Yesterday was my birthday. I literally lost the entire day today recovering from last night’s craziness.
“The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.” - Edward Everett Hale
This is the time of the year where we should all take a step back and realize how fortunate we all are. I for one, am happy to be able to live in such a potential society. THere’s much going on out there in regards the the war. A lot of situations that are much like the war that affected my family - The Vietnam War. I pray for those who are suffering out there right now and that maybe just maybe, their future generations will one day be as lucky as I am.
Being Fortunate:
Although I have “complained” or discussed about my various problems in life, please keep in mind, that I am very very fortunate to be able to succeed in middle stakes poker. Although succeeding in middle stakes poker is just the beginning, it does take a substantial amount of work on oneself for it to be done. Many of you who are successful in High Stakes Poker, I envy you as I am just learning that there is so much more work needed in my game in order to get up that high.
Anyway, I am looking forward to 2007. I believe that I have a bright bright potential year coming up. I really want to focus on it as much as I can and try to do what ever it takes to not stress myself out regarding my lawsuits and family problems. A slight thought about it can easily tilt me within 1 minute. Although, I have had moments where I’d think about it during my sessions, I still was able to somehow separate my personal life away from the game. I think that is one ability that I glad I have. I do however, hope to maintain that skill forever.
To be honest, I am just really tired. I’m tired with all this crap that I’m going through. Sometimes I just blow up and want it to be over. Although this year did go by quite fast, it has been one very very stressful year. I feel like I’m going through a very long process of divorce. Only this is something involving my mom. I go through nights where I just want to break away and be on my own now. I often wonder what it’ll be like to just worry about myself and not anyone else. Usually that’s how everyone’s life should be, but given my circumstances, I have been put in a situation where I have to make at least 7k a month to cover all bills.
I think that alone should let you all understand how stressful that can be. In fact, no poker player should have to worry about making that kind of money. As soon as this lawsuit is over (from my understanding, in February), I will be a free bird only to worry about myself. No more lawyers fees, no more having to pay for unnecessary bills…..
With all this on my mind, you can probably understand how excited I am for the new year. I don’t want to get my hopes up as court can easily push trial dates. However, I am going to do what ever it takes to be as patient as possible for these things to end. I am going to separate my feelings inside away from the poker game and be happy that I am able to make that kind of money.
Like I said before, I can’t imagine what will happen if I never got involved in poker. I can honestly tell you that my life would be in a disastrous state if it weren’t for my success in poker. For that, I am grateful.
We all have our problems. Sadly, when I watch movies about poverty, it makes me realize how fortunate I am. Why is it that we need to know about people’s problems to realize how fortunate we are. I think one of the greatest abilities to have, is to be able to not blame others for our misfortunes. Today is Christmas, and what ever problems you have, set it aside and look forward to the future. This idea, is what gives me hope.
Training the undiscipline:
Lets put it this way, if my brother can succeed in cash games, I can teach anybody! I’m learning the hard way that he is obviously not listening to me at all. His undisciplined nature is really killing him. He wants to succeed so fast making himself become gambler. At one point, I’d tell him to stop jumping into limit holdem games. He’d say “okay”, then later I’d find out that he lost a load of money from limit hold em. Then, I tell him to not play anymore sit and go’s - and to only focus on NL100 cash games. The reason for this is obviously because our cash game experiment should not be involved with the factors of SNG’s. Just last week, I caught him playing a $50 sng infront of the TV. He says “I’m just having fun while watching T.V.”. My response “If you want to watch T.V., then just watch T.V. don’t waste half a buyin to have “fun”. SO now, he promises me that he’ll only focus on cash games. That’s fine.
Then one night, I was lurking around trying to datamine my opponents in NL400. I wanted to see if I can datamine some players from NL200 as well but I had on too many tables. But while doing this, I noticed my brother playing NL200! He has less than 10 buyins for NL200 unfortunately. I got tired of just preaching to him and let him do his thing. Hell, maybe he’ll get lucky but from my experience, luck goes a long way. And if he does get lucky, it’ll be masked and he’ll think that he’s winning due to his skills. So in the end, whether he’s winning or losing, he’s going to end up losing - if that makes any sense lol. Anyway, he went on a 6 buyin bad beat streak! 6 buyins is obviously nothing to a person with a bankroll but for him, it’s more than half of his bankroll.
I preach to him for hours about him not listening to me. This really proves my theory when being patient. The more patient you are, the faster you’ll get there. In the recent events, it’s obvious that my brother has no patience. I hope that he will learn from this situation and maybe take a better approach to cash games later in the future. I told him to look forward to 2007 and that he should think about his goals. To be honest, if he just listens to what I say, in 6 months, I’m pretty certain that he can make 6-8k a month. He just needs to be patient! This should be a lesson to yall as well! BE PATIENT in Poker!
