July wrap up+Aug 1st half

Well, it's been a little while. About a month since my last update. Things have been going pretty smoothly as far as poker goes. I was busy moving into my new place towards the end of July and didn't play any poker at all from the 22nd through the 27th. I got back into it the last few days of the month. I was still able to finish July up a solid 12k despite the one week break. My final record combining all buy ins was 432-367, good for a 5% ROI and about $12/game. The more ST's I mix in the more that $/game number is gonna drop. Pretty unrealistic to expect $18+/game playing a lot of $200 ST's. Here's my July graph. I really put in a high volume on FT this month. I'd kinda like to change that. I still think the Pokerstars players club is much better and the rakeback comes out higher, but for whatever reason I've decided to roll on FT lately.



Aug has been going very well thus far. Got off to a super hot start the first 8 days before running into a vicious day on the 9th where I dropped about $3,100. However since then I've been hot again and even had a +$3,800 day yesterday. I think I'm up right around 10k for Aug right now.

I don't spend a lot of time on the poker forums, not typing on them at least. I do like to troll around them a bit and see what people are saying every once in a while. I just bring it up because of all the stuff I keep seeing about these EV calculators, or all in EV or luck calculators, or whatever the fuck they are called. They tell you how above or below EV you've been running, basically if you've been getting unlucky or not based on hands you get all in with. I think anyways? I'm not real up on what they are all about because I don't use them, but good lord. Seriously. It's like it turns into a contest about who can post the worst graph. A contest of who is more unlucky. Wah wah wah, look how far below EV i've run. Jesus. I guess it's comforting to know you've been getting unlucky after getting your ass kicked for a few sessions? I don't know, it's just a phenomenon that's popped up recently. Kinda funny how nobody posts graphs of how far above EV they've ran, but there are ones everywhere about how below EV people are running. Besides, what if your calculator shows you way below EV, but you've also won tons of matches by hitting coolers. Couldn't it appear you've been unlucky from an all in EV standpoint when in reality you've actually been lucky from a card distribution standpoint? I saw Jhub3000 touch on this subject a tad in one of his blog entries a month or so ago. It's probably something I'll never get into that much, I don't see too much of a benefit in it. Besides, if I've been losing I know it's because I've been getting unlucky. I don't need some dumb fucking calculator to show me that. ;) Just kinda joking.

I also have to laugh when I see people talk about prolonged downswings that stretch out for months. If you are having downswings that stretch out for months it's because you're playing badly, or your edge was not that big to start with. Either that or you are not putting in nearly enough volume monthly. When someone tries to tell them so much, they obviously get super defensive and spout off some shit about how it must be nice to never run bad, to run like god, blah blah blah. Sorry, get better or find another job. Quit bitching so much because in reality nobody gives a fuck about your downswing. Nobody with a 7%+ roi who is on their A game is going to lose money over several thousand games. I mean it's not 100% impossible or anything, but neither is tossing a coin and having it land on heads 40 times in a row. It's just highly highly highly unlikely. Shit like that just kinda cracks me up is all.

Not much else to say for now.

Till next time

bartchalker

Mid July

Actually, it's a little past mid July, but close enough. Since my last post I've been alternating winning and losing days with my winning days being quite a bit larger than the losing ones. I was up over 11k going into yesterday, but got wrecked pretty good towards the end of my session yesterday. I lost 14 of my last 15 games. They were all super turbos. Those fucking things man, I tell you. They will make you a man. Put hair on your chest. I ended up finishing down close to 3k on the day, but the month is still going great other than that little road bump. Gonna get back into it today, but might stay away from the ST's for a day or two. Maybe. They kinda gave me a poker concussion.

My girlfriend and I will be closing on a house this week, so with the moving and trying to buy shit for the house and everything I might not get as much volume in as I'd like the last week or so of the month. A little time off will probably be a good thing though. I'm hoping when I start playing in my new office it's a little more +EV than playing in the living room of our one bedroom apt. I'm thinking I'll be able to concentrate better and get better use of my time when I have a place to go that I know is just for grinding and money making. I'll know when I sit down in my office it's time to work. Not that I make bad use of my time now or anything, I'm just thinking it will make it a little easier.

A.L. Central gonna be a close 3 way race between Twins, Tigers, Chisox. I smell another strong 2nd half of a season for the Twins and another Central title! More than likely followed by us getting owned by the Yankees in the 1st round of the playoffs :(

July Profit - $8,362

July going smoothly

What's up everyone?

July is going pretty good so far. Friday was a real big day, actually the biggest of my career as I finished up $4,150(which included a $400 rakeback payment). Never had a 4k day before, it felt pretty good.

All the games but 1 were played on FT, so here's that graph.



I'd say about 2/3 of the games were prob super turbos. I've been putting in some decent volume in the $102/$203.50 ST's and it's been going decently well. I still def prefer the somewhat slower structure of the normal turbos, but if those aren't filling very fast what can you do? A lot of the donks seem to love the structure of these ST's, and I can see why. It gives them more of a chance to just get the chips in the middle and get lucky.

Although a turbo usually progresses fairly quickly into a game with effective stacks of <25 bb's(once blinds hit 30/60 this is the case no matter what) the thing I hate about the ST's is that you're going into these short stack situations completely cold if you don't have any notes on the opponent. At least in a normal turbo say if blinds get to 30/60, you've been playing for 9 minutes and prob played 20-30 hands. In this amount of time at least you can have some sort of reads on your opponent and have some sort of table image to work with yourself. Not quite the case in ST's, but regardless they are still profitable, just way more variance.

I've put in about 250 ST's this month and have a profit in them of about $2,000, so not that bad at all. I'll def be making these a part of my volume from now on, but do not want to play them exclusively. I'll still be playing turbos most of the time I think.

I've been grinding pretty hard each day this month. Putting in some pretty solid 6-8 hour sessions and seem to be reaping the rewards. If the games would fill quicker I could have better volume for my time. So tilting to have to wait 20 min between games sometimes.

I saw the WSOP main event got the 2nd largest amount of entrants ever. I think that's a good sign that poker is still going strong. First place like 8 million. So sick.

July Profit - $7,018

bartchalker

Solid month +14.3k

I'm pretty happy with how June went, even though I became extremely frustrated at some points of the month. Looking back through the month I'm not really sure why I became so frustrated either. I didn't have any prolonged losing stretches, never even had 3 consecutive losing days. It's usually when I've been losing for more than 4 or 5 days in a row that I start to get a little pissy. I might have just been getting burnt out a bit? Not sure, feeling good now though.

I had a good time in the $345 this month making $30/game and finishing up 6.9k in that department. It was def a nice change from what's been happening to me in that game so far this year. I also spent some time giving the $203.50 super turbos on FT more of a try this month. I ended up going 73-64 there which was good for almost $10/game, which is pretty decent for super turbos I think. I really have no idea what would be a good winrate in that game long term or even what would be considered a good sample size. I'm thinking $10 a match long term would be very profitable though. There is just so much fucking variance in those things it can make you twitch. It's not uncommon at all obv to get all in within the first 5 or 6 hands. But in the end it's really not much different than playing a turbo once the blinds hit 25/50 and up. The effective stack sizes are uually under 25 bb's at that point also. It's just nice to have that little amount of extra time to outplay your opponent and win or at least be the one with the chip lead when blinds hit a crucial level. I might mix these in more though in the coming months as I think they are def beatable and are a good thing to play while waiting for other games.

The end of June is not just the end of the month, but also the midway point of the year. I am having a pretty successful year, and am about right on pace for 150k profit which was my goal at the beginning of the year. At the end of June I was on pace for 151k. I feel like the 2nd half of 2010 can be even better though. I feel like I've ran pretty bad in the $345 this whole year and if that can turn around I can have a bigger 2nd half of the year.

July has gotten off to kind of a "meh" start, but it's obv super early, so no worries there. I'm down about 2k right now for July.

Look for updates during July, I'll be putting up weekly posts. Even if I don't have much to say I'll throw up a couple paragraph update. I've been lazy maintaining the blog the last few months. Gonna change that this month.

bartchalker

May is finished, +$9,500

"It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner, when you're number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you're not a winner." Vince Lombardi


Ugh. The 2nd half of the May turned into a bitch for me. After my last update I had a few good days pushing my profit to around 12k, but then I had a 3 day stretch where I dropped around $5,400 and spent the rest of the month recovering from that. I guess I did recover, but just to the point of getting back to where I was at the halfway point of the month. So I guess I just broke even the last 2 weeks. It probably wouldn't have been quite so bad if I hadn't tilted off a couple buy ins in a few sessions I played. I played really bad in a few of my games during the last 2 weeks, was just getting frustrated with the shit. I also had a dumb rematching session against some guy in the $345's on FTP. I played him like 35 games stretching out for more than 4 hours. I should have quit after about game 10. It was late night/early morning and I was getting tired and didn't really feel like playing, but for some reason I got stubborn with it and just kept accepting rematches. I eventually quit after losing like 6 of my last 7 games to him and being real spewy in the process. By the time it was over he had taken a few buy ins off me for about $2,500. I thought I had an edge on him so kept playing, but after game 10 or so it was definitely a mistake to keep playing. Just too tired and frustrated to think clearly and make good plays. It doesn't seem I'm ever real good in long battles with multiple rematches unless I'm winning. Even if we're splitting the matches 50/50 I start to lose a little something. I'm guessing that's the case for a lot of people though.

Anywayssssssss, it's not like May was a disaster, not by any means. While having a 2 week breakeven stretch doesn't happen often to me and is discouraging, it's just something that's gonna happen a few times each year.

I've noticed that so far this year I'm really getting the shit end of variance in the $345. It's kind of annoying. I'm doing about what I expect in the $230 with a winning percentage of 56.6% and $19/game. The $345 this year has been a different story with a winning percentage of 53.3% and about $6.50/game. I guess I can't bitch about it much cause that's the price of playing multiple buy in levels. It just seems ridic to be making more money in the $230 then the $345 so far this year. I've played about 2,500 $345 games across stars and FTP in my career with a $17/game avg. I think long term I could hit the $25-$28 range, but I'm not sure. I mean 2,500 games is a pretty decent sample size, but I don't think it's out of the question to run a little bad over that kind of stretch. Lifetime across both sites in the $230 I'm at $18/game and it would seem kinda weird that the competition is that much tougher at the $345 compared to the $230 that I would have the same $/game. I sure don't seem to notice that the players are that much better overall. There doesn't seem to be much skill difference between the two levels. I guess the nosebleed players tend to sit a 345 more than a 230. I've been sat my livb and other players who normally play $500-$5,000 stakes before at the 345, but not so much at the 230. I don't think that kind of stuff can make a huge difference unless it's happening a lot though. I guess only time will tell.

