So I haven’t blogged in forever and I have a long one coming up (may split into multiple parts) on how my life has gone the last year and a half. I promise that will come out in the not too distant future just been swamped with school lately. But I was looking through my old files and found this. I’m pretty sure I wrote it in an airport somewhere.

A Defense of Gambling
I feel that among poker players, there is a culture of being obsessed with minimizing variance and with legal debates hinging so much on the definition of gambling, people are always super quick to point out that poker when played well against players worse than you is not gambling. I think gambling in general gets a bad rap and is not only important for poker players to embrace but also can be a net positive overall as long as it is done in moderation and with money one can afford to lose.

I just set out a pretty giant task for myself so I’m going to start with the easiest part. Poker at its purest form is gambling. People who currently make a living playing poker could not do so if there were not gambling involved. If the better player won every hand you would be hard-pressed to find a fish who would ever enjoy the game of poker. No one bad at chess is challenging chess grandmasters to chess matches for money. Some might pay money just to play someone in chess, but that’s not the same at all. If I played a chess grandmaster I would literally have a 0% chance to win. Ok maybe I have the chance that he goes mentally insane during the match and forgets how to play chess, but realistically I will not win. Now put the same chess grandmaster who has not played a single hand of poker and put him in a game against say Phil Ivey. He is going to win some percentage of the time. And that’s part of the appeal. If he was going to lose 100% of the time there would be little fun in playing the game. But the idea that if you have some disposable money you can have a reasonable chance to beat someone thought to be the best player in the world in the short term excites a lot of people. Continue reading →

One issue I’ve faced in poker over the years is putting in the type of volume I deem adequate.  When I worked part-time at CardRunners, I put in lower volume due to less hours solely dedicated toward poker.  I only play HU cash and generally logged about 20k hands while I did my gig at CR.  I haven’t worked there in over a year, yet I still haven’t fully or consistently corrected the volume issue.  But I have a plan.

It didn’t take long at all for PokerTableRatings (PTR) to comply and remove all PokerStars profiles from their site. Earlier this week it was announced that the world’s largest poker site, PokerStars, would be taking legal action against PTR for breaching their terms of service. The two sites have conflicting stories about how this all came about. PTR insists they have been trying to communicate with PokerStars for months, while Stars says that PTR ahs ignored several requests in the past to cease and desist.

Extract from press release by PTR. Read the full release here.

Recent contact by Stars has led to the removal of this network’s player profiles from PTR. The current management team of PTR has been in place for just under a year and since day 1 we have been exploring ways to compromise with brands in order to create positive relationships for the betterment of the community. Through these valued partnerships we have created innovative promotions and features for our users and have many more in development. Unfortunately we have been unable to gain communication with Stars during this time and it has come to a hostile dissolution of service for this brand. They have taken formal action against us and we will comply with their demands and have the brand removed from the site.

What They Tweeted

adam johnson ‏ @BrahsWorld84
@KevinKCFD not 2 surprised, PTR killed HU games & outs fish, making them realize they R fish.

Vincent Wille ‏ @vinivici9586
good news. pokerstars issues cease and desist letter to PTR:http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/pokerstars-issues-cease-desist-letters-ptr-1194294/ maybe @Joeingram1 will never pass me now

bigacsiga ‏ @bigacsiga84
@PokerStars thanks for dealing with PTR. voicing my oppinion and really like this new situation of it gone #thanks #goodforthegames

Justin Bonomo ‏ @JustinBonomo
Early reports indicate PokerStars has defeated PTR!

Andrew Ferguson ‏ @TheEurekaKid
So @PokerStars has defeated PTR? Still waiting for Lee Jones to appear on an aircraft carrier in front of ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner

Mazin Khoury ‏ @MSauce_
Nice to see @PokerStars finally stepping up on the PTR issue. Hopefully this law suit goes somewhere.

What Is It?
Zoom Poker is the new fast paced poker game released by PokerStars in late March 2012. As soon as a player folds their hand, they are taken to a completely new table and dealt another hand immediately. Players can use the fast fold button to fold out of turn, which allows for even more hands per hour.

What games and stakes?
Currently Zoom Poker is only offered for cash games, from 1c/2c to $2.5/$5 at no limit hold ‘em and upto $0.50/$1 at PLO.

