25% off poker lessons!

I have decided to re-open my coaching services.

Now is the perfect time to improve your game at a huge discount, as I'm offering poker lessons for 25% off!!! Improve your game significantly so when online poker sorts itself out you can annihilate your opponents!

I have decided that I will offer my services at 25% off of what my hourly coaching rate was when I last coached in 2010, which was $250 per hour. It will now be $187.50 per hour. I think this is a great value and you have the added bonus of knowing that I'm a considerably improved poker player since the last time I was coaching students.

My coaching lessons are two hours in length and I feel like a minimum of 5 lessons (10 hours) is ideal for being able to fully convey my knowledge to you and have a significant impact on improving your game. If you choose to purchase a 5 lesson package, I will give you even a further discount of 20% off of the already reduced hourly fee of $187.50 on the entire lesson package. That's only $150 per hour for quality poker lessons! That's a total of 40% off my normal coaching rate!!!

My specialties are NLHE 6 Max cash games and mass tabling. I can help boost your # of tables played by at least a table or two by helping you understand how to use a few secret things that I've discovered in my VPP quest this year... I have slightly over 930k VPPs so far in 2011.

If you would like to contact me about getting lessons feel free to private message me on Cardrunners.com or email me at "Duckslayer2k@gmail.com" and I'd be glad to respond.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Pretty funny website

Got linked to this website from the CR off topic forum... some of the sayings are pretty dumb but I got a good laugh out of a few of them.

Here are a few above average ones:

"Today, a stoplight turned yellow as I was approaching it. I was about to go through but saw a cop, panicked, and slammed on the brakes. I ended up in the middle of the intersection and had to reverse. Soon the light turned green, and I stepped on the gas. My car was still in reverse. FML"

"Today, I saw my ex-girlfriend across the street. I was walking with a girl whom I'd been hooking up with and wanted to make my ex-girlfriend jealous. I kissed her and she immediately smacked me. I got a "ha-ha" text message from my ex. FML"

"Today, an extremely large lady came into the dry cleaners where I work. She puts what I assume is a blanket on the counter to be dry cleaned. I say "So just the one blanket then?" She replies "Those are my pants.....not a blanket." She was a size 56. FML"

"Today, there was a luncheon at work in another dept. We all went to get some free food and see new faces. There was a hot girl walking around chatting. I grabbed my buddy's arm and told him there was a "nice pair of tits here" He saw her. It's his daughter. She's a new-hire... running HR. FML"

"Today, I walked downstairs in a new outfit, after dieting for 3 months, and losing just over 20 pounds. My mom took one look at me and said "You'd better keep going." FML"

"Today, I woke up to find that my dog was missing. I spent about an hour searching for him when my psycho ex-girlfriend texted me his photo. She'd kidnapped him. After driving over there, she shot paintballs at my car. Now I have no dog and a colorful car. FML"

"Today, I was pissing in a urinal and I had the urge to sneeze. Unable to hold it, I sneezed and hit my head on a metal beam supporting the urinal. In complete disarray, I had to step back from the urinal while pissing and managed to spray the floor, the wall, and the person next to me. FML"

I also stumbled upon another one of those vids on the xtranormal.com site. This one is pretty awesome. It's like the classic conversation that occurs after you tell someone that you play online poker for a living. I've been asked so many times by friends and stuff, "ok so if I give you like 200 bucks can you double it for me?" just like in the vid, lol. Definitely worth a watch. Here's the link.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Funny vid

Played poker today just for a few hours and won a buyin. Nothing fantastic. Yesterday I won about 3 buyins.

Anyways, reason for this post is pretty much solely because of this vid I found whose link was posted in the CR off topic forum.

First off, I'd like to say that I really respect David Benefield's game; he's a great poker player and I watch his vids all the time and think they are excellent. Also, I think he does a great job with his blog... but this vid is just to hilarious not to share. If you have read Raptor's blog, you'll know that at times he posts lots of recipes, workout regimens, etc. I normally skip over that stuff but this vid sort of pokes fun at it. I don't think it's too demeaning to David, but it was supposedly created by aejones in (I believe) good fun.

