If you want to get to the living room you can either take the stairs, private elevator, or of course the slide. Sick.

I definitely needed to figure out what was next for me poker wise. Bret and I obviously dig doing the show and have some other cool projects in the works that we can hopefully announce in a few weeks or so. But as far as playing I was a little lost.

I have to say that giving SNG’s a whirl has always been in the back of my mind. And having recently interviewed and become friendly with Nick Rainey- my interest was definitely at an all time high. Particularly when Nick bragged that if I sent my 9 year old out to LA he’d have him making 6 figures in 2 weeks and a millionaire by his high school prom. If my son could do it why couldn’t I?

So…..I have focused 99% of my poker time to playing SNG’s. Specifically 90 man double stacked KO SNG’s. Now these have been interesting to learn and fun at times to play. The problem is a guy like me with a full time job and 3 kids including a 10 month old doesn’t really have the time to put the volume in that is necessary to really kill these games. But I’ve decided to try.

Nick really is the one to blame for leading me down this path. He kept bragging about how he could teach any asshole how to beat these games if they were willing to work hard. That wasn’t a problem for me. I’ve been spinning my wheels playing cash games for years now. I was willing to work. But I was concerned about having the time to play these things. But it seemed like an amazing opportunity.

Nick is truly one of the best in the world at grinding out these MTT SNGs and he’s been incredibly generous with his time as far as reviewing hands for me and letting Bret and I sit in on his frequent webinars. (I highly recommend them. Check out his site at www.Rainmanpoker.net for more info).

I figured even if I can only play one 2 and a half hour session a day and only get in 10 games it would still be worth it over the long haul. It’s not the volume that you need to really make money but it’s the opportunity to work with a world class proven winner that maybe can at least get me to enjoy the game again and oh yeah…make some money in the process. Even if it’s just a few bucks as I get started. I can tell you this- it sure beats losing every day.

So here are my initial results. Nick or one of his protege’s could probably bang out 134 90 mans in one day and it’s taken me all of April…but here are my results so far. They don’t mean anything I’m told. I have to wait until I get to like a 1,000 before we can start bragging. But at least I’ve started out ok. I’m not totally miserable! Wait until I actually figure out how to play these damn things. :0)

Nothing special. Standard coolers. I just can’t take it anymore. I don’t have the talent or psychological make up to beat the games. The truth hurts. But it’s the truth. It seems like more coolers happen to me than I give out by probably a 10-1 margin. I believe that 100% even if it’s not true…if that makes any sense. It’s probably because others can get away from tough spots better than me. And I’m a freaking NIT!

I’m sort of pissed too because I took the word of some legends in the game that playing a solid TAG game was still profitable at the micro and small stakes. I’m here to tell you that’s bullshit. A solid TAG style is a losing style. I’m convinced you have to have exceptional hand reading skills, be extremely aggressive 3 betting in and out of position, 4 bet light, balance your range and do all of the things that traditionally have been staples of the higher limit games.

You watch videos of guys and all they do is ridicule the lower limits talk about how you don’t even need to bluff the lower limits. You don’t have to play fancy. Just solid ABC poker will win. It’s a lie. It takes way more than that these days. And frankly I don’t know exactly what it takes or I’d be doing it. But I do know that traditional TAG ABC poker has gone the way of the doe doe bird.

What’s amazing to me is sort of how quickly my game went into the toilet and never turned around. I do think that mass multitabling hurt me. I lost some swagger and the deterioration started there. But in the past any downswing was always tolerable knowing that just tightening up and playing solid ABC poker would get me back on track. I think it’s safe to say after 160K + hands of straight losing at the lowest levels that you suck and it’s over.

I hate admitting this. I’ve worked so hard and spent so many hours ignoring my family and trying to work on my game. And the truth is the game is too tough. I’ve watched videos. I’ve reviewed my sessions. I’ve had the benefit of talking poker with the very best players in the world. Obviously I’m not bright enough and or talented enough to beat the modern cash game. It sucks too.

Friday afternoon we interviewed cash game grinder and new prop bet winner Zach Hall.  Zach recently bet that he could make $15k in a month playing NL100.  He won the bet with a day to spare.  All told in poker winnings, prop bet action and rakeback he won something like $43,000 in 30 days.  Not bad for a 20 year old.

The interview is in the podcast section.  Right click on it and save it as a download to ensure that it plays the entire episode.  Our itunes connection should be fixed very shortly.  As soon as it is we’ll let everyone know so that you can resubscribe to it on itunes.  Thanks for your patience and hope you enjoy the interview.

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He calls my huge 4 bet and then shoves the rest of his stack. I wasn’t willing to lose 200 BBs since we were both deep. I suppose he could have had QQ or JJ but that would have been extremely unusual in that spot. My experience is that is AA 95% of the time. Basically God wanted me to run into AA with KK at least four times tonight IMO. What a monumental waste of my time.

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Professionally 2009 was more mixed but overall great. Our home station 106.7 WJFK, which was one of the heritage FM talk stations in the country and the one I listened to growing up, flipped formats to all sports. This was a real mixed bag for us because we (The Junkies) survived the flip and still get to anchor the station in the mornings but we lost some friends in the building that didn’t make the new format and overall felt a sadness to see the hot guy talk format disappear.

