Frosty's "Think Out Loud" Mistake Thread

I wanted to make this thread because I've been making far too many mistakes at the tables so far this year. I don't know how long I'll keep updating it but until I feel like I've got things under control in terms of playing "correctly," I'd like to use this space to post hand histories and try to figure out how I could have played each spot better.

I've been getting torched in EV this month and aside from the bad beats, I've ran AK into AA enough times against shorties that I should prob consider folding at some point but won't :) Anyways, I can't control the EV side of things but I can control my play! Looking over my sessions today, I did play EV positive but lost a few buyins in reality and a lot of money could have been saved had I simply played better. I want to work towards playing "flawlessly" in my own mind. I'd like to end a session, or better yet a day, thinking that I made no major mistakes and didn't leave much money out there. I'm not saying that I'm aiming to play absolutely perfect or that I'm going to start thinking that I'm the best player in the world or anything...just like I said, I'd like to play what I would consider mistake free poker or at least close to it. Feel free to chime in on any/every hand if you have your own opinions...even if you don't play these stakes it really doesn't matter :)

Jan 23

1. PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (7 handed)

Hero (CO) ($100)
Button ($40)
SB ($42.21)
BB ($40)
UTG ($98.50)
MP1 ($106.30)
MP2 ($102.46)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q, Q
2 folds, MP2 raises to $3, Hero raises to $9.50, 3 folds, MP2 raises to $22, Hero raises to $100 (All-In), MP2 calls $78

Flop: ($201.50) 2, 10, 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($201.50) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($201.50) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $201.50 | Rake: $2.80

Results below:
MP2 had K, K (one pair, Kings).
Hero had Q, Q (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: MP2 won $198.70


Mistake: 3bet/5bet shoving pre
Solution: 3bet/fold or flat pre
Why: This was against a 22/12 regfish villain that has a reasonably small 4-bet in MP but an overall low fold to 3bet across the board. I think that 3betting is fine since this villain will call OOP with a lot of hands that I beat but probably has a 4bet/calling range of QQ+/AK, heavily weighted towards AA and KK. Even Though they're in the HJ and I'm in the cutoff, I think stacking with QQ is a little too light against this type of player and in fact, I told myself to fold and then clicked the call button. You know how it is. If we were both one position to the left (ie CO vs. BTN), this would be an auto-stackoff pre and but it is, flatting pre is probably best to avoid being 4-bet bluffed (not likely here) and to more importantly keep his worse hands in play.
Badness Scale (1-10): 3. This one really is a borderline cooler even with the above mentioned explanation. The villain's 4bet wasn't completely small and AK should always be in their range, possibly along with JJ so I won't lose too much sleep over it but overall I think flatting is probably best.

2. PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)

UTG ($100)
UTG+1 ($100)
MP1 ($101.44)
MP2 ($103.62)
MP3 ($56.13)
CO ($101.08)
Hero (Button) ($100)
SB ($42)
BB ($105.28)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 4, 4
5 folds, CO raises to $3, Hero calls $3, 2 folds

Flop: ($7.50) 4, K, 9 (2 players)
CO bets $4, Hero raises to $14, CO raises to $49, Hero raises to $97 (All-In), CO calls $48

Turn: ($201.50) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($201.50) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $201.50 | Rake: $2.80

Results below:
Hero had 4, 4 (three of a kind, fours).
CO had 8, A (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: CO won $198.70

Mistake: Raising the flop and stacking off
Solution: Call flop
Why: This was against a 26/18 unknown, assumed fishier player. I think that with top set, or even middle set, I can get the money in feeling pretty good here. Even with bottom set I think it's very close, as it's hard to know what kind of unknown we're playing against here...if it's the kind that stacks off with top pair every time, we're going to be printing money. However, straight up fish don't usually have such aggressive stats, which leads me to think villain is sort of a reg-fish or at least has an idea about how to play the game. Against a range of any reasonable player that wants to get the money in here, we're pretty much alwasy up against a flush, or worse a bigger set, or the Asx, with the range weighted heavily towards flushes I would say. If we're up against a flush, we still have a decent amount of equity but we're pretty much toast to KK/99. We also make a ton of hands that we beat fold to a flop raise that might otherwise double or triple barrel. On this runout I'm still losing a bunch of money since I doubt that I would fold by the river but I think against an overall Cbetting range and considering the range of hands that the villain will get the money in with here, flatting serves me better.
Badness Scale (1-10): 2. Especially readless, this is basically a cooler but as I stated, I think that I like flatting more than raising/getting it in. Even if the board does pair, I doubt the villain ever slows down with the flush so I doubt we lose much/if any value.

3. PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, €2.00 BB (9 handed)

Button (€200)
Hero (SB) (€200)
BB (€200)
UTG (€200)
UTG+1 (€123.35)
MP1 (€221.88)
MP2 (€200)
MP3 (€203)
CO (€92.11)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7, 7
5 folds, CO raises to €5, 1 fold, Hero raises to €14, 1 fold, CO calls €9

Flop: (€30) 9, 4, 9 (2 players)
Hero bets €16, CO raises to €78.11 (All-In), Hero calls €62.11

Turn: (€186.22) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (€186.22) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: €186.22 | Rake: €2.15

Results below:
Hero had 7, 7 (full house, nines over sevens).
CO had A, A (full house, Aces over nines).
Outcome: CO won €184.07

Mistake: 3bet shoving the flop
Solution: bet-fold flop
Why: Again, another borderline cooler spot and all of these hands might seem super nitty but that's just how the games seem to play. I think that a 3bet pre is good here against a typical short-stacker, even though their CO steal was only 19%. I could probably even find a fold if they jammed pre-flop but I think that calling would be fine too. As played though, I really don't think there are enough hands in the villains range that I beat...in fact I'm really struggling to think of any besides flush draws and even those have great equity against my hand. I think that I do need to Cbet, as the villain could be flatting lots of suited broadway hands/suited aces and I want to deny equity and take the pot down right there. Also, for balancing reasoning it makes a lot of sense as I would Cbet this flop with my entire range most of the time. I think that I just need to fold to their jam and be pretty happy about it. I don't even need to worry about being exploited because lots of the time I will have a hand strong enough to call with (ie TT+).
Badness Scale (1-10): 5. It's no secret that shorties like to trap pre-flop in position, especially with AA. In reality, basically nobody seems to straight up bluff these spots with air or underpairs and if they do, they will get crushed when I have a stronger portion of my range. Fold!

4. PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (8 handed)

BB ($192.86)
UTG ($128)
UTG+1 ($88.96)
MP1 ($80)
MP2 ($208.68)
CO ($203)
Hero (Button) ($241.67)
SB ($83.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, A
5 folds, Hero raises to $4.56, 1 fold, BB calls $2.56

Flop: ($10.12) Q, 4, 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5.76, BB raises to $14, Hero calls $8.24

Turn: ($38.12) 8 (2 players)
BB bets $19, Hero calls $19

River: ($76.12) J (2 players)
BB bets $46, Hero calls $46

Total pot: $168.12 | Rake: $2.80

Results below:
Hero didn't show A, A (one pair, Aces).
BB had 4, 4 (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: BB won $165.32

Mistake: Calling River
Solution: Fold or shove river, consider folding earlier too
Why: This is against another shorty that ran up a stack I think. The flop is so dry that there really isn't much merit to raising...I think we fold out everything we beat and there aren't many scare cards to come. I think that folding is too weak at this point, I'd hope that villain is c/ring a Q for value or maybe turning a mid-pair into a bluff. Hard to put QQ in their range but I guess 44/22 are out there. Not much changes on the turn and since we have the Ah, we could potentially bluff a heart river so I still think that I need to call. Sizing is fairly small as well. On the river, QJ got there, some backdoor flush got there and sets still beat us. I'm not sure if the villain would keep firing with Qx here but I doubt it. I think that it's probably a losing call in this spot. I really wanted to shove but I was concerned that the villain wasn't quite deep enough or even capable of folding a set. The shove would be a bit of a merge because we could have the best hand if the villain did have Qx or got tricky with KK but mostly it would be a bluff trying to rep the nut flush and get them to fold a set, 2pair or straight. In hindsight, I don't think there are enough players capable of folding sets, especially not with a lot of money left behind and I should just fold the river.
Badness Scale (1-10): 6. I think the river call is pretty bad. I just don't see this being a bluff hardly ever. It might seem stupid to call the flop c/r and the river bet then fold when we still have an overpair to the board but there are a bunch of different situations that could have played out on the river. For example, the river could have bricked off, villain could have checked and weighted his range more heavily towards Qx and we could have value-bet our hand.

There are a few more hands that I think that I misplayed a bit today but they're all even more minor than those so I think that I'll leave it at that. Month:

 

Despite all the pots that I've been losing there have been a lot of well played ones as well. My EV line is actually trending upwards and that's not even taking into account most of these hands that I've posted where I've had little to no EV at all lol. Hopefully I can start playing more solidly and post some better results by the end of Jan because there's still a bunch of poker left to be played. I'll have a lot of poker over the next little while too because I messed up my ankle at ice hockey tonight. I was heading in on a partial break-away as I just edged out their player for the puck. He was right behind me as I was skating down the left side of the ice towards their net...I went to cut in to my right and tossed a backhand on net but their player was right on me and he didn't push me or anything but my feet came out from under me and I started sliding towards the boards at full speed. My skates were first to hit the board and my ankle buckled right in...I'm not sure how serious it is but it feels like a sprain. Took this pic as I was icing it in the locker room:

 

You can see how swollen it looks. Not sure how long it will take to heal up, hopefully not long but right now I can't really put any pressure on it. Could be glued to my desk for a little while :( Am having people over tomorrow too, oh well. That's it for now,

 

gl at the tables!

Early Goings from the SNE Grind 2014

Well, I dove right into the thick of things when I returned from the PCA and have been playing about as much as I can everyday. I can already tell that this is going to be a long, incredibly difficult task for me to accomplish and much, much different than 2010. Back when I first got SNE, I didn't have a very strict schedule in place...I pretty much just played randomly when I felt like it and at one point in the summer I was going to bed at 7am and waking up at 3-5pm. I also checked my results constantly. I didn't map out any sort of VPP plan, although I was well aware of what I needed to hit as a minimum to keep pace. As a result, I ended up having to do a massive 155K VPP cram at the end of the year but really at no point did I believe that I was not going to make it.

This year, as I mentioned, things are completely different. I've been setting my alarm everyday (730am-830am), have a target VPP quota to hit and while I will check my results periodically, I can go weeks (sometimes months) without looking. With that said, I really can't say with a lot of confidence that I'm going to reach SNE this year! The reality of the matter is that I earn less VPPs/hand then I did back in 2010 and the mid-stakes games also don't seem to run as much as they used to. Still, you know what, I'm stoked for the challenge! The games seem good, I'm confident enough in my game and it feels awesome to get back into grind mode again. So I might have to try moving up stakes, or playing 6-max games, or maybe 1-2 months of Omaha or fixed limit for those extra VPPs...I feel like if I can at least keep things close for most of the year and give myself a shot to reach the 1,000,000 VPP milestone over the last few months then I just might be able to pull it off.

The start to the year has gone alright at the tables. I had a brutal day today where I played basically EV+ but ran about $800 under expectation:

, sevens over threes). Hero had 4♥, A♥ (stright, five high). Outcome: BB won $208.70

Here are a couple of the biggest EV discrepancies from today, although the first one is standard against a reg (fish in BB) and the 2nd is just a fish being a fish. You can't get too upset :)

1. PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed)

UTG+1 ($33.50)
MP1 ($175.59)
Hero (MP2) ($102)
CO ($118.82)
Button ($158.43)
SB ($40)
BB ($130.35)
UTG ($59.23)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with 4, A
UTG raises to $2, 2 folds, Hero calls $2, 3 folds, BB calls $1

Flop: ($6.50) 2, 7, 5 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG bets $1, Hero calls $1, BB raises to $5, UTG calls $4, Hero calls $4

Turn: ($21.50) 3 (3 players)
BB bets $13, 1 fold, Hero raises to $44, BB raises to $123.35 (All-In), Hero calls $51 (All-In)

River: ($211.50) 3 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $211.50 | Rake: $2.80

Results below:
BB had 7, 7 (full house, sevens over threes).
Hero had 4, A (straight, five high).
Outcome: BB won $208.70

2. PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)

MP2 ($103.73)
MP3 ($100)
CO ($117.50)
Button ($100)
SB ($106.43)
BB ($104.48)
UTG ($105.50)
UTG+1 ($136.95)
Hero (MP1) ($222.08)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with J, J
2 folds, Hero raises to $2.28, 4 folds, SB calls $1.78, BB calls $1.28

Flop: ($6.84) 8, 7, 3 (3 players)
SB bets $6.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $20.17, SB calls $13.67

Turn: ($47.18) 4 (2 players)
SB bets $83.98 (All-In), Hero calls $83.98

River: ($215.14) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $215.14 | Rake: $2.80

Results below:
SB had 8, 9 (two pair, nines and eights).
Hero didn't show J, J (one pair, Jacks).
Outcome: SB won $212.34

Despite the poor session today, the month has been alright otherwise and I'm currently up a bit:

 

I feel like I'm pretty rusty at the moment but am slowly shaking it off. I think that I'm playing fairly well overall but am making a lot of calls in spots where I have really strong hands but am being shown even better hands and I should be able to fold. I'm talking about borderline cooler spots but I should probably be a little less ambitious and start making more laydowns...for example:

The plan was to XR/fold the river but since I did backdoor it I convinced myself that villain could be shoving sets/straight/2pair and worse flushes but given how little money was invested until the river, I don't like my call in hindsight.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (9 handed)

MP2 ($249.50)
MP3 ($208.70)
CO ($212.19)
Button ($77)
Hero (SB) ($200)
BB ($211)
UTG ($84.84)
UTG+1 ($208.32)
MP1 ($256.34)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, 7
2 folds, MP1 calls $2, 4 folds, Hero calls $1, BB checks

Flop: ($6) 7, A, 5 (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, MP1 bets $2, Hero calls $2, 1 fold

Turn: ($10) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $4, Hero calls $4

River: ($18) J (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $18, Hero raises to $48, MP1 raises to $248.34 (All-In), Hero calls $144 (All-In)

Total pot: $402 | Rake: $2.80

Results below:
Hero had 10, 7 (flush, Jack high).
MP1 had 2, A (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: MP1 won $399.20

I could post a bunch of losing river calls that I've made this month, a lot more suspect then that one of course. Anyways, I'll try to keep the mistakes to a minimum-something that becomes increasingly more difficult as the volume remains high.

Alright, I'm off to bed and probably won't update until the end of January. I've got to balance what's left of the month between poker, hockey, crossfit, a dentist appointment and a couple of parties on the weekend. Time to get up early!

gl at the tables!

2013 Year in Review and Big Plans for 2014!

   Well, this blog post is long overdue but the combination of website issues, late-year grind fails, holidays in Hawaii and then travelling to the PCA immediately after that has left me with little time to spare as of late.

   Where to start? Let's rewind a bit to the start of the madness, which begun in December, 2013. After a year full of earning a lot less VPPs than I'm used to, I found myself in a tough spot to earn even the 200,000 milestone bonus. I needed about 29k VPPs in the first 19 days of December (was leaving then) to cross the milestone and in a year where 20k+ VPP months were hard to come by, I knew this would be no easy feat. That number would be cakewalk in the past for me but for some reason I really hadn't been able to get into "full grind mode" without that year long goal to chase. With that in mind, I wanted to make the December push about more than just earning the $2,600 that came along with the bonus-I really wanted to cross the 200k mark to feel that sense of accomplishment that had been lacking in a sense for most of the year. I was also hoping that the "grind mentality" would carry over to the new year and aid my potential 2014 SNE chase.

