Check out part 1 of my latest series on 25NL Full Ring Rush play on youtube. It's really designed for beginners, with a lot of basic definitions that you won't see in my old videos, which focused on slightly more advanced strategy (and were played at higher limits), but subscribe and check it out!

In the coming weeks, I'll be covering a lot of the more advanced tricks that I do to wreck the game, playing at limits up to 100NL. Hope you enjoy, and please subscribe and "Like" the video!






Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTlOAsRBjxE
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17r5YFPGJ9k
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZwIp0O0efo
Part 5:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kRDN2oSRJE
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic9V1SixNnk

Sorry about any formatting wonkiness, CR's blog software is pretty ridiculous. I didn't answer all of the questions (a lot of them were just common sense or not Rush specific), but here are some of ones where I thought the answer would be illustrative.


Why is FR your choice over 6-max?

I've actually never played 6-max Rush, though I've heard it's pretty soft. I like FR when I play Rush because 6-max is a game that requires quite a few reads to play really comfortably because a lot of action occurs in late positions. In FR I can make a lot of my decisions based on stack and position dynamics. When your average reg opens UTG or even MP, their ranges and styles are going to be a lot more predictable than a reg in 6-max.

What is one of the main things you are doing differently to the other regs that aren't achieving the same results?

I very rarely tilt and only dick swing against guys I'm clearly a level above against, and generally stay out of the way of tight regs with no clear leaks. A lot of the looser regs are spazzy and just don't ever believe anything, and are as suspicious as say, $2/4 6-max players. For example, if you call a pre-flop raise, someone squeezes, and you 4-bet, you get very little credit from a lot of players. It's a pretty easy way to get your AA in against Jack high. I have a lot of notes on regs like --Called raise on JJ4r with TT and snap-called turn bet and river shove.-- Pretty ROFL.

Do you find yourself in a significant number of spots where you employ creativity and hand-reading?

My style has always focused around hand-reading more than anything else; I can't think of a way to play poker that doesn't revolve around it. Street to street, I'm always estimating my opponent's ranges aloud, and often can identify their exact hands by the river. People play pretty face up at 100NL and below. Also, I am consistently under- and over-betting with a variety of bluffs and made hands to really screw with people. I've definitely gotten caught in some ridiculous bluffs, but I've also gotten regulars to call overbets on the turn and river with third pair on a 4-straight board. If you're NOT being creative when you play, you're doing it wrong. But in my mind, there's a clear difference between being creative and fancy.

What do you consider a solid benchmark hourly rate for 50NL? 100NL?

Without rakeback, I think $30/hr and $50/hr are pretty solid, respectively, though I think you can make close to double if you're a total monster.

Do you feel there are bots @ FR 50NL Rush?

I don't think there are enough short-stacks to make this a worry. If I could identify someone as a bot, I'd actually come after them, rather than stay away, because they simply wont be able to adjust to me, while I'll be able to play pretty perfectly against them after a few orbits and a HUD.

Let's say you raise QQ or JJ and get flatted by the CO or BTN who you don't have much history with, but his stats suggest that he's a reasonable player. The flop comes A95 with a flush draw. Is your standard to C-Bet or check/call there and why? Would you ever check/raise or check/fold there? If you cbet are you always folding to a raise? If you check/call are you folding to a turn barrel? Would you ever turn this hand into a bluff and check-raise the turn?

The answer to this question greatly depends on the position I opened from. The earlier my position, a less likely I'm going to make any sort of play at the pot. But I definitely never have a clear cut standard. In every marginal situation, I'm going to play poker. If villain is floaty, I'm going to take lines to punish him for floating-- bet, c/c, maybe bet c/r. If he's going to fold the flop, but will bet when I check to him, I'll c/c the flop and then evaluate the turn. Usually on this kind of board, people aren't going to barrel off with air, because they're pretty afraid of running into AK or AQ setting a trap. I definitely do this on occasion, so I think my range is protected and I can fold to the second barrel if I c/c the flop. If I don't have any real read, I just bet because I know betting is +EV, and just give credit if villain bets the turn. Without a read, I'm just going to play pretty solid.

There seems to be tons of floating involved in 50NL Rush. How do you combat this? Are you still running 13/10 or have you loosened up a bit?

