Hey guys, I made a silly video detailing the reasons why I should be selected for PokerStars Team Online 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7S4zgzWUkE

It's about 7 minutes long, and if you don't laugh then I'm sorry. If you really enjoyed it, then I'd love it if you shared it via twitter, facebook, or however else you like.

Thanks a lot!

Yesterday I had my biggest losing day of the year (-$1513) and after losing almost $1000 a few days before, it started to worry me. It's not even that bad, and still well inside the worst bad stretch(es) I have anticipated for the year.


(world's smallest violin)



The reason it felt bad besides the fact I lost money can be found in Jared Tendler's book The Mental Game of Poker, and it's that we are very horrible at predicting the future, especially when things are overly good or bad and there is a lot of emotion attached to it. It's the reason why we seem to get bothered by meaningless day to day things we shouldn't be bothered by. I started to worry that I was going to lose $1000 every day I played from now on and going to have to find someone to stake me and adjust my future plans. Stupid. I'm guilty of it the other way as well. I can win at a rate of 3-4x my hourly over 10+ hours and all of a sudden I'm trying to figure out how much caviar and Dom Perignon I'm going to buy next time I go shopping.

The reason for the title of this blog doesn't just relate to poker, and basically means that it's important to make mistakes so you can learn. Once the dust settles after a bad downswing and your head is cleared it usually becomes clear why bad stretches happened. For me it happens because I get out of disciplined processes that are important to playing winning poker: maintaining regular thoughtful study habits, strict game selection, intense focus in game, and taking notes/tagging players and being aware of your opponents and their tendencies. Those are the main habits I strive to stick to, and it takes a lot of work and practice to do it day in and day out. Once these habits are repeated over the long term and you are winning steady, it's dangerously easy to become overconfident and stray from them, because sticking with them takes effort, and effort is hard and boring.

Another important factor in short term results is luck. A lot of intermediate poker players wish luck didn't exist in poker, but most of us understand that the element of luck is what allows the fish to sometimes win and keeps them coming back to the tables. I will sometimes look at my red line, just for the sake of looking, but beyond that I don't give it much thought. That's not to say I don't think it has any value in assessing your game, of course it does, but I think too many players put too much stock in it which affects the way they look at their own game. I absolutely love it when I hear someone say they are playing horribly. It means they are taking responsibility for their crappy results instead of blaming it on luck. Obviously it is frustrating to know you are running 100+++ buyins below EV, I'm sure multiple people reading this right now are in the midst of just that, but it's quite likely they are focusing their thoughts on how unlucky they are rather than what they can do to improve their game right now.

If you can stick to the correct process, and play your A game, or close to it on a regular basis you will likely find that when the poor stretches inevitably hit you will feel good knowing it's just a blip in the radar and the money will roll in soon. Ideally you wouldn't need a stretch of bad luck or poor play to give you a slap in the face, but being completely perfect all of the time is a bit of a tough task. Remember the next time you are on a bad run that a bad stretch is a good opportunity to strip down your game and look at how you can improve and come back a better, more confident player.

I've wanted to be a pro golfer since I first started playing when I was 11, and I never really lost that focus until I had a miserable failure attempting Canadian Tour Q-School when I was 19. I was so deadset on trying to qualify that I forgot about actually getting good at golf, but I went on with it anyways. I was so down after missing out (by approximately 1 million shots) I put less effort into my game because I didn't have anything to get myself out of bed in the morning. It's always on my mind to become a successful pro golfer, but in the past 5 years or so it's been a lot more vague and fleeting. There were only a couple other times where I actually spent an extended period of time (2-3 months each lol) working hard on my golf game with no other life distractions (alcohol, pizza) and each time I seemed to find some sort of competitive game quite quickly. Competitive to the point that I'd be a bottom feeder on a mini-tour, but still.


