For A Better Tomorrow

Happy Chinese New Year

My goal this year is to be able to make enough cash from poker and work so that I can go back to school next semester without the worry of having financial problems. Even though I am a poker player hoping to rise, I still have my day job. That is one of the main reasons why I cannot put as much time into poker. I am avging about 20 hours a week playing poker and 40 hours a week doing my 8-5 IT job at a mortgage company. My part time poker playing is very pathetic, and everday I try to do what ever it takes to play as much as I can without going crazy. Variance can pwn me if I don’t put in the proper amount of hours. I figured, if I can make a minimum of 2k a month from poker with the next 8 months, I can save that up to have my bills already paid for one full year. That way I can play poker only while part timing school. As you can see, school is meaningful yet meaningless to me. Meaningful in that I want to learn more about literature and writing - to help myself in my artful life. Meaningless because I won’t make “more money” with a BA in creative writing. As you can see, I am an inspiring film director. I have been for a really long time, it’s just recently that I realized I have to set that dream back in the closet to focus on other things. I believe that there is no MONEY in filmmaking. There is no money in filmmaking! I kept saying that to myself. I keep asking myself, why do I want to be a filmmaker if there is no money in it? To be a filmmaker, you literally work 12 hour a day while draining your body until you finish a project that will most likely not make any money. People may not know but there are tons of directors who have made money on one project but failed another - which leaves them out of a job for a really long time. David Fincher directed Alien 3, and because of that film, he did not have a job for another 3 years. So unless I’m Cameron, Spielberg, Scott, or Woo. I am not going to make any money in film directing. So where do I make my money to eat drink and live?

Here are my options

A) Live a very poor life working insanely hard on set doing “muscle” work carrying camera equipment or grip work for a really long time hoping to achieve something that is very close to impossible - and that is only befriending a successful director. Oh and the slight chance that I can get my break into making my first movie. And yes, if that movie failed which most likely it will because a lot of studios are smart enough not to invest big money on first time directors. Tim Burton’s first movie starred Pee Wee Herman…

And with the audience’s film taste today, my chances of becoming a director is slimmer than before, because big budget films are failing at the box office nowdays. I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic.

B) Find a way to make money so that I CAN afford to make the time to write, produce, and direct my own piece. Hell, it would be great to even fund my own small budget film to try to break into the industry.

In order to increase my chances of being a successful film director, I have to do it voluntarily without the worry of not having any money -I have to do something else to get there. And I ran into something 2 years ago that may help me get there. And that is my double life…my poker life. 2k a month is mandatory. 6 digits by the end of the year is success. And yes, that includes my income from my 8-5 job Wish me luck on my quest to become a filmmaker.

After making some major adjustments in my game in December, I became a completely different player. I was at a low point of -800 between November and December, and that was when I started to look at my hand history to examine my major flaws. I went through a few hands with my friend and found out what the real problem was. I’ve made my adjustments and was forced to become not a scared player but a more disciplined one. A lot of this was also hinted to me when I read the Rekrul article on http://www.liquidpoker.net/. It was like everything was hitting me in the face at once, giving me the answers.

One of the scary things about poker is that even though you have the answer right in front of your face, it takes a certain kind of personality to accept it. Many players out there are not willing to change the way they play even though they know what they need to do. That characteristic is something I see in people that I know for sure will have a harder time making it in the poker world than me. I only say this because I want to “speak for myself” or remind myself that I must be a little more opened.

By the end of december, I won back all that I have lost. Not over night, not in the course of the week, but “in the long run”. At least, longer than my definition of a short run was at the time. By new years, I was clean and free hoping to be able to continue my climb. Of course with a new year resolution

Just being able to part time avging 20 hours a week, I’m currently climbing up the ladder cracking my first 1k in cash games. Technically, since I won back my 800, I’m really on an 1800+ run, but I don’t like to think about it like that. The month is still not yet over so I can stay the same, drop, or even make more! Ya never know. I hope I can dodge the bullets from bad beats as I see them coming my way. Hopefully I can remain disciplined.