I think my natural style is pretty resistant to floating. I'm tight, I don't c-bet insanely often, and when I do I often fire multiple barrels. So that makes me a pretty bad candidate to float with air. Often, people who float a lot make it SO obvious, so you can just double barrel all your air (or bet, c/r turn), and then bet, c/c all your made hands, intending to play poker on the river.

On that note, I don't know how often people are floating, considering that most people are insanely tight. If a player's say, 11/8, they don't have that many pure floats when they call a Q73r flop. Considering that a lot of regulars are double barreling fairly frequently, I don't know how good floating randoms is.

As for my exact stats, you'll just have to play against me to find out!

Some players are willing to fold KK preflop for 100BB's in FR Rush games, while others go with it every time even with a lot of aggression in front of them and just chalk it up to a cooler if someone has AA.

Yeah these guys aren't solid winners. If you can't fold KK pre-flop at a table full of 12/8's, then you're just following poker adages and not actively thinking about ranges.

If a tight player raises UTG and gets 3bet by another solid player in early position, how are you proceeding with QQ? What about KK? If you flat and he 3barrels are you folding KK to a river shove on low boards?

When a nit opens UTG and gets 3-bet by someone in EP, they have a monster like 95% of the time. I'm probably open pitching QQ, flatting KK and then peeling once on the flop, sometimes even folding the flop if villain just pots a low board. I'm probably not even peeling the turn, because what am I hoping to beat there? When I cold-call a 3bet and call a 875r flop, I don't think solid players are continuing to bluff or fire with QQ there. And if they do, that's great, because they're spewing into my AA.

Any resources you found very helpful? What do you think about squeezing in the games?

Rush poker is still poker, so I'd say coaching from [vital]Myth and Nutedawg has been the biggest influence on my game. Before this Q+A, I looked at some rush guides, and all of them were complete bullshit. As for squeezing, a lot of regs are spazz-bad, so they play back too lightly, so you can squeeze them with AA and let them do something dumb. I'm a big fan of letting people do dumb stuff.

Sometimes I see players open-shoving 100bb+. What is your opinion on their range?

I don't really know what they have, because I pretty much never call these raises-- they never seem to happen when I have AA. But I think these are usually AA, having seen other people call and then cry and cry and cry.

How do you play pocket pairs? Is it profitable to play small pocket pairs from early position?

I play them exactly like I do in 6-max or regular full ring. I see multi-way flops 100% of the time, I raise them from every position (showing a clear profit with 22-55 from UTG), and try not to play them OOP (usually 3bet/folding, 3bet/5betting, or outright folding). When I miss, I try to fight for pots when my opponent shows weakness, the opponent is kinda LAG, or the board comes good to raise and then barrel any turn and river (564r, etc.).

Compared to other SSNL cash games, are there any plays/moves you would NOT recommend?

I think Rush poker is still poker, and there's a time and place for every move. I can't stress that enough: RUSH POKER IS STILL POKER.

Have you found certain times or days to be better for FR Rush?

I usually look in the lobby and see if there are at least 50% 1-tablers. You can find this virtually any time and every limit up to $200NL. I mostly play during the daytime, and I've had a lot of success then.

I know at 50NL Rush you always open to $1.75. Why have you chosen x3.5 raise size instead of x2.5 or x3?

When I play against fish, I want to play in a bigger pot. I think opening x3-x4 standardly is totally fine. A few friends and I did a session where we played 40 VPIP and opened to x5-x7 standardly and we all wrecked the games super hard. But when I'm normally playing, I definitely do things like min-bet / 4bet the button against spazz-tards, or x2.5 the button against regs who won't adjust accordingly. Table ninja lets you have 4 hotkeys for bet sizes, and I take full advantage of them.

Does Hal Lubarsky's $17 stack tilt you as much as it tilts me?

Yeah, I want to vivisect him like a seal. Eff Hal Lubarsky. Thankfully, he's terrible at everything, so I can't complain.

What is your average session length? Are you playing many short sessions or grinding long marathons?

I've definitely played 10 hours straight, and 10 hours in 45 minute bursts all day. It's just a matter of preference. Usually, if I'm racking up huge stacks and feeling bright and energetic, I'll keep riding the wave, or if things are going south, I'll put on a movie and just chill for a bit, or hit the weights.

Do you think Verneer's successful very straightforward approach. where you cbet when you hit and give up when you don't improve, will work at 50NL FR Rush?

