Like this:

Ah…poker is fun again! Haha.

So, I haven’t blogged in awhile. Poker for me hasn’t been too enjoyable since the last time I blogged, but definitely not unprofitable. For those who don’t know, after I restarted a roll on stars and crushed 10nl-50nl I ran into a sick breakeven stretch while running waaaay below EV that tilted me to no end. This caused my breakeven stretch to turn into a huge downswing and almost destroyed any enjoyment and money I had made from poker. At this point my entire net worth was only a couple hundred dollars, I had not paid rent for 2 months, and I was in debt. I was no longer confident and sure that I was a winning player. I cursed my luck. I was feeling extremely depressed and could not gotten through it without my always positive, encouraging, and motivating zibunny.

I took a break from poker for a few days to find a stake because I was unwilling to place my entire net worth (and more) on pstars. This worked out for me when I luckily binked a stake on 2p2. I received about 1k to play 50nl (20bi’s) and from the first session, things were looking better. I immediately went on an upswing and destroyed 50nl. As soon as my BR reached 2k I moved up to 100nl, ran hot, and made over 2k. It was really heartbreaking when I was forced to part with half of my hard earned winnings, but then again I had taken no risk. At this point I can honestly say that my game had not improved too much since my earlier disaster at 50nl and was still unconfident in my skills. I was worried that variance was deciding whether or not I won at this game. If that was the case, I could never truly call myself a pro, and more importantly a winning player. I was playing like a robot and played the same against almost every opponent. A recipe for disaster.

I count myself very fortunate for being allowed to run well and make some money because it was at this point that I feel my game started to take off a bit. I began to play less poker and read/chat more about poker theory and certain hands. My staker set me up with a coach on 2p2 who had receieved many positive reviews (and sounds like your standard 2p2 arrogant douche that tilted me to no end but let’s not get into that). Everything from the threads and articles I was reading to the coaching I was receiving helped improve my thought processes during every decision. Everything at the tables felt better and I felt I had a nice edge over my opponents.

I amazingly finished 4th out of 1608 players in the nightly 70k on stars and took down a 5.6k prize. I still think it’s funny how depressed I felt after winning 5.6k because I got banged out in 4th instead of 1st. This win opened up a lot of doors for me and I feel so incredibly fortunate I was able to luckbox my way into a 4th place finish. I was able to pay off my rent, pay off some debt, buy car insurance, replace my busto computer with a nice new laptop+speakers, and spend without having to worry so much about how much I was spending. Life without all the financial burden I was feeling felt amazing. At this point I had split profits with my staker and started playing again with only his money. I went on an immediate downswing and fistpumped at the fact that I had just split profits and didn’t lose any more of my hard earned profit (lol @ my staker, who is also a douche, but a nice enough douche to stake me). I had enough money to start playing again on my own and I couldn’t wait until the stake ended.

Thanks to my donkament ‘win’, I had a nice enough roll to start playing some 1/2 live home games. I managed to crush these every night I went except for the last night when i shipped 600…lol. I ended up somewhere in the ballpark of 1.5k in the span of 2 weeks and could easily afford my own BR on pstars.

Due to still being on the stake at the time and winning so much live, I didn’t play much online because I had no motivation to.  My girlfriend Michelle also left for Korea for a month at this time so I was also a little depressed. I didn’t feel like staying home by myself and grinding out money for my staker. This changed after Tom returned from Vegas and the WSOP. I began spending days at a time at Tom’s and he managed to reinfect me with his addiction to all things poker. I was on a new poker high and it felt good! During my time at his house, I talked a lot of poker with him and watched him crush 600nl.  Just being around Tom, listening/watching him talk/crush poker seemed to help my game many times over. I credit Tom’s friendly and insightly coaching to be the main source of my improvement. His skill+discipline during his sessions is amazing and I was constantly feeding off of it and trying to make as much of it my own as I could. I was eager and ready to play online again after Tom invited me over again one night. I decided I wanted to play 100nl with my own money asap and requested to be released from the stake. I got off the stake that night, and at Tom’s I had my first winning session with my own money online for over a month. Poker was fun, and easy! 100nl feels like cake right now and the players are so easy to play against. I can see myself moving up to 200nl by the end of summer and definitely meeting the monetary goal of 10k in profit I made in the beginning of the year. Things seem to be turning around, and I’m definitely feeling a lot better and less stressed. I know I haven’t played too many hands yet, but just from what I have played so far I have a better feel for my opponents and I seem to be able to exploit them well without fear. I am very glad my confidence has returned.

After seeing how staking can be profitable, I decided to stake 2 young friends of mine who are still in HS: Simon and Xin (lol who happens to have the exact same name as Tom, wtd). They’re both playing 10nl with 20 bi’s each and I hope they do well! Making money without having to do anything and at the same time helping them with their game is fun. I will be working them hard and hopefully moving them up in limits to 25nl asap so they can start playing for a little more.

Sigh, the only thing still keeping me a little down is the fact that my amazing girlfriend Michee is still in Korea! I miss her so much and it pains me that I won’t be seeing her for another few weeks. I will be working hard and spending the gakloads of freetime I have now wisely!

So this summer has been a HUGE turnaround for me in many ways. I hope everyone else is enjoying their summer as much as I am!

Cheers

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