RSS
Bond18
‘Rounder’, a prelude
by Bond18 on 04/23/08
…I jam the $8,000 Stevo has given me into my jeans pocket and keep the other three in my wallet. The wallet is busting at the seams attempting to contain the money from pouring out, and I begin debating other places to hide the cash on my person. Sure, I’m driving to the game in a safe neighborhood, but after what happened to JP you can only be too careful.Prior to tonight the largest game I’ve played in a live setting is 2/5 NL, and I’ve played PLO perhaps a dozen times. Tonight’s 10/20 NLH/PLO mixed game would be a welcome change from the constant grind that is waking up every morning for the tournaments while still having the potential to make real money. I’d sold half my action to Stevo to reduce the variance but considering the way the game is rumored to play there was still the potential for huge swings. I haven’t done any serious live play since the Joe Hachem deep stack series in February, but I figure if I’m going to go play 3 months of live tournaments I ought to get some practice…
Things it took me a while to learn part 18, Self Improvement
by Bond18 on 04/19/08
As some of you know this entry was on the front of www.pocketfives.com for a little while, and they ask me to delay a couple of days before I move it over here so the content can be original. With that request fulfilled, it's ready to go here.
At any point in my poker career you could ask me “how were you as a player 6 months ago?” and I could honestly tell you “My God did I suck.” Ask me the same question now, and not only will I tell you I sucked hard 6 months ago, but I still suck fairly often today. Self improvement is a slow and long process, and often times players don’t know the most efficient means of getting better. There’s also a lot of pitfalls and misinformation out there, so not only do you need to know how to get better, but you need to know how to avoid getting worse. So what steps can we take to improve our game?
1. Coaching: Coaching seems like an obvious and natural first step. Coaching is a very quick and efficient way to find leaks you may never know you had, as well as work on your overall understanding of the game. Most coaching is done through either having the coach give you a hand history review, talking on Skype (for those of you who aren’t aware of Skype, it’s a free program to download where you can make unlimited calls from your computer to other computers located anywhere completely for free), submitting specific hands to a coach, or any combination of the above. The hardest part is finding a good coach. For the most part if a poker player is worth the coaching then his time is fairly expensive. A good MTT coach can run between $50-$400 an hour and there’s not really a list located anywhere that I know of with available coaches and their rates. I’d guess your best bet is to start a thread on your forum of preference stating that you want a coach, then list what you’re looking for in terms of training, what you’re willing to spend, and what you hope to learn. I’ve done serious coaching time with two players, Ajunglen and NoahSD, and having paid them about ~$200 an hour each I can honestly say it was well worth the money I spent. Both of them opened up my eyes to things I had never even considered in the game before, and I give considerable credit to both of them for making me the player I am today.
2. Hand History Reviews: This is a great exercise to do both by yourself and with other players you respect. Take the HH from a tournament where you feel you had a number of interesting spots, plug it into your favourite HH replayer, then go through the relevant hands and review how they went down and how you could have played them better. If you don’t know how to save the HH’s to your computer or where to find them, here’s the basic break down; In the case of Stars/Tilt (it’s a little more complicated with some, so we’ll do the simple version for now) fire up the program, log in, then go to the ‘options’ choice at the top of the program. Scroll down to ‘hand history’ and if it’s not already clicked, click the ‘Save My Hand Histories’ box and make note of where to find them. They will likely end up in program files, ‘full tilt’, ‘hand history’, then select your user name and there they are. I personally like doing HH reviews with other players I respect via Skype and going through the hands together to get a number of opinions on what I could potentially do differently. This normally works best with a maximum of 3, maybe 4 guys. If you enlist too many you inevitably get people trying to talk over each other to get a point across, or too many arguments occurring about the proper way to do things instead of looking to reach a consensus. Most of the time though, the reviews I do are with one person and we exchange ideas back and forth about how to play the hands better.
3. Posting on Forums: I started playing poker in 2003, pre-Moneymaker. I didn’t find online forums until early 2006, and I learned more in a few months posting on forums than I did in 3 years of reading books and talking about hands with local poker playing friends. Some forums are better than others for strictly hand strategy discussion, and it’s no secret where I do the vast majority of mine. Whichever forum/s you decide to do your posting on, being able to have the input from a wide variety of players and styles is an awesome way to broaden your horizons. One difficult part of some forums though is that they can feel somewhat elitist or intimidating at the start, since you’ll be unfamiliar with the vernacular, the process by which things are done, and who’s who. Hang around, do some reading, and PM those who you respect and feel are approachable with questions if you’re not entirely sure whose advice to trust. There are plenty of easy going guys on the forums who don’t mind answering beginners PM’s about how things go down (myself included, so feel free as long as you don’t mind a slow reaction time) and will point you in the right direction.
4. Reading Books: Except there’s a catch here, some books contain good or mostly quality material, but a ton of poker books are from outdated players who I personally think have weak fundamentals and give fairly poor advice. I haven’t read every poker book but two tournament books/series I can legitimately recommend are the ‘Harrington on Hold’em’ tournament series, and ‘Kill Everyone’ by Lee Nelson. Harrington has been honest in that he feels his books are slightly outdated (the game has evolved a lot in 3 years), but I think beginning/intermediate players will still learn a lot. Kill Everyone is a great read but considering the concepts and math it covers is likely a bit heavy for beginning players and is more so on the intermediate to advanced level. As far as the other material on tournament poker out there goes, I’m not familiar with a lot of titles but I know that the old Cloutier/McAvoy ‘Championship Tournament Poker’ book is massively outdated and preaches a hilariously nity style, and Skalansky’s ‘Tournament Poker for Advanced Players’ is fairly vague and only gets into specifics on a few subjects, though I believe there is an extended edition out now which I have not read and cannot comment on.
5. Experience: Some things really do only come with a level of experience. One good example is being able to anticipate ranges. It’s fairly hard to teach a person what a range is and what to expect as far as ranges go from certain plays. Yes, there are certain outlines you can give, but for the most part there many patterns that you only tend to really sense and anticipate after you’ve played tens of thousands of hands. There are a number of things that just become so much more natural with the more you play, and there really is no substitute.
6. Self analysis and honesty: There are very few people with an ego about their poker game who don’t suck. You need to honest with yourself about what your leaks are and you need to able to ask others whose opinion you respect what they think and be able to take the criticism in a constructive way. When you post a hand you need to know there’s a chance people might jump down your throat and say things like “this hand is an abortion.” Some will word it kinder than that, but most who think you played the hand bad will use honest language. With a post like that you can’t take comments personally, and if a person says “I think you played it bad” but doesn’t elaborate, you need to have the confidence and curiosity to answer with “Why? How can I improve it?” instead of “Why are you such a dick about it?” I’ve gotten my ass kicked for posting an atrocious hand more times than I can count, and I learned something every time.
