Man vs Machine, Day 2: Humans Win!
Date: Sat, Jul 5, 2008 Professional Internet
So that sets the official record at 2-1-1 for humanity (1 additional win for Polaris in my exhibition match with Victor). Today's team was Victor Amacosta and Rich McRoberts, a pair of tough mid-high HU regulars who know which raise goes where. The final score for the human team was +25BB, which counts as a statistical win. Tomorrow we have a special last-minute-announcement of Mark "Newhizzle" Newhouse as our on-the-floor competitor. Play will start at 1pm.
My sample-hocking skills are definitely getting honed, and to be honest I was a little exhausted after the con today. Afterwards we stopped by Dusty's PokerStars SNE suite at the Palms, which is some ridiculous condo-style apartment with a stripper pole in the shower which runs something like $3,000 per night. Dusty, being awesome, ordered up a room-service feast which made for a pretty wicked party. The Stoxpoker crowd, and the affiliated friends and associates of said crowd, is a great group to hang out with. I saw Stosh running around with a camera, so there may be a few pics we can throw up later on.
You can discuss this blog here.
Photos courtesy of the CPRG.
Bryce "Freedom 25" Paradis talking about Stoxpoker
[More]
A member of the public plays against Polaris
The Polaris team hard at work.
Rich in the background
The display showing the cards
Ali dropped by and is talking with Marty
Rich playing against the bot
The Team Polaris shirts
Man vs Machine, Day 1: Tie!
Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008 Professional Internet
"Would you like a free sample of online poker coaching?"
In addition to working on my spiel and hocking tons of merch at the Stoxpoker booth today (booth turned out great, we have an awesome location) we kicked off day 1 of Man vs Machine. The match ended in a statistical tie, with Polaris edging out over Nick and Kyle by 2.5BB. All the content will be moving to our MvM webpage shortly, but since we've currently got a technical hickup you can review it all on the CPRG's MvM Website.
HHs from the match can be found here: http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/man-machine/Results/live/
Live CPRG blog from the event can be found here: http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/man-machine/Live/Day1/
Live blog and live HH updates should start tomorrow as we run the second match.
Photos courtesy of the CPRG:
The computer poker research group liveblogging station.
Nick "Stoxtrader" Grudzien taking on Polaris
The man-machine poker interface
Bryce "Freedom25" Paradis gives us the eye
Nick in concentration
IJay, Bryce, and Jim chatting while the match is going on.
One of last year's human competitors Ali Eslami stopped by the booth and
talked with Mike Bowling
A couple of the stoxpoker members
Some Stoxpoker swag
IJay talking to a couple of expo attendees
Nick in the background next to a set of University of Alberta poker
chips
Nick enjoying his comeback against Polaris
The view of the booth from the other side of the Hertz booth.
Looking down the expo floor
Nick hits four of a kind on the river. Polaris had fours full of
tens
Nick enjoys his four of a kind hand.
Nick gets up after his 500 hand session.
Nick does an interview with Dave after his session was over.
With just 11 hands to go, Polaris was nearly at the threshold of
winning. In the end, Polaris ended up just a small amount which counted
as a draw.
Everything but Poker
Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008 Professional Internet
I haven't had time to even take a crap the past 3 weeks, nevermind play poker. I closed yesterday on land in my hometown in Massachusetts, and will be building my house starting (barring conservation nonsense) to build at the end of July. Note: by *build*, I mean to say I am the general contractor. A framer I am not.
It's taken nothing short of a miracle to procure this property. I got no less than 8 phone calls the day before the closing from my attorney that there were several title issues with the seller. Not so bad for him since he has an extra 30 days to cure the issue. VERY bad for me because my mortgage rate lock ended today. I locked in at 5.875%. If the closing were delayed by one day, it would be at 6.625% (I locked literally on the best possible day). In money terms that meant about $220/month extra in my mortgage payment for the next 30 years. Yay for closing on time. I have no idea what the issues were but all I care about is that they were solved.
In addition to building a house, I started with a new part time job as a nutrition manager consultant. Basically, I customize individual meal programs and menu plans for clients, while also holding group sessions about nutrition education. There are only a handful of people in the US with this certification, so if there is one in your area I'd highly recommend using them over a typical weight-loss program. I hope this takes off here as well as it did where I was previously doing it, unfortunately it means July may have fewer poker hands than June (about 3k, ugh).
cliff notes: closed on piece of property, building my house, starting newish job as a nutrition manager, all while my wife is now 7 months pregnant. I wonder if I can jam anything else into my life right now. I guess sleeping is overrated.
