1/2 is lame

Just finished playing a long session (3k hands, about 5 hours 6-tabling) at 1/2, dropped a little under two buyins. I think I played pretty well, considering that I’m a little rusty from all the time off – I spewed a bit, but also got very little action on good hands and ran pretty badly, both equity-wise and also in terms of continually bluffing into the nuts/v-towning myself. But it wasn’t a total waste of a session, I think I did a pretty good job keeping my cool and more or less played okay.

If I keep logging the hands I should be able to have a good month though – the quality of play at 1/2 is pretty bad for the most part. There are a lot more TAG-fishy regulars than there are at 2/4, plus the amount of goofy fancy-play syndrome is just staggering. I saw some absolutely crazy bluffs tonight. Anyways, I’m confident I’ll have solid results once I start running a little better.

Let’s see, what else is new… crossfit is still a blast but I’m getting a little frustrated at how slowly the strength gains are coming. I feel like I’m working my ass off but I haven’t really gotten all that much stronger yet – I can still only do a couple dead-hang pullups, my pushups are okay I guess but nothing special, and I feel like I’m quite a ways away from being in soccer shape again. I’ve only been doing it a month though so I’m probably being a little impatient. I’ll give it at least another month before I do anything crazy with my diet, etc.

Owned

It’s been a humbling couple days. Sunday afternoon I walked to the Border’s bookstore over by Boston Common, and decided to play a little 3/6 over a latte. Same old same old, I ran bad and played a little sloppy, despite picking two of the juiciest tables ever, and lost about $1400. I quit after I 3bet an aggressive TAG’s MP open with JJ and then c/raised all-in on a 345cc flop, expecting him to call with most of his overpairs since my line should look a lot like a bare ace. He had 5h6h and I couldn’t hold. Very standard hand, at least postflop, but still, it’s frustrating to lose so many coinflips. I’ve only got myself to blame though – I’m obviously not psychologically or financially ready for 3/6, so I need to man up and be more disciplined.

Today was the official start of my second week as a Crossfitter, and the source of my second slice of humble pie. Somehow I managed to sleep twelve hours last night, and I probably should have taken the hint as I felt completely exhausted during my workout. Bad timing as it was a nasty one even under the best of conditions. I finished dead last out of a group of about 10 guys, and they’re not all in sick shape. It was frankly pretty humiliating and I was incredibly frustrated afterwards, but meh, I guess I shouldn’t expect this stuff to be easy. The reality is that I’m not in very good shape and have a lot of hard work ahead of me. No point being a little bitch about it.

Anyways, the plan is to get to bed pretty soon and try to get an earlier start tomorrow.

March!

March is off to a really good start. Although I haven’t played much poker yet, I’m now cleared to go to regular Crossfit Boston classes and I’m completely hooked. Yesterday was my first real class (as opposed to phase I stuff, which is one on one with a coach) and it was a blast – I probably haven’t had an endorphin high like that since high school soccer games. It’s a little early to tell but I think Crossfit will end up being the best thing to happen to me since coming to college – it’s a pretty neat feeling knowing that you’ll be in sick shape in a couple months and have a ton of fun getting there.

I should be a regular at the 6pm class within a couple weeks – for now I’m supposed to be on a 2 day on, 1 day off schedule, just to make sure my body doesn’t collapse or anything (lol I’m so weak…). Having a regular workout to look forward to is amazing – I’m eating better, I don’t stay up as late, and I should be able to get a nice poker schedule set up where I play a session before working out and play one when I get back.

As for March goals, they’re pretty straightforward. I want to be a five day a week crossfitter by the end of the month, and I’m shooting for 40k hands.

Best of luck everyone, Alan

Crossfit is funnn

Went to the info session yesterday morning and had a complete blast. The facility is badass – gymnastic rings, medicine balls, dumbells, kettlebells, weights and of course a big pullup bar. The session consisted of me and two other guys, probably mid to late twenties and in pretty good shape, getting coached by Jon Gilmore. Jon was awesome – clearly a beast, funny, and he knows his shit. He has a website too, againfaster.com, you should all check it out.

