Duckblog: 2011

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.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Stars Rake Rape

PokerStars finally announced the anticipated bad news about the change from the dealt method to weighted contributed for calculating VPP distribution. Essentially this screws almost all regs and reduces their effective rakeback %.

Here's the link to the official changes.

Not only did they make that change but they significantly increased the rake by including 5 handed play to be up to a $3 rake cap per hand.

Many players, including myself, are disgruntled about these changes and a big uprising seems to be in the works.

This twitter site is orchestrating a massive sit-out which I think is a great idea and I encourage everyone who plays on Stars to participate as it's totally unacceptable for Stars to just rape its most loyal players with a rake increase just because they "think" they have a monopoly at the moment.

Let's show them wrong and sit out, play elsewhere, etc. until they either go back to how it was before or make some type of acceptable compromise.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Massive Sunday Million

I played the huge PokerStars 10th anniversary Sunday million this past Sunday and actually did decent. I won a few flips even! It was probably the biggest tournament that I've ever played in as the prize pool was 12 million in total. First prize was 2 mil... and there were 62k people in the tournament. I ended up busting in 762nd place so it wasn't a total waste of my time but obviously I would have liked to win one more flip.

Hope everyone is doing well and sorry for the lack of updates. I'll try to do a better job of updating and I'm going to try to finally get around to posting some pics from the past few months that I've been putting off.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

PokerStars 10th Anniversary Ring Game Leaderboard

On the first day of this promotion, I ended up playing a total of 18.60 hours. That resulted in a 23k hands played total and about 13.5k VPPs earned, good for 9th place overall in Mid-stakes and a $400 bonus! Ship it!!!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Finally hit SNE last week!

I hit SNE last week and ended up taking about a week off... it was nice to finally hit it!

Here's the pic to prove it!!!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Almost there!!!

I've been pretty busy lately, but I've been able to grind more over the past few days. I'm closing in on Supernova Elite and I'm only about 25k VPPs away!

I hope to hit SNE before the middle of November. It will be nice to finally achieve it.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Monday, October 31, 2011

VPP update

Closing in on SNE. Only 46k more VPPs to go!!!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Jets get first win of the season!

Last night the Winnipeg Jets got their first win of the 2011-12 NHL season! They ended up beating the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Pens were missing their top two players, Malkin and Crosby as they were out with injuries.

I still think they will miss the playoffs by far but at least there are worse teams in the league at this point. Hell, people in Winnipeg even gave the Jets a standing ovation after the home opener where they got their ass kicked 1-5. Only in Canada, lol.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

N.D. Pheasant hunting opener!

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates. I've been super busy lately as it's hunting season and I've been keeping busy in Canada as well. My girlfriend, Liz, ended up visiting me in Canada the last week of September. We took lots of pictures but she has the camera, so I'll post some pics once I get the pictures from her.

Last weekend, October 8-11th I went pheasant hunting with my dad, brother, and some other friends. We went out to Western ND and it was a really great trip. I had a lot of fun even though most of the days had light rain in the morning.

We didn't get quite as many birds as some other years but we still got quite a few. Between myself, my dad, and my brother we got 17 pheasants, a few sharptail grouse, and about 8 ducks.

Hope everyone is doing well! Here are a few pics from the trip:

Thursday, October 6, 2011

PokerStars VIP dinner

This past Tuesday night I had dinner with a PokerStars representative, Rich, and 5 other online players who were invited. We ended up eating at Hy's Steakhouse in downtown Winnipeg and the food was awesome! I had also went to that restaurant a few weeks prior with my girlfriend.

It was a really fun dinner and Rich was extremely friendly. We were encouraged to provide suggestions in regards to how PS could improve our online poker experience. I had a few ideas so I brought those up to Rich and he was very interested in what I had to say.

I think it was pretty cool PokerStars did this as it was a very expensive dinner (probably around $100 per plate) and really nice to actually meet someone from Stars in person. I'm extremely proud and happy to have decided to play on PokerStars primarily in 2011 and they are without a doubt the best online poker site in the world.

Unfortunately, I lost the poker hand for Winnipeg Jets NHL tickets!!! We were all dealt a hand, then we all went all-in and the board was dealt... I was dealt T6o. I flopped bottom pair but ended up losing to a King high flush! What a beat, haha. I'm sure I'll scrape up some Jets tickets anyways as I'd really like to see a game or two at least.

Like I mentioned before my girlfriend, Liz, came up to Winnipeg to visit me for about a week. She was up here at the end of September. We took a lot of great pictures but most of them are on the camera she brought back to the states so I'll have to post the pictures when she sends them to me.

