Most of you have probably never heard of him. He is a belgian cyclist in the team of leopard trek and he died today in the 3rd stage of the giro d'italia. The images they showed on television are still going true my head. His girlfriend is pregnant too making this even sadder http://static.skynetblogs.be/media/13..._da96e1de6c27d1159eac4fb44a28774c.jpg
If anyone wants to follow me on twitterby El_Tanque, May 09
I'm just getting into the whole twitter thing, and 90% of my posts are going to be related to my bleacherreport.com articles, but if you'd like to follow me, that would be kick ass.
I guess search for me as claythomas or @claythomas ...however the fuck you do it. I'm not really a fan of twitter, i like facebook. Search for Clay Thomas. I'm the guy standing under the ALCS sign at the Ballpark in Arlington, wearing a blue nylon pullover thing. haha...
I feel this post was a worthless piece of shit and took up space and pissed someone off (it atleast pissed me off)...
Anywho, hope to see you around!!
So to begin I have unofficially reduced this blog to absolutely non-poker stuff, I've realized over time that nobody ever gives a shit about lowstakes rungood or downswings and I've already posted a lot of retarded bs in this blog which has not served any use to anyone.
So yeah I've decided to make this blog a little more useful to LP and it's users who love movies and tv shows. Zero poker, more movies and tv plus some random life updates if anything remarkable ever happens in my life (which i doubt lol). I hope you guys enjoy the movies as much as i did.
I've made another smurf account for my poker shit haha but just purely for hands no blogs or troll posts etc.
decent
*Hall pass(comedy) - decent and worth the watch, had good laughs owen wilson and that funny SNL actor plus ricky gervais pal
*Lucky(documentary) - stories of lottery winners, mostly good ones, some sad, also ok.
*Tucker and Dale vs evil(comedy/slasher) - pokes fun at slasher films with a twist, my kids had fun and so did i, but if i watched this alone i think id rate it just 3 out of 5.* I take that back, its kinda hilarious in a dumb kinda way
Just barely ok
*Gnomeo and Juliet(animation) - decent and cute
*Rio(animation) - blah im getting tired of these tbh, so many of them coming out
* Johnny Mad Dog - liberia story of boy soldiers violence, too bad this wasnt as well made as tropa or city of god, i didnt find it interesting though
avoid
* Glen the flying robot - most uninspiring and boring movie i have seen
* endure - fucking guy actor with the mustache
* butchered - jeez
* sanctum - total garbage from james cameron
I'll update with trailers and some more movies im watching 3 in a couple hours
*the violent kind - some bikers vs zombies flick, might be good
*the big bang - antonio banderas, gangster espionage(dont get too excited, i have yet to check it out if its any good)
*Killing bono - one of those cannes hipster things
*Lesbian vampire killers - brit comedy, lesbo vamps who dont look like vanessa selbst, might be ok
*Megan is missing - some indie movie about a missing girl, hit or miss this one
Sup guys,
so april was very solid since i only played 100 nl. Managed to win like 5,5 w rb. winrate ended up to be like 8 bb/100 on a 50 k sample. Played 98 h only 6 tables. I am very happy with the results and im gonna go back to playing 200 nl from now on. I will do all i can to keep up the solidness in 1/2
Also haven't been able to play in may since i visited Turkey for a week with my gf and couple other friends. Went wake-boarding and pretty much got shit-faced all week long. Oh and gonna play some tennis tournaments and squash tournaments in April as well, So i guess thats about it for now.
people are strange when you are a strangeby the cleaner, May 08
I'm a little drunk right now. my bankroll has been really low and trying to make enought money to provide for expenses. this probably sound like a stupid idea, but i'm just typing and that's all
my life:
born: hamburg, germany
father: german
mother: hungarian
1985: left germany at the age of 10 on a sailing yacht to trawel around the world. (lived on the yacht 11 years)
1987: stayed in venezuela to get me up to date in school in a international german school called colegio humboldt.
1990: studied in night school trying to finish high school wich i never did.
1991: left home (parents) at the age of 16 in a foreign country
.... had a ton of jobs that included , pool shark (hustling) cleaning swimming pools, hotel receptionist, tourist guide, professional diver, captain, shipping agent, seaman.
1998 meet a nice girl to whom i married and got my head fixed. she had a 2 year old daughter who's 14 now.
2002 my son got born
2005 my son got diagnosed autism
2007 bought my own apartment
2011 still playing mediocre poker trying to survive.
dunno why i'm typing all this. life is strange w/e.
Oh my god I miss making whineblogs so much, let's make one:http://i.imgur.com/GS1BT.png
11BI in 1k hands assassination
I don't know what to write in a whine blog anymore, I guess damn you poker or something like that? it's been so long since I made one.
Anyway while I'm at it I might as well make a small update Poka
I still feel kind of fucked from the terrible habits picked up in the first 4 months in this year where I was killing myself over finishing uni and I am all over the place really with schedule, eating, sleeping etc etc. which must be fixed if I want to get back on track. I am currently grinding NL25 and doing okay results and volume wise, I could go ahead and play NL50 with my 25BI but I need to get set with my schedule and learning first. I will try to work on my regime and schedule this week.
Personal
I am grinding poker hardcore, and I got a series of free workshops run by my university on what to do after uni, how to make myself attractive in the job market (cv, networking, interview skills, choice of career...) in the next 14 days. And I fucking need to know the results of my exams, they postponed them until 23rd and it's really painful not to know since I need closure to have a peace of mind.
Once I know I passed and get graduation over with and I will pimp up my job prospects I will be pokering , do 4-6 hours of volunteering per week, work on the psychology stuff, party and apply for jobs and attend interviews and maybe take a job eventually, but I must be 100% sure that's what I want to do and I definitely want to avoid jumping on the first thing that arises.
Neuropsychology of poker
There is a really great article and video series at Pokerstrategy on neuropsychology of poker, which deals with neurotransmitters and their impact on mood and energy and in general what to do to make yourself feel good and energized from science perspective. Goro told me to stop wasting my time with cool blogs so I make notes just for myself but I can share them if there will be interest, leave a comment under the blog
Thanks for reading LP, expect more random shit and small updates from me as I am starting once again to take this thing seriously.
Got this pretty insane email from deucescracked....
Don't miss out on Carbon Poker Rakeback, the window is closing
Merge poker has announced that they will not be offering rakeback on accounts created after June 1st, 2011.
We've put together a special offer to get 35% Rakeback + FREE DeucesCracked and up to a $2,000 deposit bonus on Merge through Carbon Poker. Play ONE hand after depositing and we'll give you a free month of DeucesCracked and a discount to purchase Hold'em Manager. Play more hands and earn more rewards down the road.
Sounds good to me,
thoughts?
anyone else get this email?
How do you do this?!?!?
vegas was fun. i've been back in florida now for about a week just collecting some thoughts.
i had a blast in vegas but it wasn't so much the poker but hanging out with friends and enjoying life. eating gal-bi/sam-gyup-sal and soju every day. watching stupid tv shows like castle and modern family. and watching some fucking awesome play off bball :D
and yea the solidarity from living/playing/going to the casinos to play poker was extremely motivating and inspirational.
but it's such a facade :/ the whole "fuck life we're doing it the ez way" mentality. like i said i def enjoyed hanging out with my friends but i think poker is a bit counter productive for us. i think it's hard for us to imagine where we enjoy work and enjoy life. we see work as such a painful grind which is why we choose poker which is def ezier compared to our roots (sons of gas station owners, convenience stores, hair salons) a lot less of a grind. but i duno, i guess i saw something and i saw some hope that i can achieve (not to sound snobby or imply that im better than my friends cause im really not) some sort of work that i can be proud of. but i'll tell you the fucking truth its a pretty damn foreign concept :/
watching the magic resonated with me as it was iconic of my own poker skills and journey. getting crushed by the pistons for half a fucking decade enjoying maybe 2-3 grace years where we had a decent shot at the finals, and now being completely surpassed by the atlanta hawks (what a great fucking coach, refusing to double team dwight howard and really exposing our 3 point shooters as lack luster at best, losing rashard lewis was more devastating than i could have ever dreamed of).
