Friday, October 30, 2009

Should start working again for reals soon

I actually played a couple of small sessions this week and it felt good to get back to playing. The coaching is going well I think even if it is start and stop, but the students all seem like good players as well as good guys so they are a nice addition to the group of guys who I speak with whenever I am playing.

Charmian is off today and tomorrow and then she starts a tough rotation Sunday night. She has been on a relatively easy rotation these last 8 weeks so it has been nice to actually see her and spend time with her - and it will be weird going back to seeing her basically just for a brief period of time before she needs to go to bed. But at least she has a week vacation in the middle of this upcoming rotation to give her some relief.

I plan on playing a full session for the first time in a long time this Sunday and then to just try and put my nose to the grindstone and play/coach as much as I can the first 3 weeks of November before I go on another vacation.

I also played some tennis yesterday for the first time in a long time and it felt to just get out and run around a bit - my knee also held up which was nice too.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Off to a stop and go start with the coaching

I started coaching last week and I think it is going well. My students all have a decent grasp of the game but they all also are capable of picking up a few tricks from my bag o' tricks. The stop and start aspect of the coaching is due to friends visiting and dinners planned. Charmian's friend from med school came this weekend with her fiance so we spent the weekend out and about in the greater Sacramento area. We took them to the bike path on the river where we often walk Chula, we then drove to the natural waterslides hike, ate some good meals, went to the farmer's market and then biked around Davis and just had a good time hanging out and being active this weekend. Tomorrow we are hosting a dinner for some of the 4th year medical students who are applying to the Davis residency program that Charmian is in and then this weekend is Charmian's last weekend off for a while. So I will be coaching a couple of days this week and then get back into both playing and finishing off my 1-on-1 coaching stuff the following week(s).

The only other semi-news is that we are having one of those horrid run-around situations with a tv-stand that we bought online. When we bought it we were assured that it would be delivered by tomorrow. Turns out that the stand has not been shipped, that we were never given an update on it, and that we had to be proactive and put on hold a ton of times just to find that out. Meh - the frustration with situations like this is always high but in the end the stand will finally arrive.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Back to work tomorrow

Even though I retardedly forgot that most poker players who would want my coaching are either in school or have fulltime jobs, I was pleasantly surprised to get a good number of qualified and enthusiastic applicants. In fact the applicants were so good that I wasn't able to whittle the field down to 2 or 3. Instead I settled on 6 applicants who for whatever reason jumped out at me. Since I am not going to be playing at all the rest of this month, I feel like I will be able to give all of them quality one-on-one as well as group instruction. I also feel like this will be a good way for me to get excited about playing again. It has been nice to be lazy, but after awhile it just gets boring. I am that phase right now so I am excited to get back at it tomorrow.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Stepping back into the coaching pool

Instead of concentrating on putting in a ton of volume for the rest of this month, I have decided that I will step back into the coaching pool. I am looking to take on 2-3 students. If you don't know who I am - I am a professional MTT player and instructor on PokerPwnage.com with over a 133% ROI over my last 3000 tourneys.

Here's what I am offering:

My coaching will begin on Mon. Oct. 19. From the 19th-21 and the 26th-31st (I have friends visiting from the 22-25th) I will focus on ghosting/shadowing your sessions and making suggestions on your play. I am estimating that this will be pretty time intensive and will be anywhere from 4-8 hrs/day, so this should end up being anywhere from 30-50 hours of very focused, basically one-on-one coaching. Once November rolls around I will start playing again and you will be able to ghost me and ask any questions that you may have about my play - if I have free screen space I will also pull any of your tables up and give you my input. I am also part of a pretty tight knit group of great poker minds and talk with them on a daily basis - I will bring you into this group which will allow you to ask not only me but other great players whatever questions regarding hands or poker theory that you may have.

My requirements:

You must have a HUD.
You must have a working microphone so that we can talk with each other over ventrilo.

My cut:

You will pay me 33% of your net profits from when we start until the end of November. You will pay me 15% of your net profits for each of the following 3 months from December through the end of February. Payments are due on the 1st of each month - i.e. I expect payments on Dec. 1, Jan. 1, Feb. 1, and March 1 for this deal. If you don't profit, you don't pay me a dime. However, to make sure I do not get shafted by someone who I have never met and will possibly never meet, I am going to require a $250 deposit. Any profit you make will be deducted from this deposit and if you end up actually losing money over these next 5 months I will return your entire deposit to you.

How to apply:

Send me an e-mail to chardrian@hotmail.com and tell me why I should pick you. Include your screennames on all of the sites you play. I will pick my students on or before Sunday Oct. 18th so make sure to apply before then.

To Reno and Back

I went to Reno on Thursday for an extended weekend to play in some of the Fall Pot of Gold tourneys. I figured $45/nt to go and play some live poker and meet some people from an online staking site that I use was worth a 2 hour drive.

The tourneys were only averaging about 75 players for the $300+ buyin tourneys which was a little too small for my liking but I did win the $340 tourney on Friday for about $6k so the trip was profitable.

The casino itself was actually really nice. The room was huge, and the resort had a driving range, a bowling alley, and plenty of restaurants. The only bummer was that it was sort of an old style casino in that everywhere you went it stank of old cigarette smoke - there are actually quite a few non-smoking casinos in Vegas now that I really like and all of the poker rooms there are non-smoking. Whereas here the tournament was just played out on the casino floor so I was stuck in a blue fog the whole weekend.

Anyhoo, I am now back and with a profitable month I am of course feeling lazy again, so I am contemplating how much I actually want to play the rest of this month. I think I am going to focus on getting back in shape and keeping our house looking purty and will keep poker on the back burner. Maybe I'll even take on a student or two... We'll see.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Dinner with yo-yoers

I am finally used to getting weird looks and lots of questions when people find out that I am a professional poker player, but I will admit I found it a little humorous when one of my step-brother's cohorts was agog at my profession considering that he is currently "on tour" as a yo-yo player.

Anyhoo, they were in town doing their demos, and I met up with them last night and figured they probably hadn't had a real home cooked meal for a while, so I invited them over and made some roast chicken, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, salad, and fresh baked cookies for dessert. So I think I am now a hit with yo-yoers.

Besides getting my ego stroked it was also nice to shoot the shit with my step-brother since I do not see him very often. I think I will finally get back to actually working and playing some cards tomorrow.

Busy Weekend


We had a great time in wine country this weekend (we went to a town called forestville right on the russian river) kayaking, biking, and just relaxing at the beach and in the hot tub.

My step-brother Kent also welcomed his first child so I am an uncle again.

And my other step-brother, Mark, unexpectedly showed up in Sacramento yesterday in the midst of a yo-yo tour so I hung put with him a bit last night and am having him and his crew over for dinner tonight.