7. Networking and AIM’ing with other players: Making connections in the poker world is a relevant aspiration. You want players that are roughly around your skill level to discuss strategy and concepts with, and these days many players simply circumvent public posting with AIM conversations with those who they respect. It’s important to find players that are fairly close to your level because an inequity in skill can create an awkward situation. If you spend a lot of time talking to a player who is vastly better than you he may feel like what he’s doing is coaching and he might want to charge you for his time. Conversely, if you talk to players way below you in skill level you’re on the other side of the equation and you can’t learn much by simply preaching the same basic concepts over and over again. There’s of course nothing wrong with having friends who are a variety of skill levels, and naturally most of us would like to pick the brain of a player who we think is really excellent but when it comes to finding a group of players that you spend the majority of time discussing strategy with you’ll want a group who are more or less at the equivalent of your level. If you have a personal friend who happens to be a poker God then you’re in luck, and some top pros are certainly approachable and willing to answer questions all day long, but it’s a short list. However, many pros also don’t want dozens of people messaging them asking for AIM details so they can spend their valuable time telling someone to shove AK with 12 BB’s over a raise. As far as me personally goes, I’m always willing to answer a PM with a hand or with a link to a HH/post, though as I said before it may at times take a few days for me to put down the xBox controller and get around to answering. Feel free though, but for God sakes convert your hand histories people.
That’s all I’ve got for now. As always if there’s anything else people want to go over or have questions about, just ask.
At any point in my poker career you could ask me “how were you as a player 6 months ago?” and I could honestly tell you “My God did I suck.” Ask me the same question now, and not only will I tell you I sucked hard 6 months ago, but I still suck fairly often today. Self improvement is a slow and long process, and often times players don’t know the most efficient means of getting better. There’s also a lot of pitfalls and misinformation out there, so not only do you need to know how to get better, but you need to know how to avoid getting worse. So what steps can we take to improve our game?
1. Coaching: Coaching seems like an obvious and natural first step. Coaching is a very quick and efficient way to find leaks you may never know you had, as well as work on your overall understanding of the game. Most coaching is done through either having the coach give you a hand history review, talking on Skype (for those of you who aren’t aware of Skype, it’s a free program to download where you can make unlimited calls from your computer to other computers located anywhere completely for free), submitting specific hands to a coach, or any combination of the above. The hardest part is finding a good coach. For the most part if a poker player is worth the coaching then his time is fairly expensive. A good MTT coach can run between $50-$400 an hour and there’s not really a list located anywhere that I know of with available coaches and their rates. I’d guess your best bet is to start a thread on your forum of preference stating that you want a coach, then list what you’re looking for in terms of training, what you’re willing to spend, and what you hope to learn. I’ve done serious coaching time with two players, Ajunglen and NoahSD, and having paid them about ~$200 an hour each I can honestly say it was well worth the money I spent. Both of them opened up my eyes to things I had never even considered in the game before, and I give considerable credit to both of them for making me the player I am today.
2. Hand History Reviews: This is a great exercise to do both by yourself and with other players you respect. Take the HH from a tournament where you feel you had a number of interesting spots, plug it into your favourite HH replayer, then go through the relevant hands and review how they went down and how you could have played them better. If you don’t know how to save the HH’s to your computer or where to find them, here’s the basic break down; In the case of Stars/Tilt (it’s a little more complicated with some, so we’ll do the simple version for now) fire up the program, log in, then go to the ‘options’ choice at the top of the program. Scroll down to ‘hand history’ and if it’s not already clicked, click the ‘Save My Hand Histories’ box and make note of where to find them. They will likely end up in program files, ‘full tilt’, ‘hand history’, then select your user name and there they are. I personally like doing HH reviews with other players I respect via Skype and going through the hands together to get a number of opinions on what I could potentially do differently. This normally works best with a maximum of 3, maybe 4 guys. If you enlist too many you inevitably get people trying to talk over each other to get a point across, or too many arguments occurring about the proper way to do things instead of looking to reach a consensus. Most of the time though, the reviews I do are with one person and we exchange ideas back and forth about how to play the hands better.
3. Posting on Forums: I started playing poker in 2003, pre-Moneymaker. I didn’t find online forums until early 2006, and I learned more in a few months posting on forums than I did in 3 years of reading books and talking about hands with local poker playing friends. Some forums are better than others for strictly hand strategy discussion, and it’s no secret where I do the vast majority of mine. Whichever forum/s you decide to do your posting on, being able to have the input from a wide variety of players and styles is an awesome way to broaden your horizons. One difficult part of some forums though is that they can feel somewhat elitist or intimidating at the start, since you’ll be unfamiliar with the vernacular, the process by which things are done, and who’s who. Hang around, do some reading, and PM those who you respect and feel are approachable with questions if you’re not entirely sure whose advice to trust. There are plenty of easy going guys on the forums who don’t mind answering beginners PM’s about how things go down (myself included, so feel free as long as you don’t mind a slow reaction time) and will point you in the right direction.
4. Reading Books: Except there’s a catch here, some books contain good or mostly quality material, but a ton of poker books are from outdated players who I personally think have weak fundamentals and give fairly poor advice. I haven’t read every poker book but two tournament books/series I can legitimately recommend are the ‘Harrington on Hold’em’ tournament series, and ‘Kill Everyone’ by Lee Nelson. Harrington has been honest in that he feels his books are slightly outdated (the game has evolved a lot in 3 years), but I think beginning/intermediate players will still learn a lot. Kill Everyone is a great read but considering the concepts and math it covers is likely a bit heavy for beginning players and is more so on the intermediate to advanced level. As far as the other material on tournament poker out there goes, I’m not familiar with a lot of titles but I know that the old Cloutier/McAvoy ‘Championship Tournament Poker’ book is massively outdated and preaches a hilariously nity style, and Skalansky’s ‘Tournament Poker for Advanced Players’ is fairly vague and only gets into specifics on a few subjects, though I believe there is an extended edition out now which I have not read and cannot comment on.
