Taking a break

So right now I'm taking a little poker break. I didn't cash in either the sunday million or the second chance tourny. So frustrating. I started out doing well in the sunday million. Then, things went to hell. blinds at 400/800, I get JJ in 3rd position, UTG (huge stack, ~60k) limps and I bump it up to 3k with approx 15k in chips. folds to CO who calls 3k. Folds to UTG who makes it 11k. I thought for a good long while but couldn't justify gambling at that point. Also, I was hoping to be in a coin flip. I don't see what hand makes this play without QQKKAA or AK. Was very hard laying it down though because it was the best hand I've seen. Could have been TT or 99 but I think the probability of that is low compared to when he has me dominated. Seeing how I've only invested 1/5 of my stack I folded. So then, a round or two later I pick up AKos in mid-late position. Position 3 min raises to 1600. I then raise to 5600. Folds to original raiser. He goes all in for 9.5k and I call. He has AA. I lose. I'm left with 2700 and have an M of 2. I pick up Q7 next hand and pushed after it was folded to me and got called by AT on the button and lost. I never used to make these types of pushes until I read HoH. It's yet to pay off. Anyway, then I played the 2nd chance and in the 3rd hour got knocked out right b4 the money. I honestly forget how I got knocked out of that tourny and it's too late for me to look for that HH. I remember it was a cooler though. Oh ya...it was a coin flip. I was moved to a table with HUGE stacks that made my little below average stack look tiny. The standard raise with 100/200 blinds was to 1200. I couldn't get a chance to play a pot. When I had KQ i'd raise to 500 (my standard raise) and get moved all in. Then I pick up AA a round later and do the same thing to pick up the blinds. So things weren't going my way. Blinds increased putting me in the middle of the red zone. I found a pocket pair of threes in middle position and pushed and got called by one of the blinds with AT and lost. lol...i completely lost that memory and it just came back to me like that. Anyways, I played some HU and some 3/6 only to lose 500 dollars more. I was so mad and frustrated that I said fuck it! I'm taking a break to reflect. The last time I said that, I didn't follow through. But this time I'm doing it. Going to read a couple of poker books and play my brother poker when I want to play. He doesn't want to play me anymore. He says that he hates me when we play because I always do what he doesn't want me to do and that I can read him to well. lol...but we don't play for money, so it doesn't matter. I'll offer him to play him pot limit omaha, a game I'm not that great at next time i want to play poker. It's a fun game though. Some of you might know, from FCP, that I devised a chart that outlines my goals and my bankroll management. It's a little bit confusing because it's really hard to allign, so I won't copy paste it here. If someone one can leave a comment and tell me how to add a file I'll put my excel file with the chart on here and explain it. GTG right now...btw if you're wondering what book I'm reading now, it's Ace on the River. It's not really a poker book like david sklansky's books are, but it's a good read and I can still learn from it. I'm looking forward to getting this new book on tells which some poster on my poker forum believes is better than mike caro's as well as 'the poker tournament forumula' or something by some dude I don't know. I heard good things about it. But that's all for now. Let me know how to post the excel file here and I'll show it to you. cheers.

St. Patty's Day

Well...I woke up about 2 hours ago, don't remember much from last night. I went to a friend's house with my brother and we were planning on going to a kegger afterwards. But then, a bunch of ppl showed up and we never ended up going. I was upset because there was a very good looking girl there who went to the kegger and I think she was interested based on the way she was looking at me when we were talking. Her, and a few more people went. Then when we decided to finally go, we called and found out that the keggers were already busted (not the original one we were planning on going to, the other two). I just wanted 1 hour at the kegger to try to make something happen with that girl, but I didn't get a chance. So we walked to subway after and I had a beer there. lol..i can't believe the ppl working there didn't say anything. Then...I don't remember. That's the last of my memory until I woke up this morning with a massive hangover. Ugh! the worst hangover I've had is in the Dominican last summer when I had 18 shots of tequila...yup....wasn't a very fun morning. So that's that. That was last night. As for poker, I didn't play any after my last post which summarizes how things went.