I hope to get around writing more about poker content. In the next entry, I’m going to explain the differences betweeen Cash games and Sit and Go/Tournaments. It seems lately that I have been asked that question a lot, and honestly I am tired of explaining the philosophy. Cash games is obviously proven to be profitable, but people still ask me if SNG’s are profitable. And the answer is YES.
I will also write about the differences between NL and Limit holdem. This is by the request of my brother in which I had to explain to him why he shouldn’t be playing Limit holdem. When I told him not to play, he says to me “but there’s skill in that game too right?”. I responded with “Of course but… argh n/m!”
And with that I’m going to end this entry with Merry Xmas again. ANd maybe my next entry can convince you of what you should play if you are on the borderline decision between NL and Limit Holdem.
Ok, so this month is not going too well for me. The good news is that I am still up overall for the month, but obviously not as much as I hoped. The final straw broke when the thought came across my mind of wanting to throw my mouse out my window. Which would’ve done the following things:
A) Breaking my window
B) Breaking my mouse
C) Tossing my Keyboard as my mouse and keyboard are a combo
D) No poker until I get a new keyboard/mouse setup which will likely cost me $150 dollars as I very much like the MX3000 Logitech.
*Sigh…I know I’m not dumb enough to do that but my friends know me well enough that if that thought crossed my mind; I must be on crazy tilt. After weeks of just trying to fight bad beats but getting knocked down over and over, I finally blew. Usually, when I go on a tough day for a couple of days, I’d tell myself to “bypass” this tough loss by playing more until I’ve overcome it. Recently, I’ve been finding myself saying that every single day. It’s tough. The reason for my thought about tossing my mouse through the window came after a dumb donkey who decided to push his entire stack into my semi “bluff” when I had bottom pair and a straight draw (4/3) with the board of 456. When the hands were revealed, my jaw dropped as he was holding 33. I immediately looked away at my other tables as I thought I was on a sure win or split pot. But guess what? His one outer fell on the river and he made trip 3’s taking a 900 dollar pot away from me.
Yeah that was a bad beat story….sorry. That’s something I’ve forgotten about now. As much as I really want to put in 40 hours a week, it is soo hard when moments like this happens. You really need to take a break. As I’ve said before, my goal obviously is to become a player that can withstand these types of beats and still manage to focus on my game and play the right amount of hours per week.
Whenever I find myself running tough in poker, I tend to look for articles. I think I’ve killed it when it comes to Daniel Negreanu’s articles. I mentioned in a few posts (I think) that I’ve been looking into playing Short Handed NL holdem. I’ve been researching extensively on that style of play as of the late. That will be my next move when I “Level up”. However, I really want to make a lot of money in NL400 so that I can be really comfortable making a drastic change in playing style. The reason being, 6 handed NL holdem is going to require a lot of pushing back and forth. A lot of buyins will be dropped. More agression, more variance, and of course tougher players.
I was up till 6 am the other night just reading and doing things on poker websites. I didn’t realize how obsessed I was until I looked at the clock. I know one thing is for certain, I really really really REALLY REALLY REALLY want to succeed in high stakes poker. I think about it every night.
Looking back at all those times in which I’ve had tough downstreak; I should be happy with my current result. After last month’s success, I told myself that I wanted to make 20k this month as a “big goal”. However, from the way I am starting out, I realize that I should not be expecting to make such a big income this month. Variance has a way of teaching poker players a lesson the moment they get cocky about their winnnings. To be honest, I don’t consider myself cocky, I tend to get excited about things. Therefore, by my getting excited, I get punished. I think one of the worst things that can happen to a “good” poker player is going on a break even or losing streak after 20k-25k hands. I will tell you, I went through so much bs this week, to the point where I “respect” players that think poker software is rigged. I used to laugh at those types of players, but man when a series of BS happens, it happens - I must learn to suck it up.
I remember when I’d run into really tough moments in poker, I’d stay up late at night reading Daniel Negreanu’s cardplayer poker articles. One of the most amazing things about trying to succeed in any career is to be able to relate to someone who is already successful. If you read through Daniel Negreanu’s CardPlayer articles, you’d be amazed by his previous life before his success and how his stories can be so close to yours. I sometimes feel as if Daniel Negreanu is writing an article about my experiences right now.
