SippinCriss

More is said than done. Story of my life! I wanted to get in 900 games Friday-Sunday, but obviously failed miserably. Friday I had a smooth grind going, but started a bit late and I only got in 275 games. To add insult to injury I only made like $120 profit for almost 12 hours of grinding. Hello, McDonald’s! Joke. Yesterday was even worse. Since I was up a bit too late grinding I got a late start once again, and this time only managed 175 games. I got so wildly focussed on results and making money and winning showdowns something in my brain snapped and I was in just a horrrrrible state of mind. I was talking to a friend on the phone and she told me I sounded super depressed, and I was worse than I sounded. Luckily I am good at bouncing back emotionally, so it was ok. Anyways, I ended up LOSING FLIPPING MONEY!! 200something, so, down after 450 games on a Friday and Saturday which are apparently juicy days. I don’t think so so much anymore, but sample size I guess. I played in dozens of games with 5+ regs. Even though a lot of them were the random busto-won’t-be-around-for-long regs, it still just sucks. The fish are way better, and much more few and far between, blah.

Today was a much better day. I woke up feeling better and just… kinda didn’t do anything for a long time. I did an hour of coaching, slept in HUUUGE, read some Calvin and Hobbes, ate a delicious Quiznos sandwich, etc. Surprisingly enough my results today were much better as well, until the last set anyways. I hate ending on a bad note but whatever, I showed some profit and filled up the ol’ confidence tank, so if you play $16s you should be concerned.

In the last 11 days I’ve played 2025 games, the most I’ve played in that span for sure. I’m pleased with myself for being able to put that volume in, but I’m not at all pleased with my idiotic results. I ran at 6%, somewhere in the $23/hr zone. Luckily I won 3 FPP sats for $645, so that gives my hourly a little boost up to about $30/hr. Still meh and annoying to have it happen when I am grinding so much and “need” the money, but again I am winning so wotevah. Running $900 below EV over 2k games is also not helpful in the “winning money” department.

I’ve felt pretty sharp playing, mostly because I have put in a conscious effort to be more focussed while I play, and I make sure I do a review before each day. If you’re not improving you are getting worse, and that’s especially true with the state of the $16s. I almost hate to say it but at times it has been a lot of fun! All the regs have such different styles and tendencies, so I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the guys I’ve been playing the most with and either learning some new things I can incorporate into my game, or notice bad things about their games that I can make them pay for. It’s nice to catch someone shove atc in the sb/btn/co and just destroy their lives as they don’t adjust. It’s even nicer to hold. I feel like I have a lot more to say about sng’s but it’s probably dull and makes a lot more sense in my head.

I will say this, to idiot “regs,” SHUT THE F UP when you lose a hand to a “fish.” I usually have chat off but sometimes turn it on at the end of a set and forget to shut it off when my set fires up, and I won’t go a few minutes without seeing someone call down with TPWK and suckout on the turn river to the awesome regs TPTK and see him go off in chat. Just shut up, you doofuses. If you do this you are a doofus and shut up, doofus. Email Stars/FTP whatever doofus site you play on and tell them to block your doofus chat cuz you are too doofussy to chat and on top of probably making someone feel like crap for having fun, you are a) teaching the fish how to play properly and b) turning them off from playing at all which affects all of our profits. Shut up, ya doofus.

On the topic of being a doofus, like I said earlier, lately I’ve eaten too much and not moved enough to counteract all this eating, so I sorted out a schedule that will let me get my 2 hours at the gym in and 8 hours of poker in as well, so that’s good. Right as I get into the swing of things I’ll go to Edmonton on Thursday and stuff my face with steak and cake all weekend long, haha. BUT WHEN I GET BACK I’LL BE GOOD! Except for the next week, when we are driving to Lollapalooza. I’m sure I’ll be eating really healthy and doing a lot of exercise for that trip. BUT WHEN I GET BACK!!!!!

I have this problem, and it’s accepting literally every single fun event that comes my way. Yes, it’s fun, but at the same time it makes me fat and poor, and sometimes I completely forget the definition of the word moderation. Oops. I am going to be punishing myself for this lack of moderation when I return from Lollapalooza, but at least I’ll feel productive.

