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Which Way Should I Go?

david.stolarsky — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:52:28 +0000

Definitely a bunch of directions this blog entry could take. I could go the whole emo route of omg I hate my life, I can’t win at poker, let me cut my wrists. Or I could tell you some of the epiphanies I’ve recently had about money. I could even tell u about how I’ve spent my winter break. Instead of focusing on one thing, I’m gonna try and bring them all together.

Basically, I need money. For the first time in a very long time, I need to make money from poker. I foolishly counted on a friend who owes me a lot of money to be my way to pay rent and other bills this month. Before January, I was trying to get a bet going with a bunch of people on who would play more hours in January because I planned on playing like 24/7. Sometimes, plans change. I’ve chosen to do other things instead of playing which I think is partly because I’m not winning. Unfortunately, now I HAVE to play and kinda pray I start winning. I’m not too concerned. I’m dropping back down to $22s and I’ve had a ton of success over a long period of time in them so I should be ok. Luckily, if I go busto and can’t pay my bills, I have plenty of dorm rooms and empty basements that friends have said I can live in. Thanks guys!

—Don—

I’m In The Bahamas

doublemeup — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:41:05 +0000

Well…….at least I wish I was. That’s all I can think about on this bitter cold day in New England. This afternoon I step foot outside my apartment, slip on a huge patch of black ice and think to myself, God I wish this was sand. I’m definitely torturing myself by following the PCA as it’s going on but I can’t help it. Oh well, I’ll recover.

As far as SNGs are concerned, I’m completely sucking. Granted, I’ve only played 290 $33s butttttt I’m down money. -2% ROI like wtf is that. Obviously I’m panicking because that’s what I do. I’m considering dropping down or even taking time off. Idk, that’s something I’ll have to think a little more about in the coming days.

—Don—

2009

doublemeup — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:29:25 +0000

Yup, it’s that time again. As 2008 comes to a close, it’s time to make some goals for 2009. About a month ago, I half-jokingly told a couple friends that I’d make $100k in ‘09. Then I began to think about it and realized it’s a reasonable goal. I think all I have to do is work hard and put in the time. That may sound egotistical but I think if anyone works hard at something, they can achieve whatever goal they want. Maybe that’s just the dreamer in me, I don’t know.

The other goal I have is live a better lifestyle. When you’re a young single guy living by yourself, checking to see how many carbs are in your dinner isn’t on your “things to do” list. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to become a health freak, I’d still like to be able to enjoy what I eat but getting fast food multiple times a week is not good. I also would like to get on a somewhat normal sleep schedule. When you wake up, check the time, and you’re not sure if it’s am or pm, that’s a problem. Exercising more would be nice. I’ve been thinking about picking up golf for a long time but I know if I do, I’ll probably become addicted and go busto.

Anyways, those are my two goals for 2009. This is definitely an important test year for me as a poker player. It may even be the determining factor of if this is a feasible career for me. I’m usually not the best under pressure but I have so much motivation it’s scary. It’s time to go out and make some fuckin money. Lets goooooooooooooooooo

—Don—

Let’s Recap 2008

doublemeup — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:07:14 +0000

Before I try to make sense of this crazy year, I want to take a look back at the goals I made in the beginning of the year. My three goals were emotional stability, get into a specific routine, and prepare better.

Emotional Stability-This is something that I worked very hard on during the year. Like most poker players, I used to throw random objects after atrocious sessions or beats but I don’t think I’ve thrown a single thing all year. I’ve also gotten 10x better at not letting sessions effect my mood afterwards. Tilting at the tables is something that I still struggle with but I’m getting much better at it. I really feel like I did a lot on achieving this goal and look forward to finding new ways of dealing with it in the coming year.

Get into a specific routine-Hmmmm, well the intent behind this goal was to just basically play more and I did. I thought about this a while back and realized that part of the reason you play poker as your sole source of income is because of the freedom. So why force yourself to play 9-5 or w/e? Instead, I say I’m going to play x amount of hours per week or x amount of sngs per week. I think it works out well.

Prepare Better-Didn’t do an awesome job with this one especially in the eat healthier department. I’ve probably had more fast food in the past 6 months than I’ve had in the past 6 years. Not good imo. But I have really done my research on players. Whether it be when I was playing cash games and would datamine a level for days or now when I’ll find out exactly how well someone plays a particular sng level that I’m moving up to.

2008 was definitely an interesting year. I think I learned a lot about myself as a poker player and more importantly as a person. I have very high expectations for myself in 2009 and I’ll get into that in a future blog. One of my goals most of you already know but I’ll talk more about that later. For now, I’m just gonna enjoy the last couple days of ‘08.

