|
|
#32
02-05-2007, 04:10 AM
|
|||
|
|||
Re: The Well: Snowbank
[ QUOTE ]
1. if i'm 19 and in college and have 10k lying around where should i put it? 2. what are your preflop stats at stars 400NL/200NL, how many hands of them have you played, and how much are you beating them for? [/ QUOTE ] 1. depends how soon you'll need it. If you're not going to touch it for a while at least put it in a cd or something. I don't know a lot about the stock market(and wouldn't put it with a broker because their fees will eat up your money if it's going to be with them relatively short term), but even like a vanguard account is better them having it sit in a bank. If I was in your shoes and may need the money in the next 6 months-1 year, I'd put it in a money market or a cd. 2. I don't know my pf stats, because I don't use pokertracker. I know I used to be in the 25/22, 23/20 type range(people told me) I'm definitely not a 25/22 anymore, and probably a good amount tighter at the 400s. |
|
#35
02-05-2007, 04:26 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Well: Snowbank
girls in different states = winning player but your bluffing is -ev.
[ QUOTE ] she calls a couple times as i'm falling asleep tonight but i say [censored] it, i'll deal with her tomorrow. [/ QUOTE ] standard [ QUOTE ] while driving i decide to kill time and call out of state biddy and tell her i was sleeping, can this wait until morning? [/ QUOTE ] tptk [ QUOTE ] i don't turn the radio down fast enough and she tells me it doesn't sound like i'm sleeping. [/ QUOTE ] c/r [ QUOTE ] i tell her i am, that i have to go, and hang up. [/ QUOTE ] busto . . . "yeah i was but my friend blacked out blah blah," is a good line . . . 'well why didn't you pick up for me?' . . . "phone across room", "work in the morning", "finally picked up", multiple lines goot here. [ QUOTE ] she calls back 2 or 3 times in a row and i don't answer. eventually i turn my phone off. [/ QUOTE ] ROBUSTOOOOOOOO |
|
#38
02-05-2007, 04:48 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
poker story
Here's my poker story I wrote up for someone a while ago who wanted to hear my story.
(note: this was for someone who doesn't play poker, so some it you will be like "obviously snowbank", but I had to go into some details on simple stuff for them) poker background: "Started playing online my junior year of college, about 3 years ago. I gave my friend $50 and he put $50 in my account for me since I didn't have a credit card or anything. I started playing for pennies, literally. I played .01/.02 no-limit hold em. I won $1 or so a day for a bit, and a week or two later started playing $5 heads up sit and goes. When I got my account up to $100, I thought it was amazing that I was actually making money playing poker. I slowly worked my way up through the school year playing different stakes of sit and goes and cash games. That summer I got an internship with the Philadelphia 76ers. It was unpaid, so I would have no money coming in, but I was getting pretty good at poker. I played poker for income that summer. I was playing $20 - 9 player sit and goes on PokerStars that summer. I was playing 4 tables at a time and I think I made about $15/hr. When I had started playing poker that school year I didn't know you could make more money than poker than jobs would pay. It was awesome. My roomates got jobs to help pay their bills. I played poker. Fast forward to senior year of college. I was playing some cash games, played up to $50-9 player sit and goes and even played up to $200 heads up matches. Long way from the $5 heads up matches I had started with the year before. I was making money, but I didn't always break it down and realize how well I was doing, and get more hands in. I should have tried to play a little more maybe, but I was in school so I had studying and other stuff to do as well. I debated heavily about getting a job out of college. I didn't really want one. I had never really had jobs, always doing my own business endeavors to make money. Everyone pretty much was trying to be role models to me and tell me that I should at least try a job to get some experience and to get some contacts. I fell for the trap. I got a job for maybe 5 months working for a mortgage company as a loan officer. They brought in 4 new loan officers, including myself. I outsold the other 3 combined. I had always liked sales and been good at sales, so I had the potential to do extremely well in a field like that. Unfortunately for me the company I was working for was very shady. They did not deliver on anything they promised and the leads were complete junk. I made pretty much all of my money from finding my own clients, and on top of that my manager and the owner were taking money off the top of my check that they did not tell me about when starting. Long story short, I got out of there, as well as the other 3 loan officers. Now I think about it and maybe it was a blessing in disguise. A part of me is sooo mad that I wasted 5 months basically not making any money when I could have started my poker career that much earlier. But what if I had been with a legit company and done very well and made a lot of money and been extremely successful with a good company. Maybe I never would have taken the leap to becomming a professional poker player. Who knows. So, I quit my job and when I left the office that day it was the best feeling ever! I got home and loaded up 8 games of $50- 10 player sit and goes on Party. By this time I had dual monitors so I could play 8 games at once with no problem. I was paying around $1,000 a month for a 1-bedroom apartment at the time and my lease was up pretty soon so I had to figure out where I was going to go. I didn't want to be in an expensive area if I wasn't working there. In the meantime, I just chilled and played poker. In the last 6 months or so I had not played much poker at all because I was busy working long hours with the job and getting done with school and everything. When I did play in the last 6 months it had been mainly for fun and not with the sole intention