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#1
12-27-2006, 08:44 PM
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2006- reflection on variance, my game, and life (long w/ graphs)
2006, is the first year that I have seriously played NL cash games. In fact, it’s basically the first year that I have been very serious about online poker. I started playing online for the first time my senior year in high school. I am in my 3rd year of college right now, so you can do the math for how long I have played. When I started I would save up my lunch money and buy in to pokerstars or partypoker through a friend of mine who had a credit card. Typically I’d either go on a little run of a few hundred dollars, and eventually lose it all. One time I ran up 50 dollars to like 500 playing limit hold’em, just buying in for the min at the highest stakes I could. I believe it all came crashing down at 30/60. I didn’t really care about the money, I just had fun and thought it was a cool concept to be able to do this.
One night, partypoker basically changed my life forever. I never really thought I could make real money playing poker, I didn’t have any visions of 100k months and playing 10 tables of 10/20 nl. I just thought it was a game. But on this day in july of 2004, I came in 2nd in a 20 dollar party tournament, for just over 3400 dollars. I was terrified at first. I wanted to cash out, I wanted to play 10 dollar games, I just didn’t want to lose it. This was so much money. I didn’t play again for another 4 days or so, and I just tried my hand at nl 50 or something. Eventually I got better, got my head on straight, and became a tournament donkey. 2005 was basically a slightly better than breakeven year for me in tournaments. You can look up my stars db. I had about 400 tournaments and a profit of just a few thousand. I had a few sick runs, but eventually variance and being bad at poker got the best of me. I started to get real sick of tournaments, despite final tabling the big Sunday party tournament twice. I wanted to get into NL cash, around the end of 2005/ the beginning of 2006. Hello 2/4! I started out 4 tabling 2/4 nl. I had always donked around at nl 200 and stuff before this, never really seriously though, and typically only when I couldn’t play tournaments. I began to really enjoy it, especially when the stacks got deep. I ran super hot for my first 10k hands or so, and decided I was good enough to try 3/6. The games weren’t much harder, but I got smoked. I dropped a lot, and eventually went back to grind more 2/4. Eventually I repeated the process, and actually did well at 3/6 for a little bit. This was all around the earlyish part of the year, and I did not have pokertracker or anything like that. At some point, I decided I’d try 5/10 on party and see what all the rage was about. In my first session I made 10k. I stacked loloTRICKEDu like 7 times, and thought he was the biggest fish ever. I even grabbed position on him my next session because I thought that was obv the best seat. It all came crashing down again of course, because I really was not good enough to beat the game. Fast forward to the summer, and in May I go back to tournaments for the first time in months. We were having a competition in MTT for the month of may, and I captained team Canada! Stevepa, Jurollo, Foucault, Timex, and myself just straight up owned, and we won. I had a great month, winning the stars 150 and final tabling a number of other tournaments. It was an amazing confidence boost. I began to really realize how soft tournaments were for me now. After playing even mid stakes nl cash, and with a background in tournaments anyway, my skill in tournaments just skyrocketed. Around June I got my new laptop, got a 2nd monitor, and decided to finally get pt. I don’t want to say how much but I straight up owned in June. Best month ever. I played a lot of 5/10 on ub, then one day saw a mega fish sitting in 10/25 nl. I still only had like 60k or something roll, but I decided I couldn’t pass up HU w/ a huge fish. Well, I got donk stricken for like 10k, and then he started talking smack. I wanted to kill myself. I just lost a chunk of my roll versus a lobotomy patient, and there he was talking [censored] about how I’m the worst player ever. But it did teach me that there is nothing special about the higher stakes. If I play well, I will beat those too, and it’s only a matter of time before I crush higher stakes. And indeed I did, I beat the ub 10/25 game for an obscene win rate when I played it consistently later. I went to Israel in July and August, and played basically no poker in those months. When I came back to school in September, I didn’t really have too much interest in playing. I wanted to go out and booze and meet girls and play video games and have a good time. I played like 10k hands in September, and prob another 10k in October. I was playing mostly 5/10 and taking the occasional shots at good 10/20 games. The last Sunday in October was the stars 1m. I got lucky in a few key spots, and next thing I knew I was deep. The final table bubble lasted forever, and was very nerveracking. I was so in the [censored] zone, it was amazing. I was so sure this was my tournament. I knew I was the best donkementer left, and I am one of the best tournament players on the internet anyways. I just had to stay controlled, focus on winning the right spots, and get lucky. I made a few big resteals, and even 1 reresteal and I was in a good chip position when we got to the FT. 1 player busted and then the fateful hand came up. I had been fairly tight, and when a very aggro player raised my bb I restole with K3. He called. Flop came AQT. I checked because this is a [censored] disaster cbet flop, and he checked behind. Turn was a J putting up 2 spades. I bet like 900k into the 1.2m pot with about 2m behind the 900k. He called quickly. River was a low spade. I thought how sick it would be if he actually had spades, but realized I really had no choice and had to push. It wasn’t really close. I shoved, and when he snap called I didn’t really have to look. The feeling in my gut, was the worst I have ever felt. I wish I could have rewinded, and just folded the hand. Or just have bet the flop. Anything. The misery was unreal. Yeah I know you probably think ‘waa waa he won 25k who cares.’ First was a quarter million. I don’t really know how to explain this, but this definitely put me on tilt, and set me up for the month of doom. November: The doom month. November I was determined to actually make a ton. I made a post in MTTc that I had to play 50k hands or I owed anyone who responded 50 dollars. I know some people like cts can play 50k hands in a week, but I really couldn’t. I was just not that much of a beast like Cole is. I played 37k hands, and had my first losing month in about 8 months. I hit an ~80k downswing at one point from high to low, including all games (cash games, cash games not on pt, tournaments, HU sit and gos---- which im awful at). I took some shots at really good 25/50 games. I ran like [censored] and lost. Eventually, I started playing even more 25/50, and at one point I was playing in some real [censored] games. I was playing 4 handed w/ a very good player, raptor, and twin caracas. At some point twin got up but for some reason I stayed. I played 3 handed with them for a while, and then aba sat so I finally got up. I couldn’t believe that I actually was chasing losses. I have never really been the tilty type. Typically if I get frustrated, I just close all my tables and take my rage out in fifa 2006 or something. But for several days straight, when I was dropping 15k every session at 10/20 or 25/50, I was playing [censored] AWFUL. Towards the end of the month I started to get my head back on straight, and just clowned 5/10. I played alright, but the game is so good that I could do very well playing just ok. December has been going pretty well, although not spectacular. All in all, my downswing at 10/20 was 29 buy ins… People don’t realize that 29 buy in downswings… HAPPEN! They [censored] do. I went to dinner last week with a few hsnl ppl, and FoxwoodsFiend was talking about what it’s like being on a downswing and a quote stuck with me. “I mean, anything can happen really. It’s like, people don’t realize, that you can, and you will have like 30 buy in downswings. It’s definitely possible.” This really made me happy, to hear that. I wanted someone to tell me that I wasn’t just a donk, so this was great. I have recovered somewhat, and I am in better shape now then I was a few weeks ago. The last 8 weeks have been a true lesson in my mental ability to take variance. I have definitely grown from this, and I am playing very good poker right now. I am poised to take 2007 by storm, and really bust out and have a killer year. I have been crushing the FTP 10/20 and I am feeling super confident right now. Last night a bunch of hsnl ppl went out to dinner again, and we talked about how grimstarr will play everyone HU except bldswttrs. I thought it was funny when later that night, grim quit me HU and told me he didn’t want to play me. So… it’s me, and bloodsweattears! Awesome. I think I learned a lot about myself, in November. One session, where I lost 30k in about 20 minutes, I opened the door and went into my living room and a few of my roommates were playing super smash bros. One of them turned to me and said “dude what the [censored] is wrong with you???” I said, “uh, what?” and he goes “you just look… like [censored] man.” I didn’t really know what hit me. I walked outside of my building and just sat on the stoop for a little while staring straight ahead. I was really questioning all of this. This is so absurd I kept thinking. My roommates work for about 8 dollars an hour, they work 8 hour days during the summer, and they have to limit their spending every day. I buy big screen TVs, travel to tropical islands to play poker, and ship 20k pots with my mouse. 