My story + HU SNGs + the future

Part 2:
Late one late-summer night, I came home feeling quite buzzed (per usual). My parents were out of town, so I decided to get crazy. I sat down at my Dad’s desktop and registered for a $22 MTT, which was of course an absolutely horrible idea, especially considering that it was 2 a.m. But, the next thing I knew, it was 7 a.m. and I was engaged in a fully-sober battle on my first ever final table. Long story long, I won the tournament and $2745. In just 5 hours I transformed from a slightly intoxicated lifetime loser into a totally sober lifetime winner. From thereon out I would sometimes fall victim to the vice of certain substances, but I would never again be a poker loser. I cashed out around $2000 to cover all my previous losses, added that casholi to my bankola, and went about my life as a poker WINNER.

I went back to college and proceeded to win 2 more MTTs that semester for increasing amounts each time. The first was 1 mth later for $4500 and the next was another month later for $8950.To be fair, I did lose a few tournaments in between, but I was up about $15k at this point so who cares? Again I cashed out 90% and left myself with a bankroll to play $20/$50 SNGs and MTTs. Including those first 3 MTTs, I WON each of my first SEVEN final tables over the next two years. It was unreal, and I even knew it at the time. There was no point in my 2004-2005 run where I believed any of it could translate into a sustainable living. It’s sad because if I had believed it I could’ve made a lot more money in those short-lived “golden days.”

After finishing college in 2005, I decided to focus on finding a job and building a life or whatever, so I cashed out my entire roll and took a six month hiatus from poker. I moved to Dallas, TX, interned at a music studio, began teaching guitar. I didn’t dive back into poker until January ’06, when I deposited $50 into FTP to mess around with. I went up and down in the $5 SNGs for a couple weeks until I finally put my last $22 in an MTT. Out of ~900 players I placed………… first. Surprise! This netted me ~1k and sent me back into the wonderful world of pre-UIGEA online poker. I moved my new roll to PartyPoker and got into a silly mix of 6max cash, MTTs, and SNGs. Still, in the following months I won a couple more MTTS and was left wondering why I ever took those six months off.

Finally, late in summer ’06 I decided to take poker seriously. I had a friend of a friend known as “Doyouseewhy” (PartyPoker) who had been crushing 100/200/500 Full Ring SNGs for over a year at that point. I talked to him a bit for tips on how to turn my mediocre talent/success into a solid, consistent win-rate. He was generous with his advice, and he gave me the greatest gift a poker newb can receive: he directed me to the 2+2 forums. This gave me access to strategy threads, good multi-tasking software, new poker friends, etc. By September I was grinding 4-5 tables of PartyPoker $20 SNGs at a ~20% ROI, and I was loving life.
But then the unthinkable happened…

crossposted from HERE

I'm gonna take a short break from my riveting tale of my poker life story to talk about what's going on NOW.

To catch you up (more details coming later), I lost a buncha money in the FTP fiasco, moved to Lebanon, and began my gradual return to online poker (among other things). Since there are no real addresses in Lebanon, it took me only ~4 months to get approved by Pokerstars. I sent them 58 pieces of documentation--none of which were official... there is nothing official in this country besides RELIGION-- but they were all rejected until the last one wasn't. Cool story bro.

ANYWAYS, I transferred my tiny Merge bankroll to Stars via some friends w/o benefits and decided to grind the $30 HU SNGs. One of the details that I haven't hitherto given is that I started playing HU SNGs almost exclusively in 2011 on FTP and put a lot of effort into studying them. I was able to beat the $100 level somewhat easily (not cause I'm good, cause they're bad) until BF.

So for 2012, I am refocusing myself on grinding back up from the lower limits. Starting at the $30s, I plan on reaching the $200s by end of year. This goal is mildly unambitious (only 2 levels in between 30s and 200s), but I have to rebuild a roll slowly while cashing out a decent amount and working on 2 other large non-poker projects while living in what might as well be a 3rd world country. I made a small prop bet with my boy iheardjoeblows (whom I met in Austin during Primo/Hokie HU bootcamp) on who could play more hours in Jan. This would be a good time to note that I have a -100% roi in volume prop bets my entire life. However I still think they're +EV because of the extra amount of grind I put in.

Here's a graph of my January:

I started playing some lowbuyin, small field MTTs, to help me grind longer sessions. This turned out nicely as I had a ~1k day (pretty sweet for lowstakes grinding) winning my first Omaha MTT ever and getting 2nd in a NLH Deep Stack (9.5 hours for 160 players! FML).