I have 70k VPPs left to go until I hit SNE! I am shooting to be a SNE before the month of October is finished. It will be nice to get that $20k bonus once I hit it.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Update

Hey everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been really busy lately.

I'm closing in on SNE!!! Only 77k more VPPs to go!

Hope everyone is doing well.

Friday, September 2, 2011

40th place overall in Stars VPPs

I'm falling behind in the race... losing ground, need to grind more!

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

HILARIOUS youtube vid about poker

This is a pretty funny vid, especially if you've been dealing with crossing borders as a poker player.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMldLgwmU0Y&hd=1

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Fighting Sioux nickname retired

I'm really upset that after a battle that has gone on since I've been a little kid has finally been lost. The college I grew up around, went to, and graduated from has finally lost the battle for the right to name their sports teams "Fighting Sioux."

Personally, this is complete bullshit and I don't see how the nickname can be offensive to Native Americans. There are two major tribes close to UND and one of them was in support of the nickname... it was only a small amount of troublemakers that whined loud enough that eventually after years of work they finally see the fruits of their labor.

Now a really awesome name and logo will be forgotten forever. Now who will even remember there were Native Americans in ND if they didn't just finish reading a history book?

For more on the final, lost battle go here.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Portuguese Poker Cheat "Girah"

I'm sure almost everyone has heard of this by now, but basically a supposed young poker "prodigy" who appeared out of nowhere has been busted big-time cheating people in HU games by Teamviewering their screen while playing them HU.

Here is the link on 2+2 to the epic thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19/high-stakes-pl-nl/portuguese-poker-prodigy-jose-girah-macedo-scammed-hsnl-players-30-000-nvg-xpost-1079436/

There are plenty of rumors out there and it seems that CR pro (now former, he got fired) Haseeb Qureshi aka DogisHead aka INTERNETPOKERS is somehow involved in the entire scandal.

Either way, pretty crazy shit and what happened was terribly scummy. Girah is clearly a total dirtbag and scammer.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

FTP USES PLAYER FUNDS TO MAKE LOANS TO RED PROS!!!

So apparently FTP thought it would be a good idea to lend out player funds to Phil Ivey so he can fund his craps and gambling habits. REAL COOL FTP. This is getting so ridiculous it's almost surreal. I mean, it has to be a joke right? This is one of the most scrambled businesses I've ever heard of.

What's going to be next? My prediction: Millions of dollars loaned to Matusow so he could pay for some Irish hookers.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Jungleman deported from Canada!!!

Read about it here!

http://twitter.com/#!/junglemandan

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Fake PokerStars Skype Phishing Scam

Hey guys, I just thought I'd let everyone know about this so you don't waste your time or make a mistake... Someone disguised as PokerStars support attempted to contact me today on Skype. I assumed it was some type of scam so I didn't answer. After I was done playing poker I checked my email and saw that PokerStars had not attempted to contact me via email so then I knew that it must have been a scam for sure.

I did Google it out of curiosity and apparently I'm not the only one this happened to. Here's the link to
the story I found.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

FTP shut down completely

As everyone probably already knows by know, FTP recently bit the dust and no one from anywhere in the world can play on the site. Their gaming license got suspended, which actually doesn't surprise me.

Here are some links if you want to read more on it:

http://www.subjectpoker.com/2011/06/agcc-suspends-ftp-license/

http://www.egrmagazine.com/news/1674047/tilt-servers-down-after-licence-suspension.thtml

http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/full-tilt-poker-may-reopen-without-alderney-gaming-license-586574/

Thursday, June 16, 2011

BRUINS WIN!!! Canada riots!

My prediction that Boston would win and score 4 goals was correct, however I gave a bit too much credit to Vancouver's ability to put up a fight and instead of scoring 3 goals like I predicted they ended up with 0 thanks to the amazing play of Tim Thomas... who ended up winning the Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP award).

After the game, riots broke out in Vancouver and they clearly were upset with the Canucks losing... Unhappy fans are burning and flipping cars, beating up Boston Bruins fans, breaking windows, clashing with riot police, looting, and setting fires throughout downtown Vancouver. Here's one link to a vid of the riots and here's another. Article written up after most of the mayhem can be found here. Here's a video of the stream of the riot I was watching last night.

All Canadians will now be depressed until the start of the new NHL season. Hahaha.

Here are some pics too... many of the more clear and awesome ones at the end are from the Globe and Mail website here:

Certified CardRunners Coach

I have decided to re-open my coaching services.

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!!!

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.

Duckslayer2k's Poker Career

The summer after my first year of college, a bunch of my old friends from high school were all back in town after finishing up the 2005 spring college semester. We all decided to get together at a friend’s house to hang out and someone decided that we should play poker. I was totally clueless and had no idea how to even play. I had seen it on TV before but never paid much attention to it and didn’t even know the rules. I was reluctant to even play the small $5 tournament because I had heard so many horror stories about how people had become addicted to gambling and lost everything, so I didn’t really want open up the possibility of something like that happening to me as well. However, curiosity and eventually the realization that I was smart enough to control my losses led me to enter the $5 sit-and-go. I was the first player to bust out, but I had a lot of fun and the poker bug had bitten.

I played another half dozen of these tournaments with my friends and my play slowly improved as I began to fully understand the rules and basic strategies. Then in June of 2005, after seeing an advertisement on TV about Party Poker, I decided to put some money online and give it a shot. I deposited $50 on three separate occasions on Party Poker and lost it all each time playing $5 sit-and-goes with a $1 rake and blinds increasing at a ridiculous rate (they increased blind levels once ever 10 hands). I had heard from some of my friends that on PokerStars the SNGs were better due to longer blind levels and half the rake, so I decided to give online poker one last shot and deposited $50 onto PokerStars... this would be the last deposit I’d ever make and I turned that $50 into hundreds of thousands of dollars over my career so far.

Shortly after making the deposit on Stars, I purchased the Harrington on Holdem books and read them cover to cover while grinding the $5 SNGs on Stars. My quality of play increased dramatically after reading those books and I started to crush SNGs. I moved up from the $5 SNGs to the $10 ones once I had enough money in my bankroll. Then I advanced to the $20 SNGs and then to the $50 SNGs. At one point, I was actually making around $3k per month from playing the $50 SNGs.

As I began to move up to $100 SNGs I hit a big MTT score. In May of 2006 I got 5^th place in the $10 rebuy on PokerStars for a $3.3k score. I was thrilled at the time to win this much from poker at once and it was a huge boost for my confidence. I continued to play SNGs as well as the occasional MTT and then one month later I hit an even bigger score, winning the $10 rebuy on PokerStars for $9.3k. After this score I decided to move into cash games and jumped right into $1/2 NL Full ring cash games.

I grinded full ring for about six months without really knowing what I was doing. Over this time I managed to win slightly but I was getting pretty frustrated from cash games. One of my poker friends referred me to Cardrunners.com in December of 2006 and this was probably the single most important event in my poker career. I had no idea training sites like this existed and I began watching videos and learned a ton. I continued to play full ring for over a year and a half, winning at a much higher rate than before.

I moved up to $2/4 NL Full Ring in January of 2007 and played that up until August of that year. I had many great months at $2/4 NL Full Ring, but In August I realized in stakes above $2/4 NL Full Ring the games were pretty terrible. At this time, there were not that many fish at $3/6 NL Full Ring or higher. That fact, along with the reality that there was a relatively low quantity of higher stakes full ring games is one of the reasons I decided to transition into 6 Max.

I struggled for the first month of 6 Max and it was difficult for me to adjust to the more aggressive pace. At first I was playing too tightly; then later I was just going over-board with aggression. After a month of struggling I went to the Cardrunners coaching forum searching for help. After reading the coaching reviews that had been posted, it seemed clear to me that Adam Gefvert (CR member name of Primoman... He's now retired from poker) was the most popular coach on the site. After reading many positive reviews from his students, I decided to contact him for lessons. We proceeded to have a total of four lessons together; two at $2/4 NL Full Ring and two lessons at $1/2 NL 6 Max. These lessons helped my game tremendously and Adam discovered things that I was doing wrong which I was completely unaware of. I owe much of my success to Adam and his tutelage and without his help I may have never gotten good enough to become a pro.

In August of 2007 I actually quit my “day job” at Scheels All Sports as a sales associate to concentrate on poker. I continued to grind $1/2 NL 6 Max all the way through my last year of college and got plenty of solid experience while building my bankroll. By the time I graduated with my degree from the University of North Dakota in December of 2007 my poker skills were advanced enough that it was obvious to me that I wouldn’t be using my degree any time soon. I graduated from college with a degree in business management. In January of 2008 I began to put my degree to use managing my poker business as a full time poker pro.

I have been playing as a full time pro for over three years now, with my primary game being NLHE 6 Max. My game really took off in April of 2008 when I began taking lessons from Tim Nuter (CR pro, Nutedawg). My game jumped to a new level after the first few lessons with Tim and I have had dozens of lessons so far with him.

I am now a regular in the $2/4 NL - $5/10 NL 6 max online cash games on PokerStars. I have played well over 2 million recorded cash game hands in my career and I look upon building on that experience with getting into higher stakes in the coming months.