#6 - Sunday Million FT!, Moving Up Stakes, Week 2 Results/Pics

Hey guys! I am pretty happy to be typing up week 2's results, however I am running on fumes right now as I didn't get finished playing my Sunday session until about midnight... And then proceeded to go out for pizza and a couple beers with some of my best Rosa buds, J-dawg and J-Rich, and didn't get to sleep until about 3am and was up to attend BBZ's coaching session at 6am. So that's 18 hours of poker followed by 3 hours of sleep. Phew!

I got 4th in the Sunday Million on Stars for $62,212 - good for my 2nd biggest career cash. It feels REALLY good. Not just because it was a big score, but because I have been struggling and grinding very hard for 2 years with no big scores and was on a big downswing due to getting crushed at the high stakes games. My win rate has been fine throughout the struggle, but my graph was still headed south. I was 1/4 with a big lead and lost KK to AK for all the chips, but this score still managed to capture back all of my losses and put me at my career-profit peak. $175,000 would have made for a better story, but I am very happy with the result. I ran very well to get to that point and the big bad beat didn't make me lose sight of that. So what now, what about the bankroll challenge? Yeah, good question.

I am going to move up stakes quicker than expected, but still keep the backbone of the challenge in place and continue to grind my way up the stakes systematically. I have played 1500 micro SNG's so far and am running really bad, but have profited about $600 nonetheless. The games are amazingly soft and I doubt the next level will be tough whatsoever. So the plan is to continue playing a lot of SNG's $15 and under and get back to playing quite a few MTTs as well. I do not want to reintroduce a lot of variance just because I had a score. Let's be honest - the Poker God's just rewarded me for grinding hard at low stakes and getting in shape, right guys?! So if I continue on this path of progress then The God's will reward me again, right guys?! Also, I am determined to create a solid curriculum for my students with this method and the value there is hard to measure, but I believe it's significant.

T25 went well again last week, I am still very out of shape cardio wise, but I am getting better each day. I have had several days where I wanted to skip the workout after a long day of poker, but managed to make it happen every day. I will be getting day 1 of week 3 done sometime later today after I get some sleep. We are also all settled into the new house, and decided to not switch grind rooms. There are some upgrades left to do but otherwise we are all set and loving our new surroundings. I am anxious to host my first student here in a couple weeks and really put all of this into motion. I will get some pics up once upgrades are in place. I have been doing a lot of one-on-one coaching with guys for $75/hour the last week, but my interest is mostly to find guys to coach and mentor in return for a percent of their winnings. I have found a few already, but have not started that process yet. It's all still in the developing phase, everything is new right now and i'm being methodical with everything, not rushing anything.

I'll keep it short as usual - attached are some pics from the week. As always, thanks for reading and for all the support I have received recently. You guys rock. I hope some of you see this first picture as motivating. I am motivated by it. I just went through hell to get here. Now I am here and feel like it's likely to only be up from here. Hard work pays off and running bad can't last forever.

I will update after my first few sessions at the higher stake SNG's. TBC.

                                                       Profit graph since turning pro in 2008

                                                             Withered SNG results so far

                 
                                                           The Lobby of The Million

                                             Trimming down nicely before adding muscle

#5 - One Week Results, Week Two Plans, Pics

Hey guys! Man, what a week. I am freakin exhausted. It was a very productive week however and I can look back and be proud of the work I put in and the results I got. But there is plenty of room for improvement, that's for sure.

I will start with poker. I used the first week to sorta experiment different things, such as what games do I want to play, what hours do I want to play, how many tables do I want to play, which HUD setup do I want to use, what time I want to exercise, what to eat and when to eat it, etc. I don't have it all figured out yet, but I do know that 180-man and 45-man tournaments will be my grind for the next few weeks. I have been playing anywhere between 12 and 20 tables at a time, and I think I will aim to average 14 this week. I felt like I was making too many mistakes to justify 20-tabling, but small samples make it hard to tell for sure what my win rate and ROI actually is right now. I will have a good idea where i'm at after 4000~ games played, anything before that and 180-man variance is pretty relevant. So far my win rate is a respectable 10bb/100 after 38,000 hands played. I expect that to rise slightly, but I think 10 per 100 is pretty reasonable for turbo formats. It will also help to know who the regulars are and build decent samples on them in my database, but once that happens I will be moving up stakes though. A good problem to have I suppose. Anyway, I am up nearly $300 at SNG's but took a small loss at Sunday MTTs after buying 28% of a small schedule and mostly bricking. Bankroll is about $1250 now not counting FPPs. I expect to run better this week and have a $2k bankroll after the 2nd week of play. I gotta admit, I am having fun doing this. I thought it would be brutal grinding so low, but I really am enjoying the process.