—-Don—-

LOL Foxwoods

doublemeup — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:16:48 +0000

Yesterday was my sisters 22nd birthday so I decided to take her down to Foxwoods because she’s never been to a casino in her life aaaaaand taking a bus to NYC was gonna be too much of a hassle. We get there and immediately head for the slots. Of course she’s pwning the shit out of the 1 cent machines so I wanted to try. No joke, I went 34 spins without getting anything back. Not like I got a cent back, no nothing. God, I run sooooo good. So now that I’m tilted, we head over to the 50 cent machines. Obv I get busted for $20 there so we go to some 25 cent machines. I thought I was playing video poker but found out later it was something else. Anyways, so I spin for 25 cents and ship $36. Then my sister spins and ships $46. Weeeeeeeee

At this point we’re starved so I suggest going to the Hard Rock but at the door they ask if we’re 21. The cute Gothic girl then proceeds to tell us that they have a room in the back for ppl under 21 and we can check it out so I try walking through and I get yelled at. Like ut oh, don’t step on that carpet, it’s for ppl 21+. Joooooooooke. After having to take an elevator to go around the main room, we sit in the empty room. Luckily, the waitor made up for the bitchy hostesses. The guy went so far and beyond what he had to do, def one of the best waiters I’ve ever had and I paid his tip accordingly. lol At this point, we had been playing slots all day and just wanted to play a couple more, cash in, and head home. We try to go back to the video poker machine buttttt get stopped by security for the first time all day. So we decide to try one last place and got in np, but as we go to sit down, some “I’m a tough guy because I run Foxwoods security” yelled at us for our ID’s. Very unprofessional. First of all, it’s your job to stop people at the door so the fact that your security sucks, isn’t our problem. But nbd, I left and she cashed in our remaining vouchers. She ended up winning $85 off my money and who knows how much I lost paying for lunch, dinner, and slots. I really couldn’t care less though because she had a good time and that’s all that matters.

—Don—

The Productivity of a Professional Poker Player

doublemeup — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:30:39 +0000

This is something that I think about a lot. I think whatever job you work, at some point, you think what am I doing here? Why am I doing this? Poker players are no different. In fact, I think they think about it more than most people. Your job requires that you take money from other people in order to maintain your standard of living. What exactly are you giving back to other people or society as a whole? Some argue that you’re providing an entertainment for the recreational player who plays poker for the same reason you go to a movie on a Friday night. Personally, I think you give nothing back. Keeping that in mind, is an employee at McDonald’s a more productive member of society because they provide a service to people? Not necessarily. One would assume that a person working at McDonald’s is making minimum wage and in this economy, that’s barely enough to get them by. In general Professional Poker Players are making more than minimum wage. If for nothing else, the reason being that if they’re consistently making money then they’re going to move up in stakes and therefore profit more money. Now who can afford to give more money to charities? The person struggling to get by themselves, or the person flipping for $6 a hand?

My point is that while yes professional poker players in general are lazy, wake up at 1pm, and may occasionally bet on dumbest things ever, they can be very generous as well. Take Barry Greenstein for example. I just saw a video of him being honored by Childrens Inc. (a charity he’s been involved with for years) where they held a ceremony in his honor because he donated $335,000 to build a gymnasium for underprivileged kids. Just something to think about on this lazy Monday……

—-Don—-

Still Busy

doublemeup — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:29:44 +0000

On Friday, George (champsox) came down to visit from UNH for the weekend. As he was leaving there was a state of emergency in NH and MA………standard. Luckily, the weather here was good especially considering just one town over, they had to close down roads because of flooding. Nevertheless, after losing the retroactive flip for the dinner, we started drinking. Now kids, when you have a test that you haven’t studied for the next morning, do not drink. On my drive to class Saturday morning, after I had already turned onto the highway, I put on my right turn signal, so I was definitely a little out of it. Needless to say, I didn’t do so hot on the test.

BUT apparently I won $120 flipping for $3 a hand online Friday night. I could’ve won more but Derek hit and ran us to do laundry. What.A.Nit. Saturday, I beat George in a HU NLH freezeout, but he owned my soul in the PLO match aaaaaand picking the Heisman winner. Saturday night Lauren came over and we all continued to drink. While doing so, I took George for a lot in 9 Card Omaha but I’m pretty sure I got crushed in the Razz-Like drinking game. He left early Sunday morning and made it home super quick. Going triple digits on the highway ftw. Definitely a good time, and we’ll have to do it again sometime.

