Josh Tekesky

Quick update

2010-11-19T16:45:00.001-08:00

Ive been back in vegas for 3 weeks. Ive lost 17lbs and havent drank since nov 1 ! I feel pretty good about it and about myself. Ive been eating very healthy on a low carb/sugar high fat diet. Ive also been going to the gym regularly.
Poker hasn't been all that great. I busted NAPT LA in a hand where a crazy maniac opened in ep to 2bb. The guy was raising about 80% of hands, I 3b 99 on the button for 5bb and he jammed 40bb in my eye. I knew it was thin but thought he could show up with worse pairs, and since I 3b my hand for value I called and he had QJs. I obv lost the flip and proceeded to lose 3k at 5/10 within 25hands and headed straight back to vegas. I dropped 7k that sunday without cashing in a single tourney. It was a very exp week for me and I just can't afford to go on these tournament swings. I am starting to learn hu and 6m plo this coming week. Hopefully I can retire from mtt's in style with a nice finish off the 2k or ftops main! ship it

Europe/home/vegas/poker/etc

2010-11-06T03:55:00.001-07:00

I have done a lot since my last blog. Most of it bad to my health but I finally think I fell on the right track.

I played a ton of poker in september all the way through the wcoop main event. I bricked basically every event and lost a ton of money. I did however win a seat to ept london the week before it started. I have never been out of the country before so I decided to play the seat. I took a first class flight, (which in my opinion, is worth every penny) and arrived in the cluster mess of an airport Heathrow. From there I took a train to Paddington, where our hotel was located. Our room was very very small, and I had no power adapter for the first two days I was there. It was actually pretty great not having a working cell phone or computer because no one could bother me. I was disconnected from the world and I have to say I kinda liked it. But we eventually got an upgrade to a huge room and found an adapter to keep up with reality. Anyway my buddy Jason flew out and later on our first night after busting one of the prelims we met up. We walked around the city for a few hours and somehow managed to get lost. We asked a local street vendor how to get back and he said it was about a 3hr walk! We walked for a half hour and luckily found a bus route that took us within another 40minute walk before we got back to our hotel.

London is a very dark and gloomy city. It rains there almost everyday and you rarely see the sun. I don't know if I could live there because of it but it wasn't that bad. The casinos there are almost like private clubs. Everyone is dressed up in suits and the casino is very small. They had 1 dice table, probably 10 roulette tables(virtual and real) and a few slot machines. The poker room was the floor above the gaming area but was reserved only for poker and a restaurant. The rake in those games is much higher than here in the US, but it didn't stop people from giving crazy action. All around the area of our hotel was mostly Lebanese restaurants so we ate mostly kebobs. The actual tournament was hosted by local casino, but held at the hotel due to spacing issues. Overall I think 850ish people showed up which is a great turn out. People is europe love to gamble and I was quite surprised at how quickly the tournament progressed. I got to sit with a lot of well known pros including the likes of Phil Ivey. I ended up making day 3 in the money when I got my pocket TT in against 99 and lost to a brutal river card for a top 5 chip stack with 62 left. But thats poker and you gotta take the good with the bad.

After the tournament we were supposed to go to the pokerstars party that was hosted at a local club, but after working for 2 and a half full days I was so exhausted that I passed out at 7pm that night. And for good reason too because we booked flights to amsterdam the next day. I woke up early and went to the casino to find the only game running was 1/2. I don't like to play that low but I had nothing else to do so I played and drank with the locals until our flight left. The airport at heathrow is very nice, but the security wasn't as aggressive as ours. They didn't scan shoes and we didn't have to go through an Xray machine or get pat down. They also don't check your carry on until you reach your gate and are about to board. Our flight was somehow delayed an hour and on top of that I had a rather large man overflowing into my seat the entire way there.

Upon arrival we couldn't read any of the signs and had no currency. In london we used the pound, but here in netherlands we needed euros. They wouldn't accept our credit/debit cards at the train station. I didn't remember the number to my debit card and we couldn't do cash advances so we were almost stuck until jason found an atm and was able to use his debit card there. All the signs were written in dutch and it was very hard to navigate our way around but we finally got on a train for 45minutes before it reached the last stop and we realized we went the wrong way. Luckily another guy went the wrong way too and we got directions to get back on track. So we were supposed to arrive in amsterdam at 9pm and we didn't get to our hotel until 1am. By this time all the coffee shops were closed and there were very few bars open. We ate at another Lebanese restaurant and walked around the red light district before getting to sleep. The next day we headed straight for the coffee shops where I had a hash brownie and muffin and a few J's. I don't usually smoke at all but you only live once so I enjoyed myself to the fullest. We then rented bikes and rode around the city stopping at the Heineken brewery for a tour. One interesting thing is they serve extra cold Heineken on tap in the bars there, where the taps are actually frozen in an inch of solid ice. We partied and hit the sack before heading back to london for our last few days.

The seats in first class are the most comfortable seats ever. The seats go back a full 180 degress so that you can sleep like you were at home on your own bed. There was a full 5 course meal and a rather large tv (id guess 15-17 inches) with tons of shows and movies on demand. It made the flight so comfortable that I didn't want to get off the plane. I finally got back to Cleveland later that night and stayed in ohio for 3 weeks. In that time I went out every single night and drank all but one night I was home. I didn't play any poker other than a stupid 1k at mountaineer which was a total pitts fest. It had a total of 39 players and Im so glad I wasted 2hrs of my life to drive there each way because I busted before dinner break. Its probably a good thing because if I had made dinner break, I probably would of rolled dice since they offered exceptional 10x odds. It was great being home and I definitely miss the fall weather. I got to see a lot of my good friends and most of my family too. I was planning on continuing onto foxwoods and then florida before making the journey back to vegas, but decided against and arrived back in vegas last week.

I have ate sushi almost every night I have been back and thats probably the best part. There really isnt anything good to eat in ohio, or atleast north royalton. I rented a car when i was home so I ate a ton of fast food and really just unhealthy food. Im glad I have the convenience of going to get sushi at 2-3am every night if i want. My buddy zach and I went out for halloween friday and saturday nights. I was a blind referee and he was lil wayne. We went to a presidential suite at venetian that was so exclusive, that it can't be rented out for cash. Then on saturday we went to Pure nightclub. I only had 2 drinks that night and was very proud of myself for doing so. I decided that the whole month of november that I wasn't going to drink. Ive been 5 days strong so far and eating very healthy too. I went to the gym the other day and plan on going tomorrow and starting a routine. I haven't felt this good in years and I don't want to jeopardize that so im going to try my hardest to continue. My roommates are helping me pick out foods and showing me workouts in the gym. I think if I can put up with it for 2 months ill be back to what I used to weigh a year ago. Ill hopefully update more on my progress but I can't make any promises. Ive been playing more poker lately and trying to keep busy. Last night I got to sit with Olympic extraordinaire Michael Phelps, phil hellmuth, antonio esfandiari, and some other big cash game pros. It was a good experience and I know that im a decent favorite against all those guys.

Well anyways Im hopefully going to wake up tomorrow and workout, maybe go to church, and get some more poker in before a big sunday grind online. My parents are coming in monday and I plan on taking them to my favorite restaurant Nobu at the hard rock. From there Ill be heading down to palms springs to visit them at my uncles summer house and play some golf before I head down to LA on thursday to play in the NAPT 5k at the bike. Later this month is the Venetian Main and then the Bellagio doyle brunson classic. I plan on playing all of those and hopefully winning one so I can buy a house in straight up cash. I will be heading home for xmas and then traveling to the bahamas for PCA, and hopefully australia before my birthday in feburary. Anyway thats a long time away and its pretty late here now so im going to bed. Later!

New motivation, I hope...

2010-08-13T05:20:00.000-07:00

Ive come to a point in my poker career when I am not motivated to play anymore. I have basically accomplished everything I wanted. I would normally use this time to set new, higher goals, but I haven't had the motivation. I don't know what/why this happened to me. I am one of the hardest working people I know when I get motivated and passionate about doing something. I only play tournaments one day a week and never grind any live cash. I am at a point where I don't know where to go or what to do about it.

I watched a few motivational speeches online trying to find something inspirational, and failed. I did however come across something rather unusual. While reading Doyle Brunsons new autobiography "The God Father of Poker" , I read something that jumped out at me. There was a point in Doyles life where he lost his first daughter and was very upset about it. He never was a religious man, but his wife was. He had an empty void in his life and couldn't fill it. He even stopped playing poker for over a year because of this tragedy, so he decided to give religion a try. Now I was brought up as a Christian, but I never enjoyed going to church with my family. I definitely think a big part of it was because I was forced to go, and almost like anything in life, if your forced to do something, you probably don't enjoy doing it. Well Doyle started praying and going to church and also had bible study classes at his own house. A lot of his fellow poker friends started coming to them, and these guys were not religious at all. He said a few of them with very bad drug and drinking addictions actually stopped for the rest of their lives! Not only that but he filled the void in him and got back on with his life. I have been thinking maybe I need something spiritual in my life to fill this void and get more motivated in life. I don't know if its right for me, but I think I am going to give it a try. Hey, it can't hurt right.

