Taboo Talk

Everyone in the poker world know speaking/moaning/whining about downswings is taboo. Only fish players, noobs and losing regs whine. This blog is not a whine, it's just a small talk about mindset of last 3-4 weeks. I'm doing this mainly to try to remove all the foggy thoughts in my head and have everything cleared up for next weeks/months.

First week of DS was easy. I didn't even felt it. I had just had a 9k upswing the week before so it felt very standard. Kept grinding big volume and grinding my A game. Starting week 2 I had already noticed I was DS but by the last days of the weekend I recovered the losses and transformed it from a DS to a breakeven stretch.

Third week I was exhausted mentally so i took 2-3 days off and decided to come back ready to crush. Surprinsingly (or not at all) my DS was waiting for me at the tables. The last week (currently on it) has been hell. DS so fr is 420bis in abi. 200 of this bis are mtts and 220 are 180s so it's actually super standard. Funny thing was I grabbed a bad swing in both at the same time.

Today is a break point. Downswing got to me out of poker, I had been in a funny/hard to predict mood, I'm sure my friends, girlfriend and even mother have noticed. That was the sign I had to get my mindset right. Poker is poker and swings are part of the job. It's true, biggest DS so far... but to be honest I hope this is not the biggest DS I'll ever get. Plan is to keep moving up and increasing my BR and my skills. If a 5k DS is getting to me I'll never be able to play 1k hyper turbo SNGs or 215usd+ MTTs. I don't want to be stuck in midstakes my whole life, in poker as in everything, my goal is to get better.

Volume wise March is great. 600 games so far and I've taken 2 days off this month. 120 games in average per day I decide to sit in and play. 3.5k VPPs. Goal this month is 12k vpps this month. Easily achievable at this rhythm. Hope i can get 2.4k games in at least this month, but WSOPc San Diego is gonna get in the way.

Getting to it... I'm gonna be playing some event of WSOPc San Diego. Next week I'm gonna be there crushing the tables. I'm selling some action on 2p2 for anyone interested. Made a package with sick low MU with all events I'm playing.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/184/staking-selling-shares-live/wsopc-harrahs-rincon-side-mar-15-17-a-1173991/

If anyone is interested hit me up there.

Gonna be giving updates via twitter... @BonzoC.

That's all for today, gonna be pulling an all-nighter for turbo night playing from 2usd all the way to 33usd MTTs. GL on the tables!

Being human

I’ve kind of abandoned this blog, maybe trying to make one entry per week is putting the bar way to up so I’m just going to aim for 2 entries per month. I’ll try to give a quick update on both poker and real life once every 15 days or so.

A lot of people have recently asked me how I have got better in poker over a short span of time. To be honest this goes all the way to life mentality and not just poker itself. Since a long time from now (actually about 8-9 months) I wake up every day knowing I’m human and therefore I’m full of mistakes and defects. Everyone hates being wrong. Waking up with this idea every day opens my eyes and lets me see my mistakes. Knowing I have them makes me want to become a better person than I am. Each day I wake up trying to become a better version of myself.

This translates directly in to poker. Every day I try to be better. Sometimes it’s all about humility. It’s not easy to see your mistakes and sometimes you need feedback from people outside your mind (both for poker and life). If you want to become better at something you must first acknowledge you’re actually bad at it. Look for help! Coaches, forums and poker playing friends are a great way to get you in the correct poker mindset. Lucky me I have all three of them.

Believe me, getting in this way of thinking helps you feel better about yourself day to day.

So updates:

Pokerwise

Couldn’t be happier. I got the chance to join Team Bogan being staked by the Salter brothers. Although I’m pretty comfortable with my game and I can’t wait to play with my own money I’m also really happy with the way things have gone so far since I’m part of the team. Great place to discuss strategy and they’re always there to cheer you up when poker is heartbreaking.

As you know I moved up to 8s and 3+r and started crushing them. I pushed myself to quick to 15s and didn't realize how big of a step it was between games. Needless to say I caught a downswing of over 4k. I didn’t let this get to me and grinded out of it. As for now I’m playing 8s, 15s and MTTs turbo all the way to 27s.