K bye.

I’m going to try and crank out 900 games in the next 3 days. My game feels great right now too, so I’m really excited at the idea of finishing up on Sunday and being able to look back at a sick grind and see some nice profits. I’ve been super focussed, trying to plan my decisions ahead of time, be aware of my opponents and their tendencies, and I’m also gearing down in a lot of spots. For example I am folding a bit more of the bottom of my range in deep bvb spots against randoms, and also regs who know me. I’ve also made a bit of an adjustment with close calls when I don’t have enough information on my opponent. It’s easy to be tilting and say, “OK he should be shoving at least 80% here so I can just barely call” but I’ve been doing this too often without enough information. I’m all for making ridiculous calls, but only when I am sure.

I’ve also given up on game selection, to an extent. I’m not going to load up games that have 5 solid regs already in them, but the fact that I’ve loaded fresh for as many months as I have and constantly have games with 5+ nitregs tells me it doesn’t matter a whole lot. I know there are some of you out there who still do game select, and good on you, but being on as much of a grind as I’ve been on as of late game selection was probably costing me 2-3 hours a day, which is total “pants.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pants I saw this for the first time on Ian Poulter’s Twitter and thought it was golden. I know I’m not British, but “wotevah.”

I’ve been getting pretty fat too, but it comes with the territory. I really want to hit up the gym every day but it cuts a solid 2+ hours out of my day so I am going to wait until I am settled up in the money department a little better before I get that on the go, first things first.

Oh my first set today, I had 0% bubbles and lost $35.50, funny right. See you in about 13 hours for a recap of this glorious Friday.

Hey guys, with the general poker economy, and especially sng’s, taking a hit I’ve decided to reduce my coaching rate from $75/hr to $60/hr. Also, for students who book 6 hours or more the rate will be $50/hr. I will be keeping the rate of $30/HH reviewed. You can contact me via email at bigbabe_44@msn.com, on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/sippincriss, and on twoplustwo.

Cheers!

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, I just wasn’t doing anything all that interesting and didn’t feel the need to blog about how my poker had been or how fat I am. 3-4 weeks ago I finally got myself rolling nicely, had finished 5 straight days of my workout program and was getting started on week 2, playing a nice amount of poker and just being a productive young man, and then on June 25 I got a call from my Dad that my Grandpa died. I’ve never felt anything like that before, I haven’t had any close family members ever die before, besides an infant cousin when I was young. It felt like I got punched in the stomach and I felt like I was going to throw up for a solid few hours after I found out. Oliver had just left for Victoria an hour before so there I was sitting at my computer crying trying to somehow click enough buttons to finish up the set I had started before I got the phone call. It took me a couple hours but I managed to piece myself together and head to Victoria to be with my friends. I packed for about 3 days, and managed to not pack any underwear, a toothbrush, or a belt, nice one.

I made it to Kamloops to be with the rest of my family, and it was actually quite a comforting feeling to have all of us in my Grandparents house. We didn’t do a whole lot in the days leading up to the funeral, but it was great to look through all the old pictures and home videos, and just laugh about all the good memories we had with him. He was an entertaining guy, I think if he had his own reality TV show it would have pretty high ratings :). Seeing the support the family got from people bringing over food, cards, flowers, coming to the funeral, etc was amazing. Since I’ve never gone through anything like this I didn’t have an appreciation for what any kind of support can mean to the family and am going to do my best to do what I can to support people I know in sad situations in the future. He hadn’t been doing so well in the past year and a half or so and just hadn’t been the same and it was sad for all of us, but when I saw him at my Brother’s grad 2 weeks before, he was right back to his old ways, being bubbly and goofy and happy just like he had been, so looking back on that made me happy. I certainly value my family and my friends, but this really hammered it home for me, and after I left Kamloops I spent a lot of quality time with people close to me.