If it wins at 25NL, it'll win at 50NL. While it's certainly +EV, I don't think it's optimal, and I definitely don't play nearly as face-up as it sounds like he recommends. Verneer and I probably play 95% of hands the exactly same way (foldfoldfold), but that 5% probably accounts for a lot of difference in our winrates in the long run. With the betting lead I think I have a stronger/more deceptive flop C/Cing range and more C/R bluffs than he does, and from a sweat we did recently, I 3-barrel bluff slightly more than he does.

EDIT: Actually, I just finished sweating Verneer for an hour, and I think we play very, very differently. I don't want to get into details because it'd be poor form to give away my notes on his game.

When you raise from the CO or BTN and a TAG 3-bets you from the blinds, which hands do you 4-bet, flat, and fold?

Assuming 100bbs: I 4-bet hands bluffs and hands I want to get it in with, occasionally flat strong broadways hands, especially when they're suited, and fold all of my air that I didn't 4-bet. This isn't really a Rush specific question...

Are you a full ring nit?

Every time you fold, I'm bluffing, but every time you call, I have the nuts. You decide.

What are you standardly opening from UTG and UTG+1?

I think AQ+, all pairs is fine, but I don't blame anyone for opening Ajs or folding 55 and below. It's all a matter of preference. If I'm running bad, getting 3-bet a ton, or playing less than my A-game, I definitely tighten up, but if I'm dominating, I'll open stuff like KQs. I'm a big believer in letting feel and confidence dictate my play, rather than sticking to concrete opening ranges.

Who would you consider the best players at 50nl and 100nl?

I don't really know. A bunch of guys are really tight and solid and I just stay out of their way and they stay out of mine. I spend much more attention identifying the spewy regs and trying to get them to level themselves into something stupid for their stack. At 50NL, I think KKush and Tech5 are probably the guys I just don't tangle with at all if I can avoid it, because they're just all around solid and friends of mine. I mean, I generally just avoid guys with VPIP's of 12 or below.

What level / BR did you start and when did you move up?

In the spring I was playing almost full-time, and played 6-max from $1/2 to $2/4, but now I just play for fun (obviously it's still really profitable), so I play only $50 and $100. Oddly, I make about as much playing the lowers limits, per hour, as I did at higher limits. I play with like 400 buy-ins behind. BR requirements totally depend on how good you are and what your goals in poker are. I've always recommended 100 buy-ins+, because I'm pretty risk averse. Too many players have stories where they were too aggressive and almost went broke and had to rebuild, and I've never ever had to do that.

If someone was looking to build their BR as fast as possible would you suggest Rush or regular cash games?

It depends how good the player was. If the player's very experienced, then definitely Rush, for the sheer amount of hands you can get in. If you're starting out, regular games.

4 players at 100NL play 13/11 with a 3bet of 3-4%. One is breakeven, one is a 1ptbb/100 winner, one is 2ptbb/100 winner, and one is a 3ptbb/100 winner. What would you expect to be the major differences in their play and thought process?

It's impossible to break it down by every ptbb, so I'll mostly comment on what I think makes a winner.

Whenever I face a decision, I always take an extra millisecond to ask: What is my opponent's pre-flop range? What does my villain do that's exploitable? By verbalizing the answers to each of these, I often discover plans that I would have otherwise overlooked. Sometimes this involves setting a pre-flop or flop trap, sometimes this gives me incentive to barrel, sometimes I should just give up completely and not put a dime into the pot. Common spots I look to alter my plans: I'm on the button with a strong hand and there's a squeezer behind, someone calls or fold too much to cbets, someone bets too often when checked to, someone 3-bets and 4-bets too often, etc. People make is so obvious.

I'd say the keys to being a big winner: 1) realizing post-flop is WAY more important than pre-flop, and not getting into dumb wars, 2) realizing most hyper-aggro players are terrible, and setting traps against them and letting them dump to you, 3) not doing anything extreme or trying to over-exploit people. 4) Not being obsessed with being exploited myself. 5) Not repeatedly making moves against opponents in obvious spots, 6)Just be solid, moderate in almost every regard, and use your HUD religiously.

You open MP with AA, 100bb effective, and a solid reg calls on the button. The flop comes 973r, you cbet and get raised x3. You have no notes or history of villain monkeying in this spot. What's your plan for the rest of the hand? Does your plan change against a complete unknown? How about against a 70bb villain?