It's always difficult to even begin to get the ball rolling again. Any time I'd go back out on the golf course to play or practice after a long layoff my expectations would be unrealistic and I'd immediately become depressed when I realized how far away I was from feeling good about my game. Because I was depressed I'd just go out and get drunk and eat pizza to make myself feel better. My online poker friend Daniel (Bodeye, excellent player and wise young Swede) mentioned to me during a bad stretch that when humans are stressed we stop doing the things that make us feel good, such as exercise, or eating well. One of the hardest things to deal with in all of this is that unshakable negative feeling that just wouldn't go away. It was so hard to deal with because I couldn't pinpoint the exact reason why it was there, so I'd feel bad about feeling bad. Fat Bastard from Austin Powers knows what I mean:


"I eat because I'm unhappy and I'm unhappy because I eat. It's a vicious cycle. Now if you excuse me, there's someone I need to get in touch with and forgive: myself," after which he passes wind. However, he then tried to kill Austin anyway, and so Felicity incapacitated him with a kick to his testicles. (austinpowers.wikia.com)


All this negativity (has) had a compounding effect on my life. Because I was spending more time getting drunk than playing golf I was spending more money and getting out of shape, so not only was I "fat and poor" but I was "horrible at golf" which obviously did wonders for my general attitude. I was able to pinpoint the specific negative feeling with the help of Jared Tendler (www.jaredtendlerpoker.com) and it was that in these bad moments on the golf course I knew I wasn't going to make it as a pro so there was no point in even trying. Having this awareness and being able devise a mental plan for when this thought comes up again has been a big help for me. I haven't been able to completely get rid of it but I am making progress on it day by day.


Right now I am in the beginning stages of getting back into things and it's tough at times. I'm going for a schedule of 3-4 hours of poker in the morning and then working on golf for the rest of the day. I'm sick of writing cheques my ass can't cash so I am just going to take it day by day and see what I can come up with. Yes I know boohoo I click buttons and play golf my life is so hard. Hard in the sense of staying disciplined day in, day out, regardless of how good or mostly bad things are going. I had a good success yesterday, it was an all around brutal day, and instead of sobbing into 10 beers and a large personal sized pizza, I made myself a salad and went to bed. Please private message me for my address so you can all send Congratulatory cards/gifts/trophies.


Most of us have goals in our careers, our poker games, our relationships, our finances, whatever it may be, and it can be depressing when you lose sight of them. In the short term it can be more fun to spend hundreds of dollars partying, buying things you don't need, or eating 6 servings of Chinese food. Being on the straight and narrow isn't fun, it's hard, especially in the beginning when the finish line seems so far out of reach. It's not a coincidence that the most successful people in the world worked their asses off on a day in day out basis. They probably had to miss out on a lot of beers and Chinese food to get to that point, too. Nothing against beer and Chinese food, I think both are wonderful, but you know. Here's an awesome quote from Rafael Nadal in line with this:


"It is possible to do everything, I believe, but always keeping a balance, never, ever losing track of what's important. In exceptional circumstances I might even skip morning training and train in the afternoon instead. What you can't do is make the exception the rule. You can train once in the afternoon, but not three afternoons running. Because then training becomes secondary in your mind, it ceases to be the priority, and that's the beginning of the end. You might as well prepare for retirement. The condition of having fun is keeping the line, sticking to your training regime: that is non-negotiable."


Thanks for reading!

Hi everyone! Hehehehehe :P :P :) :} :) :^ :......

Anyways.

Poker has been going great for me so far this year besides the fact I have played a truly hilarious 89.7 hours. I switched over to 6-max $30 hypers to end 2011/start 2012 and have been enjoying them, probably because I am running ridiculously hot. I'm not sure why I decided to start playing them, just for shoots and giggles really. I realized quickly that I wasn't very good at them and put in loads of hours studying all sorts of hands. I put in more hours studying in January than any time I ever have in my poker life. Even my school life, but that isn't anything too special.

There is a lot of push among the regs to add more buyins to the hypers which would likely be a good thing for most regs allowing them to hit SNE a lot easier. Pokerstars has been delaying big time due to the fact that more hypers may do some damage to the rest of the sng environment. I'm not too concerned about it, I'd just like a decision to be made soon so I can get a good idea of what I will do for the rest of the year because as it stands I feel I could branch out into multiple sng formats depending on what happens.

After adding rb value and a lucky bink for $1700 in the Battle of the Planets triple shootout I managed to have my best month ever. I'm not so sure February will get a sniff of January since I've only played 13 hours, l o l.

The weather on Vancouver Island has been so nice lately and I recently bought my golf membership so the urgency to grind is low, but I am going to make sure I get some decent hours in before the weather gets really good. I'll feel like a doofus if for some reason I'm forced to play 120 hours in June.