5. Experience: Some things really do only come with a level of experience. One good example is being able to anticipate ranges. It’s fairly hard to teach a person what a range is and what to expect as far as ranges go from certain plays. Yes, there are certain outlines you can give, but for the most part there many patterns that you only tend to really sense and anticipate after you’ve played tens of thousands of hands. There are a number of things that just become so much more natural with the more you play, and there really is no substitute.
6. Self analysis and honesty: There are very few people with an ego about their poker game who don’t suck. You need to honest with yourself about what your leaks are and you need to able to ask others whose opinion you respect what they think and be able to take the criticism in a constructive way. When you post a hand you need to know there’s a chance people might jump down your throat and say things like “this hand is an abortion.” Some will word it kinder than that, but most who think you played the hand bad will use honest language. With a post like that you can’t take comments personally, and if a person says “I think you played it bad” but doesn’t elaborate, you need to have the confidence and curiosity to answer with “Why? How can I improve it?” instead of “Why are you such a dick about it?” I’ve gotten my ass kicked for posting an atrocious hand more times than I can count, and I learned something every time.
7. Networking and AIM’ing with other players: Making connections in the poker world is a relevant aspiration. You want players that are roughly around your skill level to discuss strategy and concepts with, and these days many players simply circumvent public posting with AIM conversations with those who they respect. It’s important to find players that are fairly close to your level because an inequity in skill can create an awkward situation. If you spend a lot of time talking to a player who is vastly better than you he may feel like what he’s doing is coaching and he might want to charge you for his time. Conversely, if you talk to players way below you in skill level you’re on the other side of the equation and you can’t learn much by simply preaching the same basic concepts over and over again. There’s of course nothing wrong with having friends who are a variety of skill levels, and naturally most of us would like to pick the brain of a player who we think is really excellent but when it comes to finding a group of players that you spend the majority of time discussing strategy with you’ll want a group who are more or less at the equivalent of your level. If you have a personal friend who happens to be a poker God then you’re in luck, and some top pros are certainly approachable and willing to answer questions all day long, but it’s a short list. However, many pros also don’t want dozens of people messaging them asking for AIM details so they can spend their valuable time telling someone to shove AK with 12 BB’s over a raise. As far as me personally goes, I’m always willing to answer a PM with a hand or with a link to a HH/post, though as I said before it may at times take a few days for me to put down the xBox controller and get around to answering. Feel free though, but for God sakes convert your hand histories people.
That’s all I’ve got for now. As always if there’s anything else people want to go over or have questions about, just ask.
Senior Prom
by Bond18 on 04/17/08
I haven’t been playing much poker lately so I’ve decided to write up a very old story of mine. Most schools Proms are some time around mid or early May and perhaps the younger readers are wondering how they can make theirs truly memorable. Well let me tell you kids one way to go about that.
Way back around February 2003 when I was 18 and full of potential some friends and I were hanging around my basement playing poker. We played 5 card draw back in those days, as the hold’em phenomenon had yet to really take hold. We got on the subject of senior pranks, and why nobody ever seems to do good ones anymore. Sure we had created a catapult to launch flower bombs (napkins filled with flour that explode in a cloud of white dust on impact) from across the street onto people leaving the winter ball, but that had barely been effective and little stir had been created. Whatever happened to those classic senior pranks like spiking the punch, streaking the prom, or stabbing the principal in the leg? After much discussion we decided whichever guy in our group didn’t get a date to prom would have to run through prom wearing only a Speedo and a mask, screaming his head off the whole way. If possible, he should be wearing a cowboy hat.
A few months later prom began drawing very near. I suddenly came down with a severe case of mono and was exhausted and bed ridden for the better part of two weeks. This happened in the weeks leading up to prom, and with my illness I decided there’d be no point in getting a date if I was going to spend all night saying “Whoa, don’t touch me, you wanna get sick with this shit? Go dance with someone else.” My friends remembered the agreement and began hassling me about whether I was going to follow through as promised.
“You gonna do it Tony? You gonna follow through?”
“Fuck yea I’m doing this. We’re gonna make our prom a night to remember.”
I told my parents one night I’d be needing a suit and tie for the prom, but that a tux wouldn’t be necessary.
“Oh, you’re going to prom? Do you have a date?”
“No. I’m just going to run through prom in a Speedo and mask while screaming” I answered flatly and with no trace of sarcasm.
“Heh, sure you will.”
Take note people; full disclosure can help prevent future liability. I told my parents as straight forward as I could, and whether they chose to believe me or not was up to them. Honesty for the win.
Leading up to prom night I bought a ticket and began inquiring about attaining a Speedo. Sure I could buy one, but why waste the money on something I’d never use again? My friend Ben who lived next door said his brother had one he never uses I could borrow for the night. I tried the Speedo on once before the night of, and while standing before the mirror only had only one thought going through my mind; “Man, this shit looks gay.” The tag on it itched something awful. A friend of mine had a rubber copy of the mask from the movie “The Mask” with Jim Carrey that I’d be wearing over my face.
The night of prom I went out to dinner with a group of friends and their dates. Since I was going stag and intending to make an ass of myself later that night I decided to make a full go of it and make everyone’s dinner as awkward, uncomfortable, and hilarious as possible. I’d bother friends in front of their date and say things like
“Hey Steve, whattya think of that waitress? Huh? Huh? Allllllllllllllllllllllrite! You know what I’m saying” and
“Hey Cagle, remember that time we were at Wendy’s and you stole some of Herk’s soup then poured it down his back and he screams out in the middle of the restaurant ‘YOU FUCKING FAAAAAAAAAAG CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGZ!!!’?”
Needless to say none of the girls there thought I didn’t get a date based on my mono.
We arrived at the prom around 9pm. The prom was laid out in three sections. There was the main entrance room that had snacks, punch, and a number of tables where people sat around chatting plus a photo boot. Then there was a small tunnel leading into the dance room which was perhaps ten feet wide and decorated with various glitter and pastel trimmings. Lastly there was the dance room which also had some tables but was mostly a large open space filled with people and a DJ booth. On the far side of the main entrance room way across from the tunnel was where I’d have to change into the Speedo concealed in my pocket.
The hour and a half leading up to my stunt was mostly filled with people coming up and asking
“Are ya gonna do it Tony? Are ya gonna do it? You’re not gonna pussy out are ya?”
“I’m not the pussying out type.”