I have been watching some videos lately on mixed games and am becoming more interested in learning how to play them. A new goal I want to set for myself is to play the 50k 8game next year at the wsop. Hopefully I can be motivated enough to accomplish that one.

I have been working out for the first time in years lately and starting to feel a lot better. It's keeping me away from eating out all the time and also eating poorly. I am unhappy with the way I have become over the past year since really getting into poker seriously. I have put on some weight and basically become an alcoholic. I always drank a shit ton in college but this has actually gotten worse. Luckily I am smart and strong enough to realize this and actually make a change in my life. Hopefully I can keep motivated to stay on this new track.

I am definitely excited for the Ftops 2k 6max on saturday and for the big juicy sunday tournaments! After that I plan on going to LA for the WPT Legends a week from today. Then I have no idea what I am doing as I plan on moving out of the mansion in which i currently reside and possibly move to Miami for a month or two to grind cash. I think a new scene will help me get back on track and I am willing to try new things. I am thinking about going to London at the end of September for Wsope. I am also planning on playing in both wsop circuits in Indiana in October, and visiting back in ohio between the two. Who knows though, I live my life one day at a time and without any regrets.

Long anticipated update

2010-06-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing I learned from living out in Vegas, it is this; This is the greatest city ever built. I have been living the dream day in and out from playing golf, eating luxurious meals, hitting the hottest night clubs, spending a shit ton of money, and gambling my life away. That being said, it can also be a double edged sword. I do not have any motivation to play poker anymore. Not only that but I also have not been taking care of my body. Endless champagne and liquor binging, eating very delicious but unhealthy meals, and not going to bed until sunrise etc. It is starting to take a toll on me, and although I already knew that it was I chose to ignore it for too long. Last night I lost the most money gambling that I have ever lost since I was 19. It's ok now because I never bet more than I could afford to lose and I am ok with it. Back when I was 19 I lost half of everything I had. It made me finally realize though that I need to get my life back into check and start being responsible again. It's the best feeling in the world to be able to do whatever the fuck you want whenever the fuck you want for months on end. I have played poker 1-2days a week max for the last 3 months. Nobody I know can take that much time off of work. It's truly a dream situation, but it also makes it that much easier to get sidetracked and fall off course.

WSOP : I have bricked everything so far. Monday was the 2500$ six max and I played very well throughout the whole start. Doubled early and got to sit with the prince of poker himself. I ran up a 90k stack (started with 7k) very early and was one of the chip leaders for awhile. Then coming back from the last break I made the biggest error of my career. A loose opener raised from the cutoff, and I for some reason thought I was in the big blind. I shipped in 20bb as a resteal with 22. All of a sudden I hear, "please have aces one time" from what was the real big blind. I was actually in the small blind! That is a very awkward raise size and he realized that I had made a huge misclick. It was very very unfortunate for him to go all in for 40bb total with 88. Shitty fucking luck imo. I had to call off the rest and lose half my stack that hand. I was tilted as fuck. I made a horrible river call basically out of spite after that and then triple barreled my way out of the tournament with 9T on qj74A. I am 95% sure if the river didnt come an A, I would have won the pot but I felt he would fold often enough. He didn't fold the J and I threw away 50bb with 30 away from the money and 1/2hr left in the day. So demoralizing.

Anyway I will be playing this sunday online and some events next week. I cant remember off the top of my head what they are but ill be sure to update when I make the final table!

Vegas life

2010-04-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

It was been a crazy time in the couple weeks I have spent here. I havent been doing so hot on the online front in poker. I played some cash and ran pretty bad and ended up losing a nice chunk. Other than that I had a piece of my roommate in the venetian 2500 and made a cool 11k. We popped Cristal and celebrated into the wee hours of the morning, which left us not waking up in time to play the caesars 5k. I have also been running reallllly bad in credit card roulette ( i have won the last 7/10 for just over 3k in food). Other than that I made a few purchases including some new 2300$ buffalo horn cartier sunglasses and a louis vuitton wallet. Never had a chance to shop for nice things back in ohio so getting it all out of the way before I start playing mad poker.

Last night was one of the craziest nights here, and unfortunately cost me 1500$. We spent most of the night at tryst nightclub and drank way too much gray goose, then headed to the rhino for the after party. I tipped the doorman 100$ to get us in right away because we do not like to stand in line. I ended up puking on a stripper and in the cab on the way home, then passed out on the front lawn when I got back to the house. After about a half hour I woke up and passed out on the steps and then on my roommates floor. Needless to say I hope I do not have another night like that for awhile but overall we had a great time and some hilarious memories.

Probably going to play the 2k tomorrow on fulltilt and grind hard through sunday. I am thinking of playing a few events at commerce in a couple weeks. Other than that I really cannot wait for the wsop to start.

Viva Las Vegas!

2010-04-21T23:25:00.001-07:00

I finally arrived in Las Vegas early friday morning. It was a very long drive (2200 miles) and I will never hopefully have to drive that far again in my life. I ended up taking a few days to get here. I stopped in council bluffs, iowa to check out the horseshoe casino and lose 700$ in the 2-5 game they had going. I then made it to fort collins, colorado to visit my cousin who I havent seen in atleast a year. Since moving to vegas I have lost a shit ton of money and credit card roulettes. I am 6/8 on paying for my last roulettes and hope that this streak does not continue or else I will have no moneys to play the wsop.

I started thinking about selling a % of my action for the wsop. I was totally against it, and kinda still am, but the total I want to spend is going to be a big % of my BR and do not want to go bust if ftops/scoop do not go well for me. I will let people know in about a month if I decide to. I will be very busy the next week so might not have an update for awhile. I might be playing the 2.5k venetian main on saturday but with ftops, I am not sure about my schedule yet. I have some big props on scooping a bracelet or ftops these next couple weeks so expect to read about me winning all the monies in the next few weeks.

time for a quickie!

2010-04-13T07:26:00.000-07:00

Will update more on napt/poker etc etc etc later. Started my long drive from cleveland to vegas yesterday. Drove 14hours straight and am finally in Omaha Nebraska. Passed a gas station called "Kum and go". Drive was long and boring so Im getting a few hours of sleep before I head out for Fort Collins, Colorado to visit my cousin Theresa for the day. Then will finally make the last leg of the journey into Las Vegas. Can't wait to eat some sushi and get a happy ending upon arrival. JKJKJK

Getting ready for Moeghan Sun and WSOP 2010 !

2010-03-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

I have barely played any poker since my trip to Chicago. Mainly I am just lazy and hate being tied down for a whole day at a time. I dazzled in some HU cash for a little bit but that was short lived. I feel like learning cash is going to vastly improve my game to another level but I just don't have the motivation to do it full throttle yet. I do have some big plans though. I am going to be playing in the Moeghan Sun 5k and maybe play the 5k satty to the 25k High Roller. Immediately returning from this trip I am moving to Vegas. We still don't have a house set up but I am going to look into that as soon as I get down there and hope to have the baller mansion all set up to move in by may 1. It is finally going to be an exciting time and give me more motivation to grind during this time because both FTOPS and SCOOP will be running up until the start of the WSOP. Full tilt is already running wsop Main Event satellites so I will be playing those any chance I get.

I have been drinking a lot of champagne lately and I just realized today that it is a pretty high alcohol concentration. Cristal FTW. I had one bottle and was already buzzed, and after 6 blacked out on Saturday night. This was not a good idea because I woke up hungover and was not in good condition to play the sunday schedule. In turn this ending up costing me a bunch of $ and I will not be drinking heavily on saturday nights anymore. In fact, ive finally started working out again trying to get in shape for the wsop. It is going to be the biggest grind of my life playing day in and out for 12+ hours at a time so I want to be in the best physical shape possible. Along with this comes eating healthy, so no more wendy's etc. O if you haven't heard "shut it down" by pitbull feat. akon yet , check that shit out asap, its my new favorite song. pz

CPC Media Links

2010-03-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.pocketfives.com/online-poker-scene/ryan-julius-rjules12-chops-chicago-poker-classic-main-event-5299246

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/windy-city-rounder/2010/03/cpc-final-day-triple-your-pleasure-triple-your-fun.html

Just busted 10k wpt...

