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The new year blog, reflecting on '06 and looking into '07...extremely long
Ok, I just came back to the top after writing everything so that I can warn whoever dares to read this :). Keep in mind that this is a loooooong entry, and most of what I wrote has been covered in other blogs, I am just reviewing my year mostly for therapeutical reasons. Please don't read this and get annoyed about stuff and tell me what to write about and what to leave out. the only reason this is sooo long is because I'm in Acapulco on a monday, hungover, the apartment I'm at has no cable, and I'm bored to death, so before I poked my eyes out from boredom I decided I should just write until I got sleepy. Like I said, reader beware, this is long and it might not be very interesting, and I am waaay too lazy to proof read it so the mistakes will all stay...enjoy:
Well, its been a VERY long time since my last blog, so many things have happened that I probably won't even attempt to give detailed updates on what's happened since Niagara. I thought that since it is January 1st, the most appropriate thing to do would be to write a recap of my whole year, and a list of goals which I'm sure I'll crush by the end of 2007 (I'm actually quite good at crushing goals).
Where do I start? I guess I'll just go month by month:
January:
I was flat broke at this point, I think my poker game was decent but I was (still am) terrible at money management, my bankroll had been 10k before that and I made some bad choices and lost everything in December..I sometimes wonder where would I be if I never lost that first meaningful bankroll. Would I be rich considering my tourney rush started in March and I would have gotten a 2 month head start? Would I have continued to be a straight up grinder in the medium limit holdem games? Who knows, after everything that's gone down this past year in my life I found out that I have MANY "what if's", I figured out its better not to think of it, but its not as easy as it seems.
February:
I moved out of my apartment and went to live with Steve, who at the time was "coaching" me to be a better player, I figured that living w/ him for a month would broaden my horizons and I'd learn a lot during my stay. The first couple of days seemed to be foreshadowing a very productive month, Steve would play (2-7 3draw for the most part) and I'd sit behind and soak up all I could. Eventually though, reality caught up with me and my hopes to become a superstar in one month, I was too broke to play anything other than some $20 sit n gos and Steve would usually get home pretty tired from work so he wouldn't play much. I didn't play much that month, infact I hardly played at all. I played 1 tourney when my bankroll was $900, it was the $1,000 buy in Pokerroom Grand event. lol. I did nothing in that thing and I was extremely pissed at how unproductive the month had been. It's funny how things work out though, even though I didn't realize it at the time, that month might have been the changing point in my career as a poker player. The thing is that I did NOTHING that month, I wasn't playing, I had already quit school, I was bored out of my mind, but during that WHOLE month all I did was think poker. I reflected on past tourneys and figured a ton of my leaks, I thought about plays, ideas, and I came up with some of my funky theories that I developed and use all the time now. I ended the month with about 1k to my name. And then it all changed.
March:
I moved back home with a plan. I was WAY too broke to live on my own, so my intentions were to go home and rebuild, once I got my bankroll back up to $6k I was going to move back out to L.A. and live by myself in my own apartment and concentrate on poker 100%. Moving back in with my mom was something like a last resort, I really didn't want to admit defeat, but once again this was a blessing in disguise. All of a sudden I had NO worries at all, I had my own room, I got good food when I wanted, and money was not an issue asside from poker. This was such a big weight off my shoulders that it showed immediately. I got home on saturday after virtually not playing at all for one month, I thought I'd be rusty but I didnt realize how much I had been thinking about the game, mainly tournament poker. I played the Sunday million the next day and I cashed for about 500, I was SO tired that I was just going to go to sleep, cashing the sunday gave me a bit of a rush though so I registered into the $10r 55k guaranteed on stars, at about 4 am I had about $18,000 in my stars account after winning my 2nd tourney ever. I wonder what would have happened if I went to sleep after the sunday mil that night? I started loving tourneys and played exclusively that whole week, taking 1st in the 150, chopping the $55k guaranteed again next sunday, chopping it again the next night. I had another 27k score at the end of the month, so it was a good month to say the least.
