Trials and Tribulations of an Internet Grinder

Well the last 2 days have been horrific, I can't win any coinflip, hell i cant even win with KK vs AJ. But I know that this is all part of the grand scheme so I am trying to stay positive through this downswing. Didn't I just have a downswing?? Well My roll is now down to $1,950 after having it up to $2,500 on Sunday, this game is sick. Tommorow is and was supposed to be the start of my "official online poker career", which meant palying 4 tables of $55 SnG's at a rate of 25-35 a day. However, I have decided in ligh of this recent swing that if this were to happen at the 55's I would probably go insane and go broke. So I am going to wait until my roll is up to $2500 then I will start at the 55's. Until then mroe lovely 22's and 33's wich seem to be the hardest games I have ever played with luck factored in. :) I also want to state now, that my goal for the end of September is to have my bankroll up to $3,700 and to cashout the excess. Wish me the best of luck, because I REALLY do need it right now.

Well considering that on Friday evening my bankroll was at $1652 and as I type this it stands at $2404, I would say that I had a pretty productive weekend. I played about 45 22's and 33's and a couple of $25 tourneys. I actually made a final table but it was only a 70 person tourney and 7th place only took $84. :)

Assuming that I don't dip back below $2000 (knock on wood) I will play sets of 2 33's and 2 55's until I hit $2650 which is the bankroll milestone that I set for myself to play sets of 55's regularly. At that point I hope to start making some decent money and build a roll for the 109's. I am very proud of myself considering I started at the 11's a mere 2 1/2 months ago and I am already starting to talk about building a roll for the 109's. It is awesome to see a dream take shape as planned. I know that variance is always going to battle me, but as long as I stick to my bankroll guidelines, I feel very confident that I can succeed at the highest levels.

As you all know, Thursday is the big day, the start of my official online poker career. It does help that I have been playing for "supplemental income" over the past year, but as I have previously noted, I want to be at a point where I make a minimum of $5,000/month.

If you haven't already, I strongly suggest you check out the audio commentary from this years WSOP Main Event Final Table. As of now the audio is available in 8 different segemnets, on for each bustout, on cardplayer's web site. Here's the link,

http://www.cardplayer.com/audio/wsop2005.php

It's very interesting to listen to as you hear commentary from Phil Helmuth, Daniel Negranu, Jennifer Harman, David Williams, Jeff Shulman, Joe Cassidy, Eric Lindergren, and more.

As far as poker goes, I am chugging along playing a mix of 22's and 33's. I actually hit my $2,000 milestone again last night, but like before I will not be suprised if I dip back down for a a day or two more. Although I hope I never look back and can jump into the 55's by Wednesday. Wish me luck. Or just wish me no bad luck :)

I have decided that every other friday starting today, I will post my bankroll as a way for me to track my progress and remember the bad times when I'm running good and vice versa.

A couple of breakeven days to keep my downswing in full effect. The thing about playing SnG's for a steady income, is that I fully expect streaks like this to happen and have even heard horror stories of 1,000 SnG break even streaks from winning players, such as Raptor from 2+2. But knowing this is inevitable doesn't necesarily make it any easier to deal with mentally and emotionally. Its easy to deal with amking a horrible play because you can correct it in the future and see positive results, but with variance you can be making the best strategical plays you ahve ever made and still be on the losing end 10 times in a row!! Well now that I ahve vented a little of my frustration, I would like to share another 2+2 post. This post is actually perfect for my days post and it is a response to the IrieGuy post that I put on here a few days ago. The subject is Success and Failure. this post was written by Gigabet who is one of the most if not the most successful online players in the world. Enjoy.


