Looking forward, I am planning on once again not checking my results until the very end of the month and have put Table Ninja to use so that I will snap-register for tournaments without flashing my bankroll (a feature that I was not really aware of until after the beforementioned incident). So far I’ve seen so many benefits to not thinking about my results…I’ve been playing really well have managed to put in the kind of volume that I was hoping for. I’ve been playing mostly 100nl, along with a decent amount of 200nl and a very minimal amount of 400nl. I think that I will more or less scrap 400nl for the rest of the month since the only tilt that I’ve felt in May is when I lose a big pot at that limit (because it largely dictates how my session goes and is very deflating to lose what feels like a 400bb pot since I’m mostly playing 100nl). I’ll probably still keep an eye on the lobby but the game will have to look very juicy for me to jump on the table.

Anyways, time to talk about the results! Here’s the graph:

So I’m up close to $3K, despite running below EV for the pretty much the entire month. I feel pretty good about this number but I will be playing even more hands in the 2nd half of the month than I did in the first half-so a lot will change by the 31st.

Probably the most promising report tab for me this month is the daily results. As you can see, I’ve only booked 3 losing days (one only a couple of buy-ins) and those big losses are just due to EV. My biggest losing day, May 5th, shows that I’m down $867.45 but I should actually be UP some money if I ran at expectation. Anyways, I’m definitely not dwelling on running poorly…actually quite the opposite, I feel reinforced about how well I’m playing at the moment and hopefully I can continue to add on the profit that I’ve started to accumulate this month. Here’s a breakdown of how I’m doing at the different stakes:

As you can see, I’m pretty much crushing 100nl as much as you can. Things are going awful at 200nl but once again that’s all due to EV (and small sample size).

The weather is getting absolutely beautiful in Vancouver right now. I’m going to have to actually start waking up early so that I can get in some hands and still enjoy the day outside. I’ve been playing a bit of tennis with my roommate Mark at some nearby public courts and am getting excited about getting a bike. I borrowed a bike on the weekend and rode around Stanley Park along the beach with my brother…there were so many people doing the same thing and aside from having to dodge people left, right and center it was a ton of fun. I’ve already got visions in my head of packing a few beers, food and a football and biking down to the beach with some buddies to make a day of it. I’m thinking about picking up a simple bike like this…perfect for cruising around the city:

They sell for around $600 but I might be able to get a bit of a deal because my brother’s roommate works for the company.

In other news, I have another video coming out for Ultimate Grinders this week and am working on 2 more to come out in June. I also did a live training session for PokerSchoolOnline this Sunday and will be holding another one this Sunday at 14:00 EST. Finally, I will be hosting the Final Tables of all of the SCOOP 26 events tomorrow, as well as the SCOOP 28 events on Wednesday. I’ll be on twitter looking for witty one-liners to use as people bust if you want to help me out lol…

gl at the tables!

Hope things are well,

gl at the tables!

May 6- $215 NLHE
May 7- $55 NLHE 6-Max Rebuys
May 7- $109 Turbo + Rebuys
May 8- $109 NLHE
May 8- $11 NLHE
May 9- $215 SuperKnockout
May 11- $82 NLHE Ante Up
May 11- $27 2x Chance Turbo
May 11- $215 2x Chance Turbo
May 13- $215 NLHE
May 13- $215 NLHE
May 14- $11 PLO 1R1A Turbo
May 15- $109 NLHE
May 19- $55 PLO 6-Max
May 20- $1000 NLHE Main Event (M)

The total buy-ins will be affected a little bit by how the rebuy tournies go but at worst I’ll be looking at about $3060 worth of buy-ins. I’ve already bricked the first event so we’re not off to an ideal start ;( Really looking forward to grinding these tournaments though, would be awesome to get at least one really deep run…we’ll see. At the very least the SCOOP will help me with my cash game grind as I will be planning on playing 24 tables of cash alongside the tournaments.

Speaking of cash games, I’ve managed to stick to my goal for the month of not checking my results so far and it hasn’t even been too temping to look…even though I have a bad feeling about them. I did put in good session tonight, however, so hopefully I’m not down too much I feel like not checking my results is really helping me play well and I think that I’m running awful and things still aren’t too bad. Hopefully things turn around because the games have looked pretty good! I’ve also started doing a lot of work on my HUD and am using a ton of more stats and info that I’ve kind of neglected in the past. I’ve always known that this has been a weak area of my game so I’m trying to step it up a bit and not under-utilize HEM as much as I usually do For the first time all year I really feel the hunger to devote a lot of time to poker and put in some serious hours. I’ve already earned 7K VPPs so far this month and that’s with 2 days off (not planned). I think 50K VPPs is a reasonable target for the end of the month and I’m going to try and work hard to get there. It really is easy to start and stop sessions when you aren’t constantly refreshing the cashier/HEM and having your results dictate the length of your session. We’ll have to wait and see how the results stack up, however.

