June 03, 2010
For those that have watched JimmyLegs "Brain Fail" CR videos, here is a link to the special bonus video from this week's episode. I am shocked that this series hasn't gotten more love in the general poker community, it's really quite different than anything you'll see in any poker training video anywhere. It's not going to teach you how to make millions, but I'd be surprised if anyone that watched it didn't think they learned something (about poker or otherwise) and also didn't thoroughly enjoy the series.
I don't care who you are, micro grinder or nosebleed player, watch the brain fail series and you've got my personal guarantee that you will not be disappointed.
Here is the bonus video from this week's episode (this part is not educational, FYI):
I'll cut this post short for now as this post really isn't about me. Quick update In case you were wondering, I'm alive and well and in Las Vegas. Yesterday I played my first event ($1500 NLHE) and got knocked out a few minutes before the dinner break. I'm planning on getting on my grind out here so hopefully I can do some damage in some events. I never thought I would say this but I would really like to win a bracelet. Obviously the money would be great, but I would really like to be able to say that once in my life I won a World Series of Poker Event. If I could do that then I would have played the biggest games on the internet (well, not 500/1k), played in a televised cash game and televised final table, and won a bracelet. As far as meaningless poker accomplishments go (meaning non-monetary accomplishments as I've always treated poker like a job), those are some of the big ones out there. It'd be gratifying to someday look back on all this and think that I've really been able to accomplish a lot as a player and otherwise. Maybe I will be fortunate enough to win a bracelet but if not I'll at least be able to say I gave it my best shot.
Good luck, I'll talk to you guys soon. Oh, if you're reading this today (June 3), feel free to come out to the CR Happy Hour tonight at Stripburger at 5pm. You gotta be a member and we will be checking, but you can come drink on the house and hang out with some CR Pros. Andrew and I will be there, pretty sure Hastings will be there, and I'm sure random other people who I don't know about. See ya.
May 06, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGXeXm0uMDo
I can't figure out how to embed this, sorry. This is a CardRunners tradition when shit hits the fan. Looks like the market went ape-shit today for some reason. Just finished eating an expensive lunch, it might be my last one. Good luck.
On a more serious note, the video issues we have been having are almost fixed. We'll be completely back on track soon, thanks for your patience. I am excited Mindcirkus' first video for CR which is coming out later today or tomorrow. He and I recorded it Monday and I'm interested to see what you guys think. I'll leave it at that but I think it should foster some interesting discussion.
April 19, 2010
Hi all,
I always have this weird feeling that when I don't update my blog for awhile I need to have an extremely thorough and interesting blog as my first post back. I guess the rationale behind that is that if I haven't been keeping up with my blog, I better have at least been doing some interesting things, right? I guess there has been some interesting real life stuff going on lately, but definitely not enough to warrant a 45 day hiatus from the blog. I'm not going to update on any of that stuff right now for purposes of breaking the requirement of an extremely thorough comeback blog.
I will say that I"ve been grinding Rush poker as if it were my job. Actually, I wish it were my job, I would love to spend 8 hours a day grinding it if I could. I get so freaking obsessive with things sometimes, and Rush Poker happens to be that thing right now. I've played about 40,000 hands this month at 1/2nl, which has to be close to the most hands of poker I've ever played in any month in my life. Things have been going well so far and the reason I am enjoying it so much is that I am learning a lot. It's been awhile since I have really put in the hours playing and studying on a consistent basis, and that's what has been happening this month. The feeling of self-improvement is just so intoxicating to me. I wake up every morning wanting to put in hands at Rush Poker and I can't wait to get home from work or the gym to put in a few hours.
I will admit, it's really nice to have 100% rakeback when you're playing a 800-1000 hands per hour, so breaking even at the games is worth a decent hourly rate. What's been the most enjoyable though is just realizing how much more strategy there is in the game than I thought there was. Taking a step back, there was so much room for improvement in my general 6max nl game because I haven't played much of it over the past year or two. Improvements there aside, there are so many nuances to Rush Poker that I never really even considered until I have been playing in the games everyday.
