Main Event update

Work's not crazy busy at the moment so I have been following closely the World Series of Poker updates on Poker News and Twitter.

One of my friends who I play with in the APL actually won his way in to the main event but wasn't able to make it past day 2. Apparently he ran kings in to aces and pocket 2's ... yes, you guessed it, the 2's won the hand with quads.

Plenty of the big names have already fallen but for me its great to see so many of the guys I follow online doing so well. Nick Rainey (MI_turtle) is leading the way and was one of the top 3 stacks for much of day 3. Tony Dunst (Bond18), Alex Fitzgerald (Assassinato) and Jay Rosenkrantz (pr1nnyraid) are all still in the running and all have good stacks going in to day 4. My fingers are crossed for all of them and hopefully they can make it through to day 5.

Most of the "live" players that I'm a fan of have been knocked out already. Kenny Tran was the last man standing but got knocked out late on day 4 after flopping top set.

The story of the day tho was the run of two-time champ, Johnny Chan. It would be GREAT for poker if he can make it deep in this tournament. There's 1240 players left and we don't even reach the money until we're left with 747.

June numbers

Period Full Tracking Last 120 days Year 2010 Year 2009 Year 2008 Year 2007 ? <> 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2009 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2008 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2007 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2006 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January with estimated RA expenses (and bounties in FTP Knockouts) without estimated RA expenses (and bounties in FTP Knockouts) View by Game Game Size All Holdem NL Holdem L/PL Omaha Omaha HiLo Other Games

ITM Finishes 1st 5 1st ties 0 2nd 6 3rd 8 4-10th 23

MTT Avg. Finish% Early 3% (10%) EM 8% (20%) Mid. 52% (40%) ML 27% (20%) Late 10% (10%)

HU/STT/MTT * Prizes Profit ROI ABI AFS R/A ITM ITM Heads-Up 2 player $0 $0 0% $0 0 0% 0/0 0% Single Table 3-10 $0 $0 0% $0 0 0% 0/0 0% Multi Table 11-45 $978 $133 16% $4 45 0% 42/211 20% Multi Table 46-180 $4 <$0 -90% $2.20 180 0% 1/19 5% Multi Table 181- $38 <$0 -74% $4.66 2156 59% 5/32 16% $1,020 <$0 -1% $3.95 313 7% 48/262 18%

June started well, but headed south in the middle, I had a solid run in the last few days to get almost back to break-even.

PokerStars were running a large WSOP Main Event satellite so I attempted a number of times to qualify through their $1 rebuy satellites. The play was unbelievably bad and I couldn't get hands to hold so that's the reason my MTT numbers above are so poor.

I'm glad my bread and butter game the 45 shows a decent return as I played a lot more $6.50 45 mans and did ok in them.

So to analyse the numbers above, yes, technically it was a losing month but I don't believe I rebought in the satellites as many times as most people would've. The telling numbers tho are not enough 1st place finishes and not enough late finishes (top 10%) ... that's where the money and the profit comes from and I just wasn't there often enough.

I really haven't been playing much of late as I've been working on a few other things so wouldn't be concentrating like I should. I played last night and upon checking OPR that was the first time I had played online in 9 days! I had a slightly winning session last night and have done ok again this morning. I'm still in one MTT and will head to the gym once its over. Bankroll currently sits at $1316.

Bond18 teaches you to grind

Came across a great post on Two Plus Two from Tony "Bond18" Dunst. Its long, but its well worth the read. Click on the title below to read the full story.

The Theory of Grinding (TL;DR) - MTT Community - Multi Table Tournament Poker Community

It will come as a surprise to very few people that those who become the most talented at a certain skill set are those who practice the most and spend their time the most efficiently. It's no secret that in order to excel at something, you have to do it with enormous volume, repetition, and frequency, particularly if it is in a field where your competition will be doing likewise. Poker is just such a field, and a difficult field to stay at the top of because its demand for time forces us into a conflict of interest between pursuing excellence within the game and pursuing our passions outside of it in order to become a more well rounded person. Additionally, a sect of our competition will have few interests or activities outside of poker, lending them the opportunity to envelop themselves within the game and with a fervor that is difficult to match for those of us with more obligations.

What many people aren't aware of is their potential. We generally assume that we are naturally talented at certain activities and functions and that our capacity for learning the others is limited by genetics, resources, time, opportunity, or our own apathy. As a result of years of social conditioning we have had programmed into our personalities what are known as 'limiting beliefs': assumptions we make about we are able and unable to do based on our own experiences, what society has told/taught us, and the feedback we get from peers and loved ones. Limiting beliefs are especially restrictive and damaging to those who have no prior success to draw upon; if you were never successful at one thing what makes you think you could possibly be successful at something else? We often believe that we are capable of what we are currently doing and perhaps a little more, and few of us have the confidence, ambition, or sheer audacity to believe that we have the ability to be elite at something, particularly something that's highly competitive. The truth is however, that you have a near endless supply of potential and options, and over the last few years I have watched my own limiting beliefs get shattered so many times that I now understand that near anything is possible.