This is one of the sickest spots in rush, and there's not really a good answer. If my read is that villain just doesn't mess around, I can call the flop and fold the turn, or if I'm really confident in my read, I can outright fold the flop. Usually, I'll check my pop-up and see how often villain raises flops, but on 973r, regs don't bluff-raise you because they only rep a set, and trying to get most people off of AA on a low board isn't a great idea. Of course, you're not really exploitable here, because the second you realize someone's messing around on these kind of flops, you can easily begin to play back / call down. Against a 70bb opponent, who I assume isn't as competent, I'm usually starting by calling the flop and making reads from there. I invest a lot in bet timing and sizing, and try to just get an intuitive feel of what villain's doing.

What's your range from stealing in the BTN or CO, and if it's opponent specific, what stats/reads are you relying on?

If the blinds are both nits, I raise pretty liberally from the hijack and beyond, and if the regs have a 3-bet vs steal of 9 or above, I'm tightening up significantly. This is the exact same as blind on blind play in 6-max or standard full ring. I play my blinds in Rush exactly the same as I do in other games. I do play tighter OOP than most though.

In the blinds, what's your range for flatting or 3betting a CO or BTN raise from a reg?

I defend tightly here, usually flatting medium pairs, suited broadways, AT+, and monsters, and then 3-betting him based on his fold to 3-bet stat. If he's folding a lot, I'll just flat AA and KK and then set traps post-flop. If he spazzes to 3-bets, I'll just 3-bet him for value a lot and play pretty conservatively otherwise. I like to think I have a pretty strong defending range in general. Some people have a 9-12 3-bet vs. steal from the blinds and I think they're just spewing money.

My general approach has been to open wide from the CO or BTN. Unless I see a strange 3b stat from a 3-bettor, I give 3bet respect and instafold anything that isn't JJ+ or AK, and sometimes I fold JJ, QQ, AK if villain's stats are nitty enough.

If I'm on the button there are few opponents who I'd fold TT or AQ to, and I think folding QQ or AK is incredibly nitty almost regardless of opponent. I mean you have position, at least see a flop. I definitely defend even lighter than that sometimes if my opponent's clearly getting out of line, which a ton of players are.

Playing QQ pre-flop gives me a lot of trouble. What do you do when opening QQ UTG and then get 3-bet? How does that plan change when someone 3-bets from the button or blinds?

If you have no good post-flop plan, you can just fold. Most people are only 3-betting AA and KK against UTG raises. If a guy's out of line, you can call a 3bet or 4bet and get it in, but those opponents are pretty rare. If I open UTG and the BB 3-bets me, I think QQ is DEFINITELY a fold, villains just don't mess around there.

Could you break down what allows you to play 16/13 whilst getting in 1300 hands per hour? Because the only time I have gotten this is when I haven't taken any notes and my stats actually dipped to 12/10 which I absolutely hated playing, so at the moment I'm stuck between 700-800 hands playing 17/14.

I think most people are so stuck on pre-flop stat and don't realize that poker is all about post-flop play. So whatever mental block you have about playing 12/10 is pretty unreasonable. The player with the 2nd highest winrate at 50NL (from what I've seen) is playing 12/9, the 3rd highest (again only from what I've seen) is playing 13/10. At higher limits, very tight players are some of the biggest winners. So your mental block of playing tighter is only doing yourself a disservice.

I don't play 16/13, so I can't answer that question. I just fold unplayable hands very quickly and get into a groove. I also don't take many notes unless I see something pretty wild and dumb, my HUD usually gives me good information. When someone's fold to cbet is 20% and their VPIP is 18%, I probably don't need the note --floats a lot-- to make the right play.

And I'll answer the best questions in a (hopefully) long Q+A post in my next blog entry.

I'm not going to address naked HHs, only ones that illustrate larger theoretical questions.

I'm going to heavily moderate the comments below, so act accordingly.

Not a bad week, considering I'm mostly focusing on an upcoming poetry manuscript for Writebloody.com. Made about $180 on rakeback on top of that. Yay! Very easy, very variance free, and easily $75k a year working slightly more than part-time. Of course, I'm moving up to 100nl this month once I get in maybe 100k more hands.