   I got to work pretty fast and 10-12 hour days gradually became the norm as I approached December 19th but I didn't really mind that much. It felt good to feel productive again, even though my results weren't that great. I was playing my regular stakes (100nl+200nl FR) for most of the month but I tried to play some CAP for a day or 2 as my time was winding down to earn more VPPs/hour. My CAP experience didn't last long though lol...I somehow lost like $800 over 1-2 days even though when I checked the all-in pots that I won/lost, I seemed to win way more than I lost. I took that information to basically mean that I was folding my blinds way too much and bleeding away so much money that I would not be profitable playing CAP unless I drastically changed my play-something that would require too much time and effort when both were of the essence. With that, I abandoned CAP and went back to my normal games to finish off the month. I was basically breaking-even at my normal games but the games were pretty good and I think that I was running fairly bad and not playing my A-game due to the very high volume. Despite that, the end was in sight with 2 days left and it was going to be 2 12-16 hour days ahead of me but I was going to make it.

   The reason for travelling on the 19th was to spend Christmas in Hawaii for a little family time. I called my mom on the 17th to confirm when we would be meeting up and when we would be leaving on the 19th and that's when things unfolded pretty quickly. I found out that we were actually leaving on the 18th, not the 19th, and I somehow got the date wrong by one day!! As always, I had things planned out to the very last minute and this time not leaving any room to spare came back to bite me in the ass. There really was no way that I could have earned the remaining 5k VPPs without playing in games where the variance would be much greater than the $2,600 I would earn from the milestone. I considered changing flights, coming back early etc. but all of the scenarios were complicated and the flights were non-transferable and non-refundable. In 2010, when I reached SNE, I actually cancelled on a family vacation in December but I wasn't about to do it again...especially not over $2,600. So with that, I came to peace with my poor time management fairly quickly and did in fact end the year with 195,000 VPPs. I spent the last night before leaving with my girlfriend, instead of grinding all through the night, and had a great holiday with my family in Maui and Kona and don't regret the decision to leave some money at the tables.

Poker

   Looking back on 2013, I view it as a great year overall but fairly disappointing on the poker front. With my low volume, I only earned about $50k-$60k...which is still a fine amount of money but is relatively small compared to what I've made in the past. I felt like my effort and hours were there but as I've mentioned before, without that year long goal to keep me motivated each month I found myself playing less than I have in the past. Also, January, April/May and November were pretty much write-offs due to life and poker-related things getting in the way. I don't have close to all of the hands that I played this year, due to cleaning out a lot of hands when my computer was lagging but I do have a 700K+ sample to post for the past few months. I have a winrate of over 2bb/100 from this sample and my actual winrate is probably a bit higher than this (had a couple of good months at the start of the year) but 2bb is more or less accurate, I think. I'm pretty happy with that winrate and would be stoked if I could maintain that over a higher amount of volume. Graph of past several months:

   Switching gears to 2014, as you've probably guessed by now I am planning on going for Supernova Elite! I guess it's somewhat fitting that I'm back to writing on the old blog, at least for now since this is where everything began for me poker-wise back in 2010. I was basically anonymous, had just enough money for a bankroll and had no idea what was in store for me over the next few years. I think it's time to bring this thing full circle and grind even harder than I did back then.

   I haven't had SNE status since 2011 and want to get it back badly. Motivation is a funny thing in poker-it seems to come and go and for whatever reason I just feel super motivated to play right now. The PCA was another great trip and experience but I've been itching to come home and work for a while now. So, how am I going to earn 1,000,000 VPPs when I couldn't even clear 200k last year you ask? Well, as I just mentioned...there were 3-4 months where I hardly logged any volume at all due to my house-hunt, the PCA in January and my website redesign in November. Making sure that I make every month count will obviously be crucial to a successful SNE chase. Also, due to eating cleanly and exercising regularly I have been springing out of bed at 8-9am at the latest...sometimes I wouldn't wake up until 2pm or later in 2010. With more hours to work with and stricter discipline, hopefully I can stick to a productive routine of 6-10 hour days according to what I need to do. With all of that said, I do have to admit that I really feel less confident about making SNE this time around than 2010. I earn less VPPs/hand now compared to back then so I'll have to increase my volume and/or the stakes that I'm going to play. I do have a plan to get SNE...I'm just not entirely convinced it's a good one ;)

