Contrary to what my initial post reported, apparently starting a blog alone does not motivate you to put in hands. I think it’s been a combination of things, but it didn’t help that I took a first shot and misplayed some hands. Unfortunately that session rattled my confidence and knocked me out of my rhythm. Luckily my mentor, Thac from 2p2, who has said he doesn’t mind if his identity is revealed, agreed to sweat me for me 2nd “shot session” and this went pretty well. I think I made almost all of the decisions that he would have advised, so it was great to see that my line of thinking was on par with someone whose game I respect. Of course there were some hands where I was unsure about bet sizing or whether I should fire a second barrel or something, but I was happy with my play overall. If it wasn’t for a pretty sick (read: std) cooler against one of the biggest fish I’ve ever seen (he was playing an amazing 100/3 game), I would have had one of my best online sessions to date.

On the real life side of things I’m going to be traveling quite a bit over the next few months. I hope to get down to AC with some of my friends before I head out. The pace of play is maddeningly slow, and for the most part you’re playing with people who you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy, but I can’t help it, I love to play live. Amongst the majority of the younger, internet-bred players I think I’m in the vast minority, but I’m okay with that. I’m pretty nitty when it comes to gambling in general, so I don’t play the table/pit games much, but I kind of want to learn how to play craps because it seems like such a fun, social game. Of course, I’m probably intoxicated by the idea of having a smoking hot girl on my arm to blow on my…errm, dice.

As for my travel plans, I’m heading out to the Bay Area in California to visit my mom for 2 weeks. While I’m there I’m planning on hitting up Lucky Chances a few times (assuming all goes well in AC), as well as meeting up with 2p2ers Goofyballer & Snipe, who I know from playing COD. When I’ve been out there before I pretty much stuck to hanging out with my mom and my brother, and it’s hard to really experience what an area fully has to offer when you’re hanging out with your straight-edge younger brother and the maternal unit. It’ll be nice to hang out with some poker-playing peers and experience the night life.

After I return from Cali, I’ll pretty much be making a beeline for my buddy’s beach house that he rented down in Wildwood (the Jersey shore). Most of my friends have beach houses and we used to have one down in Avalon, but I absolutely love the beach and will be staying at his place as long as I’m physically able/allowed to. Throw in Wildwood’s quasi proximity to AC, and I’m really looking forward to this week or two.

Following my time amongst the waves and chip shuffling, I’ll be heading to Bermuda for a week. I’m hoping to bring a friend or two along to make the trip even better. I’m incredibly lucky in that my family has a time share there, and I’ve been tagging along for almost all of my 23 years. I’ve been to the Caribbean and Hawaii, and Bermuda is still my favorite place in the world. It’s absolutely gorgeous, clean, affluent, and sophisticated. It doesn’t quite have the partying scene that some of the other islands do, and there are no casinos/public poker games, but when you bring fun friends and know when the cruise ships come into port, you can bring the party.

Finally, if I have any money and/or energy left over after my excursions, I hope to head out to Vegas. Thac’s 21st is in early September, and it would be awesome to meet up with him and help him celebrate an American’s most important birthday. However, there are so many factors that go into the feasibility of this trip, it’s hard to say if it’s realistic. Here’s to hoping we both run well so we can have a week filled with non-stop drinks and stacking donks. Expect an epicccc TR if this does happen. I apologize for so much non-poker related content, but then again if you were reading just for the poker, you wouldn’t have gotten down this far! Take care.

POP (thanks Edmond)

Greetings fellow tworaggers! I've been a long time fan and avid reader of the blogs on this site, so I figured I should finally make an account here and start a little blog of my own. Hopefully this can serve the dual purpose of keeping those interested in how I've been doing and what I've been up to in the loop, as well as giving me additional motivation to put in hands and (hopefully) play my best. I should forewarn you that I enjoy writing & that I’m fairly loquacious, so feel free to give me a tl;dr if you stopped by!

I'm 23 years young and currently live in the great state of NJ (don't knock it until you've been here; no, flying into Newark Airport doesn't count as a legitimate visit). I learned how to play poker 3 years ago, and from the moment I first got stacked, like many others, I was intrigued. The competitiveness and mental sparring of the game, combined with the rush of uncertainty, provides the ideal formula for adrenaline-inducing action. I started reading books right away, founding the cornerstone of my poker library with HoH. Reading the various HoH volumes and visiting the 2p2 forums alone allowed me to enjoy the small stakes SNGs I played with my friends far more, but I wanted more than mere pittances.

