Email me at ry8881@gmail.com if interested in the offer below.

I have been filling my free time recently by working on some entrepreneurial passion projects. One of those passion projects is to write a book that helps men meet women online. Prior to finishing the book, I am trying to find a few people to test our recommended methods first hand.

To that end, I am seeking guys who are currently online dating and looking for help in writing their profiles, emailing women, and then moving the conversation offline to a date. Perhaps the person is new to online dating or perhaps they've been struggling with it for awhile. Either way, I have some research-proven methods that can help them out.

If you or someone you know is currently online dating and would be open to working with me, please have them email me at ry8881@gmail.com . I will give up to five candidates free, research tested and proven advice on how to increase their online dating success.

All candidates will be considered, but preference will be given to candidates who are:

Men 21-65

Living in the South, East, or Western part of the US.

Currently active on free sites like PlentyofFish or OKCupid

Open-minded and eager to try new techniques in online dating

Thanks in advance,

Ryan

Online Rounders Getting Anxious

Over 45 days out from Black Friday and Full Tilt has yet to repay its US players and many online rounders are getting nervous. Compounding player anxiety is the fact that FTP's lawyers convinced management that silence is the best policy, so information trickles out slowly and is often purposefully vague. Scary, because it would be hard for the truth to do more damage than silence has done already.

While reputation and good will were important to Full Tilt prior to Black Friday, it's become extremely important now that they've publicly announced the need to raise capital to repay US players funds. Unfortunately for FTP and for US players, a slew of rumors have surfaced which must be severely damaging their value in the eyes of potential investors.


The Rumor Mill is Killing Full Tilt's Value

Here is a list of rumors that have surfaced since Black Friday:

Full Tilt credited $60MM in US player deposits without actually being able to pull funds from player accounts. This created a $60MM cost that FTP must eat now that player deposits have been cutoff by the Black Friday actions.

A rogue FTP employee "loaned" $5MM of Full Tilt's funds to a well known red pro named David Benyamine who has personal ties to management. David B. proceed to lose $4MM of the secret stake.

A highly regarded pro on the site, Patrik Antonius, was multi-accounting at super high stakes, giving him an advantage over his opponents.

FTP was selling the rights to 100% rakeback accounts (sometimes called "red pro status") from anywhere between 10K-50K. This was not public knowledge and could have signaled a quick grab for cash by management in advance of legal action by the US.

Their most famous pro, Phil Ivey, has just updated his website and Facebook page to publicly denounce Full Tilt and to announce that he has filed suit against Tiltware. This is CONFIRMED. Not a rumor.

FTP CEO, Raymond Bitar, was using player funds, not operating cash, to run expensive advertising campaigns during the 2010 WSOP.

FTPs employees are generally miserable as ownership works them into the ground and fires people without explanation. Ownership doesn't values employees opinions and works under a vail of secrecy. The only redeemable parts of the job are the high pay and the lavish parties. Again not something you want to here if you are a future business investor or a group of creditors like US players. This is confirmed by employeed posts on Glassdoor.com.

FTP did not protect players fund nor did they segregate player funds from operating funds, essentially putting player funds to use however they deemed fit.

FTPs accounting practices are a nightmare and its hard for them to trace transactions and bank activity, making something like paying out half their customers a complete nightmare.



PokerStars Should Buy Full Tilt

As far as I know, I am the first person to publicly state this opinion: I feel strongly that PokerStars should buy Full Tilt. Here is why:

1) PokerStars has the one thing that FullTilt will NEVER have again, the trust and respect of the poker community. Not only has Full Tilt lost credibility with players, but they've also lost respect from affiliates, training sites, poker forums, payment processors, and long list of other creditors who haven't received payment. If PokerStars takes over the management of FTP and/or merges the two sites then FTP regains instant credibility.

2) By buying Full Tilt, merging the player pools and combining the best of both sites, PokerStars will form a near monopoly in the online poker industry allowing them to charge higher rakes and tourney entry fees and thus raising their profit per player.

3) PokerStars is best suited to determine the true value of FTP based on its rake structure and player pool size and thus they are in the best position to negotiate a favorable buying price.

4) Pokerstars would be preventing sites like bwin (partypoker) and or iPoker from swooping in and buying FTP, which would pose a major threat to PokerStars dominance as the industry leader.

5) This is the best chance of US players getting paid. Pokerstars can draw from their total operating profits across FTP and PS to eventually pay US players and use that goodwill as long-shot to get their site approved for re-entry in the US should online poker be officially legalized.





