jiu jitsu, come back, shower, hang out for an hour or two, go to baseball practice, come back, go to dinner with friends, whatever. I am going to try to get back on my eating program as well. I got in really good shape towards the end of last summer, and I always felt great, always had a ton of energy, never got sick, etc. I think diet really does have a huge impact on all of those things, and there is really not excuse or reason as to why I should be doing anything other than feeding my body the fuel it needs to operate at the highest level.
 
My plans for February aren’t exactly super intense. I am not sure I will be playing much poker at all. I plan on continuing the practice of extreme game selection, but won’t be afraid to sit if conditions are good. Perhaps I will randomly play some 5-10 and 10-20 and try to play really really well. I have struggled with this recently which is sort of bothersome. Everyone thinks I am a gigando monkey, and I don’t really adjust to that properly. In any case, the next 3 months are going to be great. Good luck at the tables, and in life.
 
-David Benefield

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Feb 2, 09 16:36:27

did u hear the GSP fight might get ruled a no contest

his corner was rubbing Vaseline on his back and that is why it was impossible for BJ to maintain a high guard. seems like a stupid thing to do as he wouldve prolly destroyed him anyway. craziness.

downosaur




Feb 2, 09 16:54:04

getting sick

Try 500 mg of vitamin C every morning and evening. That plus washing your hands very frequently after any "public" contact) and you'll cut down your frequency of virus infections a ton.

zinc1024




Feb 2, 09 19:50:51

when learning bjj it is good to do it while you are exhausted because then you can't muscle people in place of technique. this is really helpful when learning new techniques since your sheer animal strength can't be used in place of good technique.

epdog




Feb 2, 09 20:23:42

Getting Sick

Take some acidophilus bifidus (probiotics). I haven't been sick in 2 years on that stuff.

wiltord111




Feb 3, 09 08:15:41

You have one of the best discipline and mindsets. Keep it up. You should be the role model as a poker player.

Tracoy




Feb 3, 09 12:01:42

XS

I was at XS on Sunday as well. That place is super sick, would recommend it to anyone

bellagiofish



4710 Views | Comments (6)
January 27, 2009

Four years ago today, I was three months into my professional poker career, grinding the 109 sngs on various party poker skins. I was living in a piece of crap apartment that I shared with Mario, who some of you may know as pwnasaurus or deuce2high. We were good friends in high school, and got into poker together back in the day. He was also playing online at this time, but hadn’t pulled the trigger on dropping out (yet). Our apartment was a standard 2 bedroom in a section 8 housing project. Perhaps it sounds worse than it was, but there were like, cracked out dudes in electronic wheelchairs rolling around hitting me up for money when I would leave the apartment (ok this didn’t happen every day, but it happened like 6 times over 9 months).
 
I think my bankroll around now was about 25k. I was making almost as much in rakeback as I was actually playing poker, and without it, would not have been able to stay in action. I thought I was the best player in the world at sngs during this time, had a solid foundation of ICM before it was ever even discussed. I basically figured out it was profitable to push any 2 any time from the small blind for 10x or less, and I used this with reckless abandon. My plan was to sit to the RIGHT of the good players, because they were always super tight about calling pushes, but super aggro with their all in strategy. The word of the day back then was ‘fold equity’, and I took that to the extreme.
 
My whole philosophy was if it’s even +.001% ev, I am losing money by not going all in. This is something people still live by today, and it is just flat out wrong. Yes, this will win you money. There is no question about that and I am not arguing that. It won’t make you the MOST money though, and for some reason I find that more important. It took me like 3 years to figure this out, and I felt like a complete moron after it clicked. I mean, if I shove having .001% equity, and lose, I pass up on BETTER push spots next hand. Say the next hand I push is a 2% equity push. That is worth epic tons more than .001%. !!!!! Honestly, even now I am not sure exactly how to break this down, or how to fully understand the implications of passing on small ev to get bigger ev down the line.
 
Obviously there are implications where ok, if I push right now, my ev is close to break even, and I will go bust sometimes. However, I will also double my stack sometimes, which allows me to increase my EV even further, and get more +ev spots in the future. This is something I can talk circles around and never really get anywhere, and it is something that really hasn’t been given a good hard look by anyone as far as I know. I haven’t seen a good argument or writeup or anything about this, but I don’t think I am the best person to do it. My strength has always been understanding how people think while playing poker, not breaking down the mathematics and EV calculations. If someone wants to chime in, feel free.
 
Ok enough of the off topic mumbo jumbo, back to my life. With this 25k bankroll, I started buying things. The first thing I bought was a super legit bed that cost me like 1k. I figured hey, I spend 1/3 of my life in bed, I should be able to shell out. I spent another 1k getting the ultimate setup in pillows, comforters, sheets, etc, and was livin on top of the world. I also hooked up a quad monitor setup. To my knowledge, at this time in the poker world, no1 had done this before, so I felt pretty cool, and made sure to post pictures on 2p2 to brag about my super awesome setup. I justified these purchases by saying they would increase my earning power, which seems reasonable, as I still do that today.
 
Obviously, right after buying stuff I went on a big downswing. I am not really sure where my bankroll was, but I lost like 62 buyins at the 109s and thought my life was coming to an end. I was taking the push all in for neutral ev way too far, and it was making my swings ridiculous. I started messing around with 5-10 limit 6max, and was 4-6 tabling this for a while making a little. I was never a big winner in limit, but I did well enough in these games for a few months to stay afloat.
 
Around this time I went to LA for the first time, and met up with irieguy(craig) and theusher(alan), who remain two of my best friends today. We met up at commerce, and immediately hit the degen pits. I had never really done any gambling of this sort before. Alan was talking about how great pai-gow was, and how you could actually be +ev playing the bank. I was like ok ship it lets do it. Obviously we got stuck like 2k or something, and went off.
 
Over the course of 2 hours, I was stuck 9k of my probably 15k total bankroll. We were buying max action from the ‘corporations’ while being the bank, and just losing hand after hand. Actually, it probably really only took 45 minutes to do this. I was soul crushed. I was planning on risking 3k playing in the big 100-200 limit game and hoping to run hot, but instead I lost 9 playing a stupid pit game. I left the next day absolutely crushed, but set on grinding out a billion sngs to get my money back.
 
I grindmoded hard for the next 2 months, and began experimenting with massively multitabling. The most I ever did during this time was 24, at the 22 and 33 dollar level. With 109s I never did more than 12, and 215s never more than 8. I was also OCD about not mixing levels. I always had this idea in my head that I would godmode the smaller buyin sngs, then get ownd in the bigger buyin sngs and end up losing money overall because of it. I have always had weird mental blocks like this, and to this day I don’t really mix limits if I can avoid it. Strange, but nonetheless true.
 
