Duckblog

Getting crushed at HU...

2012-01-26T17:34:00.000-06:00

I've been dabbling in a bit of HU so far this year and haven't had much success at all... I've played about 6k hands an am losing about 80 cents per hand. Obviously I've ran bad and had some terrible board run-outs on the turn when I've had overpairs in 3-bet pots but man, I thought HU was supposed to be like taking candy from a baby.

I'm going to watch a few HU vids to get some ideas and sharpen up my play so hopefully my results 1v1 make a turn for the better.

2012

2012-01-25T12:05:00.000-06:00

2012 has been an interesting year so far... I ended up getting banned to 1 table on Stars for the first few days due to participating in a protest about the new changes.

I finally got back to SNE pace a few days ago so at least I'm not behind anymore.

Hope you all had a good New Year's and good luck in 2012!

Stars Rake Rape

2011-12-28T20:07:00.001-06:00

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.

Massive Sunday Million

2011-12-20T00:43:00.000-06:00

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.

PokerStars 10th Anniversary Ring Game Leaderboard

2011-11-24T10:41:00.000-06:00

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!!!

Finally hit SNE last week!

2011-11-20T00:18:00.000-06:00

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!!!

Almost there!!!

2011-11-06T11:39:00.000-06:00

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!

VPP update

2011-10-31T16:30:00.000-05:00

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

Jets get first win of the season!

2011-10-18T13:59:00.001-05:00

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.

N.D. Pheasant hunting opener!

2011-10-16T15:39:00.000-05:00

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:

PokerStars VIP dinner

2011-10-06T10:43:00.000-05:00

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.

Update

2011-09-19T23:22:00.001-05:00

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.

40th place overall in Stars VPPs

2011-09-02T04:11:00.001-05:00

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

HILARIOUS youtube vid about poker

2011-08-31T09:34:00.000-05:00

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

Fighting Sioux nickname retired

2011-08-20T22:51:00.000-05:00

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.

The Portuguese Poker Cheat "Girah"

2011-08-10T10:30:00.004-05:00

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.

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

2011-07-30T02:02:00.000-05:00

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.

Jungleman deported from Canada!!!

2011-07-29T01:55:00.001-05:00

Read about it here!

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

Fake PokerStars Skype Phishing Scam

2011-07-13T23:22:00.000-05:00

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.

FTP shut down completely

2011-07-02T22:40:00.000-05:00

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/

BRUINS WIN!!! Canada riots!

2011-06-16T00:05:00.007-05:00

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:

Game 7 TONIGHT!!!

2011-06-15T18:11:00.000-05:00

The Cup is on the line tonight!!! Hockey fan or not, make sure to check out Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight at 8 PM ET on NBC or CBC... I guarantee it will be EPIC!

I predict a Bruins victory by a score of 4-3 with Luongo getting scored on 3 times in the first period and getting pulled in favor of Cory Schneider once again.

GO BRUINS! MAKE THE ENTIRE NATION OF CANADA DEPRESSED FOR 4 MONTHS!!!

Bruins Win!!!

2011-06-14T12:19:00.000-05:00

I knew the series was going to seven games and I knew Luongo would get torched.

Hopefully he lets in 3 goals in the first 10 minutes again in game 7 and the Bruins win the Cup!!!

NHL Stanley Cup Finals... Game 6 TONIGHT!!!

2011-06-13T12:13:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone, not sure if you are hockey fans but I sure am... especially now that I'm in Canada it is actually a requirement to be a hockey fan if you live here!

I've been watching as much of the 2011 NHL playoffs as I can, because there is nothing better than playoff hockey. This series between Boston and Vancouver has been a really interesting one to watch and frankly I'm shocked that Vancouver is somehow leading the series 3-2 right now.

Game 6 is tonight at 7 PM CST on NBC and CBS so don't forget to tune in and watch... it will be epic! I hope the Bruins win and are able to force a game 7!!!

VPP update

2011-06-11T04:00:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone, hope you're doing well. So I've been grinding a bit more over the past few days... been running like total shit. Part of the game however, especially when I'm playing the volume that I am. I have almost played 1 million hands so far this year.

I have a total of 742,234 VPPs but am still significantly behind pace for 2 million VPPs. I need to put it in 5th gear and start making up some ground.

I watched game 5 tonight of the Stanley Cup Finals and it was a really great game. I want Boston to win because I think Tim Thomas is awesome and I don't really want the Canadians to be fulfilled by having a Canadian team win the Cup... so hopefully Boston can come back and win it in 7 games!

New poll is up!

2011-06-08T14:00:00.001-05:00

Vote away!!! The new poll is now up!

FTP poll results

2011-06-08T11:01:00.001-05:00

The results from last week's poll are in and the votes are not surprising...

The poll question was: "How long will it take FTP to pay U.S. Players?"

The voting came out as follows:

Less than one month: 4%
1-3 months: 25%
3-6 months: 25%
6-12 months: 8%
over 1 year: 8%
Players don't get paid: 29%

So a total of 71% believed FTP will pay out at one point or another... and 29% believed that people who have FTP money right now and are U.S. players are out of luck.... Only time will tell to see which voters were correct!

Check back later today for a new poll and don't forget to vote!

Still 16th overall in VPPs

2011-06-04T17:11:00.000-05:00

Looks like I'm still sitting in 16th place in the overall VPP race on PokerStars. Here is the link for the complete list.

I intend to play a bunch in June so hopefully I can move up a notch or two in the rankings!!!

Merge network suspends U.S player sign-up

2011-06-03T14:17:00.000-05:00

It appears that the Merge network is already preparing to get hit by the DOJ next. They have made a decision to no longer all U.S. players to sign up on the site. In my opinion, it's clearly a move by them to "book a win" and be happy with the customers they have now instead of getting bigger and bigger and making the likelihood and/or speed of DOJ shutdown be slower... possibly allowing them to gain more profits from rake before the get taken out.

Here's a link to an article related to the decision by the Merge network.

Official FTP update

2011-06-01T00:44:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. A new poll is up so make sure to go ahead and vote!!!

It looks like on 5/30 FTP posted a new "announcement." Basically this one was worse than the previous announcements that were announcing just a future date for an announcement... because they basically say they don't have the funds to pay out U.S. players right now. Read the thread for more details.

People are panicking and trying to unload their FTP bankrolls for a sizable loss. Here's the thread for that.

Also, Phil Ivey is filing suit against Tiltware and not playing in the WSOP.

The aftermath of Black Friday continues...

Merge network poll results are in

2011-05-31T11:04:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone who voted in last week's poll. Just to recap the results I will list the poll question and the % for each available choice:

Last week's poll question was: How long will it take for the DOJ to shut down Carbon Poker/ Merge Network?

People's answers were as follows:

1 week: 16% of voters
2 weeks: 19% of voters
1 month: 22% of voters
2 months: 3% of voters
3 months or more: 33% of voters

So the most popular response was 3 months or more! So we have some optimistic people out there, lol! What is clear though from the poll results is that basically answers are spread across the board. Clearly at this point it has taken them a longer than a week to shut down but if you count that the site isn't accepting members anymore from four different states then I guess those people were still partially correct.

Only time will tell to see who was correct about this poll... we'll just have to wait and see!

I have posted a new poll today and plan on starting a new poll every Monday morning (this new poll will only last 6 days instead of the normal 7).

Please go ahead and vote and of course have fun doing so!!!

