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WiltOnTilt

This video got leaked... it's a pirated copy of some sort of introduction?



Just to whet your taste buds...

Here's the background information. Definitely worth a read.

Look out poker world... here we come!

Check back Tuesday for more info... ;-)

The poker world changes... 01/01/08. Are you going to adapt or be left in the dust?

Merry Christmas to all!

I'm here in Jackson, MS visiting my family for the holidays. We were in Birmingham thurs/fri/sat for the papajohns.com bowl where unfortunately dad's team got beat by #20 Cincinnati. It was a close game for the most part, dad's team played well but we got so ridiculously hosed by the Big 12 officiating refs on multiple game changing calls (and no-calls).

So that wraps up the season, 14 straight winning seasons and 10 bowls and Jeff Bower (the head coach) and the staff are still out of a job. It's the nature of this business, more cutthroat than most realize, but it kind of comes with the territory. I'm sure Dad will find another job, and if he doesn't, he's done plenty of work over the years and he more than deserves taking some time off. So far two of the possibilities of new jobs have fallen through -- one because dad's friend didn't get the head coaching job and the other because the position is slated as a minority hire (yes there's affirmative action BS in college football hirings for those of you who didnt know). I'm not going to go on a rant about that here and now but it's always frustrating when someone with documented less experience and talent is hired because of the color of their skin. I don't see why the person being hired would want that, or the person doing the hiring, but it's the world we live in...

But, onto more happy things, I can say that there's not much else in this world that I love more than simply just hanging out with the fam. I love just having Missy there with my mom, dad, and sis and just chilling and watching the bowl games, eating lots of good food, putting some brisket and pork and turkey on the smoker, and just hanging out enjoying each other's company. It's really what life is all about for me. My goal is just to get to the point where I can work as little as possible so I can maximize time with my family, while still living a comfortable life. Ideally I'd just luckbox in some huge tourney and forever be known as a dumb tourney donk (haha) but I doubt that ending is in my future (the donk part, obv :-P) Anyway, it's my hope through some combo of poker and my programming background i'll be able to make enough money to ensure I've got plenty of quality time with the fam.

The new year is upon us. I can't believe 2008 is already right around the corner. As of Jan 1 I'll hit my 1 year anniversary as a professional poker player. Maybe I'll write up some sort of year end review, but as you guys know my blog updates have been like once a week or something, which i'm not proud of, but it's just sort of been a reality lately with so much going on. Once the new year hits I'll hopefully refocus my schedule such that I'm a bit more organized in terms of the time i spend playing, coaching, and working on my 2 outside projects.

I'm excited to start talking about my "secretive" project soon, but it's still about a week away, so sit tight! There's a shit ton of work that needs to be done between now and then...

Poker is going decently this month. I haven't played a ton but I've played enough. I haven't got much HU action in this month though. I've been super busy on the forum answering tons of hands from my students, which has been fun but also time consuming. I feel like some of my students are really starting to come into their own and are on the verge of really starting to break through, which is fun to see.

Alrighty, that's it for now... have a fun Christmas!

Aaron

Saturday night, like most saturday nights, was spent grinding it out online to take advantage of the abundance of idiots that take center stage playing online poker. Suffice to say the games were incredible and I was happy for that as I had a special plan for that night.

It started earlier that afternoon when we went to best buy to try to look for something for my mom and sister for Christmas. We found mom's gift fairly fast but I couldn't think of anything to get my sis. Then Missy came through with an excellent idea that we should get her a Nintendo Wii because she used to play her boyfriend's a lot but they broke up and she never got to finish the new Zelda game. Perfect. So we go to find one and they are all sold out.

I couldn't believe it, the Wii has been out for like 1.5 years I think? How could they still have production issues... or maybe it's on purpose? They want to keep supply limited to keep demand high and the buzz going? I have no idea but I even searched around online and all the big name stores were sold out. The only place I could find one is ebay, but I didn't want to pay $600...

The Best Buy employee told me they were getting a late night shipment in and said I should get there early if i wanted one. "What time is early?" I asked. "6am at the latest" lol... So I call up my buddy Andy who works at that best buy and he gave me all the info i needed. So I decided to play from midnight to 5:30am or so then head out to best buy to stand in the 11 degree (farenheit) bitter coldness.

The session was awful, I ran so bad that I was down nearly 7 buyins in the first hour. Here's a graph:



Here were two of my favorite hands from that beginning downward surge:

Full Tilt Poker - $5/$10nl

Hero (SB): $1,067.00
BB: $1,138.00
UTG: $2,465.00
MP: $1,541.00
CO: $3,353.75
BTN: $3,148.75

Preflop: Hero is dealt 7 A (6 Players)

2 folds, CO raises to $35.00, BTN calls $35.00, Hero raises to $155.00, 2 folds, BTN calls $120.00

Flop: ($355) T 2 A (2 Players)

Hero bets $280.00, BTN calls $280.00

Turn: ($915) 4 (2 Players)

Hero bets all-in for $632.00, BTN calls $632.00

River: ($2179) T (2 Players - 1 All-In)

Pot Size: $2,179.00 ($3 Rake)

BTN had 8 T (three of a kind, Tens) and WON (+$1,109.00)

Hero had 7 A (two pair, Aces and Tens) and LOST (-$1,067.00)


this one is the same guy as above:

Full Tilt Poker - $5/$10nl

SB: $1,047.00
BB: $2,440.00
UTG: $1,524.00
MP: $3,592.75
CO: $4,120.50
Hero (BTN): $970.00

Preflop: Hero is dealt A A (6 Players)

UTG folds, MP raises to $35.00, CO calls $35.00, Hero raises to $155.00, 2 folds, MP calls $120.00, CO calls $120.00

