All Posts Tagged: The Online Grind

"Pokah's nice. I loves play pokah." --Chau Giang

OK, well, sometimes I do! I won't get into detail because I have yet to tell the stories from London, but I've been doing a lot of bubbling lately ...money bubbles in big events, final table bubbles in online donkaments, etc.

Well I finally managed to come through in the clutch (and be a huge lucksack) this week!

First I took down the $10k guaranteed $55 tournament on Lock. While it was on the smaller side, it had been a while since I'd had an outright win in any MTT. Sometimes a little push like that is all you need to get the ball rolling again.

And roll it did. On Monday night I did something that I've been trying to do for a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time: ship Tilt's Monday night $1k buy-in.

Read Full Post

While I wait in the Miami International Airport to board my flight to London, I'm reflecting back on the last few days of WCOOP. I made a few deep runs that all ended in pretty much the same fashion, losing a massive pot to bust.

Let's just start off by mentioning on the very next day after finishing 11th, 11th, and 27th in three straight 2 pm 109$ rebuys on stars, I managed to get 11th ONE MORE TIME!

On this same day, I got 3rd in a 109 cubed turbo for 10k and also made a deep run in the 215 plo8 2nd chance wcoop and the Wednesday Quarter Million, but busted in 24th and 29th place.

The following day, Thursday, I went deep in the WCOOP 530 rebuy, but lost a big flip to bust in 26th place. On Friday, I just played the two WCOOP events and was fairly deep in the 530 cubed, but came up short of the money. I decided to take off Saturday, and prepare for my big day on Sunday.

Sunday was a really long grind, starting at 1 pm with the 215 WCOOP, which by the way, Elky won! That's a whole different topic, but he has to be considered the best NLHE tournament player in the world. HAS TO BE! Mad respect!

Read Full Post

Well I guess, as they say, good things come to those who wait. And boy did I bust out of my break-even stretch this week.

I know posting graphs is the surefire way to doomswitch yourself but I'm gonna go ahead and do it anyways.

About $3k from $1/$2 and the rest from bum hunting a certain fish that will remain nameless.

He's been playing everything from $5/$10 six-max to $1/$2 to $25/50 cap, though most of it is at $5/$10 and $10/$20 cap.

I've been running like god vs him and all the other regs in the game and it all adds up to my best week ever.

Whenever I find him I just one-table and watch episodes of Dexter in the background while all the other regs will be six-tabling plus and it's hilarious how badly they play against this certain super fish.

They'll constantly check-raise and hammer three-streets when they should just check and call because this guy doesn't call big bets like ever but loves to bluff when checked to.

So, because they're auto piloting, they're leaving a ton of money on the table.

For that I am appreciative. Hopefully I'll continue playing this guy and my results will remain good.

Read Full Post

Yesterday was Day 5 of my 7 day nonstop MTT grind during WCOOP. I was really pumped about yesterday because of the 320 rebuy PLO event along with the 2nd chance PLO 215 rebuy, as PLO is my favorite game.

I had another miserable day on Monday, coming in 11th AGAIN in the stars 2 pm 100 rebuy. Back to back 11ths was pretty devastating.

I jumped in the 100R yesterday along with all the other big tourneys as they started. I found myself deep again in the 100R, but came up short yet with a 27th place finish. Near the end of the night I was only 2 tabling, still in both PLO events with good stacks.

I was in the top 5 in chips in the 2nd chance for basically the whole tournament, and had a little above average stack in the 320R. I ended up fizzling out of the 320 in 46th place, but was chipleader of the 2nd chance with a few tables left.

I ended up making it to the final table 2nd in chips but quickly took over the chiplead and never looked back.

I entered heads up having Benba out-chipped 2 to 1, and the first big pot we played I outflopped him. We got all the money in and my hand held. So like I said and have been saying to my friends, "Everybody needs a 2nd chance."

$24k for the win! Playing again today, PLO8 WOOHOOOO!!!!