I also learned that I much prefer a light workout in the morning, and T25 in the afternoon outside with the sun shining - opposed to T25 in the morning before I play. And by light workout in the morning, I mean something very light just to get the blood flowing and fully wake me up, physically and mentally. T25 drains my tank temporarily and I want to enter my poker sessions with full attention and preferably a surplus of energy opposed to a potential fatigue. Also, most poker players who grind long hours are vitamin-D deficient, so doing my 25 minute workout in the sun is a good way to consistently get my daily dose of sun when I am cooped up in the house grinding most of the day. After 1 week I can see visible changes to my body, I am very sore, and I sleep like a baby. My metabolism is going nuts and all I want to do is eat. I had to talk myself into attaching a 1-week results pic because it feels sorta corny, but whatever. I will post a new pic each week, adding to my motivation to stick to my goals and produce results.

The food part has been pretty easy. No meat was not even difficult, but no dairy is a tough one for me. I am doing my best to eat as clean as possible and am making strides towards eliminating all animal products from my diet but it will remain a work in progress. Which reminds me, I failed on the no-alcohol for a week goal. I consumed alcohol on 2 separate occasions, but life rigged it to be that way. First, the NBA finals go to a historic game 7. Who goes to watch a game 7 at a bar with his roommate after a 13-hour Sunday grind and doesn't have a couple cold ones?! Also, I forgot to factor in my roommates girlfriend's birthday on Friday night, and that we were going out to Tijuana for the evening. So I had a couple beers to...ya know....be social. So both occasions = universe's fault, not mine. That's my story and I am sticking to it!

I have been coaching pretty regularly this week as well, an hour here and there for 5 total this week. All the sessions were 'Intro's', not much strategy talk. I am changing the way I approach coaching and feel that an hour intro will make the following hours much more valuable. Here are some of the topics I cover:

HUD's, Holdem Resources, Run It Once, Applications of NLH, BB/100 understanding, Variance, game selection/rake, identifying weak spots and capitalizing, are turbos good?, what is a MDF?, what is edge-passing?, where does ROI come from?, What I am learning to do better right now?, Limping, iso'ing limpers, Who do we want to play against?, Everything needs to be explainable. ICM - when is it important? How to study it., timing tells and game flow, mindset when grinding, how to maximize output and EV, building a network (quality over quantity), preparing for sessions, optimizing your grind's enviroment, what it means to hustle.

That's the exact list I covered in an hour with one of my new students. From there, things make more sense when they watch me play, or listen to me give explanations while reviewing hands. It also sends the clear message that a lot of your win rate is going to come from things you do away from the tables, and that crushing life is actually MORE important than crushing your opponents on the poker tables. I am excited to get my 'Bfizz Boot Camp' operation going again and include a lot more focus on what it takes away from the tables to be a 1%'r. There are hundreds of pro's who would win a lot more money if they mastered life away from the tables. I am one of them, but I am focused on eliminating life leaks and adding value as the days go by - not the other way around which seems to be the natural trend. Of all the top regs and big winners in poker, there are still the best and worst of them. Every edge counts when you are trying to be one of the best, and being healthy is simply a huge edge and grossly underestimated. The 1%'rs don't just crush poker, they crush everything. I don't know where I rank on the theoretical list, but I am determined to be a 1%'r.

This week's goals:

No alcohol
T25 every day
100+ games per day
eat less dairy products
finish reading 'Relentless'
coach at least 5 hours
review 150 shove/fold ICM spots
play at least 100 STT's (single table turbos)

It's 1:45 PM and I still feel like taking a nap, but I have 100+ games to play, T25 still left to do, and I need to read for an hour or so before bed. I have a one on one with my coach at 7am tomorrow morning and after that I will be playing 45/180 mans all day. I am thinking of what I need to do to better prepare myself for tomorrow's session, and spent time last night and most of today doing things to prepare for today's session. I am going to wrap it up here and start loading SNG's, and I will leave you with this great quote and a few pictures from the last week:

*Edit - It's now 5PM and I haven't played a single SNG yet. However, I did make a coaching ad in the twoplustwo coaching marketplace. Here is the link:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/187/tournament-sng-poker-coach-listings/bfizz11s-mtt-sng-coaching-1615839/

"I don't make the big bucks because I talk. I make the big bucks because I EXECUTE." - Eric Thomas

                                                               The SNG journey so far

                                   Betty's Vegetarian Burger! Double all the veggies. It was amazing.

