This is going to be a super short blog, but I will be having a much longer blog about black friday when I have time. I just wanted to remind everyone that as bleak as things look right now life will go on and we will find a way to survive. I know its hard, but you have to do your best not to focus on what you cannot control. Instead try to look at this as just a new chapter in your life and try to focus on anything, no matter how small it may be, that could be a positive result of this situation. Regardless of your main reason for being in poker, everyone took some pleasure in the challenges that poker presented. Well this situation is no different, there are many new challenges that will result from black friday. Try to focus on those challenges and try and use the same approach to them that you did to poker. Poker taught you how to face new challenges and to overcome them. It taught you that if you fight hard enough and are determined enough that you will prevail. I wish nothing but the best for everyone regarldess of what road you take. Ill leave you with this quote, "Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough."

(Typically I say good luck at the tables here, but I think this is a more important way to end this blog.)

Good luck in LIFE everyone!!!!

River

I figured I would get a twitter account, now that I know a lot of my other friends have them. I will be using mine mostly for poker though, since it is easier just to update stuff on that rather than bloging, which can be a drag at times. My twitter is Kingriver321.

Good Luck at the tables,
River

I feel Im at a point where I am finally ready to begin coaching. Since I have no idea how much I should charge and no idea how much is fair I will be taking on 2 students for very cheap. I already have one student at OU that I am picking up. He is probably really really bad based on what he has said when we talk about poker, but I am looking forward to the challenge. I am looking to take on 2 more students. I do not have a ton of time but I will figure it out and work people in. I will offer coaching for $25/hour for the first two people who pm me here. I am looking to to take on students who are not complete noobs, but who are in the early stages of their career. I am looking to take on people who are playing the low stake MTT's and SNG's. I repeat I am a MTT player and NOT a cash player so I am only able to provide coaching for those who wish to improve their MTT game. I will be doing coaching sessions over skype/teamviewer (both are free). Most of the coaching will consist of hand history review. I will NOT coach anyone late in a MTT due to the fact that it is unethical. I am looking forward to improving other people's game and giving back to a comunity that has given me so much. So if your looking forward to kick starting your career pm me so that we can take your MTT skills to the next level.


Good luck at the tables,
River


ps I am willing to work out a staking deal with a student if I feel that it is profitable and that the student is trust worthy.

Just took 3rd in the Sunday double deuce!!! There were 11,136 people in the tournament. 3rd paid out $16,481.28. I am super happy with my play in it, especially late in the tournament. I made one giant error with like 40 or so people left, but luckily was able to run good right after that and work my stack back up. I was short most of the final two tables and half of the final table, but I was able to get good enough cards and find enough good spots to jam and 3 bet jam. I got knocked out the first hand of 3 handed play. QQ vs AK and he hit an A and a K on the flop, oh well. This was my first 5 digit session and hopefully there will be more to come. Tired and headed for bed!!!

Good luck at the tables,
River

I am having a hard time getting my self focused to put hours in. I have started to turn the corner and am moving in the right direction atm, which is why it is frustrating that I am not able to put in long sessions. I am looking for any advice on how you guys stay motivated or get your self back in the mode to grind again. Here are some of the things I have done to try to get back in the mode so far, I have taken time off, I have gotten back into a consistent routine of working out, and have taken some time away from the tables to focus on other things. For example I have read a few good books this year, which I may do a blog on later because they were so good, but so far nothing has gotten me excited to get back to grinding 40-50 hours a week. Thanks for the suggestions in advance.

Good Luck at the tables,
River

Well things have started to turn around. I dropped back down to the $6 90 mans and the $4 rush SNG'son demand. This was defiantly the best decision for me to do. Playing against the weaker opponents really helped me to gain my confidence back and I started to see the leaks that I developed in my game due to how bad i was running. I got my aggression back and really began to play well again.

One this that I have worked really hard at is detaching myself from the results. This was the best decision i made lately and have really started to reap the benefits of this. Before things started to turn around I became very superstitious. I would call out cards on every flop, turn and river and this was really bad for me emotionally. For example if it turned out the way I wanted I felt about even or so but if it turned out wrong then I would be devastated, and since you lose way more tournaments than you win you can imagine the effect that this had on me. Now I do not call out cards and sometimes do not even watch the run out of the board. I am also focusing on my breathing to help me relax and stay focused. So far this has all seemed to work really well.

