By this point in my poker journey, I have made lots and lots of mistakes. And I'm not talking about how I misplayed certain hands, but rather how I managed my bankroll throughout my career, piece taking, selling (or not selling) action, staking, etc. Furthermore, the most detrimental and common mistakes that I make also relate to personal management, recognition of when I'm not playing my "A" game, and not quitting.

I will start with an example from a live game I play in (in Boston). The game is 5/10 NLHE (this night it was playing bigger because people were Mississippi straddling for anywhere up to $50). I had lost a hand earlier when I bet a flop multiway in position with A2cc on AQ7c, and called a c/r from an old guy. I should stop right there. It was a min c/r btw, which makes it al the more worse. The turn was about the worst card in the deck for me, the 7c, making it less likely he had 77. He had also limped pre so I didn't put him on AA/QQ/AQ. In any case I called his turn bet, and the river was another 7. He bet and I called and was shown the A7. In any case I wound up losing around a buy-in on the hand. I know better, but this only started my downfall.

I later got in a 3way pot with a live mixed-game pro, and a competent Russian guy. Flop was 1097h I had raised in position with Q8hh. Check, mixed-game player bets out 150, I make it 450 with around 1100 back, Russian guy cold calls (he has us both covered), and mixed-game pro ships for around the same as what I had, and I reship my stack. Russian guy tank-calls off both of us. Turn came a 7, river an 8. Russian guy (without waiting to see our hands), says "straight" and turns over JJ. Mixed-game pro disgustedly mucks 86o face up. I toss my cards to the muck. The mixed-game pro says he wants to see my hand. Now technically, while he is allowed to request to see the hand of an all-in player, it's considered extremely poor etiquette to do so in a private game. This guy has been around forever and he knows this, he was obviously just steamed. Unfortunately for me, the dealer caught my cards. He says again he wants to see my cards, but the dealer (not knowing the precise rule, or rather, not wanting to do something rash), held onto the cards. The mixed-game player then grabs the cards out of her hands and flips them up. Now, whether or not he is right to request to see my cards is irrelevant, he certainly should not have grabbed them out of the dealers hands. Worst comes to worst, he could have asked for the host of the game (ie, the effective "floor" in a private game) to make a ruling. Instead of shrugging it off, I let his actions affect my play. If I had perfect discipline, I would have quit at that moment in the game and called it a night, knowing that I would not play my best. Instead I wound up staying in the game and had my biggest loss ever in that particular game.

Long story short, one of my primary goals in the new year is to be more disciplined, both in terms of my personal management (as described in the example above), and peripheral financial management. At this point I believe I am a strong favorite in the games I play in, and if I play my A game I will bring some serious pain. There was a point last year where I won 14 straight live sessions (my longest streak ever). I basically decided that if these guys were going to beat me, they were going to have to outplay me. I was not going to make mistakes for them and defeat myself. As easy as it is to say that, it's also equally easy to make a loose call pre with QJo, or not fire a turn bluff when you know even if called it's a good play for overall meta-game and balance.

Recently I played in a live game in NYC where the mix of games was the usual NLHE, NL O8/b, and NL Stud 8/b. Unfortunately, we did not play any NL Omaha hi that night, because the host of the game dislikes the game, and he argues most vociferously for the other games. I wish someone else in the game were a big proponent of Omaha hi, but the guys who like to play that game were not there. In any case I played a nice little hand, it goes as follows.

Around 22k effective. Player whose preferred game is Omaha 8/b opens and I flat to his direct left with AA46 with A4hh. We are 6 or 7 handed. Yes I know I could 3-bet this hand all day, but villain was UTG and I was UTG+1 and I wanted to open the possibility of someone squeezing behind. SB calls as well. Flop is 7x5h2h. Chk, villain bets 500 I flat and SB flats. Turn is the beautiful 3h (as if sent from heaven). Check, villain bets 1500, and again I flat. River is a blank Q. He bets 5k, and I jam him for the remainder of his stack. He tank-calls off with A4 and I get the 3/4.

I wound up cruising that night to a big win in the game. Unfortunately for me, that big win was directly followed by that big loss in boston. Luckily for me, the NYC game is about 4x the size of the Boston game.

In any case, if anyone has any ideas or ways that they keep or stay disciplined as it relates to personal management I would love to hear your suggestions, please send me a PM and we can chat on IM.

Here's a fun hand I played recently.

Merry Christmas,

David

Full Tilt, $25/$50, $10 ante Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 6 Players

Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

UTG: $9,539 (190.8 bb)

MP: $13,278.50 (265.6 bb)

CO: $8,028 (160.6 bb)

BTN: $10,370 (207.4 bb)

Hero (SB): $13,688.50 (273.8 bb)

BB: $4,148 (83 bb)

Preflop: ($60) Hero is SB with A A 8 7

2 folds, CO raises to $150, BTN calls $150, Hero calls $125, BB calls $100

Flop: ($660) 5 8 A (4 players)

Hero checks, BB checks, CO checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($660) K (4 players)

Hero bets $600, BB folds, CO raises to $2,460, BTN folds, Hero raises to $8,040, CO calls $5,408 and is all-in

River: ($16,568) Q (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results: $16,568 pot ($4 rake)

Final Board: 5 8 A K Q

CO showed K 7 3 K and lost (-$8,028 net)

BTN mucked and lost (-$160 net)

Hero showed A A 8 7 and won $16,564 ($8,364 net)

BB mucked and lost (-$160 net)