April:
I thought about moving out after a month of living at home, but I was honestly way too comfortable with the situation to change things at the time. I figured I'd continue to build my roll up and move out a bit after I was 21 (may 6th), I planned on moving to vegas. I hit my biggest score to date this month after winning the Pokerroom GSOP short handed event. I was ready to turn 21 now and I was confident enough to destroy live events.
May:
I turned 21 and had a very rude awakening, in many ways, not just poker...I think I became the first person that lives in the US to sit at home watching TV during their 21st birthday. I honestly didn't feel like going out, my freinds called me to see what we were going to do to celebrate and I pretty much blew them off and went to bed early (I think the sunday's were the following day). If in 2005, someone told me "You will have more than $100k to your name before you turn 21, what will you do for your 21st birthday?" I would have said that I would invite everyone of my freinds to a club and drink champaigne all night long. At that point I pretty much realized that I had given up my social life in persuit of money basically. I wasn't happy with this but I didn't really put forward an effort to change this, my social life has never been the same after poker. Another "awakening" I had was that right when I turned 21, I hopped on a plane and headed to New Orleans to play the circuit events, I knew no one, I knew nothing. I realized a lot of things, Live players are the worst ever, I couldn't play my game in these small events, I had A LOT to learn. I also learned that traveling the circuit can be many things at different times, everything that I started to imagine after being in a hotel for 2 weeks became more and more clear once I traveled the tourney circuit more often, it's expensive, tiring, frustrating, lonley at times, extremely fun at other times, mentally draining, and not easy at all. I played about 5 or 6 tourneys that trip and cashed 1 of them (20th or so). I got to experience going deep in a live tourney which was good, but I learned the most from railing Peter Feldman (nordberg) for the last 2 days of the main event, I got to watch gavin smith play with Phil Ivey for 1 day, and then Gavin smith play HU with Peter for about 4 hours the next day, I realized I was nowhere near the skill level that I want to be at, Gavin gave me a 2 day crash course on how much I sucked and how sick he is.
June:
I took the month of june off to go to Europe, I watched the world cup and literally had the best time of my life. Everything I've been through this year has been worth it because of this trip. I learned so much and I really almost stayed in Europe. As fun as it was, this became my FIRST losing month of the year, even though I didn't play, I did spend way too much, I don't regret any of it though.
July:
The moment of truth. My freinds and I rented a house in vegas for the month and after a month of not playing poker, it was ALL poker from then on. I lived with 4 guys that I hadn't met, Tmay, his brother Tom (Sbrounder), Looshle, and Patrick (Pmjackson) I was kinda worried about the whole situation but it turned out to be by far the biggest learning experience of my time as a poker player. I not only made some of my best freinds (even away from poker) that month, but living in a house where all we talked about was poker, I think we all learned a tremendous amount (Shortly after the month, Tmay went on to destroy every online tourney possible, Tom had a 75k cash and a 55k cash the same week, Looshle started getting deep in everything he played, I had a WSOP FT, and Pat...well...Pat ran like a gimp for about 6 more months until he finally had an 85k score ;)... you can tell we all learned from eachother) I ran terribly during the whole month at the series, and ran surprisingly well at the Bellagio 1k's (even though I always ran bad at the end and never won one), I realized that I just couldn't play my regular style in a $1500 event at the series, I had to let the ego go for these and just sit back and wait, I can't outplay these guys. After bricking about 13-15 wsop events I finally realized my mistakes and played the perfect style for these events in the last $1500, I ended up getting 6th after losing a race (flopping 18 outs) and I was heartbroken from having the bracelet sooo close. Even with my cash in that event and my multiple cashes in the 1k's, I ended the month stuck BIG TIME. The learning experience was once again worth it. I was planning on staying in vegas if I had a good series,but since I didn't I went back home. I had my 2nd losing month.