Apartment in Canada

2011-05-30T15:11:00.000-05:00

So I finally got around to taking some pictures of my apartment in Canada. It isn't anything special but it does the trick.

Also, I decided that I'm not going to bother buying a real bed because this air mattress I'm using is awesome! I paid like $200-300 bucks for it while I was in Chicago because one of my friends was staying at my place for a few weeks. It's an "Aerobed" and it has adjustments on the air pump to make the bed either softer or firmer. I seem to sleep just as well on it as I do on a normal bed and I haven't had my back hurt from it at all.

Computer set-up is normal, except for the addition of the Canadian flags and mugs!

Here are the pics:

Fate of U.S. player's FTP money looking worse and worse

2011-05-28T15:31:00.000-05:00

With each day that passes, it seems that the Full Tilt Poker situation gets worse and worse. U.S. players have yet to receive their money WEEKS after PokerStars paid out.

Players are selling their FTP money now for anywhere from 75 cents to 85 cents on the dollar... sometimes even lower. This thread on 2+2 is a long, but interesting discussion of the worth of an FTP dollar.

This thread on 2+2 is trying to find answers but since FTP hasn't spoke in two weeks no one really knows exactly what's going on.

The most interesting development lately, in my opinion, has been that FTP was caught allowing $60 MILLION dollars worth of player deposits to go through and be available for play on their site when they were unable to pull the money for those deposits from player bank accounts... seems like a really horrible business strategy.

Draw your own conclusions... whether it be to add up the facts and make a logical deduction about the situation or just go with blind FTP devotion and faith like so many players seem to be doing.

The truth is, there is not a 100% chance they will pay out no matter what FTP faithful think... and even if they do pay out it could be months, even years potentially before U.S. players ever see a dollar from their FTP bankrolls.

The next poll will be related to this post so check back in a few days to vote!!!

Hit 700k VPP milestone

2011-05-25T16:11:00.000-05:00

I ended up hitting the 700k VPP milestone today on Stars about midway through my first session of the day. It's going to be a year-long struggle to get back on pace for 2 million VPPs due to the DOJ shutdown which forced me to take a unwanted 3 week vacation in April as well as the first few days in May.

I'm not too far off pace though and I expect to still make my goal but it's going to take a lot of dedication and be a lot more difficult to achieve. Currently I'm 90,000 VPPs behind pace... it seems like a lot but there's still more than half the year left so I should be OK. I just need to get back on the pace I was for the first three months of the year and I'll be fine.

This is a bit old and it's my VPP number pre-black Friday but this list puts me at 16th overall in the world in VPPs acquired on PokerStars this year. Hopefully some of the people above me were Americans so I can pass them!

Merge network likely falling next

2011-05-24T12:06:00.001-05:00

There have been no reports of success stories cashing out from Merge for the last two weeks... the reports that have come in are saying that if they were lucky enough to receive a check from Merge it bounced....

Also a report that Merge network may be banning four states as well as Washington D.C. The states supposedly blocked for real money sign ups are as follows: New York, Maryland, Missouri, Louisiana. For the full report click here.

Looks like I should have put an #X days option on my poll...

Two payment processors hit as well!

2011-05-24T11:56:00.000-05:00

It appears that two popular 3rd party payment processors (ewallets) have been hit as well. UseMyWallet and Quick Tender.

On May 6th bank wires sent by the two payment processors stopped reaching player's bank accunts.

For the full story click here.

Black Friday # 2!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-05-24T01:46:00.004-05:00

The U.S. Government has struck again!!! Ten more sites knocked out! May day, may day!!! Here is the main thread about it on 2+2.

ALSO, FTP money value is dropping fast... estimated to be worth only 80 to 85 cents on the dollar at best.

The end is near for U.S. online poker for the time being. Many of my friends are insta-withdrawing any and all money they have on sites that are still available for U.S. customers. I would recommend you cash out all funds on sites that still service the U.S. IMMEDIATELY!!!

There is a very good chance that when they get hit by the Department of Justice that they will not have the funds to pay the players back since the size of these sites pale in comparison to the only site that has paid out thus far... PokerStars.

The sky has officially fallen. This is for real everyone.

Canada Relocation F.A.Q.

2011-05-22T23:57:00.016-05:00

Hey everyone. I've been getting a few requests to explain what it takes to relocate to Canada and potentially being able to regain access to your poker accounts... so I thought I would make a blog post about it.

I'm just going to jot out as many things as I can think of that is helpful to know about. I will separate it into two categories... first being the actual stuff you have to do to relocate to Canada, get all of the details set up for your place, etc. The second list will be what you need to provide the poker sites to prove you have relocated in order to make an attempt to regain access to your account.

Relocating is not easy. It's a pain in the ass and I'd estimate that it took me like 3-4 weeks of planning to do it. Also, remember that Canada gets super cold during the winter obviously... I don't care about this though because it isn't any worse than North Dakota!!!

Canada Relocation

First of all, you need a U.S. passport or you aren't getting across the border. I would also recommend a secondary form of ID like a driver's license.
Secondly, don't act suspicious or like you're doing anything wrong. Know the answers to the basic questions the border patrol agent will ask... such as why are you coming up to Canada, where are you staying, how long will you be staying, do you have any guns or tobacco in your car, will you be leaving anything that you have in your car in Canada, have you ever committed a crime, when's the last time you've been in Canada, how much cash do you have on you, etc.
Obviously they can ask you whatever they want and the list I gave isn't a complete list of normal questions. If you hesitate on these questions or appear suspicious you can expect multiple follow up questions to the aforementioned questions. Also, most online poker players fit the profile of a drug smuggler... single, white male traveling alone into Canada. So you can expect to be questioned like a criminal by some aggressive male agents.
Thirdly, I wouldn't bring shit up to Canada that you don't absolutely need. Don't bother bringing your computer, computer monitors, computer desk, or chair for example. If you do bring stuff like that they will think you're going to move up to Canada and never come back, thus likely red-flagging you and give you a visitors pass to monitor your activity in Canada.
Don't have more than $10k cash on you.
Next, know that you can only be in Canada for as long as the border agents tell you. If they don't give you a date you have to be back by, then you can stay for up to a maximum of 180 days. The 180 days is not a cumulative number per year... meaning once you come back to the States and go back up to Canada it refreshes. However, if they find that you're staying long periods of time in Canada and only coming back to the U.S. for short amounts of time they will catch that and either deny you entry or put a restricted time frame on your trip.
Don't expect it to be easy to find an apartment if you choose to do that. For some reason in Canada the government is heavily involved with housing and in Winnipeg for example, the occupancy rate is 95%. So basically it's a major pain in the ass to get a place set up.
Also, at the border, if you tell the Canadian border agents you have an apartment in Canada and have set up bank accounts they will give you a hard time about it. They start to think that you plan on moving up to Canada for good/indefinitely and it's their job to stop people from doing so without the proper documentation/VISA permits, etc.
One of my poker friends came up to share my place with me but the border agent he talked with tore him apart with questions on his way up, made him go inside the building for further questioning while the briefly searched his car. They were very suspicious of him so they gave him a "visitor's pass" which he had to hand back to the Canadian border patrol on his way back to the U.S. if he ever wanted to come back into Canada.
He eventually came over to my place, I cooked him a steak, and we were going to run some errands... however when I woke up the next morning he had vanished!!! Later that afternoon he called me and said he had to go home because the border patrol had spooked him so much that he was just so nervous being in Canada that he would never come back again. They tore his car apart at the border searching it on the way back, after he handed in his visitor's pass.
So basically the point of that story is: if you suck at live poker or crack under pressure then it's probably not going to be fun for you at the border.

