January Results

Profit: +$3262
Rakeback: +418
Games: 1204
Hours: 106

Hourly: 34.72 / hr
Per Game: 3.06 / game

Including the results of propbets, I broke 4K this month. Had no real expectations this month, since a lot of it would be learning / adjusting to a new game. The first half of this month, I spent as much time studying / reviewing as I did playing. The second half was just trying to get as many focused games in as possible.

I feel fairly comfortable with the 180 format now, and with the resulting swings in $12 / 180s. +$1500 or -$500 are possible in any given session. For a while there, I thought I could pull off a 6K+ month, but the poker gods had other ideas. The past week has been slightly losing to breakeven. Not fun, but inevitable. Perhaps I've gotten too cocky, gotten too scared, gotten too unfocused, regs are adjusting, or just natural variance. The only solution is to act on these things in my control. Nose to the grindstone, ride out the storm.

One last life leak that I gotta correct in my development is my stubbornness, and ego. So hard to change or let go of ways that have had some level of success. Reminded me of this zen story:

A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Prop Bets

As of Jan. 23rd 2 PM EST, I have $20,038 in lifetime SNG profits. Not great, not bad, but enough to win me the 20K lifetime earnings prop bet with wbmustang. We made the bet back in fall '09 when we were both sitting on 15K earnings. It was a great idea by him to push the both of us forward. Almost thought the bet was over in December when he went on a 5K upswing, but then followed it with a 3K downswing. Ughh gross, but I know wbmustang's a winning player and will play through it.

Also started another small prop bet with chip210. The bet is $100 to whoever can win 3 $12 180-mans in a single 24-hour period. I've gotten close with 2 1sts and a 3rd, while has has had 2 1sts and a 2nd. Should be a good challenge since he's pretty damn good, and I'm pretty damn lucky. When I first met him, he was a scared little bitch that would only play aces. But now, he's making moves like a cagey veteran.

GL everyone!

Rainman on Mediocre Poker

Interview with Nick Rainey:

Part 1 Here:

Part 2 Here:

Pretty good interview overall. My favorite part of this interview:

Interviewer: "And I know you talk about the secret. What the F@** is the secret?"
Nick: "What's the secret to life?"
Interviewer: "I dunno"
Nick: "Hard work, right?"

I definitely know that when I have children, I will teach them to love knowledge and love hard work. Will be handing them keys to the kingdom.

I'd like to end on one video clip that I've really enjoyed. I think Nick would approve.

New Daily Record

Profit: +$818
Rakeback: +11
Games: 84
Hours: 7

Hourly: 118.43/ hr
Per Game: 9.87 / game

Not too shabby for a miserably cold Saturday. 180-mans are predictably swingy but fairly profitable. Special thanks to my coaches for believing in me and opening my mind up, and my sparring partner for helping me figure out why I do the things I do.

Holidays and New Beginnings

Warning: long post, lots to cover. First the customary monthly summary:

Profit: +$1488
Rakeback: +175
Games: 2056
Hours: 107

Hourly: 15.54/ hr
Per Game: 0.81 / game

Was about breakeven for the first half at the $12 & $27 45-mans before reverting back to my comfort zone. The last few months, I've been plugging volume without progressing skill-wise. Definitely working on addressing that. I'm making an effort to run at least a few games through SNGWiz after every session. I'm about 90% with their actions, although we do have philosophical differences. My main thing has been always to avoid confrontations, whereas they advocate taking every conceivable edge.

Santa was also nice enough to get me this Bing Blang Blaow shirt, which includes a fitty on the titty design.


Biggest news of the month was that I became a coached and staked player with Nick Rainey. You can listen to his interview here. I've been learning/transitioning to the 180-mans. Took me about 100-200 games to get the feel for where the pivot points are, etc. The variance is insane as expected, since you only get a handful or so deep runs in a given session. But I honestly feel the bubble and FT are where my biggest edge as a player are. $2 games are full of droolers and the $12 are a decent challenge. I was able to take down my 1st $12 win tonight, so that was nice.

Watched the Leatherass interview at MediocrePoker. Definitely inspiring so I instantly bought his book and read it in two days. Highly recommended.


The man is truly inspiring. Incredible work ethic and discipline. He 20-tables 6-max $5/10 cash games for a living, which requires incredible amounts of focus and thought. Prob banked $1M+ last year, without the glory of winning $500K pots. The book is 1/4 strat, and 3/4 poker optimization. Things such as diet, managing tilt,
and adjusting relationships to deal with a poker professional lifestyle. Has motivated me to at least eat better and exercise more, to get some oxygen to this aging brain.

2010 Goals:
Made 5K in 2008. Made about 20K in 2009. Started out 2008 4-tabling, 2009 12-tabling, now I'm up to 18. Definitely have a much better grasp on stack-size shoving and calling ranges and FT dynamics. Let's see if we can at least double the profit this year.
If $12 180s become my regular game and I can achieve 25% ROI and 15 go off / hour, then I could settle on a $45 hourly. If I can average 100 hours / month like I have been, 4.5K / month X 12 = 54K for the year. I think that's a realistic goal, but we'll see.
I think I can also get SuperNova this year. Was about halfway there last year. At the very least, it's a nice way to get me to push volume. www.fpppro.com has a nice pace calculator.

20K Lifetime Profit Prop Bet Update:
vertek: 17.8K
wbmustang: 16.5K
I was able to eke out a small lead on him when he was out over winter break. If he hits another heater, it's game over.

One last semi-poker related note. Almost finished reading "The Alchemist".

Highly recommended as well. One of the biggest themes in the book is this quote:

"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."