Up to Black Friday I was playing almost exclusively rush on FTP. However since BF the rush games died a little and decided to mix in some 6 max sessions. I loved it, after almost a year of rush playing 6 max felt like playing real poker again - where you can use recent history, table dynamic and reads. In June I was actually a small loser at rush but had my best month ever in cash playing mainly 2/4 but also few 3/6 and even 5/10.

Obviously, by the end of June I suffered a huge bad beat (like everyone else on FTP) and wasn't smart enough to withdraw anything from my huge BR.

I was offered a staking deal pretty quickly but thought I should be able to built back on my own. How wrong I was.

I deposited $2500 on PS and start a big rollercoaster. I played with a very aggressive BR management (often less then 20BI) managed to built it to over $4k 3 times but everytime managed to drop down to less then $1k.

After putting so many hands in the micros I actually think those limit should be easily beaten, but I couldn't bring my self to play the style that is right for those levels. Constantly tried to make people fold the top of their range while they continue to call with the BTM of it, and I bluffed catch way to often in big pots giving my opponent too much credit for being able to pull big bluffs when my range seemed capped.

I played 185k hands of NL and finished -$3800 running $3.5k under EV. So for the first time since going pro I busted my online BR. Just shows you the importance of playing within your BR, regardless of how big you THINK your edge is.

Beginning of October I finally accepted a staking deal, started at 1/2 and now am playing back 2/4 and am very pleased with the way I play. There is a future for me in this business after all.

Hopefully the FTP mess will be cleared soon and life will really be good again.

I'm now back to accepting students at NL 6max across all levels up to 1/2

Good luck to us all.

I had big plans for a blog entry at the end of June. Its been a year since I started playing rush (have 1m hands at 2/4 and 1/2) and have been slowly going back to the 6max games these last 3 month so I wanted to talk about the difference between the games and why I think its harder to crush rush.

Also wanted to talk about how I finally feel like I made it, if I managed to keep a 3k average FTP points/day I guesstimated a very nice income from RB and bonuses.

And I wanted to talk about how June was my best cash month to date, even though I lost at rush, I managed to crush 2/4 and 3/6 and even my shut at 5/10 went good this time.

However Wednesday came by and all my plans and warm feelings dissolved into thin air. Being bad with money management I have waaaay too much of my earthly $ locked to FTP (though I have a big withdrawal pending).

So what now? I can panic, but what good will that do? I took yesterday off to gather my thought, and decided there is nothing for me to do but move forward. This morning I deposited $2k into PS and am in the process of building my BR again. I might deposit another $2k tomorrow (especially considering I missed the redeposit bonus) but that's will be all that I can afford right now. And even that is stretching it a bit.

So am going to challenge my self into turning those $2k (or $4k) into $20k. Will keep a weekly progress if anyone is interested.

Today I started by opening a ton of $50nl 6max tables, managed to play pretty bad and dropped about 6BI. Seems like I will need to readjust to the micros. Then I decided to drop tables and up the limits. Played 2 session 6X$100NL and it went much better. Almost back to even.

I forgot how weak some of the low levels reg can be. People either call down too lite or do not vbet lite at all.

I really hope this FTP mess will clean up one way or another that will allow all of us to get our money back. I will probably be back playing there if it will switch ownership, not sure how I will react if they will simply change locations.

Good luck to us all.

From April 08 till today...

So there I was finding my self with a BR bigger then my skill sitting in games I shouldn't be sitting at. Luckily, I had some saving and after few big withdraws I didn't need to touch my poker BR at all. What allowed my BR to continue to grow while playing a lot of break even poker (and earning a decent RB).

Even though I had decent understanding of the game, I gave my opponent way to much credit for being able to pull moves and could never really fold big hands when it was obvious I was beat. I also never really managed to find the time to learn how play straight forward ABC poker.

I took a couple of coaches but both were a miss, until the end of October when I hired Nutedawg. Believe me it was hard to part from $400/hour but the first session with him really changed the way I think about poker for ever.

