Courtney Gee Poker Blog - Escaping the 9-5 Through the Magic of Poker

Courtney Gee: More Volume and Higher Stakes in 2013

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 10:40:35 -0800

I barely played any hours at all in the summer, pretty much taking two to three months off. I’d go to my computer, see the games were bad as usual, wait a few hours to see if they got better, then take the rest of the day off.

Some days I played 18-man SnGs, but I didn’t really enjoy playing those. I even played some PLO cash, but that didn’t last long.

I started playing HU hypers at the end of August, and I really think it revitalized my poker career. I had dreaded playing poker every day in the spring and the summer; it was a lot of waiting around, it was boring, and my expectation wasn’t that good.

Courtney plans to play roughly 40 weeks of poker in 2013.

But now that I’m playing HU, I feel motivated to play almost every day. I also feel more motivated to get in hours.

My lack of income last year caused my savings and bankroll to suffer slightly, unfortunately. In 2012 I ended up spending around $20k more than I made playing poker.

I had a lot of things to pay for, so it certainly wasn’t a good year to take so much time off. The one positive is that I made the same amount of money last year as I did in 2011 except I played fewer hours, so at least my hourly went up.

New Resolutions for a New Year

Most people are optimistic when starting a new year, and I am no exception. I made only a small profit playing HU hypers last year, but I improved quite a bit as a player. As long as I keep working on my game and putting in hours, I think this year will be a lot better.

Once again, my main goal for 2013 is to put in a suitable number of hours (which I clearly failed at doing in 2012). I’ll be aiming for 30 hours of playing a week and then a few extra hours per week for review.

Realistically, I’ll probably end up taking around three full months off poker, so I’m planning to play around 40 weeks.

Other than my goal for hours, my only other goal for this year is to move up to $500 hypers at some point. I’m not sure how long this will take me, but I suspect it might be a while. The reg battles can get pretty fierce at the $500 buy-in level, so I will need to increase my bankroll quite a bit if I want to move up and stay up. I definitely don’t expect to accomplish this during the first half of the year.

So that summarizes my 2012 and outlines my two goals for 2013. What are your poker goals for the New Year? Leave a comment and let me know.

I’ll be back in a couple weeks with an update on how hypers are going for the start of 2013. If you are interested in reading post session updates, please follow my other blog as I try to update every day I play. Until next time, good luck at the tables!

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Courtney Gee LAPT Peru Trip Report (Part 2)

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 08:20:40 -0800

Thanks to my lack of sleep (and how bad I am at dealing with it), Day 2 was a haze for me. I remember thinking that my table was quite aggressive. I also had a couple players from my Day 1 table to my left, which was unfortunate because they knew how I played and had position.

Halfway through level 1, I got dealt QQ and got my 30bb stack all-in preflop with KK. Luckily for me I hit a Q on the turn and doubled up to 120k. Someone said they even folded a Q, so it was a one outer!

No Sleep = Questionable Play

Unfortunately, my sleepy self decided to punt this amazing poker gift shortly after.

I was sitting to the left of two active players, and I decided to make a terrible squeeze in the sb with A7 after one of them raised in mp and the other called on the button.

Playing in the LAPT Grand Final.

Unsurprisingly, I ended up having to play a pot out of position with a terrible hand after the button called.

The flop came KQxr and the button called my continuation bet. The turn brought a T and also a club draw, and I checked intending to just fold to a jam since he had less than a pot sized bet behind.

My opponent suckered me in with an 8k bet into an almost 60k pot, though. I definitely should have folded, but I didn’t.

When the river came the J♣, I shoved all-in out of position, and my opponent snap called me with A♣ T♣. Talk about putting my chips in dead on every street …

After that hand I was pretty much back to where I started with around 60k or 30bb. On my last hand I was dealt QQ again and called preflop against a very aggressive player. I fist-pump-called three streets all-in post flop with my over pair and lost to KK.

It was pretty surreal when I busted because I wasn’t really clear-minded at all. I went back to my room and went to bed, and the only reason I remember anything that happened that day was because I wrote notes about each hand right after I played them.

I felt really horrible once I woke up from my nap and realized I was busto, though. Busting from a tournament because you played badly is probably the worst thing ever – MUCH worse than busting from a bad beat.

If I hadn’t played the A7 hand so poorly, I still would have had chips after the QQ vs KK cooler hand and who knows what might have happened. I felt pretty glum about it for the rest of the day.

Plenty of time to hike after busting the tournament.

Free Time in Peru Isn't So Bad

Luckily I was still on vacation and had mucho access to endless papaya juice and smoothies, so I got over the tournament fairly quickly. I spent the rest of my time in Peru eating amazing food, bartering for alpaca scarves, and hiking to Machu Picchu.

I had a wonderful time in Peru and I would definitely go back. The people are extremely friendly, the food is amazing, and the weather is great.

If you ever go to Cusco, I highly recommend the restaurant Greens Organic. Be sure to get the mango (with pineapple, passion fruit, and lemongrass) smoothie because it’s definitely one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.

Where poker is concerned, I thought PokerStars did a great job running the event. I would definitely go to another LAPT, although this time I would probably try to learn a small amount of Spanish first :)

Now I’m sadly back at home, where it’s cold and I’m trying to win at online poker. Poker has gone quite poorly since I got back; take a peek at my other blog if you want further details. The next time I write here, I’ll give a summary of how $200 and $300 hyper HU has been going since November.

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Courtney Gee LAPT Peru Trip Report (Part 1)

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 11:26:33 -0800

My friends and I got into Lima the day before Day 1 of the Main Event and stayed at Hotel Estelar (which was across the street from where the tournament was being held). I ended up sleeping pretty badly that night because our room was facing a street that was very loud with traffic both late at night and early in the morning.

Courtney Gee at the LAPT Grand Final.

Despite sleeping badly, I felt fine the morning of Day 1. After some breakfast, we went across the street to Atlantic City Casino and went upstairs to find our tables.

Dealing with the Language Barrier

I discovered right away that only a small number of dealers spoke English and that everything at the table was in Spanish. I know this shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but I assumed that the dealers would at least be able to speak English if necessary. This was not the case.

The only time the language was a big problem for me was when someone threw out a single large chip and I didn’t know what the amount of the bet or raise was because I didn’t understand what the dealer said.

As time went on at my table, I figured out which players spoke English and they were able to help me when necessary.

As far as actual poker went, my stack stayed the same for almost the entire day. The structure of the tournament was quite good, so the 20k starting stack didn’t start to become shallow until multiple hours into the event. I went up to 30k and back down to 20k multiple times. At one point I think I got as low as 11k chips at 300/600 ante 100.

My table wasn’t extremely tough, but the worst players got busted during the first half of the day. I could tell by raise and bet sizing that most of the people at my table were at least competent, and I remember thinking that I would love a table change.

I also knew that my table was never breaking, though, and that I was almost certainly going to be stuck there until the end of the day.

First Double of the Day

I finally doubled my starting stack around 7 hours into the tournament. I raised K9 in middle position, got called by two players and was treated to a flop of KKT rainbow.

I made a small bet on the flop, and then check/called both the turn and river until I was all-in. I’m fairly sure my opponent mucked a T.

My stack was 41k at the last break which wasn’t overly impressive but still above average in chips. At this point my night of bad sleep was beginning to catch up with me, and I was starting to feel pretty tired. I remember level 9 going by extremely slowly.

More hiking in Peru.

I still managed to increase my stack, though. I got up to 52k chips by raise/calling preflop with KJ, calling a QJx flop, checking behind a flush draw turn, and making a small value bet on the river.

Then during the last level of play, I raised as many hands as possible because the pots were huge thanks to 200 antes at 600/1200 blinds. Add in the fact that many people were mentally checking out since it was so close to the end of the Day 1, and it was wildly profitable to raise a wide range at my table.

Reviewing for Mistakes

I played one hand particularly poorly during the last level on Day 1. One of the stronger players at my table min-raised in late position with around 28k in his stack, and I flatted in the big blind with T9.

The flop came K77. I checked, and my opponent checked behind. The turn was a K, I checked again, and my opponent also checked again. The river was some small card and I made a bet that was slightly over pot sized. My opponent tanked for several minutes and finally made the correct call with QJ.

The way I played the hand was unfortunate because my opponent’s stack would have allowed me to bet the turn and then overbet bluff shove the river. He would have had to fold almost everything if I’d played it like that, and I instantly knew I made a mistake when I checked the turn.

Nevertheless, I finished the day with 64k, which was just above an average stack. Overall I was pretty happy with the way I played for most of the day, and I was glad to have an average stack considering I sat on starting stack for 7 levels. 122 of us made Day 2, and 56 players were scheduled to make the money.

Stay tuned for my Day 2 trip report!

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Explaining Heads-Up Hyper Turbo SNGs by Stakes

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:52:14 -0700

$30s are low stakes and obviously extremely soft. Since I didn’t play many $30s, I’m not too sure about the number of regs at this level. There are so many fish that play $30s, though, that it doesn’t really matter at all.

I spent a bit longer with $60s. There are definitely some regs at this level, but there are also plenty of games. This buy-in is quite popular, so I didn’t play regs that often and I never had to wait around to play.

Be prepared for protective regs

The change is a little more significant going from $60s to $100s. A much smaller number of these run, and there are WAY more regs. Not only are there more regs, some of them are actually competent at this level.

I’m sure that several poker players make a decent clip at $100s when rakeback is considered (which explains why there are so many regs).

The jump from $100s to $200s is even tougher. It comes as no surprise that even fewer $200s run, and unsurprisingly, some of the regs are quite good. If you don’t want to play regs, the games can be very difficult to get. If you are a new player in the lobbies and none of the regs recognize your screen name, you are probably going to play regs all day.

I played tons of regs when I moved up, and I still do. Some regs are protective of their lobbies and go out of their way to sit new players, which I have experienced quite a bit in the past month.

Higher Stakes, Tougher Regulars

The regs are also much more aggressive than the $100 regs, which I had trouble with at first. I have learned quite a lot about adjusting proper amounts rather than over adjusting like a lot of people tend to naturally do. Moving from $100s to $200s has definitely required more work than anything I have ever experienced when it comes to online poker.

I don’t currently have a lot to say about moving from $200s to $300s since I have only played a handful of $300s. Since almost all the $300 regs also play $200s, though, the jump almost certainly won’t be as difficult as it was when moving from $100s to $200s.

Moving from $200 to $300 should be easier.

Despite being in a tough stage of my learning process when it comes to hyper heads-up, I am really enjoying playing a lot. I am more motivated than ever when it comes to actually getting hours in, and working on improving every day has become a source of pride for me.

I try to post at the end of every session I play, so feel free to read my Mental Game Blog if you want to follow my progress.

If you are from the Vancouver area, you will probably know that the WSOP Circuit has come to town. The main event starts at the end of this week and has a $1.6k buy-in, so I’ll be taking a couple days off online poker to play that.

I’ll likely have a couple swaps in the event, which means I’ll probably be tweeting a few updates here and there. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @courtiebee if you want to know how I do.

Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. If you are playing in the Circuit event, see you at River Rock!

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Getting Rid of the "Courtney Leak" - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 10:04:55 -0700

The Courtney Leak wasn't a new thing. It dates back further than I can remember, and I certainly had it while I was playing 6-max SnGs. The thing about 6-max, though, is that you see post flop spots a lot less often than HU. So when I started playing HU, I noticed the leak a lot more.

Despite having the leak in my game for long, it was never solved even though I knew it was there for a while. This is simply because not enough work was put into getting rid of it, as is the case with any leak that doesn't get plugged.

Plug your leaks and hold on to more of these.