The reason for this post is mostly to let people know that I'm going to be in the CardRunners Rush Poker forum everyday talking strategy. I responded to just about every recent post this afternoon, and I encourage you to stop by to visit and post if you are interested in the game. I want our Rush Poker forum to be the best on the 'net, I'll respond to every new post in the forum until I post here saying I can't promise that is the case.
check out the forum here: http://www.cardrunners.com/members/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=100&page=1
Good luck at the tables,
Taylor
February 28, 2010
Ever wonder what Team CardRunners looks like out on the golf course? Me neither, but apparently someone with access to a video camera did. Just kidding, Alex (nomo4life) took some videos of our recent trip to Miami. There are a few noteworthy ones I felt like I should post here: Muddywater on the links. Background: Andrew is a pretty decent golfer who hit probably the worst drive of his life here. He ripped the next one 280 down the middle, but obviously it was cut from this video. Note Menlo trying to hide his laughter right after the shot.
Me looking a lot better than I am. In case you can't hear my banter, I've posted it below.
Me: Stinger, you're not going to like this......it's going to be within about ten feet. ::Swings:: - shot lands about 20 feet away and eventually rolls to within 15 feet. Me: There we gooooo Stinger: aww, fuck you Me: That's two unit's my friend. Overall, Miami was a great time. We took 8 Truly Free Poker Training members who had earned over 15k+ FTP Points in at least one month. We stayed at the Gansevoort Hotel, played golf, went out to nice dinners, had drinks, did some leakfinder videos, played some beach volleyball, and basically just chilled the f out a lot. Unfortunately, Scott (IRock) separated his shoulder playing beach volleyball and had to go to the hospital. It was pretty funny because after he got it fixed up, he left in a sling and couldn't get a shirt on. We had to go to a CVS at midnight to fill his prescription. Trust me, my idea of fun is filling a percoset prescription during the middle of the night with a guy who has no shirt on, it's an experience everyone should try.
Fun fact: The bellhop recognized me.......for my FTP Academy video! He was like...hey, I've seen you before...I've watched your FTPA video. Was pretty funny, we pimped out CR to him pretty hard, hopefully he eventually comes on over here. It was just a really enjoyable trip though, getting to meet CR members is always fun. I don't get to see the CR Pros as much as I'd like, so it was nice to have a good group of them down there too. Finally, someone posted on my last blog that he is in a contest to try to win the "ultimate" wedding or something. Well i clicked through and apparently his soon-to-be wife helped him lose over 225 pounds and now they are going to get married. Pretty damn cool, I hope you guys win this contest. If you don't win, I at least hope you have a happy life together, not a bad consolation prize I suppose. Good luck in life and at the tables.
TaylorWedding Contest
February 22, 2010
I'm having a hard time coming up with blog titles. I used to sit around and try to think of clever titles, oh, the younger days. Things have been going pretty great for me, I've really enjoyed 2010 so far. I'll just list some life stuff that's been "up" and then talk about some CardRunners things. I don't really talk too much CR stuff in this blog, but maybe sometimes I think it's good to mix that in with life/poker stuff. So lately: -I've been sweating college hoops pretty hard. College basketball is my favorite sport and my team, Illinois, is typically pretty good. The last few years have not been good to us but say overall we were easily a top 10 program of the last decade. One final 4, one elite eight, a few sweet 16's, and a tournament appearance every year but one I believe. In January, I was able to score some second row seats to the Illinois Gonzaga game at the United Center. This was one of the better college bball games of the year, as we were down 20 points in the first half, came back to go up by 6 or 7 midway through the second half, gave up the lead, hit 3 with a few seconds left to force OT, then lost by 1 or 2 in OT. I'm a big fan of Bill Raferty, the CBS announcer, and since we were sitting right by the scorers table he came around and bs'd with the fans a little before the game and took some pics with people. He seemed like a cool dude, I can't wait for March Madness and the inevitable "onions" and the even better "early onions" calls by him. A couple weeks ago I went down to Champaign for the Michigan State Illinois bball game, which fortunately turned out better for the Illini. It was cool to see the College Gameday crew on campus and it was overall a fun time. Today the Illini play Purdue and I'm going to miss it due to being at a wedding, boo. -During the winter, I usually go through stretches of extreme boredom or basically just being unhappy. I've noticed this basically every year since college. I really think it's just because the weather in Chicago sucks so much during the winter. Anyway, the point is, I have felt pretty good this winter. I think it's partially because I am sort of getting over the way life "used to be." I don't really long for being out till 2am 4 nights a week, so it doesn't bother me when I'm missing