I took some friends and mapped out a plan. There was a door leading down a hallway and into a parking lot at the far back end of the dance room. I’d go into the bathroom, get someone to watch my clothes then run out through the main room yelling as loud as possible, book through the tunnel, then head for the dance floor where I’d whip out some badass John Travolta like moves then run as fast as I could for the exit, get to my friends SUV, and change into my normal clothes. Nobody would ever be the wiser. I told a group of friends that they’d have to be manning the tunnel when I went into the bathroom and make sure they created a blockade to prevent a swarm of people from coming through as I tried to make my way through it, since getting caught up might give a chance for security to catch up with me. When they saw me coming they were to get out of the way then applaud my sick dance moves on the floor.
I entered the bathroom some time around 10:30pm. I told everyone in there what my intentions were and that I’d be needing a guard for my clothing. It turned out this was damn near impossible to find. Everyone wanted to see the mayhem created by the streaking, so it took nearly 15 minutes to find someone willing to take care of the clothes aspect. I went into a stall, took all my clothes off, and changed into the Speedo. I stepped out to the applause and laughter of those watching then donned the mask. I wish to this day I had the sense of mind to say something both dramatic and hilariously lame like “It’s go time!”
I burst out of the bathroom at full sprint and yelling “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!” at maximum volume and cut between tables and people towards the tunnel.
“OH MY GOD!” I heard one girl scream
“FUCK YEA!” shouted another guy. As I made my way towards the tunnel I realized my friends had completely failed to block it off and there was a mass of people making their way through it.
“EXCUSE ME!” I yelled as I slid between people while trying not to barrel anyone over. I saw my friends waiting at the end of the tunnel yelling and clapping. As I entered the dance room I suddenly realized I was in over my head and instead of busting out sick dance moves decided to high step it like an NFL player about to make an easy touchdown towards the door, making sure to run directly in front of the camera they had set up to film the dance. I never did find out if it was on or got any footage of the incident. I broke through the door into the hallway then ran through the deserted corridor until I hit the doors leading outside to the surprisingly cold May air. I made it over to my friend’s car which we’d left open for me and jumped inside with nobody noticing outside one limo driver who started shouting random shit at me. I sat there in the car, cold, wearing a Speedo with an itchy tag, and waited for my clothes. A half hour later I was still waiting. After waiting so long I decided to just change into my friend’s clothes, though they made for an awkward fit seeing as I was 6’1” 195 and he was 5’5” 140ish. Security sent a car out through the parking lot to search for me but seeing as I was in a mask during the streaking and now had clothes on they could never tell it was me in the car.
An hour after I’d sprinted through prom my friends finally came out and jumped in the car with me.
“Where’s my clothes? Whose got em? I’m in Boyer’s clothes and this shit is way too small.”
“They got em man. That place went berserk. They ran around yelling things into their walkie talkies like ‘We got a streaker! We got a streaker! Search the building!’ It was like the Gestapo out to find you. As soon as you left the bathroom some teacher went in there and grabbed your clothes immediately.”
“FUCK! Do you have any idea how itchy the tag on this Speedo is!?”
“I’m sure you’ll get em back. Come on, let’s go to the hotel.”
By the time we reached the hotel some time around midnight the mono was catching up with me. I fell asleep on one of the beds at around 12:30am while most people hung out or went down to the pool. My friend Boyer drove me home around 1:30am and I immediately hit my bed and went out cold.
Sunday passed uneventfully as I was still feeling tired and a little sick. Come Monday morning I ended up rocking up to school a bit late since I was still a bit sick and needed more sleep. I arrived during the last 10 minutes or so of one class and my friends were all wild eyed with excitement.
“Dude Tony, the principals are looking for you! They know it was you, they came in here before.”
“Well my next class should certainly be interesting then.”
Next period was Asian studies with my favorite teacher Mr. Colucci. He was one of those bright and fun teachers who got the content through really well but still had a great sense of humor about the whole experience. Five minutes into the class one of the grade level principals came to the door asking for me to come down to the main office. Mr. Colucci looked at me confused, as I wasn’t the type to normally get in trouble. As we made our way down to the office I made sure to immediately ask “Have you guys got my clothes?”
I was brought into the office of the much feared principal Radloffe, or as he was affectionately known to much of the student body ‘Osama bin Radloffe’. He sat me down and looked at me with befuddlement. Seated next to him was a box containing my clothes.
“Well George (legal name in formal matters)…it seems you had quite the prom night.”
“Yes sir, yes I did.”
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to suspend you for this.”
“What? Seriously? This wasn’t even in school and I wasn’t fully nude or anything. What exactly did I do to deserve suspension?”
“You disrupted a school activity. Prom is planned by the junior committee and is a formal school event. Now I don’t know if you were trying to be ‘The Mask’ or something, but your behavior was entirely inappropriate.”
“Really? Even though I had the Speedo on?”
“Yes. You know we had a guy who pulled a similar stunt when I was a senior but he full on mooned the prom. The police ended up arresting him and he got expelled.”
“Wow.”
“That’s right. So go home for the rest of the day and you’re suspended for all of tomorrow. Take your clothes with you.”
I walked back to the class with my box of clothes. Mr. Colucci greeted me with
“What was that all about Tony?”
“Ah well. Was anyone at prom when that guy ran through it in a Speedo while screaming?”
“THAT WAS YOU??” several people blurted.
“Yea, so I’m suspended for the rest of the day and tomorrow. So I have to go. See ya on Wednesday!”
As I left the room the class literally applauded like one of those heart warming moments you see in the movies. It was very touching I assure you.
When I got home I called my parents and told them what happened. The school had called them as well so they already knew. When they got home they sat me down to talk about it.
“I can’t believe you did that. You know there will be some punishment here right?”
“You can’t. I told you what I was going to do and neither of you tried to stop me. How can you justify punishing me? Nobody objected.”
“We thought you were joking.”
“Sorry, but I told you in a serious manner, on multiple occasions. I can’t accept punishment here.”
“We’ll talk about this more later.”
We never did. I was never much of a trouble making kid in high school and what could my parents really do here? I’d never been suspended before and this time I told them exactly what I was going to do before hand and they both just smiled and nodded. They were stuck. These days they bring that story up around family members and laugh about it.
The next day I slept in until noon. I played a bit of online poker for a few hours, then went outside and practiced my 9 iron chip shots for a couple hours in the perfect weather, it was truly a great day. It was the last month of my senior year so therefore nothing I missed in school was relevant and there was no make up work. When I returned to school on Wednesday I got to enjoy roughly 15 minutes of fame.
And so children, the moral of the story is as follows; do whatever the hell you feel like and never worry about the consequences.
The End
Way back around February 2003 when I was 18 and full of potential some friends and I were hanging around my basement playing poker. We played 5 card draw back in those days, as the hold’em phenomenon had yet to really take hold. We got on the subject of senior pranks, and why nobody ever seems to do good ones anymore. Sure we had created a catapult to launch flower bombs (napkins filled with flour that explode in a cloud of white dust on impact) from across the street onto people leaving the winter ball, but that had barely been effective and little stir had been created. Whatever happened to those classic senior pranks like spiking the punch, streaking the prom, or stabbing the principal in the leg? After much discussion we decided whichever guy in our group didn’t get a date to prom would have to run through prom wearing only a Speedo and a mask, screaming his head off the whole way. If possible, he should be wearing a cowboy hat.
A few months later prom began drawing very near. I suddenly came down with a severe case of mono and was exhausted and bed ridden for the better part of two weeks. This happened in the weeks leading up to prom, and with my illness I decided there’d be no point in getting a date if I was going to spend all night saying “Whoa, don’t touch me, you wanna get sick with this shit? Go dance with someone else.” My friends remembered the agreement and began hassling me about whether I was going to follow through as promised.
“You gonna do it Tony? You gonna follow through?”
“Fuck yea I’m doing this. We’re gonna make our prom a night to remember.”
I told my parents one night I’d be needing a suit and tie for the prom, but that a tux wouldn’t be necessary.
“Oh, you’re going to prom? Do you have a date?”
“No. I’m just going to run through prom in a Speedo and mask while screaming” I answered flatly and with no trace of sarcasm.
“Heh, sure you will.”
Take note people; full disclosure can help prevent future liability. I told my parents as straight forward as I could, and whether they chose to believe me or not was up to them. Honesty for the win.
Leading up to prom night I bought a ticket and began inquiring about attaining a Speedo. Sure I could buy one, but why waste the money on something I’d never use again? My friend Ben who lived next door said his brother had one he never uses I could borrow for the night. I tried the Speedo on once before the night of, and while standing before the mirror only had only one thought going through my mind; “Man, this shit looks gay.” The tag on it itched something awful. A friend of mine had a rubber copy of the mask from the movie “The Mask” with Jim Carrey that I’d be wearing over my face.
The night of prom I went out to dinner with a group of friends and their dates. Since I was going stag and intending to make an ass of myself later that night I decided to make a full go of it and make everyone’s dinner as awkward, uncomfortable, and hilarious as possible. I’d bother friends in front of their date and say things like
“Hey Steve, whattya think of that waitress? Huh? Huh? Allllllllllllllllllllllrite! You know what I’m saying” and
“Hey Cagle, remember that time we were at Wendy’s and you stole some of Herk’s soup then poured it down his back and he screams out in the middle of the restaurant ‘YOU FUCKING FAAAAAAAAAAG CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGZ!!!’?”
Needless to say none of the girls there thought I didn’t get a date based on my mono.
We arrived at the prom around 9pm. The prom was laid out in three sections. There was the main entrance room that had snacks, punch, and a number of tables where people sat around chatting plus a photo boot. Then there was a small tunnel leading into the dance room which was perhaps ten feet wide and decorated with various glitter and pastel trimmings. Lastly there was the dance room which also had some tables but was mostly a large open space filled with people and a DJ booth. On the far side of the main entrance room way across from the tunnel was where I’d have to change into the Speedo concealed in my pocket.
The hour and a half leading up to my stunt was mostly filled with people coming up and asking
“Are ya gonna do it Tony? Are ya gonna do it? You’re not gonna pussy out are ya?”
“I’m not the pussying out type.”
I took some friends and mapped out a plan. There was a door leading down a hallway and into a parking lot at the far back end of the dance room. I’d go into the bathroom, get someone to watch my clothes then run out through the main room yelling as loud as possible, book through the tunnel, then head for the dance floor where I’d whip out some badass John Travolta like moves then run as fast as I could for the exit, get to my friends SUV, and change into my normal clothes. Nobody would ever be the wiser. I told a group of friends that they’d have to be manning the tunnel when I went into the bathroom and make sure they created a blockade to prevent a swarm of people from coming through as I tried to make my way through it, since getting caught up might give a chance for security to catch up with me. When they saw me coming they were to get out of the way then applaud my sick dance moves on the floor.
I entered the bathroom some time around 10:30pm. I told everyone in there what my intentions were and that I’d be needing a guard for my clothing. It turned out this was damn near impossible to find. Everyone wanted to see the mayhem created by the streaking, so it took nearly 15 minutes to find someone willing to take care of the clothes aspect. I went into a stall, took all my clothes off, and changed into the Speedo. I stepped out to the applause and laughter of those watching then donned the mask. I wish to this day I had the sense of mind to say something both dramatic and hilariously lame like “It’s go time!”
I burst out of the bathroom at full sprint and yelling “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!” at maximum volume and cut between tables and people towards the tunnel.
“OH MY GOD!” I heard one girl scream
“FUCK YEA!” shouted another guy. As I made my way towards the tunnel I realized my friends had completely failed to block it off and there was a mass of people making their way through it.
“EXCUSE ME!” I yelled as I slid between people while trying not to barrel anyone over. I saw my friends waiting at the end of the tunnel yelling and clapping. As I entered the dance room I suddenly realized I was in over my head and instead of busting out sick dance moves decided to high step it like an NFL player about to make an easy touchdown towards the door, making sure to run directly in front of the camera they had set up to film the dance. I never did find out if it was on or got any footage of the incident. I broke through the door into the hallway then ran through the deserted corridor until I hit the doors leading outside to the surprisingly cold May air. I made it over to my friend’s car which we’d left open for me and jumped inside with nobody noticing outside one limo driver who started shouting random shit at me. I sat there in the car, cold, wearing a Speedo with an itchy tag, and waited for my clothes. A half hour later I was still waiting. After waiting so long I decided to just change into my friend’s clothes, though they made for an awkward fit seeing as I was 6’1” 195 and he was 5’5” 140ish. Security sent a car out through the parking lot to search for me but seeing as I was in a mask during the streaking and now had clothes on they could never tell it was me in the car.
An hour after I’d sprinted through prom my friends finally came out and jumped in the car with me.
“Where’s my clothes? Whose got em? I’m in Boyer’s clothes and this shit is way too small.”
“They got em man. That place went berserk. They ran around yelling things into their walkie talkies like ‘We got a streaker! We got a streaker! Search the building!’ It was like the Gestapo out to find you. As soon as you left the bathroom some teacher went in there and grabbed your clothes immediately.”
