Just wanted to jump in here real quick and say that I'm going to be moving my blog over to tumblr. I've always liked blogging as a rare activity to de-stress and conceptualize everything going on in my life, and having it on a poker training site just made me feel like I should only blog about poker, which is tough when the inherent swings more often than not leave you feeling annoyed with the game. Anyways, really grateful to have met all the original CR guys as a result of my limited time working here and wish everyone here the very best.

I'll still be blogging a good amount about poker, and for anyone that still wishes to stay in touch, my new blog can be found here: http://mgorodinsky.tumblr.com/

Thanks for everything, guys. Gl to all.

Hey everyone! Sorry again for the long break in-between entires but I guess that my blogging is just doomed to be a monthly sort of affair.

Since last time, thankfully not a lot has changed - still living the good life in San Diego.

Poker-wise, I'm still on a pretty sweet heater in the local 300/600 mix game. It's getting to the point where other regulars groan when I show up to the card room so I'll take that as a sign of flattery and keep doing what I'm doing :).. Which is mainly just running good!

You know things are going well when the biggest concerns that I have most weekdays (game runs M-F) is whether I want to build my chip stack pyramid outwards or upwards.

Though I like the orderly, neat look of the upwards pyramid:



.... there's something to be said for the vast power of the 6X6 blob:



And for those times when I find myself on the short-stack, here's a pro phallus intimidation maneuver:



So all on the poker front is going well.

Life, otherwise, has likewise been excellent. I've been golfing/beaching/exercising plenty in-between the poker sessions and recently had a few friends visit from NY and went to a bachelor party in Cabo, Mejico.

From the girls' visit (unknowingly right in the middle of the west coast blackout):



And as for the bachelor party, obviously what happens in Cabo stays in Cabo but it can be pretty easily summed up by three pictures:







Ah, memories. (Or lack thereof).

Hmm, I remember a time in my life where the number of words on my blog actually outnumbered the amount of pictures. Oh well, pictures retain a fondness that words sometimes can't quite describe. Maybe next time I'll actually include a few of my thoughts, but hopefully you guys enjoyed the pictures as well. 'Til next time.

Cheers,

Mike

**twitter: @Gordolikeafox**

Good morning from San Diego! The view off the deck of my new place in the Banker's Hill/Hillcrest area:




Since the last entry, things have fallen into place quickly and easily out here. The cross country move actually turned out to be pretty easy - my computer, monitor, and skis all arrived here without any damage to them and my roommates made moving everything out of storage super easy. Since then, I've settled into a pretty solid routine. My roommates this time around are all fitness-oriented so despite the 24H Fitness being about a mile or so away, it hasn't been particularly hard to motivate myself to get into the gym. The only downside to this gym is that it's slam in the middle of Hillcrest (the gayborhood in SD) and my shoes are sparking more conversations than I was looking for LOL:




When peacocking goes wrong! I match the LGBT flag a little too well I think... Haha

Post-gym, I've gotten into the habit of grabbing a quick sandwich from one of the great places in the area (by far the best part about this spot in SD is that it's absolutely packed with delicious restaurants) and then making my way over to the Palomar Card Club, which is a tiny card room in SD that happen to run an enormous 300/600 mix game that in my 3 weeks of playing in has gotten as big as 600/1200 and usually plays 400/800 by the end of most nights. The everyday mix of games is: Badugi, Pot Limit Omaha 8-or-Better, Badacey, Badeucey, Stud 8-or-Better, 2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw and Pot Limit Omaha (not in that order). Its been a bit of an adjustment to suddenly have poker put me into an everyday schedule but the game starts at 12:30 or earlier M-F and you're shut out of the game if you get there late. After the summer's beating I was really looking to regain some poker dignity and I've been doing just that. I guess that I've only played 15 or so sessions so far, but I've been doing very well. The game, despite being regular, is a very good one, and I figure to continue playing while the opportunity sticks around. Already, we are seeing guys like Daniel Alaei, Eli Elezra, Tim Phan and others coming in town and making the games tougher so I gotta get the grind in while I can! Gotta keep trying to build mountains:




I'm a child I guess. For some reason I still find it really fun seeing how high I can stack the chips! Usually a sense of modesty kicks in though and I find the embarassment of being the idiot taking a picture of their stack outweighs the desire to do so.

So yeah, things on the poker front are looking good. A bunch of my friends have either moved to Canada or found other ways around the online poker ban, but I'm honestly pretty content grinding it out at Palomar, actually enjoying the majority of the company at the tables, and finding myself getting better and more confident at playing live poker. Otherwise, my time in SD has just been spent with friends that I really missed during my time in Boston - just golfing, lounging by pools, having drinks, playing with dogs, and all in all living the easy life..

