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Pre-approved!

Tue, 15 May 2012 14:23:03 -0500

My wife finally got notice that her LMO was approved so we should be able to get our work permits when we cross the border (barring any strange occurrences). We have a wedding to attend this weekend but then we plan to head north to hopefully get the permits and find a condo. If we find a place to live I’ll be moving as soon as possible to start setting up while my wife finishes her job in Philly.

Last time we were in Toronto we saw a great license plate.

I’ve also already been doing some shopping for the cold winters.

Update

Fri, 11 May 2012 06:39:00 -0500

Life is good. I'm starting to feel half way caught up although I'm still struggling to get back to playing 50K+ hands per month. I'm starting to mix in some Zoom to help me with my volume. Games seem pretty soft and I love being a able to put in short sessions 45 minute sessions when normally it takes me 45 minutes just get 9 decent tables going.

I've starting forcing myself to take of one day a week. I go the gym and then meet my girlfriend. We eat a nice lunch, get a massage. Maybe watch a movie. If I don't force myself out of the house I'll almost always find myself infront of the computer working on various projects until it's time for bed. I do really enjoy working, but having such an unbalanced life isn't good.

I started back at the gym 2 months ago. Feeling a lot better because of it. Pretty annoyed that I let such a long term habit slip (started with a broken leg followed by some blood pressure issues that wouldn't allow me to lift heavy weigths).

If you haven't checked it out yet, check out www.notecaddyadvantage.com. We've invest nearly 3,000 hours in designing, developing and testing a complete notecaddy custom package. While the sample size is on the smallish side, I've been crushing at 10bb/100 for a little over 50K hands using this package. It's expensive, just look as it as a way to save you hundreds of hours trying to learn to design your own package.

I'm also working on another project that takes my database analysis to the next level. For part of this project I need databases from all stakes. Currently only for 6 max. Hands need to be from this year. minimimum sample size is 100K hands and minimum win rate is 3bb/100. In return for the use of your database your first analysis will be free. Currently there's nothing out there that comes close to what I'm doing and you'll get a first look at the product.

Moving: Sons of Anarchy / Breaking Bad

Thu, 10 May 2012 09:29:17 -0500

We're in the process of moving back to Minnesota and the wife has been with her new job for a couple weeks now. Which means the TV is all mine at night!

I've been catching up with the first four seasons of both Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy, which have been glorious. Season 5 of BB (the final season) premieres in July with 8 episodes and then the last 8 in 2013. Season 5 of Sons debuts on Sept 6th.

With the final season of Breaking Bad, it will be interesting to see if (how) Walt takes on the mantle of kingpin now that Gus is out of the way. Also how his relationship with Jesse is going to come to a head when the shiite hits the fan (Lily of the Valley).

On SOA season 5, I'm looking forward to seeing Jax wear the crown (the whole show seems to be inspired by Hamlet, fwiw) and how Clay is going to fit in now that some of the club wants him dead, but they all NEED him alive (unbeknownst to them). Also Maggie Siff is just a classically gorgeous woman (why she fit in so well on Mad Men).

Both highly recommend and can get first 3 seasons of both on Netflix.

DO IT.

-RA

Seim Reap

Thu, 03 May 2012 05:37:22 -0500

My girlfriend and I took trip up to Siem Reap to go to Anghor Wat, a sprawling complex of ruins that is pretty much Mecca for regional Buddhists. I've never seen my girlfriend so excited. Certainly one of the highlights of her life. For me that probably means I'll get at least 2 or 3 freebees when it comes to fucking up. :)

I'm not into buddhism or temples but this was pretty special. I was astounded imagining the work it took to build all this. I'm choosing not to look deeper into the building of the temple complex, I would be deeply disappointed if I found that slave labor was used.

I just thought it was a single temple, so we only went for a day (it's a 5 hour van ride). We'll be going back and staying for week sometime soon, probably end of the year when it's a bit cooler.

It really was a fantastic experience I look forward to going back, but there are few things I want to complain about.

I really shouldn't judge but I was really put off by the level of begging/pestering/scamming surrounding the temple. With incomes so low here it's perfectly natural that this would go on, but for me it really took away from the experience. I go to great lengths to avoid being rude, but they left little choice. I can appreciate someone not taking a single no, but after the 10th polite no that should be enough.

Once inside the individual temples everything was fine. At the first temple a guard approached us and took through the large temple showing us a bunch of really cool stuff and telling us the history. I gladly tipped him $5 for an hour long guide.

At the final and largest temple Angor Wat we were approached by two young men who claimed they lived there and were raised in the orphanage by the monks. Both spoke great English and we able to show us some cool stuff. However the sales pitch started early; they weren't official guides and had to bribe the police, no family, orphans raised by monks (parents killed by Khmer Rouge even though they weren't old enough for that to be true), etc. I didn't worry too much about it. I appreciate a good hustle and we were getting value from them. At the end of the tour I gave them $12 (keep in mind this about what they would make for a entire days work at any other job). Of course this was the exact amount they had to bribe the guards and they asked for $30 or $60. We were the last tourists in the temple and it was quickly becoming dark and I couldn't see any police around. I don't think we were in any danger unless they had a weapon, but with my girlfriend there I gave them another $6 and they followed us back to the entrance asking for increasingly lower amounts of money. It was pretty intense walking the few hundred meters back to the entrance with them close behind us asking for money.