It wasn't a New Year's resolution, but I made a conscious effort this year to avoid making crappy excuses for missing the gym because missing 1 day can quickly snowball into being 30 pounds overweight, weak, and out of shape. (Hi). Besides missing a workout during my gf's extended birthday weekend I am on my 6th straight week of the gym. I'm doing Starting Strength and I like it a lot. It's designed so that every workout you lift more than before, and comprised of squats, deadlifts, overhead press, and bench press. It's getting to the point where if I keep going for another 2-3 months I'll actually start to feel proud of myself for how much I'm lifting. Some people seemed to be concerned that lifting weights will make me too big and bulky to properly play golf, but I'd need to eat 6k+ calories a day, lift much heavier, and then not do any of the mobility exercises that I regularly do. So don't worry everyone, I intend to be fat and weak for a while yet.

I'm excited to have golf back in my life, and excited to keep making improvements in my game and attitude that have already begun. At times my swing/ball striking is the best it's ever been, the main problem with that is that it is approximately 3% of the time. I'm happy to know it's there, and am doing great work to improve it when it's at its worst. I have my coach to thank for that, as well as helping to make me less of a headcase on the putting green. I've also been listening to some old sessions that I had with Jared Tendler and realized I didn't fully resolve any of my past issues on the golf course, so I have been paying a lot of attention to my attitude and making it better with a main focus to actually resolve them. The main issues are anger, too high of expectations, and wanting to walk off the golf course and spend 3 weeks in my bed. I know now why these things occur so as long as I nip them in the bud when they occur I can be well on my way. :D

Hi. Today was a good day. I got $2206.64 and the total is currently $7648.47. I'm relieved and very happy with today obviously. I think if my attitude yesterday hadn't gotten SO FAR off track yesterday, or I snuck out some decent results with a poor attitude, there's no way I'd have had such a good day today. It's something I see happen in my golf game as well. It often takes a truly horrible day for me to fully get myself together and realize where I'm wrong.

I spent a lot of time collecting myself yesterday and sorting out a mental game plan going forward and that was to do what I said at the end of my last post, to get heavy into the process, save hands, and take a lot of notes. I saved more hands today than maybe any other day ever. (Almost) every time I faced a tricky spot that I wasn't completely sure about, or just wanted to take some time to quantify the value of making a given play so I could feel more comfortable with it I'd save the hand.

I read a hand between Collin Moshman and Todd Terry from Collin's blog here: http://www.cardrunners.com/blog/Collin%20Moshman/how-i-spent-5k-getting-into-the-bellagio-buffet

TL; DR version is that Todd 3-bet an EP opener and folded to Collin's 4-bet with A4s. He said Collin was on 99+, AQ+, and he had 31% equity vs that range which was slightly less than he needed. WTF! It was a big wake up call that I have been roboting and not even coming close to thinking about hands in the correct way. My decisions have basically turned into yes/no, which is a terrible mindset to have, but one that happens when you mass table robotically.

Today I was also aware of the value of my misclick folds which happen all day long. Yesterday they made me soooo mad. As I got upset I kept doing it more and more and I steadily fell into a pit of despair hoping that my uncoordinated mismatched cards would connect with the board allowing me to somehow win money which obviously didn't happen. Once I consciously told myself the approximate value of my play I was able to avoid anger and properly re-focus myself.

Things were going so well process-wise that at 11:00 AM even though I was down a nice chunk I was actually depressed I only had 6 hours of loading left because I was enjoying playing so much.

Gonna get my study on here and carry on with more of the same in the following days. Thanks for reading!

-$641.76 today. That puts me at $5441.83 total. In the grand scheme of things I'm ok with this since it puts me pretty much right on the pace I anticipated I'd be at. It's a bit of a bonerkiller that I got my hopes up pretty high and thought I might end the bet by tomorrow or the next day, and today was definitely an exercise in battling that.

I pretty much just lost steadily without any decent scores for about 6 straight hours. I think I hit a point of being down $2k if I tack on yesterdays bad day. I started worrying about losing and what I was going to do. Expecting to win by tomorrow then switching to not winning the bet is a great example of something I learned from Jared Tendler at how bad we are at being psychics, we think that whatever happens will continue to happen and that's just not the case. Even though I lost some confidence with my results the last 2 days, all I have to do is look at my graphs and remind myself what goes down must come up.

Today I made the mistake of being massively results oriented and completely forgetting about the process. I was tired, hungry, and stressed most of the day which is a wonderful state to be in while playing poker. It was good to see my mental game at my worst because it does a great job of displaying what my specific faults are, and knowing what the faults are makes it easy to be aware of and fix the problem.

