Blog
Free Poker Coaching (I Need a Favor)…
I said in my last blog that I would offer some free poker coaching. Well this coaching is actually going to come at a price. I need a favor. My best friend (who is currently living with me) needs a job playing professional basketball. His name is Brian Macon. He played for Boston University for two years and Miami Dade CC before that.
-Miami Dade CC – 03-04 – 8.1ppg 6.5apg 2.6rpg 1.7spg 79.4FT% 41.5FG% 37.8FG%(3’s)
-Miami Dade CC – 04-05 – 10.1ppg 7.1apg 3.4rpg 1.9spg 85FT% 40.3FG% 41.8FG%(3’s)
-Boston University – 05-06 – 5.7ppg 3.9apg 2.8rpg 1.1spg 85FT% 32FG% 28FG%(3’s)
-Boston University – 06-07 – 4.6ppg 2.4apg 2.1rpg 0.7spg 76FT% 40FG% 35FG%(3’s)
His stats at Boston University aren’t that impressive because he was playing hurt his senior year and was also wasn’t in an ideal system for his game, but that’s not the point. The point to the matter is he should be playing professional basketball somewhere. We have friends in the NBA, D-League, and playing professionally all over the world and everyone agrees he should have a job playing pro. We can’t catch a break.
We have gone through multiple agents. We have gone to countless camps, tryouts, games… I’ve sent over a thousand e-mails. I’ve called people, I’ve done everything. Everything ever good we’ve had has fallen through. Brian made a team to play in South America and then that fell through, along with a bunch of other things that just didn’t work out. I know the economy is bad and the basketball market is dry at the current moment, but I don’t care. Brian would be a steal for a team and without a doubt make his mark and move up the professional rankings. Someone just needs to give him an opportunity. So that’s where you come in.
I need someone who has any kind of connections, ties, or knows the brother of a sister of a cousin who walks the dog of professional basketball team owner. Anyone. We have dealt with a couple agents (and still are) but they haven’t helped. We’ve basically been doing it all on our own. I have asked everyone I know. I have talked to GM’s of teams (who said they agree Brian can play Pro ball he just needs to find a place to take him since the market is bad…) Everything. I don’t know what else to do. I feel like representing him as an agent and getting it done on our own but enough of that. Enough rambling. Can you help?
Here’s the link to his old College highlight tape if the video doesn’t work above.
We also have some “New” footage which is from a camp I sent him to in Germany. His college stuff is kind of old and he is healthy now and one hundred times better. He was named One of the Top 5 players at the camp in Germany. Here is the game footage from the camp in Germany. He said his best games were the Bonn vs. Frankfurt game and the All-Star game. His jersey number is 20 and he played for Bonn.
Link for basketball games played in Germany.
We are also waiting on some footage from a tryout he crushed a couple weeks ago. So once I get that we will have some more recent videos of him playing.
If you can help send me an e-mail (Cre8iveCoach =~-AT-~= gmail.com)
I will offer some more free coaching down the road but this is most important. If you can’t help me out with this problem there will be other chances. I know this is a long shot but people read this blog all around the world and you never know who knows who. It’s a shot in the dark but it’s worth a try. If I just wasted 30 minutes of my life writing this blog then that’s alright too. We’ll see how it works out. Again, I will offer some more free coaching in the future so don’t fret.
On the poker aspect of life it has sucked. Sundays I have been running horribly and the last two nights I have gotten deep in both the 1ks. On FTP last night I came 20 something in their 1k and tonight I got 13th place in PokerStars 1k tournament. It’s really frustrating getting so close to big scores. I lost JTss vs QK no spade on a JK9ss board and then lost A9 vs 44 blind vs blind in the FTP 1k. Tonight I lost AK vs TT with 13 left. It was a 130k pot at 1k/2k I would have been the chip leader. I battled back from 4k in chips and then got my last 30k in 44 vs AQ and lost that flip too. That’s poker. Not complaining, just explaining.
That’s all I gotta say for now. November grind is still going and I’m sure I’ll be back at the tables tomorrow. Good luck everyone. Goodnight.
