2/4 and 3/6, Largest Losing Day Ever!

When playing poker, one of the most important things a person can do is move up in stakes. If you're good enough to beat the next level, the amount of money that you will win increases exponentially. Anyone who wants to make a ton of money playing poker should move up the stakes ladder as soon as they are good enough to beat that level and are financially capable.

The bad thing about this is variance. Variance is the difference between your short term results and your long term expectation. On any given day, you can get all of the money in as a substantial favorite and still manage to lose every hand. If this happens to you at the highest stakes you play as soon as you move up, well, it's painful.

I just moved up to 3/6 and 2/4 not long ago, and yesterday I ran into a massive and insanely aggressive fish at 2/4 (3-betting me 40% and barreling relentlessly). I had started the day up about $400, but that was all about to change. As this guy proceeded to run hot, cooler me, 2 outer me, win every flip, my bankroll takes the biggest nose dive I've ever seen. There's something funny that my roommate and I have talked about before in regards to poker: If you're having a losing day, there is a point at which you lose so much money, any amount you lose after that point becomes irrelevant. For example, if you're stuck $2700, you don't really give a shit if you lose $800 more.

Poker is brutal.

A Night Out in Whistler

So it's been awhile since I've blogged, but I figure since it was the end of the month I ought to give everyone an update. Story time (This may be a bad idea and I'm probably going to look like an asshole):

So last night we go out. I learn about this new shot called A Grenade. Pretty cool concept and the shot, when I describe it, will sound terrible, but it's actually surprisingly good. You take 2 shot glasses (1 with tequila, 1 with Jager) and a glass filled 1/2 way with redbull and you wedge the 2 shot glasses at the top of the glass of redbull. When you pull the shot of tequila out (aka, pulling the pin) you shoot it and the shot of Jager drops into the rebull, voila, Jagerbomb.

Here's a pic of a grenade:

I was so hungry at the end of the night I went to a place called Fat Tony's Pizza and asked for Nacho Pizza (best pizza ever), they said they only had veggie. "I hate veggie pizza, whatever, gimme a slice of veggie". Took a bite while the girl was giving me my change and said "Gross. Why did I even buy this", and threw the whole slice in the garbage in front of her as I took my change, lol. I'm an idiot.

After getting home at 3am, I decided to play poker and somehow managed to make $1,200.

Oh, also, at dinner the next night with friends I mentioned that I could have gone home with this girl if I hadn't been cock-blocked, turns out the guy she was supposed to be dating was at dinner with us. God, I'm retarded. At least people get to laugh at my stupidity.

Knock Knock

So Nick and I are playing poker and then all of a sudden...

*KNOCK KNOCK*

someone is knocking on our door. Weird, we don't really know anybody here. Who would be knocking on our door. I look through the peep hole and there is a random girl in a hoodie looking pretty rough. I open the door.

Me: Hey.
Girl: Hey.
Me: Can I help you?
Girl: Umm...I...smell marijuana.
Me: *wtf*...do you now?
Girl: Umm...yeah.
Me: Umm...nope.
Girl: No?
Me: No.

slowly close door.

Just because you smell pot in the hallway doesn't mean that you can knock on a random door hoping to score free weed. And if you do smell it, and you just HAVE TO knock, be sure and knock on the right door. Have people lost their minds?

Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard

If you play online poker cash games, then you should be aware of a website called pokertableratings.com. Pokertableratings is a tracking site that keeps a record of almost every online poker player on the internet and is a useful tool when looking up your opponents to see their stats. It's also a sort of poker community with blogs, forums, news articles, and something called the Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard.

The Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard shows what players are making the most money at all possible stakes online. Every month it resets. If you end the month at the top of the leaderboard you earn a badge on your player page showing the world that you were the best player at your stakes for that month. Here's an example (click to enlarge):



What does this mean? It means that out of all the major online poker sites in the world (Full Tilt, Pokerstars, Merge, Cake, iPoker, Party Poker, UB, AP, and Bodog) you won more money than ANYONE IN THE WORLD for that month at whatever stakes you were playing.

I stated on facebook that I was going to try and earn the UGL Badge for $.25/$.50 this month. It would be pretty cool, I think, to be considered the #1 $50nl player in the world :)

I'll keep everyone posted on how I'm doing. So far I've earned $1,176 at $50nl which puts me in 8th place so far. The average UGL winner for $50nl earns about $5,750 for the month. If I can maintain this pace then I should earn about $7,000. We'll see how it goes.

Wish me luck!

Learning about a new beer

So last week Nick and I go down to the hot tub at our lodge after a long day of poker. Super important to remember and take it easy after playing poker all day. Nick grabs the case of beer he bought earlier and we head out the door.

Get to the hot tub. No good lookin' girls. Oh, Whistler, why do I even hope anymore? We crack open some beer. Molson something-or-anothers. Not the regular Molson Canadians anyway. There are some other people in the hot tub drinking Kokanees. We're just sippin' away, hangin out, meeting new people. Everything's fun. We just have 2 or 3 beers and head back up to the apartment and play some more poker.

