He generously left me his roll....
Printable View
He generously left me his roll....
RIP
are we pretending/assuming he's dead?
afterlife update plz
Wow M. I always think the same thing.
Meh...might as well take shots in the dark and make a blind assumption:
For Jason
i always think this is what happened to rondavu :cry:Quote:
Originally Posted by Micro2Macro
god damn I hope he's okay
anyone know his SN's to ptr and see if he's still playin.
He would never tell us.
This just sucks tbh. Hope all is ok!
LOL.Quote:
Originally Posted by Micro2Macro
He last visited less than a month ago. And before that he had a three month hiatus.
I think he's OK guys.
Can you find that post? I did a search for all posts "3 mos. ago and newer" and the result said the last one was on 08-09-2010, 10:22 AM. That's the date of the his last post in his Op. Of course, the search results could be wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by EasyPoker
He usually does monthly updates. He did an update at the end of every month through the end of July. He missed August and September. So no, there was no previous 3-mos. hiatus.
What? Look at his status and look at the last time he logged activity. It says "09-13-10 at 4:41pm" or something. I'm posting from my phone so I'm not sure whether heQuote:
Originally Posted by PlayToWin
actually posted then. I think his last post was the update on p2. Before that he last posted in June.
EDIT no he didn't post when he last showed site activity, so he must have just logged on the site. The point I'm making really is that he never seemed a prolific user of the site so I think we're reading into his disappearance too much.
pretty sure hes dead
I'm with M on this one...there's really no other explanation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Micro2Macro
As shaken up as the world of FlopTurnRiver is, we must go on with our lives or the terrorists win.
Actually, his last post was 8-9-2010. Before that, his last few Op posts were:Quote:
Originally Posted by EasyPoker
7-6-10
7-6-10
7-2-10
7-1-10
6-23-10
I don't know EasyPoker, so I can't vouch for his integrity, but I'm beginning to suspect that he may be involved in Jason's disappearance? :hmm: Just sayin.Quote:
I think we're reading into his disappearance too much.
.Quote:
Originally Posted by Micro2Macro
He probably just quit playing for awhile / got sick of it, or doesn't have much time.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
pretty sure he's dead
Meh not really looking like that in this case. I had hope earlier today but there's a good chance he's dead now.Quote:
Originally Posted by JustOneTime
To my recollection, the only time he was late with a monthly recap was when he had a bad month (only happened once). And that's just human nature to not want to post if poker is not fun.
For him to be this late with posting, he either lost his roll (no way in hell) or ....
I'm just waiting for him to pop in and just say LOL, u f'in morans.
couldn't handle a downswing, killed himself, it all makes sense now
RIP
M2M wants blood.
logical explanations are not welcome in this thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by JustOneTime
Wow, this thread just got interesting ;)
As much as I tried to avoid it, I got pretty burnt out with poker. The end of my July and start to August was bad as far as raw results go as I alluded to before, but I remember stringing together a few small wins in a row and then suddenly just didn't feel like playing anymore. It didn't have anything to do with winning or losing, though ... just burnout. So, I intentionally took the rest of August off and all of September. My plan was to try to ease back into it for October. This weekend I may try to do that.
I won't post any formal results or updates until I'm back into the swing of things, but unofficially as I recollect for last month was nothing except for a $7.50 cashout in a home game my gf wanted to go to. My results for August were definitely negative but I don't remember how much so ... like I said, I had a few heavy losses early and then maybe a string of some much smaller wins.
Sorry I didn't post sooner, but I was burnt out and didn't really think anyone would notice if I stopped posting for a month or two :)
IT'S ALIIIIIIIVVVEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!11
IMPOSTER
I CALL IMPOSTER
WHO HACKED JASONS ACCOUNT?
Zombies itt
Wouldn't notice? fo realz?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason
Damn Jason, ur ma hero. Sooo glad ur not dead, lol. Don't eva do that to me again! :D
lol nice mod moves, corutie. kinda bad taste but whatever, I laff'd
Yeah, I fell in love with Courtie itt.
He dead again?
Wow, just heard. Can't believe Jason died.
RIP, Jason. I'll never forget how you were part of the masses who preached bankroll management enough that the fish started to live it. Your legacy will live on in them.
Too bad Slevin never met Jason. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by BennyLaRue
No way. Slevin is a bright shining beacon in the middle of in tightwadland.Quote:
Originally Posted by PlayToWin
this thread is fucking awesome.
jason, play and update more, i demand it!
glad you're not dead!
how far behind the times is Gmml? Its obvious that he's died again . last time he blew his roll ....got his rakeback which let him pay for his internet and now has blown what was left. in shame that he has finally blown his roll fully and can no longer play, has blown his house and is living in his car ......wait this sounds like jared huggins.
lol keith
i wonder if he made supernova? he's had great results this year too.. I'd have never guessed he'd take such a long hiatus from online poker
Heh, you guys are so crazy. I've played about 3 times live since my last update and none online. It was pretty fun. I've thought about getting back into it, but it's hard to explain, when I'm grinding, I put in so many hours, I think about poker all the time, I study poker, and it consumes me. It's like I'm in a trance and now that I'm out of it, I'm scared about the possibility of going back into it ... even though I would like to play to an extent. It's hard to explain.
I never got SuperNova, which sucks because I have so many FPP's and can't figure out how I'll ever be able to use them in an EV way. I hate Stars VIP requirement. I wish you could just straight exchange them for cash at any time, but of course, they build a structure that helps their bottom line. When Stars changed their structure back in April making 50bb max the defacto game for fish, it REALLY screwed me bad. The games for me just started sucking on that site similar to how it did after UIGEA ... obviously not as bad as that, but still bad. It took me from on the verge of playing 400NL and likely making double nova to having trouble at 100NL basically overnight. This left me unable to play as profitably there as I could at Full Tilt and I chose long term profitability over going for SuperNova and short term VIP prizes.
If I start playing again, I'll have to drop way down unfortunately I think both because I'm so out of practice and also because the games keep getting tougher - probably somewhere in the $25NL region if I had to guess. I guess my hope would be that I could first start liking poker again and then get good enough to where I can get Platinum and just take a hit on the FPP conversion versus what it would be as SuperNova. I heard they introduced instant cash for FPP's as a regular store item.