One of my new strategy videos was released this weekend on UltimateGrinders. It’s part 1 of a 2 part series on how I approach dealing with unknown opponents and how I am able to make reads quickly with minimal information and adjust accordingly. Aside from the general theme, the type of video is just me playing live at 50nl for about 50 minutes. Part 2 should be released on the 19th.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Another reason why I’ve been so enthusiastic about grinding lately is because I recently picked up a pair of Gunnar Optiks Eyewear. You might have heard about Gunnars before, basically they’re just glasses that help reduce eye strain and bad light that emits from your computer. Usually by the end of a long session my eyes feel pretty tired and strained so I figured why not, I might as well try a pair of these glasses. So far the results have been quite amazing, my eyes feel almost the same as when they did at the start of a long session…totally wish I picked up a pair months ago. The sample size is only several days, however, but my first impressions are great. If you’re interested in checking out a pair for yourself here’s a link to the website: http://www.gunnars.com/ I believe UltimateGrinders may also have them available in the near future, though I have no affiliation at all with the company (gunnars, not UG obv). The style that I bought is called “Groove,” I wouldn’t wear them out to the supermarket but they don’t look too bad in my opinion. Time to buy a pair of non-prescription hipster glasses maybe?

Alright, time to go to bed…need to be up in less than 8 hours for the $55 6-Max rebuy! Hope you guys run well in the SCOOP.

gl at the tables!

It feels good to be able to post a monthly review again, though I’m far from satisfied with my volume and results. For now, here’s the rundown:

April

$2082.37 Table Winnings
$800 FPP Value
$300 Stellar Rewards
—————————–
$3,182.37 USD

Obviously a pretty weak month compared to some of my past results but again, it feels good to just get back into a decent work routine. I also made some more money with my involvement with PSO and UG.com but for consistency’s sake I’ll leave those numbers off of the monthly reviews.

So it’s a start. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m looking to increase my volume more and more as the year progresses and that means getting off to a fast start in May. I was really looking forward to joining a volume pool this month on 2+2 but unfortunately the forums are still down so I’ll have to wait and see if one ever gets going. I’ve decided to motivate myself in another way, however, and plan on pulling a “WizardOfAhhs” so to speak by not checking my results at all until the end of the month! It’s going to be pretty tough but I think that I’ll be able to do it (this coming from someone that can rarely go a full session without checking HEM). Anyways, I’m not going to make a huge deal about it but I think that it will help me focus on increasing my volume and help me stick to a solid daily schedule. One of my biggest problems as a “pro” has always been that I play far too little when I’m winning and play wayyyy to long of sessions when I’m stuck. Hopefully this will balance everything out a little bit and will have a positive impact on both my volume and profit goals for the month (200k hands and well, profit!!).

May will be a great month to start up a heavy grind due to the 80 billionth milestone hand promotion going on right now. I always love this promo and I was fortunate enough to be involved in TWO milestone hands last time (one which I won). I can tell you that I think the secret to being dealt into these hands is to play during lower traffic hours…I hit both of mine around 10pm-11pm PT when there were only 50k-80k players on Stars. Makes sense rationally too-less players = higher % to hit. We’ll see how I fare this time…I’ll probably be grinding all non-Zoom tables until the promo is up and then start including Zoom tables back into my sessions. I’ve been finding the Zoom tables very soft so far (though the games have been quite good everywhere from what I’ve seen) but with the added EV of the 80 billionth milestones at the regular tables I’m going to try and bink as many of those hands that I can while the promo lasts. Here’s an example of the poor play at Zoom that I’ve been encountering (I’m sure that I could find much worse but this stack-off 243bb’s deep from today should be bad enough)

PokerStars Zoom No-Limit Hold’em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
Button ($370.03)
SB ($44.18)
BB ($50)
Hero (UTG) ($243)
UTG+1 ($50.60)
MP1 ($110.53)
MP2 ($63.67)
MP3 ($115.84)
CO ($64.44)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q♣, J♣
Hero bets $2.50, 5 folds, Button raises to $6, 2 folds, Hero calls $3.50

Flop: ($13.50) 7♣, Q♥, J♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $9, Hero raises to $32, Button calls $23

Turn: ($77.50) 5♠ (2 players)
Hero bets $66, Button calls $66

River: ($209.50) 10♠ (2 players)
Hero bets $139 (All-In), Button calls $139

Total pot: $487.50 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Button had A♥, A♣ (one pair, Aces).
Hero had Q♣, J♣ (two pair, Queens and Jacks).
Outcome: Hero won $484.70

The SCOOP is also underway shortly…I have about $2K worth of buy-ins to spend on the series this time and will post a schedule shortly. I’m also going to make an effort to satty into the Super Tuesday (long shot) and Sunday Million much more this month. I’ve always enjoyed playing tournaments and it would be nice to make at least 1 deep run in something.

In coaching news, I will be doing two live training sessions for PSO this month (I believe the 2nd and 3rd Sunday of the month but will confirm this later) and have also submitted 2 more videos to PSO (no word on release date). I’ve also made 2 more videos for www.ultimategrinders.com so look for them to be coming out very soon if you’re subscribed to the site.

Away from the tables, April went pretty well. This was the last month that a lot of my friends from UBC were around before taking off for various summer activities so I ended up spending a lot of time with them. I just got back from a weekend spent in Victoria with Ben and Miles where we had a great night out on Friday followed up by some pitch-and-putt golf on Saturday Afternoon.

This is a look at the hardest hole with an island green…I put a couple in the water. We were playing a heated skins match and Ben had a 1 stroke handicap per hole (yes, he’s that bad to get a 1 stroke advantage on a par 3 course…). Miles was by far the best and I was playing like garbage for most of the day so the battle for 3rd was pretty tight. There was a pitcher on the line and after 18 holes Ben and I had an equal amount of skins, while Miles had the rest. We settled on a putting contest on the practice green to determine a winner (well, loser) and after Ben 4-putt, I sealed the victory with a 3.