I once again took the pilgrimage to Commerce Casino in Commerce, California (just outside of LA). The last time I went out there was two years ago, and I got absolutely demolished in the cash games, amazingly getting it in good twice for enormous pots and losing both of them. This time I really wanted to get revenge. I went out with Jeff (gopheresque) and Ye (omniheart--and we met Olivier out there), we rented a car, a friend who was out of town offered to let me stay in his super nice apartment in West Hollywood, all signs were pointing to a great trip. I sat down in a 20/40 game and immediately saw my friend get stacked two hands in all in on the flop with a J high flush v. a K high flush. Things did not look good. I proceeded to double through a shortish stack when I 3-bet an early position raiser, he called, and I stacked on a J high flop with AA to his JJJ. Sigh. Then came a really crazy hand. This was 20/40/80, and the button (who by the way he was talking was a live pro) makes it 160 on the button after everyone had folded. It was pretty clear by his actions and his raise size that he was not strong. The SB calls and I call with 37ss from the BB. Flop comes out 1074ss. The SB very quickly bets out 400, I make it 1200 with my pair + FD, and the button very quickly makes it 3500. The SB folds and I think for a bit and shove in for 9kish. He all but snap calls and I think I'm drawing to a flush, but amazingly he has A10 and of course he holds. I really don't know how I should have played that. I think if I raise the flop I can't really fold, but I probably should have just flatted the 400 lead out. Not really sure on that one. The other big cash game hand I played was against Antonio Esfandari. We were playing 20/40 6-handed late night (Phil Laak is in the game) and I made it 200 pre with AKo, he 3-bets me from the BB to 700. I call in position around 10k deep. Flop comes 942r . He c-bets 1100 and I float him. Turn is an A. He bets 2200. I have around 5600 behind. I am really not sure of the right play here but I think it's call. I called. River came a 9 and he asked me how much I had left and he bet 6k. I tanked a long time but eventually I couldn't find the fold button and he had 910o. Nice hand, sigh.

In any case thankfully I saved myself from busting more in the cash games and I wound up playing the 10k HU event. This was an amazingly tough field with both live and internet pros everywhere. The tournament was a double elimination, and they started with around 110 players, so a few people had byes. The first person I played was Matt Brady who I later found out had won Aruba. I played really solidly and made one (I think incorrect fold early on). He limped the BTN, I raised QJ from the BB, and he called. The flop came J56. I bet and he called. The turn was a 6. I check called. The river was a K, I checked, and he tanked for a long time (I actually asked him if he knew the action was on him) and he overbet shoved. Obviously he is representing a 6, KJ, a chop block, or air. Something about the bet felt funny but if I folded I would still have a decent chip lead and I felt in control of the match so I laid it down (after the match he told me he had 34 but I don't know if I believe him). Either way I grinded him down and moved on to the second round. In the second round I played Gavin Smith, the full tilt pro. I was actually fairly excited to play him (again, there were a ton of tough players in the field) as I had played with him HU cash a bunch, and had a good idea of how he would play. Our match was over really quickly as he never got any momentum and I won a big hand early. The third match was against Vadim Trincher, the father of Ilya, who I have played with a bunch in NY. Our match was the longest of any match the entire tournament, lasting over three and a half hours, by the end it was just a preflop war and I ran good in all-ins. The fourth match was the money match, against Will "the thrill" a live tourney pro. Again, I felt fairly confident against him and even though he jumped out to an early lead I never had any real trouble and I was in the money. This is when things got interesting. Since I was guaranteed (even if I lost) 25k, I was essentially free-rolling. I was in the elite eight of the winners bracket and if I won the match I would be guaranteed 50k. Unfortunately, my opponent was David Oppenheim, widely regarded as one of the best live players in the world. Obviously I have probably played more HU NLHE than he has, but he has a tremendous amount of live experience and I knew he would put a lot of pressure on me. I didn't come up with a good strategy to counteract him beforehand, and he put a lot of pressure on me and I was quickly down in the match. I actually took a slight chip lead when I doubled through him on a 109xx flush draw board with J10 against his J8. But after that I never picked up a hand and he ground me down. The next match was against Amak316 and we got it all in very early in a flip with my 67cc v. his 1010 on 984cc board. I turned a 7 but it was not to be. I played the main event as well but never got anything going there either and busted after the dinner break on day 1.

LA is a pretty awesome town, and thankfully I got to enjoy some of the nightlife while I was there. Jared (harrington10) introduced me to Rami (Arbianight) and once Jared said I was one of the people responsible for solving the UB scandal and getting all the refunds he immediately invited me out with him. Ye came along as well, and we went to a club called Ecco in Hollywood. The DJ was really good, and we popped bottles all night, free of charge! Rami-if you are reading this I really appreciate it and anytime you are in NY holla at me. I went to dinner with Marcie and Meredith, Marcie was a friend from college and Meredith is her writing partner. They are working on a web show, a tv movie, and a tv show, all at once. Pretty amazing and if I had ever moved to Hollywood there is no doubt I would have liked to try and make it as a TV writer. Oh well, maybe some day. I came back a small loser on the trip despite the HU cash, because of entry fees + some cash game losses.

However, when I came back to NY I had a pretty insane night. I went to a home game in Jersey City run by a few live pros. The game is in a nice apartment right on the Hudson (and I mean literally 20 feet from the water) virtually right across the river from my apartment (you can see my apartment from the balcony). I went with a friend and I backed him for the session. In the cab ride over I offered him 50% of my action but he declined. The game is a 10/25 6k cap game but it was playing really crazy because two of the players were just there for fun and the stakes were so small for them they were just having fun. One player got 6k all in preflop with A5o, and wound up winning 2/3 times (they ran business) v. 1010. My friend quickly doubled through with A8 on A108 against 108, and he wound up winning 18k on the night. I wound up winning around 36k, plus I had half of the 18k for a nice little win in a 10/25 game. Ship it. The big hand of the night I am in the cutoff with 79dd and I call a 200 raise after like 5 callers. I have about 5k to start. The BB reraises to 1500 and there are 4 callers before me! I see the button reaching for chips to call, so I figure why not. Flop comes out 876 with one diamond . The BB shoves it in. One of the guys calls in front of me, so I ship my last 3500 in there. The button folds and while he is folding he accidentally flips over a 10. Not to fear, turn J, river 5. The BB wound up having almost no flop equity on the flop with JJ (although he turned outs), and the caller had flopped the joint with 45o. Amazingly, I still had around 30% equity, which I will take any day with that overlay. This month has been one of my best months, and I am looking to make March even better. Ty luck,

David

I know I haven't updated in a while, sorry for the interruption. I have been very busy at work, as those that know me, or those that haven't been living under a rock for the past 6 months can imagine. Interesting times to say the least.