Just to throw in a few more pictures, here's a shot from the highest point in San Diego, on Cowley Mountain, from a hike a few weeks ago:




The hike actually turned out to be tougher than expected; I definitely recommend it for those in the SD area looking to get out and hike a bit, since sand hikes onto local beaches aside, hiking spots are pretty lacking in SD.

And finally, I decided to upgrade my whip. I gave my old car away to my brother during my time in Boston since it was just sitting around doing nothing at my parent's place in NJ and my brother's then-current car was in bad shape. All in all a good deal for both of us since I now get the everyday pleasure of driving this:




Life is good :)

Hope you're all well, thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Mike

(follow me on twitter @gordolikeafox)

I guess I'll start off what's sure to be a long, rambling entry with the news that I finally caved and got a twitter account. I still think it's a mostly self-inflating platform but damn is it useful during WSOP time and tournaments in general.

You can follow me at http://twitter.com/#!/GordoLikeAFox. Twitter is a nice medium for me since I get into moods where I'm too lazy/unmotivated to pump out a solid blog entry but it's always pretty easy to describe a day's swings, activities, etc in a few sentences. Either way, check it out, I'll do my best to exaggerate my boring life.

...On to the real updates!

I hardly even know where to start. I think I'll go chronologically since early January and try to post a pic or two from each trip/event where applicable.

PCA: Good time as always. Coming in from Boston as opposed to San Diego this year was a plus since I could finally enjoy the significantly warmer weather as opposed to constantly bitch about how cold it was. I played a bunch of poker on this trip. Cashed in the main, finished 2nd in the 5k 8-Game (won it the previous year), won at the 300/600 mix game that ran the whole trip and somehow even crushed Jason Mercier betting 1-2-4-10k flops (I've run about as bad as I ever have in my life since then; I should've known the amount of luckboxing it would take to beat Jason at neutral props would empty me out for a lengthy spell).

We'll start out the pics with something artsy:




My memory has gotten a bit hazy at this point but I'm pretty sure that all I did after the Bahamas was play a ton of volume online at 25-20/100-200 PLO on Stars, 150-300/250-500 10-Game on FTP and get absolutely crushed at both. My record-keeping hasn't been great of late, but if I had to throw up a guess I'd say I was probably on a 500k+ downswing online entering into Black Friday. If nothing else, at least I don't have the enormous FTP $ sweat that I would have had if the downswing hadn't occurred.

I guess that it's more or less a professional expectation for me to at least touch on Black Friday and how it has impacted me/my general thoughts on the legislation. Regarding the legislation, there was a reason I never kept more than a few hundred on each of the respective sites. Not that I was necessarily expecting this Pokermageddon, but I always felt that something shady was a small, but nevertheless real possibility. I'm truly one of the "lucky" ones to have downswung immediately before the legislation passed and have not been seriously impacted, financially-speaking. That said, a lot of my close friends/my brother have a large percentage of their net worth locked up and it's a pretty sick feeling for everyone to have to just sit back and anxiously wait. But alas, call it an occupational hazard and move on I suppose.

Like a lot of other confused poker players post Black Friday, I drowned my boredom with alcohol and a marathon of Mad Men but soon got bored, found that the itch to play poker was pretty damn strong, and decided to pick up with the EPT.

My first trip was for EPT Snowfest and WPT Vienna (which looking back on the dates seems to have occurred before Black Friday anyways). I traveled with the one and only jcmoussa who's general nittiness was definitely a good influence on me. I only took 10k euros with me and had a seat in Snowfest guaranteed. I wound up bricking all the tournaments I played, (WPT Vienna being a brutal one where I 4bet jam Q3s in a weird spot on the bubble only to get 3 minute slowrolled by KK, flop a pair + FD, then brick out) but absolutely crushed the 20/40 PLO game. I think I made something silly like 60k euros across 5 or 6 sessions where most people sit 2-4k deep. Either way, it was a sweet trip; great for my confidence playing live and Austria was a beautiful country to explore. A few random pics:



Mozart made Kevin and Moussa hold his hands, it was a little strange.

Hmm, despite Vienna being a totally gorgeous city, I apparently didn't think it worthy to take any good shots. But LOOK AT THIS BUTTERFLY:




So Austria was pretty cool and gave me the EPT bug. I got back to the U.S for less than 2 weeks and instantly ventured back off to Europe with Clay (MesmerizePls or however u spell it) to hike the Cinque Terre then play EPTs San Remo/Madrid. Cinque Terre was just stunning. We hiked 4-8 miles a day and pigged out on amazing seafood every day. Pretty ideal. I'll try not to overdo it with the pictures:



A pretty standard view along the hike :)



Rusting locks along the first of the trails connecting Riomaggiore and Manarola. It is called the 'Lover's Walk' and the locks are meant to symbolize couples locking in their love. Clay didn't want to hold hands :(



I probably have upwards of 20 pictures from this trip that all look like this. Seafood risotto, bread, and lots of red wine. Mouth watering uncontrollably.



