Resolutions '10

I need to find a way to play as well as I used to. I don't know how to do this except to do it. It starts with becoming more disciplined and making better decisions. I learned a lot last year, and now I need to plug the leaks that seem to have kept pace with my improvements.

I'll stop making hero calls. I'd better have a damn good reason for calling down multiple streets besides the thought that I simply don't believe my opponents. Too often, I lose money when an opponent's line doesn't make sense. I should realize that these days, strange betting lines are far more likely to be the nuts than air.

I'll quit playing the first time I curse at the computer. I'll keep playing when I'm on my game.

Those are my resolutions for 2010, and I plan to stick to them every day of the year.

Good luck this year!

A fish's life

In the sea of pot limit Omaha, I'm a small confused guppy aimlessly trying to take down a pot.

I don't know when to check or bet, I can't read how big my wrap draw is and I can't count outs over 20 because that's just too high of a number.

I'm a PLO fish, and I kind of like it.

I get to discover a new game and play against unique opponents from across the world. I don't have many notes taken, and reading hands is a guessing game.

PLO is an adventure in learning that hold'em can no longer offer.

I've played too many hold'em hands, read too many books and watched too many videos for the two-card variety to hold the same mystique it once did. Playing PLO is still a puzzle to be put together, piece by piece.

I relish this time spent as a rookie, but I don't want it to last long. This fish needs to grow into a shark.

Year Ender

I'll remember 2008 as the year in which I decided to tackle heads-up no limit, achieving OK results.

I dropped some money as I tried to learn the game, but I learned a lot about poker in general. Most importantly, the challenge of taking on a new form of the game forced me to study my game, delve into watching more poker videos and hire a poker coach. I'll always be able to play HUNL now when the other games look dead. I'm probably still a small lifetime loser in heads-up play, but I believe I'm getting close to even.

The rest of the year was pretty damn standard: I took a couple of unsuccessful shots at 10/20 NL while still grinding out solid profits at 5/10. My profits for 2008 are closely in line with what I achieved in both 2006 and 2007, which is acceptable.

Let's look back at my goals for last year:

1) Improve my bluffing frequency. I would call this a small success. I found a few more opportunities to bluff by hand reading better and trusting my reads. On the other hand, one of my weaknesses is that I still feel like my style is too conservative.

2) Blog regularly. There were spurts of frequent activity, and on the whole I'd say I kept the blog up to date. It was never my intent to post every day; instead, I wanted to publish at least a couple of times a week without taking too much time off.

3) Work on my heads-up game. Done.

4) Stop bloody spewing so much. I'm always improving at this. Discipline is an upward climb, and I steadily try to tilt less, make better decisions, make fewer curiosity calls and quit when I'm no longer at my best.

5) Find ways to play my best game. See above. Often, it's simply impossible to play my best game because I'm tired or not thinking as quickly as I'd like. In those cases, it's better not to play at all.

Now let's look ahead to 2009.

I only have one goal for the coming year: Learn pot limit Omaha.

I strongly believe the investment in diversifying my game is more valuable than the profits lost by sticking to my regular full ring or 6-max 5/10 NL games. Some pros say PLO already has surpassed NLHE in terms of game selection and quality. I feel like I'm already late to the PLO bandwagon, but that's alright.

I'll start by reading "Pot-limit Omaha Poker," by Jeff Hwang and watching plenty of PLO videos on DeucesCracked. I plan to start at 2/4 and see how I progress from there.

Good luck to you all in 2009, and Happy New Year!

Goals 08

Broadly speaking, setting poker goals for yourself can be good, but they should never be monetary targets. There are three important reasons why:
1. You have limited power to achieve monetary goals.
2. Conclusions are difficult to draw when you miss a monetary target.
3. Monetary targets detract from your true goal (making correct decisions).
--The Poker Mindset, by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger

I'm pumped about the new year in poker. I feel great about my game, and there will be many opportunities to make money.

I fell short of my broad goals that I set for 2007: I wanted to play 10/20 NL regularly, get my bankroll to $100,000 and keep moving up. None of those things happened.

On the plus side, I made a little more money than last year, I improved my game in countless ways and I'm once again testing the waters at 10/20 this month.

I have a few goals for skills I want to work on in 2008.

