Revisiting my 2009 resolutions

As I head into 2010 with a shitload of resolutions, I think it's a good idea for me to revisit my 2009 resolutions so that I can recognize my successes and failures of last year. So here we go, from this post:

1. Get in shape: Fail. I'm in much worse shape now then I was last year.
1a. Eat healthier: Somewhat.
1b. Work out in the mornings: Fail.
1c. Play ball at least four times a week: Fail.
1d. Light weights: Fail.
1e. Run and/or play tennis on the weekends: Fail.
1f. Get my six pack back: Fail.

2. Poker: Success.
2a. Make at least 50k in poker for the year: Success.
2b. Manage my money better: Success.
2c. Win a tournament: Success.
2d. Finish in the money at a WSOP event: Fail.

3. More music: Success.
3a. Make better music, songs with content and direction and at the same time widespread appeal: Success.
3b. Start producing my own beats: Fail.
3c. Start performing regularly: Fail.
3d. Get on a track with a big name: Fail.

4. Money: Success.
1a. Conserve my money and manage it better: Success.
1b. Get a new car this year (Cadillac CTS?): Success (although not a CTS).

5. Family/Friends: Fail.
5a. Keep in touch with more friends: Fail.
5b. Make a better effort to see my family and take a couple trips: Success.

6. Manage my time: Fail.
1a. Keep an agenda/schedule: Fail.
1b. Don't waste time watching tv, on the internet: Fail.
1c. Be punctual: Fail.
1d. Get sleep so I'm more efficient: Success.

Overall I have to say that 2009 was an incredible success for me, both professionally and personally. Besides becoming a successful professional poker player (keep in mind this is only for seven months so far), I learned so much along the way. I spent a lot of time with some well-known poker pros and heard great stories about their experiences together and making it as young poker pros.

I got some traveling in to Vegas about eight times, Seattle a few times, and Hawaii. This year I'm looking forward to more trips but more trips means making more money so I can pay for them. The one definite problem with playing poker for a living is that there's no such thing as paid vacation. Luckily while I was in Hawaii I won a tournament on Full Tilt and that paid for the trip and knocked out one of my 2009 goals to win a tournament. I didn't cash in three small buy-in events that I played at the WSOP although I bubbled in the first event. It really sucked ass. I was walking out of the room and they announced "congratulations players, you've made the money."

As for my music, I'm very happy with what I accomplished in 2009. I probably made about ten songs and have taken a bit of a new direction with my boy that I'm working with and we're still improving and learning how to shape our style. I'm excited that we're working on it and improving.

I'm disappointed in myself as far as my time management and exercise. I'm just not doing anything with either and I need to. Those will be my biggest goals for the year.

But other than that great things happened for me this year - I quit my job to play poker, I bought a new car, and surprisingly I've made it as a finalist for an entrepreneur grant that I have to present for in Chicago this month. Exciting for me and it will be another great learning experience.

That being said, I have so much growing to do. I told myself that 2009 was my year to "make moves" and I did. Quit my job, bought a car, started a new company.

Now, 2010 is my year to "Arrive."

2010 is Here

Yo yo yo yo...

Sorry about the absence.

The good news is I'm not busto, so we can leave those assumptions alone.

I finished 2009 very strong, had one of my best months ever (or maybe the best ever) in December. I came into the month hurting and set a goal for myself to win $750 per session for 20 sessions and ended up surpassing my goal by a lot. I was running so well that I stopped going to my prop player job to go to my regular 5/10 game and keep playing there.

The prop job actually sucks balls but I'll write more on that in a different entry (how many times have I said that lol).

Anyways I have a ton of resolutions and one of them is to blog regularly so I wanted to make sure I get an entry in here before the end of the day.

Went to a mansion party that was nuts last night in Hollywood Hills. It was a mess getting in and getting seated at our table but by the time we finally did it was a great time, although some purses and shit got stolen but shit happens.

So I'll post my resolutions tomorrow because there's a lot of them, I plan on having a big year. 2009 was my year to "make moves" and I definitely did. I'm tagging 2010 as my "arrival" so I have high hopes for this year.

Happy New Year and peace.

Having a good week...

There's a bunch of things that have happened in the past week that have been good, including 5/6 winning sessions. Shout out to my boys that kept the positive vibes going (Drew, Viet).

Also went out Monday night and had a good time. Got my favorite phone call "P is in town, we're goin out" and after that it was a wrap but I did spend the night next to the toilet throwing up throughout the morning.

I have noticed that the games at Hollywood Park are literally dying. It seems like they lose a table every month in their poker room. I'm guessing it's a combination of fish running out of money and players moving to other casinos where the service, staff, and games are better. For some reason Hollywood Park doesn't provide better service or food, they just bank on their prime location to keep them running but it's going to end soon if they don't make a change.