Vegas Is Here!!
Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008 Professional Internet
So far Vegas has been absolutely awesome. I got to meet Stosh, Bryce, Ed, Hunter and his wife and brother, Jade, Jim (CEO), Ijay and should get to meet Matros as well as Colin here within day or so. Everyone has been great to hang with. The first night we got to all just hang out and shoot the shit over a few beers so obviously you can’t beat that. The Stoxpoker house is very nice although I luck sacked my way into a penthouse suite at the Palms courtesy of Poker Stars just being their usual awesome selves when it comes to customer service. I am going to post pics soon, and boy are you guys in for a treat. The room is pretty sick and let’s just say that it would be a single guys’ fantasy room. I’d like to go into more detail, but I think it would be best if I kept it a mystery and posted pics or maybe even a video blog that gives a tour. Ok, well I will give one sneak prevew. There is a shower that is bigger than some of the bedrooms at my house that has a stripper pole with flasing lights of all different colors on it with a jacuzzi right next to it. SICK!
I bought into the main event last night. I wanted to play in Sunday but so did everyone else and their mother so it was full. I am playing Saturday instead which cuts into my social life some (no 4th of July party for me because I definitely am not going to be hung over for the main event) and also means that I will probably not be at the meet and greet at Hooters. This really bums me out because I was really excited to meet some of the Stoxpoker members. I am going to be at the booth a lot during every day that I don’t play this week so if you were hoping to meet me for whatever reason, please come by the booth. I definitely don’t want to miss out on meeting anyone so please stop by if it isn’t too inconvenient.
Tonight my buddy Mike Lavery and his new girl friend are flying in from Carolina and we have a pretty baller night out planned. We are starting with drinks at the penthouse and from there going to Fix at the Bellagio which is my wife and I’s favorite restaurant. From there we are going to take a ride in a helicopter and see the strip from above. After that I scored some VIP passes to the playboy club at Palms that get all of us in with no cover and bypass all of the lines. If we can’t have fun on a night like this we should all just shoot ourselves…lol. I am looking forward to meeting Mike’s new girlfriend as well and in just a few hours the night will begin!!
Discuss this blog here:
http://www.stoxpoker.com/forums/showthread.php?p=92556#post92556
Matt Blogs the WSOP: $1500 NLHE Updated Update
Date: Wed, Jul 2, 2008 Professional Internet
Yeah, I made the final table. You might be able to watch on ESPN360 tomorrow. I'm going to sleep now for a bit.
Matt Blogs the WSOP: Didn't We Just Do This?
Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2008 Professional Internet
I thought I was playing a Limit Hold 'Em shootout today. Turned out I had my dates mixed up and I was registered for yet another $1500 No Limit Hold 'Em event with 2,700 people. Well, I'm in the money again, and again I have above average chips going into Day Two (41.8K). I'm not in nearly as good a position as I was last time, when I had 113.6K at the end of day one, but you can't ask for much more than to have above-average chips going into the second day of a tournament. I'm going to try to run up my stack tomorrow and give myself a chance at the final table. Wish me luck.
June, You SOB You Betrayed Me
Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2008 Professional Internet
I give up. I swear, I just don’t know what to do anymore about this game. I am just getting so fed up with this year. After having such terrible months In April and May I vowed to get on the right track again in June and even though you can’t control luck, just somehow will myself to having a good month. Well, as you guys know, I was having a fantastic month and on track for possibly even my best of all time. For once I was getting that little kick back in my step about this game and starting to feel like I was really accomplishing something. For once I actually put together 3 weeks of avoiding the massive downswings that make no sense considering my low standard deviation and my overall tight style, but wouldn’t you know it my entire month just went from great to meh in one unbelievable weekend where I actually lost 4ptbb/100 over 20k hands. Simply unreal. I had two separate 20+ buy in downswings in one weekend!!! Just when I thought I could finally feel good about my month, I once again feel miserable about how it turned out. I take some solace in the fact that I did accomplish my goal at the start of the month to make over 100k points. But I only set my goal that low because I felt like I should start taking baby steps again after such terrible months before. I had a very real chance for a banner month, and it just “hopped down the fucking drain and my fate is now with Grandma…lol”
July is probably going to be my lightest month in terms of hands in probably my entire career. I have the WSOP and I am going to take a week and hang out with my wife and probably not play any poker at all. In August I am going to have the $250k prop bet, hopefully, so that won’t be a normal month of playing either. Then to follow it up I will probably take some time away as I will surely be exhausted. So it looks like I won’t have any opportunity to have a big month until October and that leaves me feeling pretty empty. I was really hoping to snap off a big month and just ran so stupid bad to finish…..ughhhhhhhhhhhh. Overall I can’t complain about the month because I think I ran right at expectation which for me is $1 a hand. I just feel frustrated because I feel I am far below EV this year and if I had finished the month well I would have felt a lot better about April and May being so poor.