Today, I'm hoping to score a big one in the Sunday Million. If I bust out I'll play the 2nd chance. If I don't, I wont. I'm going to be concentrating really hard and trying my best to play a perfect game. My plan is to start out slow, play my hands. Then once I get some notes on players, start using them as blinds rise. I'm going to avoid marginal decisions early on and try to play small pots. Then i'm going to reconsider my plan given my chip position after first break. I'll publish my results, hopefully tomorrow because that means that I made it far. Cya.

Down again..things are getting gross

Haven't played much today but I'm down again. Had my stats exam today and did well considering how little I studied. I think I got easily over 70. Anyways, I played 6 6 man sitngoes. I won 1 got 2nd in one and bubbled and lost the others. I'm getting to used to bubbling. I hate it. Unfortuantely the one I won was the 72+6. Then I played a big donk HU, I lost. Then I decided to take the rest of the day off because it's getting difficult to handle psychologically. I know that being stuck 1800 in 3 days isn't a big deal for pro's because it happens often, but I'm not used to being down. I'm up almost everytime I play and to have 3 days down is a big thing for me. I guess I'll have to work on my outlook on this issue. I'm going to play my brother a poker game after he's done his online, his sn on stars is sparkabowler. Then, I'll get ready to go out for st. patty's day. As I said in previous posts, me and my brother have a league. Our first leauge he beat me 50-39 or something. Pretty bad. I know. Then, our next leauge he beat me again but I forget the score. Then we started another leauge and were about tied but we lost the score so we started another one. This one I'm leading 9-3 I believe. It's only 5 bucks a game but it's more fun than the 100 dollar games for me because it's live. I love live poker. I have way more courage in live poker than in online poker althgouh it seems it should be the opposite. In online poker I just think of each person as clueless and trust my bluffs to work less often. In live poker I stare the guy down and get my information. Of course I wear glasses because I don't want him to know that I'm staring him down. If you haven't read Mike Caro's book on Tells and you like live poker or planning to play pro. I HIGHLY recommend it. It's a great read and you could finish it in 4 hours. Anyhow, I can't think of anything else to say so i'm just gonna post today's results...

6-man sit and go's - -$163.2
HU - -$115
Total Daily Profit - -$288.2
Total March Profit (starting on the 16th) - - $357.20

lots of hours, no profit

I've played approximately 7 hours today (after I studied for my stats for about ... um...1.5 hours...man I'm going to need to suck out on that exam). I was 4-tabling the 6 man sit and go's. The 110+9 and the 72+6 because the 110+9 weren't filling up well. It started off being evenish and a little bit into it I was down about 800 dollars. OUCH. I just couldn't get anything to work for me at all. I felt like there was nothing I could do. My KK running into AA, one time I sucked out. My AJs getting beat by a 82s that CALLS my all in. What a donkey play. Raises UTG I move over the top with my short stack all in for 600, and he calls 480 more. Anyways, needless to say, he wins. I just kept getting shanked today. I'm starting to reconsider 4-tabling 6-man sit and go's and instead playing HU. I'm used to HU and I feel very comfortable playing it. The only problem is that I can't multi-table HU. I tried, I'm WAY less profitable. I'm really good at getting tells by the speed it takes ppl to act, and so when I multi-table I lose that advantage, which is huge for me. Anyways. After being down 855 at my lowest today, I played a 5400 FPP satelite and got a seat into the sunday million. I took the tourny dollars instead and took a shot at the 6-man 200 dollar sit and go and bubbled. I've been playing solid tight, not making many moves, but every time I make a move it seems someone wakes up with a big hand. So again, I was down the same amount. I switched and played some HU. I played 7 HU of which I won 6. I lost a 200 one but won 3 other 200 ones. So then I decided to play another 6 person. Lost again. I play the 6 persons much better when I don't 4 table, which is a bad thing as I want to learn to multi-table. I was getting shanked a lot though. But I'm not going to start telling bad beat stories. Anyway, here are the stats for today.