Graphs or it didn’t happen:

15s

 3rs

 8s

 Overall

 MTTs

Lifewise

Same as above. Everything is good. School could be better but I actually don’t care that much about it. I’m going to San Diego to play the WSOPc (I’m going to sell shares of a package with the events I´m going to play). Also I’ve been with my girlfriend for a little above 1 month and I’m very happy. We’re always in the same book and this make the relationship pretty easy going and constructive. She’s very intelligent and just as a plus she is very pretty.

I also wanted to use this blog to tell everyone whose life I’ve impacted in a negative way that I’m really sorry for all trouble I may have caused because of my nervousness, immaturity and fear. There’s no way I can’t  go back but there’s a big pack of people who I owe and apology, you know who you are.

GL at the tables!

First 3 days.

So first 3 days of midstakes have gone by and a huge heater has helped me feel better in them.

ROI is obviously not sustainable but still I feel it's easy to crush since regulars are still pretty bad and easy to play against. Still starting up in this stakes with a nice run feels quite good.

GL on the tables.

A step forward.

I'll start this blog with my graph of this month so far:

Playing fpps sats I caught a huge heater and this means it's time to move up. I have to make a huge cashout to pay school by the end of the month so I was willing to stop having social life to try and win 2k this month. After this delicious heater I decided to take 3 days off poker (3rd day today) to feel the air for a while. Now I only want to grind because I finally have a healthy enough BR for 8s and 3rs. Since my coach says I'm ready for those stakes I'll be moving up this week.

Wish me luck! I'm pretty excited about this!

A thank you note and recommendation...

So I haven't shared it with you people but the 29th of September I got a coach. Not my first one tbh, my first coach was "ihaterivers" great player... not so great student. He managed to make me think ABC poker in sngs and made me a winning player.

When I came back to Torreon, after playing live poker for a while, I had lost some level in this games and that was very obvious when after a 3k sample I was only winning 60c per game (20% roi).

I decided to stop the "mega high volume" bullshit and start playing a better game. I contacted Bfizz11 via his e mail and tried to get him interested in me. Lucky me he was. So far the game he is teaching me makes me think a lot more than I used to. I used to play 30 tables without a single timebank issue, now i can only play 18 and sometimes I timeout when I'm thinking a hand.

All this has been directly translated to my roi.

PICS

180s before Brian Fite (Bfizz11)

180s after Brian Fite (Bfizz11)

ROI comparison chart:

I recommend contacting Brian if your struggling, his fee is very low in comparison to results and time it takes to get results. Unique poker resume, he is in fact a bluefirepoker coach atm. Great coach, great friend.

Contact: http://www.bluefirepoker.com/blogs/members/brianfite/

So this blog is a Thank you note to Brian, gonna make it to midstakes sooner thanks to him and now I'm sure I'll be able to crush them. Thanks for believing man, I won't let you down.

Going through my old blog...

I started playing and immediately found it was a way to make money and be free, I just didn't know how much money was there to be made.

I left my city the first time to give a shot at poker and "play for a living". Today I read my old blog and found this comment in the blog that talked about me decided to leave my life and take a shot at something else.

Spanish 

A que Gonzoberto tan aventao. Mira cabrón, la vida esta llena de gente-zombie que vive amargada y arrepentida de no haber seguido sus sueños. Gente que tuvo alguna pasión y que por alguna razón u otra la dejo por un "trabajo seguro".

La verdad es que no hay nada seguro y por eso es importante tener la mayor cantidad de puertas abiertas conforme avanzamos en la vida. Entonces, lo único que si te recomiendo es que tengas esto presente conforme vas avanzando en este proceso. Trata de tener opciones y diferentes recursos; en términos pocarescos: Trata de Tener Outs. Este asunto de la vida no tiene que ser todo o nada, hay muchos puntos intermedios que al mismo tiempo nos ayudan a lograr nuestros objetivos.

No se bien los detalles de tu decisión, pero el simple hecho de que busques seguir lo que en realidad te apasiona me da gusto por ti. Todas las grandes historias comienzan con un sueño. Nadie te puede negar la oportunidad de seguir el tuyo. Estoy seguro que esta ha sido una decisión muy pensada, ya tienes bastante tiempo mencionándola. Te deseo lo mejor y no tengo la menor duda de que siendo respetuoso de tu proceso y tomando cada paso que des con seriedad y profesionalismo cumplirás tus metas.

-3dgar

English

Oh what a daring Bonzo. Look man, life is full of zombie people who live their lives in bitterness and regret of not pursuing their dreams. People that once had a passion and for some reason let it slip away for a "safe job".

The truth is there is nothing that's safe and because of that it's important to have the highest quantity of doors open while we're walking through life. Then, the only thing I recommend to you is to have this in your mind while you're advancing through this process. Try to have options and different resources... in poker terms: Try to have outs. Life is not about everything or nothing, we have a lot of intermediate spots that in the meanwhile help us achieve our objectives. 

I don't really know the details of your decision, but the simple fact that you're trying to follow what really makes you passionate makes me be happy for you. All big stories start with a dream. No one can deny you the chance to follow yours. I'm sure that this decision has been thought over, you've been bringing it up for a long time now. I wish you the best and have no doubt that being respectful in your process and taking every step you take with seriousness and professionalism you'll achieve your goals. 

-3dgar

I barely know 3dgar and in fact I don't know him at all IRL. Even though this guy has been the one I choose to talk to whenever I hit a dead end or a crossroad in my life. I've noticed he is always there to give advice and try to help me clear my mind. He is a great writer and a hell of a friend. That small speech helped me out a lot during the transition of my old life to what I like to call my "new life".

Maybe it might sound kind of tribal to you since you were not in my shoes when I first read it but still I'll share it here with everyone and this way I'm sure I won't forget how important this was once to me.

Here is a link to his blog which I widely recommend: http://www.pokerwithzen.com/

Thanks a lot man!

 

September Recap + Life Style

I`m gonna try to make this as easy to read as possible.

September


Started the month with ambition to grind that made me take shots to 8s as I've already told you. I felt comfortable with my game and manage to win a bit. But then i had to make a monster cashout that took me some steps behind my pace and decided to move back down until i regrind that specific cashout (more on it coming in a bit)

So results:


180s 8usd this month

180s 2.5usd this month

180s overall this month

45s 3.5usd this month

This month overall

180s since 20th of july (when I came back to my old city to grind)

My game in 45s has been a little off but I`m pretty happy with my 180s results overall 2.1kprofit in 2800sngs in 60 days sort of...

Ive been studying my game a lot lately and have found some flaws... I've been working on tighting them up and so far so good.


Life Update


2 days ago I started exercising myself. Started this routines named "Insanity" and I feel debastated (which I guess means it's working). Working out has improved my tilt control, not sure how it is related but it has.

I had a pretty sick downswing lifewise. My laptop's ventilator burned and my whole laptop stopped working... instead of spending 200usd in a 3 year old laptop im going to buy myself a new desktop... this is not the only think that stopped working for me this month, my cellphone also stopped working. So to buy a new phone and new laptop: MEGA CASHOUT. I usually cashout 500-700 in a month, this month I cashout out over 2k but I'm sure the new grind station will motivate me enough to make up for it asap.

My roll is standing once again in 900usd + 300 in stellar rewards and fpps.

I've also given me the chance to meet people. I'm a bit of a closed to new relationships guy so this is like a break through.

Excersice+NewDesktop+NewCellphone+NewPeople= Month lifewise so far.

I hope I can keep this liferhythm. I barely have time for myself. If I'm not grinding then I'm in class... If I'm not in class or grinding I'm studying my game... If I'm not studying my game or grinding or in class I'm working out... If I'm not doing any of those I'm either drinking or sleeping (basic things in life).

As soon as i get my new desktop I will post pics and specs. GL at the tables!

Money Talks

Lately I've noticed I can´t spend my internet won money. I'd never played as much as I've been playing the past 2 months, and results are great so far, but somehow I don't feel comfortable cashing out. I only cashout to pay rent, gasoline and to eat.

While I lived in Mexico City I had no problem spending poker earned money (specially live poker) but I hate cashing out my internet roll, makes me feel vulnerable. I want that number to grow and that's the only real goal I've had since I moved back to my old city. I keep thinking to myself "if I still lived with my mom and she paid everything I would already have enough roll for xxxxxxx".

I'm no longer scaremoney as I was some months ago when every dime on the table gave me a headache. I've grown a lot from there and now I play as I should've always played... fearless of money. When time comes to cashout because I NEED to pay the rent and can no longer live out of any kind of food I find along the way is when I cashout. I think I need to get ahold of my financial life and have control on my expenses.