Over this time I built my roll back up to around 25-30k again, and decided to make a trip out to vegas for the first STTF heads up Calcutta. I met the likes of Apathy, Good2cu, Lacky, Irieguy, Usher, Yugo, Dali, and a few others. There were 8 of us that played, and I ended up getting second for like 1k or something. It was a lot of fun. We went out to a strip club for my first experience, and I was using my boy Travis’ ID, who also remains one of my best friends to this day. At this time he was a live fish that was doing a little poker dealing on the side, while going to TCU. I didn’t know him that well but he ran a home game out of his apartment, and I had played in it a couple times.
 
Anyways, what wasn’t fun was the next day playing 10-25 NL. I had very little NL experience, and quickly got stacked. I only bought in for 1k though, so it wasn’t like a HUGE crushing defeat. I had a 15k wad leftover in my pocket, and felt like I was still the locked up nuts with my huge cash bankroll. (It is amazing how stupid I was at 18). There was a big group of 16 or so meeting for dinner 10 minutes later, and I didn’t want to go to dinner stuck! Besides, I had just flashed my roll to irieguy’s dad skipperbob while he was playing in the low stakes 2-5 game. I sure was cool. He gave me a look that I took as scorn, but little did I know he knew what was going to happen to me.
 
I hit up the random shuffle blackjack table on the way out of the Wynn poker room. I plunked down 1k and said run that shit. Dealer has an ace, dealer has blackjack. Ok bad start, ok ship it 2k! Run that shit. Hrmm.. 16 vs an ace, guess I hit! 10 ball. Crap. Ok, 4k! run that shit! Hrm.. 12 against a 9, gotta hit. 10 again. WTF @%)(#@ ok dealer you POS, heres the rest of my roll, like 7600. I plunked it down, with this sinking feeling that I had no shot, and got dealt a 13 against a godamned ace again. I said hit me. 2. Really? 15? Hit me again. 8. busto. I didn’t know what to do. I just sort of sat there for a minute and wasn’t really sure what just happened.
 
I ended up going to dinner, and the first person I went over to was skipperbob as I turned out my pockets. He sort of laughed like I was joking, but I wasn’t. I was crying on the inside. I had like 40 bucks in my wallet, that’s it. I obviously CC rouletted for the 750 dollar bill, but thankfully ran good there to not have to charge it on my card. I left the next day, with the intention of grinding my ass off again.
 
This was the last of my gambling experiences. I swore to never gamble for big money again, and I have stuck to it. I didn’t even enjoy it, I just got caught up in my own immaturity and stupidity. I will never understand why people do that to themselves, I guess it has to be a sickness, some sort of mental deficiency putting yourself into that spot. I am all for playing for a hundred bucks in craps and trying to run it up while getting free drinks with friends, betting 25 on the don’t against a guy that has 10k on numbers then cheering when you bang off a 7 ball, but high stakes gambling is just something I will never be involved in.
 
I want to mention how important it is that I went through this early in my career. Quite honestly, at this time, I didn’t really have much to lose. If I went busto, I would be able to go back to school no problem. I would be able to get a 1k stake and grind out some 22s for a month until I had a ton in rakeback and like 8-10% roi and could be back on my feet. Bustoness was something I was pretty scared of, but it wouldn’t really have been a big deal. I was always good at putting in the hands and hours when I needed to, and really had a thirst for being the best.
 
I was grinding pretty hard, but was also partying pretty hard. An 18 year old with an unusual access to money was a dangerous combination. I always had pretty strict parents, and was all for rebellion and trying new things. I certainly got myself in more trouble than I needed to. During all of this, I got the feelings of unfulfillment that still fester to this day. The next fall I decided to go back to school and pursue a social life that I felt was lacking while grinding online for 12-14 hours a day. Poker really was my life, and it was all I did. I had a pretty serious girlfriend in high school, but didn’t really have many women in my life around this time, and felt that was severely lacking in my life.
 
I went back to TCU and joined a frat. I made a plan not to play more than 10 hours a week online, and stuck to it. I wanted to maintain a social life and get that college experience that everyone else seemed so fond of. For the next 3 months I partied like a rock star. I had moved into a super legit apartment close to campus, and my place was the spot to go after party. 6 days a week I went out, partied, and brought people back to my place. It made things much easier when all my pledge brothers were living in the dorm, people were more than happy to come back to my apartment.
 
Halfway through this semester, I got kicked out. The cops came a total of probably 8 times, and eventually there were enough complaints about noise and general debauchery and destruction that the property management company evicted me. I moved in with Travis in a dumpy 3 bedroom house in a sketchyish area right next to a 7-11 (which was actually pretty awesome.) I made a bunch of good memories in this house over the next few months, and really had a great time. He was probably the best roommate I have ever and will ever have.
 
Anyways, I realized in November that I hadn’t been to class in 3 weeks. I was too busy having a good time and partying my balls off. I also realized somehow I didn’t have any money. I had like 450 bucks online, and like 2k in the bank. This presented a problem. I sat down at my computer and loaded up 4 109s. I got 3 1sts and 1 2nd. Over the next 30 hours, with a short 7 hour break to sleep, I ran my account to over 20k. This was, as far as I know, one of the sickest sng runs in the history of online poker. I couldn’t lose. I played probably 250 sngs, and just absolutely crushed. I dropped out of school the next day, for the second time.
 
Over the next couple months I began to transition to NL cash games. I started at 2-4 and 3-6 NL and had pretty good results playing a 36/22 pf style. My strategy was to raise and reraise a lot, then steal the money on the flop. It was really like printing money around this time, even though I had no idea what I was doing. My strategy was to be super aggressive and try to steal as much money as possible, and occasionally get really good hands and get paid off. We are approaching my first move to vegas now, but it is much close to 3 years ago today, so I will save that for my next entry.
 
Looking back, even writing this right now, it is amazing to see how far I have come, how much I have grown as a person. I was so very immature 4 years ago. I didn’t have a clue really about life, though I thought I did. I still don’t, but compared to what it was, just wow. I did so many stupid things. I know I made the right decision though in dropping out that second time. I knew I could make it. I had an incredibly work ethic when it was needed, and I had an insatiable desire to be the best at everything, though my obvious passion was poker.
 
Today, I would be graduated if I stuck with school. I would likely have a double major in finance and accounting, and would be working for some crap job making 40k a year, if I was even lucky enough to get one. I have had some amazing experiences over the last 5 years of my life, and I wouldn’t trade them in for anything. It has been a hell of a journey, something I will be able to share with my children, something I can look back on fondly, as a growing stage that included many defining moments in my life. Just sitting here reflecting on the past few years is blowing my mind.
 
That’s all I got for now, no idea when I will work up the desire to talk about 3 years ago, but maybe soon. Hope you guys enjoyed, tl;dr blah blah.
 
-David Benefield

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Jan 27, 09 18:18:57

Rap on Raptor, good stuff!

rookie




Jan 27, 09 18:41:46

i looked up that 2plus2 post you mentioned and you looked happy and mega scruffy... and you wrote holla at the end of every post. and you had a zillion soda cans on your desk. now you are a health guru. what kinda computer set up do you have now?