Poker Site - regaining access

The general idea here, at least for PokerStars is.. "give us sufficient proof that you've moved and we'll unlock your account."
That means you have to hand them stuff like a signed copy of a lease, multiple utility bills, and Canadian bank statements with your Canadian address on it.
Stars wants to call you on a Canadian land line for some reason, so just set up a old school phone to avoid headaches.
There are extremely long lead times on setting up both internet and phone service. This is probably due to the fact that Canada is basically like the U.S. was 10-15 years ago technology-wise.
Email them those documents and then log into Stars from Canada and you should be good to go.
No matter what you send FTP they will give you the run-around. I sent them everything that I sent Stars... in fact I sent them more documents than I sent Stars. They emailed me back with some bullshit saying that the documents I sent them would not work and they couldn't accept things such as a legit, signed copy of a lease with my Canadian address on it. They also did not accept my internet bill from MTS as a form of relocation proof.

Short analysis of the state of cash games post Black Friday

I have been playing on Stars so I can't really comment on the games at FTP.
They games are not any better.
There are more European regs than ever before. I think that lots of the European regs that were playing on FTP have cashed out from there due to suspicions that the site is in financial trouble (click here for more on that)... so instead of risking their money on a site that has not paid back U.S. players weeks after they were granted permission to do so they are choosing to play on the one site in the world that has proven time and time again that it is the premier site in the world, PokerStars.
There are much less tables to choose from.
I normally play $2/4 NL through $5/10 NL but I've been forced to play lots of $1/2 NL lately because there just aren't enough midstakes games running at certain hours to play the amount of tables I normally play.
So basically the biggest change in the state of the games is two things: less games running overall and completely changed peak hours for the "best times to play."
During an average day, the best time to play is from 8 AM to like 4 PM with peak amount of cash game players occurring at around 1-2 PM (Central standard time).
Also, I found this to be very weird... the weekends are no longer the best times to play! For some reason, Monday afternoon draws over 40k cash game players on Stars and Tuesday afternoon draws like 38k... it has been like this the past two weeks. So basically the old Friday night is the new Monday afternoon and the old Saturday night is the new Tuesday afternoon.

Summary
Canada sucks. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It is a horrible place to live. Extremely cold and rigid for like 7-8 months out of the year. All the roads are by far worse than shitty. The second Canadian past-time (behind hockey of course) is towing illegally parked cars. Normal citizens just call in tow trucks to tow people... even if they don't have anything to do with the property or location that the car is illegally parked.

Relocation is complicated and a huge hassle. Add in the extra costs you'll have from renting an apartment for like $1k per month, flights back home (a lot more expensive than normal flights within the U.S. because the taxes on the ticket are extremely high), fewer games running, etc. it's hardly worth it. Also, it's just not an option for many Americans. Many American poker players have families or other ties to the States so they can't just get up and relocate to Canada.

Relocation is NOT the answer. The ONLY answer is to CALL, EMAIL, OR WRITE YOUR GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES TODAY and plead with them to work to legalize online poker in the U.S. as soon as possible.

If you play poker and are not a member of the PPA shame on you.

Everyone please go here now and send out letters to your political representatives and hopefully we will have legal, regulated, poker in the United States in 3-4 years.

This should answer most of the basic questions everyone has... I guess if there's anything you still have questions on just ask it in a comment, eh.

VPP update

2011-05-20T10:41:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone, hope you're running well. I am inching closer towards the 700k VPP milestone so I'm looking forward to that. Currently I have 681k VPPs.

I'm glad the weather is finally starting to get nice up here in Winnipeg, it seems like it has been way too cold so far but I guess that's what I get, eh?

More before/after Black Friday cartoons

2011-05-19T02:50:00.000-05:00

I can't get enough of these cartoons, they are hilarious! I only made it through one more page, page 5, and here were some of my favorites. Enjoy!!!

Churning out the VPPs

2011-05-18T00:13:00.000-05:00

I'm getting back into my groove that I had before Black Friday. I'm still not playing quite as much as I was pre-doomsday but that's mainly due to still spending a few hours per day doing miscellaneous stuff. Hopefully in a few days I will be done with all the errands I need to run so I can focus on grinding a ton and put in 8-10 hour days like I was before so I can get caught up and be on pace for 2 million VPPs.

I currently have 673,079 VPPs and am about 78,000 VPPs behind pace for 2 million so I have some work to do.

Don't forget to vote in the poll I have put up!!!

New HH Service Site!!!

2011-05-17T01:05:00.002-05:00

hhSmithy is a re-launched hand history site and I must say that it is 10xs better than PTR as far as price and customer service is concerned. Their coverage is constantly improving; they just recently updated their mining software on PokerStars to increase the HH count to 75%+ of actual hands played.

Unlike PTR where you pay more for different amounts of daily hands, it is just one flat rate on hhSmithy for daily hand history subscriptions! Also, if you need hand histories for multiple game formats (6 max, full ring, and HU) these are all included in the hhSmithy price!!! No longer pay separately for 6 max and full ring hands for the same stakes.

They are also running a deal right now where you get 50% off the list price if you order multiple stakes, except the most expensive stake is full price. In addition, you get 25% off the first month of service.

Lastly, the customer service is far and away better than PTR. I've sent PTR emails and waited days for a response. The first few emails I sent hhSmithy got replied to in only a few hours!!!

If you're currently getting hands from PTR, I'd cancel your subscription and CLICK HERE to get the same hands for a fraction of the price.

Epic & hilarious 2+2 post!!!

2011-05-16T18:40:00.001-05:00

I've been meaning to make this post for a while, but haven't got around to it.

Basically, someone made a Microsoft paint picture of a U.S. poker player before and then after Black Friday... he left a template and greatness followed. Here's the link to the thread.

These are some of my favorites so far but I've only made it through four pages of the thread so far (it is 17 pages).

Enjoy!!!

Back in Business

2011-05-15T22:04:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates lately... I've been very busy.

To make a long story very short, I'm back on Stars now and playing lots of hours once again. I'm in Canada and ended up in Winnipeg which is about a 2 hour 45 minute drive away from Grand Forks.

Unfortunately the huge mandatory 3 weeks off or so has put me way behind pace on my VPP goal for the year. My new goal that I'm shooting for is now 2 million VPPs. I think this is easily doable because for a while I was actually only slightly falling behind the 3 million VPP pace daily.

The best times to play are messed up big time compared to what they were before... basically it's best to play during the standard U.S. work hours which is like 8 AM to 6 PM. The peak players on Pokerstars normally occurs around 1 to 2 PM.

In case you are still stuck in the U.S., you can sign up for an account at one of the three remaining sites if you want to continue playing online poker.

Carbon Poker (Merge network), Cake Poker, and Bodog Poker remain. I had accounts on Cake Poker and Bodog previously, but decided to open an account on Carbon a week ago because I heard that they are not giving rakeback to anyone who signs up there after June 1st. Right now at the rakeback site I use (raketherake) they are offing a 200% sign up bonus up to $2,000 in addition to the 35% rakeback. So if you don't have an account on Carbon and you are in the U.S. still I highly suggest you open one up before June 1st. Click on this link to do so.

I will be posting more updates soon so check back!

Ranked sizes of online poker sites

2011-04-23T01:38:00.000-05:00

This is a pretty cool website one of my friends showed me. Basically, it shows that PokerStars is still the largest online poker site by far even after losing all of its U.S. customers. The cash game players average is over 2xs the next closest site which is FTP.

To all the U.S. players who are content with playing on the tiny sites that remain serving the U.S... I don't think it will last very long. I feel like the U.S. government is going to gobble those sites up next after they are done with their main course of Stars, FTP and UB/AP. If you think that Bodog poker uses more legit ways to facilitate money shifts off and on their poker site then lol at you.

Also, I'm sure that once everyone is finally given their money back that is stuck on Stars or Full Tilt a few things will happen. Firstly, a huge % of the recreational players will be spooked by this huge disaster and never play online ever again because of the scare of having their money locked up for "several weeks" as well as the impression that "online poker is now illegal in the U.S.". Obviously, the fish fall in this category. This is not good. Don't expect the average fish to just say, oh well. And then deposit on Carbon poker when they know that the same thing could easily happen to Carbon.

Secondly, the U.S. pros are unlikely to completely give up... but a lot of pro poker players are lazy and will not bother or want to relocate outside of the United States. The result? A big influx of pros into the sites that still allow U.S. players. Therefore effectively killing the games at the remaining sites.

Only time will tell to see what actually ends up happening.

First lesson free promotion over

2011-04-21T10:44:00.000-05:00

Just letting everyone know that the first lesson free promotion on my package deals for coaching that I listed on my blog on 4/16/11 is over with, as one of my former students, Steve (UK based player), has booked the first 5 lesson (10 hour package) and will be the only one to receive that deal.

So this part of the 4/16/11 blog post no longer exists, "For the first student that purchases a 5 lesson package, I will give the first lesson for free in addition to the 62% off so hurry up and ship in the emails!"

Don't worry though, as I still am offering my services at a great price for a package deal, $94 per hour (which is 62% off). Details are listed on the top part of my blog. Please send in an email if you are interested. Thanks!

Party at the DOJ

2011-04-21T02:02:00.003-05:00

Here's a funny vid about the not funny online poker situation. Enjoy!

Thoughts from a top online poker pro & friend

2011-04-20T23:43:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone, one of my good friends, Sparks... aka "GoMukYaSelf" on Stars wrote a really awesome note on Facebook about the recent events in the online poker meltdown. It's a great read whether you're a pro, casual poker player, or basically anyone who wants to get a feel for what it feels like for an online pro right now.

Part 1: “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.”

It has been a very scary and frustrating few days. I have gone from the height of confidence to the depths of despair and everywhere in-between. For the last couple years, I have outworked and outplayed my competition to become one of the very top at my profession, making a lucrative and satisfying career playing the game of poker online.

It’s not curing cancer or teaching young children how to read, but poker paid the bills and allowed me the freedom to travel as well as the autonomy of being my own boss free from the bureaucracy that cripples the best and brightest “wage slaves” in the business world. I met hundreds of the most intelligent, diverse, interesting, and just plain awesome people that you will ever come across through the game of poker. To succeed, I needed to apply all of the concepts I learned in psychology and business school every day in new and unexpected ways. I was rewarded with more experience managing employees, optimizing a portfolio of investments, making complex decisions with limited information under pressure, and running a profitable business venture than any job would have been able to offer me.

On Thursday April 14th, I deposited my six figure check into the mailbox and sent it off to the most corrupt, uninformed, hypocritical, incompetent organization I could find – the U.S. Government. I frowned as I heard the cold and definitive sound of the mailbox closing and dismissed paying every cent of my taxes owed as simply the cost of doing business in the U.S and of sleeping well at night. I packed up my car with camping supplies and headed off to Coachella in Indio, CA for a weekend of music and bonding with some of my closest friends (as well as over 100,000 “new friends”).

I awoke the next day to the familiar sound of my phone ringing beside me. I am a pretty sound sleeper and couldn’t summon the energy to answer in time. I glanced at the clock – 10:42am. The sun was starting to pour into the tent and the cold of the desert began to give way to the day’s expected 98 degree heat – I wouldn’t be able sleep much longer anyway. I looked down again at my phone – 7 missed calls, 16 text messages, 44 new e-mails. How long had I been asleep anyway??? I checked the date, it was Friday. I recalled the words to my favorite song and felt relieved that Friday did indeed come after Thursday.

I began to go through the messages, each one more panicked than the next. “United States Dept of Justice indicts the Big Three – PokerStars, FullTilt, and Absolute Poker. Real money online poker from within the U.S. has been suspended indefinitely.” I was so shocked that my legs became immobilized. I opened my mouth to scream my four-letter explicative of choice but no sound came out. Reality began to set in - the fan had been painted brown.

- Check back sometime in the next couple of days for Part 2!

PokerStars FAQ

2011-04-20T17:14:00.000-05:00

A friend just gave me this link, it outlines the plan PokerStars has moving forward in regards to U.S. players.

Looks like I'll be just fine grinding it out in Canada.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

2011-04-20T12:51:00.002-05:00

We should be able to get our money off! Sweet!!! Shippppp it!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-20/online-poker-companies-reach-accord-with-u-s-on-players-access-to-money.html

Sports bet fail

2011-04-19T03:23:00.003-05:00

Ran really bad my first online sports betting attempt... lost all three of my bets. I had good picks but lost both games by a goal and lost on the over-under because of an empty-netter.

FML

Sports betting!

2011-04-18T18:46:00.000-05:00

Have to make some coin somehow! May as well be through betting on the NHL playoffs!!! I love the NHL playoffs, they are so intense and awesome. No other sports league's playoffs are as intense or lengthy as the NHL's. They play like it is life or death and it's so fun to watch.

Since I can still play poker on Bodog I'm trying to build up my roll on there so I can play a bit higher stakes than 25NL and 50NL.

Here's the bets I put on tonight's games:

50% off poker lessons!!!

2011-04-16T16:56:00.001-05:00

Due to a delay in my pursuit for 2 to 3 million VPPs on Stars because of governmental interference, 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 50% 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 50% off of what my hourly coaching rate was when I last coached in 2010, which was $250 per hour. It will now be $125 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 25% off of the already reduced hourly fee of $125 on the entire lesson package. That's only $94 per hour for quality poker lessons! That's a total of 62% off my normal coaching rate!!!

For the first student that purchases a 5 lesson package, I will give the first lesson for free in addition to the 62% off so hurry up and ship in the emails!

This is just a brief post to announce my services as available. At the beginning of the upcoming week I will make another coaching post with more details on what a student can expect to learn and receive by taking lessons from me. 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 600k VPPs already for 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.

Doomsday Site report

2011-04-15T20:11:00.000-05:00

This is a poker site status update on what I've found, by messing around on the various sites for the past few hours.

PokerStars:

Login?: yes
Play real money cash games?: no
Cash out?: maybe... you can click the buttons to cash out in the cashier, it will go through, you will get a confirmation email... however I'd guess there's less than a 25% chance that the funds will appear in my bank account. Unknown if transfer funds is available or not, I did not try.

Full Tilt Poker:

Login?: yes
Play real money cash games?: yes
Cash out or transfer?: No.

Ultimate Bet/AP:

Login?: yes
Play real money cash games?: yes
Cash out or transfe?r: Unknown

Cake Poker:

Login?: yes
Play real money cash games?: yes
Cash out or transfer? Unknown

Bodog Poker:

Login?: yes
Play real money cash games?: yes
Cash out?: Unknown

If anyone has any updates to this list, please feel free to go ahead and post it in the comments of my blog. Thanks.

We're fucked

2011-04-15T16:09:00.002-05:00

ONLINE POKER BANNED IN US

2011-04-15T15:26:00.000-05:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704628404576265060852516194.html

I can't sit in a real money cash game on Stars.

This is for real.

Doomsday

600k VPPs

2011-04-11T21:36:00.001-05:00

I hit the 600k VPP milestone today, thus putting me 60% complete towards Supernova Elite. I'm looking forward to hitting SNE probably in June and it will be really nice to get the increased multiplier.

I had a pretty fun weekend, as my Dad, brother, and I headed down to Minneapolis to shoot in the Minnesota State 5-Stand Championships. I did decent, especially considering I hadn't shot since the U.S. Open last summer. I hit 122/150 in the Sporting event and 180/200 in the Main 5-stand event. Not sure exactly what place that put me, but some people had done amazingly well during the first day of the main event... one person had only missed 3 out of the first 100 targets.

I got a chance to hang out with my good friend Billy, who lives in Minneapolis, on Saturday night. We went out and grabbed some really tasty wings and then played some poker on the online felt after that. He does programming stuff for his job and was intrigued by my Gunnar glasses and thought they might help him during his job during the day so he ordered a pair. It was good to hang out with him, as we hadn't seen each other in a while.

Does anyone know how to build a PT3 HUD well? If you do give me an email... I am looking to get one built and will be willing to compensate you for your time if the job you do is satisfactory.

Sioux Hockey

2011-04-08T06:36:00.000-05:00

I'm very disappointed that the Sioux hockey team lost yesterday in the first game of the Frozen Four. They were the favorite to win the National Championship but couldn't score against Michigan's goalie despite 5 power plays and ended up losing 2-0. If they had won this game, they would have been in the Championship on Saturday night in Minneapolis vs. Minnesota-Duluth... then my Dad, brother, and I were planning on trying to round up some tickets but since they lost obviously that plan is no more...

First sporting clays shoot of the year!

2011-04-08T06:34:00.000-05:00

This weekend my Dad, brother, and I are headed down to Minneapolis for the Minnesota State 5-Stand tournament. It is the first shoot of the year, plus we didn't get a chance to practice at all so I'm sure I'll be very rusty but it should still be fun.

We're leaving in a few hours and we'll be back on Sunday night. I'm bringing my laptop and a 27'' monitor so I can get some hands in at night after we're done shooting.

Financial goals for 2011

2011-04-08T06:29:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking a lot the past week or so what I'd like to get accomplished by the end of this year to feel like I'm back to being 110% super solid financially. I plan on continuing my VPP tear and finishing the year with enough of them to make the following goals achievable.

Financial goals to be completed by the end of 2011:

Have approximately $5k in my checking account at all times.
Build a "safety net" fund of $25k to cover living expenses for 6-12 months in case of a ridiculous downswing, poker legislation that causes a huge blackout period, etc. Put this money aside in a low-risk, savings account or money market account.
Maintain a bankroll of 200 buy-ins for the stakes I'm playing at the time.
Pay off my house in North Dakota.

I plan on doing these in the order they are listed. It will feel really great if I'm able to complete all of these things by the year's end. It would be so nice to get my house 100% paid off because then I am absolutely debt free. I don't owe anything for my car... paid cash for that. Also don't have any credit card bills or anything else like that so once I'm able to pay off my mortgage I won't owe anyone anything.

After I figure out my taxes next week and cut the huge check to the IRS, I plan on beginning to work on all of these things.

Back in ND for now...

2011-04-05T14:45:00.000-05:00

My lease on my apartment in downtown Chicago ran out a few weeks ago and ended up moving back home to my house in ND due to burning through all of the money I had set aside for my emergency living expenses fund (6-12 months of living expenses set aside in case of a terrible stretch of poker results) that every professional poker player should have. So I'm back here for the time being, focusing on grinding like crazy to get my financial situation back to a reasonable level.

It's disappointing that I let myself get to this point, but I made the correct but tough decision to minimize my expenses as much as possible for now to rebuild. My bankroll is still very healthy but my offline funds are not what they used to be... I had a lot of fixed expenses in Chicago and I had my worst year as a poker pro in 2010.

My lofty goal to reach 3 million VPPs is looking basically impossible at this point, as I'm around 200,000 VPPs behind pace. However, I am ahead of pace for 2 million VPPs so I am going to shoot for a milestone of anywhere from 2.25 to 2.75 million VPPs depending on how it goes. Any one of those three milestones will still guarantee that I have a very solid year in 2011.

Liz and I are still dating and she took the train to ND with me and did an amazing job of helping me move into my house. I couldn't have done it without her. We have an adventure planned in Minneapolis the weekend after Easter so I'm looking forward to that.

Current VPP count is 574,739 and I am 9th overall on PokerStars in VPPs for the year so far according to this list.

Hope everyone is doing well and I intend to try and update my blog more frequently from here on out. I have been very busy lately but since it only takes a few minutes I would rather churn out a few short blogs rather than wait weeks between posts.

Here's a pic of Liz when we were on the train. One of my friends, Blair, left a sock monkey at my place and he said Liz could have it. She couldn't have been happier that the sock monkey is now hers!

Halfway to SNE!

2011-03-17T00:28:00.000-05:00

Today I cracked the 500,000 VPP milestone on Stars, so I'm officially halfway towards Supernova Elite. That is not my goal, however. I was shooting for 3 million VPPs but the more time goes on the more I fall behind. I'm hoping that I'll gradually start catching up but so far I'm on pace for around 2.25 to 2.5 million VPPs for the year.

HU

2011-03-08T11:39:00.000-06:00

I have been sitting HU when my table count is low and yesterday I got some action at $3/6 NL vs a massive retard. I absolultely destroyed him, although he was up on me for probably the first 30 minutes of the match. Every time I busted him or won a big pot off of him, he would reload and then start jamming 100bbs with any two cards for like 3 or 4 minutes straight. He actually won a few of those as I called him with KTs and lost to 69s and also lost with AJ AIPF after he just shipped with 64o.

It was actually really fun to play him, as well as profitable, so I think I'm going to start sitting HU more frequently to try and find more idiots like this.

VPP update: I currently have 453,505 VPPs and am nearly halfway to SNE!

Broke the 400k VPP milestone today

2011-02-28T09:15:00.001-06:00

I passed the 400k VPP milestone today but have fallen even more off of the 3 million VPP pace. It actually got a bit more difficult to get as many VPPs per hour after the loss of the 20-50bb games but that's a small pill to swallow considering I don't have to deal with those idiot shortstackers anymore.

Currently 13th overall in PokerStars VPPs this year

2011-02-25T01:06:00.000-06:00

So I added my screen name to the PokerStars VPP race update list and I'm currently in 13th overall. That is actually pretty impressive considering the site has hundreds of thousands of players on it. I hope to move up the rankings though and try to catch up to the guys at the top... but it will be very difficult as many of them play high stakes SNGs where they get raped by the rake and generate tons of VPPs/hour.

Currently I have 386,694 VPPs and am still behind pace for 3 million VPPs. Going to play a ton for the remainder of the month and hopefully make up some ground.

High stakes + Duckslayer2k do not mix

2011-02-19T23:59:00.000-06:00

For some reason or another, whenever I play $10/20 NL or $25/50 NL I just get assraped in all in EV and lose only because of that.

Here's a hand vs. a regular who is up $600k?! wtf how he's up that much if he's capable of making such retarded plays as this one is beyond me. Must be a top-liner.

Cereusly, FML.

VPP update: 359,098

Fun Valentine's Day with Liz

2011-02-16T04:56:00.000-06:00

Liz and I had our Valentine's day a bit early, we celebrated it this past Saturday. I had a really good weekend and it was fun to just relax. We finished up season 4 of Dexter and although I had already seen the ending of the season finale it was still kind of shitty to watch Rita die again. Liz didn't expect that to happen at all.

Here are some pics!

falling behind pace...

2011-02-16T04:41:00.000-06:00

For some reason, I have been sleeping a ton so far this week and I don't know why. Maybe my body is just exausted from the first month and half of the year. I keep setting my alarm then waking up, hitting it off, and sleeping for another 4 hours. It's causing me to get off pace big time, as now I'm approximately 40,000 VPPs off pace for 3 million.

I am just going to try and make it up bit by bit and not try to go crazy to get caught up all at once like I have done in previous days so far this year... all that does is catch up to me causing me to get way too tired for the following day(s).

The goal is still plenty reachable and I need approximately 8,377 VPPs from now until the end of the year to reach 3 million VPPs. Right now, I am already 11% completed towards my ultimate goal so I'm not doing a horrible job of keeping up. I'm just falling a bit behind, but it isn't anything I can't overcome.

20-50bb games already becoming more sparse

2011-02-11T02:26:00.001-06:00

Stars implemented their change yesterday at around 6 PM. All of the new tables that are spawning are now unmarked, 40-100bb tables and tables marked as "deep" with a buyin of 100-250bbs.

There are still some of the 20-50bb tables hanging around as shortstackers are playing night and day, pissing in bottles, and eating over their keyboards to try and make the tables last as long as possible before they have to start working at McDonalds. However, one by one, they are getting shut down when the tables go empty.

I can't wait until they're all gone, but some might last until the next server restart (which is probably in a month or so since there was one just before they made this change).

Here's the call of the day! A few days ago I got called down by someone with 9 high... today it isn't quite as bad as he snapcalled my river shove with Q high! I'm such a LAG people will call me down with ANYTHING!!! >:D

300k VPPs

2011-02-10T04:48:00.000-06:00

Hit 300k VPPs for the year yesterday. It feels good to already be 10% completed towards my goal of 3 million VPPs.

20-50bb games will be history in the next 4-16 hours!

2011-02-10T02:02:00.000-06:00

YEEAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

DEATH TO SHORTSTACKERS!!!

Originally Posted by PokerStars Steve

The 20-50bb tables will stop respawning tomorrow and existing tables will be destroyed

Call of the day!

2011-02-09T10:30:00.000-06:00

I think this fish put me on 78 here, a missed gutshot... and snapped me with 9 HIGH!?! wtf haha

VPP adventure is still in progress and I am nearing 300k VPPs. I currently have 295,147. I should hit 300k VPPs sometime later today.

I find that I'm handling the volume pretty well, except there are some times when I sit down to play when I'm kind of tired but don't realize I'm tired. Those sessions don't start well and I get crushed hard right away... one happened yesterday but I realized it before it got too bad and quit 30 minutes in. I think it has more to do with my brain just needing to reboot than actually being physically tired.

25% of the way to Supernova Elite!

2011-02-04T05:07:00.000-06:00

Today I broke the 250k VPP marker, so I am officially 1/4 of the way to Supernova Elite on Stars. I am still around 30k VPPs behind pace for 3 million but I hope to be caught up by the end of the month.

January is over, February begins

2011-02-01T02:21:00.000-06:00

The month of January was pretty crazy, as I played a ton of poker attempting to be on pace for 3 million VPPs. I did a pretty decent job of staying close to pace, as I finished the month with 223,252 VPPs. So currently I am 31,568 VPPs behind pace of 3 million VPPs. I intend to make up that ground and be on pace by the end of February.

I am going to make a schedule for myself later tonight and try to follow it as best I can. It's important that I have a schedule to stay on pace because it was really hectic not having one in January.

Poker, results-wise in January... started off the first two weeks amazingly well and basically lost it almost all back thanks to a $20k downswing and finished up a little bit on the month.

Hopefully I can start getting used to putting in this much volume and my results will improve in the coming months. We'll see what happens!

Fun session

2011-01-29T06:36:00.000-06:00

Poker, results-wise, has been an absolute nightmare over the last week or so. I'm on a huge downswing and a lot of it is just simply due to getting bent over. Not much I can do about it, but this certainly is one of the biggest downswings I've had in terms of $ as well as over a certain amount of hands.

Here's a fun little graph of my last session where I absolutely pwnd this one reg when a bit deep at $3/6 NL 6 max and he proceeded to hit his 7% chance to win. Oh, he also won a flip vs me that he never should have been in about 5 minutes after the first hand. Oh, AND he sucked out with AJ on JXX all-in on the flop to stack the Megafish's pocket Queens and send him packing.

hit 200k VPP milestone

2011-01-28T23:15:00.002-06:00

I hit the 200k VPP milestone today and have been playing a lot so far today.

Here is the hand of the day, lol.

http://weaktight.com/3186014

Hope you all have a great weekend!

2011 Update

2011-01-28T02:48:00.000-06:00

I have been super busy so far this month, hence the lack of blog updates. I intend to start updating frequently in February so keep checking back.

I will take more time later to detail my goals and plans for 2011 but basically I am going for somewhere between 2 million and 3 million VPPs on PokerStars. I have been trying to keep pace for 3 million so far in January but it is pretty tough, since I'm only 12-16 tabling 6 max cash $2/4 NL - $5/10 NL. Currently, I have 199,539 VPPs and am around 24,000 VPPs behind pace for 3mil VPPs (which equates to about 2-3 days of work).

I am going to try and get all caught up before the end of January but it's going to be difficult. I'm pretty happy about the PokerStars game buy-in structure changes for cash games and can't wait to quit playing against shortstacking bastards. So I'm looking forward to that all going into action on February 10th.

As far as poker playing results, it was going awesome up until about a week ago... now I'm on a $15k downswing and there's no end in sight the way I'm running right now. Still up for the month but it's really frustrating being at this point right now because I was doing so well before. Oh well, at least I am getting in a good amount of VPPs and that alone should ensure that I have a good 2011.

I may do a prop bet on whether or not I will make 3 million VPPs in 2011. I will play for a bit after the new game buy-in structures to see if it affects my VPP/hand rates and/or the amount of tables I am able to play before I seriously consider doing one though.

I will update again soon!

Ewalletxpress fund seizure

2011-01-26T01:35:00.000-06:00

U.S. Government up to no good again, as they seize and investigate Ewalletxpress.com.

"Dear Customers,

You all may already be aware of the fact that eWalletXpress has been out of service since November last year.

At this point we must regretfully inform you that our funds and accounts were seized by the United States Government as part of a confidential investigation. We have contacted the U.S. investigating agencies and are currently negotiating with them. At present, eWalletXpress is unable to access these funds or return them to you because the money is no longer in our custody or control.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Due to the sensitivity of the situation we were not able to notify you earlier and we do sincerely appologize again for any inconvenience you may have suffered.

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There goes $816. FML.

Christmas!