2010-03-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

It was a very stressful day for me in poker. I made 2nd best hands all day and never really got an opportunity to chip up. Here are a few hands:

Two limps and a very tight guy iso's in lp. I am in the bb with KK and 4ball to a little more than 1/4 of my stack and he flats.

Flop AT6 rainbow and I ck/f to his 1/4 pot cbet.

My read here was that since he was so tight, I did not think he would iso with TT-QQ and that if he did, he would of shipped in QQ+ The biggest part of his range had to of been AK and AQ. If he does have QQ or JJ on this flop I definitely think he would check back the flop instead of betting. If I am to play back in any way I am committing my stack, even by c-betting. Five hands later I saw him 4b QQ so I felt pretty good about my fold and read, and later he told me he had an A.

My bustout hand is not very interesting but accurately portrays my day thus far. The CO open and I have 20bb on the button with KJo so I shove and the BB snaps with 88 and hits a set to leave me without a sweat. GG Indiana

Chopped the CPC ME for 105k !!!

2010-03-09T21:02:00.001-08:00

It's finally good to be back home after all that grinding. I was only home for two days since the napt and grinded out a session for both of them. I finished up my sunday early last week so that I could have time to pack and take a nap before my flight. I ended up only sleeping for 1 hour and almost missed my flight to Chicago. Kyle picked me up from Ohare around 10am and we headed to the Horseshoe to play Mondays 6max 350$ event. I was so exhausted and played some of the worst poker in my life. I three barreled what i thought was flopped trips only to find out when my opponent called and saw my hand, I only had A high. I lasted for no more than 1 hour in that tournament. Needless to say I won't be playing any more live poker that tired again.

On Wednesday I played in the 1k Heads up tournament. I won my first match within 40minutes and won with 72s on a K4s5s7 board all in on the turn for 220bb pot. My opponent had A4o lol. The second match took a lot longer as the opponent played much more solid and open limped 90% of his buttons. We could not build a pot but my small ball style just grinded him away until he busted. My third match was against some douche bag also named Josh. I had a 2to1 chip lead going into the first break when my ipod died on me. I love being able to listen to music while I play and I really can't focus without it. Also he kept talking and it was distracting me from playing my game. He finally leveled me in a huge pot and ended up taking the match and I lost all my confidence and wanted to go home. I absolutely hate losing, especially heads up matches where I definitely have an edge.

I woke up late thursday, but luckily just in time to play the 350$ mega satelite to the main event. I would have bought into the main event if I didn't win a seat, but I would have sold some action. 8 hours later though I ended up winning the seat. I have never sold any of my action since I started playing on my own bankroll and I never intend to either, unless I really cannot afford it. I think I am way too profitable to just give action away like that no matter what variance is involved. I love being able to keep 100% of my big scores and just thinking about having to give half of something like that away makes me sick. I have been very fortunate to win enough money at crucial times to keep myself afloat. I think playing with my own money also makes me play better too.

So Friday I wake up to play the 3k Main event. I have a pretty easy table draw but most players are playing tight. I got to sit with aejones for a bit before he busted but that was about it. I don't remember any really significant hands from day 1 but I ended with 66k which was about 50bb going into day 2. Day 2 was good because I had a 2p2 guy on my right. He did not know me but I knew him because he was bragging on the forum about having 165k in chips. So I 3b him the first time with 79s and won preflop. The second time I 3b him again with TT and he flatted. I had about 50k behind and made it 10k pre so there really arent any hands he should be flatting. I cbet on the 8xx flop and he snap shoves... so I snap call and he shows AQo and I double up to 160k. After that the chip leader Nick Grippo got moved to the table and I had prime position on him. We ended up playing a few pots and I got the best of him in most of them and chipped up to 350k. I ended up finishing the day with 412k and there were 18left. After we finished we headed down to the bar where I got to meet dwyte pilgrim, lucky chewy, kevin saul and a few other leggo guys. They were all really cool and down to earth guys.

Day 3 I almost did not wake up in time and almost missed the tournament. I was so tired and exhausted from playing all week, but I was starting day three 6th in chips with 18left. I knocked a guy out right away and then lost a big all in pot right before we went to 10 handed. I was getting short at the final table when dwyte opened utg and the very tight sb called. I woke up with QQ and shoved and dwyte snapped with ak and I doubled up. The next hand the tight guy on my right opened and I 3b with TT and he shoved with 66 and busted. I was now the chip leader with 9 left. I got into a tuff spot when I opened and Nick who also had the same amount of chips as me 3b big from the sb. I 4b and he snap shoved. I sighed and called with AKo and said to him lets just chop it now as he flipped over AKo too. Right as I said that the flop comes out three hearts, and he has the A hearts. Thank god I did not lose that pot. I dont think its terrible but I did get all my chips in against the one person who could knock me out with 8 left at the FT. We were only 60bb deep though.

After hours of grinding and the eventual busting of everyone it was 4 handed with me, Nick Grippo, Ryan Julius, and some monkey. The monkey kept asking for a chop and we were all like no shot! Thank god he finally busted, and as soon as he did we all asked each other to look at numbers. By this point I had 1.475million and they both had 2.2 million in chips. The blinds were at 30/60k 5k ante. We decided that we were all very good players and that there was no need to see who gets coolered with stacks this short so we took a chop and played for 10k. My bustout hand was Ryan opened the button and I 3b the sb with AQo and nick shoved. I called and he had AK and I lost. The final results looked like this.

1st Ryan 122k
2nd Nick 112k
3rd Me 105k

I got to play with ryan and nick for the majority of day 2 and 3 and they are both very good accomplished players. Ryan plays a lot like me and I can't wait to go over some HH with these guys. I am glad I got to meet some really cool people and make some good friends while also winning some serious cash. I finally hit my goal of a 100k score and have already make 170k this year. I officially netted in profit over a quarter millions dollars in the last 6 months since I started playing mtts. Now I have to set my goals even higher and hope for the best!

In the money of the Chicago Poker Classic 3k Main Event

2010-03-07T02:20:00.001-08:00

Grinded the last two days of my life in the cpc ME and finished day 2 with 412,000k. Blinds tomorrow with be 5k/10k and I am current 6th in chips with 18left! Guaranteed almost 10k and over 180k to first! Going to bed soon and hoping to Final Table my first big buy in live event!

Chicago Poker Classic

2010-02-28T21:19:00.000-08:00

Wrapped Sunday up early today because my flight leaves in a few hours for Chicago. Kyle is picking me up and we are both going to be playing the 350$ 6max at noon. This is great news because I originally thought the Head up tournament I am playing was on tuesday but its really on wednesday! So I can final table this event and be able to play it without missing the HU!

Had a few non significant cashes today like 20th in the 150r on tilt and 4th in the 15$ super turbo on tilt for 2500$. Everything else was a super min cash, and I dont think I cashed in anything on stars. I played a lot tighter today as I had 15 tables going for awhile and I seemed to do really well. The only thing I can say is I was not able to focus on my individual opponents as much and not find good 3b or blind steal spots. Other than that I am still trying to find that fine line between aggressive and reckless. Should be in Chicago until the end of the week and looking to play the 3k ME on friday if I get a chance.

Back in Ohio

2010-02-26T23:36:00.000-08:00

Want to post a full trip report in a few days when I'm not as tired and lazy as I have been today. I got back into Ohio late last night and went over a bunch of tax stuff today. Going to grind it hard saturday and sunday online and then leave for the Chicago poker open on Monday. I am not sure what events I will be playing other than tuesdays 1k HU event. First place is an added Porsche Cayman to the prize pool. Should be some softer competition because most poker players will still be in LA for the lapc. I should be moving in the next few weeks, but I have been saying that since December so we will see. I also want to get as many live events in as possible now, so I will be making a schedule of all of the upcoming live tournaments I would like to play before the wsop. I simply cannot wait to finally play my first wsop this year. It has been my dream since 2003 and I am confident I have the ability to crush it.

NAPT Day 3 Today

2010-02-22T10:18:00.001-08:00

Been very busy and live poker really does take a lot out of you. I have wanted to update but have been so tired at night that I just really needed to sleep. I had a nice run up to 180k before bluffing off some huge pot to charder30. I also lost a few other big pots but those were just standard imo. Oral Hershiser came to my table and I tried to squeeze him with 72o from the bb after the co open and he flatted on the button. He re-popped me with what he later told me was aces so I made a good fold. I have lots of stories and stuff to catch up on, but you'll have to wait until I am done with the tournament. Going into Day 3 with 15bb and less than 20 from the money. If I double up I'm going for the gold.