I finally decided that I needed to eliminate the Courtney Leak for good. My method of solving it was to ensure that I never forgot about it during any of my sessions. I used a notepad file on my desktop beside my tables and wrote in it, "PAY ATTENTION TO MY LEAK".

The notepad file helped me to always remember to look out for the leak. This caused me to think extra-long before I called any bets on the turn. I thought to myself, "What is my plan if I call? If I'm gonna fold when the river bricks, I should just fold now."

Plugging a Leak Takes Time and Hard Work

A bad leak like this isn't plugged overnight, but working on it daily helps get rid of it pretty quickly. I reviewed before every session and found examples of the Courtney Leak in my hand histories. I worked hard to focus on it during every session and the leak started showing up less and less.

After a two week period, I had eliminated the Courtney Leak completely. It also didn't take long to recognize the spots where it actually is correct to call the turn and fold the river. By plugging a simple leak, I became a much stronger player.

Now when I spot problems in my game during review, I put a note in my notepad file and look at it during my session. Just being reminded of what I'm working on while I'm playing helps speed up the improvement exponentially.

Looking up at what I've written so far, I'm kind of surprised that I've written over 400 words just about plugging a leak. I have a lot more to write about, which probably isn't surprising since I haven't updated this blog for around a month. I've been playing a lot more poker these days than in the summer, though, so I expect to update on a much more regular basis now.

In case you haven't read my previous posts here, I also keep a Mental Game blog . I try to post after every session, so feel free to have a look if you want to read my thoughts on a more daily basis.

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Courtney Gee Takes on Heads-Up Hyper-Turbo SNGs

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:47:04 -0700

I seem to talk about my multitabling woes and inability to amass volume ALL the time, but can you blame me? It really does cause tons of problems. If I could multitable properly, PLO cash games might be a viable option. Instead, there is pretty much no way to consider it unless I want variance to run my life.

I think PLO is a super fun game, though. I really enjoyed the hours I spent learning it, and I definitely improved a lot in a short period of time. Once I become competent at heads-up hyper turbo SnGs, I intend on playing PLO around once per week so that I can slowly improve at it.

Oh yes, heads-up hyper turbos. That’s the game I switched to. Who knows how long I will play it, although I’m hoping it’s for a while.

Heads-Up: A New Challenge

I’ve always kind of avoided playing heads-up in the past. I think the main reason is that I tend to tilt pretty easily, and heads-up is easily one of the most tilting forms of poker. I just assumed that there was no way I could ever handle the tilt that came from playing it.

Courtney Gee

Unfortunately for me, though, the time to test this theory has come. At this point, I’m running out of options. I don’t want to play MTTs, I can’t play enough volume to make regular or turbo SnGs profitable, and I don’t want to play hyper 6-max. Where NLHE is concerned, this means that I have to play cash games or heads-up SnGs. Given my background, I figured I should probably try heads-up first. I am also lucky enough to have a good friend that does very well at them, so it seems like a wise choice.

I started at $30s and $60s so that I could learn the game without losing too much money. After some review I felt comfortable that I kind of knew what I was doing, so I moved to $100s. I have played 20-25 hours of heads-up over the past week, with plenty of review in between.

So far I find the games pretty enjoyable, although maybe I just like running hot because I am definitely doing that. It’s nice of the poker gods to give me some run good while switching to a new game, though – it always makes the transition easier.

Since I have been running hot, I haven’t had the chance to see if the games tilt me as much as I thought they might. I am definitely going to run bad sometime, though, and I hope I’ll come back to report that hey, I didn’t get tilted at all! Am I being totally unrealistic? Yup. This might be a good time to find my copy of The Mental Game of Poker…

Speaking of The Mental Game of Poker, I need to get back on track with my “mental game blog”. I’m supposed to be updating my other blog after every session to keep track of my mental game progress, but instead I have usually been updating before each session (which is much less useful). I’m gonna really make an effort to do it properly this coming month because I think it’s very important.

This is getting kind of long, so I’m gonna stop here. Hopefully I am still playing hyper heads-up next time I write ;) Good luck at the tables!

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Adapting to Stay Profitable - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 11:05:40 -0700

I also feel lucky that I learned a valuable lesson: My “job” can disappear at any time. While online poker will always be available, it might not always be a viable way to make a living. Perhaps something like Black Friday will occur where I live. Maybe the games will become too tough.

Or maybe volume will decrease so much that I won’t be able to get enough games in. For example, the recent segregation of players from Spain has caused a slight reduction in player traffic on PokerStars.

The quality and volume of SnGs has been a growing problem this year, particularly with 6-max. I didn’t play 6-max SnGs until around February, so I have no idea what they were like last year. I do know that they were much better at the start of 2012 than they are now, though.

Courtney Gee

I remember hoping that games would improve in June because of the WSOP, but the opposite happened. The quality of games wasn’t always bad, but the volume was really terrible.

I remember looking at the 6-max lobbies one afternoon and seeing only one SnG over $60 running.

My friends and I suspect that the introduction of $200 hyper-turbo SnGs killed our action. Recreational players tend to enjoy games that go faster, so they are more likely to play a $200 hyper-turbo than a $200 regular turbo.

Adapting Strategy to Changing Online Games

As I’ve said many times before, I am terrible at multi-tabling. Because of this, I was playing fewer games per day but at a higher average buy-in (usually between $100 and $120). So it was a really big problem for me when the mid- and-high stakes didn’t run anymore.

I wasn’t the only one to run into problems. All turbo 6-max games suffered, including lower stakes. Because the high-stakes games weren’t running, the high-stake regs were forced to play lower stakes if they wanted to play. This made the lower-stake games much tougher to beat.

I love SnGs and everything, but this is a huge problem for me. A lot of players can just accept the lower average buy-in and play more tables to compensate for the loss in hourly, but this isn’t an option for me. So what should I do? Settle for making less money? Move to hypers?

I haven’t exactly come up with a solution yet. I actually decided to temporarily run away from the problem and, in the meantime, play a completely different game instead. I briefly explained how I arrived at my decision to try PLO cash games in my Wordpress blog, so feel free to take a look if you are interested.

I apologize for the doom-and-gloom tone of this entry – it wasn’t intentional. While I am frustrated with the state of the games right now, I am optimistic that they will improve in the future. I think that the possibility of real money games on Zynga is really exciting, as is the possibility of legal online poker in the U.S.

It seems like online poker has a bright future ahead, so I think that poker players hoping or trying to make a living playing online should stay patient for now. I plan to keep playing and improving my game so that if and when the next poker boom happens, I am well and ready.

- Courtney

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Coping with the Pro Poker Grind - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:28:50 -0700

I sometimes feel like I live in another world. I almost separate my life into two halves: one that involves poker and one that doesn’t. I don’t really talk about poker to my non-poker friends. Many times they are curious about what I do and ask questions like, “What is the most you have lost in one day? What is the biggest pot you have ever won?”

Courtney started blogging at PL.com when she was on the PokerStars Big Game.

I can answer these questions, but I can’t really talk about the things that are actually on my mind. When I’m on a (super standard) $8k downswing and feeling blue, it’s tough to explain what I’m feeling to someone that doesn’t gamble.

I think that if I called up my mom and told her how much I lost the last week I played poker, she would have a heart attack.

On the other hand, I am still learning to desensitize myself from losing this money. To many poker players $8k is a drop in the bucket, and I’m supposed to be fine with losing it. I usually am. I’ve trained myself to register for SnGs that cost hundreds of dollars and not care about how much I’m in for. Oh I’m down $2k today? No problem. Definitely standard.

Poker-Think Dangerous in Everday Life

I try to never think of my losses using the “non-poker” side of my brain because if I do, I think I’ll be sick. In a given week I will lose twice more money than my graduated-from-university-and-working-full-time friends will earn in a month. If I sit here and put my losses into real-world terms, I might scare myself and never play poker again.

On the other hand, occasionally I’ll find myself trapped in the poker-world mindset and wanting to spend money because it seems like nothing. Like if I want to have dinner somewhere and it costs $100 for a meal, the real-world side of me will think that’s ridiculously expensive.

"I’m hoping that these last two weeks off will help me regain the balance I need in my life to be happy playing poker again."

But the poker-world side of me will go, “WTF that’s only one SnG buy-in, who cares?!” and snap order it. I know that when I start thinking about real-life things in terms of SnG buy-ins, it’s time for a reality check.

I’m hoping that these last two weeks off will help me regain the balance I need in my life to be happy playing poker again. I’ve been reflecting and thinking about poker again the last couple of days, so I think I’m almost ready to get back to the tables.

When I do start up again, I intend on keeping a “mental game” blog. In the Mental Game of Poker, Jared Tendler recommends writing a lot, especially after sessions. I think that writing about things like what tilted me, what I did well, and what I did terribly in a given session is a great idea. I think it will help with my tilt issues, and it will also allow me to forget about poker once I’m done playing for the day.

If you are interested in reading these blog entries, I’ll be posting them on my new poker blog. This is a blog I used to keep before I started blogging on PokerListings, so you can also read some of my old poker entries if you’re interested.

Thanks for reading this long, rambling post. Hopefully I actually have some poker to talk about the next time I write! In the meantime, good luck at the tables.

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LAPT Peru, WSOP and Tough Games Online

Thu, 24 May 2012 09:04:52 -0700

SnG game selection has been more terrible than usual the last couple weeks, so in a way I am glad that SCOOP is over. I hope that regs will now be encouraged to take some time off and feel less obligated to play every day.

I also hope that the upcoming WSOP will help make games better. Many MTT players register for mid and high stakes SnGs, and I’m personally hoping that many of them will be in Vegas this summer.

For personal reasons I haven’t been able to travel to any live poker events so far this year, but I should be able to change this soon. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to play any WSOP in 2012.

Maybe Las Vegas, Definitely Peru

If I do go to Vegas, it will be near the end of June for the Ladies Event, the last $1k and $1.5k of the series, and maybe the Main Event.

Should Courtney return to the WSOP?

The live event that I am planning on attending for sure is LAPT Peru. I’ve never been to South America, and I’ve been told that Peru is a beautiful place. It also comes at a great time of year: by November 28th I should be done grinding SnGs for 2012, and the weather where I live will be cold and miserable.

Aside from Peru, we’ll see what happens. I might decide to play some satellites and see what I can win, especially if PokerStars offers a couple PokerStars Women Live promotions. If you are a female poker player, you should know that these promos are the nuts.

Where online poker is concerned, I’m quite behind on my monthly volume goal so far. The main problem is that many days I start a session and games are terrible (ie. full of regs), so I don’t get any volume in (due to game selection). After three hours of wasting time, I finally quit for the day and end up playing just 20 games or something.

I don’t really have a solution for this problem other than hoping that games improve next month. This has been an ongoing problem for SnGs for most of the year so far, and if the situation doesn’t get better soon, I might have to face the fact that maybe it never will. Then I need to either decide to stop game selecting or to change games.

The month isn’t over yet, though, so there’s still time to salvage some volume. I’ll be grinding a lot this next week, and then I’ll be back in early June to give a trip report of May. Good luck at the tables!

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Rise and Grind, SCOOP and Chocolate Cake for a Year

Wed, 09 May 2012 08:55:38 -0700

On the other hand, my average buy-in is four times higher now. From my limited experience, it seems pretty common to see SnG swings of 80 to 100 buy-ins, so I can probably look forward to regular $10k ups and downs. I’ll still take it over the potential downswings of MTTs.

I have a couple things to work on in May. My goal is to play 1,300 games, which sounds easy in theory but actually difficult because I’m a terrible procrastinator. I really have to motivate myself to get going earlier in the day so that I can start playing poker while games are still plentiful. Otherwise I start too late and then games die around 4 hours into my session.