1) Improve my bluffing frequency. I know I am unintentionally passing up opportunities to make +EV bluffs. I need to find ways to recognize these spots and have the balls to execute. So far, when I've been looking for places to bluff, I've been getting my money in badly with one pair or Ace-high.

2) Blog regularly. There's a correlation between writing about poker and playing well. Thinking about the game and expressing concepts betters my game.

3) Work on my heads-up game. I'm convinced HU play encourages creative thinking and forces you to widen your arsenal of moves that can later be applied at 6-max or full ring tables.

4) Stop bloody spewing so much. When I'm methodical, I win. When I'm reckless and needlessly aggressive, I lose.

5) Find ways to play my best game. It's easy to say that you should always play your best game, but accomplishing that aim is a bit more difficult. There are times when I feel like I'm on top of my game and then I make a stupid, inexplicable error. I want to be able to recognize when I'm not playing well before I make mistakes. I need to think about ways to do this.

---

Separately...

Ed Miller may have completely lost it. I look forward to his next posts about the merits of getting in with the worst of it, the hidden value of going broke and the importance of playing on tilt.

Accountability

When I wanted to tilt someone attacking my play, I used to type "poker is easy" into the chat box. It gave the illusion that I didn't know what I was doing and I was just there to have a good time.

But there's also some truth to it. The games seem as beatable now as they've ever been, despite the UIGEA, the spread of poker knowledge and cries that the boom is over. As far as I can tell, the most significant difference in the online poker landscape is the consolidation trend within the industry discussed by BillRini.

Some people say the games are tougher, and maybe they are. But I don't see it, based on my experience playing hundreds of hands every day. It seems like the players per flop figures displayed in the Full Tilt lobby have never been higher.

Are the games really more difficult? Or is this a case of weaker players faulting external events for their shortcomings rather than taking personal responsibility for improving their own games?

Perhaps it's both: the games are tougher, but the strong players adapt and thrive.

"(Dan) Harrington says he returned to the felt only after he started watching poker on TV in 2003. 'I said, I remember how to play that no-limit hold'em, and I know how to play it better than they know how to play it,' he recalled. 'That's what got me out of retirement and got me playing again,'" according to a CardPlayer interview.

Taylor Caby also has seen players try to take advantage of him after he spends time away from the tables. He says in a video that opponents attempt moves on him, but he simply adjusts his strategy to counter them.

There's little doubt these guys and plenty more like them are doing just fine.

For me, the fear of tougher games held me back this year more than it should have. I lacked confidence, and I doubted whether I would still be able to kill the games once the effects of the UIGEA were felt at the tables.

I remember sitting in an airport all night long playing 2/4 games on PokerStars, just trying to grind out a profit without thinking about it. I spewed a lot of money trying to rebuild my roll on Full Tilt on autopilot. I chased bonuses instead of profits. I focused on attaining goals rather than figuring out how to reach them.

Even when I ran white hot in fall 2006, I didn't feel like I was doing anything special to deserve this kind of success.

It's time for me to acknowledge my poker competence as a necessary step toward continued improvement.

Do the fish still donate their stacks? Are the games still good? Is the poker boom going strong? Yes, yes and yes.

But my victories aren't due to circumstances. I'm not going to "blame" poker society for giving me a free ride toward earning these profits. I'm a solid player who can beat most any game I play in, and my results directly reflect the effort I've put into my improvement.

Poker is easy.

Expanding games

Wow, the 3/6 and 2/4 NL games on Full Tilt have been incredibly loose over the last few weeks.

I can't explain it. Maybe it's the holiday season, the cold weather keeping people inside or the ease of making deposits. Whatever the reason, I'm not complaining. I've said this many times before: anyone who tells you the online games are filled with rocks is wrong or lying.

Now is the time to play and make the most of this opportunity. I know the games won't be this good forever.

On a separate topic, I'm impressed with a CardRunners video by CTS that I watched last night. In the vid, he plays three guys in heads-up 5/10 NL games and just demolishes them for 3.5 buy-ins over 225 hands. Sure, he runs pretty good. But he also makes ballsy plays based on reads and experience that are almost always correct.

I like the math he uses to find that a bluff he makes with an open-ended straight draw into a large pot needs to only be successful 17 percent of the time to show a profit:



What really stood out to me was his commentary on the importance of learning to play heads-up. It reminded me a lot of when I heard similar suggestions years ago about switching from full ring to shorthanded games. I struggled with 6-max games for a long time, but now they're my most consistent moneymakers.

