PokerStars $1 Million Turbo Takedown

Well It was a good run and I had a blast pushing the donks around. I qualified for this MTT through a 4fpp+r about two weeks ago and had been anticipating it ever since! I had my sights set on that Porsche Cayman S +$40k for 1st place.

Even though this tourney started with 30,000 players, I had my mind right from the get-go and wanted to win. 3 hours later we were down to just 2500 players. I was playing good and smart and got majorly sucked out on my 99 lost to quad 6's all in preflop for a massive stack. I had doubled back up to my avg stack when my KK held against As5s but it wasn't enough as the blinds were escalating so fast at that point.

I finally excited the tourney 2064th place out of 30,000 and got $95 for my effort. Not too bad for a freeroll.

Also wanted to thank BurnleyMik, EvertonYorkie, and z32fanatic for railing. You guys are the best!

PLO is so damn secksi!

Poker Pro/Author Jeff Hwang is at it again with yet another PLO book... correction, SERIES of books for advanced players! More on the new titles later. After his highly successful Pot-Limit Omaha Poker, I fell in love with the game.

I first started my fascination with Omaha poker last September when I had heard of Ben Grundy's success as a PLO player. I sought after many books but found this one to be the most helpful (after reading several others) to a player who had never played the game, much less knew how to play. I was simply in love with PLO and Omaha/8 after my first read and put Hwang high up on my favorite authors list.

I immediately started putting my new found knowledge to use in super micro stakes games on Stars and also playing live. The problem with live was that there was never any PLO games running; maybe once a month they would have a $2/$5 PLO "big game" running. I was a little disappointed by this but noticed they had LO/8 running all hours of the day, everyday. I took that game up as my preferred game and after a few months I started crushing the $4/$8 game and then the $5/$10 game. Obv there wasn't much money you could really win in these games considering the variance that limit brings when all the players are terrible, but I probably average 1-2bbs/hour live. Too lazy to log all my live sessions though. Also, Poker Tracker Omaha pegs me at being a 6 big bet/hour player at $0.50/$1.00 LO/8 over 300 hands. Not too shabby... It's just too bad I blew all that by withdrawing in late December and not having the option to deposit again. FML, gtfo, gfy nemo, suck less imo... all the above apply as I could easily have a decent online bankroll. That's neither here nor there so I digress...

One night I find out the casino that hosts the LO/8 games is going to be having it's monthly PLO "big game" the coming up weekend. I immediatly left the tables, went home and found my Pot-Limit Omaha book and read it two times before the weekend rolled up. I joined the game with $1k and figured I was miles ahead of my competition as they were mostly made up of old men and women. I was easily the youngest player at the table by about 20 years haha. Not saying age makes a poker player bad, I was just assuming that I was miles ahead simply for the fact that this game didn't run very often and these people probably never even read a book on the game in the last 10-20 years. Anywho, I got absolutely crushed to start. Dropped about $2k in an hour but felt I could outplay these fools. I decided to repop an additional $1k and about three hours later I was up 2 buy-ins. I was happy with this and walked away. That ends my Omaha tails, as I started gaining more interest in hold'em MTTs and SnGs as they were more easily accessible and I didn't wanna grind micro limit cash tables online.

But now my fire for the game has been rekindled as I have learned Jeff Hwang is putting up a series of advanced plo books. Here's a quick pic of the Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha Volumes I and II:

I never really felt I got the right education from his first book but that's ok. It's quite clear that Pot-Limit Omaha Poker is a book for beginning Omaha players, which is exactly what I was/still am. I feel that with this new series of PLO books I will get the necessary education to absolutely crush the games once my BR is big enough to permit me playing mid-stake games.

Now that I'm aware of these new books and my love for PLO has struck me again, I feel very fortunate to be moving in with the Icons guys. I figure I'll just focus on grinding the SnGs for now to build a massive online roll. Once I've achieved about $50k I will probably make the switch to PLO cash games and NLHE MTTs. This should provide me with a large enough roll to start at the $5/$10 PLO tables however I'll probably start lower just to get the necessary experience.

That's all for now. Just had to let my excitement known! As always, good luck at the tarbs fish ;)

1st live MTT win in ~3months!

$3.3k ftw! w00t! I didn't plan on playing any poker a few nights ago when I went to the casino as me and some friends went to drink and dance with some birds, maybe get a shag or two. About two hours into the whole thing I was pissed drunk and bored outta my mind as there were no worthy ladies imo so convinced my older bro to spot me $340+$15 to buy-into an MTT. I thought it was gonna be a complete goof as I was so fooking drunk but what the hell, might as well play live for my last time in Albuquerque. Tourney started around 11pm and the entire poker room was full, every table was a tourney table and all the reg cash game players were a little upset but fook em right? I wasn't really paying much attention as I had the iPod on some Killswitch Engage and Lamb of God and just playing my usual superLAG game. About 4 hours later I found myself at the FT seated 8/9 with only 14bbs. I turned off the iPod and decided to really concentrate even though it was an easy push/fold game with that stack live considering the blinds went up every 30 mins and maybe saw 10 hands per round. I felt like EvertonYorkie as I was shortstack ninja'ing my way up the chipstack count.