I'm going to get hard in the process here, save a ton of hands, take a ton of notes, and get deep in the process. I'm going to get to sleep bit earlier as well so I don't feel like falling asleep while I'm clicking buttons.

Cards live pots monsters etc.

Today I played 7 hours, lost a bit over $100/hr (untz) to finish off minus a jumbo jet ($737.68) to put the total at $6083.59. 7 hours is such a baby session that I wasn't too bothered about it. Losing $700 isn't much of a disaster either. Overall I'm still on a pace of $750/day which is still ahead of the pace I intended for myself.

It was easy to want to whine about the fact my giant equity showdowns went poorly today, but really I've been so lucky up to this point I have to be real with myself. It's also easy to get annoyed losing with aces for a giant stack at a final table, but again, if I have a nice sized stack I had to be lucky to get to that position in the first place. Poker players are pretty bad when it comes to entitlement and selective memory, myself included.

I've had to be especially aware of my thoughts and attitude so far this month to make sure I didn't fall into any horrible mental habits. This is for the benefit of my poker game but also my general life. I do a nice job of not letting poker mess with my head while I'm not playing but it's only because I put an effort into doing it. My attitude often gets pretty horrible in game and it's a bit embarrassing, but there will always be issues.

I had an awesome weekend off with my friends and gf and now that I'm home I'm feeling focused, motivated, and refreshed. Once I figured out how to solve my eye strain problem I felt much better as well. I'm going to play about 50 hours in the next 4 days so should put myself in a good spot after that then I will reassess and figure out some holiday plans.

Bye LOL!

+$167.43 just under 11 hours today. The games stopped loading a bit earlier than normal and I was seriously OUT OF IT! $5529.68 total after today so still nicely ahead of pace, although all I need is one bad day and I will be back on expected average pace which would be a bonerkiller considering how good those few days were in the middle.

This kinda grind just beats the crap out of you. I am spending nearly twice as much time playing poker as I am sleeping! It does not take very long until your soul is just completely sucked out of your body. After I finished up today I was in the worst mood and I know it comes from having no balance in my life right now. Once I got some food in my body I stopped being upset about every little thing and saw things a bit more clearly. I put some fresh music on my iPod and went for a walk, oh man it was just what I needed. It was the equivalent of taking a day off. I am pumped for January to hit so I have the chance to not make any silly prop bets and just enjoy my life. I miss going to the gym. I seem to do a great job of bailing on the gym for one reason or the other just as I am starting to notice improvements. I have a decent excuse this time, but still.

Anyways I played very poorly today, it took me about 3 hours of playing until I actually woke up, by the time I felt alert I was still making a bunch of mistakes which mostly are misclick folds from playing too quickly. I had a lot of spots I was unsure of so saved a buttload of hands once again, gave them a solid study and feel good going into tomorrow. Barring a total disaster in tomorrows session I am going to take Saturday and Sunday off and go to my girlfriends Christmas party and see some friends out of town. Hopefully that will be my last break and then I will grind like a nut til I hit $10k :).

This month I decided to make a prop bet that I could make $10k profit at 180 man sng's on Pokerstars. I expected to get a few hundred dollars in action and I'd have a little something to keep me motivated to get out of bed in the morning and stay productive poker wise through the month. Right away one of the top regs bet me $1k and I nervously capped the action at $4k at 1:1 which filled up right away. It filled up so quickly I think I could have gotten at least $10k on it, but $4k was nervous enough as it is.

So far the $4k number has done a good job of getting me out of bed in the morning. I've gotten out of bed before 6:00 am on the 5/7 days I've played this month (2 days off were roommate's bday) which I think is necessary since the games start to die between 4:30 and 5:00 pm PST. I think I may start getting up around 4:30 to put in 13 hour sessions, just for "fun." Yesterday's session was the longest session I've ever played at 12.6 hours. Also the most games with 228 and I think the most I've made in a day playing sng's, just a shade under $2500. I have this feeling sometimes that I'm rewarded with a good day for waking up early, but the reality is it just leads to more games which = less variance, but still.

Today I played 9.5 hours and I had to take a break to see a dermatologist about my face baldness, he basically said it was nothing and it should grow back, so that was the highlight of my day. After averaging 12 hours a day playing 9.5 hours was a bit of a treat but I think will be my last lazy playing day from here on out.