Background for Non Poker Players

It's been a month and a half since the US Department of Justice seized domain names and bank accounts of the three largest online poker rooms - Pokerstars(Stars), Full Tilt Poker (FTP), and Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet Poker (AP). The day, April 15, 2011, is now commonly referred to as Black Friday in the poker community.

Accused of bank fraud, wire fraud, and violating the terms of a vague online gambling bill passed in 2006 (called the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act - UIGEA), the chances of convictions are high. Similarly, the chances are woefully slim that any of these poker sites ever serve US customers again.

Unfortunately, it's American poker players who suffer the brunt of the blow as two of the sites, Full Tilt and AP/UB, have yet to repay US players' funds.

Before Black Friday, common industry sentiment suggested that keeping money on Absolute Poker/Utimate Bet Poker was extremely risky given their history of multiple super user scandals. So when Black Friday broke, most remaining AP players rightfully assumed we areunlikely to see our funds again. Fortunately, most players held relatively smaller account balances on AP versus FTP and Stars. For example, I held between 10-17K on Stars, 8-15K on Tilt, and 0-5K on AP.

Conversely, common industry thinking suggested that money held on Full Tilt and PokerStars was relatively safe. With each company raking billions in revenue and hundreds of millions in profit annually, the poker community assumed these companies would safeguard & segregate players funds as any type of insolvency issue with player funds could cost them their entire business. While PokerStars verified players intuitions and hopes by segregating their funds and promptly paying out their US customers, Full Tilt has yet to repay player funds and has put no timeline in place to do so. That's a big problem.

Luckily I haven't played poker since March 29th so the sting of running 10K under expectation in March has subsided. Still, it was my best month as a pro, netting 15K in profits.

The blog goes on hiatus for a few weeks as I head out for a spartan road trip down the west coast of the US. I will be making stops in Seattle, Portland, Sonoma, San Francisco, LA, the Grand Canyon, and Vegas.

When I return, I owe readers a summary of how to get a ladies night poker night going at your place. I'll also write about a recent "Broast" I attended.

March and Q1 Results:








Learnings:

1) Early mornings (5.30am to 8am CST) and early evenings (4.30pm to 6pm) seem to be prime time for heads up action. These are the times when "reg to rec" ratios are the best.

2) This game does not care about you, does not care about your expectations, does not care about justice. You can play great and still go broke. Variance can be more extreme than even a reasonably calm, and level headed person can tolerate.

3) The walls in my apartment are strong and relatively noise proof. 15 tilt-induced side kicks later, my wall shows only scuff marks...no dents, no holes, no calls from the neighbor.

4) Leaving my job and playing full time has been a great decision. Unlike other major decisions in my life, such as quitting high school baseball or declining an opportunity to study abroad in college, I have no regrets about leaving a well paying corporate job to play poker.

I grew up in a suburb west of Houston.

My lower-middle class neighborhood fed into public schools hosting students from low and high income housing areas. Jealous of the popular "rich kids" in my school, I found myself obsessed with their Gibaud Jeans, Nike Air shoes, and Polo pullovers. I thought name brand apparel put these kids in the cool crowd and got them the attention of the best looking girls. I was on the fringes of cool and had some interest from cute girls, but I was not on top of the social ladder by any means.

Unfortunately, while I yearned for high-end brands, my family's means dictated I be outfitted in Levi's jeans, Reebok tennis shoes, and Stussy t-shirts. Not a bad look for junior high per say, but definitely not attention getting.

On a larger scale , I found myself dreaming of BMWs and Mercedes while riding into school in Mom's blue minivan or Dad's white Pontiac sedan. I was openly envious of the kids in school who rode to school in nice Chevy SUVs, lived in 2 story houses, and always had latest greatest gaming system (likely Sega Genesis or SNES at that time). My parents worked hard and have found financial success later in life, but when my sister and I were young, money was relatively tight.

And so I went through my junior high years realizing that many of the material things I wanted I could not have. Looking back, I am ashamed of my shallow materialism, now aware that it must have caused my parents some pain not to be able to buy my sister and I some of the things we wanted. And while I still want for some of the nicer material things in life, I am aware that they do not bring happiness, nor are they necessary to be popular or to attract the best looking girls.