Read Full Post

Sunday was Day 3 of my 7 day nonstop grind of WCOOPs and MTTs on stars.

I started off the day with a deep run in the 109 rebuy. I lost most of my chips on the bubble and ended up blinding into the money with 2 bbs. I won a few pots and flips and before I knew it I had a stack again. I ran my stack up huge and felt like I was going to go all the way.

I took over the chiplead with 16 players left, and from that point on, it was all downhill. I lost my next 4 all in pots. 88 < K10, KJ < Q10, A7 < AK, KJ < A7… to bust in 11th place.

I was fairly miserable, but was still in a bunch of tourneys including the 1k WCOOP, so I needed to stay focused.

Read Full Post

Starting yesterday, I was and still am planning on playing for 7 straight days of WCOOPs and online MTTs. I will be playing every WCOOP except for the 25k heads up on Sunday. Sorry, just not that baller … yet!

Last night I had my first WCOOP cash for this year. I finished 121st in the 215R event 21. I ran KK into AA to cripple me deep, before losing the rest of my chips getting it in slightly behind.

That was the only tourney I cashed in, and I bubbled a few others. It was, all in all, a really frustrating day.

I still have 6 more days of my nonstop grind to go, so looking for some better results. I will be taking the Friday and Saturday off from poker and then I will play the WCOOP main event on Sunday the 20th.

I'm planning on leaving for London on the 22nd to play the WSOPE PLO event and main event before playing EPT London.

Big Saturday one time?

Read Full Post

After a month hiatus from the grind, it's time to get back at it.

It wasn't a complete month off, but for most of August I played almost no poker - I think logging like 5k hands when usually I play 40k plus.

Just chilled out and hit up a few different friends' cabins for week stretches and played a ton of big 2. (btw best game ever - better than chinese IMHO.)

It was a nice break - especially from this downswing/break-even stretch which I think I'm finally coming out of.

Read Full Post

The next WCOOP starts this Thursday and the good people at PokerStars.tv have put together a sweet little intro to tell you everything you need to know.

This time around there are more tournaments, more money and likely more players than ever before. 45 events and $40 million guaranteed is pretty sick.

The video below has interviews with Barry Greenstein, Carter King and Brian Slick as well as some highlights from the last WCOOP.

Carter King took down the Main Event of the last WCOOP and Brian Slick is the driving force behind ensuring the WCOOP's success. Both of them have some great stuff to say.

If you're somehow not signed up already, we have the best deals around so get on board and get yourself one step closer to that sweet guaranteed cash.

We'll have WCOOP coverage coming to you in the news section, as well as from our pro bloggers who will be rockin that shiz.




Read Full Post

Fresh off my interview with Ashton Griffin, I wanted to interview another LeggoPoker heavy hitter who has been seen trying his luck (and killing) at the Rail Heaven games - aejones.

For those not in the know, Aaron "aejones" Jones has been running the $25/$50 streets and taking shots at the bigger games for almost two years now.

He also happens to be one of the best poker coaches that money can buy.

He's always got a lot to say and though someone beat me to the punch with an interview with him, they did a real bang up job.

So check out the interview here.

There's some real good stuff about selling action for the nosebleeds, Vegas prop bets and a lot more. Well done pokercurious.

Read Full Post

I mean, the proof is in the pudding. Fresh off his interview "From bust to Bobby's Room" with yours truly, Ashton Griffin made a post on his personal blog. In it he talks about his turbulent past and what it feels like to bust a $1.5 million roll.

He also posts a pretty impressive screenshot of his latest heater. Which I am going to go ahead and take at least partial credit for.

So hey, if you're a high stakes player and are in need of a heater, hit me up. We'll do an interview and then I'll pull some strings and get your boomswitch activated.

Read Full Post

On Wednesday I decided to play all the big MTTs on stars starting at 1 PM through the Quarter Million at 9 PM. I was feeling good coming off my 3rd place finish in the 100R from 2 days before and was looking to make some deep runs and hopefully close a tourney.