Just some more of the beautiful views.



For the 3 girls that accidentally find their way to my blog. Back in the good old days with beard and fit before Vegas sucked the life out of me :(



A typical Chinese poker session with Clay; my hands are set and he's still deep in the tank.

Aaaand I'm going to cut myself off with Cinque Terre otherwise this blog is going to get to unreasonably long. From Cinque Terre we went straight to San Remo by train just in time to catch the start of the EPT. Not a ton to say about this trip, really. Due to the Italian government/local casino's incompetence, it was pretty much impossible to play any poker aside from the tournaments. I busted out of the main event in a pretty brutal way, getting in KK vs QQ on KJT2 where he flats 3b pf, c/calls flop and overbet ships turn for a 3x average stack. Pretty annoying but one of these days a big buy-in MTT run will materialize for me. On the last day of the trip, I min-cashed in the high-roller turbo and that was more or less the extent of my poker playing. Otherwise, I met Gavin (gavz101) on this trip who's a great guy and was a blast to party/be a degen with in San Remo/Madrid and spent lots of time basking in the sun. A couple of random pics:




The standard post-tournament routine in San Remo: mojitos, snack, pool, drinks and gamble.



Oh just your average heterosexual shirtless bearded-man tandem bike ride along the San Remo coast.



Gav, Clay and Melanie stopping for a pic along our bike path.

San Remo was then immediately followed by EPT Madrid, during which I was able to take a whopping zero pictures. I was hard on the grind. Unfortunately, the grind was a little hard on me as well. I somehow managed to bust the 10k main in the 3rd level which is a new record for me. I then proceeded to lose 3 40k+ euro pots as a minimum 58% favorite in the 25/50 PLO game, busted every other tournament I played including the 10k turbo, and all-in-all had a pretty terrible time financially-speaking. Thankfully the company was good so I maintained sanity long enough to make it back to the States, rest up for a couple of weeks and make my way over to Vegas.

Vegas was, predictably, 100% terrible. I went an impressive 0/23 in tournaments and lost another 100 or so the few times that I played cash. Pretty annoying but I actually maintain that I played well through it all so all I can do is sigh, shrug it off, and look towards future tournaments. I would elucidate more on Vegas, but honestly, it was such a physically/emotionally-draining experience that it all blurs into 1.5 months of nothing and I'm happy to be past it and not thinking about it anymore.

So presently, I'm back in Boston gathering my things together, piecing together last-minute sublettors for August, and once more looking forward to sunny, stress-free days in San Diego. I've had a great time in Boston; living with good friends that don't play poker was a breath of fresh air and it provided a terrific opportunity to travel which is otherwise a huge pain coming from the west coast. That said, my friends are splitting across the country again and I'm ready to get my GRE book out, finally adopt that puppy I've been dreaming about for years, play some cards on the side and finally settle into a more or less quiet routine in San Diego. I probably won't blog again for a bit as I gather and reorganize my life, but I'll throw out a little update once I settle in San Diego.

Sorry it took me so long to throw out an update but traveling a ton and downswinging excessively aren't exactly great catalysts for blogging. Hope all y'all are well!

Cheers,

Mike

P.S. I'm currently in the process of producing content for a new poker training/community site; I'll throw out a link once it looks like it's ready for a public opening. Suffice it to say that I wouldn't put my time into something that I didn't believe in, so I think it's going to be really innovative and a positive force in the online poker community. Excited to share it with you guys :)

The session before today, I dropped something stupid like 70k to isildur in a matter of 2-300 hands of me playing terribly and him running very hot. This bothered me and I had really been looking forward to a rematch. Got it today; it went very well.

What a last day before the Bahamas!



It goes without saying that I ran really well. Anytime you win 30 buy-ins in a HU session, you ran really, really good.