May was quite a success from a volume standpoint as I put in about 670 games which is definitely the most I have done in a long time. I'm hoping in June to have another 600 game month! Bring on June!!

bartchalker

1st half of May recap

I'm pretty happy with how May is shaping up thus far. I've put in some pretty decent volume(300 games) and have gotten some good results. I took yesterday completely off of poker after a frustrating prior 2 days where I put in 35 games in each day, only to lose money each day. Now I feel refreshed and ready to do a bit of grinding again. Prior to those 2 losing days however I had 10 straight winning days. Streaks like that are always nice but seem to so seldom happen to me anymore. Bitchy variance. Even having 5 winning days in a row is kind of tough. It's not like the $115's where it seemed I always had streaks like that. I guess it's just a testament to the slightly higher competition at my current levels. It increases variance a bit.

My May HU stats so far:

Games Played: 298
Avg Stake: $269
Avg Profit: $28.29
Total Profit: $8,430

With everything else added in my total profit comes out to about $9,700 so far.

I'm gonna try to put in about the same amount of volume, hopefully with the same sort of results. Bring on the 20k month!

OK, change of subject.

I really hate the term "professional gambler" and I find I'm somewhat annoyed when someone refers to me as one. I usually find myself correcting them and saying that I'm not a professional gambler, I'm a professional poker player, followed by me trying to explain why I don't consider what I do gambling, usually followed by puzzled looks or a response of "well it takes skill but you still need to be pretty lucky don't you?". It's impossible to try to explain to people that nobody is lucky or unlucky, at least not in the long term. Luck is something that can only be talked about in the past tense. If you get you're chips in the middle and are 40% to win, you are going to win an average of 40% of the time no matter who you are. But I don't think a lot of people really understand this. So many people think that there are actually "lucky" and "unlucky" people. It blows my mind. Sure if somebody wins the lottery you can say, "Wow, they got lucky!", and you would be right. However like I said, it can only be used in the past tense. If they buy another lottery ticket the odds of them winning again are the same as any other person. To actually say that the laws of probability do not apply to a particular person is beyond ridiculous. It would be like saying the law of gravity does not apply to a particular person.

"Holy shit! Look at that! That dude is just floating through the air!"

"Yeah, the law of gravity doesn't apply to him."

Saying that a person wins more than their share of coin flips, or hits more flush draws or straight draws than somebody else in the long term is really just as ridiculous as the above mini conversation.

This brings me back to the reason I dislike the "professional gambler" term. I'm not sure how anything can be considered gambling when you have a long term positive expectation in the game. The definition of gamble is "to play at any game of chance for money or other stakes". For the professional poker player, poker is not a game of chance. I mean do the short term swings the pro goes through make what he does gambling? Even if they have shown positive results month after month, year after year? I don't think so because the pro knows how to use proper bankroll management and keeps his ego in check enough to stop him from playing higher then he should based on his bankroll. This is how he combats the short term swings that come with our game.

I realize though that it is probably a good thing that many people group poker in with games of chance like slots, roulette, craps, etc. It makes people think of it as a gambling game and many people treat it just like that when they play. I will say for many people it is gambling. For most people they treat it like any other form of gambling and are just as better off playing slots as they are poker. They have a negative expectation in both games.

Besides, to say a particular person is "lucky" and that's the reason they win at poker would be to insinuate that they could play games like roulette or slot machines and win long term. They are basically saying that me, or any other pro player could just sit at a slot machine 40 hours a week and win money long term. Sorry, doesn't quite work like that. Let me know when you find a professional slot machine player, or a professional roulette player. Although, you probably would get about the same reaction from a lot of people if you said you were a professional slot machine player, as you would a professional poker player.

I also realize that a lot of people don't really believe the stuff they spout off. It's just that many people have played poker themselves and tried to take it seriously but just didn't have what it took to beat the game. It's so much easier for people to say they were unlucky as opposed to not good enough.

I guess the main reason I dislike the "professional gambler" term, other than it being a complete oxymoron, is that it almost feels like a way to put down full time players. A way to say that someone is just lucky, and how nice it must be, and not giving them credit for the incredible amount of discipline, dedication, study, and intelligence it takes to play a game like this for a living. I never hear anyone refer to what the stock market players, day traders, or swing traders do as "gambling". Nope, that's not gambling is it? What they do is called "investing", when really the day to day swings, although I can't say for sure, are probably just as, if not more brutal than that of what a full time poker player goes through. Using the term "investing" makes it sound more legit and smart, while using the term "gambling" carries a negative connotation that makes it sound dirty and unintelligent.

IMO!!!!!

I understand that people who know nothing about poker are always going to group it in with other forms of gambling. They are all played for money and involve an element of chance. I just felt like spouting off a bit.

Kinda went off on a tangent a bit there. I'm out!!!

bartchalker

April recap+first week of May

Once again, it's taken me awhile to throw up an update. I guess I just kinda go in streaks where I feel like posting and streaks where I don't feel like posting. I know a lot of poker bloggers tend to not post as much when they are on a bad run, but I'm just as unlikely to post on a good run as a bad run I think. And for whatever reason I have not felt like posting the last 3 weeks. I think it's time though, so here goes!!

After being up 10k at the halfway point of April, I had a decent finish to the month. Nothing spectacular, but definitely nothing worth complaining about. Towards the end of the month I went on a week long breakeven stretch, which started to test my patience a bit.