(this is where Ben spent most of the day…although to his credit, he improved dramatically fast as the round progressed and it wasn’t long before he was lying “0″ on the green on many holes. I called him a sandbagger many times.)

Iain caught a ferry over to the island and met up with us to go out on Saturday night. I was feeling a bit crappy from our previous night out so I didn’t drink a ton…although this pic would suggest otherwise:

(Sidenote: Why do all these clubs seem to hire photographers and post the pics on facebook nowadays?! Sometimes funny but mostly annoying when you do stuff that you don’t want to remember lol)

Anyways, now that the weekend’s over I’m planning on taking a couple of weeks off drinking. This should also help my poker productivity so I think it’s for the best. Talk to you soon…

gl at the tables.

Most of my play has come at 100nl but there are a few thousand hands of mid-stakes thrown in there as well. Here are a couple of the bigger hands from the last few days:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $2.00 BB (4 handed)
Button ($138.89)
SB ($200)
BB ($148.50)
Hero (UTG) ($213.98)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A♣, A♦
Hero bets $5, Button raises to $8, 2 folds, Hero raises to $30, Button calls $22

Flop: ($63) A♥, 2♠, 8♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $10, Hero calls $10

Turn: ($83) 3♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $24, Hero raises to $173.98 (All-In), Button calls $74.89 (All-In)

River: ($280.78) K♠ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $280.78 | Rake: $1.50

Results:
Button had J♥, A♠ (one pair, Aces).
Hero had A♣, A♦ (three of a kind, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $279.28

This one was against a fish that was playing 50/25 with a 3bet of 33% over a fairly meaningless 4 hand sample. I won’t always check this flop as the pre-flop raiser (especially oop) because I think that it probably looks stronger than a Cbet against most half-decent players. Having said that, the flop is so bone dry here and we have 3/4 aces that it will be really hard to ever get called by a worse hand if we do Cbet…instead I elected to check and hope that the villain would bet as a bluff (maybe they put me on KK/QQ/etc.) if they didn’t have the last remaining ace. After villain fires again on the turn, I chose to shove just in case they might have picked up a flush draw/have the last ace/be stubborn with any part of that board.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
Hero (Button) ($100)
SB ($217.25)
BB ($287.75)
UTG ($61.77)
UTG+1 ($159.91)
MP1 ($126.54)
MP2 ($33.52)
MP3 ($110.54)
CO ($54.66)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J♥, J♦
6 folds, Hero bets $2.50, 1 fold, BB raises to $7, Hero calls $4.50

Flop: ($14.50) 10♠, 7♠, 10♦ (2 players)
BB bets $8, Hero calls $8

Turn: ($30.50) 5♥ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $12, BB raises to $27, Hero calls $15

River: ($84.50) 6♠ (2 players)
BB bets $60, Hero calls $58 (All-In)

Total pot: $200.50 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Hero had J♥, J♦ (two pair, Jacks and tens).
BB had 8♠, 7♣ (two pair, tens and sevens).
Outcome: Hero won $197.70

Here was a fun hand that is definitely not standard for me at all. Normally, this would probably be a 4bet/call pre-flop against this villain, who was playing 20/18 with a 7.7 3bet over 55 hands. Instead, I guess I was just feeling like mixing it up a bit/balancing my range at the time and elected to just flat pre. Let’s be honest, nobody likes playing JJ to begin with and it seems as though if you 4bet/call you’re always dominated yet if you flat you are walking right into a KQx flop. I actually flopped pretty well in this case though and thought about raising but chose to call and re-evaluate the turn. I think that raising has a lot of merit here because it sucks if an over-card comes off on the turn but I also don’t feel comfortable stacking off with JJ just yet and it would be hard to get called by worse if I raise.

The turn is where things get really interesting. After the villain checks, I am convinced that I have the best hand because QQ+/Tx/boat should almost always be double barrelling for value in this spot. Instead of making a medium size raise that might look like I’m committing myself to the pot, I decide to make a really fishy bet of about 1/3rd pot. My intention with this raise is to try and announce my hand as a weaker, 1 pair type hand that is just stabbing at the pot in order to induce a bluff from the villain. After the villain does in fact raise, I pretty much need to call and hope that they were in fact bluffing and not c/r a boat (which seems incredibly unlikely). Always nice when a plan works out! I really wouldn’t suggest playing JJ like this all of the time though lol…

When I have been working but not grinding, I’ve been busy making videos for UltimateGrinders and a couple for PSO as well. I also did my 2nd live training session for PSO today, which I think went very smoothly and was a lot of fun to do. If you missed my last announcement, I’m going to be doing 2 live training sessions a month for PSO on various Sundays. The sessions are 45 minutes long and topics will vary each time. The first session involved me opening up a few tables of 25nl and talking through the different spots that came up and the one today was very similar except it was done at 50nl. The training tool that I use allows viewers to see my hole cards as I play and allows for chat interaction as well so anyone can ask me questions about anything, really (questions so far have ranged from “should I call with 67s if a reg 3bets from the bb?” to “you sound hungover, did you hook up with anyone last night?” to “do you like turtles?”). Essentially it’s free coaching, something that I would probably charge around $100/hr for so if you’re free on Sundays and are interested in learning more about full-ring commmeee onnnnnn down. All of the sessions are free, just need to log in through PSO. I’ll be sure to make more announcments as we get closer to the next session (which is the 2nd Sunday in May I think).

Away from the tables, things in my personal life have been quite fast paced this month. Every weekend, my place has been turned into a f*ckin circus act with many of my friends crashing overnight on Fridays and Saturdays. There’s been so many random girls that have been brought back here the past few weeks that it’s been tough to get any sleep. Normally this would not be a problem but I’m not the one bringing back the randos, that responsibility lies between a couple of guys that I won’t name. I’ve actually been seeing a girl that I like all month and am only responsible for bringing her home with me while I have to deal with these other idiots in my living room. It’s actually pretty funny and if I wasn’t severely sleep deprived in the moment the whole thing would be pretty comical. Basically, it’s easy enough to get the girls to come home from the bar or club but the transition game is much more difficult. One of my friends will put on a James Bond movie (always Octopussy or Golden Eye) and wait until the entirrrrrrre movie finishes before making a move on the girl. The only time he won’t wait until the movie’s over is when I go out and yell at him at 4:30 in the morning to turn off the movie (and thus speed up the whole process). Usually he’s so tired that he just passes out on the couch anyways and the girl will leave disappointed. Last night, I had to deal with 2 guys coming home with 2 girls and then listen as they played Mario Kart for 1.5 hours with these ladies. Eventually, the girls just left because they had to work early the next day lol. Ridiculous…but obv Mario Kart is probably better than sex anyways so whatever, can’t knock that too hard.

Anyways, it’s been fun but this week should be pretty centered around poker for me. I’ll be looking to get at least 50K hands more by the end of the month…updates to follow.

gl at the tables!

The first session this Sunday will just be a general intro to how I approach playing full-ring and I will be playing a few tables of 25nl live. The training tool that I’ll be using is really cool…basically, everyone viewing the session will be able to see my tables and hole cards and actually watch me as I play in real time. There are some things that could be improved I think, such as the fact that viewers can only ever see one table at a time (I have to switch control to show you whatever table has the action on it) but if you register as a “participant” you will also be able to ask questions in the chat.

To sign up for the session, just go here: http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/education/training/session/?id=24551Registration hasn’t even opened up yet but you can just go there, log into your PSO account and go back to the link to join the viewing room when the session starts. Hope to see some of you guys there.

I’ve managed to log quite a few hands since my last update but it’s looking like I’ll fall a bit short of my 200k hand goal this month. It doesn’t really matter, however, as long as I don’t fall off pace too much. As for my results, well I think that I’ve been running pretty bad up until a few days ago and am up only a few buy-ins with a lot more poker to be played. Here are a few interesting/fun hands for good measure:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $1.00 BB (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($134.17)
SB ($95.62)
BB ($121.82)
Hero (UTG) ($103.80)
UTG+1 ($84.12)
MP1 ($95.37)
MP2 ($155.60)
MP3 ($106.43)
CO ($126)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q♠, Q♣
Hero bets $2.50, UTG+1 raises to $6.50, 4 folds, Button calls $6.50, 1 fold, BB calls $5.50, Hero raises to $22, 1 fold, Button calls $15.50, BB calls $15.50

Flop: ($73) 5♦, Q♥, 6♥ (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $21, Button calls $21, BB calls $21

Turn: ($136) 10♠ (3 players)
BB bets $78.82 (All-In), Hero calls $60.80 (All-In), 1 fold

River: ($257.60) A♦ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $257.60 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
BB had 7♦, 10♦ (one pair, tens).
Hero had Q♠, Q♣ (three of a kind, Queens).
Outcome: Hero won $254.80

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $1.00 BB (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($100)
Hero (SB) ($116.37)
BB ($102.42)
UTG ($252.33)
UTG+1 ($161.06)
MP1 ($122.06)
MP2 ($100)
MP3 ($48.29)
CO ($119.16)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9♦, 8♦
6 folds, Button bets $2.50, Hero raises to $10, 1 fold, Button calls $7.50

Flop: ($21) 4♦, 9♥, 3♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $13, Button calls $13

Turn: ($47) K♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $25, Button raises to $77 (All-In), Hero calls $52

River: ($201) J♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $201 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Button mucked 7♥, 7♦ (one pair, sevens).
Hero had 9♦, 8♦ (one pair, nines).
Outcome: Hero won $198.20

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $2.00 BB (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($319.61)
SB ($200)
BB ($91)
UTG ($221.80)
UTG+1 ($156.73)
MP1 ($413.32)
MP2 ($228)
MP3 ($630.37)
Hero (CO) ($247.02)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 8♣, 8♦
5 folds, Hero bets $4, 1 fold, SB raises to $13, 1 fold, Hero calls $9

Flop: ($28) 6♦, 3♠, 7♣ (2 players)
SB bets $17, Hero calls $17

Turn: ($62) 7♥ (2 players)
SB bets $39, Hero calls $39

River: ($140) 2♣ (2 players)
SB bets $131 (All-In), Hero calls $131

Total pot: $402 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
SB had 3♣, 3♦ (full house, threes over sevens).
Hero had 8♣, 8♦ (two pair, eights and sevens).
Outcome: SB won $399.20

Anyways, hope you’re all having a good weekend…it’s very nice and sunny over here in Vancouver so I’ll be outside enjoying the weather/watching NHL playoffs for most of the day before putting in a long grind tomorrow.

gl at the tables!

