Instructional Poker Sites (also mid-month update)

Well I decided to subscribe to LeggoPoker to check out a few instructional vids. It's been close to a year since I've seen one. I was wondering what they were teaching players nowadays. I saw 4 and nothing really opened my eyes in terms of new strategy. 1 was actually kinda bad (MyNameIzGreg...nice guy though and actually a good player from what I know), 1 was just marginal(Boywonder), and 2 were pretty good (OldJude and AEJones). Obv. I advocate joining an instructional site. For a nominal monthly fee, you get access to a ton of videos by well established poker pros (there are a few lemons out there as well).

I've also been approached by a few of them to make a sample video. If the video was well received, it could lead to an opportunity to join the site's stable of pros. I've turned down 2 offers in the past, and am pondering an offer right now. There are obv. pros and cons in joining a site as a pro. Pros inc. access to other top players and talking shop w/ them, getting paid to make the videos, more exposure, inc. opportunities to coach, etc. Cons, well there is really 1 big con, is having to show how I think and play. I've considered this con to be such a big negative factor that I've avoided signing on w/ an instructional site....but who knows, maybe I will change my mind in the future.

I've noticed that other bloggers have set up challenges related to poker. I think that's great and is def. a great way to get motivated to try your best, whether you reach your goals or not. If you have a blog, feel free to let me know about it and I'll follow yours, since you're following mine.

Ok, here is the month so far (excludes some rush poker sessions when I was on my ski trip, and live results, as well as non hold'em game results..prob another $3k total profit in those)

Something weird happened tonight while I was playing. FTP just froze and all my tables were stuck but luckily I didn't have any good hands going. I noticed though that my HEM missed some hands around that time cuz I usually have my graph going while playing, and refresh it every once in awhile to see how I am doing overall (also to a lesser extent to see how my sd and nonsd lines look) and I had a hand where I stacked a guy for $400 and it wasn't registering in the graph. Not sure what happened to the hand or if that along w/ several other hands got imported or not, but doesn't look like it. It really doesn't matter though, as it is mostly for bookkeeping purposes and the money won/lost does register in my FTP account.

It's weird that w/ the sheer # of hands that I play, I really can't think of any that really stand out, hence can't think of any to show right now. I will plan on showing some hands in the future and try to dissect it (hopefully correctly). Also, I'm wondering how to show hh's the most effective way in a blog. If anyone knows how, please let me know. Also, how the heck do you edit the spacing between paragraphs while blogging here? Sometimes I can do it, other times like now, can't figure out how to space out the paragraphs. I'm such a total noob.

I've been running kind of bleh at $2-4, but crushing $3-6, which works out ok. Total hrs so far is 59, which is weak. Still avg. about $360/hr so that is good. So for the year, I'm prob. up about $70k. Only $930k more to go!

On a different note, cool to see Lindsey Vonn get a gold medal...lot of pressure on her to get one, and to do so under the circumstances (her recent injury, amounting pressure from fans and endorsers, etc.) is extraordinary. I read an article about her in SI, and she seems like a cool person, so glad she won one.

Live vs Online

On Saturday, I decided to add in some live play as a change of pace. It gets monotonous playing online day after day. Ventured to the Venetian and entered the $560 Deep Stack NL Tournament. If you've never been to Vegas, or haven't frequented all the poker rooms around town, this is a poker room you should def. check out. It's very spacious, and has lots of elbow room for players. The game selection is pretty good, although the highest nl game they get running is 5-10 w/ no cap to buyin. Also, what other place brings you Fiji water when you ask for bottled water.

The tournament was uneventful for the most part. It's nice to mingle w/ players in a live atmosphere though. You hear the damnest things sometimes, things that make you ease your fears of the games getting tougher. E.g. I opr utg, butt flats, sb flats, bb shoves, I reshove, fold, fold, bb shows 99, I show KK, bb comments seriously "Ok, good..I almost rather see you have that than AK cuz I feel like I lose to AK more often". Ummm, ok...gg sir.

2 quick hands that are somewhat instructional. Hand 1, I have 12k, bb is 800. Ep opl, I limp in mp w 6c4c, both blinds chk, flop Kh6h3c. Chk, chk, chk, I bet 2k, fold, fold, limper chkr to 5500, I ponder for a bit then shove for about 4k more and he snap folds. Seriously, what hand is he repping here? All kings, pps, and flush draws bet there. Only one that makes a little sense are sets, but we can eliminate KK and to some degree 66 (card removal), so it's mostly 33 or air here. Obv. it's not easy getting it in w/ mp w/ no kicker for your tournament life, but I thought from a logical pt of view it was the right play, and it was (also having the backdoor draws make it a little easier to shove in case my read was wrong).