of making money like it always had been for me. I hadn't been keeping track since I was just playing for fun, and I realized I was down quite a bit. Time to get focused. I was getting bored with 9 and 10 player sit and goes and was not doing well with $200 heads up sit and goes. I decided to play cash games. I had played them some in college, but specialized more in sit and goes. The first day back to cash games and I made over $1,000. Damn it feels good to be a gangster. It felt great. I couldn't believe I had spent the last 5 months working and I could have been doing what I wanted and making sick money like this. It was awesome! Anyways, the "lucky" streak didn't last, and over the next week or two I decided I didn't really like cash games. I moved to Avalon, NJ to our beach house once my lease ended and started playing $50 heads up sit and goes. I decided I wasn't trying to make a ton of money while risking a lot, I just wanted to make enough where I could support myself as a professional poker player. I figured if I could play about 200 heads up sit and goes a week at $55 buy in a piece, I thought I could win about 60% of the games by old research and by discussing with other players. I thought 60% was definitely do-able. That would have me investing $11,000 per week in playing 200 of them and cashing for $12,000, which would have me earning $1,000 per week. I would definitely be cool with making $50k+ a year and doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted after just getting out of the crappy situation I just left with the mortgage company. I was grinding out $50 sit and goes all day. Mannnnn it was a grind. I was real close to Atlantic City so I went down there a few times. It was great to be able to play live if I wanted to. I think I took 3 trips there during the next week or so while I was at the beach and made about a grand. It was the life! I was just goin' to the office when I went to the casino. I grinded out $50 heads up matches for a bit but man was it a grind. It was soooooo boring after a while. I was making close to the return I expected, winning somewhere around 60% of my matches, but putting 200 a week was going to be hell. I didn't think I wanted to do that. My next goal was to get up to playing the $100s as quick as possible, and then $200s so I wouldn't have to play as many matches. Anyways, I moved back to upstate NY after a couple weeks at the beach. It was getting closer to winter and the beach is a ghostown in the winter, so it was really boring for me. All I was doing was playing poker and reading books and stuff. So, I got back to family and friends, and got back in a routine. Was playing basketball and lifting again, and hanging out, etc... After a little bit of being home I knew I was tired of playing sit and goes. Just was too much of a grind for me. I decided to try cash games again. In talking with a lot of players it seemed the majority thought cash games were where the money was at. I was all about the benjamins. Up until this point I was pretty self taught. I had been on poker forums and everything and picked up little stuff here and there, but I really didn't realize the power of them. I hadn't been in deep discussions about strategy with good players and broken down and analyzed my play. I just played. I pretty much taught myself the game from scratch and thought I had the ability to make a living at it. I wanted to be very good though. I started to get really focused. December I didn't play a lot as it was Christmas time so hung out with family and friends a lot and enjoyed the holidays so to speak. Was playing poker but at that point I think I was just feeling out cash games and trying to work on strategy, etc... In January I was ready to go. I broke down all sorts of calculations as far as what winrate I would need to win to make X amount of money, etc... I'm a real numbers guy so was always interested how many hands I needed at a 2.5 winrate to make X amount. I knew what was possible from talking to other cash game players, and it sounded great. I never really broke down winrates and everything before in cash games, I just played. I was focused and ready to put in a lot of hands. I had rakeback and I did a lot of calculations to see how many hands I would need to get X amount of rakeback. This really helped me in getting hands in.(Rakeback is a % of MGR that you get back from an affiliate for your play. Example if I pay $10,000 worth of rake throughout the month and I have a 30% deal at the end of the month I get paid $3,000.) So a part of me was like, "okay, all I have to do is breakeven and play this many hands and I'll easily be able to support myself." I obviously wanted to do better than that, but even worse case scenario if I could break even and grind out a lot of hands I could make money. Not exactly the picture of a professional poker player making a living off rakeback, but hey, it was a start if that's what I had to do. I didn't know, I had never specialized in cash games. I was working very hard. I was reading books on poker the whole way thru for the first time! I was picking up little things and trying to improve my game. A lot of what I was doing wasn't necessarily wrong, but it definitely wasn't the best strategy. A lot of times I felt lost in hands and didn't know why. It was tough. I was determined to become successful at this though. I was reading forums, and talking to other players as well. I was picking up things here and there, but definitely had a lot of improving to do. I think my first month as a pro I broke even.