Full Speed Ahead

A lot of shit happened since I've last posted, I wanna play poker so I'll give you the abridged version:

1. I've been able to pump out $500+ checks every 10 days for the past 3 months (missed one withdrawal due to a 2 week dry run). But I'm basically "in the cycle" so a check hits my door every 10 days or so.

2. I've gotten over my fear of cash games. I'm far from expert/pro level cash game play but I can definitely say I understand them now. I'm up close to $1.5k from my past 10 AC trips (1/2 NL $300 Max Buy-In)

3. I quit my job. Basically I've got only 2.5 months left on my lease at this apartment. In order to stay I need to renew my lease for another year. The fact that I'm getting bored of work and also want to live closer to my family/friends gives me little reason to renew the lease and stick around at that retarded-ass desk job. I quit so soon because I've got enough money now to cover all my living expenses for a solid 3 months (thanks poker).

Ok so, looking forward

Immediate Action Items
These are my immediate, reachable goals that I've set for myself. The ultimate goal is MUCH larger but this is my current checklist

1. $500+ every 10 days is nice, but I need more. First and most important goal is to make $650 a week. I picked $650 a week is because that's about how much I was netting at my day job ($47K/year). I will primarily do this by 6 tabling $8 and $16 SNGs (my bread and butter) for 5-8 hours a night.

2. Dedicate 3-5hrs a day to my other projects. Ultimately, I do not want poker to be my primary source of income. My other projects will be my source of income wealth. Since this is my poker blog, I won't get into this right now.

3. Consistently beat $1/$2 NL live in AC. I started playing poker online, primarily play online and consistently beat online so therefore I'm an online player. I need this kind of confidence at live games. This goal is not as immediate as the first 2 goals and I will only begin to focus on it once I hit a consistent $650 a week online for 3 weeks straight.

4. Stay healthy. Cut down on fast food and junk food. Stretch, jog for 45 min and play 1 hour of tennis daily. Not only do I need to get back in shape, but I need the discipline.

4. Blog at least 2 times a week. This has many benefits.

OK sick of typing, gonna play. Peace.

- Mori

The most important Poker advice you'll ever read

Excerpt from David Sklanky's "The Theory of Poker"

In the long run a poker player's overall win is the sum of his

mathematical expectations in individual situations. The more

plays you make with a positive expectation, the bigger winner you

stand to be. The more plays you make with a negative

expectation, the bigger loser you stand to be. Therefore, you

should almost always try to make the play that will maximize

your positive expectation or minimize your negative expectation

in order to maximize your hourly rate.

Once you have decided what your hourly rate is, you should

realize that what you are doing is earning. You are no longer

gambling in the traditional sense. You should no longer be

anxious to have a good day or upset when you have a bad day. If

you play regularly, you should simply feel that it is better to be

playing poker making $20 an hour, able to come and go as you

please, than to be working an eight-hour shift making $ 15 an hour.

To think of poker as something glamorous is very bad. You must

think that you are just working as a poker player and that you are

not particularly anxious about making a big score. If it comes, it

comes. Conversely, you won't be so upset if you have a big loss.

If one comes, it comes. You are just playing for a certain hourly

rate.

If you have estimated your hourly rate correctly, your

eventual winnings will approximate your projected hourly rate

multiplied by the total hours played. Your edge comes not from

holding better cards, but from play in situations where your

opponents would play incorrectly if they had your hand and you

had theirs. The total amount of money they cost themselves in

incorrect play, assuming you play perfectly, minus the rake, is the

amount of money you will win. Your opponents' various mistakes

per hour will cost them various amounts of money. If the hands

were reversed, you wouldn't make these mistakes, and this

difference is your hourly rate. That's all there is to it. If they play

a hand against you differently from the way you would play it five

times an hour, and if it's a $2 mistake on average, that's a $10-

an-hour gain for you.

To assume you play perfectly is, of course, a big assumption.

Few if any of us play perfectly all of the time, but that is what we

strive for. Furthermore, it is important to realize that there is not

one particular correct way to play a poker hand as there is in most

bridge hands. On the contrary, you must adjust to your opponents

and mix up your play, even against the same opponents.