i was up about 19K and really wanted to push the 20k marker but ended up losing alot of it back. i dont think i played particularly bad but just standard rungood followed by runbad evening out to runeven. still up about 9K although it was really hard not to be bitter about it.
but w.e at this point i sorta am over the money and don't really care anymore cause it'S no longer even a possibility for me. i can't do this for a living :/ iT'S so tough on my ego and my self confidence and my self worth but w.e. u finally won. i give up.
live games are obviously a joke but i'm not gonna lie it's still scary :D
i never played higher than 5/10 but did play a 5/10/20 mandatory straddle game a few times. the fish at 1/2 are just plentiful but decrease in number dramatically as u go to nl 2/5 and 5/10. i'm not gonna lie, those tables play like 1/2 online. not to imply its unbeatable but like 1/2 (ok fine maybe more like .5/1) alot of the preflop edges don't really exist and ppl are fairly competent. but like 1/2 it'S still beatable and massive whales do come along more frequently.
tbh i'M pretty sure florida games are softer than the vegas games at this point.
-a collection of some things i learned live-
ppl play so retardedly loose preflop but i swear to god, a standard 3 betting range is so nut fucking heavy its ridiculous.
ppl love to limp/call such a wide range and it is extremely profitable to just raise 9-10 bb'S cause they will call anyway. but beware of 3 bets. 3 betting ranges are so absurdly nitty for how loose ppl play but thats where most of your edge comes. vbetting top pair over 3 streets. if u have K2 on a K97s board u should probably bet that quite big on flop/turn and possibly even bet river.
so yeh, bet big pf, flop, and turn.
ppl end up on the river with such a wide range, you can prob just shove most rivers and prob be profitable. but as i say this it always baffles me at some of the loose call downs on the river, but i still feel in general shoving alot of rivers is good poker because ppl love to call with mid pairs on the flop and turn (obviously read dependent). i prob ended up over doing this but i remember the first time i got stacks in, i had 77's on a QT7 board. i c/r the flop and bombed an 8 turn (making J9 the nuts) and shoved a flush completing 2 river (had like half pot shove left cause i bombed flop/turn). but the guy tanks and said "i have a good hand." i'm sorta sweating thinking this guy is just slow rolling me for being so aggressive (as i had a no limp policy and just raised a shit ton pre) but the more and more he tanked the more and more i put him on an AQ type hand and he finally called and showed....
the mega marginal AT. i'M pretty sure i accidentally laughed and made a "hee-haw" donkey laugh. i hate making fun of fish and don't really condone it. once again i want to stress it was accidental. i laughed out of shock and surprise cause i wasn't expecting to see AT. i mean thatS the other thing about poker. yea i mean in the beginning when were all immature its hilarious to win lots of monies from fish but i feel as u grow as a player/human being there really isn't joy out of beating fish. it'S just something u gotta do. it'S like fighting someone physically inferior or being necessarily condescending towards kids. where'S the joy in that? does it boost your ego? i mean yea there's some joy from tailoring a specific game plan but i'm talking about near mentally retarded fish.
anyway my friend came to cehck on me and i totally forgot to tip the dealer but the next hand i remembered and was going to tip but i ended up losing the hand like top 2 JT board against KJ for a fairly large pot and the dealer said "thats karma". i was on such rage tilt and couldn'T believe the dealer said that shit to me :/
i'M not gonna lie it really pissed me off and angered me but i also felt really sad to the point where i wanted to cry. i'M fairly emotionally retarded tbh but that sort of lack of respect really upsets me in general.
but yeah the whole point of that 77's hand was to just illustrate how tehy do have shit by the river alot of times and how they still might call u anyway.