If they would get rid of 50bb max OR make 100bb the default on Stars, I think I could have a much better chance of playing myself back in on that site and maybe get SuperNova. I also heard they redid rakeback on Tilt in a bad way, so that's even LESS profitability on that site, too. That's another thing I think that killed a lot of my enthusiasm for poker in that there's ALWAYS something around the corner making it tougher and tougher to play and be profitable and the minute you think you have something figured out, a monkey wrench gets thrown into it and you have to start all over. If poker was my only income or livelihood, maybe I'd just knuckle down every time, but when I do have other, better, more reliable sources of income plus other uncultivated hobbies, it's easy for me to want to take a break if I've been hard at it for 2 years or so.
Anyway, we'll see ... I'll definitely keep you updated if I get back into it.
pretty sure stars have made the bonuses instant bonus now so no clearance requirement.
If you sit around blaming changes in the poker economy for your lack of profit/motivation etc. you will continue to regress and eventually be stuck playing .10/.25. If you look beyond the things you can't control and aim to get better and stay ahead of the curve, you will survive and prosper.
There are people beating 25/50 NLHE in this poker climate. There's no reason someone who's as smart as you can't put in the effort to continuously improve and move up. Just don't expect to 3ptbb MSNL because it ain't happening.
yea jason it's one thing if poker isn't fun anymore, but if you wanna play don't let the toughness of the games discourage you.. they are still very beatable. 100nl (40bb min) has plenty of mediocre tags and more fish than you might expect. ;)
I think the real Jason is dead. This is an imposter. The real Jason wouldn't be whining like this.
Right, but if you have 185k FPP points, your value on those points changes drastically if you are Bronze versus SuperNova. I hope one month next year I might be able to get Platinum again and just take a hit for what I would get if I was SuperNova because unless Stars changes their structure AND I can shake the burnout, I don't see me getting that anytime soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith_MM
Maybe I'm not explaining it right, but I didn't stop playing because I wasn't winning or the games were getting tougher. I stopped playing because I was/am burnt out. It's hard for me to combat burnout based on my personality as I throw myself into everything I do and have a somewhat addictive personality and drive to succeed PLUS a wide variety of other interests and responsibilities outside of poker just like most other people. One of the SEVERAL factors I think contributed to the burnout was the seemingly never ending changes of poker and the frequency with which those changes occurred ... not even just on the poker table, but the legal aspects, the way online rooms are always changing their structures for VIP/rakeback, worrying about withdraws/deposits, and so on ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasquach991
So, if explaining some of the reasons that led to burnout is whining, then, yes, I'm whining, BUT when I wasn't burnt out and playing, I responded to all those changes and found ways to be successful every time and I'm sure I could do it again IF I could summon the muse to play again.
I stopped playing in 2006 for similar reasons when UIGEA came out, partly because I had been playing too much too long, but also because it gets tiresome and not fun having to deal with the UIGEA and stuff like that ... but I eventually got the itch to play again. Hopefully I'll get the itch again sooner rather than later this time. I start a long Xmas break Friday, so maybe I'll fire up some tables and just try to have fun again. If and when I can get the fun factor under control, I'll reevaluate where my skill level is compared to the field and try to rebuild.
I understand the burnout thing. I think I'm approaching it myself. I don't play nearly as much as I used to. It use to be 6 days a week for at least 1k hands a day. Now it's 4 days a week for sometimes a little as 500 hands a day. Don't know why I'm losing interest.
Happy New Year ... 2010 went quite differently than I imagined. I don't even know exactly how much money I made, but I think it was around $10k and I stopped playing somewhere around mid-year due to burnout, so I was on pace for $20k, which IF I maintained the same pace in the 2nd half of the year would have been $5k short of my original goal and that deficit was probably due to the unforeseeable change Stars made in April to their structure which both reduced MY profitability AND rewards plus the always increasingly difficult games in general. But, I have no problems with the outcome or choices I made on the felt. It was a fun year when I was playing and I was glad to take an extended break, too.
I did some inner soul searching to figure out exactly why I got burnt out or if it is preventable and all I can figure is that I just threw myself too much for too long into poker and combined with some negative outcomes such as Stars new structure, constant legislative battles, and games always getting tougher. After almost 2 years, it just wears me down.
Although I don't want to jump the gun TOO quickly, I fortunately DID start to get the bug to start playing again on New Year's day and have put in 2 days at the virtual felt and have also felt the urge to get back involved with other poker related activities such as forum surfing, listening to poker podcasts, watching poker strategy videos, and the like. While I'm always trying to see 'How High Can I Get?', I'm going to scale back my goals for 2011 to be more modest and just aim to:
(1) Start playing poker regularly again and having fun - put LESS emphasis on dollar amount won/loss per year/month
(2) Start playing @ $25NL at Stars with the INTENTION of achieving Platinum Star sometime and cashing in ~200K FPP's
(3) Determine which site and stakes I want to play at long term
It's hard to say how often I'll update here. I just want to get back in the flow of playing and having fun. If I can do that, I'll have a better idea of how to proceed going forward.
welcome back to poker, GL in 2011 Jason.
have fun dude, best of luck!
you are unnecessarily hurting yourself by starting at 25nl if #BI's isn't an issue. you'll dominate 50nl even if you start out the first 10k hands semi rusty
good luck keeping the poker bug in 2011!
Heh, thanks for the words of encouragement. I wish I could share your optimism, but it's been since 20bb to 100bb tables that I was profitable on Stars and it's been August or so since I've played poker regularly. I feel like I need to first, remember how to play poker again :D ... and next, learn how to win on Stars without the fresh supply of fish who have all migrated to 50bb max tables.
If Stars got rid of 50bb max tables and the fish were back in 100bb stacked NLHE games OR if I was playing on Full Tilt, I'd have no problem playing 50NL ... but as it stands, 25NL makes the most sense right now.
I'm also retooling my style a bit to be able to multi-table more and tighten my play, which is going to take some adjusting. I used to table select like a mother and intentionally play laggy for image purposes and get the fish to open up quicker and to just get paid off better in general. With less fish and more regs, I don't think that approach is as profitable, so I need some time to try to grow into this new style.