2010-12-29T03:06:00.002-06:00

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. I had a great Christmas with Liz. We finished decorating our tree, went out to eat dinner at the "China Grill" at the Hard Rock Hotel, and opened presents. I'll be going to pick out my Christmas gift on Thursday because Liz wanted me to try on the bluetooth phone headsets before buying one. That's a good idea, since the last one I bought never really stayed on my ear, it kept falling off which was very annoying.

As for poker, I had a good talk on the phone today with Seth and he gave me some good advice about poker study. He was definitely correct in saying that my poker study has to be much more serious and focused... I will work on that for 2011.

Poker overall is going a bit better. I've played a ton on Stars this month and I'm basically a half-day of playing away from the 300k VPP milestone which is worth $3,600. I should get it tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to 2011 since it's nice to feel like you get a fresh start. I will be going for 2 million VPPs which is basically 2xs Supernova Elite. I'll be 14-16 tabling 6 Max, $2/4 through $5/10 to achieve it. I will probably play mostly $2/4 NL and $3/6 NL for the first few months of the year until I'm able to build my roll up to the point where I have a comfortable bankroll to play $5/10.

I will make a post before the New Year begins outlining my plan for 2011 and goals. I also plan on updating my blog much more frequently in 2011 as I want to use it as a way to keep track of my progress and help me stay on pace.

Here are some pics from Christmas.

Tried playing full ring again...

2010-12-23T01:51:00.000-06:00

I don't know why I keep trying to play full ring... it's a fucking joke. I was 24 tabling in an experiment to see if that is better for my SNE run next year than playing 6 max... I've come to the conclusion that it definitely is not.

Full ring is basically just a bunch of massive nits sitting around, waiting to cooler each other. The fish are scarce and it's so tilting because when you're dealt KK and someone 3-bets you, you start shitting your pants.

Back to 6 max and from now until the end of the year I'm going to try and build up to playing as many tables as I can while still slightly winning. If I play as much as I plan to next year I should be able to hit 2 million VPPs.

Sorry for lack of updates...

2010-12-21T04:53:00.000-06:00

But I've been busy grinding on Stars. Attempting to hit the 300k VPP milestone and practice for SNE next year. I need to decide between 24 tabling full ring or just table selecting around 12 games of 6 max. I'm currently experimenting with both and seeing what will be best for me. I think doing the 24 tabling full ring will obviously get me more VPPs and perhaps allow me to hit 1.5 million to 2 million VPPs if I play as much as I plan to next year... but it's hard to say if I can bank on any playing profits when playing that type of volume. I'll probably turn into a robot zombie.

Office is no more

2010-12-14T11:12:00.000-06:00

The lease on the office is up January 15th and Tim ended up moving his stuff out last week.. and I moved my desk to my apartment today so the office is officially over. It was a good learning experience and I feel I became a little bit better of a poker player, but I was hoping to be crushing $10/20 NL 6 max by the time of the office's expiration. I guess I expected to get a lot better from being in that office environment than I actually did.

I learned that it's really, really stupid to have fixed overhead of any amount for a business that can be done just as efficiently from the comfort of your own home. It just adds to your pressure to win because you have an additional $1k per month in fixed expenses.

It's over now and all I can do is learn from it. I am going to try and finish moving my computer and monitors over to my apartment later today so I can get my primary set-up ready to roll in my apartment.

Government trying to fuck up online poker again

2010-12-08T05:40:00.000-06:00

As everyone is probably aware of by now, Senator Reid is attempting to push a bill that seeks to "legalize" internet poker. Well, in a nutshell... if this passes it will create mass chaos and will be very negative for online poker players for at least a few years from what it sounds like. Here's a link to some analysis on it.

I hope and say, "IT SHALL NOT PASS!"

They have to get it done before the end of the year, so we'll see what happens. A few days ago it seemed like a sure thing but now the latest reports are sounding like there is no way that it will be tacked onto the tax relief bill. I just hope it doesn't get tacked on to some other bill or something stupid like that.

I have been playing on Stars a ton this month and am shooting for 300k VPP before the year ends. I'm about 71% there, and have 212k VPPs. I think I should be able to make it if I just keep on grinding it out.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Starting to pull it together

2010-12-01T02:49:00.000-06:00

I have been playing well the past couple of days, hopefully I can keep it up and finish the year out strong. I really have to sit down and get my receipts from 2010 in a spreadsheet and start organizing stuff before the year ends. I have been pretty lazy in that department and it isn't good. I want to be 100% ready to hit the ground running when 2011 begins... because as of now, the plan is a run for SNE!

I also have a goal of hitting 200k VPPs for this year, and it looks like I should be able to hit that without any problem.

Hope everyone is doing well.

FTP Thanksgiving tip!

2010-11-25T19:22:00.000-06:00

Here's a tip from the pro's for Thanksgiving! I tried not getting into a flip ever and it worked great! I just wait until the river comes to determine if I should put chips in or not, that way I can not lose a coin flip!!!! >:D

Enjoy! and Happy Turkey Day!

Finally had a great day on Stars

2010-11-23T02:23:00.000-06:00

Ran well, played well aside from maybe one questionable pre-flop call all-in for 50bbs. But I hope this is a sign that I am getting back on a roll. We'll see.

I had a great weekend hanging with Liz. I went to the suburbs and we got a hotel room for a night after going out drinking with some of her friends.

It's late, so I'm going back to my apartment, watch NHL on the Fly, and hit the hay.

Stars experiment not going well

2010-11-20T00:10:00.000-06:00

As I have mentioned before, I was attempting to experiment on Poker Stars this month to see if a SNE run is possible for 2011. The games I have been playing in have not been working out. It is a somewhat small sample... around 60k hands, but if you go by all-in EV I am losing WAY too much. I am actually down around 10-20 buy-ins, I don't know exactly because of the unorganized database spread between my three computers.

I am throwing in the towel and just giving up. I can't be getting crushed each day and session like I am now.

Also, the office is no more. I decided to not renew the lease when it expires on January 15th. It's been nice having Tim there to talk poker with and I feel like I'm a better player now than I was at the beginning of the year but my results now are not what I imagined they would be. I sort of expected to be moving up the stakes, getting better a lot faster, and crushing a lot harder... what actually happened is I had to move down stakes due to having to cash out from all of my expenses.

It's frustrating but it was worth the shot as the potential reward was worth the risk. Now it's just time to look at what I have left in my business and build it back up to where I was a year ago. It starts with reducing unnecessary costs like the office.

So much for the good start...

2010-11-11T00:53:00.000-06:00

I'm having a terrible time with poker. I just am not playing well or running well. It's disheartening. I'm running WAY above EV this month, however still down in the game I've spent the most time playing. I need to sit down and figure out a plan to unfuck my poker business because I'm seriously turning into a rakeback pro and it's ridiculous. I'm way better than that and I know it.

8 HIGH NO GOOD SIR

2010-11-05T03:04:00.000-05:00

Villain in this hand puts me on teh open ended straight draw and snaps me off with 8 high here. It's no good.

http://weaktight.com/2871309

Off to a good start this month, despite having my main desktop computer in the office crash and wasting a day or two trying to fix it. I just ended up sending it in to Best Buy and paid a ridiculous sum of money for them to fix it (so far around $500). So hopefully it gets fixed soon because right now I'm just playing on my laptop and my apartment desktop. I can't hook up to my 30'' monitors because I don't have the correct adapter.

I'm going to continue the grind and play my best for the rest of the month. Last month was good but this month will be better. Forward momentum FTW!

Won the rake race!

