Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

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I have a theory.  Maybe just a hunch.  Call it wishful thinking even.  But I believe better people make better poker players.  Certainly, a sociopath might have an advantage where aggression is concerned.  However, when we think about long-term success across a decades-long career, poker longevity can only truly be achieved by those individuals who have their acts together.

Every poker book written by every poker expert will archly discuss the importance of such personal attributes as patience, self-discipline, psychological control.  Yet, few, if any, teach you how to acquire those traits.

The books listed here will provide an excellent base to improve your life-roll management.

1. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell maintains that we “blink” when we think without thinking. We do that by “thin-slicing,” using limited information to come to a conclusion. In what Gladwell contends is an age of information overload, he finds experts often make better decisions with snap judgments than they do with reams of analysis.

Sometimes we over-think things. Sometimes you just have to go with your read.

2. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose - Eckhart Tolle

“Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel.  See the link between your thinking and your emotions.  Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”

3. Zen In the Art of Archery - Eugen Herrigel

Through years of practice, an activity becomes effortless both mentally and physically. The body becomes capable of executing often complex, often difficult movements without conscious control by the mind.

“The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull’s-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art…”

4. If - Rudyard Kipling

The first few lines of the title poem say it all.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting…

5. The Bible

The Main Event of literature as far as I am concerned.

Good for bankroll management.  “Covet not thy neighbor’s ass.”

The 23rd Psalm is always excellent to keep in mind when shoving all your chips into the middle of the table.

6. WOODEN: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off The Court
- John Wooden

ESPN’s show “Who’s Number 1?” ranked Mr. Wooden as the greatest coach of all time in any sport. “Intensity makes you stronger. Emotionalism makes you weaker.”

7. Personal Best - George Sheehan, M.D.

I knew George Sheehan.  He was either the most normal great man I have ever encountered or the greatest normal man.  I wish I had thought to tell him that.  He would have laughed.  Modestly, of course…

“The memorable thing is not to excel against others but to excel against yourself…The real trophy is within.  The real trophy is the self.”

8. The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

Many professors give talks entitled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to reflect on what matters most to them. While they speak, each member of the audience can’t help but ponder the same question: What wisdom would I share with the world if I knew it was my last opportunity? If I dropped dead tomorrow, what would I want as my legacy?

Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture. He didn’t have to imagine it as his last, as he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (“time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). The Last Lecture is a summation of everything Pausch had come to believe. It is about living.

9. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne

Laugh if you will.  Come to think about it, those chortling the loudest probably have the greatest need to study these concepts.

According to James Arthur Ray, there is scientific evidence to back up the spiritual practices and laws defined in The Secret. “Science tells us that everything is energy, and so your thoughts are energy. Your body, your cash, your car—everything you think is solid, if you put it under a high-powered microscope, it’s just a field of energy and a rate of vibration,” he says. “And so are we. So if you think you’re this meat suit running around, you have to think again.”

One way to describe this energy is by comparing it to radio waves, “The frequency you give out through your thoughts and your emotions is what you have a tendency to manifest in your life,” Re. Dr. Michael Beckwith adds. “Whether those thoughts and emotions are conscious or unconscious, it doesn’t matter.”

If you are sending out the same negative energy over and over—whether thoughts or feelings—you will attract similar energy back to you. Ray explains, when bad things happen people might ask, “Oh, God, why me?”

“Because it is you,” he says.

10. Collected Essays - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

BONUS PICK!!!!

11. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Dr. Stephen Covey

Habit 7.  Sharpen the Saw.

This is the habit of self-renewal, says Covey.  Self-renewal necessarily surrounds all the other habits, enabling and encouraging them to happen and grow. Covey interprets the self into four parts: the spiritual, mental, physical and the social/emotional, which all need feeding and developing.

These books - any one of them - can provide the breakthrough to move you to the next level.  In poker and in life.

Sharpen your edge.

“How on earth can I stop from tilting?” That’s the magic question to which we’d all like a magic bullet. What is the secret to not getting angry after a bad beat? How can one reasonably be expected to control his/her emotions after a runner runner disaster for a large chunk of their bankroll?