1 year ago I was playing like 20 dollar sit and gos and 50 dollar donkaments. Why did I have to be so ambitious? What drove me to play higher? Eventually, I just knew, that I had to play high stakes. I am super ambitious at poker. I want to be the best at everything I do. I remember a conversation I had with MLG about this. He plays mostly 3/6 and 5/10 and can surely beat higher games. I asked him why he doesn’t play higher. He said he enjoys low stress and the decent money, and doesn’t want to have to go through the sick swings. I know a lot of people think this way. But it’s not for me, and I knew that even in my downswing. I have no gamble in me outside of poker, but in poker I am a total slave to variance. I get all my highs and lows off of the swings. I am a complete gambler in the games. I will take any edge for any variance. I play a very high variance game, and I suppose it fits my style and personality. A few months ago, I played like 36/29 at 6 max. I just loved playing tons of pots. I loved making people play guessing games about my hand. When the flop came 25Q, they couldn’t rule out 2 pair, because I could easily have raised w/ Q5s from the CO in 6 max, or 25s. I played with samo and bldswttrs and I wanted to just clown people like they did. Eventually I really analyzed my game though. The truth about LAGs is that it’s just not possible for most people to play that way. I have no doubt I could profit playing 30+/25+. But the reality is that chances are TAG is the most profitable. People very often ask me who I model my game after, or who taught me to play. No one and no one, is the real answer, but if I had to say the most influential players for me, it would be MLG and Strassa. For tournaments and cash games respectively. I owe such a huge element of my cash game to strassa, it’s ridiculous. Understanding the nature of metagame and especially as to how it relates to river bets, expanded my game like ten fold. And I defy you to find someone with a better grasp of NL Tournaments than MLG. This is bbv, so a lot of you prob have the tourney donk hate and all that, but you can be sure that some of the best tournament players are sick good poker players, period. If you want to see what I am referring to about strassa and river bets, refer to the 200/400 nl hand he played vs Ivey where he bet 3 barrels w/ QJ on KQxxx. I remember thinking when I read that hand history, how a few months ago I’d have no clue what he was doing in the hand, and now I really understood his play and didn’t need it explained. When people in the thread were arguing about the play I didn’t respond, for a variety of reasons. I did however think to myself, that strassa will come in and explain it, and probably make a reference to how important the bet is for the “bigger picture.” Here are my graphs by stake for my last 120k or so hands, since I assume people will be asking for those: 5/10:  10/20:  and a big ol lol at 25/50:  and lolodonkaments:  My wins were, 215 HU, 50r, 150fo, and 109 PLO. There is also a PCA satellite not included. I thought for a while if I wanted to post this or not, and finally I decided I would. I don't mind sharing results all that much, as long as it is not just pointless bragging. I do that too of course, but this is an honest post. I have struggled like everyone else, but I am succeeding and I want to show people some of what you will go through in poker. 
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#5
12-27-2006, 08:55 PM
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Re: 2006- reflection on variance, my game, and life (long w/ graphs)
good read
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#6
12-27-2006, 08:55 PM
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Re: 2006- reflection on variance, my game, and life (long w/ graphs)
sweet, we made the same amount but I wasn't playing bld HU at 25/50!
ok seriously, go crush 2007 now...you're at the point where you can make six figs a month playing 10/20 full time. don't let the swings go to your head and grind for like 2 months and you will never have a bankroll problem again. gl.
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#8
12-27-2006, 08:58 PM
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Re: 2006- reflection on variance, my game, and life (long w/ graphs)
[ QUOTE ]
sweet, we made the same amount but I wasn't playing bld HU at 25/50! ok seriously, go crush 2007 now...you're at the point where you can make six figs a month playing 10/20 full time. don't let the swings go to your head and grind for like 2 months and you will never have a bankroll problem again. gl. [/ QUOTE ] i never played bld hu! i aint no psycho
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#9
12-27-2006, 08:58 PM
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Re: 2006- reflection on variance, my game, and life (long w/ graphs)
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] I HAVE TWO CITIZENSHIPS. NEITHER OF THEM ARE CANADIAN UGH HYACHACHACHACHAHCAHCA [/ QUOTE ] Dutch? [/ QUOTE ] Israeli.
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#10
12-27-2006, 08:59 PM
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Re: 2006- reflection on variance, my game, and life (long w/ graphs)
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] I HAVE TWO CITIZENSHIPS. NEITHER OF THEM ARE CANADIAN UGH HYACHACHACHACHAHCAHCA [/ QUOTE ] Dutch? [/ QUOTE ] Israeli. [/ QUOTE ] no army?
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