We worked on squat technique, ball slams, wall ball, kettlebell swings (w 30lb dumbells though since they didn’t have lighter kettlebells), and box jumps. Afterwards we tried doing three rounds of 15 each of ball slams, wall ball, swings and box jumps, for time. Lol, none of us finished – I was on my second round of box jumps when Jon was like, nope, you’re done buddy. God damn I’m out of shape. And lol, I am soooo sore today.

Tomorrow morning I start “phase I”, which consists of three one-hour private sessions with Jon to get me up to speed with the crossfit repertoire, and then I get join the regular daily classes. Should be awesome.

Blah stop snowing

My cold refuses to die and it snowed all day today, so I’m grumpy. I am unbelievably sick of Boston winters. Couldn’t get motivated to play for some reason so all-in-all a pretty unproductive day.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to a free crossfit info session thing, should be fun, although ugh I really thought I’d be over this cold by now. I expect to get owned.

I’m baaack!

This time I actually had a pretty legit excuse for the blog hiatus…

It’s a pretty long and complicated (and kind of ridiculous) story, but two Sundays ago (on the 10th) I had to catch a last minute flight to Villahermosa, Mexico because of a family emergency. Cliff notes: my cousin Sylvia is bipolar. Her last severe manic episode was in 2004, and although I wasn’t really involved, I know it was pretty bad. This time around she was gallivanting about in the jungles of Mexico with a commune of hippies. As she got more and more manic the hippies (I met two of her friends from the commune, and they were genuinely wonderful people) decided she needed to get some medical care, so they got in touch Sylvia’s stepmother in Montreal, who got in touch with the rest of her family, which set off a rescue effort. My mom, my aunt Nell (Sylvia’s mom) and I were the people on the ground, while other relatives in the States and Canada helped organize from afar. My job was initially just to help out my mom, but I ended up being the communications guy because I had the only laptop and no one’s phone would work. I sent more emails in Mexico than I had in the past six months probably.

Thankfully, things went very very smoothly, considering how badly they could have gone. Variance ftw. Sylvia made it from the her jungle camp to a hospital in Villahermosa (about 6 hours by car) without too many problems, and then this past Friday (the 15th) we all flew back to Montreal and checked her into the McGill University hospital. I flew back to Boston the next day, whereupon I proceeded to get knocked the fuck out by a ridiculous cold. I’ve still got the sniffles and feel like my brain is working at about 70%. Pretty annoying. Oh yeah and I also picked up some diarrhea. Ughhh.

So, I haven’t played any poker in almost two weeks… blah so much for the hand challenge. I’ve got a lesson later today, so hopefully I can come back strong.

Ok, on the the less dramatic part of the broadcast. I am still totally hooked on Smallville. I’m about three quarters of the way done with the third season. I still don’t think it’s as good as Buffy (Clark is great, Chloe can actually act! but doesn’t get much screen time, Pete’s okay but kind of meh, I hope Lana gets shot in the face) but it has its charms for sure. I’ve also just started watching the new show Reaper. I’m undecided so far – there were a couple hysterical moments in the pilot, but the next few episodes weren’t as funny and the plotting/mechanics of the show are a little shaky. I will persevere though because the girl is a baaaaabe. Tbh she’s such a babe that her character doesn’t make any sense – wtf is a girl that hot doing working at a shitty hardware store? The funny thing is that in the original version of the pilot they had a different girl playing her part, and she was waaaay more plausible – she’s hot but not quite so freakishly perfect looking. Whatever, Missy Peregrym >>> plausibility imo.

Only other update is that I think I’m gonna give crossfit a shot. There’s a really awesome looking crossfit gym in Boston, and I’m gonna try out their free intro session this Saturday. Judging by some of their youtube videos, crossfit looks like a complete blast – I did some crossfit-style workouts for soccer in high school, and omfg they were hard (but fun too).