For those that don't live in an area like this you probably don't understand the issue. I have money, what's the harm in giving them a bit extra? I felt the same before I came here.

There's a few issues going on here. First, the guys doing this are the very guys who least likely need the extra money and the likelihood they are deserving of the extra money is even lower. There's also the issue of being a sucker. In Thailand you're viewed as stupid for being scammed and not knowing the correct price. I don't know if it's the same view in Cambodia. For most of us that live here it's not enjoyable knowing that people veiw as a sucker.

If you want to help those in need, there are massive opportunities to make a real difference. Giving money to those bold enough to repeatedly ask is unlikely a good investment of your charity dollars.

The van ride was brutal. Definitely smaller than Thai vans and the a/c was almost useless. Luggage was piled high in the aisle so I was forced to sit with my knees jammed against the seat in front of me. That wasn't the worst of it. Our van driver seemingly has little fear of death. We were going fast enough that not a single vehicle passed us going or coming back. We seemed to spend most of the trip on the wrong side of the road passing other vehicles. I took solace in the fact that he seemed to be in his mid thirties and drove this route twice daily and if he's still alive then my chances of surviving were decent. I took some xanex and watched season 4 of Fringe and tried not to look out the front windshield.

I considered hiring a car to bring us back. The fee was pretty nominal at $50 and would have been worth it for the comfort factor, but I felt that if there were an accident a car would get crushed and the van gave us a better chance.

There were flights available at $90/person one way. I probably should have just done that, but I'm a bit cheap and had already paid for the van ride. Plus I didn't feel that great about flying on an unknown local Cambodian airline. In retrospect not taking the flight option was pretty dumb everything considered. The money was a nominal amount. I just get kind of stubborn when it comes to paying for something twice.

card playing art

Tue, 01 May 2012 13:40:04 -0500

a nobody reads this anyway post

Moving and free beer

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 01:31:44 -0500

Im moving in with two of my oldest friends as roomates to a new part of Staten Island, close to the ferry and Manhattan. Theres alot to do in the neighborhood, and we are all curently working to pitch in and make the apartment look amazing.

Id like to share a quick story about one of my other passions besides poker... beer. Im a bit of a beer geek, though my homebrewing and tasting every new beer I can get my hands on days are behind me, I still love trying a new beer now and then or enjoying an old favorite. By my new apartment there is a bar that went out of business a few months ago and the building is also owned by my new landlord. While moving some stuff in to our apartment our landlord gave my friends and I the keys to the old bar and said the previous owners left some glasses and some other small items behind which we could help ourselves to take whatever we wanted. To make a long story short, besides some giant beer steins and other unique glasses, we ended up with dozens of decorative beer signs, the highlights being one of those big guiness mirrors and a light up Arrogant Bastard ale sign. We also found about 4-5 cases worth of beer, almost all top quality micro brew, including a bunch of prima pils from victory, founders pale ales, a few hop rod ryes, and after some digging through the boxes I came across the crowning jewel of the trip, a 2009 Stone Russian Imperial Stout which is my personal favorite beer, though I hadn't previously come across a single bottle since Ive been back in New York. If you are a beer fan like me you can only imagine the kid in a candy store feeling of looking through all of these boxes hoping to find your favorite beers, and then coming out with some true gems.

Recreational Players: A Look Back/Forward

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:21:28 -0500

I've been planning to write a blog about the anniversary of Black Friday, but I wanted to let everyone else get their two cents out first as I had a different take on the subject.

Of course there were the articles and blogs about how online, baller pros are still stinging from having their livelihoods ripped out from under them and how they're now ex-expatriates in exotic locations like Canada, Malta, or Mexico so they wouldn't lose their SNE stars. But what about the true back bone of the poker economy? The recreational players?

What about the guy who threw $100 of their paycheck online every other week to play a few tournaments on the weekends to have some fun? He knew that he was terrible-- would never cash out a dime-- but online poker was a great source of entertainment and he even got enough points for a cool FTP or Stars hoodie that he could wear to local ½ game and really strike the fear at the tables. Will this guy be back? We NEED this guy!

Sadly a lot of Tom, Dick, and Harrys like this won't be back once/if/when US online poker is fully regulated (at least not at first). People who are casually involved in any interest and generally casually informed (think about your Great-Aunt watching the Super Bowl), and may see online poker as a “fool me once..” situation. “They stole my money, I'm never putting another red cent on and just play my home game until I die.” Which is a fine stance to take, I personally don't blame them, but I do feel that many will look back on a few rotten apples and assume the whole bushel is rotten.

Full Tilt Poker failed due to rank incompetence in management. Cereus (UB/AP) was exposed as corrupt and also rank incompetence in management. Pokerstars, B.WIN/Party Poker, and 888 are competently and professionally managed corporations (the latter two publicly traded).

What does the casual poker player who's casually informed see? The guys who stole his money.

The future US facing sites like MGM/Caesars, Harrahs, Wynn, and whoever (Zynga? Party? Stars?) are going to have an uphill climb at the beginning to bring back the casual player. They're really going to have to hammer home the point that player funds are safe, segregated, and insured (think FDIC). Also that the games are fair and on the level: no bots, no super users, no shill screen names.

As a proponent of small government, I'm still leery about the DOJ's actions on Black Friday-- thinly masking a money grab behind a facade of morality and protecting citizens from themselves (spare me). But I accept regulation as a necessary evil to keep business dealing and transactions above board (think the stock market without the SEC). But to paraphrase a line from George Washington: Government is like fire. When controlled, it can greatly improve your life: cook your food, heating your home, give you light in the darkness. But when uncontrolled, it can burn your house down with you in it.

