It's official, I am paying rent on a place which is no longer my home. I'll be heading back eventually but it seems my plans have changed once again. Instead of going to Chicago and then Atlantic City, I am now going first to New York, Manhattan specifically, to visit my backer and put in some time on a proper computer set up.
From New York I'll be flying to Atlantic City to play some events at Borgata. After I run over the competition in AC I don't really know if I even want to go back to Dallas. If my dog wasn't there I may have already given my roommate the 60 days notice.
If Vegas didn't seem like a soul-sucking dream pit I would move there in a second. This will be my first trip to Atlantic City. Maybe it won't be as awful of a city as I've heard and it will become my next semi-permanent destination. An apartment in Jersey has to be cheap, right?
As one can easily tell, I really don't have any idea where I'm going to be 6 months from now. Maybe by the time I get back to Dallas I will have decided what do with myself in addition to just playing online poker. Maybe I'll just fly around until my backer gets tired of sending me places, I don't know. Glgl.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Turbos
This has been a frustrating week. I'm in Minneapolis visiting family and friends and don't have a proper poker computer set up. I'm working with a 6 year old PPC based Mac which can only acquire the PokerStars client. The cash games on Stars have the least value of any site, in my humble opinion, so I will only be playing various forms of tournament poker this week.
There is nothing inherently wrong with playing tournaments on Stars. That is, mind you, how I got my start in professional poker. My current problem is one that I've been dealing with off and on for the last few months. The problem can only be described as game-selection purgatory.
I don't have the financial cushion I had previous to my staking transition so I am trying to mitigate the variance in my schedule as much as possible. Since I'm not playing cash this week that means high-volume turbo sessions. I am beginning to understand why the turbos are popular but I'm stuck in tiny, tiny stakes until I have posted positive results over 1,000 games (the number my backer set as reasonable sample size).
My problems are further compounded by the fact that I can't transfer Holdem Manager or Table Ninja to this ancient Mac. Without these programs it's fairly difficult to put in the volume needed to negate the variance of any one turbo tournament. Futile endeavors are kind of my thing so I guess I'm just going to keep 12-tabling turbos.
Now that the $11 and $22 non-turbos 180-mans aren't running I just don't know what do with myself. I don't know, maybe I'll move to Korea and start working on my StarCraft skills. Glgl.
There is nothing inherently wrong with playing tournaments on Stars. That is, mind you, how I got my start in professional poker. My current problem is one that I've been dealing with off and on for the last few months. The problem can only be described as game-selection purgatory.
I don't have the financial cushion I had previous to my staking transition so I am trying to mitigate the variance in my schedule as much as possible. Since I'm not playing cash this week that means high-volume turbo sessions. I am beginning to understand why the turbos are popular but I'm stuck in tiny, tiny stakes until I have posted positive results over 1,000 games (the number my backer set as reasonable sample size).
My problems are further compounded by the fact that I can't transfer Holdem Manager or Table Ninja to this ancient Mac. Without these programs it's fairly difficult to put in the volume needed to negate the variance of any one turbo tournament. Futile endeavors are kind of my thing so I guess I'm just going to keep 12-tabling turbos.
Now that the $11 and $22 non-turbos 180-mans aren't running I just don't know what do with myself. I don't know, maybe I'll move to Korea and start working on my StarCraft skills. Glgl.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Turning Stone
About a month ago my new backer asked me if I wanted to play some events at Turning Stone Casino outside of Syracuse, NY. I said absolutely and immediately went back to doing whatever I was doing, thinking that the chances of the trip coming to fruition were very low.
A month later I was playing in the Empire State Poker Championships. My tournament results were not what I was hoping for, to say the least, but the trip as a whole was a great experience. The five Flux team members that attended the events ( the 2 gentlemen that run things and 3 horses) got along fantastically but couldn't be from more different upbringings.
With that said, I'll take this opportunity to describe our team to the best of my abilities. These descriptions will only be brief intros but will give you an idea of how contrasting the personalities were.
In the aforementioned group of five we had: an ex-Starcraft nerd (you're still my boy, Dino), a talented bowling coach from Bermuda, a man who I call my friend but is simply indescribable, a hard-dancing Canadian, and me. I'm completely normal, obviously.
I think I speak for everyone when I say it was good times all around. Our results weren't as mind-blowingly good as we had hoped but I think we learned a ton and are all encouraged moving forward. Furthermore, our backers were treating this trip somewhat like a promotional trip for Flux so none of the buy-ins would have gone to makeup anyway. It would be kind of hard to complain about a freeroll...
I'm re-learning turbos this week so interesting post-flop situations will be tough to come by. But I do plan on posting some interesting spots as they come up and talking a bit more about Turning Stone and my upcoming poker trips. Glgl.
A month later I was playing in the Empire State Poker Championships. My tournament results were not what I was hoping for, to say the least, but the trip as a whole was a great experience. The five Flux team members that attended the events ( the 2 gentlemen that run things and 3 horses) got along fantastically but couldn't be from more different upbringings.