Gilbert’s Syndrome…
(Continued from Sober Life/November Grind…)
Apparently I have Gilbert’s Syndrome. No need to panic though. Basically what it means is that my body can’t process bilirubin, which is a function of my liver. My bilirubin count is high and will always be high throughout my lifetime. Normally your body turns the bilirubin into bile and it gets flushed out of your system but my body doesn’t do that. There are only a side effects and the disease/syndrome doesn’t seem harmful at all. I read one study that said… “Researchers at the University of in Utah School of Medicine showed that men and women with high blood levels of bilirubin have an extraordinarily low chance of getting heart attacks and those with low blood levels were at significantly increased risk for developing heart attacks.” That’s good news.
Fatigue happens to be one of the symptoms of GS. I’m not sure if any of these symptoms apply to me. I feel like I live a pretty normal and healthy life. I know I am capable of sleeping 12 hours a day no problem lol, but that’s probably due to being lazy some days. I’m not really the type of person to have something hold me back. Although this syndrome might affect my everyday life, I don’t feel it. I guess that’s my main point.
So that’s that. I have to get checked again in two months. I am allowed to drink alcohol again in moderation. I don’t know if I will drink though. I feel pretty good without drinking and I know I will hate the next morning if I do decide to get crazy one night. Haha. It’s a good streak to have so far (coming on 5 months I think) so I might see how long I can take it. I still need to do more research on GS. There are a bunch of useful websites I just stumbled upon right now that I need to take a closer look at later.
I have been in Orlando the last couple of days and haven’t grinded as much as I’ve wanted. I had car trouble one day, took Thursday off, and haven’t played as much as I should have. It’s pretty frustrating because I had a nice thing going on in South Florida with the daily grind. I’m only 13 days into November though so there is plenty of time left in the month. I have been thinking about maybe making a December goal like 100k profit, or maybe a PLB bet, -shrug- something. I’m not sure yet though. December is always a busy month with the Holidays and all so I’ll figure it out in the next couple of weeks.
Tomorrow is the FTOPS $2500 buyin event. I’m pretty sure I’m playing it. Normally I play a bunch of tournaments but I think this time I’m just going to focus on the $2500 tournament. It’s tough to one table when there are all these great tournaments on the Internet on Saturday, but you don’t have a $2500 tournament on the Internet often. It is probably best to just focus on that one but we’ll see. Maybe limit my play to 4 tables (with my main focus on the $2500.) I will actually be missing a great Hard Rock tournament this weekend, which sucks, But the FTOPS calls.
I’ll just keep this update short. Next blog I am going to offer some free coaching lessons if someone can help me out with something. I will post about that later.
Real Busy…
Hey everyone. I’ve been super busy busting my behind trying to win this triple crown and put up some big scores. I have final tabled a couple tournaments on Cake but no wins yet. I had all the chips on the bubble of the UB 30r today but lost a monster pot AQ vs A4cc when a guy called 30bbs preflop when I shoved on him. Then I lost KK vs 99 vs AQ for a monster pot right near the bubble. I have one more day I think to win the triple crown and I’m not sure if I will do it. I’m not giving up though because I will still be grinding all of November so I’m sure I will have another shot.
Today was a good day. I didn’t do as well as I wanted but I did have a good day. I made three final tables. Two were big final tables being the $300 6max on FTP and the 55r on Stars and one was a small tourny on Cake.
The 6max was pretty crazy. I got lucky in one pot where I 4bet shoved QJ vs AJ on the bubble and then I won a monster pot AA vs QQ. I made it to the final table with the shortest stack and doubled up KJ vs JJ. I then won a couple other smaller pots and got into a really sick hand. The button raised, the sb 3bet, and I made a 4bet with 88. I was intending to get it in vs the small blind. He was pretty loose and made some crazy plays. He instajammed on me with AT and he won the monster pot. I expected to see AQ/AK more than AT. I thought I would fold out hands like that but I guess he thought I was 4balling light, although I was pretty inline. Oh well. I then lost JJ to AA 5 handed to bust 5th. I could have played some hands differently but oh well.
In the 55r I was real patient and then ended up having all the chips 3 handed. I had 2.6m to like 300k and 400k. I think it was something like that. I ended up shoving T7dd vs AK and flopped a gutter and bricked to double up the guy in 2nd. Then the sb shoved QQ and I had AQo and he won that too. I definitely made a couple questionable plays when we were 3 handed and I need to go back and look at those hands. There is no way I should ever bust 3rd after having a chip stack like that. I’m not too mad though because I know I am playing better and getting better. I have a lot to learn still.