How does strategy change?
Less Meta-game
There is less meta-game to consider when playing Zoom than there is in regular games. Your table is new every hand and while you may develop some history with particular opponents over time it will take a lot longer than usual, particularly at lower stakes where the player pool is larger. Things like mucking a marginal hand because you’vee been quite active in recent orbits or making a call because you think a guy is on tilt because you just saw him lose a stack come up less often.

Games Play Tighter
It comes as little surprise that when people are given the option to fast fold marginal/junky hands and go immediately to another hand/table they end up playing a bit tighter. Adjust accordingly!

Games Play Deeper
Because one tabling Zoom gives you so many extra hands per hour than a regular table, players get deeper a lot earlier in their sessions playing Zoom. That results in the games playing a little bit deeper than normal. Continue reading →

• Grind 100nl rest of month
• No looking at results until until end of month (get rid for esults/EV columns in HEM and use AHK to block cashier on Stars)
• Listen to Mental game podcasts
• Buy/read Mental Game book
• Write a short blog about confidence
• Develop some focus excercises
• Break zoom tables every two hours
• Review marked hands from previous session before resuming from break
• Review a regular per day
• Two sweats/reviews with LifeFish guys
• Review a hand (my own or from forum) everyday with a LifeFish
• Watch a few Ultimate Grinders free videos and decide if I want a membership
• Review these goals on May 1st and post another goals blog

I arrived in Kansas City just over a week ago and am settling in nicely.  Already digging it here more than I ever did before and definitely more than Vegas, as well.  Many things have been going on, including the adjustment to life in the “real” (non-poker) world.

I’m writing this blog from Newmanmi’s kitchen table after a week of hanging out with him, pwnchizzle and RaiderDuck. It’s been fun as always, but at the same time a sad reminder that we were all holidaying in tropical North Queensland this time a year ago without a care in the world. So much has changed in our worlds has changed since April 15th, 2011. Pwnchizzle is only chilling with us when he’s not busy saving lives as a doctor and poker is much less a topic of conversation.

Pwnchizzle had a couple of days off and we headed on a road trip North to a small fishing town called Cervantes. I went on monkey tilt because the local tavern couldn’t show me the Lions game live on TV and we had to wait for two hour delayed broadcast and then at 3 quarter time the entire town was blacked out. The next day with few less drinks in me a I realised I had a season pass on my phone to watch every game live. Thankfully, we were getting thrashed and it didn’t matter, but it soured the first night a little.

The next day was much more enjoyable though as we visited the Pinnacles (limestone formations sticking out of the ground). Newman’s lowered car struggled to tour as round the narrow and rocky dirt track through the

National Park, but got through unscathed. I was kind of hoping I’d get see him in rage mode having to change one of his brand new tyres (after he blew one of hisod one’s in the boiling heat on middle of highway last time we were on a road trip).

The weather has been great the whole trip and we’ve been spending a lot of time by the beach and swimming pool. RaiderDuck has been to pole dancing class twice to keep up his skills, as well as an amateur pole dancing show with some randoms he met on Facebook. I’m averaging about 15 games of pool a day, and still enraged by the Newman house rule that you must nominate a pocket on the 8-ball and that pocket is yours and yours only for the rest of game, results in some ridiculous end game play. Other than that, we’ve just been waching/betting sports, playing basketball and having a few drinks. Good times.

There may or may not be a video blog published at some point later in the trip (it’s been too long!). For now, enjoy this…

I’ve started writing this post a bunch of times, not knowing really how to put it all down.  (He empezado a escribir este post un montón de veces, sin saber realmente cómo poner todo abajo.)  So I’ll just come right out with it, then, and be direct.  I have lost my passion for pursuing poker as my profession. Adorned & returning career aspirations are about!

A New Direction

Before online poker stole all my attention and wonderment, I was a biology/pre-medicine major at Northwest Missouri State University.  The end game was to work in the radiology field, and that’s exactly where I’m returning!  Seeing what life throws at me between now the foreseeable future will determine if medical school is part of that plan.  Obviously, there are numerous variables that can impact it either positively or negatively.  My first goal will be to become a radiologic technologist and move forward from there.  And although I’ve been separated from the healthcare field for the past several years, so many things factored into this decision.  And it was a very exhilarating, organic process.

First, finding raw foods and putting many hours of study into that really spurred me along.  The mentors I look up to inspire me so much; I really loved that feeling.  (I can’t imagine how gratifying it is for them.)  But helping others is just that, freakishly soul-filling and addicting.  Good karma for the win! Feed me! Continue reading →

Sorry for the lack of blogging recently.  I was out of town for about two weeks to start the year, and there have been 3 or so house guests here at Carnegie House, too.  But I thought I’d put up a quick update on how my year is going thus far.