When I read Irieguys post I wasn't planning on responding, I rarely respond to posts, because most of the time I am the dissenter, and frankly, it isn't good for my long term financial situation. As I started reading the responses I soon felt obligated to respond. He is so close, but travelling in the wrong direction.The wording he uses in the text lets me know where he is at on the "path," so to speak(the very beginning). Let me start with the words success and failure. These are words that mean such different things to each individual that to use them to label your accomplishments, or lackthereof, is setting yourself up for a long ardurous journey, that most won't finish. Success and failure are just ideas created by society to improperly judge others against ourselves. There are no successful people, or rather, using these words, I should say that there are no failures and everyone is a success.
Quote:
Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it.
This statement is truer than anyone can know(even though I think most of you do know, it just seems impossible for me to believe that someone else can understand). What he says about winners and losers though, will keep you from attaining a more complete game. There are no winners or losers, to think that, is to let yourself be affected by negative variance. If you are not in the positive for the day, then you therefore must be a loser, and so the downward spiral begins. All of those negative ideas must be eliminated from your mind, or you will not perform to your potential. The trick is recognizing these negative ideas, since there are so many and so commonplace in our society, it is a large task indeed to sort them out as real, or just ideas created by the masses. Our labels for winners and losers simply identify individuals who play the same game a different way. Just because one person doesn't achieve the same goal that I strive for, doesn't make that person a "loser." Everyone is the same, and everyone has the same potential, some just direct their energies in different directions. The sooner you can get that into your head and really believe it, the sooner you will start to have a real understanding of the game.
Quote:
I am beginning to realize that most people don't have the psychological fortitude or spiritual perspective to manage the vicissitudes of this game. I also believe that of the very small number of professional poker players who have been successful for more than a few years, most of them are actually quite lucky. I believe that there are many pros who will fail once they begin to experience average luck.
I really believe that everyone has the "psychological fortitude" to manage the vicissitudes of the game. It is simply a choice. A choice to change the way you think about results. Stop thinking in terms of winning as good and losing as bad. The two concepts should be grouped in your mind exactly the same. When God "blessed" man with shame, failure became a real entity we had to deal with. That is what we are trying to achieve when we label a person as a failure, we are attaching shame to A meaningless act. Throughout my life I have been around alot of people that most would classify as "failures" and not one of them seemed any different than myself. The problem comes to life when a person starts their downswing, which we classify as "losing," they begin to suspect that they may "fail" and rather than become susceptible to the shame that comes with "failure" they decide to quit. They stop because they fear things that aren't even real. The people who come to realize these negative labels aren't real, either concretely or intuitively, are the same people that do not give up, no matter how bad things seem to be running. Eventually they become the "professionals" in whatever walk of life they choose.You have to find your own way to deal with these thoughts that have been brainwashed into your mind for your whole life. Identifying every negative thought as it creeps into your mind is a start, it takes practice to monitor your thoughts, but you cannot eliminate what you do not recognize. I try very hard not to allow any negativity in my life, ask my brother(ship_it_tome) how upset I get when he is at my house, playing, struggling, for hours on end, and finally says "I can't win." We get along very well, but I get very irate with him when he utters those deadly words, as I am sure you all have muttered them at one time or another.
Quote:
I think you can learn how to avoid this trap of psychological betrayal. I think I'm beginning to learn it myself. It involves turning your noise filter all the way up.
Turning your noise filter up will work for a time, but eventually it builds and seeps through at one time or another, and everything that has been blocked comes pouring out at once, which creates the very worst tilt imaginable. Believe me, I have been there many times. I have come to realize that it is much better to acknowledge the negative or angry thoughts as they arrive, that doesn't mean just noticing their presence, when they approach, actually talk to your mind and announce their arrival, and then identify the reasons behind them. As your mind comes to realize how trivial and meaningless these thoughts are, it will eventually stop creating them in the first place. It takes alot of time and effort to do this, but the long term results will be well worth it.OK....SO HOW DOES ALL THIS REALLY RELATE TO POKER?The game that most of us play is really very simple. You get 2 cards, 5 cards come up, and you do a little betting here and there. Best 5 card hand wins. With a game this simple, why do so many people have so much trouble ending up ahead of where they started?The real game is about people, not the cards in your hand. If you know a person well enough, you can read their hand, and once you know what they have in their hand, the game becomes a cakewalk. The problem is, we have all of these predisposed ideas of who a person is based on ideas that have been placed in our heads by our society. You have to be able to eliminate all of these ideas. Once you train yourself to be completely judgement free, you will become a more complete player. Anyone can read a persons hand based on his actions and seeing common tendencies, ie., a beginning player will commonly bet small when on a draw, and bet big when he has a made hand. What about more experienced players? What does it mean when they bet 2/3s of the pot one time, and than bet pot the next? They are certainly experienced enough to know not to bet the same pattern for the same types of hands. So how can you figure out what they have? Well, get to know him, watch him play. Try and figure out what he is thinking, he has to be thinking something. Put yourself in his spot, what kind of hand would you have if you were betting like that? Now do this for every hand for every player that is in the hand, for every player at the table, for every table that you are playing at. Try and eight table while doing this exercise. Put effort into every single hand that is played out at your table, not just the ones you are involved in, every single hand. Every time there is a showdown, and the losing hand is mucked, open up the hand history file, and see what he had. Go through the hand again and see if you can figure out why he willingly showed down a losing hand(something that should rarely be done.) I call this an exercise, but this should be done on every single hand that is played out at any of your tables for the rest of your poker career. This is how you become a real player, then you can ignore the "sng" formula and really start to play. Post flop is where the real game is at, and it is fun to play. Use your bets to pull information from your opponent, and then when you know what he has, trust your judgement 100%. If you think he is on second pair, but will not fold unless you bet your whole stack, then bet your whole stack(unless of course you have a better hand than second pair, which is unlikely since players like us can rarely beat bottom pair), even if it means your tournament is over if you are wrong. Practice trusting yourself, you will be wrong enough in the beginning to doubt yourself, but don't let that stop you. There is a strong possibility that I am the most active player in the world, and I can honestly say that this is something that I do on nearly every hand. Imagine, 6000 hands a day on average, just watching and learning, with no predisposed judgements of the other players. This is what it takes. Bad beats are no longer bad beats, they are just the cards coming out randomly, evening themselves out over time. What is really important is learning the thousands of languages that different people speak through their actions at the table. Believe me, it isn't some spiritual science, it is listening and learning without prejudice.