A few hands:

Poker Stars, $25/$50 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 2 Players
[url="http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/"]Poker Tools[/url] by [url="http://www.cardrunners.com/"]CardRunners[/url] - [url="http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/hand/7107185/"]Hand Details[/url]


[b]BTN: $24,417.50 (488.4 bb)[/b]
[b]Hero (BB): $50,331 (1,006.6 bb)[/b]

[b]Preflop[/b]: Hero is BB with A:diamond: K:club: A:club: 7:diamond:
[color="red"]BTN raises to $150[/color], [color="red"]Hero raises to $450[/color], [color="red"]BTN raises to $1,350[/color], [color="red"]Hero raises to $4,050[/color], BTN calls $2,700

[b]Flop[/b]: ($8,100) 4:club: Q:heart: J:club:[color="blue"] (2 players)[/color]
[color="red"]Hero bets $8,099.50[/color], BTN calls $8,099.50

[b]Turn[/b]: ($24,299) 5:spade:[color="blue"] (2 players)[/color]
[color="red"]Hero bets $24,298.50[/color], BTN calls $12,268 and is all-in

[b]River[/b]: ($60,865.50) 4:heart:[color="blue"] (2 players, 1 is all-in)[/color]

[b]Results:[/b] $60,865.50 pot ($0.50 rake)
Final Board: 4:club: Q:heart: J:club: 5:spade: 4:heart:
BTN showed T:club: A:spade: 9:spade: J:heart: and lost (-$24,417.50 net)
Hero showed A:diamond: K:club: A:club: 7:diamond: and won $60,865 ($24,417 net)

Not a lot to say about this one. We had been 4/5betting pretty light and my aces here are really premium so I don't mind a 5bet OOP even with our really deep stacks. This actually wound up being the last hand of the session.

Poker Stars, $25/$50 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 2 Players
[url="http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/"]Poker Tools[/url] by [url="http://www.cardrunners.com/"]CardRunners[/url] - [url="http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/hand/7107186/"]Hand Details[/url]


[b]BTN: $16,272 (325.4 bb)[/b]
[b]Hero (BB): $39,890 (797.8 bb)[/b]

[b]Preflop[/b]: Hero is BB with A:spade: 9:diamond: J:diamond: 5:spade:
[color="red"]BTN raises to $150[/color], [color="red"]Hero raises to $450[/color], [color="red"]BTN raises to $1,350[/color], Hero calls $900

[b]Flop[/b]: ($2,700) A:diamond: 3:club: 8:heart:[color="blue"] (2 players)[/color]
Hero checks, [color="red"]BTN bets $1,750[/color], [color="red"]Hero raises to $4,100[/color], BTN calls $2,350

[b]Turn[/b]: ($10,900) 2:diamond:[color="blue"] (2 players)[/color]
Hero checks, BTN checks

[b]River[/b]: ($10,900) Q:diamond:[color="blue"] (2 players)[/color]
[color="red"]Hero bets $10,850[/color], BTN calls $10,822 and is all-in

[b]Results:[/b] $32,572 pot ($0.50 rake)
Final Board: A:diamond: 3:club: 8:heart: 2:diamond: Q:diamond:
BTN showed 9:spade: 6:diamond: 7:spade: 4:diamond: and lost (-$16,272 net)
Hero showed A:spade: 9:diamond: J:diamond: 5:spade: and won $32,571.50 ($16,271.50 net)

I was pretty proud of this one. I had been c/raising these polarized spots pretty light and thought it was a good time to go for thin value on the flop and get floats from a huge part of his range. River obviously plays itself, I actually figured he would have jammed diamonds on the turn.

Poker Stars, $25/$50 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 2 Players
[url="http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/"]Poker Tools[/url] by [url="http://www.cardrunners.com/"]CardRunners[/url] - [url="http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/hand/7107187/"]Hand Details[/url]


[b]BB: $14,993 (299.9 bb)[/b]
[b]Hero (BTN): $14,538.50 (290.8 bb)[/b]

[b]Preflop[/b]: Hero is BTN with A:diamond: 2:club: A:heart: 9:diamond:
[color="red"]Hero raises to $150[/color], [color="red"]BB raises to $450[/color], [color="red"]Hero raises to $1,350[/color], [color="red"]BB raises to $4,050[/color], [color="red"]Hero raises to $12,150[/color], BB calls $8,100

[b]Flop[/b]: ($24,300) K:club: Q:diamond: J:diamond:[color="blue"] (2 players)[/color]
BB checks, [color="red"]Hero bets $2,388.50 and is all-in[/color], BB calls $2,388.50

[b]Turn[/b]: ($29,077) 6:spade:[color="blue"] (2 players, 1 is all-in)[/color]
[b]River[/b]: ($29,077) A:club:[color="blue"] (2 players, 1 is all-in)[/color]

[b]Results:[/b] $29,077 pot ($0.50 rake)
Final Board: K:club: Q:diamond: J:diamond: 6:spade: A:club:
BB showed 8:club: 7:club: J:heart: 9:heart: and lost (-$14,538.50 net)
Hero showed A:diamond: 2:club: A:heart: 9:diamond: and won $29,076.50 ($14,538 net)

Our games are always very aggressive :). Today I happened to find myself on the good side of these preflop situations.