I plan on updating this blog more frequently, and doing a longer "what I've been up to" post soon, but I just wanted to talk about a recent home game I played in last Saturday night. The game was hosted by S., a friend of mine who went to Harvard. I did not know him in college, but I met him through a mutual friend a while back. He's a nice guy with kind of my reverse background: he worked at a hedge fund after college and later became a pro poker player. Unlike me, he is very very good at math. He co-authored a few articles in Bluff Magazine with Brandon Adams and also helped Bill Chen out with some research for The Mathematics of Poker book. Even though everyone at the game was a Harvard graduate, we all deferred to him on math matters, whether it be size of the pot, hands to go until someone had to leave, or keeping the book. It was pretty funny.

S.hosted the game in his apartment in nyc. The game was five handed, 2/4 no limit. Initially people bought in for 200 bucks, but the game got deeper after a few people stacked off/reloaded. The game transported me back in time to when I was in high school, and we played poker with old-school Hoyle red, white and blue chips on my bedroom floor or on a friends rickety table. There was a mix of competition, camaraderie, joking, ragging on one another, interrupted by moments of concentration where everyone grew quiet when two people were involved in a big pot. There was no fancy green-felt table, no catered meal, no masseuse, in fact there wasn't even any beer in the fridge, only root beer and water, and when someone suggested we flip to see who would have to go out and get beer no one agreed because it was too cold outside.

The game was 5-6 handed, and the lineup consisted of the some of founding members of the Poker Club at Harvard College, which is where Brandon Adams honed his craft. One of the guys had just graduated Columbia law school and was clerking for a year before starting at a very prestigious firm, another was a Portfolio Manager at a hedge fund, another was a risk manager at a bank. I also brought my friend from work to the game who is trying to learn (unfortunately for him he stepped into a very tough 1-2 game!).

I had never heard of the Harvard Poker club when I was in school even though they apparently had been hosting games when I was a junior and senior in 01 and 02. The games were held at the opposite end of campus from where I lived, and poker was not that popular back then, but I'm still kind of surprised I hadn't heard of the games being played since I had always looked for games during college but hadn't been able to find any. Oh well, probably better that I didn't find any games back then.

We played from around 9am-230am and the game was very competitive. Each of the guys had played poker seriously at one point or another to varying degrees. In fact, I had recognized one of the players from this old underground club in NY, which is where I first learned to play no-limit (I had only ever played limit before). Obviously we were playing relatively low stakes so the money didn't mean all that much to us, but the game was a lot more intense than I expected it to be. People were agonizing over calls, and the play was overall very solid. I caught some flack for being a horrible dealer (the game moved a lot quicker because everyone had a deck to shuffle so we didn't have to wait very long in between hands), and of course in high school I got ribbed for this, as well (being one of the only non-asians among my friends this was an obvious stereotype).

I got sucked out on in two major pots (once getting it all in with 33 on AA34 board v. A2-two on river no problem, and once with KK v. AQ on 43510 board all in on turn A on river on problem), yet still managed to book a nice win.

But more than that it reminded me why I initially grew to love the game in the first place, and what I hope poker will be for me in the future. I started playing poker for money when I was in high school, and now, 10 years later, I can still enjoy it, whether it be playing online and really dissecting my opponents' games and statistics, etc. playing in high stakes private live games or in a casino, or playing with buddies on a weekend night, chatting while the hours disappear so quickly because you're simply having fun. It's a beautiful game and one I hope to enjoy recreationally for years to come.

Also, the 60 minutes piece will air this Sunday, November 30th, at 7pm on CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/25/60minutes/main4633254.shtml

There should also be a Washington Post piece this Sunday, as well.


--David

Sorry for the lack of udpates lately. Been extremely busy with work/life stuff. Hopefully I can be a better blogger in the future, though. It's been a really wild ride the past few months.

Let me start with the UB superuser investigation.

if you want more information about this, you can read this thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=99247

As some of you may or may not know, Mike (trambopoline) and I had suspicions last September that there might be a superuser on UB, playing under the screen name NioNio. The way this all came about was that Mike and I were chatting on IM, and he asked if I remembered a specific hand I had played a few months ago (this was in September). The hand was something to the effect of: Nionio raises, with 200bb, I reraise, he flats OOP. I have AhKx. Flop comes 7xx with a flush draw. I have no pair. He chk shoves for an overbet. I called him off and he won the pot when the flush came in on the river. I ave a pretty good recall for hands ,but this one obviously stood out in my memory because I am not usually calling off 200bb with no pair no draw. However, Nionio played such a seemingly "crazy" style, that I felt I had decentish equity against his range.

Mike and I commented that Nionio played a crazy style, but that he must have won huge. I said it was worth it to check out my database. Not only that, I wanted to analyze his stats (I really enjoy using statistics and data to analyze my opponents and my own game). Eventually, we complied 3k hands on Nionio, and in that short time frame he was up roughly 300k, winning at 75ptbb/100, which is insane. Literally 10 standard deviations above the mean. While 3k hands is not a large sample size by any means, it's not prohibitively inconclusive, either. We then further realized that he played a very statistically anomalous style.

His aggression factor per street, VPIP/PFR:

• PF: 1.27, Flop: 1.50, Turn: 3.08, River: 6.36
• VPIP/PFR (mainly 4-6 handed): 50/36

Obviously, NioNio was playing a very strange style, and absolutely crushing the best players on the site. Mike and I then looked at the actual "data" (the hand histories themselves). We paid particular attention to a heads-up session Mike had played against NioNio, where NioNio never put much, if any $ in the pot when Mike had a big hand, chk-called most draws when Mike had a made hand, and chk-raised when Mike was bluffing. However, he was not an idiot, like the AP superusers were. He did not have an aggression factor of infinity (meaning they would raise/fold every time on the river since they knew the cards). He called sometimes with the worst hands, and he semi-bluffed draws, and also made some bluffs.

