Back to Civilization / Goal update
I was in the middle of Amish country over the weekend riding at camp Woodward with a bunch of friends. Driving through the town is like going back in time 200 years. The Amish drive around on the side of the road in their horse and buggies and only wear goofy black and white clothes. They live exactly how movies like King Pin portray them.
It was great not having to worry about email, poker politics, and internet for a few days, but if it wasn’t for the skate-parks, I’d probably go nuts out there. I don’t know how people can live like that. I need the technology.
I’ve actually been following through with a lot of my new years goals. So far I’ve completed the goal to get a Wii and run another bloggerpods tournament. Those were the easiest, although I did have to wait out in freezing weather for 6 hours to get my Wii.
– So far the most rewarding one has been learning nose manuals (with no brakes) on my bike. It’s even more rewarding then trying to make $50,000 or getting high search engine rankings with my site.
I’m sure nobody reading this can relate to learning a bike trick, but you can probably understand what it’s like to try something for what seems like forever and then finally start to ‘get’ it.
I’ve been working on these nose manuals every chance I get, usually alone in front of my house or behind some building. For months I’d just flip over my handlebars for hours trying to figure out if it’s even possible to do without brakes. Lately i’ve been able to find that balance point and I’m starting to learn to manipulate my weight in-order to stay there. I swear, it’s the most rewarding feeling ever, even with nobody around. I still don’t have full control in them, but I can feel it coming.
– I didn’t have the balls to try flairs at woodward, but i’m pretty sure I’ll be able to learn them this year.
– Pushups are going well. I’ve been staying in good shape, so I should be able to reach 100 by around summer.
– I’ll either need to get a lot more productive while I’m on my computer or get lucky to make $50,000 this year. I’m very easily distracted.
– I’m not sure about the future of Donkit. Both Kjell and I haven’t had a chance to put much time into it lately.
– The odds are obviously against me winning $5,000 in a poker tournament, but I’m not ruling this one out just yet.
Makes you think twice about playing poker online…
I’m not sure if this video is good or bad for online poker, but it’s by the PPA so i’m pretty sure they have good intentions.
Bloggerpods 2 and the freeroll whores.
I’m really excited about the second bloggerpods tournament (March 4th - get in!). The competitive part of is starting to take over and I’m already strategizing how I’m going to win. I know that if it’s anything like the previous one, when a blogger plays a hand like they have aces, it’s almost guaranteed to be the hammer.
One thing I’m amazed at is how many freeroll whores there are! For every true blogger, there’s about 5 people trying to sneak into the tournament with a fake blog or excuses. I actually had one person send me an angry email saying it was my fault that he didn’t have a blog and demanded I send him the password 
Sometimes I have fun with the freeroll whores that don’t fill in a website and let them dig themselves into a hole. Here’s a good one:
“joe smith wrote: lets go!!!
Website: hey there
Username: (removed)”“Joe, This tournament is for players who are active in the blogging
community. Do you have a blog with a history of regular updates?”“I always blog and I love poker. My wife and I blog on her myspace…”
“Well, send me a link and I’ll let you know if it qualifies.”
“no thanks, didnt know it was going to be a hassle to join a freeroll!”
Thanks to everyone who showed there support and joined so far. There’s 25 bloggers registered right now, with a week to go. It’s shaping up to be an awesome tourney.
Why online poker is incredibly fun!
I admit my last post was somewhat depressing. The polotics might be getting to me because I don’t always feel that way about poker. Even without gambling and playing out of your range it can be a really fun and challenging game.
The first thing that first drew me to this game was the challenge. I knew it was possible to make money playing online poker and I wanted to be one of those winning players. Before I even made a deposit I went to the book store and bought internet texas holdem by Matt Hilgar and joined the Internet texas holdem forum to learn as much as I can.
Probably the most helpful lesson I learned was to start start low and only move up a limit when I had the proper bankroll. The idea behind starting at low stakes and building up is to prove that you have the skills to beat a limit before moving up to a new limit.
This challenge really brought me into the game. Something about trying to build a huge bankroll from nothing, using long term skill, was a lot of fun for me. It was even more exciting when I started charting my daily results and seeing how my efforts were paying off.