ChrisMcGregor




Jan 27, 09 19:21:39

Awesome post - really good blog developing

Oddchild




Jan 27, 09 21:50:48

what do i search on 2p2...i wanna see these pictures (no homo)

using_it




Jan 27, 09 21:54:12

Nice posts, keep them coming please (3 years ago, 2 years ago etc)

zhenek




Jan 27, 09 22:38:33

nice post... looking forward to hearing about when durrrr comes in.
also someone link to those 2+2 posts pls?

DesperadoGM




Jan 27, 09 23:01:30

haha, nice

thehenge




Jan 27, 09 23:33:55

interesting stuff, look forward to next installments :)

hudaman




Jan 27, 09 23:34:01

interesting stuff, look forward to next installments :)

hudaman




Jan 27, 09 23:42:46

learning pit gambling is bad at 18 is much better than learnign it today with 55k or something. great blog.
look dorward to more

epdog




Jan 28, 09 00:12:39

lots of good energy in this blog

wilneedheart




Jan 28, 09 10:59:14

good stuff man, your blog rocks keep it coming!

eddieob




Jan 28, 09 16:20:26

this is awesome :)

guess16




Jan 29, 09 01:20:30

100%

You really give 100% to every thing you do.

Great blog!

hitman247




Jan 29, 09 12:16:38

I remember when you told me to drop out of school in a thread on 2+2 while we were both playing the \$109s on party I believe, then somebody told you I was a sophomore in High School.

JSchnett




Jan 29, 09 16:29:52

very nice

Rhaksorizor




Jan 30, 09 04:45:34

mentorme

I WANT TO BE LIKE YOU

shleprockpoker




Jan 30, 09 06:12:02

Great post.

razboynik




Jan 30, 09 07:50:45

Bennefield Gambler?

LOL quite an interesting post. It's really weird hearing this from you as you seem very level headed. I guess I might have been the same if I came into my poker money when I was 18. I still cant stand the idea of gambling against a casino. It just seems so stupid, especially when you know what the EV is. I just think, why even play, I could just multiply a random amount of money by 0.9 and achieve the same result.

Although I have one cool gambling story. I went to a casino in Durban (in South Africa - where I am from) while on holiday with my girlfriend. We decided to bet the minimum R100 (about \$10) on black. I only had like R80 on my at the time though, so my friend back me the rest and we would split the winnings. He gave me R30 by mistake and we had an extra R10 chip. We put R100 on black and I asked my friend to choose a number. He insta chose red 6. Needless to say we lost when the ball landed on red. But then the dealer (or whatever it's called in roullete) handed us R350 in chips. We hit the red 6. That made our night, and we got alot of free drinks :)

manic




Jan 30, 09 12:26:30

Goos stuff. Inspiring. Thanks for posting that..

MaxWeiss




Jan 31, 09 06:59:24

David...love the blog first of all...but how the hell can I see your previous blog posts? I am looking for that super sick vid of the guys cliff jumping flying w/e u call that...could you PM the link to me?? Thanks!!!

Nate Jizzle




Jan 31, 09 13:14:26

Man, you're a good writer. You're blog rocks - please keep the series going. Looking forward to how you progress in the next one (3 years from now)

Wilkie




Feb 2, 09 00:19:20

very cool.

danibusman




Feb 5, 09 03:42:49

Good stuff, love these types of post.

TylerD



5682 Views | Comments (24)
January 24, 2009

Yesterday I went to a few different bars with a bunch of friends and got really really drunk. It was one of those nights to be sure. We went to dinner at some new place downtown that was sort of a sports bar nice steak place hybrid. Crabcakes were decent, and I had a really good steak. Stephen has this obsession with Merlot. I fucking hate Merlot. Call me a snob, but I just do not enjoy drinking it. I have yet to have one that I thought tasted like anything but a box of wine. I have gotten into the habit when I go to dinner of asking the sommelier what they recommend, and going with whatever bottle they say is good that night. This allows me to try a ton of different stuff and I have been pleasantly surprised by some of the selections. I think going this route is vastly superior to my previous of picking my 2-3 favorites and never switching it up.
 
This afternoon I played some 10-20 because I was a little hungover and didn’t feel like doing much. I got stuck 20k insta in the first 45 minutes or so, then alan came into the room for good luck. I told him I was going to go on an epic heater, and 15 minutes later I was up like 2k. Towards the end of my run my buddy called and said they were having a pledge class keg race. Now, I haven’t really been involved in frat stuff in probably 3 years, but I ran into a bunch of old friends last night and figured I would head over there for a little while.
 
This was not a good idea. I get there and its about 60 guys and 6 girls, which I guess is normalish at 6pm. Basically, there were 4 full kegs, and 4 groups of 12, freshman through seniors. I was with the seniors group, and it was a race to empty the kegs. Everyone started off chugging, but I figured a slow steady approach would be superior. After about 30 minutes I was pretty toasted though, and we were lagging behind. The alcoholic sophomores ended up reigning victorious, and we stuck around for another 20 minutes or so finishing ours. All in all, the event took about 80 minutes. I thought it was pretty impressive. 
 
After this I went home and took a shower. I was pretty out of it and was hungry, so I got a little group together and we went to Hibachi. This was a very good idea. Alan and I got triple orders of everything so we would have lots of leftovers. This was also a very good idea. I am about to run in there and pop some in the microwave for a little snack. Nom nom nom.
 
So I get home from dinner and there are some good 500-1k games, so I decided to sit. I am going to post a few hands I guess, I feel like these games were really really good, but I didn’t do really really good. Don’t worry I was pretty sober by the time I started playing, I have never played inebriated and I never intend to.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3758908 – this one wasn’t very fun, and happened pretty early in the sesh. Not much I can do there.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3758915 – this one made me pretty unhappy. Not really sure what Gus is doing there, pretty terrible to get in T9 vs my range, but he is up like 2.5 mil this year and I’m not, so wtf do I know.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3758929 – This one I am not sure about to be honest. I am pretty sure I need to call pf, but gus squeezes there a lot, to which trex will be shoving a huge range to respond, trying to fold me out. I think AJJT with nut suit plays well enough 3 ways, and I think I am ahead of trex enough to make the call here, but again, im not 100% sure. Plo is a weirdo game, and it seems like I am just getting in a variance war here. I think the only way to fix that is to fold pf but that doesn’t seem too good either. Meh.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759023 – this one wasn’t very fun. I have the best hand here something like 90% of the time I would guess. No way trex is ever folding a T9 JT QT type hand either, and is probably getting in a fair amount of his 8s, and all his draws. Seemed standard, just gotta learn how to flip better. Those guys run really good.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759041 – arghhhh this one tilted really bad. I really hate it when I think I bang off my gin card, but it gives them a bigger gin. Pretty standard again I think, my flop play MAY be skeptical, but I think its good.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759070 – his PF play is EPIC bad here, nfi what hes thinking. Lost the flip tho, so again, what do I know?
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759101 – gotta love when ppl just shovel money in the middle. These games are unreal to short stack. Get such great equity in so many spots. Unfortunately I didn’t really flop the nuts here.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759155 – ohhhhhh gustav, how do I love thee. I was really happy to get that flop, turn scared me, but I thought I won on the river. Not exactly sure why, that was a pretty stupid thought. I hate it when like, theres lots of pot movement, 3 hands, big all in, lots of cards coming up, and you think u shipped the 135k pot. Nope, gus got it. Yay life.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759162 – HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
 