Perhaps having the government watching online poker will help bring the much needed recreational players back to the tables in the future. Perhaps deposit methods will be much easier when brick and mortar rooms hop into online. Perhaps withdrawing will be instant without the need of shady, third party processors. Perhaps another poker boom is on the horizon and the games will be as good as they were in 2006.

Perhaps. But for now we can only hope.

LoL Live Poker

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 03:30:06 -0500

(copying a post i just made on my local forum, its 343am and play resumes at 1PM and id like to work out before heading out so im just pasting this and not formatting etc)

LoL Live Poker.

Me and Frank (buddy I am travelling with, OTT CANADA on stars) just spent the day destroying what is most certainly the softest 1K I have ever played. What a great day!!!

At one point Frank got moved to the table behind, and then we both starting building our stacks, talking to each other back adn forth, which mostly consisted of us updating each others constantly growing stack sizes. Just hilarious. We would get up, talk and laugh amongsts us about how horrible everyone the people at our tables were and just minraised our way to big stacks.

With 30 left, me and Frank were 1 and 2 in chips. We raped the tables sooo badly... I did a lot of 4bet-shoving when people tried to 3bet me since I was opening so much and only got called when I had QQ Frank spent the day making hilarious 3bet click-backs all the time. For those that dont know, 'click-back' is a term that comes from online where instead of entering your raise amount in the textbox you just click the raise button, and re-raise the minimum. Live click-backs are hilarious because it confuses the fuck out of everyone. Frank would click-it-back (cib) , the players would be confused, the dealer would say that the raise size is not enough, Frank would correct the dealer, the dealer would realize Frank is correct, the villain would call-chk-fold and think Frank had AA. LOL

Like any good epic story, there needs to be some sort of set-back for the hero... unfortunately Frank lost a massive flip on the last hand of the day with AK to 99. He is crushed down to 11BB when we restart and I am chip leader with 58BBs. SInce these live donks have no clue about proper shoving ranges (they dont even know calling-ranges exists) im pretty confident Frank will be able to work up his stack as long as villains dont wake up with AQ+TT+.

I myself will be opening 100% of hands when folded to me until we reach the money.

I opened 100% when folded to me for the last 2 orbits tonight but I didnt open that much cause I get the nits had hands and were opening to 3 or 3.5BBs (lol). When I did open it cost me a bit of chips since i had 93, 84o, J2o but I did make a good hero call on the river with 93o on a board of 234Q8. I raised pre from sb and 'decent but not refined' villain defends BB. Chk-chk the 234 flop ( dont want to give him the chance to raise my cbet with a naked Ace) , I bet small on the turn, he calls. I check river and he bets like 40%pot or so. I look at him and say '' I really dont believe you, I think you are bluffing ''. He kind of nods in agreement so I snap him off. He shows KJhigh and I proudly table 93o. I give shoutout to the winner of the 600$ event (online grinder that I talked too yesterday) who is on the rail and cheering for me.

'' Guess they sent their best guys from Ottawa '' - Winnipeg Open Tournament Director

I plan on winning the Manitoba Poker Open and then never returning to Winnipeg.

LIKE A BOSS.

Cambodia

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 05:09:29 -0500

I'm in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia sitting on sitting on the second floor veranda of the fantastic Hotel Nine. In my life I've never stayed in such a well run hotel. At $45/night easily the best value ever. Spotlessly clean and service at a level that I would expect a hotel many times the price. Yesterday the hotel manager came by to see how thing were as he does several times a day. I told him of some beurcratic blocks I'd been experierencing and asked if he knew a fixer-someone with lots of contacts that could help me out. No exagerration, within 10 minutes he had everything sorted out for me. I've been working all week trying to get this stuff done.

The thought regularly occurs to me that I wish you could experience my life. Sadly I lack the motivation and the ability to clearly articulate my life, but since I have a bit of time and more than a few drinks in me I thought I'd try.

Today we got up around 9 just in time to eat the best complimentry breakfast I've ever had. I often wonder if hotels offer a low quality complimentry breakfast just so guests won't bother to get up. We grab a tuk tuk (open air cab. When traveling in SE Asia I generally hire for the day at 15-20 usd. Once we find one we like we use him for the rest of trip) and direct him to the Russian Market named for a time when mostly Russians visited market.

The Russian Market was blistering hot. I last about 45 minutes and then tell my girlfriend I've had enough and I go sit across the street and drink beer while on my iPad bitching because my iPad sucks with weak wifi and I'm reminded of the Louis CK bit about how stupid we are for bitching about stuff like this.

Im truly amazed by the technology available today. Last year on Black Friday I'm woken up at 7am by a call from the US telling me to get on line. I get on line and I'm greeted by 50+ skype messages. I have to leave shortly on a short car trip to Burma for my visa. My iPad stays connect 95% of the way through the middle of nowhere as I frantically refresh 2+2 and chat on skype. It was only 17 years ago I first logged on to the internet. 10 years ago I was one tabling tournaments on Party using a 14" CRT monitor and a dial up modem. Today I live in Thailand making my living playing poker.

Right now I'm typing this using my bluetooth keyboard and iPad connected wirelessly to the Internet in a country that 30 years ago was decimated. This city was completely razed. My life regularly feels surreal.