that. Things on the work front, which I'll talk about later, have been great. Overall, things have just been pretty good lately. -I spent Valentine's weekend in Las Vegas with Melissa. It was nice to get away and do nothing for a couple of days. We stayed at the Bellagio, which was my first time staying there. We got a chance to eat at Sage at Aria, which I thought was excellent. I got a chance to get a massage at the Spa which was interesting. The only type of massage I like is when they just tear your muscles apart and it hurts like hell. I get extremely bored if I'm just sitting there and it's a light massage, so I'd rather have a bunch of pain so my mind doesn't wander but then feel great for the next few days. I got the Ashiatsu massage, which is the type where they walk on your back and most of the massage is done by the masseuse's feet. It sounds strange, and man can it be painful, but it really leaves you feeling energized. After that massage I just felt great and it really set the tone for a nice weekend. Melissa and I were grinding the roulette tables at the B when I ran into a kid I went to high school with. We had a nice little chat, it was cool to see a random non-poker friend out in Vegas. On the plane home I saw another girl I went to high school with, but only had chance to chat for a minute or so. Two very surprising encounters, to be sure. -I have fallen off a little bit in my basketball playing. I was playing 3 days a week for about six months, but now it's down to only one or two. Overall I am happy with my level of fitness, it's definitely better than it was a year ago and it is still improving. The biggest difference is just eating better, my gf has great eating habits and just mooching off whatever she is eating goes a long way, instead of ordering delivery every night. CR related stuff: So I don't really blog about CR business related stuff all that much, for a few reasons. One, I'm never really sure who finds it interesting. Do my real life friends care? Am I trying to send a message to other people who work in the industry? I don't know, there just doesn't seem to be a huge point to it. I do think that there are a lot of things I could blog about that might be interesting to read or even educational, but I think it might appeal to a much smaller subset of people than currently read my blog. -We have been working for quite some time on a new version of the CR website. It's going to be a lot better, basically just a better version of the current site with some new bells and whistles. I think it will be better from both a member's perspective and from a business perspective. I'm never shy about admitting that we are in fact running a business, even though most think of CR as a place to hang out and improve their poker game. I think it's key to find that happy balance between doing everything you possibly can to give maximum value for your customers dollar, while also holding the financial health of the company in high regard. Most of the time, the right decisions are good in both scenarios, but there are times when you'll have to make sacrifices on one side for the other. I think that over the past year we have really done a nice job with that mix. Our Truly Free Poker Training promotion is unlike anything else on the 'net and it gives people such a great deal on the best poker training money doesn't have to buy! We've partnered on a FTP rakeback offer (click the red rakeback link on the top nav) that costs us money -- we are giving away free product, 3 months of CR and a HEM license, so that customers can get a great deal that is unmatched anywhere else on the net. I guess what I'm getting at is, I think we're really finding a good mix between doing things that benefit the customers and the company. That was really our biggest guiding principal in the newest iteration of the CR website, which I'm really hopeful you guys like. It should be out sometime in early April, but I don't know an exact date yet. -I am going to Miami next week for "Camp CardRunners." 8 members of Truly Free Poker Training that earned over 15k FTP points in a month were randomly picked to attend this thing. We're staying at a nice hotel in Miami, and the CR crew is Me, Stinger, Wiggins, Eric Liu, Isaac Baron, Mike Schneider, Irock, and VitalMyth. It will mostly be us having a fun time at the beach, playing golf, going out to dinner, etc., but we'll also do some leakfinder videos and I'm sure talk a lot of poker. It's a pretty cool thing we've been able to do for TFPT members, I mean for no cost whatsoever these people are getting a trip to Miami for 3 days, not a bad deal and I'm looking forward to the trip. -I'll be in Dublin a week after that for some FTP meetings. We've got a good relationship with those guys and I try to make it out there once a year to hang out, talk about our businesses, and hopefully get out and have some Irish beers. Finally, an exciting piece of news that I've been meaning to blog about for awhile. About a year ago, we started talking seriously to Roy, the creator of Hold'em Manager, about becoming investors in his company. This was something totally new to us, as the only thing our company has had much experience doing is poker training related stuff. The poker software business is obviously quite a bit different and presents a slew of new challenges, I wasn't sure if I was more nervous or excited, but I knew we had our work cut