If I could answer that question with 100% confidence, I wouldn’t need to play poker because I’d set up shop in a nice little office and play counselor all day long. My client list would be nearly infinite, as you could imagine. But seriously, I will do the best I can to put it into perspective for you and help you avoid the downward spiral, mind consuming seige that is tilt.

First off, in order to answer the questions above, we need to establish a concrete definition of tilt. For all intents and purposes, we will define tilt as “a state of mental confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy.” In fact, it almost helps if you define tilt as a temporary illness. Much the same way doctors diagnose a disease, we must diagnose the symptoms of tilt. The key here, however, is to diagnose these symptoms in the early stages so that these feelings don’t permeate into your game. This involves you being brutally honest with yourself and identify when you’re in a state of tilt. If you find yourself checking just three of these ten symptoms, then you’re probably tilting:

- An immense feeling of frustration and anger towards both the player and the game itself
- Strong desire to exact revenge or spite your opponent
- Complete loss of patience in the game you’re playing
- Trying too hard to win each hand dealt
- Second guessing every single decision made
- The concepts of table image and logic have gone totally out the door
- Chasing draws without proper odds
- Sudden bursts of unexplained and illogical aggression
- Overvaluing marginal hands
- The inability to press the fold button

All of these things can be detrimental to your game, or even worse: destroy your bankroll, or even — depending on the situation — ruin lives.

So let’s put a stop to it already, or at least try. Here are five simple suggestions from me to you that will help you stay off tilt:

1. Always, always think long term. Poker isn’t about winning the battle. It’s about winning the war. If you’re a winning player, there’s absolutely no question your results will return to form over time. Why is this so hard for people to see at the time? If that is the million dollar question, then the million dollar solution is: TRUST THE MATH. A good example of this is the swingy phenomenon of coin flips. Literal coin flips, that is. If we flip a coin 100 times, it’s completely within reason that it lands on heads 75 times out of 100 when of course the odds are exactly 50%. Let’s take that same coin and flip it 900 more times, totaling 1,000 flips. This time, heads is only slightly ahead of tails (513 to 487 - 51.3% to 48.7%).  Going even further, let’s flip the coin 10,000 times. This time, the number of heads outcomes are eerily close to the number of tails outcomes — (5,023 to 4,977 - 50.23% to 49.77%). Point being, as the number of flips increases infinitely, the closer the percentages will gravitate towards either other, eventually totally leveling out at 50 percent within fractions of decimal points.

It’s important to just recognize that when you’re running bad you are just caught in one of these deviations (see the first 100 flips), and that it will eventually come to an end. Like we’ve discussed before, the best solution is volume. But equally as important as volume is maintaining your composure during these times and realize that mathematics doesn’t always take the same path, but it always, always leads to the same point — no matter how you slice the pie. Put every single ounce of trust left in your body on the mathematics of poker. I promise it will even out for you over time. When? It could take a while, but hang in there. That’s why long term thinking is the key to success.

2. Learn to let go. You need a break. It’s extremely important to recognize when you’re in the beginning stages of tilt so to avoid anything totally devastating happening. I can’t tell you how many times (in my past) that I ignored this advice, and found myself thinking “things can’t get worse”. Things can always get worse, and I cannot stress that enough. A good friend of mine once told me (and it’s so true): “when you play to get even, you get even worse”. It’s time to let go and swallow your pride when you feel even three of those ten symptoms creeping in. You’ve lost, get over it. It’s perfectly normal to lose.

3. Find a healthy way to express your anger. Some of this might sound a little crass, but that’s only because we all have different ways of expressing anger. Get a punching bag. Masturbate. Go punt a football 40 yards outside. Cry, if you have to. The idea here is to not keep the anger bottled up and to express it in a way that’s not going to hurt anybody physically or mentally. If you keep these hostile feelings inside, you’re going to feel a permanent resentment towards poker (which is where I believe the term “perma-tilt” came from.)