August:
By this point, I had the live tourney bug going full blast and I really couldn't control myself, right when I got home I flew to L.A. for the "legends of poker" and had another major learning experience. I took 12k for that trip and planned on playing the prelims + sat's to the ME, I ended up playing preliminary events with horrible structures and bricking 4 sattelites to the ME, I went home without playing the big one, and I was stuck like 15k for the trip (after hotel and all). I decided then that I would not be traveling to events if I wasn't FOR SURE going to play the ME. 3 losing months in a row were starting to get to me.
September:
I decided to settle down and just play online, there wasn't really any apealing live tourneys to go to at the time and it was very close to the WCOOP that I was 100% sure I was playing. My bankroll was at the lowest it had been after my 1st week of march, it was 25k when I started the month, I felt terrible. I got 3rd in the stars 150 twice in 8 days (I should have won both had I not gotten 3 outered) I got 2nd in a 100r and 1st in a 30r (maybe 50r, or 20r, I forget), I was feeling great again. I went on a 4 day trip to vegas with my non poker freinds and got back right on time for the wcoop, I played most events, spent a fortune, and either played horrible or got screwed by the deck why couldnt my little 4 tourney rush wait 3 weeks for the wcoop? Since I played most events, and most 2nd chances, I spent a fortune and oddly enough only cashed the PLO event which is a game I had only played once.
October:
I decided to take the plunge and rebuild again by going back to cash games again, this time though I'd start playing NL. I played mostly cash for that month and most of the times that I played tourneys I ended up donking off, the motivation just wasn't there in tourneys anymore after losing or winning 8k pots playing 10/20 nl, spending 6 hrs playing a tourney where 3rd payed 4k seemed pretty dumb to me, so I really didnt try at all. I had a good month playing cash games though and I won my seat to niagara WPT at the same time. Well, if you read my last couple of blogs you'll see how niagara went. Basically, I lost a pot that would have put me 5-10th in chips, with 120 left, where 45 got payed, getting it all in w/ AA vs AhKh on a 9h9x5h flop. Thats the first time where I really felt I could win a big tourney, I felt sick after that and once again got bit by the live tourney bug.
November:
After playing so well in my 1st wpt, I felt like I should play every WPT I could get my hands on. I went home for 1 week and bought my ticket to Foxwoods, My freind Looshle had a room there so my expenses wouldnt be as huge as they had been in my other poker trips. I did what I should have done for Legends in LA, I flew in 2 days before the main event I wired 12k to Foxwoods, I played 2 sattelites and then just bought in. I spent the same amount and actually got to play the Main. I got one of the toughest tables in that event, Mimi tran, Matusow, Rousso, Kondraki, Noel furlong (horrible), JoeytheB (good online player), and a couple other good players. I was truly happy with the way I played that event, I played how I wanted to and hardly ever ran into resistance, I set up plays perfectly and picked my spots pretty well...I think I made one big mistake in a hand I won where I was too scared to get max value on the river. I had 79dd in the BB The board was 8h10h7x turn 3x river 7x I led the turn and got called, I put the guy on a big pair once he called, the river spiked me good and I instachecked without really thinking about it, the pot was about 12000 in the 200/400 level, he had about 25k behind and I had 14k, if I shove the river I think he calls with his Q's and it could have been a different tourney from then on. Having all those tough players at my table and being able to out think/read most of them gave me such HUGE confidence that I just wanted to keep on going. After I busted on day 1, I didn't feel bad at all. I really didnt want to go home and I wanted to play live as much as possible, I decided to give cash games a shot and stayed in foxwoods for a about 5 more days, I then heard about a 1500 event in L.A. and figured that since I was going to the 5 diamonds in vegas in Dec. I might as well head down to LA for 2 weeks and grind out cash games at the commerce. I played the 1500 event and bricked but I was happy to see my freind Tmay get 2nd. I got a real feel for live cash games in November and I can honestly say, that as long as online poker is available I will not touch a single live cash game seriously, there really isn't anything even worth comparing, Online cash is 100x more profitable than live, and its not close, theres no arguements to be made. I ended up breaking even in cash games and giving up on them live, I decided to play the small "ho ho hold'em" series at the bike, I spent $4k in one $300 rebuy event and didnt cash a single time in the rest of them. Needless to say, I had another losing month.
