The night of black friday I logged on and assumed I wouldnt be able to get my money off full tilt so I did $800 flips with a fellow reg while we talked about what we were going to do after poker was gone. I ran like God and won $6500 to put me up $8700 on the month online. I finished the year up $51.8k online. I say finished the year because I don't think we'll be able to play again by the end of the year and I don't trust the current online poker landscape enough to put 10k+ on a smaller site. So in the meantime I will be a reg at the local cardrooms here in jacksonville. So far I have played 8 days, put in about 50 hours, and I'm down $128 lol. I have been playing 2/5nl and i'm by no means a great nl player but I feel like I have a huge edge in these games.

The live poker rooms here are really strange to me. The majority of people that play during the days on week days are regs in the game and they all seem to be friends and softplay each other. It has been very irritating to me to be in 3 way pots and have someone bet I fold, their friend calls, then they ask each other to check it down once i'm out of the pot. I've just decided to play hard against everyone and just let them continue to softplay each other. I may eventually speak up against this but for the time being I'm going to just let it be.

I know I said I feel like I have a big edge even though I'm down 1/4 buyin after 50 hrs but ive honestly ran really badly (i think). It's hard to be 100% sure since I don't have any HEM type tool to check it for me but I have probably had AA,KK, or QQ a combined 20 times or so and I have had to fold them postflop roughly 2/3 of the time which i dont think is accurate long term. I've also lost with 2 of the 5 mid to small sets I've flopped which i'm sure is not an accurate rate either. And I feel like I've not flopped as many sets and I normally should have over this sample.

I've tried to experiment with a few different styles and I feel that the tight abc solid aggressive style is the best for me. Maybe I'm not experienced enough to lag it up properly or maybe the games are just so loose passive that lag isnt best, i'm not sure. I have decided to only play after 6 or 7pm so the games wont be quite as reg infested, but i'm not sure i'll stick to that because even the majority of the regs are awful as well.

I'll keep you guys updated on my live poker career. Hopefully I'll have some better results soon!

Mac

When I did my package for the circuit event I forgot to post a link here in my blog so you guys could get a piece of me and I'd sold out before I remembered to. We'll this time I remembered.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/184/staking-selling-shares-live/wsop-venetian-package-macgyver72-isitoveryet-1018822/#post25998707

If you are interested in reserving a piece either post on the thread on 2+2 or leave a comment here. But only buy a piece if you want to make some easy money :-)

Good luck at the tables,

mac

I know the month isnt quite over yet but I don't plan on playing any tonight or tomorrow so this will be my results. I was beginning to get quite bored with the grind for a while so i decided to venture into the bigger games a little more often. I played a little 10/20 and 25/50 with pretty good results. I ran really really badly at 5/10 but it's nice to run well in the bigger games and bad in that one.

I only got in 31k hands on the month which is yet again short of my 35k hand goal but I just couldnt find the motivation. With my yearly goal really only at 80k (and i'm already over halfway there) I just realize that I don't need the money so when I don't feel like playing I don't.

I actually enjoyed the big swings I had. It made things interesting. As you can see in one night i had a 14k swing and in another I had a 9k downswing followed a few nights later by a 11k upswing. I probably won't be playing as much in the bigger games next month though, even though over a decent lifetime sample I beat them for the same amount bb/100 wise as I do 2/4.

Anyway, here's the graph:


Including rakeback and everything I ended up winning around $18.5k on the month. I ran almost 3k over ev money wise but actually was way under ev bb/100 wise. This just shows I ran like hell in 3/6 (almost 7k below expected) and ran like god in bigger games (9k over expected at 25/50).

I guess I could change my yearly goal to 150k to try to motivate myself but in all honesty I wouldnt care if I got there or not. 80k was the number I came up with that if I could make that I could basically do whatever I wanted to all the time and still be able to put some money in the bank at the end of the year even after taxes. Speaking of taxes I did mine a few days ago and ran good at that too only having to pay 9300 when I was expecting closer to 20k. Make sure when you file you go to a professional and not some piece of shit at h&r block. It's worth paying a few hundred dollars to someone that knows what they're doing if they'll be able to save you, in my case, 10k+

I doubt i'll play a ton next month. I'm going to be out of town for the first 2 weeks of april so it will really just be a 2 week month for me. My main goal each month is to win 5k ev$ and it'll probably be close next month. I dont really care though because life is good. Now that i have enough to support myself for a while I just want to run good in life, and I have been lately!