(including rakeback) Not a great start, but hey, I was working hard and hopefully it would turn around sometime. I can't explain how frustrating it was though. I was working harder than ever and not getting any results. Towards the end of the month I decided I would talk to some players about coaching me. I talked to a lot of guys, and ending up finding a good guy to coach me. He coached me for one session and then was kind of MIA. I learned some from his session, but obviously needed more than 1 session to do what I wanted to my game. Here's what I wanted: I wanted someone who had a serious interest in making sure that I improved. I talked to a lot of guys about coaching me for 1 month for a % of my play. No one was feeling that. Finally, I used my nasty sales skills to work out a deal with a guy who had good references as a coach. He would coach me for the month of February and get a % of my winnings for the month, capped out at a certain amount. Long story short, I had my biggest month ever by FAR and capped out his %. He originally didn't think I was going to hit that amount, so him and I were both happy/surprised. It was great, if I could keep making this amount of money, it would be a gooooood year. In March I found out the affiliate I was using to pay me my rakeback was starting to not pay people he was dealing with. WOW! Things with the mortgage company and now this. This was a good amount of money we're talking about too, so I was sweating it. I had to get another account set up and get a trustworthy person to hook me up with rakeback since it's all under the table. I was worried about getting my money on my account frozen by Party if I had two accounts, so I spent time getting my money off of their before setting up the new account. I barely played in March and April. I was so stressed about this that I didn't have the desire to play. Hard to explain, and looking back it's like, 'damnn just get some hands in.' I think part of me was wayyyy burnt out from February because I played a ridiculous 88,000+ hands in the month. Anways, in April everything with the new account was hooked up and in May I was ready to go hard core again. I did well in May, and was picking up on what I had accomplished in February. I still wanted more. I was playing $200nl and doing well, but I knew there were plenty of other people doing better than I was. I took a shot at $400nl and it was a lot of variance and I didn't feel comfortable so I moved back down. I decided to hire another coach. I had used my old coach in February, but thought I would try a different coach this time. I decided on a coach who I actually found out was coaching my old coach. He knew I was honest and could trust me working on a % basis as that's the only way I wanted to do the deal, so we were good to go. We had some sessions and I was trying to change my strategy up quite a bit from what my last coach had taught me. It was not going well! Things were going downhill, and I hit my largest downswing ever(12 buy ins). Not a real substantial money I guess, but I was extremely frustrated over the progress I was making. A part of me wanted to just revert to the old strategy I had from my old coach and grind out a very good living. Another part of me wanted to be great though. Things for the month ended up okay with him. It was defintely a good month, and I had overcome my largest downswing ever to also have my best days I had ever had. It was a much more aggressive strategy I was using, and it was working, but could be frustrating when swings hit because I wasn't used to it and I still had some hands where I wasn't playing correctly with the new strategy. Since February I had sent myself hands every session and tried to look some hands over every day to evaluate my play. I was doing this a lot during the change in strategy with the new coach, and this is hard work. It is sooo worth it though. Anyone wanting to be a good player and not evaluating their own play is lazy if they want to be very good. It is a lot of work but it was such a benefit when I would be in a situation the next day in a hand and remember some things I had thought about the day before reviewing the exact same type of hand. I was saving real tough hands to go over with my coach, and this really helped speed up my learning process. June went good as well. Really started doing well implementing the new strategy I had learned and started putting my own tweaks in there based on evaluation of my hands and how my opponents reacted to certain plays. In July, broke my record for best month ever again, and decided to move up in August. I tried $400nl and again had crazy variance. A lot of this was due to game selection as I was playing against a lot of other professional players instead of finding the best games to play at with a lot of fish. I dropped back down to $200nl. I don't let my ego get involved in poker, because I know a lot of guys would be hard headed and just keep spinning their wheels when they weren't playing well at a level. I was making great money at $200nl, and was happy there, so had no problem moving down even though other pros who knew I was doing well and had a good bankroll behind me were surprised I was not playing higher levels. I decided to learn to absolutely destroy $200nl. I broke down a lot of numbers and calculated that if I was killing $200nl it would actually be better than moving up to a higher level and being a pretty good player. It was also be a lot more stress free since the games were easier and I wouldn't experience big money swings. I finished up August doing very well. A lot of people were telling me that I was one of the best players in the game($200s). I didn't even really think about it, but after thinking of other regulars in my games, I really didn't see many people if anyone who I thought was better than me. I didn't see myself as a great player, but I guess I was one of the highest earners at $200nl on the net. Fast forward through September.... I had by far the highest winrate I've ever had. I am absolutely crushing the games. The 3rd week in September I won 35 buy-ins($7,000) in one day. Anyways, I am making more money than I really was aiming for through poker, and I love playing. I will probably attempt to move up again soon, as at this point I shouldn't have any problems at all, it's just a matter of stepping out of my comfort zone and taking the next step. The online gambling bill was just passed so I have 270 days to make as much money as I can at poker, so I will be doing that. There will be ways around it when it goes through, but there could be MUCH less money to be made. It could be a whole different ballgame. " (written several months ago, so things like the last paragraph are kind of outdated) screenshot from one of my tables on the 35 buy in day: http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/3794/3kstackeh2.jpg Since the story was written back in September or so, quick mini-update on last several months: kept grinding $200s, doing very well. One big downswing/breakeven stretch in November, but other than that has been going well. Had one of best months ever in January, and decided to move up to $400s. Been playing there for almost 2 weeks now. Debating on whether I should try and get to high stakes as quick as possible, or just grind $200s/$400s............................................. ...... |