out for us. Because everyone in our company was really impressed with what HEM had done with their software, we figured, "why not keep the same software development and support guys, combine that with our management team, and try to continue to build the company together?" Towards the end of 2009, we were able to work out a deal with the HEM guys and we were on our way. It's been a fun time so far, we've launched a new website, a new "app store," partnered with software such as Table Ninja and Leak Buster, and added some pretty cool functionality to the core software. I've always been impressed with the HEM software and their company as a whole, but after working with these guys for a few months I am even more impressed with what they do. From the developers to the support guys, everyone is great to work with and it's just a really fun company to be a part of. I should say "thanks" to everyone involved in the project, both on the CR and HEM side, I'm really fortunate to be working with and learning from all of you. I guess I should close this post with an obligatory, "check out Hold'em Manager" if you're looking for some software to track and analyze your play. Don't take my word for it that it's a great product, you can get a free trial at the website. Actually, I am curious how many readers of this blog already use HEM. If you have any insight on HEM v PokerTracker or just comments in general about poker software, feel free to comment here and I'll join in on the discussion. Good luck at the tables and in life. Speaking of the tables, I have an itch to play some PLO, going to go scratch that itch. Taylor
January 30, 2010
Hi, short update again. This week was a hectic one. We had a lot of people in town that usually work remotely, and it was some long hours at work. I also managed to have some fun over the past week or so, I guess I'll just list off some random stuff. I will keep this short as I am about to do a power-hour with some friends so we can re-live our glory days of 5ish years ago.
"Pizza supposedly left the store 30 minutes ago and is still not here. I will be blogging about this experience, blogs.cardrunners.com/taylor, please let me know if you can do something for me."
I'd say 10% chance someone gets in touch with me and gives me a coupon, I know I do things like that when I see people saying nice things about CR. I hope I get some Dominos coupons....I'll let you guys know if I do.
Seriously though, get that pizza, it's really good. Unanimously agreed upon by all eaters that for 12 bucks for 2 pizzas was a very good deal. I also recommend the sandwiches if you are looking for a sandwich that sort of tastes like Pizza.
January 19, 2010
Hey guys. Been almost a month since I updated. It's funny, because I read a lot of poker player's blogs and I get kinda pissed when they don't update. Typical hypocritical poker player's mentality, I guess. That's one thing I like about Phil Galfond's blog, he updates it pretty regularly even just to say "hey, I haven't been doing a lot lately." I like that, maybe I will get back to that. Anyway, here for two reasons. The first is just to say hello and also mention that I wrote a really long post about a week ago but I basically forgot about it. I had some video I took over the Holidays I wanted to share, but I have been lazy about getting it off my flip thing onto my computer. I'll post that later this week. The other is that you guys should check out "Rush Poker" at FTP. It's kinda addicting actually, so be careful if you have an addictive personality. I won't really try to explain all the rules here, but basically whenever you fold you are insta put at a new table. You can also insta-fold whenever you want, even if it is not yet your turn, and they will put you at a new table. It's hard to get reads on players because you are constantly playing with new people. Current HUDs don't work on these tables, and bumhunting is impossible. Kudos to FTP for coming out with this, it looks really cool. Check it out here: http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/rush-poker Also, remember, you can get CardRunners completely for free just by playing at FTP -- no need to create a new FTP account, no hit to your rakeback, doesn't cost any points or money: www.trulyfreepokertraining.com
December 24, 2009
Hey guys, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc. I don't have a life update for you at the moment but I do have a link to a blog a lot of you would probably enjoy reading.
Joey "jcl" Lawrence has become quite a popular pro this year. I think he flies a bit under the radar because he is new to the video making scene, but if anyone is interested in reading about a "it can happen to you" CR success story, he's a great example. A lot of people ask me if it is still possible "in this day and age" of online poker to move from a small stakes beginner to being a high stakes reg. I'll admit, it's tough, but it can happen. Give his latest blog a read, it's really pretty awesome.
He's got a HSNL video coming out tomorrow and his previous videos at CR have been pretty fantastic. Give 'em a watch, who knows, maybe next year it could you be! Anyone else have any poker/CR success stories for 2009? Give me a shout in the comments and I'll link you in a later blog. I'd love to do some interviews with you guys in the beginning of 2010. Best story in the comments wins a CR hoodie...it's gotta be real, though :).
