CARDRUNNERS

I've basically been killing the last few days. I've got my bankroll sitting around 45k. I even managed to take about a 6k hit towards the end of the day at ftp. I've been playing a really wide array of games. Here's a list of what I've played in the last few days...

4/8: HU, 6man
5/10: HU, 6man, PLO
10/20: HU, 6man, PLO

I've basically been bouncing around and finding the best games. It's been working out really well. I think I'll feel completely comfortable about my roll again when I have it at about 60k.

I've learned a ton from this downswing I had. It's so important to have confidence when you are playing. Even if you think you are playing ok, if you don't have confidence, you aren't playing your best. With poker, its essential to make sure you are playing your best as much as possible. During the month or so that I was struggling, I never really felt good about my game. That caused me to play poorly overall and to tilt more. I think the best thing you can do when you are running bad is to take a step back from the game. It wasn't until mentally I thought I wasn't going to play for a long time that my head really got cleared. That combined w/ my friend building my confidence by telling me I could crush the fringe site was really the key. When I got on there and ran well, my confidence came rushing back. In hindsight, I wish I had just stepped away from the game much sooner. I never shoudl have let myself get into the spot where I was on such a huge downswing. I also think that switching sites when you are running bad really helps change your view on the game. I got a fresh mindset when I got off UB.

I've barely played any golf this summer, but I've played really well when I have. I can't say I know why. Basically, when I was in high school I was a really good player. I averaged in the high 70s and my golf team even took 10th in the state senior year. We were a small catholic school, that was a pretty big feat in my opinion. As soon as I went to college, my game dropped off. When I say it dropped off, I mean it completely went to hell. The summer after sophmore year I had trouble breaking 100. It was pathetic. I became a complete hack. I remember that summer I played the junior club championship at my country club for fun. The first round i shot 101 and the second round I withdrew when I got to my house on the 6th hole because I was on pace to shoot high 50s on the front nine. Golf was supposed to be fun and it wasn't when I shot that poorly. That led to me playing even less and I wasn't sure if my game would come around.

Last summer I played a bit more and shot more reasonably. I was averaging about 90. At that point, I was more than pleased if I could break 90.

This summer has been completely different. I've barely played, but I've played quite well when I have. I've played 5 rounds. 4/5 of the rounds have been in the 80s and when I've been in the 80s I've shot low 80's. I think I've shot 82,82,83 and 81. I had one lone bad round of about 93. It was very windy out that day and my game was just off.

Today I shot 81. I started off with a birdie and a par but struggled after that on the front nine. I wasn't hitting the ball well at all. Luckily, my misses weren't in the woods, they were just mostly thinned balls that skidded down the fairway. I couldn't get the ball rolling well on the green. I just wasn't putting a good stroke on the ball and missed every putt. The back nine started the same as I was 40 yards out in 2 on a par 5 and made a 6. After that I started hitting and putting very well. Everything just finally clicked. The only boogey I made after that was when I misclubbed my approach and then lipped out the up and down putt.

I wish I had more time to play as I love golf. It's nice to get in a good round when I do play though.

Yesterday we called it an early day and head down to Champaign. We got down there by about 5 or so. We checked into our hotel when we got there. It's pretty depressing that I'm staying in a hotel when I go down there. It's just the sad truth about getting old though. Anyway, we headed to Papa Del's for dinner. It's a deep dish pizza place and it's some of the best food in town. Epdog met up with us there. He's a really good guy. It's always fun meeting people you know on the boards but not in person.

After that we headed to Kam's. Anyone that has been to U of I has probably been to Kam's. It's the oldest bar on campus and alumni usually have fond memories of it. To be honest, it's a complete dump of a bar, but I've had so many good memories there that I don't care. I love drinking there before a game. Not to mention, they offer a free shuttle to all the games. We definitely took advantage of that.

The game was incredible. It's gotta be the best game I've ever seen in person. Probably the most entertaining part of the game was the crowd's reaction to Eric Gordon. Literally everytime he touched the ball, the entire crowd booed him. There were also a ton of chants like "Liar, Liar, Liar," "Asshole!" "Fuck you Sampson," "Sampson is a cheater."  I've never seen anything quite like it. The Illini looked great the entire game. They started to give it away in the 4th though. I thought they would lose in regulation, but they were able to get it to OT. Pruitt ended up missing 3 free throws that would have all won the game (1 in regulation and 2 in OT). It was pathetic. Gordon also got lucky as hell when he banked a 3 at the end of regulation. A lot of things just didn't go the way they needed to for the Illini to win.

After the game we went out to the bars. It was pretty standard there and a really good time. We even ran into Dee Brown. Taylor has a good picture with Dee.