February I'm gonna grind the $60s HU and continue playing some random inexpensive MTTs. My goal is to play 80 hours and reach Platinum star on Stars. I'll post major updates during the month and monthly recaps as well.

Love,

Braminc

Good luck with moving up again, too bad you lost such a big portion of your BR

I've watched a bunch of your vids at Stox/Cardrunners, cool that you decided to join PS.

One question tho, why the hell did you move to Lebanon of all places? (no offence obv)

Originally posted by braminc
Since there are no real addresses in Lebanon, it took me only ~4 months to get approved by Pokerstars. I sent them 58 pieces of documentation--none of which were official... there is nothing official in this country besides RELIGION-- but they were all rejected until the last one wasn't. Cool story bro.

Mate that is revolting! Why did you move there when everyone else is like canada, thailand, portugal etc? GL moving up, I can't stand HU personally

Thanks for the kind words...

To answer both of your questions in 1, I moved to Lebanon because my family is from here originally, I have a lot of extended family still living here, I began a website for Lebanon with my sister about 1 year ago and wanted to move here to realize that goal, and I like adventures

More details on that in future, thanks for reading!

also on my personal blog page: www.sngexperts.com

Previously on MY POKER CAREER: "One summer night, I came home feeling quite buzzed... victim to the vice of certain substances, but... it could translate into a sustainable living. It's sad because... I decided to focus on finding a job and building a life... to mess around with... I had a friend... He was generous... By September I was grinding..."

Part 3:

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed into law in late September ’06, and it changed the poker world forever. PartyPoker, the biggest site at the time, removed itself entirely from the U.S. market. Worst of all, a large chunk of the U.S. population became incorrectly convinced that playing online poker was illegal. So online poker began losing its sustainability (its fish) at a super-accelerated rate. I switched to Full Tilt since I was familiar with it and everyone said that Pokerstars had tougher games. And despite the tragedy of UIGEA, FTP is where I began to fine-tune my SNG game and make a name for myself.
I started at the $20s, which is where I had left off at PartyPoker, except now my ROI was in the 10-12% range (instead of 20%). I quickly moved up to the 30s and had a miserable week where I lost almost half my roll but luckily won it RIGHT back the week after. I stayed in the $30s for a little too long, as I would go on to do at almost every level of my poker career. When I finally jumped into the $60s, I hit another rocky patch but was able to pull together a 6% ROI eventually. And then in February ’08 I took my talents to the $100s and realized what a giant mistake I had been making by not moving up faster.

I didn’t last long at the $100s, because I was too busy rocking up to the $200s, and the $300s, and then $500s. By Fall ’08, I was CRUSHING high stakes. This stretch was ridiculous for me. Month by month it went: 15k, 12k, 20k, vacation +2k, vacation +8k, (returned home), 11k, 40k!, and 22k! to finish the year (you can see the madness on my FTP graph), and on top of everything, I got a deal with CardRunners. Truth be told, I wasn’t ready for this sort of success. I took my success for granted, not realizing how special the game was to me and how limited this opportunity might be. In hindsight I would've done things quite differently following the success of 2008, but instead I...

also published at www.sngexperts.com/blog

Previously on MY POKER CAREER: "The Unlawful... U.S. population became incorrectly convinced that... I was familiar with it and everyone... I began to... make a name for myself... as I would go on to do at every level... and on top of everything... I was too busy rocking... for this sort of success..."

Part 4:

I did a lot of traveling in 2008—one of the many perks of playing poker. I spent six weeks in Costa Rica, a month in Lebanon visiting family, a week in Amsterdam/London. I gave up a few weekends to fly to weddings and visited my brother and friends up in NYC. An extended stay in Europe was on my to-do list, and I had a couple of unfinished credits to make up for my music degree, so I decided to enroll in a semester abroad in Rome, Italy.

I don’t regret the expensive travel, tuition, and room/board. However I do regret basically not playing poker for the next five months in Italy. I had signed up on an Italian poker site called GiocoDigitale (which I believe is dead), but between classes, partying, and traveling almost every weekend, I found very little grind time available. It didn’t bother me at the time. My Cardrunners videos were still going up, I had an amazing student who I coached and staked (Faarcyde), and I was positive that I could return to my grind at any time and insta crush without missing a beat.