Volume Still a Concern

I had that prop bet in April which did the trick for motivation temporarily. The problem is that halfway into the prop bet my friend conceded and bought out, which left me with nothing to motivate me again. I estimate that I played around 200 fewer games due to the prop bet ending early, which is pretty terrible if you think about it.

(The good thing about the prop bet ending early is that I get chocolate cake for a year as part of the buy out agreement. This can’t be overlooked.)

I definitely have to do something about my motivation issues. My problem isn’t that I don’t want to play poker but the fact that I take forever to get going in the morning. I suppose it comes down to being lazy after I wake up, which seems pretty shameful now that I am writing it down here.

Rise and Grind by Noon PST

It would do me a lot of good to start playing by noon PST on a daily basis, so I’m gonna make it another goal to do that for 80% of my sessions this month. I’ll definitely be telling a couple of friends about this because it always helps to have people hold you accountable when it comes to goals.

Another reason to start sessions earlier is so that I can play some SCOOP events on PokerStars. I wasn’t planning on playing a ton of events this year, but last night I had a dream that I won $100k in an online MTT. My subconscious must be telling me something, so I should probably add a few in.

I haven’t been playing any live poker recently, but I’ll probably play some this month since Edgewater (in Vancouver) is hosting a series starting next week. They have a $1k 6-max event that I am looking forward to, and they also have a shootout event.

The Main Event of the series is a $1,650 buy-in, and I haven’t decided whether I’m playing it yet. I’ll almost certainly sell action if I do, however, which means that I’ll be using twitter for tournament updates (to update my backers).

Feel free to follow me @courtiebee if you are interested in knowing how I do.

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Running Colder than the Moon - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:03:21 -0700

April has been pretty frustrating. During the last couple of weeks I have realized that I still have endless work to do when it comes to tilt control. I have gotten a lot better at controlling myself overall, but it seems that the really bad runs are pretty good at setting me off still.

If you are a high volume player, you’ll know that my monthly sample is very small. The biggest problem with playing a low volume is that the downswings can feel like they last forever. A breakeven stretch of 4k games might just be a month for some grinders, but it would last three months for me. It definitely sucks, but it’s something I have to accept. It is, however, admittedly quite tough to accept sometimes.

So cold Courtney needs a hoodie.

One thing I have going for me is that by playing less tables, my overall ROI should be higher than most. Hopefully this will help lower my overall variance a bit despite the reduced volume.

Everyone has different ways of handling downswings. Unfortunately, I think a lot of poker players deal with it by complaining to anyone that will listen.

I’m not gonna get on some high horse and pretend that I never moan and groan about bad variance, but I will say that I have tried hard to cut down on bad beat stories as much as possible.

I think that I have been complaining more than usual the last couple of weeks, though, so writing this post is a good reminder of how counterproductive it is to complain about variance.

A good friend of mine was recently dealing with a bad downswing himself, and he said to me, “The only thing I can do is review my game often and keep playing as much as possible. I don’t know what else to do.”

He may not know what else to do, but I’d say he’s going about it the right way. As long as you make sure that you are playing well and that you don’t have big leaks, then you just have to grind through the variance.

Ensuring that you are still playing well is obviously an important factor, but I think it’s also possible to go overboard. I find that I have a hard time relaxing when I am going through a downswing because I am constantly worried that I am playing badly.

Whether it’s worrying about regs outplaying me or worrying about spewing stacks, I feel like I should be reviewing 24/7 to make sure that I’m not doing something wrong. This is obviously unhealthy. Being able to shut off while you’re not playing poker is a pretty important skill and something that I need to work on.

What kind of strategies do you use while downswinging? If you have any unique ideas, please feel free to write a comment. Hopefully by the next time I write, though, I’ll be running so good that I won’t need to use any of your suggestions ;)

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Moving to 6-Max SNGs Plus an April Prop Bet

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:52:28 -0700

I started the year where I left off in 2011, playing 18 man sit-and-gos. It wasn’t very much fun, though, since I basically just broke even in both January and February. This got me thinking about my potential for making money this year.

My biggest problem is my inability to mass multi-table. Most SnG regulars play tons of tables, usually between 15 and 20 or even more. I cannot do that.

If I’m continuously loading tables (as opposed to playing SnGs in sets), I can probably only play 12 full-ring tables at once, assuming that some of the tables have become short-handed.

I think that I probably play optimally with 8-10 tables, though, and this number is not a recipe for making money at SnGs.

I am sure that I could eventually increase my table count if I kept at it for a few months, but the idea of it doesn’t really appeal to me. Grinding like a robot isn’t my style. While I’m not super loose or aggro by any means, I would rather play more hands and think about what I’m doing rather than nit it up and do the same thing over and over again.

Shorthanded at Higher Stakes

A friend of mine suggested I switch to 6-max SnGs instead. The good thing (for me) about 6m SnGs compared to 18m is that I can play higher stakes, and higher stakes means that I can still make money despite playing a low number of tables.

Courtney Gee

There was definitely a significant transition period when I first started playing 6-max. This is actually code for “many stacks were punted.”

I think a lot of players get into a 6-max game thinking that they have to play super loose all of a sudden because it’s short-handed, but then they just pick all the wrong spots and adjust badly.

It took a week or two of stacking off in places I shouldn’t before I started to figure things out a little. (I still lose stacks in dumb places daily, just less often now)

I started playing a lot of 6-max in March. I played (or rather, punted) mostly $60s at first, and then I added higher stakes as the month went on. At this point I am playing $60s to $500s, although I currently sell some of my action in $300s and $500s.

My bankroll can probably support the higher buy-ins, but I’m looking to minimize the variance right now for psychological reasons.

Selling Action and an April Volume Bet

At the moment I only play a handful of $500s per day, and I don’t want my results for the entire month to be dictated by 45 (or whatever) $500s. This is possibly a stupid reason to give up equity, and I don’t intend to sell action forever. Probably just for another month or two until I feel like I can play a higher volume of high stakes.

I ran pretty hot at the start of March, but then I went on an $8k downswing and pretty much lost it all back. After feeling like I ran pretty badly to start this month, though, I’m on the upswing again.

Hopefully it stays this way because I really prefer winning! There is A LOT of variance in these games, though, so I am trying to stay mentally ready to lose quite a bit of money (should it come to that).

In my last entry, I briefly mentioned a volume prop bet I have this month with someone. I won’t go into details since this entry has become too long already, but I think I have to play around 1,500 games in April to have a chance. This is pretty tough since I’ve never played more than 1,100 games in a month before, and 400 more games is a lot for me!

So wish me luck. I’ll be back soon to let you know how it’s all going. I would really love to write an entry called “Running Hotter than the Sun.” Sounds good, right? Fingers crossed!

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Ignoring Results, Reducing Tilt and the Mental Game

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:01:33 -0700

In order to make sure that I truly didn’t know how much I was up or down, I had to do a couple things. The biggest problem was hiding my account balance mid-session because, as you might know, PokerStars shows your account balance every time you register for a tournament.

Courtney on the PokerStars Big Game.

At first I tried to find an AHK tilt blocker, but I couldn’t seem to find one and it seemed like a lot of trouble to try to get someone to create one for me.

A friend suggested I just let TableNinja handle my tournament registration for me, though, and it worked like a charm.

TableNinja just handles all my “ok” pop up boxes, and I never have the chance to see my account balance.

Ignoring Results Really Helps

To say that it helped to avoid my account balance and results during my sessions is an understatement. The experiment taught me that a very large source of my tilt was knowing that I was losing and watching my account balance go down throughout the session.

The experiment also taught me that unless I check my account balance or Holdem Manager, I often have no idea whether or not I am up or down money during a session.

This became clear when one day I thought I was running so badly and I was sure I lost a ton, only to find out that I actually won money. Then another day I thought I ran great and I was up a bunch, only to find out that I had only broken even.

The experiment went so well that I now avoid my account balance and results during my session 100% of the time.

I check every day after the session is over, but I never know whether I’m up or down while I'm playing. As a result, I would say that my tilt has reduced by at least 70%. Things that used to tilt me at the tables just don’t anymore, which is really amazing to me.

The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler

My experiment can’t take all the credit, though. I also started reading The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler.

I read a bit of it before each session, so I have only read a little over half of it so far. It is an excellent book, though, and I have already gotten so much out of it.

I recommend it to anyone that plays poker seriously.

New Direction for this Blog

I haven’t made much money this year so far, but I’m still enjoying online poker more than ever thanks to some of these changes that I’ve made.

Learning to not care about results is something that has become very important to me, and I hope that this blog will start to reflect this. Looking at past entries, the entire blog has been focused on how much money I’ve won or lost and pretty much nothing else.

Moving forward, I hope to talk more about win rates, mental game, and other things that hopefully will be a little more interesting than just win/loss numbers.

The next time I write (which I intend to be sometime later this month), I’ll talk about how my year is going so far, as well as the foolish volume prop bet I made for April. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables!

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An Experiment in Decision-Oriented Thinking - Courtney Gee

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:55:39 -0800

I was pretty rusty when I started playing again in January. I started off at lower stakes and with less tables, but it was still really difficult! I was surprised that a break of just one month made that much of a difference.

While I certainly punted more than a few stacks shaking the rust off, I have also been running quite badly so far this year. You probably already know that losing day after day at poker isn’t very fun, so I haven’t exactly been in high spirits the last few weeks.

You always hear people claiming that in order to be a good poker player, you have to learn not to care about your losses. That if your bankroll is large enough, you shouldn’t worry about downswings because you should always have enough money to play through the variance.

I, myself, stand by these statements.

Just because I say it, though, doesn’t mean I take my own advice. Honestly, it’s REALLY hard to not care about losing money day after day.

The thing with me is that the actual money doesn’t matter much. This is because my bankroll management is very sound. It really comes down to the fact that I hate losing. Money is a way to keep score, so seeing losses over and over again is quite discouraging.

Blah blah blah, right? Downswings are standard. Everyone loses. I just have to keep learning how to deal with it better.

The Experiment

I think it might help me to stop “keeping score” for a while. Keeping track of account balances and bankroll funds can be important when it comes to moving up and down in stakes, but aside from that, I can’t think of any additional benefits. I don’t plan on drastically changing stakes anytime soon, so I can safely ignore my bankroll for the time being.

I’m going to try just playing online poker while ignoring my wins and losses for a week. I’ll focus on playing well, and as long as I’m doing that, it doesn’t matter what the score is.

If I run bad and still feel extremely tilted even without knowing how much money I have lost, then perhaps the root of my tilt problems is somewhere else. Running the experiment will at least help me rule this one element out.

I made up this experiment as I wrote this blog post! I think it’s an interesting idea for me, though, so I’ll definitely try it. It will be an exercise in discipline, too, because I always check my results at least once a day (usually twice). I hope that I will be able to resist checking for a week!

The next time I write, I’ll let you know how the experiment ended up (and how long it lasted… hopefully for a week and not just half a day).

Until then, good luck at the tables!

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Poker Goals and Questions for 2012 – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:49:58 -0800

I’d love to make a profit goal, but I don’t like the idea of it due to the unpredictable nature of the game.

I mentioned that I had a profit goal of $30k last year, but I’m not even sure where I came up with that number. I think I just pulled a random number out of a hat and decided that it was my goal.

So I don’t want to make a profit goal. On the other hand, however, I really don’t think I want to continue playing online poker unless I can start making decent money.

In late 2011 I said to a friend, “If I don’t make at least $50k next year, I’m quitting professional poker.” He seemed surprised that I would say that.

Maybe it was a stupid thing to say and maybe it’s an empty threat, but I feel like playing poker and just scraping by with bills is silly. Poker has no benefits and no job security.