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759176 – bahaha this one was super sweet. I thought for sure I was dead.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759189 – this is another reason why plo is stupid.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759215 – here goes that spot again, where I think I bang off my gin card, but its really his uber gin card, which is pretty much the anti gin. Im like yayaya I got there, do mini cheer, then ship it in, then get ownd. Sad face.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759365 – this one was pretty cool, really scary turn though for me, though its really not THAT awful of a card, it seems worse than it is I think.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3759366 – this one I think I made a mistake. I think I should have checked the river like zomg I am scared. He never has a set or anything, and I doubt is looking up with 2 pair very often. He could have banged off a straight, but if I check he is betting all of those anyways. Maybe have been a mistake betting. This is one of those spots where I think people are just like oh whatever I bet I have the nuts cant be that bad, but honestly I think I lose a lot of value by betting here, even though I have the nuts. I think the most +ev play in this spot is to check call. I am glad I review my sessions for spots like this, as I think its very beneficial.
 
Anyways, I think I played really well today. I finished down about 100, but the games were good, and I think I got my money in really well overall. There were some really gross spots, not really suckouts, more just nasty coolers that shouldn’t really happen as much as they seemed to. Losing that big AAQJ aipf didn’t feel that good, but I mean, its really not THAT bad for Gus to get it in there. I ran about 145k below expectation once all in, so at least I know I was playing ok. I think my plo game is getting better and better deeper, and if the games keep running in the form they were tonight, I think I am going to do very very well this year.
 
On the other hand, I am not sure how often I will be playing poker this year. I start the baseball coaching thing in full swing pretty soon, and I really want to master the rubber guard in jiu jitsu. Obviously that is a big time suck, but I want to get back into super good shape and learn how to be a cold blooded killer. Not really because I like fighting or anything, or have a desire to go out and fight people, but I just really enjoy the competition. There are so many people better than me, and it just drives me nuts thinking about getting better and being able to compete with them, in Jiu Jitsu and MMA. I enjoy things that put the blame solely on me for my screwups, and it is entirely up to me how well I do based on how hard I train my body and mind. If I take care of myself I will see results, that’s all there is to it.
 
Tomorrow night I am probably going out again, a few friends wanted to meet up and go dancing, and I got my dancing shoes tucked away in the closet for a time like this. Some might find it strange for a guy to say that in his blog, but I love dancing, and with a good group of girls it is just a ton of fun.
 
I also picked up nip tuck season 5 on dvd. I completely forgot about this show then saw the dvd set at best buy today, so snap picked it up. Nip tuck is the most over the top, ridiculous drama I have ever seen, and I absolutely love it. I also like the operating room stuff, it seems so real, and I’m not grossed out by it at all, it’s all just very interesting to me. Perhaps somewhere down the line I will look into medicine. I am not sure how intellectually stimulating that would be, but it seems really freaking cool to cut someone open to fix them. This is a little TL;DR, sorry. Hope everyone is well, and the 4 years ago today post will probably come next!
 
-David Benefield

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Jan 24, 09 08:23:39

nip tuck got really weird for me a year or two ago. there was incest, mercury poisoning, and some unspeakable crap that was just wow

Taylor




Jan 24, 09 19:21:04

yeah Nip/Tuck last season was forgettable

This new Trust me show maybe has potential

LesW




Jan 25, 09 11:42:11

i think the 3rd hand posted is pretty bad. i dont see how that can be profitable to get that much money in here pre. I mean i have no clue how these games play but it seems spewy.

whodey0544




Jan 25, 09 11:42:18

i think the 3rd hand posted is pretty bad. i dont see how that can be profitable to get that much money in here pre. I mean i have no clue how these games play but it seems spewy.

whodey0544



5800 Views | Comments (4)
January 20, 2009

5 years ago right this instant, I was just starting the last semester of my senior year in high school, sitting through some boring lecture in economics, and eagerly anticipating the first day of baseball practice. You see, back then, I had a different passion in my life, and that passion was baseball. I had played since age 6, all year, every year, with no breaks. It was the biggest part of my life, and I loved it. It helped that I was pretty damn awesome at it as well.
 
At this time, I had been playing poker with my friends for over a year, mostly .25-.5 NL buying in for 20 to 40 bucks at a time. I had read every book on poker, and was already posting on 2p2 trying to become great at this game. I hadn’t started playing online, mainly because I didn’t have a credit card or any kind of method to deposit, and I was 17. All my bank accounts were set up under my parents names, and I just had a big gangster’s roll of 20s tucked away in my closet for the live games I was occasionally playing in.
 
I would say.. a few months before this time, I found a private club game pretty close to my house. The first time I went, I was nervous like crazy. I went with 2 of my friends, Donald and Mario for support. They chose not to play, and just watch, so I sat down in a 3-6 limit holdem 8 handed game, and proceeded to run like a greek god and make 400 dollars in 2.5 hours. At this time, I thought I was the god of limit, as I had read everything David Sklansky wrote. It seemed reasonable to think I was the god after a run like this. Before coming here, my bankroll was 106 dollars, and I sat with 100, fully intending to lose it all. It never occurred to me to sell off action.
 
I was prepared to hit and run, pack it in, head back to Don’s place for some video games, but they sucked me back in. One of the club owners, Rawdon, convinced me to stick around and play 1-2 pot limit holdem. This game was played 5 handed. In all of the games my friends and I played, we played NL, and I made sure to point this out to Rawdon. He was like ‘Ahhh mannnn don’t worry this games the same, just say pot if u wanna make a big bet.’ I was like hrmm.. I am up 400, I guess I can sit for 200, and if I bust, quit, and still be up 200! Ok book it deal me in.
 
Over the next 3 hours, I proceeded to go on the sickest heater ever. I was set over setting people, bluffing and showing with impunity, making good use of the word ‘POT!’ Even for an opening raise, I would yell out ‘POT’ and put in 7 dollars. I was having the best time of my life. I ended up busting the table, and didn’t want to play Rawd HU since I knew he was a hustler. I cashed out 1340 dollars that night in profit, a pretty decent ROI for my first time playing live poker in a private club.
 