We were lucky enough to have worked at JFK almost 12 years including a period that I think had the greatest talk radio lineup in history. Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Don and Mike, The Sports Junkies and Ron and Fez. That style of radio is going the way of the dodo bird though and we are just lucky enough that we can still thrive in the world of sports radio since sports has always been the centerpiece of our show. In fact we are doing extremely well in the ratings since the flip and hope to dominate in the male demographics in the mornings for many more years.

Mediocre Poker Radio has had a pretty strong year too. Bret and I were pleased with our first foray into video content with our “Day with the Dangs” piece that we produced this year. We can’t thank Hac and Di enough for being so cool and letting us all get a peek into their world. Thanks fellas!

We also did some live streaming of some of our interviews this year and had our little viewing party of the final table online on Livestream which was cool. We hope to do a lot more of that this year. But most impressive to me was just the list of the people that we got a chance to interview (and meet in some cases) in 2009. In no particular order: Cole South, Brian Townsend, Brian Hastings, Taylor Caby, Dusty Schmidt, The Dangs, Joe Cada, Brad Booth, Jeff Shulman, Joe Sebok, Steve Sung, Mike Matusow, Phil Helmuth, Andy Block, Colin Moshman, Dani Stern, Howard Lederer and on and on. Not bad for a couple of donks who have to date been paid $0 to do this show. Most of the props go to Bret for booking the vast majority of these guys. Nice work B.

Now where is the downside, you have to be asking? I said it was a crazy year and so far everything has been pretty good. Well as I hint in the title of this blog, 455,787 hands later I am still basically a break even/losing player online. It’s complicated though. I actually booked a small winrate in the NL50 game over 246,00 hands. Having felt like I was playing solid and bored at NL50 I played almost 160,00 hands of NL100 and gave back all my winnings at NL50 and then some. Yes I ran something like 20+ buyin’s below expectation in all in’s (ie I ran like shit). But even if I ran according to expectation in all in’s I still would have finished down 10 buyins or so. Not a lot of money but enough to discourage me over a decent sized sample.

In fact I was so discouraged that I recently tried to shake things up and play some limit poker and see how that would go. (Shocker it went poorly). Limit poker seems to fit my mindset a little better at first glance. One decision won’t ruin a whole session the way it can in NL holdem. I can’t tell you how many times in No Limit I’ve played 2000 hands or so pretty well only to then have a critical pot where I’m pretty deep and make a bad call and donk off 200BB’s. One hand can wipe out your entire day’s worth of solid play. The play is so standard today online that it feels like we are just waiting to cooler each other and hope to be on the right side of the variance. It’s not much fun.

So even though I failed to move up again and wiped out my NL50 winnings losing at NL100 I still had my best year in sheer profit thanks to rakeback, and various promotions. It turns out I’m a professional bonus whore. Thanks to Iron Man medals, rakeback, FTP points and other bonuses on Full Tilt I have worked my online account from $400 to almost $17k over the last 2 years. That is strictly the result of grinding every day all while juggling work and 3 kids. It’s not a terrible result. But it feels hollow. I want to WIN!

Maybe if I could dedicate 8 hours a day or more to poker things would be different but I’m not sure. The most frustrating part of it all is I set these goals for myself in poker and I can’t seem to accomplish them. I want to beat certain levels at a certain clip and keep moving up and I can’t seem to do it. How are people doing it today? What am I missing? I’ve interviewed the best players in the world. I’ve had some coaching. I watch videos and try and review my hands. But nothing changes. The line between winning and losing long term is so fine.

Is anybody else out there experiencing the same problems? Dusty Schmidt aka Leatherass swears if anybody puts the time in they can be a winning poker player. But if 2 to 3 hours a day isn’t enough I’m cooked. Not sure I can do more than that and still have a wife, 3 kids and a career.

Basically I’m at a crossroads in my poker life. I can’t just quit. I’m too damn competitive, I like the challenge and frankly I’m probably addicted to it anyway. I’ve tried Heads Up (way too swingy), SNG’s (pretty frustrating and I suck when I’m on the bubble), Limit (I must have too many leaks), Pot Limit Omaha (may as well just flip coins) and always end back up at full ring no limit. I may try some 6 max again but everybody plays 6 max. I’m guessing if there aren’t that many fish at full ring there are even less at 6 max.

I’ll probably try to get some more coaching in 2010. The thing is I’m so arrogant that I feel like I’ve heard of and studied most of the concepts that are critical to becoming a winning player. I understand position and 3 betting and occasionally 4 betting light etc. I know there isn’t a secret formula. Maybe nobody wins consistently year after year. The biggest names in poker other than Phil Ivey have downswings. Hell even Durrr seems to have lost a boatload online this year. Maybe it’s just the nature of the game. But then just when I say this I remember Matt Bolt and Leatherass both saying they’ve never had a losing month. How????? Damn I suck.

Thankfully because of rake back and everything else I can still make a few bucks playing a game, something which my nerdy video game friends and couch potato buddies probably cant say. Maybe I’ll figure it out. Maybe I won’t. But I’ll keep trying anyway.

Good luck everybody. Be safe over the holidays and have a great 2010.

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