I did run horrendous in NFL picks. It was bound to happen. The last three weeks my buddies have asked me which games I liked in the NFL so I gave them my picks and was 16-0 over three weeks. So I decided it was time for me to start capitalizing on this and of course I go 1-5 in my picks. Brilliant!

Also saw a couple movies, Paranormal Activity, which I enjoyed a lot and Where the Wild Things Are, which I thought was so-so and somewhat disappointed with it.

The inside scoop is that if Ivey doubles up at the final table, he's gonna win it.

No Posts = Running Bad

Let's face it -- I'm a fair-weather blogger. I hate to come on here and tell y'all how bad I'm doing.

Basically I've made several mistakes in my young poker career and I'm not ashamed to say that I've made them, but I'm happy to say that I'm learning from them and growing from them (hopefully).

Let me outline some of the mistakes that I've made:

4. Went to the World Series under bankrolled and entered a few small buy-in events. While I was out there, I gambled on craps, sports and black jack. I probably broke even in these side games because I had a monster day in black jack and craps, but it changed my mentality. I was there for the month of June and stayed in the Bellagio, where they have conveniently placed the craps tables close to the guest elevators. I'm also not a tournament player but I played the first $1k buy-in event and busted on the bubble, which gave me some optimism for the upcoming tournaments, none of which I did any better in. Vegas crushed my bankroll and I was lucky to come back to L.A. and rebound quickly in the cash games in July.

3. Too much traveling at the wrong time. In August, right in the middle of my hot streak in the L.A. cash games, I went to Hawaii and then Seattle for over two weeks. There's nothing wrong with traveling, but in hindsight I would have much rather stayed in L.A. and continued to build my bankroll. That being said, I did manage to somehow make money in Hawaii when I won a small online tournament and another $1k at an Indian Reservation casino near Seattle. However, the problem with the traveling was it completely took me out of my 'grinder' mindset. When I returned to L.A., I still felt like I was on vacation. I took a few extra days off and never really settled back into a good routine in regards to poker.

2. Spending too much money. A lot of my good friends always tease me about my horrible spending habits. If there's a new pair of Jordans, I buy them. If we go to the strip club, I spend a lot. If I go out to the club, I spend a lot on drinks and bottles. When I'm running hot, it's great and no problem. But when I'm running bad and I'm looking at all these shoes that I never wear, I feel like a moron, which I am.


1. Bad prioritizing. I'm gonna be honest here - too much time with girls. If I'm not on a date one night, I'm going out the next night to check girls out. That means $ on drinks, then if I meet a girl, $ on dates. I've gotten (more) out of shape and lazier since I quit my job, which is the exact opposite of what I told myself I would do. I figured once I quit my job I would have much more time for exercising and the gym, but instead my attitude has become way too relaxed towards my own health.

And after all those mistakes it really hurt to run bad for the last month+. I would say I had two winning sessions out of about 15 at one point and also made several mistakes of my own.

The good thing is that I have time to make a change and improve on this. I have the right people around me as far as friends and family and I have plenty of opportunities to make it happen.

I'm thinking about (and probably will) working as a prop player for a few days a week (six hour shifts) to keep a consistent paycheck coming that will pay my bills. I definitely need to see if it's worth it because I would be playing a smaller game ($100-200 buy-in, $2/3 blinds) and making $24/hr. The people I've talked to think it's accurate to assume that at best I would make $25/hr. in a game that small. If that's accurate, I would be fine doing that for a while and playing my regular game at night. However, that's saying at BEST I'd be making $25/hr. + $24/hr. But it will definitely be a learning experience on this poker trail to see the inner-workings of a poker room.

I hope everyone is doing well. I'll try and post more often.

4 years...

Sour Update

Sorry for the lack of updates for anyone that cares, especially my dude Drew. Appreciate the support and following from everyone.

ANYWAYS...

Let's catch up. So I started that challenge last time I was posting, I don't remember what it was but I failed miserably. I believe after my last post I had a horrible day at Hollywood Park.

I decided to take a couple days off before the live tournaments started at Commerce. I was going to take a shot at their $500k guaranteed tournament. It was an interesting tournament for $220. It wasn't a "rebuy" tournament but you had the option to buy into all three day one's if you wanted. And that's what i did, wasting all $660. The first day I was on a roll until I got aces cracked twice in ten minutes and then got my tens beat by a flush draw when we went all-in on the flop. The shitty part was that it was the same guy.. all three times.. all three times with suited connectors or gappers.