I will post about the Hard Rock tournament later. I have been super busy. It’s not as detailed as I normally do it but there are some interesting hands. I didn’t write down all the bets and everything because I thought I was going to be eliminated early lol.
If you’ve emailed me about coaching and I haven’t responded I’m sorry. I have gotten a lot of e-mails recently and I have tried to respond in a timely manner. If it’s been like 3-4 days and I haven’t responded send me another e-mail because I might have read it and missed to respond.
The NOVEMBER GRIND IS STILL GOING STRONG!!! I will update more tomorrow/later. I have some other things I need to post and write about. I just haven’t had time to blog at all really. Good luck everyone.
Hard Rock/No Triple Crown…
This summary won’t be as detailed as usual. I didn’t write down all the hands how I normally do it. The tournament took place two Saturday’s ago which was Halloween. We started with 11k in chips (1k addon) with 40 minute levels I think.
My stack was immediately up to 25k in the first hour. I won JJ vs 77 on a T62 board. I raised UTG, bet the flop, and a shorter stack player shoved in 77. He was pretty solid so I was shocked to see him turn over 77 but I guess that’s standard vs. me. I also won a b ig pot with 67 vs 89 on a 679 board.
I was at about 23k when this next hand took place. There was a guy to my right who was limping just about every hand. I was isolating him a lot of the hands I played. He limped for 200 and I made it 700 with JTcc. He then reraised to 2650 and I thought he had about 12k behind. He was covering another stack in his hand. I thought this was a good spot to pick up the dead money because I had isolated him enough and he was tired of it. I hadn’t gotten out of line yet and all the hands I showed down were real good. I decided to jam all in, and he thought about it for a little bit and said “Oh well its Halloween I will go play with my daughters.” and called and turned over QQ. He told me I made a good play and he would normally fold and etc. He had more chips than I thought and I went down to about 4k-5k.
My first table broke then I was moved to a new table. At 200-400 with an ante there were a lot of limpers and I moved all in on the button with QJo for 4k or so. One limper moved all in and another limper called all in. They both turned over AK and I was in good shape. I turned a straight and won that hand and was back up to having a decent chip stack.
There was one maniac at my new table who was playing every hand. I had his game pinned pretty much and we ended up getting all in on 689 board. I bet the flop with ATo he raised and I shoved on him. He called with JT and my ace high held up for a pretty big pot. I think this pot got me up to about 25k-30k.
I hung around the same stack, hovering below and above 30-40k. We were now down to 3 tables. My friend RAJ made it 3k preflop at 600/1200 and I called right behind him with 97ss and about a 40k stack. He had about 100k in chips. The flop came KT7ss and I flopped a pair and flush draw. He led the flop into me and with my stack my only play was to move all in. I couldn’t really reraise the flop without him knowing I wasn’t committed. So I thought an all in was the best bet. He ended up tanking all the way down to 2 seconds left (someone called the clock) and tabled KJ. I rivered the flush and won a nice pot to become one of the chip leaders.
We were now down to two tables and about 18 players. I picked up AA and just flat called a UTG raise. The flop came Q69 and he check called my bet. The turn was J we both checked, and the river was another 6. I fired big on the river and he called. The very next hand I picked up KK and raised. The same player from the hand before called and defended his BB. The board came Q423T and I was able to get three streets of value on this hand. I bet the flop, turn, and river and he called every bet. I had about 150k and the blinds were 1k/2k.
I made it to the final table with 210k at 2k/4k. There was about 1.1million in play so I had almost 1/5th the chips in play. I made it 9500 on the cutoff with KJo. The button was a real short stacked player who had about 33k after losing a big hand. He moved all in for his last 23k. I call and he has A8o. The board comes Q83Tx and I bricked a ton of outs to knock out the first player at the final table. I was now down to 170k.