But, the good news is I've played every day except one in 2011 and I'm having a blast again and looking forward to playing :)
Boom so +EV!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason
And there was much rejoicing:
PokerStars Ring Game Changes: Effective January 27th, 2011
:)
Seriously, everyone feel free to jump up a level. Our win-rate just got a LOT better on Stars.
^^^
My first reaction would be that the cap tables will be where the fish will first swim because they'll think that it offers them some sort of protection...should be good hunting :twisted:
edit: My second reaction is that it will wind up being more like a limit game in that it could be difficult to offer someone the incorrect odds to draw to their straight or flush.
Nope, NLHE tables are going to be awesome again. All the NLHE pool from 50bb max and 100bb max will be merged into one huge fishy pool. Fish will NOT go to CAP tables because they look different and not-normal with their "CAP" label. Most fish won't even be sure it's NLHE. The games at FULL TILT have been AWESOME compared to Stars because 100bb max is "normal" and "shallow" and "CAP" have lables. Now, Stars won't even have "shallow". It's going to be so great.
Must say that was a very very good read thread.Tnks for putting the time in to it.But also i was very disappointed when you start to not posting anything for such a long time.I love your ascension and was verry curious where this stop.Unfortunaley you stop under the level i was hoping you will get,at least hoping that you will grinde at 100-200nl and make some nice cash.
Any way i want to see your new post now that Stars make this change and alow you to play your "before" game.Good Luck.
Well, I'm convinced. 3 tabled 5NL on stars yesterday morning for about 4 hrs. I think it was like a total of 7 different tables when all said and done. I wound up +4.5BI running around 650 total hands. Yehaw :-DQuote:
Originally Posted by Jason
Hey, Andy, thanks for reading and thanks for making your first (and only so far) post here ;) I was somewhere between 5 and 10 buy-ins away from being able to move from $200NL on Stars to $400NL when that awful change was made. There's no way to tell now, but I think I would have been a winner at $400NL and $600NL and hit the wall at $1000NL. This is based on the player pool at the time. There just weren't a lot of games running at $400NL and $600NL to vault up to $1000NL, but enough where if I game selected, I could have SLOWLY done so. Just a guess, though. When I got burnt out at poker last August, I was playing a combo of $100NL and $200NL on Full Tilt and I had won 30 buy-ins at $100NL and had just got started at $200NL with no significant amount won or lost.Quote:
Originally Posted by andy_wpo
Now that Stars has made this WONDERFUL new announcement, I can HOPEFULLY basically rebuild and try to slowly get where I was before. I've been playing $25NL this month having won around 8 buy-ins or so ... hit 10 at one point I think and I didn't even play one week because I was out of town on vacation. On 02/10/2011, I plan to exclusively move to $50NL and re-evaulate. If the games seem REALLY good, I may start mixing in some $100NL. If it's slow going, I'll just stick with that for a while.
One more thing, at $25NL and below, there is not only NO "shallow" but NO "CAP" either. And, I'm still betting the farm that from $50NL to at least $200NL that fish are going to play NLHE and not CAP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shotglass
My first full month of playing poker is in the books and it felt GREAT. I was definitely rusty at first and I probably haven't shaken off ALL the rust yet until I get into enough tough spots, BUT I was VERY surprised how quickly everything came back. It was very akin to riding a bike. In fact, I felt like I immediately started learning MANY NEW things about my game that were leaks before that I am plugging now. It was like I could just see things I couldn't see before a lot more clearly. I specifically think the time off and perspective is a tribute to that. However, next time I decide to take some time off, I want to try to avoid burn out and keep it around a week or two and not six months :) ... but, I still don't think there was anything I could have done to avoid that in hindsight. I was heading for a crash. I'm just glad I'm healed and back.
I started at $25NL on Stars because it had been so long since I played at Stars and even poker in general and the 100bb NLHE games have gotten a LOT tougher since I last played them and it felt like a good jumping in point despite my massively overrolled bankroll of 360 buyins :) ... however, this time I specifically wanted to work on adding more tables and volume for a couple of reasons:
- I felt like when I stopped playing, I was finding myself in a lot of "standard" spots - enough where adding tables where the benefit would outweigh whatever specific notes and action I missed.
- My game before was a little too laggy. I did this intentionally to try to get more action and outplay people, but it also had a downside: I couldn't play as many tables AND as I moved up, it made playing more difficult as players are more apt to play back at you and it's harder to know how you are being perceived. I've come to the conclusion I don't want players "coming at me" where as my game before was somewhat built on that concept.
At the same time, I don't want to be TOO automatic in my actions or turn into a robot - not by a LONG shot. The tradeoff I decided to make was to play enough tables where I could keep up with the action in hands I was involved with AND take notes with hands I was involved in. I would give up taking notes in hands and action I WASN'T involved with. All the time I had been playing before now, I did my best to keep notes and take hands that I wasn't involved with. I would even bring up the hand history window if I missed something so I could take notes. This DID suffer some when I got to around 6 and 7 tables and I started missing half of the action in hands I wasn't involved with and now I'm just going to miss all of it.
The downside to this strategy is I am not expecting any sexy high winrates as I used to get, but if you can play twice the tables at half the win-rate, it's basically a wash.
At the moment, I've settled at 12 tables. That's a nice number because it's the most tables I can tile and easily see the stats window on my HUD plus it's challenging to keep up with all the action and take notes. I spent most of my time playing $25NL but towards the end of the month I felt comfortable enough to add some $50NL tables when there weren't as many $25NL to choose from.
January 2011 Total profit/loss: $354.13
Venue ---> Profit ---> Profit%
PokerStars ---> $213.13 ---> 60.18%
Live Games ---> $101.00 ---> 28.52%
PokerStars Bonus ---> $40.00 ---> 11.3%
2011 Summary
Total YTD profit/loss $354.13
Total YTD VPP's 3191.63
January 2011 ---> $354.13 with 3191.63 VPP's
I'm VERY pleased with this result to start and hope I can just keep the ball rolling. I should also mention I only played 3 of the 4 weeks as I was out of town on vacation one week. I didn't feel like I ran good or bad, just normal, fun poker. A couple of hands to welcome me back that I remember: I had a set of Tens in a 3 way pot and trippled up against a set of 2's and a fishy player who had AK and turned an ace and was willing to stack off. Contrast that when I flopped the nut flush and villain runner runnered a straight flush using just one of his hole cards ... doh! :)
The really exciting news is Stars announced they are getting rid of 50bb max tables. Introducing those tables really threw a monkey wrench in my plans last April and I ended up moving to Full Tilt to maintain a comparable hourly and enjoyment. Now that they will be gone, EVERY player who wants to play NLHE has to have at least 40bb's and can play with 100bb if they choose. This is literally the best news I could have hoped to hear OUTSIDE of legalizing poker in the US. I just love Stars' interface, customer support, VIP program, and player pool. Now that the games should be good again, it's 'so much win'. Based on the games I played at Full Tilt, I have no reason to think fish will play CAP on Stars from $2NL to $200NL - in fact, fish CAN'T play CAP from $2NL to $25NL. If you've been a winning player at 100bb NLHE on Stars at any level from $2NL to $200NL, my prediction is you can move up at least one stake and maintain the same win-rate after this change. Obviously, don't do that if you don't have the bankroll, but if you DO have the roll, get ready to test the waters and consider taking a shot soon ... on 02/10/2011 :)
My goals are still pretty simple: have fun and get back in the flow of things for now. Later, figure out what stakes I want to play long term. I'll continue playing a mixture of $25NL and $50NL until 02/10/2011 and then I'll probably move to $50NL exclusively IF enough good games are running. Then, if the games look as good as I'm hoping, I may start taking some shots at $100NL. Outside of that, I'd LOVE the chance to go for SuperNova by the end of the year, but that's still far out and to get that, I'll have to work my way into 12 tabling $100NL exclusively and possibly some $200NL, too. So, one step at a time and hopefully I'll have a clearer picture of which way the wind is blowing by March.
GL mate! Great read.
I hate it when you are right. EZ game now.
I'd never steer ya wrong ;) ... but, yeah, the games got REALLY good at $25NL and $50NL for sure. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by !Luck
I have to agree. Before, there were very few tables with players/flop > 22%, esp during the week. Now there are at least 30 tables at 25NL FR with players/flop >25% and several >45%. On weekends there's 30 that are > 40%
As usual Jason is right.
qftQuote:
Originally Posted by Sasquach991
100nl is as easy as 50nl was four months ago
Big Update this month ... Cliff Notes @ the end.
Old Style Versus New Style
February was a whirl wind of a month. January lured me into the feeling I was going to move on to a new style and new way of playing, but by this month's end, I've come to the conclusion that I never needed to change. Improve? Yes. Change? No. You should dance with the girl you brought to the prom
To clarify, I looked back on my game towards the end of when I stopped playing last year and believed that maybe I was too loose, too combative, and that I could do better to play more straightforward, but more tables. That worked well enough at $25NL with 12 tables, but when I decided to jump up to $50NL the week BEFORE Stars' awesome new cash game structure changes, so I'd be ready to hit the ground running, it started to backfire on me. I started running into the same problem I ran into last year: I couldn't get paid anymore. I'd fold, fold, fold, hit a big hand, and the villains folded, too. Last year, I thought I was just running bad by not getting paid in the sense that my villains just never had hands. What I now realize is that it wasn't running bad then or now.
The real problem is that, for me, I was just missing out on too much action, missing too many notes, and missing too many opportunities to extract value. I was generalizing all of my villains instead of coming up with a customized, villain specific plan to exploit each player as I usually would. I was missing out then and most recently because of too many tables. On Full Tilt, I don't remember trying to add too many tables, but the action goes quicker than Stars so I think maybe I had added one or two new tables prematurely and didn't make the connection that my "running bad" was actually a multi-tabling leak.
Another part of the problem is if you play too straightforward, it becomes much tougher to get paid off even against fish at times. So, early this month, I cut back from 12, sometimes 13 tables on Stars, to 10 tables max and usually 9, sometimes 8 or less. It's made a world of difference and I feel like I'm starting to get back in my old groove. And, it's not just a matter of winning or losing to be in a groove. It's about having a good handle of what hands villains show up with and how they will react, it's about being in the moment and knowing your spots. It's about taking notes and knowing the table dynamics, and even when you are losing or things aren't going your way, you know why.
Who knows? Maybe if I keep inching my way up the table ladder, I can play with more, but I know that note taking and paying attention to table action and flow is pretty vital to my success. I'm not sure how some players can be so successful at mid to high stakes with 15 to 24 tables. It's a very impressive feat from my point of view. I guess maybe if you play a lot of the same villains across multiple tables, it becomes easier, but at micro and small stakes, you're going to run up against a LOT of different players.
I made about 10 buy-ins at $25NL before I moved up to $50NL and then I THINK mainly through too many tables and also getting used to poker again, I ended up losing about 10 buy-ins @ $50NL before Stars made their new buy-in changes. BUT, since the first full day of new cash game changes when I also started playing less tables, I've won back those 10 buy-ins and feel like I'm headed in the right direction again.
I'm still treading water carefully moving forward, though. Who knows what other new obstacles and discoveries lurk in the future, but I'm really focused on trying to string together several months or a hundred thousand hands of consistent, good results before I feel TOO good or bad about anything.
Searching for Supernova
I was very pleased this month to regain my Platinum Star status and have an early path paved towards getting my first SuperNova. Basically, if I can maintain the pace I made in February for the next 10 months I'll make it, but it's only a month sample, so a lot can change for better or worse. This is particularly important to me because IF I can get SuperNova, I'll be in position to unluck $8k of instant cash back in the form of two $4k bonuses @ 250k FPP's each. If I were to not make SuperNova and instead used those same FPP's to get ten $650 bonuses @ 50k FPP's each, that would be $6500 instead of $8000 and thus $1500 of lost value. Plus, getting SuperNova makes a lot of future money due to the 3.5 multiplier versus Platinum's 2.5 which is 40% more FPP's. A year of FPP's starting and ending at exactly Platinum each month would yield $2925 of value whereas a year of FPP's starting starting and ending at exactly SuperNova pace each month would yield $5200 of value - $2,275 difference in value. Furthermore, if you can exactly maintain a pace each month to maintain SuperNova for the year, not just get it by the end of the year, you'll have $7,466.67 of value, which is $4,541.67 more than Platinum.