Not too long after the 9th place guy went out, I found myself seated 2/8. I looked down at two pretty red Aces UTG and decided to limp as the entire FT was aggro fishays. Some medium stack in MP decided to raise it 4xbb and it got to the CL who was on the button. He decides to reraise it up an additional 8xbbs. I tank for a bit thinking what I should do considering my stack was roughly 80bbs at this point and didn't wanna scare away the CL. I just call. The medium stack(~30bbs) instapushes, as does the CL. I obv snap call.

The medium stack shows JT, the CL shows KK and my AA all on the table. I was pretty excited until the flop came down: AQKr

I was like "FUCK OFF!" as that was the ugliest flop I'd seen all night, but that's poker. Turn brings 9, and river is another Q. BINK! Ship ship and I'm a MASSIVE CL at this point with over 170bbs. Easy game there, FT only lasted about an hour and a half and I walked away $3k richer.

I felt really good about this win since I haven't won a live MTT since the divorce and I thought perhaps it was going to have a lasting effect on my game forever.

I havent played much online lately as I've been super busy trying to get things ready for the move to Austin. However, I did manage to play a $2 MTT on FTP a few nights ago with around 364 players. I took 8th place for a whopping $18 which I then donked away in a $1r about an hour later. I don't care too much for online MTTs obv at the moment haha.

I've also been doing a lot of railing lately as Kenn and EY have been absolutely crushing their respective buy-in level MTTs. Kenn has finally taken shots at the high buy-ins and absolutely CRUSHED this month. He took down the $50k on FTP twice in a week and has FT many other mtts. I think he's going to really come into his own in the next year. He's currently ranked 24th on OPR out of 600,000+ and I can see him in the top 10 within the next 6 months easily. As for EY, he's the micro MTT fooking masta! This guy absolutely crushes these small buy-in MTTs like it's nobody's business. Once I'm grinding more MTTSnGs and winning more cash, I'm definitely going to be paying both these donks good money to coach me in the realm of MTTs. Obv I'm gonna want the high buy-in coaching more than anything but you need to learn to crawl first ;) Not to mention I already owe EY around $2k as he's the most generous fish in the world. Thanks again mate!

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In other news! I bought my plane ticket to Austin which departs Monday, June 1, 2009 at 8:00am! I'm super pumped up for this move even though I'm moving there at a bad time for these guys since it's WSOP time. Chip Ferguson will be gone from June 1-10th so that means no online pokay for me until he returns, then he leaves again to play the Main Event so hopefully I get some good enough coaching within that time frame so I can hold my own and make some profit while he's off in the ME.

I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but Chip and I decided that his cousin(also a student of his) are going to have a prop bet race to the $60 45-manners on Stars. We'll both be starting at the $3 45-manners and work our way up. I'm going to be blogging every single day that I play until I reach the $60's, then I'll probably blog once or twice a week after that as it will become a little redundant and ridiculous to blog every single day of my life.

Well that's all for now. Catch ya later fishies!

No no no, Mr. Swongy!

Had a go at a few 180s and a few MTTs as well. I was running real hot in a couple 180s and had impressive stacks in both, however proceeded to be donked out of both when KK lost 44 aipf and AA lost QT for the CL in both tourns. Needless to say I was a bit bumbed by both results as I bubbled in both tourns. Oh well, such things won't matter soon as I'll be putting in mad volume to compensate for these small losses.

Another particular thing that bothers me is the level of stupidity that is at the micro MTTs. I had fired up the $2.75 10kgtd on Stars and had a really decent stack. Starting field was 6000+ and we were down to 2700 players. My stack was almost 3x average with 21k in chips and blinds at 100/200. There was an extremely loose-weak player directly to my left who had just been playing completely retarded and winning pot after pot with absolutely obsurd hands. It was actually kinda ticking me off as he joined the table with 5k in chips and was immediatly up to 25k in less than 20 minutes. Anywho, I digress... I ferbets the pot to around 1.6k, I tank for a bit and check-raise to 5.2k. This idiot instacalls like heind myself looking down at As6s UTG and as my usual LAGtard self I elect to raise 2.5x bb as st tandard. Donkey of course calls me. This is the 6th time i've raised and have been floated by this fooking idiot so I figure if an A spikes I'm going all the way. Flop comes down Ad7c6dd. I'm very please with this and figure since this guy is stupid enough I might as well go for the check raise. He over bets the pot to 1.6k like he's got a set to save his life. Turn is the 8d. Not the prettiest of cards but I've seen worse. I bet 7.2k and he instapushes....