I will say one thing about poker in general. As much as I would love to do it for the rest of my life, I would be pretty surprised if I have much passion for this game 5 years from now. I never really thought I would say that and I think if my winnings this year had been much more balanced rather than a bunch of massive upswings/downswings (which makes no sense with my tight style but whatever) I may be singing a different tune. But as it stands right now I am putting a lot of effort into something that yields the highest possible frustration with absolutely no upside other than money. It’s not like I get to experience the thrill of victory nor do I even get to put hard work in and watch it pay off necessarily. If I prepare really hard for a session, it often times makes no difference as luck is such a big factor. If the poker world came up with some way where you could compete against the best and take the variance out of it (kinda like the man vs. machine where it is rigged to cut down on variance) then I would probably play poker for the rest of my life. I would LOVE to do something like that. But as it currently stands I experience minor thrills from doing well and massive frustration when it goes poorly. I mean when poker goes poorly I could not possibly be more frustrated. Before I played poker, I wasn’t even aware that my body was capable of feeling the way it does like I do when things go bad at the tables. It is hard to describe, but maybe if I can take the big lows out of the equation (through Jared’s help obv)I may love poker forever. But right now I haven’t fully accomplished that yet and as a result it has me doubting how long I want to keep doing this.
Anyway, hate to ne such a negative nelly. I wish I felt differently obviously and I wish that I could take satisfaction out of poker regardless of the results. That is the ultimate goal of course. I am doing a ton better. I actually played through the entire 20k hands and didn’t have a massive blow up. I probably was on the cusp 6-7 times throughout the weekend and went through my mental checklist that I have that helps me get on the right track when I am about to blow up. It has been quite a test this year. All I can say is thank God for Jared. Because this year has been by miles the most challenging of my career. In the 26 weeks so far I have won almost all of my money in the best 7 weeks that I have won all year. That is not even close to a normal distribution. I’m not saying your chart should go steadily up the whole time, but somewhere in between is pretty normal. Maybe the 2nd half of the year will be different and I can go back to having my ups and downs like anyone, but on a more normal level.
For anyone that is going to be out at the WSOP, I can’t wait to meet ya. Please feel free to stop by the booth or come to the meet and greet at Hooters. Hopefully I can buy lots of Stoxpoker members a beer on me and we can have a good time. Good luck to all who are playing.
Discuss this blog here:
http://www.stoxpoker.com/forums/showthread.php?p=91878#post91878
Las Vegas Starting tomorrow night
Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2008 Professional Internet
I was originally supposed to fly out tonight, but most guys I know don't arrive until tomorrow and I know the last two times I came out for the main event I couldn't get out of town fast enough once the tournament was over. So I figured I'd shave a day off the trip on the front end. genius.
I've been playing some poker and had fun hanging out with dusty and his wife nicole and our good friend rob and his wife sheera. We did a bunch of fun stuff, wine tasting, nice dinners, some poker. Rob taught dusty how to stretch out in the morning and i participated a bit in that. Mostly we joked around and laughed a lot. Dustys ridiculous prop bet got started somehow around the time he arrived and so we talked a bunch about that. Estimating his chances of success, how to structure the bet, and how much to bet on it.
I'm looking forward to my las vegas trip. Bryce, Kyle, Jim, myself, Ijay, Stosh, Jared, Matt, are all staying in the same house together and that should be a blast. I've met everyone there in person except for stosh and Ijay.
Our booth at the world series should be pretty cool. We'll be giving out free 24 hour passes and DVDs of stoxpoker content. We'll also have a small putting green and stoxpoker gear. Maybe I can dial in my putting while I'm there. Most of our book authors will be around to sign books so if you have a copy or just want to say hello please stop by. The booth runs from July 3rd - 6th, hope to get a chance to meet some stoxpoker members!
Matt Blogs the WSOP: Out of $1500 NL
Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2008 Professional Internet
I got it to 160k after only a few hands today, but unfortunately that was the highest my stack ever got.