December:
I flew into vegas with an already semi short roll, the plan was to play most of the pre-lims and grind out cash games online to support my buy ins. I quickly found out that I had no time to play online if I was playing most of the prelims..the one day that I did have time I ended up losing 5k (probably my 2nd losing session at 5/10 nl, and it came at the time where I needed to win the most, it just goes to show you how much "pressure" affects your game), after spending about 9k in buy ins in one week I started to really play a ton of cash online, I'd make just enough money to buy into some sattelites for the 15k and I bricked them all ( I should have won the single table I played, instead I ran like shit 4 handed with the chiplead and lost it, the girl that won the seat ended up getting 20th or something...sigh..), I kept on making money online and losing it live, after a while I just started spending money like crazy at clubs, shopping etc...By now my bankroll is down a lot, but I am actually not worried at all really. I have learned soooo mcuh in the past 3 months that I have an insane amount of confidence in my game at the moment, I'm playing the best poker of my life right now so I know that I'll have a big bankroll again by february or march.
Thats the re-cap of my year pretty much, Overall I've had a great online year and a not so great live year, I ended 50th or so in the internetpokerrankings.com POY race, which is awesome for me considering I played maybe 1/5th of the tourneys that the top 30 players played, I also didn't have a losing online month this whole year, which is good and bad because the possibility of losing online poker worries me to death. Live, I've had my ups and my downs but I haven't played enough to see how well I'm doing, you gotta remember that the "long run" in live poker is waaaay longer than online, especially for tourneys...I've learned so much this year that I don't even think I could fit it in a book. The main thing I learned though, is that I still have a lot to learn. It's such a crazy game, and so many tiny things can completely change your life, it's unreal, but if I keep asking myself "what if?" I'd never get over anything..."what if my AA holds vs AK?" "What if I hit my 18 outs at the wsop FT", I think my main "what if" is "what if I never turned 21 this year?" I think if I never turned 21 I'd be half the player I am now,half as smart as I am now, but I'd have a $400k bankroll...Was all the knowlege gained worth 400k? Only time will tell really..I have the Bahamas WPT coming up in 4 days and I've got a good feeling about this one, and if for some reason this one doesn't come out the way I hope, there will be plenty more WPT's for me to win. My confidence is sky high, and my hopes for 2007 are big, I absolutely destroyed my goals for 2006 (I wanted to play 20/40 limit, and 2 or 3 wsop events...lol gg goals) so I'll set my goals for 2007 way higher and more specific, hopefully I can accomplish all of them.
My goals for 2007 are:
Build my bankroll back up and be effecient enough at cash games to consistantly beat 25/50 nl online.
Get top 10 on pocket fives and top 10 on Internetpokerrankings.com (this will only be done if I play a ton of volume online which is hard to know, I do plan on going back to playing mainly tourneys online, but I'm probably going to end up playing it by ear, cash games can be very profitable, and it also depends on how much live tourneys I'll be playing in 07)
Win a major live event. Either a WPT, or a bracelet, nothing else will satisfy me this year as far as live tourneys go. Of course I'll be happy if I win a random 3k live event, but I won't rest until I win a major.
Excersise every day (probably tougher than winning a major :).. )
Buy a house. I don't know where really, but one of the things I regret the most about 2006 is that I never invested any of my money, I could have easily given a down payment for a nice house and at least have something to fall back on financially. I'm in Acapulco right now and it's always been my dream to buy a house here, I hope I can end up doing that this year.
Be better than Phil Ivey. no, its not impossible, shut up.
Anyway, I predict a good 2007, I'm going to try my best to do as well as I can in general, not just in poker. If I can stay focused on my goals and I can be disciplined, I can probably reach all of them (except the ivey one, that was a joke kinda).... Well, glgl to all in 2007. |