A great tip for putting in more hours/volume that I learned from Jared Tendler (if you play poker and haven't bought/read his book it's a massive leak so plug it) is to add on the hours slow and gradually, the same way you would with adding tables. You wouldn't go from 4 tables to 12 tables, so it makes no sense to try and make your daily max hours jump from 4 to 12 either. You need to do it slowly and gradually. If you max at 4 hours a day, pump it to 4.5 and do that for a few days until it's comfortable, then 5, etc etc. Now that I've hit 12.6 hours in a day I feel like I can keep increasing that even though it won't be my much.

Anyways as for totals, today was my first losing day going down $377.83 in 149 games, but the total is at $5362.25 (1047 games, 57.6 hours). I'm ahead of my expected pace which is great, but I'm also expecting 2-3 rough days to happen, these things tend to even themselves out. Ideally I'd just pop out the $4637.75 before things get too bad and I can just forget about it :).

I learned some great things from Irish grinder entim while he was here visiting which have improved my game, and I am studying more hands daily than I can remember doing in recent months. I'm noticing (and also missing out on) a good chunk of poorly played hands but at the same time doing this daily study makes me feel much sharper and I can consciously feel my skill and confidence growing on a daily basis.

I'll be posting daily updates here as well as on my twitter account @sippincriss.

Thanks for reading!

Hi guys, I had myself a pretty ridiculous March. I had initially planned on hitting 5,000 games for the month, which I had never done before, and that turned into shooting for 6,000 once an end of month trip was cancelled. It seems like a rare thing for a poker player to hit a volume goal, especially when it's a big one. I know for myself I probably have about a 20% success rate for hitting the monthly volume I intend at the beginning of the month. Here are the results:


Once again a familiar disappointing story for me, results-wise considering the volume I played I had hoped to make more money, but with the reality of the games being harder, and letting myself play like a doofus for a good portion of the month I can't have that high of expectations. I was about $90 short of having my first $10k month after fpp's/bonuses/props which was disappointing, then when I realized what I was disappointed about as a $16 grinder I stopped feeling bad for myself, because no one else is going to.

Some of you are probably wondering how I managed to play so much, and there wasn't much to it, I just did it. I got up early most days and was efficient with my time, I had a goal, stuck to a schedule, and just got it done. This month opened my eyes to how much time I got in the habit of wasting on a day to day basis. On top of playing 6,000 games, I went to the gym for 90 mins 27/31 days (lost 7 lbs yee yeee), visited my mom for a couple days on her birthday, and went out of town for the night for a friends party. I did feel like a prisoner in my own apartment towards the end of the month, so anytime I managed to get social interaction it was a nice treat.

I have had many months in the past where I had to put in a lot of volume on the last day of the month to hit a certain volume/vpp goal, and without fail I always had giant losing days. I didn't care about the way I played and just wanted to get the volume out of the way. That's the trap I fell into in March, especially cranking out 1100 games in the last 4 days. It was as if I made quicker decisions my games would end faster and I wouldn't have to play as much. Really this was true, but not in the way I wanted it to be. On the 31st I slowed it down and focussed hard all day. I still had a garbage day but it was refreshing to not fold a big pair in the early levels every 5 minutes.

I made a prop bet for the $16s for this month that I have to achieve 10% roi over a minimum of 3500 games. I quickly got $2100 in action and could have easily got more, but I am a wimpy baby and wasn't comfortable going much higher than that. I had a good start yesterday, making 50 buyins in 150 games. Obviously I ran super hot, but process-wise it was the best I have played in a long time, and I'm sure if I stick to a disciplined, focussed, slowed down pace, I will be a big favourite.

Since I'm no longer trapped in a month of sng prison, my golf season started yesterday. My days will be waking up at 5:30, grinding out 150 games, then off to the golf course until it's dark. Pretty decent life I guess. Yesterday I shot 81, and since the last time I had a handicap a year ago I was better than 0, that was pretty rough. The bright spot is I didn't get upset during the round. I was monitoring and taking control of my thoughts the entire round. For most people staying calm while playing a fun round of golf on a beautiful golf course should be no problem, but not for me. I'm a wild crazy spaz. I can easily shoot a 67 and throw/slam 10 clubs and be a general whiny baby, it's horrible, so obviously I'm excited about sorting myself out and getting out there every day. Also shooting lower scores than 81 could be fun too.

My new video was just released, it covers hero calls and hero folds in mostly the early-mid stages. I made a lot of big folds, and call downs with garbage hands. Check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!