A "Thank you" to a few that have helped me alott in my career.

I wanted to acknowledge and few people that have helped me more professionally than they know. This is not in any particular order.

-Tommy Angelo
helped me to look at my career in a whole new light, and even showed me things about myself I did not know. There has never been a book written about poker that even comes close to EOP!
http://www.tommyangelo.com/

-Ricky Pyne (Pynebox)
worked closely with me to develop my heads-up game and still offers tremendous help whenever I need it.

-Richard Brodie (quiet Lion)
I have probably studied Richard's game more than anybody, I have went through hundreds of his hands and analyzed carefully.
http://www.liontales.com/

-Olivier Busquet (livb112)
For teaching me that to be successful you must go where others avoid for "it's not the cool place to be making your money" His work ethic is also what I aim to match.

Frustration Sets In

Since the end of October it has been my goal to achieve 1st place (profit earned) at Heads-up limit holdem Sng's. I now have no doubts as to my achieving this goal, however frustration has set in.

In my awkward self-deserving mind set I wanted to earn this 1st place ranking at every level starting at the bottom. It has come at a price and that is frustration. At the same time I have to earn a living and if I can't make $6k/month online then I'm forced to play at the local clubs/casinos to which I have become less and less happy about. I know that I have gone back and fourth over the years "am I a live pro or online pro?" I WANT to play only online but I'm being forced to play live :(

I also believe that playing live has been detrimental to my heads-up game, playing 9 handed is so slow - It's amazing how many hands/hour I play online compared to live.

March is going to be proving ground time - My goal is 1,0000 games played by the end of March.

Action has somewhat slowed up for me online in terms of the "regs" being willing to play me. I guess everyone checks Sharkscope these days to determine compitition and to avoid winning players. I see alott more from Sharkscope when evaluting than most people bother too, I will play someone that is a winner but with a low ROI (return on inventment) ratio as usually those are bum-hunters and unable to play against my aggressive style.

PokerParadime has launched a Heads-up Limit holdem bot program that they claim is the "world's best" here is the 2+2 forum thread on it: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/18/high-stakes-limit/play-sonia-heads-up-paradime-408776/

At first the program was frustrating to play however like everyone else I play I was able to find a few leaks that made it exploitable. I dont consider this program nearly as dificult to beat as other good human players that I have come across however some people seem to think that it can beat me over 3,000 hands and are wanting to place side bets that I will not beat the program after 3,000 hands - I am trying to get $10,000 in side action and I will face off with "Sonia the Bot" and crush her soul. To date I have played ~1,000 hands against Sonia, I'm not revealing my win-rate however I have stated that I do infact "crush her soul"

My new years resolution is in progress, yet slowly -
- spend more quality time with my family
- play poker exclusively online
- make $200,000 online in '09

Music Video for today's blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFWkPVHKwCY

-Aaron

The setup

Home Office:

July Vegas/Laughlin Trip Report

Ok, so I started out for Vegas with an excitement burning in my gut to play some tournaments. Rarely do I get pumped for a tournament however with WSOP in the air I was finaly feeling it and decided to get serious about my tournament game.

My first stop was check-in at the Bellagio where I nearly had a major BF waiting in line to check in, Any line that consists of more than 5 min of waiting around sends me into immediate life tilt! Anywho, upon getting my room keys I headed directly to the poker room rolling bag in hand with no intentions to play but merely check out the games and faces in the room. To my happy surprise the games looked very good, My usual Omaha $30/60 game looked typical with a few familiar faces mixed in with the 60 something nit/donk. What looked to be the best game going was the $30/60 LHE tables, Rush upstairs with bag drop it off and head back down stairs……
A quick 12 minutes after registering for the $30/60 LHE I was seated at a table, There was some confusion as to whether this was a must move table however I cared very little as all the tables looked juicy and ripe. The play was absolutley terrible in this game, allot of PF limping from the early seats with over-aggressive players to my right, SWEET! After my first hour I am stuck a nifty $400 after getting rundown in 3 pots where I held pretty stellar hands but BLAH - I'm still feeeling great when the following hand takes place.

I'm sitting in the CO when 2 players limp and I look down at two of the most gorgeous aces you have ever seen - damn did they shine. I bump and get called by the BB as well as limpy 1 & 2,
Flop comes 6, Q, 9 rainbow - perfect, Mclimpy's check behind BB and I bet out get called only by BB, turn comes 4, BB check, I bet, BB calls - River = 6, BB checks I bet and BB CALLS shows me J,6o WOW, I doubt there has ever been a game better than this one I'm sitting at where the NUTS just calls me on the river…

What would put most players on mega-tilt at this point has just re-confirmed why I woke up at the butt-crack of dawn this morning and drove 5 hours, this is what I came for! this is what I live for!

I get a call from my friend that the Venetian tournament is starting in 40 minutes - "forget tournaments, I'm here to play this game!" somehow the excitement to play tournaments had left my body and was now replaced with my excitement to see the deli menu… 6 hours, 7 cappucino's and 1 hot pastrami sandwich later I'm rolling and now +$2,450.00 / I hate to leave the game however tomorrow is another day, Rack-up thank the players for the action and head up for a shower.

I am back home now - and looking to put in some hours at CAZ's $20/40 LHE games so I will end this here. I will write my day 2 and also my first trip to Laughlin this evening.