“FUCK! Do you have any idea how itchy the tag on this Speedo is!?”
“I’m sure you’ll get em back. Come on, let’s go to the hotel.”
By the time we reached the hotel some time around midnight the mono was catching up with me. I fell asleep on one of the beds at around 12:30am while most people hung out or went down to the pool. My friend Boyer drove me home around 1:30am and I immediately hit my bed and went out cold.
Sunday passed uneventfully as I was still feeling tired and a little sick. Come Monday morning I ended up rocking up to school a bit late since I was still a bit sick and needed more sleep. I arrived during the last 10 minutes or so of one class and my friends were all wild eyed with excitement.
“Dude Tony, the principals are looking for you! They know it was you, they came in here before.”
“Well my next class should certainly be interesting then.”
Next period was Asian studies with my favorite teacher Mr. Colucci. He was one of those bright and fun teachers who got the content through really well but still had a great sense of humor about the whole experience. Five minutes into the class one of the grade level principals came to the door asking for me to come down to the main office. Mr. Colucci looked at me confused, as I wasn’t the type to normally get in trouble. As we made our way down to the office I made sure to immediately ask “Have you guys got my clothes?”
I was brought into the office of the much feared principal Radloffe, or as he was affectionately known to much of the student body ‘Osama bin Radloffe’. He sat me down and looked at me with befuddlement. Seated next to him was a box containing my clothes.
“Well George (legal name in formal matters)…it seems you had quite the prom night.”
“Yes sir, yes I did.”
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to suspend you for this.”
“What? Seriously? This wasn’t even in school and I wasn’t fully nude or anything. What exactly did I do to deserve suspension?”
“You disrupted a school activity. Prom is planned by the junior committee and is a formal school event. Now I don’t know if you were trying to be ‘The Mask’ or something, but your behavior was entirely inappropriate.”
“Really? Even though I had the Speedo on?”
“Yes. You know we had a guy who pulled a similar stunt when I was a senior but he full on mooned the prom. The police ended up arresting him and he got expelled.”
“Wow.”
“That’s right. So go home for the rest of the day and you’re suspended for all of tomorrow. Take your clothes with you.”
I walked back to the class with my box of clothes. Mr. Colucci greeted me with
“What was that all about Tony?”
“Ah well. Was anyone at prom when that guy ran through it in a Speedo while screaming?”
“THAT WAS YOU??” several people blurted.
“Yea, so I’m suspended for the rest of the day and tomorrow. So I have to go. See ya on Wednesday!”
As I left the room the class literally applauded like one of those heart warming moments you see in the movies. It was very touching I assure you.
When I got home I called my parents and told them what happened. The school had called them as well so they already knew. When they got home they sat me down to talk about it.
“I can’t believe you did that. You know there will be some punishment here right?”
“You can’t. I told you what I was going to do and neither of you tried to stop me. How can you justify punishing me? Nobody objected.”
“We thought you were joking.”
“Sorry, but I told you in a serious manner, on multiple occasions. I can’t accept punishment here.”
“We’ll talk about this more later.”
We never did. I was never much of a trouble making kid in high school and what could my parents really do here? I’d never been suspended before and this time I told them exactly what I was going to do before hand and they both just smiled and nodded. They were stuck. These days they bring that story up around family members and laugh about it.
The next day I slept in until noon. I played a bit of online poker for a few hours, then went outside and practiced my 9 iron chip shots for a couple hours in the perfect weather, it was truly a great day. It was the last month of my senior year so therefore nothing I missed in school was relevant and there was no make up work. When I returned to school on Wednesday I got to enjoy roughly 15 minutes of fame.
And so children, the moral of the story is as follows; do whatever the hell you feel like and never worry about the consequences.
The End
Live vs Online and self analysis
by Bond18 on 04/15/08
The ‘people I don’t know’ blog entry created a bit of a controversy. Someone decided to link it over at P5’s and given my description of most live pros I was branded a hater and egomaniac by some, which you can read about here: http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-forums/7/Bond18-on-playing-live-players-_2800_funny-stuff_2900_-2781881
As the first reply put it “I think Bond 18 has a lil sugar in his tank, never has much good to say about people, ill lay odds that no one has a bigger ego than his....”
I’d already been wondering lately if I’d become hyper critical or whether my descriptions were fair but when I look back at the post I don’t think I’m out of line. I’m fully willing to admit when I think people are better than me, but I’m also willing to say when people play bad. Inevitably, I end up coming down on the side that many online players play well, and many live players play poorly. The online vs live player debate has been raging for a couple years now, ever since online players began filling out the player fields in major live tournaments with a totally different playing style.
The basic way to sum up the online players side of the argument is as follows; the guys who cut their teeth online can go into live tournaments and be very profitable at the highest levels. Meanwhile there is a very short list of live players who would be profitable at high stakes online tournaments. Some reading this might think that’s ludicrous, especially since the highest buy ins live are 10-50 times the stakes online. However, it’s simply the truth of the matter. More and more online players are being backed for the highest live tournaments because serious backers like Bax and Sheets know how massively +EV they are in those fields. Most live players have a few recurring and consistent leaks: they limp too much, they call out of position way too much, and most of all they fail to understand stack sizes and what that limits them too. You see live pros like Hellmuth raise/folding a 6.5 BB stack, you see David Pham calling reraises for 1/3rd of his stack with suited connectors hoping to connect big on the flop, you see Scotty Nguyen changing the size of his raise with the strength of his hand with near 100% consistency. I’ve got leaks, I’ve got more leaks than I could possibly count, but none of them are as huge or as glaring as the ones I see every time I sit down with 95% of name live pros.
At this point in poker, live pros are at a disadvantage. Online players put in more volume in a day than they do in a month. We network with more talented poker minds, talk more strategy, use more tools to figure out equity, and play so many more hands. Also, because live poker has such huge variance and each tournament takes up a full day or more of a live player’s time, I often see them more emotionally involved. Emotion is a weakness in poker, which isn’t to say you shouldn’t care at all, but when you play you can’t let your emotions interfere with your decision making.
I think a lot of the animosity and competition that’s developed between the two groups is somewhat inevitable. Live pros feel like online pros are disrespectful. If a live pro has spent 10-40 years playing poker and some 22 year old kid rocks up and talks like they’re all clueless, how could they not be insulted? Meanwhile online pros see live pros getting all the camera time, invites to easy tournaments with tons of overlay, and corporate sponsorships that are sick free money, despite the live players being considerably worse at doing the same thing they do. That’s kind of like being coworkers with someone who gets all the promotions, attention, and higher pay despite being way worse at his job than you are. Who wouldn’t feel shafted?