Once I finally got back home I was smacked in the face with my lovely habit of spending more money than I make, and with lots coming up this summer I put a committed plan in place to get myself on track. In the last 5 days before today I’ve played 950 games and I’m running a a bit over $25/hr which isn’t really close to where I should/want/need to be, but I am winning I guess so complaining feels silly. I’ll be gunning for about 200 games/8 hours a day for the next 10 days and hoping for some solid results. I’ve definitely noticed some unnecessary anger from myself and that just stems from a sloppy attitude. I was slamming my desk the other day and still pulling off winning sets. I was getting way too concerned with short term results, ie, get really upset if I don’t win every showdown I’m involved in rather than focus on the process of playing every hand as well as I can play it, which is probably the #1 bit of poker advice I could pass onto someone. Lots of players are much better than they actually are but they stunt themselves by having horrible attitudes, and this obviously applies to just about everything else in life. I made sure I was conscious of my attitude as of yesterday and I can notice a big difference in the way I’m playing. Somehow I’m only up like $50 in 250 games since fixing the ‘tude but I can tell the floodgates are about to burst. I’m doing things I only do when I’m really sharp, like stabbing from the blinds on the regular, making sure I check someones steal% before I make a decision, plan what my decisions will be on future streets, etc.

My next Cardrunners video is going to be out July 25th I think, and I’m just about to get the ball rolling. Right now I think I’m going to do a video focussing on a variety of early game spots. It’s probably the most overlooked aspect of sng’s, and almost every sng player will tell you their early game is “fine” and don’t need to improve it, but I think this is just because the concept of being tight and mediocre early on was always fine because there was so much money to be had by playing tight and shoving wide vs dummies that it really didn’t matter that much. Now that games at all levels have become much more difficult it’s important to maximize your ability in every department. If anyone hates me and thinks I’m stupid and will never watch another one of my videos again if I make this maybe let me know and I might reconsider

Lastly, my Dad’s 50th b-day is coming up in a week and I’m getting him one of the coolest 50th b-day presents of life but won’t say what it is yet in case he happens to read this, so I will be in Edmonton for the party in a week and a half or so and I can check out my parents new house for the first time, should be a grand old time. Also on top of that my little sister is having a baby girl and she’s going to pop any day now and I am ridiculously excited, so excited that I’m not even bothered much by the 17 hour drive I’m going to have to take to see the thing!

Okay that’s all I guess, thanks for reading guys.

Not that it is such a bad thing overall, I’m just not in a position to be slacking off in the poker department and piling on the fun. Fun tends to be pretty expensive in more ways than one. My golf clubs have finally arrived and they are amazing. It’s such a comforting feeling to know that I am using literally the best clubs that I could possibly be using for me. Once I did my testing at Hotstix and saw how bad my former clubs were fitted for me it was a real drag to keep playing with them. I’ve also been pretty lazy in the workout department, I’ve been waiting to do a fitness assessment with a TPI golf fitness instructor in Victoria named Chris Scheel and we finally did the assessment over the weekend. He definitely knows his stuff, and I feel great about working with him. I’ll have my new program later this week and both Visty and I told him to pound on me so he is going to do exactly that. After he did the 27 step assessment on me, he reported back that my golf fitness handicap is 12.5, so my physical fitness is much worse than my golf game itself. A nice thing about the spot I’m in is that I’m doing so poorly at golf and fitness it will be a few months before I get diminishing returns :). It reminds me of my Grandpa, who would be legitimately pleased about shooting a high score when we played golf because he was getting more value out of his green fee than anyone else. Backwards logic obviously, but anything I can do to boost my ego.

Living with Oliver in Courtenay has been great, I feel like we are heterosexual soulmates. We are in a standard 1 bedroom apartment, I sleep on a sectional, and all my stuff is piled everywhere in here and there are no problems at all. It sounds pretty busto obviously, but we are both low maintenance and easy going and this makes it easiest for me to come and go as I please. His goal is to have me qualify for the PGA Tour within 3 years so he can caddy for me as soon as his military contract runs out. I’d feel bad if he was left high and dry once he’s done the military so I’m going to be working hard. The empty feeling I had in the last 6 weeks of being alone in Phoenix has definitely left, and at times I almost question if I want to go back again because of how happy being here and seeing my friends and family all the time makes me, but I realize I have just been lacking in the golf a little lately and once I am back on track and the weather gets crappy here I’ll be glad to get back to the desert. I have a new appreciation for the chance to see my friends and family more often/whenever I want, I just want to do nothing else but be around them 24/7.