I should have expected him to hang around with the flush draw but I couldn't find myself to fold. I tanked for a good 45 seconds before calling. He obv shows Jd2d and KOs teh poor nemo. I was pretty furious with this but made some damn good notes for future reference.

Fwiw I did manage to get quad 9's in said tournament early on which set the way for my pretty nasty stack.

In other news, 8 more days till the move to the Icons house! I'm super excited as I'm gonna be grinding hardcore and getting some pretty damn good coaching from some of the best in the field. I don't think I've been this excited since my son was born.

Trial run for my future grind.

So I just finished a brief trial run of some $12 45's and 180's. I played a total of 17 games and broke even. Actually about $9 in profit but it's all good.

To be completely honest, I did not expect to do this well at all. I actually expected to lose every buy-in which is usually the case for me when i'm playing turbos so obv I'm a little excited with the outcome.

Now to discuss the actual play in these games. I'd have to say I was surprised at how easy the games were! In almost every game I had managed to build a top 5 stack which relative ease. It's quite clear that a LAG style is the winning strategy in these turbos. Funny thing is, I don't think most the players realize this and from what I observed in my brief trial was that they were waiting for premiums. This is clearly a mistake imo.

I've read many articles on the turbo 45s and they all state that tight is right in the beginning. This is good news for us super aggro players because it's like taking money from a baby in the early going. Sounds easier said than done but obv well timed aggression in the early blinds pays off. That was part of my little experiment.

Anywho, I guess the whole point of all this rambling is that I'm super excited to start my coaching and grinding. The games seemed a lot easier than I expected and with the proper coaching I should be banking in no time.

Going Pro and 2010 WSOP

So not quite sure if playing poker full time really constitutes as being a 'pro' but it sure does make a lot of sense, right? I mean if the money you're making is paying your bills on top of adding to your bankroll then you should be labeled a pro no matter how much(or how little) you make right? These are just a couple things been passing through my head lately. Once I move into the 'house of grind' in the next 2 weeks my only source of income is going to be from poker. Granted I'm only going to be making about $2-3k a month to start but it has gotten me thinking whether or not this labels me as a professional poker player.

When most people hear "professional poker player" they think of someone who makes millions of dollars and I don't want to give the wrong impression to people when they ask me what I do for a living. How can I explain what it is that I do? I can't just say "I play poker" because anybody can play poker really. Oh well, just something on my mind. Perhaps it will get me a shag or two just telling some birds I'm a pro poker player.

On to the next topic! 2010 WSOP! w00t! Kenn and I have been talking about this for quite some time now and think we can finally get this thing going in the right direction. We're currently trying to get peeps from RaiseTheRiver to join in on the fun and action we're gonna be having in Vegas next summer but I don't think too many are interested or can afford it really which really sucks. So far the list of people going are as follows:

Kenn
Amatay
EvertonYorkie
Myself

That's not a very big list but I'm sure we'll have a blast if it winds up only being us. I wanna get more people to try to get out there though so if you're interested maybe we can do a staking deal or sumfin.

New found motivation!

Yo! Long time no talk fishies and I've got lots on my mind. A lot has happened since my last post. I lost my girl, my job, and my car all in the last month. I nearly lost my mind but I'm all good now. I figure all I really need is my son and ofc the pokaaaayy.

So back to the grind I come! Since my last post I've taken 2nd place in another $4 180 on Stars but that's about it. My live winnings have been super sweet with a $9.2k tournament win and 3 other 1st place finishes.

Also I've been talking with z32fanatic of SNGIcons.com and we've come to an agreement that I will be moving into their house and they'll coach me. I'm super excited for this as I will finally learn how to pwn online poker. My short term goals (as in the next year or two) are to get as good as EvertonYorkie and Kenn and ofc the long term would be to pwn Jon Turner's mother everynight.

I want to give a major shout to EY on his amazing performance yesterday. He took 2nd in a $17 MTT, 5th in the $3r, and 1st in the $5r all on Stars. Hell of a performance! He's one of the best MTT players I know and just thinking that 2 months ago he was bitching cuz his roll was gone and now he's up over $10k again. Insane mate, keep up the good work!

Well that's about all for now, I'll be posting more stuff soon and definitely on a more regular basis once I move out to Austin, TX to live with the SNGIcons.com guys. G'luck at the tarbs!

nemo, out.