We thought that NioNio might be a "smart" superuser (even more scary, if someone had the self-constraint to play very conservatively and cap their win rate at 5ptbb/100 they would probably never be caught). We made a post on 2p2, trying to portray NioNio as a potentially smart superuser (AP/UB are owned by the same company, and the AP superuser scandal had come out so we thought there might be a chance the same thing might have happened on UB). We prepared the post, using PT Statistics, and hh data, and got absolutely vilified. People thought Mike and I were idiots, and crying over split milk. While I can understand their skepticism, we thought we had presented an argument that was at least compelling enough to merit consideration. The thread we started literally almost got deleted, but thankfully, it was kept around long enough (mainly because of my and trambo's reputation) for others to chime in with their own hand histories, Josem made a graph, mypokerintel released their database to us, etc. Eventually it became clear that we were onto something.

However, UB, with their poor customer support, was not very helpful. I won't bore you with the details, but the bottom line is that over months of investigations, phone calls, etc. UB finally released a statement admitting that fraudulent activity had in fact occurred on UB, and multiple accounts, not just NioNio were using superuser capability to steal millions of dollars from high stakes player. A lot of my friends got huge refunds. I know multiple people who got low-six figure payments. I got a decent sum myself.

Overall, this entire experience was quite an amazing one. Trusting our initial intuition, having the guts to follow through with our analysis despite getting shredded by other members of the poker community, using data and statistical analysis to show that superusers were on the site, having the community come together (Josem, Omniheart, Cornell Fiji, etc. thank you guys!), and finally doing work which caused millions of dollars to get recirculated back into the poker community was an amazing feeling. Having friends IM me saying they'd buy me dinner or drinks (or lapdances J) when I got to Vegas was an awesome feeling. I can't imagine many situations in life where work you does directly contributes to your friends getting hundreds of thousands of dollars put into their bank account. Pretty sweet feeling.

Other than that, things have been going really well. I am really enjoying my job, and I'm learning tons of new things every day.

My birthday was this past weekend, and I rented out the RoseRoom (which is a private dining room) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I invited 12 friends and we had a wonderful time. The atmosphere of seeing the sun set over Central Park, through slanted windows, while we had an amazing dinner, in the Met, was really memorable. I think everyone else had a great time, too, which was also important.

Poker has been going well lately, too. I had a few really bad live sessions, but I've done well online, so that's helped. Here are some of the bigger pots I've played recently. I know right now I don't have what it takes to become one of the top players, I think less because of natural ability and more because I don't have the time necessary to devote to become as good as the Mjorg's, Samh's, Stinger's of the world. However, I still have it in me to be the best player I can be, so I am still studying the game when I have time. I have a video upcoming in mind which I think will be really good, so look out for that.

Here theguru11 (mjorgenson) gets me to commit 10k before the flop with no pair (I just held AK). Not surprisingly, he won the pot. http://www.pokerhand.org/?2796317

That's why he's a champion and I have to work a 9-5.

Here, another famous champion, Samh, fools me by this tricky flop raise. Once I check the turn to him, he has the opportunity to take a free card, but that's not how great players play, they are aggressive. Unfortunately, I could not hit and the best hand preflop won the pot. http://www.pokerhand.org/?2796349

Anyways, again sorry for the lack of updates, but expect more blogs in the future.

David

Here is a pic of me and my really good friend Dan from college. He gave a little toast at the dinner, and he described how I always had a million different ideas to make money. I'm glad I finally found one that worked out. Hopefully a few more ideas I have will work out, as well.

Growing up, I loved basketball. If I had one great passion during my teen years, basketball was it. I played, watched, read about, and talked about basketball 24/7. I saw many amazing players growing up in New York. I saw Stephon Marbury win the PSAL championships when he was the best high school point guard New York had ever seen (with maybe the exception of Kenny Anderson, although I was too young to have watched him play). I saw Felipe Lopez when he played for RiceHigh School and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for being the best high school player in the country. I saw a few Knicks games too, but Knicks tickets were too expensive usually for my family, so I mainly watched the Knicks on TV. They had a great team when I was growing up, so I have so fond memories, and some heartbreaking moments, as well. Losing the 7th game of the NBA Finals on my birthday was one of them. Sigh. However, my biggest regret is not seeing Michael Jordan play live. MJ was the best player in history, and I never got to see him in person. I kind of made up for it last Wednesday, March 5th. I got to see Lebron James play. At MadisonSquareGarden. I took the kid I mentor/pay for his schooling, Daniel, as part of an event for SSP, the organization I belong to. Daniel wasn't the biggest basketball fan in the world, but nevertheless he got to see a great show. Lebron dropped a 50 ball on the Knicks, not to mention damn near messed around and got a triple double. He dominated in every way possible, with incredible acrobatic layups, precise passing, and dropped 4 threes in the 4th quarter to pull away from the Knicks. The Garden gave Lebron a standing ovation, and he later called it one of the greatest moments of his career in a post-game interview.

It was awesome to watch, and it was also nice to go to the game with Daniel. Like me, he grew up in a single parent home, and having a male influence around to give him advice about various situations is important. I feel, at the very least, if I can give him a realistic example of someone who came from a relatively similar background who has "gotten out" of his situation, it's a good thing. For a lot of the other mentors, they can't relate to the kids they mentor (and most likely, vice versa). I can speak to Daniel with a comprehensive empathy, and treat his revelations with sensitivity and genuine compassion and understanding. I feel like I can give him "advices." Advices are basically nuggets of advice, but for some reason, the word is pluralized. I'm not sure who came up with it, but I love pluralizing random words, so I think it sounds good.