Talk to you later guys, have a safe holiday. Taylor Link: http://blogs.cardrunners.com/jcl/2009-a-breakout-year
December 15, 2009
I recently bought a watch. It's the first watch I've bought since I impulse bought a Rolex in 2005 while in Aruba. Looking back on this purchase, it's really amazing how much I've changed since then. Being 22 years old yet having made maybe high six or low seven figures from poker after having deposited less than two years back was a pretty wild thing to experience. Up until the Rolex, the only things I had purchased with my money were some PS2 games, DVD's, and some clothes. It was my second trip to Aruba (UB Tournament) and my first where I could legitimately walk into a high-end watch shop and consider buying something. You don't really realize it until you experience it and then look back on it, but luxury good makers are so good at making you implicitly desire whatever it is that they sell. I left for Aruba not even realizing I wanted a watch, then left Aruba not understanding how I lived life not ever owning a nice watch. Three days later, I wondered why I owned the high-end watch. That's the interesting part of the whole Rolex story, I brought it back home to Chicago, felt cool showing my parents and a few friends, and then didn't even take it back to Champaign (school) because I was too embarrassed to wear a rolex out to bars where on expensive nights drinks might run $3 each. All in all, I probably wore that watch 20 times, I don't even know where it is now. Note to self: find watch. The Rolex story is reflective of my tastes in general. Simply put, my tastes have changed over the last few years. It's funny, because I actually do spend a pretty good amount of money. I just spend money on things I once wouldn't have considered buying and I don't spend money on the things I always thought I would want. I like to eat at nice restaurants, I enjoy not having to cook as often as possible so I order delivery quite regularly. I actually went almost an entire year without stepping foot in a grocery store, impressive or sad: you be the judge. I stay at nice hotels and I waste money on taxis when taking public transportation or driving would be a much more economical form of transportation. I often buy expensive clothes, but rarely do I buy something that looks expensive or that flashes a name brand that people would know to be expensive. Compare these things to how I lived before poker: I had dinner at maybe three "fancy" restaurants in my life, I ate at a restaurant or ordered delivery at most five times my entire freshman year of college, I walked or took the bus everywhere, and I don't think I had ever stayed in a hotel besides when traveling with my family (yet I've slept in cars, on couches, on floors, or [sadly] in bars on numerous occasions). The only clothes I bought were whatever I could get my parents to spring for, which by no means was anything extremely fancy. Now, let's talk about the things I don't spend money on. I always thought I would want a really nice collection of watches. It seemed to me that having a lot of nice watches was a symbol of success in the world. After buying one, it's clear I'll never make a point to start a collection, but I do see myself getting a nice watch or two sometime down the line. When I was 19 I set a goal to own a BMW by the time I was 30. I bought one (used, 3 series, nothing over the top) when I turned 23, and it's arguably been a pretty poor purchase. I don't drive often, I don't know much about cars, and I don't find a whole lot of additional satisfaction in owning an entry level luxury vehicle. I thought I would want to own a bunch of real estate because "that's what rich people do." Well, I bought a place when I graduated but have since moved out and have been renting for a few years. I still get questions all the time as to why I am "burning money" renting, but it's been one of the best decisions of my life. If anyone is genuinely curious, I'll do another blog post about that, just let me know. While I'm thinking about it, I read an article somewhere (wish I could find it) that basically talked about the utility that people receive from spending money on different things. It's (supposedly) been proven that you get more enjoyment from spending money on experiential things -- vacations, dinners, sporting events, etc. than on tangible goods -- clothes, jewelry, cars, etc. The reason is that the human mind tends to focus on the positive things about past experience. We remember all the amazing times we had during college, the parties, the co-eds, the friends, but forget about all of the all night study sessions, the politics of the social scene, being broke, etc. Same goes with vacations and restaurant experiences, the study went on to "prove" that when you look back on these experiences months and years later, you recall them more fondly than if someone asked you about them the very next day. Furthermore, when you spend money on tangible goods, you're much more likely to find that they have less value to you as time goes on. You can lose things, break them, or they may just go out of style. It's pretty hard to lose a memory of a nice meal or conversation with a family member on a vacation. My friends often give me crap about some of the tangible goods I do buy. My friends Coop/Craig told me last weekend: "Taylor, why is it that you like to buy really expensive things that look really cheap?" They were just giving me some (I think) good natured shit about all of