When I was building a bankroll, posting online, and learning poker, a challenge arose on the forums. Open Internet Challenge (OIC) was created by poster Mike Haven. It was created to help a player move up in limits, parlay the winnings through the levels, and move up quickly. Here was the format:

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Open Internet Challenge

1. Start in the 50c/$1 with a “separate” bankroll of $40 as soon as you have made $40

In November of 2003, I started the OIC with a bunch of players on the forum. We had an early snow storm in New England, and I was inside for the entire weekend. I led the challenge after a few days at $750. I was limited in playing time after leading the OIC. When the time frame for the OIC expired I did not complete the challenge. But the OIC forced me play the most hands I’ve ever played in a short period of time. This set the pace for how to go about building a bankroll online.

The next critical moment I failed to mention in my previous post was the formation of a Heads Up Limit Association (HULA). I’m fairly sure that HULA was created by poster gonores. Gonores real name is Doug; he is a good friend of mine today, and a great poker player and person.

Teams were created for HULA, and a draft ensued. We played a series of heads-up matches on the internet. This was my first time playing heads-up poker. I learned so much from playing the great players of twoplustwo in this series of events, that I frequently play heads up today and crush the games. I continued to play in HULA II, as a team captain. I know neither of my team won the league but we faired better than average.

This turned out longer than I thought it would. Thanks for your patience, and I’ll be sure to add Part III as soon as I can.

I’ve been poker coaching my butt off recently and it has been fun. I recently go this graph from someone who plays NL Sit-n-Gos that I met with last month:

I know he is running good but I like to think I had a lot to do with his turn around!

Tags: poker coaching

I started posting on the twoplustwo forums in April of 2003. My first post was a 2/4 limit hold’em hand that I played online. My timing could not be better. The forums were just starting to grow and many of the legendary posters were still around. Posters such as Louie Landale, Bob T, Clarkmeister, Dynasty, majorkong (Ed Miller), Ulysses (El Diablo), and many others, would reply to my hand posts, debate strategies, and teach the ins and outs of limit hold’em. I posted frequently and continued playing, reading and studying. I made frequent trips to the 2/4 and 4/8 games at Foxwoods Casino. During the summer of 2003 I made a trip to meet up with some twoplustwo posters. During this trip I met posters, Barry, Homer, JTG51, MaxPower, among others, and many are good friends of mine today. I have made many trips, over the last three years, to meet posters of twoplustwo. I do not have an official count; however, I’m sure I have met well over 100 twoplustwo.

I started building a bankroll, and I was paying off my debts with extra money I was earning over my bankroll. From April to October of 2003, I played 2/4 and 3/6 hold’em online, 2/4 , 4/8 and 5/10 at Foxwoods, while eliminating my debt. Playing one table without tracking software, I eliminated roughly $8,000 in debt over that period. I was ready to move up and limits and asked a respected poster on moving up in limits. He suggested I start playing the 5/10 shorthanded (6-max) games online, as it would prepare me for the aggressive games at higher limits. (Thank you, El Diablo!) This advice was the bridge between playing the lower limits and moving into higher limits.

I started playing the 5/10, 6-max games online in November of 2003 and single-tabled these games through April of 2004. I made my first foray into mid-limit poker on New Years Eve of 2004 in the 10/20 game at Foxwoods. Even to this day, that table was one of the craziest tables I’ve played. It featured a maniacal player who proceeded to lose $5000, in 6 hours, raise 98% of his hands preflop and 70% of the flops. MaxPower had the privilege to be in this game with me, a truly amazing event. I took a 50BB win out of the game and started off the New Year with a bang.

I continued posting, reading and playing poker throughout the spring of 2004. I moved into the 10/20 full and 6-max games online. In the summer of 2004, I started playing the 15/30 games online and the 20/40 game at Foxwoods. I paid off $19, 000 and was debt free by June of 2004 and maintained a healthy bankroll online. I was working my fulltime job and this allowed me to build a comfortable bankroll.

In August of 2004, things began to change at my job. The changes were not in my favor and many of my co-workers were seeking employment elsewhere. A few weeks into August I found myself disenchanted with my job. By September I was officially unemployed and was the happiest I have ever been in my entire life.

I am going to continue with My Poker Story as I have recently made my 10k post on 2+2. But to warm everyone up, I’m going to repost what I had written so far over the next 3 days. The updated section should run about 3 more full posts.

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I spent my pre-school and elementary school summers on Cape Cod, as my grand parents had a summer residence there, and my mother worked in the school system. My grand parents and parents were big card players. My grand parents would regularly go to Bridge and Pinochle tournaments. When my mom would go places, my grand parents would baby sit my brother, my cousins, and I. At night, the game playing began to keep us entertained. I was always up a little later where my grandmother and grandfather would play card games together. I would beg to play with them, and it wasn’t long after five years of age, that I played my first hand of five card draw for bingo chips.