|
#39
02-05-2007, 05:34 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Well: Snowbank
[ QUOTE ]
favorite movie? some advice for ssnl players? life advice for college kids (investments/etc)? thoughts on state of poker and how long these games will last? favorite live poker experience? [/ QUOTE ] Favorite movie: probably Training Day or American History X Advice for ssnlers: go over lots of your hands by yourself. Don't post the same type of hands over and over. Go over all your hands by yourself, and if you find a tricky one seek out advice. Usually there's something in the hand that you could have done better which would have prevented you from getting in the tough situation in the first place(calling oop, etc...) Also, instead of getting into arguments with other posters over which lines they think are good on certain hands, don't be afraid to think outside of your own box to see a different point of view on a hand. People with winrates of 2-3ptbb/100 always wonder how it's even possible to achieve winrates of 8-10ptbb/100, but when some of the ssnlers who can get those winrates post in hand discussions, some of the less winning players are the quickest to argue with them why what they said isn't right, instead of asking them to explain more in depth, or give their viewpoints on what their thinking and why they are doing something so differently. Another view for ssnlers to look at that I'd recommend would be this: If you are making all the correct/standard plays, and are winning 2-3ptbb/100 or whatever your winrate is, how hard do you think it is for someone thinking outside of the box and using lines people aren't used to to basically play a style that goes against all the standard lines to beat you? Not hard at all. Not extremely difficult to learn either imo. A couple of the guys I coach had negative or marginal winrates, and now are killing the games because they basically took the styles they were used to, and went outside the box with them. I think a marginal player could start killing the games within a month or so if you really wanted to. Go over hands, post the toughest ones, hire a coach, etc... it's all how bad you want to get better. advice for college kids: Don't get stuck in a job for your whole life. Some may consider that bad advice, but I think it's silly to work for someone else and make them rich if you have the ability and desire to do something on your own. As far as investing wise- if you're thinking of investing money with someone(broker, money manager, etc...) ask yourself if you'd be better off learning it yourself. A lot of people spend $100k and 4 years of their life on college without thinking about it, but don't invest time/money on their money skills. If you're thinking of letting someone else invest your money, make sure they are good at what they do. Don't forget, if they were THAT good at making money, most of them wouldn't be working a 9-5. Thoughts on current state of poker- I guess my guess is as good as anyone's, but here's my thoughts: WAY too much money to be made for poker to just go away. Best case scenario, they adjust the bill to have poker be excluded for being a game of skill.(no clue if this has a chance, but from what I've heard/read, people/groups are fighting their stance on that) If poker stays "banned" in the US, with the US government doing everything they can to stop poker, I have a feeling within the next 1-2 years they will legalize and regulate poker themselves. It would equal a lot of tax dollars, better for everyone involved, and I have a feeling(as well as reports people have posted) that places like Harrahs are putting money into campaigns with one of the reasons being they want a piece of online poker. Again, I don't know anything everyone else doesn't know, but have read a ton on this, talked with a lot of people on this, etc... so these are just my opinions. Live experience- I don't have a ton of live poker experience. I'm from upstate NY so I've played Turning Stone a bunch. Lived near Atlantic City so played there a bunch(mainly Borgata). Don't really like playing live compared to online though. When you play 800 hands per hour online, and then go to play 30 per hour in a casino it seems really boring. It's cool for a change of pace once in a while though, and the games are ridiculously soft. If they let me multi-table live I'd go more often [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] I'm surprised they haven't introduced 6 max tables in casinos. That's another thing that'd make me go more often. You asked for a live experience(wasn't good for me though)- first week of being a "pro" so to speak, I was in Atlantic City and had a decent stack playing $2/$5nl. Probably had $800ish, which was a LOT for me at the time(read my poker background story- just got out of crappy job) guy limps utg, I'm in late position with 77 and raise it up. He small 3 bets(which he did like every time so it meant nothing) Flop comes 3-7-T or something like that, all spades. I check to him since he always cbet flop. He bets, I raise big, he pushes. He turns over AsQs. It holds up and I go home. This is when I was just starting out trying to play full time after having not played in a long time, so that hurt. |
 |
|
|
Linear Mode
