In July I managed 160 mtts with an average buy in of around $20-$25. Coming in to the last session of the month I was stuck for $735, but I managed to hit 5 cashes and take down a FTP $11KO for $1390 which is my fifth biggest cash. After the session I ended up $540 for the month. So all in all a kind've meh month.

At the beginning of the month I decided I was going to try and put in more volume. I now have dual 28" monitors and play as many as 12 at a time so that I can put in a minimum of 14 mtts per session if I want to. That along with plugging some leaks leaves me wanting to play more and more and working just seems like a drag. With volume you see more and more situations, which in turn allows you to improve at a faster pace.

Variance is also lessened the more you play and helps my state of mind. Busting the first 4 mtts really sucks when you only plan on playing 8 mtts but if you can 12 table you can just say fuck it and load up some more. I'm really really excited to see what happens in the near future as I think it's a matter of time before I hit some big big scores, despite the fact I'm break even for the year(sigh).

June was another month to forget. I managed 103 mtts with a profit of -$1369. Last month was just a continuation of running terrible. I managed 807 hands of 50nl fr for a loss of $24.60. I thought I was going to put more cash game hands in then I did but I've been really busy in the times I was going to play cash and quite frankly my main focus is mtts. Since I ran bad I moved down a bit in stakes from a ~$35 abi to a ~$25 abi which means I pretty much eliminate $75 freeze outs and $11 rebuys.

I decided after running kinda bad this month to change things up by being more selective of who and when I steal and resteal especially in buy ins $20+. It seemed to work in my last 2 sessions where I managed to build big stacks yet again but obv lose w/KK everytime. I'm very optimistic that I sort of tweaked my game for the better and really want to get more mtts in. Which leads me into my attempt to shoot for 14 mtts instead of 8 mtts minimum in a session. I'd like to get my volume to around 150 mtts/month.

I was hoping I would get laid off at my job so that I could put in some serious volume. How sweet would it be to get paid for up to a year all living expenses + a little extra money to sit at home and play poker? Well it looks like business is picking up and that's not going to happen. So I'm stuck with playing 150 mtts/month.

At the end of August I'm going to the Majestic Star Deep Stack Poker Challenge in Gary, Indian that runs from from the 26-30. I plan on being there Friday night the 28th through Sunday. From what I hear the structure isn't the greatest and there aren't tons of runners but it sure beats playing at my local casino where they have a hyper turbo structure plus I get to go out of town for a bit and take a break from work.

Man I'd love to have a monthly review every month but fml I'm so busy. OK so here it goes.

In April I went to Vegas on my one weekend off of the month which is when I usually get in 20-35 mtts. So I only got in 70 mtts online and 5 mtts live. I don't count the live mtts I played in Vegas since no way was I rolled for 4 of the 5 mtts I played. Of the 70 mtts online I started out on my 2nd session with high hopes but after winning a $8.80 with 142 runners I ran JJ into AA at a ftp $75/18k ft to bust 8th which paid a measley $324 and $535 when first in the 18k was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5k. After that session everything went downhill and I finished with a monthly profit of $190 which is pretty disappointing.

May was similar to April as my first session saw me get deep in 3 mtts where the combined prizepools were somewhere close to 120k. My only ft of the 3 saw me bust ATs<A8o aipf for a 70bb+ pot vs a spastic retard for a crappy 8th place finish. I'm not gonna lie this sort've put me on tilt as I see friends suck out, win flips, or just plain have their hands hold at fts. This never happens to me. Finishing 8th in the ftp $26/28k was brutal as the only guy that had a bit of a clue was the guy who knocked me out. Granted most $26 fts are going to be soft but this was softer then normal and getting busted by an idiot where I pretty much was guaranteed a top 3 hurts. I sucked it up played well but every session I played since I keep getting outdrawn or getting coolered. So based on my runbad after 94 mtts I managed to finish with a loss of $1547.

I got moved to a shift where I can't just randomly decide that on any given day I can put in a mtt session. So I'm going to try and grind 50nl fr when I can't play mtts. At the moment I've played around 800 hands and things haven't went that well and I'm down around $25. God I hope things turn around I'm tired of getting fucked at every ft that has a prizepool of at least 15k.

Poker Podcast Guide 3rd Edition

In the world of Poker podcasts not many that stick around for long. Some have poker pros that are essentially losing money by staying away from the tables and while others aren’t worth the time and commitment as most are probably not making anyone a lot of money. I’m a part time online MTT grinder, this is where I spend most of my time when I’m home from work either studying or playing. I am biased toward good poker strategy pod casts. Funny that my favorite pod cast is more of a news, gossip, interview pod cast. If there is terrible poker strategy advice that takes up a major part of the pod cast it’s not going to be ranked all that high. I was going to have a top 10 but I feel only 7 are of quality and there is a huge drop off after the top 7. My top 7 list comprises of current pod casts. At the bottom like before I’ll list the one’s that didn’t make the top 7 as well as some pod casts that were good but no longer have new episodes. If you are a beginner pod casts like Killer Poker Anaylsis and RoundersRadio are definitely worth a listen but are worthless to more experienced players.

If you want to subscribe to these podcasts just type the podcast name into itunes store search.

1) Two Plus Two Pokercast - Hosted by Adam Schwartz and Mike Johnson. Adam is/was a mid/high stakes online player and really knows his stuff, Mike has a fulltime job and plays the part of the casual player. Both guys keep up on gossip and what happens on the 2p2 forum. I love that the hosts are intelligent and have nice chemistry, there's nothing worse then hosts that talk over each other or have seconds of silence or awkward conversation's where the hosts aren't on the same page. The show in a nutshell is a mix of gossip, forum static, hand advice, and poker player interviews.

Cons: There aren't enough shows only one per week


2) Deuce Plays - Hosted by Bart Hanson. Bart is a mid stakes live nlhe player and plo online player, he previously commentated on "Live at the Bike" and was a host for "Pokerroad Radio." This show is very low gossip and focuses almost entirely on cash game play. Every week there is a guest cash game player that talks over some hands with Bart.

Cons: If you want to call this a con, The content is so good I don't like listening to it unless I can give the show my complete attention because there is so much good content in the podcast

3) Cash Plays - Hosted by Jeremiah Smith. Smith has experience in the 5/10 and 10/20 nlhe live cash games. This is essentially the same thing as Deuce Plays, like Bart, Smith knows what he’s talking about and asks great questions.

Cons: Same as Deuce Plays

4) Mediocre Poker - Hosted by Eric Bickel and Bret Oliverio who are Djs for a morning radio show in Washington D.C. Both guys are amateur players much like me they are passionate about poker but don’t pretend to be experts. This is how a poker pod cast without a pro on it should be done. Little if any hand anaylsis, professional hosts, good audio quality, great guests, and awesome interviews. Ante Up is the exact opposite of this show, with 2 players who know much less about poker but take up half their show with poker analysis that is just terrible.

Cons: You’re not going to get the greatest poker strategy but the pod cast is so fun and full of energy and that’s what makes it so great.


5) The Bernard Lee Poker Show - Hosted by Bernard Lee who is a circuit pro from what I gather, his claim to fame is making it deep in a wsop me. This like most podcasts is news then an interview. There is a lot of great strategy as Bernard knows what he’s talking about and gets great guests. The show really gives the listener a great idea about what life is like on the tournament circuit.

Cons: Sometimes Bernard needs to clear his throat and that gets annoying. But really if this is the worst thing I can think of he’s doing a great job.


6) Wisehand Poker - Hosted by Gary Wise who is a writer for Bluff magazine and ESPN.com. This show centers on usually 2 long interviews with people in the poker world. The interviews are always great and not your typical "how did you get into poker" questions.

Cons: The audio at times can be horrible. Gary is part of another show the Poker Beat and he sounds terrible in that as well.


7) The Poker Beat - Hosted by Scott Huff. Scott has hosted many poker pod casts. This show is essentially Scott feeding questions to a panel of poker media members. It’s pretty good and out of all the poker pod casts that have members talking on the phone this one does the best job of staying away from talking over each other.

Cons: The show is not long enough. Sometimes the audio quality from the guy’s calling in is poor.

The rest in no particular order:

Pumped on Poker - Hosted by Forrest and Wolf. I don't know much about these guys, to the best of my knowledge neither one is a pro. Essentially this is a poker news followed by an interview format.

