Poker Forum

Haven't played a ton lately, been really busy with school. I took some more money out of my accounts, not sure what the exact total I've taken out is now, but I've got $1250 in now, and have been doing pretty well lately. I made an account for one of my roommates on Full Tilt, and have been working through the first deposit bonus there! I'll probably make one for my dad after this, and repeat the plan. Hopefully I'll jump back to 50nl soon. I've tightened up a ton, and my overall game has continued to develop a bunch, so ya its all a work in progress as usual, but I definitely feel like its headed the right direction.

My buddy I got started with 10 bucks is up to around 700! He took a shot at 25nl, won some, then hit a couple rough sessions, so he moved back down, but ya, he's been cruising lately and should be onto 25nl and beyond soon!

cheers,
Chad

Been tilting a lot lately, have run pretty awful too. I think the full tilt software tilts me more than stars software. Probably going to switch back to stars and go for supernova next year! I've been considering whether I'll have to pay taxes or not lately, really have no idea how all that works. But ya, I'll be making the switch to stars again next month either as callmenuts26 again, or as jusclicknbtns, the account I just made in my dad's name to get a deposit bonus. I like the second name a lot better, so hopefully that works out. Have to get the tax stuff figured out before I get me or my dad in trouble first.

Cheers,
Chad

Tilt is tough-seems like bad luck runs forever there and good luck is fleeting.

On the tax issue-good luck!

Here's some things you might look at:

http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Articles ... ing_Issues

Thanks Frost, there's definitely some good information in that article. I've never had a real job, I've had a lawn care business, house painting business, and a poker business. My parents still claim me as a dependent since I'm in school. I'll likely be starting a job as a mechanical engineer in a year and my parents will no longer claim me on their taxes as a dependent.

I just got "Treat Your Poker Like a Business" by Dusty "LeatherAss" Schmidt. I'm only 40 pages in, but I've already gotten a lot out of it, awesome book, easy to read, would highly recommend to anyone starting to take poker seriously and making a decent amount of money from it, or looking to take it more seriously and willing to put in the necessary work to make it happen.

cheers,
Chad

I can't disagree with that.

Moved back up to 50nl today, still been cruising since the last post. When I get my rakeback today I should be sitting at about 1575, and I'm on track to get a 50 bonus from Rush Week, so hopefully I can make this go stick. Kinda pissed at myself for taking out so much money. I am for sure beating 50nl and very likely beating 100nl, but I took a ton out of my roll so I've spent a decent amount of time making a much smaller hourly rate, to get back up to the stakes I should be playing, but ya I've learned a lot about how to beat fish and hopefully haven't forgotten too much about how to beat solid regs, so hopefully I'm back and a much stronger player for it!

Been keeping with the pre session routine, think that's going to be huge for my tilt control.

cheers,
Chad

Its been a good Christmas break so far, I'm sitting around $2100 in my account. I've worked on my heads up game a ton! I absolutely love heads up, its an awesome challenge between you and one other person to see who can adjust and exploit the fastest . . . . . . but it's also very high variance and the personal nature leads me to feel like I've been beat by someone worse than me when I catch the crap end of it, which then induces crazy massive monkey tilt. I'm pretty good at adjusting to my opponent, but not so good at controlling tilt, so I've been doing a lot to figure out how to keep this under control. The thing that has worked the best so far is listening to classical music while I play. I think it puts me in an analytical and methodical state of mind. So ya, I highly recommend giving it a whirl even if you're not crazy about classical music (I'm not but it's growing on me a bit).

Anyway, gonna try to get 4000 more Full Tilt Points so I can get the 20" monitor from the store and give my girlfriend's back to her. Also trying to get to 70,000 VPPs on pokerstars to get the hundred dollar bonus for that.

I'm so damn loose, every time I play full ring I feel like I'm playing fine, and I'm winning money, so I must be doing something right, but I check my stats and I see that I played the session at like 25/21 or something ridiculously loose and figure I must be burning money somewhere when even the looser people I play against are running 18/14 or so. I probably shouldn't worry too much about my preflop play as long as I'm making good decisions when I put myself in tough spots by playing so loose, but ya need to atleast figure out why I'm so much looser than everyone and if it would be better to tighten up.

I think everyone loves pictures, so here's one I like from a Heads Up session I played yesterday The guy had been calling me down pretty light and I had shown up with garbage a couple times, so I figured I could get it in this deep with less than the nuts here and be good most of the time!

http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/ac11 ... apture.png

merry christmas,
Chad

Nice pot!!!