Leaving for Vegas and FTOPS recap

2010-02-17T07:25:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, just wanted to do a quick followup of my ftops series as I won't be able to play anymore of the events due to the NAPT. I cashed in quite a few of the ones that I ended up playing. The 200cube I ended up taking 22nd in, Ftops #8, (sunday brawl) I finished 92nd and mondays 1k I took 63rd. Monday I also took 2nd in the turbo hundo for 5k. (2nd time getting 2nd booo). Overall I think I played pretty well, except for deep in the 1k. I always end up out thinking myself in crucial spots that usually cost me a lot of chips. I have been doing better with this lately by simply just not giving anyone credit for anything, ever. It has been working out but sometimes I get the better of myself by thinking that this player knows this and that, when in fact they don't know shit. Very few people think about the game on the level I do, and I think that it ends up hurting me sometimes. Not to say that all this thinking is unnecessary, it's just not applicable against 99% people I play against. So when in doubt, follow the golden rule - nobody has shit and nobody knows shit about poker.

Leaving in about 6hours for my flight to Vegas. I finally got smart and signed up for frequent flyer miles so that I can get a free flight with all the traveling I will be doing. I have always used priceline to book my trips but I found a first class seat on continentals website that was not even listed on priceline for only 40$ more, so I took that. The only first class seats available on priceline where not nonstop (which is what I have) and where at a minimum 600$ more than what I paid. Needless to say I probably won't be using that site anymore.

The tournament doesn't actually start until saturday at noon, but I wanted to get there a few days early and practice some of my live play and reads. Playing live is so much different and this is going to be my first very good deep structure tournament. I hope I don't get too bored waiting for hands at the table because I'll have plenty of time to mix it up with the donks. I am meeting up with my buddy Jason who is a live cash grinder and we are staying at Aria for the first two nights. Friday night pokerstars is throwing a vip party at Tao nightclub with free food and drinks, and a live performance by T-Pain! I will try to do a nightly recap each day I'm out there so check back soon for more updates!

FTOPS and NAPT

2010-02-12T21:38:00.000-08:00

Won a seat into the NAPT last sunday so Ill be heading out next wednesday for a week. In the meantime I plan on grinding FTOPS. I had a close call today finishing 24th in the 200$ cube but my TT was no match for AJ. Mtt have so much variance its disgusting, and it's so frustrating to work on having 1 or 2 go real deep and then just bust. Anyway hoping to play a few live events before Saturday's 5k main event. Stars is having a VIP party at Tao nightclub at the venetian before the event so hopefully I can meet some well known poker players. Ill try and update as much as possible while im out in vegas, so until then later!

January is in the Books!

2010-02-02T04:08:00.000-08:00

It was about a year ago today when I final tabled my first mtt, the midnight madness and won 900$. What a crazy thought it was back then to think I would ever make it this far...

So we wrap things up in January with over 64k in profits. Was very fortunate to have a huge week and to have some motivation to grind it out over the last week. As you can see I either lost or broke even for the first 200 games on both sites before I had anything big happen. Losing for 400 tournaments straight is never easy, especially when your average buy in is ~60$ a pop. Losing money like that every single day is very difficult to deal with day in and out. The hardest part for most people to understand is that this in fact very normal. Two blogs ago I wrote a little about this so go read it.

From a goal standpoint, I said that I wanted to make 500k this year. I am officially over 1/10th of the way there so I am ahead of schedule. There will be many challenges along the way still and It wont be uncommon to go a whole month as a loser. I am definitely ready to take on anything and anyone who gets in my way. The one thing I do better than most is that I study poker every single day. I am watching videos and constantly reviewing hands and thinking about how I can do things better. My mind is in overdrive all the time. Its actually to the point where I am having dreams about playing hands in my head. I haven't had dreams like this since I really first started grinding, and I really haven't been getting proficient sleep because of them but, It just shows you how in tune I am with my game. I am working my way to becoming the best in the world, and I am getting pretty damn close. That and my friends are too. Bfizz11 wins the monthly tlb and 50k in profit and Mi_turtle took two weeks off in hawaii and crushes it for 25k. We are the best in the world, and the future of online poker. So haters and nonbelievers, expect big things or ill have to sadly rub it in your face and tell you, I told you so.

Final Table Madness, up 80k in two days this week!

2010-01-31T00:20:00.000-08:00

Two more final tables to add to the list, and 1 more big W ! I ended up winning the stars daily 50k, 150$buyin for 22.5k and finishing 8th in the fulltilt 70k for 1100$ for a combined monthly total of ~80k. I have definitely taken some steps to really improve my game and I probably wouldn't have been able to do it without the motivation of the double guarantees. Its been a super long week and I definitely need to get some sleep before my long day in a few hours! Later

150k Win for 42k

2010-01-30T00:48:00.000-08:00

Started playing a lot of mtt's this week due to the double guarantees that fulltilt was running all week. The variance in mtt's can be so sick. I nearly busted my full tilt account and dropping close to 15k before making 3 final tables in the same day and cashing for just under 60k. This will go on the record as my largest cash to date. Also finished 2nd in the stars 80k for 14.4k and 6th in the 50-hundo for 3.3k. Was a crazy day and just shows you how sick the variance can be. I am currently ranked 28th on opr.

CLICK HERE

The most important thing to remember is that you average a profit everyday you play( if your a winning player that is.) So in the longrun, I did not make 60k in a day, only about 1k. And although i lost for 23+days straight for a total of 15k, I did not lose 15k in the longrun, I made 1k per day(or however much it is). So you cannot get down on yourself day after day about how fucking bad you run, because it's all apart of the game. If you cannot handle the swings, then poker is not for you. Getting mad about losing every flip is not uncommon, but yet very unhealthy. It can affect your personal life and put a lot of unnecessary stress on you. There is no reason to beat your wife or yell at your girlfriend because you lost every flip and everyone plays so bad and you run the worst out of anyone in the world. Stop being a fucking pussy, get over it now, it is part of the game. Of course it is not easy dealing with it but once you understand the longrun you will be that much better off in your life. Here is my graph for full tilt on the year. One very other important thing to realize is that volume is also key in poker. Only 175 tournaments played is nothing. You can go thousands of games of breaking even, waiting to hit that 1 score that sets you over the top. Look up any good mtt reg and you will see there is usually 1 score that sets his year apart from losing to being super profitable.

Will be turning 22 soon, so looking to get a presidential suite in downtown Cleveland, and throw a sick hotel party. After that looking to do a little bit of traveling before finally driving across the country to LA. Also, I am going to start learning and grinding some cash game. The main reason is because I think it will vastly improve my mtt game. I am looking to play some big live mtt's very soon at the wsop so I'm going to need all the practice I can get. Going to ship the sunday millions this week on full tilt too.
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Vacation

2010-01-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

Went to Florida this week with my girlfriend. She had a timeshare so we are staying in a condo. Upon arrival however, we were greeted with a free upgrade to the most premium suite they had! Can't complain about that.... must be the good karma I had from leaving the taxi drivers an extra good tip. I will be here for a week and then only have a week or two before I move to L.A.

Bought a new car yesterday, the Subaru Tribeca. Its a nice car, only problem is that it burns through gas like a hummer. I like this car because I have never seen a single other person drive one on the road, and it has the sporty look of the lexus rx that I wanted so bad. I ended up deciding that subaru is going to last me the rest of my life if I decide to keep it for more than a year, and has all the features the lexus has for half the cost. Anyway going to bed as I have a long day at the parks and universal studios! The only thing missing is the warm weather I imagined (its fucking like 45 degrees).

2009 Recap of my life

2009-12-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

So I wanted to write a little recap about my year and some new goals and expectations for the future. I will talk about my development as a person and as a poker player, and how it has changed my life. It is very long so I hope I don’t bore and put you to sleep!

At the end of last year/early this year I remember sitting in my room at my house in Kent. This is where I was going to school at the time and I was on Christmas break. I had managed to rack up a nice little credit card bill upwards of around $2500 dollars. I had no Idea how I was going to continue paying for my education, books, rent or anything really. I was not doing well in poker at the time because I kept playing out of my bankroll and losing. Actually the whole semester before I managed to drop about 5k in poker, which was all the money I had saved up from that time. I had to quit my job as a certified pharmacy technician before I moved down to Kent because the commute would have been too long and expensive, and I had a full load of classes. I had cancelled my subscription to the poker training sites that I had been apart of because of money and I was too busy with school to actually sit down and learn. I had the fire inside of me though to want to keep playing poker so I ended up deciding to reactivate my PokerVT subscription.

My whole life I have been a very hard working and dedicated individual. I am very competitive and do not like to lose. I also never played another other form of poker other than No limit texas holdem cash games. At the time of rejoining the site, they had recently added two new pros to their line up. They were Nick Rainey and Jason Somerville. I remember Nick was strictly a sit and go guy at the time, so I didn’t watch any of his videos at the time. I was very intrigued by Jason’s videos at the time as I had never heard anyone go into so much depth and strategy as he did. The man is truly a genius when it comes to poker and I watched his video many times, taking notes and really trying to learn his new strategy’s that I had never even though of before. I re-deposited 50$ onto my full tilt account again and tried to play a few tournaments. I was actually starting to play a lot better and started winning more consistently. By the end of January I made my first big final table which was in the midnight madness and cashed for 900$. I was super excited at the time because I was actually going to have money for my trip to Las Vegas that I was taking in a week for my 21st birthday. One thing I forgot to mention was that I also only started out taking 12credit hours in school this semester instead of my usual 16-18 so that I could have more time to study and learn poker.

My first night in Vegas I ended up playing a 75$ tournament at Binion’s that started at 2am. There was only about 37 people who entered in it, and I was a little intimidated at the time. I used all my strategies and thinking that I had learned from the previous weeks of study and ended up playing very well in the beginning. It was about an hour in when I recognized a voice that I had heard before. I looked over to the other table to see JC Alvarado, who was a video producer for PokerVT. I had watched all of his videos and knew a little about who he was. I wasn’t actually sure at the time if it was him or not, but when I heard him using poker talk that no amateur would use I was pretty sure it was him. On the first break I was in the bathroom and I asked one of the guys who I thought was JC’s friends if that was actually him and he said “yea!” This guys name is Aaron Been and he is a very successful poker player.(I did not know who he was at the time though.) He was also accompanied by their friend Steve O Dwyer who was also a very accomplished player. Aaron introduced me JC and Steve and I was in shock that I was actually playing with them in the same tournament. I mean who plays a 75$ Binions donkament at 2am?! They were obviously getting drunk and just having a good time, but it was still a really cool moment for me at the time. I had never dreamed that I would actually get a chance to play with some pros at any point in my life! We all ended up making the final table together and the top 3 places where to be paid.

The flys were dropping fast and I continued to play really tight. I got into a hand where Aaron shoved in first position and I was in the big blind with K7s. He had less than 10bb and I figured that he had to have a lot of different hands so I couldn’t be in bad shape and made the call. He ended up having something like A5 and I ended up knocking him out. That was a very cool feeling at the time and I was loving every second of it. One thing I also learned from watching videos from Daniel Negreanu was theory behind the minraise. I was using it to my advantage as everyone had no idea how to react to my small raise size. I remember raising Steves blind one hand and he was like wtf as if confused at what to do. Looking back I know Steve is a very good player and knows how to play hands in every situation, but as a professional now I can see he probably didn’t know if I was any good or not and whether my raise was strong or weak. You just didn’t see bad players min raising at that time. Both Steve and JC ended up getting knocked out and I was in the money 3 handed against some random older guys. The coolest part was that they ended up staying to watch me. I ended up shoving K2o from the sb and the BB woke up with 33. I lost and was out. I remember talking to them afterward about the hand and wishing them good luck before they left. That was definitely the fire I needed to continue to learn and try and become the best poker player I could be.

Upon returning home I continued to watch videos and study. I had never logged onto a poker forum, or any forum for that matter, until I saw that pokerVT had their own. I was reading around and decided that I was going to try and discuss hands with other players. This is where I saw that Nick Rainey had been playing with a few members on the site and making a video of it. I knew I had to try and get in on this video because I had never played with a pro online and was super excited about it. I ended up getting into his 3rd tournament, which was a 9man sng. I had never really studied 9man strategy before and had only played a few back in the day on Party. I got really lucky to not only knock out the pro himself, but I also won it! Nick was giving his own money away at the time for anyone who knocked him out and for the winner, so I got a nice little 75$ boost to my bankroll! This is when I started watching Nick’s videos and started to learn how to play the 9mans. I decided that even though I was getting more and more into debt that I would spend 100$ to purchase sng wizard. It is a program that helps you perfect your calling and shoving ranges in the tournaments that you play. He also had a promotion going at the time that whoever made the most money playing 500 of these, that he would donate all of his profits that he made playing that day. I studied every single hand I played and learned what hands I could and could not play. This is where the bulk of my poker game and career started. I had never played 500 tournaments in my life, and here I was playing them in a period of two weeks. Not only that but I was actually studying every single hand and learning. To this day I actually think I was the winner but never got any money for it lol. There was a deadline for the challenge and by that time another extraordinary opportunity had fallen upon me.

I want to mention that this was all taking place during March and April, and during this time I became an alcoholic. I had always drank a lot during college due to being in a fraternity and being very outgoing and social. I was going to the bars 2-3 nights a week and dropping shots of crown by myself everyday. I probably had on average about 6-8shots every single day for about a two month period on top of the Thurday/Friday/Saturday nights that I always went out. I even started to have people over on like a random Monday or Tuesday night to play beer pong when I was bored. I had dropped out of one of my classes and was down to only 9 credit hours. One of my classes ended at the beginning of April so I only had to go to 3 classes at that point and two of them were 1 day a week. Needless to say I had a lot more time to get drunk and hangout with friends, on top of all the poker I was playing. I also racked up a lot more debt and wasted the rest of my student loan money on alcohol. In turn I also gained a lot of weight and became mildly depressed. The only thing that helped me through it all was poker.

Nick decided that he was going to choose a couple students to train over the summer. I knew I HAD to get in on this and this was my motivation to continue to learn and play. It was then one day that He also said he had a job for someone and I was the first one to respond out of all the fellow members of the site that were also competing in the challenges. I became Nick’s personal online assistant in exchange for poker lessons. It was a very simple job as I had to go through all of his emails and write back generic responses to the thousands of people that asked him questions. At this point Nick had told me that I had been accepted to come out and train this summer! That was one of the best days of my life as I bragged to all of my friends and family what I had accomplished. A real live pro wanted to train and stake me to play poker!

I ended up going out in June to learn the 90mans on full tilt poker. However because Nick had originally wanted me to be his personal assistant, I did not start out playing a lot of poker right away. I was running around for the month of June doing work for him. The times that I did get to play was mostly live at nearby casinos in LA. I was so mad I told him that if I didn’t get to play I was going to quit and leave. By this time it was already July and I finally had gotten approved to have rake back on my account so he gave in. From then on we played every single day for many hours. We went out to eat or golfing a few times, but other than that we were in the office grinding away. I had never played so many games in my entire life. This is where I learned the dedication and commitment it took to become a true professional at poker. It was at this time too where I started playing HU SNG, and really started to learn more about hand reading and all the little intricacies that each poker hand was made up of. It was scary at first to realize how bad at poker I actually was, and how much I actually still had left to learn! Nick loves to crack jokes and mess with your head, and I definitely was the one who got screwed with the most. So by the end of our training I declined his offer to stay and continue to learn from him. This resulted in a big falling out between us and we did not talk for many months after that.

I went back home but didn’t have a real setup to play on, so for the greater part of a month I did not play any poker. By the time I got my computer back I ended up losing all the money I had. I was definitely out of practice from not playing so long so I went back to studying and watching videos. I ended up buying a new computer and monitor so that I had something reasonable to play on and received a 1k stake from a friend. I was so up and down over the next week and it was very frustrating. If I lost the money I had no way to pay him back. The day before I was supposed to pay him back I finally had a break through by winning the turbo fiddy on full tilt for 5k!

I finally had a bankroll of my own and could afford to pay off my bills and new computer. I played every single day from that point on. I did not leave my house for almost 6 weeks. I did not hang out with friends I did not do anything except learn and play poker. It was at this time I started watching a lot of heads up videos. I bought a subscription to leggo poker and watched all of Aaron Jones videos. He is a genius like Jason when it comes to poker and I love how he keeps his videos entertaining while also giving a lot of good advice. It was at this point something great had happened to me. One day I was watching videos by Jason Somerville when I had an epiphany. I suddenly could see the big picture of poker, and his videos that had once dazzled my brain no longer were interesting to me anymore. I grew bored of listening to his explanations because I finally understood. It was at this point I knew I could produce my own videos at the same quality that he had. Not to take anything away from him, I still watch his videos, they are the best. But I was finally just able to tie all these advanced concepts together that I had been learning for so long and everything made sense!