The skills acquired from playing shorthanded directly result in higher profits, better hourly winrates and practice playing in tough situations.

I've had mixed results in heads-up cash games and backed off them entirely since I lost several buy-ins last month. I now realize I was playing too tightly preflop and I failed to properly identify and respond to my opponents weaknesses. Most actions can be countered by varying your play appropriately. I need to improve HU to bring my game to where it needs to be.

Specifically, I want to learn more about narrowing my opponents' hand ranges, correctly playing middling hands that gain value in HU situations and effectively increasing my bluffing frequency. I'm excited about the challenge.

Results Oriented

"Parcells believed that even in the NFL a lot of players were more concerned with seeming to want to win that with actually winning, and that many of them did not know the difference."
--"The Blind Side," by Michael Lewis

I set a goal, and I was going to stick to it.

I wanted to rebuild my Full Tilt bankroll from $3,000 to $10,000 before moving up in stakes on other sites where I keep most of my roll. There were several reasons for this challenge: I wanted to rejuvenate my Full Tilt account without making a deposit, experiment with new tactics at 2/4 and 3/6, and prove to myself that I could set a goal and reach it.

I planned to get there in three weeks.

I did well at first, slowly building up on Full Tilt until I got to $8,500. There was nothing spectacular about this run -- just steadily building up toward where I wanted to be. But then things started to go wrong.

I found the juiciest 50/100 shorthanded limit game I had ever seen, with a table average VP$IP of about 48 and a seat open next to a player who was seeing nearly every flop. I felt my overall bankroll could support sitting at this table, so I decided to take a shot.

First I put in a lot of bets with an underboat vs. an overboat. Then QQ got cracked. Then KK fell. Within a few minutes, I was down $4,500. Oh well, I told myself. I knew the risk going in.

When I woke up the next morning, I was determined to push hard toward my goal. Back at 2/4, I opened up my game with lots of 4-bets, steal attempts and efforts to push every little small edge I could perceive. I spewed chips at an alarming rate.

I tried to be the kind of loose-aggressive player who would get paid off because my holdings would be so unpredictable. Instead, I seemed to only get action when I didn't want it.

Down to about $1,500, I dug in. For the first time, I was worried about dropping to dangerously low levels. I played tight -- too tight. I played weak. In one hand against cmitch, I may have been able to take it down with a bet or check-raise on the turn when I made trips. Instead, I meekly called a bet and then paid off on the river when his flush got there.

I dropped down to .50/1 to build back up again. I told myself I could be like Chris Ferguson, and slowly get back to where I wanted to be one small step at a time.

After only two days of play, I lost patience. How could I waste this time playing .50/1 when I could be winning at 5/10 -- or even having a go at 10/20? What was I doing grinding out $2 and $4 pots when my yearly average is so much higher?

I was fully aware that these thoughts would only get me into trouble. The only two options were to stick with my plan for weeks or months of more frustration, or to take one more chance. I played a few topsy-turvy 2/4 heads-up matches, and my roll fell below $200 by the time I was through.

When I dropped this low, I realized what a fish I had been. But it also enabled me to accept failure. I try to treat poker like an investment. It was time to cut my losses.

I adopted a better plan: abandon my goal, transfer money to my Full Tilt account rather than try to rebuild on a short roll, play the limits I wanted to play and quit steaming over a useless challenge.

From the start, this effort was focused on trying to reach a number rather than improving my game. It had little to do with getting better or making smarter decisions.

I like to learn from my mistakes:

1) I never want to play on a site when I'm underrolled. It's too difficult to play my best game when I'm scared to take chances.

2) I should remember that pushing too hard is often counterproductive. I thought I had learned long ago that I can only play my best game for about 2 hours at a time, and the probability of losing money greatly increases when I try to extend sessions beyond that.

3) It's OK to experiment with new strategies and take shots, but I should only try one at a time.

I'm a lucky bastard. As soon as I abandoned my quest, I started winning again. I'm back to playing a style I'm comfortable with -- my style -- and I've won $3,500 in the last three hours at the tables. That's a rate I can be happy with.

