frosty012 - A Short Film by PokerStars Team Online

***Once again cross-posted from the new site at http://frosty012.com/***

Hey guys! Today's the day...my short film is now released to the public! Take a look and let me know what you think. I appreciate everyone spreading it around via twitter/facebook etc. so thanks a lot. If you have a blog out there and wouldn't mind sharing the video, that would go a long way to having more people see it and would be fantastic. Feel free to speak your mind and leave whatever comments you want...this should get interesting! I'm going to be very active on twitter/fb/YouTube etc. and try to respond to everyone.

To put this film into context for you, it was shot about one or two months after this http://frosty012.com/2011/05/victory/, where I put in a heavy last minute grind in May 2011 to save my Supernova Elite VIP status on PokerStars. The film divulges the story of my poker background through interviews and some outside perspectives from some of my closest friends. I talk a lot about what I like to do away from the tables and I would say that the main theme of the film is how one can balance their online poker career with their social life. My acting skills are also put to the test with a little reenactment of my hectic grind at the end of May, where all of the stresses that I faced in that moment along with the sweet relief of victory are relived. Anyways, take a look and I hope you all enjoy it!

http://youtu.be/Y_Y7wkiIrrw

The making of this film was done near the end of last summer and was a very unique experience. I always find it interesting to hear inside perspectives so I'll try and share a bit about the whole process of making the film. Basically, three guys were flown up to Vancouver (a director, a sound guy and a camera man) and were responsible for everything. Before I even met any of the film crew, I talked to the director (Ryan Firpo) via Skype a couple of months earlier and we decided what kind of things that we were going to focus on in terms of central themes. When the crew ended up arriving in Vancouver, they showed up on a Friday night right after the Canucks won a playoff game against Boston in the Stanley Cup Finals. The city was going crazy and everyone was in party mode so we went out for dinner and drinks and got to know each other while we discussed how things would unfold in order to make the film. Things had to be filmed in only one day so we managed to call it a relatively early night and agreed to meet on Saturday morning to make the film.

The next day, the guys brought a van full of equipment over to my apartment and turned my 2 bedroom place into what resembled a high budget porno shoot (not that I'm speaking from personal experience ;)). Big reflectors were placed around the room and cameras were positioned from a few different angles to record the interview.

The plan for the day was to record the interview, break for lunch, do the reenactment and then follow me for a night out on the town after dark. Only having done one brief interview before, I struggled at the start of the interview process because I was trying to word my answers well and ended up over-thinking things. After a while, I became more comfortable and used to the situation and things started to flow more naturally. The interview took a long time (didn't help that we'd have to pause every now and then when a faint train noise could be heard in the background) but by the end of it everyone was happy that we had got all of the information that we wanted. The rest of the day unfolded smoothly and just as we were finishing up the reenactment, some of my friends that I had planned on going out with that night started showing up to my place. The whole scene in the film when we're in my living room having some beers was actually not even planned-nor were the conversations or insight from my friends. What ended up happening was that we were all just relaxing trying to decide what we wanted to do for the night and Ryan decided to turn a couple of cameras on (mainly because he is filming like everything all the time, lol). I think he saw some potential for the film and started throwing out some questions about my start in poker etc. and that's when other people started chiming in. As it turns out, I think that that scene is pretty awesome as it shows how people with a different point of view observed my poker beginnings.

A little bit later, we left my place and all went out for dinner and then ended up downtown at a country club. I was wearing a mic, as were two or three of my friends and we were unsure how/if the camera crew would be able to take any equipment inside the club. In the end, it was no problem to get a couple of smaller cameras inside along with our mics. Thankfully, no audio from the club was used in the film (I can only imagine some of the drunken conversations that were captured haha, especially when I was talking to random girls) but some footage was included at the end. I had planned on using the situation of paparazzi-like pictures being taken of my friends and I to impress some women but for reasons that I cannot remember (or choose not to remember), I had zero success. And that was that...we ended up leaving the club, shaking hands with the film crew and parted ways.

I'd like to thank Ryan and the guys for coming to Vancouver and making the film...it was a pleasure working with you all. It was really fun to have the opportunity to do something this cool and The attention that comes along with everything is pretty fun and I feel as if I played “movie star” for a day!

gl at the tables.