i did suck out and feel kinda fishy for telling u guys the hand as it is the easiest fold of all time (not that many ppl bluff because ppl don'T fold anyway) but i had AA on the fucking button with like 6 limpers in the pot and just raised to 130 and had 2 callers. flop is 235 and it checks to me and i bet this flop like the jack ass i am. i bet something retarded to like 150 into 400 ish looking to fold to a raise. and obv i get C/r and obv i don'T fold and instead lvl myself and say my bet is so weak and looks like a cheap stab. i nearly cemented my status as a jackass by almost re raising the flop but tank clutch flatTED the raise instead. turn is a 5 and at this point once again i lvl myself and say "lol no way he can 22/33 any more, sets are too unlikely nao" but this is the stupidest logic of all time. god the shit my brain comes up with to justify calls. obv he ship the turn and i pretty much just w.e turbo call he shows 35 and i'm sorta baffled to be honest as he called out of the sb but clutch bink an A on the river anyway.
but anyway a came back from vegas and online poker is illegal. wat a facking joke. it'S so tilting that simple freedoms like being able to play poker from the convenience of my home could be seized by my own government that i pay for.
anyway i guess my poker journey is pretty much over. i m looking to get into a masters in science of finance or a similar finance/business masters and want to eventually move into ibanking. the 2 year commitment and all the exit opporutnites is really appealing to me and also the prestige/hardwork it is going to take for me to get into ibanking is something i want. i want to desperately try and don't mind failing as i've learned a little bit more in life.
i'M probably rambling at this point but something i want to let the younger ppl here know is that there are alot of roads to happiness. and alot of these roads are incomparable. and that based on your hardwork there will be good things waiting for you no matter what you choose in life. it is paralyzing esp for our generation considering all the choices we have and picking a major or studying a specific area may seem like it is locking u in for a set life but it'S alot like poker. see a flop. re evaluate the turn. re evaluate the river. there is nothing wrong with playing poker (as in my case) for a short 2 years and now i re-evaluate and realize i can't make a living off this no matter how i much i enjoy this. and am happy to move on. into finance. maybe after the ibanking grind i realize i hate working 100 hour weeks and i move into entrepreneurial shit a la ed/jason.
there's a ton of shit we can do in life. and although we all thought money/poker = freedom, i think for most of us we are actually trapped/enslaved to it as we thought incorrectly it was only a matter of time before we became ballers like tt, fayth, hero, nolan, wobbly. how we grind mid stakes making just enough money to feed the dream. investing just enough time where we gotta give it an extra week. or month. or year.
i'm not gonna lie. i'M a bit bitter about never reaching 5/10 nl (really fucking bitter). and tbh i ll prob play poker for the rest of my life. and maybe after i get a real job ill pay for coaching because i do want to perfect my craft. i've put alot of time in this game and put a lot of heart into it as well. but it'S now more so for the intrinsic value of it rather than all the $_$ i want from it. it's more so chasing a lvl of mastery that i can be proud at. it's like achieving grandmaster @ chess. in my eyes at least.
i was gonna post my online graph during my time in vegas and ask for a profit share/coach because i had some sik results but i guess it doesn'T matter anymore. i can't play online poker anymore and would rather focus my energies into the gmat/gre in order to change my future. i don't like where my life is going right now but i finally realized it'S my choice and that i do have the power to change my life.
poker takes alot of hardwork and alot of heart. if u really want to get good at this game play often, move up aggressively but most of all find other ppl at your stakes here @ lp and talk to them. if u look at lp 5 years ago fayth, frinkx, and johnnycosmo and company are all helping each other out and giving good advice/emotional support. for the most part i've had an extremely hard time moving up and a very lonely time as well. it wasn't till later to the point where it didn'T do me any good till i reached out to a few lpers. so yeah, make friends here and be headstrong.
and be part of the new wave here @ lp. there are other players steadily climbing the limits probably spearheaded by longple. but there are other players who are solid/good here.
there'S a guy here who i semi-admire try2beperfect, even his name, is a constant reminder of his goal and even though he posts such shitty threads sometimes it'S that kind of humility i think is required in order to move up in this game.
there aren't that many solid posters anymore. tt/midian/oly are prob my all time favorites and the most helpful. but def just try and have thick skin and try and read between the lines even though you're going to receive alot of unnecessarily sarcastic advice.
anyway this is an uplifting/freeing good bye. i wish aspiring players the best of luck, the accomplished players continuous luck, and for the rest of us who couldn't beat this game hard enough gratitude and grace to move on.