Still, the materialistic desires of my youth were not totally useless. They sparked an inner ambition and a drive that laser-focused me on schoolwork and athletics -- two pursuits which brought great value, great friends, and great memories into my life. My materialistic desires also led me to an important right of passage - the choosing of my heroes.

At the time, my heroes included the likes of Craig Biggio (Astros catcher & later their 2nd basemen), Warren Moon (Houston Oilers QB), and the fictional Brandon Walsh (90210) and Zach Morris (Saved by the Bell). Craig and Warren were successful and wealthy local athletes who were thought of as good character guys in the community (later it would be discovered that both had their flaws). The characters Brandon and Zach played embodied who I wanted to be in school - confident, good looking guys, who were witty and attracted good looking girls. I know, how lame -- but these guys were my heroes.







As times have past, my heroes have changed, reflecting more of my current interests and values.

My heroes now are successful entrepreneurs who share similar values to me. They have disproved popular myths and "gone their own way" in life. They are confident, yet humble and gracious (mostly). I follow their careers, I read their books and blogs, and I absorb their philosophies.

In part 2 of this blog series, I will reveal my real life heroes, discuss what they've taught me, how it applies to poker, and I'll share a few anecdotes on how their strategies have positively impacted my life.

February started out very rocky, but I managed to close strong. Finished with a $10K month despite running $2K underexpectation.


Key learnings from February:

1) Breakeven stretches in heads up can easily last 50-100K hands.

2) Most heads up opponents are not well-prepared to counter a strategy where I minraise 100% of buttons.

3) The best way to break out of a downswing is NOT to study your own in-game strategies, but rather to tighten your game selection standards.

4) Sitting at 20-50BB heads up tables at Pokerstars is annoying, but still lucrative. They should be eliminated by PokerStars like they have in 6 max and full ring.






And here are my winrate statistics by game type. I tilted in a few heads up matches at $1/2 and I also game selected poorly at those stakes. Those mistakes cost me several thousand dollars.

As a heads up poker specialist, I use Holdem Manager to track hands and to determine if I played well in a particular session. While I'm playing, I also have a bad habit of refreshing the cashier page for each poker site to see if my balance is growing or shrinking.

However, with heads up poker it's not always necessary to know the precise dollars won or lost in a match to tell whether or not you're playing well.

Having logged over 150,000 hands of heads up no limit in the past 3 months, I have found several in-game signals that tell me if I'm playing well against my opponent:

A winning regular opponent quits you or complains about your style (you're a nit, quit min-raising it's boring, etc)

• Of note, I would never modify my style to appease a regular's request unless the opponent is absolutely terrible. Changing your style usually hurts your game and gives your opponent a slight mental advantage when you let them "control" you and your play.

• Notably, a fellow CardRunners member recently asked me to stop min-raising every button after about 200 hands in a 4-table heads up match or he wouldn't play me. I declined and he ended the match. Unprofessional and cowardly in my opinion.

• Separately, I'll admit, I did agree to change my style for one regular who was briefly 4-tabling me. He asked before the match if I would agree to no min-raising and I did because I thought my edge was big enough to overcome my inability to minraise buttons.

Any opponent accuses you of cheating (are you a robot, I swear you can see my whole cards, etc) or claims the poker site is rigged.

• While I don't normally talk to my opponents during a match, I always respond when an opponent accuses me of cheating in the chat box. If nothing else, just to reassure them that I'm not a robot.

• Recently, I had an opponent so convinced I was cheating that he actually emailed the poker site after losing a few buyins to me and then he sat with me again a few days later. I asked him why he thought I was cheating and he replied "because I usually don't lose so much to a single player." I asked him why he sat and played me again if he thought I was cheater and he said "because I didn't want you to run to another site". Wow !

Any opponent berates you in the chat (how do you call that moron, you are so damn lucky, run better dude, etc)

• I love it when this starts happening. Usually this means my opponent is on tilt and will start 3-betting too light and getting it in way too light post flop versus my range.

• Occassional I will type some na¯ve comments into the text box just keep my opponent revved up and angry. Keeping an opponent on tilt is never a bad idea.

Any opponent starts showing you their whole cards - mostly showing their bluffs to try and induce more call downs from you.

• Again, this is a great situation because your opponent is providing free information, helping you to narrow down their hand range in future hands.

• Obviously most of your weak opponents plan to use this sneak peek to bait you into a light call down later.

For those of you that play heads up, what other signals do you recognize as indicators of strong play?