I lost a couple smaller pots and finally I had about 140k at 2k/4k. UTG made it 12k and 2nd UTG called 12k. I looked down at AKdd. The blinds were about to go to 3k/6k. I decided to make it 34k to go preflop. UTG folded and the 2nd caller moved all in. I called. He turned over QQ and we were off to the races. The board came Jxxxdd and I missed A, K, or diamond on the river. The 2nd UTG player had me covered and I was eliminated in 8th place. I won about $3500 but first place was $35k. I ended up making a little since the buyin was $1100 but it was disappointing. I really wanted to win after fighting back from everything. I play that tournament a lot and haven’t won it recently so it would be real nice to do that.
Sorry for the lack of details. I just didn’t write them down at the time being and just was focused on playing at the time. Next time I will have much better details.
As far as the triple crown goes I did not end up winning it within the time period. I was actually playing tournaments that didn’t even meet the 10k guaranteed rule lol. I was playing a $7500 tourny on cake that was a $10k prize pool when you included the bounties. So I wasted a couple days doing that. I think the triple crown is definitely attainable but I don’t know the best tournaments to play on the smaller sites. Cake doesn’t have many good tournaments during the day. UB has a couple that seem decent. If I put in the time and volume into the other sites I am sure I can win one. I will see if that’s something I want to do and if the other sites have enough good tournaments on them to make me want to play on them. I don’t like most of their software, so I don’t really like playing there. I’ll see in the next couple of days I suppose.
FTOPS is here and I took the day off yesterday (Monday.) I will be playing most of the events and hopefully I can get deep in one of them. I ran pretty bad overall on Sunday, getting my money in real good in a lot of spots and getting unlucky. I had a couple cashes but nothing worthwhile. Plenty more poker to be played in the month of November!
Going For Triple Crown…
Okay.. So far my November is going really well. At the Hard Rock on Saturday I ended up making the Final table but losing a monster coin flip with 8 people left. So that was pretty disappointing. I will write more about that tournament tonight when I don’t have 10 tables up. So expect that tournament summary tonight or tomorrow.
On Sunday I put in another full day of poker and ended up running super hot and taking down the $100 turbo on Pokerstars. Shout out to “Reel_Em_In” who was sweating me on Stars when I took down the tournament. He might have been my good luck charm.
On Monday night I final tabled a $24 tournament with 1800 people on FTP. I was 1/9 going into the final table and I played one huge pot where I bluff shoved the river. I basically made a really advanced play with the nut blocker vs. a basic thinking opponent. Very stupid. I ended up busting 9th in that tournament after I donked off that huge pot. That was very disappointing. Coming into a FT 1/9 you should never get 9th. It was completely my fault and I really butchered the hand. First was 9k in that tournament. It wasn’t huge but it would have been another nice win. Oh well.
Yesterday, on Tuesday, I got heads up in the afternoon FTP $163. I had the guy all in twice for his tournament life. A2o vs his JTcc and AQo vs 77. He won both. We started talking a deal. I had about 1mil to his 700k and we ended up chopping it. I am a wuss. The blinds were pretty big but I definitely had an edge over this guy. I cost myself some equity. I guess I am just scared to place 2nd after all that work. I am thinking about adopting the motto “No Chopping!” for the rest of November but I’m not sure yet lol.
So I’ve had 4 Final Tables in 4 days. Two wins, and two disappointing finishes. I am now on the hunt for a triple crown. I have 4 days to win on another site. I don’t even play on other sites really so I just had to get money on them. Hopefully I can accomplish this. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do along with get ranked and some other things. I’ve never put in the time and volume to do so. I have 4 days to win on another site and I know I will do it. I won’t stop until I win another tournament for the triple crown!
I will update the blog later and talk about the Hard Rock tournament that I always either bubble or never win! Some pretty interesting hands there too. I have some good content for the blog this week. So I should have at least 3-4 posts because I will be playing a ton. Good luck to everyone! I will be grinding! NOVEMBER GRIND BABY!!!!
Sober Life/November Grind…
A couple months ago I posted about some blood work that I had done. I had an elevated bilirubin which is a function of my liver. They told me not to drink alcohol for three months and stay away from high cholesterol foods/fried foods. I didn’t drastically change my diet. I drank more water and stayed away from soda and tried to eat fast food less frequently. I have never been unhealthy really so I wasn’t sure how to tackle that request.