In order for there to ever be a balance, online players will have to learn how to be marketable, likable, and keep dominating the live scene. For live players to adapt they need to understand the threat online players pose and take steps to make themselves better fundamental players with a fuller understanding of the math behind the game. TV makes the game look glamorous and fast paced. If you believe what TV tells you poker is a game of incredible reads, huge dramatic shoves, and using tells to make awesome plays. That’s simply not the case. Poker is a game of math, where despite there being an enormous amount of variables there are some things that the math makes absolute. Calling a reraise for 1/3rd of your stack with 76s will always be –EV, no matter how sick your ability to read people.
If poker stays popular long enough, there will eventually be no such thing as the ‘live pro’ and ‘online pro’. The live pros who don’t adapt will eventually be phased out and lose enough money to the point they can’t keep playing. Those who do adapt will often do so using a computer, and the line between online and live will blur. Online players will continue to surge into the live scene and some will spend enough time there that they no longer label themselves as one or the other.
Lastly, I don’t see the problem in being vocal about people’s leaks. I wouldn’t hate solely for the sake of being rude or insulting, but if people play bad or behave poorly on the table I think it’s total bullshit for me to hold my tongue out of politeness. I would never berate anyone on the table who didn’t really bring it on themselves (actually, I still haven’t done it, though I’ve made a smart ass comment here and there to someone who was being rude to another player or dealer) but I’d also never lie or play nice for the sake of being ‘PC’. People who insist everything be PC are the kind of two faced pretentious douche bags who never have the balls to say what they think or mean, and would rather play nice than have an honest conversation with someone.
If a person I considered a friend or acquaintance came to me and said “Let me tell you about this hand…” and I think they played it terrible, I’m going to tell them so, and I’m going to tell them why. Saying something like “well that’s not quite how I would have played it buddy, but to each his own” is the kind of useless shit advice that nobody will learn anything from. I don’t tell someone they played a hand poorly to make them feel bad, I tell them so they learn. I remember when Ajunglen started coaching me; I’d had some people look over my play before, but I never quite understood how massive the mistakes I was making were until he told me things like “that hand was a total disaster and here’s why…” It took honesty like that for me to ever have it sink in that what I was doing was not only not optimal, but a mistake on a huge margin. Accepting the mistakes you make and seeking out how to change them is imperative to your development as a player, and having an ego about your game is useless.
I will state, at this point, despite my ‘reputation’, ranking, the articles I’ve written, or the time I’ve put into this game I highly doubt I’m among the top 100 tournament players online. There are so many players who simply don’t put in the volume yet do it better and cleaner than I do. Almost everyone I spend serious time talking poker with (including every person in the ‘people I know’ entry) is better than I am, either by a little or a lot.
The reason most people think I’m good is because I’m able to write strategy in a way that seems like both quality advice and is still understandable. This doesn’t mean I have a greater comprehension of the strategy I write about than those around me, it simply means that the only real edge I have over my contemporaries is the ability to be eloquent, and that’s not exactly a mandatory skill in the poker world. The fact is, I’m an above average player who has the robot like ability to put in enormous volume without having a mental breakdown but who still has considerable spew problems, patience problems, and major leaks in his deep stack game. Admitting this though, gives me a chance to rectify the problem, and if you can’t admit your faults as a player by behaving honestly, you might never get the same opportunity.
As the first reply put it “I think Bond 18 has a lil sugar in his tank, never has much good to say about people, ill lay odds that no one has a bigger ego than his....”
I’d already been wondering lately if I’d become hyper critical or whether my descriptions were fair but when I look back at the post I don’t think I’m out of line. I’m fully willing to admit when I think people are better than me, but I’m also willing to say when people play bad. Inevitably, I end up coming down on the side that many online players play well, and many live players play poorly. The online vs live player debate has been raging for a couple years now, ever since online players began filling out the player fields in major live tournaments with a totally different playing style.
The basic way to sum up the online players side of the argument is as follows; the guys who cut their teeth online can go into live tournaments and be very profitable at the highest levels. Meanwhile there is a very short list of live players who would be profitable at high stakes online tournaments. Some reading this might think that’s ludicrous, especially since the highest buy ins live are 10-50 times the stakes online. However, it’s simply the truth of the matter. More and more online players are being backed for the highest live tournaments because serious backers like Bax and Sheets know how massively +EV they are in those fields. Most live players have a few recurring and consistent leaks: they limp too much, they call out of position way too much, and most of all they fail to understand stack sizes and what that limits them too. You see live pros like Hellmuth raise/folding a 6.5 BB stack, you see David Pham calling reraises for 1/3rd of his stack with suited connectors hoping to connect big on the flop, you see Scotty Nguyen changing the size of his raise with the strength of his hand with near 100% consistency. I’ve got leaks, I’ve got more leaks than I could possibly count, but none of them are as huge or as glaring as the ones I see every time I sit down with 95% of name live pros.
At this point in poker, live pros are at a disadvantage. Online players put in more volume in a day than they do in a month. We network with more talented poker minds, talk more strategy, use more tools to figure out equity, and play so many more hands. Also, because live poker has such huge variance and each tournament takes up a full day or more of a live player’s time, I often see them more emotionally involved. Emotion is a weakness in poker, which isn’t to say you shouldn’t care at all, but when you play you can’t let your emotions interfere with your decision making.
I think a lot of the animosity and competition that’s developed between the two groups is somewhat inevitable. Live pros feel like online pros are disrespectful. If a live pro has spent 10-40 years playing poker and some 22 year old kid rocks up and talks like they’re all clueless, how could they not be insulted? Meanwhile online pros see live pros getting all the camera time, invites to easy tournaments with tons of overlay, and corporate sponsorships that are sick free money, despite the live players being considerably worse at doing the same thing they do. That’s kind of like being coworkers with someone who gets all the promotions, attention, and higher pay despite being way worse at his job than you are. Who wouldn’t feel shafted?
In order for there to ever be a balance, online players will have to learn how to be marketable, likable, and keep dominating the live scene. For live players to adapt they need to understand the threat online players pose and take steps to make themselves better fundamental players with a fuller understanding of the math behind the game. TV makes the game look glamorous and fast paced. If you believe what TV tells you poker is a game of incredible reads, huge dramatic shoves, and using tells to make awesome plays. That’s simply not the case. Poker is a game of math, where despite there being an enormous amount of variables there are some things that the math makes absolute. Calling a reraise for 1/3rd of your stack with 76s will always be –EV, no matter how sick your ability to read people.