With five or six tables left I doubled through Men Nguyen by running JT through his AK, but he eventually got more than even for that suckout. With four tables left, Men moved in for three blinds and got called. I isolated with AQs and the caller folded. Men had A9o and won. A few hands later, Men moved in on my big blind for 104k (ten blinds) and I called with 55. Men had T4s and won. Down to less than two blinds, I got it all-in blind-on-blind on the next hand with 75o vs. 74o. I lost.
Though the end was pretty disappointing, I'm glad I made another run and gave myself another chance. Also, I almost got even for WSOP events with this mini-score. Almost. Also, I'm almost talking myself into playing more of the tournament circuit again after this month out here. Almost.
Tomorrow: Limit Hold 'Em Shootout
Lefty Power Hitters
Date: Sun, Jun 29, 2008 Professional Internet
This will be quick to not take up much of the blog page.
For anyone who follows Major League Baseball, all these teams do a shift for the lefties who can't hit the ball opposite field and always pull it. They shift the second baseman into the outfield, the shortstop to the right side of the infield, and the third baseman to the shortstop spot. In turn, these guys who only pull the ball hit for a lower average because now more of their hit balls have a chance of being recorded as an out.
Can someone please explain to me why they do not learn how to bunt and just bunt it down the third baseline for a hit about 90% of the time. Even if they have never bunted, a major league player could work on this in batting practice and easily get this down within a few weeks. This issue really bugs me and I don't get it. Please help me figure it out. Or maybe it is unexplainable like how great basketball players can't shoot over 60% from the free throw line.
comment on the blog here http://www.stoxpoker.com/forums/showthread.php?p=91629#post91629
-Reese
Matt Blogs the WSOP: $1500 NLHE Update
Date: Sun, Jun 29, 2008 Professional Internet
I played the $2,000 No Limit event on Friday and didn't last very long. I played a bunch of hands in the first hour, didn't win any of them, and lost half my stack. Then I got the rest in with AA vs. QJ on a board of QT8 and lost.
After busting, I went over to the Bellagio to play their $2,000 No Limit event. That didn't go any better. I won a coin flip to almost double my starting chips, but then later on I tried a resteal with T9o, ran into AK, and lost the showdown.
The good news is that I accumulated a bunch of chips in Saturday's WSOP event--the $1,500 No Limit event. I have about three times average (113,600) heading into Day Two. Wish me luck.
The Secret Face of Polaris
Date: Sat, Jun 28, 2008 Professional Internet
The force behind all the pixel-chips and talk of equilibrium strategy is not the sort of soulless Agent-Smith entity that might be expected. Instead you'll find a lot of MacBooks and empty coffee cups, and some really cool people who have built one of the best HU LHE players in the world. The Computer Poker Research Group will be present in the flesh at the Man vs Machine Poker Championship at the Rio, July 3-6. For the most part they'll be identifiable by their team t-shirts, and I think they'll be more than happy to have you pester them with questions.
Score one for the fleshbags!
Date: Sat, Jun 28, 2008 Professional Internet
So Hoss and I had our first match against the Polaris computer yesterday. As you know, Bryce has described Polaris as the "best HU LHE player on the planet" (or something like that), and even proposed to bet me and Hoss that Polaris would beat us.
Well, Polaris played well, but in the end the humans prevailed (albeit narrowly).
To reduce luck as much as possible the match was structured so that the humans and Polaris would end up playing the same cards against each other. So in the 500 hand match I played side "A" of each hand against Polaris, which played side "B." Then Hoss and Polaris played the identical 500 hands, only this time Hoss played side "B" and Polaris played the cards that I had against it (side "A").
I went first and it was immediately clear that Bryce had programmed it -- the damn thing ran as hot as the sun! Lots of coolers, rivers, cracked overpairs, runner-runner flushes, etc. Which isn't to say that Polaris didn't play well, it definitely did. For example, it had a few sick calldowns -- one with J high. I don't want to get into its play too much since the feature match between me/Hoss vs. Polaris is next Sunday at the WSOP, but suffice it to say that Polaris played well, though with some tendencies that I think can be exploited.
In any event, despite the cards being stacked against me I did a good job saving bets in some hands and picking up pots without the best hand in others. I got a little spewey in the middle of the match, but overall I was fairly pleased with how I had played despite the fact that when it was over I had lost 87 BBs. I told the Polaris team at the end of my match that even though I had lost 87 BBs I thought that given the cards Hoss would beat Polaris for more than Polaris had beaten me and that the humans would take the match.