Cons: The hosts aren't in the same room and often talk over each other or talk over the guest. One of the hosts has a whiney voice that ends in a question which tilts me a bit.

Pocket 5s Podcast - Hosted by David Hubar and Adam Small. This podcast is mostly about online mtts, ldo this is p5s. There is a little bit of poker news followed by one or two interviews usually an online mtt pro.

Cons: The interviews are very short usually 10-20 minutes at most. David Hubar has a dry, boring, monotone, emotionless voice, robotic voice. Every time I listen to this I wonder if he isn’t a robot.


Keep Flopping Aces - Hosted by Lou Kreger. Lou has at least one poker book out there. This is one of the more intelligent podcasts out there. This like most of the others is a news and interview podcast.

Cons: Lou has a horrible habit of talking over his guests including some akward pauses. He’ll often ask a question pause for a bit and when his guest starts to answer he talks over the guest.

ESPN Radio: The Poker Edge - Hosted by Phil Gordon. I think you all know Phil. The show is mostly again news and an interview.

Cons: The show doesn't go online very often. Since the show will often be on a 2 month hiatus it's a bit annoying to listen to poker news that might be 2 weeks old.


Ante Up - Hosted by Scott Long and Chris Cosenza. This show is essentially a news, strategy, and interview show.

Cons: The hosts are donks that have no clue what they're doing and often give advice that is terrible. The show does give you insight on how donks play.

The Tournament Pwnage Hour - Hosted by a mix of instructors on a training website. This pod cast would have been the 8th best pod cast but hasn’t been available on itunes all that regularly for the last month or so. This is essentially like Cash Plays except focused mostly on MTT strategy.

Cons: It’s painfully obvious that whoever is the host doesn’t have much time behind the mic. Sometimes I wish the host would elaborate on some strategy a bit more.

All Strategy - Hosted by Scott Huff, Justin Bonomo, and Daniel Negreanu. This is complete strategy. However they haven’t had a show in soooo long.

Cons: None, love this show sad to see they don’t do the show anymore.

Pokerroad Radio - Hosted by Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith, and whoever they have that rotates in as the main host. This is a news and interview show. With Ali Nejad who I think people either love or hate, I fall in the hate category this show moves near to the bottom of my listening list. With Joe Stapleton or Scott Huff it moves up a bit from the bottom.

Cons: Joe is the one of the least interesting show hosts of all time and Gavin doesn’t even seem to give a shit that he’s on the show and barely utters a grunt. It’s amazing this is the flagship radio show on http://www.pokerroad.com as it’s mostly terrible. The interviews are short and for the most part uninteresting.

Grinder Radio - hosted by some small stakes live nlhe players. This is a bit of news followed by some strategy.

Cons: The strategy is pretty bad. When I hear things like “bet to get them off a draw” or “I bet for information” I generally put these people in the donk category. The hosts are mostly bad nlhe cash players but when compared to the average live 1/2nl 2/5nl these guys are probably the best at the table. Listening to this show makes me really want to start playing live nl cash game.


Killer Poker Analysis - hosted by Tony Guerrero. This show has grown on me a bit. It’s obvious that the host knows what he’s talking about. This is strictly a strategy post.

Cons: The biggest problem is he delves into basic questions that most people that are winning players and have plenty of experience are all ready going to know.

The Circuit and Pokewire pod casts are previous incarnations of the pokerroadradio pod cast and are quite good.


Rounders Radio - hosted by DC, Ace Jones, and ALakeOfFire. This is mostly a beginners strategy pod cast where the same basic questions are asked and answered ad nauseam. These guys seem like they are a notch better then the grinder radio guys but again just basic strategy here folks.

Cons: Listening to donks ask the same question gets tiresome.

I apologize for it taking so long to get these trip reports out. I've actually had these written for awhile but I needed to edit them so they made a bit more sense.



Day 3 Part 4

Before long we get down to the final table 10 handed. I have ~25k and I’m probably 4/10 at this point. I find some hands and win some pots uncontested.

Hand 6:

Preflop: I hold T9o in the bb. Blinds are 500/1k 100a. We are 7 handed. Villain has my 25k stack covered. The sb limps I think about raising but decide I can check and I do.