6-man sit and go's - - $969.00
FPP tourny - +$215.00
HU - +$675.00
Today's Net Profit - -$79.00

I was playing such good HU, I was liderally playing flawlessly. Even though i can't multi-table HU, I think it might be more profitable than 4-tabling the 6 man sit and go's because I feel like I have such an edge on anyone I play. I feel as I'm the best HU player. Not bragging...well yes I am. I'm just being honest though. I think my biggest strength is HU. Biggest weakness is probably cash games. I need to learn how to adjust from a tournament structure. I still win money in the long run but I'm way less profitable in cash games than in sit and go's. Man..I'm getting off track...I'm done for now. Gonna watch PAD and then go to sleep and write my exam in 10 hours (uh oh!). Later.

Long time, no post

Haven't posted in over a month as you can tell by the title. I don't even know where to start. I'm starting to post again because it helps me not be angry when I'm having rough times. I had exams this last month and so I haven't been posting much. My exams aren't over, I have my stats on the 17th still. I think I'll do fine. I really haven't been concentrating much on doing well in school because I'm just not motivated. I know that I can earn lots more money than a degree could earn me by playing poker, a thing that I love (well..most of the time). But ya...so since february, I've made approximately 10k. I'm going to start keeping excel stats to know for sure what I'm making, hourly wage etc. Right now, I've been really lazy this last month and so I havne't started an excel file (I had one but I got a new computer and haven't started it on the new one yet, can't get my old one because my old computer crashed). I really haven't been that productive this last month, and I'm not happy about it. A couple times even, I played when I shouldn't of. I was really tired but I kept playing...and it cost me a couple grand. Even after all this time playing poker, I still find it hard to cope with the swings. This is my biggest priority, to accept the fluctuations and not care about the results, but only care about my playing. It's easier said than done, however. I was playing today with a guy I usually play with, his sn is jhub3000, and he gave me his blog's email address, and I'm going to try to keep my blog like his. His is updated everyother day, if not every single day. He keeps his stats there and I think it's a great idea. Right now, I want to start fresh, in a sense that I want to be more organized about my playing. So far, I just play when I feel because I don't consider myself a full-time professional. It's hard to set a schedule for me because there are things going on. From now on, up until I'm done this semester (which feels like forever) I'm going to plan how much to play the week before. Starting in a couple of days after my stats exam. Also, I want to start planning when i'll move up stakes as I feel I'm playing VERY deep within my bankroll, which is a good thing, but I eventually want to move up in stakes for obvious reasons. I feel as I've been playing in the 100-200 dollar level for so long. God damn...as I'm writing this a donkey (jotty1313) called my all in on the turn with a flush draw when I had top pair and caught it! man...sometimes this is very stressful. I'm hoping I can change that. I just get very annoyed and angry when I make a good read and they get lucky. sigh. Anyways, I want to make a plan as to when I'll move up stakes because I feel if I don't have a plan I wont be motivated to do it. My bankroll right now is almost almost 35 thousand and I'm playing 100 and 200 dollar sit and go's. I'm thinking right now that When I get to 50k, I'll move up to 200-300 dollar level 6 person sit and go's and 200 - 500 HU. This just seems like very high stakes right now (500) to me. But I have to get used to that kinda thing. So here's how poker is going. BAD. the last 2 days i'm down 1500 in total. Just nothing, and I mean NOTHING is going my way. KKvsAA, set over set, made hand < crappy draw, and just extremely frustrating. My av. dollar/sit and go dropped over the last 2 days, from 12 to 11. Pretty disgusting. But I'm starting fresh tomrrow. As for now I'm going to go watch some PAD (Poker after dark) and then sleep so I can wake up refreshed tomorrow to study for stats. I think I'll finish studying after like 3 hours of studying, because I'm a slacker. At least I'm honest. As I said my grades don't matter to me because after this semester I'm not going back to school. The reason I'm finishing it is in case in the future I do want to get a degree, I'll have one less year. Anyways, I'm out.