Maybe you just get more playable hands than anyone else

THis whole blog is ultra impressive and it seems you really have gotten to learn how to use the tools available to make your game even better, which is something Im really lacking, how to even use the info right.

Its real eye opening that you say you dont think you could make a living off this cause you seem like one of the people that could, but from everything I read to do that looks like youd be playing full time and at high speed since poker is so many ups and downs

BUT THIS WAS A GREAT READ

I was relooking over a lot of this as its amazing the time you have devoted to playing. Just curious why not hit some high buy in MTTs and go for the big cash. But maybe that breaking the rules you set up on page one. BUt still this is a great read

Thanks dan, I appreciate you taking the time to read through it! It's not that I don't think I'd be able to make a living from it so much as I don't think I'd be happy doing it. I think a year from now when I graduate college my game will have improved enough and I'll hopefully have the bankroll for 200 or 400nl and be capable of grinding out a nice living. But, I should also be able to find a job as a mechanical engineer and I think I'd be happier doing that and contributing something meaningful from the world instead of leeching off people who are playing recreationally and making another income. Its also a lonely venture. Its not bad at all in college cuz everyone's schedule is different, but when all my friends graduate and get a 9-5 I think I'd have a lot of time when I'm bored. But ya, there's a lot of cons to being a poker pro that aren't so apparent when you're playing poker as strictly a hobby. I'll continue to play poker, likely forever but I think I'd be happier getting an engineering job and having a steady, less stressful income.

I've played some tourneys, but don't really understand the strategy for tourneys well enough and feel like I'm much more +EV in cash games. Sure it'd be nice to bink a tourney for a big score, but that's basically one of the reasons I hate them, they are very high variance. You have to get lucky and bink one every now and then to make decent money in tourneys and I'm sure the time between big scores could get really frustrating. I'm also super competitive, so if I get 2nd in a tourney with a field of 2000 people, I'm still tilted at the end cuz I didn't win.

I'm not sure exactly what level your poker game is on Dan, but if you'd like any help with cash games I'd be happy to sweat you or do my best to answer any questions you have. I've found that I get a lot more joy out of teaching other people who want to learn about poker than winning money. I'd also like to eventually get into coaching so it'd be good practice and I can't even tell you how much I wish I could go back to the beginning and give myself some advice, it would have sped up my progress immensly. My skype is callmenuts26 if you wanna add me.

Cheers,
Chad

Starting to take shots at $100nl HU. I'll drop back down if I lose 3 buy ins, so got a small cushion, but will have to run well at first or it will be short lived, but that's what taking a shot is all about I suppose. I'll start with really tight game selection and open it up to whoever decides to sit as I get more established at the new stake. So far I'm plus $100 after 11 hands, so if I can just keep running like this I figure I'll be a millionaire by about noon tomorrow haha, but ya I thought I would have to wait longer for action at 100nl and I'd have to quit the first couple people before I found a fish, but exactly the opposite was the case, I sat for just a couple minutes and got about as big a fish as there ever was. I'm sure it will tend to be tougher opponents and longer waits, but so far so good!

I think I finished Christmas break + $1500 so as far as poker goes I think I can call it a success!

On Friday night my wrestling team beat the #17 ranked team in the country 24-22 in a dual and I won my match 6-2, so that was pretty exciting as well!

Need to get some stuff done for school, get some lunch, then will probably play some more later tonight!

cheers,
Chad

P.S. I miss you already here Frost, damn spam is ruining my blog and I can't do anything about it!!!!

Gratz to you and your wrestling team!!!!

Guess you haven't lost 3 buyins since you are still at 100nl. NICE.

I cleaned up the spam!!! and will as long as I can, seems I still have my powers even tho I resigned.

Thanks! Yeah, I've ran insane good so far at 100nl, I'm up 5 buy ins in less than a thousand hands, so I've got a little cushion now if the other side of variance rears its ugly head. Hopefully it keeps going well for a bit though and I can get atleast a 15 buy in cushion before I experience my first HU downswing. It's almost scary that if I can run this good at heads up I'm almost equally as likely to run this bad at some point. I'm starting to see why people say HU has soooo much variance, but yeah that's not always a bad thing like it's generally made out to be. For now I'll just keep playing really bad people and hopefully crushing!!!!