Here's the link. Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Joined Bluefire Poker

I finally got around to joining Bluefire Poker, after Nute suggested that I watch some of Phil Galfond's vids. I've watched two of his vids so far and I must say that I'm very impressed. He does a really good job of explaining his logic and definitely is a top notch instructor.

I'll probably be watching all of his vids on the site before I venture into any of the other pros' vids.

Poker was uneventful today. I played just one session of 2.5 hours and essentially broke even. I gave a lesson earlier on in the afternoon, which went pretty well.

Students, expect the next D2K newsletter to be released sometime tomorrow. I've taken a hiatus from writing them over the past month or so mainly due to me being quite busy, but I think they were helpful to everyone so I'm going to try and continue producing them.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Solid

Played pretty solidly today. Ended up a decent amount, but nothing to write home about. I'm slowly but surely getting back into the winning mindset. I think after getting hit hard at 10/20 NL my confidence took a big hit... but that's quite illogical as much of that loss was out of my control. I played with a lot of confidence today and focused on making correct decisions.

Today, my results were much better than the last few days and I even lost a lot more than my fair share of flips. I'm going to grind like crazy this weekend and we'll see how it goes.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Miserable day


Burnt through a ton of cash today at the tables... I got smoked at $2/4 NL. I am really in disbelief. I did not run very well at all.

This whole month has been a complete disaster, every time I start to get a little bit of momentum back I have a day like this which totally sets me back. The sick part was, is I think I played pretty well with the exception of one or two stack offs. Got sucked out a lot, lost a ton of flips, got coolered pre-flop a few times, and lost a bunch of stacks in critical 3-bet pots... twice when I flopped top set in a 3-bet pot I lost.

I'll just let the hands speak for themselves.

Hand #1

Hand #2

Hand #3

Hand #4

Hand #5

Hand #6


Only good thing that happened today, was that I found a place to stay in Vegas when I'll be there in June. I'll be living in a house with John and some other poker players. Should be a lot of fun. I can't wait.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Winning Session

Played quite a bit on Monday and finished up a little over 4 buyins at $2/4 NL. I played pretty solidly, with the exception of two poor/mediocre bluffs that cost me a stack each.

Here are a few fun hands from the session:

Hand #1: This was vs a weaker player who was something like 50/3 over a bunch of hands. Pretty much knew he had a high pair when he open raised pre-flop.

Hand #2: This one was just gross.

Hand #3: This hand is kind of interesting. Villain is a big, passive fish. He hadn't 3-bet yet so I decided to play it slower... especially since he pulled the min 3-bet when OOP... normally a sure sign of strength coming from a passive fish. Pretty sure I lost the minimum here.

Hand #4: This was vs. the same villain as hand #3. His min 3-bet didn't work out too well for him this time.


That's all for now folks.

Monday, February 16, 2009

LOLdonkaments

Played three MTTs today. I played the Sunday warm-up and the Sunday Million on Stars. Busted in both of those.... 1,416 of 6,241 in the warm-up and 7,909 of 13,267 in the Million. I just missed the money in the warm-up, it paid out the top 1,000 or so. Lost a flip, A8 vs 33 AIPF. I also played a $120 buyin MTT on FTP, I think it was the FTOPS #24. There were 9,061 players and I cashed for about $400 in 448th place.

MTTs are such a waste of time. At least I made a few buyins from cash games while I was playing the MTTs. I also won quite a few T$ from FPP satellites to the Million and sold those off for cash.

Had a decent day overall, taking into account I wasted a lot of time playing those tournaments.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Modded Stars Tables

Today, I played a few sessions and finished up about 2 buyins at $2/4 NL. I ran into quite a few unfortunate hands, many of which were vs villains with 50 big blind stacks. I also had some bigger losers as well, including a boat vs quads, etc.

Today, I modded my Stars tables. I really like the way it turned out, I think it looks pretty cool. I have the option of changing the blue color to like 8 or so other different colors, as well as changing the color of the back of the cards.


It's been a while since I've posted any hands, so I'll post a few tonight.