Back to the grind, Alan

Post-lesson update: Booyah

Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

arrrrtard (BTN): $604.70
SB: $463.90
BB: $657.90
UTG: $524.10
MP: $585.90
CO: $398

Pre-Flop: J J dealt to arrrrtard (BTN)
2 folds, CO raises to $12, arrrrtard calls $12, SB folds, BB raises to $50, CO folds, arrrrtard calls $38

Flop: ($114) 7 J 7 (2 Players)
BB bets $114, arrrrtard calls $114

Turn: ($342) 2 (2 Players)
BB checks, arrrrtard bets $120, BB calls $120

River: ($582) T (2 Players)
BB checks, arrrrtard bets $320.70 and is All-In, BB calls $320.70

Results: $1,223.40 Pot ($3 Rake)
arrrrtard showed J J (a full house, Jacks full of Sevens) and WON $1,220.40 (+$615.70 NET)
BB mucked T T (a full house, Tens full of Sevens) and LOST (-$604.70 NET)

Villain was playing 65/13/0.5 over 120 hands. Oh so satisfying, and a pretty sick river. Up a little over $1k on the day, nice way to ease back into poker.

February!

I was all set to grind out a few more buyins to end January but FTP had to go and get all laggy on me, so I decided to just take a day off and rest up for February. Didn’t do a whole lot today other than read my book and watch Blood Diamond. I have to admit, I didn’t think it looked that great in the previews, but I loved it. One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. That said, how could I not like it, it’s got tons of cool accents and Jennifer Connolly.

As for February, I’ve got big plans. Well, sort of. I want to really push myself to grind some hands. I’m shooting for 50k. I think that’s very doable, especially since I’m getting used to 6-tabling. I just need to keep working on not burning myself out with overly long sessions when I’m stuck – I think consciously playing much shorter sessions will work out to way more hands. Part of the solution to that problem is reading Tommy Angelo’s new book, Elements of Poker. A couple poker friends have recommended it to me, and it looks pretty good.

Money-wise, if I can put in the hands I think I could pull in my first $20k month. I feel really comfortable at 2/4 at the moment, so with a little luck I’ll have a decent shot.

Oh yeah, and no 3/6 this month. That’s a promise. I’m gonna force myself to wait until I have $30k in my bankroll, and that way I can take some shots at 5/10 as well.

As far as non-poker stuff goes, my main goal is to keep going with the exercise routine. I’ve gotten a little lazy over the past couple weeks, so it’ll be important to start February off disciplined. The 50k hands goal and the exercise goal go pretty much hand in hand, so hopefully I’ll be rich and jacked by the end of the month 🙂

Gl everyone and happy February, Alan

Back in Boston

Planning on resuming the grind tomorrow – I’m a little bit tired from the traveling so probably no playing today. I have been watching some poker videos though (oh man I forgot how fast our internet is…), so the brain’s not totally idle. Speaking of which, I strongly encourage all of you to check out deucescracked.com, which is shaping up to be a totally sick resource. It used to focus entirely on limit play, but recently joined forces with a bunch of excellent no-limit players. My coach, wiltontilt, is one of the founding members of the site’s new incarnation, and I’m super excited about what they’re doing.

Otherwise, just gonna take it easy tonight. I’ve started reading The Golden Compass, and I’m really enjoying it – tbh though I’m a little concerned I’ve already read it… heh you’d think I’d know one way or the other, but I have an oddly poor medium-to-long-term memory and often forget stuff like that. E.g. when the sixth Harry Potter book came out, I decided to reread all of the previous ones. When I got to the fifth book I was like huh, guess I never read this one, since none of this seems familiar… until I got 3/4 of the way through and vividly recalled a scene. Talk about a “wtf is wrong with me” moment, lol.

Either way, The Golden Compass is pretty awesome so far. I should finish it sometime tomorrow, which will more or less keep me on pace to read a book per week in 2008… yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts 🙂

2008!

Hey everyone, happy new year!

I’m chilling in New York at the moment with my dad. Tomorrow night I’m catching a plane back home to Virginia, since my little brother is getting back from his semester abroad in Australia. The plan is to relax at home for a week or so before his spring semester at UPenn starts up, and then I’ll fly back up to Boston. Should be fun, especially since he’s finally gonna let me teach him how to play poker 🙂

I’m not usually real big about making new year’s resolutions, but I guess it’d be fun to look back on this post a year from now so what the heck, I’ll indulge. I’ll start with the more concrete and get to the squishy poker stuff later.

