Operation Learn How to Do Things

So this likely wont have much poker content and is more of a life blog following my progress to develop different skills [currently skiing], but hopefully it will be interesting. Oh and TLDR warning. I have a habit of writing really longs posts, so be warned that my updates will probably be big walls of texts without pretty graphs to break it up.

Background:
Up until now, I never really was good at poker, because I never really had to be. I bonus whored in high school and didnt have bigger ambitions because that was a lot of money at the time, and I just assumed those opportunities would always be around. When I went to university, I tried moving up and made it to 2/4 when UIGEA hit and continued trying to grind there without doing much to really improve; never really thought too deeply about poker even though it was a huge focus for me. That didn’t go too well, then got hacked and lost a decent amount of money, and then shortstacked out of necessity. Put a lot of work into that because even though it wasnt that simple [there weren’t as many tools available then] it was something that I felt I could figure out, instead of all the uncertainty involved with deepstack nlhe.

Made ~$120k first full year of shortstacking, my 3rd year of university, with the majority of the profits coming in the last few months and then took time off from school and went to Thailand. Staked a friend who came with me, he lost a decent amount of money and I basically broke even. Decided the only way to salvage the year was to do a SNE megagrind, and I did while going back to school. Lost a lot doing that, still came out ahead on the year, but that time would have been much better spent actually trying to improve. Got really burned out from that grind and barely played at all the last year until summer in Vegas where I grinded the $500+ live SNGs at the WSOP and crushed them for awhile before hitting a big downswing, but still finished with a decent profit.

During that time I really became interested in the draw games when I saw Danny messing around with them. I didnt play much at all when I got back to school, but spent a lot of time studying heads up limit 5 card draw. Started playing part time on a stake from Danny in the beginning of November and did incredibly well and was by far the biggest winner in these games during this period, playing as high as 200/400. Throughout the summer and fall as I was working on finishing my honors thesis, but had gotten distracted a bit by poker when I started playing again, so after finishing classes in the fall, I went to PCA with Meeloche and Alexos and took a break from poker. When I got back I grinded out the first draft of my thesis, and shortly after moved in to my current [temporary] condo.

Current Situation:
I am currently writing this post from the condo I am renting at Sugarloaf Mountain in Carrabassett Valley, Maine for the next two months. Before moving in, I had only skied twice before, but decided that living in Maine and doing nothing during the winter absolutely sucks, so I should learn how to ski. It might seem a little premature to decide to do this, but I firmly believe that the easiest way to change your habits is to force yourself to. Its easy to make lofty goals, but its pretty hard to work towards those when you need to change your habits to do so and have so much distracting you.

I think as poker players, we are given incredible freedom to travel and make our own hours, and the vast majority of us completely waste that. Im no less guilty of this than anybody else, but now that I have school behind me, I am really going to do my best to achieve the goals I have and hope that this blog can help hold me accountable.

Right now my immediate plans are to learn how to ski by getting a lesson once every week or two and then going on my own as much as I can, hopefully only taking 1 day off a week. Im going to start going back to the gym to lift and swim [another skill that I want to learn, but not really as seriously as skiing] and develop a better diet as well. Ideally, I am going to balance all of this with a decent grind of the five card draw games.

After these two months are up, I am strongly considering doing something else Ive never done before and going back to Thailand to do Muay Thai training for about a month. A lot of that depends on how things go financially until then, but its the current plan right now. After that Im going to come back and meet up with some friends to go to CigarFest in the Poconos which should be a great time, and then get ready for a move to Boston. My girlfriend currently lives in Philadelphia, but just got into dental school in Boston and we will be moving there when her lease in Philly ends in July.

A lot of big changes coming up for me, but Im really excited for them. I really think that with school behind me and poker going well, I have a lot of opportunities to focus on other aspects of my life and really hope to do that. Im not sure specifically what that will be, but I want the freedom to try different things until I figure out what specifically I want to pursue, and luckily poker gives me that.

Im not too sure what specifically I will be using this blog for, but most likely will post updates about my skiing progress and probably any ramblings I may have. There will be very little poker content, but I can give updates about that if people are interested, dont really want to discuss strategy though.