ISOLATION PLAY

Sorry I meant squeeze play, not isolation play in the previous post.

January 29, 2007

I haven't posted in 4 days so here is what's up. I played a little bit of poker but not too much. I won about 700ish since the 25th but really spend most of my time studying (ya right...), and reflecting on poker. I needed a little break. And I feel good that I got one. I read 1/4 of HoH II(harrington on holdem II) and it's a really good book. There are a couple flaws that I've noticed. Do you guys know what the isolation play is? An aggressive person in middle position raises, someone calls behind, and you're in the SB or BB and you move all in. Anyways, he suggests that this play should be done only when you have rags. Anyone see a problem??! Yup. I do. Everytime you do that play (if you only do it with rags) you become so easy tor read! You have to be unpredictable and mix in some good hands as well. Raise the same way with AA, otherwise, this play wont work. So that's the main flaw I found in his book but other than that, it's a great read so far. And I love how he has a bunch of situations where you get to analyze your moves and choose your moves and compare it to what he says. It's good, if you don't have that book I highly recommend you get it. Anyways, I'm not going to post many hands because I haven't played all that much. I'm going to try to teach you about table talking online. I was playing this 100 HU game and have been very honest with this guy because he was very easy to play against. I won most of the hands and luckily all the ones that I bet and showed down, I had at least a pair. And I was honest with him telling him that I don't lie, and to prove it I've shown him a couple hands when I raise and he folds to get his trust. This is all a set up. Then....I get 92 off suit on the button (I have 2200 chips to his 800 chips with blinds at 25/50) I bump it up to 125. He calls. A side not, I wasn't very active lately and so expected him to fold. But I don't mind a call because If I miss I'll bet and take down the pot likely. Anyways, the flop comes down 2 2 4 rainbow. BEAUTY. He checks, I check. K comes on the turn, he bets 100 I call. 10 comes on the river (no possible flushes), he bets 50, I insta move all in and I type "I gotta bluff sometime ;)" .... He types back "you lying?"....I respond..."its possible". He types, "I hit my K", I respond, "You call, you 2bl up, but you wont call". 2 seconds later...he calls. GG.

To be fair, I'll share a mistake I've made today as well. I'm playing in this juicy cash game (6handed, $1/2) and I haven't been active on the button. I've been tight/agressive and I've only shown down good hands. What does this mean? I can play bad hands. So on the button I pick up 8 6 of spades. I bump it up to 6 dollars, my normal raise. BB calls. Flop comes down K103 2 spades. He checks, I check. A of spades comes on the turn, he checks, I check (this is a very interesting play that I started implementing. Yes, I am afraid of a spade to come on the river, but...if it does he wont bet that much if he has a higher spade because he'd think I can't call. And if no spade comes on the river, I can make a big bet and he wont put me on a flush because I checked the flop (most palyers bet flush draws), and I checked the turn). A blank comes on the river and he bets out 12$ (pot bet) I bump it up to 44 and he think for 1 sec and moves all in. That's where I should've folded. It's either a bluff or a higher flush. Because a hand worse than mine would just call me. Unfortuantely I called and I lost $200 to his Q high flush. It's a lesson, think before you act. I called really quickly without much thought to it. If I analyzed the situation before acting, I could've saved myself $135. Live and Learn.

Unfortunately, I wont be able to play too much poker in the upcoming month. I haven't been to school for like 1 month now and haven't opened a book and I need to get ready for my mid terms. So I wont have as much time as I'd like to play. But fortunately, I don't need money right now because I have a bunch saved up in my account. The only problem is that I want to get a car and I promised myself that once I get $50k saved up, I'll buy myself a car. So far I have about $27k saved. Already had 32k saved but Went on a bad streak and bought a big screen TV and a new computer to make myself feel better..LOL..