One thing I told him was to always analyze the potential upside and downside in a given decision or situation, and to analyze alternative solutions. I walked him through a concrete example. We saw a bunch of scalpers outside the Garden. I asked him if he could analyze the upside and downside of scalping. We made up numbers. He buys a ticket for 100 bucks, and sells it for 200. His upside for scalping that ticket is 100 bucks. His downside is either 1) he doesn't sell the ticket, or 2) he gets arrested. We talked about what happens when he gets arrested, how that affects his future business, what's the emotional and monetary cost of his getting arrested. We concluded that the downside far outweighed the upside. Obviously, this was a simplified example, but providing Daniel with a kind of framework for decision making might cause him to think twice before he makes a foolish decision in the future, which is all I can hope for. Anyways, the game was fantastic, and Daniel seemed to have a great time.

In poker news, I have been playing a bit lately, with some mixed results. Right now I am basically playing 5/10-10/20 online and I have to say I'm struggling with my game. I got somewhat depressed when someone asked me to send them some information about myself and I sent them the "in the spotlight" feature cardrunners put out back one year ago this month, in March 2007. That month, I made around 180k, and felt so strongly about my game. I was constantly analyzing situations, talking with really smart people about the game, looking every day to find ways to improve. And the results followed. Nowadays, not being able to devote as much time and energy to the game, I know I'll never be a great player. That knowledge is frustrating, but at the same time I have a whole new slew of challenges and interests, and I'm getting quite fond of putting the same energy and effort that I put into poker into finance. Hopefully the results will follow there, as well. All is not lost, I'm up around 80k this month, so I can't really complain, but poker for me was always about challenging myself to be better, and I know gone forever are the days when I can mess around and put up big numbers.

One sick live hand recently (private game): Me and the villain are 60k+ deep, game is 25/50. Villain thinks I like to reraise him light, and he's not incorrect. Already during this session he has 4-bet me and I folded, and he has done this in the past as well. He opens to 200 utg, gets a few callers behind. I am in the BB and I wake up with the 65dd. I decide to reraise for a few reasons: 1) we are so deep I don't mind doing this and it will be easier for me to get paid off big if I flop a monster because of deception, 2) he will be less likely to reraise me given I had done it before, 3) I will pick up the pot a large % of the time. I make it 1500. As soon as I put the bet out, I realized I "mis-clicked" and put out 2500 in chips. Villain thinks for a while, looks at the people behind me, and makes it 10k straight. Everyone else folds and it gets back to me and I am forced to fold. We agree to show each other what we had. I showed the 65dd, he showed the AA. We ran the flop, it was Axx all diamonds. Turn blank. River blank. I felt sick. 120k+ poof vamoose it doesn't exist!!

dp

I get a bunch of IMs/emails these days from poker players asking me how I got into finance, etc. While the entire story is one I don't think I'll ever share on this blog, I'll say that poker and finance are similar in many respects. Speaking from extremely limited experience, I think, at the very least, a poker player who is in the top %1 of players should have an accumulated knowledge base that should give them advantages over other peers entering finance who have not had that poker experience. I know I am able to grasp certain situations in finance more easily than I would be had I never studied poker. The two fields are easily analogized, but at the same time, are very different. Another Harvard grad who is doing very well in finance was a gifted musician when he was young. He told me that when people meet him, they say things like: "oh makes sense you are doing well, music and math, same thing, etc." He laughs these comments off because you might as well compare ironing shirts to finance. In fact, if you thought about it long enough, I'm sure you could come up with similarities. Either way, I am very curious to see what happens 10 years from now in finance, now that poker is so wildly popular and accepted. I am curious to see whether some of the more successful people will have poker in their backgrounds. One thing that's difficult is the people who would have the greatest chance for success are making so much money at such a young age that it will be hard for them to enter finance at a low level. I admire Jason Strasser for choosing to go work as an analyst at Morgan Stanley making in a year less than he made some months in poker. I have no doubt he'll do very well in the long run, better than he would as a poker player, but it's going to take years for him to get there, and most poker players wouldn't eat those years. In fact, there are many players I know who I would not recommend to be in finance, based on their personalities and the way they approach the game, life, etc. Besides Jason, if I had to pick one person who I thought would be great in finance it would be CTS (Cole). The way he thinks about poker, the way he analyzes and critiques his own game, all would translate extremely well.

I haven't been playing much poker at all lately, but I'm eager to get back into it and will post some hands soon. In the meantime, a friend in finance asked me to write up a few thoughts about the similarities between the two fields, and what I wrote him is below. He does pretty well for himself and is a smart guy, and he told me to save what I wrote, that I would use it in the future. Someone asked me when I thought my poker skills would start "kicking in"--believe me, I can't wait.

Poker v. Finance (some of this taken from a previous blog)

Here are some thoughts:

1. A big misconception about poker is that is a math game. While it's important to have a good grasp of numbers, as well as be able to estimate quickly, you can achieve high levels of success without ever delving deep into the underlying mathematics. Particularly in no-limit, the math is relatively straightforward, and there are fewer compounding problems then there might be in limit hold 'em, for example. Similarly, there are many fields in finance which people think are incredibly mathematically complex (stat arb) for instance, which aren't actually that complicated when broken down. It's not rocket surgery, but it's logic.

Poker is, in its essence, a logic game. It relies on history (memory), anticipation, calculation, thinking through a range of possible outcomes based on imperfect information (this might be the most important), and conviction. It also requires superior personal management. Chip Reese once said that what he felt defined a great poker player was to be able to play well when losing. It's so easy to think clearly when winning, but have a few losing sessions in a row, or lose for a month or three months straight, and then it becomes that much more difficult to play well and manage your emotions. To be successful at poker, and theoretically finance, you need to be able to have a strong memory, and intuition developed from thousands of hours of experience and analysis that allows you to make strategic decisions within a logical framework.

However, many breakthroughs in poker coming over the last two years have been from the math/game-theoreticians, and, and while poker is along way off from being solved by computers, some of the freshest insights will come from math/computer programming, but for now there is still so much room to be successful without relying exclusively on math/models (similar to finance).

