Few will believe me when I tell them I decided to quit my old site without plans to continue coaching in the near future, but it's the truth. Aside from my study group, I would have been happy to grind away the next five months in relative obscurity. But when opportunity knocks, I try to keep an open door. And the opportunity presented to me by Drag the Bar was too good to pass up.
As of today, I am the first limit hold'em coach at dragthebar.com, a wonderfully built coaching website which has already assembled a large handful of legendary no limit hold'em coaches. I'm excited to be working with a cast of such talented, enthusiastic and likable characters. But I'm even more psyched to create a cohesive curriculum for limit hold'em from scratch.
My grandfather was an architect, and I've always been somewhat of a builder (crazy Lego skills). I plan to present the game from the bottom up, with an entertaining introductory series. I'll be coming at it from all angles, though, with a series combining live play and in depth post session analysis for some more advanced content. Of course, I'll also be hyperactive in the forums; it's my biggest addiction. I have a whole mess of other plans, but I'll save those for another day. For now, I'd like to thank Hunter Bick and Drag the Bar for this opportunity to unleash my passion for the game in the most constructive and co-ordinated way I know how.
Aim High;
Let Gravity Do the Rest
31 Days
138 Hours Played
65,417 Hands
100,357.72 VPP
$10,729.20 Table Winnings
When setting goals for myself, I rarely fail to set the bar inordinately high. This month was no different. While I failed to play 60 hours per week, or to stay on pace for Supernova Elite in 6 months, I am very happy with what I accomplished. I played more hours and twice as many hands as any month in the past two years. With VPP, rakeback, and bonuses I made a little over $21k this month, and after coaching it's closer to $23k. In short, January 2010 was my best month ever. So far.
But enough bragging. What have I learned? More than anything, I've verified some of my previous assumptions:
138 Hours Played
65,417 Hands
100,357.72 VPP
$10,729.20 Table Winnings
When setting goals for myself, I rarely fail to set the bar inordinately high. This month was no different. While I failed to play 60 hours per week, or to stay on pace for Supernova Elite in 6 months, I am very happy with what I accomplished. I played more hours and twice as many hands as any month in the past two years. With VPP, rakeback, and bonuses I made a little over $21k this month, and after coaching it's closer to $23k. In short, January 2010 was my best month ever. So far.
But enough bragging. What have I learned? More than anything, I've verified some of my previous assumptions:
- Proper diet, exercise, and sleep are vital to performing at a high level over a sustained period of time.
- Not looking at my results makes it so much easier to relax and just play poker. (see graph below.)
- Grinding through tough sessions now makes it easier to grind through tough sessions later.
- Adding tables reduces my winrate in BB/100, but improves my hourly earnings.
- I must really love poker to not hate it yet. If you had told me as a child that when I grew up I would get paid six figures a year to play computer games and listen to Metallica, I would have been completely psyched.
- I am capable of much more than I have accomplished in the past.
Buddha Out
To those who have clicked through from Stoxpoker, "Hello!" and thank you. To those who haven't, here are the cliff notes: I recently left the poker training site that I was previously making coaching videos for. I'm not prepared to discuss the reasons for my departure, but it is a decision that resulted from heavy consideration. In poker and life, all we can do is make the best decision based on the information we have, and I believe that's what I have done here. Time will tell.
I have felt very distracted for the past week, and not logged many hands as a result. I'm currently at just over 56k hands on the month. I can't be too unhappy with this, as my best month last year was just over 30k hands. By month's end I expect to have more than doubled my best month from last year, so that's a solid start to the year. My goal for February will simply be to improve on January. I'm also at 87k VPP out of 1 million, so I have to step it up considerably to earn my free WSOP entry before July.
With that, it's just past low noon, and time for the grind. I've got a good 6 or 7 hours before the sun comes up.
I have felt very distracted for the past week, and not logged many hands as a result. I'm currently at just over 56k hands on the month. I can't be too unhappy with this, as my best month last year was just over 30k hands. By month's end I expect to have more than doubled my best month from last year, so that's a solid start to the year. My goal for February will simply be to improve on January. I'm also at 87k VPP out of 1 million, so I have to step it up considerably to earn my free WSOP entry before July.
With that, it's just past low noon, and time for the grind. I've got a good 6 or 7 hours before the sun comes up.