Instead of thinking that I’ve only made 2 buyins in 23k hands, I should zoom out more and think how much I’ve made all year. The past 2 weeks have been frustrating; I got to the point where I was questioning myself, “how can I make money in poker?” This happens when you get beat every single time, when the cards don’t come your way. In the last week, 50 out of 70 of my pocket A’s have been won by showdowns! That means, I’d get bad beat and when I get AA, everyone folds… I know that many of you who do play poker for living may see something like this happening.
I took a break, but I guess it wasn’t a long enough break. I want to be “godlike” and not let the emotions of poker affect me. I want the ability to take a million bad beats and yet still play poker as if I was winning. This week was test to see if I had that ability. Turns out, I don’t. I now praise successful poker players more than ever. I now understand how even a professional poker player like Daniel Negreanu can slam his hands on the poker table being extremely upset when Erick Lingred went all in on him in High Stakes poker. I used to think that was sorta immature - eventhough I have much respect for Daniel Negreanu. Lately, I found myself punching my desk as my oppponents get their MoneyMaker moments in poker against me.
The moment I punched the table was the moment I realized what it took to be a poker player. Honestly, I have never done such things before. Maybe you have never too, but poker has a way of setting people off. Poker has a way of teaching people not to get cocky. You can win for the past half year, every single month consistently. And it’ll take 2 weeks of brutal beats to make you question yourself again, “am I still a winnning player?”.
I need to zoom out and I need to become a professional poker player already. I want it so badly but it is something I need to experience and learn. I guess the eager is the first step. Lately, I’ve been questioning the next level in which I need to attack. And that is short handed (6 player) NL holdem. To be honest with yall, I am very intimidated by it right now. I thought about the hand selections and how much it’ll change my image. The reason why 6 handed NL400 is my next step is because full table NL600 rarely exists. There is not much action there. And with this recent week’s tough struggle, I am questioning my game more than ever.
A friend of mine asks me how much I have lost as I’ve been complaining about this week. I told him “i’m not losing, I’m actually up 1000 dollars, but I’ve played 20k hands”. He later then told me that even through all the bad beats and bad plays that I have made from tilt, I am still up overalll. Maybe that’s a sign of something great in the future. Honestly, I am hoping he’s right.
I zoomed out my stats for the Month of November and December so far, instead of being so down on myself, I should be out celebrating with my friends. But like I said,
“Poker has it’s way of teaching you not to be cocky in life”
It’s been a crazy month! Poker has its way of speeding up time as you move up in limits and producing money. My only concern is that I hope to be consistent with this number in upcoming months.
I have mentioned in previous posts that I am was going to try to refrain from revealing my monthly earns. I did a great job of that for a couple of months, but this month I just cannot help myself. I am however, reaching a point where only my close close friends will know about my possible success. Poker is really nothing to brag about honestly. I can fall to the grounds and people will go “see told ya so”, or I can be successful and people will go “nah that’s impossible”, or people not as close will despise me. It doesn’t matter really to me, but sometimes I feel the need to express my excitement somewhere. It’s extremely hard to keep it inside sometimes and that is why I have a blog 
.
My brother is excited for my numbers but he is worried for me. I can tell in his expression and from his experience in poker. He asked me “Do you think you might’ve gotten lucky in the month of November?”. I was honest with him and I told him that it is very possible that I got lucky in November. He later asked me how to define whether or not you’ve gotten lucky or unlucky in a month. This is a questoin that should be on every poker player’s mind. At least upcoming poker players. To really understand that is to experiment with your game as a whole. I told my brother that my pervious numbers and hand history in NL200 gave me a calculation that if I were to play poker full time, I should make 6-7k a month. And this calculation is what made me decide to quit work in the first place. I told him that I have only played around 40-50k hands of NL400 and that is nothing in comparison to my 300k in NL200 + NL100 hand histories. So yes, I could’ve gotten lucky but the good news is this, the numbers that I made in November is definitely NOT unrealistic at all. So how do I define the luck vs skill in this month? I can’t yet, only time will tell. I have to play many more hands to be able to figure that out. So whether or not I am gettin lucky will depend on December and the next coming months. The more experience I have on my belt as a NL400 player, the more confident I can be at saying that I made all that money because of pure “skill”. But until then, I can be a donkey in your eyes
“You have to be more than just a man in the mind of your opponent” Henri Ducard from Batman Begins
*Off Topic
I just bought a new chair that I’m really excited about. I’ve always wanted this but never could afford to buy one. I told myself many times that after I win a tournament, I will be sure to buy one, but I just never make my way to it as I have other important things to get first. I do however, understand that this is an expensve chair, but I find it a need as I sit in my room working 6-10 hours a day. In the long run (course of 10 years or so), it would be best for my back and body. Also, the chair is just soo damn sexy and cool. I love it.
