Hey guys, I know a few of you know, but i'm officially announcing the launch of my new affilliate site www.rake-crunch.com . Site still isn't perfect, but it's to the point where we're excited to launch it and get on with giving out rewards and launching some cool promotions.


So anyways, on to the promotion details. For next month (August) we're going to be offering the following promotion on Lock Poker.


Highest Raker in August: 30" Monitor (Dell U3011 30" Monitor), or $1,000 cash.

Two Random WInners: Apple's new Ipad 2 (2) or $500 cash
[new sign ups only, all who rake over $500 in August are entered into the raffle]

Four Random Winners: One Hour of coaching with PrimordialAA (2) , One hour of coaching with Pistons87 (2) or $150 cash per hour of coaching
[anyone who rakes over $250 is entered into the raffle]



Feedback always appreciated, still a really new site, working out alot of bugs, implementing some of the features, polishing, etc., but hope you all enjoy it, and the promos to come :).

If you have any questions or need help w/anything, don't hesitate to get in touch w/me at bryanpellegrino@gmail.com

Thread is here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/prop-bet-primordialaa-3-full-tilt-hu-sts-next-2k-games-818757/#post19922336




My $10,000 vs Skate's $20,000


2,000 games, Starting 6/27/2010, finishing August 15th, 2010


Super Turbos ONLY are counted, stakes $350 + 5, $500 + 6, and $1000 + 11 ONLY


Chops from same time sits (Via FTP chop feature) will be marked via me, w/tourney ID, and discounted from the total, so the first 2000 legitimate games (non-chops) will be counted


I win with a 3.0% ROI or Higher, Skates wins with a 2.99% ROI or lower, 3% ROI is as quoted BEFORE rakeback



glgl me, will be blogging here throughout the bet, giving my thoughts on the bet, how im feeling about it, etc.

Just wanted to make a post on putting things in perspective. I just took a week off to go down to Atlantic City and hang out w/Hokiegreg. Been on a pretty big downer (-30k day doesnt help :-p), and just needed to step away for a bit. It was a great trip and Greg is one of my oldest friends in poker. We came up from the 22s together, and talking to him always helps. He's really level headed and makes sure to acknowledge the benefits he receives from poker, even when he's having a hard time, something I rarely take the time to do. So there I was, today, playing a 100+ game session, and ended +$95. I mean really?? +$100, it literally could have been +$0.01 to me, in my mind there was no difference, it was a winning day for a trivially small amount. But wait, I mean thats not right... it hasnt always been that way, I remember when being +$100 or +$200 was having a really good day, and my i'd tell me gf (wife) about it and be happy and pretty proud. For alot of people, even people I know, friends, some family, etc., $100/day is way more than what they make and they would be thrilled at it, but not me... I can hardly bear the thought of only being +$100, and this whole aspect, my whole outlook on money kind of sickens me in a way. Like I know it's a necessity to be able to detach myself from money to be successful at the stakes I play, and im not overly crazy about losing sight of the value of money IRL (although still far worse than a normal person ;p), but I just wish I was able to respect it a little bit more during times like these.

This whole realization happened when I was driving to a movie tonight. So i drove down to Hooksett (New Hampshire), and passed the toll, and thought about why I always went to Concord and not Manchester/Hooksett (slightly further away but slightly more there). And I think the reason is when I was in highschool and driving around with my friends, going the extra distance, more time, more gas, etc., and also have to pay the toll, were all the reasons we didnt go. Paying the toll, one dollar each way... trying to envision back when that meant enough to literally change all of my plans is pretty hard for me now, but there was a time, when that $2 in toll to go there and back represented 20 minutes of work for me ($6/hr), which is a significant chunk of time considering how miserable I was doing $6/hr work :-p. So obviously I will never be able to look at money like that again, but it can still scale to situation more appropriate to me currently (looking at what plane tickets to buy, taking trips, choosing what car to buy and how maybe making sacrifices on price could benefit me financially, etc.).

Anyways, this is a really weird blog post, and not at all my normal form of blogging, but I just had been thinking about it and wanted to get my thoughts out there :).

Poker, as mentioned, has been pretty 'meh' this month, but I feel pretty good about my play, and really feel like ive been crushing people overall, so just taking it one step at a time. Moved down slightly, and not focusing at all at getting even or recovering or whatever, just taking it from here and going to take it just like it never happened. Obviously im not going to pretend a downswing doesnt happen, that doesnt help my mentality, but in reality, there is no difference on if im -10k for this 30 day period, or if I started my 30 day periods I call months in the middle of the month, etc., so like, im not going to stress about 'getting even for this month', im just going to focus on picking smart games, pushing out volume, and profiting, and in the end thats all we can really do.

