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"Roller-coaster theory at work."

Hey guys/whoever reads my ramblings. I figured it was time for an update on my life and my poker world since it has been awhile, and felt motivated after reading the last excerpts from Alex's blog. Poker is a tough living, more-so then people will ever come to believe. The mental and physical strain of being a poker player is beyond words. You can be playing some of the best poker for 40-50-100 hours and still never make profit. You can go from winning every day to losing in seconds. Luckily, atleast for me, I will be going into the Air Force OTS at the end of the year and will make a career out of it. On the side, I will always play poker. It's something that's kept me going throughout my life and I would never give it up. I am a losing player for the last 2 months in all 45s and 180s. I don't even think I've taken a top3 in a 180 since 2010. It's mind boggling some days. I even wonder at night if it's even the variance or it's just me. I run hands through sng wizard and I always try and play refreshed and level-headed. "Good decisions and volume" as Alex always says.

My motivation to keep playing is to one day make enough to live out of the States. Alot of my friends know I don't want to live here much longer but some don't think I'm serious. I want out, and soon. Love my family and friends, but I want some change in my life, even for a few months. I would gladly live in some European country or an Asian province and just play poker in a shitty apartment just to be able to be on my own and see the world. Wouldn't even have to make much, but it seems at the stakes I am playing now it's impossible so I need to put in alot more volume. Jokingly alot of my good poker friends are down to get a place but let's be realistic. Even if it's 1k a person each month, we have to be winning and with poker there's never any guarantee. Maybe it's just a pipe-dream but I'm allowed to dream right?

As for my outside of poker life, everything goes well. I live on campus and classes seem to be easy for now. I have been trying to get back in shape after having a long absence from hockey but I've been lazy to get anything done. Even poker takes second place behind my goal of 3rd prestige in MW2 for PS3 right now. Maybe I should just sell the damn thing and I would have motivation to put in more hours again. Steve would kill me though (<3). The weather has been getting alot nicer recently as well so I have been running and making plans to make a few day trips to the beach with friends. Nothing gets you out of your head for a day like a nice cold beer on the beach. Also, I have been having pretty bad insomnia and been up til at minimum 3am each night. Really trying to get into a normal sleeping pattern (ever since my last gf, go figure) but it's tough when your used to sleeping that late.

Can't really think of much else to add. I am nowhere close to finishing this stake but if Alex is reading this, I will see it through. Rare to find an honest online poker player these days but those who know me, know I'm legit. I'll get the hours in no worries. I am slowly adding more tables and each session I am seeing positive cEV results (results don't show positive, however). I feel I am getting better and better each day. If I can get to the point where I am 30tabling 12/45s and 180s and maintain a decent ROI, I will continue to do that after I am out of this backing. Goals are at least 2k games in the next month and get into the green again. I owe my first 2k in profit to Alex and then 1k to Jonathan (<3) for the initial 1k backing, and 250~ or so to my previous backer pplatypus (<3). At the games I'm at now, it will take some time but hopefully Alex will see improvement in my game and even if I am not profiting, move me up eventually and let me try and get back into some profit.


Until then-


AF1

First Week

"Oh shit! You see that door marked pirate, you think a pirate lives there?!"


So this ends the first week under my backing agreement with pocarr.com and the week has been pretty interesting. I am running at -30% roi over 264 sngs. 45mans are -23% roi, which is improving from a much larger negative % when I started, and 180mans are -44% roi. All results so far are pretty "lol sample size" so I am not too worried and I am getting more confident in my game each day and it helps that I can sharkscope the leaderboard players and see that 1-2k game break-even stretches can and will happen to the best of players.





On an expected value note, I am running pretty badly. Although I am down, I can see that at least I am getting my chips in good and in good +cEV and +$EV spots.






So this wraps up week 1. Goals for week 2 will probably be alot more games, alot more studying in sng wizard, and hopefully some profit. As Alex keeps saying "volume and good decisions are all we can hope for."


Until then-


264/20000 (1.32% complete)
AF1

Day 3

"...so D.."

Another brutal day. I sent 4 hand histories after getting brutalized in my morning to Alex for a leak finding video and spent the rest of the day (poker wise) sng wizarding my 45s and my friends 180s. Both of us are running incredibly bad but according to sng wiz we are playing fairly decent, and only missing very marginal spots at worst. Volume seem's to be the hardest part so tomorrow will be a lot more tournaments, or I will try.



Until tomorrow -


170/20000 (.855%)
AF1

Day 2

"Later dudes, S you in your A's..."

So day 2 of my stake was fun. I got wrecked in the morning session and decided to play only 180s in the second session, and got wrecked again. Volume seems to be key so I am going to put in a lot more for the next few days. Here's what today looked like.




117/20000 (.585%)
AF1

Day 1

"I dont usually wear... clothes..."


So today was the first start to my stake at pocarr.com. I spent 30min-1hr setting up TableNinja and I missed a few things so I set my session very short to only 50~ games. 45s are still pretty new to me so alot of the concepts from the videos on pocarr are taking some time to get used to. Only did two small sessions of 24 and 21 tabling so I could try and pick better spots with ICM and cEV vs $EV. As soon as I get a better grasp I will up the amount of tables back to the standard 30-40 and play longer sessions. Until then, smaller sessions will have to do.





Disappointing day but tomorrow is another day to run better. Until then -



51/20000 (.255%)
AF1

First Entry

"Same shit, different day."

So I guess as this is my blog I created in agreeance to the conditions provided for the coaching msusyr24's site pocarr.com offered me, I will start now, before the stake/coaching begins.

As a little back history, I have been playing poker semi-seriously with sub-par results for 2 years. I have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) which usually causes me to jump from game to game and never grind out a true profit. Aside from poker, I am a super senior at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC Golden Retrievers) and am getting my bachelors in Financial Economics, with plans to enter the Air Force Officer Training School after graduation.

I will try and get an HEM screenshot of my previous backer's staking. I had a 700 game break-even stretch in the 18man turbos. I ran at 60% ROI in 180man non-turbos over a small sample. I experimented with 45man turbos towards the end in preparation for the upcoming stake. I ran badly to say the least. I've never been one to complain about running badly (outloud, tbh) and I may have been playing them sub-optimally. I hope to correct this and be playing at 11-16s before the end of the next 10k sngs. This may be a stretch but I have always been known to be a very competitive and driven player so I feel if it's humanly possible then I will accomplish it (with no ego).

Don't know what else to add so this will wrap up my first post.