Poker Update and Red Spade Open

Poker has been pretty brutal the last couple of weeks. In a repetition of a classic pattern, I was up a decent amount of money since my relocation to Canada, then withdrew some money to pay expenses and debts and buy a laptop. Then, during the last couple weeks in Mexico, I went on an ugly downswing, and now my bankroll is hurting again.

Due to a wedding and other obligations back in the States, I didn't even have the chance to put in as many days this month as I would have liked, yet I still managed to lose a lot. The difficulties of maintaining a  semblance of a life back in the USA and also getting in the work I need to do in front of my computer in Mexico is a subject for my next blog.

The only significant upwards spike in the below graph of the past few weeks is a satellite win for a seat in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, an annual live event that takes place January of every year and is basically a fabulous way to start the year as a poker player. Winning the seat was great in terms of morale and also securing the expensive tournament package, but that win is not cash, and the ~$16K uptick is locked up in tournament equity and a hefty hotel allocation. So, the graph below represents the results of a pretty violent downswing. When I come back from my Thanksgiving break, I will likely step down in stakes or seek out backing options, neither of which I am too excited to do.

November 2011

Still, I am up "for the trip" overall (below is my post-relocation graph), and I am aware that the reason I find myself in precarious financial situations is the result years of bad bankroll management and the compounding effects of living underwater financially. It's just a reminder of how far I have to go to set straight the mistakes of my poker career and correct my inherent personality flaws, like my poor money management. 

Graph since my September relocation

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I'm also aware of how lucky I am to still be in the game, especially playing under the banner of PokerStars Team Online. My association with Stars was the clear deciding factor that made relocating worthwhile, and I am not quick to forget that.

It was really frustrating to sit on the sidelines when Stars unveiled its Red Spade Open back in July, when I couldn't play online poker, so it's a tangible reminder of how lucky I am overall that I did get myself set up in time to play the second one, tomorrow at 12:00 PST.

Stars manages to draw impressive crowds when they create these MTT promos, and I anticipate that well over 20,000 players will participate, and the $1M guarantee (with $200K being paid to first on a $55 entry fee) will easily be surpassed. As per the theme of the event, there will also be a $100 bounty for knocking out any member of Stars Team Pro and Team Online (I love making that distinction whenever someone mocks me in chat for being a "pro" after I make a bad play).

Hopefully I can have a big day before I head back to the States again for Thanksgiving, and that will allow me to erase the sting of the past couple weeks. If not, I hope you get my $100 bounty.

Eastbound and Down (Pt 3: The Second Coming)

I learned through my experiences traveling for poker tournaments just how easy it is to get around the world. Thanks to technology and the itinerant nature of the poker world, I discovered you could get pretty much anywhere you wanted to go if you had an internet connection and a passport. Follow the blue dot on your iPhone, and you just somehow wind up where you were headed.

So I was fairly well prepared for the basics of portioning off a portable version of my existence to transport to Canada. Then, when it was time to move on to Mexico, the journey was mapped out pretty smoothly again. I had learned about a beach town near Tijuana called Rosarito Beach, and I found a thread on 2+2 informing me that several online poker players had made the move. The most baffling thing was that I had not heard about Rosarito whatsoever in four months of trying to figure out relocation possibilities (and six years living in Southern California prior to that).

Thanks to those pioneering online poker grinders who had already made the move down here, I was able to create an easily executable timeline within a matter of hours, a plan that would take me from Canada to Santa Monica to the Baja peninsula in the course of a week. I drove from Vancouver to Seattle, stopped in Portland, OR and Multnomah Falls on the way to Bend, where I spent the second night. The next morning I had breakfast with one of my original poker heroes, Paul Phillips, who left the poker world behind a while ago to raise a family and work on a computer  programming language called Scala.

I stopped at Crater Lake National Park on my way out of Oregon, spent the night in the Bay Area and, after a gorgeous afternoon drive down the coast through Big Sur, I was back in Santa Monica, CA the next afternoon.

Christ of the Sacred Heart, a few KM from where I now live.

I left Canada on a Tuesday and was looking at furnished rentals in Mexico by the following Tuesday. I went back up to California to get my desk chair and my down blanket from my storage space,  switched my phone plan from the "AT&T Nation with Canada" package to the "AT&T Viva Mexico" plan, and a week after that I was re-approved by PokerStars to play from my new location in Mexico.

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A surprising number of random acquaintances recently have told me they "used to go to Rosarito Beach" either with their family or during college party weekends. It is a town that clearly could have been a contender, before the double-whammy of the recession and the (media coverage of) violence in Mexico caused some very ambitious development plans to come to a halt. There are innumerable half-finished unfinished luxury condos, looming over the sort of picturesque mountainous seaside that you might associate with Malibu, CA or the Great Ocean Road in Australia. 