Early in the night, I shipped the 109 PLO8 for 3k. Winning that tournament for the 2nd time out of the last 3 times I've played it.

I was also making a deep run in the 109 2R1A. I won a big flip when we were down to 10 players to put me 2nd in chips going to the final table. Before I knew it, I had taken over the chiplead.

When we got down to 4 handed play, the chips flew all around the table with no one really busting, before I finally took out my buddy, charder30 in 4th. The other 2 players clashed in a big hand shortly after that, and I was now down to heads up.

I asked the guy if he wanted to do an even chop, because he had me outchipped 800k to 500k. He refused, and then probably regretted that decision shortly after. I chipped up a bit before winning a flip for basically the tournament A9 vs 22. I then finished him off a few hands later.

First place in that tournament was 11.6k. This was now the 2nd time in the last 10 days that I had won 2 tournaments in the same day and I had only played 4 sessions of MTTs with a total of 44 tournaments in that time. 4 wins and 1 third? I'll take that anyday.

I played all day Friday and came close twice, finishing 39th in the 100R and 15th in the 55R but bricked everything else. I decided to take off the rest of the weekend because my grandparents were going to be in town, and also would be celebrating my Dad's birthday this weekend.

Read Full Post

It's that time again, the time we wait literally weeks for, FTOPS!

Seriously ... I haven't done a timeline on it yet or anything, but I'm pretty sure that FullTilt is slowly closing the gap between the different FullTilt Online Poker Series at an ever increasing pace.

They probably won't stop until they're running one continuous FTOPS series. But hey, if they can keep the fields huge I'm not complaining!

My FTOPS hasn't been great so far, but it hasn't been terrible. I made a deep run in the $215+rebuys event, which is always one of my favorite FTOPS tournaments. I was one of the chip leaders for a decent portion of the tournament but ended up fizzling out not too long after we got into the money.

I also cashed in one other event of the series so far, the $500 6-max PLO. I ended up getting it in on a pretty standard Omaha post-flop flip, holding bottom set and a straight draw against top two with a flush draw, and cashing for barely more than the minimum.

This is just going to further my recent desire to improve my Omaha game through books and training videos, because I seem to go deep in a lot of PLO events even though I'm self-taught and relatively inexperienced.

Read Full Post

After reading the interview Dan Skolovy did with Ashton "Ashman103" Griffin last week I'm convinced that everything I've been told about bankroll management is wrong.

There's a kid, and I'm talking about the Ashman here, there's a kid who's spun up rolls and busted them more times than he can count. Right now he's back on top, and there's no way he could have done any of it without "poor" bankroll management.

A great writer once said that such bad financial management is typical of boorish Americans, and I agree that there's something very American about risking the farm for a shot at the big time.

When I think about this in relation to me and my poker game it makes me question whether proper bankroll management is actually optimal. For me, and I suspect for many semi-serious poker players, the money I make from grinding out SSNL, SNGs and MTTs won't be changing my life anytime soon.

Read Full Post

On Sunday, I decided I was going to play all the big MTTs on stars starting from 12:45 to 5:30. I ended up cashing in 4 of the 17 tournaments that I played, 2 of which I won.

I got first in the 109 intellipoker open which had 285 players. First place was $5415. I also won the 109 PLO8 for $3827. This tourney had 178 players.

It felt really good to win 2 online MTTs in the same day. I had never done this before, so it definitely was a nice confidence boost. I min cashed the 215 razz and the 55 rebuy also, but just couldn't get anything going once in the money.

I've been playing PLO cash games during the week and I don't know when the next time I will play MTTs. I have really been enjoying the time at home. I've been having a lot of fun hanging out with my girlfriend and also with my family.

My next trip will be to Cancun, Mexico with a few of my friends in late August. We are just going down there to hang out and have a great time, should be a lot of fun.

Read Full Post

In my last blog I was pretty tilted after a brutal session of 20 or 25 online donkaments. I was down to just the $215+rebuys on Stars, and decided to blog while I was one-tabling because I can still pay enough attention when it's only one table.

As the Editor's Note mentioned, I finished 2nd in the tournament for $28.5k. It felt pretty good to get back on the right track after a pretty significant downswing. Not out of the hole yet, but am off the starting block and ready for another heater!

It also felt great because I was pretty tilted from that session and hadn't had a single cash yet...unless you count the MONSTEROUS $95 I cashed for in the Turbo Takedown $1M prize pool freeroll. That only left me down $4-5k for the day!

But seriously ... I managed to stay focused and keep playing my A game, even though I only had 4k chips at 75/150 after rebuys were over. I managed to overcome the desire to dust off my short stack and play Mario Kart and turn it into a solid cash.

There weren't too many tricky/interesting hands in that tournament, despite the fact that so much of the field in that tournament represents the best players in online poker. The fact that I put coolers of three of them deep in the tournament helped out...in more ways than one.

Read Full Post

In May of 2006, I became, somewhere in the neighborhood of, the 75th person to achieve Supernova status on Pokerstars. I had earned 100k vpps in that calendar year.

In December of 2006, Pokerstars announced changes they were making to the VIP program. There would be a new level, Supernova Elite. You only had to earn a measly one million VPPs to achieve this status.

On December 20th 2007, I became the sixteenth player to ever reach Supernova Elite on Pokerstars. In the last 11 remaining days of that year following right after me, 23 more players reached SE.

It was harder back then to get Supernova Elite - not only was the VPP accumulation scale different, the maximum cash tables you could play at once was only 12 for the first 8 or so months of 2007.

I decided in 2008 I was going to try and maintain my Supernova Elite status for as long as I could, but not try to get it again. I was burnt out from playing the all-day, all-night sessions and just the grind of it all.

Read Full Post

They say one of the most important skills for a poker player is being able to drop down in limits when necessary.

I was forced to practice this life skill once again recently by dropping back down to $1/$2. It always sucks being forced to move down in stakes, but when you're running bad it's almost always a good idea.

I've only logged less than 30k hands at $2/$4, so it's not a huge deal. It's been a pretty turbulent last couple months since coming back from Vegas and, well, including Vegas really.

Read Full Post

Since arriving home two weeks ago, I have been playing at least a few hours a day online on Pokerstars. I have only played one day of tournaments, in which I went 0 for 10.

The rest of the time I have just been grinding PLO cash games. I almost forgot what it was like to 8 or 12 table. I feel like I'm getting back into the groove of it.

I had a couple really bad sessions in a row playing 3/6 and 5/10 PLO. After getting crushed for the second straight day, I decided I was going to flip a coin (literally): Heads- move up and play 25/50 right now, Tails- wait until tomorrow and drop down to 2/4.

I flipped the coin and it landed tails. Ok, 2 out of 3? Tails again! Alright 3 out of 5! Tails once more! Ok, ok, I get it- no 25/50 just yet.

I think I'm going to stay at 2/4 for a little while where I can play more tables and not really ever tilt. I will probably play a full schedule of tournaments on Sunday and take a little break from cash.

My next live tournament will most likely be EPT Barcelona in early September. Although I may be taking a trip with some friends to Mexico or some place in the Caribbean in late August, which would be a lot of fun.

Read Full Post

I'm going to interrupt my WSOP Main Event story because there's just no need for me to write about something that sucks that much right now. I'd rather focus on the positive at moment...after just a couple more lines...

As I write this, I'm down to one table after another brutal Sunday session. I lasted a grand total of eight hands COMBINED in two of the biggest tournaments of the day: the Warm Up and the $750k guaranteed.

This was partially due to something that was such a statistical anomaly that I have to share it. I busted out of three different tournaments by running into quads, twice when I had boats...all on paired boards, not ones with open sets.

To be fair, I also flopped quads once during the session. And a note to all of the people who think all online poker is rigged for action: I've never seen quads this many times in a session (25-35 tournaments), let alone hold or be up against them that many times!

But despite being on another brutal, six-figure downswing, I've managed to remain positive and still be pretty happy overall. It's probably partially due to my move to Las Vegas, which I'm very happy about so far.

Read Full Post

At the end of my last blog, I mentioned that I was really looking forward to the $1,500 NL six-handed event. It turned out to be a very soft field, as expected, of 1,459 players.

Many of the inexperienced players either played way too aggressively, or too tight and passive in the short-handed format. I was able to capitalize on this and chip up pretty slowly throughout the day without too many big confrontations.

We made it into the money (144 places) well before the end of the day, but I was stuck in reverse from the bubble until the end of the day.

Read Full Post

After a good long 6 days following my meltdown deep in the 2500 ftops event, I feel as if I'm over it and can finally talk about it.

Coming off the win in FTOPS event 23 the night before, I entered day 2 of the 2500 ftops event with around 32,000 in chips and average stack was around 54k. I was 56 of 87, but feeling good and looking to double up early.

That's exactly what happened too. On the second hand of day 2, I was dealt KK on the cutoff and the button had AK. We got it in preflop and I picked up about 23k (button's stack).

I then went on a ridiculous heater, winning pot after pot and running over my table. I won 2 big coin flips and before I knew it, I had a top 5 stack with 50 left.

Read Full Post

Just a little update before I crash after a longgggggggg (about 14 hour) Sunday session.

If you haven't guessed from the fact that it's Sunday night and I haven't angrily shut down the laptop and either gone to bed or started drinking, I WON!

The day started with a lot of promise, as I had made it to day 2 of the FTOPS $2500 event.

We had just gotten into the money and I was pretty short, but I very rarely get discouraged when shortstacked … especially since my two major live wins came after I was down to four big blinds or less at some point in the tournament!

Read Full Post

I had my first winning day of poker in the last 30 days on Friday. Not only is that pathetic, but it is definitely the worst stretch I have ever been on.

I had my biggest score of the year in online tournaments, which again, this is pretty pathetic: I got 3rd in the 50k on ftp for about $9k.

It was a disappointment getting 3rd because I feel like I should have won the tournament, and was unfortunate in a few spots.

Now let me clarify that I am, in no way, shape, or form, an ONLINE tourney grinder. I would have to guess I've played around 200 tournaments online this year (most of which were either on Sundays, or scoop/ftops events), and I have run pretty awful.

Granted, I have probably not been playing my best game either. It felt good to at least go deep in an online tournament for once. So I felt like I had some positive energy and momentum going into Saturday. I was planning on playing everything on Saturday; all the big tourneys and ftops.

Read Full Post

"I've got an edge over anyone heads-up," announced Luke Schwartz. "I'm the best heads-up No-Limit Hold'em player in the world."

Cool. It's nice to be the best, since only one person can be the best. So much for Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Daniel Negreanu, who came in for some serious trashing.

So far Luke hasn't maligned Doyle, Scotty, Chris, Jennifer or Howard but, well, right now he seems to be channeling his invective on Internet players who specialize in heads-up play. Give him time, I guess.

It was fun reading the interview Arthur Crowson did with him. I've been trying to tease out how much of his self-promotion is infantile bluster, how much is Phil Hellmuth PR-based taunting, how much is Tony G-style subcutaneous invasion designed to derail his next opponent.

My guess is "all of the above" but infantile bluster carries the most weight. Some names popped into my head as I was reading. You may or not be familiar with them.

Read Full Post

If you're a frequent reader of my blog (I don't know why you would be, but thank you if you are!), you'll notice some changes in the future.

Like the rest of PL.com bloggers, I'll be posting much shorter, more "bloggy" blog entries instead of my usual rants and rambles about brags and beats.

More importantly, I'll also have more freedom to talk about one of my favorite recreational activities, getting baked, without having to be subtle.

So get ready for some fat blunts to be sparked, and some funny and some not-so-funny stories of making sure that we always have one ready for the next tournament break.

Read Full Post