Hand #1: This one, obviously a major cooler vs a regular.

Hand #2: Just lost a flip here.

Hand #3: This one was pretty sick. Just got drawn out on by K hi.

Hand #4: One of the many times I got pwned by a 50 big blind stack.

Hand #5:
Another half-stack doubling off of me.


I think I may play a few MTT donkaments tomorrow. The Sunday Million on Stars is juiced up to a $2.5 million guarantee due to their 25 billionth hand promotion. I might play in the Sunday Warm Up too, as that's going to be a $1.25 million guarantee.

The Sioux hockey team won again tonight, and completed the two game sweep of Mankato. It was a pretty good game, as the Sioux came back from being down one goal with like 6 or 7 minutes left in the 3rd period to win by one goal. We were gifted with a ton of power plays during the game, so it would have been a pretty tragic loss if we weren't able to bury the biscuit twice towards the end.

I'm still down for the month at this point... I can't remember the last time I was down at the half-way point in a month. Hopefully I can get a big score in the donkaments tomorrow to save my month. We'll see how it goes.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Swongs

I played for about 3 hrs today at $2/4 NL on Stars and had a 7 buyin swing. Thankfully, I was able to make a sick comeback to finish slightly up. I think I played pretty well throughout the whole session but early on I was just getting 2nd best hands all in on the flop... pretty much unavoidable coolers.


I think I'm going to continue to play $2/4 NL for a week or two until I fully regain my confidence and start to run a bit better. I cashed out a lot last month to pay for the down payment on my house and I have made some other investments this month that have reduced my bankroll amount. I still have enough buyins to play $5/10 NL if I want, but those buyins are spread somewhat evenly between the four sites I play on...

Which means that if I were to play $5/10 NL, if I had a few bad days in a row on one site there's a risk I'd need to worry about reloading there or worrying about doing some transfers. I don't really want to risk running any of my sites down too low so I think I'm going to play a bit lower right now to build my roll back up as well.

I went to the UND hockey game tonight with one of my former roomates, Seth. The game was pretty good, as the Sioux won 4-1. There were a few nice goals and one goal that the Sioux scored that was a really weird fluke. I think our team played well though, as the shots were clearly in UND's favor.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Played a bit today

I only played for two hours today, but I made about $1k playing $2/4 NL on FTP. It was refreshing to just drop down and play with a little less money on the line than normal. I think I played pretty well, but I did get pretty lucky on a semi-bluff all in on the flop in a 3-bet pot. But I also ran KK into AA all in pre-flop, so I guess those two hands kind of cancel each other out.

I did give a lesson earlier this morning, which went pretty well.

Amazingly enough, I think I've only played something like 15k hands so far this month. Like I said before, the main reason for my lack of volume has been because I was moving into a new house and dealing with my new computer. Also, the past few days I just have been really busy with other stuff like giving lessons, playing hockey, etc. Hopefully I'll be able to grind like crazy the last half of the month, play well, and win some money.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Day off

I didn't play any hands at all today. I did give a lesson to one of my students, so I did work a little bit through. I decided to just take most of the day off and re-install all my programs on my new desktop again after I re-installed Vista on it. It seems to be working fine now, which is good. I also got a replacement monitor from Dell to replace the one that had a small crack in it. They got it to me amazingly fast, about 16 hours or so after I talked to them on the phone. I was very impressed.

Anyways, online poker hasn't been too kind to me so far this month. I'm down mainly due to a poor result from a 10/20 NL shot as well as not putting in near the volume I usually do at this point in the month. I haven't been able to get in as many hands as I would have liked this month mainly due to moving into my new house and issues with my new setup.

I'm done moving in now and my new computer is up and running well, so I shouldn't have any more distractions for the rest of the month. I think I may just play $2/4 NL for a week or so just to get back on the winning track. Obviously I know I can beat the $5/10 NL games and know I have a big edge there, but I just feel like owning souls for a bit at a lower level so I can get rolling again.