Back to the Russian Market. My girlfriend is a machine. She comes and has a drink with me after about an hour then goes for another round. An hour later we're on our way to meet a Cambodian friend.

When traveling one the best ways to really get to know a city is to meet locals and get out of the tourist areas. Online travel guides are useless. She takes us to a local seafood restaurant that was very good, but, to be honest, a bit bland. Thai food is generally spicy even when you ask them make it mild and I've become acustomed to my food having that extra kick. No one could tell me in English the fish I was eating other than it was saltwater. It was very, very good.

We go back to the hotel to relax and then later that night we go to the highly recommended Malis. I've found the food in Cambodia generally very good. This was a step above. Expensive for SE Asia at nearly $50 for two but very well worth it.

After diner we go down to the river area and walk around looking for something interesting. We hear some great music coming from a place called the Memphis Bar. I love SE Asia cover bands. I love live music and there's something very special when you can see how much locals love great music and have learned to sing in another language. They seem to nearly universally love the same music I love. The results aren't usually great, but sometimes they are. Tonight was one of the best musical experiences of my life. While they were doing covers, they were doing rearrangements of the originals. The arrangements were honestly better than the originals. Mostly blues mixed in with The Beatles, Tom Petty, The Doors...that's all I can recall.

By chance there was a band there from the Philipenes that did a short set and was equally good. I recognized a System of the Down, Drowning Pool and Local H.

This is a pretty small club and I think there were 30 people in there w/ about 10 of those either being the philipian band or people with them. The vibe in the place was great, everyone was loving it. Amazing to find find such quality in a tiny bar.

We head home about 1 and here I am sitting on the veranda drunkly writing about my day while my girl friend sits next to me grinding Facebook poker on her iPad playing her 100/5 50% wtsd style and rudely ignoring my advice.

Hello

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 01:50:42 -0500

Hi guys,

I finally got around to putting in a blog post. Life is busy. As far as poker, I've been enjoying live proing it up in a local 5/10 game, predominantly PLO. I just started playing PLO a few months ago so it's pretty exciting. The game is pretty absurd, I've seen straddles around the table up (5-10-20-40-80-160-320, yes, seriously) and it's got some silly characters. I don't foresee a big Vegas trip this year but, still haven't decided.

In other business, my hummus company (Baby Zach's Smoked Hummus) is doing quite well. We just got our first HEB order and are taking Texas by the balls, then the world. I've also been occupied by a lovely girlfriend of 4 months who've I've been spending quite a bit of time with. In what ever free time I have I've been playing a lot of indoor soccer and enjoying the beautiful time in Austin that is between summer and spring. I'm trying to keep up rock climbing, but constant injuries are frustrating. Still trying to play piano but am struggling to find practice time, and I'm always cooking whenever I get a chance. I'll try to post regularly!

Cheers!

DDBeast

It's Been Awhile

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:12:30 -0500

Long time no blog! I can't recall going more than a couple of weeks without blogging in the last oh, half decade or so.

A lot has gone on in my life the this year so far. First off, I have switched to a vegan diet on the recommendation of my doctors. While this sounded like an awful idea to me at first, after having been on it for over 3 weeks now, I am actually loving it and can't imagine going back to my old diet. It turns out a diet rich with meat (for me anyway) is really not a good thing for my body. My body doesn't process meat well and was not working well for me and my heart. Before going vegan, I experienced palpitations in my heart 50-100 times a day that always made me feel uncomfortable. Over the last 3 weeks I barely even notice my heart anymore as it beats regularly now. I also feel much better. I have shed 25 pounds since November of last year to drop to 182 pounds. I usually gain weight in the winter (since the weather sucks here in Oregon) and lose weight in the summer as I play lots of golf. So I am excited to see what I can get down to by next November after playing a bit of golf.

Speaking of Oregon, I am back here now after spending a good deal of time down in California playing golf tournaments. I announced at the start of the year that I was going to focus on golf this year but unfortunately that didn't end up happening the way I had envisioned. I could not work it out with my family to move down to southern California which caused a lot of tension, but fortunately things are going well now. My golf aspirations are likely never going to come to fruition, but I have my family in tact and that is a good thing.

Golf went pretty good considering I hadn't played competitively in forever. I didn't shoot above 74 in any individual competitive round and won one event on the Pepsi tour. I consider that pretty good given I hadn't played in forever and was excited to see how things would go after a few years of playing full time. But I am back and focusing on poker once more now and am having some fun with that.

Getting my game back in good multi tabling shape has been a challenge. I am working hard on getting my game in shape for the mass multi tabling stress that is associated with playing your best over many tables. When I review hands and talk about hands, I feel my game is better than ever. And over 3-4 tables, I am playing VERY good for me at the moment. But I am not handling mass tabling well. I am making far too many mistakes. Namely calling down too light trying to find a few combos of hands that I beat and also running bluffs that just aren't going to be successful often enough to show a profit. I have been making a little bit of money overall in the past few weeks while running 40 buy ins below EV according to HEM, but I still know I am making way too many mistakes and that is costing me big at the tables.

It is going to be a process to get back into it. The games are much more intellectually challenging than they were several years ago and success won't happen overnight. Just like a break from golf is going to cost me strokes, a break from poker will do the same. The two sports aren't really that different. I expect within the next 2-3 months at most that I will be playing some very good poker and am excited to see what kind of win rates I can attain. Right now I would guess I am making 500 big blinds a day in mistakes over a full days play and that is quite a lot. I am excited to reduce those mistakes in game time play and see what happens from there.