4. Be happy you got the money in good (if bad beats are causing you to tilt). Fish pay your bills. I know that it’s a very pride swallowing thing on nights where you constantly get the money in good, only to lose to runner runner and miracle cards over and over and over again — only to have your -35% roi opponent (who think he’s a genius) taunt you in the chat. Rejoice during times like these. Don’t get angry. Be happy that (a) poker is still a very beatable game because (b) people keep putting their money in bad. And for re-assurance about when that will turn around, see point #1.

5. Remember that it happens to everyone. You lost $300 tonight, and it seems like the complete end of the world, right? To that, I say: no it’s not, and misery loves company. Open up a $200/$400 NL cash game table and watch people lose Plasma TVs, Cars, and even HOMES in these games. Seeing someone lose a $140,000 pot on a two outer on the river suddenly puts things into perspective for you. Maybe things aren’t that bad? Like I said before, it can always get worse. Always.

6. Detach yourself from the results. This is perhaps the hardest of the six suggestions, but it’s completely necessary in order to avoid going on tilt. Everyone likes to win, and most poker players are very competitive people, but there comes a point where winning can mean TOO much to you. We hear the term “results oriented” a lot, and this is where that phrase comes into play. Don’t worry about the outcome of one particular hand. Worry about the outcome of the same hand ran 100, 1000, and 10,000 times, which ties back into long term thinking. Complete emotional attachment might be asking too much, but I definitely think it’s completely reasonable for you to not care AS much when you happen to get unlucky. It’s just a game.

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Another suggestion is to look up some bad beat videos on youtube (there’s tons). One of the most important things to remember when you’re on tilt is that you’re not alone — thousands of people are having the exact SAME problem as you at the exact same moment. Yes, they are getting two outed. Yes, they took a runner runner beat tonight. And yes, they keep getting counterfeited when they flop two pair and their opponent calls them down. Watching videos of this happening to other people re-assures that it’s not just some conspiracy against you and your account. Variance in poker is real, and it happens to everyone. No exceptions.

Someone once told me that it’s the little things that count so here are a few small suggestions in order to avoid falling into the downward spiral: (a) if you have a gym membership, go work out. Kill two birds with one stone: improve your body and get the pent up frustration out of your system. (b) a very cold/hot shower — very underrated as a means of refreshing your mind set. (c) surround yourself with people who ground you and are a calming force in your life. It’s important not to be alone during these times, because when this happens sometimes you spend too much time in your head instead of in the presence of other human beings.

I could literally go on all night, as this is a topic that I’m very familiar with. While these suggestions aren’t for everyone, hopefully I’ve put a creative spin on at least one thing that you will take from this article that will take you one step closer to solving this huge problem that many people have.

The trade talks, scheduled for early August, were put on hold with little advance notice by officials of the US Trade Representative’s office. This was the same federal agency that sent a curt two-page rebuttal to an extensive EU fact-finding inquiry that attempted to probe the exact reasons for the US’s stance against international online gambling, including the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and the US’s unilateral withdrawal from its related WTO commitments. While the USTR was only one of several government agencies contacted about online gambling, its response seemingly superceded that of other agencies approached by the EU.

For its part, the USTR office is increasingly under siege from several quarters regarding its trade stance. The USTR’s recent talks with online-gambling haven Antigua & Barbuda ended in an impasse, and the agency has not yet responded to Congressional calls to release the specific terms of earlier agreements made with the EU, Canada and other countries related to its previous WTO battle with Antigua. All this comes as the UIGEA itself has floundered amid its own undefined terminology and the increasing and bipartisan pressure against the unfunded mandate on US businesses called for by UIGEA rules.

The eighth tutorial will be released on or before this upcoming Saturday.

In other news, this week has been very kind to me. I just won my fifth straight match to improve to 56-28 on the week. In case you’re keeping track, that’s a net profit of +$2,380 — and you’ll never hear me complain about that. This week has also helped me improve overall to 61.39% (win pct) in the $100s. Not bad, considering I finished my run in the $50s at a 61.01% (win pct).

More later..

Collecting meaningful data could and should take a very long time. Statistics deviate from the norm more often than we’d like, and a lot of the time makes things that are irrelevant seem relevant, and vice versa. At what point does data become “valid”, you ask? If you have less than 1,000 heads up sit n gos under your belt, you have a long way to go. Just let the statistics fall into place and continue to put in more volume, and then see where you stand after 1,500 games. When you start to get around 2,000 games, that’s probably the point where you can start circling trends and label them meaningful.

Mining the data is easy. All you have to do is read it, interpret it, and pick out the statistically relevant information. Using this information effectively will, without a doubt, increase your hourly wage, roi, and win %. Paying attention to details such as these is what separates a person who wins 55% of their games from someone who wins 57% of their games. And you better believe it: two percentage points make all the difference in the world.

One example of this is how I made my heads up sng “work schedule” based on my most profitable days, and even during my most profitable hours. Take a look at my data below:

Looking at the days of the week chart, one thing sticks out like a sore thumb: Mondays are not profitable AT ALL for me. Therefore, right off the bat I know that if I’m working a five day week, this is the first day I need to stay away from. We now have my first day off. Choosing the second day off is slightly more complicated ONLY because of my living situation. Based on my graph, the next day that I should throw out the window is Saturday. However, my GF is off on Tuesdays, which is the next least-profitable day. All things considered, I decided that it’s better for me to choose Tuesday as an off day. Point being, I have chosen two of the three least profitable days as my days off, which in turn should optimize my winning percentage on the days that I have decided to work.

Whenever changes need to be made, always make the next best decision. For example, now that football season is here and I run a fantasy football league, I have no choice but to take off on Sunday rather than Tuesday (GFs schedule changes to off on Sundays as well during football season). Sunday is somewhere in the middle from a profit standpoint, so it’s not big deal that I’d be missing this day. Thankfully, I can still include Monday (and probably always will) in my days off.

Another profitable idea is to take a look at the most profitable hours of the day to play. Upon looking at my data, a few things stand out:

1. I should always be in front of a computer with games loaded from 1am-3am CST. 3am is my most profitable hour, and it’s not even really close. This is pretty much the irrefutable evidence I need to know that late night poker is +EV for me.

2. For whatever reason, 4am has given me some problems, however I don’t believe this to be anything more than a statistical deviation (it probably takes 10,000+ games for this particular data to be completely meaningful).

3. 9pm-12am are also pretty solid times to play, as I’ve shown a pretty consistent profit and ROI during those times.

4. The mid morning hours have abnormally large ROI’s, however the data is over a small sample size - and therefore I don’t have enough tangible evidence to suggest that I should alter my sleep schedule in such a drastic way. However, 3,000 games later if I have many more games registered at these times, I wouldn’t be adverse to putting some thought into it.

All things considered, whenever possible I try to put my best efforts into playing the most profitable hours. However, I value the “profit by day” data a little more, so if I deviate slightly from the most profitable hour chart, it’s perfectly fine as long as I’m playing within a profitable day itself.

So to all this, I say take an hour or two and evaluate your data. If your data is meaningful, choosing the optimal days/times to play will go a long way into making your business a thriving one. If your data isn’t meaningful yet, now’s the time to collect the data, and what better day to start than today?

Also, in case you guys were wondering on the results of today’s session. I did very well, but unfortunately I have to finish the rest of the 24 games on my day off because someone dropped out of my fantasy football league, and I’ve been playing email tag ever since. I finished 9-2 so far, and will resume Friday’s session on Sunday to make up for the lost time.

Enjoy the video.
-trujm

PokerStars Game #19267291875: Tournament #99347957, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/08/01 - 05:51:24 (ET)
Table ‘99347957 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (1695 in chips)
Seat 2: TDiddy75 (1305 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
TDiddy75: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Ad Qd]
trujm is disconnected
trujm is connected
trujm: raises 60 to 90
TDiddy75: raises 270 to 360
trujm: raises 1335 to 1695 and is all-in
TDiddy75: calls 945 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (390) returned to trujm
*** FLOP *** [Jh Js Kh]
*** TURN *** [Jh Js Kh] [4h]
*** RIVER *** [Jh Js Kh 4h] [Jd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
TDiddy75: shows [Kc Qc] (a full house, Jacks full of Kings)
trujm: shows [Ad Qd] (three of a kind, Jacks)
TDiddy75 collected 2610 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2610 | Rake 0
Board [Jh Js Kh 4h Jd]
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) showed [Ad Qd] and lost with three of a kind, Jacks
Seat 2: TDiddy75 (big blind) showed [Kc Qc] and won (2610) with a full house, Jacks full of Kings