In other news, my intramural hockey team played our 2nd to last regular season game today and won 15-4. We played pretty well but the lopsided score was mainly due to their goalie being terrible as well as the opposition only having 6 skaters. They got tired out pretty quickly. It was good to get a "W" vs the team we played though, as many of the players on my team played with a lot of their players in high school. We locked up the #1 seed for the playoffs with the win as well.

Monday, February 9, 2009

$10/20 NL shot and computer issues

Yesterday I took a shot at $10/20 NL when I found 3 very juicy games... well it didn't turn out too well as I didn't play my greatest along with losing a few flips and I ended up getting coolered once in a 4-bet pot. I wasn't really in a perfect mindset either, as I was pretty annoyed with my new computer...

Oh well, plenty of month left to grind $5/10 NL to still have a good result for the month.

I've been having some issues with my new computer... it had randomly restarted on me 4 different times... twice when I was playing poker (obviously I had top set one of those times). I talked to Dell support on the phone pretty much the whole afternoon today and wasted my whole day. I ended up running a bunch of diagnostic tests and re-installing Vista. Hopefully that solves the problem and it doesn't randomly restart anymore.

Also, I'm going to have to call Dell tomorrow again because one of my 30'' monitors has a 1-2 cm crack on one of the inside panels of glass in the monitor. I didn't notice it right away because it doesn't show up if you have color on the monitor, but the scratch is pretty obvious once there's a white background on the monitor. Hopefully that gets replaced. I'm pretty disappointed that I've had so many problems so soon with my setup, considering how expensive it was.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Pic from home game

Someone's comment on my last blog post reminded me that I had the opportunity to take a picture at the home game I played in. Here it is.

Home game madness

On Friday, my friend Ryan and I went out of town to a house on a farm to play in a home NLHE cash game. It was siiiiick!

There were 8 players for the majority of the time and the blinds started out at $25-25. There was an awful lot of money at the table... probably close to 100k total on the table. Some of the older guys had stacks of around $15-20k. I just bought in for 100 big blinds.

The game was crazy. It was $25-25 but definitely played more like a $25-50 game. Huge open raises, 5-way pots when someone raised to 5xs the bb UTG, massive 3-bets, $20k pots, etc. Many hands, the UTG player would do a live straddle making the game a $25-25-50 game. Actually at the end, there was both double and triple live straddles... meaning that the SB would post $25, BB would post $25, UTG would post $50, then UTG+1 would post $100, and UTG+2 would post $200.

So towards the last 1/4 of the session about one in every 6 or 7 hands was playing like a 50/100 NL or 100/200 NL game. Madness.

I ended up playing for about 13 hours in total and finished up about a buyin.

There were some absolutely crazy hands. Some of them nearly unbelieveable. I saw one of the players stack off for like $8k in a $16k pot with a flush on a paired board... when there were like 3 or 4 raises on the river. He lost to a boat.

Another huge hand happened when a decent player had the bottom boat on a 6699X board vs an inexperienced player and the decent player shipped it in with 6X on the river after he bet and got raised. The decent player said that he thought the inexperienced player was overplaying a rivered flush... but he actually had 9X to scoop a massive pot.

A player that appeared to be quite solid and good even messed up in a massive pot. He had a set of 3's on a 356 flop with a flush draw out there... c-bet the flop, then on a 7 turn he check-raised all in for like 6k more!?!?! He got snapped off by 89 and got felted in a pot that had to have been close to $20k.

But the most important thing was, that the game was a ton of fun. All of the players were very friendly and very sociable. Many of the players in the game knew each other or were friends, so there was plenty of good natured jabs/ namecalling/ etc, which was pretty hilarious. I really enjoyed myself and I hope I get a chance to play in the game again sometime soon.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

New setup

I'm all moved in to my new house now and just working on unpacking all the boxes, getting my TV on the wall again, setting up my computers, etc. I've finally got my new setup all ready to rock and roll.

All this stuff is set up in my bedroom. I don't have a room in the house set up as an office.

Here are some pics:


Computer Setup- back view


Computer Setup- side view


New 30'' monitors



Old computer


New computer


Computer setup- monitors off


Bookshelf


Sign above monitors