So, long story short (too late), SuperNova >> Platinum
Results Oriented
Financial results are below but I'm still not really focused on any specific goals related to money. Simply being a "winning" player in 2011 and reaching SuperNova to unlock maximum FPP value would be fine with me. I also can't hide my enthusiasm for the new cash game tables on Stars. I hoped and predicted the new structures would be a huge positive change for players who had previously been playing 100bb max NLHE on Stars and I feel like that has already come to fruition and I don't think the bubble has settled yet either. I think many players, like myself, will be moving up due to the games being better and this will in turn make the games even better as better players are in higher games. Basically, fish and casual players were being funneled to 50bb max. Now, they are funneled to 100bb max games, and life is good again. Now, if we can just legalize online poker in the US, look out - I think that would mean you could jump up 2 or 3 levels and maintain a commensurate win-rate.
February 2011 Total profit/loss: $511.51
Venue ---> Profit ---> Profit%
PokerStars ---> $381.01 ---> 74.49%
PokerStars Bonus ---> $110.00 ---> 21.50%
Live Games ---> $20.50 ---> 4.01%
2011 Summary
Total YTD profit/loss $865.64
Total YTD VPP's 11,658.51
February 2011 ---> $511.51 with 8,196.88 VPP's
January 2011 ---> $354.13 with 3,191.63 VPP's
Taxes
I did my taxes this year and got a big refund because I had been withholding money from my paycheck to cover a year's worth of poker profits. I didn't adjust it back half-way through the year when I stopped playing, which meant a big refund. This year, I had to fill out Form TD F 90-22.1 which is a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts and required if at any point during the year, the SUM of the MAXIMUM balance of your international accounts during the year exceeded $10k. I've been told the penalties for not filling out the forms can be severe:
- Failure to File Penalty – up to $250,000 and/or up to 5 years in prison for any person "willfully violating" the requirements to file. (31 CFR 5322a penalty)
- Fraud Penalty – up to $500,000 and/or up to 10 years in prison for any person "willfully violating" the requirements to file "as part of a pattern of any illegal activity involving more than $100,000 in a 12-month period." (31 CFR 5322b penalty)
New PC versus Old PC
Finally, my desktop was cutting edge back in 2004 when I bought it to run Doom 3, but here in good ole 2011, I can't listen to music without it skipping when HEM is importing hand histories. I also can't run HEM Table Scanner or Table Ninja because everything slows down too much. I also have a bad hard drive that makes Windows want to do a 15 minute chkdsk procedure on every boot-up. I had enough and decided it was time for an upgrade. Behold a bullet point list of PC goodness:
- AMD Phenom™ II X4 945 Quad-Core CPU
- Windows 7 Pro
- 4 GB DDR3-1333 Memory
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 - 1GB
- HD - 64 GB ADATA S501 V2 SATA-III SSD Read:355MB/s Write:75MB/s
- Data Drive - 1 TB HARD DRIVE 64M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s
- 12X Blu-Ray Pioneer BLU-RAY Re-Writer, DVD±R/±RW Burner
My hope is having the ability to use table scanner and table ninja will eventually help this PC pay for itself. Even if not, just being able to listen to music and run comfortably should make it well worth it. It's not here yet, but it's been ordered.
http://a.onionstatic.com/images/auth...2_crop_q85.jpg
Cliff Notes:
- Decided to change my style at the end of last month, but at the beginning of this month, decided the change was a bad idea and went back to normal.
- Since beginning of the year, won 10 buy-ins @ $25NL old (bad) cash game tables with "new" style
- Lost 10 buy-ins @ $50NL old (bad) cash game tables with "new" style
- Won 16 buy-ins @ $50NL NEW (good) cash game tables with "original" style
- On pace to get SuperNova and very excited about accomplishing that to unlock maximum FPP potential
- No financial goals this year - just focused on playing well and finding the right stakes for me to play at regularly -> right now, that's $50NL Full Ring 100bb max on Stars
- Finished my taxes and got back a big refund since I stopped playing poker last year
- Had to submit a form to the US Treasury this year declaring off shore bank accounts since I had over $10k in my poker accounts last year
- Upgraded my PC - it's >>> old PC
Gratz on your year's results!
How many tables/hours are you playing to reach SuperNova playing 50NL?
I usually have at least 9 and often 10 tables going at once. I also hope to move up to $100NL FR at some point which would make getting SuperNova a lot easier.
But then I suppose you play a huge load of hours/day, no?
BTW, do you stack the tables?
I wouldn't say I put in a "ton" of volume. I try to put in a couple hours in Monday through Friday and then 3 or 4 hours on Sunday and Saturday. I get in about 1000 to 1500 hands on weekdays and 2000 to 3000 hands on weekends. I get about 0.19 VPP's per hand at $50NL full ring tables, so to get SuperNova, I'd need to average 1,442 hands per day for the year. 100,000 (SuperNova VPP's needed) / 365 (Days in the year) = ~274 - 274 (VPP's needed per day) / 0.19 (Average VPP's per hand I get @ $50NL) = ~ 1442 hands needed per day to get SuperNova
I tile my tables so I can see all the action. There'd be no way I could take notes, keep up with game flow, or make observations with stacked tables. To be honest, I really don't understand how anyone can play stacked unless they have "systemized" their game to make quick decisions based on hole cards, HUDS, action to that point, position, and stack sizes. I use so much more information beyond that including notes, recent history, long term history, game dynamics, and the like.
I just read this thread for the first time. How are you doing, Jason? You still grinding? Hope all is well.
Lol you must not have read the whole thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by rowhousepd
Ooops, yeah, I did. I must have read to the end of the first page that loaded & didn't check to see if that was it before I typed a hello response. Very cool story. I'm a follower now. :)
March is over along with the first quarter of 2011. This month was similar to last month but better as more pieces of the puzzle are fitting. I had several swings and more adjustments to my style of play and I think it has all been worthwhile and getting me closer to where I want to be. At the heart of what I've discovered is style and image is MUCH more important than I thought it was. Not that I didn't already KNOW that style and image ARE important, but it's amazing the degrees and how far reaching what I perceive as a tweak can be.
