my "poker story" part 3

so the end of my summer season of work was over, and i just finished packing all my things out of my place and was ready for the long drive to vegas ( yes i drove). from where i live in alaska its about 3300 miles, but i also took a little detour and stopped at coloarado on the way there to see my relatives which added about 1100 miles to the trip for about 4400 miles. the trip did take a while about a week but it was a decent experience. going through canada was a little bit of a hassel cause i was towing a trailer with all my stuff in it and i ran into a little bit of weather but i was able to make it to seattle alive. i stayed in seattle for a day and headed to colorado. i again ran into a little bit of weather but i ran through it like a champ, or a scared whimp whatever makes the story better for you :) once i got to colorado i actually ended up staying there a little longer than i had planned. i arrived like the 8th of november and stayed untill the 28th or 29th wich was about 3 weeks. when i arrived i mentioned to my aunt that i was going to get an actuall computer desktop for poker to 24 table instead of a laptop. she mentioned to me that her son ( my cousin) could build me a computer if i baught the parts. so we got together one night and i told him what i needed and how fast i needed it to be and we ordered the parts. it took about 5 days for the parts to come and we had the computer built, up and running in about an hour. about a few hours after that i had 24 tables of 5nl running on my new computer with no lag. its a pretty nice setup and i was able to save a bunch of money by building it ourselfs.

so after downloading hem and tableninja onto this desktop. i began to put a lot of volume in 24tabling. at the begining i played 5nl so i could get used to 24 tabling and what it takes to 24 table then after about a couple weeks i switched to 10nl. novemeber turned out to be the only month that i was down in profit since i began 24 tabling wich was 14 buyins or 140$ and most of that was due to just figuring out the bugs of 24tabling. as well as figuring out many leaks in my game, and i had plenty. the end of the month came and i was ready to head to vegas and get setup. i packed up my new computer and headed for vegas. it took about a day to get to vegas from colorado.

when i arrived in vegas i started looking for apartments which actually wasnt as hard as i thaught it was, i found a place i liked about 20 minutes away from the strip in a nice neighborhood at a relatively cheap price. a lot of people dont think about vegas other than the strip, but outside the strip vegas is just like any other city, and is actually quite cheap to live in outside of the strip of course. but the economy there is horrible so of course thats why. it took a few days after i arrived in vegas to get my apartment and get all my things moved in and settled in before i was ready to start my full winter of poker. i gave myself a 4000$ bankroll for live poker which breaks down into 20 buyins at 1/2nl of 100bbs, as well as my bankroll online of 1750$, and so began my winter in vegas

to give a little break down of my average schedule in vegas i mostly woke up everyday around 12pm, the games wernt really good in the mornings at the casinos so i would go later. i would get on the computer and do whatever on the internet and then start up 24 tables of 10nl. i would usually only play for about an hour and a half or maybe 2 hours i usually just put in about 2500 hands a day. after that i would work out usually for about 20-30 minutes. followed by some food while usually browsing through 2+2 or somthing else poker related. after i was done i would take a shower and get ready and head to the casino. most of the time i played 1/2nl i would play at the venetian, but if the games there wernt good i would either go to mgm or ocassionally aria. the first 3 weeks i was in vegas i was on a heater and won 3000$, although i have played live poker before (bairly) i had no idea what to expect in terms of swings and possible profits. all i knew was i was starting to win decently and i liked it. online poker was going ok as well but nothing to exciting untill the next couple months that followed. immediately after my live upswing, i had a 2 weeks downsing of -2200$ as well as an online breakeven stretch of about 60k hands. i began to have a lot of thaughts and didnt know what to think about poker, but i think that was the major turning point in my poker story. i had been taking poker pretty serious for about 3 months prior to the vegas move but after the downswing i really buckeld down and took my game to another level. i really just studied my game reviewed my plays read blogs studied how other players were doing and what they were doing, i found a really good thread on 2+2 that helped out a lot and just like that my vegas trip turned into a poker trip. going to vegas i had planned to play poker not for income or to earn side money, but more for a challange and because i enjoyed the game but i wanted to win. i also wanted to to be able to enjoy what vegas had to offer and experience life in vegas, and i did to an extent but i know once i started putting all my time into poker that my trip was starting to revolve around poker. not that it was a bad thing but at the time thats what i was wanted to do.

the next month was really slow for me live and online. i was still in my breakeven stretch online, and now i was on a breakeven stretch live as well. it was about 4 weeks of being break even and the month was coming to an end and i was able to finsh the month with just over 2 buyins in profit which isnt much but i had somthing to show for my time, and online was the same excpet i was only up 4 buyins. i kept studing though everyday, before playing poker and after poker. i ended up getting a subscription to deuces craked which helped a bit as well. the next month seemd like it was going the same way and the first few weeks were very slow. then BAM! just like that i won 1200 in 3 days and hit a little bit of a heater online as well. i was back on track and i was seeing success again. i was able to finsih the month with a pretty decent profit and going into the next month with high hopes. the next month went pretty well no major swings live or online just a slow but graduall win rate with the occassional small losses here or there. i was able the finsih that month off very well and it was my best month to date both online and live. i felt really good i was putting a lot of work and concentration into poker and it was starting to show and i really liked it. the next month just started off with a bang and i was again on a heater for the begining of the month. by this time it was getting close to the end of my vegas trip. i didnt have a deffinit date that i needed to be back in alaska but it could had been as soon as april 15th or as late as june 1st but it was kind of a wait and see thing. the month was going really well for me with poker live and online. and finishing the month i again had the most profit i made in a single month. live was 3000$ and online was about 300$ (all my monthly profits are to the right on this blog page) i was now sitting on a decent roll. i started live with 4000$ and was now sitting at 13000$. i was pretty shocked but verry pleased with my results. going to vegas i had no idea what to expect and with my previous losing years in poker my plan was to just be able to break even while enjoying poker, so i deffinitely exceeded my expectations.

then somthing drastic and horrible happend to me as well as the online poker community. on april 15th the doj finally cracked down on online poker and no u.s. players were able to play. it was pretty harsh and i didnt know what to think. i was still playing live poker so that was all fine and danddy, but my plan was that once i got back to alaska i was going to start 24 tabling 25nl and start making some decent side money and kind of take it to a next level and now online poker is down the drain for now. it sucks but thats how it is. i dont plan on going into any details about it but im pretty confident that it will be legalized in the the next couple years so for now online is on hold for me. more importantly though i had talked to my summer job and they said that work would probablly start up later this year so i was going to be able to stay in vegas for a bit more. up to that point i was playing more in the 1/3nl games around town more than i was the 1/2nl games. you might not think it makes that much of a difference but it actually does and i prefer the 1/3 games over the 1/2 games. not cause of the money but i feel more in control at the 1/3 tables. besides that though i was now starting to think about 2/5nl i was talking to people about the games and trying to figure out the style of play that occurs on the 2/5 tables. at the begining of the trip i thaught that it would be awesome to be able to play 2/5 before i left but i kinda thaught it was out of reach. but i was now actually at that point to where 2/5 was actually considerable. i decided to wait a couple of weeks and start the next month at 2/5 and thats just what i did. it was kind of difficult for me to sit at the 2/5 tables becuase i was going to leave in about 2 weeks. i know how varriance works and i was deffinitely affraid of taking a downswing at a higher limit right before i left and lose my profit. that didnt stop me from playing though. the first weeks was a little interesting and i had a few decent scores but i also was out leveling myself a lot but was able to take a step back and recollect everything and play my game. the next week went decent except for the last few days including my last day in vegas when i lost 1000$ in 2 hours. i decided that it was time to call it a trip and i really felt like i was starting to go on a downswing because the whole week was a little rough so instead of staying 2 more weeks i called it good and decided to leave back for alaska. i was able to take 1200$ off the 2/5 tables in 2 weeks so it wasnt all that bad. so from that winter in vegas i was able to make 11000$. 1300$ from online and 9700$ live. and thats my poker story up untill this point. i will be moving to seattle for work this winter and they have poker there so untill then i probablly wont have any more poker playing time but i do think online poker will be back again eventually. my next post im going to do a vegas recap that includes everything i did including poker and other activites i participated in and ill give more details about live poker and everything that goes with living in vegas and the lifestyle so staye tuned and thanks for reading guys!!