                                                 
                                      A smoothie every morning, with some variations of course

                                                  Lots of plates that look very similar to this

                                 Friday night in Tijuana, had to get a pic in front of the infamous HK

 My office isn't set up properly yet due to internet complications, but this temporary spot doesn't suck

                                     Not a drastic change, but I am only just getting started.

                                                                  While I play poker....

                                                 
                                                      Our 5 minute breaks from poker :)

#4 - Exercise/Diet/SNG's Update, Pics

Hey guys, going to keep this one short and just update on the weekly goals for the most part.

No alcohol is easy, but at the same time a cold beer sounds good right now. I am crushing the workouts each morning and even doing a lot of push-ups, pull-ups and other various exercises on my 5 minutes breaks during my poker-grind sessions. And by crushing the workouts ..... I mean I am getting destroyed and nearing puke each morning so far. Ready for that to pass to say the least, but went into this fully expecting that so it's just a mental battle each morning so far. I am also off to a nice start in the Bankroll Challenge - so far turning my $1k starting bankroll into $1260 after 360 SNG's played. I haven't been running particularly well and am just amazed at how soft the games are down here at these limits. It's a fun, low-stress grind that I am actually enjoying quite a lot. I have attached a picture of my graph displaying my results so far.

What else.....well, I do indeed crave meat, but have also been researching and learning a lot about Veganism. It's quite intriguing. I have some ethical issues with how the food is produced in most cases, but I also just want to be the healthiest version of myself for my remaining years and everything is pointing to going Vegan being my best bet to attaining the life and health status I desire. So, I have amped it up from no meat, to straight vegan for the last 2 days and I feel great. My energy levels are high and my poop game is on beast mode. My roommate also jumped on board and I am totally siked to have a partner through this life-changing phase I am going through. Now I just have to convince my stubborn girlfriend to join us.

I have had a decent demand for coaching sessions since starting my blog, and actually just finished up an hour long session with a new client I have never worked with before. I feel like it went really well and even I was able to learn from just simply teaching out loud and forcing my brain to explain in detail a lot of things that usually just stay bottled up inside of there. I am in no hurry, but anxious to find my next protege.

My body has reacted very well to the workouts and new diet regimen, and I can already promise you that my 1-week transformation pictures will be relatively unbelievable. Meaning, a lot of you probably won't even believe me. I have good genetics and have always been an athlete, so I shred fat quickly and haven't lost much muscle memory. It's amazing how motivated I am due to making all of this public and having friends, family and even strangers on the rail to see how this all pans out. I appreciate very much all of the support and views and positive feedback I have received so far, so thank you for that everyone.

I know I said I would have house pics up in this post, but it's not going to happen. It's just not a finished product over here yet and I want to wait until it is. However, I do have some other random pictures that I have snapped over the last few days to share with you guys.

Again, thanks for reading and for all the support. If you have any questions poker related, health/exercise related, or anything at all please just message me somewhere. I am happy to help out. Oh, and if you have any advice - I will gladly accept that as well :)

I won't be updating again until Monday, when the 1-week milestone is completed. I will have pictures of the house, my before and after pics from the diet/workouts, and a lot more SNG's played by then and hopefully a $2k bankroll to start throwing in some $7 games as well.

SNG Results so far

My daily grind and view 

Paradise in my back yard with my girl

Smoothie game

#3 - $50k Bankroll Challenge, Hello Exercise Bye-Bye Betty's and Beer, Before/After Pics

Hey guys, it's Sunday evening and I am exhausted. It's been a very busy and somewhat hectic week since beginning the move into the new house but we are finally getting settled and the place is starting to take shape nicely. I will post some pictures of house next week after our grind room is all set up.

After our poker session's finished up today we went out to have a burger. By we, I am referring to my roommate and our two girlfriends. There is a burger joint here in Rosarito called "Betty's Authentic American Hamburgers" and it is truly one of the best burgers I have ever had in my life. Not only did I want to go out in fashion before starting the week of eating no meat tomorrow, but also as a celebratory meal. Celebrating what? Lenny, my roommate, won the $109 100k Sunday Kickoff on PokerStars this morning for nearly $20,000! Congrats to him, it's always cool to be a part of someone else's big win. It also added some timely excitement to my pretty mundane day which was very welcomed. Speaking of my mundane day, check out this Sunday Million hand I played today..... it certainly wasn't a morale booster after a long morning of crappy cards, but I am now even more excited to enter a new phase tomorrow.