I live in one of the half-finished condo projects, in the one completed tower out of four that were planned (still displayed in the model in the lobby). The second of the four towers has been constructed right next door, but is nothing more than a hollow concrete slab, and it doesn't look like construction is going to resume any time soon. In San Diego, my apartment would cost several times than what it does down here, but most nights there is, at most, one other light on my side of the tower when I look up from my first-floor apartment to the 20-stories above. It gives the feeling of a ghost town transposed onto a resort town.


Although Rosarito Beach might be down, it's not quite out. There are a few ex-pat subset communities, some full time retirees, some surfers who seem to have been around a while. And now there is the burgeoning online poker community, which by my estimate is at least 30 people strong (possibly more like 50), mostly young white guys in their 20s and 30s who all play online poker for a living. My apartment is several KM south of the town and where most of my fellow Poker Exiles are located, and interacting with my peers is tough after playing 10-12 hours of MTTs and not particularly wanting to drive 30 minutes at night on a poorly paved road.


The challenge of integrating with my fellow poker ex-pats, much less with the actual local community, is significant, but a major improvement just occurred when three grinders from the USA moved into an apartment upstairs from me. One of them had already relocated (to the Philippines) after PokerStars stopped offering real money games in their home state, Washington, due to legislation. Anyway, these guys seem to be laid back and funny, but most importantly, they play tennis (I am an avid "parks player"), and we have a tennis court in from of our building (the surface seems to be some hybrid of turf and dirt). And in December, my friend Jordan plans to become my roommate, which should be the next major improvement to day-to-day life and combating the isolating nature of the online poker lifestyle.

So, even though I am on a vicious downswing in poker (the first real "run bad" since relocating, so I have actually been very lucky overall), I am feeling more positive about the actual conditions of daily life in Rosarito and dreading the future less and less all the time.

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Next time I'll try to discuss more about adjusting to life down here, the solitary work environment, and why I am looking forward to going home this Thanksgiving more than ever before. In the meantime, check out this blog by fellow Poker Exile Marty Mathis, who already wrote most of what I was going to say on the subject of adjustment, perspective and the nagging knowledge that "you can never go home."

PokerStars Team Online Followers Freerolls

I’m proud to be a member of Team PokerStars Online. Along with the fastest poker player in the world Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew, Supernova Elites extraordinaire, Kevin "WizardOfAhhs" Thurman, and the globetrotting Dale "Daleroxxu" Philip, we make up some of the biggest names in online poker.   

Now, you will have a chance to test your skills against me and the rest of the team, for FREE!

 Team PokerStars Online is going to give you a chance to win some cash by playing in our new Team Online Freerolls.

Each month, $1000 will be up for grabs. You will also get the chance to play against me and other Team Online members, all with bounties on their heads. Eliminate a Team Online member and win a $25 bounty. It’s that simple.

If that isn’t enough, PokerStars is giving you even more chances to play and win. There will be TWO Freerolls every month! 

To enter the $1000 Team Online Freeroll, all you have to do is create a PokerStars account and make a real-money deposit on the PokerStars client using the Marketing Code ‘shaniac’.

For players who can’t deposit but still want to play on PokerStars, there’s still a tournament for you to play. This tournament will also be played by Team Online members and if you our fortunate enough to bust one of us, you will win $10 to help build your bankroll.

To enter the $100 Team Online Freeroll, all you have to do to play is:

1.      Download the free software.

2.      Open a new PokerStars.com account.

3.      During account signup, enter the bonus Marketing Code “shaniac”

4.      You are now ready to play!

New Signups Freeroll Details

Tourney Name:	Team Online $100 Freeroll
Date & Time:	12:00 ET - The first Sunday of every month.
Buy-in:	FREE - just signup using the Marketing Code ‘shaniac’ and you are eligible to play in the freerolls every month.
Prizes:	$100 prize pool in each freeroll. 20% payout structure. Team Online member bounty - $10 for each Team Online member you bust.

Depositors’ Freeroll Details:

Tourney Name:	Team Online $1000 Freeroll
Date & Time:	13:00 ET - The first Sunday of every month.
Buy-in:	FREE - just create an account with PokerStars and make a deposit using the Marketing Code ‘shaniac’ and you are eligible to play in the freerolls every month.
Prizes:	$1000 prize pool in each freeroll. 20% payout structure. Team Online member bounty - $25 for each Team Online member you bust.

To register for a Team Online Freeroll tournament, open the PokerStars lobby, click ‘Tourney’ & ‘All’.

*PokerStars reserves the right, to cancel, modify or suspend this Promotion at any time.