Flop: ($480) 5 T 4 (3 Players)

MP checks, CO checks, Hero bets $310.00, MP calls $310.00, CO calls $310.00

Turn: ($1410) 4 (3 Players)

MP checks, CO checks, Hero bets all-in for $505.00, MP folds, CO calls $505.00

River: ($2420) T (2 Players - 1 All-In)

Pot Size: $2,420.00 ($3 Rake)

CO had K 4 (a full house, Fours full of Tens) and WON (+$1,447.00)

Hero had A A (two pair, Aces and Tens) and LOST (-$970.00)

So after that mess I head out to best buy to stand in line for 2.5 hours in the freezing cold. I get to listen to this duck hunter guy behind me rehash the same story about 12 times, talk about how he loves drinking bailey's and coffee in the morning and he and this other lady he was flirting with were sharing stories about their ex wife/husband. lol... The guy was a nice enough guy but he's the type that just can't bare having any silence, so instead of just standing there and waiting he figures it's better if he just tells the same story he just got done with, over and over again, just for the sake of talking. If it wasn't 11 degrees out with my toes nearly freezing off it might have been comical. As it was, more annoying than anything.

So time finally passes and it's 7:15am or so and some Best Buy employees show up with a clipboard and some purchase coupons. They took our orders so at 8am they could have all the orders boxed up and ready to go. The whole process went surprisingly smooth.

So now I just have to get through the next couple days and it's off to Birmingham, AL for the PapaJohns.com bowl then back down to Jackson, MS to visit with the fam. Definitely looking forward to it, but I have a tonnnnnnnn of work to get done before I leave. The projects are mounting but I'm looking forward to helping unveil something very cool in the coming weeks.

Later,
Aaron

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Poker has been up and down this month, I've barely played but I plan on getting in more hands tonight through sunday. I've only played like 10k hands so far this month and about 3k or so in the green. I've been working a lot on Preemas.com as well as my other project that I'll be excited to reveal in a few short weeks. the amount of time i've spent doing non-poker playing has been astounding this month

I've also developed this obsession for final fantasy xii for PS2. I haven't been "into" a console game since i was a teenager, but for some reason I've really gotten into it. I miss playing the old RPG type games like on original nintendo and SNES. I think games like the original Final Fantasy, FF2 and FF3 were some of the most amazing games/story lines ever. I don't think the story line in FFXII is all that amazing but it's enough to keep me hooked, as well as provide some nostalgic value. I think it's cool how they keep the same music in the new game as was used in the original.

Missy and I leave for birmingham on the 19th in the morning to stay with Mom, Dad, and Sis and get ready for the PapaJohns.com bowl. So Miss is something like an 11 pt underdog against Univ of Cincinnati. The head coach from USM "resigned" this year and former OC from OK St is taking over the head coaching job after the bowl. Dad has no idea if the guy is any good or not... but dad should have an opportunity to stay on the staff if he wants it. Most of the other USM coaches are being let go.

Guess that's it for now... more sooner or later. hopefully sooner.

November was a very frustrating month of poker for me. Possibly the most frustrating of the year. I felt, especially at the beginning of the month, I was playing some of the best poker of my life, however the results certainly didn't reflect that. I tried my hand at more HU play, and while I feel like I've gotten better at HU, and I don't claim to be a HU expert, I ran much below expectation. Also november was the first time in a long time I developed a bad tilt in a couple sessions, but I can say after looking through my hands for this month that the tilt only cost me about 3-4k of profits (i say "only" but it's still obv unacceptable).

Fortunately towards the end of the month I ran way way above expectation and was able to recoup a lot of the losses from earlier in the month, but anytime a losing month occurs, especially when you're playing professionally, it stings pretty badly.


The funny thing was, one of my students asked "so did you play a lot better at the end of the month to win all that back?" and I can say with confidence the answer is "no". It's just the variance of poker so many people don't understand. Even those that have played hundreds of thousands of hands. I think I was playing much better poker from hand 1 to hand 14,000 than I was from hand 32k - 38k. It's just how it goes sometimes... for most of the month I got setup and coolered left and right, at the end of the month things went my way. I'm definitely not proud of the fact that I had a losing month of poker, given that I do this for a living, but I'm not going to hide my results because I'm worried about my "image" to the online poker community. If people want to make judgements about me based on graph of a bad month, then that's fine.

In other not so great news, the head coach at So Miss (where my dad coaches the d-line) got fired last week after 14 straight winning seasons and 10 bowl appearances. Typically that means most of the staff will also be let go, but usually they keep one or two coaches on staff to ease the transition with the players. It's looking likely that dad will be one of those kept on, if he wants, but it's not a 100% certainty. It does look like this year will be a big turnover year, which is always nice in the college football biz when you're looking for a job. CFB coaching is one of the most cutthroat businesses out there, kind of amazing actually.

There are some exciting things coming up in December and January that I'm looking forward to. I'll write more as details can be released. Preemas.com is still coming along but again we've hit a bit of a lull on the development. There's currently a really bizarre bug in the site that I can't figure out and it's really annoying. Somehow old code is being cached somewhere and I can't figure out how to remove it.

One thing that my parents always instilled in me was to help out other people. Missy and I have grabbed several items for needy kids this Christmas. It's fun to go pick out things for people, especially when you know they would likely have very little without anyone's help. I'm certainly not looking for any applause, as plenty of other people do way more for others than I do, but it does give you a good feeling. Especially around Christmas time.

I guess I'm becoming a softy in my old age of almost 27.

December is going to be a crazy busy month with lots of travelling around and Christmas and poker and side projects. Hopefully I'll have more time to dedicate to this blog but it feels like every free moment of my time is spent answering questions for my students on our private forum.

Good luck,
WoT