So I’ve already leaked this on twitter but I’m now officially onboard as a coach with UltimateGrinders.com. It’s a new training site, founded by 2 people (one being fellow Team Onliner Kevin “WizardOfAhhs” Thurman) and for those who are unfamiliar with it…basically it’s a site tailored to the new generation of mass multi-tablers. Here’s the description that can be found on the site:

“We are the first and foremost authority on achieving Supernova Elite on Pokerstars.com. Supernova Elite (SNE) is the highest level of the PokerStars VIP Club and is worth approximately $115,000 in cash bonuses. These bonuses are accumulated as you earn FPP’s (Frequent Player Points) playing on PokerStars.com. Simply by playing breakeven poker for an entire year you will make more than $100k in profit, and any additional money won at the tables is an added bonus! All of our UltimateGrinders.com coaches have attained SNE status through their hard work and dedication at the online poker tables, and they are ready to share their knowledge with you.”

I’ve been approached by training sites in the past but turned down the offers pretty quickly because I think of lot of them are good but might offer material that is slightly out of date/out of touch to the public. UltimateGrinders is great because every coach knows what it takes to mass multi-table effectively and can teach people how to reach their year-long milestone goals…obviously the trendy thing in online poker nowadays.

There is a very diverse group of coaches in terms of game selection as well. Obviously Kevin is a cap game legend and signing up for UG should be a snap-call for all cap players just for his videos alone but there are also coaches for PLO, SNG’s and of course, full-ring. Aside from my videos, there will also be a few other coaches producing full-ring content as well…including stuff from Mike “MeleaB” Brooks. If you play low-mid stakes full-ring on Stars you’ll know who MeleaB is and should be willing to pay top dollar for his vids. Not only does the guy have over $250K in winnings on PTR but he’s made SNE like 4 or 5 years in a row lol. I’m personally looking forward to watching his videos haha.

Anyways, this blog isn’t going to turn into a plug for UG all the time or anything but I think that it warrants it’s own blog post for now. I said a while back that I had 3 pretty big announcments to make…my short film was 1, this was 2, and I’ll be annoucning one more thing in a couple of weeks that I think is really cool (supposed to wait for an official annoucment before talking about it…). For now, you guys can check out the first video that I made for UG here:

http://ultimategrinders.com/video/tyler-frosts-first-vid-ultimategrinderscom

It’s free for now and is just a live session of me playing 25nl. Let me know what you think or what you’d like to see in the future.

Getting back to poker this month, I’ve set my volume goal for 200K hands by the end of April. I’ve fallen behind already because on top of the UltimateGrinder stuff I’m also making 10 videos for PokerSchoolOnline this year (just submitted 2…no word on release yet. One is on how to approach poker as a professional in terms of BR management, when to move up stakes, how to mentally prepare for each session etc. The second is on how to utilize all of Stars features, such as making a good custom layout, choosing good themes/mods, programming hotkeys, using note taking properly etc.). I’m happy to take requests for any of the future PSO videos…right now I think I have a pretty cool idea though. I was thinking of putting together a “moving up the ranks” series, where I make 2 videos of live play at 10nl, then 2 at 25nl, 2 at 50nl, and finally 2 at 100nl or maybe higher. I think they would be exciting to watch and would offer people of all different skill levels a chance to learn something but as I said, I’m more than happy to take suggestions from you guys. Hit me up here or twitter.

I put in a solid 4000 hand session today at 100nl and ran very well. There were a couple of bad beats for pretty big pots but overall I ran well above EV and got off to a decent start to the month.

Here’s the hand around hand 500 where I had a big suckout at a euro table. The first caller was a fish, which made bet-folding KK in this spot almost impossible (and probably incorrect).

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, €1.00 BB (8 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB (€103.50)
UTG (€40)
UTG+1 (€100)
MP1 (€89.60)
MP2 (€96.72)
Hero (CO) (€103)
Button (€111.35)
SB (€103.87)

Preflop: Hero is CO with K♦, K♠
1 fold, UTG+1 bets €3, 1 fold, MP2 calls €3, Hero raises to €13, 3 folds, UTG+1 raises to €30, 1 fold, Hero raises to €103 (All-In), UTG+1 calls €70 (All-In)

Flop: (€204.50) 5♠, K♣, 2♣ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (€204.50) 7♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (€204.50) 4♠ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: €204.50 | Rake: €2.15

Results:
UTG+1 had A♣, A♥ (one pair, Aces).
Hero had K♦, K♠ (three of a kind, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won €202.35

Here was the funny/non-standard hand of the match. I posted a suckout so here’s the bad beat.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $1.00 BB (8 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($102.68)
BB ($43)
UTG ($80.87)
UTG+1 ($100)
MP1 ($100)
MP2 ($139.07)
CO ($40)
Hero (Button) ($101.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Q♣, A♥
3 folds, MP2 bets $3.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $11.50, 2 folds, MP2 calls $8

Flop: ($24.50) 6♣, 8♠, Q♠ (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($24.50) A♣ (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $18, MP2 raises to $41, Hero raises to $90 (All-In), MP2 calls $49

River: ($204.50) 7♦ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $204.50 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Hero mucked Q♣, A♥ (two pair, Aces and Queens).
MP2 had 10♥, 9♥ (straight, ten high).
Outcome: MP2 won $201.70

I took a bit of a non-standard line by checking back the flop after I 3bet what appeared to be a reg (though I didn’t recognize them) with AQo on the btn. I checked back mainly because I thought it would be easier to get value on a later street from hands that I beat (JJ,TT), to disguise my hand a bit and for pot control in case he flatted KK+. Obviously we get a great turn and I was expecting to see AK from them most of the time but instead was shown 9Ts for an up and down straight draw. 82% equity was not enough They told me “sorry, I was tilted” afterwards lol.

Anyhow, I’m looking to log some serious volume this weekend. Tomorrow will be poker-free, however, as there’s the big end of the year party at UBC all day long. The last of my uni friends are graduating this year so this will likely be my one last hurrah on campus as well. I’m scheduled to play in a beer pong tournament starting at 11am and should be feeling pretty good by the time the block party begins. It’s basically just a big field turned into a concert setting…the headliners are actually pretty good this year (Mother Mother and MSTRKRFT) and there will be plenty of drunk 19 yr old birds flocking around so I expect a good night. Will keep you posted. Expect plenty of drunk tweets…always dangerous!

gl at the tables!

So last night I got the opportunity to do something pretty cool as I was asked to be one of two featured guests (the other was fellow Team Onliner and MTT superstar mement_mori) on the weekly 2+2 PokerCast. The show is actually done in a studio right here in Vancouver so I just drove for about 15 minutes and did the interview live in person. The studio was very impressive and resembled what could be any guy’s “mancave,” fully equipped with a big TV, guitars hanging on the wall, computers everywhere, speakers and to top it all off, the whole thing was sound proof. Definitely a cool place to hang out. I walked in just as Mickey was finishing up his interview over the phone/skype and took a seat on the couch and watched the guys do their thing. All three guys (Mike, Adam, and James) were super friendly and very professional and you could tell that they had these podcast recordings down to a science. When it was my turn to take the hot-seat, I put on a pair of headphones and we talked about a whole bunch of things…some of the things covered included the short film, my year that I got SNE, the year that followed that, being at the PCA, SNE grinding and relationships, me being a nit, ZOOM poker and more. Anyways, if you haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet here’s a link to the podcast:

http://pokercast.twoplustwo.com/

I think I come in around the 1:30:00 mark. Have a listen and let me know what you think!

At the poker tables, I was hoping to get a lot more grinding done this month than I have but too many distractions keep popping up (mostly poker related). At this point, my goal for the rest of March is to just take care of all of these distractions and clear my schedule for a solid grind in April. The distractions that I’m talking about are mainly making poker videos (I’m currently working on 3 for PSO and will be doing 10 by the end of the year, I’ll also be making a couple of full-ring strategy vids for UltimateGrinders.com) and it’s been an especially busy week surrounding the release of my short film. I’ve also been doing some work regarding PSO live training…I’m going to be doing some live training sessions twice a month starting in April I believe. Aside from the poker stuff, there’s been a few other outside boring distractions to take care of and when you factor that all in it becomes tough to grind. Anyways, the PSO living training and joining UltimateGrinders definitely warrant their own blog posts and I’m planning on getting those out in the near future…for now I just wanted to do a brief update.

It’s not like I’ve played no poker this month…I’ve actually logged around 50K hands and have played 11 sessions and each one of them has been a winning session. I think I’m probably up around $2K at the tables but with minimal rakeback that doesn’t add up to a whole lot Still, I think that I’m playing really well and am winning at over 4bb/100 despite playing 24 tables the whole time. I’ve also had a chance to test out ZOOM poker a bit and really enjoy it. I’ve tried tinkering with a few different ways to incorporate ZOOM into my sessions-first I tried to tile the 4 tables (currently you can only play 4 ZOOM tables of any limit as a max, I’m not sure if this is going to be changed when the official version is released) and I like the benefit of being able to access the fast fold button on each table but the hands/hr only come to about 8-900 from what I’ve seen. To increase my hands/hr, I decided to play the 4 ZOOM tables and then added 4-8 regular tables as well and stacked them. By stacking, you lose the benefit of the fast fold button but my hands/hr still came out to about 15-1700, which is really good.

My experimenting with ZOOM leads me to my volume goals for April…I’m going to try and play at least 200,000 hands in April, something that I can easily do and will help me earn about 40K-50K VPPs and hopefully net me some good cash at the tables. Once I have a bunch of videos made and out of the way, I’ll really try to take advantage of a less busy schedule and get back to actually playing a heavy amount of volume. I only need to average about 7k hands a day, which is only 4-5 hours of play for me and with a little discipline I should be fine. We’ll see I’ll also try and blog every few days with poker updates since well, this is a poker blog after all…

I’ve also just got over a cold that I’ve been dealing with over the past few days today. Just a minor head cold that I felt coming on a bit Friday yet still decided to go out and drink at a club with my roommate and some friends. I don’t regret it though, I had a great time. **Edit for reasons that should be obvious ;)**

Time for bed,

gl at the tables!