Funny story. Back when I was a 2/4 limit holdem grinder trying to make ends meet back in 2005 and 2006 on America'scardroom.com (which then was a part of the ongame network) a guy named Phil who worked for the site used to call me quite a bit and hook me up with bonuses to encourage me to continue grinding on that site. We would chat on the phone and I always found him to be absolutely hilarious. When I moved to Poker Stars to play the no limit, we lost touch. But a couple of years ago we connected again and I have got to hang out with him in Vegas and the Dominican Republic. He is a great guy and recently he got me pumped to play some MTT events over on America's Card Room. I was amazed to learn that they have a $250k guarantee event on the first anniversary of Black Friday (April 15 NEVER FORGET). I say that like it is 9/11 since it kinda was in our world. Anyway, if you are looking for a big event with a soft field, come join me in that event. <a href="http://www.americascardroom.eu">Americas Cardroom</a> is where the event is at. Soft fields and $250k guaranteed seems like a nice way to spend the day instead of mourning the day that will live in infamy for us online grinders.

I am hoping to get in there and blog more. To be honest I was going through a tumultuous time in my life and I just kind of retreated from doing a lot of the things I normally do. I even took a little break from making videos for about 6 weeks, but I made about 5 in the last 2 weeks that will be out soon. I wanted to be sure my head was clear enough to make a video with my best stuff and just didn't feel I was in a position mentally to do that. I feel solid now and I hope you guys enjoy the content that will come out in the near future.

Until next time, may all your cards be live and your pots be monsters. OK I completely robbed that from Mike Sexton, but seriously though, run good!

Hey guys, I moved to Canada

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 03:48:13 -0500

Hey guys. I haven't been around much and that is mostly due to being back on Stars and grinding it out pretty hard since February. I decided to pursue poker full-time while I am still young, and put the firefighter career to the side while I do it. I moved to Saint John, NB, which is north of Maine on the Atlantic coast. I am renting a cozy little house and have a roomate. I started out playing 180 mans when I get here and slowly made my way back into the MTTs and am now playing MTTs + $35 180s. I'm playing anything from $5-$215 and am focusing on mostly turbos. I am working on my tourney game and hope to made some big improvements before SCOOP.

I know most of you are curious about more videos, and yes there is more to come in the future. Please remain patient :)

I spent last month grinding more hours than I wanted to because I was in position to win the monthly TLB on Stars. I came up short and finished 3rd for an extra $2k and am going to be taking it easy this month bc I exhausted myself. Like I mentioned above, I will be spending more time away from the tables working on my game this month that I usually do, or possibly ever have before. There are a lot of videos I want to watch, and some stuff to read as well. I am also getting some coaching from some really great players and I am excited to improve so that I can feel more +ev in the bigger buy in non-turbo stuff. I have profited ~$40k at low/mid stake MTTs and lost $15k+ at higher buy in stuff since I have been here. I know a lot of it is standard variance, but I also know I need to get better at competing with the sharks when the stacks get deep and the pots are worth lots of money.

Anyway, thanks for reading, I will try to not be such a stranger now that I am not in crazy grind mode. I have promised myself more free time, more balance, etc. My life has been pretty crazy post-black friday but things are finally starting to settle into a groove. I hope to consistently blog, but I am not going to keep promising to do so when I have always struggled to keep it consistent. Goodluck at the tables!

I got a feeling

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:52:41 -0500

Okay, so it has been a little while since i last posted a blog thinger. I quit that job I had cus it was shit, and am going to be dealing blackjack at my local casino, which will be more money, is closer to me, and something i will enjoy a lot more :) .

Anyways, one of my co-workers and I at my last job got into a conversation about poker. I told him I had tried playing professionally, made a few grand, and then went broke. He invited me to a house tournament they have every sunday, but I basically dodged him for 3 weeks straight because I either didn't have $40 to play with, or was busy. On the fourth week I had a bit of extra cash and was able to go play with them. I hadn't played live in almost 5ish months (which is a lot concidering I played about 50 hours a week when I was playing tons).

It was 6 handed, and first hand I got involved with a total maniac. I had Q/10s and flopped an open ended straight and tripple barrled him off what was suredly a mid pair after missing my draw. My hands were shaky just like when i first played at a casino, and I could hardly riffle shuffle a stack of 6 chips together (I can do almost 20 normally). Next hand, he check raises me then barrels the turn against me and I call him down with mid pair and just soul read the guy. I very confidently say "I have a pair of jacks" knowing he is going to toss his hand into the muck. I am 3-betting and getting it in good tons, have got very solid reads on all players after less then an hour, and basically there was no way I wasn't winning the thing. I called down a bet and a call on the river against 2 people with bottom pair, and was 100% right, and knew it (otherwise i would have folded durp) . I utalized stack sizes perfectly, had very good reads, made my opponents heads hurt when i was in position, and just felt like everything went right. I just played great, and this really gave me that lust for poker again.

So tonight I am probably gonna do a few < $10 MTTs on stars and start throwing money on the account again to get back in it (Unless I bink something with the $40 I have on there right now, I really dont feel like grinding $1 tournies up again). Before I did grind my $40 up to $150 using proper BR manegement over a few weeks, but having a job makes me want to say fuck that and just play low limits, not micro.

Anyways, it is very possible I start posting in the forums and blogging a lot more over the next few weeks, and hopefully have some awesome stories about how I am awesome and won everything! Hopefully :) .