I really thought I was the king of the world. I had the fattest grip of 20s you have ever seen. I was 17, already thought I was the shit at poker before playing there, and now I had a bankroll and a story to prove it. I couldn’t sleep that night because I had the biggest smile in the world permanently etched into my face. I kept reaching over to hold the grip of 20s that seemed so surreal to me. It was like a dream.
 
Over the next few months, I seeked out all of the NL action in DFW. I found a 2-5 NL game, as well as a few other 1-2 NL games. I was the kid. Everywhere I went, people knew me, and were scared of me. I was relentlessly aggressive, built huge pots when everyone was used to being a dumb nit, and talked endless shit to tilt people. Over the next 2 weeks, I ran my bankroll up over 5k playing in these live games. I truly felt I was unstoppable, and headed for the wsop with Mikey McD, Doyle, and Slim.
 
Unfortunately, the problem with thinking you can’t lose is that you can. My ego was enormous. I cant imagine what some of these older live guys were thinking about me, I mean, they still did that ‘Just keep raising every hand kid, keep at it’ you know haha you will go broke kinda thing, and I always thought it was hilarious and was like ‘haha ok old man keep folding and you wont have a retirement.’ God, I am shocked no1 kicked my ass, they probably thought I would run home and tell my parents and then their game would get broken up.
 
After this 2 week rags to riches run, I slowly and methodically went busto. It took probably 3 months to fully wipe out everything I had. I bet 1k on the super bowl, and the Patriots didn’t cover. I had never bet on a sports game in my life, and my first bet was a thousand bucks. I was a true degen in the making. I had no fear, having made my money so fast, I figured I could just do it again. This was quiet honestly, the WORST way to start a career as a professional gambler. Running hot in the beginning was epic bad, and probably set me back for the next year or two at least.
 
I remember I was actually watching the super bowl at my girlfriend’s house with her parents. I went with her dad to Hooters and we picked up chicken wings and French fries, and we snuck a beer each out of the fridge and chugged em upstairs. Yea, we thought we were cool. Anyways, I was just distraught the entire football game, and barely said anything to anyone. After the game I was just really really sad, and immediately left. They probably thought I just really liked the patriots. What kinda 17 year old bets on sports like that? Starting down a bad bad road Mr. Benefield.
 
The next couple months after the super bowl I played in 200 dollar buyin tournaments around town, some 1-2 PLO (which I had NEVER played before in my life), in addition to my bread and butter, 1-2 and 2-5 NL. The 2-5 game barely ran, but both times it did, I dropped 1k each time. I thought they set me up in the beginning to hustle me. They let me run good at the beginning so I would get into them for even more. Well, I didn’t have any more money to get into them for, so I showed them good. I went completely busto around March I think.
 
Right around this time, I ruined my shoulder, maybe 5 games into the season. I started off pitching with a 2-1 record and gave up 3 earned runs over 17 innings. The first game, I struck out the first 6 batters. They were all scrubs though and I had a pretty wicked curveball. My injury was a complete fluke, something that wouldn’t happen if the same situation came up a million more times. I hit a single into right, and was taking a lead off first. The pitcher was a lefty with a pretty lazy move back, and he tried to pick me off. I dove back into the bag, like I have done thousands and thousands of times before, and somehow hit the bag with my arm full extended and at an awkward angle. I felt my shoulder just rip apart, and immediately knew I was in trouble.
 
I was in such distress, such pain, plus it didn’t help that my shoulder wasn’t lined up the way it was supposed to be. I looked at my head coach with tears in my eyes while the trainer was looking at me, and he just looked sad, and didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what I wanted to hear, I was done. Everything I thought about up to this point in my life had been baseball. I had dreams of being a Pro. I was going to play at TCU and be an all American. This was what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. I had read horror stories about guys that had shoulder surgery and never recovered. I didn’t want to be one of those guys.
 
I was told that my shoulder would heal up to about 80% without surgery. I would still be able to throw, still be able to do all the things I loved to do, it just wouldn’t be 100%. If I had the surgery, it would take over a year to be back at 100%, and an incredibly painful rehab. I decided not to do the surgery, and started working it out immediately trying to get it back in shape for the season. 3 weeks later I was playing left field and hitting 5th in the order. I couldn’t throw to save my life, but I could swing a bad ok, and I could track down anything in the air and sort of do a side armed underhanded throw to the cutoff. So, this is what I did for the rest of the season. I became the crippled left fielder. I hit .330 to finish the year, and even managed to put a couple to the wall, but no homers. I just couldn’t get the kind of power I used to have swinging mostly with 1 arm. My shoulder could sort of do the motion, but my right hand was there primarily for stability, not power.
 
So that’s it. That is where I was 5 years ago. I have nfi why I wrote about that, it just seemed like an interesting thing to do, looking back on what my life used to be like. In 30 minutes, I am going to head up to that same field, that same cursed first base. Today is the first day of long toss, the boys will start throwing and getting their arms in shape for the season. I am going to start getting MY arm in shape so I can throw BP. I am terrified of what I will find. My shoulder hasn’t exactly been faithful to me over the last few years. I haven’t thrown a baseball in over a year. When I did, it went pretty well, and wasn’t even that sore, but day after day for a couple months.. who knows. Either way, I know this will be a good experience for me.
 
Perhaps my next couple blog posts will be something like, 4 years ago today, then 3 years, 2, 1, etc. I think this would be pretty interesting, and I am already thinking about what I was doing 4 years ago today.
 
On other life stuff, Alan gets in tomorrow, and we are doing a wine tasting a Ruth’s Chris. One of my friends set it up, so we are going to check it out. Normally I don’t like straying too far from my beloved Del Friscos, but I suppose we can make a change for an evening. The last 2 Ruth’s Chris experiences I had were in Vegas, and I cant say I thoroughly enjoyed either. I am skeptical about what I will find, but wine tastings in general are awesome, so I am looking forward to it.
 
On a poker side, I have been playing a little here and there, and short stacking the big HA games when I can. They often are 8-9 handed with a bunch of pot call call situations coming up, which are pretty damn near ideal for 20x stacks. I have been running ok, and am up about 160k to start the year. I am very happy with this, especially considering the amount of time and hands I have put in. I don’t really have a plan for how much I will be playing over the next few months. The only plan I have is to play when I feel good, play when the games are great. I think this is probably the way to go, and enjoy the rest of the time I have doing things I enjoy with the people I love.
 
Time to go learn how to be a coach!
 
-David Benefield

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Jan 20, 09 17:14:59

do u ever play xbox 360 games?.....like halo or call of duty......itd be cool to play if u did

TheTyman9




Jan 20, 09 17:54:45

i lost around 800 when illinois lost in the national title game to unc. I was 18 and probably only had 1.2k to my name. All of which was playing hold em against old guys at the local golf courses

durk86




Jan 20, 09 18:16:47

I'd just wanted to say that this is a really good blog post. You seem to have a really good life and be a really good human being. Hope baseball works out for you, and if you feel like doing something else you know we still love your vids.

Dustylove




Jan 20, 09 19:41:41

lol copycat

nice post

INTERNETPOKERS




Jan 20, 09 20:52:13

uhh... why didnt u have surgery?

danibusman




Jan 20, 09 21:17:12

radio show...

Hey Dave,

I'm hosting a poker radio show in my hometown of Toronto on a major market sports station. Our debut is this week, and we'd love to have you on as a guest if you can spare 15-20 minutes.

It'll be all very easy going, just shooting the breeze about poker and life, etc.

We can also hook Cardrunners up with some plugs or anything else you may wanna mention...

Let me know if this is possible. If so, I'll have my producer get in touch with you to work out the particulars.

good chat,

brandon

gusssssh




Jan 21, 09 05:44:21

tl; dr

edruseli




Jan 21, 09 09:30:31

nice post

JohnnyAbove




Jan 21, 09 14:25:48

ditto on the career ending baseball injuries, except I tore my rotator cuff while doing drunken MMA on St Patrick's day 3 years ago. THANKS FOR REMINDING ME HOW MUCH I MISS BASEBALL SJSKJKJKLJALKJDLJLDJKLSLDJKLSJLSD

CeJeH




Jan 21, 09 19:57:19

yo yo

hey just wanted to say very interesting post...i'm a low stakes sng player but i play professional baseball for the Seattle Mariners....I am a pitcher holla at me

spankykirky




Jan 21, 09 19:57:26

yo yo

hey just wanted to say very interesting post...i'm a low stakes sng player but i play professional baseball for the Seattle Mariners....I am a pitcher holla at me

spankykirky




Jan 23, 09 02:01:35

More Please!!!!

Very intriguing, fascinating, and well written post. I would love to hear the story of your initial introduction to poker to your current life in GREAT detail. When I was initially introduced to the online poker world and heard of the "golden age" of the poker boom and the millions of dollars that were consumed by such young individuals I was in shock and wanted to know all I could; as I'm sure many are. I would love to read successive posts by you detailing your climb in the poker world.

saucedcaesar




Jan 23, 09 06:41:02

loved it!

i always enjoy reading stories about off-poker stuff. kinda makes me think what i did 5 years ago to this very day. .... .......... gosh, no clue! :S

keep 'em coming!

CHPokerBrat



5079 Views | Comments (13)
January 18, 2009

I woke up this morning in a pool of sweat. I was having the most awful dream as well. I was dreaming that I was in NYC, with a faceless woman, and we were going to Serendipity’s. It was closed. I started crying, then ran across the street and got hit by a truck. Then I woke up with soaked sheets. I think this means that my fever is breaking, and perhaps I am getting better! Yay!
 
I am not sure how common this is, but I die a lot in my dreams. Does this happen to you all as well? It is often a gunshot, though occasionally it will be some sort of vehicular incident, either car crash or getting run down. A lot of times in the car crash, I will be in a small, corvette like car, and get hit by a truck causing the car to crush, and as it’s crushing I start to feel it and wake up. It is a very rare occurrence where I do not wake up quickly.
 
More recently however, I would say over the last year or so, in my ‘gunshot’ dreams, I will not wake up after being shot. I will be like oh shit, I think this is it. Then it all goes black.. For seemingly a long time. This isn’t exactly fun, and I wake up sort of scared. Now, I know a lot of people think dreams are just something stupid that don’t really mean anything, but it is still MY mind thinking these thoughts, and I would like to know why. At some point, I am going to study the psychology of dreams. I think it will take me a while before I can understand Freud, but at some point I would like to get there.
 
Enough with all that for now, lets get to some fun stuff. I woke up this morning and Eric sent me a link for Basejumping with wing suits. For those of you that don’t know what it is, it’s basically jumping off a cliff with some cool suit that lets you glide a little bit, but you still have a parachute.
 
 
I mean, this is absolutely insane. Completely, utterly ridiculous. I mean really, what do you do after this? Adrenaline is no different than heroin (ok a little different, but similar enough, maybe cocaine would be a better drug comparison). You start off skydiving, and get a sick super awesome thrill. After a hundred jumps it just isn’t that interesting, so you start opening the chute lower and lower, doing flips, spins, different tricks, jumping out higher and higher, jumping out over the ocean, etc.
 
Over time, nothing you can do will give you the same thrill as those first few jumps. You decide to look for something else, and discover basejumping with wing suits. WHEEEEEE. HOLY **** THAT WAS AWESOME @*%@%()*$% WOWOWOW. The first few jumps you try to get as far away from the cliff walls as possible and just glide about in the open. After a little while this isn’t as exciting, so you get closer and closer to the cliff faces. Soon enough, you don’t get a rush from this either, so you get a fingernail’s breadth away from the cliff wall, and start skimming the ground only 10 feet up.
 
Do you see a pattern here? It seems to me that the only thing that can conceivably happen is death. That is it. You either die, or you quit. The quitters go through life moping about trying to find a way to get that rush back. I can see drugs being a logical step for adrenaline junkies, as it effects the same pleasure receptors. But once you are physically incapable of doing things like this anymore (if you make it that long), how can you really enjoy the rest of life? How can you find joy in the little things, like taking your kid to a Yankees game, booing along with the relentless crowd at every screw up?
 
I find it hard to imagine the effect of something like this on my life. It makes me timid to even go try something like this, (aside from the abnormally high risk of death). Adrenaline is a great thing, I am sure we all have times after an exciting event where we are like ‘WHOAH that was awesome’, our heart beating fast, our breath heavy. But is there such thing as too much adrenaline? Is there a point where it becomes detrimental to long term health? I think there is. Where that line is, I am not sure, but I think that once you cross it, you put yourself at risk.
 
Perhaps I am just a pussy, and because im scared to go basejumping, I want to call the people that do decide to do it ‘junkies’ and crazy people. This is most likely the case. I have been skydiving, and while I enjoyed it, I don’t really care if I ever do it again. I do think that feeling of free fall is something everyone should experience, and it certainly was an adrenaline high. But look at like, Travis Pastrana.
 
 
He just jumped out of an airplane wearing nothing more than basketball shorts. I mean REALLY? What do you do after this to match that high? You have to keep pushing your physical boundaries until one day.. you make a mistake.
 
 
On a more serious note, this is a list of fatalities from base jumping. As the sport increases in popularity, with super cool videos like the original one I posted, more and more people are eager to try it. Hell, after all the stuff I have said, I STILL wanna get out there and try it. It looks so sick. Sooooooo sick. I cant imagine the feeling of successfully skimming the ground, almost close enough to high five my buddy while he is filming me. Will I ever do it? Who knows. These guys did, and they are probably a billion times better at it than I ever will be. Kinda scary.
 