1. Can you tell me details about how you went from college to poker in terms of the transition?

In my first year at university I had a very small amount of money in my poker account (around $50-$100) and I would play very casually and infrequently in my downtime. Poker was definitely not a main focus throughout my university career and I saw it only as a way to try and earn some extra spending money on the weekends while I directed most of my efforts towards my studies. After several very small victories and withdrawals ($15-$50), I made the decision to stop withdrawing money for a while since it seemed like a smarter idea to instead try and grow my bankroll so that I could ultimately play higher stakes, win more money and make bigger cashouts. The growth of my bankroll was a slow and tedious process that took about 3-4 years of hard work as I continued to work on my degree while balancing poker in the background. After finishing my 4^th year at UBC in the spring, I needed to enroll in only one more semester in the fall in order to complete my Bachelor of Arts degree. At this time, I had grown my poker bankroll from my initial deposit way back in my first year to $10,000. I decided to use the summer before my last semester at UBC as a test run to see if I could try and support myself with poker and to see if I would even enjoy it. Jumping into poker full time was not an easy decision and I knew that it was a pretty big risk because had I not found success early and lost $4,000 (my stop loss point), I would have needed to withdraw the remaining $6,000 to pay for life expenses in the fall and my bankroll would be decimated (and I would have in all likelihood abandoned poker). I also did not have the initial support of my parents, who thought that I was more or less just goofing around playing a game. Regardless, I’m someone that usually plans for the worst case scenario and I really couldn’t see myself earning anything less by playing poker than I could at my previous summer jobs so I decided to go ahead and do my own thing with hopes that I would exceed my own expectations. Thankfully, I managed to put together a very profitable summer earning more money that I could have ever hoped for by playing poker and got a taste of what life would be like if I chose to play poker full-time. However, I never even thought for a second that I would drop out of school and abandon my degree and I went back in the fall and completed it. I wasn’t really mentally prepared to partake in the immediate transition of school to employment right after graduation…I knew that I wanted some time off but doing common things that would empty my bank account, such as travelling, seemed a bit too anti-productive for me. Instead, I decided to just hang around with my awesome roommates and see if the poker thing could work out for me in the short or long run. I told myself that I would just take it one month at a time and 2 years later, here I am. 

2. You were an art major yes? Why no interest in pursuing that? Do you do anything artistic these days?

I completed a Bachelor of Arts with a major in political science and a minor in economics from UBC. Admittedly, however, I was never very passionate about either subject…although I did enjoy studying both at the time. My original passion was to get into commerce out of high school but after my marks ended up falling a bit short, I decided to take 2 years of general studies in arts instead and then try to transfer faculties. Unfortunately, my marks were still not good enough for me to get into commerce after the 2 years so I ultimately fell into my degree not wanting my time already invested to go to waste. Now that I have my degree, I may end up using it at some point in my life but with having no real passion for the subject to begin with, I get much more enjoyment out of playing poker full-time.

Haha, I think you misunderstood my degree J…I’m not very artistic, my brother got those genes.

 3. What do you fine to be most unique about yourself?

I think that I’m unique in the fact that I’m able to lead a pretty balanced and normal lifestyle while doing something relatively abnormal (poker) to pay the bills. I manage to put a lot of time and effort into poker but at the end of the day my social life rarely suffers.

I applied to be a member of Team Online mainly for the unique opportunities that I hoped would come along with the job. At the end of the day, like any repetitive job, poker can get a little mundane once you fall into a daily routine and it’s nice to have a couple of different poker-related things on the go. Things like media involvement, Final Table hosting, getting recognized at the tables etc. all contribute to making my days more exciting and different. Also, since poker is such an individual activity, I was looking forward to meeting and interacting with a lot of new people within the poker community. Of course, the money that comes along with the sponsorship also relieves some of the stress that can come along with the swings in poker.  

5. What are your future poker goals?

All that I’ve ever wanted out of poker is for it to set up some kind of passive income for myself so that I can wake up in the morning and not HAVE to work to survive. Of course I will always do something with my time but I just really want that feeling of owning my own home and having additional money coming in from somewhere (whether it be from a rental property or investments) to relieve any financial pressure that I may be feeling. Over the last two years with poker, I’ve found a relatively consistent way to earn pretty good money by playing a lot of tables at low/midstakes cash games. As far as my future goals are concerned, I really just want to keep myself motivated to keep up the grind and accomplish my goals that I just outlined. For me, I’m not really the kind of person that needs to be moving up to higher stakes as fast as possible. My approach is much more cautious and calculated…I’m going to play the games that I feel comfortable in and that I feel will make me the most money. This is always how I’ve tried to approach the game and while I may be missing opportunities to fast-track my way to millions of dollars, I also avoid the pitfalls of going broke overnight. I don’t really have a set time frame for how long I want to play poker but I see myself playing at least for the next several years. I would like to dabble in some more tournaments online and keep up with my social media as well. 

6. What do you choose to write a blog (pre-team online that is

When I first began playing poker full-time, I chose to start a blog for a couple of reasons. In general, I thought that it would be a good way to set goals for myself and be held accountable for them. Even if nobody read the blog, having it out there kind of put some pressure on me to follow through with my plans. Another reason why I like having a blog is that when people do start to read it, you can discuss strategy with each other and interact with your peers that you see at the tables every day. As far as talking about my blog and situation specifically, I hoped that people would be able to see that you can make good money playing poker and still have plenty of time to do other things in your life (travel, party, sports etc). It’s a really good feeling when I hear people tell me that they get inspired from my limited success in poker and when they tell me that they want to do the same with their lives.