Anyways, this morning I went in to get my liver tested again. I won’t know the results of the test for a couple days. Being sober and not having a sip of alcohol in my system for almost three and a half months wasn’t so bad. I didn’t go out too often but when I did it was boring for the most part. I only enjoyed going to places that played good music since that was all I could vibe to really. Most of my friends would drink and I would just feel left out. On the flip side I feel really healthy and don’t mind not drinking one bit. It’s funny to be on the sober side of nightlife and see how drunk people act (including myself when I would drink.) I never drank a lot anyways. In college I would drink a couple times a week like any normal college student. Since graduating, I probably would go out once every two weeks.
I’m not sure what will happen with this. They might tell me that my bilirubin levels have gone down to normal levels and I shouldn’t drink anymore. They also might say it is still elevated. For the latter I would probably be more worried. I have been in a medical situation where doctors couldn’t diagnose what was wrong with me. That was very scary. I ended up having surgery because a doctor thought it COULD fix the problem. The problem went away but it could have just been because of time (one doctor said I might have aggravated something and to take a couple months off from basketball — I was a sophomore in college and was in the gym everyday so I wasn’t going to do that since he didn’t even know what was wrong.) I need more information all around. I have done some of my own research on the bilirubin and some elevated levels don’t mean much so I will just have to wait and find out what’s going on. They did an ultrasound on my liver, gallbladder, and kidneys which they were all normal. I’m not worried. We’ll see what they say.
I plan on grinding hard online in November. I am debating if I should try to play all 30 days in November or not. I might go insane if I do that. I need to work on my mental toughness anyways. The fields on Thursday/Friday aren’t as good as other days of the week and they don’t have as many majors on those days either. I don’t know if I will take those days off throughout November. It would probably be better if I didn’t and I played every single day. Whatever I decide I am going to stick to it and hopefully I can accomplish whatever goal I set out to do.
My schedule would be: Wake up 9-10, go to the gym, eat lunch, play poker, go to sleep. I would probably start around 1pm or 2pm and play through the whole night. It’s tough to sit in front of the computer for afternoon and night sessions but it can be done. I would probably be playing 10-12 hours of poker a day on average. That would be pretty insane over a 30 day period. 300-360 hours of poker in a month. Wow. Haha, maybe I shouldn’t be thinking of it like that. I have a couple days to decide what I want to do and then I’m going to attack November. Either way I think it will be good to put that much time into poker and I should be able to fine tune my game and fix some of my leaks. The game is constantly changing and you have to adapt with it.
There is also a $1k Hard Rock tournament this weekend on Saturday. They run it the last Saturday of every month so I will most likely play that instead of play online. Sunday will be November 1st and the first day of the grind. If I do play that Hard Rock tournament I will blog about it and post the interesting hands.
I don’t have any plans for Halloween but I might be down for something when it comes around. If I don’t get deep in the Hard Rock tournament I might get in the mood to do something. I don’t have a costume but I can handle it on a whim.
That’s all I have for now. If anyone has any suggestions or advice about playing 360 hours in a month let me know! Just kidding. I probably won’t do 30 days straight. Any advice is welcomed though. I’ll update tomorrow or this weekend.
Aruba $5k Main Event Summary…
These are my articles from PocketFives from my Aruba Main Event. Check them out they should be an interesting read.
Update more later…
Quick Update…
Hey everyone. Let’s see… I got back from Aruba a little over a week ago, last Saturday. On Monday night I went to the Miami Dolphins game with Stu and Rob/Mike Mizrachi. Congrats to Rob Mizrachi for chopping the Aruba Poker Classic $5k Main Event! Although he got 2nd after they chopped I’m pretty sure he made more money than the first place finisher. Let me say that the Miami Dolphins game last week was absolutely awesome. It was definitely one of the best Monday Night Football games I’ve ever seen. It was back and forth the whole time and the Dolphins pulled out a great victory.
I have played poker a couple days since I have been back. Yesterday was Sunday and I went over to bankrollme87’s apartment. He lives pretty close by and I’ve been invited a couple times to play over there. Nipsman and moneyinbag also showed up and it was a pretty uneventful Sunday. I got deep in a couple tournaments but nothing worked out. After everyone was done playing we played a 4 person SNG and I was the first person out. We were just having some fun and since I never have a hand, I bluffed off all my chips.