189-160 in the $230

131-104 in the $345

17-9 in the $570

After everything I ended up finishing up right around 14k. The 26 games I played in the $570 was the most I've ever played in a month, and the 17-9 record was pretty solid. It helped pad my profit a little bit for sure. I seem to be getting more comfortable playing at that level, but I'm still not really anticipating trying to play many more games than that a month at the $500's. I'm a week into May now and haven't played a single one, so it's just kinda one of those things I gotta be in the right mindset for. I'm just so comfortable playing at the $200 and $300 level, and making money so consistently there, that it's pretty hard to push myself to deal with even worse variance than I deal with now.

I had been semi planning on playing some the HU SCOOP events but ended up saying fuck it. Those things just stretch out too damn long for me. I hate potentially having to sit at my computer for 12 straight hrs. It would obviously be worth it to win one of the events, but to play for like 10 hours to get a deep but disappointing finish where I only double or triple my buyin is far too tilting for me. Maybe one of these times I'll suck it up and do it.

As for May thus far....it's going pretty good. I'm actually off to pretty hot start this first week, and am quickly up over $5,500. We'll see how it goes the last 3 weeks. I'll take another 14k month. I won't complain a bit.

That's all I have right now. Further updates to come folks.

bartchalker

Halfway through April

April has been going really well so far. I've been pretty much playing every day, getting in between 15-25 games daily. I'm really happy with how I've played this month and have really just felt in complete control of most of my matches. I'm actually really happy with how I've played this whole year, and my results are showing it. I'm on pace to make my 150k goal. If I keep going along the way I am now I should have no problem achieving that goal.

I really feel I've improved as a player since this time in 2009, just like in 2009 I improved from 2008, and in 2008 improving from 2007. The main reason is just putting in the games, day after day, week after week, month after month. Just grinding is what improves my game so much. And for the most part it doesn't even feel like a grind, just because I enjoy playing this game so much. The downswings can be a bitch, but they just make the upswings that much more sweet. I've played about 20,000 heads up sng's in my lifetime now. After that kind of volume not only do I feel confident against almost anyone I play, but I've been though the inevitable downswings so many times that I think I'm getting way better at controlling tilt then I ever have before. I think the one stat that really shows how much I've controlled my tilt in 2010 is 0. 0 as in 0 broken mouses this year. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but in 2008 & 2009 I prob wrecked a total of close to 20 goddamn mouses. I mean that's almost a mouse a fucking month I go through. It prob sounds crazy to anyone who doesn't play a lot of poker, but I think anyone who plays poker on a regular basis can understand how totally frustrating it can be. But here I am midway through April, still using the same mouse I was on Jan 1. Overall I just feel so much more calm after taking a bad beat/cooler, or after getting owned in 6 straight games by some dipshit. I mean, I still cuss up a storm like it's nobody's business sometimes, just no mouse slamming.

Ok, enough of that BOLOGNA. Like I said earlier in this post, April is going quite well. Not quite as well as March, but good nonetheless. I've played 325 HU games booking about $29/game. My April profit is right around 10k. The last 2 months have just been too much fun. I'm really not looking forward to that next downswing when it comes creeping on me.

Twins are off to a hot 8-3 start. Best record in the AL baby!!! I got $300 on them to finish over 83 1/2 wins. They look like a really solid team this year. I'm hoping for 90+ wins.

I think that's all I got!

bartchalker

First week of April

I've had a decent first week of the month. There just doesn't seem to be a whole lot to report other than having a +3k day today. The rest of the week has been real back and forth. I've been treading water a bit as far as my results go. Today wasn't the best day I've ever had, but in terms of profit to volume it was pretty good. I just put in 18 games and smashed out a 14-4 record. Also got wild in a 18 handed sng and took it down which kind of padded the HU profit.

Early in the month I played a couple of $570's. I don't play them that often so I'm not quite used to those kinda swings. And I have to admit taking bad beats in those stings just a little bit more. Just a little precursor to the hands I'm about to post. The first two are just bad beats that happened in a pair of $570's I played. A little boring maybe, but share in my pain if you like. The last is quite possibly the strangest fucking play I've ever seen in my life. Just mind boggling, lol.

This first one was a setup in my favor that went all wrong on the river. I still actually had plenty of chips and was only at a slight chip disadvantage after the hand. I made a hero call down with 4th pair to lose it a few hands later though. Possibly a questionable call. That hand will not be posted because I don't like to post hands where I get OWNED.



This following one was against some fish who was a real cocky motherfucker who had taken a few buy ins off me at $230/$345 earlier in the day. Took a shot vs him in a $570. This one tickled a bit.



Like I said earlier, this one is just weird. I guess a few hands earlier i fired a cbet with A high on flop then bet again on turn after he check/called and spiked an Ace on the river to win the pot. So he maybe thought I was really bluffy? I guess he could have put me on 35 or something. Or maybe he just likes the rush of playing with his eyes closed? Whichever it was it prob wins the award for strangest call down I've ever seen.




I guess I'm just gonna keep this post short. Not a whole lot to report and nothing is really coming to my mind to type about.

Good Luck!

bartchalker

Sooner or later, gotta cut you down

March was such an awesome month for me. I ended up breaking my record month which was 21.3k in Dec 2009. Here's a quick little rundown of the month.

$115 HU...11-8...+$235
$230 HU...186-114...+$12,840
$315 HU...170-132...+$8,010
$570 HU...7-2...$+2,570

I lost about $600 in random sng's/tourney's and made about 2.5k in rakeback/bonuses. All in all my overall profit for March comes to $25,458. As you can see I really wrecked the $230 this month for a 62% winrate and $43/game.

I kept saying I wanted to hit 700 games this month, but I got kinda lazy towards the end and really slacked off on my volume. I ended up with 630 games played and had an avg profit of about $37.50/game.

It really feels great to dominate so hard in March after having sub par months in Jan and Feb. In Jan and Feb(Feb particularly) I got kinda worked up when things weren't going my way, like I tend to always do when the shit piles on. However this just proves to me once again how hard I can kill these games when I go on a hot run myself and the cards are all falling my way. There is just no need to get pissed off during bad stretches, because I can more than make up for it during my good stretches. In the end, after all the games have been played and variance has had time to even itself out, the stats show the true skill. There is no luck.

Ok, that puts an end to my bragging. I have to put this month behind me and obviously will not expect a repeat performance in April. I played good this month, but man, I ran hot. The first couple weeks especially, everything seemed to go my way. It's not too often you get positive variance for a stretch like that, so this kind of shit just doesn't happen often. It sure is fun when it does though. To me, winning at poker is like what crack is to a junkie. I can't get enough and I just want more. Actually that's prob not the best comparison......close enough though, fuck it.

I guess for April I'll just try to hit 600 games, maybe a little more. I just want to keep playing good.

Here's my graphs for March, Pokerstars followed by Full Tilt





I actually played more games on FT then Stars this month. I'm kinda shocked at how much more too. I didn't really realize it until just now looking at them. Probably the first time I've ever done that. I'm going to try to up my volume on stars a bit to make sure I can at least get the 200k VPP bonus by year's end.

I don't think I have much more to say. Bring on April and the 2nd Quarter of 2010!!!

bartchalker

Watch these fuckers jump when I get loose

Not a whole lot to report since my last update. I've had one good day of +2k and the other days have been smallish losses offsetting that one day. Breaking even basically. No complaints though, it was still a very successful first half of March, in both profit and volume. I've already put in 360 games which is a lot for me. I'm still on pace for 700 games and will try to get there. I'm not feeling burnt out or anything, but it's hard to feel burnt out when the DOLLAZ are rolling in at a steady clip. BALLA DOLLAZ.

Now I'd like to take a little time to talk about the acronyms people use in the chat. I've never been a person to use these too much. I remember when I first started playing online poker I had to go type stuff like "gl", "gg" into google to find out what the hell people were saying to me. I only knew the basic ones, like "lol" and shit. At first I thought they were retarded but of course eventually started using them. The first time somebody typed "mbn" I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I didn't know if I was being insulted or complimented and it took a while to find out it was "must be nice". I've never been a fan of this one myself but I've noticed some players are quite fond of that little gem whenever the slightest thing goes wrong. They run AQ into my AK and there it is. "MBN". I'm just like, yeah man it's real nice. Like, what the fuck? Of course it's nice. It's fucking great. I want more more more. MORE.

Then there are the other classics like "rofl" "lmao" and the very awesome "lmfao" I've personally become a fan of the "rofl" over the years. Roll on floor laughing. I mean, boom. You're play is so fucking horrendous that I am literally rolling around all the fucking floor, laughing at your stupid ass. LSHIJPAPMFP. That's gonna be my new one. It's "laughing so hard I just pissed and pooped my fucking pants." Watch for it.

However my all time favorite is the "wp" when used sarcastically. I open JJ from button, villain shoves 40 bb's back with A3 and spikes A on flop. It's a perfect time to bust out the "wp". I mean, I guess "mbn" could be used here as well, or maybe even a combo of the two. However i think "wp" gets the point across well. Sometimes villain responds the ole "ty" and I'm never quite sure if they are needling me, or are really that dumb and think I'm sincerely telling them they played the hand well. You never know with these people, I"m telling you.

Oh man, I know I'm missing some of the other nice ones. Anyways reason I got on this acronym thing is because I've begun to see people start typing "y" for yes. That's ridiculous. Just stop. The first time somebody typed "y" after I asked them a question I thought it was short for "why" and some confusion ensued. I mean, seriously fellas , that's just fucking lazy. Just type the -es at the end. It takes another half a second. I can understand the "u2" or "b4" to a certain degree, you are saving a few extra keystrokes there, but just typing "y"? Knock it off!

Ok, enough of that. I figured I'd go off on a tangent being that my last few poker days seemed to be kinda uneventful and I didn't have much to type. I'll update again in a few days and maybe try to put some interesting hands up or something. Later.

March Profit-$14,127

bartchalker

Huge month thus far

March is going really well so far. I'm off to what I'm pretty sure is my best start ever to a month. Today was my first losing day of the month, and it was only for a grand or so which is pretty easy to take after how hot I've been the 10 days prior. I've been winning at a 61% clip and have been averaging over $50/game. I wish I could run this hot all the time, it's so fun to just slaughter the games every day for 10 days straight. Plus it seems I've been playing a lot of the dumbest, spazzy, retards than I've seen in a while. Bless the dumb, spazzy, retards. They make the poker world go round.

I've also already put in around 250 games which is pretty decent volume. Usually I only put this kind of volume in when I'm having a shitty month. Bad habit, but kicking that in the ass this month. Gonna try to get in 700-750 games and hopefully hit 20k profit. Record month is 21.3k so let's fuck shit up!! Time to be a BALLER.

I'll throw another update up at the midway point of the month.

Later

March Profit - $13,715

bartchalker

Feb wrap up+early March heater

I said I wasn't gonna go so long without entering on my blog a few entries back. I lied I guess. Feb was a tough month for me, but I ended up doing OK in the end. First off here are my Feb #'s....

Heads Up - $1,435
Other SNG - $1,332
Rakeback/Bonuses - $2,072

Total Profit - $4,839

$1,435 is definitely the lowest monthly profit I've ever had for heads up pre rakeback profit. It really helped to run good in the small amount of random sng's I played to boost me up a little bit, plus the 2k in rakeback.

I'm not really sure what happened in February. I started off running just fucking awful though. Almost unbelievably so. I went on a 3 day downswing from the 7th-9th losing about $5,000 during those 72 hrs. That was kinda painful. I think I lost confidence for a week or two stretch which is just a complete fucking killer in HU poker. There is just so much edge lost when you're not feeling confident and you're not reading situations correctly. I got over it though and am back to feeling that confidence in every game I play. Towards the end of Feb I had a 19 match winning streak on Pokerstars. Kinda amazing looking at it in sharkscope and seeing all those consecutive wins.

I did take off a week of playing for a Las Vegas trip which was fun. Probably kinda cleared my mind up a bit. I stayed away from poker for the most part while I was there. I played one session of $1/$2 NL for maybe 3 hrs or so and won $120 or something like that. I did make a $200 bet on the roulette wheel which I'm pretty sure is the biggest non poker bet I've ever made. I had bet $100 on black the previous spin and won, so I let the $200 ride on black and won again :). Boom. Fun times. Las Vegas is always a great time.

Despite taking the week off, I still managed to play 535 games in Feb. Just like Jan I did good in the $230 and bad in the $345 again. This month I went 128-97 in the $230, good for $20/game. I went 138-140 in the $345 which accounted for a loss of $17/game. I hate when you can so clearly see the effects of rake. Just 2 games under .500 in the $345, yet down 4.8k. Sick.

Ok, time to put Feb behind me.

Onto better things.

Like March.

March has been great so far. I'm on a super heater and am up 7.7k after 4 days. That puts me on pace for a 60k month!!!!!!!! That won't happen, but would love to bank a 20k month like I did in Dec.

Since I made more $$$$ in 2009 than I originally estimated I have big tax bill coming on April 15th, so it would be nice to have a super solid month to pad the blow a bit. Only part of the bill is taxes I still owe on 2009 income. The other part is my 1st quarter 2010 payment. It sucks so hard to pay such a large lump sum of money at once. It's just so much more depressing than spreading it out.

Which also brings me to another point. If you are a professional poker player who lives in the U.S. and you file as a professional, which means you use the Schedule C for business income and you pay self employment taxes, you should really think about opening up a retirement account. A SEP-IRA is great. I think it is very foolish to not do this if you are filing as a professional. You are allowed to contribute up to 20% of your net income up to a max contribution of 49k/yr. Very solid investment. Very +ev. Just my 2 cents.

That's all I have for right now. Will update again soon.

March Profit $7,733

bartchalker

Later January. Hello February

Blah. Pretty much broke even since my last post. Days where I felt I should have been finishing up 1k or 2k, I was only making a few hundo, then today I dropped a grand or something. It's just how shit goes sometimes. I was down 3k at the halfway point of the month, so making 10k since then to finish ahead 7k I will consider a success. It kinda hurt me with being so lazy with my volume the first week and a half. I was trying to make up for it the last week, and prob played more than I really wanted. I could feel myself getting burnt out and tilty. I ended up playing 525 games, I guess about avg for my standards. I wouldn't mind getting that a little closer to 600 in the coming months however.

I ended up with about 4.6k profit from HU. It helped to get 2.8k from rakeback/bonuses. Had a nice bonus from FT, plus ran good in the Sunday Mil Qualifiers.

I played about a 50/50 split between the 230/345. I ran bad in the 345 which was a big reason for the slightly down month. I only banked a $2 avg in the 345 in Jan. Fucking dumb. $17/game in the 230 though. I also played 8 $570's.......4-4.

I'm just gonna try and shoot for 500 games in Feb. Heading out to Vegas for a little vacation in the middle of the month with my brother and a couple buddies. Gonna blow a little $$$$$ more than likely. Degen it a little. Should be fun.

I'm gonna keep this wrap up short......quite tired right now, been up for 24 hrs. Trying to get myself back on a nice sleep schedule after sleeping in til 2 in the afternoon a couple times. GL me.

Let's go Feb!!!!!

Jan Profit - $7,294

bartchalker

Jan shaping up decently+Vikings miss out on SB shot

I took a break from poker on Sunday to watch the NFC/AFC championship games. 2 pretty good games, although seeing the Vikings come one game short of the Superbowl for the 3rd time in my life was a bit devastating. First there was the 1998 season, when they went 15-1 in the regular season and broke the NFL points scored record. It was really quite a magical year. We destroyed the Cardinals in the Divisional playoffs and were huge favorites against the Falcons and suffered a crushing OT loss. It was also the game where Gary Anderson missed a 30 some yard field goal with the 4th quarter winding down that would have given the Vikings a 10 pt lead and iced the game. This is the Gary Anderson that did not miss ONE SINGLE kick the whole season. It's a play that lives in MN infamy for sure. The most crushing loss I've ever endured as a sports fan.