the sneakers and non-logo'd polos/tees that I typically wear, all of which are generally very nice but you wouldn't look at them and think they were very expensive. My tastes have definitely changed, I like to look good but the last thing I want to do is walk into a room and make it look obvious that I'm flashing something expensive or overly trendy. So, where am I now? Was this just a long winded way of telling people I bought a freaking watch? I hope not, but that's where I am. I bought a watch recently, and here's a picture and a link about the watch. http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/2009/09/12/jk5-x-barneys-co-op-x-timex-watch/ I think the watch actually sold out at the website I bought it from, because I can't find the original link to the watch there. It was $80 and is probably the cheapest watch I'll ever purchase the rest of my life. I like it a lot, but I'm curious as to what readers of this blog think. Retro? Cool? Trying too hard? I like the watch, it makes me happy. I think what I like the most about the watch is it reminds me how I've changed over the last few years. Crazy to think I get more enjoyment out of this thing than a watch that was fifty times as expensive and a thousand times more "baller" than a Timex. Something tells me I'll wear this one more than twenty times, but who knows for sure, maybe my tastes will change again :) Alright, time to go play some hoops. I'm headed to Dallas for a day at Jim's sweatshop then I'll be back in Chicago until the New Year. Good luck in life and at the tables. Taylor
December 09, 2009
Hey all, I'll make the update on my life pretty short because it's not all that interesting compared to all of the other stuff that's been going on. At the final table of the Poker Million, things did not go my way. I busted out first, even though I came into the final table with the third largest chip count. I saw one flop from the BB where it was limped to me (I won that pot). I folded 18 hands (!), raised two hands. Those hands were: AJo, where I was 3-bet all-in by a guy with 9 bb's to start the hand. Unfortunately he had AK instead of TT-77 or something, and more unfortunately I couldn't suck out. The next hand I played was me in the SB vs. the BB. I had 9.5 bb's to start the hand, it was folded to me, and I looked down at pocket 7's and shoved. I got tank called by K4o, which in my opinion is close to a standard call under normal internet circumstances and a slightly bad call in the spot we were in. Not nearly as bad of a call as a lot of people have told me, I think it's just very slightly wrong. The reason is that this player had a very favorable table position with extremely tight players in the blinds when he was in late position, and it was clear nobody was playing wild at the table. Even though he only had 13bb or so, he was in fine shape considering his table position and that there were no antes. Well, the board ran out KKxyz and I was busted out in 7th place for a 50k score. That's poker for you, I'll just share some information bullet point style because it is easier. James Akenhead was the eventual winner. James is really one of the nicer pros I've met. He's a quiet guy, polite, but very friendly. James, FullFlush (Luke Schwartz), and one of James' friends were betting on the World Cup draws before the final table started. We bet on who would be paired up with England as nearly everyone in the room was English. I obviously picked the US and was lucky enough to win that for a 300 lb (forty seven thousand dollars jk) win. It felt nice to win that, mostly because I had no English currency on me and it would have been a pain in the ass to be the deadbeat American dude who is betting with money he doesn't have on him. It was a weird feeling to go home and watch the rest of the tournament play out on TV. This is one of the only poker tournaments that is filmed live for TV, and it's definitely weird to bust out, get a ride back to your hotel, then watch the rest of the thing play out. It was interesting to see how tight (mostly) the online qualifiers played and how much more loose the pros played. You don't really see these things when poker is normally on TV but it's very clear when you get to see every hand being played out. FullFlush was definitely a lot different than I thought he would be. I really didn't know much about him, besides his online persona, but he's definitely a sharp guy that just likes to run his mouth a bit. I think he'd probably agree with that assessment. After talking some poker with him and hearing his thoughts on high stakes games, poker in general, whatever, it's not hard to see how he has been successful. He definitely has a mind for the game and I found myself agreeing with most of the things he was talking about. I'm pissed though, I wanted to take a picture of him eating a sandwich to post on my blog, which he said he'd be glad to do, but they took our phones and I busted out too quickly to do it. FF seemed to have a lot of respect for the CR guys who have been doing really well in the high stakes game, although it's possible he was just being friendly, I don't know. I was also a bit shocked after being busted out so quickly, he was the first person to shake my hand and say good game, nice playing. Hopefully I don't destroy his rep as a bad boy, somehow I doubt I will. Keep doing your thing, FF. Juha Helppi is a sneaky Fin. Before the match started, FF asked him how many chips he had, because Juha was just to the left of him. Juha immediately