On a lighter note, Durex wins the best condom add in history.
 
 
-David Benefield

Read More

Jan 18, 09 09:56:28

I was just talking about death dreams last night... I've only had one where I got shot in the face and died... then I saw my body in a coffin from above. It was strange. Never had a dream where it cut to black though... that's got to be a little scary.

I had a weird dream the other night where I was being chased on foot by a blind, overweight woman so I went to a site called dream moods to find out what it meant. It was very interesting.

elzino




Jan 18, 09 13:02:03

mountain climbers and skydivers, you do it long enough you die or your friends do, sucks but some people its the only way for them to live

JahDoos




Jan 18, 09 14:56:31

This is weird. I had the craziest dream of my life last night. I was walking through the woods with my friends and fell behind, I came up on what I thought was them standing around a lake and it was some human cannibals. They brought me back somewhere and where getting ready to prepare me for cooking. I woke up before anything crazy happened. Anyone know what that means???

whodey0544




Jan 18, 09 16:15:58

I remember I took a class about interpreting dreams in college. There is a guideline in interpreting dreams but ultimately you have to decide what it means. It was a very interesting course and I do believe dreams is a window into your past, present, and future.

AppleSeed




Jan 18, 09 17:49:50

Check out this condom ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij2Xbu-XhCI

Vintage00




Jan 18, 09 20:08:06

Getting shot out and fading out is the most common dream type I have. Only once did I actually see myself at a funeral in the casket though. Why can't I have dreams that are more pleasant?

skoldpadda




Jan 18, 09 22:24:52

I always understand my dreams. For me it is creative retelling of my thoughts/feelings about situations going on in my life. Often it brings me better insight about feelings that i tend to block out while i am awake.

navila




Jan 19, 09 00:35:33

lucid dreams

apparently you can "learn" how to have lucid dreams. that would be a quick solution to fix these nightmares (altho the healthy thing would have to be to figure out whats wrong and deal with it i guess).

a lucid dream is a dream where you realize youre dreaming so you realize that you can do whatever you want since there are no consequences. therefore you can control what happens in your dream and you should be able to avoid all these morbid scenarios.

theRabidDoG




Jan 19, 09 13:25:02

Someone was telling me that when you die or start dieing in a dream it marks the end of a chapter in your life and the beginning of a new one. Ask Joe (Ludi), he is old and might know lol..

cpar1




Jan 19, 09 13:25:12

Someone was telling me that when you die or start dieing in a dream it marks the end of a chapter in your life and the beginning of a new one. Ask Joe (Ludi), he is old and might know lol..

cpar1




Jan 19, 09 14:54:26

+1 for lucid dreaming Ive never tried the methods recomended for controlling your dreams but my dreams can be very lucid and the strange thing about it is that they usually effect my mood for the first few hours after I wake from them. Good dreams=peaks when I wake up, Bad dream/people trying to kill me=grouchy for first few hours im up.

slmfast14




Jan 19, 09 15:31:32

To dream of dying often means one has a subconscious fear of losing someone or something ~ not necessarily close or treasured by them. It can also mean letting go of past conflicts situations and feelings

mainkat




Jan 19, 09 23:59:41

Someone likes reddit =P

LJJones




Jan 20, 09 04:29:49

Dreams

Hey David, I usually dont write comments here, but im very interested in the dream subject, and I figured I might be helpfull. Genereally dreams are very subjective, and two people can have the same dream and it will mean something different to both. But i will try to write a little bit about yours, but im just guessing. I have been reading ur blog before so i know about some of your speculations.
I dont know what Serendipity’s is or what that symbol means to you. But you were going somewhere in NYC with a faceless woman and it is closed. I would think NYC could be a symbol of worldly ambitions, money, succes, fashion and so on. Where you thought you were going, but it turns out to be closed. Which could mean that there is no longer any energy in this image for you. I dont know what the fact that ur with a faceless woman means, but useully women in dreams are symbols of your Anima(ur inner female). That she has no face.. Ur the only one who could know what that means, maybe ur not very much in touch with ur anima, or maybe u havent met her in outer life or maybe it means something else.
But when you cross a road or a bridge or something it is usually a symbol for some sort of crossing/transition in yourself. I think that the truck could symbolize some sort of powerfull unconscious energy in you(often a truck is something powerfull and masculine), that you are not consciously in contact with and therefore it is kind of destructive.
If you want to study dream symbolism you should not look into Freud, his dream theory is very useless as he sees dreams as nothing more than infatile wishfullfillments and dirty sexual fantasies that are to dirty to be consciously accepted so it is dreamt in symbols. Thats basicly it and u cant really use it to anything. If you want to study dreams study Carl Jung. Or visit an Jungian analyst, he or she could surely help you understand your dreams. Dreams are imo a great gift, because it is the unconscious part of yourself talking to you in symbols :-)

Milas




Jan 20, 09 12:38:54

Dota

You might have seen this already, its a song made after dota. It's not excatlly grammy material, but it's about dota :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OzWIFX8M-Y

Lumpizaver



4142 Views | Comments (15)
January 16, 2009

So I just got back from the doctor, and apparently I have a full blown sinus infection! Yay!! This isn’t exactly the greatest of feelings, but what are ya gonna do. It has been lingering for about 2 weeks now, and I finally decided it was time to go in and get some meds. I have been super out of it the last couple days, and probably shouldn’t have played any poker, but luckily I run good, so it worked out.
 
Yesterday I was bored in the evening and didn’t want to have a variance contest, so decided to play some 10-20 plo. It started off pretty well then alllll went downhill. I ran pretty bad, and ended up down like 15k. There were also some cap plo games running on ftp I was playing in, and those didn’t go so hot either. All in all, plo wasn’t my game of choice last night.
 