Furthermore, it is sometimes correct to play incorrectly! You

may, for example, purposely make an inferior play to gain in a

future hand or future round of betting. You also may play less

than optimally against weak opponents who have only a limited

amount to lose or when you yourself are on a short bankroll. In

these cases it is not correct to push small edges. You should not

put in the maximum raises as a small favorite. You should fold

hands that are marginally worth calling. You have reduced your

hourly rate but have ensured yourself a win. Why give weaker

players any chance to get lucky and quit big winners or get lucky

and bust you if you are on a short bankroll? You'll still get the

money playing less than optimally. It will just take a few more

hours.

You should try to assess most poker games in terms of your

expected hourly rate by noticing what mistakes your opponents

are making and how much these mistakes are costing them. Don't

sit in a game with an insufficient hourly rate projection unless you

think the game will become better — either because you expect

some weaker players to arrive soon or because some good players

in the game have a tendency to start playing badly when they are

losing. If these good players jump off winners, you should quit if

you can. However, it is sometimes good to continue in a game

with a low hourly rate projection for political reasons — you do

not want to get a reputation for gambling only when you have

much the best of it.

$1,210.00

The $8.00 mentioned at the end of the previous post turned into $22, which I used to enter a $10.00 MTT tournamanent. After 5 long hours I came out 2nd for $1,210.

Since then I've found that I can steadily make money 3 Tabling $16.60 SNGs. I think if I I can build my multi-tabling skills, I can steadily increase my bank roll while absorbing as much information as possible. This method has quite a few benefits:

1. Low risk with decent odds.
2. The plethora of donks makes SNGs marginally profitable even for the average player.
3. The consistency will allow me to easily measure my progress
4. More hands, more situations, more knowledge
5. Builds dicipline (very important)

Will update later, gotta play poker.

- Mori

$2.20

The amount of money I left in my bodog account after cashing out today. Why $2.20?

FYI: I just put the $2.20 into a $2.00 + .20 SNG and will play as I write.

I started playing poker (bodog and fulltilt) a few months ago and one of the things I learned fairly quickly was that depositing can become a very bad habit, fast. In the beginning I payed my learning tax by way of and .10/.25 ring games and $2-$10 SNGs, I would deposit on average $75 and it would either be gone that same weekend or if I got lucky it would put me through another week or two (you know how it goes). And of course, the moment I went broke I would reload.

This went on for about 2 months, along with reading the limit and no-limit section of Doyle Brunson's Super System every night before sleeping. Then about 3 weeks after the usual ups and downs of online cash games I was down to a measly $3. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I was low on cash that week because of some car repairs and wouldn't be able to reload until next pay day. Then it hit me, if I lose this $3 I won't be able to play poker for another 10 days!

So I stuck that $3 into a $2.00 + .20 SNG table and shut off the tv (I've always played on my laptop while watching TV). I hit 1st place and it paid me out $10. Played another SNG for $4 and hit 1st place again. I played another 4 or 5 SNGs that saturday and at the end of the night my $3 had turned into $65! I thought about it that night and realized there were three major factors to my success that day:

1. No TV - I picked up on players betting habits and hole cards. I knew the guy raising on the button wasn't just trying to steal the blinds because he hadn't played a hand in 20 minutes.
2. My attitude went from "I know I'm beat but it's ok if I hero call this guy's all-in on the river because I can just reload if he's got the nuts" to "I know I'm beat and I will not throw away my money."
3. No Cash Games - While I feel 1 and 2 can work for everyone; this one is moreso for me. I'm quitting NL cash games for good. I've found that while I'm a decent tournement player, I can't play cash games for shit. Maybe when I hit a big payout I'll consider playing live limit cash games (I'm only an hour from AC) , but for now cash games and I are going our seperate ways.

And by following the above 3 rules, my $3 blossomed into over $200 and T$110 (bodog tournment $) in only 2 weeks.

That was about a week ago. As of this morning I was left with $100 (Played a few large buy in MTTs, no luck) and I decided to withdraw all but $2.20. Just enough for the SNG mentioned in the FYI above. I am very proud to say in the past three weeks I've had a of ton fun, learned a lot and have not deposited even once. I 'm going to try to do it all over again, this time I want to win the large buy-in tourney's once I build back up.

Oh yeah btw, that $2.20 is now $8 =D

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