I had some small success from this point on playing just mtt’s. I final tabled the 10$cubed and the 20rebuy two times for a few thousand. I also went with some friends down to the wsop circuit event in Indiana where I did fairly well. A few weeks went by and I decided to dabble in the HU SNG again. I started playing a lot higher than I was used to and experienced some mild success. I had a fish on the line at the 100$ level and he kept quitting me and sitting in a new game. I kept following him in and eventually he just kept playing me. I had him so tilted and was up almost 8 buyins on him when my life went to shit. I started to lose every single key hand in the big pots that basically decided the match. He went on a super rush and just drilled me for almost 3000$ which was almost half of all the money I had to my name! I felt so defeated so I went out drinking that night and got annihilated. The next day was Sunday and somehow I woke up fresh as can be. It was not a good Sunday as I busted from every tournament and was down to my last 100$ in my account. I had just busted in the biggest tournament of the week after running KK and AK into AA back to back hands. I about lost it. I kept my composure and ended up doing something great. This is from one of my earlier posts where I went on the win the double deuce for 35k!( you can read all about that in the post titled, “this wet dream only cost $22$”). I had finally had my big break through after getting so close so many times, and my first 5 figure score!

Winning the deuce was the not the best thing that happened to me. I finally had a big enough bankroll to grind all the tournaments I wanted to play but I got lazy after that. I felt like I was the best and that I did not need to play everyday or study anymore. I started going out and drinking a lot again. Luckily It did not get out of hand this time and I still played a few times a week. I ended up final tabling the Sunday Brawl a few weeks after that and ended up finishing 5th for ~30k. This was a few weeks ago and since then I started playing a lot more. I won a few more tournaments and had finally crossed the 100k mark, in just two months. I am very proud of how far I have come. I never gave up and continued to work as hard as possible. Nick and I eventually made up and are now good friends. He really is a great friend and person if you give him a chance. He is very egotistical and I had never met someone like that before so It was hard for me at the time to realize the good in him. Since then he has gone on to win many tournaments, the stars TLB, and over 100k in cashes, and all of this just in November! Between the two of us I believe we will easily make over 1 million dollars next year. I want to thank him for giving me an opportunity to do well and succeed when everyone else was against me. I could never have gotten to this point in my career without his coaching and help, so thank you for everything you have done for me! All it takes to succeed in life is a passion for whatever your doing, a very strong work ethic to achieve it, and someone to believe in you. If you want something in life, go out there and fucking get it. Everyone was against me, and still to this day there are many people saying that I can‘t make it. All I have to say to them is I fucking made it. I made it without them or their help, so go fuck yourselves. When I win 500k next year DO NOT come to me and ask for charity, to double your money, give me praise, etc. Just continue to work your worthless white collar job while I continue to enjoy the satisfaction that your sorry ass life is about as hopeless/sad as Tiger’s marriage. Sorry the average American is too ignorant and stupid to understand the life of this poker player.
Anyway, Good luck in your future endeavors and Happy Holidays!
-Josh

1st in stars nightly 70k for 12.5k!

2009-12-14T03:38:00.000-08:00

Finally got to FT a tourney after another long sunday! Also took 3rd in a 109$ turbo for 2k and a bunch of mincashes of all kinds. Finally broke 100k for the last quarter of the year and looking forward to becoming a millionaire next year. I am finally starting to like pokerstars so I might decide to win the weekly tlb this week. As for this week im going to grind hard so that I can buy myself a new Lexus RX350 for Christmas. Still deciding where I should move, its close between LA and Vegas. Hopefully ill have everything figured out for my next post and also a list of new years resolutions (aka goals) for my life and poker. Here is a pic from my victory tonight!

5th in Sunday Brawl for 28.6k!

2009-12-06T23:10:00.001-08:00

This will be short and sweet!
This occurred last week for the record. Had a screen shot but forgot to save it after I busted on that crazy bizarre hand. Ill post it but it's not on this computer so you'll have to wait! It was a great run and I definitely think I played like a champ the whole way through. Little disappointing to get 5th as I definitely felt I was the best player at the final table, but that's how things go sometimes. I will update soon on my new goals for the month and for 2010 in a few days. Right now I'm exhausted and have a headache from my session earlier today so I'm going to get some sleep and wake up bright and early for another long day at the office. See you at the tables!

Live Poker and Vegas Report

2009-11-25T23:35:00.000-08:00

A few days after winning the deuce I was searching the 2p2 forum and stumbled upon a poker mansion that was available for rent. I ended up emailing omgbarackobama about possibly moving in and asked him if I could stay there for a week while the Venetian deep stack series was going on. I flew out last Wednesday and ended up staying out in Vegas for a week. The poker house was huge and everyone that lived in the house was chill as fuck. It was only a 15$ cab ride each way and you could even see portions of the strip from the balcony. I might end up moving in to the house but for now it is all still up in the air.

I played in the thurs/fri/sat events and the satelite on sunday to the main event. Needless to say I ran like shit and ended up losing some crucial flips and having my QQ and KK run into AA halfway through the day. I even bubbled the main event sate having my k5s run into AA bvb into the bb of one of the famous Trans for 10bb. The next bad beat came when I was 10min too late to register for the next one so there went my shot at the main event. However, one of the guys living in the house came with me on Thursday to play and ended up taking 4th at the final table. He is a well known cash player on stars and has owned a supernova elite account for the last 3 years. When it came down to the wire the short stacks kept doubling up and he lost A7 v qj bvb to end his run. It was a nice score as he cashed for 7k, and he treated us to Noodles at Bellagio. We did a lottt of sake bombs and had a great time. Sapporo Reserve beer is also one of my new favorites!

I ended up meeting with my buddy kyle after busting on Sunday, so we went back to noodles and played the credit card roulette, where once again I was victorious. It's finally nice to actually win something after all the losing that was going on. After that we went to caesars to play drunk cash as we railed his dad in a tourney. Unfortunately he busted as did my stack as I ran a set into a flopped straight etc. I seriously could not run good for the life of me so I decided I would play the caesar 160$ 7pm the next day. I made a sick read on a guy early on where I bet/called an all in for a 200bb pot with AK high on a 234 board where he showed down AQ. I was chipping up real nicely until I ran fucking KK into AA again for like all but 10bb of my stack. I managed to hold on and double up a few times to make the final table. The structure fucking sucks and I will never play this tournament again because they kept skipping levels. By the time we were 7 handed I had 7bb, where the button shipped 6bb and I snapped with A8o. Unfortunately once again he had to have TT and leave me with 1bb. I almost had a hard on when I 4x my stack the next hand but then had to post the BB where I got KT v A4 where the guy flopped a straight flush. Then to top it all off my flight was delayed 3hours on the way back. Fuck vegas and the fucking mirage and fuck live poker for the time being. I cannot wait to get back to online poker and start owning souls again.

This wet dream only cost $22$

2009-11-16T18:39:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I had one of the worst sessions of my entire life. I ended up playing all night against a mega fish HU and nearly lost my poker bankroll. Not only that but I had a horrible week of mtt and it nearly cost me my roll. I am not going to complain about how ungodly bad I ran, because it's part of the game, but it definitely was one of the lowest points in my career. That being said the next night I went out and got extremely hammered. This of course was Saturday night, the day before the mtt grind. Not the smartest thing to do I know, but I woke up on Sunday morning fresh and ready to start over again. (I did however wake up a few hours later than my normal starting time lol.) I woke up just in time for the brawl and that's where my session started.

I didn't have any success in the first couple hours of tourneys, and was losing all the satellites I usually play. What else is new, especially after the week I had. I signed up for the ftops sunday millions and started out running pretty well. I then amped my aggression up and really started tearing it up. I managed to have a top 10 chip stack at one point and hovered in the top 100 for most of the tournament. It was then with about 850 left and 700 getting paid I had my KK run into AA and then THE VERY NEXT HAND AKs run into AA by the SAME PLAYER! Going from top 100 to bust in one of the largest sunday millions on fulltilt sucks. Before getting upset about it, I quickly realized that I had a huge stack in the double deuce with about 200 people left. Right after losing those hands I had QQ and doubled up to be the actual chip leader in the deuce. I suddenly wasn't as mad anymore and put my whole focus and attention on winning this tournament. From 100 on I knew the tournament was mine. I had the chip lead and no one could stop me from running away with it.

It felt just like a 3$ 90man at that point and I continued to grind all the way up to the bubble of the final table. I was 3rd in chips at the time with 10 left and had been 3betting and raising relentlessly. I had just 3b villian light two hands before this one happened. I raise 66 from ep and the villian in the big blind 3bets me to 2.5x and I flat. The flop comes 246 and I ck/c his cbet. The turn was a 9h so the board was rainbow. I thought this would be the perfect card for him to barrel again because it was an overcard to the board and would likely get me to fold any 1 pair hand under nines that I was holding, maybe. I ck/r him all in on his turn bet and he snapped me off with 49o LOL. I had a feeling he was trying to play back at me light preflop but the hand really just turned into a cooler and I stacked him taking a commanding chip lead into the FT.