Status report

"I don't believe in luck. It's all mathematics. Everybody runs the same. I believe in taking personal responsibility for my play. I see too many posts in which people say they run bad or are unlucky, and so on. I believe that you make your own results, and that everything comes down to your decisions. No one else is in control but yourself. People think that the cards have a role in the results, and they do in the short run, but in the long run, it'll all even out. If your results aren't good, it's most likely because you're not playing well."
--Brian Townsend, CardPlayer Magazine

I've been playing and running well for the last couple of months. I'm learning more and my reads are steadily getting better. This game is all incremental -- the path to victory comes one step at a time.

My career winnings are approaching $100,000, although it will take a bit longer before my bankroll gets to that point, probably not until next year. That's OK. I'll get my vacation before too long.

I'm closing in on being able to take another shot at the 10/20 games. I'll move up when I near 30 buy-ins for that game, which is tougher than 5/10.

There are so many people who are terrible at 5/10, and only a few who I respect. Those are the regulars who are very aggressive and still pull down a profit. Anyone can be a maniac, but that doesn't mean they'll make money.

I fell short of my goal of reaching a $100K bankroll by March, but that's just a small setback. In the big picture, I'm still on track toward the broader goal of moving up as high as my ability and bankroll allows. Even if I don't immediately succeed at 10/20 this time, I will next time. And then I'll repeat the process for the next limit.

Or perhaps I'll find a ceiling to my abilities and will have to be at peace with whatever limit I can beat.

That would be OK too, because I'm not going anywhere. I'll never let myself go busto. I might whine about bad beats sometimes, but those are temporary. I'll still be playing.

---

Here's a hand of the day. The table chat got pretty lively afterward. My opponent said I made a "donkey call," and I told him it was easy to call such a donkey bluff. My read was that this opponent would fire two bullets at any large pot, and I figured I was ahead as long as a scare card didn't fall. Both the turn and river were safe cards, so I had to call down.

5/10
4 calls
Hero raises to $70 from the button with Kc Td
Two calls
Pot is $245
*** Dealing Flop *** [ 9s, 8d, Ts ]
3 checks
*** Dealing Turn *** [ 9d ]
MP checks.
Villain bets $170
Hero calls $170
MP folds.
*** Dealing River *** [ 5c ]
Villain bets $380
Hero calls $380
Villain shows Js, Ad for a pair of Nines.
Hero shows Kc, Td for two pair, Tens and Nines.
Hero wins $1,342

Attitude Adjustment

I don't want to jinx myself, but I've gotten back on track recently results-wise. I haven't had any big days, but I've been making incremental progress, which is how poker usually goes anyway.

The only crappy thing is that I've fallen far short of all my goals so far for this year. I wanted to get my bankroll over $100,000 and I wanted to be a regular at the $10/$20 games. Instead, my bankroll is still sufficient for $5/$10 but far from where I wanted it to be.

For now, I've had to forget about my goals, at least for the short term. I may take shots at some of the looser $10/$20 games again after I win another 10 buy-ins or so. And you know, there's still a lot of time left this year. So who knows.

There are many possible reasons for my downswing, which lasted about six weeks in May and June: tilt, taxes, poor play, wrongheaded reasoning, bad luck, burnout.

One reason that I hadn't considered until recently was that I couldn't handle winning very well. I had a hard time accepting that I was that much better than my opponents, and I started telling myself that I was getting lucky. To some extent, that was true.

I also got caught up in the big dollar figures. There would be times when I had close to $10,000 in play across four tables, which is a bit surreal. That's big cash to be tooling around with, and I didn't have the confidence or experience to consistently manage it.

So at the same time as I was starstruck with all this money flowing my way, I was sure it would start disappearing because I convinced myself I was out of my league. It's totally stupid reasoning, because I know now I can hang with most of the players at that level, but it was a psychological barrier that turned into a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I had an attitude problem, and it was only a matter of time before it affected my play. In the future, I'll try to be better about accepting responsibility for my wins and losses rather than dismissing them because I was either running good or suffering beats. When I win, I'm going to try to embrace it without getting cocky or letting myself get overwhelmed.

In the meantime, I'm happy to be back concentrating on $5/$10, a game I know I can consistently beat for decent money. Poker is such a long-term game, and there's no point in getting ahead of myself. Hell, it's as likely as anything that my bad run was just another 10,000 or 20,000-hand swing that's bound to happen to all of us. The long run is very long, so I'm just going to keep playing my best on every street.

I'm pretty comfortable here ... for now.