I put $50 online and splashed around the low stakes SNGs for over a year, oblivious to many key concepts such as proper bankroll management. Although I was mildly successful at the $5 and $10 SNGs and low level MTTs, I wasn't making much progress towards moving up in limits. After running my initial deposit up a couple hundred dollars, I eventually cashed out and didn't play for real money online for a couple of months.

The next step up in my poker career was when I decided to take a somewhat blind leap of faith and play live for far more money than I had ever risked previously. I figured I had beaten my friends and online fairly steadily, so why not try playing in a casino? I was in Lake Tahoe with my mom visiting some of her friends, and I decided one night to drive to Reno & head to the Peppermill to play some $1/2. I borrowed $300 from my mom and didn’t know what to expect. I ended up wandering outside the casino around 3:30 am with a smirk that wouldn’t go away for a day and $1200 in my pocket. The feeling of watching as the dealer had to make 3 motions to award me the pot and taking 3 minutes just to stack your chips was pure euphoria. I had butterflies and couldn’t stop thinking about all the hands I had played that night. When I got back to the house at 4:30 my mom woke up and I showed her the fan of cnotes. Her shock and happiness with my success was a great feeling.

Fast forward 2 years later, and not much had changed since my victorious night in Reno. I had played live probably 15 times since with similar "crushing the game" results. I paid for 2 vacations to St. Maarten, with money left over, from live winnings I made on the island. I basically turned into a video-game-playing, partying bum for a while and lived off my live proceedings, occasionally playing online at different sites for a few months at a time. I ran some micro deposits and the selling of play money up a couple hundred dollars numerous times on various sites. I had expanded my poker library by about 10 more quality books (I made sure to read extensive reviews, as a poorly-written book can do more harm than good for your game), but I was still just a speck of krill in a vast ocean.

One day a few months ago I decided I was tired of being a low limit baller. I wanted to get more serious about my game. Part of this was influenced by becoming much more active on 2p2. Posting more, reading more than just NVG, BBV, and B&M, and trying to meet and connect with people in the community. The other influence was when I became involved with an awesome group of guys through 2p2 who played COD together. I quickly joined their inner circle and ended up becoming friends with several of them, one of whom I consider a very good friend and somewhat of my poker mentor & coach. He provides me with lots of useful tips and discussion, and he’s a really cool guy to boot, so I’m fortunate and appreciative to have met him. He’s a prominent 2p2er, but I won’t give his name yet to save him the embarrassment of being associated with a low roller. He's a fantastic coach though, and I would highly recommend him to any uNL & SSNL players out there. PM me on here or on 2p2 if you'd like his name.

The first step to taking my game seriously was to start with an actual roll. Micro deposits wouldn’t cut it because I didn’t want to spend time grinding it up, so I took $500 (sadly a significant amount of the money I had saved) and put it on Cake. Things went very well from the start, and over the past 2 1/2 months, I’m proud to say that I’ve doubled my roll & have started taking successful shots at the next limit. I've also been frustratingly close to some significant MTT scores, but come up a bit short.

While I haven’t progressed as quickly as I could have (I probably put in a serious session 1/3 days) or would have liked, I know that my game has improved significantly. I went from the stereotypical TAG player to what I consider to be a good, smart LAG style. I really feel that this style is so much better than TAG at the micro stakes because so many of the players play poorly and/or weak-tight postflop. Merely being in a hand with them, especially as the pf aggressor, negates any disadvantage that starting with mostly weaker hands provides by a longshot. I’m still fairly tame; I don’t squeeze and 3bet as much as I should, but I think my game is in a good state where I pick up a ton of small pots when nobody has a hand worth fighting over, and I almost always have the best of it in the big pots where all the money goes in. I also think the fact that I can play tighter than a nun and looser than a spring break coed means that I have the potential to become a very good MTTer, once I nail down the correct times to switch gears and further understand the nuances of tournament play.

Anyhow, this has gone on long enough, and if you’ve made it down this far, I thank you for reading & hope you’ll check back soon! Take care.

Postoak