Then there was the 2000 season, where we started 11-2 and backed into the playoffs with an 11-5 record. Still good enough for a 1st round bye. We pounded the saints in the divisional round to set up another shot at the Superbowl just 2 seasons after the crushing defeat at the hands of Atlanta. This game was brutal in it's own way. Not the crushing, tear your heart out and crap it out on your face kinda brutal the Atlanta game was though. It was more of a WTF just happened kinda brutal. Vikes down 31-0 at halftime and lose by a final of 41-0. I don't remember much from that game anymore. Selective memory I suppose.

Then there was Sunday. The big difference in this game is the Vikes were the underdog, not the favorite like the previous 2 NFC championship games. I went into it knowing there was a very good chance we could lose this game. However to see us lose the game in OT left an empty feeling similar to 1998. Also the fact that we fumbled the ball 6 fucking times left a feeling of wondering what could have been. We lost 2 fumbles in the red zone. One at the 20 yard line, and one at the 10. But if you watched the game you know what I'm talking about. It was still a great game. I'm sure especially great for Saints fans. Should be a good Superbowl matchup. I'm gonna have to say that Peyton Manning wins his 2nd ring though.

I watched the Federer-Davydenko match last night, not sure if anyone else did but it was kinda crazy. How does Davydenko go from looking sooooooooo good, and like he's gonna roll Federer in 3 straight sets, to just getting murdered? Federer beat him like 13 straight games at one point. Good match though.

Now to poker. I played on Monday and just couldn't get anything going. I went 7-10 and lost around $1,100. Then yesterday it looked like the month could possibly unravel when I started 1-5 and was snap down $1,400. However, after taking a break and enjoying a bowl of Coco-Roos I couldn't be stopped the rest of the day. I went 19-6 the rest of the way and finished +$2,600 or so. Boom. Somebody even threatened to slit my throat during a game. You know you're owning people when they threaten your life. Jackass.

I will probably be playing each of the last 5 days of the month and hopefully ending in a fun way. I wanna catch a case of the run goods.

Jan - $7,069

Good luck everybody

bartchalker

Nice 5 day run

I've had a really nice run over the last 5 days. I've gone 67-40 in my HU games, and have also cleared a $525 bonus from Full Tilt. I've made about 7k the last 5 days and am well out of the red now. Good. I hate the feeling of still being down halfway through a month. It doesn't happen too often, but when it does I start to get a short fuse playing poker. I remained pretty solid this whole month though, and I've been playing really well even through the shit. No busted up mouses or anything!

Here's some random hands I played, haven't shared any in a while. Obviously I'm only going to show hands that make me look cool, not the one's where I look foolish :).

Me getting a little wild:




Opponent getting tricky and me luckboxing:




Me inducing my tilty, bluffy ho of an opponent to stack off:




I'm kinda hoping I can salvage an 8k month. It should be possible.

I tried out Full Tilt's new "Rush Poker" today for about 50 min. It's actually kinda fun. I played the .50/$1 and ended up making $61. I was actually up around $250 at one point. Kind of a cool little way to fuck around when you don't feel like taking the game all that seriously. Give it a shot.

Jan - $4,789

good luck grindas

bartchalker

Not a fun month so far

January has really sucked so far. I was really feeling in the groove the day after making my last post but went on to have a horrible day. I ended up losing about 2k, mostly due to a 3-10 record in the $345. Then I followed that up with a $500 loss yesterday, which was my 8th straight losing day in a row!! I know that's never happened before. I finally snapped the losing streak today by going 16-12 overall in the 230/345 for about $750.

Like I said in my last post though, I've taken a lot of time off this month and have just started picking up the volume the last few days. I'm pretty confident I'll break out of this soon. Fuck, it was just 2 months ago that I was saying all this same shit!! November started off horribly for me and I still managed to recover and make a nice profit. Gonna have to have a repeat of that this month!

Know what I love??? When I bluff off my stack and villain calls me down to win the match then they type "ty". Thank You?????!!!! Is that some sorta pathetic fucking attempt at a needle you fucking fish? When you know that they had no idea where they were in the hand, and were calling you out of nothing but spite, and the only thing going through their stupid brain was "I hope he doesn't have it this time." Go suck a dick. Go suck a herpes infested cock and get the herpes all over your dumb fucking lips. Then go kiss your fat, ugly girlfriend who you've managed to keep your dick sucking secret from, and give them to her too. That's what you can do with your little TY. Moron. Then make sure you snap decline the rematch, then type in "GG fish" and go run back down to low stakes since you obviously just doubled your roll with some degen shot. In 6 days when you lose it, just make sure you come back to donate some more. You were probably just "unlucky" anyways. Whore.

I'm gonna start owning peeps again real soon. No lies. No lies.

I'm really not as angry as I sound, just wanted to rant. Poker is the shit obv, and donkeys are the BIG shit.

I noticed earlier today that Pokerstars had over 300,000 people on it!! Is that amazing or what?! I remember before Party Poker shut down to the U.S. they used to be the big site and would hit over 100k in traffic. Then I remember Pokerstars hitting 150k and thought that was just amazing. But wow, 300k peeps on stars and 100k on FT today. Some people were saying that poker would have lost it's popularity by now. Not in the online world I guess. The day will definitely come but I think it's at least several years away.

That's it, I'm done. Good night everybody.