Unfortunately, poker doesn’t work like that. After five amazing, Italian months, I returned to the U.S. and went straight to WSOP ’08. My roommates were some other SNG ballers (AMT, Scotty12, Gramps). I didn’t sell any %s of myself (and at the time didn’t really know how easily done that was), and I had some past WSOP experience, so I felt ready. And it was all super fun except that I dropped like 25k that month. I cashed in ZERO. Schwoopsies. Still, I thought, no big deal, I’ll just get back to my grind, shit out a few 20k months, and that which happened in Vegas could stay in Vegas.

So I made plans for a huge bounce-back. I laid out what I knew would be my biggest month ever—definitely in volume, and probably in profit. I blogged about my goals and hopes, which were absurdly lofty (including having a $100k month), and I mentally prepared myself for the most grueling but successful 31 days of my life. And through those weeks of solid play, avoidance of tilt, hard studying, and extreme focus, I suffered the worst downswing of my career. It was the worst month of my life, really, a 30k drop from top to bottom, though somehow I still profited 5k after rakeback, bonuses, staking, and grinding some losses back. Nonetheless, it wasn’t worth the stress at all.

The only thing that kept me from completely falling apart was my hereditary obstinacy along with my EV graph, which "proved" that I was still a very winning player. Every night after losing 1-5k, I focused on how I was learning some sort of lesson, how I needed this. The fantasy land I had been living in began to slip away. It was inevitable.

So I resumed planning a new life for myself. I had previously moved all my crap to my parents' home in Memphis for safekeeping during all the travels of 08-09. I was looking for a new permanent city to call home. I decided to move to....

crossposted: braminc online poker blog sng love sex relationships

Previously on MY POKER CAREER: "...the many perks of playing poker... a semester abroad... Rome, Italy... travel... partying... Cardrunners videos... amazing student... WSOP '08... dropped like 25k... cashed in ZERO... worst downswing of my career... a 30k drop... losing 1-5k.... fantasy land began to slip away..."

Part 5:

In October ’09 I moved to Austin, Texas, the most wonderful city in the U.S. of A. Being a shadow of my former glory, I stopped playing ultra-high-stakes and limited myself to the $100/$200s. My focus became to balance my life range with non-poker (aka healthy) things. I started eating better, playing sports, writing/recording music, etc. This went on for about two years.

I grinded 9man SNGs for a while, dabbled with full ring Rush poker, busted out of ~12 more WSOP events, got into PLO cash, and then finally landed on HU SNGs. I’d played some before, but usually in the middle of a 45man, 9man, and 6max session, which is at best a dubious grinding method. Even with that stupidity, I was beating them, and I knew that they were beatable for the highest win-rates in the SNG world, so I decided to commit to learning them properly.

In early 2011 I began grinding super turbo HU SNGs. I was already very familiar with playing HU 15bb and under, so I only had to really learn about 15-25bb to get comfortable. Since I had beaten the $100s over a small sample and I had the roll for $200s, I moved up. Turns out I moved up too soon, because I still wasn’t mentally prepared for the 7-8k downswing that I suffered over the first couple days. So I switched to turbos. These started well, but I only got in a small sample before Black Friday shat on us all.

The shady offshore companies that made up U.S. online poker were finally being challenged by government. Thousands of poker players including myself were suddenly out of work, our bankrolls frozen, the government reaching into our pockets and ripping our nuts off. But rather than hate the world and go on life-tilt, I went to the pool and drank cocktails and smoked cigarettes all afternoon. I realized that as bad that week was, this whole shitstorm was actually the most logical precursor to legalization of online poker in the U.S.

In advance of legalization, the government had to 1) take down its competition, 2) grab as much money as it could from its competition, and 3) set the stage for American taxpaying Casinos to DOMINATE the poker market after legalization. This reasoning got me all excited, actually, and the only thing that tilted me was all the short-sighted life-fish bitching about the end of the world on forums.

Here we are almost a year later and the news is that online poker legalization is in the works. By the end of 2012 we may witness something amazing, something that the Mayans COULD HAVE NEVER PREDICTED…

Such an enticing read, you've got me hooked!

Quick question:
Can you give any advice to new poker players which can help us ensure to keep a healthy balance of non-poker activities in our life?

Thanks raknyo for the kinds words!

Well I don't know anything besides the obvious. Find whatever you have passion in, and make sure to do it :). I'm not passionate about cooking (in order to eat healthy) and or going to the gym. So instead i found a place that does fresh meal preparing geared for nutrition and portion control. Instead of forcing myself to the gym i joined a tennis league and started playing basketball with friends. Just keep it fun!

At the same time, I will say that i spent perhaps TOO much time "balancing" my life and left little time for poker. But I was happier this way. If playing less poker and making less money makes me happier, than i think that is still a good thing.