What else do I have to say? Oh ya...me and my brother had the CRAZIEST HU poker games ever. More complex than the WPT or any poker I've seen on TV. It was so complex. I was playing so well but I couldn't of won because of the situations. But here is how the thought process went. "I know that he's expecting me to expect him to bet if he hit the turn, but I know he knows that I know that. Therefore, He'd do the opposite......etcetc...That was just random but that's how complex we were thinking. It was the most interesting HU game I've ever played. I lost but that's ok. We play each other to learn and for pride. Man...if only that HU game was televised. Like...I had a middle pair when I called his all in (blinds were big)...Here is how it went...I have 96...He limps I check. Flop comes 910K, I check he checks, 2 on the turn. I check he bets pot size, at this point my analysis goes as follows. I know he bets 10 on flop or K on flop. I put him on either a 2 or a bluff. I moved in and he called with 9 2. DUH! the only non bluffing hand that makes sense. I checked to trick him into thinking that I don't have a pair, and he did the same thing to me. People who play poker will probably not realize how much of a cooler this hand actually was. My brother and I were discussing it and concluded that we both played it right and there's nothing we could have done differently. We started a poker league between the 2 of us. It's not for real money. $5 a game (we don't like to play each other for money because we don't feel right winning 100 off a brother). So far it's 2-2 and I'm chip leader in the current game. Approximately 2:1.

I believe that is all I have to say right now. GG

Worst day of my life

Wow...what a shitty day. I'm down $1195. That's one of the biggest amounts I've ever been down in a day and it feels like complete shit. I was playing well but nothing was working out my way. Lost several hundred on QQ vs. AK prelfop all ins and a bunch of other crap. I'm feeling so down right now because I just bounced back from a 4k down streak and now losing that much in one day feels so damn depressing. It's so fricken hard to keep my cool because I feel like I have steam coming out of my fricken ears. It's moments like these that I wonder why I want to play professionally. Although I know I'll bounce back right now I feel like ... ugh...i don't even know what. Look at my f***ing sharkscope! my ROI dropped to 12%. It used to be 17% when I was about 1100 games in. Now that's just sickening. Gonna go get high and watch a movie and try to forget about this whole day...

January 25, 2007

It's not 8:23 and this day has been a roller coaster. At one point I was down 520 bucks. Here are the stats for today.


100+9 tournament 99/249 9K suited from late position. I raise to 600 (my stack is 5k and the BB's stack is 7k while blinds are 100/200) BB calls. Flop 935 rainbow...He has 33 and I go broke.


105+9 5/9 -$114.00

210+15 5/9 -$225.00

3600FPP 1/9 $530.00


HU: 4W 5L....nothing working out my way HU...lots of bad beats.

As of now I'm down $103....I'm going to play the nightly Hundred Grand...so hopefully things go my way...I could really use a big score...wish me luck....GTG

January 25, 2007

I know, I know...the previous post was supposed to be January 24, but it was like 3 am, so I got confused. Anyway, I woke up at 2:30 today and so far have played 3 HU games. 2 for 115 and one for 105. I won 2/3 although I deserved to win all three.

I always put my money with the best of it but just got unlucky in the 2nd game when my K10s lost to his 103 os in a preflop all in. Blinds were 50/100 and he had approximetly 600. I called because I knew he'd move in with any two in that situation because he just lost a big pot. Then, my AJ lost to A10 (preflop all in). 10 came on turn. GG. It actually was a very interesting game. If it wasn't so annoying, I'd post the hand histories here for you guys to check out. But unfortunately, it is that annoying. So far I'm up $85 today. Slow days because I haven't been playing all that much yesterday and today. Right now I'm just waiting for my brother, his screen name on stars is sparkabowler, to finish his 6 handed game so we can play a HU match. He's here. So I'll post later.

January 25, 2007

Took it easy today in terms of poker. I played a very juicy $1/2 cash game and ended up being up 53.75. There was this one guy who was so bad, he was the reason I was playing. Here are some hand histories from me playing this guy. His name is galli9897.

PokerStars Game #8109863546: Hold'em No Limit ($1/$2) - 2007/01/25 - 01:22:07 (ET)
Table 'Polydoros' 6-max
Seat #4 is the buttonSeat 1: SteveKuntz ($216.45 in chips)
Seat 2: limitpam ($195.70 in chips)
Seat 3: galli7897 ($198.05 in chips)
Seat 4: JohnnySky ($197 in chips)
Seat 5: GabeTheKid ($91.65 in chips)
Seat 6: wwwBTHEREcom ($197 in chips)
GabeTheKid: posts small blind $1
wwwBTHEREcom: posts big blind $2
*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to GabeTheKid [Kh Kc]
SteveKuntz: folds
limitpam: calls $2
galli7897: raises $4 to $6
JohnnySky: folds
GabeTheKid: raises $10 to $16
wwwBTHEREcom: folds
limitpam: folds
galli7897: calls $10
*** FLOP *** [Jh 4s 6d]
GabeTheKid: bets $20
galli7897: calls $20
*** TURN *** [Jh 4s 6d] [3d]
GabeTheKid: bets $55.65 and is all-in
galli7897: folds
GabeTheKid collected $73 from potGabeTheKid: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***Total pot $76 Rake $3 Board [Jh 4s 6d 3d]Seat 1: SteveKuntz folded before Flop (didn't bet)Seat 2: limitpam folded before FlopSeat 3: galli7897 folded on the TurnSeat 4: JohnnySky (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)Seat 5: GabeTheKid (small blind) collected ($73)Seat 6: wwwBTHEREcom (big blind) folded before Flop
_______________________________________________________________

It takes way too long to post hand histories, because I have to read through it and click enter every time it's a new line. It's annoying, so just bare with me. I'll do the big hand that I lost. Remember this guy is a maniac and called my all in preflop with K 7 os. He limped I moved all in with JJ, obviously because I know my opponent, and he calls, as expected. Anyways, watch this disgusting hand.

Stacks: Me - 185.05
SB - 192
FISH - 143.85

I'm in the BB with AK hearts. Folds to the maniac who's on the button. He limps. SB calls. I raise to $7. Both call.

FLOP: A 5 2 rainbow. BEAUTIFUL...or so I thought.

I bet pot size, $20, and the fish goes all in, SB folds, and I call. He has 55. Nothing wrong with how he played this hand, except for the button limp. But I had to call given what I know about him. He moved all in when he opened the pot with 10A os. He's crazy. But I wasn't mad at all when I lost that pot. I recently learned to look at the game from a situational perspective. I figure there's no point in getting pissed off everytime something doesn't work out. It's a game I'm going to play for a living, and if I keep getting stressed out because of it, it'll kill me eventually and it wont be worth it. I know I'll win in the long run, and so what's the point of caring about a stupid number (my bankroll) that fluctuates like crazy. It's just a number. My concern is making CORRECT decisions. I made the correct decision with the AK given my available knowledge, so I really don't care what the outcome is. It's just a new way that I look at the game that helps me not get mad. And it's not like I get mad and deny it, I just stopped getting mad. I just want to play good poker. This kind of reminds me of Tony G. He handles bad beats really well. And now....so do I.

Weekly Report

Date
Profit
January 17, 2007
$405.50
January 18, 2007
-$242.00
January 19, 2007
$342.50
January 20, 2007
$848.50
January 21, 2007
$1,234.40
January 22, 2007
-$785.60
January 23, 2007
$698.35

Total Weekly Profit: $2,501.65

Overall, this week has been ok. A little bit frustrating because I had 2 shots at BIG money. If you are from FCP (fullcontactpoker.com), then you probably read my MTT's thread and already know. But I'll sum it up right now anyways.

Played 4 tournaments this week.


