Over due update

For those that don’t know – I didn’t win the WSOP Main Event.  It was a great experience and I was very happy with the way I played so I have no regrets.  In spite of this I was incredibly angry for 2 days after busting.  It is so strange that after so many years of poker I can still feel this way.  This is part of why I don’t play  many tournaments.  As a cash game player I can just re-buy or comeback strong the next day.  Tournament poker takes a different kind of mental toughness that I haven’t developed yet.

Thanks again to Sorel and all my other supporters.

I had a chance to meet a bunch of guys at the http://www.runitonce.com/ lounge and hang with some online poker contacts including my friend Sunny – http://www.leggopoker.com/coaches/crushchessy/

I am still living in NY as my house hasn’t sold but at least I will get to play some serious online poker in NJ starting Nov 26.  If the games are half as good as I hope I will be commuting to NJ instead of Foxwoods Casino in a few months.

World Series of Poker here I come!

Last week Sorel offered to buy some of my action for the WSOP $10,000 Main Event that starts July 6. In less than twelve hours I was able to sell enough action to finance the trip to Vegas. Thank you Sorel and my other backers.

I am on the East Coast, so tomorrow I am going to begin adjusting my sleep schedule to Las Vegas time to make sure I am rested and ready to play my best poker. I will be playing a few live and online tournaments this week to sharpen my tournament skills.

I am going to work on finding some travel friendly Paleo. Since I may be the only poker player ever to make it into the Main Event by winning a health/body transformation contest I need to at least live up to staying health while grinding in Vegas.

Back to the drawing board

I have given a lot of thought on where to move. It is a coin toss between Las Vegas and Fort Lauderdale. Now that our buyer’s financing fell through it is back to the drawing board. The house is back on the market but any move is on hold, so the coin is still in my pocket.

Live poker has been going very well the last few months but it feels strange to not be in Las Vegas for the WSOP this year.

I haven’t played much online poker the last two months. Going forward I expect this to change as I have been thinking a lot about taking a more game theory optimal approach to my online game. I am excited to start applying some of the strategies I have been working on.

I am back to working out at Albany Crossfit and I am feeling very motivated about my training and so far my shoulder is pain free 🙂

Updates

Lots of things going on the past few months. here are the cliffs:

~ I think I have had the lowest earning 3 month stretch in last 5 years playing poker.

~ I have been doing a decent amount of poker coaching which has been fun.

~ Sessions with Mizzi have been kind of hit or miss, and I haven’t played as many MTTs as I would have liked as Juicy Stakes Poker site seems to crash every other weekend.

~ I missed playing some WSOP ring events at Foxwoods last week as my girlfriend hurt her back and I had to play nurse.

~ We accepted an offer to sell our house, so if things go well I will be in a more poker friendly place this summer.

~ I am back in the gym and my shoulder seems to finally be getting better.

~ I plan on spending all of April at home grinding online

Progress

I had another Coaching session last week. We talked about some approaches to learning and getting together for an hour every week for a while. I am excited because I feel like the short stack tournament situations are starting to make more sense. I have been watching some poker training videos on http://www.runitonce.com/ from some top tournament pros that Sorel recommended.

So far this year I have played forty seven online tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $3 to $30. Living in the US I have limited access to online poker so when I have the time I just buy in to anything I can find. So far I have made four final tables with one win. It feels great to be off to a good start.

New Year – New Plans

Fatmike made a small comeback over the holidays but he won’t know what hit him in the first quarter of 2013! I am back at eating healthy and hitting the gym strong.

I don’t really have New Years resolutions but I have been working on creating a better AM routine. If I get the day started right everything else just falls in place. Right now I am focused on doing three things every morning. First I am starting the day with some type of meditation or breathing exercises. Then right to work with playing some poker. Third do some kind of workout. By taking a “Emphasize the Start” approach I think I can get more done.

I am also going to make a big commitment to playing and learning more about tournament poker. I am doing this to try to get the most out of coaching with Sorel and for a new poker challenge. Right now the plan is set aside every Sunday to grind some tournaments. I have a bunch of training videos to watch and of course I am hoping I can talk much more poker with Sorel.

Coaching with Sorel 1

Last week I finally caught up with Sorel for some poker talk. He sent me about 500 hands from a recent online tournament to review. I watched all the hands and marked about 50 that I would have played different. I was really surprised to see that I marked 10 percent of the hands!

Most of the hands were spots where I would have open raised or 3B bluffed and Sorel folded. We talk a bunch about the impact of different stacks sizes and how to adjust optimally. I think I was underestimating how often 20bb stacks behind would 3B jam verse late position steals. I am happy that the Sorel agreed with most of my post flop lines. It turns out that he was taking some non-standard lines based on players and game flow. I do feel like I am gaining a better understanding of sub 40bb poker. Thanks Sorel – I am looking forward to our next session.

I have also been playing some micro/small stakes online poker with 40bb stacks to get some more experience on these stack sizes. This has led me to playing around with some new software to refine my 3B and 4B ranges and bet sizes with a short stack. I have already used some of what I learned at my normal stakes against short stacked opponents.

Still got it!

The past few months I have been playing less live poker.  I have been staying close to home as we are in the process of selling our house and moving.  This has given me the chance to do a bit more coaching and play some more online poker.  I have been working on my online game a ton and I feel like I am back to where I was before Black Friday.  Below are my results for the past few months.  About half of these hands are full ring and the other half are 6-max.

I have only talked with Sorel once so not too much to report yet.  I have been playing some small buy-in online tournament but I am still a fish anytime I have less than 40bb.  Sorel did recommend some videos to watch.   I will be working on this and more in the next few months.

Goals

I had a good conversation with Sorel a few days ago and he ask me to figure out some poker goals that he could help me with.  I feel like I have been on a poker plateau for the last two years just grinding out a living but not really moving up in the poker world.  What I have been doing for the past five years hasn’t been enough to get me off this plateau so I need a new approach.  I am not sure what I need to do different just that my current habits haven’t taken to where I want to be.

I usually think about goals in two categories. Product goals are what I want to create and process goals are the daily actions required to produce the product goals.  So for today I want to just look at my product goals which in poker have always been about money and skill.  So here are the here are the goals for the Mike crushes poker with Sorel Mizzi challenge!

1) earn six figures in 2013

2) crush high-stakes NLH (5/10NLH+ live and 3/6NLH+ online)

3) learn to play winning NLH tournament poker both live and online

4) do all the above while staying healthy and fit

Winner winner steak dinner

Winner winner steak dinner because it is much better than chicken.  I found out this afternoon I won the Mizzi Health Challenge!  I am looking forward to talking with Mizzi and working hard to take my game to the next level.