Poker Stars, $25/$50 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 2 Players
[url="http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/"]Poker Tools[/url] by [url="http://www.cardrunners.com/"]CardRunners[/url] - [url="http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/hand/7107188/"]Hand Details[/url]


[b]BB: $9,319 (186.4 bb)[/b]
[b]Hero (BTN): $30,366 (607.3 bb)[/b]

[b]Preflop[/b]: Hero is BTN with A:diamond: 9:club: 2:spade: J:club:
[color="red"]Hero raises to $150[/color], [color="red"]BB raises to $450[/color], Hero calls $300

[b]Flop[/b]: ($900) J:diamond: 8:club: 6:club:[color="blue"] (2 players)[/color]
[color="red"]BB bets $650[/color], Hero calls $650

[b]Turn[/b]: ($2,200) 5:heart:[color="blue"] (2 players)[/color]
[color="red"]BB bets $1,750[/color], [color="red"]Hero raises to $7,449.50[/color], [color="red"]BB raises to $8,219 and is all-in[/color], Hero calls $769.50

[b]River[/b]: ($18,638) 6:diamond:[color="blue"] (2 players, 1 is all-in)[/color]

[b]Results:[/b] $18,638 pot ($0.50 rake)
Final Board: J:diamond: 8:club: 6:club: 5:heart: 6:diamond:
BB showed K:spade: T:heart: 7:heart: 4:spade: and won $18,637.50 ($9,318.50 net)
Hero showed A:diamond: 9:club: 2:spade: J:club: and lost (-$9,319 net)

Oops. Not a lot to say about this one.


So there are plenty more hands, but realistically it's just a lot of me having the nuts to his second nuts and that old thing. Today was a good day. Stoked to fly out to the Bahamas tomorrow.

Crossing my fingers for good weather.



Cheers,

Mike

Another year as a professional poker player in the books. Although it didn't end (professionally speaking) on the bang I had been envisioning but rather an annoying whimper, no complaints from me. For the third straight month in Boston I made 6-figures + and this was actually the worst month of the three:



I'd be lying if I said that the finishing downswing didn't bother my aesthetic sensibilities a bit, but luckily the year is ending and there are no better fresh mental slates than a new year for a poker player. For many of us, it's a time to take a deep breath, internalize the past year's mistakes/triumphs and make resolutions to do better the next year. Usually I'm in the "sigh, let's look at everything I failed at" camp with poker but finally this year, I feel great about the year's progress. I had a truly terrible first 6-7 months of the year ultimately culminating in busting the 50k WSOP event of the summer on Day 4 with 99 to 96s during the NL round (AIPF) then running 200k below EV the following 2 weeks online. Then I had to wire more money on, instantly went on a heater, holed myself in at my parent's place for a month to grind WCOOP before making the move to Boston, played almost every event, did terribly, lost more at cash games during the time, and wound up dropping all the initial profit and a lot of the initial wire. Clearly I wasn't exactly thrilled to re-start the grind upon getting to Boston. But this is the sick life I chose for myself so grind I did. Somehow I went from starting at 5/10-10/20 in October to having the best month of my life, all at 25/50. Obviously I ran very good during this flash of cards, but something really just clicked for me then. Since then, I've been so much less stressed by the inherent swings in my game, can count the number of times I have played less than my A- game on the fingers on one hand, and have actually been taking the time to study HHs after every session. I feel a re-invigoration for the game, and honestly enjoy waking up most mornings and getting straight on the grind. I feel like I did when I was 18 and just getting into online poker... it feels great! I guess a 3-month 200 buy-in heater will do that to most everyone, but regardless, I'm happy and grateful that it happened to me.

I guess this time of the year is when people look to the future and envision the changes that they'll make. Well, I'm not foolish enough to actually call these things resolutions since the force of laziness is pretty strong in this one, but here goes anyways:

• Continue with the current attitude towards poker. If anything, a nice goal for myself would be to actively watch out for which regulars are exploiting my tendencies and once every two weeks or so, spend a few hours on reviewing all of the recent HHs with them and proceed accordingly.

• Continue with the current gym routine. I really miss having a crossfit gym nearby so my cardio has been struggling but I've at least managed to keep myself motivated to lift weights 3-4 times a week and am getting back to the shape I was in during college. I guess if I had to make a specific goal of some sort, I'd love to be able to do 100 double-unders on the jumprope in a row. That shit is really hard.