Sure enough, last night, with the hands reversed, Hoss won almost 100BBs, giving us humans the victory.
I'll be very curious to see how the other human teams do, and I'm already looking forward to the rematch in Vegas on 7/6.
I Need Your Help Stoxpoker
Date: Sat, Jun 28, 2008 Professional Internet
As most of you know by now I am involved in ironing out the final details of what is probably one of the most difficult prop bet challenges imaginable in online poker. I am risking at least a quarter of a million dollars of my own cash that I can win $100,000 or more at 2/4nl ($400 buy in) in 31 days or less. When I posted this prop bet on 2+2, not only was the interest in the bet higher than I could’ve possibly imagined, very few people give me much of a chance. Some people are willing to be hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money that I can’t do it. I think at this point I have roughly 1.5 million dollars of action from people who don’t think I can pull this off. Of course I am not going to book all of the action because if I did I would be pretty much life busto if I lost. But I am going to risk at least $250k and maybe a tad more. Very few people are giving me much of a chance and who can blame them? There are usually only a few dozen at most no limit holdem players in the world who make 6 figure in a month, much less try to do it at 2/4nl. Not to mention that pretty much every other person who has tried a similar type bet has failed miserably. I’ve long prided myself on being the hardest working poker player in the world and I am up to the challenge. In fact, if I could I would start it tomorrow.
It looks like the bet is going to happen. It should presumably start sometime in the middle of August. Mid August is the first time where I have 31 straight days where I don’t have any firm commitments so that is the soonest I can begin the bet. Before the final rules are set, I would like to ask Stoxpoker members for a little favor. I am trying to come up with the rules and I just posted some of the rules I have come up with in this thread on 2+2: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=236794
I’m just going to copy paste my post in that thread and put them in this blog as well. Basically what I am asking is for any of you to help me come up with anything that you see missing or that I should add/subtract/modify. In the 2+2 thread people are already coming up with ideas of their own which is great. These rules are just a starting point and I am sure there are a ton of things missing which is why I need your help. If you have some time, please look over these rules and let me know what you think in the thread dedicated to this blog.
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“ This is a starting point for the rules and by no means a final set of rules. There may be a ton of things I have left off that either the people betting against me want changed or I myself think of adding/subtracting as this thread goes on. I tried to use the WCGrider thread as a guide to some extent. Anyway, here it goes...
1. All tables will be $2/4 blind no limit holdem on Pokerstars or Full Tilt poker. If for some reason my account is banned on either site then the bet will be paused and resumed when my account is reinstated.
2. All tables must be 5 max or greater. No heads up allowed. I can only sit at the table if there are at least 3 people at the table when I get dealt cards. If the table breaks and there is less than 3 people at the table I may continue to play.
3. Dusty Schmidt and Dusty Schmidt (aka Leatherass9 on both Pokerstars and Full Tilt) is the only person who may play on the account. There will be a webcam on me at all times when I am playing to help ensure that no one else plays the account other than myself.
4. Wagerers may not play at these tables without asking pre-bet with valid evidence that NL $2/4 is a normal level for them. In the scenario where excessive opponents above or below the normal skill level of a nl 2/4 game player attempt to change the game atmosphere by sitting in my games, the panel of judges noted in rule 10, are to make a decision on the state of the bet and reasonable conduct to continue it.
5. $100,000 must be won, after paying rake, and not counting rakeback or bonuses or full tilt points or money from anything other than the poker games described in #1. The money must be won in a pre-declared period of 31 consecutive calendar days, to start at Noon PST of a declared day and end exactly 31 days later. If $100,000 or more is won, and all other conditions are met, Leatherass9 wins. If $99,999.99 or less is won, or any other condition is not met by Leatherass9, Leatherass9 loses. If at any time Leatherass9 claims to have made $100,000, he is to make the hands available to the panelists directly from pokerstars and Full Tilt with no ability to interfere on his end. The panelists then have 72 hours to review the hand histories of the event. If panelists accept the hand histories as valid evidence as to winning $100,000, Leatherass9 is to be shipped the winnings in total from a predetermined escrow person. If at any point Leatherass9 verifiably claims defeat, or the 31st day passes without breaking $100,000 in total winnings, then the wagers in their entirity are to be shipped to the parties betting against Leatherass9. If any individual wagerer against Leatherass9 breaks the rules, they forfeit their wager which will then be paid to Leatherass9 but the rest of the wagers stand. If gross misconduct by wagerers is alleged by Leatehrass9 (one person screwing with him on behalf of several others), three predetermined panelists will determine how next to proceed and a “timeout on the wager will be called until a decision is made. The three members will be chosen prior to the start of the bet.