The second day I went pretty deep, and was about 190th (about 1300 I believe started that day) before I busted out. 127 make the money. Ugh.

The third day was the day of the USC/Ohio State game and I had no business playing that day because I was unfocused and really didn't care if I busted out because I wanted to go watch the game. So I busted out in the second level with some reckless/careless play.

The good thing was that Commerce has the "$400" game, where the min/max buy-in is $400. As of last month, Commerce is now the only casino in L.A. that still has the $400 game and this is the game where I really made a lot of my money. So it was nice to play that cash game again and I made a couple thousand or so in two days. I didn't play cash games the third day.

After that, it was downhill. I think I took three or four L's in a row at Hollywood Park.

Now I'm back in Seattle for some family matters.

I plan to post more often when I get back to L.A., making some revisions to my life and that includes posting on here more often whether it's related to poker or not.

Hope everyone's luck is better than mine right now.

peace.. 4 years. stay focused.

I'm in the Fail Lane

Yesterday I started off at the no-cap game and it was a terrible game. I lost $500.

I moved to the $3-500 game and grinded my way up about $5/600 when the action started picking up. I won a few good hands and before I knew it, I was up over $1200 at the table, which put me up over $700 for the day and would have got me on pace for my challenge.

Did I leave?

No.

With good reason. Two donkeys showed up to my table and the action picked up a lot. Then the following hand occurred*:

I have AA in the small blind. Super donk in early position makes it $15 ($400 behind). Two callers, then the button makes it $55 ($500 behind). I raise to $170. The original donk-raiser says "Well, this is my favorite hand," and moves all-in. Everyone folds to me and I call. The flop comes Q-T-4 rainbow. Turn 4, river x and the guy turns over 4-7 off-suit.

Not much later I raise with AK and the donk, who's stack has dwindled to about $200, moves all-in on me. Everyone folds and I call. I miss everything and he turns over 5-6 offsuit for a pair of fives on the turn.

Not much later after that I pick up Q-2 of hearts in the big blind. The donk makes it $30 and gets one caller (another semi-donk). The flop comes 7h-Qd-Kh. I check, the donk bets $75 and we both call. I was tempted to raise but didn't want him out if I hit my heart. The turn is a rag heart. The donk checks, the other players moves in, I smooth call and the donk smooth calls. The river is a blank and I push in hoping to get a call (I definitely overbet it) and the donk folds. The other player shows the nut flush.

So by the end of this shit I ended up down $925 for the day.

I took today off and played a little micro stakes PLO on Full Tilt. By the way, Full Tilt put my money back into my account and also gave me $300 for my troubles getting the check cashed. This is pretty sweet considering that's the exact amount that I deposited in the first place before I won the tournament. I would post their email except I don't have photoshop on this computer. The funny thing is my boy ended up calling Ivey to ask him about the mishap and Ivey was like "Why didn't he just get thye money wired to his bank? That's what everyone does..." which makes more sense but I didn't want to give my routing information out over the connection in Hawaii so I just opted for the check. I've also received checks from FT before that went through just fine. I guess I'll try the wire now.

So far:

Day 1: +$270
Day 2: -$925

*does anyone know of a site that converts live game hand histories to html? All the sites that I could find just want the FT of PS hand histories pasted into the converter, but I need one that I can do manually.

Peace. Don't forget: Four years.

Here's the email from FT:

---

Hi 206change,

You are receiving this email because there is an issue with your recent check withdrawal from Full Tilt Poker. The following transaction(s) are affected:

03961E89 totalling $2000.00.

If you have not yet done so, please do not attempt to cash or deposit your current withdrawal check(s). Due to issues with one of our payment processors, the checks listed above will not be honoured by the bank.

The total amount you attempted to withdraw will be returned to your Full Tilt account within the next 24 hours.

We have now resolved the issue and you may re-initiate another check withdrawal once your balance is restored in the cashier.

We understand the importance of receiving your funds in a timely manner and apologize sincerely for this delay and for any inconvenience caused.

In appreciation of your patience in this matter, we will be crediting your Full Tilt Poker account with $300.00 within the next 24 hours.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding. Please reply to this email for any clarification and assistance.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker Support

Day 1: Fail

Well just like last time I gave myself a challenge, I failed day 1.

However, I made a little money, scoring a profit of $270.

I'm going back today, now I need to make up for the lost time.

Yesterday a buddy who needs some funds gave me $190 to invest in my poker session. Before I knew it, I was in for $1500 (the buy-in max is $500) so his $190 shrunk to 13% of my buy-in. Luckily I was able to find a fish and fight back to reach a profit and return $230 to him.

So today I'll be in for 100% of myself, which I like a little better.

peace.