I played hellmuth poker early on with a tight strategy, picking my spots carefully. I won a couple races and knocked a few people out. When the table got shorthanded, I decided it was time to amp up the aggression again and start 3betting the shit out of everyone. No one gave me any reason to stop so I kept going with it. I also had the perfect loose passive opponent just give me his stack by calling all my raises and ck/f every flop. It truly was a dream final table situation and when we got HU it only got better. The opponent was from Sweden, but definitely did not play like it. He folded just about 90% of hands, either in position or out. He wanted to make a deal so I told him if he quit now I would give him 24$ more than what he would have gotten. He didn't like that too much since it was basically an 11k hu match, so we kept playing. It was hard to get chips from him but I won just about every single hand and knew when he had one. I lost a few pots when I actually did have a hand in the 3b pots and actually lost the chip lead at one point. I knew I couldn't lose to someone playing this poorly and after about an hour had him down to the 10bb range. (side note: Our stacks were surprisingly deep at the FT, so when we started the hu we were almost 60bb effective). I ended up doubling him up but continued to grind him back down. I have never seen anyone online play so poorly in my life. Even 2$ HU SNG players knew more about general strategy than this guy. I finally decided to stop minraising and make it 3x with my AJo 15bb eff, when he finally came to his European ways and reshipped his 78o. He finally made a play because I deviated from my strategy, but too bad he didn't realize that's exactly what I wanted him to do. I finally won the hand and shipped it!
I wasn't nervous at all or even thinking about how much money was on the line the entire time. Partially because I was so freaking tired, but more because I knew I was in command and was the best player at that table. There was even a decent pro from what I understand at the table, but I didn't let him get in my way and ended up taking down my first 5 figure score and the biggest cash of my career!

I am going to Vegas this week to check out a baller mansion some other pros are renting out to see if I want to move in. The best part is they all specialize in different aspects of poker, so I'm very excited to talk some good strategy and improve my game. I will also be playing in the remainder of the Venetian Deep Stack Series. I plan on then going to the wsop circuit event in Atlantic City with a few more of my buddies I met in Southern Indiana and taking down a tourney or two. In the meantime I'm going to be grinding mtt and HU sng online. Pz

Favorite chat quote from a random fish in the deuce "I brought 22$ and a dream, and all I got was a nightmare" ROFL

WSOP Circuit followup

2009-11-01T15:04:00.000-08:00

I headed down to southern indiana with the royalton poker crew on tuesday. Our first stop was a crazy little restaurant in Louisville where I had the best beer I have ever tasted. We stopped at the liquor store and picked up a few bottles of everclear, and finally after a 6hr drive, made it to the horseshoe. I was quite impressed that given the location and size of the casino, it was a pretty nice establishment. The first night I sat into a cash game and met a good friend who is pretty damn good at poker. We sat by each other at the table and each made more than 600$ playing 1-2nl in a short 2hr span. I would have liked to play higher but they only had 2 2-5 tables going at the time. The next day was my first wsop circuit event.

The event was a 345$ turbo and I honestly wish I had never played it. It only took me a few hours to bust, but I could have spent my time with the fish at the cash tables than hopelessly trying to win 292934 flips to win the thing. After I busted I did in fact treat myself to a 1-3nl 500$ cap for the next 15hrs and came out 1500$ up. I only took 1 45min dinner break and played some of the best cash poker in my life. After that I headed to bed to get a few hours sleep for the event I was looking forward to the most, the 555$.

I had a good table draw except for a younger kid on my left who was later very aggro until busting. I couldnt get anything going and ended up winning a few small pots when shortstacks were shipping it in. I grinded it through though and was able to manage a 30bb stack before getting moved to a new table a few hours in. I was not happy to see a kid I met earlier that day sitting on my left and a few other young aggressive players at the table. I was dealt premium holdings my first 3 hands and lost all 3. I went from 30 to 10bb in a matter of minutes until the poker gods decided to give me a break. My friend from EP raised it up and a very tight player just flatted behind him. I looked down in the BB to find TT and shipped it in. They both called and checked it down on a K459J board and both showed down AQ. I tripled up and was right back into the swing of things. After another few hours I was dealt 74s in late position in a limp pot. The tightest player at the table limped utg so I knew he was probably sitting on a big hand so I limped in from the CO. 5 of us saw a flop of 742 and the small blind led out 1/3 pot. The tight kid flatted and I raised 3x to only be cold called by the button limper, the tight kid called too. The turn was a T bringing a rainbow and I shoved all in. The button called and showed down JJ and I took down a monster pot minutes before dinner break. The kid at my table and I went up to the bar to eat and talked a little poker before getting back into the grind.

The next two hours I went on a complete tear just running the table over with raises and knocking out short stacks. It was then there were about 40 left and 27 were payed when I had two new fish sit at my table. The very first hand the guy got his money in terrible against one of the younger kids and doubled up. I was liking my position on him and being table captain until the tournament director told me that I had been moved to a new table. I was pretty upset that had happened but I moved to my new table and recognized only 1 guy from my first table. About 10 hands in the guy I knew raised from the HJ and I 3b from the sb with AA. He ended up folding and I took a nice pot. The very next hand on the button the CO opened and I 3b again. This 3b made the CO committed, where he should either shove or fold, but he decided to flat. The flop came qj8 rainbow and he ck'd and I shoved the remaining chips into the pot. He thought for about 2minutes before rolling over 89................UGH WTFFFFF. I had 44 but it really doesn't matter what my cards are in this spot. I was clearly representing AA (players at the table even called out what they thought I had before flipping it over) and got beat by a retarded southern hick. I kept my class though and did not berate him nor say a single profanity other than "are you fucking kidding". It is very important not to berate players because you only hurt yourself in the longrun from either 1) they quit and never feed my kids again or 2) study and learn to get better where making money is now harder. I was then left with 10bb and grinded a few orbits before shoving A4o from the CO. I ran into 99 from the bb and finished in 32, five out of the money.

All together it was a great trip and a good live tournament experience. I don't think I would have played the hand any different other than folding preflop and am happy with how I played throughout the entire trip. I will probably go back next year and if the 1 and 5k are not on halloween again, ill probably play those too. Other than that I had a horrible sunday as fulltilt froze up about 29493 times while trying to load that retarded 50k player tourney. It cost me a huge pot for most of my chips 20 away from the money in 1 tourney, and timed out of a few good hands in decent size pots in others, not to mention all the folded hands I did not see from being disconnected for so long. Hopefully this does not happen again because I ended up donking off all the rest of the tournaments and quit for the day from being so tilted. Time to catch up on sleep and start knocking out my goals. Later

Updates and Goals

2009-10-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

I started venturing into the 100 and 200$ hu sngs. So far so good but still over a ridiculously small sample size so anything can happen. I also played a few 24 and 75$ 45mans and did well in those. Today though I can close to what could have been the biggest cash in my life. I was top 7 in chips with 130 left in the 150k 150$ freeze out today on full tilt. First place payed 56k and I was dying to win it. I ended up catching a cold deck and my dreams fell short as I placed 18th. Bummer, o well I actually made a few bucks on the day after 1600$ in buyins and a small 53rd cash in the 40k.

These past two weeks I really have not been as focused as much as I'd like to be on poker. I have been distracted by friends, booze and luxury dining. Not to say I didn't have fun but its time to get back to the real world.

Goals:
Win a seat to the LAPT Costa Rica event in November.
Play 1000 45mans 24-75$
Play 1000 HU matches 100$ +
Final Table an mtt where 1st pays more than 20k
A deep run and hopefully a final table in an FTOPS event

Now that we have "to do list" lets make it happen!

Welcome Back!

2009-10-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I was planning on playing and ended up not feeling well from the night before. I then decided I needed a whole week off. I hung out a bunch, met up with some friends I haven't seen in awhile, went to some new bars since my one friend just turned 21, and bought some protection.

The 9mm Glock 19

I decided that after selling my 12 gauge shotgun I needed to get something new. I have always wanted my CCW and will be signing up for that very soon so that I can take it with me when I go out. It holds 16 shots and there is no safety :) !!! Thank Ohio for finally passing the Castle laws not more than a year ago, meaning if someone tries to break into your house you can kill them without having to worry about a civil lawsuit from either the victim or his family for breaking into YOUR house. Yes people, before the castle laws were passed, the criminal that broke into your house could have sued you (and it legally did happen where the criminal won on more than 1 occasion) for breaking into YOUR house.