Good luck to everyone at the tables and in life. And if you play PLO on full tilt expect your winrate to go up for the first two weeks of the month without me there :-) You're welcome in advance haha.

Mac

February was a really good month for me. I played 31884 hands which is 3k short of my monthly goal but feb is a short month anyway and I was gone for 5 or 6 days for the wsop circuit event i went to so I'm not at all upset about being a little short. I also had 50% of a friend that had a 6400 cash down there so I ended up making 2500 on the trip even after gas/food/hotel/etc. I had one huge night online finding a soft 10/20 game and then I got on a heater at 2/4 and 3/6 after that. The last sudden jump is the portion of my 5k bonus that i unlocked this month and I made sure to deduct the amount of rakeback I lost from it to make it accurate. So all told online I made just shy of 14k this month and live i made a little in cash games and some off my friend so I ended up booking around a 17k win this month. I'm really pleased with it. Here is the graph:




As you can see I was kinda playing like shit there for a little while. The first drop is from playing drunk 25/50 and I lost 7k (in my defense I was wayyy under ev) but after that I just played bad, breakeven poker. I realized the leaks I had after my heater in the 10/20 game and basically killed it in my last 4 sessions of the month. I've written down extensively what mistakes I was making and how I corrected them. A good bit of it was just having to realize which opponents had finally adjusted to my last change I made in my game and now i'm combating that and in addition I was making some fundamental errors because I thought I was good enough to overcome them on later streets. I had consciously decided to get into more marginal spots post flop so I could learn how to play them more effectively and that was the main reason for the breakeven stretch.

Anyway, with some of my leaks plugged I think March could be a big month for me. I will be pretty busy life wise in March but I plan on making the most of any time I do get to put in at the tables.

Best of luck to you all in poker and life because, honestly, life is mostly luck anyway

Mac

Gonna make this short because I'm really tired but anyway I made day two of a 350 nlh event. 28 left and I'm in the top 5 i'm pretty sure. We start back at 2pm tomorrow and I think first is around 24k or so. Hope to run well and have a good showing.

UPDATE:

finished 20th. lost a big pot when I made a good call w/ A3 on a AQd2d flop and got shown JdTd and he rivered a flush then ultimately got eliminated when I 3bet shoved w/ KQ and got called by AJ and lost. I was only all in for my tourney life 2 times all tournament long and obviously lost the 2nd one. I feel like I did a good job chipping up without having to put my tournament life on the line and hope to continue my streak of deep runs tomorrow in limit o8.

Today I played the $565 holdem event. We started with 12k chips and 420 or so entrants. The tournament paid the top 45 and I finished around 60th which was pretty frustrating. I feel like I played my A+ game today. I folded JJ on a 338 board and AK faceup preflop and was correct both times. I got up to almost 60k at one point before losing a couple pots and getting down to about 40k when I got 3 bet shoved on and I happened to have KK. My opponent had J9s and sadly the flop was 8TQ so i was almost dead. The turn gave me a club draw but no help on the river and I was out just short of the money. Playing a tournament for 12 hrs and getting nothing is one of the most frustrating things I've had to experience in poker. But I will be back at it again tomorrow and try to keep playing my best. Lets hope the poker gods look out for me tomorrow.

Best of luck to all of you,

mac

Today was the $345 NLH event 1 of the circuit event. I got off to a pretty slow start losing almost half my starting stack but then I was able to get some things going in the right direction and was able to get a decent stack after the first few breaks. We started with 10k chips and I had a little over 50k at 400/800 before running QQ into AJ all in pre and he got lucky on me for a 40k pot. I made it to the dinner break with 37k going into 500/1000 100ante. Once back from the break I didn't win another pot and doubled up 3 different short stacks. After the last one I was crippled and though i doubled up once I still only had 7bbs and busted shortly after. I finished around 170/870 and although I missed the money by 80 spots I was really happy with how soft the field was and how well I feel like I played. I did a good job at making the adjustments I talked about in my last blog and I was never all in for my tourney life until right before my bustout and I did have 6 all in pots that were either flips or i was a 2-1 dog and i lost 5 of the 6. It takes a little luck and I didnt have it today but hopefully the rest of the trip I find my running shoes.