Plan on grinding a lot of PLO tomorrow. I also am planning on doing a marathon session on Stars in the next few days. Basically I need to make 10k FPPs to get a pretty nice TV. I never play on stars and I never really plan on playing there. I have over 100k FPPs sitting in there so I figure I might as well do something about it. I'm going to play like an 18 hour session 8 tabling 2/4nl. It should be interesting. I'll let you know when I decide to do that.

Something that I've always struggled with that is even more important with PLO than NLHE is playing your A game at all times. You can leak a lot of money in PLO when you are playing your B or C game. You can always convince yourself to make a play or go with a draw when you shouldn't be. It's not good. I often dig big holes when things aren't going right. I often will drop 10+ buyins in a session of PLO. Now with PLO, that isn't unheard of. The thing is that I can probably easily avoid dropping at least a few of those buyins. I get tilty and just start playing my B or C game.

Last night was one of those nights where things just weren't going right. I don't think I was every playing that well throughout the session. I made a few mistakes and my table image wasn't good. PLO relies a lot on having fold equity when you push draws. If you have that tilty image, you basically have to around and wait for the nuts because you aren't going to have much fold equity when you push those draws. I was happy with myself that I called it quits only down 2.5 buyins.

One thing I really need to work on is being less spewy in 4 bet pots. I don't really ever fold to 4 bets when I have position. When I have hands that are somewhat dominated by AAxx, I need to be folding. Here is an example of a hand I played really poorly and got it in very bad with. Gotta fold that preflop.

I was pretty sure that this was a push due to the fold equity. I was a bit surprised to learn I was a favorite over his hand. I thought the fact that I had a pair in my hand and 3 of my suit for the flush draw would make me a dog. Although, if I was vs. AA, I would have been a dog I think. Something I need to work on is giving less value to hands with pairs in them, because it really hurts your equity when you are trying to jam in a spot like this and don't have the set.

I think I played this hand standard. I need to talk to stinger or someone about spots like this. My hand seems too strong to fold and pushing is no good because I'm 35% vs AAxx. Nice flop.

I'd appreciate any input you guys have on hands I play. Please don't come on here and bash my play. I'd appreciate constructive comments. I'm admitting now that I have a lot of leaks and I need to iron them out. I'll probably often post hands that I felt I misplayed.

Hands: 473

Profit: -1090

Days remaining: 59

I'm going to play some golf with my dad in a few minutes. I haven't played one round this entire summer, which is depressing. I used to play so much golf. I'm going to try to get a session in later tonight, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have. My plan is to try to get in small sessions here and there and then at least once a week just pound out a huge session of 3-5k hands, especially if I'm putting a good session together.

For the first 10-14 days after becoming a red pro, I really think I played the best poker of my life. I was more motivated to play well, 100% of the time, than I had been in months, if not over a year. The "problem" is that I've been fortunate to have CardRunners grow very rapidly over the past few years, and making a very comfortable living off my stake in the business. I'm very proud of this, but it definitely didn't help my poker game. Where am I going with this? I just didn't feel like I was playing my "A" game enough over the past 4-6 months. Sure, I'm winning some money when I play, etc., but I just didn't feel like I was really playing to my capabilities.

So when I became a red pro, I sort of felt like I had the duty to "prove" that I was worthy of it. I've rarely, if ever, had my poker abilities questioned before, but I sort of felt, in a strange way, that becoming a red pro would cause that to happen. For 10-14 days I played with 100% focus at all times. I made about 70k at 25-50nl, and lost about 20k in a small sample at 50-100nl. I was feeling great about my game, and more importantly, about the level of focus I had at the tables.

After a workout one day, I saw a player that I had really been beating up on at 25-50 sitting at 200-400, short stacking against an average 10-20nl player. Normally, this game wouldn't interest me, but this guy was very tilted, and playing very poorly. I decided to take a shot, even if i was only effectively risking 10k/hand because the other guys were playing short.

Well, things just didn't go well. I never lost a pot bigger than 25k or so, but when I got it in good, I lost, when I got it in bad, I lost, and when I got it in as a flip, I lost. That happens, I wasn't at all disappointed with my play, and losing 40k when u are essentially flipping (with me having a slight to moderate edge in most cases) for 10k a pop. I lost 40k, which was effectively all of my red pro winnings.

The problem I then had was that I lost my focus. I just wasn't putting the time and energy into focusing on every decision, playing each hand like it meant something significant to me, like I did before. Sure, things got busier around the office, but that's not an excuse. I shouldn't sit down to play poker unless I can put all of my time and focus into that session (unless on rare occasions when there is a 25-50+ 6max game or two with absolutely horrible players that I can beat while I'm on the phone, hanging with friends, etc.).