Should I be mad that he had three outs preflop, and I was nearly a 3:1 favorite to win the hand? Maybe, but the point is that playing heads up sngs for a living takes some really, really thick skin and you have to be able to forget about this kind of stuff. You play so many games, that it almost becomes like a given that things like this are going to happen, so just take them in stride, and don’t look back.

My overall record tonight finished at 14-10, and although I got unlucky in quite a few matches, I’ll take it. Where else can you go and sit on your ass all day and make $300? If the agony of taking bad beats is the only thing that makes my job unpleasant, then I welcome all bad beats with open arms.

Here is how I finished the night:

Set 1: 3-0
Set 2: 2-1
Set 3: 0-3
Set 4: 2-1
Set 5: 1-2
Set 6: 2-1
Set 7: 2-1
Set 8: 2-1

By the looks of things, tonight was an incredibly consistent performance, and instead of cursing the “poker gods” about how I should have actually finished 17-7, rather than 14-10 (if hands that should have held up would have), I need to be really thankful that people are willing to put their money in behind at this level. Until then, I’ll take $280 profit all day long. Wouldn’t you?

Federal filings make very clear that a serious criminal investigation of the Bodog enterprise is ongoing. At a minimum, word of the seizures is likely to rattle the confidence of U.S.-based online gamblers that they will receive their winnings, not only from Bodog but from the industry’s other remaining participants.

Detailed in court filings in a Baltimore federal court, the Bodog-related seizures from such well-known institutions as Wachovia (nyse: WB - news - people ), Bank of America (nyse: BAC - news - people ), SunTrust Banks (nyse: STI - news - people ) and Regions Bank, a unit of Regions Financial (nyse: RF - news - people ), increase the possibility of criminal action against Ayre himself. There already has been published speculation in his native Canada that he is under secret indictment somewhere in the U.S.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore, which launched the two lawsuits to take the $24 million, did not respond to a request for comment.

The flamboyant Ayre–media reports often call him a “playboy”–is now believed to be in Antigua and Barbuda, a country in the eastern Caribbean. He has denied being on the lam. A request on Wednesday for comment from Ayre, sent through the Web site of his Antigua-based Calvin Ayre Foundation, was not immediately returned. Nor were call and e-mail messages sent to public relations contacts listed on Bodog’s Web site.

In early 2006 Ayre rocketed to international prominence–and the cover of Forbes magazine’ annual issue on the world’s billionaires–for his stewardship from Costa Rica of Bodog Entertainment Group and his open flouting of authorities in the U.S., his major market. The story headline: “Catch Me If You Can.” The operation was said at the time to be handling $7.3 billion yearly in poker, casino and sports event wagers.

But since then, Ayre has been the subject of law-enforcement raids abroad and growing regulatory scrutiny, especially in the U.S. In late 2006 President Bush signed a law strengthening the prohibition on online gambling. Ayre fell off the Forbes worldwide billionaires list after just one year, amid a decline in his industry’s fortunes.

In overall actions against the industry, federal prosecutors in New York have charged executives of Neteller with illegally processing online gaming transactions. This summer, Canada’s ESI Entertainment Systems, an Internet payment business, entered into a “deferred prosecution agreement” with the same prosecutors. The company admitted to criminal wrongdoing and agreed to disgorge $9.1 million in criminal proceeds for its role in processing $2 billion in Internet gambling payments for hundreds of thousands of U.S. customers. Criminal cases have been started against various online gambling shops.

Ayre has been trying to put legal distance between himself and the operation he founded in the 1990s. For years its business was run through Internet servers belonging to Mohawk Internet Technologies, located on the Kahnawake Reserve Indian reservation in Quebec, Canada. In September 2007 Bodog said its North American operations would be licensed to Morris Mohawk Group, also located on the reservation and run by tribal chief Alwyn Morris.