Background

Prohibition was the period from 1920 to 1933 during which the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol were banned via the 18th Amendment. This is not news for most of you. And don't worry this isn't the same old song and dance broadly paralleling Prohibition to the current climate of online poker in the US. Read on.

So, the Prohibition movement began in the 1840s but lacked steam until the 1870s when two powerful political groups formed. One was the Prohibition Party which was an important force in American politics in the late 19th century - essentially setting the tone for the prohibition push in the States. The other powerful prohibition group in the late 1800s was the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) which, despite its name, actually supported prohibition of alcohol and NOT temperance.

It was the story of the WCTU and the lovable female prohibitionist enforcer, Carrie Nation (to be discussed shortly), which provided me the inspiration for this blog.

While I could expend several paragraphs, discussing the WCTU and Carrie Nation, here are the most salient things I've learned. The WCTUs membership grew 700% in ten years from 1881 to 1891, growing from 20,000 members to 140,000. If adjusted for population inflation in 2010, those numbers would balloon to 100,000 and 700,000. That's a big, single-gender, lobbying group folks. Also, the WCTUs membership was incredibly loyal, and active - taking drastic measures such as entering local saloons singing, praying, and urging the barkeepers to stop selling alcohol. Then there's my favorite prohibitionist torch bearer - Carrie Nation.

Carrie was a fireball, to say the least.

Carrie's 1st husband died young due to effects of alchohol - prior to death his drinking was so bad that they had to divorce shortly before their 1st child was born. This tragic set of events would eventually set her on a prohibitionist crusade. Alone or accompanied by other hymn-singing women she would march into a bar, and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and booze stock with a hatchet. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times for "hatchetations," as she came to call them. I've posted a picture of a hacket and bible wielding Carry below. Lovely.



While we may not agree with the moral convictions nor the methods of the WCTU and Carrie Nation, we must acknowledge their effectiveness in creating momentum for the Prohibition movement. They were major players in a chain of events which ultimately led to the passing of the 18th Amendment. From 1920-1933 it was "good game alcohol."

Connecting the Dots

Fast forward 100 years and now what the heck does Prohibition, the WCTU and Carrie Nation have to do with saving poker. Well, here goes.

As it stands right now, I would characterize most women as apathetic towards poker - especially online poker. Their husbands, boyfriends or sons may play on occassion, they may have seen it on tv once or twice, or heck they may have even played a few times. But on the whole, I'd say women are mostly neutral to the game we love. They don't really care too much one way or the other.

What scares me is that we're one tipping point away from changing women's neutrality to a more negative stance. You see, Prohibition demonstrates exactly what can happen when a large organized group takes a negative stance on a "hobby".

What happens if a prominent female public figure divorces her husband because he lost the families' nest egg playing heads up to Phil Ivey on Full Tilt? What happens if Oprah does a special on problem gambling among youths and online poker comes up? What happens if Krystal Homemaker (my cheeky homage to the female version of Chris Moneymaker) never does win the main event? Does poker have enough equity built up in the minds of women to survive these PR blows? I say no.



Thus, the poker community needs to be proactive.

We need to build positive equity for the game in the hearts and minds of the women in the US. We need them to be our advocates and not our adversaries. We want them in our corners, supporting the PPA, casting votes for government officials who want to regulate poker rather than eradicate.

We want women to think Bill Frist is stupid, that Patrick Antonious is hot, and online poker is the sexiest job in the world.

But how the heck do we do this? How do we get women more interested in poker? Before I get into that, I wanted to add a couple of cowgirl pictures to help you forget about ole' Carrie Nation above...here you go:




Ahh much better. So, again how do we get cowgirls like this to love poker? Read on, read on.


Save Poker, Bankroll a Cowgirl

Here are some of my ideas of how we can get more women interested in poker:

1) Set up a Ladies Night home game at your place.

I'll share my personal example here, but there are many variations of this idea that you can try:

I'm having my girlfriend send out a poker-themed Evite (that I'm writing and will share on this blog once complete) to all of our lady friends inviting them to a ladies night party at our place. As part of the evening fun, I'll be hosting a freeroll poker tournament for all the ladies and encouraging them to bring their favorite sunglasses and caps to play along.

I'll be starting with two practice tournaments, for those unfamiliar with the game, so I can teach them the basic rules and strategy in a non-stressful setting. The third tournament, I'll be putting up $100 of my own money and giving 1st place $50, second place $30 and third place $20. The ladies pay nothing to play.