Tomorrow is the $585 (or something close to that number) nlhe event. It starts at 11am so I'll be getting up early to get out and register If you want to follow my progress I'll be posting my chipcounts on twitter @codymunger. I'll also do a writeup as I did today if anything exciting happens.

Best of luck at the tables and in life,

mac

As those of you that follow my blog know I'm a professional poker player that specializes in 6 max plo. What many of you dont know is I actually got my start in tournaments. I was one of the top players on a smaller site, jetsetpoker, and won every major tournament they regularly ran at one point or another. The biggest prize they had was 2,500 in their super saturday $50 tourney which I won 3 times in 6 months. I also won their leaderboard the one time they did a promotion for May. I was really focused on winning it and I did. Even though the top prize was only $1000 or so for it I probably won 7k in the tourneys i took down to take it. Also kinda funny that one of my closest poker friends finished 2nd in the same leaderboard race and he's also going to west palm to play the circuit event.

The reason for the back story is to let you guys know that I am insanely competitive in things that involve a leaderboard (i was addicted to checking my rank in "top winners" for my stakes in plo on table ratings until they quit showing 2/4 and 3/6). I am going to try to play every tournament that qualifies for the points race and I really feel i can make a run at it.

I am also realistic and realize that tourney play has evolved in the last few years since I was a regular in them and I will be watching a couple videos/day on here to try to get as caught up as possible before the events start. It seems that the small ball game has taken over which is a style i dont typically play. I usually play a borderline reckless style in an attempt to get a lot of chips early then have the ammo to put max pressure on others and constantly chip up. I'm not sure how that strategy will work out in the donkey filled fields I'm going to encounter in west palm. When I'm playing against people that call me down light I usually end up bluffing off a lot of chips early and having to wait on cards once I get short stacked. I feel like I'm going to need to get better at valuebetting light and potcontrolling rather than try to bluff most every pot I play where I miss.

I will be playing some ftops events to prepare and get a feel for the NL tourney game again (there are no plo events in west palm circuit event). I have to remember to possibly pass up some marginally +ev spots early in order to survive and instead chip up slowly from taking small pots and of course when I actually get good hands.

In case you couldnt tell this entry has been as much for me as it has been for letting you guys know whats going on with me. I hope to be able to improve in the areas I've mentioned and make some deep runs down there. I do rely heavily on my reading skills in the live game as I have a ton of hours of live play under my belt and can spot most all of the beginner level live tells that most of the amatuers have. I've seen all the tricks and angle shooting most do (ie. throwing out a single 1k chip and "forgetting" to announce a raise in order to limp in with a small pair or suited connectors but still have the image that you have a big hand and wanted to raise) and while i'm not an angle shooter myself its always good to know the tricks just in case or at least to spot them from others.

If you want to follow my progress i've created a twitter account I will keep it updated while I'm there on my progress.

Follow me @codymunger on twitter.

Also forgot to mention that I sold off 25% of my action for these events in the marketplace on 2+2. I didn't do so because the buyins were too much or anything but because I want to begin to build a good reputation for myself in order to be able to sell a % for the wsop this summer where the buyins will be more than I'm comfortable taking on my own. If I do another circuit event or big online package before the summer I'll make sure to put a link to the package on here so some of my readers can have a chance to get a piece of it.

As always, good luck to all of you at the tables and in life.

Mac

I played 32k hands this month which is 3k short of what trying to average each month. I didnt begin the month until the 9th though so I will blame it on that. I actually played a little bit the first week of the month on a computer that I didnt have HEM on so i added what I won there to the rakeback/bonuses part of the graph. I also used 1.1m points to buy a $5k bonus from the full tilt black card store and I was able to unlock $1080 of that during the last two weeks of the month so I added that in as well. I should be able to unlock at least 2500 of it next month too. Bonuses are sweeeeet.