I have barely played poker since I have been back, we have been gone every single weekend, and I have been able to do some coaching since I’m back in Canada now. I’ve only put in 550 games but I’m at 17.8% ROI over that sample, so I am pleased. It’s obviously a meaningless sample but I have spent a lot more time studying hands in wiz, focussing harder, and taking more notes and I can feel the improvements making a difference in game. Coaching also helps me improve my own game because students will often have ridiculous spots that are so close they make me use my brain which can often be quite taxing.

Since I haven’t been back full force I’ve fallen back into my old glorious problem of sleeping 10-11 hours a night. I just always have interesting dreams, and they are often lucid and I can fall back into them pretty easily once the morning comes, so with no responsibilities how can I not? But I shouldn’t. So I’m going to work hard to try and get some grinding in. I want to offer some sort of money reward… something like $20/day to x people each day I don’t play 200 games. I dunno. 8 hours/200 games is what I am going to go for on the days I’m free so wml. Bye.

I’ve been a little bit sad in a few weeks leading up to these days, but as it’s gotten closer and closer I’ve been getting happier and happier. I’ve spent the last 7 weeks or so by myself, and while it’s sometimes nice to be alone I’m excited to be with my friends and family again. Oliver *should* be getting here tonight, and then we begin the 30 hour haul back to Vancouver Island. We’re going to be doing it in a straight shot, and lucky for me he’s a pro long distance driver, I start crying/fall asleep at the wheel after about 3 hours so it’s going to be helpful having him around :).

Results wise I was a failure in my 6 months here, when my golf game was in good enough shape to play in some pro events in January, I was completely busto from an awful January poker month, and after taking almost all of February off I didn’t seem to recover nicely enough to get my game in shape for May Q-school. I am happy I at least have a strong awareness of what’s required to get on/be successful on the Canadian Tour, I really didn’t the first time I tried and it was a total waste of money, and I assume it’s similar for a lot of pro golf qualifying events, but I’d say about 70% of the field knows they have to have the 4 days of their life to have any chance at all. I want my game to be at a point where I can comfortably get my card even if my game is a little off. Saying that, I did manage to get myself out of a useless lifestyle, and I am in the process of getting into great shape. Had I not come to Phoenix when I did I’d have probably screwed over any shot at a golf career.

As of right now, every golf club in my bag is going to be replaced within the next couple of weeks. The order for my new clubs has taken longer than expected, which sucks cuz it’s hard to have the same motivation to play when you’re using old clubs that you know for a fact aren’t properly designed for you, but it’s ok. I’ll still be playing almost every day, just cut down on the practice a bit so I can spend more time playing poker and coaching.

Also on a poker note, for whatever reason, probably laziness and ego, I’ve cut out most of my review time in the last few months. Obviously this was pretty stupid and I’m going to make sure that I review 5-10 HH in wiz with my breakfast every morning. When I play now a lot of the decisions are based on feel, knowing that I may be off by a couple hands (or more). When I am sharp studying with wiz, I can literally fold a spot where I have K6o and know full well that K7o and K6s are shoves. It shouldn’t take me more than a week or two to get back into that sharp mode, and I’m motivated to overtake Glitlr in that #1 $5-$15 spot on the Sharkscope Leaderboard and once again, be the “Kings of the Donks.” Also I’ve gotten word from Cardrunners, and my first video will be released sometime in June, so I’ll keep you guys posted.