• Make more of an effort to build new social circles around Boston. Whenever I move to a new city, I tend to have a somewhat defeatist attitude about forming new, lasting connections since I generally travel so much. Meh, it's ultimately a pretty lame excuse and I have just gotten a bit lazy after forming a solid social network with my roommates' work buddies and a few poker players in the city. I know it's going to be hard to recreate the social environment of San Diego where I could always find people down to get some drinks, go to the beach, play a round of golf at any point during a weekday, but hey it's worth a try!
  

• Meet with a financial advisor. Wayyyy too much of my money is sitting in a money market account earning next to nothing. It's kind of embarrassing. If anyone has any advice on good advisors in the Boston area, get at me. I guess I had been saving for a big real estate purchase but that's pretty clearly not happening for at least another year (i.e. I want to do it in San Diego) so I need to get my finances in order.

• Continue doing all those little things that make life what it is. Ya know.

So that's where things stand with me at this point. Coming up ahead is New Year's in Tahoe with a few poker players and a crew of strong drinkers. It should be a pretty aggressive 3-day kegger with lots of drinking games, themed outfits and your usual other shenanigans. Then back to Boston, probably lie in a curled ball of hangover for a few days, and soon after off to the Bahamas for PCA. PCA gets a bit of a harsh rep in the online community due to the pretty poor service in the hotel as juxtaposed by the pretty outlandish prices. That said, if those things don't really get under your skin, the action is great and it's a sweet vacation opportunity in the beginning of winter. I didn't really get to appreciate the winter-summer transition last year going from San Diego to a much chillier Bahamas, but this year it will definitely be nice to leave freezing Boston weather for a bit of sun.



Nothing like a solid vacation and hopefully a productive week of work to start off a new year!

Happy holidays everybody..

Cheers,
Mike

Since my last blog, I guess that the latest buzz in the poker world has mostly been Pokerstars signing the famed Isildur1 as a Team Pro and choosing to keep his presumably unknown identity a continued secret. Well played Stars, well played. How they managed to snag Isildur away from Full Tilt is kind of mind-boggling, and granted, the thousands of 2p2 fanboys who have a boner for Isildur are probably not a prime audience for new accounts/deposits, but regardless, his signing has certainly been great for the games on Stars. We played a quick HU session his first day on Stars, then the ridiculous day when he somehow ran a few 6max stacks at 25/50 to well over 100k (and at one point came close to 200k on one table), I of course then missed his standard next-day dumping of 350k to Phil Galfond at 100/200 but got him for a bit yesterday across 4 HU tables back at 25/50. All things told, it has been a swingy last week but a ton of fun; his presence seems to make everyone hunger for the limelight a bit so you get some shot-takers in the 250BB 25/50 games and his style just makes everyone go bananas. Here's a graph of our HU play from the last week (I lost quite a bit in the 6max games):



I have coolered him a decent bit throughout our matches so far though, so it's not necessarily clear that I have the edge here. His playing style is one that I love to play against - mostly because it lets me splash around to my heart's contentment - and I hope that we continue to play more in the future. On the subject, I also sent an e-mail to Stars to play one of the 'HU challenges vs Isildur' but I only wanted to do it at 50/100 so I wouldn't have to sell any action and at all PLO, which I later learned is against their policy of at least 50% NL, so it looks like it won't happen. It's too bad since I've been looking for a good reason to play above 25/50 which I'm way over-rolled for at this point, and this would have been perfect but hopefully more situations arise in the coming future.

Here's a graph of the month yet to date (wooooo swings):




AI-expected winning not included for a reason; I'm running way above expectation and am a bit superstitious about posting graphs bragging about it. I've learned the hard way that the poker gods punish insolence swiftly :)...

All of the swingy HU sessions as of late have been great and a ton of fun but they have also made me a bit lazy about putting in hours since everything just pales so much in comparison. Hopefully I can continue to get action because otherwise pretty good chance I take the rest of the year more or less off and get ready for lots of travel/drinking coming up during the holiday season and onwards.

Hope you are all well.

Cheers,
Mike

So I recently finished up a lengthy session but feel guilty taking the rest of the day "off from work" so I figured I might as well throw out a little update. My last blog entry was a recap of my November results, and apparently it was a bit premature since I wound up playing another session on the 30th and having my best day of the year! I'm generally a little superstitious about playing after posting monthly results, but turns out good things happen to people that think rationally.


Unfortunately, the beginning of December did indeed start out on a bit of a downswing. I had gotten into the habit of playing very deep, very aggressive matches against Niki Jedicka at 25/50 and the inherent variance of playing a good, very aggressive player with deep stacks finally slapped me in the face. It's always a little uncomfortable timing for me when downswings coincide with the beginning of a month since I use fresh months as something akin to clean mental slates, but poker doesn't always go the way you want it to. Or does it? This downswing only lasted two days and after putting in quite a few more hands than I'm used to on a day-to-day basis, I have scratched to being in the black for the month. Graph of swings:




So its been a bit of a grind, obviously, but I'm pretty happy with my discipline lately. Plus I've been running really really good at the mix games this month - 2-7 NLTD/SD specifically, which I don't track - so poker continues to go awesomely. Still too superstitious to post a full graph of my hands in Boston, but god it's so beautiful, the braggart part of is definitely excited to get that thing posted at the end of the year.