Besides actually playing the game, I love the drama that goes on in the poker community. It’s pure entertainment sometimes. Watching someone go from $100 to $50,000 to $0 in a day, a young gun taking on a respected pro in a high stakes games, seeing $300,000 pots slide across the virtual tables… It’s pure entertainment!
And the corniest one is the cumminity. This keeps in the game even after I get burnt out from playing. I don’t play to much poker lately, but I still follow the forums and read blogs daily.
Wow, I almost want to start playing seriously again!
Why online poker is incredibly boring!
Other then the occasional tournament with fellow bloggers, I’m officially burnt out from playing poker. I’ve come to realize that it’s just a dull game. The only thing that makes it exciting is the gamble when money’s involved. And when you get used to the stakes you’re playing it gets boring boring again. This is why people move up to stakes they can’t afford - so they don’t die of boredom.
The main issue I have with poker is the learning curve. Once you know the basics in game play, theory, and psychology, there’s not much left other then tweaking those skills - a slow boring process.
Today many winning players are essentially bots. They run 10 tables with poker tracker stats overlaid on their tables and play like a computer. Programs that play poker for you are looked down upon, but that’s pretty much what these 10 tabling grinders are. Playing human poker bots is no fun!
If all of the sites closed down real money tables, how many of you would continue playing for fake money? Probably none. But if you take that analogy to a sport or game you’re into then the answers will probably be completely opposite. I know that I’d ride bmx with the same passion whether or not I was making money.
So what do you think? Is poker boring? And if not, what makes you keep coming back for more?
Ten goals for 2007
Rather then making one huge goal for this year, I decided to do a bunch of little ones. Here they are:
- Make $50,000 without poker - This one’s a bit greedy, but I want to finish this year $50,000 ahead, working for my self.
- Get really good google results with pokeronamac.com - I’m finally making the top 10 results for some of my pages. Unfortunately, google is listing me at around #5-10 instead of #1. To get there i’ll have to keep writing quality content and building relivent links.
- Run another bloggerpods tournament - It’s been a while since the last bloggerpods tournament and I promised that i’d make another. Bonus points if it gets a larger turnout then the first one.
- Learn brakeless nose manuals (BMX) - These are hard as hell. I average about two parking spots right now and can sometimes do three. My goal is to reach 7 parking spots.
- Learn flairs (BMX) - I really think I can do these, but they’re really scary to try. A flair is a backflip 180 on a quaterpipe. I’m going to woodward this spring, so mayble i’ll try to learn them there. I’ll post a video of the results
- 100 pushups without stopping - I was going to say 150, but I’m way to lazy for that. I can do about 60 real pushups without any practice, so i’m pretty confident i’ll be able to do 100 next year.
- Own a Wii - I’ve gone out Wii hunting almost every sunday morning since they’ve been released and always come back empty handed. One day…
- Win more then $5,000 in a poker tournament - this will be hard considering I barely play poker anymore.
- Grow donkit - Remember Donkit? The site is doing really good right now, but it still has a lot of room to grow. Me and Kjell want to grow the ‘donk’ brand.
- Create a viral website - The goal is to make a website so incredibly retarded, that it’s actually genius.
What Really Happened to Stacks Poker
Everyone remembers stacks poker, right? They were a new poker room that created a lot of buzz with their 3d poker software and the generous promotions they promised to big players. Unfortunately they kept pushing their release dates back and were never able to make it past beta stage.
While this was happening, nobody really knew what was going on. Some people even thought Stacks never planned to go live and was just using the site to build a massive email list of poker poker players. I made a post with my oppinion on stacks here.
It turns out my judgement was off. Just yesterday an ex stacks employee was nice enough to reply to this post with what really happened to stacks poker.
I used to work for Stacks. In case you’re interested to know what really happened…
The two guys that started the company Darryl and Tom were great to work for and really had a vision for what Stacks could be. They had an investor who I wont name, who made life extremely difficult for them from the get go. As a result of this investor their gaming license wasn’t granted in the fall of ‘05 as expected, and they didn’t receive approval until late January ‘06. They were forced to delay the beta testing because of the license delay from the gaming commission.Once early beta began in February, Stacks started to let players in slowly, as they worked out relatively small bugs, and continued optimizing the 3D client. All of this coincided with a round of financing that had been promised by the main investor. The day came to close the financing, and the investor decided to try and steal the company away from the two guys that had slaved away for nearly 1 full year to build this awesome product.
Darryl and Tom have both moved on to great jobs, and are destined for great things, while their investor, who is a socially retarded, manic depressive jackass (only 28 years old) is back in the States somewhere, and apparently still thinks he can launch the site… proof of just what an idiot this guy is.
Apparently Darryl and Tom tried to work with another group in the early summer of ‘06 to refinance the company and buy out the investor. The investor apparently messed the whole deal up, and Darryl and Tom revoked their offer and willingness to work out any further deal. Both decided to move on with their professional lives.I had a great time working with both Darryl and Tom, and will remain friends with these guys for a long time to come. I would jump at the opportunity to work with either of them again.
Holy Crap - Poker Videos!
I almost forgot to mention my new poker training site. I started Donkit a few months ago, with Kjell. At first we we were going to only sell ebooks, but we quickly realized that was a retarded idea and moved to poker videos.
The biggest feature that separates Donkit from other videos sites is that you can buy the videos you’re interested in individually, rather then having to set up a reoccurring monthly subscription with a large base fee. Also we’re going to put up other material besides videos, like curtains famous SNG chart.
All the videos we put up are really good. It makes me realize how little I actually know when watching how players like Newt buggs and cero-z play while explaining what they’re doing.
Here’s an example from cero-z’s second video (4 tabling 6max 2/4nl - not up yet). He raises to $14 with A3o in the in the fifth position. The button calls, and then the small blind pops it up to $44. For me this would be an instant fold. Cero z decides that the small blind is squeeze betting, so he three bets the pot to $145. Both players fold right away.
Here’s another example from newt_buggs $225 turbo video nearing the bubble. It’s in quicktime format, so you may need to download the player (worth it). http://www.donkit.com/demo/newt/newt1.mov.
I’m really excited about Donkit so far - especially the sweet logo. If you buy a video, let me know what you think. Or better yet, blog about it (everyone has a blog now, right?).
If only poker was this easy
I wonder if this is how Phil Ivey feels while playing poker? (It gets good about a minute in)
Phil Ivey vs. sbrugby - ?
I was watching 200/400nl heads up match at Full Tilt Poker between Phil Ivey and Sbrugby. I wasn’t closely watching the game, but it seemed pretty normal until this hand…
Full Tilt Poker Game #1317960514: Table Canfield (6 max) - $200/$400 - No Limit Hold’em - 5:05:23 ET - 2006/11/28
Seat 3: sbrugby ($81,976)
Seat 6: Phil Ivey ($135,295.20)
sbrugby posts the small blind of $200
Phil Ivey posts the big blind of $400
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
sbrugby raises to $30,800
Phil Ivey has 15 seconds left to act
Phil Ivey raises to $135,295.20, and is all in
sbrugby: !#&$ me
sbrugby: such bs
sbrugby: &@%%ing a
sbrugby has 15 seconds left to act
sbrugby calls $51,176, and is all in
Phil Ivey shows [Kd 9c]
sbrugby shows [8c Ah]
Uncalled bet of $53,319.20 returned to Phil Ivey
*** FLOP *** [8d 7s 8s]
*** TURN *** [8d 7s 8s] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [8d 7s 8s Qh] [5s]
Phil Ivey shows a pair of Eights
sbrugby shows three of a kind, Eights
sbrugby wins the pot ($163,951.50) with three of a kind, Eights
Phil Ivey stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $163,952 | Rake $0.50
Board: [8d 7s 8s Qh 5s]
Seat 3: sbrugby (small blind) showed [8c Ah] and won ($163,951.50) with three of a kind, Eights
Seat 6: Phil Ivey (big blind) showed [Kd 9c] and lost with a pair of Eights
sbrugby: best misclick ever
Phil ivey immediately closed out of all his tables afterwards.
The summary:
- sbrugby misclicks and makes the pot $30,800 preflop.
- Phil Ivey raises him $135,000, more then enough to put him all in.
- sbrugbly makes a crying call because of pot odds and puts the rest of his $82,000 stack in.
- Phil ivey only had K9os?!
- sbruggby wins the $164,000 pot with K9.
I can’t imagine what phil Ivey was thinking during this hand. Even if he puts sbrugby on a misclick, he only has King high, and sbrugby had 40% of his stack committed.