***New Website!!!!***

Alright guys, it's about time for the old blog to upgrade to the penthouse...we're movin' on up over to http://frosty012.com/

The new site looks really slick and has some very cool features...most notably, you will now be able to see whenever a member of Team Online is currently playing at the tables. Creepers rejoice. There is also easy access to my social media like Facebook and Twitter and the overall organization of the site is much more appealing...no longer will you have to scroll down through my essays to see where the next post begins!

Anyways, it's been a good run so far and I appreciate you all reading my blog and leaving comments. I hope you'll join me over at the new site and we'll continue to shoot the sh*t and keep it real...see you on the other side!

http://frosty012.com/

Keeping In Touch

Hey guys. Man, so much stuff just keeps happening everyday in my life. It's amazing how the days still seem to fly by even though the only constant on my daily schedule is a workout at the gym. I'm way behind in blogging and I know how long it will take to catch up and the thought of that just puts me off writing even more...that's why I'm kind of using this entry to collect my thoughts a little bit. Three things that need to get done soon are 1)Road Trip, 2) Year end review of 2011 and 3) Goals/Plan for 2012. I have set a deadline for myself to get everything blog related finished by Feb 7. That means that I will be back at the tables for the first time this year on Feb. 8th and am looking forward to being productive once again. Even though I've missed a month already, I expect 2012 to be another tough grind but a profitable one as well.

One thing that I've learned about myself over the last couple of months is that I am not addicted to poker lol. To any other grinders out there, I highly recommend taking at least a month off at some point if you have the financial means to do it for your sanity and health. I save most of my money and rarely splurge on any big purchases, which can suck if you care about people ragging on you about what kind of car you drive etc. but is amazing if you don't want to feel any financial pressure everyday. I could give two sh*ts about material possessions at this point in my life...sure it would be nice to trade in my 1993 Accord for a Porsche but I wouldn't trade being able to wake up in the morning and doing whatever I wanted for any vehicle any time soon. As I mentioned, Aside from my drive to LA and the PCA trip, my days have been filled with morning coffees, afternoon workouts and lunches, evening drinks and weekend trips to Whistler. It's been pretty sweet but there's been plenty of drama as well and you know when I say drama, I mean girls.

There's been a lot of funny stories but the short of it is that old frosty's still single. It's too bad, maybe I'll go into more detail later (aka when I'm hammered) because otherwise it's a known fact that I'll be offending some ladies and we don't want that.

I'm hosting the Final Table of the Sunday Million tomorrow if you want to drop by. It should be taking place some time after the Suberbowl...go Pats! Brady, what a guy...

I've also got a new website operational! www.frosty012.com
I'll definitely be making a post that links this blog over very shortly but if you want to check it out for now then go take a look...I think it looks pretty sweet and is much more manageable/professional than blogspot.

Anyways, I've got a couple more announcements to make but for now it's off to bed. Stay turned for a blog frenzy coming over the next few days!

gl at the tables, thanks for readin'

It's getting frosty this weekend with Tyler "frosty012" as Special Guest – Poker School Online: Learn Poker Strategy, Odds and Tells

Hey guys, sorry for the incredibly late notice (just got back from Whistler and had no computer up there :() but I'm going to be a featured guest for a PokerSchoolOnline show in about 30 minutes...here's the article:

It's getting frosty this weekend with Tyler "frosty012" as Special Guest – Poker School Online: Learn Poker Strategy, Odds and Tells

It's Turbo Time! TCOOP 2012

As I'm sure you are all aware by now, the first annual TCOOP is now underway on PokerStars and offers a great opportunity for players that enjoy fast-paced tournaments to hit a big score. I've personally set aside around $1,000 worth of buy-ins to play with and enjoy turbo tournaments a lot. I've taken a look at the schedule and have circled all of the events that I'd like to play in (almost all NLHE $30-$215) but don't have any kind of schedule set in stone. As of now, I've played about half of the tournaments that I plan on playing and have airballed them all :( I can take some solace in my defeats knowing that most of my losses have come from bad beats so hopefully I can continue playing alright and pick up a few late cashes.