I let poor results at the table cause me to revert back to not really caring about my wins and losses at the tables. To be honest, I'm probably a break even player at 25-50 when I don't really focus and play like the money means something to me. I'm not going to let that happen anymore.

Here is my plan:

Yesterday night, I played 6-8 tables of poker at 5-10nl last night. I focused on every decision, even though the money meant absolutely nothing. Sure, it was only one session, but I came out ahead 3 buyins, and really never did anything stupid. I'm not going to talk about the mindset I had playing those games, but I've definitely thought a lot about the optimal style to beat these games and I think I've made improvements in my game, tailoring it to beat the MSNL type games.

I'm going to force myself to exclusively play 5-10, and maybe some 10-20, unless there is a really good 25-50 game going (most likely with a HU game with a weakish player). I'm going to do this for 20,000 hands, and I'll let you guys know how it goes.

I am also going to play low stakes HU, probably 100nl, at least 2-3 times per week. I'm going to take it seriously, and I'll probably play 3-4 tables at a time. If I can take low stakes HU seriously, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to take any reasonable game (for a high stakes player) seriously, ever, and I think I should be able to "cure" myself of this problem that I can't focus like I used to. I'm also going to try to play with CR members at low stakes, because a lot of them have told me they'd love to play me HU, and I'll give them some free advice while I'm doing it.

That's it, I'll have some more updates (probably non poker stuff) later this week.

tc

Edit: I realize I didn't really talk about the big picture thing I was thinking about when I writing this blog. High stakes players, the guys that are making a ton of money playing internet poker, often take it for granted. I know I do at times. We are VERY lucky to be in the situation we are in, we have more money than we probably should at a young age, and have gained some great life experience as well (that could be debated). If you've had a lot of success at poker, it's really easy to let it get to your head, and to take it all for granted. In the poker world, I think the importance of staying focused and humble is often understated.

First I wanted to say congrats to my friend Phil Galfond for taking home the 5k PLO w/rebuys gold bracelet.  That's a great accomplishment and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.  When I bumped into Phil my first day in Vegas this summer we talked a bit about the tourneys we planned to play.  I remember him saying that he was playing a lot of of tourneys this summer, and that he really wanted to get a bracelet.  It's funny, because when he said that, I thought to myself, "damn, I do too."  Well, good for Phil, now he has a Gold Bracelet.  

On the topic of Gold Bracelets, I really want to win one someday.  When I'm done with poker in X number of years, I'm going to have some very fond memories.  It's truly been a wild ride up to this point, but the thing is, there aren't a ton of memorable personal achievements I've had.

Since I don't play tournaments, I haven't had any very huge scores or obviously memorable times in my life.  I guess I have a few memories that come to mind:

-Winning my first 20k.  I've always been obsessed with setting money related goals.  When I was a little kid I would always have a saving goal, I don't know why.  Sometime before my freshman year of college, I told my mom my goal was to graduate college with 20k to my name.  She laughed at me and said she'd feel happy for me if I wasn't in debt when I graduated college.  When I won my first 20k sometime in early 2004, I felt on top of the world!

-Going to Aruba/Foxwoods in 2004.  I was fresh off my first summer playing poker, and everything was new and cool still.  I had just turned 21 and I was the youngest kid playing high stakes at the time (25/50).  It was such a cool feeling to just randomly be in Aruba or Connecticut playing in high stakes tourneys.

-Hedge fund game.  The first time I played in the NYC hedge fund game was really eye opening to me.  Here I was, thinking I was hot stuff for making XYZ money at the time being only 21 years old, then I realized that these guys wouldn't blink if my net worth fell out of their pocket.  I just remember wishing I could be in their shoes someday, I can still dream :)

-Launching CardRunners.  It was a great feeling when Andrew and I got the site live in August of 2005.  It was a nice day in Champaign and I remember walking back to my apartment feeling really proud.

These are some of my produst memories from poker.  I'm actually going to write a 5 year online poker anniversary post at some point this summer, but I'd love to cap off this list with a bracelet.  You see, it's nice to remember winning money or traveling places, but those are just the benefits of playing poker successfully.  It'd be nice to tell my kids someday "yeah, I played poker professionally for some time, I even won a gold bracelet!"  I'm going to play a few more events this summer for sure, so hopefully I'll run hot and win one.

Good luck,

Taylor

PS - Twitter is now setup on my phone, so my updates there will come straight into this blog.  Let me know if you think it sucks, I'll stop doing it.