I played a decent amount of MTT's during fulltilts double prize pool week. This went ok as I turned a profit but not a big one. I made many deep runs, but fell short every time. One day I finished 8th in both the fifty-hundo and the $56K guarantee. This was extremely frustrating, because with 12 people left in each tournament I was first or 2ndin chips. I was happy with my play overal though, I was not afraid to make moves andbe aggressive. I did not let the prize payouts effect me and how I played. I also had 4 or 5 other deep runs were I finished between 6th-18th.

It feels really good to look forward to playing again and actually being able to think about hands and hand ranges. Thats all for now and hopefully I can continue to run good and improve.

Good Luck at the tables,
River

Like I said before I used to completely crush the 90 mans and then I started to crush the small MTT'son tilt and some on stars, but apparently I have no idea how to play anymore. I am now on a 4 and a half month downswing. I almost got out of it in November, but didnt quite make it. Now I have decided to drop down to the $6 90 man tournaments and am hoping to turn this all around, but of course I continue to run bad and have a shitty 1st session at them.

I know I am running absurdly horribly bad, because you just dont go from being a top 3 winner in them to not being able to being the smaller 90 mans. But I have definatly seen the affects of this downswing though. I now have no motivation or desire to play at all. I use to be able to grind for ten hours no problem, but now Im struggling to play 4 to 5 hour sessions. I am completely unable to think about hands at any level beyond the 1st level. I am definatly not playing anywhere near my A game, instead Im prollyplaying a C to D game and have no idea how to get back to my A game. My concentration and more importantly my confidence are completely shot. I am going to continue to try and grind the $6 90 man tournaments and hopefully I can start running better. Hopefully that will cause a chain reaction for me to get back to where I was back in Aug. and May when I was crushing. Hopefully this turns around and I will not be making another blog until it does so, because even I am getting really tired of writing these depressing whinning blogs.

Best of luck at the tables,
River

Does anyone from CR live near Athens OhiO? No im not looking for a date or anything unless your a cute girl, but seriously though. All my gambling/poker friends live over 4 hours away. Im just wondering cuz I have no one to gamble with down here or get a home game going with. If you live near the area and wanna get a beer or try and get a home game going pm me or leave a comment.

Full Tilt Poker Game #27056663455: Super Stack $10K Guarantee (209949733), Table 96 - 40/80 - No Limit Hold'em - 10:43:09 ET - 2011/01/07
Seat 1: 13 HELLBILLY (12,020)
Seat 2: chromzh (10,120)
Seat 4: brusco1 (5,750)
Seat 5: amoscafe70 (8,625)
Seat 6: SCHINNYGIRL (4,580)
Seat 7: the_real_me (14,929)
Seat 8: kingriver321 (5,735)
Seat 9: ChicagoKid91 (8,601)
chromzh posts the small blind of 40
brusco1 posts the big blind of 80
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to kingriver321 [7d 7s]
amoscafe70 has 15 seconds left to act
amoscafe70 folds
SCHINNYGIRL folds
the_real_me calls 80
kingriver321 calls 80
ChicagoKid91 calls 80
13 HELLBILLY calls 80
chromzh calls 40
brusco1 checks
*** FLOP *** [7c Ah 3s]
kidwadream sits down
chromzh checks
brusco1 checks
the_real_me checks
kingriver321 bets 350
ChicagoKid91 calls 350
13 HELLBILLY raises to 1,360
chromzh folds
brusco1 folds
the_real_me folds
kingriver321 calls 1,010
ChicagoKid91 calls 1,010
*** TURN *** [7c Ah 3s] [9h]
the_real_me: hmm someone has trips
kingriver321 bets 2,000
ChicagoKid91 calls 2,000
13 HELLBILLY raises to 10,580, and is all in
kingriver321 calls 2,295, and is all in
ChicagoKid91 calls 5,161, and is all in
13 HELLBILLY shows [3d Ad]
kingriver321 shows [7d 7s]
ChicagoKid91 shows [3h 3c]
Uncalled bet of 3,419 returned to 13 HELLBILLY
*** RIVER *** [7c Ah 3s 9h] [As]
the_real_me: lol
13 HELLBILLY shows a full house, Aces full of Threes
ChicagoKid91 shows a full house, Threes full of Aces
13 HELLBILLY wins the side pot (5,732) with a full house, Aces full of Threes
kingriver321 shows a full house, Sevens full of Aces
13 HELLBILLY wins the main pot (17,445) with a full house, Aces full of Threes
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 23,177 Main pot 17,445. Side pot 5,732. | Rake 0
Board: [7c Ah 3s 9h As]
Seat 1: 13 HELLBILLY (button) showed [3d Ad] and won (23,177) with a full house, Aces full of Threes
Seat 2: chromzh (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: brusco1 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: amoscafe70 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: SCHINNYGIRL didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: the_real_me folded on the Flop
Seat 8: kingriver321 showed [7d 7s] and lost with a full house, Sevens full of Aces
Seat 9: ChicagoKid91 showed [3h 3c] and lost with a full house, Threes full of Aces

I figured that I might as well make a blog about how poker has been going since June 1. Poker has never been more frustrating to me that it has in the last 7 months.