So anyways, thanks for reading this, if you have any questions or what me to talk about my thoughts on something, just let me know.

andy-akb.

Should be a fun couple of months, GL!

Awesome start! In on ground floor imo. . Also, your Thailand Muay-Thai idea has always interested me as well. There just seems to be something so liberating about the idea of going to a foreign language country and putting all your energy into a physical grind.

I'll be going skiing this week as well, we'll have to do a ski trip together at some point in the future when we don't suck.

Oh and ship some stand pat bluffs plz

Did you live in a 'sick house in Thailand'?

I think as poker players, we are given incredible freedom to travel and make our own hours, and the vast majority of us completely waste that.

very true

Good post andy, good luck with the ski grind!

What are your gf's thoughts on this whole poker scene/freedom to move around easily etc? My gf has mixed feelings for sure, though she likes the money clearly.

Originally Posted by Ravageur

Awesome start! In on ground floor imo. . Also, your Thailand Muay-Thai idea has always interested me as well. There just seems to be something so liberating about the idea of going to a foreign language country and putting all your energy into a physical grind.

I'll be going skiing this week as well, we'll have to do a ski trip together at some point in the future when we don't suck.

Oh and ship some stand pat bluffs plz

haha i lost my db with all of my hands so i cant really dig anything up, but the cooler hands imo are the really thin value bets or when you call a bluff really a lightly.

and yea, going to thailand before was definitely an experience and i really think going somewhere like that to focus on something is the best way to do it simply because you wont have much else to do. if i end up doing it, you are more than welcome to come.

Originally Posted by fjuanl

Did you live in a 'sick house in Thailand'?

hadnt heard this cliche until Mark, the king of internet memes [even though he hadnt seen the cool starry bra before] brought it up. but yes, we did live in a pretty sick house.

Originally Posted by griffey24

Good post andy, good luck with the ski grind!

What are your gf's thoughts on this whole poker scene/freedom to move around easily etc? My gf has mixed feelings for sure, though she likes the money clearly.

I’m having a hard time really articulating how she feels about it, and I guess it’s because I’m not entirely sure. When we were dating casually, it wasn’t really an issue and more of a laughing it off, “there he goes again” kind of thing. Since getting more serious, I know spending the summer in Vegas bothered her a bit, but I mean after that we have been long distance since she started her job in Philadelphia so my traveling hasn’t been too much of an inconvenience and usually makes it easier for me to see her as I try to make sure my flights go through Philly with a day or two layover on each end.

She is somebody that enjoys going out to eat at nice places but doesn’t expect it at all and definitely doesn’t take the attitude that it should be easy for me to spend my money because I didn’t “earn” it, so I am lucky to have found somebody like that. At the same time, I’m not entirely sure if she understands how much time and effort I do need to put into the game, so that can get frustrating at points when I’m working on a problem or even just playing and can’t easily take a break.

I really think the biggest difference is going to be when we are actually living together. It’s definitely going to be a balancing act between dental school for her and full time poker for me, but once I get the idea of her schedule I can do my best to make it work. The big issue is that I still have some desire to travel around and do different things, and while she says she doesn’t want to stop me from doing that, I think it will be interesting to see how it all works out. Hopefully for the best, but regardless it will be an adjustment period.

I guess that’s more of an answer to “how does she feel about poker,” but hopefully it gave some insight.

So basically not a ton has changed since the last post. My girlfriend unexpectedly came up and visited me over the weekend which was a great surprise, and definitely helped break up the monotony a bit. I also got back the first revision of my thesis which definitely needs more work than I expected. Ive been trying to get my second revision finished, but I honestly have not had much motivation at all. Poker has been going well and Im really busy working on new projects and at this point just dont really care much about the thesis but know that it isnt that far from being finished.

It sort of goes back to how I have always been where instead of doing schoolwork or errands or whatever, I have done something that interested me. I dont really think I am lazy, even though I definitely do waste a lot of time, because I get a lot done, but the more mundane everyday tasks I really just dont have much drive to do. Im obviously not alone in that regard, but am not really sure what I want to do to change. Sometimes I feel like I need to just suck it up and get those things done, and others I feel like I need to get rid of the things that dont appeal to me and focus on what does. Currently I am leaning a lot more towards the latter, which I think a lot of poker players do, but I dont want to let me free time go to waste, which I am seeing happen more and more now.

So basically the plan for this week is to get my second revision done, first and foremost, and also probably sit and wait for action at lower stakes while I write. It is going to be spring break for my friends still in school the first two weeks of March, so it would be great to have most of my work behind me and be able to enjoy it with them and get some more skiing in.

Ugh thesis grind sucks. What's your thesis on?

Originally Posted by griffey24

Ugh thesis grind sucks. What's your thesis on?

And how do you feel that you'll benefit from your education while playing poker professionally?

Originally Posted by griffey24

Ugh thesis grind sucks. What's your thesis on?

Its about the United States' War on Drugs. Essentially saying that while I intuitively agree that drug legalization is superior to our current prohibition, that we need a lot more research to be conducted before a case could be made that is strong enough to overcome the huge political obstacles. Basically makes the argument for legalization and then points out what specifically we need to research to provide a politically feasible argument.

Originally Posted by PlayToWin

And how do you feel that you'll benefit from your education while playing poker professionally?

Truthfully, I dont think I will have any direct benefit from my education. I primarily finished school for my parents, and while I think my thesis could help get me some job if necessary in the future, I dont really expect that to happen or look at it as a desirable alternative. However, I think people vastly understate the social importance of attending University. I had a lot of fun in college [im just going to start saying college instead of university even though i went to a university, in America there really isnt a difference] but typically hate the people that are like "College is one big party! Whooooo!!" so thats not really the angle I am taking with this.

I think success in most fields is correlated heavily with social skills. Now, in something like poker, its almost the opposite, but Im more talking about if you are working for somebody else, or working with a lot of other people. Being in college, especially being president of my fraternity, helped me learn how to deal with a lot of different personalities and I learned way more about myself, especially in this last year of school, than I would have outside of it.

There is a lot I could say about this but think most of it would just be me rambling and not really answering your question, so in short I will just say that the actual courses didnt mean much to me at all and likely never will, but the experience of living with almost 30 other people and interacting with hundreds regularly was an experience I am incredibly thankful I had.

just ship Obama season 4 of The Wire, easy game

Good post, I really think the college/university American experience is vastly different than the Canadian one. I could try to go into detail why that is, but I'm really not sure I would get it right, I just know it's different beyond the regular American/Canadian contrasts (I'm also speaking as someone who did Uni but wasn't in Res or a fraternity so I regrettably missed out on some of the stereotypical College experiences).

Basically I think the main difference is that there's less focus placed on sports, team spirit, togetherness at Canadian Universities, mainly because there aren't that many of them so there isn't the same competitiveness.

Originally Posted by Ravageur

Basically I think the main difference is that there's less focus placed on sports, team spirit, togetherness at Canadian Universities, mainly because there aren't that many of them so there isn't the same competitiveness.

I think this depends on the school. I'll agree that overall for sure way less focus on sports (but that's cause canada doesn't have sports scholarships).

But school spirit.. I don't know. Western and Queen's have huge spirit. Waterloo was ass for that, and Univ. of Toronto is lame too. Mostly because its a commuter school and everyone goes home after.

Yeah it's for sure dependent on that. Schools that are located in small cities or have large campuses that are centralized so the students feel insulated from the outside world will definitely have more of a community feel. I went to Concordia which is downtown Montreal so you never feel like you're part of a student community since you're always inter-mingling with people in the real world.

Originally Posted by griffey24

Univ. of Toronto is lame too. Mostly because its a commuter school and everyone goes home after.

This is how it was for me going to University of BC. I lived off campus and went home every day after classes, so I definitely didn't experience "college" like I feel I should have. I kind of regret not living on campus because of this!

Not to say that I didn't have fun. First year uni was probably one of the best years of my life. But I still feel like I missed out.

Originally Posted by courtiebee

This is how it was for me going to University of BC. I lived off campus and went home every day after classes, so I definitely didn't experience "college" like I feel I should have. I kind of regret not living on campus because of this!

Not to say that I didn't have fun. First year uni was probably one of the best years of my life. But I still feel like I missed out.

Yea, obv not to the same extreme, but my dad went to school and lived at home and worked so he never really experienced that and always pushed me to and Im glad he did.

This originally started as a response to zeroskill’s post, but it is a topic that I think a lot of people struggle with, including myself, and I decided to kind of go with my rant a bit.

I always take issue when people try to "find the meaning" behind poker and justify it to themselves as really creating some “good.” We can say that we provide people with entertainment value, but that has to be a tiny % of the the player pool we are making money from. How much fun do you think most fish have when they dust off a few buyins? Many players do play purely for enjoyment, but if you play live [which may not be representative of online players, but I doubt its that far off] you see that most fish arent happy and most likely have some kind of gambling problem. What about the bad regs who have mortgage payments and families to support and we play them day in and day out and come out ahead? I think if you are playing poker you should make it as enjoyable an experience for your opponent [and yourself] as you can, because this makes its more enjoyable for you and likely will improve your bottom line. I feel fairly strongly that we simply arent going to be able to justify poker as a net positive to society and especially to the fish, unless we are playing exclusively in friendly private games where people have the money to spare and are really playing for enjoyment.

Poker is about exploiting people in and out of the game. In game we are directly taking advantage of their leaks, and these are caused because out of game they havent done as much work as we have and thus dont play as well. It is a little grim to look at it that way, but thats the most honest way to see it. Further, I also think a lot of people look down at poker players for not “adding anything to society” as a way to make them feel better about their own career which likely doesn’t contribute much either. Look at the vast majority of people with full time jobs and ask yourself what they are contributing to society. They may be contributing to the success of a corporation that provides some service to its customers [for a profit], but how is that a great achievement? People with those types of jobs that try to justify it as truly contributing to society are rationalizing just as much as the poker players who want to pretend they are providing a service.

Poker is a game that takes the sheeps clothing off capitalism and shows it for what it is. Im not anti-capitalist in any sense, I just feel that people often don’t want to treat it for what it is; somebody exploiting somebody else for personal gain. This doesn’t mean nothing of value is created for the consumer, and usually it is, but that is almost never the main motivator for an action, instead people create value because it leads to personal gains. I often still feel bad when I take a lot off somebody, but its their choice to play a game that I am better than them at. It isn’t always good for the conscience but I believe thinking about it in as honest terms as you can is the best way to approach it to reduce the feelings of cognitive dissonance

good post Andy, agree with most if it.

How's the skiing going?

Originally Posted by Alexos

good post Andy, agree with most if it.

How's the skiing going?

Skiing has been going well. Finished up another revision of my thesis this past couple of weeks and had a lot of friends come up and visit so i didnt get much skiing in, but went a bit this week and things were really starting to click. One of my big problems was over analyzing everything [big surprise, right] and constantly looking at my skis to make sure they were oriented correctly which usually caused me to do worse. For whatever reason, this week when Ive gone skiing i have been able to look up basically the whole time and it has made a huge difference. Planning on getting another lesson tomorrow and I am sure that will make a big difference and then maybe I will be more confident on the intermediate terrain.

great post, really enjoyed reading and thinking about it.

I agree with basically all your points, particularly that some poker players, myself included, don't consider often enough that our success comes primarily through the exploitation of others. The concept of exploitation is definitely an impetus for producers to maximize profits at the expense of others (one common victim being the environment). However the end result of many market exchanges is that both parties got something they wanted, and consumers are often still happy despite the knowledge they were somewhat exploited. I think you are implying there is a significant difference in value between the product producing value for the consumer and the creator's personal gain. For the majority of goods/services I doubt the difference in value between consumer benefit and producer benefit could ever be definitively quantified since we'd have to put a price on the happiness benefit of individual consumers. Any estimate would be a value judgment. It's obviously natural that the main motivator for almost every action is self interest, so as long as both parties feel they benefit we needn't feel too bad about the exploitation that comes along with most person-person interactions.

There is no definitive answer concerning the morality of playing poker for an income when you consider all the relevant information. Talking about it definitely helps clear the mind though I can tell from reading your OP that you've had a great deal of success playing poker, so you don't really have the problem I have which is: 'has poker been a highly practical use of my time?' Have fun skiing!

Thanks for the post zero, glad somebody can get through my philosophical ramblings.