First, I want to get in sick shape this year. Sports used to be a huge part of my life, and it frankly sucks that they aren’t anymore. I’ve started working out again ad I want it to be a big part of my routine this year. I think it’ll give me something to work hard on that’s totally separate from poker – and I think it’s important to have some diversity to your interests, especially if you’re super competitive like I am, because it can be really depressing when the one and only thing you’re doing isn’t going well. I’m hoping it’ll be easier to handle the poker swings if I know I’m doing a good job with exercise.

Second, I want to start reading more. I read a ton as a kid – part of the reason why it took me 21 years to learn the rules of poker is that I never played board games etc. when I was little, I just read a lot. After I read Jurassic Park back in second grade, I was hooked… but I pretty much stopped reading towards the end of high school, and barely read at all in college (required or otherwise). Anyways, I did a bunch of reading while in Spain and want to keep it up. I’m shooting for a book per week. This week’s selection is The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick. I read one of his other books, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (it’s the book behind Blade Runner), in Europe and loved it.

Okay, moving on towards poker goals. Poker goals are always tricky, since it’s hard to come up with ones that are both interesting and inspiring, but also feasibly doable. Saying you want to win $500k this year is potentially really counter-productive, because who knows, you might go on a sick four month downswing, have to drop down in limits, etc. You might fall way short of a monetary goal for reasons that were largely out of our control, which means most monetary goals are kind of shitty.

So I’ll just say that I would really like to win $500k this year 🙂

No I’m kidding, I don’t expect to win $500k this year obviously. Broadly speaking, I want to be able to look back a year from now and say, 2008 was the year I really mastered the fundamentals of NL holdem. I guess a more concrete way of putting it is that I want to be able to teach someone how to play poker, and not just show them. I could show my brother how to be a winning small stakes player, but I can’t really teach him – my theoretical understanding of the game is just too shallow. I don’t really grok yet a lot of the standard moves in a MSNL player’s arsenal, and I want that to change this year.

In terms of moving up in stakes… I’d really like to be a HSNL player by the end of the year. I’ll be really proud if I’m playing mostly 5/10+ at some point this year.

I think that’s doable. I know I’ve got the talent and smarts to be a very good poker player – the real question is whether or not I’ve got the discipline. Discipline has never been one of my strengths. So far I’ve managed to do pretty well in life just by coasting by on natural talent, but I think it’s time for me to grow up a bit – being both lazy and extremely competitive is a guaranteed recipe for unhappiness. And really, all I’m hoping for in 2008 is to be happy. I’m not happy being out of shape and struggling at 1/2 and 2/4 nl, so I guess I need to make some changes.

Well, no point making a ridiculously long post any longer. I think 2008 will be a fun year… hopefully we can all learn a lot, make some money, and be happy 🙂

Good luck everyone, Alan

Barcelona

First impression: Barcelona seems like a very, very cool city.

We’re staying in a place called Hotel Soho, which as you might have guessed is not so much a hotel as a gay club. It’s got a very “artsy” metallic theme, there’s goofy electro-pop/techno music playing in the lobby, and it’s just really really gay, basically. No idea how my mom found it. I kind of like it though – I’d go totally crazy if I had to stay here for more than a week, but in limited doses it’s pretty pleasant.

This is our second night in the city. Our bus from Zaragoza got in around 5pm so we didn’t have much time to explore, but the concierge showed us a really cool cerveceria/tapas bar for dinner, which was fun. The food was awesome, and the bar had some cool beers, including (bottled) Chimay. I’ve had Chimay before, and I’m still a fan.

We did a bunch of wandering today, first down towards the beach and then east towards the Gran Casino. I don’t know, I was expecting the casino to be a lot cooler – it’s pretty small, with one large room/floor for slot machines and another room/floor for table games. They probably have 8-10 tables reserved for poker, although when we were there only one game was running. According to the floor guy the only no-limit game they run is a €2/5 uncapped game with a minimum buyin of €200. That’s a much better structure than I was expecting, although the game’s a little bigger than I’d like… if I’ll play I’ll sit with at least €500, maybe €1k, which is a good bit larger than I’m used to playing with. Heh, and the only other time I’ve played live was in a $5nl game with some friends.

Today’s Christmas so no poker until Wednesday night at least – depending on how I feel I’ll probably play again Thursday night. I think we’re heading back to Zaragoza on Friday, so what the heck, might as well take a shot 🙂