I had basically decided to adjust from a 18/14 type player to a 14/10 type player but add more tables and thought the results would be better. Whether it's my post flop style or image or whatever the reason, I just couldn't seem to capitalize and decided to keep the same number of tables AND go back to my looser style. Almost immediately, I noticed a good, positive change. When you add enough speculative hands to your range and combine that with your post flop advantage, good things start to happen and now I'm getting paid again. That's felt like the main aspect of my game that had been missing. I'd lose money from a cooler or from a villain who wouldn't fold or a speculative hand that didn't pan out and it seemed like I just couldn't make up the difference through mom and pop value betting. It's still challenging to play as many tables as I am, but I'm sticking with it and getting better with practice.
I've been trying to put in more study time. I've been reading excerts from Small Stakes No Limit Hold'em, which I bought when it first came out, but didn't read all of it. DC came out with a video series designed for using HEM to find and plug in leaks. I also got Leakbuster. In the past, although I wanted to use my db to improve, I've been reluctant about being too stat based or trying to "fix" some stats. From following this series, I realized there is often a range that is ideal and if you get too far out of it, you're likely missing opportunities to make money or opening yourself up to be exploited by other players. This helped me realize my game had gotten too tight and helped me open up and get back to normal. I also found out I wasn't defending enough from the big blind and I've been actively working to plug that leak. I'm going to try to make a habit to keep looking at my database for both stats and hand histories and just constantly monitoring my game and looking for opportunities to be profitable.
Compared to my old PC, my new PC is so sick. I can listen to music while I play now. I can run HEM and Table Scanner easily. At some point, I'll start looking at Table Ninja, but couldn't have considered it before. I can run all of my applications no problem which is +EV. I also fire up a game of QuakeLive here and there for fun.
Financially, since the first full day of changes to the PokerStars cash game structure on 02/11/2011, I've made about 20 buy-ins @ $50NL. I'll want to make at least another 10 for an even 30 before I'll consider adding a $100NL table to the mix. If the chance comes, it'll probably be a slow process of adding a good game here and there and seeing how my game stacks up and just take it slow and steady.
March 2011 Total profit/loss: $612.42
Venue ---> Profit ---> Profit%
PokerStars Bonus ---> $250.00 ---> 40.82%
PokerStars ---> $189.42 ---> 30.93%
Live Games ---> $173.00 ---> 28.25%
2011 Summary
Total YTD profit/loss $1,478.06
Total YTD VPP's 20,046.08
Pace for SuperNova 24,657.53
My Delta Pace 4,611.45
March 2011 ---> $612.42 with 8,657.57 VPP's
February 2011 ---> $511.51 with 8,196.88 VPP's
January 2011 ---> $354.13 with 3,191.63 VPP's
I'm off pace of SuperNova by about 4k, but that could probably be made up if I stayed at $50NL for the year and easily be made up if I were able to move up to $100NL for any significant time.
As I move into April, I'm mainly looking for some stability. It seems like my results at the table have been really swingy with several bad days losing 5 to 10 buy-ins and then swinging the other way winning them all back plus some. Even though I strongly feel like I have a large edge on the field, sometimes everything feels like it's largely the result of heaters or coolers. I know that's not the case, but all the same, I'd really like to see things on a more even keel. Hopefully the adjustments I've made will lend to that kind of outcome long term with enough of a sample size. Stay tuned ... :rolleyes:
$50NL Begin Again
It's been a fun trip down memory lane. Since the start of the year, having laid off the game for 6 months before then, I got my feet wet with $25NL, moved up to $50NL the week before cash games were slated to drop 50bb max games, and as of yesterday I've managed to make over $1,500 at the tables. This time around I'm playing more tables, too. Between all the hands logged, making over 30 buy-ins, and just the number of fish I'm seeing at the tables, I've decided to go ahead and start adding $100NL tables when I see good games.
My win-rate at $50NL was 3.55bb/100 starting from the first full day of no NEW 50bb max cash game tables. My entire graph year to date:
http://www.tabroom.org/poker/Level5StarsTn.jpg
I'm not too far from my original 5.62bb/100 win-rate when I last came up through the ranks. This time around, the games are tougher, I'm playing more tables, and I'm coming off a 6 month absence from the game which will account for some bb/100 loss. Moving up, I've beaten $100NL twice for over 30 buy-ins in the past: once on Stars and once on Full Tilt. Obviously this time around with the always increasing difficulty of poker, there's no guarantees. I just hope there are enough fish to go around and game selection is reasonable. If I can continue to improve and get better, the rest should take care of itself. I'm going to continue to work on my game and plug my leaks. At the moment, I'm paying a LOT of attention to "fold to steal from the bb". I had an 84% fold rate from that position when facing a steal, which LeakBuster gave an F+ grade ... eek. My original philosophy was the blinds are just bad spots to put money in the pot because you're always out of position, but I've realized I may be taking it too far. I'm trying to look for opportunities to lower that percent and develop strategies to exploit different players in that situation.
I haven't logged a ton of hands in April and I'm looking forward to the VPP point boost to help get me to SuperNova by year's end. I won't think about moving up to $200NL unless or until I am able to win 30 buy-ins at the table or $3000. And, unless I have good reasons or evidence to the contrary, I'll probably move back down to $50NL exclusively if I end up losing 10 buy-ins @ $100NL.
http://www.tabroom.org/poker/kersummary10.gif
Jason, don't know you well, just saw your post in slevin's trainwreck thread, and started reading your blog from the beginning in 2009. I'll be checking in and following your progress. Good luck. Your story is inspirational.
Hey, thanks for reading. Glad you made it through all that ... playing poker, eventual death, and then rise from the dead. :)
You go, Lazarus! ;) I'm rootin' for ya.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason
Hrm, everytime I think I'm about to turn the corner in poker, something UNRELATED to my skills at the tables happens. In 2006, it was UIGEA. Last year around this same time, it was Stars introducing 50bb max tables. Now, this latest bombshell definitely limits my options and profitability.
