Hello all!  It’s been a while and we are approaching what will be a year for me since I last played a hand of poker online.  Yes yes, I know you can still play on some other random sites out there.  But to be quite honest, I don’t trust them at this point in time.  The fact that I still have 5 figures wrapped up with Full Tilt still to this day has left a sour taste in my mouth.

The sour taste still lingers, but it is not as bad as it once was.  I do have to admit though, I was extremely depressed for about 6 months there.  So much hard work seemingly down the drain.  I still look forward to the day that I can play online poker in the comfort of my home and easily transfer money from one site to the next.  Ahhhh, yes it is like an american poker player’s wet dream.

I did manage to sneak in a couple live sessions at the closest casino to my home which is in Charles Town, West Virginia (a 3 hour drive for me).  I ended up winning a couple hundred bucks I think in about 5-7 sessions playing for a total of 3-6 hours each session.  (pretty bad stat keeping, right?)  The last session though, made me realize just how I wouldn’t be able to make a living at live poker when the drive is 3 hours away.  I sat there, and sat there, and sat there some more just waiting for the hands.  Being the online action-junkie I couldn’t take it anymore and ended up playing out of my comfort zone.  This would prove to be disastrous as I dropped I believe it was around $800 in about an hour.  But hey, like I said, I still ended up overall.  Since that dead run of cards for a session, I haven’t been back.  The commute back-and-forth just isn’t worth it for the chance to go through another cold deck. So I haven’t played any poker online or live in a few months now.

Just to remind you, I do still have a full-time job.  On that front, things have gotten better.  I am still with the same company, though doing something a little different.  Something is more up my alley.  Though I feel I could be happier elsewhere, I am in no dire need to leave except for the reasons of money, which is definitely WAY TOO LOW.  Especially since half my income, what was my online poker income, is gone to me now.

But anyhow, about being depressed for about 6 months.  I didn’t do a thing.  I was just so extremely unmotivated.  I hope I never experience anything like it again.  Then something just kinda snapped around November/December (around the same time of my last live session).  It was that inner voice telling me I need to get my act together.  Sitting around moping isn’t going to bring online poker back.  All the ideas and things I talked about last post back in April of 2011 were still sitting there,  being left untouched.

So around the middle of December I decided it was time to get to work.  I created a new website.  Something that I hope can really catch on one day.  If it doesn’t that’s OK as I have learned a ton of new things in the short period of time that I have been working on it.  I already have some other great ideas that are in the works and might see the limelight here soon as well.

The site I am working on is called todaysRAGE. The general idea I will get from the about page on the site:

The idea

When you read an article, whether it be in your local newspaper or your favorite website, do you read every single thing from beginning to end?  Be honest.

If you are like most online users, the answer is NO.

Most people will read the title.  See the image.  Then if they are interested, they might read the first paragraph or two and MAYBE scan the rest.  Scanning is not reading though, and some important facts might have been missed by the reader.

Even if you do want to read just the summary from a news publication, it is often just the first paragraph anyway!

This is where todaysRAGE comes in.

The pitch

todaysRAGE is a news and trending-topics resource that provides fact-driven, brief stories based upon what is being sought and shared on the web at any given time.

…And that is pretty much it in a nutshell.  I do have more plans for the site, as they should be released here in the next week.  As of now I am still in build mode.  I started working on the site in the middle of December, and just to remind you… I have no idea what I am doing.  I am not some computer science major.  But one thing I am good at, is learning on the fly.  I have simply just done the same thing I did for nomenot.net.  I just googled “how to do this” and “how to do that” and then just stuck with it through trial and error.

Once I am completely done with build mode, which should be sometime in February.  It will be all about getting people to the site, marketing mode.  I am starting to tell more and more people about the site (as I am doing here), but when I say marketing mode….I mean really hitting up every avenue possible to drive people to the site.  Of course content is king, and that is kind of lacking at this point in time.  I went a week away from posting any new stories to really work on the front page of the site.  I know that is not a good thing.  But for now, I only plan to post one or two stories a day.  After all, there is so much one person can do, especially when it isn’t his full time job.  But maybe one day, it will be.