Turbo tournaments are a lot of fun because they're largely action packed. With the blinds increasing at a quick rate, everyone is forced into playing a short stack where 10 big blinds will often be the norm and a 20 big blind+ stack will be big. Playing a short stack can actually be quite relaxing because there aren't very many decisions that need to be made. In turbo tournaments, everyone's edge is reduced simply because shallow stacks allow for very little post-flop play. As a cash game specialist, I welcome the more levelled out playing field because I know that there are some great tournaments players out there. With that said, there is still a ton of skill needed to win a turbo tournament...you need to be more aware of pre-flop ranges and push/fold strategy rather than post-flop play and sick 4-bet bluffs. It's no secret that you need to be aggressive in turbos to win...especially when your stack starts to shrink in comparison to the blinds and antes and you should be aware that other good players will be adjusting their ranges as well. Keeping that in mind, you also don't need to panic and start going all-in with any 2 cards when you fall to 10 big blinds or less. Remember that there will be so much money in the pot pre-flop from the blinds and antes alone and you will often be getting called so light that a little patience can pay off in a big way if you can find a hand.

If you haven't given turbo tournaments a chance, now would be a great time to start. The field sizes are quite big and soft and there are always a ton of satellites running if some of the buy-ins are out of your bankroll range. Hopefully you all have some fun with the TCOOP! Good luck.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The blog's back online boys!! The blog is back online...

My month long hiatus was due to what turned out to be an epic road trip down to LA as well as the PCA. I thought that I would find the time and motivation to write a bit during my travels but I just haven't until now...I've been pretty busy on several days travelling many hours and when I've had some downtime to relax by the pool, the last thing on my mind has been sitting behind my laptop.

There's so much to talk about but I'll start this post by saying that I'm happy to renew my Team Online contract for 2012 and look forward to a productive and profitable year for 2012...and by productive, I mean starting in February :). I'll detail my goals and expectations in a blog post soon after this one...I guess I can briefly say that right now I think that I'll be aiming for around 700K VPP's this year. I would in all likelihood get SNE again had PokerStars not altered the VPP allocation (which I'll also talk about in my next post) method this year.

For now I'd like to write about my road trip down to LA. The premise for the trip was to follow the Vancouver Canucks on their road trip through San Jose, Anaheim, and LA from December 26th-January 4th. I was accompanied by three great friends, two of which I had known since high school and one that I got to know very quickly.


Our driver was my good friend Jarnael. He's also my financial advisor and works for Freedom 55 Financial. Side note: *If anyone around Vancouver is interested in moving their money out of the bank and into some investments then shoot him an email at Jarnael.Payer@freedom55financial.com and he'll hook you up for probably no charge.* The plan was to use Jarnael's faithful GMC Yukon to drive as far as she'd take us (which we were hoping would be the whole trip!). Jarnael treats his Yukon as he would his woman...he will not let any other man on the planet drive her...except Iain. He even came up with 22 different excuses as to why I shouldn't drive at any point on the road trip before I reminded him that I only have my "N" license anyway and cannot legally drive more than 1 person. The vehicle has been on many a road trip in her lifetime and is pushing nearly 500,000 kilometers. Despite sinking thousand of dollars into her to keep her on the road, Jarnael refuses to sell or scrap the beast even with her suspect health condition. That said, I have never been on a voyage in the old Yukon that ended with me stranded on the side of the road, so while everyone was a bit nervous as to how she would fair on undoubably her most epic journey to date, there was nothing to suggest that the trip would end with a large towing bill.


Our copilot for the voyage was another long term friend of mine since high school-Iain. Iain and I have known each other forever and have been involved in many epic situations together...both good and bad. From crashing weddings to being at the hospital together, we've been together through the highs and the lows.


Rounding out the 4-wheel brothel was Iain's cousin Graham. I've only spent minimal time with Graham before the road trip but soon became extremely close to him in the figurative AND literal sense, as we were designated bed buddies on the road. Graham became a lifesaver on the road trip for many reasons because he was the only one with a data plan on his phone that would work in the USA. From enabling a GPS to checking sports scores, Graham and his phone took the trip to the next level. Undoubtedly, Graham's most beneficial contribution came when he discovered priceline.com


Annnd you probably already know me...but if you don't, here's a pic just so you can put a face to the name. This is the non-creepiest pic I could find.