Flop: is Jd98d Pot: 2.7k

That’s a pretty good flop if I get check/raised I’ll go ahead and stack off. Villain checks, I bet 1.5k he calls really quick.

Turn: 3 Pot 5.7k

Total brick. Villain checks. I decide I can bet for value vs. draws some worse 9x and maybe 8x. But if villain calls who’s new to me as we busted 3 guys pretty quick he could give me a tough decision on the river if he calls my turn bet he can shove river making my life really difficult.

River. 3d putting the flush out there.

Villain bets 6k really quick. Hmm he could have a draw but bvb my hand is really strong and I’m sure he doesn’t have a J as most live players will bet the flop with that hand. He’s either got a flush or nothing I call and he quickly tables 84o lol. Nice bet sir you could’ve got a free showdown.

Hand 7:

Preflop: I hold TT otb with a 31k stack and I‘m covered by villain. Blinds are 800/1600 200a. 6 handed just one from the money. Laggy asian guy who raised 2.5x with AA and 4x with junk earlier raises to 8k utg. It folds to me and I pretty much auto ship. He tank/calls AsQs.

Flop: Ks9s5

Fml don’t do it to me again

Turn: 6
River: 3

Holy shit that’s the mtt I’m now a pretty decent chip leader now 6 handed.

Hand 8:

Preflop: I hold JT in the bb with a 70k stack. Villain has 40k. Blinds are 1200/2400 300a. We just are in the money 5 handed. Villain limps, I’ve been joking around with this guy and talking to him. He’s a really nice guy from Texas. He’s the one that dbled me up when my AJ>AT. I check my option.

Flop: JT8 Pot: 5k

Booyah nailed the flop. This guy was terrible post flop. He had either called a raise or opened earlier flopped top set with JJ and shipped on the driest possible flop earlier. He’s also done this with fairly strong top pair types of hands. When I say shove I mean shoving for 10-15x the size of the pot. That’s what he does here and I snap call. He tables J9o.

Turn: A
River: 6

Now I’ve got right at 110k 4 handed. This puts me in as cl 4 handed. Immediately the blinds go up. I’m pretty much running the table with no showdowns.

Hand 9:

Preflop: QT otb 3 handed. 3k/6k blinds 500a with a 150k stack villain has me covered because he made a retarded play that would never work and his j2s>kq vs a knowledgeable opponent that was never folding to his retarded resteal (this is also the same guy that won his kj flip vs my 99 to cripple me earlier). I raise to 15k villain 3 bets to 25k. I’m not happy about it but fuck I’m getting better then 4:1 with position. This guys really doesn’t trap post flop and over plays his top pair type hands post flop. In fact he told the table that he overbets his top pair because it gets called by worse or something. So basically if he cbets a decent amount on the flop I'm mostly folding.

Flop: T93 Pot: 54.5k

Villain checks, I check behind. Just in case he’s trapping I don’t want to bet/fold and I’m pretty sure I’m ahead and on most turns I’m willing to stick it in.

Turn: 7

Villain bets 30k. At this point like most live guys his range is polarized to sets and complete air. I'm sure he doesn't have JJ or QQ, I'm also really sure he doesn't reraise that small with 33. Basically he's picked up a draw and is betting because I checked behind and thinks I have nothing or he is slowplaying TT, 99, KK, or AA although I'm pretty sure he'd even cbet with KK+. I announce all in. He tank calls with AQ LOL. I have no idea how he makes this call tbh but for the most part this guy is horrible.

River: K

Now I have almost 300k of the 360k chips in play. The guy bitches about how I could call with QT. A part of me wants to berate him and tell him his raise size was horrible and btw I got most of the money in as a 95% favorite. Instead I tell him I should’ve folded and that he’s unlucky.

After that is was easy sailing. At the end I got HU vs. the KJ guy. I even got him to congratulate me when my 35> his K5. I won $1711 which really hurts now because a few hours later echo was going to cash for $35 more and bragging rights. I tipped the Wynn $125 because: 1. They put on a good mtt with a great structure considering the buy in and 2. The dealers for the most part are awesome. 3. The free drinks were very quick usually it took 10 minutes after you ordered. I'm actually not sure if I should've tipped so much but I was so grateful because the win paid for everything but my plane ticket.