So to end this already extended update of a post.  I ask that you visit the site and let me know what you think.  I take criticism extremely well so don’t be shy.  You can post here or contact me through todaysRAGE either via the comment section or the contact page.

Until next time……(lets hope online poker comes back soon) good luck!

Where do I start?

Black Friday And My Future

First let me start with the fact that I can no longer play on PokerStars or FullTilt Poker.  I am literally depressed too.  Even though poker is just a money-making hobby for me at the moment, I was seriously considering making a job out of it.  All my plans and hopes were instantly shattered when the United States DOJ handed out the indictment of 11 individuals tied in with online poker.  Specifically PokerStars, FullTilt Poker, and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker.

I am so frustrated at the moment.  The only reason I have stayed at the job I currently have is because it was flexible enough to let me put in a considerable amount of time into my poker game.  Now that poker is basically gone for me, it is time to start looking for a new job.  I really hate my current job.  But the thing is what do I want to do? What skills do I have to offer?

The first question is much harder to answer than the second question.  I feel I have a ton to offer to a prospective employer. The only problem is….I just don’t know if I want to do it.  I just have lost the all “working for the man” lifestyle.  I want to be my own employer.  I don’t want to have to answer to a boss.  That is the problem, and I really just don’t know where to go from here.  As I have said before though, I guess I can be happy that I do still have a job in a time like this though.

So I have been thinking of learning how to program.  Maybe make some programs for Android (phones) or something.  Maybe get a job in programming.  I really don’t know.  But I feel like my personality really meshes well with programming; and if I get good enough, maybe I can start up a company.  Again, I just don’t know.

Was Gearing Up

Back on the poker debacle.  I haven’t hardly played that much at all this year.  I have been really busy working on my game.  I have basically been preparing for making the jump to play poker full-time.  I basically wanted to get all my ducks in a row.  I actually was thinking of making the jump at the turn of the year.  But since I had a pretty rough last couple months of ’10, and the fact that a possible blackout was looming if online poker was legalized and regulated, I decided to hold off for a little while longer.

I was really making great progress with my game.  I did some really in-depth analysis, and was ready to tackle what ever was thrown my way.  After all, I had to have some pretty big leaks to lose over 10k to one player at the end of 2010, right?

Cheated

Well, come to find out maybe I didn’t have as many leaks as I once thought.  Instead, I was playing against a player with an unfair competitive advantage.  If you recall, there was basically one player that was just giving me fits with 5 card draw.  In fact, I have never lost to one player the way I was to this player.  I was (and should have earlier) about to not play him due to the fact he was just better than me.  That alone is quite a lot, as I pretty much will play anyone.  I just have that much confidence in my game.  Yes, there is one or two other players I try to avoid, but if they REALLY wanted to play me, I would have.

But this one player that I was having fits with basically came out of nowhere and was sitting at all limits, and only playing heads-up.  I should have seen the red flags then, but I didn’t.  I mean how often does someone just come out of the blue and plays the better 5 card draw players and just absolutely crushes them?  In fact, this specific player was up on everyone he played except for one.  That “one” wasn’t even really a regular heads-up player either and his small profit was dwarfed by all the other players losses.

This “cheater” was eventually banned from PokerStars.  But the damage was done.  I lost well over 10k to him in a matter of a couple months, and I suspect that he easily made over 50k in that same time with all the opponents he was taking on.  I don’t want to name this “cheater” by name, though I should.  But here is the thing.  PokerStars banned him, but did not refund any of the players affected.  REALLY??? Ugh.  The thing is, once this player showed up and I was pretty skeptical; I emailed PokerStars about this player.  I basically just got a standard response email and it seemed I was just wrong about my assessment.  Remind you though, that just for me to send an email about possible cheating was totally out of character.  In fact, I have never done that before.  Though I have sent a couple “joke” emails asking that the “Doom Switch” be removed.

Anyway…about two months after my email was sent to PokerStars support, more evidence was sent to PokerStars about this player.  Some pretty damning evidence was provided too.  It was pretty obvious, that at the least this player tried to take advantage of the system.  Because of this evidence that was brought on by another player (I will not name names) PokerStars decided to ban this cheater from ever playing on PokerStars again.  But I later found out that PokerStars did not feel they had sufficient evidence to confiscate the cheaters account, thus paying back those that were affected.

What really upsets me is I was down maybe 1-2k at the time I first had suspicions and sent PokerStars an email.  I lost another ~10k over the time period until he was banned.  It was sad that a player had to find the evidence that was out there.  That should be the job of PokerStars security.  I was really let down by PokerStars.  But at least they did take some kind of action.  Full Tilt never did.

That’s right, FullTilt was still letting this player play!  Though, I wasn’t playing him anymore…he was sitting at nearly every limit.  I know they were presented with the same obvious clues to possible cheating that PokerStars was presented with.  The only thing that was ever sent in response from FullTilt, was just a standard response email.  Thanks!  Way to make me feel secure!

This type of stuff is the exact reason online poker needs to be legalized (though it’s not illegal, it just kinda like the Wild West) and regulated.  It will protect the consumer from this exact type of thing from happening.

What was this player doing?  I don’t really want to dive too much into the details.  I do know he had a program that assisted him with his play that no other player had access to.  Even if it just gave him a slight edge, that can be huge and the small edges can accumulate pretty quickly when playing heads-up.

The Aftermath

So after the whole cheating took place.  I was wondering what to do next, should I remove the PokerStars ad on my site?  Should I let everyone know what was going on?  Well I just didn’t know what to do.  But at the advice of the person who submitted the evidence-filled email to PokerStars, he asked that I keep it under wraps for a bit.  But now that time has gone by, and I am not dropping any names; I am letting the cat out of the bag.  What about still being loyal to PokerStars?  Well, I can’t play there anymore.  But really, they were the most secure site to play on.  It was just a shame that this happened and to be honest, I don’t know the whole procedure and righting the wrong over at PokerStars.

When all the smoke cleared from the cheating, lets just say my motivation for playing dropped to an all-time low.  I was having to scramble at the end of each month just to keep my supernova status on Stars.  But away from the virtual felt, I was analyzing what it was this player was doing “well”.  Now there are some things he did extremely poorly, but I think it was more as an image play.  This player, and his cheating ways, basically pointed me to some new directions as far as improving my heads-up game was concerned.  I slaved away at crunching numbers and probabilities.  I improved my game a ton over the first few months of this year.

I was all geared up to take my new-found knowledge to the tables……but then boom, I was not allowed to play anymore simply because I was an American.  Sigh, thank you Department of Justice!

This Blog and Other Websites

I am probably going to stop posting on this blog.  I am just going to let it expire when the time comes.  Sadly, I just don’t have the motivation to keep it updated.  I made a whopping 15 bucks from ads though!  Ha, I know it isn’t the most appealing thing.  Someone trying to make money from their blog, but I was simply just trying to pay for the cost of the website.  After all, I was hoping that I was providing some kind of entertainment/information to those that came to my site.

Instead, my time will now be focused more on some other sites that I have coming through the pipes.  They are strictly business-oriented.  Maybe, if I finish some of them before this blog reaches its deadline, I will provide links.

Again, I also plan to learn how to program.  I would like to make games and apps for computers/cell phones/etc.  This is my future, as I see it right now.

I will hopefully be able to play some poker a little here and there.  Whether it be on the smaller internet poker sites or a brick and mortar casino (closest casino to me is over 3 hours away).  I just don’t know.  But one thing is for sure, I will still keep myself in-tune.  I am looking forward to the day that this so-called “land of the free” allows me to have my hobby/perspective career back.

One thing I need to do is work on my holdem game.  Sadly, 5 card draw is just not that popular.  If it was as popular as holdem, I would already be a millionaire by now (assuming the same quality of opponents).  If I truly want to make the amount of money that I dream of, I don’t see 5 card draw as being a viable avenue.  However, it was a good start!

What could have been and more

One thing I never did was post my full name on this blog.  Mostly because I have bashed my current job situation so many times, I was worried someone at my workplace might come across it.  The day I was to turn pro in poker, I was going to title the post “Hello, My Name is Tommy ____”.  Well, that post is going to have to wait.  In fact, if poker is not legalized by time this blog runs its course.  I might start up another blog in the future, but it will likely just be a blog named after my name.

In fact, I have read how important it is to have a site under your name for possible networking opportunities.  I might create another website, just about me and maybe add a blog there.  It will likely have my work history and a resume for possible future employment opportunities.  Again, this is just a thought running through my head.  Right now I am still just in shock of the recent developments with online poker here in the USA.

Final words

I feel like I am leaving out a few things.  But if they deem to be important to mention, I may post again here in the near future.  But in the meantime, the best thing I can do is direct you to Poker Player’s Alliance’s website.  They are an organization that was created to fight for the right to play online poker.  So if you are from the United States, please email your local and federal representatives to protect this wonderful game of poker here in the States.

Happy belated holidays everyone!

Sorry I haven’t been updating the blog regularly recently. I have had a ton on my plate. This post will help explain some of it.

Poker

Not much going on in poker for me recently.  I just have been pretty unmotivated since I have had such a brutal last couple of months.  I have really “plateaued” recently.  I look at all my graphs in my excel spreadsheet.  I have been pretty much break-even since the end of August.  Not good!  But at least I am not losing I guess.

Nonetheless, I expect to play a TON before year’s end.  Not for any specific reason outside of the fact that I need to make 10k VPPs before the end of the year on PokerStars in order to hit 200k for the year.  With the 200k VPP mark, will come a nice $3,400 bonus.  So it is a must that I reach that mark.  This may require me to play a bunch of games that I normally don’t play, but not reaching 200k VPPs when I am this close will just be throwing money away.

Holidays

I might as well have gotten the best Christmas present ever!  See, back in June, my dad passed away.  It is something that I still don’t think I have fully accepted to this point.  It has been a tough time for me and my family.

But we must carry on, and the present I received from my mom may very well help ease some of the pain that is still left.  I received a quilt from my mom that was made from old shirts that my dad would customarily wear pretty regularly.  As soon as I opened the box and slid away the wrapping paper, I knew exactly what it was.  It was a truly amazing feeling as I could feel my father’s presence as I was glossing over this new quilt.

What a great gift!

Possible Business Ventures

I have been diving back into looking for opportunities to start up some websites for the sole purpose of providing a service and thus providing myself with extra income.  I am not going to mention the names of the websites just yet, but stay tuned as I work on putting these sites together.  If you have been reading this blog close to its inception, you will know that it may take a while as I am a complete novice with this stuff (plus it is not like I have all that much extra time in the day).  But I am excited to think of the possibilities that these sites may bring.  I will keep you posted as these sites reach “ready for public” status.

Back to Work

Sigh, my goal to 60k really just did not pan out like I thought it would.  Though I knew I would likely not hit 60k in poker profit in 6 months, I thought I would do better than what I have.  It has been a brutal 6 months (well July was great).  The plan was to hopefully make somewhere around 50k or more.  This would have provided me with a great cushion to break away from my current job.  But looks like that plan will need to be delayed a little.  I still plan on doing it sometime soon.

But my decision isn’t just based on that.  I don’t know if anyone had been following the “Reid Bill” stuff that was being passed around in Congress for a while there.  But that really got me worried and excited at the same time.  It was basically going to fully legalize and regulate online poker (though right now it isn’t illegal).  But one stipulation that made me worried was the fact that there might have been a so-called “blackout period” that would have given us no online poker at all for 15 months.  LOL!

Well, though the end product would be great, 15 months is a long time without poker.  Though the bill was never really introduced during the lame duck session of congress, I have a feeling it may pop up again sometime in 2011.  If this is the case, and with a 15 months of no poker, I just can’t feasibly leave my current job to play poker full-time.  I could essentially be out of work for more than a year.  With a family I need to take care of, it is just too risky at this point.

So I am keeping my ear close to the ground to hear for anything that may be circulating.  This and my poor last few months have made me reconsider the jump.  But once things turn around, and I feel more secure in the fact that poker will be here for a while, it will likely be time to make the move.

Hopefully some of these websites I have dreamed up will help me leave the job I am currently at and inherently play more poker.  But that is way too premature to even think about, and likely will not be the case.  But it would be nice!

Bun in the Oven

If that wasn’t enough to scare me from making the jump.  The wife is pregnant with number 2!  She is due in late June and I am truly excited.  We should know if it is a boy or girl sometime in February.  It is pretty well-known though that I would like a boy since we already have a girl, but either way….I am excited.  I guess all you can really hope for is for the baby to be healthy.

So yea, I have alot on my plate right now.  It may not seem like much on paper, but it is.  Plus there are always even more random things, but I will save you from more boring details.

Well, I am back from Miami.  It was a blast too.  I went down from Thursday to Sunday and we made the best of our time there.

We had a connecting flight from Richmond Virginia through Atlanta to Miami.  Both flights on the way there went pretty smoothly.  We arrived to cloudy skies, but the temperature was much better than what we were having in Richmond.

Zac Brown Band on Miami Beach

After about a 30 minute taxi cab ride we arrived at our hotel just north of South Beach.  We had 3 rooms for 8 guys.  The minute we arrived, we heard of a party going on that night down on the beach.  Zac Brown Band was playing on the beach for free.  It was a party set up by NASCAR since the race was in town this weekend.  So obviously, since it was free, we would be stupid to miss the concert.  The atmosphere for the concert couldn’t have been better.  The temperature was just right and there was a nice gentle breeze that made it perfect.

When the concert was over, we basically headed across the street to the row of restaurants and bars.  We eventually landed at a place called “The Clevelander“.  It was a pretty nice outdoor bar that had club music playing.  Not to mention the “scenery” wasn’t too bad.  The only downside to the first night was I drank so much that I was a lump on a log for pretty much the whole next day.

South Beach

So on to Friday…. For dinner, we went to a place called Joe’s Stone Crab.  It was an upscale seafood restaurant that we had heard of before.  It didn’t disappoint.  I would definitely recommend going there.  All the portions were huge and were shared amongst the table.  The best things I had there outside of the Crab were the Hash-browns, Lobster Mac and Cheese, and Fried Zucchini.  It’s a must-go-to restaurant if I ever get back down there.

After that dinner, we went to go see the Miami Heat (NBA) play the Charlotte Bobcats.  At first it looked like it was going to be a blow out, but the Bobcats closed in late and made a game of it and had a pretty good shot to win the game late.  But going to the arena wasn’t just about the game, as it was also about the different celebrities that you might see and there were quite a few there.

Miami Heat

Later that night, we hit up the South Beach bar scene again; and again eventually ending at The Clevelander.

Saturday, the main reason we were down there (outside of it being a bachelor party), we went to the Virginia Tech/Miami Football game.  We had a stretch limo pick us up from the hotel and take us to the stadium early where we tailgated for a while.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures on this day since I of course forgot to bring my charger and my phone died on me the night before (after snapping the last few pics of the basketball game).  When the game was  over (which Tech won) we headed out to more bars.

The only thing we did not do that I was hoping was we never went to a casino.  The group of people I was with aren’t really into the gaming scene like I am.  But it was probably best anyway since I needed a little break from the poker.  Overall, it was a great time and I hope to make it back down there some time.  But now that I am back, it is time to get focused again on my poker, though my job has already got me all worked up again as I came back to a pile of crap to do.  Figures.

Oh and the flight back to Richmond, again connecting through Atlanta was BRUTAL.  First off, when we landed in Atlanta we had all of 15 minutes to get off the plane and literally run a few concourses over just to get there in time before they closed the gate.  We were seriously running through the busy airport as people made there sly remarks to us “don’t be late” or “run, run!”  Whatever, I was not about to stay in Atlanta overnight.   But we made it just in time, and somehow they even managed to get our bags on there (as I later found out) which I thought for sure wouldn’t happen.

Then the flight from Atlanta into Richmond was smooth……until the landing.  We landed in a dense fog in the middle of the dark night and you could feel the tension on the plane as the pilot said over the loud speaker “Uh, the visibility currently in Richmond is extremely low.  We shouldn’t have a problem, but be careful driving home.”  LOL, thanks!!  Just be careful landing the plane!  We circled the airport a couple times (I think) you couldn’t really tell since you couldn’t see anything but could just feel the plane maneuvers.  You would feel a sway to the left, get the feeling of being pushed back into the seat as the throttle was lifted and we had to climb back up.  It was pretty actually pretty scary.  But when it was all said and done, the minute I could see land, we were on the ground…..safely.  It is actually pretty funny that this happened to me also.  I say “also” because another blog I read by Nat Arem, the creator of the PokerDB who also works on the site PocketFives, basically had the same thing happen to him landing in Costa Rica.  You can read his blog post about his trip here.

Ok, enough rambling…..

I have been saying I have been either running really good or really bad right?

Well hear this story……

I went to a wedding for an ex-teammate of mine from college baseball.  The wedding was outdoors.  It was at a really great setting right off of a lake.  It was a great place for a wedding.

My friend's wedding

Right before the ceremony began, I get something thrown on my right forearm.  Or soooo I thought….

As I look down at my forearm, wearing my suit, I see some foreign substance splatter onto me.  The “stuff” was so abundant when it hit my right forearm, it splattered onto my left knee.  I thought at first maybe it was ice that someone was throwing at me as a joke, but after some time I realized exactly what it was.

It was white in substance, we were outdoors….you guessed it.  My suit was littered with bird shit!  I could use a better word than shit, but hey, that is what it was!  I couldn’t believe it.  Everyone sitting within 3 rows of me either saw it take place or learned of it.  Because it was a riot.

I didn’t know what to do.  At first I was thinking I should be pissed and make a scene.  But it could of happened to anyone.  I looked at my wife seated to my left, and she couldn’t help but laugh.  So too were everyone else.    I mean what could I do?  What did I do?

I just decided to laugh along with everyone else.  Because I mean how unbelievable is that?  It could have happened to anyone, it just so happened to be little ole’ me.  I got up from my seat.  Walked to go find something to wipe it off with away from the laughter.  I briskly, red-cheeked and all, walked by the groom and he said he saw it happen before it did as I continued on in disbelief to find a tissue or something to wipe it all off.

After a few minutes of wiping it down with a napkin, my suit was like new…..but one thing is for sure, my suit is still going to the cleaners tomorrow!  When I returned back to my seat, I was greeted with more laughter as the wedding party was making their way down the aisle.

As the wedding was in progress, every so once in a while we would hear birds in the distance.  Though to me it sounded like they were laughing at me, it seemed to everyone else around me they were saying “watch out”, as everyone was looking in the sky as if to say “I don’t want to get shit on too”.  It was too funny.  Just look at the picture above, you see a friend of mine’s wife looking up to the sky in the foreground, everyone was doing that for the rest of the ceremony.

Ugh, I run bad!!!!!

But hey, they say luck even’s out over time…..I need to go buy a lottery ticket!

I left off the previous post saying that I was planning to play a round of golf and go out to some bars with friends to “really” celebrate my 30th birthday.  Well that idea was kinda scratched when I returned home after my round of golf to the delight of a surprise….surprise party.

Quite a few people showed up and we had a catered spread plus 2 kegs.  I really had no clue that this was going to take place.  It was mostly due to the hard work and planning by my wife.  She really went all out.  It ended up being a great night.

That was Saturday night, then Sunday…again my original plans were scratched as I forgot that I had to go to 2 different drafts for fantasy football. 

So I have played pretty much zero poker the past couple of days outside of maybe 1 or 2 sessions of less than 30 minutes.  I am hoping tonight I can get back to the grind and re-focus on this goal at hand.  60k isn’t just going to fall in my lap, I need to play!

There is one bright spot as it concerns to my poker.  The brutal month of poker that is August is coming close to an end.  Lets hope that September will bring a month similar to July.