I'm so fucking glad Rush was created. I just want to molest it every night. Touch it inappropriately and tell it to keep our little secret. Having a consistent winrate makes poker so fun to play, and I never hesitate to play a session or have any remote loss aversion because the money's meaningless. WHeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

So I've officially stepped down as a video maker at CR. Cliff notes: I snapped off on some students for various reasons (me being a dick, them being a dick and me being a dick back, etc.), and my behavior hasn't been up to the professional standards expected of me. Totally my bad, and I take full responsibility. It's very humbling to admit this, and I apologize. After spending time on meditation and self-reflection, I'll be taking my video-making skills to another venue.

I'll still be posting/blogging here, and working with many of the CR people I work with now, I just won't be making videos.

All that being said, I've written a pretty comprehensive philosophy on how to crush rush, which will be available only here through cardrunners. I'll be posting it in chunks, wikileaks style, over the coming weeks. It wont be my last long post here, but it'll be a rush magnum opus of sorts, and I hope you enjoy it.

On a final note, thank you, CR, for everything you've given me. When I first joined, I was a clueless n00b with $400 online and no clue how to play poker. Now, I'll never need a job again. That's the best "teach a man to fish" I could've ever asked for.

Blessings, ya'll. Kill it this new year.



p.s.

I'm looking for someone to do some paid powerpoint work for me, because I'm too lazy and/or stupid to figure it out. If you're interested, we can negotiate an hourly or a percentage of assets that come from them.

If you're a former or current student of mine, I've started a poker group on CR. I figured this is a useful tool, easy to moderate (I hope), and will introduce my students to each other so they can do work together outside of lessons. I'll be answering questions as often as possible, and hopefully it'll be a great side resource for you guys. If you've ever been a student of mine, or you're one now, please either leave a message here, or PM or skype me, and I'll invite you. Don't forget to leave your CR screen name!

Also, I've been playing 25-100nl FR rush every night for hours, and you're a student of mine and want to watch for free on teamviewer and skype, hit me up on skype and I'll add you to the presentation. Free coaching FTW.

This is mostly while six-tabling with 2 tables of 50 or 200NL. I definitely got a bit too suspicious at points, and fell slightly into the spazzy-pre / nitty-post style of most TAGs, and then I just kicked myself in the face, snapped out of it, played less suspiciously and fancy, and then I started kicking it back into high gear. I'm not sure how much higher of a winrate you can sustain over a 300k+ sample, but the games are definitely soft enough. This winrate yields an hourly of about +92/hr with rakeback, plus whatever you earned on your other two tables. I think 100/hr is probably the upper limit of a sustainable hourly for a very good, fast, disciplined player, but I might be wrong (I haven't seen what kind of winrates other people are posting).

So I've written like, 40 pages of notes on SSNL FR Rush. What should I do with them?

EDIT: WRONG, non-refreshed results after winning $50 today haha.

So as many of you have seen, I've been grinding 50NL rush exclusively lately. This is for a bunch of reasons: 1) I took a ton of money offline with the possibility of impending legislation, and I'm not keeping more than $10k on any site and $0 on Cereus or Cake. 2) I've mostly been focusing on my art, so poker's just not a huge priority, and when I'm not playing my A+ game I'm not comfortable playing higher stakes. 3) With rakeback, this works out to be about $66/hr 4-tabling (assuming about 1300 hands/hr). With the new FTP rake distribution, this might be closer to $63/hr. Obviously, this is not my actual hourly, because I was usually playing 100NL games as well, but this proves to me that if you play 50NL rush exclusively full-time, you can make six-figures in a year fairly easily.

Sadly, my 100NL results aren't nearly as obscene (I think I'm only beating it for like 6.4bb/100 or something), but it proves that the games are still really easy.

A lot of my big wins come from obscene spew from other TAGs, and NOT from other fish. Looking at this month:

1) I open EP2 to $1.5 with AA with 240bb, , 17/10 flats in HJ, my student, who is playing 22/19 (13% 3B) squeezes HUGE to $7.75 with 180bb, a 13/10 cold-calls on the button, I 4bet to $19.50, HJ folds, student ships, BTN folds, I snap and he tables KK and I hold. This is just obscene, obscene overplaying. Given my reputation as a huge nit, thinking that I'm going to get it in from EP with less than AA for 180bbs is just plain silly. Best play would have been to 1) squeeze smaller, 2) find a fold with KK pre-flop given the action. Simply put, I'm not 4-bet bluffing from EP given a huge squeeze and a cold-call from a 13/10 IP. This was a 160bb donation.