Thanks for reading!

http://www.twitter.com/sippincriss. I have a lot of random crap that comes into my head throughout the day that I feel like sharing but if I took those thoughts and made it a blog post it would look pretty stupid. On top of that, my blogs are pretty repetitive (played golf poker’s fine blah blah blah). I’ll definitely be using twitter most of the time so if you’re curious how many pushups I can do or how much I love the Canucks feel free to follow me

Got up before 5 am again for the third day in a row. It’s amazing how much more I can get done than a day that I’d wake up at 10am, cuz once I do that I’m already behind the 8 ball and depressed about the whole thing. Played by myself again, and was finally comfortable with the routine I had done the day before. It took me about 2 weeks to finally get to that point but I’m pleased. I had a bad start and was +2 thru 3, but I ended up shooting 4 under on the back for a -2 70. I find when I’m struggling with golf I keep chasing that “figured it out” feeling where it feels like once you get it everything is going to be hunky dory for the rest of time, but no one ever figures it out, and that’s why golf is awesome. I still made a lot of mistakes, mostly mental with some small swing issues so it’s nice that I shot 70 and have plenty of improving to do still. I took a few videos of my swing yesterday and I was taking it back too far inside, once I sorted it out on the range after my round I was hitting it a lot better. Good things are gonna keep coming :).

I played 100 $16s yesterday which I hope to be able to do most days, it was going great, I was up $200+ thru my first 3 sets then I gave it all back save for $33. Hoooolllyyyyy I was so mad, I was punching the love seat, wishing I had a punching bag, wanting to die because I literally have the worst life anyone in the existence of planet earth has had, etc. Luckily I had enough FPP’s to play a sat to the Sunday Million, and I won it thank Jebus so ship the $215. I’ve been crushing those this year, I think I’ve won 14-15 of them now. PTL or what.

In tune with doing something steady for a long time and eventually seeing nice results, I’ve decided to do 100 pushups a day. I’m not very good at them, I can only do 23 at a time max, but if I stick to it I’ll be a lot stronger and not look like such a skinny-fat hindu. I’m pretty sore today though after combining the pushups with my workout, and I’m convinced it’s why I pushed my 8 iron into the boonies on hole 3 today.

Also I’ve been feeling feeling pretty tight on the first few holes at the golf course in the morning even though I stretch for 20 mins before I play, so I think I’m going to go for a warm-up jog at 4:45ish for a little while after I wake up to get the juices flowing. The only thing that sucks about it is it’s totally dark still and there’s not many people around. If the Baseline Killer wasn’t in jail I think I’d wait til the sun came up.

Not even kidding. I woke up at 4:50 am (!!!) on purpose (!!!) to play golf this morning. I teed off at 6:40 and since I am a girl it takes me a long time to get ready. It was kind of cool to be finished playing at 10 am though, makes me feel useful, but maybe bordering on a little too useful - since as I was walking to the course the sun hadn’t even risen. Afterwards I hit 50 65 yd pitches, then 50 balls working on some mechanical stuff, which is swinging back halfway and stopping making sure I’m wide and my wrists are fully cocked, then from there I get my left shoulder into a nice little slot under my chin. I think I hit it about 10 yards further on average when I do this drill, so sticking with it every day is going to add some nice distance and consistency. Did a cool putting drill after that as well, set tees @ 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 feet. Hole 3 in a row from 3 to move to 6, 3 in a row from 6 to move onto 9, 3 from 9 to get to 12. Once you’re at 12 you only need to hole 2 to continue/finish. You have to hole 2/3 to stay at 6 and 9, or you’re back to 3, and at least 1 from 12 and 15 or you’re back to 9. Holed 5 bump and runs, hit some drivers and wedges, then hit some flops and pitches for a while. I was enjoying it a lot and wanted to continue but my body wimped out a little, but that’s a good shift.

I’m looking forward to seeing the improvement in my results as well, because I’ll be doing basically this almost every day from here on in. A lot of people get a bit fed up when making changes to improve aspects of their lives for the better when they don’t see drastic results immediately, but sticking with it for a long time, say a year, can show some pretty impressive results. Off the top of my head, if you were 50 lbs overweight and decided to eat healthy and exercise for 12 months, you would probably be in great shape, whereas doing it for 2 weeks obviously wouldn’t do much. Insert inspirational anecdote about working hard for a long time and being patient and getting things done here.