Play well!

-Jimboz

Track 1: Intro

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:40:34 -0500

Hi all,

Just wanted to drop a line to introduce myself and extend a warm thank you to the BlueFire crew for welcoming me to the team.

I've been playing poker professionally since 2007 and coaching since 2009. I started out primarily as a 6max player and transitioned into heads up within a couple years, where my focus currently lies (most of the 3-6 handed I play nowadays is a result of starting tables and staying when they fill). Contrary to the bumhunting approach, I've been able to maintain my desired volume and a high hourly by multi-tabling regs instead of waiting around for weaker players all day. I approach the game from a theory based perspective and believe much of my success comes from balancing this with a strong grasp on more subtle in-game dynamics such as flow, meta, emotional control, timing, and other similar intangibles. I've been taught by and keep close contact with multiple elite players and remain an avid student of the game in whichever way I find most stimulating, constructive, and profitable.

My coaching format is flexible but I prefer vid reviews and find them to be the most effective and instructional method. The first session is designed to familiarize me with your thought process and identify areas for improvement; following lessons will be personalized to help improve on these areas in an organized and cohesive way.

My current rate is $350/hr. For graphs/results please email glitteringprizespoker@gmail.com, send a pm, or hit me up on twitter if you're in the mix @asadgoat (disclaimer: I will never tweet tournament updates...or play one really).

Asad

5 Recap of March

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 05:29:33 -0500

สวัสดีครับ

So the month started up nicely and I was running over EV but ended up horribly. It's just sick how can the bad beats and setups hit on the one nl2k table when I'm playing 5xnl400-nl600 and 1xnl1-2k.

Positive things in this month:
-Turned the observer chat off which made me tilt in 2 hands
-Played only one session when I had a hangover

Negative:
-Tilted because of observer chat
-10 days of drinking
-Sometimes I forced myself to play even though I was very tired and didn't feel like playing

Goals for April:
-Drink less
-Play only when I'm not tired and pissed off about something that has happened outside of poker
-Don't look profits/losses during session

So here's the graph for you grapholics:

Gl at the tables!

You Won The Mega Millions? Bad Beat.

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:30:08 -0500

Every situation changes once money is involved.

Good friends can become bitter enemies when a balance is owed between them. Sex goes from good, old fashioned fun to a class C-felony when c-notes are introduced. Poker goes from a carefree larf to a stressful endeavor once those chips become monetized.

Not only does money change everything, but it also amplifies character. If you were an a**hole before you came into immense wealth, chances are you're still going to be an a**hole but with a yacht. Spending more than your earn and destined to go broke? You will still go broke, but the Governor just gave you a long stay of execution.

These are a couple reasons why whenever there is a big lottery jackpot the news outlet like to roll out the horror stories of past “winners”. Hitting the odds equivalent of being struck by lightning (thrice in a day after a one night stand with Minka Kelly sort of odds) and being vaulted into the top 0.00001% of society over night is something 99.99999% of the lottery player pool would be ill-equipped both from a knowledge and mentality approach to handle that amount of wealth properly.

Let's run a fantasy scenario, shall we?

The estimated jackpot of tonight's Mega Million drawing will be around $540 million [Edit: $640million!]. If you take the lump sum ($389 million) after taxes, depending on your state, you'd take home only about $225-$250 mirrion doll-hairs. Basically, you've just had a quarter-billion dollar nuclear warhead dropped on your head.

This is the high point on your PTR graph of life.

First you have to buy a new baller car, brand new and sticker price of course since you can afford it. Then you have to get a new whip for every member of your family and friend/acquaintance/drinking buddy you've ever had in your plebeian life (it would be greedy not too!). Don't forget that baller watch that is made of ALL blood diamonds. The bling just seems brighter with conflict, ya know?

Next you have to land that new mansion (at full price, since you likely don't have the knowledge to work with and straight up work a realtor at this level) in a gated community surrounded by neighbors who worked their way up to this strata of society by their bootstraps --or at least their parents/grandparents did. There's no way they will feel animosity towards some one who fell into a QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS just because their cats' birthdays happened to be the same numbers as some ping pong balls that fell out of a hopper. They will see you as an equal.

Even more friends and family will come out of the woodwork (Oh yeah, 17^th cousin Damian on my great-aunt's side. How could I forget you?!) and suddenly have sob stories on how they just need a little bit to get by, or have this great investment idea but just need funding. Bieber Beepers, squirrel backpacks, Arizona beachfront villas... A sports bar... They all sound like great investment opportunities when you have deep pockets and pitched by those close to you.

A few investments go south (oh, no sh*t?) and you can't stop yourself from buying pointless and frivolous things. The new Fiat you saw in the Super Bowl commercial (with the leggy brunette included ftw), the Washington Generals (they're due!), and every hipster piece of “modern art” that are really just $20k pieces of useless junk (This piece describes the duality of man, but you wouldn't understand).

Then the banks start calling. The loan you took out so that your family of emus could live together on a houseboat is in default. Your financial adviser swindled you out of millions of dollars because he saw you as a rube who luckboxed into a quarter bille-- mostly, due to the fact, you were a rube who luckboxed into a quarter bille. The Generals lose again, the Fiat brunette gets deported, and you have a warehouse full of squirrel backpacks that the blind ones don't even want.