2nd hand is somewhat similar in the logic. BB is 1k, I opr to 3k from sb w QTo, bb flats w/ 12k left. I should note that villian shoved on epr w Q7o earlier for 15bbs and doubled. Flop Ah3s4h, I cbet 4k, he shoves, I have to call 8k more. For most this is a snap fold, but that's why you should always take your time to analyze everything. BB started hand w/ 15 bbs, so he would shove prefl w all Ax hands, apparently all Kx hands (from prev history), QJ, all pps (exception could be KK and AA, to slowply in pos), so knowing that I took my time and went thru what can beat me here. KK, AA and maybe a suited connecter like 54s were the only combos I could see that he had that were beating me (although combo draws are theoretically ahead as well) and I beat all his air hands that he was "stop and going" w/. Finally I called, and he showed... AA. Obv. I got a whole bunch of wtf looks. I told the table "let that be a lesson learned guys, I will not be bluffed today!" I busted shortly thereafter, so gg me. I dissected the hand afterwards, and I still felt like my call was ok based on my logic, so I didn't feel bad about it.

Afterwards I jumped into the 5-10 nl game, bought in for 2k. Played a couple of hrs and managed a $300 win. The game was your typical live game. Lots of limping, underbetting, not much understanding of hand ranges and other technical aspects of the game..pretty much the opposite of most online nl games. It's been said before, but I'll say it again... live games today are much softer than online nl games. I'd say most decent online 1-2 regs can beat live 5-10, even possibly 10-20 nl games if the amount of money wagered doesn't scare them. The reason I don't play much live cash games is that it's hard to match my online hrly rate in most live games around town. I'm not sure what exact #s are, but I read that the best live 10-20 regs can make $100/hr, and I think that's on the optimistic side. So being able to make 3-5x that online, w/ less variance, it doesn't make too much sense for me to put in too many hrs playing live.

W/ Valentine's Day yesterday, and playing live on Saturday, I didn't get to play much online over the weekend, which continues my trend of not finding enough time to grind. Went out for lunch w/ my wife and had to pass on all the Sunday online mtts that I was accustomed to playing. Spent the next few hrs w/ wife and kid, while getting in the NBA All-Star game (gg, good halftime show). I did managed to find an hr to grind 2-4 and 3-6 online while wife was prepping ;) <--wink btw, and won $1700. I guess I'll start adding in some 3-6 games as well since I'm adequately rolled for that now. Let's hope I run good, but more importantly, just play my A game all the time.

Year to date totals...

Just wrapped up an afternoon sesh. Normally I don't find time to play during the day for various reasons, but I'm gonna make an effort this year, esp. if I wanna have a shot of reaching my 7 fig goal. Today so far...



















Looks like a replica of last night's. Funny how I took my worst loss at $2-4 2 nights ago and come back w/ 2 $5k sessions (this is for this year..have taken much bigger losses, even at $2-4). Just goes to show you what I was saying the other day after my loss. You just gotta pretty much shrug off losses, inc big ones (unless you're playing w/ your rent money, but you should never be playing w/ your rent money in the 1st place) and learn and go forward w/ confidence (that's assuming you are competent, if not, obv get better!)

I will give my year to date totals, so everyone that is following my progress can see where I am at. For the year I'm up about $56,000. I'm up $48,600 after 146k hands (almost all at $2-4) and 135 hrs (I will post snapshots of my HEM at end of month). I'm avg'ing $360/hr playing $2-4, which is prob. one if not the best hrly rate among $2-4 players w/ a min. of 100k hands (there could be some HU players w/ higher winrates, not sure). Up another $5k in rakeback, and maybe another $1k in rake races. Up another $2200 in a few hrs of playing live. About even in mtts. So overall I'm satisfied w/ my results, but not w/ the hrs played.

Also, even though I am behind pace to reach my monetary goal, I still have a shot. The main reason is that I expect to win most of the money during the latter part of the year, when I'm (hopefully) playing bigger games. Also, there is always the off chance that I make a nice score in an mtt, but I try not to rely on them for the most part...I look at them as a luxury if I win. Cash games are where I make money to pay the bills, and if you are an aspiring poker player, you prob. should think the same way. You just have a better chance of succeeding in the long run winning in cash games than trying to win in mtts (obv you can do both).

Turnaround

Well that was quick. Managed to recover pretty much everything I lost last night. Last night everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and tonight everything that could go right did go right. Funny how it works sometimes. Variance, gotta love it!



















Funny but there weren't really any interesting hands of note tonight. The most interesting one is prob this one....