Downswings are nothing but that: "downswings". They don't depress me anymore, they don't affect my lifestyle anymore. Same with heaters, I love them, they increase my confidence and make me feel undestructible but I know they're heaters and just play them along. Apart from all that I'm really accurate when it comes to making an educated guess on how much I'm gonna win depending on how much I'm gonna play.

I write this blog for myself. The whole intention of writing this is getting my thoughts in order and being able to work with them without making stupid decisions without thinking them over. Writing them is the best way I've found to do this so far.

Once again this blog is for me.

It is to think about how much am I going to cashout. To stop being such a "pussy" when it comes the time I need money and start planning it before the time I need food comes. The problem with this is my thirst to move up stakes.

All my pokerfriends, or a big part of those, make fun of my stakes. "LOL you play 2usd tournaments! That's 20 pesos! HAHAHA stop feeling like some kind of god, you're playing micros!".

Reality is I play micros, but I got news for everyone of you... I WIN MORE THAN YOU! Being a 400buyin bankroll nit is one thing, but not being able to dominate a level and win a lot in that level is a whole other story. Even if you play nl100+ I´m happy winning 1.5k~ a month and taking my time to move up. When I do so I'll be sure to muck you guys.

/hate

Had to get that out of my mind. That is the reason that keeps me from enjoying my money, thirst. But it's not a thirst I evoked in first place, it's peer pressure thirst. I've made a whole plan to be grinding low stakes (instead of micros) by the first days of december and im sure I will do it.

I've taken my shots in 8usd 180man and I feel pretty comfortable with my game. I'm sure im gonna crush the limit once I decide to play 3+r and 8s only. Shots were supposed to give me confidence and they did. Basically all this blog is a note to myself:

"Stick to the plan, don't rush yourself and let haters hate... or just hate them back"

(I'll get back to you in 8-12 months when I'm making 4k-6k a month in midstakes)

August in the books + Marathonic Session

August


I had the sickest breakeven run ever! ... Ok, I love exagerations it's not the sickest breakeven run ever but it's still pretty sick:

750 sngs breaking even, and you can make it 900 if we add this first couple of days of September.


I accomplished my 50 SnGs a day goal, but I think i can do way better and 50 a day is a pretty mediocre rhythm so this month I'm aiming for at least 2k sngs.


$800 positive on my normal grind.


During August me and SnG grinder "nala1988" made a profit probet for the month. $100 were at stake and by the 20th of august we were tied in the 1kUSD mark. After that the story is funny: "DOOMSWITCH [ON]" for both of us and I bink the probet by losing less than him.


I played nl100 in a homegame... I HAD TO. Noticed there was two fishes (both with over 15k lost according to PTR) playing nl100 hu at a 6max deep table. Snap sit in and let the gamble begin. I Ran decently and finished the session positive.


I was also lucky enough to buy 5% of the Sunday Million of "alealt06" and he made a very deep run, finished in 11th place (Gratz dude!). Now that I think of it maybe I jinxed his possible final table by telling everyone via twitter to rail him!


Thanks to PokerStars 10x vpp status month I also made 200 out of vip stellar rewards and fpp bonuses during the month.


Adding it up:


  $800 normal grind
+$100 propbet
+$300 alealt06 deep run
+$200 nl100 homegame
+$200 vip stellar rewards and fpp bonuses
=$1600 month


GOGOGO September!




Marathonic Session


As I said earlier in the month I want to get 2k SnGs at least during September so I'm starting my first saturday of the month with a marathonic 8-10 hour session (beginning in about 30min) table ninja isn´t working since the PokerStars new update so I'll only play between 16 and 22 SnGs at a time. I'm hoping to get 150 SnGs at least today. Results to come later.


GL at the tables.

First of Many

Ok... so I had to get out of my house because the guy who is supposed to exterminate all bugs (my roomie hates roaches) decided to come early. Now I'm sitting in a cafe waiting for time to pass before I have to hit my first class of the day. There is no possible better time to write my first poker only blog.