The situation with online poker in the U.S. has shown that online poker can just disappear without warning. Is it really worth this risk to make $40/hour? And then there’s also the fact that playing poker for a living isn’t very fun sometimes.

Actually, it’s often downright infuriating.

For the amount of stress that I sometimes feel playing this game for a living, I would hope to make more than what I made last year.

So while I’m not going to set a profit goal, I’m going to guess that earning less than $50k (pre-rakeback) next year is going to make me seriously rethink poker as a career.

The one thing I have 100% control over is the number of hours I play, so that seems like a good goal to make. My goal is to play an average of 30 hours of poker per week.

Realistically I think that I will play around 40 weeks of poker this year, so that’s 1,200 hours of poker. I played around 900 hours last year, so it’s a decent upgrade.

When everything is considered, I hope to make at least $50/hour playing poker in 2012. That includes rakeback, but it also includes time spent reviewing. I usually review between 2 and 4 hours per week.

So there are my hopes and dreams for 2012! I look forward to blogging about my experiences along the way.

What are your poker goals for this year? Feel free to leave a comment and thanks for reading.

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2011 Year in Review – Courtney Gee Poker Blog

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:15:28 -0800

I started playing poker around 6 years ago back in university, but I definitely played more poker this year than the other 5 years combined. I played almost 370k hands which is pretty low compared to the average grinder but quite a lot for me.

In past entries I mentioned that my goal for online poker profit this year (before rakeback and bonuses) was $30k. At the end of November it looked like making the goal was going to be pretty easy since I was less than $500 away. But I forgot one minor detail: it’s easy to lose money playing this game. Oops. Here were the (somewhat disappointing) final numbers for 2011:

# MTTs: 2,290 # SnGs: 3,850 Total online profit: +$29,077.18 (before rakeback and bonuses)

Actually I would have just barely made the profit goal if I hadn’t decided to play MTTs on the very last day I played this month. But I couldn’t skip the 10th Anniversary Sunday Million, right?! It was actually fun playing MTTs for the first time in ages. I went deep-ish in a $55+R, but unfortunately I busted 41st and still ended up losing a bunch for the day.

While I’m annoyed that I fell short of my goal, I’m happy with how the year went. I had some live winnings, bonuses, and rakeback, so overall I made ~$40/hour. I survived my first real year of being a pro grinder, increased my bankroll, and became a better player in the process. And I achieved Supernova for the first time :)

I also improved my life outside of poker, which is equally important. I started working out at the gym three times a week, and I eat much healthier. I think that maintaining a healthy diet and eating properly is something that many poker players overlook. I will probably write an entry about food one of these days.

Anyway, I’m obviously not going to get rich making $30k/year, so I’m looking for a bigger year in 2012. I’ve been thinking seriously about my goals for next year, and I will share those with you in my next entry.

Thanks to everyone that supported me in 2011 and to everyone that has followed this blog. I really look forward to sharing my experiences again in 2012. Happy New Year!

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Six Days from Supernova! - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:45:22 -0800

I ended November with a profit, but not as much as I was hoping for.

# SnGs: 1,150

Hours: 95

Net result: +$3,031.48

The November result means that I am just short of my profit goal for the year:

# online MTTs: 2,277

# online SnGs: 3,152

Net profit: +$29,539.43

It seems like it should be easy to hit it by the time I’m done playing this month, although December is going kind of badly so far. Sessions have been pretty frustrating, and it was topped off the other day by my power going out.

I had been playing for less than an hour and was building tables up, so I thought I only had like 9 tables at the time. A report from PokerStars says that 11 of my SnGs were affected, though. It was around $600 in buy-ins, which seems like a lot of money to just punt off because I have no backup solution for power.

Courtney also occasionally goes outside.

The problem was two-fold because my laptop had no juice and I also had no Internet. I probably could have tried to tether my laptop to my phone if I’d actually had battery on my laptop, but…

I ended up driving to Starbucks with my laptop. Obviously I got there and realized I’d left my RSA token at home, though. SIGH. Yes, I am a moron. I drove back home to get the damn RSA and by the time I was logged in, I had three SnGs left.

I was ridiculously short in all of them and could only double up in one. Eventually I had a solid stack but ran a little bad on the bubble, so I had to settle for 3rd. I salvaged $200, though, which is lucky!

I feel really stupid for letting a problem like this cost me money and time. It’s pretty easily preventable, but I just hadn’t bothered. I used to subscribe to mobile Internet, but I wasn’t using it often so I cancelled the monthly service. The Internet stick is just sitting in a box unused, and it’s kind of tilting to think that I could have paid for an entire year of the service with the amount of money I lost.

Being able to tether my phone is probably a good enough short term solution as long as my laptop is in okay condition. It would be way more ideal to continue to play on my desktop, though, so I might buy a generator in the new year.

If anyone reading this has some ideas for backup power/Internet for online poker, please comment and let me know. It’s definitely something every professional poker player should think about.

Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables! I’ll be back with a report once I finally hit Supernova.

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The VPP Grind Continues – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:32:38 -0800

I need 21.5k more to make Supernova, which means that I probably need to play around 15 more days of poker.

Last time I wrote about the importance of game selection. I thought I might have to drop down in stakes to avoid regs as much as possible, but it hasn’t been as much of a problem as I thought (so far).

In fact, I’ve been able to add a handful of $100s to my schedule every day.

Game selection is everything. I am astounded by the number of regs that obviously do not game select at all.

Yes it is a pain in the ass, but it both increases your ROI and decreases your variance. I really think that most poker players underestimate the importance of game selection.

I haven’t talked about profits at all this month so far! Here are the numbers:

# SnGs: 775

Hours: 65

Net result: +$1,905.32

I’ve played only one MTT so far this month, so I didn’t bother to include it.

I went on a little downswing but managed to mostly recover. My ROI for the month is lower than it should be so far, but I can’t complain about a profit.

It’s pretty crazy how boring SnG results are compared to MTT results. Gone are the weeks of losing $4k or winning $10k.

It’s more boring to blog about for sure, but my life can live without that kind of excitement :P

I sometimes miss the rush of going deep in a big MTT and having friends rail my final tables, but trading that stuff for a lower stress level is worth it for me.

It’s not to say that SnGs aren’t frustrating sometimes. I will admit that I have tilted just as hard playing SnGs as I have playing MTTs!

I think a lot of it had to do with my expectations, however.

When I started playing SnGs, I had this ridiculous vision in my head that it would be variance-free poker and that I would start winning almost every day.

I didn’t realize that losing 40+ buy-ins in a day is completely standard, which caused me to become upset and confused when these days happened.

I hope that I will soon get used to SnG swings and understand when a losing day is nothing to be concerned about.

Good luck for the rest of the month if you are also grinding away.

I’ll be back soon for a recap of November. Thanks for reading!

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Game Selection and October Recap – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:49:54 -0800

# Online MTTs: 32 (-$1,594)

# SnGs: 659 (+$3,287)

# Live MTTs: 4 (+$1,343)

Net result: +$3,036.00

The live MTTs include two satellites, the BCPC $550, and the BCPC $1,100. I went deep in the $550, but I ended up the final table bubble girl in 11th place. It was very disappointing because I was chip leader at my table when it was down to 12 people, but I got coolered blind vs blind for 25% of the chips in play. So sick.

I made day 2 of the $1,100 too, but I couldn’t make it to the money. I was actually going to play the $3,000 since I had cashed the $550 and could almost freeroll it, but I decided against it in the end because I needed to play online. I had already spent four days playing the $550 and $1,100, and the $3k was a four day event. I decided I couldn’t risk getting behind in the Supernova grind.

Moving back to online poker, here are my results for 2011 so far (excluding rakeback and bonuses):

# online MTTs: 2,276

# online SnGs: 2,002

Net profit: +$26,512.95

Inching closer to that $30,000 online poker profit goal for 2011. Would be awesome if I could hit it by the end of November.

I’m going to have to be pretty patient and disciplined for the rest of the month. The games are gonna get worse as we get closer to December, and I’m going to have to be very flexible with my playing hours. So far I’ve found that there are less regs earlier in the day and then later in the day, which means that I’ll probably be working split shifts.

I might also need to drop down in stakes when the games are really bad. Sometimes the $60s are just unplayable because they are filled with profitable SnG regs. Skipping the $60s means that I need to play longer hours, though, because I’ll need higher volume to make up for the loss in VPPs.

If everything goes well, I’ll play tons in November, somehow find a bunch of soft games, and then be almost home free in December! If you are also on the grind, good luck at the tables.

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Going Supernova - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:02:35 -0700

Intuitively, it seems like games should get easier around the holidays because pros take time off for Christmas and recreational players have time off work and school. The problem is that I play on PokerStars, and the end of the year means the Supernova/Supernova Elite deadline, as well as the end of the Tournament Leaderboard race.

Games in December are gonna be filled with regs trying to get in as many games as possible anywhere they can because they need the VPPs.

I didn’t play as many games as I’d have liked to since I last blogged. Here were the numbers:

# MTTs: 17 (-$1,145.00) # SnGs: 419 ($+1,561.49) Hours: 40 Net result: +$416.00

Hey I made more than minimum wage this time!

As I talked about last time, I did end up getting sucked into playing a few high buy-in Sunday MTTs. This obviously hurt the bottom line quite a bit. The rest of the MTT losses are mostly from $35 180s. I just lump these into MTTs because the variance is so much higher than with the other SnGs I play.

The SnG results are pretty much as positive as I can expect for the volume I played. My average buy-in is $40 right now, and I can’t really expect to achieve an ROI greater than the 9% I have here. So I just need to increase my volume (easier said than done for me, unfortunately).

I’m going to be spending a portion of the next couple weeks playing in the BC Poker Championships, a series of tournaments taking place at River Rock in Richmond. I live around 30 minutes away from the casino, so it’s nice to have some worthwhile tournaments close by. I haven’t really played any live tournaments since WSOP.

They have a $550 event (which starts today), a $1,100, a $3,000, and a $5,000. My bankroll can support the first two no problem. I haven’t decided about the $3,000. I could just sell half my action if I’m worried about my bankroll, but I’m leaning toward staying home to play online instead. I’m skipping the $5,000 no matter what happens because I think it’s going to be a very tough field.

If you are also playing in the BCPC, good luck to you. I’ll try to update again soon with a summary of online poker in October. Thanks for reading!

Courtney Gee is on a quest to never work a 9-5 job again by playing poker professionally both online and live. Follow her progress on her blog right here at PokerListings.com.

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Online Poker = Minimum Wage Job? – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:59:34 -0700

# MTTs: 30

# SnGs: 1237

Hours: 115

Net result: +$982.78

Hmm… maybe I should get a job at McDonalds ;)

There are at least three reasons for the bad results:

1) I was learning a new game. SnG shoving ranges are quite different from MTT shoving ranges once it gets close to the bubble. I was definitely making a lot of mistakes at the start, especially in pots without antes. It’s also worth noting that even when there ARE antes in SnGs, they are usually much smaller than those in MTTs.

2) My MTT buy-ins could not be supported by my SnG winnings. I was playing low to medium stake SnGs and high stake MTTs. Doing this may maximize my hourly, but it doesn’t really help to reduce poker variance (which was my reason for switching to SnGs in the first place). Right now I am willing to sacrifice EV for reduced variance.

3) I ran badly. Not much to say here.

It wasn’t the month I was hoping for, but I guess I should be happy to end the month positive while also having learned SnGs. I still make lots of mistakes on bubbles and I have a long way to go before I’m excellent at them, but I am definitely a winning player. Many SnG regs make very blatant ICM mistakes, which makes it easier to win money despite making mistakes myself.

Here are my online poker results for the year so far (excluding rakeback and bonuses):

# online MTTs: 2,244

# online SnGs: 1,343

Net profit: +$24,819.42

Because I was sick, I’ve only played a few days of poker this month so far. The numbers are not bad:

# MTTs: 10

# SnGs: 240

Hours: 24

Net result: +$1,313.44

I don’t expect to play many MTTs this month, so I hope to see a steady increase in profit as October goes on. Although PokerStars is running an extra version of the Warm-Up and Sunday Million this coming Sunday, which is admittedly hard to resist! And an extra few hundred dollars in MTTs every day can really add up quickly…

I’m just happy to be healthy and back on the grind. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables!

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$0.23 Per Hour Ain't Good - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:33:16 -0700

I’m really looking forward to the end of September! Not only because I want a day off, but also because I am running terribly this month. Since I last wrote, I’ve played 13 or so days of online poker. Here’s how they ended up:

# MTTs: 20

# SnGs: 980

Hours: 88

Net result: +$20.27

No I do not enjoy earning $0.23 per hour, thank you very much :P

In those hours I made a profit of $2,043.87 playing SnGs but I lost $2,023.60 playing MTTs. The losses playing MTTs are pretty standard so I’m not too concerned about that. In that volume, though, I should usually expect to make $1,000 to $2,000 more playing SnGs.

A big problem I have is the desire to always know the results of all the hands that I’m playing. For example, if I go all-in at one of my tables, I HAVE to know whether or not I won the hand and who called me with what.

This is a very bad habit. For one, it makes it much more difficult to play lots of tables. Secondly, who the f cares? It doesn’t matter whether I won the hand. And while it MIGHT help to know what people are calling me with, I would probably make more money per hour by not bothering to look and just adding more tables.

I probably developed this habit because I tiled when I first learned to multi table. Tiling allows you to see the results of every hand and I got used to it. I really need to try to break this habit, though, because it only serves to tilt me more when I’m running badly.

So far this month I’ve played 1,237 SnGs, so I have 263 more to go to reach my goal of 1,500. I’ve earned over 20k VPPs so far in September, so Supernova is well on pace. My volume per month the rest of the year will be less, but I should still hit Supernova before Christmas. I definitely don’t want to be one of the many grinders on PokerStars on New Year’s Eve.

The last thing I want to say this entry is that I’m really sorry to the people who have taken the time to email me but haven’t gotten replies. I’ve completely neglected my poker email account the last couple of months, but I’ll start checking it more regularly. For anyone interested, I can be reached at courtneygeepoker at gmail.com.

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August in Review and September Goals - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:09:52 -0700

# online MTTs: 2,214

# online SnGs: 106

Net profit (online MTTs and SnGs): +$23,836.64

Not bad so far, especially considering that it doesn’t include bonuses or rakeback. I should easily be able to hit $30k profit for the year as long as I play proper hours and don’t run terribly.

I hadn’t bothered with trying to make Supernova this year due to the fact I played such terrible volume at the start of this year. I took a look at how many VPPs I was earning through SnGs, though, and realized that I could almost certainly make SN if I switched to them full-time.

I know that last entry I stated that I probably couldn’t play SnGs full-time, but I think that perhaps I was wrong. I actually enjoy them so far, and making Supernova for 2012 would really help boost the bottom line. So I have decided to put MTTs on the back burner and play mainly SnGs for the rest of the year.

Here were the numbers last week:

# MTTs: 10

# SnGs: 257

Hours: 26.5

Net result: +$962.51

I actually lost money overall playing SnGs. The profit I made was from final tabling the Big $162, one of the few MTTs I played. Someone suggested that while I’m playing SnGs, I should play a few high stakes MTTs on the side. I’ll be playing mostly $109s, $162s, and $215s.

In order to make Supernova, I’m gonna have to grind pretty hard. I’ve added an extra half day of online poker to my schedule, which means I’ll play 4.5 days per week. I won’t be able to take many extra days off for the rest of the year.

My September goal is 1500 SnGs and then a random number of MTTs (probably 10-15). I’m trying to get used to waking up earlier so that I can actually play a few WCOOP tournaments (they start very early for me since I live in a PST time zone).

That’s it for me for now. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables!

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Downswings Make Poker Not Fun – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:26:04 -0700

There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to a downswing like this. Where should I start?

In my last entry, I talked a bit about bankroll requirements for playing full time online MTTs. Several readers disagreed with my suggestion that 1,000+ downswings are more than possible. Some people suggested that they could only be possible if you’re playing badly.

I can’t really disagree with the latter statement. We are obviously much less likely to endure downswings that big when we are playing well. The problem is that playing well all the time is extremely difficult. We are human and bad days are going to happen once in a while.

And then when you suffer a downswing and start losing daily, it becomes even more difficult to continue playing as well as before. Once you lose your first 300 buy-ins, the next 300 are gonna be that much easier to lose because you’re probably mentally tilted to some degree. And then the next 300 buy-ins after that are even easier to lose. Unless you are a robot, bankroll requirements need to account for this type of tilt.

In somewhat of an example, this past Friday I was running really badly when calling people down. People’s lines just kept making no sense so I just kept calling, and they somehow had it every single time. This caused me to unfortunately adjust my calling ranges so that in future hands with similar situations, I didn't call when I should have.

So now the challenge becomes trying to get back to playing well. I noticed this past week that I was becoming easily frustrated while playing a high number of tables. So the first step is to play fewer tables.

The second decision I made was to add some sit-and-go tournaments to my weekly schedule. Many months ago I added 180s to help reduce MTT variance, but right now I’m in a ridiculous 180 downswing. Clearly they have not helped much!

I’ve decided to spend half my days playing sit-and-go’s in September in an effort to lower my variance significantly. I played around 100 of them last week and they seem okay so far. I don’t think I could ever play them full time (which is unfortunate), but a 50/50 split for now is fine.

In my opinion, being a winning player is not the toughest part of playing poker for a living. The toughest part is overcoming the mental battle. Obviously you need to be a winning player to make money, but that’s the (relatively) easy part. For me, the mental part is a thousand times more difficult.

Next week I’ll do an August wrap-up and talk about my September goals. Hopefully I both run better and play better this week!

Oh and by the way, thank you to everyone that takes the time to leave comments in this blog. I really appreciate the feedback and encouragement :)

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Back to Reality – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:06:47 -0700

The numbers:

# MTTs: 155

Hours: 24

Net result: -$3,397.94

It was a pretty bad week. My biggest problem was running bad in 180s.

Actually I haven’t been able to win (or even come close to winning) any 180s for weeks now, but my deep runs in regular tournaments have prevented me from noticing the problem.

Since I didn’t go deep in anything significant last week, I noticed my lack of success in 180 tournaments much more. I was concerned that I might be making some costly mistakes, so I decided to review a few of them with a turbo specialist. 180s are pretty basic, but missing +EV shoves or calls on a regular basis can be a huge problem.

The good thing is that I’m not really making any big mistakes and that I have mostly been running badly. There were definitely a couple missed shoves in the tournaments we reviewed, though, so I’ll be looking to correct those this week.

I think one of my problems is that I have been pushing myself to play more tables because I am trying to increase my volume. This has lead to me time out sometimes and also to miss spots in my hurry to get to other tables.

When you look at one week from the next in tournament poker, the swings are astounding. This past week was bad, but it wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary.

This means that a 100 buy-in loss when playing MTTs is perfectly normal and almost to be expected on a regular basis. I think that many casual players would be shocked to learn this because I sure was. I’ve only recently gotten used to it.

I was talking to a friend that stakes a number of players for tournaments. He has around 10 horses and they all play a mix of small and large fields.

He told me that he has gone on two 1,000+ buy-in downswings in his career so far, and I believe that he has been staking for less than two years. This blew my mind. It means that the bankroll necessary to play MTTs for a living is huge. It borders on ridiculous.

I’m not even sure what it is, but it is clearly over 1,000 buy-ins assuming that 1) you can’t afford to go bust, 2) you aren’t extraordinarily good at poker, and 3) you don’t want to have to drop down in stakes.

Some people exercise very aggressive bankroll management because they are willing to drop down in stakes if things don’t go their way. I think this is fine. Even with this strategy, I still wouldn’t be comfortable without a bankroll of at least 600 buy-ins. I’m a huge bankroll nit though :)

Hopefully I get back to my winning ways this week. I’m on pace to meet my volume goal of 650 tournaments this month, which is the most important thing for now.

Thanks for reading!

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Running Hot Makes Poker Fun – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:27:14 -0700

# MTTs: 171

Hours: 34.5

Net result: +$10,300.65

That’s an ROI of 180%, so I somehow don’t think it’s sustainable :P

I made all the money the first two days that I played last week, which were Thursday and Friday. Interestingly, I only cashed a total of three tournaments both those days combined. That amounts to a 3.5% ITM (in the money) rate, which is extremely low.

On Thursday I bricked everything until I was 1-tabling the 4 pm ET $162 freeze-out. I just recently put the $162 into my daily MTT schedule, so I feel fortunate to have made a final table already. I placed 5th for $4,685.62.

On Friday I cashed just a $35 180 before I made the final table of an $11 Rebuy/Add-on (which also takes place at 4:00 pm ET). I had a pretty healthy stack at what ended up being a pretty funny final table.

Most of the players were very bad with the exception of one very good reg. We were both trying to build stacks off the weak players while also trying to stay out of each other’s way as much as possible, so it was an interesting dynamic. The bottom line was that neither of us wanted to lose too many chips to each other when there were so many easier chips to be won elsewhere.

I ended up losing a big flip short-handed and then having to double up off a poor guy with J4 versus his Ax (I runner runnered a flush and he then proceeded to berate me from the rail for being a fish). When it got down to 3 players, it was with the reg and a very inexperienced player. We decided to do a chip chop 3-handed, with all of us cashing for ~$9.5k.

The best thing about the larger buy-in freeze-outs is that the fields are much smaller. I had to beat just 586 players to make the final table of the $162 as opposed to the 2,672 I had to beat to make the final table of the $11 rebuy. And then consider that the prize pool of the $162 was bigger than that of the $11 rebuy and it’s a no-brainer as to which I’d rather play.

Obviously there are downsides to the higher buy-ins. A higher buy-in means that you must, of course, have a bigger bankroll.

And then there’s the fact that the field is much tougher in the higher buy-in freeze-outs. You really have to adjust your play quite a bit when playing an $11 rebuy compared to a $162. Sometimes you have to try to build your stack in different ways depending on the tables you draw because the players can differ so much in skill.

I’ll continue to work on my game and to build my bankroll so that I can keep adding new tournaments to my schedule. And if I can also keep running hot, that would be a fantastic bonus!

Have a good week at the tables :)

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July in Review and August Goals – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:33:47 -0700

# MTTs: 101

Hours: 20

Net result: +$6,873.00

It was definitely a good week. On Tuesday I concentrated on small fields and had quite a few little cashes, including a $27 KO win that I was particularly happy with.

I lost a bunch of money on Saturday but then I had another great Sunday that included ten cashes. Considering I only played 41 tournaments, that’s a high rate of cashes. I won the afternoon $44 turbo that day for $6.6k.

Sunday capped off a very nice month that saw me run pretty hot! Here were my total numbers for July:

# MTTs: 329

Hours: 69.25

Net result: +$8,736.69

The net total doesn’t include rakeback or bonuses, so my take home is a bit higher.

And to wrap up the stats, here are the numbers for 2011 so far:

# online MTTs: 1620

Net profit (online MTTs only): $20,695.53

Once again the total doesn’t include live wins or bonuses or rakeback.

I am quite happy with the yearly net profit considering it’s ~40% ROI and very likely higher than expectation. I am obviously not so pleased about the volume, but I won’t get into that yet again.

I have a couple goals for August. My poker-related goal is to play 650 tournaments. This should be pretty easy to do if I don’t skip any playing days and play four days per week. It will be difficult to do if I take any extra days off, though, so it will be a good exercise in discipline.

A friend of mine recently asked me if I ever reward myself for making my goals. I don’t, but his question made me realize why doing so can be very good. Even if it’s just a small reward, having a reward makes your goal more real (for lack of a better word).

It’s really easy to set a “goal” but just not bother with it because there’s no reason to care whether or not you achieve it. If there is a reward in place and you don’t achieve it, at the very least you think to yourself, “Well I don’t get my reward because I didn’t achieve my goal.” Just thinking this to yourself can be enough dissonance to motivate you to achieve it next time.

I think it also works the other way for when you do achieve your goal. Rather than just patting yourself on the back for a job well done, you get something tangible for it. Even if the reward is just small, I think it helps cement the good feelings associated with achieving the goal.

Anyway, enough rambling. I’m going to find a sweet upscale restaurant to go to as a reward for playing 650 games. My other goal for August is to eat much healthier throughout the day, especially on days I play poker. This is getting long, though, so I’ll talk about that next time. Good luck at the tables!

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Another Close Call – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:43:52 -0700

I didn’t post last week because I didn’t play much poker during my first week back, but I was able to get some decent volume in the week after. Here are the numbers since being back from Vegas:

# MTTs: 228

Average buy-in: $33.03

Hours: 49.25

Net result: +$1,863.53

I was actually down quite a bit the first five sessions back, losing >$4k over 186 games. Part of it was definitely being rusty since I hadn’t played online for a few weeks. Most of it was standard MTT bad variance.

Another portion of my losses was due to the fact I experimented a bit with some hands preflop, and it got me into some unfamiliar situations post flop. I definitely spewed a couple stacks and lit some money on fire doing that! (I don’t regret it though)

This past Sunday got me into the profit zone. I chopped the $22 500 cap 6-max tournament heads-up for ~$1.7k and then I placed 7th in the Bigger $55 for a bit over $5k.

I was really disappointed that I didn’t do better in the Bigger $55 because the final table was one of the softest I’ve ever played. A large percentage of the table had NO idea what they were doing! It was incredible.

Unfortunately I had a short stack going into the final table thanks to shoving into AA on the final table bubble, so I wasn’t able to take advantage of the weak players. I picked my spots well and gave myself a great chance, but in the end I lost two flips and busted earlier than I would have liked.

Tournaments are strange because you’re almost always disappointed with the result if you don’t finish 1st. I busted that tourney in 7th place for $5k and felt terrible about it because 1st place was ~$30k.

On the other hand, if I had won the same amount but had taken 1st place in a different tourney instead, I would have been very happy. In fact, I felt much happier about my 1st place finish in the 6-max than I did about the Bigger $55 despite the fact I won over $3k more in the Bigger $55. Isn’t that ridiculous?

Now that I’ve gotten my sleep schedule back to normal, I’m ready to work hard and actually put some volume in (for the first time this year). I’m slowly improving my multi-tabling skills, so I should have no problem getting in a few thousand more tourneys before the end of the year.

This week is a really busy one but I’m going to try very hard to play four days. Hopefully I’ll be back next week to report some good results!

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Final Thoughts on the Big Game – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:00:45 -0700

Let me first talk about the pros at my table.

Back in February I specified my dream line up: “Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak, Doyle Brunson, and a rich businessman.”

I have to pat myself on the back and say that three out of five ain’t bad! Both Daniel and Phil were at my table, along with Rick Salomon (the so-called “rich businessman”).

The bad news was that the other two players, Bryn Kenney and Randy Lew, were both poker superstars.

When I found out they were going to be playing, I was not happy since I knew they would make the table even tougher.

I had an extremely fun time, though. The footage that made TV makes it appear I didn’t talk much, and it’s probably because I tend to keep quiet while there’s a hand going on.

In between hands there was a ton of great table talk, though.

I told Rick that I love movie stars, I confessed to Daniel that I would snap marry Bono (that was before I got married, obv), and I called my fiancé an unemployed bum (by accident, though, I swear).

Overall I am happy with how I played. I have received some criticism for playing too tight, and I certainly can’t disagree with this sentiment.

At the time, however, it felt like the right thing to do. The entire table was extremely loose, and I can’t remember any hand that got to me in late position unopened.

I am not a cash player, so playing pots with garbage or without position was certainly asking for trouble.

I feel that my strategy gave me the best chance to avoid making big mistakes while waiting for a good opportunity to play a big pot and book a profit.

In the end I was able to get in the bulk of my stack as a 4 to 1 favorite, which I am extremely happy about. It was very interesting for me to watch my expression on TV as the flop came down because I wasn’t sure how I reacted.

While I looked less stricken than I thought I’d look, my body language clearly showed how disappointed I was. At the time I remember my heart sinking and hearing a collective “ohhhh…” around me from the producers, crew, and Amanda Leatherman.

While I wasn’t particularly looking forward to my shows being aired, I have to say that I am relieved that it’s finally over.

Now people won’t be looking at me trying to guess whether or not I won on the Big Game based on what I am buying, how happy I look, or what tournaments I’m playing!

The biggest thing I learned by participating in the production of a “reality” TV show is that the producers can make people appear any way they want.

I have to admit that I will never watch another TV show again without looking at the way someone is portrayed and wondering, “Is that how she REALLY is in real life? Or did they just want her to appear that way?”

I would like to thank everyone that has supported me since I found out I was selected for the Big Game.

Special thanks to Ben Sulsky, Thomas Leudke, and Isuru Silva for giving me hours of help with hand histories and cash game strategy.

Thanks to Melanie Urbanski for helping me make an awesome audition video. Thanks to my husband for all the emotional support.

I’m finally back to some online poker this week after two weeks off in Vegas for the WSOP.

I’ll be back next week to let you know how it goes. Good luck at the tables!

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Hello from Las Vegas – Courtney Gee Poker Update

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:50:21 -0700

I was card dead for the last two hours I played, which is unfortunate because the antes were huge. When Day 2 started, we were pretty much on the money bubble. I got a spot to push on the button immediately after the bubble burst, but the SB woke up with JJ and busted me.

It was the first time I was all-in the entire time I played that tournament.

The other event I cashed was the $1k Ladies event. I knew I was going to cash it because I have a 50% ITM rate in ladies tournaments and I didn't cash the Venetian ladies event ;)

I was very short stacked for around 4 hours of Day 1 and felt lucky to make it to Day 2. I started Day 2 with 20bb but busted after hitting TPTK versus a set.

As I said in my previous entry, this is first time I have had the opportunity to play in the WSOP. It's been an awesome experience and I've had a lot of fun! Since it is also the first time I’ve had the chance to play a series of buy-ins $1k and higher, it has also been a good learning experience.

The biggest thing I have had to learn is how to prevent exaggerated disappointment due to the increased buy-ins.

While I don't play differently in higher buy-ins, I feel significantly worse when I bust. This also has to do with the fact that once I bust a live tourney, I can't just load a new one up like I can when I play online.

Mistakes are also highlighted in higher buy-in events.

For example, I failed to get full value with a strong hand in the last half hour of the WSOP Ladies event. This really ticked me off and I couldn't stop silently berating myself about it for the rest of the day. Obviously berating myself isn't the right thing to do, especially when there is still poker left to be played.

I needed to learn from the mistake and move on. I hope that I can learn to do this in tournaments of all buy-ins in the near future.

I'm playing Event 56 today, which is a $1.5k tourney and my last of the series. I plan to play great and hope to run even better! See you next week.

Follow all the action from Las Vegas on our 2011 World Series of Poker Live Coverage page.

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Long Time No Blog! Courtney Gee Poker Update

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:48:32 -0700

# MTTs: 129

Average buy-in: $27.81

Hours: 27

Net result: +$3,345.51

Results-wise, it was a good week. I felt a little rusty at the start but ran well enough to minimize my losses. I played mostly turbos and small fields to avoid playing 12 hour days, which is why I played fewer hours than expected.

The thing that stood out the most for me about the week, though, was how much I need to work on controlling the build up of tilt throughout the day. I’ve noticed that I tilt the hardest when I get unlucky a bunch of times in a row. It’s a “straw that broke the camel’s back” kind of thing with me.

This past Sunday I didn’t cash anything for the first 6 hours I played, and it frustrated me way more than it should have. My husband unfortunately has the IMs to prove it. I said some ridiculous things including how much I hate poker and other things that should never cross anyone’s mind during a day of work!

To make me even more ashamed of how I reacted, I went on to win the afternoon $44 turbo on PokerStars for $4.5k that day. So to sum up, I threw a temper tantrum because I hadn’t cashed anything, and then I ran hot and beat 599 people to win a turbo event! Yup, talk about ridiculous.

I’ve always known that I have a slight tilt problem. And it’s not just poker. Any game with a luck element has the potential to cause me to freak out if I should get unlucky repeatedly. It’s really silly and something I have to work on.

In other news, I’m going to be taking another couple weeks off online poker because I leave for Vegas this weekend. I’m planning on playing a few WSOP events (plus one Venetian Deep Stack event):

June 26 WSOP 45 $1,000 (NLHE 3-day) June 28 WSOP 48 $1,500 (NLHE 3-day) June 29 VDS $340 (Ladies NLHE 2-day) July 1 WSOP 53 $1,000 (Ladies NLHE 3-day) July 2/3 WSOP 54 $1,000 (NLHE 5-day) July 5 WSOP 56 $1,500 (NLHE 3-day)

A couple of the tourneys overlap, so obviously I am hoping that I don’t end up playing all of them! This is my first time playing in the WSOP. I’m happy for the opportunity, but I’m not exactly excited to make the trip. High variance tournaments in a place that has 110 degree weather isn’t exactly my idea of a vacation! Hopefully I run great and make it worthwhile :)

If the place I’m staying has decent Internet, I’ll blog again in Sin City. Have a great week and good luck at the tables!

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Don't Try This at Home - Courtney Gee Poker Update

Tue, 31 May 2011 23:41:25 -0700

What I did right: Saved a year of living expenses and kept a separate bankroll for poker. What I did wrong: Dove in with little proof that I was a winning player and tried to play a game that I had no experience with (that would be 6-max cash games).

This entire year is pretty much an ongoing experiment for me as I work to prove to myself that I can make money playing online poker. At the start of the year, my only goal for 2011 was to play 4,000 MTTs. For some of you out there, this is a laughably easy task. I have personally barely played 4k tournaments in my lifetime, though, so it would be a good accomplishment for me.

To figure out the minimum I hope to earn playing poker this year, I used a 20% ROI and an average buy-in of $30. If I play 4k games, I should profit $24k. Hopefully my actual ROI is better than 20% (which I think it is) or I just run hot so that I make much more than that :D

For what it’s worth, though, 4k is such a small yearly sample size that I could very well make less than my projected number. When you play such few games, you run the risk of being controlled by variance. To help solve this problem in the future, I am going to start working on my multi-tabling skills (which are currently quite terrible) so that I can eventually play higher volume.

Last week I played two days:

# of MTTs: 54

Average buy-in: $29.87

Hours: 11

Net result: -$1,187.14

Here are the numbers overall for the month of May:

# MTTs: 342

Average buy-in: $32.58

Hours: 91.50

Net result: +$1,863.78 (including rakeback and bonuses)

Someone commented in my last post and suggested that I keep a running tally of my overall profits/losses. I probably won’t do this every entry, but once a month seems good. So far this year:

# online MTTs: 1161

Net profit (including live games, rakeback, and bonuses): +$11,368.61

I am well behind pace for 4k tournaments this year, but it should be easy to catch up. Once I’m back from Vegas in July, the goal will be to play four days per week and 35 tourneys per day. I shouldn’t be going out of town as much for the second half of 2011, which will make it easier to get some decent volume in.

I’m getting married next Sunday, so I’ll be taking a short break from everything poker, including this blog. I should be back with an update the week of June 12th. Thanks for reading and see you in a couple of weeks :)

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Still Not Enough Poker! Courtney Gee Poker Update

Thu, 26 May 2011 19:20:27 -0700

Also, you can probably tell that I have zero photos of myself playing poker since all my PokerListings pictures are of me on vacation. I finally decided to get a shot of me at my desk, so now you can see my setup!

It’s pretty unimpressive as it consists of just one 27 inch monitor. I’d like to add a second monitor ASAP, but I think I need a video card update :( I am pretty terrible with computers, though, so there’s a high chance that I have zero clue what I’m talking about.

But enough about that. Let's get to the poker!

The numbers:

# MTTs: 74

Average buy-in: $35.14

Hours: 26.5

Net result: -$1,442.99

Before this cold, I actually hadn’t been sick since I had my 9 to 5 job in 2009. That’s over 1.5 years ago! I truly believe that I am much healthier not working a regular job. I sleep better, I eat healthier, and I am just way happier.

My life is crazy right now. I’m getting married in under two weeks and have so much to do before then. And then with hockey playoffs (I’m a huge Canucks fan), my website job, and poker … I have no free time at all! I’m also trying to plan my trip to Vegas for the World Series of Poker at the same time, but it’s really tough to do right now.

Because of the wedding, I won’t be getting to Vegas for WSOP until late June. I’m going to be there for two weeks from the 24th and I’ll be playing five events. My biggest challenge right now is finding somewhere to stay. I want to eat out as few times as possible while I’m in Vegas, so I need a kitchen for sure.

I just want to find somewhere safe and convenient, but I don’t want to pay an arm and a leg. A picky person that plans a trip this late deserves to have trouble finding accommodations though :)

I’m only playing online poker two days this week because it’s unrealistic to think that I will have time for more. So I can talk about more volume fail next week? At least it’s planned this time!

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Not Enough Poker! Courtney Gee Poker Update

Thu, 19 May 2011 19:35:41 -0700

I guess I fall into the second category. Even though the previous week wasn’t exceptional, it was still a solid winning week. I think I am guilty of subconsciously taking it easy because I know I had a good week. It’s almost like I’m thinking, “This next week doesn’t matter much because I already won money last week.

This is obviously a terrible attitude to have, even if it is subconscious. I'm going to work very hard to avoid this reaction in the future.

On a related topic (sort of), I recently had a conversation with a lady that runs her own business doing hair and makeup. I told her what I do for a living, and I was really surprised when she said, “You must have weeks where you have tons of money and then other weeks where you have to eat just mac and cheese.”

We then proceeded to talk about the importance of managing money. Just because you make a bunch of money one day, it doesn’t mean you can go on a big shopping spree the next day. If you do that every time you have a big score, you really will be eating mac and cheese a few months down the road once you go on a downswing.

She understood all this because the nature of her work has her making most of her money during the wedding season. She makes piles of money in the summer and then sometimes goes days in the winter without any income. In this way, grinding MTTs is like running your own business. You never know when the next big score is coming, so you have to plan ahead and save just in case it doesn’t come for a while.

Anyway, here are the (small) numbers from last week:

# MTTs: 54

Average buy-in: $37.53 (bigger than usual because one of the days I played was a Sunday)

Hours: 15.5

Net result: +$191.73

I won a 180 tournament, which is why I squeaked out a small profit. And speaking of 180s, PokerStars (once again) shows how much they listen to their players. Since I last wrote, they have fixed both the structure and the buy-ins of their 180 tournaments. I should have known that I had nothing to worry about :)

Until next week, good luck at the tables!

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So Close and Yet So Far! Courtney Gee Poker Update - May 10, 2011

Tue, 10 May 2011 22:08:38 -0700

It was a pretty good week. I won a $22 freeze-out for $3.6k and had a few other final tables in small fields. Three out of the four days I played were winnings days, which is really strange for full-time MTTs.

I went deep in yesterday’s SCOOP Event 2, the $215 medium buy-in. I ended up taking 36th for $2.8k. I played it under a Sunday Majors staking arrangement, however, and so only kept ~$800 of it after clearing makeup (not my makeup… but that’s a story for another day).

Because of the SCOOP event, I played poker for 16 hours yesterday. My regular schedule ended after 9 hours, and then I just 1-tabled for the next 7 hours until Day 1 was over. It seems like such a waste of 7 hours to 1-table like that, but I was already so tired from the previous 9 hours and couldn’t stand to play anything else.

I guess this is an appropriate time to use the quote “so close and yet so far”! It seems like I was so close to a huge payday, but 36 people is still pretty far away. Or maybe I’m just saying this to keep myself from feeling disappointed? Nevertheless, it was the first time I have ever gone deep in a tournament with 6-figures for 1st place, so it was pretty fun.

Another source of disappointment from this past week comes from the fact that PokerStars changed their 180 tournaments. They changed and added a bunch of new buy-ins, so now they fill SOOO slowly (because there are too many different tournaments to fill). They also changed the structure of the tourneys, causing a ridiculously low average stack size for the second half of each tournament. These are really awful changes.

Of course all of this is just my opinion. I speak from the point of view of someone who is trying to make a living from tournaments. I was starting to depend on 180s a lot for lowering variance and for filling in my schedule, and now the 180s don’t meet my needs.

There have been a lot of complaints regarding these changes, however, so hopefully PokerStars improves the situation soon. Then I can write about how awesome PokerStars is for listening to customer feedback! That’s the plan at least.

See you next week!

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Courtney Gee Poker Update - April Recap and MTT Variance

Wed, 04 May 2011 11:42:16 -0700

Obviously these things are some of the best parts about having no boss, but it’s important to have the discipline to enjoy them in moderation. In the past I have been guilty of wasting too much time during the week, and then I end up playing one less day of poker than originally intended. I have to admit that it’s REALLY difficult to correct this habit.

Something I have been struggling to figure out is what to do when I wake up feeling blah and not wanting to play poker. Do I take the day off or do I just fight through it and play?

It’s not like I can just take the day off every time I don’t feel like playing. It’s my job and I have to put the hours in. But then what if I play terribly because I really don’t want to play? Most people play worse than usual when they don’t feel like playing, myself included. How do I correct this?

This past week I played just three days thanks to a short vacation. The two days immediately after my vacation I didn’t feel like playing at all. I missed lounging around and wanted to go back to doing nothing. It sucked and I definitely didn’t play my best on Friday and Saturday.

Ironically, the day I lost the most was on Sunday when I actually felt like playing poker. Sunday was really bad, which is highlighted by the fact I played 54 tournaments that day. My average for Sunday is 35, so this is absurdly high for me. Just goes to show how much volume you can get in when you’re busting everything really quickly :P

The numbers for last week:

# MTTs: 116

Average buy-in: $25.26

Hours: 21

Net result: -$1,926.80

Isn’t MTT variance fun?

Overall in April I was +$893 after some rakeback and poker bonuses, which is obviously less than I would usually hope to make in a given month. Hopefully my profit is much better for the month of May! But I wouldn’t be surprised if May was another breakeven month, or even a losing month. That’s just how MTTs are.

Good luck at the tables and see you next week!

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Ain't Nuthin' but a Gee Thang - Poker Update

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:29:10 -0700

Hi everyone! I played four days of online poker since the last time I wrote:

# MTTs: 132

Average buy-in: $30.20

Hours: 31.5

Net result: -$537.39

I lost a lot less than the previous week, and overall I’m pretty happy with it. It might seem weird that I’d be happy about a losing week, but the truth is that this is a miniscule loss when it comes to MTTs.

If I only lost $537 every time I had a losing week, I’d be rich in no time!

A big reason for the low loss amount is the fact that I have been playing as many $36 turbo 180 sit-and-gos as possible. They fill up fairly regularly during Euro peak hours, especially on weekends. This past Sunday I registered all of them between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm (PST) and got in nine.

The 180s help a lot because they are easy to final table since they 1) have small fields and 2) are incredibly soft. Being insanely soft has a lot to do with Black Friday. While they were obviously very beatable back when Americans were still playing, a lot of the 180 grinders are now gone. This is really good news for someone like me because 180s are great for reducing MTT variance.

Looking back at my spreadsheets from the four days I played last week, it looks like most of my decent cashes came from $36 180s. I made 3 final tables and came 2nd in one of them. These cashes really help while waiting around for a bigger score from one of the other tourneys that I play on a regular basis.

Another reason I have started playing as many 180s as possible is that they make the mental challenge of playing MTTs a lot easier to deal with. Tournaments can be difficult to play on a regular basis because they obviously so often end in disappointment.

Big final tables can be few and far between, so making a bunch of small field final tables really helps emotionally while waiting around for a bigger score.

I have stopped playing on Full Tilt Poker for the time being. It is my personal preference to stick with PokerStars exclusively while all the Black Friday stuff is going on. Once Full Tilt has paid all of its American players and have established that they are, indeed, business as usual without the US, I might go back.

Without Full Tilt tournaments in my schedule, I no longer have $75 freeze-outs at my disposal, and I have one less $109 tournament in my schedule. This has caused my average buy-in to drop quite a bit, and I imagine it will stay this way for a while barring any major bankroll increase.

Three days of poker coming up and hopefully I can actually write about some profit next week. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables!

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Black Friday and TGI Canada! - Courtney Gee

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:39:58 -0700

By now everyone in the poker world has heard about the charges against PokerStars, Full Tilt, and AP/UB.

I am shocked and saddened at the situation some of my American friends have been put in. Just when we were all starting to feel safe and like regulation might actually happen, online poker was plunged into chaos like never before.

I feel extremely lucky to be in Canada and I can’t imagine how it would feel to be an American poker player right now. I guess I’d be looking for a job and that this blog’s theme would be over before it even started?

This past weekend has taught me that I should never take anything for granted. I’ve heard stories about people having x% of their net worth online, now trapped in Full Tilt or PokerStars. They have minimal money in real life and are in a horrible spot. It seems that people just became too comfortable and too complacent.

I’m guilty of being lazy about the amount of money I have online, as well. I probably have 2/3 of my bankroll online at the moment, which is way too much and totally unnecessary. I’m lucky that I’m in Canada and currently shouldn’t be in any danger of losing any of it.

This turn of events really highlights how important it is to have a backup plan while playing poker for a living. Whether it’s running bad, getting really sick, or poker sites shutting down, anything could happen and you have to be ready for it.

As poker players, we don’t have benefits, sick leave, or vacation pay. We should always have money in the bank.

For non-Americans, online poker appears to be fine for now. In fact, with so many American grinders gone, I daresay that the games have become a lot easier. I played on PokerStars this past weekend and the games were softer than I can ever remember.

Weekly Poker Update:

I keep a detailed spreadsheet of the games I play on a daily basis, and I plan to update this blog every week with my progress. Some people find stuff like this interesting, and I think it will help keep me accountable.

I usually play four days per week, but this past week I only played three:

# MTTs: 83

Average buy-in: $34.50

Hours: 23

Net result: -$2,075.95

You can see that I didn’t have a very good week! The weekend was a bloodbath. It was extremely frustrating since the games were so good, but I ran horribly and could not get anything going.

So far this month I have played 8 days, 65 hours, and 202 MTTs. I’m up a small amount of just under $950. I did cash a live tournament earlier this month, though, and I also have some bonuses/rakeback, so overall I’m up ~$2k.

I’m crossing my fingers for some run good this week!

Visit www.pokerlistings.com

Courtney Gee Says Goodbye 9-5, Hello Poker - Part 2

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:31:34 -0700

In my first post, I explained why I made it a goal to avoid working a 9 to 5 job. I quit my full-time job, got a part-time job writing for a website, and planned to play 25-30 hours of poker every week.

I had been mostly a tournament player but I decided that I would try to earn my income through 6-max cash games.

In this post, I'll give a quick summary of my 2010.

I played mainly cash games the first 8 months of the year with some MTTs here and there. I had trouble, though. I ran well below EV and was running bad in general, but my biggest problem was volume. I was bad at multi-tabling and I also could not bring myself to play the necessary hours. It took me a few months to play 50k hands, which is absolutely unacceptable.

I couldn't understand what my problem was. I was supposed to play 5 hours per day but that was rarely happening. I felt like my cash game sessions dragged on and I just never wanted to play.

Going to London might have cut into the playing time.

By the time August 2010 came around, I was up only a marginal amount for the year playing both cash and tournaments. Obviously my bank account was much lower at this point. I had to change something, so I decided to play tournaments full-time instead.

Making the switch to tournaments was very good for me. Not because I made more money doing it, though. In fact, all I did was lose money for the first 3 months of full-time tournament poker.

It was a great idea because I actually WANTED to play poker again. Time flew by for me when I was playing tournaments and I was able to string together 6-10 hour playing days with ease.

I was finally getting in the necessary poker volume, but the lack of income was very frustrating at first. Between August and late October I lost almost 300 average tournament buy-ins, which amounted to almost $9k and a very large portion of my bankroll.

I was playing over-rolled and therefore not in immediate danger, but it was very stressful. I only had a few more months of living expenses in the bank, and the prospect of having to go back to work if poker didn't turn around was looming very large.

I got a lucky break at the end of October. I won ~$3.5k playing a $26 FO on Full Tilt, and then a week or so later I placed 2nd in the Double Deuce for $21k. Instantly the weight was lifted off my shoulders. I felt very lucky to have such a huge score and it definitely came at the right time.

Since then I have had a couple more decent scores and I am comfortable financially. I'm still working part-time for FTR and I try to play poker 4 days per week. My goal for the year is 4,000 MTTs. I'm behind pace right now because I keep taking time off to go out of town, but I should be able to make it as long as I grind consistently for the rest of the year.

Thanks for reading these boring introductory posts :) I hope my future entries will be much more interesting!

I will update on a regular basis with my progress and share my experience as I try to avoid going back to 9 to 5.

I'm no poker superstar and my game needs a lot of work, so you shouldn't expect enlightening strategy or tips in this blog. You should, however, expect posts regarding discipline, bankroll management, money management, and dealing with variance – things that are often overlooked but very important when it comes to playing poker for a living.

If you have ever considered quitting your job in favor of poker, hopefully I can give you some valuable insight!

Visit www.pokerlistings.com

Courtney Gee's New Blog: Say Goodbye to the 9-5!

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:24:52 -0700

My name is Courtney Gee - welcome to my new blog! You might already know me from a couple posts I wrote in February about my PokerStars Big Game experience. My story for being on the Big Game revolves around a goal to never work another 9 to 5 job ever again. I would like to use this blog to document my experience as I work to achieve this goal.

I'll try to give you some background info to explain why I have this goal, and hopefully it doesn't end up being too boring.

I went to the University of British Columbia and majored in Biochemistry. At the time I thought I wanted a career in the health care industry. In my third year I realized that I absolutely hated what I was studying, but I felt like it was too late to quit. I decided to just finish up and leave with my BSc.

Courtney actually on the set of the Big Game. She's really there!

While I was going to school, I joined Student Works Painting and ran my own business. I did this for 3 years. The summers were crazy difficult and I've never worked so hard in my life. It was well worth it, though, because I got through school with zero student loans and got amazing management experience.

My years with Student Works are important because they showed me what it's like to be my own boss and to have freedom with my job. I worked 14 hour days, but I decided EVERYTHING – what time I wanted to start, where I wanted to work, and who I wanted to work with.

I graduated a few months after my last year with Student Works. I was working in cell phone sales part-time, and I went full-time after I graduated. I must admit that the 7 months that I worked full-time for this company were some of the worst months of my life.

The days were long and monotonous. Every day I got up way earlier than I wanted, went to the same office, sat at the same desk, made the same phone calls, and made the same sales pitch. If I wanted a day off, it had to be booked way in advance. If I got sick, there was a lot of pressure to get better ASAP and get back to work.

I could go on and on with things I was unhappy about. Every day I woke up in the morning and could not wait for the day to be over so that I could go back to bed again.

This job obviously wasn't for me, so I started planning for being able to quit. I had a couple things going for me. One was poker. I had learned to play poker a few years ago and I had become quite competent at it. The other thing was a part-time job with FlopTurnRiver.com (FTR). I had worked for them part-time while I was going to school and they were willing to take me back.

I quit my job at the end of 2009. At this point I had a year of living expenses in the bank and a $20k bankroll. I planned to work 15 hours per week for FTR and then spend 25-30 hours per week playing and studying poker.

Because of my part-time job, I only had to make ~$1,500 per month playing poker. This seemed easy to me because it meant making just $13/hour at the tables.

It’s Murphy’s Law, however, that things should be difficult just as soon as you think they should be easy! In my next post, I’ll talk about how my new life went for me in 2010. Thanks for reading and see you next time!

Visit www.pokerlistings.com

Courtney Gee Back from the PokerStars Big Game!

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:42:00 -0800

If you haven't yet, check out Courtney's first post that went up last week, the day before she played her Big Game session.

Also, keep an eye out for Courtney's new blog right here on PokerListings.com! She's on a poker quest to never work a 9-5 job again and she'll be keeping us in the loop the whole time.

Take it away Courtney.

I felt weird waking up today. Part of it was that I was waking up in my own bed for the first time in a few days, but the other part of it was that my life felt normal again.

In the weeks before Vegas, I would wake up in the morning filled with thoughts about what I had to do to prepare for February 20th. I would go over my schedule for the day. Usually it included hand history review, a few hours of online cash, some practice with real cards and chips, and maybe some live cash.

I also felt a little nervous every morning because it was one day closer to when I would need to leave for Vegas, and I never felt ready.

As it got closer to the big day, I quickly learned that I would never feel ready. From the end of January to mid-February I played ~60 hours of cash games total, spent countless hours talking to friends about hand histories on instant messengers, laid out my strategy for the Big Game (including bet sizing, starting hands, etc), took notes on pros from season 1 of the show, made Word files filled with new things I was learning and things I wanted to keep in mind, watched a few poker videos, and got coached by some great cash players.

Las Vegas, home of bright lights and a cavalier attitude towards water use.

While I was doing all of this, I felt like I wasn't doing enough. Now that I look back, I can say that I worked hard and probably did just fine.

I felt extremely nervous in the days before I was scheduled to fly to Vegas. I felt fine the day we got into Vegas, but on February 19th (the day before my playing day), I felt more nervous than I had ever felt in my life.

My friend and I hung out on the strip and had an amazing dinner, and I spent the entire time trying not to think about it and trying not to be nervous. Being nervous during a time like that is strange. There was nothing more I could do to prepare, and there was also nothing anyone could say to me that would ease the nervousness.

I expected to feel nervous when I woke up the morning of the 20th, but I actually felt mostly fine. I went to breakfast and ate as much as possible, and then I went to the set. It was a flurry of activity there and I didn't have much time to think between the makeup, instructions for how to walk on the set, photos, and mic hookups.

When it was finally time to sit down and get dealt cards, the most amazing thing happened: I felt right at home. It felt like any live game I had ever played before. The chip sizes were MUCH bigger, but my practice with the denominations at home and my experience playing with tournament chips made it natural for me.

I no longer felt nervous. I was ready to play. And I proceeded to have an AMAZING time. Playing in that game was incredibly fun and an experience I'll never forget.

The next day it was all over and time to go back home. And that brings me to today, waking up in my own bed and feeling weird about life. It's all over. It's done... I went and played in a huge cash game, I played well, and now it's over.

Back when I was preparing and feeling nervous, I couldn't wait for it to be over so that I could go back to my normal routine. Now that I'm back from Vegas and it's all over, though, I'm a little sad and kind of miss it.

I expected to feel this way afterward. It's kind of like falling in love. It's so exciting because you don't know what's going to happen and you feel anxious and excited and nervous all at the same time. You can't wait to just find out what's going to happen with this new person and you can't wait to stop feeling this way, but at the same time, it's the most exciting feeling in the world.

And then, when you finally get into a steady relationship with this person and life is normal again, you're happy and relieved, but at the same time you miss the excitement. That's how I feel about love at least, haha :) And that's how I feel about being done with the Big Game.

I'm not sure when the shows are going to air, but I would guess in 3-4 months. I have a lot more to say about my experience, but I will have to hold back until the shows air. It will be interesting to see myself on TV and to relive everything all over again! But until then, it's back to the normal life for me.

Visit www.pokerlistings.com

I'm the Next Loose Cannon on the PokerStars Big Game!

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:57 -0800

Hello, my name is Courtney Gee and I live in Vancouver, British Columbia. Tomorrow I’ll be traveling to Vegas to play in the PokerStars Big Game!

Nice to donkeys in real life only.

I'm 25 years old with a Science degree from the University of British Columbia. I learned to play poker when I was going to school around 5 years ago, and I used to always look forward to our home games.

I couldn't get enough of poker, actually, so I started playing online at PokerStars. I built my bankroll playing sit-n-go's, and since then it's been my favorite hobby.

I started to play poker more seriously last year after quitting my full time job. Having run a student painting business for 3 years while in university, I wasn't happy working for someone and I wanted to take some time to figure out what to do with my life. I got a part time writing job with a website and decided to spend my extra time playing poker.

I came across the Big Game concept when I was writing news articles for the website and was really intrigued by it.

I started playing the Round 1 satellites back in May and I remember being amazed at how difficult it was to win them! I don't know how many I played in total, but it was definitely a number in the (multiple) dozens before I finally won a Round 2 ticket. I busted my first attempt at Round 3 but made it after my second try.

About a week later I spent an entire day making my audition video with a friend. My theme for the video was my current goal in life: to avoid working another full time 9 to 5 job as an employee. After I submitted the video, it was a waiting game.

More smiles to come.

In total, I filled out a questionnaire, did a phone interview, and then did a video interview on Skype. Each time I made it to the next step in the selection process I was a little more surprised. Even though it was a long shot to be chosen as a Loose Cannon, it was exciting to think "I haven't been rejected yet - I still have a chance!"

It's been a rollercoaster ride since I found out that I made the show. I’m extremely excited and of course I am also nervous! I have been practicing my live game, thinking about strategy, and mentally preparing for the big day.

While I obviously would like to leave the game with a healthy profit, my biggest goal is to have fun and enjoy the experience. I never imagined that I would have an opportunity to play a cash game with such an elite group of players!

While all of the pros that play on this show are first class, every Cannon has his or her dream lineup. I think mine would include Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak, Doyle Brunson, and a rich businessman.

I'd like to play with Negreanu, Hellmuth, and Laak because they all love to talk at the table and I think it would be extremely entertaining. I would love to play with Brunson because he is just such a poker legend. And then of course the businessman could be the one to double me up!

I really enjoy tournament poker, and I would use my profit in the Big Game to play some high buy-in events. I haven't had the chance to travel much, so it would be a great opportunity to see the world.

If I can get lucky and run good at the right time, maybe I can make a name for myself and achieve that goal of never working another 9 to 5 job ever again!

Check back next week for the trip report from Courtney's Big Game experience!

Visit www.pokerlistings.com