   The plan will be to play my normal stakes (100/200nl full-ring) for at least the start of the year and stay as close to SNE pace as I can. SNE pace is about 83K VPPs per month but realistically, I won't be able to earn much more than 60K each month by playing my regular games. Especially with my short January, I'm going to try and weigh my game-selection towards 200nl as much as I can and push the ceiling as the year unfolds, probably sooner rather than later. I might start including 400nl/600nl games as early as February but we'll have to see how things are going. It's important to be flexible and re-evaluate things as the year unwinds when you have these long term goals. Also, I am also considering playing a more vpp-friendly game, such as PLO or limit-hold'em, for 1-2 months (probably near the end of the year) if I need a big VPP boost. Additionally, I will be playing with a low-stakes MTT bankroll on the side of my cash games for additional VPPs.

   So yeah, the plan is set and now it's just time to put the wheels in motion. This is almost definitely not the best way to go about getting SNE as falling beind pace from the get-go is pretty awful but it's as good of plan as I got. I suppose that even if I fall short of SNE a more productive yaer will still be the by-product of the chase. I really have no idea how my winrate will be affected with all of this volume. I assume it will go down but by how much, I do not know. I don't have a profit goal or anything for 2014 but I suppose that anything less than 6-figures will not be satisfying for how much effort I plan on putting in.

Life

   Away from the tables, things were pretty exciting and great overall in 2013. I ended up buying my first condo in my favorite area in Vancouver and am enjoying my money being put towards something that I will ultimately own outright, hopefully sooner rather than later. I also decided to get myself into better shape and started crossfit training and being quite strict with my diet. I've been making gradual changes to my diet and fitness for a couple of years now and am to the point where I feel like I understand what it takes to change my body and how to feel pretty great. I'll post one douchy selfie of my results to up the NSFW content of this blog for y'all and be done with it ;)...took this at some point in December to send to gf in hopes that she'd return the favour...she did not. Enjoy:



   Fitness goals for the year are pretty simple. I'd like to try to gain 15-20lbs of muscle and continue doing crossfit and sports and I think that it should be a pretty attainable goal. I'm currently about 155-160 and am 5"10. I'd like to be a bit stronger and bigger for athletic purposes so I'll do a clean bulk at a pretty slow pace and adjust from there. I'll plan on over-shooting my target weight of 175lbs by a bit and then do a cut back down to that number to lean up a bit. If anyone wants to know more about my diet and training I'd be happy to do a blog post about it but for now I'll stop it at that. Judging from stuff I've seen on poker forums, there does seem to be a movement from more and more poker players to want to get in shape. I think that given the free time that poker allows us and the ill-effects of a desk job, players should make exercising a priority in their life and don't really have an excuse not to. I'll be looking to exercise 3-5 times a week-crossfit 3-4 times and hockey 1-2!

Other Thoughts

   Social media is something that I want to improve upon this year. I have an active twitter (@frosty012) and facebook (Tyler "frosty012" Frost fan page) account and an instagram account (frosty0012) that is more or less just for fun. I'd like to try and grow my following on both the facebook and twitter page and will be making more of an effort to tweet/fb update more consistently and with better content. The SNE grind should present plenty of poker material for me to talk about so I think that it will be natural for me to be more engaged in social media throughout 2014. Also, when I was down at the PCA I did a new photo shoot and am excited to update a lot of my now-outdated pics with some new material on each of my social media outlets.

   I'm going to continue to do coaching for PokerSchoolOnline twice a month as far as I know. If you're not aware, I coach on 2 Sundays a month and am always open to class suggestions. The classes are always free (some have small VPP requirements) and PSO seems to be growing quite rapidly, which is nice to see. I hope to see you at some of my classes. As for now, I'm not offering any personal coaching...I find it hard to imagine that I'll have the time to do that this year anyways.

   That's about all I can think of for now...I don't have a specific timetable for blog updates-it may be hard to find a lot of spare time to write but I'm thinking 1 a week type thing will probably be typical but we'll see. Anyways, gl to everyone on the grind this year...let's get 2014 started!

gl at the tables!!!

 

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'