This is also a pretty exciting time for me since I think that come year's end, I'm going to have to make a pretty big decision as far as what I want to do with poker goes. I have committed to not playing above 25/50 big bet and 150/300 limit for the rest of the year, but barring the most ridiculous downswing ever, I am going to end this year with an online bankroll that makes playing 25/50 a bit boring but is still a little bit too short for 100/200 as a full-time game. I have a pretty pained history at 100/200 + and as usual, am very hesitant to jump back into those games in the absence of huge fish, but I feel like I am once more standing at a professional crossroad. For I guess the third time in my life now, I have another good shot at poking around at the nosebleeds and really making it to the so-called top of the poker totem pole. Apparently the thing is pretty slippery since I've already gotten one foot on it and tumbled twice before in my life, but something feels different this time around. Maybe it's the comfort and clouding of judgment that has accompanied one of my life's better heaters the last few months, but I really feel like I can compete with the world's best at PLO these days. In many ways, I feel like I have been given a time machine-esque chance to go back in time to when nobody knew how to play PLO and I was one of the best, and instead of taking the time to crush poker/stay ahead of the curve, I let it go by the wayside and have had to work my ass off the last 2 years to get back to this point. Well, I'm finally back in a comfortable place poker-wise, have been getting random invitations for interviews, writing articles, agency-type stuff, and am definitely forcing myself to be proactive with my career this time around. I have been responding thoroughly to all interviews, checking out different agents, and really focusing on continuing to play good poker throughout it all. It's a pretty exciting time for me, and come the new year, maybe you'll see me back at the nosebleeds, trying to make a true name for myself. Or who knows, maybe I'll cash it all out and stay at 25/50. I could use some suggestions I guess ...


There are a lot of things that I could attribute the recent months' success to, running good (despite being down on AIEV) is certainly one of them, but I really feel like coming to live with my closest friends has been one of the best decisions that I have ever made. The drive from San Diego to Boston was exciting/a little anxiety-inducing insofar as it was going to be a big change and new life outside the comfort of other poker players who I could lay my day's swings onto without any hesitation, but it has truly worked out for the best for me. It's amazing what constant positive energy can do for one's mindset. So clearly life is very good, hopefully the same goes for all of you as well.


My next month or so looks like: tons of poker up until the holidays, probably Christmas in Boston, NYE in Tahoe with CR's own SixPeppers + a host of others, maybe a bit of skiing packed in with Cole + the SD boys in early January, then PCA in the Bahamas and a free slate afterwards. Damn, I'm excited.


Cheers,
Mike

So I'm listening to the Chili Peppers and "I Could Die For You" comes on, which for those that don't know starts out with the lyric "something inside the cards I know is right" and boom, here I find myself once again compelled to pump out another blog. Since last time, I have settled into a more or less comfortable routine here in Boston. I wake up around 8:30, feel like a proud parent whisking my well-dressed identical twin roommates off to their consulting job, make some delicious breakfast, take a few minutes to reflect on how my life sort of resembles a bizarre sitcom plot, then set up for the grind. The grind has been going well; I have finally polished off a full month of running good at the big-bet games during 10-game mix, which has been awesome for my confidence, and I continue to do well at PLO. Here are the month's results without mix games since I don't have tracking software for all of the games and feel weird inflating my month's stats with my two best games (PLO, O8) when I'm definitely losing at a few of the games in the mix:





So clearly so far as poker is concerned, everything is great. These are my first back-to-back six figure months in what feels like forever, and I really feel that all of the grinding, game selecting and studying HH's away from the table is finally starting to pay off! There have been a lot of the ambiguously multi-accounted Swedes around lately, so hopefully I can get in some good long HU sessions in the next few weeks and continue to do well.