New blog coming soon

Originally posted at SNGexperts.com blog poker online braminc

As a kid, I had no real interest in Lebanon (the country in which my immigrant parents were born). I didn’t enjoy my family’s month-long visits every summer while my friends were back home playing their sweet little asses off. As I grew, my feelings for Lebanon did not. From age 15 to 25 I didn’t visit at all. I returned in 2008 and 2010 and found it amusing, but I was happy to return home to the land of luxury, capitalism, and selfish greed. Living in Lebanon was never a consideration.

So… in 2011 I moved to Lebanon.

Black Friday forced me start think about what I wanted to do with my life beyond poker. I considered going back to school or teaching guitar full time again, but mostly about moving to Canada or Mexico or anywhere really. In 2010, my sister and I had begun a web project based around our ancestral country, and that led me to my final decision. I figured I could work on the project on-site in Lebanon while also grinding poker on the interwebs.

If you’ve heard of Lebanon, it’s probably because of the time King Solomon ordered thousands of Lebanese cedars with which to build his Temple. It’s the same place that took Moses 40 years not to find. But it’s not quite the “promise land” the Holy Bible cracks it out to be.

I moved into a recently renovated apartment with brand new laundry/dryer, kitchen, bathroom, floors, etc. It’s a pretty good set up, except for the bits of Lebanon that pop up every now and then: the regular electrical outages, the beach-like atmosphere due to saltwater coming through the pipes, the laundry room that is smaller than the machines inside it, the sewage line running directly through the laundry room, and the resulting aroma of digested hummus along with the rumble of every flushing toilet in the building.

Still, Lebanon has some perks. There are no copyright laws enforced here, so you can buy any DVDs you like, pirated, from the store for ~$1-$2. The minimum wage here is ~$600/month, yet prices of services and brand goods are conveniently double what you’d expect on average in most other developed countries. We also don’t bother with speed limits, fair wages, free speech, nor addresses.

Proving your residence without a street address can be excruciatingly difficult. It took me a solid 6 months to get approved by Pokerstars. Showing a utility bill doesn’t help when all you’ve got is a receipt from an old, hairy guy who knocks on your door demanding payment when he’s in the neighborhood. Eventually, I got set up with a bank account and convinced the bank to insert my address into the statement (which is also not standard practice as they don’t actually ever mail you anything because…. they can’t).

All of that being said, I don’t really hate it here as much as I just like joking about all of the ridiculousness. They have some beautiful women, great nightclubs, super nightclubs (loophole-legal prostitution…), and their very own casino. Quite progressive for a Middle Eastern country if you ask me…

wow really interesting blog will be following for sure
good luck building your way back up the stakes
♠_love:

The following blog is also hosted on braminc sng blog tips and info site

first, just wanna reannounce my free coaching offer:
Follow me on twitter @braminc to get entered for 2 hours of free coaching!
Retweet any of my tweets (max up to 3) to earn additional entries in the drawing!
Winner will be announced in 10 days via Twitter! Good luck

Pokerstars WBCOOP and Casino du Liban
Last week my dad came to Lebanon to visit some family. As usual that’s not all he had in mind. If you remember from my first blog post, he’s the one who got me into online poker (and poker ingeneral). My dad is an avid poker player and loves to treat himself to a big buy-in MTT whenever possible. We’ve been going to the WSOP in Vegas together since 2005, made many a trip for smaller tournies in Tunica (being from Memphis), and he’s been known to fly down to the Bahamas for a PCA event when work/schedule permit.

Lebanon being the most liberal of Middle Eastern countries acts as a bit of a gambling, prostitution, and partying oasis to the greater region. Apparently Christianity is extremely temptation friendly. At the center of the Lebanese gambling world is the Casino du Liban. Though moderate in size, this is no ordinary casino by American standards. It feels more like a set from a James Bond movie. With metal detectors at the entrance and a grand lobby entrance reminiscent of a 5 star hotel, one can’t help but sense the emphasis on luxury and customer service at this establishment.

My father and I arrived Monday evening to play the $500 rebuy MTT. It was neither of our first times here. In 2010 we played 3 similar size and structure MTT’s here with no great success. However my dad predictably reminds me of his top 3 chop for 30k just a few years before. We stroll up the grand stairway wide enough for a couple of 18-wheelers to pass side by side, arrive at the concert-hall turned poker-room, get ourselves registered, and get seated for action.