2. Poker and winrates. The theoretically achievable winrates/swings in poker are very similar to finance. For example, a winning poker player wins maybe around 52% of his sessions. A superior poker player maybe wins 60% at the very max. A trader who trades every day might win at approximately the same win rates if a day=session. Playing poker teaches you about variance, about not being results-oriented (this is a logical leap most people outside finance/poker don't understand), viewing things from a long-term perspective, and about managing capital (for example, risking more than 5-10% of your bankroll in any one session is a recipe for disaster--however, it's appropriate to take big risks, say if your edge is huge--if I played in a game with terrible players, I might risk more than 5-10% of my capital). So it teaches you naturally about capital management and appropriate risk taking in order to achieve the greatest chance for long-term success.

Below is an old blog entry where I put my thoughts on how it relates to finance in bold.

Here is a blog entry I wrote 7 months ago about what it takes to be good in poker/improve: I will post thoughts about how this relates to finance in bold.

This content of this entry stems from a conversation I had today with a friend from law school. Basically, I had played some poker before the start of law school, but did not get really serious until I was in law school. A bunch of the first year law students had a mutual interest in poker (we started a poker mailing list) and I remember a friend of mine and I taught a few of the people in our section how to play one night (that was fun), holding a mini-tournament. There were a bunch of people who I would say were relatively equal in skill to me but I seemed to improve more than them. Obviously, putting in time is necessary to get better at anything, but I also felt I had certain things going for me that allowed me to improve so rapidly.

My friend thought I had a "process" that he found impressive. Here is what he said from observing me.

1. I don't hide my errors. In finance, your p/l is staring you right in the face, same as in poker. you are forced to recognize when you lose, and the better traders/poker players will analyze by directly confronting their losses and their wins with an objective analysis process.
2. I focus on constant improvement. You cannot rest on your laurels, every day is a new sessions, a new experience, a new chance to learn. The people in finance who don't focus on constant improvement/development will not survive.
3. I have solid records.

I think all 3 of those are true. But I added some adjustments/amendments to what he thought, and I think the things I list will be good things to focus on if you are working on improving as a player. I cannot speak for anyone else, but the following "principles" work for me. Also notice how absolutely interlinked these three guiding principles are.

1. Never think you know the best way to play a hand. This is akin to thinking you always know the best strategy or possible trade in given scenario. There are many smart people out there who are thinking about the same trade, it's really important to focus on listening to others/figuring out what they do that makes them successful/being humble enough to accept criticism to be able to improve.

Even if I won the hand, if there was another way to play the hand I would really dissect the hand in my mind and find ways I could have played it better given the specific circumstances surrounding the hand (opponent, position, stack sizes, image, etc.). I would also ask other players what they thought of how I played the hand and whether they could find a better way. Even when I was just playing live, I would keep a journal of hands in a journal and this process helped me forumlate my thoughts and improve. Most people that I've found always say something like: "this was how the hand went down," or "this is how I played the hand," or even "listen to this hand," and then proceed to tell you how they played the hand. They almost never are looking for criticism, and it seems they do very little self-reflection when they win the hand and even when they lose it and get sucked out on. The real truth of the matter is that there is no perfect way to play poker and no perfect way to play any specific hand. You should always be looking for better ways.

2. I am extremely honest with myself and very self-critical. Most people are not self-critical at all. They just assume, "that's what was going to happen."

Most people I know aren't very honest with themselves. If they lose, they blame it on bad beats or running bad. If they win, they assume they played well. I know I am not perfect, and I know there is always room for improvement. You have to be 100% honest with yourself (in your record-keeping, in your self-reflection, in everything pretty much) in order to have the best chance to improve. I also am extremely hard on myself. Most people don't like to think of themselves as being wrong or making mistakes. I assume that I WILL make mistakes, and when I make those mistakes (and especially if I REPEAT those mistakes) I am very hard on myself. Poker is a form of self-mastery, and if you are honest with yourself you'll immediately notice negative patterns that affect your game. I repeat mistakes all the time, but that doesn't mean I didn't try to self-reflect or improve upon those mistakes. However, there are many mistakes that I have corrected, and that is in large part due to my honesty and self-criticism.

3. I am a student. Finance offers an opportunity to learn every single day. Every day new information comes out, needs to be analyzed/processed, every day new ideas are developed, etc.

I really am a student of the game. I post hands, discuss hands, think about hands, read others' hands, and talk with others about the game. I was lucky when I was learning to form a friendship with some great poker players and they have helped my development so much that I am incredibly grateful. If you find someone better than you who happens to be willing to discuss hands with you, reach out and form a friendship with that person, it will benefit you greatly. Friends can also act as a support system when you are unsure about certain aspects of your game, or even help you out with advice on a wide variety of scenarios.

4 (addendum). Get lucky. Applies to finance as well, it helps to be lucky early on in your career.

It goes without saying that almost every great player ran hot at the start of their career or they would not have reached the heights they did. I certainly ran hot when I played 50/38 in 6max.

What do you guys think of these? I'd be curious to hear others' thoughts on these principles.

In keeping with the above rules, here are two things I'd like to work on in the future if I want to be a regular winner at 25/50 (which is my poker goal for now).


1. Do not go off for large amounts of money, simply quit when you are losing. It's so easy to go off for large sums when you are tilting and multi-tabling at 25/50. It can be disastrous to play when you are not in the right frame of mind, and after taking a few beats and losing around 4+ buy ins, it's best to just pack it in for the day and come back the next day or a day or two later and play with a fresh head. Poker is one long session, but managing the little incremental segments of that long session are critical to long term success. This point is especially true for days following big winning days. This is a common pattern I have noticed in myself and the way to correct it is to simply quit whenever you start to feel invincible and start pushing marginal situations too much. Do not risk too big a portion of your capital in one session; do not put yourself in a position where your downside is going to be a big portion of your capital.