Still planning a WSOP post, but i'll save that for later. For other stuff, heres some music / movie talk =]:

Music i've been listening to lately:

B.O.B. - The Adventures of Bobby Ray (album, pretty good, has been good to grind to and some pretty good tracks)

Alexisonfire - Watch Out! / Crisis / 'Old Crows/Young Cardinals' (all 3 albums v good, like this band alot, been listening to these albums just forever now and still doesnt get old while grinding)

and my Grind Song lately has been this (Given to me by SSS ;p): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsxOo9cJ-dE (only got it today, but can tell i'll prolly use it for a while, just good background noise while im playing sessions

Movies:

Robin Hood - Meh, it was OK, if they would have called it Robin Hood - The Prequel , I would have liked it a ton, but I spent the whole movie wondering when the @!)!@ robin hood was gonna steal/give , so the pace was really weird, if I had to rewatch it now knowing it was just the set up another movie, i'd enjoy it alot, but at the time it bugged me the whole way through wondering why there had been no 'robin-hood-ness' yet and there was only 30 minutes left. Biggest complaint though is he uses a sword for like 80% of the movie. If I had to rate it i'd give it a 8.0 / 10

Iron Man 2 - It was OK, people told me it was awful... it wasnt, it was entertaining, albeit not amazing, and I dont see why someone would REALLY NOT enjoy this movie or anything, just pretty std., prolly gets like an 8.2 / 10

American History X - I had never seen it, suchh a good movie, and Edward Norton is such a beast in it, expected nothing from it except a curb stomping scene, and REALLY liked it.

American Psycho - Also had never seen it, just like... wtf, it wasnt bad, but it def. wasnt good, not sure if this movie was supposed to be great or not, but it def. wasnt, I prolly wouldnt re-watch.

Greenstreet Hooligans - rewatched it, still enjoyed it, alot of people dont know about this movie, but def. decent, I liked it before, and liked it on the rewatch

Tropa de elite - Foreign film (in portugese, placed in Rio / Brazil) obv watched w/subtitled because dubbing is a joke and refuse to watch anything dubbed, just embarassing ;p. But v v v good movie, totally unexpected, a friend told me it was good, watched it, and liked it a ton.

Braveheart - Rewatched, classic, obv an awsome film, but def. seemed to me this time rewatching it that the story moved a bit quick in some spots, well... quick for a 3 hr movie I guess ;p, but still, im not sure if recently plot-development has just gotten alot better in films, or if its cause i've been watching a ton of TV series which gives them more time to set it up, but it def. stood out to me. Regardless, epic film, A+ =]

Zombieland - Liked it, not as good 2nd time through, def. wont live up to Dawn of the Dead / 28 days later and the like, but it wasnt really supposed to, it's a good comedy in a zombie setting, def. a decent movie and considering how bad some zombie movies are, this is still pretty high up there for them.

wow... i've watched a ton of movies recently, I hadnt really noticed ;-p. Anyways, like I said, my blog is kind of molded by you guys, so leave comments as much as possible and let me know thoughts (less of the first part ranting? Less/more poker? no more movies/music? :( ) lemme know! Hope May is going well for everyone, and hopefully see some of you guys out in Vegas for the WSOP,

-Primo

Alright, so about to head to bed, but I usually recap every month at the end of it in my blog, and im a bit late this month, so i'm gonna do a recap of april, and give my stats for so far into May.

So last month was a big month volume was, and also results wise, which was great. As I mentioned before, it was my new personal best month, and all and all totaled to +82k. Graph/Stats are below, and the additional amount comes from some buying/selling action and my rakeback (FPP value) on stars.

This month started alot less stellar-ly, but im happy to say i'm (almost) back to even :).

So all in all I obviously can't complain, I ran pretty well to have the month I did last month, and am pretty excited about it. I mean it wasnt all perfect obv, in games 2k or higher I ran 24k below EV in the 50 or so I played, so thats always frustrating to just consistantly get beat up while taking shots, but not much to do but keep working at it, so thats the plan for now.

