5 figures much?

yea, it happened. i didn't think it would happen this quick, i'm pretty excited. the sick part is that if i sustain how i've been playing, which i think is very achievable, i should have a brand new car by october! i'll go over all my money projections for the next few months as well as some updated ideas for stakes and what i'll be doing in the world of poker. here's the picture of course, i was crazy deep on a few tables as you can see :



so let's take a look at some winrates and see when i should be expecting a car. my hourly rate is at $220 over my first 20k hands at 200NL. we'll just round it and say i can expect 1 BI/hr, or $200. i'm at 11k now and i need 32k ... so 21k. that would take 105 hours at 200NL, less at 400NL obviously. seeing as my goal is 100 hours/month i should be going to look at a car at the end of next month!

as far as stakes, here's how i think it will go. we'll say i have another 30-35 hours to put in this month (which i'm going to stay at 200NL for) which should yield 6-7k more. that puts my roll at 17 or 18k. i'm not going to bother withdrawing because it's a pain in the ass. once i hit that 32k mark in september sometime i'll be doing a wire transfer for 2ok, leaving 12k in my account so i'm still sufficiently rolled for 400NL (which i should be playing at that point).

with this 20k i intend to put most of it as a down payment on my cat (most likely a VW GLI, but i guess it could change). probably something like 17k and finance to pay it off in a year. i'll throw the other 3k in the bank, save it for london i guess? idk, just nice to have money not locked up online.

i just got tired all of a sudden and don't have much else to say. that's how the next month looks for me though. if all goes according to plan i will be extremely excited come the end of next month! like always i'll keep updates coming, probably one later tomorrow after i see how i did on the 2p2 weekly 200NL list. i know it doesn't mean shit, but it's kind of cool i guess.

-geoff

11-0-1

that would be the official beer pong record over the last two times i've played with ian. we were 8-0 the first night, and then 3-0-1 the next day. the 1 tie came about because chels somehow made the rebuddle (pretty sure it was the first cup she made the whole night lol) and so we started to set up for overtime but then we got distracted by chicken dinosaurs and were way too high/drunk to care about playing anymore. notice the nice run-on sentence there? it was to paint the mood of being to drunk to care; i'm such a talented writer.

that was really all i wanted to say. here's a quick tangent: FUCKING FTP CANCELED CASH PICKUP SO THERE IS NO GOOD WAY TO WITHDRAW MONIES FROM MY ACCOUNT SO I'M STUCK PAYING ALL MY BILLS WITH ISLANDS MONEY WTF?!

i think the goal is to wait until i can cash out 20k through a wire transfer because all the other ways to withdrawal are a huge pain in the ass. i would want to have 10k left in my account, so i would do this at 30k total. i'm at 6.4 now, so i need to make 23.6k before i can get money. this 20k would go towards a car (10-15k ... depends what i'm in the mood for. i'll start shopping when my account hits around 25k because at that point 5k shouldn't take that much to make). with the rest i would probably get a nice TV and a ps3/xbox 360 or something of that nature. that all depends on the price of the car though.

nothing much to report other than that. 200NL is going nice, had another 4 figure session! i also increased my max tables on FT to 16 ... i'm going to experiment cascading 12 tables and see how that goes. back in the day on stars i was 18-20 tabling 25NL full ring, that's not quite that same as 200NL 6max though. i think being able to 10-12 table 200NL 6max isn't unreasonable though, maybe i'll be godlike at it and manage 16 but i doubts it. this should do wonders for my hourly though. i would be perfectly happy beating the game for 3PTBB/100 if i was seeing 1300 hands/hour ( 156/hour ... pretty sick job imo). oh yea, i'm like 6k hands through my bet with kidlover and i'm running just under 3PTBB/100, pretty bad. the bet is so small i could really care less either way though, i'll just feel gay if i lose. hopefully my last 4k hands i do some damage.

-geoff

i'm still alive -- 4 figure session!

been a bit since my last blog, i've meant to write another but just haven't got around to it. there were a few things i wanted to go on about that i touched on over at the forums, i'll go more in depth and indulge my OCD personality over here.

first off, new favorite song is 'time to pretend' by MGMT. i'm into the electronic rock crap right now, if anyone knows any good stuff like that let me know.

about poker, i guess i'll start with the last question in chappers thread over on CP, "what would you like to improve on in the 6 months of poker?". i think to always have a plan as far as what you work on is very important because with out goals it's very easy to become unmotivated and just not care that much. when i really thought about this here's what i came up with.

the most important thing i believe i need to work on is losing my ego as far as poker goes. nobody cares that i'm good at poker. i don't get some special medal if everyone hears about my greatness and how i own people's souls online. honestly, staying under the radar is preferable. i would very much like to not be known as a reg. it was cool to be on the 2p2 list that one week, but when you think about it i'd much rather just not be listed and have people think i'm just some random gambler.

if i truly want to take on this game as my profession for any portion of my life i have to treat it like one. it's not just some holiday from reality where i get to play around with lots of money, it's what i do. don't get me wrong, i still want to enjoy what i do. i love poker and i don't see that changing for a long time, that's why i really want to make this work. isn't that what everyone wants, to do what they love? i just need to realize that i'm very lucky to have found something i'm so passionate about and that i'm actually good at and have a chance at pursuing for a career.

this somewhat leads into my next little thing which has to do with staying motivated. i set up a (rather small) prob bet with someone over at CP for winrate over the next 10k hands. i'll be playing these hands at 200NL which i think will help me to focus a lot on my game because i want to win that bet strictly from a completive stand point, i could care less about the 25 dollars. if i just run fairly standard, which i consdider ~1 BI / 1k hands, i would be rolled for 2/4 at the end of these 10k hands (i don't think i'd take a shot right away though).

my choice to jump up to 200NL was based on two things. the first reason is i like making more money, obviously. i know i'm +EV at 200NL, why not play it? my bankroll is plenty big enough, if i run bad i can just jump down to 100NL again and crush the hell out of it. as long as i don't start taking shots with like 15BI like i did between 25NL-50NL and 50NL-100NL i should be fine. from what i've read around different forums the jump from 100NL to 200NL is the most significant change as far as evolving play. the jump from 200NL-400NL is more aggressive, but really not THAT much different.

the second reason to this was that, even though i have nothing but time and don't need to rush things, this doesn't also mean that i need to hinder things simply for the sake of taking my time. yea, it doesn't matter if i'm not playing 5/10 for another year. i would be fine with that and the world would keep revolving. there's also nothing wrong with putting in a lot of hands, continuing to move up stakes rapidly, and be playing 1KNL in a few months as a regular. as long as i'm taking money out monthly to help pay for expenses and to remind me why i play poker and not just bloating my bankroll and i'm strict to staying with the 20 BI take a shot method and dropping down if i lose 5 BI nothing bad can happen.

that said, my 200NL shot went extremely well. i stayed up all night and played a 5 hr session logging just under 3k hands. this resulted in a +5BI session, or $1,006. this is officially my first 4 figure session (and day even!) online and it just seems like a nice little milestone for me. here's my results for the month of august so far:



i should get the 10k hands down from the prop bet fairly quickly. it'll probably take less than a week, but we'll see. i'll probably wait until after that to post again. hopefully nobody flips the doomswitch over at FT, i enjoy running like this.

i feel like i'm forgetting to write about something, but whatever. if it's that important i'll remember it and write about it in a few days after my 10k hands.

-geoff

can't sleep -- corey snores a lot

my sleep schedule is absolutely horrible. i went to the gym late sunday and then slept for like 8+ hours which was amazing, then went to wild rivers/pool all day monday. i came home and took a 4-5 hour nap after that, went and got food with jess and then haven't been able to fall asleep. im starting to yawn and get a little tired, but i have work in 4 hours so i don't really want to go to sleep and then have to wake up and get all ready.

the book Professional No Limit Hold 'Em is putting me on life tilt. i've been reading it the past few days and most of what it says has been decent, nothing i don't already implement in my game though.

the beginning preaches what they like to call the 'REM' process, which stands for Range Equity Maximize. it's as basic as it sounds, i suppose if you were relatively new to the game and didn't really know how to approach NLHE cash games it would be useful, but i've pretty well got the basics down on assigning hand ranges and maximizing my equity against those ranges. here comes the part that tilted me.

the next chapter began to talk about commitment issues and making sure you have a plan in a hand as far as whether you want to get committed or not. while this is excellent advice it as also something i'm very well aware of and implement as well. in this section they give an example which i find absolutely absurd; it goes as follows:

"you have KK in mp in a 10 handed 2/5 NL game. the game is playing fairly loose, especially preflop. effective stacks are 500. it's folded to you, what should you do?"

basic, i know. first they run through an example where you make a standard 3x raise to 15, get the BTN and BB to call. flop comes down T75r and you make a pot size cbet (which i don't agree with but whatever). the BTN floats you and the BB folds. the turn peels off a Q. now they pose the question what to do? they say that if you bet and get raised you have to fold because you shouldn't be going broke with just an overpair in this spot and if you c/c you're making a mistake because then you're just setting yourself up to call off a big bet on the river which isn't a good idea for some reason. so they pretty much conclude that by opening KK for a standard amount and then making a cbet at a fairly dry flop you creating a difficult spot at 100BB. basically this whole explanation tilts me because i really don't agree with any of it, BUT IT GETS WORSE!

they run through the hand again, asking what you could do differently to make the hand play easier for us. the magical solution is to not open 3x preflop, but to 6x so that the stack sizes postflop aren't so awkward when you flop an overpair (which is obviously the most likely case with KK). they don't say raise to 6x because the game is loose or because that's a standard raise in this game, they simply advocate it because it makes it easier to play KK as an overpair OOP. WTF!? so varying your bet sizing preflop based on the type/strength of your hand is now a winning strategy?

like i said, the REM thing is a good, basic way to get people to start thinking about hands the way they should as well as the commitment issues that people should be thinking about instead of blindly throwing money into the pot because "i have TPTK, my hand is good", but the KK example has to be the worst thing i have ever seen. i'll probably end up finishing the book just out of curiosity and i guess i would still recommend it to someone new because it does a nice job of explaining the way you should look at hands, but just don't take everything you read in poker books to be good advice.

as far as how i've been running, i've cooled off a bit but i'm certainly still doing fine. if i had to guess i'd say i've been running at something like 5-6 BB/100 instead of like 10-20 so it's still very good. oh yea, i made the list on 2p2 as well. of course the datamine was missing like 2k hands and had my profits 700 lower than they really are, but whatever. being +1700 is amazing though, i'd be happy with half of that. hell, i'd be happy if that was my monthly on top of rakeback.

FT is still down for updates, hence i'm not playing. i think i'm going to run and get a bagel because the one i had yesterday was freaking amazing, and by the time i get back games should be running and i'll have a session before work.

one last little thing, looking into possibly moving my bankroll around different places. i know UB is supposed to be fairly good and they have 30% rakeback, but the VIP system at stars is also very nice. if i just played half my time at stars i would be getting platinum level, and thus supernova for the yearly thing (although i wouldn't be able to get it this year obviously, it's much too late). all the packages they offer on stars are amazing compared to the store at FT. saving up for a trip to an EPT would be well worth it imo, so i'm seriously considering splitting up my roll when i move to 200NL and playing half the time on stars. i really don't think the game is any less soft over there.

anyways, enough nonsense. bagel time, i is a hungry bear. hopefully i have another +1700 week (or more!).

-geoff

august ownage ...

haha, well this didn't take long. i guess my account really liked the new 1000th digit :)



and here's the graph bitches:



god i love table tracker, i never sit a bad table now. hence i take all kinds of LAGfish spew-monkies who sit at the deep tables for the full 200BB stacks.

funny story, i went to morongo today and took such a sick beat. i just played 1/3 for fun and ended up playing 2 hands. first hand i played was after a few orbits. i was on the button and had two limpers in front of me who were very weak and always limped, i made it 19 OTB and both limpers call. flop is K92 R, they both c/f to my cbet of 55. oh, btw, starting stack is 100 here :) so i committed 78% of my stack on bluff, i am an all-star.

second hand there are a bunch of limps, i complete the sb with A9s and BB checks. flop is AA9. checks to UTG+1 limper who bets 6, MP makes it 15, i flat the 15 with 105 behind. UTG+1 calls. turn is a J. i check, UTG+1 checks, MP tries to look weak and bets 20. at this point i know he has an ace and i go ahead and shove for my last 105, UTG+1 folds and MP snaps with AJ.

for some reason i'm feeling really emo right now and i don't know why. if i bring up wanting to talk about jess to anybody tell me no, i guarantee you don't want to hear it. idk why i'm being like this and i don't like it one bit, i'm sure i'll snap out of it.

i'm going to go fall asleep to harry potter 3 now like i did the other day. maybe i'll actually finish watching it tomorrow.

-geoff

$4,003.15 for a moment

i just hit 4k ... wheeee. always like making that big number change, but it didn't stay for long. i had told myself 4k was my goal to hit by august (and i kind of did it, only 90 minutes off) and then i would withdrawal 1k for the month ($1003.15 to be exact, i wanted my account to be a round 3k. i know i'm weird). i plan to use this money as follows:

600 for credit card -- (i'm late one payment for like a week and the bank has been calling me non-stop, i feel like ian.) btw, little bit of a tangent, but it applies. since i'm planning on withdrawing money from poker to pay for bills, i'm just going to start paying for my gas on my credit card and then pay 600/mo towards credit. this just makes gas easier and that way i take care of gas/cc debt with one stone.

200 for insurance -- i might as well just get it out of the way.

75ish for javier's -- yes, we're finally going. and we will not end up in dana point, we will not end up at another javier's, we are going to the javier's in laguna beach that i looked up on mapquest and then didn't exist. i'm finding that damn building and eating a meal there with that girl, period.

so i guess that leaves 125 to do with whatever, savings i suppose. yea, that sounds good. 125 goes into savings.

here's a graph of how the last few days have gone, i had a pretty good sized downswing but then bounced back from it the next day. it felt nice to be able to shake that off and just come back that much more motivated instead of just being in a losing mood and continuing to play like shit.



other than that nothing exciting. plan to play a lot this month, put in 45-50k hands hopefully and make some good money. if everything goes according to plan my roll should be close to 6-7k by september at the least.

if i play a lot that should in turn mean i have more regular updates on here about how i've been doing, so let's hope that's true. really going to try and kick it into gear for the rest of the week and see if i can get on the 2+2 100NL weekly list ... i should have been on it last week i have no idea how i didn't. i wouldn't even have been close to the bottom, i was top20 i believe. i guess he doesn't datamine much in the middle of the night for PST. anyways, that's about it. post back here later this week.

-geoff