2. Practice impeccable game selection. It's really important to fish hunt and play in games where you have at least one big fish playing. At 25/50, to make a game profitable for me now I think I need at least one fish or two marginal regulars. A game with play2kill, stinger, cts, etc. is simply not going to be profitable for me. Trade where you have an edge.

Finally, my personal assistant Julie scanned a ton of pictures that I had lying about, which was a big project, and I found this old gem among them (thanks Julie!). It's probably my favorite picture ever taken of me. I'm not really sure why I like it so much-I think it's just it reminds me of how I felt at the time, like the whole world was mine for the taking, that I could accomplish anything. The expression on my face-it's like I'm contemplating that. It's from my first day of college, in Holworthy Hall in the Harvard Yard. I am sitting in one of the standard-issue chairs before anything has been unpacked. I have a brand new basketball in my hands, I have my watch on, I have a Pirates hat on with the rim bent just so, and I have on brand new shiny metallic silver Air Max 97s. I'm 18 years old and I didn't want to be anywhere else or be anyone else than who I was that very moment.

dp

So I finally caved in. I don't watch too much television (although I love Friday Night Lights and Lost), but I do watch a fair amount of films (to be fair I mainly go to the theater). Furthermore, when I was young, I was very good at video games. Good enough to be in the top 3 kids under the age of 13 in New YorkState in the Nintendo championships (the main game where you scored points was Tetris). However, I gave up video games and haven't owed a video game system since I was 16.

Despite my love of film, I still had TVs that were almost 10 years old. Here was how my living room set-up used to look:

But for no real reason other than I decided it was time for change I picked up a very nice entertainment center, with all the amenities. I purchased the following:

-46" Sony Bravia XBR(R) LCD flat panel HDTV

-Sony RHT-G800 Home theater stand with integrated surround speakers and twin subwoofers

-Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player

-A Wii with all the necessary components/cables (I won't play this myself, but it'll be a nice thing for when friends come over)

-Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08

- Guitar Hero III (I've heard this is fun)

-Wii Nunchuk controller (apparently this is for boxing)

-Wii Charge Station and 4 Wii controllers

-Logitech Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote (crucial)

The end result is just incredible. The TV looks amazing, I watched the Super Bowl on HDTV, and best of all is the blu-ray disc player. Watching a movie on blu-ray, the quality is so crisp and clean that it looks better than being at the theater. You really have to see it to believe it. Below is a picture of the new setup, taken while watching the opening shot of GoodFellas, while Ray Liotta is speaking one of the more memorable opening lines of American film of the past twenty years:

"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me...being a gangster was better than being president of the United States."

I'm extremely pleased with the purchase, and I can't wait to enjoy it.

Since I am posting pics of technology, here are a few more.

This is "the moneymaker," as I call it. I paid for all of my graduate and law school education on this laptop, plus a lot more. It is a nice, 17" inch dell, and I can 4-6 table on it easily. It's still my preferred way to play.

Here is my Dell Computer that I got a few months ago, which is an absolute beast of a computer:

And best of all, here is my 30" Dell Monitor and my 23" apple monitor side by side. You can 9-table on the Dell easily (not that I have ever done it, but I may want to at some point).

Haven't been playing much poker lately since I have been incredibly busy at work, but work is going very well and I couldn't be happier. I am so thankful to be able to have the job I do, and to be able to be excited about learning every day. If anyone has any questions about finance/hedge funds in general, feel free to ask.

This pic is taken around 715am in my apartment as I'm leaving to go to work in the morning. Brian and Taylor stayed over at my place and slept on the pull-out sofa, I assume because they couldn't afford a hotel room (j/k). It was cool to have Brian and Taylor over, it's always a real pleasure to talk about various business things with Taylor, he really likes to think about various ways to make money, and I like to think along the same lines. Brian also had a lot of fun gossip about the poker world, and it was interesting to hear his perspective on the poker and the poker world in general. He is a very serious minded individual and it's no surprise that someone with his personality would be very good at poker. He is dedicated, analytical, and forward thinking. Ezra, Brian, Taylor and I went to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse near my apartment, and talked about poker, finance, business, and other random topics. Unfortunately, we did not see Leelee Sobieski like we did last time we went to that particular restaurant. I felt bad for Brian, since he obviously doesn't enjoy traveling/being out of his comfort zone (which is understandable given he lives in beautiful Santa Barbara) but hopefully he enjoyed himself somewhat and it was cool to hear his perspective on things.

While Taylor was in town we also got a chance to go (along with Ezra and Emil a.k.a. whitelime) to one of my favorite massage places (if not my favorite). As anyone who knows me knows, I love massages. However, I am also very particular about the kind of massage I like to get. I love massages that are very strong and incorporate stretching (thai and shiatsu come to mind). Madison Towers Spa has a very discrete, old-school shiatsu massage spa where you can sauna/steam room beforehand and then get treated to an amazing massage where they walk on your back, stretch you out, and overall leave you feeling completely relaxed. After the massage is over, you can lie down on a heated floor for the final aspect of the massage. It's certainly an experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone if they like a strong, vigorous massage.

The next day we went to Tamarind (Indian food), which was Emil's recommendation, and it was really great. I had my office mate Greg come along and since he has played a lot of poker and actually built a successful poker bot, he had a lot in common with the people at dinner. Of course, I lost credit card roulette (I run SOOO bad at cc roulette), but it was funny, because I started to complain about losing, and Taylor said: "Yeah, but you run good at life." I have to agree with Taylor, and felt grateful for being able for being able to pay for dinner for my friends without a worry. It made me think back to the first time I paid for an expensive dinner myself (see old blog entry "trying to get that bread..."), and I realize how lucky I am. As Jay-Z said: "I've seen the worst of the worst, I deserve every blessing I receive I'm from the dirt..."

Anyways, was great having Taylor in town, but I was sad to see him go. We were supposed to head down to the Borgata in AC for the 5k tournament this past Friday, but the person we were going down with could not make it, so Taylor decided not to come. I still went with some other colleagues, and had a great time. Unfortunately, after playing great the entire day (it was a 2-day tournament) I bubbled. That's right, 27 places paid, and I got 28th.