Poker’s cool too, I played 150 games this month and I’ve made $678 hehe. Waking up at 5 am is going to let me get in probably 100 games a day in on non workout days, so ship that. I’ve said it before but if you’re playing poker make it a priority while in game and get rid of all your distractions, phone, tv, internet, etc. I have been kind of bad with this lately and have to get rid of it. I feel like such a spewy toolbox when I misclick fold big pairs early, ffs.

Masters is coming up this week!! Ahhhhhh I can’t wait, Tiger returns. I’ve heard a few different things, one being that he’s played 18 practice rounds and hasn’t broke par, and also that he’s hitting it as good as he’s ever hit it. Given this information, I think it’s important to believe everything you hear. I’d like to see Ernie win it, along with Freddy Couples who’s gone 2-1-1-1 in his first 4 starts on the Champions Tour. Whatever happens there will be a lot of excitement and I can’t wait to watch.

I’m back in Canada in 3 weeks exactly. Lots of guys have messaged me about coaching over the past 6 months and I’m finally getting near the point of being able to do it again, so if you’re one of those guys that wanted it, or you weren’t, but you’d still like it, then let me know. I expect to have a lot of sessions right away so I’d like to get the ball rolling so I can organize things.

Well, maybe they actually don’t, but Cardrunners has me making videos for them now! I’m excited about it since they are the biggest and first (afaik) online poker training site, so I’m super pleased they want me on. The actual merger of Stoxpoker and Cardrunners won’t take place until May 1st, so I won’t find out any details about the schedule until then. The guys who are working on the insides of Cardrunners, like Alex Huang are swamped right now with hundreds repetitive emails and forum posts so obviously the schedule of a low stakes sng player is not a concern :).

March was decent pokerwise, I think I made a bit over $5k and got in 3075 $16s. I ran at 9.1% and about $870 below EV, but it’s nothing for me to get really bothered about. I expect my long term ROI to be a bit higher than that. I don’t think the games are any tougher than they were last year and I don’t think I got worse, so it should be ok. It was nice to get that kind of volume in too, I’d like to be able to maintain it in the months to come. I found in the last few days of the month my focus was slipping big time. This was mostly because I played a few careless sets with really good results, so I assumed I didn’t have to pay attention anymore and I’d still win (lol). Obviously that wasn’t the case and I started getting crushed, I lost $400 in 2 sets and then broke even for like 150 games after that. I got my head from out of my rear though and it felt a lot better in the one set I played last night even though I lost. My first set today home from the golf course I made $302 (!!!) so that was nice. I know I said I was going to work on cutting it out but gosh darn Red Bull is just so useful. My lifetime hourly of playing poker on Red Bull has to be > $100, but you know, selective memory and stuff.

Golf has been pretty stupid. I keep trying to find something I can stick with and I get soooo in my own head while I’m playing worrying about useless crap and not just hitting the ball. Yesterday in my first round of the day I was +7 on the front and ready to give up golf for good, then I hit a few good shots on the back and shot -5. It was so weird, I’ve had swongs from 9 to 9 but nothing like that. Something was still a bit off and I shot 75 on my next round, w/e. Anyways, went out this morning and went +6, -3!! COME ON ALREADY FRONT NINES! THIS TIME I actually figured out why I have been so all over the place and got my mind cleared. What I’ve been working on is the timing of my routine before I hit the ball in the couple seconds before I hit it. I’ve been getting so into it that it’s where all my focus goes on every shot, and I keep waiting for one to feel natural, but haven’t been able to find one that is comfortable and maintains my confidence for more than a few holes. When I finally realized on hole 9 that I’m not even thinking about what I have to do with the shot at hand I realized that has to be my number 1. See it, feel it, do it. I work on my routine so hard that I don’t have to think about it to do it anyways, so I just cleared my brain and hit a lot of great shots (including a nice 40 yd pitch for birdie on 18) on the back to shoot 3 under. A weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can now work on getting into a focussed mental groove while I’m on the golf course.

Scotty wanted me to post pics of my clubs and how I mark my balls (nongolfers: “lol mark his balls”) but the new sticks will still be a couple of weeks, so when they arrive I’ll put up some pics of my clubs and my balls. LOL balls hahahahaha HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!