The following month I made my first 5 figures income from cash games and felt like I finally found the easy life. Few more month things seems to still go my way but it was then that I developed my biggest leak to date, win stop. when ever I made in a day what seems to me a large sum in absolute money I would lose the will to play. However if I lose, I will chase my loses (more often then not playing less then my A game). What resulted in small winning days and very big losing day when things didn't go my way.

By May 09, I was still feeling like the king of the world. Moved to Israel and suffered a lot of expenses and withdrawn big portion of my BR, and yet with only $27k in my poker BR I felt I was ready to stab $1k NL.
In mid May (I remember it was a Wednesday) I had my worse day to date, managed to lose $10k of my BR in a single day (over a 1/3) and managed to finish may with a $20k lose. Thats right, my previous $27k BR was now down to $7k.

It took me over a year to find my game again. I tried everything even 16 tabling $100nl/$200Nl on my laptop. Everytime I built it back to $10k I would go back to $400Nl and after a while managed to lose 10-15 BI. I even started to reg the $600Nl with just $12k and ended up with same results.

Finally I decided to stop fulling around. moved my roll to Stars as FTP don't bank wire to Israel but due to Ps silly deposit restriction I started multi tabling $50Nl FR. At the same time, to preserve my Iron man statue on FTP I started to play short session of $50Nl rush. After almost a month I realize I make more money in my rush games then on PS. Moved my $5k roll back to FTp and never looked back.

Am currently playing $400nl FR exclusively. My original plan was to move back to normal 6max after building a decent BR, but since I feel so at east at these games and it really fit with my life style as a single dad, I'm still at it.

A month ago I offered my coaching services via CR as I really enjoy talking about poker. I had several students since and I really do enjoy those session.

This was posted on another forum April 2008...

I started on July 2006 after seeing poker on Euro-Sport (go figure)
My first month I played Play money and killed the SNG's.

Deposited my first $50 and lost it within a week or so playing $10NL... From then until the end of the year I manged to deposit and lose a total of $310.

In the end of 2006 I opened an account at FT with rakeback, deposited my last $110 (I really didn't want to throw more money on this hobby) and start building a BR killing the $2 and the $5 SNG's.

Then in March we had to move and stayed for 3 month in an apartment where we couldn't have an internet connection. So being the junky that I was, I started going to internet cafes to feed my addiction.
In that period I started playing the $10 SNGs with very poor results.
Then I discovered Omaha PLO and managed to built a $1000ish BR from that. Playing mainly $25PLO and some $50PLO. However my good run had finished, and $50PLO was way to aggressive to my liking so started playing NL Holdem again. This time $50NL.
In no time I managed to go through most of my BR, dropped down to $25NL and was looking at a $120BR.
I really didn't want to go down to $10NL...
Luckily Rakeback came in time to double my BR.

During this time I was working as a chef in a catering company as a freelance. July is the end of our season and I decided to give poker a series go.

I started reading books, visited forums even more and played lots and lots of break even poker.Mainly due to rake back managed to built a $3000ish BR.

October was my dead line, if I don't manage to make a min of $100 a day I go out and find a real job.
Then with $2700 in my BR I won FT Iron man freeroll for $2750 doubline my BR. The winners of the 4 freerolls got to play HU shootout which I won for $5K doubling my Br again. As the winners I got to play 3 FT pro for $5k a piece, with $50k if I win all 3.
I won the first vs JJ Lui. then got a free $5k when Clonie Gowen didn't show up for the game. But lost the last $40k HU match in the 5th hand. All in all managed to double my BR again.
In Novmber I FTed the $26 KO on FT 4 times winning it twice.
in December I won the $26ko again as well as the $20rebuy.

Since January I decided to concentrate on cash games.
did slightly better then break even on Jan due to rake back. Lost a big amount on Feb. Broke even in cash again in March due to Rakeback but won the $26ko again.

Now I play mainly $400NL and $200NL. And am hoping for a first real month of cash games success.


I'll try to write an update from then until now soon. Especially if there is enough interest