Break over

Well, that time off from poker felt good. I hadn't played in four days, which isn't that long, but it was enough time for me to get my head on straight and feel refreshed when I came back to the tables tonight, where I won nearly two buy-ins.

I thought a lot about what went wrong in the last few weeks. The primary problem was that I got bad cards and lost a lot of pots in which I was favored. But there several issues with my game that don't show up in hand histories or PokerTracker stats.

This bad run started with my $22,000 income tax bill, created and paid for almost entirely from my bankroll. Then I started pressing way too hard as I put in long sessions and woke up early in the morning to put in more hours. During that time, I was still winning, but all that play wore on me.

From there, I ran into Perfect Donkey and then suffered a ton of beats. I started every session with a good attitude, but it was never long before I was yelling at the computer screen over some horrible suckout.

Everyone has a breaking point, and I reached mine last Sunday, when I played heads-up games and called $500 turn bets with nothing but a flush draw and river all-ins with dominated top pair hands like QT. It was ugly. If there's any silver lining, it was that I could no longer blame anyone buy myself for the losses.

A few weeks ago, I complained to a photographer friend of mine about the downturn. He doesn't know much about poker, but he loves to hear about it, and I like talking about it.

"What are you learning from these losses?" he asked.

"Nothing," I told him, "Except how to deal with them."

That wasn't the right answer. I should have been learning when to quit.

With any luck, I'll now go on an insanely good run like I did the last time I took a few days off.

April > March

"No one should rest. People who are doing that are setting themselves up for failure in the future."
--Taylor Caby

April was a great month -- in fact, I'm pretty sure it was my best ever as I won about nine 10/20 buy-ins. That's about the pace I always aim for. I want to win about 10 buy-ins a month because at that rate, my bankroll can grow pretty quickly.

I figure that if, on average, I win a buy-in 20 days a month and lose a buy-in 10 days a month, I'll come out way ahead.

My biggest hand of the month came when I flopped quad 7s against KK and a flopped boat. That'll pay off every time. That pot was worth about 3.5 buy-ins alone.

My worst hand of the month came just a few days ago when I turned a gutshot straight against a turned two-outer boat (55 on a 3345 board). I lost a full buy-in on that hand, and it would have been hard to get away from despite the paired board. The pot was already so large that I felt committed with what I thought was the best hand.

Mostly I tried to play consistently and smartly. I think the hit I took from paying a ridiculous amount to the IRS actually helped my mindset, in that I didn't feel as much pressure to build my bankroll to meet my $100K goal. Instead, I just went back to work. I'm still a couple of months away from my goal at this rate, but that's OK. You won't find me complaining.

My game continues to improve.

I realized that while I steal the blinds at a steady clip, I don't defend them quite as much as I should. I don't think that's a big flaw though.

I also figured out that I need to float in position more often and fold to continuation bets less.

Mostly though, I just played solid poker. Against calling stations, I kept the pot small until I had what I thought was the best hand. When I thought I had the best hand, I pushed hard. When I didn't, I folded. I know it's not always that easy, but when you're running good, sometimes it feels that way.

And if all else fails, I used my secret weapon: sucking out on the river.

Smacked!

Well, I finally hit a rough patch, which was bound to happen at the 10/20 NL games I've been playing. Thankfully, my bankroll is an adequate cushion for these inevitable swings.

It would be one thing if I lost just because of bad beats, but I made some marginal bluffs and all-in bets myself. I had been running so hot that I almost took for granted that I would hit my flush draws or always get folds to my big bets. I forgot a little bit that I'm playing against some solid players who will make pretty accurate reads and make me pay for -EV plays in the long run.

And the long run is what it's all about anyway. Sure, I lost a few buy-ins. But we all know that it happens, and these downswings are insignificant compared to the big picture. I had a bad few hundred hands in which I didn't play my best and ran into some tough situations.

That's in the past. I'll step down to 5/10 for a few days to recover some of the losses, and then pick up right where I left off in a few days (hopefully).

Now it's back to the grind! You gotta love the grind.

---

In other news, congrats to Slb for taking down cc's heads-up challenge! There were 10 runners. I beat cc in my first match after a tough battle. Then Slb took me down in the next round in another back-and-forth match.