Mafews has been around a lot in the last couple weeks, so I figured id play him at 50-1. We played 2 hands and he sat out saying 100-200, so I obliged and we 2 tabled for about half an hour. I started coughing pretty bad about halfway through the session, and then got a little queezy, so I sat out to take a shower and see if I would feel any better. When I got back he was playing cadx2, who he smooshed, and I said we would play tomorrow or something. I feel bad hit and running in those kinda spots, but I really did feel terrible and didn’t think I would be playing winning poker.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3723674 – this hand went down pretty early in our sesh. Mafews is a super tricky player, and very smart, so I felt like I needed to be looking up here a bit. His turn sizing seemed pretty weak to me, so I snap called the river brick. My read was right and I started off on a good note.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3723677 – shortly after that I figured he would be a little tilty, so I was obviously playing this hand for stacks. I felt like 4 betting the flop uber small would get shove bluffed on more, and if I just call his 3 bet, I get ownd by a lot of turn cards and have some tough decisions. Pretty sure I like how I played this.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3723688 – this one.. im not so sure about. He was reraising tonsss, and it was early in the session and was first time I 4 bet him. I haven’t played with him a ton, but it appears as though he likes to call in these spots as opposed to shipping it, so maybe it wasn’t the best play. I felt 77 was way ahead of his shipping range, and he would spaz shove 65s and A4 and all that jazz with a relatively high frequency, especially after my first 4 bet. Unfortunately he called, and I didn’t really know what to do on the flop so I ¼ potted it figuring it couldn’t be that bad since I have almost no equity vs anything. He made a cool raise which I like a lot and ownd me so I folded.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3723696 – I run really good. I guess if you REALLY look at it hard, I only put in 15% of my stack behind! But yea, not much he can do I think im not really repping anything but a rivered 2 pair, and K3 isnt exactly a super likely hand for me to have. I am bluffing there im sure some %, so I don’t mind his call.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3723699 – I went on a little bit of a rush when this hand came up. I like my line, as it is EXTREMELY hard for him to call this river without a big pair, a straight, or a 4. I felt like a lot of his range was hands with a 7, 66, 55, etc, and I could make him fold by shipping the river. I tried to make my sizing look like how id play AA or whatever, and it worked out well.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3723708 – heres a bonus nutsinho hand from the other day, im pretty sure he hates me with a passion, so I love sucking out on him. I probably could have folded pf, but I hate folding. I think my turn shove is fine, I am really unsure of his turn call though, I think its quite bad vs my range. I gotta give credit though, I DID have 5 high, and his call had me super dominated. Luckily I banged off the nutball offsuit 4 for the win.
 
Internet pokers posted a really cool soulread or soulown or whatever he calls it where he snapped off a kid with J high. He did a very good job explaining his thought process, and it does make perfect sense. It was a very cool hand I think, though personally im a nit and don’t reraise J7pf. I do however like to play in position, and make my own soul owns. I wasn’t a cardrunners member when this hand happened, so its doubtful many of you have seen it, and its probably the coolest hand I have ever played. In the vein of soul owns, I am going to share it with you all today.
 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1676558 – this hand was against tie53, who many seem to think was one of the many accounts of larsluzak. This hand happened over a year ago, back when I used to think I was the best at NL HU ever. Anyways, pf is standard, flop is a little wacky.
 
Tie53 really liked to check raise, and had been doing that quite a bit. He didn’t like to reraise pf a ton, but lovedddd his check raise button. I decided to go ahead and 3 bet him with my Q high and backdoor flush draw and try to get him off whatever rags he was trying to own me with. He decided to call though, which I felt seemed rather strange.
 
At this point, I put him on a range of some kings, not many 8s, not many 4s, lots of A rag stuff, some 56 type stuff, and sometimes just QT and stuff doing the oop float to take it away later. I was planning on ‘raptor’ betting a lot of turns, trying to get him to lay down his hand. Oddly enough I turned a 3, which I decided gave me enough reason to check, so I decided to see a river. He came out betting 23.5k, which was an odd amount he hadn’t really used before. Usually he rounded stuff off to 1200 or 1600 or 1800 kinda things, and you have to type in 23,500.
 
I was in the mode of making lots of hero calls and being right a lot, so I went ahead and called. I felt like the coolest kid on the planet. Honestly, this is probably the worst thing you can read about on a poker blog, because likely you will go out and try to do it. From just looking at the hand history, it looks completely ridiculous, and almost like we are chip dumping. In the head of the moment, I felt like I picked up on a ton of timing and sizing issues that led me to the decision to make the call.
 
I think I put a lot more emphasis on timing and sizing than a lot of other poker players do. I think it is an incredibly important thing to pay attention to, and people give of loooots of info that they probably don’t mean to based on very small things that they may not even be aware of. The point of all this is to encourage you all to pay attention to the players. Focus on what they are doing, how long it takes them to act, and the sizing of their bets. Empathize, and figure out why they are doing certain things. If they take 15 seconds on the turn to act, why are they doing that? If they throw out a weird bet sizing they haven’t used before, why are they doing that? There are lots of little things you can pick up if you open your eyes and your mind and try to get inside their head.
 
Quite honestly, I don’t think im one of the best pure poker players in the world. Not at all actually. I have encountered MANY people who I thought had much better poker minds, were much more intelligent, etc. I am just merely pretty smart, but I have always been good at understanding how people think, and I have used that to become successful in this game. Being able to put yourself in the shoes of your opponent and think like them allows you to truly dominate their game.
 
For me, the key was always to figure out what I hated dealing with at the poker table. I always hated being stuck like 2-3 buyins HU to someone, and then they start limping the button. This made me so angry, because it was way harder to get even, so I would just make it 4-5x every hand from the BB trying to bloat the pot. Obviously, this put me in an awful situation, playing bloated pots oop with crap hands, and would usually lead to me getting stuck a lot more, and likely not recovering. This is why I started limping the button after getting up on people. There are countless things like this that you can come up with if you just think objectively about certain situations. It is kinda cool when you discover something like that, and your personal mastery of the game will be growing.
 
I am not really sure what im talking about, they gave me a bunch of different meds to fix this sickness that has overcome me, so I sort of feel like I am half aware of whats going on. I have never been a big fan of medication of any sort, and always like to try to tough it out and get better naturally, but this was just too much. I couldn’t really function yesterday, and haven’t been able to sleep. Hopefully these meds will help and I can get better soon.
 
As a last parting thought, I encourage you all, while playing today, to really think about the things you hate dealing with, and WHY you hate dealing with them (at the poker table of course). Figure out what tilts you about certain plays, or what you really struggle with adapting to, and USE that to your advantage vs your opponents. Cheers.
 
-David

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Jan 16, 09 14:29:51

Write more on meds please

HERI




Jan 16, 09 16:38:35

awesome blog dude

want to see more raptorrrrr vids headsup please =)

cashme84




Jan 16, 09 17:28:02

og tho

I love the idea of thinking about what other people do that makes me angry, confused ect. and adding that to my game. There are so many times players will do something that just puts me on the edge of tilt where IM just like fufufu in my head. I think Im going to go back and study those spots that bother me.

Im curious as to how you keep track of those spots, after a few sessions today there were a number of those spots a lot in small medium pots and I know it would be a pain to go back in pt and find them. Im thinking maybe I need a notepad nearby to do that, prolly would be good in general when Im not sure about a hand.

hope you feel better man, sinus infections suck

demon102




Jan 16, 09 18:38:05

Someone posted that hand in the CR forums a long time ago and it was titled to the tune of, "WTF? Please explain this to me."

Thanks for explaining it!

gatorblood9




Jan 16, 09 20:31:00

meh, easy call, u had a pair! :) from back in the day when i was good and made hero calls and was right http://www.pokerhand.org/?3725445

Kanu7




Jan 17, 09 19:10:40

David is the blogmaster, brings the goods every time.

Rerazor177




Jan 18, 09 00:14:39

niice post. Really like reading you poker thoughts.

BenG2813



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