The rebuy period plays about as crazily as a $10 rebuy online. Though the tournament began with 100 big-blind stacks, players are busting and rebuying like crazy. Imagine a game full of Sammy Farha’s…. that’s basically what these games and people are like. I was able to double up early raising J9 suited in early position, betting my flush draw on the flop and getting the rest of my chips in on the turn and river after hitting my flush.

I was happy not to need a rebuy as $500 is apparently a lot more to me than to my opponents. 3 players at my table rebought upwards of 4 times seemingly unfazed. Unfortunately the story of the tournament itself isn’t any more interesting as I busted about 3 hours in before reaching the money. Stacks got short very fast and players were making 6x standard open raises (with 20bb average stacks) leaving little fold equity for resteals.

The rake in the tournament is somewhat high at ~10%, but it felt worthwhile when enjoying the remarkably extensive buffet they serve at the 2nd break (just after I busted). Steak, fish, salad bar, fruit bar, exquisite desserts, just to name a slice of what was savored. My dad busted just before me, so we relaxed as some of our family members who came to root us on joined us for the dinner.

I certainly love the experience there and the games are incredibly juicy. However, I lost ~$25k in the FTP fiasco that still hasn’t seen an end. Playing these tournaments just isn’t within my bankroll’s ability for now. That is why if I win the “best blogger” contest at Pokerstars WBCOOP, I will use the money to play more MTT’s at the Casino du Liban and win them all!

interesting blog sir.you made some serios winnings from SNGs.good luck in the future

thanks alx!

guys i entered the Pokerstars WBCOOP blog championship where the contest is to "tell us what you'd do with the 5k if you win". Check out the meme i created and vote for me! pokerstarsWBCOOPvoting

All entrants into the WBCOOP get 10 tickets to play any of 30 tournaments. There’s a leaderboard for the series offering 1st place a $7k live tourney package and some runner up prizes. My strategy has been to just play the smaller field events to rack up more points on average. I started with PLO 6max and came in 5th out of ~346 players for 45 pts. I bricked the 7stud and then “cashed” in the 7stud hi-lo for another 25 points. I’m in ~56th place having only played 3 of my 10 entries, while the players above me have averaged ~6 entries used. So I’m still very much in the hunt.

Though the series isn’t worth a lot of equity (certainly less than stakes I’m accustomed to playing), it’s fun to compete in for bragging rights, additional blog exposure, and still substantial freeroll equity.

Next up for me is 5 card draw tonight 1am Lebanon time. I’m actually super excited since I haven’t played this game since I was like 13 years old. ♦

I really didn’t play a lot of poker in Feb. Just about 35 hours. This was partly due to working on several other things and partly due to planning a MEGA-GRIND in March. My friend iheardjoeblows and I have been doing volume prop bets every couple months lately since we are both lazy asses when it comes to grinding. I’m literally 0 for X in volume prop bets life time, but they have almost always been +EV bets since the extra grind we put in leads to more earnings anyway.
With that said here’s my Feb graph playing mostly 60s turbos and a few 30$ hypers:

My March goals are to play ~120 hours, finish reading and implementing “The Mental Game of Poker“, to make it to the gym a minimum of 15x and a few other minor things I won’t bore you with.

The March prop bet with Iheardjoeblows consists of basically who will play more hours. Period. So it’s all about putting the time in, no matter how many tables or how good/bad you run. I usually find myself playing better when I’m playing in that mindset. I’m only focused on adding to my hours and playing as much A game as possible. We put a healthy $500 on the line to encourage ourselves, but not make ourselves get outta control.

The WBCOOP at Pokerstars has been trucking along. The votes are still adding up for “best blog”. You can vote for me HERE. The tourney leaderboard is heating up near the end. I’m currently in ~19th place but fully expect that to be higher soon, as I’m currently grinding out today’s PLO event, and I have played less of my 10 tickets than almost everyone above me on the leaderboard. Prizes are only for the top3 with a heavy emphasis on #1 so I’m gonna have to bundle up some tasty run-good to get there.

Amazing blog, sorry I hadn't spotted it before.

Anyway, welcome to our blogging section!

Super captivating read, just read through all of it, amazing!

I love the concept of no streets, annoying people can't find you! ♦

Totally subscribing, and best of luck in your volume propbet!

Competing 'who puts in the most' hours is great, makes it harder for you to just plan, ignore, and push what you need the last few days on little sleep, now you don't have a fixed number to beat and actually need to make an effort, it's awesome.

Regards,
Richard

thanks for the kind words!