Update(poker and life)...

So, this should be different, merely because I'm going to use this as a way to vent about alot of stuff, and this may come off however it comes off, I frankly don't care what people think of this issue of the blog, but since it is wrapped around poker let's at least start there.

I have this friend, we'll call him Shmiffin Shmenger as an alias. He has been a friend of mine for a long time now, ever since we travelled across North America playing a computer game together. Eventually there came a day where he decided to move in with me, and we got a place in Oakville together(the place, just for the record, was an absolute hole in the earth).

Anywhoo, he, around playing the computer game we played back in the day at the very highest level possible, decided he wanted to play poker too, and he was playing like 5 tables, and burning through a little money playing low stakes and learning. This to me, was weird, I spent my time reading and studying the game before I ever bought in for money. He jumped right into the fire, with some success but overall was basically a break-even player.

Something happened though, he figured this game out. I would say, right now today, I don't know a better NL Hold'Em tournament player than Griffin...I mean, Schmiffin. Granted I know of some other monsters in the MTT scene thanks to jackseven, like fishbones namely(congrats on the 65k btw, methinks it's time you ponied up for a WPT event). However, I've never seen a run like Schmiffin is on right now. In the last month or so, he's finished 3rd of 448 players for $3500, 3rd of 338 for $1900, 4th of 1095 for $1750, 2nd of 1130 for $3300, 1st of 276 for $7200 and 3rd of 1048 for $4300. That's over $20,000 in the last month or so.

Dating back a few months now, we were the opposite, I played the MTT scene, and he was a cash game junkie. Suddenly, about a month and a half ago(shortly after my trip to Las Vegas), we had a discussion where we both realized we were playing the wrong game. He started the MTT, because he's a monster at finding the right times to gamble, and always builds big chip stacks and contends.

Me, I'm a more reserved player, and thus I started out on a cash game run. Since I got back from Las Vegas, I bought in to Pokerstars for 400. I've turned that in to around 7000, and that's after taking some money out of the site for the first time. I've climbed from playing 2/4 limit and 1/2 limit, to playing regularily at 10/20 limit now online. Infact, and I know this because since I decided to do this I keep emmaculate records of my cash game play to ensure I'm ahead of the curve at the game I'm playing. In 23 days now, I have not once had a losing day. Granted that doesn't seem drastic, but 3 weeks of playing 5 hours every day(minimum), and never booking a loss, has seen my account steadily soaring. Can I keep this up? I'm sure not, but at the same time I don't feel like I'm doing anything drastically special or even running that well. I always considered myself a much better limit than NL player, and I rarely lose at limit poker anyway, this is just kind of a real hot-streak ontop of my already, what I consider very solid play.

It's become weird talking poker with Griffin...oops, Schmiffin, nowadays. When we talk, I don't want to get too nutty about it because we're both very much realists about these runs and that they can't last forever, but at the same time neither of us thinks we're doing anything extraordinary right now, and there's a level of excitement you can see in the way we discuss poker now, as if maybe this game is beatable, and this is a realistic profession to have. Obviously we knew it was, but had struggled with the idea that we could realistically do it for money steadily, and now there's a light at the end of that tunnel.

He might correct all this with a hate laced tirade about me putting words in his mouth, but this is the way I feel now. I feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel. It's refreshing, and it's been alot of fun earning between 189(worst day of the last 23), and 941(best day of the last 23) dollars a day for the last 23 days straight. Does that continue? No. Can I play this game consistently at a high level and expect to make money steadily playing limit, a game I consider myself very, very good at? Absolutely.

This all comes on the heels of me quitting my job at a computer sales store in the area. I didn't do it for poker, however, I did do it because of poker, if that makes any sense. I have alot of expendable money in various poker bankrolls, and ontop of that, I earn fairly consistently in online cash games. I didn't particularily need a job, but I liked the financial security of a guaranteed paycheck. However, I was not ready to work somewhere I hated working for that guaranteed paycheck. I quit after several bad days and several run ins with management and other personnel. If I can make a suggestion, never work in a field that has commisioned sales, maybe it's just my 2 experiences with it now, but it creates a really competitive and tense work environment.

And just for fun, despite this being related to poker precisely no way at all, I attended a few screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival this past week, the Midnight Madness showings.

The first one I attended was The Devil's Chair, this creepy English horror film, that was fairly tense, very gory, and slightly creative. It got a bit bogged down in the middle, albeit intentionally, and it got really repetative in the early going repeating the same jokes over and over, but the payoff was worth it. Pretty satisfying horror movie, although everyone including a few friends, kept telling us(myself and Griffin...that's right, I said it, fuck Schmiffin), to wait until Saturday's movie.

The next night we went to a martial arts movie starring Donnie Yen, one of the gods of Martial Arts films right now, who North American movie fans will recognize from Highlander: Endgame, Blade II and Shanghai Knights. He's starred in some badass movies overseas too, specifically SPL(Sha Po Lang). The other star of the film, Collin Chu, who was in The Matrix Revolutions and The Matrix Reloaded, as Seraph. The movie, entitled Dao Huo Xian(FlashPoint), was an inredibly done martial arts film that used alot of MMA fighting styles, submission holds and made the fight sequences all look incredibly realistic and cool. No wirework. No shenanigans. Just incredibly realistic looking straight fight scenes. The last one, between Collin and Donnie, was mind blowing and drew a standing ovation from the audience.

And the third one, the last of the festival, entitle À l'intérieur(The Inside), I don't even know what to say. The Weinstein Group bought it at the festival, and intends on releasing it. Where, I'm not sure. Because there isn't a hope it's on a North American theater screen. This movie was brutally, unrelentingly intense and terrifying, immensely gory, disturbing and haunting. This was one freakishly intense horror movie, that stemmed from a very basic story. It shows that these French directors coming out of France with horror movies really know what they're doing(Alexandre Aja also had a big debut in the same vain, called High Tension, that was also a simple story and just so rediculously well paced, tense and gory that you can't help but love it). This made High Tension even look tame.

Why do I babble on about all this? This was my first time at a film festival, and the experience is incredibly cool. The movies are light years better than some of the drivel Hollywood churns out(especially right now, Mr.Woodcock? Are you serious?). I strongly suggest going out to a festival, meet the directors, stars, talk to them, and support them and their efforts in making creative, original films. All three of these movies, if nothing else, had a style or way about them that was unique to movies I've seen, and I'm a huge fan of them.

To anyone playing online poker and not making any headway, keep your chin up. The game is beatable, it takes time. You may not be ready yet, but there'll be a point where you find a comfort zone, and you start finding the game borderline easy, and feel invincible(quoting Schmiffin), and this game becomes beautiful.