My fascination with games continued, and I would routinely try to stay up late the nights my father would host his home game. He has been rotating in the same home game from Sept-May on the first Friday of every month for over 30 years. One night, when I was seven, I couldn’t sleep as the camaraderie in the kitchen was too loud. This is where, upon my father’s lap, I played my first hand of seven card stud.

My first job, at ten years old, was in the local paper office. I stuffed ads in the papers before my 60 house route. I would get to the office about 20 minutes before the paper truck showed up. There was always a deck of cards around, and there were six of us everyday playing all sorts of poker games: seven card stud, five card draw, scat 31, follow the queen, shared board games like criss-cross, etc. We played for nickels, dimes and occasionally quarters. This carried right on through high school, college, where the quarters eventually became dollars. I still play with some of these guys today, 20 years later.

Over the years the home game has evolved. We introduced games like hold’em where we routinely played no-limit for cash. As we became older, the games slowly went up in limits. The game, now, is $5 blinds, and routinely sees over $1000 stacks, a long way from the nickels and dimes of the paper office.

In September of 2001, I started a new job. I was invited to a home game of some of my co-workers and was introduced to limit hold’em. I was fascinated by the structure, and I headed to the book store to look for more information. I bought “Theory of Poker” by David Sklansky and “Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players” by Sklansky and Malmouth. I kept reading and rereading the material and continued to play limit hold’em. I started do web searches for more information about Texas Hold’em where I found a site by ‘Dick in Phoenix’. Dick was an avid player of the game; his real name is Dick Astrom for those of you that want to look him up. Dick’s site was very helpful, and I found the nickname, ‘Dick in Phoenix’ was Dick’s username on the twoplustwo forums.

I started reading the twoplustwo forums in the fall of 2002. I was amazed that such depth poker discussion took place. Every single bet, call, raise, or fold was routinely debated for days. I was intimidated by such poker prowess and lurked the boards for months. I discovered online poker from the forum, and started to play low limit hold’em on Paradise Poker. It wasn’t until spring of 2003 that I mustered up the confidence to post my first hand on twoplustwo. That was the beginning of where I am today.

DeucesCracked.com has it’s own forum on 2p2!  Click HERE

We are very excited!

This is an old conversation with my good friend, Rory, an excellent poker player:

Rory: 2. I ran a $10-20 simulation with a bunch of loose players and a good player on the button with A4s. The player with A4s on the button folded to a raise in front, but raised himself when there were 4 or more limpers in (aside from the blinds). In this situation, A4s won 19.1% of the pots (which is way more than fair share) and earned $15.40 per hand.

The third sim was same as no. 2 (same flops, same cards in opponent’s hands), except A4s tried to see the flop cheaply (no raise). As before, A4s on the button folded to a raise in front and only limped behind the fish. Here, A4s won 18.9% of the pots and earned $12.72 per hand.

Rory: According to Turbo, limping behind loose limpers with A4s is about $3 mistake in a $10-20 game. The situation is similar (to a lesser extent) with even Q5s (which is as low as I go, suited jacks with no kicker are unplayable), although I’d prefer seven or more loose opponents to raise with suited no-kickered queens.

Rory: so with a 6 limpers or so to you raising with a suited no kicker queen on the button is +EV and will also give you a great image

Rory: they are simulations of course but who cares

Rory: limping behind loose limpers with A4s is a $3!!! mistake in a 10/20 game

Rory: the other thing i have been wondering is how much the blind money is worth in terms of letting yourself take the worst of it preflop

Rory: like if you were sure you could get it heads up, how much of the worse of it could you take preflop giving yourself position

Rory: since you get some overlay from the dead money from the blinds

Rory: and you have position and some fold equity by jamming preflop and what not

Stop this video at 16-18 seconds and look who is walking down the stairs in the background!   Click HERE

First I fly out next to Gabe Kapler when Michelle and I made our trip back to Boston the 2nd week of September.:

He wears a helluva ring:

Then, on Saturday night, Michelle does some translating as we are at a Japanese Restaurant when Dice-K is there!

GO SOX!

I’ll be getting back into poker coaching when I’m not working to improve DeucesCracked.com.  The traveling over the last few weeks is finally over with and I’m ready to buckle down!  I have had a lot of requests as of late and I’m going to try to get to everyone of them.  Poker coaching is always been very rewarding to me and I realized this when I was out in Vegas and talked alot about coaching.  I even talked to my own poker coach Tommy Angelo, who was featured on the radio show, who always inspires me to do my best.

Friend and DeucesCracked member, Cactus Jack has featured DeathDonkey and I on his show, BibloTech, that is broadcast on HoldemRadio.com. You can download and listen to the show, CLICK HERE. Tommy Angelo guest stars on the show as a surprise call in. Cactus Jack runs a great program and the experience was a lot of fun for Chris and I.