-Gigabet

The past couple of days have been fun, and by fun I mean they have sucked. Overall I am in the middle of a $600 downswing across the 22's, 33's and few 55's. So on that note I switched back to the 22's full time and am still trying to claw my way back to the $2,000 mark before I start my "career" next thursday. As it stands right now I am sitting at $1600 and I hope that today goes better as in I hope I can win with KK vs AT and fun hands like that. :)

Other than that nothing much new on the scene. However, I do have a book recomendation for you. I personally just picked it up, and it is a very good read especially for a poker player. Although, this book would be great for anyone who uses their mind and would like to know a little more about what exactly goes on in there. I posted a a picture for those of you who are intersted, here is a,link to purchase the book. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316172324/qid=1124993497/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-4654433-5378453?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I can almost single handedly attribute most of my recent poker success to an online community called 2+2. This is a great place to learn about all types of poker with an emphasis on online strategy and industry happenings. Every week or so I am going to share some of my favorite posts from the mesasge boards of 2+2. I think that you will find these readings very interestng and helpful at the least. So here I present to you my first pick for post of the week. This is from a VERY respected online pro who goes by the handle IrieGuy. This post is his take on the terms sucess and failure. Enjoy!


The difference between success and failure 02/28/05 02:32 AM

Because of my recent foray into backing and coaching, I am now exposed to a large number of results from a heterogeneous group of players at multiple limits. I watch a lot of hand histories, and I look at a lot of spreadsheets. I get at least 5, and often more than a dozen bad beat/bad run PMs or emails every day.This experience and exposure has taught me a great deal about the difference between winners and losers. I am becomming a much better player as a result of it. I'm going to share something that I have learned which I feel may be the single most important key to playing SNGs for a living.The following is not at all meant to be a criticism of anyone who has sent me a rant about running badly. I have certainly done my share of complaining in the past. This is just an explanation of something I have learned. I hope it will help you all, because it has helped me.Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it. That which we shall not speak of has happened to me. It's going to happen to you, too, if you play long enough. If you believe that such a bad run exists only in the most improbable of statistical wastelands, you will feel particularly unlucky while it's happening to you. This will make you feel like you don't deserve what's happening."Why is this happening to me? Why is it lasting so long? How can they play so poorly while I play so well as they continually outdraw me? This doesn't make sense. It's not fair."This type of internal dialogue is poisonous. It causes players who have enough skill to beat the game to quit the game instead. The only difference between a loser and a quitter is that at least a loser is still in the action.All of the players that I back and coach have the requisite skill to beat SNGs for enough money to make a living. 90% of them are currently winning. But I predict that less than 20% of them will be consistently playing and consistently winning one year from right now. I look at how the names have changed on this forum over the years. I've been on the 2+2 forum for around 5 years (under a different name), and Fossilman was the only poster I can remember who stayed around for more than 2 years. (I'm sure there are a few more, but not many.) Obviously, he didn't leave because he quit or got loser... but it's also quite obvious why he's the exception.I am beginning to realize that most people don't have the psychological fortitude or spiritual perspective to manage the vicissitudes of this game. I also believe that of the very small number of professional poker players who have been successful for more than a few years, most of them are actually quite lucky. I believe that there are many pros who will fail once they begin to experience average luck.Now for the good news.I think you can learn how to avoid this trap of psychological betrayal. I think I'm beginning to learn it myself. It involves turning your noise filter all the way up. There are only two signals emitted from the poker universe:1. The universe will unfold as it should. If you play the right way, and your opponents do not; you will win.Everything else is noise, and to make too much of anything that doesn't expressly involve the two above facts is to pave the road to failure.Poker has nothing to do with good luck or bad luck, fairness or unfairness; and there is no such thing as the unbelievable. It is what it is, fellow warriors. Learn which side you want to be on, and be there as often as possible. Assess your position in this regard as frequently and precisely as possible... but stand firm and calm. Resolve is rewarded. Chafe is the mark of a loser.

Irieguy

On Thursday, September 1, 2005 I will embark on my online poker career. Actually, I guess I truly started over a year ago, but up until now I have been trying to build a bankroll to adequatly prepare for this challenge. My goal is to make no less than $3,000/month before rakeback, although I hope by the new year this figure grows to $6,000-$7,000/month. If all goes to plan I will start 4 tabling the Party Poker $55 STT's (Single Table Tournaments). I hope to play around 800 while using 1 monitor. However, as soon as I have enough extra money I will be purchasing an additional monitor and start 8 tabling. Hopefully I can get through as many as 1400 STT's a month after adding this monitor. I hope to post updates with my goals and results as they start developing. I also will use this blog to post articles I ahve written dealing with strategy and poker as a lifestyle and profession. Thanks for checking in.

Z.B.