My 19th b-day was yesterday but I think I’ll write about it later cuz this blog is getting way too lifey. Unfortunately, I probably won’t have time to play poker till after Christmas soooooo that’s how it’s gonna be for a while.

Kbye

—Don—

December Drama

doublemeup — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:13:27 +0000

December is always the busiest month of the year for me. In my family alone, we have 9 birthdays in December including mine, and most of my friends’ birthdays are also in December. This month, there’s been an added touch of drama. Lots of drama with friends, most of which stemming from the stolen money incident. Then theres school drama with finals approaching next week. Not all of the drama is bad though. I like having to find gifts for friends and family. As poker players, we’re used to taking peoples money day after day so it’s nice to be able to give back.

Unfortunately, the dream of going to Bahamas in January has come to an end. I left a couple hundred bucks on Pokerstars a month ago to grind out the steps and see if I could make something happen but I bricked my final step last night. I couldn’t seem to get past Step 3 but it happens. I don’t think I’ll make the trip down there on my own money since I’ve played three days thus far in December.

What I have decided to do is move to the $33 sngs. Over 2000 $22 sngs, I have a 10% ROI so I feel like I can safely move up. Plus, the only way I lose money by moving up is if my ROI in $33s is 5% or lower. The fact of the matter is I just have to put in the time. If I can play 2000 per month and completely break even, I’ll make $1620 in rakeback. Anyways, I have to go sign up for next semester classes.

Peeeeeeeeeeace

—Don—

End Of November Results

doublemeup — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:29:09 +0000

I set a tentative goal to play 2000 sngs in the month of November but I failed miserably. Part of the reason is I decided to have somewhat of a life and the other reason is I was just really lazy. Anyways, here are the results:

Total Sngs Played: 731

ROI: 15%

Total Profit: $3,001

Hourly Wage: $43/hour

I’ll definitely take these numbers considering how little poker I played this month. I’d like to be able to say that I’ll play 2000 sngs in December but I’m gonna be really really busy so I might end up playing less than 700. I’m also working pretty hard on my game because I think there’s a ton of room for improvement. That’s all for now, on to December!

Grinding

—Don—

An Interesting Friday Night

doublemeup — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:08:45 +0000

Since I forgot what poker is, I’ll share with you the story of my Friday night. Justin and I decided at around 3:30pm to head up to see Bob at his apartment in Norwich. We were just gonna chill for a little bit, maybe play a little poker and then come back to Jason’s house and head home late Saturday morning. We got there and Bob had hooked up his laptop to his zillion inch tv like i requested and tried out an hour in the life of me by 6 tabling sngs. Anyways so at 7:30pm I’m going to start my car and Bob calls. He says “There’s five thousand dollars missing, you guys can either get back in here or go to jail.” If there was ever a time to be thinking wtf it would be here. So we obviously go back inside and he shows us his safe with the key in it. He said he had counted $30,000 in there last night and now there was $25,000 and you could clearly see that a $5,000 bundle had been ripped open and was missing. He said he was home all day and we were the only two people in his house. I was just speechless like I just didn’t know what to say.

I really appreciated how he handled the situation by not wanting to get into a screaming match, not wanting to fight, not wanting to accuse us of anything because I know I would’ve been livid. I asked if he wanted to search us or search my car but he didn’t want to do that. So I thought the only reasonable thing to do would be to call the police. I was more than happy to stay and give a statement to the police about what happened. I never left Bob’s side once the whole time so it’s physically impossible for me to have stolen it. Justin only left his side to get us cups and I guess go to the bathroom. Bob later mentioned that his friend DJ had come over earlier to use his bathroom for like 2 minutes.

The cop was a bum. First of all, it took him like 20 minutes to get there which isn’t surprising but after we gave our statements he didn’t search me, justin, or my car. Like WTF. He just took down all our information and said that we would probably have to submit fingerprints the next day. As I sit here on Sunday morning, I’m still in shock of the whole situation.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I care about my reputation and how my word means everything to me. I would rather have people think of me as a good person than a good poker player and I pride myself on it. So to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time really sucks. I know Bob doesn’t think I was involved in taking the money but unless Justin, DJ, or someone on his floor goes down for this, there will always be that doubt in the back of his head and that really hurts. Of course, I’m being very selfish about all of this. As confused and pained as I am, I can’t imagine what he’s going through. He’s out $5,000 at the moment and he has reason to believe that his own friends took the money. I feel helpless. Bob, if you’re reading this, I told you before but I want to restate that if there’s ANYTHING at all I can do to help please do not hesistate to ask. I want to get your money back, but more importantly, I want to get your trust back.

Helpless

—-Don—-