As I said a few entries ago I made a fresh start on July 13th and things have gone very smoothly. I've grinded from 500 to 2kUSD (excluding three 500USD cashouts) which makes a total of 3.5kUSD. I've been running pretty bad in my day to day grind and I'm only 1.4k USD up:

 but on the other hand I've been very lucky in other things:

Adding 550USD from the milestone, 300USD of Rakeback, 300USD of staking that has gone all right and 500 from playing nl100 against a big fish in a pokerstars homegame that gives us the grand total of ~2.5kUSD up in 45 days... not bad in comparison to Mexican salaries.

I play 180man 2.5USD SnGs and usually mix up some 45man to get a bigger volume, my ROI sucks in 45man but it has proven to be +ev to mix them up and try to maximize profit per hour. I usually play between 25 and 35 tables at the same time.

Why 2.5USD if I could be playing higher? Answer is simple: my life depends on this, that makes me a huge BR nit. I hate swings. Already had a 4k swing in 15USD 180man and I want to avoid history repeating itself. I will move up soon but I want to do it with a BR that makes me feel comfortable. I´m hoping to move up to 3USD+r and 8USD SnGs when I touch a 3.5k BR, that is only 2-3 months from now.

There's a lot more on the topic of my poker life to be told but since I made a fresh start I guessed this was the way to start my blog's first poker entry. Good luck everyone, run good this last 3 August days!

17 facts about me

1. I love flamingos, I think flamingos are the most cool looking animal I will ever see.
2. I'm a whiner but I make a huge effort to stop being so.
3. I play poker because I think freedom is the must important thing in life and you can play poker anywhere and still have money to spend.
4. I like the color purple.
5. I'm a seasonal smoker, sometimes I smoke daily for a month and sometimes I dont touch a cigarette in months.
6. After playing live poker for 4-6 months I can't sleep during nights anymore... at least not nights in the timezone I live in right now
7. I miss JRPGs and think this was the best videogame genre ever created.
8. I play drums.
9. I would've loved to study theology, but I guess I still have lots of time to do so.
10. I've had a gun pointed at me 3 times already, cool thing is I'm only 21 years old.
11. Biggest pot I have ever played was a 3.5kUSD pot... I lost it.
12. I believe in people who claim to believe in themselves and show it with their actions.
13. I love number 7 (maybe this was supposed to be random fact number 7)
14. I love advice, I always ask for it and then ignore it and mess up things my own way.
15. Chicken wings are the most delicious food... nothing feels better than spending a day with friends eating wings and drinking beer.
16. I'm a natural at lying, this is not good but it's true... sometimes I think I'm a mythomaniac because I can lie very very naturally.
17. I seem to talk a lot about myself but I still keep lots of things only for me and hope to keep it that way.
    
    

Random Thoughts

I've had a couple of rough days lately. To be honest everything is ok, but somehow I manage to feel something is out of place.

Life somehow feels complicated, but, school is good... which is quite impressive when I come to think of it since I invest only the time that is needed to pass all my courses and no more, sometimes even less. Poker is going great, made a fresh start from a 500USD bankroll the 13th of July, 47 days ago, and I've already managed to grind it all the way to 2k and this including a couple of "must eat to live" cashouts. I also found a great place to  live for the next 6-12 months which makes me feel like I've accomplished something that most people take a lot more time to, which is paying a rent and living out of my own effort.

Life is good now that I gave myself the time to think about it... just moved in to a small city here in Mexico (Torreon, Coahuila) which makes me feel kind of frustrated since I used to live in Mexico City which is a huge city and had so many things to do that my mind managed to always be learning something new. This city is like swimming in a kiddy pool when you've lived all your life with the ocean as a backyard.

Since this is my first post I'll avoid the rant and will try to synthesize what I'm looking to do with this blog so you can know if you're interested or not.

This is not the ordinary poker blog, I'll dump graphs, goals and thoughts on this quite often (probably updating once a week on this matter so I don't lose focus) but it won't be the only topic in this space. I'll talk a bunch about random stuff that takes place around my personal world, this doesnt mean I'll talk about my personal life to often (meeh to be honest I guess I will), but it rather means I will speak about any political, philosophical and social situation that catches my interest and just try to give my opinion on any of this topics. This blog basically is me trying to trap all thing on my mind between my hands, organize them and write them down here.

Welcome to the small tornado in my head.