For now, I'm going to take a 'wait and see' approach. I'm not really sure if US Customers can't play on Stars on Full Tilt because those sites have decided to stop servicing them for now or if the US government has actively done something to prevent it like blocking IP addresses. If the sites felt like they were legally operating all this time, I'm not sure why they'd suddenly choose to stop servicing us now because of this lawsuit. They obviously knew the government thought it was illegal. The lawsuit doesn't seem to change anything. It's not like they'll go to court and be like, 'But, hey, look, as soon as you issued a warrant, we stopped letting US players, play' and then the judge will be like, 'Ah, yes, you're free to go'. I'm sure it's more complicated that that.
I'm going to plan to ramp up my live game play. There's a casino about a an hour and a half away that spreads $1/$3 NLHE. I've been there once and made $200. I may start going there more often. I also run a home game once every two weeks and I'll plan to start hosting it every week now. I'm also going to investigate the possibility of playing on other sites that are still US friendly like Cake, Carbon, Titan, Bodog, and others. Although, putting more money on poker sites that might get shut down like Stars/Tilt doesn't seem wise, so I'll probably be playing 'wait and see' there, too.
My main concern, outside of getting my money from Stars/Tilt, is not losing the poker skills I've honed all these years. I know from PERSONAL experience after a 6 month layoff, it took me at least 3 to 4 months to get back into the same game shape where I was before I stopped playing. I definitely fear that playing too much live and not enough online will hurt that again.
But, I'm also optimistic that maybe it's a blessing in disguise that could expedite the process to regulated, legal poker in America. It just really sucks to have a blackout period like this now AND no legislation passed.
Ha. Well, not sure that would solve any of my problems as I can't make money nor can I play against good competition ;)
Man, can I relate to that comment. I played some of the play money tables on stars Saturday night for the first time in a LONG time.....holy shit the stupidity at the table.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason
This is probably a bad idea. You'll only regress as a player.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shotglass
That's what I was afraid of. FWIW, I haven't been back on since, but going to hit the 2/5 at the casino this weekend.
Withdrawal symptoms are starting to set in :)
I just got back from setting up a new bank account, and oh is it a big one, to handle poker only transactions. I got the bear minimum checking account with no fees plus I used my girlfriend as a referral which gets us both $25 each. My hope is in the next two to four weeks, I'll be able to cash-in my roll from PokerStars. There's about $10k in the account with another $3k of value in FPP's, although still waiting for word on what Stars is going to do about that. I really hope they give us all 62.5 FPP's per $1. Hopefully in the next 2 to 6 months, Full Tilt will have their act together and I can get my roughly $5k from there. I still have no idea what to do with the Full Tilt point I've amassed there and I have no confidence that Full Tilt will do the right thing and let us cash them in for fair value - whatever fair value for those might be.
I've been leaning towards depositing a small bankroll on Carbon Poker or possibly Cake. It is obviously a risk in this environment to deposit anywhere from the United States, but the way I look at it, poker has ALWAYS been a risk in this environment. And, I am putting myself at risk in the future by not playing and allowing my skills to diminish. I don't plan to put a large roll: probably $50 to $600. More if I can hear a confirmed cashout report in this climate and less if I can't.
I've decided to have my home game once every week instead of two weeks and I'm hopefully going to try to sneak off to the casino here and there when I can.
Adapt and survive I guess.
GL, Jason.
now this is the attitude of a winner.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason
Greetings and good tidings to all denizens of Flop Turn River. Long time no see. When I last checked in, we were in the midst of the unfortunate fall-out from Black Friday. At the time, I was obviously disappointed that I couldn't play at either Stars or Full Tilt and I was mostly focused on getting my money back. Seven months later, I got all my money back from Stars but unfortunately a smaller, yet not insignificant amount of money is still in limbo at Full Tilt.
I didn't rush back to playing online after Black Friday because I thought the future was extremely uncertain and all the negative events, just like UIGEA last time, didn't inspire me to play much, so another break was in order. As always seems to be the case after a layoff, though, I am now itching to play again. I read over my blog here and I was filled with reminiscent highs and lows. I was very encouraged with all the progress I made not once, not twice, but three times. Once from scratch and then again on Full Tilt after Stars implemented the bad, default 50bb max NLHE tables, and then a third time after I got burnt out and took a six month break and came back to Stars to try to claim my VPP points. By coincidence, during that third run, the 50bb tables were removed and I had just moved up from $50NL back to $100NL where I wanted to make another run at SuperNova. That's when Black Friday happened.
That was the disappointing part of the journey: every time I seemed poised to begin succeeding at a level where the money could really matter and make a difference, it seems like something outside of my control would happen to derail the train. This started way back before my first post with UIGEA, then again with Stars 50bb max tables, then again with getting burnt out, and then again with Black Friday.
Due to the current climate, I have decided to scale back my poker goals to be modest and basically start again from scratch. Because of Black Friday, I am assuming the games have gotten much tougher. Being from the US, I am limited to what sites I can play at which makes it even tougher as I have less choices and most likely will have inferior software and a diminished player pool. I also can't ignore that I've had a 7 month layoff so my poker skills need to be dusted off and stretched out. Plus, because of all the legal mess, I think it would be almost stupid for an American player to deposit large amounts of money on a poker site since it's possible the money might not make it back, so I would much prefer depositing a small amount I may not ever seen again than a larger amount.
Shortly after Black Friday, I created a rakeback account on Carbon poker. My short term goals are to deposit $100 there just like I did exactly 3 years ago from tomorrow, and start playing one cent two cent. I want to just get used to their software, get used to playing, get my HUD and layout set-up optimally and hopefully get back to having fun and winning. If all goes well and I like it and can earn 30 buy-ins, I'll move up to $5NL. But, there could be big challenges along the way before I ever get started. I don't even know for sure they offer $2NL or $5NL. I also don't know what hurdles I'll face depositing. I hope Western Union is an option.
I'm also having more live, home games and will be giving those more priority when I can since I can play for higher stakes.
My long-term hope is that I can start honing my chops again and move up the levels and at some point poker will be legalized in the US. That would be the first time my plans got derailed in a good way. Here's to hoping ... :smile:
I'll try to make some small updates along the way until I either get moving at full force again or can't get by an obstacle of some kind.