Poker aside, it was a pretty hectic month here in Boston. One of the aforementioned roommates was a member of an a cappella group while at Harvard and the first weekend of November was their annual alumni concert followed the next weekend by the Harvard/Yale game held in Boston (the twins went to Harvard/Yale, yes how adorable).. These two events resulted in a minimum of 3 guests staying at our house every day for a stretch of two straight weeks, culminating in me waking up and coming downstairs the night after the actual football game to find no less than 15 nerdy Yale kids sleeping anywhere they could find some floor/table/chair space in our house. Although a little annoying at times since I found myself waking up with a stranger in my bed 70% of nights, it was nice always having someone around to party with in the house. The morning naked surprises by people dressed only in our Halloween costume heads (Sesame Street), animaling beers and spraying them everywhere in our bathrooms (slam a beer 3 times against forehead, proceed to bite through can and squeeze the goodness out into your mouth) and randoms throwing up in our sink I could probably do without though. Eh, what am I saying, I loved it. True Life: I live in a post-college frat house.


So that was a uh, interesting stretch of two weeks followed by the last week spent in New Jersey with my family. Time with family was great as usual; delicious home-cooked food, watching lots of movies and otherwise catching up with everyone and reveling in the comfort of family can never really go wrong. And now here I am, in Boston, and it's starting to get cold. Naturally, I'm freaking the hell out and beginning to plan my numerous winter getaways. The annual PCA trip to the Bahamas should be a good time as usual but I'm looking for a skiing trip or two before then and maybe some EPTs/other ski trips in mid January and onwards to fill the time. If anyone has any suggestions, please send them on over.

I'm sorry that I've fallen back into my familiar pattern of being lazy about blogging, but between grinding a ton, becoming re-addicted to the Planet Earth/Life series, trying to finish Chabon's Kavalier & Clay, and just soaking up the good times in Boston, it's hard to find the motivation to sit down and focus on stringing words into coherent sentences. Hope this entry finds everyone well, happy after a great thanksgiving and loving life!

Cheers,

Mike

I had honestly been dreading October since July or so, when I finally laid out a concrete plan to move from San Diego to Boston. For anyone that moves a lot, if the days that you move aren't in the bottom 5 worst of the year for you, then damn, either share your secrets with me, or your year sucks! As expected, the actual moving part sucked. I drove into Boston from New jersey (a 4 hour drive usually which took me 12 thanks to rain/traffic) and arrived with a packed car, on our busy street with nowhere to park and no way to avoid the downpour going on outside. Hmm, fast forward an hour or two, and all of my things had finally been hauled up our steep staircase to the third floor and sat drying on the ground while I talked my way out of a parking ticket. Luckily the house is super sweet and despite a pretty unpleasant day, my new roommate Marc was around who I hadn't seen in a while, and we just had a few beers and enjoyed the novelty of Boston's ambiance.

The next few days were spent in a mad rush to buy all the new house particulars (bedding, desk, etc) and shipping my car back home since it's pretty much impossible to park in the back bay and you otherwise have to pay 300/month to keep it in a garage which I just refuse to do out of principle. Since my roommates hadn't moved in yet, I had a very free October and chose to use my time productively and log a ton of hours playing poker. This turned out to be a fabulous decision and I wound up having my best month ever by a pretty decent margin. I won't post my full results just because I'm a bit superstitious about it, but here's the update on the HU match that I blogged about in my last post:



It was a very swingy, fun match and I'm extremely happy to have come out on top in the fashion that I did. Usually I wouldn't post a player's SN in this situation, but since it's pretty blatantly obvious that this was a shared/bought/whatever Swedish account used by a competent player, I don't mind doing the shameless brag. So yeah, tough to have a bad month when things go this way.

Poker-wise, I feel like I grew a lot as a player throughout October, and just hope to keep up my good schedule/work-ethic all the way through November as well. I feel very confident about poker now and honestly that's half the battle for me sometimes.

So clearly poker went great, the trip to Miami that I blogged about last time was a blast, and when my roommates finally arrived, I instantly remembered why I had decided to leave behind amazing San Diego for chilly Boston. The 3 guys that I'm living with are my three closest friends from high school and it's just amazing how well we understand each other. I'm an infinitely happier person around them, and I absolutely can't wait for the rest of the year. Halloween weekend was the first weekend that we were all together and it was a big drunken blast. I went as the cookie monster as part of a group costume. Obligatory pic:



Haha, man the costumes were a hit!

And here's a more artsy picture taken under a blacklight of me at one of the parties that I love:



So thug haha :)

So that's that. We're all getting settled in and the place is coming together terrifically. Yesterday my roommate took me on a walking tour of Boston to get to know the city, and I gotta say, cold weather aside, I love it. Boston reminds me a lot of San Francisco's northeast counterpart; the city is easily walkable, has a beautiful waterside location, and is full of culture. Can't wait to get to know the city more intimately throughout the coming year!

And things have just been rolling on otherwise. Poker-wise, I'm off to a hot start again in November and hope to see the trend continue. I even played my first session of 100/200 in over a year and a half today, and somehow squeaked out a little win!

Hope all is well with you guys, thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Mike