Poker…

Poker has been going really well so far in 2012.  (Although it’s been a tough last couple of days…ha ha.) Prior to Black Friday, I was sitting up to $2/$4 HU, although game-selecting hardcore as those were new stakes for me.  Things are a bit different now, so I play a little lower, but I feel my game advancing quickly…more than pre-Black Friday, in fact.  (I don’t really know why, but it’s strikingly evident.)  Let’s hope this new bill passes before I get my Merge money seized too.  Ha!  Anyway, good stuff on the poker front.  More updates to follow, of course.  As for coaching, for those of you who’ve contacted me about my reduced coaching rates, I’ll be starting to contact you guys within the next week or so.  If I don’t, please just email me.

Health…

My one big resolution was to start cutting out all meat except bird and fish products but try to eat as much raw food as possible.  There’s been 45 days so far this year, and I’ve cheated on 11 of them.  I don’t know if you consider that good or bad, but it’s pretty good for me.  Plus, I’m eating extremely healthily just in general.  Once I can finally ditch the beef, pork, etc. with no cheating, I’ll start eliminating the rest of the meat products and dairy.  It’s quite a process when you’re addicted to degen’ eating, though.  Still, I’m down a ton of weight from when I started this healthy transformation back in October.  Just got to keep raising the bar to get to the ultimate goal of a complete raw vegan lifestyle.

Valentine’s Day…

Lastly, I want to wish all the females out there a very happy Valentine’s Day today/yesterday, depending on your time zone.  My girlfriend is about 1,400 miles away working a 12-hour shift at a hospital, so my Valentine’s Day evening is going to consist of getting in the spa, which is heating now, and doing some relaxing and meditating out there.  Tranquility for the win.

Okay, that’s it for today.  Blogs to come in the near future will include more from The Unfiltered Truth About Men series, poker updates, progress on my health, and other stuff I find blog-worthy.  Hope everyone’s crushing at the tables and enjoying the new year!  Cheers, y’all.

I wanted to take just a couple minutes to blog my opinions about Tim Tebow, his praying, & America’s reaction to the praying.

The person…

I don’t know much about him, honestly, but he seems like a super-nice dude.  As a big football fan, he’s great for the game.  He’s a winner and works extremely hard.  This is what I know.  Because he’s not my personal friend, all that matters to me is how he approaches football.  If I had children, I’d have a vested interest in what kind of role model he is.  Even though I’m not a Christian, nor religious at all, allowing my children to see him pray to Jesus on the football field would still be setting a solid, positive spiritual example, in my opinion.  Period.

The praying…

To start, who cares?  This is such a non-issue.  Why is literally anyone upset about what this guy does in his own personal space?  Unless he’s hurting or endangering others somehow, leave the dude alone. Religion is each person’s individual right.  If he’s uber-religious and enters into some meditative, peaceful place when he’s praying, more power to him.  How does this upset so many?  I’ll never get it.

America’s negative reaction…

I’ve pretty much stated how I feel about this already.  Those who are extremely opposed to this, what’s your basis?  Maybe I’m missing something.  But why does this irk you so very much?  Seems like a completely reasonable thing to do if he so desires.

America’s positive reaction…

Hearing the extremely religious people defend Tebow’s praying sort of makes my ears bleed, but that’s just me.  The end result of their argument, no matter how hilariously they arrived there, is correct.  God does not help Tim Tebow win football games.  He doesn’t help him complete passes.  So on & so forth.  I think most of these Christians know this.  Hopefully, he’s praying for strength and/or thanking God for the opportunity to play professional football.  Sounds pretty humble to me, a very good quality in this day and age…especially for professional athletes.  Do I think he’s talking to Jesus Christ?  Of course not. But damn, that doesn’t make it wrong in any way.  Any disagreement I have with the mega-religious people is not aimed at their opinion of this topic, it’s usually the elitist demeanor in which they convey their message.  (But I’ve come to expect this from most Christians, so no big deal.)

All in all, Tebow appears to be a very good person and an exceptional football player.  The way I look at it, praying is his way of meditation, which as I said before, is just a vessel to a very peaceful & calm place.  And if I had to go up against all those insanely large NFL defenses, you’d better believe I’d be meditating my ass off too.  Cheers.