6. If at any point the webcam stops working, hands played in the first 2 hours of it not working WILL count, but not after that. If the website hosting the webcam ( website not determined yet) crashes or the feed to the website isn’t working, a “timeout” will be called and the panelists will be notified and once a decision has been made by them, the clock will resume.
7. All wagerers will be given Leatherass9’s skype number and they can call at anytime that Leatherass9 claims to be playing to verify that he is indeed playing. A maximum of 5 skype call can be made per wagerer and the calls can only last for 10 seconds at most. This will provide an additional measure to ensure that I am the one playing while also being webcammed.
8. If Leatherass9 claims victory, a timeout will be in effect until the panel comes to a decision and if the panel decides that the declaration was premature and the $100,00 has not been reached, Leatherass9 may go back and play more hands and not lose the time away while the panel decides. If the panel does decide that Leatherass9’s declaration was premature, the clock restarts the moment the panel let’s Leatherass9 know their decision.
9. As part of the motivation for the wagerers may be entertainment, Leatherass9 agrees to provide daily-ish updates in a thread as to his progress or on a website that hosts the progress. Good faith effort to update at least every 24 hours is expected, but this condition will not be considered breached until Leatherass9 plays one hand when 72 or more hours have gone by without update. This means if he decides to take 4 days off for whatever reason, he doesn't have to provide daily updates as long as he gives us an update before he starts playing again.
10. The panel of judges assembled to provide for a fairly evaluated bet in cause of accused misconduct consists of 3 undetermined members of the poker community. If wagerers representing up to $10,000 in action file a complaint to the panel, it is their responsibility to make a fair ruling within a 72 hour time frame and report it to both parties. The panel is primarily to be used in order to allow the bet to take its course in its entirty with minimum outside influence, and is only to award the bet to a given party in cases of extreme misconduct and a 3-0 without any doubt ruling. The merit of this bet is for Leatherass9 to play nl $2/4 for 31 days against the current skill level of the online nl $2/4 games and win $100,000. The judges are to make rulings that allow for this to take place to the best of their ability and with minimal interference.
11. Leatherass9 may request one and one only 24 hour timeout during the bet under the following conditions. Death of ANY family member. Death of any Stoxpoker team member or death of any friend. Environmental disaster. A technological setback such as an extended power outage or an internet connectivity issue. Personal injury and hospital information must be provided to panelists AND approved for this to count. For any of these circumstances the burden of proof is on Leatherass9 and it must be also approved by the panel in order to qualify for a 24 hour timeout.
12. Anytime a timeout of any kind takes effect, the time is then added to the date in which the bet would normally have ended. It is my hope, for obvious reasons, that a timeout of any kind is never needed.
This is all I can come up with for now. This is by no means set in stone and the intent of this thread is to finalize terms as well as who exactly wants to officially commit themselves to a wager of not less than $1k, but not greater than $10k unless I make exceptions to people I personally feel comfortable making exceptions for. I tentatively plan on capping my personal action at $250k, but may go $50kish higher. I know there are others who want to bet ON me and we can probably set something up that allows additional action for those that want to bet against each other.
I am greatly looking forward to hearing from everyone about concerns they may have as well as all the things I have surely left off. As far as escrow goes I have a couple of pending people that if they choose to do it you guys will all know who they are and they are as reputable as they come. I also need to find 3(?) super reputable people who serve as the panelists for this bet. So any help with that would be awesome. Basically this serves as a starting point for negotiations and I will keep a strong eye on this thread and hopefully we can start coming to terms so we can make this happen. I am very excited for the challenge. Like I said in the last thread I can’t start the bet until mid August. Definitely no sooner that the 13th I think. Anyway, I look forward to the help. Thanks.”
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The month has continued to go well. This is probably my best month ever even though I may not end up winning as much as my best month. I am up almost 150k points and my best is 170k. I have played way less hands this month in making the 150k points so I am feeling pretty good right now. I have played my best by far and all of the work I have done to curb my temper at the tables is working very well. I am very excited about how far I have come mentally.
I want to thank everyone in advance for reading through this and for whatever help you may afford.
Discuss this blog here:
http://www.stoxpoker.com/forums/showthread.php?p=91190#post91190
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