We thought you died again :-D
I did the same thing with the small deposit but I chose Bodog. Seemed like a good choice until a week or so ago.
http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...re-189314.html
I'm now looking for a new site and may try Carbon myself.
GL
Ha! Well, I don't think any US player could be blamed for taking a little break after Black Friday. In fact, I question my sanity a bit for coming back to play :) I verified with Carbon that you can deposit Western Union. I'm having them verify my rakeback account is valid. We should race to $25NL ... although the games may be so tough, I might not make it that high this go around :o - Again, here's to hoping ;)
I spent the last few hours reading through this thread and wish to say "good luck."
If you're looking for someplace that will allow deposits with debit cards (idk about credit cards) then I've had good luck with Merge Network since BF.
Thanks so much for reading.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarhead
From contacting Carbon Poker customer support, I've determined I can deposit Western Union, which I am familiar with and will use, so that's good. The lowest games are not 1 cent and 2 cent, rather 2 cents, 4 cents, so I'll probably deposit $120 to have a full 30 buyins.
I just need to figure out the preferred seating so I'm always in the middle center.
I'm on carbon and i just couldn't do it, but then again im a quitter you're a winner.
GL sir.
Heh, thanks ... care to elaborate, though? Couldn't do what exactly? Keep playing on the site? Couldn't handle the software? Didn't want to drop stakes? Games too tough?Quote:
Originally Posted by !Luck
Or did you mean you couldn't figure out how to deposit or the preferred seat? I'm going to try to deposit today. I've successfully used Western Union on both Stars and Tilt in the past, so I'm hoping that'll go smoothly. As for preferred seating, I did figure that out, too. In the chat box, there is a chair icon and you can select to always pick that seat.
Hopefully I'll be playing some tables today ... ::fingers crossed::
I deposited 500. The games were not tough, but people played different. Maybe I ran bad, but it isn't like 25nl on carbon is all that tough. But between the sites interface and lack of notification, when mulitable I just didnt have the motivation to keep going. Long story short. 500 went in, 200 went out. I have 10 dollars or so on it and I play some penny tournies when im drunk or just mess around. I just hope to stay sharp enough to play 10nl when poker becomes legal in the states.
Oh, I see, I remember really not wanting to play after Black Friday, among other reasons, because the software felt so inferior, but I'm hoping that won't be as big of a deal now since I've had a long break and I haven't used the the Stars software in a while and won't remember what I'm missing. It wouldn't surprise me if $25NL is hard to beat now because with reduced traffic and US players having limited options, there are probably many more regs than fish.Quote:
Originally Posted by !Luck
My hope is that most of the competent players would either move out of the country to keep playing on Stars OR will just think it's NOT worth their time to drop down to $25NL or even $50NL. But, I have a while before I'll be able to form a hands on opinion about that. Hopefully at least $4NL is beatable in the meantime ...
Lol ... if poker became legal in the states and it's not an awful legislation with unbeatable rake or really small loss or win limits or anything like that, then look out. I probably would start @ $200NL just to get my feet wet and would anticipate most winning players @ $100NL and $200NL within the past year or two could play profitably up to $1000NL. Again, this assumes it's decent legislation and the average Joe Fish can easily get their money on and off the site just like they could easily go to Amazon dot com and buy a book.Quote:
Originally Posted by !Luck
Last night I cashed out $150 from Bodog. I left the majority of the BR at Bodog as I don't know how long it takes to get the cash and wanted to play somewhere while waiting on the cash out.
If it only takes a week or so then I'll get the rest out (about $400). If it only takes a week or so to get the cash, I'll wait to deposit at Carbon until I get the entire roll just to get more bonus.
I'll prob start at 4NL and go from there. We'll race to 25NL but you'll get a head start.
Glad you're back Jason.
Let me know your thoughts at Carbon.
I'm not sure how to take Luck's comments :confused:
What does "between the site interface and lack of notification" mean?
The interface is hard to use? Notification when it's your turn?
Very nice. We can also give each other tips or tricks on using the interface or whatever. I was playing with play chips last night and here are some VERY early and quick impressions:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasquach991
- Use the options to get rid of the all in button - awful idea that will cost you money if you don't
- Use the left/right arrows to easily increment your bet, don't slide it manually as you'll get odd cent/dollar amounts
- Use the chair icon in the chat menu to do the preferred seating
- There is a tile option in the upper right of the table
- For notification or timing out, it turns your time bank red and makes a sound. I didn't have a big problem with just a few tables.
- According to support, to use Western Union, once you have loaded the web cashier by hitting 'deposit' in the client, select 'cash transfer' and follow the instructions.
I didn't see a way to filter out ONLY the stakes you want. They had high, medium, and low stake filters. If you see or figure out a way to JUST get $4NL tables, that would be useful.
That was really the only thing that bothered me that I couldn't fix so far. But, like I said, it's still VERY early and this was just one practice session.
Quick update: yesterday was three years to the day I first started playing cash games on Stars at $2NL and I celebrated by playing the lowest stakes on Carbon $4NL this year. :) Feels both happy and sad at the same time.
It took a while for my Western Union deposit to go through. For some reason, it didn't work and said 'denied' and I had to wait 4 or 5 hours before support resolved it, but they did resolve it and I played about 30 minutes. This software is definitely going to take some getting used to, but hopefully with some persistence, I will. The most difficult problem to overcome I find on any software is being to keep up with the action and feel like you know what's going on at all the tables. I definitely didn't feel like I knew.
The one major thing I did not get to work was my HUD. I didn't get to troubleshoot it long, but my hands were importing and my stats would update in the main reporting client, just no HUD. After work today if I have time, I'll revisit it. At any rate, that's several hurdles overcome in one afternoon and I'm that much closer to playing competitively again.
just to ask the mind numbingly obvious , did you update to the latest HEM 1 and or are you using the HEM2 trial. you get a month to trial it but theres posts on the support forums saying that it you need extra time to decide to buy (discounted for HEM1 users) to contact them and they'll extend the trial.
Once you buy , your HEM1 licence will expire 6 months later