Buy-in Entries Finish
100+9 310 55
200+15 6742 3271
200+15 1061 22
150+12 973 15

The Sunday Million was a frustrating tournament. It wasn't much fun because I liderally got no hands the entire time. I busted close to the 2nd break. I had KJ suited in the BB and after everyone folded to the SB who limped, I pushed my 7k stack all in. Blinds were 400/800. The SB was actually trapping me with AK and I busted.

I decided to play the 2nd Chance Sunday, and made it quite far. I played such great poker it felt aweome. My stack was 95422 and I was in the SB with...guess it....yup...KJ suited. An active player on the button bumps it up to 23200 (he has me covered by an extra 50k. He's been making lots of late position steals and so I decided to push. This time he had QQ and busted me.

In two days, I decided to play the nightly hundred grand on stars. Once again I made it deep after playing EXTREMELY patient. If I posted my hand history for that tournament, you'd understand how card dead I was. I honestly had so little opportunities to try to steal because of how loose my table was. To give you an example of how loose it was, I'll tell you a hand from it. The button raises to 3x BB (he has an average stack), the BB pushed all in. The button INSTA calls with 78suited. The BB had K6. And my table image was ignored, which was good. Anyways, I was 12/15 with the blinds coming to me in 3 hands and decided Q10 is good enough to push with my M of 4. Unfortunately, someone picked up QQ and called me. I busted 15th.

As for sit and go's. I started 4-tabling the 105+9 turbos on stars. I find that I play much better when I have 4 tables running. We'll see if I decide to continue using this strategy or if I'm going to go back to 1 tabling HU sit and gos. The reason I'm leaning towards 4-tabling is because I can't multi-table HU. I need all my concentration when I play HU because I ALWAYS have a decision. I've seen some players like maxv2 (BIG SHARK...avoid him) 3 table HU and are very successful. But for me, I feel like I'm more efficient 1 tabling, at most 2-tabling HU.

Let me introduce myself

Hey...thanks for stopping by. I created this blog for theraputic reasons. As a professional poker player, it is important to let out anger in a non-violent way, and I figured a starting a blog is a pretty good way. I've never had a blog before so I have no clue what I should be writing about. I think this blog will be interesting to young people who also aspire to become professional poker players. I'm just going to be blabbing about things that I feel like, sharing bad beats, sharing my ups and downs in this crazy game called NL Hold'em. Basically, this is a place for me to reflect, it'd kind of like a diary in a sense. So here is a little background on me. I promise that after this post it's going to be more 'poker' related. I just figure if someone is going to be reading about my life as a professional poker player, it might be interesting to know who I am first.

I was born in Russia on July 5, 1988. I don't remember anything about Russia because I moved to Israel when I was about 2 years old. That's where I spent my childhood. I hope some day, I'll move back to Israel and support the country I'm from. My parents moved me from Israel to Canada when I was 9. And I've lived in London, Ontario ever since. I went to a private Jewish School until I got to high-school. My best years in high school, unlike most people, were the first 2 and a half years. I knew no one. I made friends quickly though. My one friend introduced me to a bunch of people and then my social life coasted for the next two and a half years. I kind of stopped hanging out with my original friend and became best friends with this girl who everyone called Dee. At first I wasn't very attracted to her (this does relate to poker...just wait), but then as we hung out all the time, I started having feelings for her. She felt the same for me, I could tell by the way she looked at me. Anyway, we hung out every single day for the first two and half years in high school. We were popular and everything was great. The only thing was we became so close, it was hard to mention anything about becoming more than friends. Although, I'm sure we both wanted to. It was just ackward to bring up. So I thought (stupidly) that if I go out with another girl, she'd get jealous and we could talk about us going to the next level. Didn't work quite as I expected. She was definetly jealous. But she was very mad at me as well. So I broke up with this other girl, and then it took a month to get everything back to normal. Semi-formal was coming up and I was going to ask her to go. But..I go to school the day when I was going to ask her to go with me. "Guess what Gabs....me and Stephen are going to semi together". ARGGH! At this point I actually think I was falling for her. I thought, ok. I'll ask her out after semi. The day after semi we go to the mall, we sit down at the food court. "Guess what Gabs?"..."What Dee?"..."Stephen asked me out..and I said yes.." I was depressed for a month straight because I actually think I loved her. So in like 3 days I told her how I felt and she didn't break up with him up until like one year ago, by which time I got over her and wasn't about to be her rebound guy...It's just simply too late now. So everytime we hung out it hurt because Stephen would be there and they'd be holding hands etc. So that's when I started playing poker. I needed to get my mind off of her and so I started playing poker at lunch at school...that was the middle of grade 11. I had like 5 bucks from vacumming my house (didn't have a job before). I never went broke....I don't know if I would have ever started playing poker if me and Dee went out.