Anyway here is the graph:



As you can see I was running really really badly for most of the month but after the middle of the month I started to play well. I still ran badly at first but I kept playing well and the results started coming. After all bonuses and the play from the other computer I ended up making a little over 10k on the month which is awesome considering I was 5k below ev.

Over my last 34 sessions I played +evin 32 of them. I'm sure I'm going to jinx myself here but I'm pretty sure that is one of my personal bests. I usually have about a 60% ev winrate so to win 90%+ over this stretch is an anomalyfor sure. A good anomaly but an anomaly nonetheless.

I hope this roll continues into February. Good luck to all of you at the tables and in life.

Mac

I havent been playing much lately because i came home to visit family just before christmas and left my laptop back in floridathat has holdem manager on it. I feel like HEM gives me a much bigger edge so i try not to play without it and it was nice to take a break anyway. 2 weeks with no poker is by far the most i have ever done. Anyway, to recap the year...

I ended up profiting 95k on the year (sorry I dont have graphs, i'm still not home and donthave HEM) which is 5k shy of what my ultimate goal for the year was. I dontfeel too bad about that though because I was up 115k and decided to shot take at the end of the year because if i lose then it is at a discount due to taxes. Obviously shot taking didnt go well so I ended up 5k short.

I wanted to play 500k hands and I think I came in around 385k so I was short but I still more than doubled my output from last year which I am happy about.

Every year I try to win at least one tournament even though I usually play less than 50 a year and they are all large field ones. I failed this goal but I almost count it as a sucessbecause I did final table an ftopsand I got down to the last 2 tables in another ftopsevent. I turned a profit on the year in tournaments which is a win for me since I only play them for entertainment. usually when i'm sick i'llfire up a couple tourneys and just zone out so to turn a profit with that mindset i'm not upset i didnt win one.


I am probably the only person you will find that is lowering their 2010 goals going into 2011. I realized this year that 100k is way more money than I need so I dont really care about winning more than that. This year my monetary goal is to win 80-100k and play between 300k-500k hands.

Really my biggest poker goal is to just play 2/4-3/6. I'm not trying to break the world or ever really become a top tier player so I don't care about proving myself in 5/10 or higher. Even though i turned a profit at 5/10, 10/20, and 25/50 in my play in those games this year I don't like the stress. I am happy with 6-10k a month and I can do that stress free at 2/4-3/6 so why bring in the possibility of 25k+ downswings just to try to play against better people and win more faster? It may be the right idea for some but I am not one of those people.

I also am going to try to watch fewer videos and read fewer strategy things on 2+2 (not like they actually give strategy in there anymore, it's basically overrun with kids that think it's funny to be a smartass everytimesomeone has a question but that's a topic for another day) Seriously I think studying less will be beneficial to me. Usually when I try to incorporate something i've"learned" into my game it has a negative effect on my winrate. I have figured out the reasons for this. Because I have a different preflopand overall strategy from the people whose videos i'mwatching our images are different. Also i don't feel comfortable getting into as many marginal spots as they do so I play a little tighter which means I cant valuebet hands that they do etc.

To summarize that last conglomorationof jumbled thoughts, I was listening to a nirvana cdyesterday and heard the line from kurt cobain "i donthave the think/ i only have to do it/ the results are always perfect/ but that's old news". And as narcissistic as it sounds that's how I am. I'm smart and pick things up quickly and adjust really fast to others. Usually when the action comes to me and I start to do something but then that little voice in my head tells me i shouldntI'm basically always better off listening to that voice. Not necessarily play on autopilot but just do what I feel is right in each situation rather than what a strategy post or training video has told me is right. usually it's the same thing but the times it's not I feel like i'mbetter off going with my gut because I know my game and what works for me.

My biggest goal over all of 2011 is a life goal. Just to enjoy life more. I make more money than I need, I have a lot of friends, i love making new friends, I love to travel, and i'mgoing to take advantage of all of that. I'm single for the first time in 7 years and I'm going to be selfish this year. I always put my girlfriends first and now I dont have to do that so its time to do some things for me. I really think this is going to be a great year.

I was going to do a recap of what I have done over my few weeks away from home and poker but I think i'll save that for another day.

best of luck to all in life and at the tables, and in that order

mac