Last night was probably the most fun I have ever had playing a tournament. I closed all of my cash games early because friends of mine came over with a few bottles of wine. The only problem was, I was still alive in my tournament game. That night was one of those crazy nights when I just kept making the great steals. Out of 818 players I made it to 18 players left winning me 100 dollars. Sadly, I again got bad beat twice knocking me out. It wasn’t as devastating to me as I am quite used to this line of work but to have 5 pairs of eyes on my computer and 8 other pair of eyes on my brother’s laptop in the living room, everyone was quite disappointed and heart broken.

I really wish I could’ve made it to the final table but it was just not meant to be. After moving it all in with 77 and being called by a desperate opponent with 44. He flopped a 4 and took a 1/4 of my stack of 60k. That was at approximately 25-30 players left. I had about 40k and manage to keep myself alive even after a couple of failed and successful steals.

At 18 players left, I was in the big blind with JJ and the button tries to steal with A6.
The blinds were 1k/2

and he over raises it to 14k leaving himself with about another 20k. He had me barely covered and I pushed him all in. He called with A6c. The flop was safe and I can hear my brother screaming “you got this JohN!” but no, the turn was an A and I was left with a 6 outs with 2 jacks and 4 queens for my str8, but no help came.

I rarely like to talk about bad beats but there were just so many people witnessing my game last night that I was disapppointed not being able to make it to the final table. It’s amazing how devastated they were. Even after 2 hours, they were still talking about that. “Damn John, if you won that pot…” I heard it all… LOL. It seems that I was the only one not disappointed. I thought in my head, “this is a taste of my lifestyle”.

“Welcome to the Poker World”

While workin the tables, I’ve been playing a few small tournaments by adding a 5th table to my “work” schedule. Pretty much 1 tournament table while grinding the cazh. Ok, I’m going to be honest here, I’ve also set a side a bankroll to try to win the Full Contact Poker Protege. I read through the ways to win it, and I will say this, IT IS EXTREMELY HARD. I know that I am capable of winning 1st place prize only tournaments since I had some experience winnning before but this is insane. You literally have to win a few tournaments in a row. So I’ve been playing some SNG’s adding that to my 4 tabling hoping to make some kind of cash to play in the 300 +20 high roller game. I played twice, and lost and yes it hurt me VERY MUCH as I believe I was very unlucky both of those times. Honestly, as great of a prize that is, I may have to wave the white flag because it is just way too much of a luck fest. Depending on how I do later, I will probably play it at last minute and hope to do well.

I believe that it is imperative for a tournament poker player to be able to play as many tournaments as he/she can. If not, then just stick to cash! I remember reading Ace on the River by Barry Greenstein, he mentioned that in order to win tournaments, you must play A LOT of them. Imagine having steady income to consistenly play in every 10k buyin. Many people are blinded by the amount of money top professionals spend on these tournaments. Daniel Negreanu for example, probably played easily over a 20 major tournaments if you include all of the wsop events in 2005. Imagine the amount of money he spent on tournaments. Just pick out anyone in the poker world and look at their stats closely. Surely, few of them have like 50 titles but how many times did they actually play? Carefully look at John Juanda’s stats from 2005 and you’ll notice a down swing on his tournament game since 2001-04 in 2005. This is a man with a history of being a player of the year and consistently staying top ten in the 2000’s. I’m definitely not one to talk down on tournaments especially since I grew a bankroll from tournaments alone last year (something I consider more luck than skill). But I did use my first tournament winnings wisely (not wisely enough, wisely enough would be investing in cash games), playing small tournaments consistently. My brother was also there with me for all the ups and downs in these tournaments.

I realized that the value of a tournament cost should be completely meaningless to your bankroll. Some say it’s good to spend about 2-3% of your BANKROLL on tournaments! So if you only have 3k, you should only buy in for at most a 30 dollar tournament! And given enough players, if you do take first place you can double your bankroll. If you’re a cash player, you’d know from experience that making 3k is probably going to be about a month’s worth of work going at the cash tables full time.

Tournaments in my opinion are “boosters”. It’s very reasonable for a person to be skillful in tournaments and having a great strategy to win every so often. A lot of luck is involved as well to win a big tournamnet. But you do have “some control”, and if the buy in is “meaningless” then it’s well worth it. I’m pretty happy that I have a lot of tournamnet experience (small MTT that is). It may help me boost my bankroll to a level beyond my imagination some day, that is if luck is on my side. Yesterday I played a 24+2 MTT and with a field of 700 i managed to take 48. Which is pretty bleh to me as at one point it was quite common for me to make top 100 in those fields. Nowadays it’s gettin a bit harder for me.

At around 100 players left, I had the chip lead with a little over 30k. I took a beat when this really dumb player with 2nd biggest stack (only 7k) decided to make a “move ” on me. At this point I told myself to sit back as these low limit MTT players will feel the pressure and eventually give me more of their chips. After I lost half of my stack to one player, I ended up giving the rest when I moved in with AK when my opponent had A6 flopping a 6. I thought I had a real chance of getting somewhere in that tournament but I was wrong. Oh well…

Aside from my tournament play, I’ve been doing pretty decent in my cash games. I’m actually progressing, however I do see some holes my game and hope to fix it. These lower NL holdem games requires me to play a certain style to win the “general poker players”. I ususally refer to this as the “general audience” in movies, basically the majority of the people. I’m actually very happy to be able to see some progress in my game lately, I hope I can continue to move up. I know that it will require a lot of patience for me to do that.

“The more patient you are, the less patient you need to be” - Yours truly

A little late for the holiday greeting but oh well, I haven’t posted in a while. I am very excited for the new year. I went to a party with some friends for new years eve. We had a few drinks….Don Perignon. That 120 dollar champagne is not overrated by the way! We all got hella buzz and then the question popped up.

What’s your new years resolution?

I asked a poker buddy of mine and his reply shocked me more than ever, not because it was a pipe dream, but because it was possible! It is definitely something we are capable of doing if we worked really hard at it. He told me to take on that new years resolution as well, and after much thought, I agreed. Well lets give the year a try and work really hard… hoping that we will be able to reach 6 digits in income from poker. In fact, I can honestly say that I’ve made more in poker than I did working part time at my desk job in 2005: )
IT’s going to be tough since I have a full time job, so I’m going to make it 6 digits in income total! So work will be included.

Poker is extremely an amazing game. I am learning something new every single day. The stuff that I am seeing in NL100 cash games is quite appalling. As a tournament player it is quite hard for me to make laydowns, as Brunson would say about Stuey “If Stuey gets top pair top kicker beaten, he’s out of the tournament!”. I guess I’m pretty agressive when it comes to tournaments but with my new mountain, agression must be suppressed. I find it EXTREMELY difficult for me to make good laydowns with TPTK and with overpairs. Everything else, I’m pretty strong in terms of reading. However, I told myself from the beginning that I am not going to just win immediately the moment i jump into cash games. I knew that I will be spending money learning and experiencing. THe bad news was that I went through a losing phase for the first couple of months, however I examined my plays and realized where my losses were coming from. I realized I had to make changes in my game and know how to adjust when I’m playing a tournament and cash games. It’s quite difficult. I broke even overall new years eve. It was a great feeling. It’s like I’m gradually picking up, i hope eventually i can go far beyond and succeed in this thing. I have many holes in my game, but when it comes to NL100 it’s ti’me to put all fancy and tricky plays in the closet. All my leveling capability theories must be put in the closet as of right now until i am able to move up in limits.

Lately my sng’s/tournametns are sucking too lol. WTF is going on. I feel that I’ve lost “form” or these players have gotten a shit load better in these games. THey are as aggressive and hell, they’re making steals with reraises … at least i think they are. WTF is going on!
I was forced to suppressed my agressive style ands it steal for a minute. I was gettin slapped around so much, I had to sit there for them to slap eachother and put myself in the money. Oh well, I hope things get better and I am definitely lookin forward to this year.

I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. - Thomas Edison (1846 - 1931):