If poker stays popular long enough, there will eventually be no such thing as the ‘live pro’ and ‘online pro’. The live pros who don’t adapt will eventually be phased out and lose enough money to the point they can’t keep playing. Those who do adapt will often do so using a computer, and the line between online and live will blur. Online players will continue to surge into the live scene and some will spend enough time there that they no longer label themselves as one or the other.
Lastly, I don’t see the problem in being vocal about people’s leaks. I wouldn’t hate solely for the sake of being rude or insulting, but if people play bad or behave poorly on the table I think it’s total bullshit for me to hold my tongue out of politeness. I would never berate anyone on the table who didn’t really bring it on themselves (actually, I still haven’t done it, though I’ve made a smart ass comment here and there to someone who was being rude to another player or dealer) but I’d also never lie or play nice for the sake of being ‘PC’. People who insist everything be PC are the kind of two faced pretentious douche bags who never have the balls to say what they think or mean, and would rather play nice than have an honest conversation with someone.
If a person I considered a friend or acquaintance came to me and said “Let me tell you about this hand…” and I think they played it terrible, I’m going to tell them so, and I’m going to tell them why. Saying something like “well that’s not quite how I would have played it buddy, but to each his own” is the kind of useless shit advice that nobody will learn anything from. I don’t tell someone they played a hand poorly to make them feel bad, I tell them so they learn. I remember when Ajunglen started coaching me; I’d had some people look over my play before, but I never quite understood how massive the mistakes I was making were until he told me things like “that hand was a total disaster and here’s why…” It took honesty like that for me to ever have it sink in that what I was doing was not only not optimal, but a mistake on a huge margin. Accepting the mistakes you make and seeking out how to change them is imperative to your development as a player, and having an ego about your game is useless.
I will state, at this point, despite my ‘reputation’, ranking, the articles I’ve written, or the time I’ve put into this game I highly doubt I’m among the top 100 tournament players online. There are so many players who simply don’t put in the volume yet do it better and cleaner than I do. Almost everyone I spend serious time talking poker with (including every person in the ‘people I know’ entry) is better than I am, either by a little or a lot.
The reason most people think I’m good is because I’m able to write strategy in a way that seems like both quality advice and is still understandable. This doesn’t mean I have a greater comprehension of the strategy I write about than those around me, it simply means that the only real edge I have over my contemporaries is the ability to be eloquent, and that’s not exactly a mandatory skill in the poker world. The fact is, I’m an above average player who has the robot like ability to put in enormous volume without having a mental breakdown but who still has considerable spew problems, patience problems, and major leaks in his deep stack game. Admitting this though, gives me a chance to rectify the problem, and if you can’t admit your faults as a player by behaving honestly, you might never get the same opportunity.
Arrangements have been made
by Bond18 on 04/12/08
Now that the around the world schedule has been finalized I’ve had to go through the process of creating arrangements for everything outside just playing the poker. The flights are now all booked and paid for, and the Vegas house is booked in as well. The flights ended up being very reasonable, totaling about $3000 AUD each including taxes. Now I have to call hotels in Venice, Paris and Barcelona and after that all logistical issues of the trip are solved. I’m going to get out and get one of those Ipod’s that can play movies since the airlines have a very careful screening process to select the man with the worst taste in the world who will have the job of deciding which films air on the flight.
I’m going to start easing off the online volume a little bit leading up to the trip so I’ll feel pretty fresh. I’m not running quite as incredible as I was before (winning nine of ten coin flips, never losing a 70/30, always finding a bigger over pair) I’ve still been able to have a pretty successful week. Monday I won the Bodog winners choice package for $12,000, then the Tilt $50 rebuys the next day for $5,400, then the UB Aruba package the next day, which is likely about $10,000. I’m not sure, I haven’t really bothered to look into it since it’s so far off and UB likes to provide as little information as possible in their tournament lobbies.
Live poker is difficult in a much different way than online poker. Compared to the players in the high stakes tournaments online, the competition is often considerably softer and full of fundamental leaks. However, live tournaments last for days and require an enormous amount of focus for hours after hours and days after days if you go deep. They also require a pretty massive shift in strategy and needing to adjust to vastly different ranges than you’re used to. The variance is also enormous on a scale that can completely do an online players head in since you can’t just jack up the volume by firing up more tables or putting in more hours to even it out. Factor in all the distractions of a live tournament; people going partying, media, massive first place pay day, travel complications, language barriers, and jet lag and you have a whole different kind of poker. Just to get an idea of how much variance is involved in live poker, in the upcoming trip I’ll be playing roughly 50 tournaments in about 3 months time. That’s the equivalent of only 3 days of my online tournament volume. Factor in that most of the WSOP tournaments I’ll be playing in will have massive fields and the potential for a massive downswing is quite realistic.
Let’s not keep Timex up at night with that thought though.
I’m going to start easing off the online volume a little bit leading up to the trip so I’ll feel pretty fresh. I’m not running quite as incredible as I was before (winning nine of ten coin flips, never losing a 70/30, always finding a bigger over pair) I’ve still been able to have a pretty successful week. Monday I won the Bodog winners choice package for $12,000, then the Tilt $50 rebuys the next day for $5,400, then the UB Aruba package the next day, which is likely about $10,000. I’m not sure, I haven’t really bothered to look into it since it’s so far off and UB likes to provide as little information as possible in their tournament lobbies.
Live poker is difficult in a much different way than online poker. Compared to the players in the high stakes tournaments online, the competition is often considerably softer and full of fundamental leaks. However, live tournaments last for days and require an enormous amount of focus for hours after hours and days after days if you go deep. They also require a pretty massive shift in strategy and needing to adjust to vastly different ranges than you’re used to. The variance is also enormous on a scale that can completely do an online players head in since you can’t just jack up the volume by firing up more tables or putting in more hours to even it out. Factor in all the distractions of a live tournament; people going partying, media, massive first place pay day, travel complications, language barriers, and jet lag and you have a whole different kind of poker. Just to get an idea of how much variance is involved in live poker, in the upcoming trip I’ll be playing roughly 50 tournaments in about 3 months time. That’s the equivalent of only 3 days of my online tournament volume. Factor in that most of the WSOP tournaments I’ll be playing in will have massive fields and the potential for a massive downswing is quite realistic.
Let’s not keep Timex up at night with that thought though.