Since I last posted, things have been pretty good. I got another skiing lesson and finally am confident on most "blue square" trails [the intermediate ones]. To skiers this probably sounds absurd, but Ive taken things fairly slow because I dont want to get injured and because I want to make sure I have decent technique before I work on harder trails. This also let me finally ski the whole way back to my condo which is on a fairly steep and often icy trail. Some friends came up today and while they definitely toned it down a bit for me, I was still able to do a lot of skiing with them at a slower pace and they all commented how much better I was getting. I still have a long, long ways to go but these seemingly little things really made me happy and will help keep me motivated to get in the practice.

Ive been getting in good poker action recently, but it has all been at fairly low stakes. Whenever I have had longer HU matches at bigger games against decent regs, the swings have really been too much for me to want to deal with when I have so much on my plate. With the next bit of news, I am hoping to start sitting some higher stakes games again which will be stressful, but I am excited for.

I also heard back from my advisor after going over my last revisions of my thesis and he said that it all is looking very good and will likely only need some minor touch-ups before it will be ready to defend. This was great news as I really was not looking forward at all to doing any more major revisions and am going to be incredibly happy to have this out of the way. My subject definitely interests me, but I cant honestly say I really care all that much about it anymore. I have spent an absurd amount of time on this and it has definitely prevented me from doing a lot of things I would have much rather done. I guess it will be an accomplishment to have it finished, but it just doesnt matter much to me, sort of like my degree; I did both because I felt like thats what I was supposed to do. So once I have this out of the way I think I am going to feel the lifting of a big burden and am excited to enter a phase of my life where I really only have to do the things that I want to.

Not too big an update, but have a post planned about the sustainability of games and why people breakeven, etc. that I will try to get down at some point.

Been skiing a decent amount, but there has been a lot of new powder and my quads are killing me. Also been grinding a good amount and while action is slowing, I have started playing 50/100+ again and getting a decent amount of action there which is promising. One thing I have started doing more is reading, and I am really enjoying it. I always read a good amount, but have been getting into a lot of books about entrepreneurship and business and am going through a book every other day or so and hope to keep up the pace for awhile.

Reading non-fiction is something that is so massively +EV and while I did a lot of it before, I think I really need to get back into the habit of at least a book a week. After reading a book [and really devouring it; taking notes, asking questions, etc] I just have so many more ideas and it has taken me from being worried about the future to more excited, even though I know I am going to be taking a lot of risks. It similar to poker videos in that just casually watching them will help, but not much. Learning is an active process and if you really want to learn, instead of just appease your conscience by "studying" then there is just so much material out there to help you develop, but you need to actually be serious about it and take the time to digest and understand what you are studying.

If anybody has any good business, investing, startup, entrepreneurship, skill development, etc. books to recommend or discuss, let me know.

I've been looking to do some more reading of late as well.

What would be 2-3 that you'd recommend?

I agree about the reading of non-fiction. that's the only reading I do.. though mostly it has been pretty mainstream books.. like all of malcolm gladwell and stuff.

I'd like to read more, but there's just no time. but I agree that if I'm gonna be reading, I'd rather be learning about something.

reading awesome fiction is the most efficient and enjoyable way of discovering the world as it is, that is to say as it is - or could be - felt by people

Update for the last month – TLDR Alert

Moved out of my place at the mountain and that ended a really good winter for me. It was definitely lonely at times up there, but I enjoyed being on my own, learning something new, and grinding whenever I could. Im nowhere near an expert skier, but comfortable on most non-expert trails and think I came a long ways having never really skied before and am glad I had this experience.

The last week or so that I was up there I went on a pretty sick heater at 50/100-200/400, but then the last few weeks have gone on my biggest downswing, giving it all back and then some. Don’t have the exact total from my peak, but its close to a $40k downswing. It is definitely frustrating, but the person who I lost most of it to has some pretty huge leaks and I am very confident I have an edge against him, too bad I cant really test that out for awhile though.