Pokerstars have changed there husng so there is more than one lobby for each type of hu game which isnt good and there are no rematches .
I made this bet earlier in the season
07/08/2010 Lucky 15 Each-Way Livingston @ 6/4
Outright Betting
Scottish Division Two 2010-2011 Win £600.00
Wycombe @ 10/1
Outright Betting
Npower League 2 2010-2011 Pending
QPR @ 12/1
Outright Betting
Npower Championship 2010-2011 Win
Chelsea @ 17/10
Outright Betting
Premier League Outright Betting 2010-2011 Pending
Qpr have won their league but may get points deducted for being naughty buying a player and then lieing about it afterwards, after the season has finished costing me plenty of money. fingers crossed the FA dont put a points deduction on this seaosn or it could cost me roughly $5k.
havent played so much poker in 1 month for a long long time. i feel a huge upswing coming in the next few months if i continue playing.
either way: http://i.imgur.com/6ibdV.jpg
+$2160 tournament profit
+$1000 rakeback
=$9868
60 hours probably
So post black friday I initially tried to be a live pro. After my 3rd session went pretty poorly I decided I needed online. Just cant deal with the commute, the waitlists, the slowness and everything else that comes with playing live poker.
So this week I started playing on hero poker. I talked a bunch with the ceo david through pm/email/skype and deposited 250 bucks on monday because thats the max I could put on with just a visa card. Began by playing mostly 25nl and mixing in some 50nl to try to aggressively build a bankroll while also limiting my risk of ruin. After 2 days I managed to build my roll up to about 550 between my winnings, rakeback and bonuses unlocked but it was going pretty slowly.
Realizing I needed more money, I took the steps necessary to western union 1k over there. On wednesday the only thing i knew about western union was that scammers always try to get noobs to send money using it. But it was actually really easy and painless. Took me 10 minutes at western union, 20 minute drive back, entered the MTCN into the site and within 5 minutes the money was in my account. really awesome stuff.
with a bankroll of 1550 i could then aggressively take shots at bigger games and PLO. ran a little bad at 1/2 PLO, but still doing well.
Adding in 35% rakeback and the 80 dollars in bonuses ive unlocked and my roll is at about 1800. making 550 in 19 hours of play over 4 days is pretty retarded under normal circumstances, but its kinda fun trying to take shots in games and move up through the limits quickly.
My goal is to play 45k hands this month and have my roll at 5k by the time i head to vegas for WSOP. I never plan on having more than 10-15k on there just to be cautious, but enough so i can play in the midstakes nl/plo games.
Once I hit 5k ill probably cash out 1500 just so i can immediately book a profit on the venture and at least make it not a losing proposition in the very small chance that the worst case scenario happens. But I expect to be able to make about 5-10k a month online longterm supplemented by what I can make on days when live games are soft like during wsop or if I decided to go to the commerce on weekends.
Its not nearly as well as I was doing before playing full time or even if I were to play full time live, but its much more convenient to play from home and be able to play whenever i have a free 2 hour block and i wont have to put in the super long hours of playing in a casino either.
on an end note, i strongly urge everyone to sign up at hero poker. David is the most hands on CEO i have ever seen and does an amazing job with the site. Not to mention between the bonuses, freerolls, rakeback and things like tournament tickets you will probably earn about 50-60% in rakeback over your first 5k in rake paid.
Of course there is uncertainty these days about playing online poker in the united states, but depositing a small amount of money that is not life changing to you and trying to run it up is a good idea.
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