More of a Sprinter, Really
3 days
33 hours of poker
15,999 hands
25,466.84 VPP
$???? Won/Lost
I have rarely been able to sustain a hard working pace. Throughout my life I have started and stopped many things. Music; Taekwon-Do; Poker: These are all activities that I pursued with zealous passion over short spans of time. Better to burn out than to fade away would be the mantra. Like The Phoenix I have resumed these pursuits years later with similar intensity, only to burn through it once more.
So how does a fellow make the most of being wired this way? If slow and steady are not in his vocabulary, then what words should describe his optimal mode of function? Manic? Obsessive? Consuming? I’ll start with those. I plan to break out in a dead run until I fall down. Most would say that this plan lacks wisdom. But I know myself, and I believe this will work for me. (read: don’t try this at home).
After three days of putting my mouse to the grindstone, I feel like I’ve earned my day off. It’s hard to relax when a day off consists of Taekwon-Do class, music practice, and catching up on correspondence. I did manage to watch a movie in the afternoon, but I’ve felt tired all day. Is it strange that I had abundantly more energy over the weekend while I was at the tables all day? Probably not, since I had the adrenaline of starting something new and ambitious.
I never thought too much about the phrase “Learn to relax,” but it’s something I need to do. Can I apply the same learning process I’ve applied to poker, martial arts, and music? I’ll try to wrap my brain around that one and get back to you on it. But tomorrow it’s back to the grind with a couple half days before really stepping it up on Thursday for a four day weekend. My daily schedule looks something like this:
11:00 AM: Wake up, do morning stuff & yoga, eat fauxgurt w/fruit & granola
11:30 AM: Warm up, 3 hour poker session, write in journal
2:30 PM: Run stairs up to 45th floor, eat black bean & avocado burrito, relax
3:30 PM: Warm up, 3 hour poker session, write in journal
6:30 PM: Stretch, drink smoothie, relax
7:00 PM: Warm up, 3 hour poker session, write in journal
10:00 PM: Go for a walk, take a shower, eat a giant salad
11:00 PM: Warm up, 3 hour poker session, write in journal
2:00 AM: Review marked hands & take notes
3:00 AM: Relax, get ready for bed
33 hours of poker
15,999 hands
25,466.84 VPP
$???? Won/Lost
I have rarely been able to sustain a hard working pace. Throughout my life I have started and stopped many things. Music; Taekwon-Do; Poker: These are all activities that I pursued with zealous passion over short spans of time. Better to burn out than to fade away would be the mantra. Like The Phoenix I have resumed these pursuits years later with similar intensity, only to burn through it once more.
So how does a fellow make the most of being wired this way? If slow and steady are not in his vocabulary, then what words should describe his optimal mode of function? Manic? Obsessive? Consuming? I’ll start with those. I plan to break out in a dead run until I fall down. Most would say that this plan lacks wisdom. But I know myself, and I believe this will work for me. (read: don’t try this at home).
After three days of putting my mouse to the grindstone, I feel like I’ve earned my day off. It’s hard to relax when a day off consists of Taekwon-Do class, music practice, and catching up on correspondence. I did manage to watch a movie in the afternoon, but I’ve felt tired all day. Is it strange that I had abundantly more energy over the weekend while I was at the tables all day? Probably not, since I had the adrenaline of starting something new and ambitious.
I never thought too much about the phrase “Learn to relax,” but it’s something I need to do. Can I apply the same learning process I’ve applied to poker, martial arts, and music? I’ll try to wrap my brain around that one and get back to you on it. But tomorrow it’s back to the grind with a couple half days before really stepping it up on Thursday for a four day weekend. My daily schedule looks something like this:
11:00 AM: Wake up, do morning stuff & yoga, eat fauxgurt w/fruit & granola
11:30 AM: Warm up, 3 hour poker session, write in journal
2:30 PM: Run stairs up to 45th floor, eat black bean & avocado burrito, relax
3:30 PM: Warm up, 3 hour poker session, write in journal
6:30 PM: Stretch, drink smoothie, relax
7:00 PM: Warm up, 3 hour poker session, write in journal
10:00 PM: Go for a walk, take a shower, eat a giant salad
11:00 PM: Warm up, 3 hour poker session, write in journal
2:00 AM: Review marked hands & take notes
3:00 AM: Relax, get ready for bed
Purpose
It's December 24th, and I've been excited all day. For the first time in fifteen years, I feel much like I did on Christmas Eve as a child. But it’s not because I can’t wait for Christmas Day. It’s because I can’t wait for New Years Day. Yeah, I can’t wait for the year to be over.