responded with 200k, even though he had $136k or something like that. Considering the blinds were $5k-$10k, this is a big discrepancy. I spoke up and said "actually, you have about 140k." He was like... "oh, yeah." Could have been an honest mistake, for sure, but who knows. About five minutes later we were all talking about online play, and Juha asked FF what his name was on some Euro network they both played on. FF responded with his, and asked Juha what his name was. Juha refused to tell him, stating he didn't believe that was FF's real name because he hadn't seen the name on there much. FF and I looked at each like...seriously? Now, it's possible FF had multiple names (I think there are multiple skins to the network) or maybe had a new name for rakeback or something, I don't know, but he definitely wasn't angling with Juha. I was 100% positive based on body language that FF thought he was being honest with Juha. I think Juha might have been a bit pissed at me because earlier in the day one of the people organizing the event goes "It's Juha Helppi, the best Finnish poker player in the world!" I looked over at both of them and said "Have you guys heard of Patrik Antonius?" Looking back, I realize this may have made me sound like a huge jerk but I didn't mean it like that. I was serious because I thought it was just common knowledge that Patrik was considered the best poker player in all of Europe, if not the world. It'd be like if someone said "It's Phil Mickelson, the best golfer in the United States." It was not meant to slight Juha, who by all accounts is a fantastic player. I came home from the event and ordered a Dominos pizza to my hotel room. I am embarrassed to admit this, but Dominos pizza never tasted so good, and I hate Dominos pizza. I <3 America. Now I will talk a little bit about the events that occurred last night on Full Tilt Poker. If you don't follow poker, CardRunners pro, and good friend of mine, Brian Hastings won $4.1 million playing high stakes pot-limit omaha against Isildur1. It was the biggest win in the history of online poker and easily the most memorable event I've ever seen in my 6+ years in the online poker world. The session lasted about five or six hours and I watched probably 80% of the hands. Just to get it out of the way, yes, Brian ran really hot. He ran something like 2.5 million over his expectation in "all-in" pots in the match. This is pretty staggering, although it says something to know that even if he ran at expectation he would have won over a million in all-in pots. To be clear, I'm not necessarily implying that he is definitively a favorite in the match, it just means that he got his money in better than his opponent did in this match. In one session, a monkey could get his money in better than Phil Ivey if the monkey had consistently better cards over the course of 5 hours, which can happen. When reflecting on the match, it's hard for me not to get a little bit nostalgic. I've known Brian Hastings since he was 16 years old. Yes, he was playing online poker at 16 years old. Yes (big lol) his math teacher at the time introduced him to poker. Brian was one of the first CardRunners members, signing up within a few weeks of our site launching. At the time he was mostly a SNG and MTT player, playing in the $100 sng's and mtt's at UB. I still remember filming one of my first videos at CR, a $200 SNG that I filmed in Andrew's room at our frat house. CardRunners had opened about a week before this video was filmed and we had maybe 50 members (not bad actually, lol). There was a guy in my SNG named Stinger885, and I remembered seeing his name on the message boards and Andrew told me he was a good player. In the end, we got down to heads up in the SNG and Brian beat me. I should go back and watch that video, I remember him being very competent and actually pushing me around a bit, back at a time when nobody pushed anyone around. Within a few weeks we were poker buddies, chatting on AIM and the CR message boards. Brian started to work his way into the cash games and pretty quickly moved up to the $1knl+ games. Although I'm sure Brian would say that CardRunners helped him, he's one of the more "natural" poker players I have met. He's a sharp kid that has a pretty strong understanding of how other people are thinking and trying to win in a given game. It was no surprise to me that Brian moved up to the bigger games on the internet by 2006, and I still remember the first time he told me he was learning PLO. I told him I thought it was cool but that I didn't see a reason to because of how much money you can make at NLHE. Heh, I might have been wrong there, just goes to show how easy it is to be VERY wrong about something even when would consider yourself an expert on the subject. Another funny Brian Hastings story is when we all first met him in person over the summer of 2007. Brian had just finished his freshman year of college and was going to fly to Vegas (as a 19 year old) to hang out with a bunch of 21-23 year old poker players. He told me "I can probably come, but my dad needs to talk to you first." I had a phone call with his dad basically assuring him that I wasn't going to cut him up and put him in a meat locker when he came to Vegas. His father was just doing what any good parent would do, he was making sure I actually existed and that his kid would have a safe place to stay while visiting Vegas. Still, a funny conversation to have, considering I was 22 at the time and I wouldn't have called