Probably need to find a new place to host my blog since sadly there are no more games here and that likely means nobody except Frost will keep seeing it. I'll post a link to the new site when I find one I like.

cheers,
Chad

Hey, I'm starting a new blog at http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerforum/ftr-blogs-operations/100nl-part-time-millionaire-185206.html so if anyone is still interested I'll be writing there since I'd guess traffic here will decline

cheers,
Chad

Been doing okay with poker recently, have finally decided I'm not going to withdraw any money till the end of the summer at least so I can give myself a real shot at getting through to 200nl instead of sticking with the cycle of beating 100nl for a while, hitting a little downswing and withdrawing a very large portion of my roll so I have to start back over from 25nl or so. Also been playing a lot of HUPLO recently. The game is definitely as sick as everyone hypes it up to be. I've played about 4 or 5k hands so far, and in that time I've been on a 20BI upswing, 16BI downswing, and a 12BI upswing. I'll probably never know for sure if I'm a winning player at the game, but I see my opponents making some pretty gross mistakes, so I'm pretty sure I have an edge, despite my complete lack of experience.

Villain seems like a pretty solid reg, has been pretty aggressive so far, but haven't seen how he's played any of his draws so far, so having trouble putting him on a solid range in this hand. Any thoughts?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (2 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) ($50.25)
BB ($65.05)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, 10
Hero bets $1, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($2) 5, 3, 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.25, BB raises to $4.10, Hero raises to $10.85, BB raises to $26.15, Hero raises to $49.25 (All-In), BB calls $23.10

Turn: ($100.50) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($100.50) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $100.50 | Rake: $0.50

Welp, the last couple weeks have changed a lot of my plans. I went on the internship hunt pretty hard, but it's not looking promising. Luckily there's a casino 25 minutes from my house, so my plan for now is to do my thing there to make rent, bills, food, etc. for the summer. Kinda sketchy, cuz if I play 30 hours per week for 12 weeks over the summer I'll only get 10,800 hands. I can't even count the number of times I've lost online over that small a sample. Luckily my winrate should be much higher at the casino cuz people suck so bad, and most people are very passive so my standard deviation should drop considerably as well. Hopefully this is enough to ensure that I'll at least win something on a bad run over that small a sample, but it's hard to estimate what my true win rate is and how much my standard deviation will drop so there's no telling. I've found that live poker is a lot more fun though. I like chatting with other players at the table and the feel of chips and the casino in general. Online poker is a very lonely game and there's not a lot of friendliness, so live has been a nice change of pace in a lot of ways. I also think I could make some good connections for job purposes at the casino. Poker is fairly appealing to anyone that thinks they're smart. This includes a lot of engineers and people that own businesses. I talk to a lot of people while at the casino and make sure I wear my Colorado School of Mines hoodie or something. With a little bit of luck I'll start up a conversation with the right person and get my foot in the door for a job after I graduate.

Since April 15th, I'm up $1706 playing 1/2. Hopefully I can continue the run and good and stay patient! I'd like to break into the 2/5 game by the end of the summer, but my roll is sitting at about $5750 and I'll only take a shot if I can cover about $2400 for living expenses over the summer and still have a $10k roll. Which means I need to make $6650 to give it a go. Would take some pretty serious run good but it's certainly possible.

cheers,
Chad

Had pretty much forgotten about this site till I got the e-mail a short bit ago. I suppose I'll give a little update just in case anyone stops back through.

So my summer ended on a pretty high note. At the casino I generally play at they run a "bad beat" promotion, where if you get quads beaten you win a bunch of money. Myself and two other people at the table that I've played with quite a few times were talking about what we'd do if we hit it. Me and one other person agree that we'd chop any money we won 50/50 if it hit. The jackpot was at $347,000, in the event it hits, the winner of the hand gets 30%, the loser gets 40%, and the rest of the table splits the remaining 30%. I've got two red deuces, board flops TJQ all diamonds, it gets checked through. Turn is a deuce, I bet 10 and get called. River deuce, I bet 20 get raised to to 40 by one of the people I was talking about this earlier with, raise to 140, the remaining money goes in. He's the biggest nit I know, so I think there's a good possibility we just hit the bad beat jackpot and bang he's got a royal flush, I win $136,000. Unfortunately the table share is around 12,000 and I agreed to split the money. Good to my word I handed over about 42000 after taxes, but still took home a little over 50k after taxes. Pretty crazy stuff, but yeah bought a fast car and put away money for living expenses and some stuff till I graduate!

Kinda funny to look at my blog now where I started with 10 bucks in absolute poker not that long ago and it's turned into about 65,000 now

cheers,
Chad

You lucky bastard!! haha, no srsly congrats! What car did u get? Cheers.

No kidding--I remember when you started

I swear I posted asking you what kind of car you bought before mo did. Maybe I forgot to hit submit.