I’m not much for the holidays. I enjoy spending time with friends and family, and giving and receiving gifts is great and all. But as a staunch atheist who believes that the way we mark time is as arbitrary as the turn of a river card, they don’t mean a whole hell of a lot to me. So why am I excited about January First?
Because I’ve hatched a psychotic plan to get Supernova Elite next year in a rather tight time frame, without limiting my play solely to PokerStars. This is something that I’m thoroughly unprepared for. So why do I plan on putting myself through hell for money?
After reading some of Dusty’s blogs and half watching It’s A Wonderful Life for the nineteenth time, I remembered that I’d really like to do some things that help people in my lifetime. And a lot of those things take money. So I’m going to get me some, ASAP. Then I can start my chain of vegan quick food restaurants, open an affordable dojang in this expensive city, and start some sort of scholarship program for the self-educated.
Over the course of my life, I’ve had a hard time motivating myself for long enough to reach much of my potential. I think keeping a sharp eye on what I really want to get done is what I’ve been missing. I don’t believe in god, religion, or even morality, but I do believe in good. And I’d like to do some of it. Quite selfishly, it’s what makes me happy.
I’m not much for the holidays. I enjoy spending time with friends and family, and giving and receiving gifts is great and all. But as a staunch atheist who believes that the way we mark time is as arbitrary as the turn of a river card, they don’t mean a whole hell of a lot to me. So why am I excited about January First?
Because I’ve hatched a psychotic plan to get Supernova Elite next year in a rather tight time frame, without limiting my play solely to PokerStars. This is something that I’m thoroughly unprepared for. So why do I plan on putting myself through hell for money?
After reading some of Dusty’s blogs and half watching It’s A Wonderful Life for the nineteenth time, I remembered that I’d really like to do some things that help people in my lifetime. And a lot of those things take money. So I’m going to get me some, ASAP. Then I can start my chain of vegan quick food restaurants, open an affordable dojang in this expensive city, and start some sort of scholarship program for the self-educated.
Over the course of my life, I’ve had a hard time motivating myself for long enough to reach much of my potential. I think keeping a sharp eye on what I really want to get done is what I’ve been missing. I don’t believe in god, religion, or even morality, but I do believe in good. And I’d like to do some of it. Quite selfishly, it’s what makes me happy.
It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
My favorite TV show growing up was Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. I think I was a big fan of the little train that went around the set, but I also liked the whole shoe tying business. There was one lesson that the entire show was designed to teach. Every activity has three parts:
- Preparation
- Activity
- Cleanup
Somehow I failed to internalize this scheme (but I could still probably put a train set together in five minutes). To this day I blast through step 1, and often skip step 3 entirely. I'm trying to work this process into my Samurai Diet. More on this later.
I've recently spent some time working with Jared Tendler, the performance coach. He prescribes a three step process for every activity:
- Warm up
- Performance
- Cool down and review
This process works for poker, golf, music, martial arts, and pretty much whatever else you apply it to. The idea is to prepare yourself to perform at your highest level. Then to perform without second guessing yourself or worrying about improvement. Finally, you extract the lessons from the session and release the activity from the front of your mind. Sound familiar?
Incidentally, both of these outlines are identical to the shape of a good story. I guess it's time to try write my life into a more coherent narrative. Won't you be my neighbor?
Villain's Lament Live at Connolly's Klub
We played a show last weekend in Times Square to a bunch of rowdy Taekwon-Do buddies and other friends. Lauren and I had run over from a TKD demo that we'd performed in, so it was something of a double header. It was a blast. Here are a handful of clips from the show.
Sunshine Suicide, a reprisal of one of the catchier Voice of a Secret tunes:
Villain's Lament, our preponomously titled piece of thrash pop (the song starts at 0:53, after Lauren gets the crowd going):
Venice Is Going Down (it's a song, not a porno):
The Prettiest Card In the Deck, my Thrash Punk ode to dependency, codependency and bad river cards:
Dig, our first effort at a haunting dirge:
Sunshine Suicide, a reprisal of one of the catchier Voice of a Secret tunes:
Villain's Lament, our preponomously titled piece of thrash pop (the song starts at 0:53, after Lauren gets the crowd going):
Venice Is Going Down (it's a song, not a porno):
The Prettiest Card In the Deck, my Thrash Punk ode to dependency, codependency and bad river cards:
Dig, our first effort at a haunting dirge:
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