NEXT WEEK...

Nick buys some beer, same beer as last time, our trusty Molson-whatevers, we are thinking of hitting up the hot tub before the lodge closes it down. Then I hear Nick, "dude, are you serious"

Me: what?
Nick: This beer is non-alcoholic
Me: What!? Are you for real?

On the side of the can it says "MOLSON EXEL" and then ".5% ALCOHOL", but the decimal is insanely small compared to the number. Canadian beer is standard 5% alcohol. Why would we even look for the decimal?

So these people in the hot tub must have thought we were either recovering alcoholics or just incredibly lame. Can you imagine if I had asked them if they wanted to shotgun a beer with us? God, we are retarded.

Cons: Bought non-alcoholic beer, looked like idiots
Pros: Can pound beers while i play poker all day and not worry about it hindering my play. Haha, syke, there are no pros. Sigh.

Milk Jugs*

So my roommate Nick and I drink a lot of milk. We literally had FIVE 1-gallon jugs of milk in our fridge the other day. I've told Nick (who is working out religiously) about the importance of the quality of protein from milk, eggs, tuna, and chicken since he is trying to put on as much muscle as possible while here in Whistler.

So why am i telling you all this? I'll get to that. Let me start off by saying that occasionally I've see Nick, sitting in front of his computer, with a gallon of milk just chillin' on the floor that he's drinkin' on. He's obviously dedicated to getting the protein he needs in order to put on muscle. Good job Nick.

So what happens later?

He gets a mega-donkey at 25/50. What is 25/50 all the non-poker players are wondering? Well, if you don't play poker, "blinds" are the money each player has to post in order to play a hand, in this case each player will take turns posting $25 and $50. A standard all-in pot at 25/50 where both players have bought in for 100 big blinds is $10,000. I've seen massive $40,000 pots at these stakes.

Yeah, it's an expensive game. The next level is $50/$100 and is considered "nosebleed stakes".

When a bad player wants to play you at $25/$50 you absolutely DO NOT WANT TO GIVE HIM ANY REASON TO LEAVE!!! Nick's winrate is around 25 big blinds per 100 hands and most players can generally play 150-200 hands per hour heads up online. What does that mean? That means a typical opponent at $25/$50 is losing $1,875-$2,500 PER HOUR to Nick. You DO NOT want him to leave, no matter what!!! If your phone rings, ignore it. If your dog is eating the furniture, let it happen. If the doorbell buzzes, they can come back later.

...and if you have to take a piss, don't ask the guy to wait on you, he might leave, just grab the empty milk jug at your feet and piss away.

Turns out that throughout the day Nick had pissed in this milk jug several times as I was casually listening to Primus, clicking away on my mouse, playing online poker, completely clueless that my roommate was taking a whiz in our living room and there was a half full gallon of urine just chillin' on the floor.

This level of dedication is what serparates the soon-to-be nosebleed grinders from the small/midstakes players. I think. I wonder if my friend Caleb, who is also a pro poker player and is married, I wonder if his wife would understand if he just had to piss in a drink container in the living room, lol. We'll never know.

A Post About Poker, ldo

This blog is called "the online poker life..." right?

So why haven't I posted about poker? Because I thought the other posts would be more entertaining? Partly, yes. But truthfully, I was kind of embarrassed about my results.

Confession time...

Before Black Friday (the day online poker was shutdown in the US), I was killing it. I had played nearly 1,100 hours and over 250,000 hands of online poker and was winning at a rate that would embarrass other heads up players at my stakes.

So what happens when I get to Canada...

I lose. And lose some more. Then I win...but then I lose again. Win. Lose. Win. Lose. After a week of (luckily) breaking even I realize things aren't good.

This is not good.

Drastic measures must be taken.

I wake up, watch a 1 hour training video on CardRunners, review all my hand histories, then I play. 10-12 hours per day, constantly making mental notes of the situations that give me the most trouble and thinking how I can better adjust. Nick watches me play and lets me know what adjustments he thinks I should be making. Halfway through the day I stop and watch Nick play for 30min-1hour or so and I take more mental notes, then I keep playing until I'm exhausted, I climb into bed, watch another CardRunners video and review hands...rinse and repeat.

I've been doing this for about 6 days now. AND I'M BACK BABY!!!

Not only do I feel I'm back to where I was previously, I feel even better.

This trip is gonna be epic. I've ran terrible the last 3 days and still managed to clear nearly $2,000 playing $.25/$.50, $.50/$1, and some $1/$2. The original goal was to make $60,000 in 6 months, but I'm pretty sure $60,000 is a joke at this rate. Cleared $120/hour today and am thinking this should be the normal winrate within two months.

Big thanks to TC the MFCEO (Nick, my roommate) for helping me with my leaks and another big thanks to my staker for allowing me to use his CardRunners account for a week.

Alright girls and boys, I'm off to bed.