Anyway back to the good stuff. After taking this whole week off I was happily welcomed back by fulltilt by taking down my first tournament of the day, the 10$ 1r+1a. Sunday always brings out the best of the fish and today was no exception. I was chip leader with 11 left and ended up taking 2 huge blows to my stack going into the final table in last place. I fought hard to double up and came back to absolutely annihilate my opponent heads up for the title. Here are a few pics.

Full Tilt Poker Game #15426937795: $9,000 Guarantee (1r+1a) (112901857), Table 47 - 12000/24000 Ante 3000 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:00:57 ET - 2009/10/18
Seat 1: Villian (589,900)
Seat 3: Jotagran49 (1,695,600)
Villian antes 3,000
Jotagran49 antes 3,000
Jotagran49 posts the small blind of 12,000
Villian posts the big blind of 24,000
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Jotagran49 [Qc Qs]
Jotagran49 raises to 48,000
Villian has 15 seconds left to act
Villian calls 24,000
*** FLOP *** [3c 6s 5s]
Villian checks
Jotagran49 has 15 seconds left to act
Jotagran49 bets 65,765
Villian calls 65,765
*** TURN *** [3c 6s 5s] [Ah]
Villian checks
Jotagran49 has 15 seconds left to act
Jotagran49 bets 175,225
Villian has requested TIME
Villian raises to 473,135, and is all in
Jotagran49 calls 297,910
Villian shows [9c 6c]
Jotagran49 shows [Qc Qs]
*** RIVER *** [3c 6s 5s Ah] [As]
Villian shows two pair, Aces and Sixes
Jotagran49 shows two pair, Aces and Queens
Jotagran49 wins the pot (1,179,800) with two pair, Aces and Queens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,179,800 | Rake 0
Board: [3c 6s 5s Ah As]
Seat 1: Villian (big blind) showed [9c 6c] and lost with two pair, Aces and Sixes
Seat 3: Jotagran49 (small blind) showed [Qc Qs] and won (1,179,800) with two pair, Aces and Queens

Here was the final hand heads up. Nothing too interesting except that I am a card rack, but the two previous hands I had bluffed villian out of two monster pots to take a commanding chip lead. We started the match almost even.

Even more disappointing was this hand of a 28k KO that I should have won.

Full Tilt Poker Game #15429483036: $28,000 KO Guarantee (112928549), Table 144 - 3000/6000 Ante 750 - No Limit Hold'em - 20:01:59 ET - 2009/10/18
Seat 1: Jotagran49 (175,249)
Seat 2: krooptroop (69,011)
Seat 3: The_Roo_Baby_ (296,636)
Seat 4: CaptRunDown (89,480)
Seat 5: Thibavol (252,845)
Seat 6: laverne (277,422)
Seat 7: Booster75 (134,493)
Seat 9: TRY2BLUFFM3 (293,975)
Jotagran49 antes 750
krooptroop antes 750
The_Roo_Baby_ antes 750
CaptRunDown antes 750
Thibavol antes 750
laverne antes 750
Booster75 antes 750
TRY2BLUFFM3 antes 750
TRY2BLUFFM3 posts the small blind of 3,000
Jotagran49 posts the big blind of 6,000
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Jotagran49 [7c Kc]
krooptroop folds
The_Roo_Baby_ folds
CaptRunDown folds
Thibavol raises to 14,000
laverne folds
Booster75 folds
TRY2BLUFFM3 folds
Jotagran49 calls 8,000
*** FLOP *** [5h 6s 8c]
Jotagran49 checks
Thibavol bets 24,000
Jotagran49 has 15 seconds left to act
Jotagran49 raises to 60,000
Thibavol raises to 238,095, and is all in
Jotagran49 calls 100,499, and is all in
Thibavol shows [Ac Kd]
Jotagran49 shows [7c Kc]
Uncalled bet of 77,596 returned to Thibavol
*** TURN *** [5h 6s 8c] [6h]
*** RIVER *** [5h 6s 8c 6h] [Js]
Thibavol shows a pair of Sixes
Jotagran49 shows a pair of Sixes
Thibavol wins the pot (357,998) with a pair of Sixes
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 357,998 | Rake 0
Board: [5h 6s 8c 6h Js]
Seat 1: Jotagran49 (big blind) showed [7c Kc] and lost with a pair of Sixes
Seat 5: Thibavol showed [Ac Kd] and won (357,998) with a pair of Sixes

I have no idea what this idiot was thinking when he snap reraised me before I even got my check raise into the pot. I had a open ender, overcard and back door flush, but he clearly didn't put me on anything when he snap raised all in. Making plays without taking your time to think them through and holding onto AK like its the nuts on any kind of flop will only make you broke longrun. Thankfully for people that play like him, I can have a nice happy life ;)

Taking a day off

2009-10-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

This will be the first day in 6 weeks where I will not play a single hand of poker. Sometimes the best cure is to get away from the game and enjoy life a little bit. I am not sick of poker at all, in fact yesterday I final tabled yet again the 20 r and ended up 4th. It was a tough final table as so many short stacks surrounded me and kept doubling up. I had very aggressive big stacks on my left that really hand me handcuffed to just playing really tight until they busted. I was put into an impossible situation where I flopped top pair but my opponent had my out kicked 4handed. Anyway I sought out a very experienced cardrunners pro to give me a few pointers with my mtt game. I am looking for a few spots later on to be more aggressive and pick up chips, and he pointed out some very good raise and squeeze spots. I will be having a few more lessons with him and hope to start crushing more souls and taking down more tournaments. Once I acquire a proper bankroll I am going to probably start playing more HU sng but definitely get into some cash. Anyways im off to my old college to hangout with my fraternity brothers for a homecoming celebration. Hopefully things wont turn out like earlier this year when the entire college rioted on our street LOL.

KENT STATE UNIVERSITY RIOTS

Here is a link to some pictures of the events that took place. I was actually shot by rubber bullets just trying to walk into my house! It was probably the biggest riot in the state of Ohio this year. Anyway I will definitely be grinding those majors tomorrow so see you at the tables.

Work-a-holic

2009-10-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

I have not had a day off since September 1st, and probably even a few days before that. Every day I have hit the tables trying to improve my game and become the best poker player I can possibly be. Last night I finally had a nice pay off for all the hard work. A few cashes including the 750k, deuce, and within 30 of the money in 5 more. My biggest cash of the year so far came yesterday too in the $20 rebuy. I ended up being in for a total of $80 and managed to get 2nd place for a cool 6.6k cash. It was a crazy ride as I was at one point down to 3bb, but never gave up. I had a very questionable 3barrel bluff on the last hand where my opponent made a good read to catch me bluffing and win the tournament. Now looking it over, although I had a lot of outs, it didn't really make too much sense. Anyway things have been looking up for me and I expect a lot more to come out by month end.

I finally have converted my schedule to accommodate euro time, so I now wake up at a normal time. My typical day consists of waking up and watching strategy videos for a few hours. I then eat breakfast, take a nice quick run, freshen up with a shower and then hit the tables. This past week alone I strictly started playing mostly mtts and have done very well so far. Earlier this week I final tabled the $10 cubed on ftp and ended up 5th for a small cash, and placed 70th in the deuce along with a few other small cashes. I have been really starting to understand and tie together some advanced concepts I did not fully understand before. I actually watched a JCarver video (best mtt videos by far imo) the other day and got bored because I understood everything he was saying. Sounds ridiculous because 8 months ago when I watched them for the first time I thought it was mind blowing content(because it still is). But with a little fine tuning to my game I definitely think I can be making videos of his caliber very soon. Well going to review my hands from every tourney I played yesterday and get back on the grind. See you at the tables!

PS. Thanks for all the rail bird support at my FT last night!

It's been awhile...

2009-09-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

This whole month has been flying by so fast! I have been playing everyday this month and definitely had to make some adjustments to my game as the games in the poker world have changed drastically in only the short period of a month. There are more regulars now, and people are starting to get more and more aggressive. This is ok though, we players know how to adjust to these changes and continue to exploit the nitty regs.

As far as games go, I have been playing in a few mtt every night along with the 90's. I finally had a good break through after losing and breaking even all week. I almost did not even play this tournament but ended up going through and taking it down. Here are some pictures from the
Turbo Fiddy I took down a few days ago!

Crushing it

2009-09-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

Have had a very rough week in the mtt sng category. Variance definitely caught the best of me and I thought I would never win a flip again. I pulled through it with a clear head and after losing almost 1k, won it all back. No thanks to mtt sng's on this one though. I started playing HU sng again and absolutely crushed it. I honestly believe my roi is a lot higher than 10%, especially in the 4man HU shootouts. Going to take a nap and play miniftops4. Looking forward to winning a seat into this sundays HU wcoop and already have a seat for miniftop hu.