I think this is a great way to show the ladies how fun poker is. There are tons of side benefits to an event like this if you're a single guy as well. You and buddy could host the poker night and invite ladies and tell them that you're trying to be better ambassadors of the game...yadda,yadda, yadda. Who knows how the night might develop...ahhh but i digress.

2) Teach the women in your life some "Secrets" of poker.

If you ever play poker with your family, or girlfriend, or other lady friends, use that as an opportunity to trigger women's interest. Take your Mom aside before the family poker night and tell her to try raising certain hands preflop instead of calling. Tell her its a secret you've learned to win lots of money. She'll be thrilled to hear this and to see how well it works when she tries. Teach your sister to check raise to a really big amount when she has a flush draw instead of just calling...especially against Dad because he's always bluffing anyways. Again, these little secret strategies will resonate with the ladies and peak their interest...it's like they're unlocking a secret world. It will be more fun for them instead of just some game they always lose at.

3) Use televised poker to your advantage.

Occassionally, while watching TV with my girlfriend I'll be flipping through channels and will land on the WSOP telecasts or High Stakes Poker. Usually I'll just skip to the next channel because my girlfriend isn't interested in seeing David Benefield lay down trips to Doyle Brunsons overplayed top pair. However, this is a missed opportunity. We should not take these moments for granted.

When watching TV with ladies and poker pops on screen, we should point out just how much money they're playing for. Let them know that there's over $8MM on the table in HSP...or that the winner of the Main Event gets $9 milly. Tell the ladies about how we aim to be there someday fighting for huge sums of money. Tell them about the interesting back stories and/or gossip on some of the players that you may have heard about in forums, etc. Make the poper players on TV seem like characters in a drama.

Talk about how this Unabomber character dates famous actress Jen Tilly. Mention the constant forum questioning of Daniel Negreanu's manliness and sexuality. Chat with your girl about Viktor Bloom's $6MM swings in cash games and the fact he's only 20.



By highlighting the highstakes and drama surrounding the games, you start to appeal to some of women's interest. They might actually start to WANT to watch some of these poker shows.

4) And finally, bankroll a cowgirl.

Every once in awhile you come across a lady who just loves poker. She's played before, understands the game, and is interested in playing alot. However, she's either unaware of online poker and how to get started or she doesn't have the funds.

I say when you come across this lady, that you take the opportunity to start a small stake with her. Introduce her to your favorite online poker site, sign her up with a rakeback account, and give her $50. Show her a few poker videos about how to play her favorite game. Tell her what stakes she should start at. Ghost her in a few games as she gets started. Basically, set her up for online success.

I think you get the idea on this.


Get Out There and Do Something

I am fully aware of the stereotype of poker players being lazy and reactive rather than proactive. Let's try and dispel a myth here and take action while women's view of poker is still hanging in the balance.

Leave me your thoughts in the comments section and post any experiences you have with introducing women to the game.

Good luck.

Ryan

I wanted to do a little housekeeping and post my January results. I plan to do this every month.

I am incredibly disappointed in my January. My goal was to have a $20K+ month and netted out at $5.8K after peaking around $12K mid-month. Very disappointing.

Key learnings from the month:
1) Winning is not easy anymore in any game (other than PLO maybe, which I don't play...yet). You absolutely have to grind to win (think intensely about every hand, game select ferociously, avoid tilt).
2) Lack of discipline probably cost me $5-10K this month.





Here are my results stats by game type. Encouragingly I was winner across all game types, discouragingly I won big at the smallest stakes.

As mentioned on my last blog, I have been experimenting with a Paleo diet. Here are three of my favorite meals that you can make in bulk and reheat throughout the week:

1) Paleo Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, and Gravy
2) Jambalaya
3) Paleo Chicken Nuggets and Sweet Potatoe Fries

Let me know if you have any questions about these recipes in the comments below.

1) Paleo Meatloaf, Mashed "Potatoes", and Gravy

Paleo Meatloaf:

• 3lb pounds lean ground beef (I prefer grassfed ground beef if you can find it)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt (regular salt is OK, but technically not paleo)
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped cabbage
• 1 egg
• 1 green pepper, finely chopped
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes and 1 can of tomato paste (for the tomato sauce topping)

Like many men driven to achieve atheltic excellence, I continually experiment with methods to make myself bigger, stronger, faster, and leaner. My goal is ultimately to look like and perform like this guy: