I just had a good idea
I've been trying to work on updating and fixing the leaks in my game lately. I feel over the previous six months I got involved with a lot of stuff outside online poker and really stopped working on improving, and considering how quick the pace of the online game moves that's all you need to fall behind a bit. Some might think going through a downswing has just got in my head (and it has a little) but a few threads in HSMTT and various conversations with friends about strategy have confirmed to me that I have indeed developed some noticeable leaks.
I started talking to friends about doing HH review swaps or paying them for one. Then I thought; why do a few when I could probably do a bunch? Then I realized I could use them all to make a really interesting video series for Pokersavvyplus. So here's my idea, I'm going to either swap or pay for HH reviews from around 10 players who are close to me that have a game I respect greatly. Once I have them in my procession I'll put the HH in a replayer, fire up the review, and make videos of my going over the notes and discussing what the reviewer has brought up and why I agree or disagree with him. So far I've got a HH review swap agreed to with Sirwatts and Grafyx, have an old review from Seabeast that can be used, and Luckychewy has agreed to do one for me in exchange for a balla ass dinner in Las Vegas. I think this is exactly what I need to get back to speed, feel sharp going into my trip, and is a great opportunity to make some cool Savvy video's that will showcase a number of smart players great poker minds. Let's do this shit.
How to have a bad Monday
My Monday got its start at 3am my time, around noon in the States. I accidentally over registered throughout the course of my day, and wound up 22 tabling with over lap everywhere and my computer slowing down because of all the activity, though it was mostly manageable.
Near the end of my day I wound up going very deep in the Titan $250k guaranteed and the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl. First on Titan was 55k, Tilt probably something like 60k, I haven't checked. At the final two tables on Titan there was a knock on my door. In came a real estate agent from Century 21, the apartment owner, and two people evaluating the apartment. I didn't mind the interruption, but considering the apartment looks like a fucking grenade went off in here they certainly minded a few things. Also, when they came in I was shirtless, so I threw on the nearest article of clothing which I soon realized had a large stain on it.
What's wrong with the apartment? It's generically trashed in the same way most disorganized and lazy male 20 something's apartments are, clothes strewn everywhere, surfaces cluttered with all kinds of random shit, some food strewn about, used glasses all over the place, tons of dirty dishes piling over the sink, various crap on my floor. There's towels hanging up on various chairs, an empty milk carton by the couch, a plastic martini glass that fell apart lying on the floor near the coffee table, I could really keep going here. The sink in the bathroom has been clogged for a couple days now, so it's full of murky water mixed with toothpaste and mouthwash. There's a hole in the wall in the bathroom where the towel rack connects due to some...reckless behavior in there. Outside on the balcony the tile is stained because we dropped a bottle of olive oil that wound up making any filth it came into contact with stick like hell. I'm also taking care of Leo for a week or two, and there aren't supposed to be any dogs in here.
When the group of four came in the look on the agents face was fucking priceless. I paid them basically zero attention because I was busy with my poker, and briefly apologized for "The place being a wreck." A few minutes after they arrived my internet dropped out and I wound up being on the phone for most of their visit trying to get a friend to cover, and my internet fucking never drops out. Christ.
When I finally got back online I had basically blinded out of the Tilt tournament and got to enjoy watching AK being folded to a raise because it couldn't connect. I wound up having to shove Q4o with like 7 BB's on the button and got owned. On Titan I came back with a very good stack because I had been so huge, and with 11 left got it in with JJ against the other big stacks AK (and a very short stacks AQ) and off came the K. There was 25% of the chips in play in that pot.
The apartment owner wanted to go into the bedroom but I calmly told him "Don't go in there, there's a girl sleeping in there." He was none too pleased with this statement and his 'I'm gonna do it anyway' attitude made me think he's not used to having people talk to him like that. Then they went outside to the balcony and spoke in a tone I couldn't hear and afterwards everyone left except the agent. He was actually a very nice guy and told me he plays on Full Tilt and was pretty fascinated by my playing for a living, but he also had to explain to me that the owner wasn't pleased, particularly about the dog, and there's no way in hell they believed me that he wasn't actually living here. I told him I'd have a professional cleaner in within the next couple of days and the place would be much better soon. Still, I got the feeling the owner will probably spaz out no matter how well they spruce up the place, and I certainly won't be using him as a reference for the next time I get a place. Normal people don't seem to much care for the average poker player's method of solving problems; shrugging and then throwing money at them until they go away and acting like nothing is a big deal.
On the plus side, by some miraculous bit of luck I had put my weed away in the cabinet instead of just leaving it on the table as I often do. So there's that.
Time to throw my life away on the SCOOP
Things are about to wrap up here in Melbourne, I have barely over a week left. In reality my free time in Melbourne ends tomorrow when I start pulling 10-12 hour days of high volume, particularly with the upcoming SCOOP on Pokerstars. I'll be waking up at about 3:30am every morning to get a work out in then start playing poker at 4:30am, assuming the events are on the same hour the WCOOP ones were, which I believe they are. I'll be grinding from now until the day I leave.
I woke up at 4pm today and I'll be pulling an all-nighter to play some of the early Monday tournaments (Sunday for those of you in the States.) Within a couple days my sleep schedule will be so fucked that no real social life will be possible, so this weekend was pretty much my last time hanging out with people in Melbourne. I'm sure I'll catch up with a few more in the next few days, but the vast majority of my day will be on the tables or at the gym, plus I need to finish my taxes. For those who are curious; living in Australia does not absolve you of financial responsibility to the United States government. So long as you're a citizen Uncle Sam owns your ass and that pointing pimp is 'gonna get his'.
I'm looking forward to my trip, but not particularly to the upcoming $25,000 WPT championship I'm locked into. I don't feel like I'm playing that great lately, and a few strategy threads on 2+2 have made me wonder when I got so behind the times (polite talk for saying I might suck at the pokers.) It'll likely be a pretty damn tough live tournament, though a few people have told me that they wound up with very soft tables last year. I believe the start bank will be 75,000 at 50/100 blinds though, and let's just say I'm not the most experienced 750 BB stack player. Leading up to it I'll keep trying to post more hands and keeping a more active eye on HSMTT and running hands by the friends whose play I respect. I also told Grafyx I'd do a HH review exchange with him and need to get my ass on that, and should likely do it with a few other smart guys. This is the largest buy in I've ever played and I have 40% of myself with no make up, so I'd really best not show up and play like a fuck-tard. I wonder if using a hyphen is correct for fuck-tard.
I've been keeping up my obsessive fitness regime pretty nicely. I'm playing a lot of tennis and my swing has improved substantially over a few regular matches, closer to what it was back in high school. If anyone who reads this blog plays wants to play tennis in Vegas please let me know. I'll try to keep the diet pretty tight, but I'm sure to fuck up a few times in a place with restaurants as good and free booze as tempting as Vegas. I've also started practicing taking punches in my boxing training, and just a few days of that makes it clear that my trainer could whip the living shit out of me in one round despite being like half my size. I'm going to try and keep training whenever and wherever possible when I'm stationary for long periods of my trip, as experiencing the skill gradient in the sport really fascinates me and it makes for awesome training. Plus it never hurts to know how to punch someone. Speaking of I saw a massive fight when I was out last week, man what the hell are people doing fighting each other in bars when they could be hitting on chicks? Yes I'm aware it could be over a chick, but if you crack onto some dudes girl and he starts getting all touchy about it you just need to be polite and apologize to avoid conflict, no need for people to get all nuts. That said, it was pretty fucking fun watching those eight or so dudes totally trash the place and wreck each other, then keep going out on the street. Ah to be young again.
96 Hours in the life of Bond18
Friday: I wake up at 9:52am and immediately turn on my computer. As always I have to wait a moment for it load up, then click the 'resolve later' button when it informs me my copy of 'Windows' may not be authentic which it has been doing for about a month now. It's technically Celina's computer, so I'm not sure what that's all about and I'm clearly too lazy to fix it. While the computer finishes loading I go to the bathroom and take my morning piss.
I return a moment later, fire up each poker site that has a tournament starting at 10am, and register for them. I then go to take a shower which results in my sitting out for the first few minutes of the tournaments. I return to the computer in a towel and start playing my tables while registering for every other tournament I can get my hands on that has a buy in of $24 or more and anything close to an interesting prize pool. I've been running pretty awful lately (I've dropped roughly 7% of my roll which isn't that big but still annoys me) so to help even out the variance I'm just playing fucking anything. I'm still making a decent amount of final tables, but near all of them wind up being a ninth through seventh instead of third through first.
I eat a protein bar and a glass of water. I would prefer milk but I realize that I don't have any left in the house. When searching for it I realize I also don't have anything else particularly edible that can be quickly prepared so I will not be eating during my work day today. I wind up making two final tables, including running deep in one of my last tournaments of the night which keeps me playing fairly late. I get a message from the girl I'm seeing who tells me she wants to go to a 'Cambodian concert' tonight with her sister. I don't know what that it is, but seeing as it's something totally random and different I'm not going to pass it up.
When I finish playing I run over to 'Subway' and eat a foot long roasted chicken sandwich. Then I head off to the gym and work out but have to make it brief as I'm running out of tme. Afterwards I get in my car and make the 40 minute drive down to the South West towards Dandenong. When I get there I have to reintroduce myself to her sister as I'm awful with names and met her some time ago late at night. They are dressed quite nicely and smell heavily of perfume, so I'm not quite sure what to expect. The sister directs me to the event and we park outside. It appears to be some kind of classy restaurant and/or function center.
Inside everyone is dressed rather formally and the place is decked with flowers, lights, and neat table dressings. At 6'1" I am comfortably the tallest person in the room.
"Jesus, it looks like prom in here, except this time I'm wearing more than a speedo" (back story found here: http://www.tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2385) I remark upon seeing the room.
We take a seat at a table with a group of people we don't know. Everyone is speaking Cambodian (or as it's properly known; Khmer, as roughly 95% of Cambodians are Khmer's.) In a room with a few hundred people there is only three other white guys, and they are about 40 and in a group together with what appears to be their wives. The attendants are all ranges of age, from the elderly to the two five year olds who chase each other around on the dance floor playing tag. In the front of the room there is a band playing Cambodian songs.
Shortly into the evening a couple of performers come out and sing a song that tells a story while the male actor carry's around a doll posing as a baby. The female half of the couple is dressed traditionally and looks tall and statuesque.
"She's really pretty don't you think?" asks my date.
"Yes quite. As soon as she's done singing I'm gonna go crack on to her, stay here."
"I hate you!" she exclaims and slaps my leg "But I don't think she speaks English."
"Only one way to find out" I taunt her.
I look around the room and curse myself for not having worn a suit as for once I wouldn't look totally out of place. My date starts explaining the story of the song but I interject with "Stop interrupting, I understand every word. Don't you know I speak Cambodian?" She hits me again.
Dinner is quite delicious and we get an extra order of quail to enjoy on top of what's included in the set menu. I haven't drank more than three beers in the last month, but considering I can't make much conversation and it's a party I decide to go to town on Heinekens. One guy across from us is also drinking them heavily and I start chatting to him with the help of a woman in his group who translates for us. Then we clink our beers together several times and shout "Yeeeeeeea!" cause it's the only thing we'll both understand.
As soon as dinner finishes the dance floor fills up immediately. After not drinking for so long the five or six beers I've had is enough to give me a solid buzz so I leap onto the floor and join them. The first dance involves people sort of slowly walking in a circle to the rhythm while turning their hands in and out. I just fucking go for it and act like I know what I'm doing and people seem cool with the fact that I'm trying. The dances eventually quicken up, including one that has some kind of three step that I have difficulty managing, though everyone assures me I'm dancing quite well (liars!)
When I take a break from the dancing I approach my date's sister and slam my key down on the table.
"This is for you, my driving is not happening."
Near the end of all the songs there is a slow dance. While swaying slowly back and forth I remark "You know this is actually the closest thing I've ever had to a prom?"
"Really?"
"Yep, I was working my junior year and I streaked it my senior year, so this is pretty much it. Gotta say, I never expected it to be so Cambodian."
When it all finishes we head back to her place and I start drinking water. It becomes abundantly clear that I will not be driving home tonight.
Saturday: I wake up at 1pm with a mild hang over and no clothes on. I get a text from my personal trainer asking if we're still on for 2pm. I message back that it's not going to happen. I take a shower and throw on the same clothes from last night.
We decide to get some 'Dim Sun' in Springvale and wind up ordering way too much food. At least getting left over's means I'll actually have edible food in my house tomorrow. Downstairs from the restaurant is a market where the Vietnamese shop owners are yelling "BANANA! ONE DORRA! BUY DI!" In a confusing moment of cultural reverse she cracks up hysterically at this and I tell her to "Stop being so racist." I buy a pack of strawberries and walk around the market munching on them at a leisurely pace.
After the market we head over to Chadstone mall where we decide to see the Clive Owen/Julia Roberts espionage thriller 'Duplicity'. It's not starting for another 90 minutes so we go upstairs to the book store where I get a coffee then grab books on Kenya, South East Asia, and Dubai and start reading. I discover the following information:
1. 15% of the adult population in Kenya has AIDS/HIV. God damn.
2. 95% of Cambodians are 'Khmer'.
3. Pol Pot murdered roughly 1.7 million Cambodians in his attempt at a utopian society in which most of the hatred and persecution was directed at the educated city dwellers.
4. After gaining independence in 1963 Kenya has been under the rule of one corrupt head of state after another, though many of made great measures in improving the infrastructure of the country. However, during the early years of the 21st century Kenya underwent considerable economic struggles and moved backwards, becoming closer to a third world country, particularly after terrorist attacks at the airport and American embassy discouraged tourism.
5. Dubai looks balla as hell.
After my little study session we go to watch the movie which is actually quite good. Not only was the banter and chemistry between Owen and Roberts witty and enjoyable, but the film features support from talented actors Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti. It reminds me of 'The Thomas Crown Affair' with Pierce Brosnan and I ask my date if she's ever seen it. She says she hasn't and I insist that we watch it later tonight.
Then the best thing ever happens; we go eat Korean BBQ on Victoria Street. God the pork ribs there are fucking awesome, so awesome in fact that I'm certain without a sliver of doubt that my having eaten them means I had a better day than anyone on the planet who did not (yes I'm aware that someone somewhere probably won a lottery or had sex with Scarlet Johansson but trust me, not better.)
When we get back to my place I turn on my old, half broken laptop that has the movie on it. When I fire up 'Realplayer' I suddenly realize that the last thing I was watching on it was porn so I slyly turn the computer away for a moment and do my best to close it out without the shoddy laptop falling apart in my hands. I'm 99% sure she doesn't notice. Then I spend two hours wishing I was as suave as Pierce Brosnan.
Sunday: I wake up at 10:22am and decide it's not time to get up yet and reset the alarm to 10:52am.
Thirty minutes later I wake up and decide to actually get up this time. I go through the same routine of turning on the computer, clicking 'resolve later', taking a piss, and registering for tournaments before showering and showing up late. Again I register for everything I can get my hands on but get distracted doing an enormous amount of writing for most of my day. Yet again I make numerous deep runs which end disappointingly and I lose money on the day.
When I finish I go out for a run because I've been lazy the last couple days about working out. I prefer to go running in the park but for the last couple weeks they've had the track for the giant race erected and it's pretty much impossible to do it there so I haven't bothered as much.
When I get home we have salmon for dinner and decide to get wasted. We open up a bottle of red wine and start drinking it quickly, with her occasionally sculling it. When we're finished I roll up a clearly too large joint of super weed and smoke the whole thing. A few minutes later I'm totally wrecked and munching on strawberries while I destroy her at Wii bowling and talking trash the whole way to victory. Eventually my inebriation deteriorates my skills and I lose game, resulting in vast harassment and taunting from the other side.
I decide I need to lay down so I turn on a 'Trainspotting', crawl into bed, and start drinking water. God, Begby in that movie is such a fucking psycho.
Monday: I wake up at 9:52am and turn on my computer. Here we go again...
Analyzing a nice call by Phil Hellmuth (seriously)
Authors note: I'm not proof reading this one tonight because I'm really tired, so if there's grammar errors deal with it for now. I'll probably fix it later.
I figured the '(seriously)' was necessary for the title so people didn't get blue balls clicking the blog thinking "I can't wait to see Bond go on some arrogant condescending rant this time!" and getting a serious strategy post, so there you are. Pokersavvyplus member 'DHM0219' posted a link in my forum to an article by Phil Hellmuth that also contained video of a hand against JC Tran. Here's the link:
http://www.philhellmuth.com/phil-hellmuth-poker-blog.html?id=2971
Now if you read the article you'll be disgusted because Phil discusses the possibility of doing something other than shoving 6400 chips with KQs in early position at 300/600 with 75 antes, including suggesting limping it and folding top pair post flop. With $1575 in the pot let me make it very clear that shoving is the only appropriate play here, as you'll increase your stack nearly 25% simply by taking it down preflop. However, let's get on with discussing the strategic merits to the hand in the video.
Tran holds 5c 2h.
Hellmuth 5d 8d.
The blinds are likely 10k/20k as there is 30k in the limped pot to the flop.
Preflop: Hellmuth completes in the SB, Tran checks.
Flop: 8c Ad 4c (Pot 30,000)
Tran checks, Hellmuth bets 15k, Tran checkraises to 30k, Hellmuth quickly calls.
Turn: Ks (Pot 90,000)
Tran bets 35,000, Hellmuth instantly calls.
River: 2c (Pot 160,000)
Tran shoves for 132,000, Hellmuth tank calls.
So why do I like it despite what appears to be a scare card getting there on the river? I'll try to elaborate best I can. My guess is that Hellmuth would likely explain his call here based on his 'read' and not get much more specific than that, though I honestly can't say. I'd like to break down the hand by eliminating hands from JC Tran's range street by street.
Preflop: When Hellmuth limps and Tran checks it makes it very unlikely that Tran holds a lot of the range that would check min raise the flop for value, which is mostly sets and two pairs. It's probably Tran would raise 44/88/AA pre flop, though sometimes he could check the 44 and AA. A8 would sometimes raise as well (I'm not sure what Tran's heads up game is like, but many players would.)
Flop: Tran has check min raised. I will say that I have never played Tran and know very little of his game, but Hellmuth likely knows that Tran very probably has a polarized range here. The majority of Tran's range to check min raise is going to be:
A. Big hands, many of which are discounted from preflop but still contains two pair possibilities and just maybe a set.
B. Draws, although it's a sort of strange way to play one some players elect to take lines like these and check min raise draws, mostly flush draws in this situation. Whether JC plays draws like this often is information Hellmuth would be more privy to than I am.
C. Air, because players like checkraising small on Axx and Kxx boards; normally if a person doesn't have the top pair or a good draw it's all that's needed to get them off the hand.
Turn: Tran bets small on the turn, barely over one third pot. The Ks changes basically zero, and Tran would sometimes bet this size with his draws as a blocker and possibly his air, but it's likely his big hands bet a little stronger because Tran must think a lot of Hellmuth's range is draws since he doesn't expect Hellmuth to complete many aces on the small and if he did he knows Hellmuth will likely call any reasonable sized turn bet with an ace so he might as well bet a little bigger to protect against the draws in his range as well.
River: The 2c scare card hits and Trans jams about 80% pot. Now, if Tran had two pair or even a good top pair that he strangely elected to play this he would at times consider checking the river or betting smaller because it's a considerable scare card. Tran knows that Hellmuth expects some draws to be part of his range and so by shoving on that card with a two pair type hand he is likely over repping his hand and not going to get called by worse often (not true if that happened this time!) Hellmuth also likely figures that if Tran truly made the flush he might not shove for value because Hellmuth knows that Tran knows it's a scare card and hard to get paid on unless Hellmuth has a big hand. As such, Hellmuth has either eliminated or discounted most set and two pair combinations from Tran's range, still believes he's capable of showing up with air, and discounts flushes a little bit based on the river bet sizing (and it's possible he thinks Tran wouldn't check min raise the flop with his flush draws.) Hellmuth is left believing most of Tran's range is either a very strongly played flush draw and now flush, or air so he makes the call and JC Tran does his best not to burst into tears on camera.
I'd be interested to hear if any of my other Savvy instructors have similar thoughts on the thought process involved in the hand.
New job
I've accepted a job as a regular contributor to a new poker related publication. They asked me to write strategy but I countered with "I'd much prefer to write whatever the hell I feel like" (as writing strategy all the time gets very dull) and they seemed quite happy to have me on board doing that. Still, I questioned whether they would truly give me carte blanche so I decided to write an article inspired by a conversation we had the other day in the Australian MTT Skype chat which will be amusing to anyone who knows those involved and incomprehensibly esoteric to those who don't.
Our conversation was about how washed up we'd all become because for the past couple of weeks most of the Skype chat had either been mega failing at tournaments (such as yours truly) or barely playing. I decided to write an article with that concept, discussing what each member of that chat was known for and how they became washed up. A couple brief examples include:
"Joel Dodds:
Known for: His robust physique, attributing his robust physique to various junk foods and alcohol, playing aces and only aces, a wit so sharp it once poked Robin Saab hard enough that he nearly attacked him while drunk."
And
"Dean 'Dinjo' Nyberg:
Known for: Sweating, sweating (not a typo), enthralling the Skype chat with naked pictures of some girl he knows."
Yet when I showed the content I was working on to my contact at the publication she complimented it for being different. I can't remember the last time a person in a position of authority encouraged my glibness. It was a strange moment for me. Then she told me the article was in fact not due that day as things had been pushed back a couple weeks, which inevitably led to my stopping my work on the article, getting baked, and watching 'The Daily Show' instead of doing my work. I consider it a good decision.
All jokes aside, the last two weeks have made me feel pretty washed up. I'm tracking the change in my accounts daily now instead of my previous frequency of never. I actually haven't lost much on the bad run though I've been questioning my play and trying to post and discuss a lot of hands. I've also had some pretty awesome accomplishments in the field of failure, such as getting heads up in a $24 six max tournament yesterday against a fairly bad player, getting a 10 to 1 chip lead over him, and still losing. Such is my excellence. Still, it's important to keep in mind that two weeks of variance in MTT's is absolutely nothing and all I need to do is keep studying and keep grinding.
Unfortunately my life has been a bit dull lately and devoid of quality blogging material. I've stopped waking up at 5:30am in favor of 8:30am, but am still trying to get into the gym twice a day. My body is one giant ache as a result of an epic three plus hour tennis match against my dealer friend Howie the other day and an hour of boxing training this morning. Getting up from my office chair is a mix of discomfort and agony, so I think I'll drop by a massage parlor tonight and try to get straightened out (no, not the happy ending kind.)
The Joe Hachem deep stack series is on at Crown, but the buy ins are fairly low and a couple of the larger buy in tournaments fall on days that have very good online action so it looks like I might only stop in for one event, the $1700 short handed shoot out. It would likely be wise to get a little live poker experience in before I go play at the Bellagio, though considering the quality of field the $25,000 buy in will attract I'd likely be better off playing at home. Honestly, I really wish I could turn that seat into cash (it can't be sold and is non transferable.) I know a lot of guys would fucking kill to play that tournament but I have little interest in playing a very high buy in, high variance tournament with a tough field that plays incredibly deep and therefore is not particularly to an online MTT'ers advantage. I'd imagine I'm still +EV in it, but not hugely so and I put zero value on the 'experience' of playing a tournament. Until then though I'll be working very hard on ironing out the leaks in my game so I can stop sucking at poker.
Accepted and booked
I received my confirmation for the Mombasa volunteer work yesterday. I'll be arriving on the 21st of July and staying for three weeks. As soon as I saw the email I called best-flights and booked my ticket. For about $12,000 Australian I was able to get almost all my flights in business or first class. The only flights I'm responsible for booking myself are Melbourne to Sydney, Vegas to Wisconsin and back, and Mombasa to Dubai. Everything else is covered in the around the world ticket. What is 'everything else' composed of? Let's have a look at the itinerary and schedule:
April 8th: Leave Melbourne for Honolulu to visit friends (and finish out the SCOOP.)
April 15th: Leave Honolulu for Las Vegas for WPT Championship
April 26th: Leave Las Vegas for Wisconsin to visit friends and family.
May 27: Leave Wisconsin for Las Vegas for WSOP and Bellagio Cup.
July 16th: Leave Las Vegas for New York City to visit friends.
July 19th: Leave New York City for London because there's no direct flights to Mombasa.
July 21st: Leave London for Mombasa with a stop over in Nairobi for volunteer work.
August 15th: Leave Mombasa for Dubai to look around that totally insane city built by a bunch of guys with a combination of too much money and imagination.
August 18th: Leave Dubai for Hong Kong/Macau for APPT Macau (this date may have to change based on when the APPT ends up being, but it was around this time last year.)
September 1st: Leave Hong Kong/Macau for Melbourne
What I'm really thrilled about this time is that I won't have to censor the blog which I think will make for much more interesting reading. I'll be buying a new laptop in the next couple of days to take with me and I very much intend to keep up to date on the writing this time around.
Meanwhile I've been putting in enormous online volume. I'm working a solid eight hours a day five or six days a week. I haven't won a big tournament yet but I keep making final tables with large first prize pools and falling a little short. Yesterday I made four final tables and despite getting three handed in one and heads up in another failed to win either. It's hard to say whether I'm up or down since coming back online, whichever it is it's not by much.
I've managed to keep up my exercise routine during this period, though I've been advised to take one day a week off. I also don't do a double work out on Monday, which is Sunday in the states, because of all the tournament action. I just go once that day.
We've also sorted out our Vegas house for 'Team Australia'. It looks like we'll have up to 10 Aussie guys staying there at the high points, and the house we've picked out is incredibly sick though I won't link it yet just in case we don't wind up booking that one or in case someone else likes it enough to put an offer in before we do. We'll be spending over seven weeks in Vegas alone during that period, which should result in some insanely epic stories.
Until all of this happens I'll be at home working out and grinding poker nearly every day. If you're in Australia and looking to hang out I'd do it now while you still can.
Stealthmunk meets Zpaceman
Some of you may remember this thread from around Aussie Millions time:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/61/mtt-community/i-bubbled-jjprodigy-aussie-millions-main-event-live-satty-386230/
In it Zpaceman chronicles his spite calling JJprodigy in an Aussie Millions satellite on the bubble. I had been meaning to write something satirizing the story since it came out but couldn't find the time. When I saw the other poker videos on www.xtranormal.com I knew I'd found the perfect tool for whatever script I would write.
Despite his trip reports Zpaceman is actually quite nice in person, at least until he gets drunk and then he just telsl you the JJprodigy story like 12 times but he's always had a very good sense of humor about all this. Enjoy.
An abridged history of Bond18, Part 2
With Celina back in Australia I was alone in Milwaukee with nothing but time on my hands and minimal interest in going out partying with my friends since I wouldn't try to pick up. As a result I spent the vast majority of my time playing tournaments online and posting heavily in MTT strategy on 2+2. Thanks to the entire campus having wireless internet even when I was in class I often found a seat in the back row and fired up a few tables or zoned out posting online.
When December rolled around Celina and I discussed how we would find a place to live together. I was banned from Australia and she couldn't come back to the US as the immigration department had removed her visa waiver program instead of trying to help us find a legal way to get her into the country (thanks cocksuckers!) As a result, we decided that we'd go live in an apartment Celina's mother owned in Shanghai China while we worked through an Australian lawyer to get me back into the country. I left Milwaukee at the end of December 2006 and that was the last I saw of many of my long term friends and much of my family. I've had the chance to stop over for a couple very brief visits since, but unfortunately there was never enough time for everyone.
When I arrived Celina and her uncle and aunt picked me up from the airport and took us on a 90 minute drive out to the apartment. As it turns out the apartment was way out of the city, to the point that down the road was a farm. It was actually a pretty nice apartment, despite the building itself looking fairly shoddy. We were so far out that when I went outside people would freeze and just gawk at me as they hadn't seen a white person that far out in years. People would often walk up curiously and say "Hello!" then sort of run off amused.
I didn't speak a word of Chinese and knew nobody in the country except Celina and was unable to get around myself since I knew where nothing was. As a result most of my life was contained to the apartment grinding tournaments online and doing everything I could to learn tournament poker. About once a week we'd go into the center of the city and go to dinner or a movie or meet up with her family. The closest thing I ever had to a friend for those six months was Celina's cousin who spoke rather broken English and I had nothing in common with. Living in China was a strange but educational and eye opening experience. Things were extremely cheap when you did the conversion to USD and when I went out I was able to live like a king. I remember I once took Celina to one of the best French restaurants in town on this park lake in one of the fanciest parts of town. We had numerous courses, beer, wine, dessert and the whole thing for two of us came to $50 USD and the food quality was as good as anywhere in the US. I remember one strange experience where at the Korean BBQ place we often went to I was given a choice between two sizes of bottle of beer; a regular or large. Celina asked what the price difference was and the response was "none." I don't get it to this day. People would stare at me everywhere and constantly, no matter how obvious it was. The people in Shanghai are pretty rude and competitive until they're introduced to you, at which point they become excessively polite and nice. I remember when we went to renew my visa we had to take a government official with us in the car on the insistence of the Chinese who were trying to curb bribery in such situations.
Around January or February 2007 I became quite good friends with Adam Junglen online and because I had (and have) considerable respect for his game I asked him to coach me. He gave me a very reasonable hourly rate and we went to work on fixing my leaks and spent considerable time discussing strategy on Skype. Adam was really the one who imparted the fundamentals and advanced strategy of tournament poker to me, teaching me about things like stack sizes, position, and ranges on a depth that I'd never come close to previously perceiving. Around that time I final tabled my first Sunday major, the Full Tilt 300k (which has become the 750k.) I finished fourth for about $24,000, by far the largest online score of my life. Over the following months Adam and I spent a lot of time improving on my game and in May of 2007 I spoke to Timex online and told him that I was going to the WSOP and if he was interested in backing me my action was available. Because I knew little of backing at the time I was expecting that if he said yes it'd be for just a few events, but when he and Steve Paul-Ambrose agreed they told me they wanted me in as many events as possible. It's obvious to me now why they insisted on that, but at the time I was pretty floored.
Also in May our lawyers informed us that the Australian government had approved Celina as my relationship sponsor to get me back into Australia and that after the WSOP I would have no problems reentering the country. We left Shanghai in late May to hang out with friends in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia for a little while, which I can tell you is a very cool city worth visiting. In early June I headed off to Vegas for the WSOP again, this time having to leave Celina behind because she wasn't able to enter the country. When I got to Vegas Steve and Sirwatts got a hold of me and asked if they could crash in my hotel room for a night or two. It was my first time meeting anyone off of 2+2 (except for a very brief hello to Nath in 2006.)
The 2007 WSOP marked the first time I thought to write trip reports for each event after having seen numerous other posters put interesting ones up. They were never proof read or edited, but because I tried to mix in humor and goings on outside of the poker the trip reports wound up proving rather popular and essentially provided me the motivation to continue writing permanently. I really ought to go back and make sure I get all of them saved onto my tworags blog, as they still persist in the archives of 2+2. From a financial stand point though, the 2007 WSOP was a disaster. I lost Timex/Steve over $60,000 and only cashed four of the 30 events I played. I made one final table at the Bellagio during their Bellagio Cup preliminaries but near instantly lost a flip for most of my stack and busted in eighth not long after. Overall I ran pretty horrendous throughout the summer (as was chronicled in the trip reports) though it's clear now that I also had massive leaks at the time.
Following the WSOP I went back to Australia without any visa problem. Celina had gotten us an apartment in St. Kilda, about 10 minutes outside the central business district, where I still live today. I started grinding heavily online with a roll that was hanging around ~$60,000. I began working six or seven days a week, roughly seven to 10 hours every day. I got post flop coaching from NoahSD and spent an enormous amount of time on Skype with Luckychewy and with their combined knowledge of cash play my game steadily improved. I started blogging consistently and as well as writing articles be they on strategy or satire on the poker world. Most of all though I just kept grinding my ass off.
In late 2008 Celina and I traveled to Macau after both winning our way into the tournament on Stars. Celina wound up running deep in the main event and finishing 24th and making enough of an impression that it jet started her sponsorship career with PokerStars. They first sponsored her into the APPT final in Sydney which we both attended and busted fairly early in.
The 2008 Aussie Millions came and went without any major result. I managed to go from first in chips with ten left in the $1000 rebuy to finishing tenth, and although most recall that as some sort of epic blow up it was the result of two hands; the first where I shoved over a SB raise in the BB with Q3s 20 BB's effective and the BB spent a minute swearing and debating before calling with JJ, and then two orbits later shoving my last 20 BB's over the same SB's raise while in the BB holding TT and getting snapped by KK. By the end of the Aussie Millions I was comfortably over $100,000 USD in make up and had a reputation as a blow up artist in live tournaments.
I spent all of the first few months of 2008 grinding very heavily online and making a considerable amount of money as a result. In February of 2008 I cemented my idea for 'Around the World in 90 Days' after having kicked it around in my head for a while. I approached numerous poker sites and poker reporting sites with the idea, my first real interaction with the business side of the poker world. Full Tilt eventually responded that they were quite interested in the blog idea and after a phone meeting where I stated on the subject of payment "I let my agent Kyle do all the asshole negotiating for me" it was agreed upon that I would sell my blog to them for 90 days but with the conditions that I couldn't write about drug use, other poker sites, or overt sexual content and that they had last say in editing.
Up until leaving on the trip on May 1st 2008 I spent my entire life grinding and studying, except a week or so leading up to the trip which I took off to "Get high and play video games" as I stated in an interview on the upcoming trip. At this point I had grinded my roll online up to around $200,000. Celina and I left Melbourne for Venice on the 1st of May and spent a month in Europe playing tournaments across the continent. I came within 10 places of the money in all four major tournaments I played, finishing on the exact bubble in the last one, WPT Barcelona, which plunged me into around $140,000 in make up.
After Europe I made my way to Vegas for the WSOP and Bellagio Cup in very late May. I blanked out my first 10 events but then started making progress. I final tabled a $2,000 deep stacked event at the Bellagio and made a deal that gave me far above equity for a score of $24,000. Not long after I final tabled the $3,000 WSOP event and finished eighth for $54,000. Then as the WSOP was drawing to a close I wound up finally running good live and winning a $3,000 Bellagio Cup preliminary event for $193,000 though $25,000 was taken out to force me to play in the 2009 WPT Championship. The score came with a gold Bellagio bracelet which I gave to Celina and enough money to totally eradicate my make up.
The WSOP main event came and went without serious incident, and leading up to the Bellagio Cup main Sirwatts and I agreed to swap five percent, which was outside my staking arrangement with Timex as I was swapping five of the 40% that belongs to me in each tournament (though it is accurate that were I in make up and made a score for less than all my make up when I had swapped I would owe money out.) As most know, Mike 'Sirwatts' Watson went on to win the Bellagio Cup IV main event for $1.67 million USD, and I received over $83,000 as a result. Unfortunately there's no epic stories from that night, we simply got a limo and went to get Korean BBQ at 3am then went to sleep because we had to wake up at 11am the next day to check out of our Vegas house.
After Vegas Celina and I went off to Macau for the Macau Poker Cup for what was the last stop on around the world trip before heading home to Melbourne. Celina got second there for her first five figure US score. By the end of the trip I had fallen considerably behind in the writing, as I realized juggling the responsibilities of playing, having a social life, managing a relationship, and trying to find the time to write several pages each night became too much to manage. When we arrived back in Melbourne I began playing online leading up to the Victorian Poker Championships and had written up through day 99 in the series. Throughout the trip I had heard whispers that Full Tilt was considering sponsoring me if I won anything during the writing of the blog. Before that could materialize I managed to shoot myself in the foot and ruin any chance of a deal.
During the FTOPS that came on previous to the Vic Champs I entered the first event, a $200 no limit hold'em event. The event caused my computer to freeze and crash and made Full Tilt unplayable for most of the day, costing me around $1000 in lost entries. I posted on 2+2 to find out if anyone else was having problems with the FTOPS and several replied that they were having the same problem, resulting in my raging in the thread at the incompetence of Full Tilt promoting a massive tournament series that their site couldn't even support for all the players and that we should demand our money back in the tournaments that we got blinded out of. My superiors at Tilt saw the thread and asked me to please stop bashing them in it, which I did, but the damage to my business prospects with them was clearly done. At least a bunch of my 2+2'er friends got some money back after considerable back and forth with Full Tilt support.
After the Vic champs finished and leading up to the APPT event in Korea Kyle approached Full Tilt about the possibility of bringing me on as a red pro. They responded that they would be happy to have me continue writing for them but were not interested in my being a pro for them. At the same time Stars offered me a free seat to APPT Korea so Kyle sent Tilt off one last email saying that Stars had expressed interest in sponsoring me for the Korean event and that I'd be working with them if Tilt didn't want to go the sponsorship route. Tilt's response was close to a 180 of their previous one and they said they could see how I would fit in and they'd talk to higher ups and get back to me within a week. I discussed the situation with my contact over at Stars who advised me that it likely wouldn't be smart to show up in Korea wearing a Stars patch while Tilt was considering sponsoring me. I was happy to sit that live tournament out considering how tired I was from all the travel, so Celina went off while I stayed home to grind and awaited Tilt's response.
The grinding went well but the response never came. Even a month later Tilt had never sent any response, not even so much as a "Thanks but no thanks." I took it as there way of saying 'get fucked' for having shot my mouth off. Around this time things started really falling apart with Celina, and when we went to New Zealand together in October we ran into numerous problems. New Zealand also marked the first poker seminar I took part in with Lee Nelson, Joe Hachem, Dennis Waterman, and Tyson Streib. Lee organized them and had asked me to partake in teaching after reading my strategy articles and the review I had done for his 'Kill Everyone' tournament strategy book.
When we returned from our trip things with Celina continued dissolving and my response was to spend even more time grinding, compounding the problem. When she left for APPT Philippines we discussed the idea of it being 'a break' and she left on uncertain terms. At home I began making plans for a massive prop bet against Stevo and whoever would take us on as a team of two to see who could do better by grinding enormous volume in November. On the second of November I spoke to Celina and she informed me she didn't want to be a couple anymore. I asked the guys in the bet if they wouldn't mind letting me out and since there was only three guys to check it with who were all friends, they agreed to let me out and do it some other time. I wasn't devastated by the break up in the traditional spend all day crying and hiding inside my house sense, but I had completely lost my desire to grind.
I decided to take a vacation to Hawaii leading up to APPT Sydney and in mid November went up there to visit Lee Nelson's son Cade who I'd met and really clicked with in New Zealand. We spent two weeks chasing girls on the beach and watching me get horrendously drunk at night and writhe around on his floor between stints of intense vomiting and demanding we go for Korean BBQ at 3am. By the end of all that I felt much better. At some point during my trip I messaged the guy who'd been my contact point at Tilt and told him good luck in everything he does in the future since it appears we won't be working together anymore. He was confused as he'd thought I was going to continue writing for them, and when I explained the situation he told me he'd look into it though I'd assumed our dealings were over a long time ago. A few days later he got back to me that they were in fact not interested in any business regarding sponsorship as I'd expected, though it was certainly charming of them to inform me with such priority.
I left Hawaii for Sydney in early December where I did another seminar and played a couple of events between going out and hitting on anything that moved and pouring alcohol all over myself after bribing my way on stage.
Upon returning to Melbourne I took an easier approach to grinding and wound up taking many days off to enjoy the summer and immediately get back into the dating game. I spent most of my summer grilling and smoking pot with people on my porch and playing sport during the day. I met a girl I started seeing regularly and after the Aussie Millions was over heavily reduced the amount of time I went out partying. I made one final table in the Aussie Millions, the $1000 rebuys which I'd finished 10th in the previous year, and improved upon it by one in getting ninth this year after running KK into AA on the final table then losing 99 to 55 on a 876 flop the very next hand all after having shown up 30 minutes late thanks to some kind of freak accident.
Shortly after the Aussie Millions a group of us headed off to the very first ANZPT event in Adelaide where after a drama filled weekend I wound up finishing second when a disastrous club hit to fill the flush draw of my opponent for 95% of the chips in play. Again I had erased the make up I had worked up (this time more like $50,000) and upon returning to Melbourne returned to the online game.
Now I sit at my computer on the 1st of March after completing a day of grinding. My life mostly consists of working out and grinding for the moment, though that will all change when I go traveling again on April 11th on the trip that will be known as 'Around the World in 150 Days'.