Jan - ($2,163)

bartchalker

Slow start to 2010

It's been a slow start to 2010 in both the volume and profit columns so far. I've taken about 6 days off already!! If you mix in a little running bad, then add a dash of playing bad, well that makes for a losing month so far. I've had 6 straight losing days now! It's not quite as bad as it sounds though. All of those losing days have been losses of between $200 and $550 which is obviously nothing. If I had actually been getting some normal volume in I'd probably be up at least a little. I'm gonna try to fix that the rest of the month.

The Vikings play the Cowboys in the divisional playoffs on Sunday! 2 games away from the Superbowl. I think the Vikes can win this game. My prediction is 27-17. I am definitely biased though.

Not much else to say other than; it's time to turn this fucking month around!

Jan - ($560)

End of the Year+Beginning of the Year

Well first, I realize I was ridic lazy with updating my blog last month. It's kinda odd being that it was my best month ever. I shoulda been bragging it up hardcore, but was just never really in the mood I guess.

Anyways, 2009 really ended with a bang for me. See below for my bigtime Dec #'s.

Heads up - $19,589
Other Sng's - $319
Rakeback/Bonuses - $1,367

That makes for a grand total of $21,275. Pretty sick by my standards for sure. What makes it even more sick is how lazy I was with playing the last week or so. It was all good though since I'd just play like 8 games in a day and go 7-1 or some shit. It was nice to end the month in god mode after running like poo in Nov. I still ended up playing a total of close to 500 games, my hours just were not there like they usually are. I must have had a lot of quick matches or something.

Here are my heads up graphs for the month of Dec. I played more on Full Tilt this month then Stars which is a little strange for me, but I completely tore up FT so it worked out nice. In the future I think I'm gonna try to keep more then 50% of my games at Stars.






It feels great to have the kind of success I experienced in Dec. It would be sweet if I could score a couple 20k+ months in 2010.

I'm actually kind of shocked to see that I still made 3 spots on the sharkscope leaderboards despite playing a lot on Full Tilt the last few months. I made the $101-$300 HU total profit, the $101-$300 any game total profit, and the pokerstars total profit leaderboards. I prob could have easily hit top 5 on the first 2 if I had remained playing on stars 100%. However I'm sure there are a few people who could make statements like that.

I consider 2009 a success for me. Here are the goals that I had made for 2009 in an entry around this time last year:

1. Play at least 625 heads up games/month(at least 20% at the $230 level)

2. Control tilt(getting better at this all the time, but I still go a little retarded every now and then)

3. Exercise 3 times/week(gotta get back into doing this, healthy body=healthy mind)

4. Continue to study/improve my play

5. 100k profit(if I keep my 4 goals above this should happen)


I didn't quite accomplish #1. I averaged playing about 565 heads up games/month this year, however my % of games that were at $230 and up was way above 20%. Not sure exactly what it was but prob around the 85% range. My main game continued to be the $115 in the beg of the year, but after scoring a 19k month in April(9k more then my previous best at the time) playing mostly $230/$345 I never really looked back. So even though I didn't avg 625 games/month, I'm still gonna consider this goal as a success being that I killed the 20% at $230+ goal.

Goal #2 is kind of hard to tell. I def tilted. I don't think I'll ever get to a point when I don't tilt at all. It's just my style, I realize that now. Trying to get rid of tilt completely for me is just not gonna happen. However I will say I did "control" my tilt better overall so this goal was also a success.

Goal #3 was, without a doubt, a failure. Getting exercise and staying healthy is such an overlooked part of success in this game. When I play after getting in a good sweat I always seem to be thinking more clearly, and get tilty/upset way less when things don't go my way. I kinda started off strong with this goal the first 2 months then it went to complete shit until about Nov when I picked up doing it again and have been doing it ever since.

Goal #4 I will call a success. I think I study the game more then I even realize I do. I'm constantly reading different articles on poker strategy and whatnot. It's great that after all the time I've put into this game I still find different strategical concepts amazing. The game constantly evolves also, so there is always something to think about. I've also made a habit of going back through a game in the hand replayer when I'm done playing it and looking through all the hands. This is basically studying the game, and seeing where maybe I fucked up and could have done something differently etc etc. I feel I am a better player now than year ago. You have to constantly improve in this game. In poker not improving is like going backwards.

Goal #5 was a monetary target that I was hoping would be the end product of accomplishing the other 4 goals. I finished the year with a poker profit of $139,103, so I obv nailed this one.

Now it's onto 2010. My 2010 poker goals are going to be the same as above with changes to goals #1 and #5

1) Play an avg of 550 games/month.(I'm not gonna push myself with crazy volume goals or anything. I don't want poker to become too much of my life. I will be happy with 550 games a month. Quality over quantity FTW. Maybe if I'm feeling motivated I'll be able to avg over 600.)

5) 150K profit.(If I can match what I did this year I'll be happy, but 150k sounds like a nice round figure to shoot for.)

I'm also debating how hard I want to push playing higher stakes games. I feel uber comfortable in the $230 and $345 right now, but still can't help but feeling a little uneasy playing $570. I will prob just keep with what I'm doing now and randomly take shots in the $570 when I feel like it. Who knows, at the beg of 2009 I was very uneasy about playing the 230's. Maybe by the end of 2010 I'll be a 570 reg. Never know.

I am also going to try to keep updating my blog somewhat consistently. I'll try to not have a repeat of the 1 post performance of Dec. The times of making 10 posts a month I think may be over, but I will def update on a weekly basis. You can count on your pal bartchalker.

Good luck in 2010

bartchalker