Here were the two fateful hands (comments/thoughts appreciated).

Hand 1: Blinds are 2k-4k (500 ante), I have around 140k in chips with the average around 85k and I'm cruising. I went from having one of the toughest tables I've ever been at (with Lee Markholt, Brock Parker, Gavin Smith, John Racener, Bill Elder and a few others) to being at a table where the only really dangerous players were T-May (very nice guy, by the way, shout out if you read my blog) Steve Sung, and, briefly, Bill Elder. There was an older gentleman at the table and he was talking about his gambling website, "Blackjack for Winners," where apparently he teaches you how to beat the casino. A guy at the table remarked, "go to my website, it's called baccarat for losers...I bet I get more members than your site." The table had a laugh at that. Anyways, he has been playing very strangely, making odd-sized bets and over-raises, calling tons preflop, and donking out at flops seemingly indiscriminately. I am just waiting to find a spot against him. I make it 10.5k (yes, this was on the smaller side but I had seen a lot of the good online tourney players make this size raise so I tried it out) from MP with A4dd. This is a relatively weak opening hand but at this point I had a strong image. It folds to the BJ for Winners guy who thinks for a long time (he starts the hand with around 107kish). I see the wheels turning in his head, realizing that it's only 6.5k more to him. He decides to call. Flop comes KK3 one diamond. I have no pair, but a backdoor flush draw. He leads strongly at the pot for 17k. Previously, I had seen him donk a number of flops with a wide variety of holdings, but I did not read his donk out as strength. I felt relatively certain he did not have a king here. I thought about raising, and I actually went into the tank for a long time (over a minute), and I didn't want to raise to 45k or something then get shoved off my hand (which might even be best). So I floated. Turn came Qs. Board read, KK3Q. He donked out "fatty" (in the words of T-May) on the turn for 35k. I looked at his stack, he had 44k left, and I shoved him in. I wanted to convince him I had a king, obviously, and I would have played a King the same way. He went into the tank for about 5-10 minutes, and he was visibly close to folding. I was debating whether or not to talk to him during the hand, but I decided to just be quiet. He finally called, and he had the ole Q3o for three pair. No ace on the river and I was almost out of the tournament. I really don't know how I feel about this hand, on the one hand I can convince myself I made a +EV play, and had I won that pot I would have been chipleader of the tournament with under 40 players to go, but unfortunately, he made a great call and I was devastated chip-wise.

In other notes from that table, I got the chance to meet Bill Elder, and T-May was asking me about my job and I told him and whether or not I went to school for it, and I told him no, but that I was an economics major in college and went to law school. Bill Elder (who I had also played with at my first table) chimes in "I hate economics majors who went to law school." Apparently, Bill went to Boalt Hall (Berkeley, a very good school) and was an economics major in college. He seemed like a smart guy, and was a total gentlemen and really nice. It's no wonder why pretty much everyone says great things about him. He really was a class act and it's people like that in poker who I look up to for their great table demeanor and attitude.

Hand 2: After some nice double ups, I was back up to 110k. I was so disappointed that my table broke, it was the best table I have ever been at that later in the tournament. I was moved to a new table with Lou Esposito (who I know from NYC) and durrr (who wound up getting 2nd). Immediately after I sit down, the tightest player ever raises utg to 18k, durr shoves him in, not sure how much but it was over 180k preflop I'm fairly certain, and the guy mumbles, gives a speech (durr later said: "speeches tilt me") about how he can't fold the hand, and calls with AKo. Durr has AQ and the flop pops out QQx. That's why durr is the best. Anyways, a few hands later I am sitting on around 110 and I raise 88 utg+1 to 18k (blinds are 3k-6k). "Fat Lou" immediately raises to 80k, like instantly, putting out the chips very fast. Folds back to me. We are on the bubble. Lou clearly has a good hand. I ask him if he will show if I fold and he says: "Dave, I'll do whatever you want, I'll tell you the hand, I'll show, whatever you want." People start crowding around the table because it's the bubble and it's also 2a.m. and people want to get to bed, and Lou says, "Dave is my cousin from NY." At this point I think there is a chance he has AK or AQ, and I can't really put him on 99-JJ because I feel he would have had to at least think of what to do preflop, so I stuck it in and got shown KK. I don't know what to think of this hand but I probably should have folded. A friend commented later how in moments of stress certain things can take on unnatural weight in your decision making process. In this case I over-weighted his speech and determined that he could have AK/AQ, when I should have just paid attention to all the other signals (I raised utg+1, he insta-reraised utg+2, he knows I'm a solid player, etc.). It really sucked to play all day and have nothing to show for it, but that's tournaments, I guess.

I went down with some people from the finance world, and since I haven't played much poker lately, I really treated the tournament as a break and had a really fun time. I know long term that's the place I want poker to have in my life. Eventually I want to play against strong competition strictly for the fun of it, where the money I win/lose doesn't really matter and affect me at all. So many tournament pros have such horrendous attitudes when they take bad beats, and I think a large part of that is because poker is such a grind and they know they only get but a few chances a year for a big score. I also think that in comparison to the online players, they have a less sophisticated understanding of variance and thus treat every bad beat as a colossal missed opportunity rather than just part of the game (Erik Cajelais and Gavin Smith were at my table and both took beats really badly). Erik's hand was losing J10 v. QKdd on a J10Q2dd board where Eric bet the turn, the guy just called, and the river paired the 2, the river went chk chk, and the Erik's two pair got counterfeited. He was visibly shaking and frustrated after that hand, and proceeded to tilt the rest of his chips off very quickly. Gavin gets it in v. a relatively short-stacked player with AA v. her QQ, and she spkes a queen, and is grumpy and upset for a long time after the hand.

I would never want my life to be like that. I just want to enjoy poker for the great game it is, compete at a high level, and have fun with it. After all, it's just a game. A very competitive game, but a game nonetheless.