We were scheduled to leave on Boxing Day at 11am-a time agreed upon through compromise of my desire to sleep in and everyone else's desire to get a move on. To my own amazement, I actually woke up around 7am and figured that I must be pretty excited for the trip since the only time that I'm usually up that early is if I'm too excited to sleep or I haven't gone to bed yet! Things had been so busy for me in December that the thought of driving out of the country for a couple of weeks hadn't really set in with me yet but as I started to pack, everything was suddenly becoming real. Since I was up so early, I decided to try and eat a good breakfast and then head up to the gym to get a workout in before departure. I figured that there would be almost no chance of maintaining any kind of workout schedule on the road so some pre-trip exercise would at least hold me over for a couple of days. I was staying overnight at my parent's house because I was there for Christmas and having grown up there my whole life I knew of a gym about 5 minutes away. Unfortunately, I forgot that most things are closed on Boxing Day so I was out of luck with the gym. I came back home and shot Jarn a text telling him that I would be ready to leave earlier than 11 if he wanted and we moved up our departure time to 10. I encountered some more bad news when my dad half-jokingly asked me if I remembered my passport as he was eating breakfast and I realized that I had actually left it in Vancouver. Something about driving to another country and not flying must have not registered to my brain the fact that I'd be crossing a border and would obviously need my passport. One annoying drive out to Vancouver and back to the 'burbs and Jarn and Iain arrived at my house to pick me up at our original takeoff time of 11am.

I was picked up in Jarn's faithful bucket of bolts and jumped in the back while Iain held shotgun. We made our way towards Seattle and picked up Graham about 15 minutes away from the border. The boarder lineup at the Peace Arch Crossing was minimal and we had to make a snap decision about whether or not to buy New Year's Eve tickets to an event that Jarn heard about before we were hit with roaming charges. No one knew much about the event other than it was close to the Staples Center (we would be there to watch the Kings play the Cancuks on NYE) and had an open bar from 11pm-midnight. At $60 a ticket, we figured we could get enough value out of that hour of drinking alone and decided to gamble on the event and bought the tickets online. It wasn't long before we got past the border without any problems and were officially out of the country!

...TBC.

I'd rather break up the story into 2-3 parts rather than wait even longer to post something.

A brief poker update: I'm planning on playing 10-15 TCOOP events and have already played in 4. Unfortunately, I've managed to airball all 4 so far despite playing very well. In the first event, the $134 knockout, I encountered a dream situation where someone opened, another player 3bet, I jammed QQ from the SB and the 3bettor looked me up with 88. 8 on the turn and I was out instead of having a decent stack before the money.

In the second event that I played, the $33 NLHE, I was out very early when I held 66 in a multi-way pot on a K65 flop and got outdrawn by a runner-runner flush.

The third event, the $55 6-max shootout, was very disappointing. I woke up at 7am today just to play it and was excited to see that my first table only had 3 players at it lol. One of the players was very bad and the other was mediocre. The very bad player was out pretty quickly and I had about 8K going into heads up against my opponents stack of 6K. We traded blinds for a little bit before getting it all-in with my QQ dominating his AQ...A on the river in dramatic fashion and I was crippled. 2 hands later I was out when my K5o fell to 78o.

I didn't give myself much of a shot in the 4th event, the $22R. I went back to sleep after busting the shootout and woke up halfway through the rebuy period of the $22R. My stack had dwindled from 1000 to 400 so I instantly re-bought to 1400 and got it in with AA against KQs on the very first hand. The board ran out 3 diamonds giving them the flush and I was too frustrated and tired to rebuy to 10 big blinds so I just went back to sleep. I was kinda disappointed to see that the add-on would have given me an extra 3K though, had I known that I would have rebought I think. Oh well, gotta check the tourney info next time.

Next up tomorrow is the $10R and a $33FO, we'll see if I can fare any better.

gl at the tables! Good to be back.