That's it you're bankrupt. GG, money. Your long-lost friends and family have slithered back into the wood work. Minka Kelly no longer returns your calls since your Visa Black Card was declined at The W. The bank has repossessed the mansion, the 8 different colored BMWs you got for every day of the week (rich people have an extra day per week, it's in their contract), and Richie Branson texted you he can't take you into space next Tuesday. He'll be washing his hair.

As you sit back to a nice dinner of Fancy Feast and roasted squirrel backpack in your new refrigerator box home under the bridge where discarded circus prostitutes turn tricks, ask yourself “Why didn't I run better... At life?”

But that's probably (probably?) an exaggeration of what will happen if you happen to bink the jackpot tonight.

If you do hit, take the lump sum and invest it all. Go conservative: TIPS, municipal bonds, I-bonds, blue chips. Hell, buy a quarter-bille worth of CDs! You won't make much, but it sure as heck beats going all MC Hammer/Allen Iverson with your money. Keep your entourage small and upgrade your life a little bit, but don't get too crazy. Get the appetizer sampler when you go to Chilis. If you go any baller than that, you will end up eating cat food under the circus trick bridge.

Book it.

As if I didn’t already feel like a criminal

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:20:39 -0500

With the black Friday debacle the legality of my career has certainly come into question. While you can argue that internet poker is still “legal”, it certainly isn’t clear cut. Bill Rini had a nice blog a while back called “Online Poker is Illegal.” Basically it says you can argue all you want that internet poker is still legal but it doesn’t change the drastic affect that the current laws have had on the game.

http://www.billrini.com/2011/05/05/online-poker-is-illegal/

Now cue the Canadian work permit application. In the application there is a question that asks, “have you ever committed, been arrested for or been charged with any criminal offence in any country?” My first answer was a pretty easy no. However, I started thinking back to my younger days and asked myself, “What constitutes a criminal offense?” During high school and undergraduate college I had multiple speeding which resulted in the loss of my driver’s license and I had a few underage drinking tickets. I talked to my lawyer and he said it shouldn’t be a problem but, worst case scenario, I could get denied which would make it much harder to reapply. Rather than take the risk, I’m paying more money for them to write-up paper work stating that I’m not a threat to Canada. Included in this will be my criminal history report from the FBI, my home state and the surrounding states. The FBI and South Dakota require fingerprints to run a background check. Talk about feeling like less than an upstanding citizen.

Update: as I was writing this I got an email that I my FBI background check was clear. Ship it!

MicroMillions review & incoming Epic trip

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:11:52 -0500

Whats up BFP!

Damn I grinded hard during the Micro Millions.

And Damn did I lose alot of money :( Obviously I didnt lose a lot of money in the MM but rather all the other mtts I was grinding at the same time. It was fun though, I hadnt grinded hard online like that in a while! Out of the 10 days of the MM, I put in 9 full days where I was grinding 10-20 tables at once for 10-12 hours per day. I took one day off, where I actually didnt take a day off cause I still played all the MM events and took the opportunity to record my session in the 4$ 4max rebuy event. Look for that video in early april!

I also put in a bunch of horses in a bunch of events... I had 7 guys playing some events for me and I turned a small profit for the whole team (something like up 50$, lol). Its ok however, we had a couple shots at some big scores! A horse finished 18th in the 5$6max event for like 600$ and another horse finished 30th in the 8$1R1A event for like 400$. So we came close!

Myself I had 2 deep runs ... finishing around 100th in my beloved 1$3X turbo rebuy! I lost a pot for a MASSIVE chip lead with 200 left .. AQ < KQ against someone I had been fucking with who had warned me that he '' would only fold once against me'' after he min raised the button and I shoved 15bbs with J9s. He folded and the next orbit when I saw him open I knew my AQ was getting paid. I 3bet him small and he called with KQ and simply open-shoved the QT9 flop and hit his 5 outs. I was crippled after that and never recovered.

Sunday I also went deep in the 11$ 400K guar, finishing somewhere around 150th or something.

All in all I really enjoyed the Micro Millions and hope they run series like this more often! One of the reasons I grinded so hard (or actually one of the ways I motivated myself to grind so hard) was by setting up a leaderboard contest on PocketFives.com. We had 3 different contests, a 25$ random team contest, a 25$singles contest and a 100$ singles contest.

We had 24 runners in the 25$team contest, 13 runners for the 25$singles and 4 degens joined the 100$singles contest.

I ALMOST SCOOPED ALL 3 !!!! The team contest isnt finalized (scores missing) but our team is on top of the leaderboard right and I think we should be able to still be first even after the missing scores are added. A guy on my team finished 5th in a 5$ event to really help us pull ahead of the pact leading into the final weekend!

The 25$singles was won by MattyDaCobra and I cashed that contest by finishing 2nd. It was really close going into sunday so it was fun having someone to anti-rail . Too bad he had a slightly lead going into the day and demoralized me by cashing in one of the earlier events, giving him what would be a unsurmontable lead.

The 100$singles contest was a pure joke, LoL. The ballers who joined me in it obviously didnt care much and most of them barely played any events... ok boys, thanks for the easy 300$ :)

So whats next for me? Well, SCOOOOOOP is coming and that is always a exciting time! Ive historically done very well in the SCOOP, having 2 final tables (but no wins, grrrr) so im pretty excited!