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5178047

The only reason is because my kid came by, and was tugging my arm when I was typing in a 2/3 pot bet and accidently min bet on the flop, which probably led villian to think I was very weak, which I kinda was, and led him to go for a checkraise. W/ me thinking that, I called and got there at the riv. Thanks Nicole!

On another note, one of my close Vegas buddies Adam Spiegelberg just won the $545 buyin stud 8 at the LAPC tonight. Paid 15k and he received what I think is the best looking trophy outside of major tv events. It's a Remington, w/ a cowboy riding high on a horse standing on its rear legs. It's heavy and I'm not sure if I'm more envious of him because of the trophy or cash. Well, at least I get a free dinner out of it. All my poker buddies in Vegas and I decided to take out the others for a free dinner anytime one of us cashed for over $10k in a mtt, so free sushi it'll be! Btw, I read that Vegas has the highest # of sushi resaurants in a city in the US, and believe me, there are a lot of good places to eat sushi around here.

Dealing w/ losses

I'd like to say I got off on a good note after starting my blog, but lady luck wasn't having any of it I guess. I played last night when I probably shouldn't have. Only got 2hrs of sleep the night before, so I was extremely tired and my focus wasn't there. Damn the FTOPS! Wouldn't have played any poker but the FTOPS started and I decided to play in the 1st one. Along the way, I opened up some cash game tables and promptly got into a downswing. Anyway the night ended w/ me losing about $5800 in cash games and another $300 in mtts so obv. wasnt my best night. I'm not too bummed, cuz I usually don't let losses affect me, esp. after doing this for so long now (that's 12 yrs now fulltime).

I understand the variance and I've come to embrace it actually, and so should everyone. It helps keep your emotions in check if you realize that in the short term, anything and everything can happen, like losing a ton of flips, getting into coolers, etc. Once you realize that and can control your emotions better, you'll tilt less and make a lot less mistakes. That's been one of the reasons why I've been successful over the years. I'm not a great poker player by any means. I'm pretty good, multitable very well, and I pretty much never tilt and I make less mistakes than most, so I stay consistent, and my results show that over the long run. Anyway here is my graph so far this month... :(

Ended up going to bed around 2am. I was smart enought to realize I wasn't that sharp and know that the game will be here when I wake up (unless the gov't decides otherwise, but that's a subject for another time). Also, I really didn't want to get up this morning, w/ being so tired and partially due to the loss, but I always get up to see my kid off to school. Kids will remember these kinds of things when they grow up and I'd love to have the best relationship w/ my only child if I can. My parents and I weren't close, mainly cuz of the cultural differences..them being from Korea, and me growing up in the states.

In other news, it's funny how some things work out in life. For a player w/ as much success as I have had in the past 12 yrs, I've gone largely unnoticed, esp in this day and age w/ the internet. I don't mind it really, cuz I was never out to get into the spotlight, even when poker was being televised everywhere. Didn't mind it seeing lesser players achieving fame. I even turned down a couple of opportunities before to make videos for training sites and possibly join one as a pro if the videos were well received. My goal in poker was always to provide the best quality of life I could for myself and my family.

But w/ that said, couple of things just transpired that may thrust me into the public consciousness some. Besides starting my own blog, I just signed on to write a monthly strategic article for Canadian Poker Magazine (this happened yesterday, after starting this blog, so I did not time all this together, just a lot of coincidence). I know that magazine doesn't have a big distribution, and you have to be living in Canada to even see it, but if you are, just keep an eye out for me in upcoming issues.

Also, a good friend of mine here in Vegas just got his own web show on Cardplayer.com. We went out to dinner the other night and he asked me for some ideas for a good online poker show. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to comment on it. Anyway, sounds like I could be making some appearances on it from time to time, depending on subject matter.

So I am getting the hang of blogging now, and I will work on it to make it more appealing. Again if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to chime in anytime. I am online a lot and do read just about everything. I haven't really decided how to approach what subjects to talk about mostly..like lifestyle of being a poker player w/ a family, or just mostly strategic stuff. I will prob. focus on the life 1st, as there are a lot of bloggers who write about strategy, but I may bring up a few pts. here and there about certain strategic stuff, inc. some hands from time to time. Anyway, I'm off to organize some paperwork and work on getting my home loan modified (cuz isn't that what most homeowners are doing nowadays?).

No linking blogs on 2+2?

Apparently that's what I was just told, and my post that linked 2+2 to here was deleted. Oh well. If there is any other way to get my blog out, feel free to chime in.

Blogging

I am new to blogging, so forgive the errors. Also grammar has never been my strong suit, so expect some along the way, although I will try my best to minimize the mistakes. Also, if anyone has any suggestions to improve the quality of my blog, feel free to comment. Pics of house and cars coming next (that's what the world of 2+2 are always asking for, right?)