2) 130bb deep: I open MP1 with AA to $1.75, the 50bb 27/7 min-raises in position, the wild, 400bb BB cold 4-bets to $12.50, I flat, fish flats. Pot is $37.75, I have 54.85, the fish has $17.15 behind. Flop is Ad8h2d (DING!). Flop checks around. Turn 8d. (SUPER DING!). BB bets $15.25, I flat, fish shoves $2 more, BB calls, I call. River A (ULTRA MEGA DING!), and BB shoves $38 putting me all in. BB has KK, fish has QQ, and I quads, bitches. In my mind, this is a clear C/F from the BB, but in this spot he just donates 80bb.

3) UTG min raises, MP1 calls, I squeeze with AA, the 60bb BB cold-calls, the UTG player shoves, I snap, BB snaps, UTG tables QQ, BB shows AK, I hold.

And then avoiding medium calldowns (which sadly, I am still not good enough at!). We're all good at dodging big calldowns, hopefully, but even avoiding bad calls in <30bb pots is vital to success:

1) I open KK UTG, 14/9 calls MP1, Nit BB calls. Flop 966r. I bet, TAG calls, BB calls. At this point in the hand, I don't want to put any money in the pot unless it involves me betting the river.

Turn 4, BB checks, I check, MP1 checks. River J. BB leads 3/4 pot. This is a fold. BB can't be betting many worse hands for value (only QQ, 6 combos), and then I lose to 99 (3 combos), 66 (1 combo), and JJ (3 combos). Though some people will say OH! if it's 6 vs. 7 combos, it's a call! But I honestly doubt QQ bets so confidently on the river, which somewhat discounts combos of that hand, and he also should be much less confident leading into my UTG opening range or a huge nit's pre-flop and flop calling range. Which is not to say QQ doesn't bet here, but I expect a smaller size usually (most people in Rush have hilarious bet sizing tells). In the actual hand, I immediately told Brendan this was a fold, and he was like "Wait what? No way!" So I called to show him, and of course we lost.

2) Two limpers. a LAG MP3 isolates, the CO calls, the BTN calls, I squeeze with AcKc from the SB, intending to get it in against the LAG, but fold to a shove from the limpers (very critical imo). Limpers fold, LAG calls, CO calls, BTN calls. Flop A45r. I bet 1/3 pot, LAG shoves, CO folds, BTN calls, I fold. This might be kind of trivial for some, but even given the size of the pot, even given my tiny bet size, this is just so clearly a fold. I was admittedly a bit results-oriented here, so I sat out to see what villains had, and I saw AK and 55. Wheeee.

3) I raise QQ from MP2, fairly big, passive nit flats on the button. Flop 348r. I bet 2/3rd pot, he calls (checking here is fine too, and I mix it up depending on villain's aggression). Turn 9. I bet 2/3 pot intending to fold to a raise and C/F any river. I check blank river, he bets 3/4 pot. This is the snappiest fold ever. I see a lot of my students saying they make this fold in theory, but rarely do they make it in practice-- Jeebus knows people don't make this fold against me! They usually bet/fold or bet/call the river with OPs, which is a bit ROFL.

Anyway, the CR blog software is freaking out and driving me nuts, so I'm going to wrap this up. Right now, I'm challenging myself to doing cardio everyday, and adding 2 minutes a day until I get to 90 minutes, and I'm on Day 3 (46 minutes). Maybe sometime this week I'll do some write-ups of my experiences at 100NL. Good luck everyone! See you at the tables!

Just found out my grandmother died. My mother is flying to Taipei immediately. Not sure what happened. If I am absent for a few days and you are trying to reach me, please have patience.

...are in Charlotte, NC, and start this week! Thursday and friday night are the 72 person preliminaries, and the top 12 poets advance to the finals and slam off for the prize. I've made finals at five of these events, but have never taken clear 1st (I came 2nd and 4th in consecutive year FROWNFROWNFROWN), but this year I've prepared incredibly hard! Wish me the best, and hopefully next time I'll be blogging as the world poetry slam champion!

http://iwps.poetryslam.com/