Also coming up is a trip I have wanted to do for a long time now... basically travelling from Ontario allllll the way west and finish up in Vancouver. Our train leaves from Toronto on saturday April 7th and we head out on a 30hour train ride to Winnipeg, our first stop. When me and my poker buddy were talking about this trip etc we started checking out the train route, see what cities we wanted to go too etc. Well we found a great sale for our train tickets for Toronto-Winnipeg , isntead of paying 850$ for the trip (with cabin, etc) it only cost us 260$! Great deal but the dates were fixed.

Next thing we look up is : is there a casino in Winnipeg? Google says: YES!

Go to the casino's website and first thing we see..... WINNIPEG POKER OPEN, APRIL 11-15. I guess its destiny :)

After Winnipeg we are going to chill for a few days in Saskatoon (lol why not, never been and prolly never going to go again). In Saskatoon we plan on attending a show from the Harlem Globetrotters one night and the other night we are seeing a local play about some historic local songters... mostly for the LuLz

After that we go to Edmonton, again by train. Once there we rent a car, chill in Edmonton for a few days, then drive out to Jasper and chill there for 3-4 days and do plenty of hikes in the Jasper National Park.

After Jasper we drive to Calgary where we are going to grind the SIX DIFFERENT CASINOS that exist in that one city... how redik is that??? We are giong to stay in Calgary 2weeks and do some major live grinding. Why 2 weeks in Calgary? Well, right now, Calgary is the BEST PLACE IN NORTH AMERICA to play live poker. The reason is that the city is just bursting with all that dirty oil money coming in from the oil tar sands in northern alberta. People there work 2weeks on, 2 weeks off and make BOAT LOADS of money.

Unfortunately, the city has a extremely high rate of problems with drugs, alcool and gambling. When you are young, making loads of money and plenty of time on your hands, you wont spend it going to the theatre. So yes, im going there to get my share of that dirty oil money.

Side story: When I was in Kicking Horse in January I met a guy who recently moved there from Calgary (3hours drive away). We chilled a couple of days and eventually he opened up to me as to the real reason he was there: to get away from hard drugs of Calgary. In the previous year, this guy (25-30ish) was making 30,000$ per month working 2weeks in the oil fields. On his 2weeks off, HE WOULD CONSUME 30K WORTH OF COKE. He said he never did it when he was at work, but it was non-stop coke when he was off work. He did this for over a year, making 30K a month and spending it ALL on coke. When he left Calgary to get away from it all, he had 0$ to show for allll the income he had earned. Fucking crazy world we live in.

Anyways, back to the trip. So after Calgary we finish our trip in Vancouver and chill there for a week or 2. From there I will either go to Vegas for the WSOP or come back to Ottawa/Montreal and spend the summer with friends and familly, something I havent done in 4years (due to being in Vegas every summer). The factors for going to vegas or not are 1) money , 2) housing there (trying to find some people to stay with since my usually friends arent going this year) and 3) the girlfriend.

Ill try to post some trip reports while on my cross Canada trip .. I will surely find myself in WTF-LOL spots as I always do when travelling.

GL at the tables

-FouTight

Goals and my poker staking history

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:50:39 -0500

About me

Hey guys, my name is Adam and I have been playing poker full time for a couple of years now. It started after I left uni after falling far behind studying for a maths degree, I was playing 100nl at the time making a grand or two a month so I just decided to carry on with that. As I was living at home, my bankroll was actually building and I had some extra money which I decided to invest in staking other players. I ran very good at the start and decided to put all my attention into that and basically stopped playing myself.

Staking

All was going well, I opened my own poker staking website and I was making very good money from it. I started staking at 25nl and a year later I had players playing 10/20 for me. All of this couldn't of been done without the help of a poker room I worked really closely with on Merge.

Then in April 2011, Black Friday came around and everything changed, a month or 2 after I basically stopped bringing new players to the site and started working with another and the site I was working with basically set up their own staking business with all my players that it took me over a year to acquire. Needless to say at the time I was super angry, but as time went on, I realised I probably needed a break anyway, I had $120k staked out to about 40 different players at the time and I would be on the computer 24/7 constantly worried about what was happening/ who was trying to scam me/ who was tilting off all my money.

That summer I decided to take most of my money offline and put most of it in savings, some I used for travelling to play live tournaments. I ended up going to Vegas, Greece, Ireland and a few tournaments around the UK.

After all of this was over, I really couldn't get back into the grind, one month in staking I had made about $40k, now breaking even at 200nl didn't seem worth it anymore. Finally I have decided to start up the staking website again with the view to one day opening up my own poker skin. It's always been my dream to have my own business to run, I had it for a while with my poker staking website and although it was really hard work, I did enjoy it.

I have made the task even harder by working with a brand new poker room. Trying to get traffic their is going to be super hard, but it's going to be that hard if I open up my own room.

Goals

- Still play enough poker to get supernova before the end of the year

- Build my facebook/twitter/mailing list, this is probably the most important part of bringing regular traffic to your website these days

- Sign up as many people as possible to this poker site

- Try to network with as many people as possible that may be able to help me in the future, I used to keep in touch with many people all throughout the industry, but this had dropped off in the last few years

- Improve my writing skills, using this blog as practice

Notice there isn't any numerical values to any of these goals, because to be honest, I have no idea what a good target is when starting out with a new site with not a whole bunch of traffic that not many people have heard of.

The goal is something that I only just thought about while writing this blog, so if your on my skype list and you get a message from me in the next few days, you know why

Posting updates soon

Adam

4 Running good? Yes [ ] No [X]

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:22:46 -0500