With that said, I'll take this opportunity to describe our team to the best of my abilities. These descriptions will only be brief intros but will give you an idea of how contrasting the personalities were.
In the aforementioned group of five we had: an ex-Starcraft nerd (you're still my boy, Dino), a talented bowling coach from Bermuda, a man who I call my friend but is simply indescribable, a hard-dancing Canadian, and me. I'm completely normal, obviously.
I think I speak for everyone when I say it was good times all around. Our results weren't as mind-blowingly good as we had hoped but I think we learned a ton and are all encouraged moving forward. Furthermore, our backers were treating this trip somewhat like a promotional trip for Flux so none of the buy-ins would have gone to makeup anyway. It would be kind of hard to complain about a freeroll...
I'm re-learning turbos this week so interesting post-flop situations will be tough to come by. But I do plan on posting some interesting spots as they come up and talking a bit more about Turning Stone and my upcoming poker trips. Glgl.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Introduction to the one, the only, whiteyslacks.
Before I begin chronicling my mostly vertical journey through the micro and small stakes, I feel like I should tell everyone about myself and explain the reasons I have for making this blog.
For the time being I'm going to refrain from using my name but my screen name on most poker sites is whiteyslacks. Until recently I was grinding out a modest living playing $4/$11/$22 180 man, non turbo tournaments on PokerStars. I also played large field, mostly small buy-in mtts (multi-table tournaments) with the occasional Sunday majors thrown in. This has all changed recently since I was forced to switch backers due to liquidity issues on certain sites. The change has been great but the transition hurt the real life bankroll considerably. For this reason I have been playing 50NL cash and am in the process of moving to 100NL. I miss the tournies but my cash game is strong and the variance is not quite as soul-crushing. The fact that non-turbos are filling very slowly these days due to the mass migration to turbos has also kept me on the 6m cash tables most days. I'll be talking about my progression through the various games in future posts but at this juncture I think it would be good to explain my motivations for writing about my personal grind.
Mine is an essentially selfish desire for this blog: I want to get much, much better. By writing everyday about how I am struggling in certain areas (this does not mean bad beat stories) I believe I can inoculate myself against my own biases. It's my belief that these biases are what most frequently keep good players from becoming great players. Too often poker players convince themselves that they are much better than they are and thus lose the ability and/or desire to work on their games as diligently as they should. Poker, now more then ever, is constantly evolving. Any player with a static, or worse yet, absent approach to development, will be left telling bad beat stories to those who will listen as they look for real jobs.
Secondly, I simply want to provide an accurate portrayal of a small stakes grind. PAD and HSP have introduced the world to the tiny segment of poker players which are the super high-stakes grinders. I'll be joining those guys in the nose-bleeds soon enough but, in the mean time, I'm going to show the world what a real grind is all about....
In the next few days I'll be talking about the very interesting trip to Turning Stone for the PokerStars Empire State events and hopefully have some interesting spots in 100NL to throw out there. Good luck.
whiteyslacks
For the time being I'm going to refrain from using my name but my screen name on most poker sites is whiteyslacks. Until recently I was grinding out a modest living playing $4/$11/$22 180 man, non turbo tournaments on PokerStars. I also played large field, mostly small buy-in mtts (multi-table tournaments) with the occasional Sunday majors thrown in. This has all changed recently since I was forced to switch backers due to liquidity issues on certain sites. The change has been great but the transition hurt the real life bankroll considerably. For this reason I have been playing 50NL cash and am in the process of moving to 100NL. I miss the tournies but my cash game is strong and the variance is not quite as soul-crushing. The fact that non-turbos are filling very slowly these days due to the mass migration to turbos has also kept me on the 6m cash tables most days. I'll be talking about my progression through the various games in future posts but at this juncture I think it would be good to explain my motivations for writing about my personal grind.
Mine is an essentially selfish desire for this blog: I want to get much, much better. By writing everyday about how I am struggling in certain areas (this does not mean bad beat stories) I believe I can inoculate myself against my own biases. It's my belief that these biases are what most frequently keep good players from becoming great players. Too often poker players convince themselves that they are much better than they are and thus lose the ability and/or desire to work on their games as diligently as they should. Poker, now more then ever, is constantly evolving. Any player with a static, or worse yet, absent approach to development, will be left telling bad beat stories to those who will listen as they look for real jobs.
Secondly, I simply want to provide an accurate portrayal of a small stakes grind. PAD and HSP have introduced the world to the tiny segment of poker players which are the super high-stakes grinders. I'll be joining those guys in the nose-bleeds soon enough but, in the mean time, I'm going to show the world what a real grind is all about....
In the next few days I'll be talking about the very interesting trip to Turning Stone for the PokerStars Empire State events and hopefully have some interesting spots in 100NL to throw out there. Good luck.
whiteyslacks
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