Here is my poker career and how I started it. We played $1 buy ins with like 5 ppl on average. I kept winning and winning and winning. Some kids stopped playing and when people would ask why, they say "cuz Gabbi is going to win anyways, what's the point?" I really did win most of the time. It was funny because we weren't allowed to play poker at lunch for real money, and there was a strict lookout for it. We found a cool teacher who let us use his office to play in. But we were forced to stop because another teacher walked in and saw us playing. So we kept sneaking in into the audotorium and playing behind the curtains (I don't know what they're called, but like on the stage, the things that seperate when there is a show). We got caught a few times. Eventually I built my bankroll to $120 CAD. I deposited half of it (around 50 US) online and lost it like most people do with the first money they deposit. I played bad. My first account was GABMAD, if you go to www.sharkscope.com and check that account, you'll see that I wasn't good. The only reason I believe I won at school is because I was just better than everyone else (I still tried my hardest, I always do when I play, it's just I didn't have experience). If I played in the games I play in today, I would have gotten schooled. So it took like 3 or 4 $50 deposits for me to win some money. As soon as I did I cashed out! LOL. I was afraid to lose it. At that point I had no intention of going pro. BTW...all this was through my brother's visa as I was only 16-17 at the time. I won some real money when I played the sunday million and placed 47/5506. That's when I got a bankroll to work with. Then, I kept playing, reading poker books, and discussing strategy with my brother (who's also going pro...he's 22), and getting better and better. I think I learnt the most from playing him and our friend Ariel back in the days when we started. We'd all try really hard, esecially me (well I just know I tried extremely hard to win), and the games were good for our skill level. Right now if I reviewed the hand histories, I'd probably be laughing. But I was just learning and at the time they seemed really good. I'm pretty sure I won more than I lost playing them and I was proud at the time because they're in 3rd year of university and I was just a high-school kid. Anyways, around the time where I placed 47th in that tournament, I started another account on stars (don't worry, it's all taken care off, I closed the ones I don't use). That one is 'poopsik1962'. If you www.sharkscope.com you'll see that I was improving. I stopped using that account and started using my new one after going on a rough poker streak that ruined my sharkscope (or so I thought at the time). That was approximately in July/August in 2006. Me and my brother and Ariel went to the Dominican for 2 weeks. I used my poker winnings to pay for it and that's where I decided I wanted to go pro. I came back and since then, GabeTheKid is my new account. This one has the best sharkscope in my opinion. And most of my poker winnings are after I came back from the Dominican. Since than I've won approximately...4k in tournies (profit), 19,430 in sit and gos, about 4k in FPP tournies, 3k in cash games...which sums up to just under 35k CAD. That sums up to most of my poker winnings. In my entire poker career, I've won about 50k CAD. This shows that a poker player's income is exponential in a sense. Man...I've been sitting here typing this for like an hour now...LOL...I'm kind of tired and so I'm just going to stop.

Hopefully, now I presented a clear picture of who I am, and now you know if you want to keep reading my blog. If I had spelling mistakes or gramatical mistakes, too bad! I'm not proof reading this right now..LOL..