myself a model of maturity. Over the years, Brian, Andrew, and many of the other people around the CardRunners community became more than just online poker friends. We've lived together in Vegas for a few summers now, play various fantasy sports games, travel together when we all get spare time, and have become very good "real life" friends. It's just pretty wild to look back and remember when we were both so new to the game, just random kids from middle-class America who happened to see Moneymaker on TV and end out falling in love with poker. Now only a few short years later I'm watching the kid take down the biggest score in the history of online poker, and quite possibly one of the largest in the history of poker. Afterwards getting to chat with Brian about what it feels like to go on the biggest rush anyone has ever seen (note: he said it felt good.), it was truly surreal. This match was more to me than just a friend of mine running hot and playing great to win a lot of money. It really made me think about how far we've all come over the past few years. Two or three years ago, all of the biggest online winners were simple considered "up and coming" players, the type of players who would eventually be the stars of poker's future. We were lucky to get a small article in Cardplayer magazine and there were hardly any websites dedicated to tracking and reporting online results; all anybody ever cared about was live MTT results. For awhile there was no way I could even get someone at the online poker rooms to answer my emails, now they are all very helpful to high stakes online player's requests. I really think Brian Townsend being on the cover of Cardplayer in late 2007 helped changed things, and now you have a guy like Tom Dwan being signed to Team Full Tilt. FTP sponsors 11 CR pros, and many online-only or online-mostly players are getting sponsorship deals. Things have changed in the poker world over the past couple of years, and the fact that two kids so young could square off for so much money while the whole poker world watched really is something else. I'm just really happy for Brian, but I should also mention Cole and Brian T. because they have all done well in the high stakes games over the past six months or so. I can assure you that those three guys have worked harder on their games than anyone you will meet. I'm sure they would all say they have a ways to go, but to go from not playing anything other than NL to playing pretty much all the games on the internet at the highest level is ANY amount of time is pretty impressive. It took them less than a couple of years, in some of their cases, maybe less than a year. People on the internet love to say disparaging things about successful people, so it sucks reading people saying things such as "they were colluding." First of all, I challenge anyone to try to group play 6 tables of HU PLO against a wild opponent. It would be a death wish. Anyone who watched the match saw how fast the action was, it was hard to keep up with it just watching, much less playing, and even much less, playing and talking about hands. It would be more credible to accuse them of switching off back and forth with who is clicking the mouse, which would be difficult while Brian is going to school in Ithica, New York, and the other two are in California and Washington, DC, respectively. The simple truth is that Brian T. and Brian H. have both worked hard on their games, both had a chance to play Isildur at mega high stakes, both took a shot, and Brian H. was fortunate to come out on top. It could have been anyone that day, it could have been Ivey, Antonius, Zigmund, whomever was fortunate to catch a good run of cards at the tail end of a long Isildur session. Hell, it could have been Isildur, the way he was going, it wouldn't have surprised me to see him win 4 million that night. It wouldn't surprise me to log on tonight and see it happen, either. In poker, like in the real world, the hardest working, smartest people tend to have the most success. Notice that I said hardest working first, and that's what I think is most important here. These guys have worked harder on their games than anyone I know, and it doesn't hurt that they all happen to be some of the smartest people I know as well. I feel very lucky to have been able to learn about the game from each of them, and even luckier to consider them friends. Do I think that Brian H. ran really hot yesterday? Yeah, he would say the same. What people don't tend to talk about is just how poorly Brian T. ran before him. I don't remember the exact figure but it was something like 2 million below expectation in all-in pots. I'm shocked he was able to keep it together as much as he did, I could not have done that. I for one hope Isildur sticks around. There is no doubt the kid is extremely talented and has such a tough style to play against. Who knows, I might be sitting here writing a blog post eating my own words after Isildur takes 5 million back from Brian H. or someone else. Either way, I wanted to write a little about what this match meant to me because yesterday was truly a day that I will never forget. I don't think it has really sunk in for Brian H. yet, but his performance, even if he ran just a litttttle hot, was really one for the ages. I can't remember a better six hours I've ever spent glued to my computer screen, thanks to Brian and Isildur, I hope to watch again soon. Good luck at the tables, everyone.
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