Took a break for a bit because of that downswing and started preparing for my thesis defense which was last Wednesday. The way they do it in my program is that they decide your level of honors after your defense. You can get no-honors, honors, high honors, or highest honors. I received high honors and am very happy with that as only a handful of students receive highest honors. Now I just need to make a few revisions and then I will be completely done with school. It has been a long journey to get through all of this and while I really don’t think the classes themselves were worth it for me, all of my experiences along the way definitely were and I wouldn’t have the drive I do now without that.

I was hoping to take a break after my defense and relax for a bit, but with black Friday happening, I didn’t really have any choice and that break looks like it will be a little longer than I had hoped. I was on a short trip to DC with my girlfriend and her family when I heard the news and really didn’t believe it. I have been sorting out my options since then and think that the best plan is going to be to temporarily relocate and hope things stabilize soon. I still intend to move in with my GF in boston at the end of the summer, so while I don’t necessarily think that things will be settled then, I am just hoping to grind up enough to making it through the downtime and work on some other projects.

I think a lot of people are going to try to use really basic ways to get around this ban, namely using a UPS box and VPN, and don’t understand the ability the sites have to verify this stuff and will likely have their accounts locked as a result. VPNs are detectable by the site if you are using any extra software to connect, and potentially even if you aren’t. Further, they disconnect, not often, but it does happen. If this happens your true IP is revealed which means game over with the site, even if it is just for a second. As far as renting a mailbox, those addresses are going to be really obvious to any site and I would be very surprised if they were accepted. The risks for doing this are too high, but I think most people aren’t really aware of those risks and will still attempt it. If you are considering this, don’t. Relocate. If you cant move, then play on a new site or play live.

This is a huge pain in the ass, but that’s life. Sometimes things outside of your control happe and you need to deal with them. This reinforces to me even more something that I absolutely suck at, planning for shitty situations like this. I need to save more money and also work to diversify my interests. Once I get back grinding again I am going to play as much as I can and probably with a lot les risk and then use that money to work on some software and website projects. I want to play poker for as long as I can, but I also know that it is important to try to diversify your income, especially with at least semi-passive investments, and that’s what I plan to do.

When things like this happen, you can either bitch and moan and throw in the towel, or you can adjust and find a new way to survive given the new conditions. I refuse to be forced to get a job and so I am going to do whatever it takes to avoid that. It may come down to me having to find traditional work, but I don’t plan to give up easily. The future is definitely a bit uncertain right now, but Im confident I will pull through and encourage people thinking about quitting to ask themselves why they became a pro in the first place and if any of that has changed. If it hasn’t, then don’t quit just because things got tough.

Congrats on getting high honors, that is awesome! And GL with poker, I'm glad you're not giving up.

Yeah congrats on finishing school on a high note - easier said than done.

Good luck with everything, you're proactive and have a lot going for you so I'm sure things are going to work out.

gl andy, I'm sure you'll make the best of this

so whats up?

was doing pretty well until FT had their license revoked, then struggled for a bit but made things work and finished the year in a good spot with staking. been trying to break into the 6max hyper turbo games on merge, but struggling with that, not really something im all that worried about.

ive decided that im going to learn to program for real this time and starting next week will be putting in 30+ hours/week learning python. so thats where things are now, nothing too exciting on the poker front, but optimistic about venturing out into other fields

Nice, where will you learn python, is this some online program? I tried codeacademy for a while then just gave up, maybe I should keep going. I agree that coding is an important skill to have.

Originally Posted by Alexos

Nice, where will you learn python, is this some online program? I tried codeacademy for a while then just gave up, maybe I should keep going. I agree that coding is an important skill to have.

There is a good book called "Learn Python the Hard Way" that I will be following, and then probably getting into "A Byte of Python." From what Ive read, that seems like the best self-study route. There are some online courses for Ruby, but not really any good, thorough ones for python. I strongly considered going to a physical school for this, like Devbootcamp or codeacademy.org, but those are both Ruby based and while it would be helpful, my friend Julien who I would do a lot of work with does python [along with other languages like C# and Java] and not ruby.

So yea, the self-study will be tough to stay motivated, but its something I really want and also gives me a good fallback plan, so Im going to do my best to stick to it.

Why python of all coding languages?

Any particular reason?

I've been learning python lately the hard way at work, having been thrown on a project that uses it exclusively. A cool language, I can see why it's become so popular. I do find its loose typing makes it harder to read though.