Heads-up play is a lot of fun. Cc said he was going to organize this thing again sometime soon, and I hope to see more people show up! In addition, it's one of the few weekday blogger events I'm able to attend because normally I'm still at work (due to the time change) when they're scheduled. This one didn't start till 11 p.m. EST, so I was able to make it.

Big Day

I'm pretty astounded at how well I ran today.

In three two-hour sessions, I won more than $10K for the first time -- more than double my previous best day Dec. 5, when I made a little over $4K. The most I've lost in a day was $4.1K on Jan. 27.

I capped off the day with a flopped full house at a 10/20 table full of maniacs for my biggest pot ever.

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Gnome [ 9d 9s ]
Gnome raises to $70
Button calls $70
BB raises to $120
Gnome calls $50
Button calls $50

*** Flop *** [ 7h 7c 9c ]
BB bets $300
Gnome calls $300
Button folds.

*** Turn *** [ 2h ]
BB bets $700
Gnome raises to $3706.50, and is all in
BB calls $2586.50.

*** River *** [ 2c ]
BB shows [ As, Ah ] (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
Gnome shows [ 9d, 9s ] (a full house, Nines full of Sevens)
Gnome wins $7541 from the main pot with a full house, Nines full of Sevens

Woohoo!

Advance to Go, do not collect $200

Poker is a funny game, and by funny, I mean it's swingy.

I started out this month on a +$5000 run, then went down to -$2,000, turned that around and worked it up to +$6,500, and now I lost that and am back to even.

I've never dealt with dollar figures this high, but I don't think I'm handling the swings any better or worse than I normally do. That is to say, I get easily frustrated and go on tilt, but I'm not going to start playing like an idiot. Fortunately, I'm pretty good about quitting if I start to tilt.

I don't want to write too much because the ups and downs are such a large part of the game. I know this. But even after playing for a few years now, variance and luck continue to be difficult to grasp on an emotional level. I'm sure that reflects some immaturity on my part, but I do my best to be rational about it.

I keep thinking about the idea that the caliber of player you are is determined by how well you play when you're not winning. It's easy to go all in with the best hand and win a lot of money if someone else calls; it's a lot more difficult to fold a set to a flush on the river or lay down a flopped straight to a flopped flush.

Experts say you should always bring your best game if you're going to sit at the tables. This is hard to do when I feel good but my reads are off, or when I think I'm playing well but I lack confidence because of recent losses.

So I think the smart thing to do is to stabilize my surroundings. If I play in games where I feel the most comfortable and have a greater edge, I'll have a better chance of winning (duh). That means I'll call off my first attempts at 10/20 NL until I grow my bankroll to higher levels. I'll concentrate on my strength, which is no limit games. I'll play shorter sessions in hopes of staying fresh. I'll quit when I'm ahead. I'll return to my tradition of sleeping easy and waiting until the morning to check on my results.

Basically, I'm not going to push quite so hard.

Maybe this is superstition, but I believe there's a time for pressing your luck and a time for regrouping. I don't know how to tell the difference except by "instinct" and "feel."

Goals 07: 100K and beyond!

My broad goals for 2007 are simple: keep playing NL cash games, keep moving up in limits and make bundles of cash.

Now that I've been playing the 5/10 NL game for a few months with great success, I'm preparing for the next step.

Here's how I hope the next few months play out:

Once my bankroll reaches 30 buy-ins for 10/20 NL, I will give that game a shot. I expect to get to this threshold by the end of this January, barring a losing streak.

Shortly afterward, I should be within reach of a milestone that I have long wanted to surpass: $100,000 in career poker earnings. If my winrate remains steady, I'll pass $100 K by the end of March, which would be really awesome.

Then comes a vacation. Phil Gordon always said that you should get out of town when you reach the $100 K benchmark, and I plan on doing just that. It won't be a poker trip, because this will be time off from the long and steady grind of daily games. I don't know where I'll end up traveling yet, but I'll feel like the break will have been well-deserved. It'll be nice.

After that, unless I start sucking or hit a bad run of cards, I'll just keep moving up to higher stakes until I find a limit that either I can't beat or am not comfortable with. As long as I have the bankroll and continue to win, I don't see any reason not to move to bigger games: 15/30, and 25/50. Before long, maybe I'll get a shot at Mike Matasow's tilt money.

Where does it all end? That's a bigger question that I'll answer if I in fact do succeed at these limits. They're certainly not far away.