I wrote an article about my Aruba Poker Classic $5k Main Event. It was just posted on Pocketfives if anyone wants to check it out. Here’s the link. Aruba Poker Classic Article. I also did a Podcast for Pocketfives when I was in Aruba after I finished playing on Day 2 of the Main Event. You can listen to the podcast here.
That’s about it for now. I will update within the next couple of days with some substantial information. Look out for parts 2 and 3 of the Aruba Poker Classic Article on Pocketfives.
I Chopped The Tourny!!!!
Sorry for the deceiving title, lol. I actually busted from the 5k Main Event today about 1 hour in. There were 3 hands that caused my bustout. I won’t talk about those yet but after I busted the 5k at around 1pm I was super bummed. I wasn’t mad because I felt like I played really well, I was just disappointed I bubbled and didn’t do better. Especially since the tournament goes to 6 handed play at 36. So anyways I came back up to the room, told some buddies my hands, tried to get the big hand which was over 100bb pot out of my head, and I decided I would play the 1k side event at 3pm.
Well my buddy Matt wanted me to return a car with him so I went with him and we ate and got back to the casino around 4pm and I registered for the 30 minute level 1k tournament. I am fine with these fast structures because it’s just like the isle tournament too I played last week. Well I ended up getting 7 handed being 2nd in chips (There wasn’t much difference in stacks. First had 180k, i had 120k, and some stacks between 70-100 and two short stacks around 40k) The blinds were going to be 4k/8k/1k and we started talking a chop. The payout was real top heavy as a 7 way even chop would give everyone 15k. The regular payouts were 1st-40k 2nd-22k 3rd-12k etc.. So in an even chop everyone would get more than 3rd place which is crazy. The pay jump from 7th to 3rd was only 6k. So anyways I negotiated the deal and played with the numbers and everyone was happy. I wanted to play it out but I got 17.5k which is about 5k more than 3rd and 5k less than 2nd so it wasn’t too bad. The structure was real bad and everyone wanted to do it. Always mixed emotions about chopping but after busting the 5k I will take it.
The 5k like I said…well it was real sick. I immediately got up to 165k. I won a nice pot off of Hellmuth and was picking up a lot of pots. I then ran a big bluff and Eric ‘basebaldy’ made an amazing call against me. After that I lost KQdd vs Hellmuths JJ when he was all in for 10bbs and then I lost set over set for my last 30bbs. I will talk more about everything in my tournament summary blog.
I’m going to get some food its about 2am. I’m happy I got a decent cash today but I am still disappointed about what could have been in the 5k Main. I had a lot of hope and expectations for myself in that but it didn’t go my way. I am very confident in my plays I made and don’t regret them. I feel like I played really well. I will talk more about it in the next blog. Goodnight.
14th In Chips With 86 Left..
Okay. I am surprisingly in 14th place in chips. I was up to almost 180k in chips earlier in the day and felt like I was probably in the top 10-20 stacks. I then lost a couple real nasty pots. I played one hand bad towards the end of the day which cost me 20-25k in chips. I really am mad about that hand since I feel like I played mistake free for the most part the rest of the day.
Like I said I have 126k in chips (which is like 50k less than I had) and I am still sitting 14/86. Tomorrow is day 3 and Phil Hellmuth is to my DIRECT RIGHT. This should be fun. All I am going to do tomorrow is play my best, and try to make no mistakes. I have about 80 big blinds and the field is still soft. I really hope I can survive. We play down to 36 tomorrow and I can’t wait to make it to the final 36. It goes to 6 handed play after that so I really will love that. I feel like my 6max tournament game is top notch and I am really ready to play for 750k. The top 45 players make the money, so we should only be playing for 4-5 hours tomorrow.
On other notes, of course I have a bunch of sick pots still. I went pretty card dead the last two levels and I just slowly lost a couple pots when I raised and got 3bet and then the big pot towards the end. If I would have ended with 150k I would of been happy but since I misplayed that one hand I was pretty frustrated. But I like my chances and like my stack after looking at the rest of them.
I am just trying to give quick updates for whoever is sweating. I am out of Club Arias because the drives were too long and I actually ended up missing 20 minutes of the first level today. I am now staying at the Radisson where the event is held. I will keep everyone updated with my progress. ON TO DAY 4! Goodnight.