Three months ago, Ayre, now 47, said he had transferred ownership of Bodog itself to Morris Mohawk Group. “It’s true; I’m packing it in,” Ayre wrote on a Web site.

Court filings in Maryland say that in January and February a total of $14.2 million was seized from accounts in the name of JBL Services and Transaction Solutions at Wachovia, Regions Bank, Bank of America and Sun Trust Bank. In July, filings say, another $9.9 million was found in eight accounts at Nevada State Bank, a unit of Zion Bancorporation (nasdaq: ZION - news - people ), in the name of Zaftig Instantly Processed Payments, doing business as ZipPayments.com. The companies are described as helping to facilitate parts of the Bodog operation.

The court papers detail an elaborate international structure put together to allow Bodog to collect money and write checks to winning gamblers in the U.S. One affidavit by Randall S. Carrow, a special agent with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division, said that $248 million involving entities linked to Bodog was processed through Wachovia Bank, from which $11 million of the $24 million was seized.

In a statement to Forbes, Wachovia said the bank cooperated with law enforcement, doesn’t knowingly allow Internet gaming operations to open accounts, and the funds ending up at the bank were in accounts of a third-party credit card servicer. The statement also hinted that various accounts might have been kept open at the request of investigators to aid their efforts.

According to Carrow’s detailed sworn statements, the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division started looking at Bodog in 2003 and opened a formal probe in 2006. The extensive sleuthing has involved close examination of public and bank records, the enlisting of unnamed cooperating witnesses and informants, and undercover efforts to make bets on football and collect winnings.

Ayre, says Carrow’s statement, is president of Middleton Financial, a Nevada corporation described as a key cog in the U.S. Bodog machinery, as well as Stratham Finance, said to be based in Malta. Other entities linked to Ayre in the court filings are Gateway (nyse: GTW - news - people ) Financial Services, EBanx Ltd., Gregor Financial Ltd. and Calvtek Industries. The filings list dozens of businesses involved in processing Bodog transactions.

The ongoing federal pressure to disrupt Bodog’s financial transactions may be bearing fruit. Carrow’s affidavits say several checks issued from Bodog to its undercover gambler bounced.

A break in the inquiry came in May, one of Carrow’s affidavits says, when an undercover operative for “another state’s gambling commission” received a check that didn’t bounce from an account at Nevada State Bank, which is headquartered in Las Vegas. That led to the $9.9 million seizure this month. The bank had no immediate comment.

Carrow’s affidavits were filed in connection with the U.S.’s successful efforts to get a federal judge to authorize the seizures. But to keep the money permanently, federal prosecutors must file a civil lawsuit and allow a challenge by anyone with a claimed interest. No one fought the $14.2 million seizure, and it was ordered forfeited to the feds. The lawsuit over the $9.9 million–its official name is United States of America v. $9,869,283.05–was just filed.

Even before the advent of Bodog, Ayre carried considerable baggage. Close family members were convicted of drug trafficking. (Ayer himself was never charged.) In 1996 Ayre was banned for 20 years from the British Columbia securities industry for stock market offenses. By that time, he was already moving into online gaming.

“One of the things that drives me is the excitement that I could fail,” he told Forbes in 2006. “What better buzz can you get?”

$200 isn’t peanuts, and that’s how much is on the table every time I sit down with an opponent to play a heads up sit n go. Being as such, should one really expect that it be easy? I don’t think so. Having always had a complete respect for money, and how hard it is to come by, I feel that grinding $100 heads up sit n gos is a absolute privilege and I’m so fortunate to be able to play at these stakes. If the math holds up, I should make more this year than some engineers.

Back to tonight: there was really only one “rough patch” of 2-4 games, where it could have gone either way, but unfortunately went the wrong way, so I had to accept it, move on, and not let it affect the rest of the night. Moving on was an understatement, as I would then go 5-1 after that point to close out the night.

As soon as I get the hang of all this volume, I’ll be on total auto-pilot from here on out, until eventually I hit the $200s (shooting for Jan 2009, but that’s ok if not).

Good luck to anyone playing in a session today!

More later…