As far as why I choose to write about my nights out in very personal detail…well, when I originally started up my blog, the only 3 people that would read it were my roommates. None of them really cared about poker so I started writing about our evenings out since they were all usually involved in some way or the other. I really didn’t even think about censoring myself or omitted embarrassing/douchey material because my friends all know me well enough to withhold any judgments about me that one might take from a blog post. Once other people started to find my blog, I found that complete strangers were also entertained by my outings…probably more so than the poker content (even if they were poker players too). I’m the type of person that can easily laugh at myself when I find myself in a ridiculous situation so I don’t really feel afraid to hold anything back when I’m blogging. What I am careful about doing is keeping the people that probably don’t want to be in my blog anonymous…I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and even though everything that I write is pretty light-hearted, I would feel pretty bad about ruining someone’s day.

7. What do you think of the short film?

I was very impressed by the film. I think that the editing job was amazing and really represented how I live a “poker lifestyle.” I think that it was cool to get the perspective of some of my friends as well.

8. Was it fun to make?

The movie was a ton of fun to make. It was a long day (probably 12 hours for a 8 minute video!) but the whole time I enjoyed getting a taste of what it could be like to be famous, even if on such a micro level. The best part was probably going downtown at night and having the guys follow my “entourage” with cameras as we toured different bars and clubs. The attention that comes along with everything is pretty fun and I feel as if I played “movie star” for a day.

9. What do you hope people get from your film?

As with my blog, the main thing that I hope people get from this film is that it’s possible to balance playing poker full-time with your social life. You don’t have to sacrifice one to excel in the other and even though it may require a lot of hard work, in the end it’s a very rewarding feeling.

Just want to say a quick thanks to everyone for sharing and watching the video…already over 16K hits in less than 2 days is pretty awesome! Here’s one more link if you haven’t seen it yet. I’ve been making an effort to read and respond to some of the comments so let me know what you think (good or bad, IDC).

To put this film into context for you, it was shot about one or two months after this http://frosty012.com/2011/05/victory/, where I put in a heavy last minute grind in May 2011 to save my Supernova Elite VIP status on PokerStars. The film divulges the story of my poker background through interviews and some outside perspectives from some of my closest friends. I talk a lot about what I like to do away from the tables and I would say that the main theme of the film is how one can balance their online poker career with their social life. My acting skills are also put to the test with a little reenactment of my hectic grind at the end of May, where all of the stresses that I faced in that moment along with the sweet relief of victory are relived. Anyways, take a look and I hope you all enjoy it!

The making of this film was done near the end of last summer and was a very unique experience. I always find it interesting to hear inside perspectives so I’ll try and share a bit about the whole process of making the film. Basically, three guys were flown up to Vancouver (a director, a sound guy and a camera man) and were responsible for everything. Before I even met any of the film crew, I talked to the director (Ryan Firpo) via Skype a couple of months earlier and we decided what kind of things that we were going to focus on in terms of central themes. When the crew ended up arriving in Vancouver, they showed up on a Friday night right after the Canucks won a playoff game against Boston in the Stanley Cup Finals. The city was going crazy and everyone was in party mode so we went out for dinner and drinks and got to know each other while we discussed how things would unfold in order to make the film. Things had to be filmed in only one day so we managed to call it a relatively early night and agreed to meet on Saturday morning to make the film.

The next day, the guys brought a van full of equipment over to my apartment and turned my 2 bedroom place into what resembled a high budget porno shoot (not that I’m speaking from personal experience ). Big reflectors were placed around the room and cameras were positioned from a few different angles to record the interview.

The plan for the day was to record the interview, break for lunch, do the reenactment and then follow me for a night out on the town after dark. Only having done one brief interview before, I struggled at the start of the interview process because I was trying to word my answers well and ended up over-thinking things. After a while, I became more comfortable and used to the situation and things started to flow more naturally. The interview took a long time (didn’t help that we’d have to pause every now and then when a faint train noise could be heard in the background) but by the end of it everyone was happy that we had got all of the information that we wanted. The rest of the day unfolded smoothly and just as we were finishing up the reenactment, some of my friends that I had planned on going out with that night started showing up to my place. The whole scene in the film when we’re in my living room having some beers was actually not even planned-nor were the conversations or insight from my friends. What ended up happening was that we were all just relaxing trying to decide what we wanted to do for the night and Ryan decided to turn a couple of cameras on (mainly because he is filming like everything all the time, lol). I think he saw some potential for the film and started throwing out some questions about my start in poker etc. and that’s when other people started chiming in. As it turns out, I think that that scene is pretty awesome as it shows how people with a different point of view observed my poker beginnings.

A little bit later, we left my place and all went out for dinner and then ended up downtown at a country club. I was wearing a mic, as were two or three of my friends and we were unsure how/if the camera crew would be able to take any equipment inside the club. In the end, it was no problem to get a couple of smaller cameras inside along with our mics. Thankfully, no audio from the club was used in the film (I can only imagine some of the drunken conversations that were captured haha, especially when I was talking to random girls) but some footage was included at the end. I had planned on using the situation of paparazzi-like pictures being taken of my friends and I to impress some women but for reasons that I cannot remember (or choose not to remember), I had zero success. And that was that…we ended up leaving the club, shaking hands with the film crew and parted ways.

I’d like to thank Ryan and the guys for coming to Vancouver and making the film…it was a pleasure working with you all. It was really fun to have the opportunity to do something this cool and The attention that comes along with everything is pretty fun and I feel as if I played “movie star” for a day!

gl at the tables.