Volume wise ive been playing a ton of poker lately, I plan to take a trip down to Atlantic City to hang out w/Hokiegreg and Pasterbator for a bit, hopefully sometime next week, and I won a seat to Estrellas - Alicante event in Spain, so may be going there at the end of the month, and then of course to vegas for the WSOP.

I've got a few more blog posts planned, so hopefully I get around to them soon, mostly just about my WSOP schedule this year as far as events that im playing, and house im living in and stuff, and then another about the sports events ive been going to lately and coming up (celtics tonight... sigh, it was such fail to be there), and then a few Bruins / Pens games I hope in the next series, gonna meet up with Croixdawg and see how depressed I can make him and his crew when BOS owns the Pens :D.

anyways, thats basically it for now, i'll post random updates from time to time of how im doing on the month, but will probably keep it as graph-free as I can until the monthly recaps. But don't forget, I mold my blog based on feedback you guys give me, so lemme know if you want more results / less life, more strat / less me / less results, more me / less everything else ;p. Ttys and GL all,

-Primo

Alright guys, I figured i'd take my first blog post as a chance to Introduce myself to all of you.

My name is Bryan Pellegrino, I started playing poker (and online poker) when I was 15 and a half, which is almost 8 years ago as im about to turn 23. I've been playing HU SNG almost exclusively for about 4.5-5 years now, and i've been a professional poker player for about 3.5 years.

I am NOT one of those people who just started out immediately successful. I mean I can't say I WASNT, cause before age 17 I was 4 tabling 5/10 NL cash on Stars (which was the highest limit at the time). But I went through alot of swings, alot of tilt, almost busted my roll many many times, dropped back to micros for a few years til early college, etc. I would say ive struggled alot in poker, I had alot of chances early on, and even later (like WSOP 10k HU last year), to have MASSIVE scores in comparison to my bankroll, and unanimously have bricked them everyyy single time :-p. So know that when your listening to me or talking to me or whatever, I am not just someone who deposited, played, shot up to HS and stayed there ever since, it's been a long journey, with alot of trial and error... with an emphasis on the error ;p. I've done about everything you can do wrong in poker, with the exception of playing for my entire bankroll in a single game. I've played in games I shouldnt have played in, games I didnt know how to play well for limits way above me, put in 200+ games in a day when I knew I was playing awful, 4 table grudge matched guys for days who I knew were much better than me, etc., etc. , etc. I've done it all, and feel like ive been through most of it. So again, just keep in mind, I wasnt someone who just 'got there', I feel like i've had to invent everything for myself every step of the way. HOWEVER, to be fair, I feel like that more than anything, has helped me out a TON, and even moreso, helped my ability to teach others, because I found that, specifically because of my own personality, i've had to really define everything that I do, and why I do it, why its good, etc., and I think this more than anything, having an explicit thought process formed on alot of experience makes it alot easier for me to relay my thoughts on a situation than alot of other very successful players that I know.

Anyways, enough of that, you guys can find me playing on both Pokerstars and Full Tilt under PrimordialAA basically every day of the week, usually sitting $220-1k HU SNGs on both, and ocassionally 2ks/5ks.

I don't play a ton of live poker, but at my first WSOP I did alright in the 10k HU, ended up playing Random -> Will 'The Thrill' Fallia -> Adam 'Skilled_Sox' Ewenstein -> Brock 'tsoprano' Parker -> yevgeniy 'bballer88/jovial gent' timoshenko , and then finally Nathan Doudney (semi-random) where I lost a few AI after a 3:1 CL to finish 5-8th. this is my biggest live score to date ($92,580). So I don't play alot of live, but you can find me at some random WPTs and in vegas for the summer for all of the WSOP.

So hrmmm, let's see, what else can I tell you about myself? I did alot of travelling a while ago, I traveled europe a bit, lived in Budapest for a year, lived in France for 6 months, and now finally bought a house in New Hampshire (where im from) although I dont seem to be here often enough, as I have traveled a TON lately. Another fact people find interesting is that i'm married **Shock!!** , I got married when I was 21, to a girl from France, who I met and lived w/in Budapest and then again in France, and now (obv) in the states.

Anyways, pretty random blog, just trying to get as much out about myself early so you guys get a chance to know who your dealing with ;). Feel free to ask any questions about poker, or myself, or my life, or whatever. Also will put some pics below, these are of me, and my two bulldogs, who I'm sure in future blogs you'll see me talk about a ton :).

Me:

Thali:

Diesel: