Whats up guys? I just wanted to give a quick update to the select few players that know me, but haven't heard from me in a while.

First I want to apologize to my friends and students who I had been coaching for not being around but my life has been going a million directions at once. For those who don't know I am engaged to be married in another month in a half. So my life has basically been like this:

- Helping plan wedding/honeymoon (In Aruba)

- Attended 3 weddings in last 6 weeks

- Throwing a bachelor party in AC this weekend for my friend which I am the best man for in his wedding (the week after mine)

- My bachelor party in Vegas in 3 weeks

- Fiance finishing grad school (i.e. I get to pay for everything, wedding included, (i.e. poker bankroll getting slim))

- Fiance got prehired for new job, starts 2 weeks before wedding, 1-1/2 hours from where I live, so I need to now find a new place to live before the wedding(but now get to work from home).


So I have been and will busy non stop until 3 weeks after my wedding (so mid October), when I get back from the honeymoon.


As for poker I have barely been playing. I've had to withdraw the majority of my roll over the last year between supporting my fiance while she finished school, paying for the engagement ring, wedding & honeymoon. But, I have to be incredibly thankful for poker otherwise I would have had to take out some pretty big loans.

I ended up leaving only 1.5k in my account. My fiance knows the situation and has said I can deposit a bunch back after the wedding, but I think I will just try to run it up again. I think it will be challenging and respark my motivation a bit.

All in all I have some major life changes coming up, but I am definitely excited to get married, have two incomes, and get my life normalized a bit. Then I get to look forward to buying a house and making babies, but need some calm for a year or so before I can get started on that.


So that's pretty much it. I still check CR pretty regularly so any of you guys can feel free to PM me anytime. Once all this gets done and I get my home office going, I will be around pretty much all the time. If any of you guys want to start up coaching again once I free up I'll hook you up with some free sessions or something to make up for my absence.

So that's pretty much it Good luck at the tables


P.S. Shout out to Bazuko for his final table at the WSOP. Congrats man!!

Whats up guys? Its been like 1.5 years since I last blogged so I figured I'd give an update (not that anyone has followed my blog anyway )

So since my last blog I was taking shots at 200NL and lets just say things did not go my way. I eventually had to withdraw a sizeable amount from my bankroll to buy an engagement ring and for other expenses. I'm going to get married in about a year from now. So life itself has been pretty damn good outside of poker and I don't have much to complain about.

After my 200NL failures and withdrawels I decided to a break from serious grinding for a few months. I still dabbled , but didn't play a significant amount for a while. I decided to take my game back to 50NL to gain confidence back and crush donkey souls. Things went very well so I moved back up to 100NL and eventually into 200NL again. 200NL just hates me and I managed to run 10bis below expectation over my 1st 10k hands. Not terrible, but defenitly not fun when you are taking shots. Even though I feel I have an edge on the 200NL games I sucked up my pride and moved back to 100NL again.

I decided to get some coaching just to be sure I didn't have any glaring holes in my game. So far I have had 3 sessions with Hugo "Bazuko" Perez and to my delight he seems pretty impressed with my game. There are some spots he wants me to pick up the agression a bit, and I have been working to incorporate these spots into my game. But overall it looks like I'm playing pretty well. As of now I have a bankroll capable of playing 200NL, and after I get my confidence up a bit more I will start taking shots again.

I've also recently started coaching some 25NL players which has been very fun for me. As of now I am coaching Hackbandit & Wixman.

Hackbandit is quite solid and is easily capable of beating the 50NL 6 max games. He just needs to stop being influenced by a drunken Vintage coaxing him to play 8 game and plo . J/K this is obviously +EV as long as Vintage is in the game.

Wixman came to me with some pretty large leaks standard of newer hold em players who have watched poker training videos. He had an idea of how to make certain plays, but little understanding of when and why to make these plays. He has since shown tremendous improvement in his game. I'm very impressed and inspired by his motivation to learn . I'm sure hewill be crushing in another week or two at this pace.

I still have some free time in my schedule so pm me if any of you guys are looking for some 25NL or 50NL 6 max coaching. I'm only charging 25/hr for 25NL and 35/hr for 50NL. We may also be able to work out some type of long term arrangement. 1st session will be 1.5 hours (so 1/2 hour free) where we will go through your database for 1/2 hour and I will sweat you for the other hour. I am only looking for dedicated students as I take a great deal of pride in seeing you progress through the limits. Feel free to PM Wixman or Hackbandit for a referral, or look in the CR chatroom most of us are usually in there. At least Hackbandit will be since Wiggins dubbed him "Godfather of CR chatroom"

Good Luck at the tables guys!

Last week 1 had been running pretty poorly. I had just moved up 200NL 6-max I won about 8 buyins over the coarse of a week and then last week pretty much gave it all back. So I was kind of down after losing the money and wanted to win it back. I was a little tilty but decided to start playing heads up so I could win it back quicker. Not a good mindset, but I realized that I am better than many of the 100NL & 200NL heads-up players and if I look for donks and quit good players early I can make some good money. I watched like 10 different HU vides mostly GP & CTS and I am very pleased with my results. As of yesterday I have won those 8 buyins back plus one more. Its always a great feeling to get to a new high in your bankroll. I feel it is difficult to play when you know you are down from your highpoint. Its something I definetly need to work on. But, I am feeling revitalized lately and I think I will continue to play my A game.

Since my venture into heads up games I have sat back into some of the 6-max games and I have noticed an improvement in my game here as well. Playing a ton of heads up put you in marginal situations very often. It will definetly help your hand reading abilities. This come into play a lot during button and blind confrontations in 6-max and I think I have a better feel for this situations because of my heads up practice. I would recommend trying it out, but if it your first time playing much HU I would move down a few limits. I think the players as 50HU NL for the most part a pretty bad and easily manipulatedm so its a good place to start.

I finially convinced my boss to start playing online. I transfered him 500.00 yesterday and he came by my appartment after work. We played 2 tables on fulltilt at 50NL for like 2 hour and ended up down 1 1/2 buyins, buy was down 3 at one point. We played well and I think I was able to teach him some stuff, but it was really his 1st time playing online so has a lot to learn. Got coolered a bunch (KJ into AJ on AJJ board, JJ into QQ on underflop after wequeeze and are called by orignal caller). So he leaves at like 7:30 and about a half hour later I am watching a CR vid and think to my self about halfway through that he is prob playing at home. I check his name on fulltilt and he is playing 2 tables. So I start to datamine him and watch him play. He is C-betting like 75% playing 16vpip 14 pfr 11af. I see him raise UTG with j7 suited, get called in 2 spots and fire out first on a QJ10 with 2 suit flop. gets called in one spot. check check blank turn and fire into a small stack after a 10 hits the river. guy snap calls with AQ. LOL Donkaments! Gotta teach my boss about flop texture and appropriate C-betting. He ended up down another 60 so his BR is doen to 370.00 I want him to start moving up from 50NL but he is under rolled. I just hate the 25NL games. They are just too reckless. I think he will just redeposit insted of moving down.

Alright, thanks for reading, good luck at the tables

Well last time I posted I had been running extremely well. I had just made the jump to 200NL and was up about 7-8 buyins during my first week at the limit. The following week was probably my worst week of poker as a managed to loose the 7-8 buyins right back. I don't know why exactly this happend. I lost a few coolers (set over set, AA cracked, etc.) I think the coolers than got to me a bit and I didn't play my A game. This is the second time I have made the jump to 200NL (since I have had good BR management, not counting depositing 200 and playing with all of it) and Both times I have had the same results. Go on a nice heater and than lose it all back. I have since decided to drop back down to 100NL & 50NL HU, and have won back about $500.00 of my loses. I have definetly noticed a big difference between the games. The 100NL players seem to be more loose passive, giving up to many c-bets and double barrels. This does not seem to be the case in 200NL. I am getting 3-bet from the blinds, squeezed, getting called down light on multiple barrels, etc.

I have decided I am going to continue at 100NL until I get about 25-30 buyins and then only play 3-4 tables at a time at 200NL so I can get a better feel for the game. I think I am going to tighten up my play once I get there as well. My play at 200NL is over a very small sample, but it has had a much larger varience than my play at 100NL. I am optimistic that I will be able to become a winning player at 200NL and I look forward to making the jump back up once I have a bankroll better suited for the varience I have experienced there.

On a side note I would like to say LETS GO UCONN. This team has come an incredibly long way. They were terrible last year and didn't make the NCAA tourney for the first time in like 10-15 years. AJ price has finally been playing like Jim Calhoun said he would and Hasheem Thabeet has improved his game by leaps and bounds. I went to see his first game last year. He caught a pass in the paint being guarded by someone 6'7 or so (Hasheem is 7'3) he took a fade away two handed soccer style throw in shot and hit nothing but the backboard. Now the guy is catching alley oops, blocking 4-5 shots a game, and just playing well. I think he will be a premier player in college next year if he stays, and he should.

In non poker aspects of my life everythings is pretty good. My girlfriend is pretty stressed out between going back to college to get her masters and planning my sisters bridal shower. I am kind of pissed at my sister for the type of wedding she is having. She is getting married on a cruise, which sounds nice, but I think it is going to cost me and more girlfreind more than it is going to cost her. We have to fly down to Puerto Rico, pay for the cruise, my girlfriend is in the wedding with one other of my sisters friends so they have to split the shower, we have to give her the wedding gift, my girlfriend has to do something for the bachelorette party, than there is another party for theose who couldn't go on the cruise. All said and done its going to cost my girlfirend and me about $5,000.00. I know its my sister and I we will be going on a cruise, but I think thic choice was pretty selfish. By having the wedding on the cruise she is avoiding paying any real amount and making others basically pay for her. Especially since a bunch of ther people who don't have the money for the cruise aren't going (even the grooms sister) But as my girlfriend and I make up 1/2 of the wedding party we pretty much have to go and pay for various parts of these other parties. Financially this is going to be strain on my girlfriend and me. She is going back to school full time and working a low paying internship. She is going to have to borrow from me and use her collge loan money just to pay for this stuff. As for me my job pretty much pays shit money and most of the money I have is from playing poker. I am going to try not to use my bankroll, but I may have to. I will not be happy moving down in limits to pay for my sisters wedding.

Besides my obvious annoyance with the wedding issues everything else is going well. I am flying out to cleveland next tues-thursday to make sales calls. If anybody has a card game for me to play in, wants to go to any nearby casinos, or just meetup send me a pm. I'd love to meet some other cr members in the area while Im out there. Well I guess i've rambled on long enough about not much at all.

Thanks for reading,

Ron

This week past week has gone pretty well for me. I am probably up about $1,000.00 online over about 3,000 hands of 200NL & 100NL, I don't know for sure since I don't have poker tracker on my work computer. I usually put in a solid hour during my lunch break.I also won about $300.00 playing 1-2NL at foxwoods over a 4 hour period, which was nice. The games there are a whole different beast, it took me some time to figure out my strategy. When I got to the table there were probably 3-4 people with about 1,000.00 in chips and these guys were rediculously aggressive. Almost every hand was opened to 15-20 preflop and 4-5 people would call preflop. I got poket 10s a few times early but both times I opened to 20 I got 4-5 callers and as soon as an over hit on the flop I knew somone had to have it. Almost every hand went to showdown with people firing on all 3 streets, or getting it all in. I saw one guy call down all three streets with K 5 off trying to chace a gutsho that "he could feel" was coming. He did actually hit, but it was to a chop as the other guy had KK. So they split the over 800.00 pot! This is when I decided that I had a few types of players here, Gamblers (like the guy chasing the gotshot), wannabe poker players (like the kids to my left who were raising a ton, but said they were only good live players, and online players were too tight), and somewhat thinking players (mostly 1st level thinkers opening and playing decent hands). I ended up losing about 150.00 and rebought back to 300. A few moments later a stacked a guy who had flopped middle set when I turned the straight, pretty standard. All in all it was a good time. If anyone is from the area, I usually go there on Saturdays from the morning to late afternoon. PM me and we could meet up.

This weekend I went to the New York City to see my friend who I haven't seen in a few years. He is an old college buddy from Uconn. We had good time bar hopping. We probably hit 4-5 different hole in the wall bars. We got pretty drunk and went to some pizza place that was absolutely packed at 3 AM. NY has some good pizza.

Sunday I was pretty hungover so my girl and I just hung around the appartment and watched tv. I also was watching the sunday million and few other large tourneys. I didn't feel my head was in a good enough spot to be playing any poker. I saw Ryan Daut take down the 5K freezeout for 100,000. He finished of ELKY to take the tourney down. He also had a deep run in the Sunday million, I think he finished 37th. So congarts to him, he was playing great..

One other thing I wanted to talk about is a poker problem that I know I need to work on. When I play I usually play 4 tables of 100-200NL at a time. My problem is the need to book a winning session everytime I play, which is obviously a terrible way to think. Funny thing is its not a problem with playing too long when I am losing, like you would think. Once I lose around 400.00 I almost always quit, unless it was clearly due to bad beats. My problem is quitting way to soon. Very often I will sit down at 4 tables, stack someone within 15 minutes or so (which is nice), but just quit. For example just looking at my poker tracker stats over the past week (remember I do play an hour a day at work which I don't have stats for) It says I am up $832.00 over 466 hands at a 55.23 bb/100 winrate. This is obviously the high end of varience and I am pleased with the $ won, but this is from 26 different tables. I am averageing only 18 hands a table and have not played more than 18 minutes at a table on this computer all week. Now this week is a little extreme as I usually put in 30-45 minutes at most tables. But all week I would just stack somone and quit. I think I am a somewhat talented player, good enough to beat 100NL for a good winrate and 200NL for an ok winrate, but if I want to be a better player I know I have to play longer sessions and log more hands. I have hindered my ability to win large sums in a session and this is something I plan I working on.

So thats it, thanks for reading, and PM me if anyone wants to meet at foxwoods, or if you have anything at all you want to talk about.

I thought I would hop on the bandwagon and post a Blog entry. Heres a little background info:

I have been playing poker for about 4 years now, but I was one of the players who I now love to play at the tables. I would deposit $200 run it up to about 1,000, tilt and lose it all. I had terrible bankroll management as I would play 1-2 NL from the start and obviously any varience/tilting would kill me. But, I played mostly for fun.

During October this year I won an entry into the WCOOP 215 rebuy event on Pokerstars. Looking back I realize I played incredibly tight and probably could have made a deeper run, but basically froze up around bubble time. Anyway, I placed (135 I think) and won about $1,800, which was already like 4 times my bankroll. From this point on I made the decision that since I loved playing poker so much, why not really apply my self. I was reading Cardplayer magazine I think and saw an advertisement for cardrunners and decided I would sign up. Since the end of October 2007 I have run my bankroll up over the $10,000 mark. I have won a $20 ,150 person omaha hi tourney for about $700.00, placed 3rd in a $50 rebuy tourney with about 1000 people for $3,500, and placed 3rd in a $5 rebuy with about 2500 people for $2,500(lost AK suited all in too K7 off to some Donk, who raised to a half million and I shove for 4.5 million more, he tanked, called, and rivered a straight, :( that one still hurts. It would have eliminated him and I was going to chop so it cost me about 4,000 in real money) Any extra money I have won from mostly cash games, mostly $.5-1.

I basically want to just thank Cardrunners for taking my game to the next level. I used to play all full ring games. I have learned to play six max and heads up which has been much more profitable. I have learned a ton through the cash and tourny vidoes. I can honestly say I used to have no idea what I was doing besides basic hand play. I had no idea about position and very little understanding of pot odds, expected value, and c-bets. Now I feel that I am starting to have a good understanding of how to play profitably and a much better understanding of the importance of playing tourneys aggresively in good spots.

So thank you for everything Cardrunners, you are worth every penny! I will start to post some results from pokertracker when I get a chance.