Sunday Million Bustout Hand: http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/19540621_E82DB1488B

On another note, I did NOT get any action for my prop bet. However, I am, in a way, happy about this. The reason is because I have changed my mind, and want to do something a little different. The correct way to name it would be a 'bankroll building challenge'. I want to showcase what it takes to go from playing the smallest tournaments online to the biggest tournaments online, documenting the entire process along the way. I am going to call it the "$50k Challenge". I will track things like my win rate at different games, variance, general post-session thoughts, game selection methods, and a lot more crucial information that most players don't consider when trying to build a bankroll or move up stakes. And for what it's worth, I am taking up to $1500 action against on this challenge as well.

Here's how it will work:

I start with $1,000, and the challenge is to get to $50,000 before I leave Mexico for Christmas back home in Texas. Here are the bankroll guidelines I will go by:

$1k-5k BR: $22 and under only

$5k-10k BR: $44 and under only

$10k-20k BR: $55 and under only

$20k-30k BR: $109 and under only

$30k-$50k BR: $320 and under only

I will play the Sunday Million every week, and buy parts of bigger games with whatever my max buy in at that time is, selling the remainder of the buy-in to investors. Because I don't have anyone betting against me yet, I can be pretty loose with the guidelines. But bankroll management and game selection are going to be things I focus a lot on and I plan to avoid making bad decisions/shot taking with the bankroll all the way through this process. I am going to create a how-to for my current and future students, so I will be diligent and will avoid doing things I would not advise my own students to do.

During my poker-playing sessions, I will be doing a lot of coaching for my new students by constantly doing live-sweats so that they can watch me in real-time and I can explain my thought process while I play. I am also considering making some videos so that all my future-students have access to the content as well. I feel this will help keep me better focused during my sessions, as well as provide a great learning vehicle for not only my students, but for me too. I will also probably have a student here in my house pretty soon, and he will get to experience all the action first-hand, as well as play the same games and move up stakes the same way. The skill set and approach needed for each level of buy-in varies significantly. I have extensive experience in all levels of the games, but none more than the $0-22 filter. I expect to have an absolute hay day on the small stake games for a couple weeks while sprinting my way up to $5k+. Game selection will be crucial with a $1k starting roll, but I have a plan to avoid going bust.

Tomorrow is a BIG day. Starting an intense exercise program, giving up meat, and going from chasing the top 100 world-wide rankings while playing high stakes tournaments to playing with a $1k bankroll at the smallest stakes and not even paying attention to rankings. I will also be playing more hours of poker, and completely eliminating alcohol for at least this week. All the pointless beers are adding up in my gut, and I want to get the best results possible. It hasn't really hit me yet, but it soon will. Everything is going to start changing tomorrow. All sorts of good things are going to happen as a result of this $50k challenge and commitment to regular, high intensity exercise. I am ready to be the best version of myself that I can possibly be, who is with me?! Ok sorry, had a moment there.

Weekly Goals:

1. Do T25 and lift weights Monday-Saturday.
2. Don't eat a bite of meat.
3. Don't consume any alcohol.
4. Play 7 days of poker, and at least 600 games.

So here we go, starting a quest to make a methodical $50k profit and get into the best shape of my life before Christmas. I have included a few relevant pictures, in order they are:

The burger I ate today, my $1k starting bankroll for tomorrow morning, my $0-22 lifetime results graph, a picture of me in college, a picture of me 6 years ago, and a picture of me today.

As you can see, I have gotten steadily softer and fatter over the years. I found a mexican girl who loves to cook and I love to eat .... it's not her fault or mine, but we are determined to stop making excuses and get into phenomenal physical shape. I always let my work/poker get in the way of staying in shape, and I am saying goodbye to those days. I also let life get in the way of work, and I plan to make changes to spend my time more productively and maximize my $EV at the poker tables as well. I will get pictures of my new grind-room and my home-gym for the next post. If you have any advice or tips regarding what to eat, what not to eat, best proteins sources disregarding meat, or anything at all, please don't hesitate to shoot me a message or comment below. And please follow me on Facebook, TiltBook and Instagram if you aren't already! Thanks for reading.

#2 - New House, New me!

Sup guys? I am wrapping up a very long and productive day and feel like writing to unwind and organize my brain a bit. We moved into the new house and everything has been a little hectic lately, causing me to take several days off from poker to focus on the other important tasks. Moving is always more work than you expect it to be, speaking from A LOT of experience. Fun stat: I have lived in FOURTEEN different houses since my poker career started many years ago. 14. I am hoping to be settled here in this one for a while.

To go with the new and improved residence, I am also giving my lifestyle an upgrade. I have failed many times in the past when setting out to accomplish long-term goals that require a drastic lifestyle change, so I am going to give myself a better chance to accomplish my goals by making them short-term. Sometimes, all I need is to accomplish SOMETHING to really get me going in the right direction. And while I don't feel I am headed in the wrong direction, I certainly have room for improvement. So, here are 2 week-long goals I will be starting Monday morning (June 13th), the same day I start the low-stakes prop bet. I hope to make both of these last much, much longer than 1 week, but 1 week will be a great starting point.

1. Do T-25 + lift weights every morning before I grind, Monday - Saturday

2. Completely eliminate meat from my diet Monday-Sunday.

I will be using my blog and other instant-update social media sites to track my progress and results of not only the prop bet, but other goals and milestones that I set out to accomplish. If you aren't already, please give me a follow or add on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TiltBook.

Today was the first day to play any poker in the new house. I played a lot of games and a lot of hours and ran really poor for the first 9-10 of them. Then before I knew it, I was one-tabling the $33 Bounty Builder on PokerStars and ended up 1/9, then 1/3 only to end up busting in 3rd for about $3,600. No matter how big or small, a day saver is always welcomed. And perhaps a good omen, forecasting what is to come in the future here at the new casa.

Rocky is loving all the extra room to roam around, and I love watching him. The girls kitchen is no longer in the same room as my office, I have a pleasant beach view while grinding, and we are surrounded by a 12 foot brick wall. Parking my car in a garage is also a feeling I have not felt in a very long time, and I didn't realize how much I missed it until moving into this place. I think this is going to be a spot where I really blossom and take off in my poker career. That's the idea anyway.

I will keep it short because long blogs suck. Thanks for reading and please wish me luck with T25 and no meat endeavor..... it's not going to be easy or pleasant, but hard work to get desired results usually isn't described that way, right?

#1 - The Start Up

Hey guys, it's been a long while since my last blog entry and I am enjoying the feeling I have as I get going again. I won't get much into what I have been up to, no one cares about that. Let's talk about what's important.

I am chasing two of my passions everyday, which are to compete in poker games and to teach others to compete in poker games. I am living in Rosarito, Mexico, just south of the US border in Southern California. I have a house on the beach and live with my roommate, our two girlfriend's and my nearly ten year-old Pitbull, Rocky.

Since I was a young man, I have always known that I am chasing something bigger than winning a lot of poker profit, and I still haven't figured out exactly what that is, but I am making progress. Without expanding too much on that, I am accepting students and have room available in my house for you guys to come learn here with  me in person, and see how I do things - or just enjoy a poker-vacation on the beach. I am looking for people who share the same mindset and passion's I have to build long-lasting, fruitful friendships and partnerships with. I want to build a network, travel the world, and do all sorts of great things that everyone else wants to do. I'm normal I guess.

Lately, I find myself craving challenge - and more importantly, a little pressure. I perform well under pressure and it's been a while since I felt challenged and pressure at the same time. So, my creative mind told me to step out of my comfort zone and do something to cure my cravings, and I have decided to do a poker-based bankroll challenge. I am going to do this and document it nearly every step of the way, my mind is made up. However, to make it more interesting, I am accepting up to $1k of action against for this. Here is the bet format:

$1k starting bankroll, no reloads allowed, FPP's are in play

I must only play games with a buy-in of $22 or smaller. However, if I win a satty into a bigger event, I am allowed to play the bigger game.

Only games on PokerStars will be considered part of the bet.

I have 2 months to turn $1k into $5k, starting Monday, June 13th and ending August 13th.

That should be pretty clear-cut, but if anyone needs clarification and wants to bet, please reach out to me on Skype or Facebook or Tiltbook or Twitter.

I will be looking forward to the challenge and the process of documenting the 2 months here in my blog, as well as on TiltBook and other various social media vehicles - with or without any prop bets in place. I won't only be posting poker related content, but also other life-related things that are going on with me and around me.

This 2 months of documenting not only my poker grind, but my life, will be the start of something lasting. I am certain my network will grow, my skill set will be upgraded, and many other positive, long-lasting changes will occur as a result of this challenge. I am plenty self-motivated and am setting out to prove something to myself, so by no means need a prop-bet to carry this out. But again, if you want to put your money against me, I will gladly accept the extra pressure :)