Before June I was one of the top 3 earners in the $52 and $26 90 man SNG on fulltilt. I decided around this time to start playing more MTT'sbecause the 90 mans were really starting to get boring for me. At that point many of the moves are really repetetive and I am someone who has a short attention span. I started to mix in MTT's with my 90 mans. And needless to say it did not go well. Well actually, I won $7,500 in the few few days andthen it went all down hill from there. I went on a 2 month $6-7K downswing. I went nearly broke. Its really tough when you still have bills andexpenses to pay for on top of your on a 2 month downswing.

Before the whole downswing though I made a $500 bet withmy friend about how much I was going to endthe year with. I made the bet only a few days after June started when I was up about $33K on the year. I bet him that I could make $100K on the year. Now to some people this may have seemed like a dumb bet on my part but it is not as bad as it may seem. See I was starting to have some MTT success and figured it would continue and that I would continue to get better. Also I never forsawthe $52 90 man tournaments drying up the way they did. Also I did not see the 90 mans getting a fair amount more difficult than what they did (they are still a good source for income, but no where near what they were at the beginingof the year. And also the biggest reason why it was a good bet for me, during the first half of the year I was going fulltime to school for my masters on top of grinding and now I was only going part time in the fall. Also I had all of summer andDec off to grinda TON. Also the motivation to win would push me to grind a ton. And of course if you get to the end of the blog you will see my graphs and my outcome.

To get myself out of my 2 month downswing I took down the $26 MTT 35K tourny on tilt for about $9,500. And this was just the begining. A week later I took down the $26 MTT 42K tournyon Tilt for just over $10K. Next came a score of around $3-4K, followed by a win in the turbo fifty on tilt for $4,500 or so. So in about a month's time I went on a $19Kish heater.

Then it all went down hill and I am still trying to get out of the downswing :( I continued to run horrible pretty much all of Sept. and all of Oct. My downswing hit $12K at one point, actually I think it was a little more. Nov. turned around and went decently well. I had a few decent scores, but could not quite get out of my downswing. Dec went just as bad as Sept and Oct. nothing seemed to go my way.

And so far I have only been able to muster up 4 sessions this year and they were all short. -$485, -$308, +$223 and finally today's sesh -$319. I just cant get anything right.

But back to last year so I ended up making about $38K only. And you can see how frustrated I am when I was at $32K in juneand make a $500 bet and then go on to make $6K over a 6 anda half month period. And I am not even going to get into how much I spent during that time, not to mention how much taxes such since I have to pay a higher percent because Im"self employed."

Here are my sharkscope graphs for 2010, but these do not include cash games and stars, which was about even since I didnt play much on there.

This graph is of just SNG's from Jan 1st to May 31st.

http://img600.imageshack.us/i/76906402.png/

This graph is of just SNG's from June 1st to Dec. 31st

http://img707.imageshack.us/i/95566735.png/

Also on a side note, like I mentioned earlier in the blog I was in the top 3 for the $52 90 mans. I think I was 2nd at the beginingof June, maybe 1st, and then I only made 2 Final Tables the whole 2nd half of the year anddid not finish higher than 7th place. So yea Im not just saying I ran bad you can see just how bad I ran.

This graph is for the whole year of 2010 for SNG's only

http://img820.imageshack.us/f/46143314.png/


This graph is from June 1st till now and allows you to see the frustation.

http://img24.imageshack.us/i/33143629.png/

Remember this takes place over 6 and a half months.

Well in all honestly this blog writing did help me. I really didntwant to give my exact numbers but I couldntsee straight before this blog so I was just like "fuck it", please how you going to get a good idea of my frustration without them. Well I do feel a little better now and a little more rejuvinated. This was a great release for me and thanks if you made it through the whole thing.

I am actually even looking forward to tomorrow's sesiona little. I plan on getting up decently early andgoing to the rec center to get a good lift and cardio session in and then hopefully a good sesion that will spark an amazing upswing. I could definatly use it. Well time to go night night.

As always good luck on the tables and hope your running better than me, unless its against me hehe :)

River