2010-11-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

Had a great Halloween weekend with my girl. Also, today I found out that I have won the October FTP rake race at raketherake.com! So that is pretty sweet, as I worked really hard to win that.

The plan for this month is back to the Stars SNE test run. I'm taking today off though mostly as I want to just relax for a day before I start up the grind again. Hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend!

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T14:20:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone is having a great Halloween weekend! I'm having a great one with my girl, Liz. Friday we went to a haunted house, which was pretty sweet. Saturday night we went on a dinner cruise on the Mystic Blue and that was a blast. It was our second time doing the cruise on that ship and there were a lot more people on the boat this time since it was the last fireworks dinner cruise of the year. We also watched a few scary movies last night of course!

Today we are doing a few Halloweeny things such as carving a pumpkin and baking cupcakes. I will post some pics later on. I still have a lot of pics from the Fall that I haven't had time to put up since I've been busy trying to win the FTP rake race. I'm still in first place with a big lead so hopefully I can take down the $3,750 bonus. We'll find out if I won or not on Monday.

Grindin'

2010-10-24T00:27:00.000-05:00

Put in about 20 hours over the past few days and had decent results. I've switched up my RUSH playing strategy to basically eliminate the full ring bullshit and just play all 6 Max now.

I'm leading the rakerace still but not by much so hopefully the people who are close to me don't play that much this weekend. I think I have definitely played enough though to at least retain the #1 slot and will attempt to put it out of reach for them on Monday-Thursday as I will play a minimum of 10 hours per day.

Getting that free $3,750 is going to be nice. I just need to keep on truckin' and I should have it locked up.

I'm going to head over to Liz's place now, as it will be the last weekend we have to hang in her town home she was living in. It ended up selling and she is moving out.

I have tons of pictures of Fall adventures Liz and I have had. I haven't had time to post them, but I'll post some of the best ones maybe at the beginning of next month once this rake race thing is finished.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Update

2010-10-15T22:33:00.000-05:00

I've played a ton over the past few days but ran quite poorly. I'm shooting for 1st place in the FTP rake race at raketherake.com. Currently, I'm in first place but there are a few other people who are nipping at my heels so I'm going to have to put in a ton of volume for the rest of the month so I can win the $3,750 bonus prize.

I'm going camping tomorrow with Liz so that should be fun. I'm looking forward to it.

blah

2010-10-10T02:44:00.000-05:00

Played a ton over the past few days but my results were pretty damn mediocre as I broke even. I feel like I missed HUNDREDS of flush draws and the two times I did actually hit today I ran into the nut flush when I had the 2nd nut flush. FML.

I honestly ran pretty bad, lots tons of flips, etc. RUSH is pretty damn annoying sometimes. Some regs are just so stupid aggro it's hilarious. I flatted TT on the CO vs a raise, the squeeze happy 20% 3bet reg squeezes, initial raiser folds, and I just 4-bet ship and he SNAPCALLS with 33. Obviously I lose.

Only really good thing about past few days is I will be getting a shit-ton of rakeback and I am about halfway to unlocking the first $2k bonus from my FTP black card membership, so at least my roll is growing.

Going to hang out with Liz tomorrow and take the day off, so I'm looking forward to that. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

NHL SEASON BEGAN THURSDAY!!!!

2010-10-08T04:01:00.002-05:00

Forgot to mention that! I will be going home right now to watch NHL On The Fly to see all the highlights from today's games. I can't wait.

Summer is always tough with no hockey to watch, I'm glad it's back.

18k hands today

2010-10-08T03:58:00.000-05:00

I played a ton of hands today. Ended up 5 buy-ins for the day but I was actually up 16 buy-ins at my highest point for the day. I think I definitely let my play deteriorate by around hand 10,000.. as that's basically when I wasn't crushing souls anymore. Could have just been a run hot then run cold type of deal too. I'm not to concerned about it, still had a winning day.

I deviated from my SNE trial run basically because I got fed up with full ring bullshit. I might do it next month, but for now I'm playing RUSH on FTP and going to attempt to take first in the rake race for raketherake.com. So far I'm in 7th place so I've got some catching up to do. I might as well do that, because if I just focus all my play on one site I can pick up an extra $1,000-$3,750 in rake back at the end of the month, which is definitely a nice little bonus. Also, in order to win the damn thing I figure I will need around $30,000 in rake paid for the month, which, at 27% rake back comes out to be $8,100.

So as long as I can keep winning I should have a nice little month in October. We'll see what happens.

EPIC last 38 hours!

2010-10-03T03:44:00.000-05:00

So, over the last 38 hours I've played a shit-ton of poker. I slept for about 4 hours at the office, otherwise I was playing poker, eating, pissing, or taking a short break.

Over that span of time, I ended up playing 40,845 hands! That's by FAR the most I've ever played in 2 day period.

Needless to say, I'm pretty exhausted so I'm going to head back to my apartment to get some sleep before I take the train to Liz's place in the morning.

Here is the garph:

Long Day

2010-10-01T03:17:00.000-05:00

Played a TON of full ring hands today... ended up playing 12,000 hands in about 10 hours. I finished up 4 buy-ins but I tend to stack off a little lighter than I really should towards the end of my sessions and get a bit careless... I shouldn't have stacked off two pair in a 4-way pot on the flop vs the inital raiser... he min-raised my lead with 2 other people yet to act... I should have just called and checked the turn to re-evaluate.

It's actually just plain sickening how careful you have to be in the full ring games I'm playing in. It's pretty disgusting when you're holding KK in EP and get 3-bet by some uber-nit who 3-bets EP raisers like 0.5%... and BAM, you're SET MINING !?! with your KK. Pretty ridiculous IMO.

I am getting more and more used to playing 24 tables each day I do this. I handled it really well today until my computer decided to spazz out and I couldn't click on anything... thus causing me to lose my time banks on all my tables and press the power button on my computer to restart it. I still don't know exactly why that happened.

I'm super tired, I'm going to post the pics from last weekend sometime tomorrow. Goodnight all.

Full Ringing

2010-09-29T01:06:00.000-05:00

Played a ton of 100NL Full Ring today on Stars. It went kinda "meh". I won a few buy-ins but my last session of the day was frustrating.

I'm going to play it again tomorrow and the plan for October is to put in 40 hours per week 24 tabling full ring for a SNE trial run, so we'll see how it goes.

My weekend was great and I'll post some pics and talk more about it tomorrow, because I'm off to my apartment to watch the first new episode of Season 5 of DEXTER!!! This show is AMAZING! I love it. It just keeps getting better, and better, and better each season. I don't really even consider it a TV show, it's more like a long movie in which the plot keeps thickening and gets more and more exciting.

If you haven't ever seen Dexter, watch it! You will love it. It only took me 30 minutes of watching it to get hooked.

Have a good night everyone.

Back to RUSH

2010-09-22T02:03:00.000-05:00

I decided to go back to playing primarily RUSH for a few weeks. Focus is to put in volume and not get disgruntled when I have a bad sesh or day.

My weekend was pretty fun, I hung out with Liz and got to see one of my good friends from NYC who was in town. We went to a barbecue at one of my friends girlfriend's place, which was a blast. The food was really good and both Liz and I had a good time.

Halloween is coming up and it's Liz's favorite holiday, so we're going to be doing a bunch of fun fall-related stuff this weekend. She has already decorated her place really well.

Here are some pics from two weekends ago, pics of the decorations, and some pics from the barbecue.