July 21st, 2009

By:  Steve StraightNutz Skowronski

Can Not Win A Late Flip... Whatever, Life Is Good For The MWC Poker Crew!

Lately, I have been complaining to my poker crew that I would make so much more money if I could win a late crucial flip, whether it is a 60/40 or a virtual coin flip.  “I run so bad! I really could not win a late flip if my life depended on it.”   That is what I just told my second trainee, Tony bigtone52 Calabrese, earlier tonight who decided to play a Saturday session at my house on my laptop.  After the session was over and Tony left, I was extremely frustrated and just could not sleep.  I started to think of the past hands I had earlier today. Mostly, I remembered the lost flips, but some good plays and hands that held up also.  The hand I remember the most was actually not my hands of Renster12 getting there on the river with his 1010 versus my KK for 65x in chips late in the Bodog 10k or UFPokerStar holding QQ versus my AK for a obscene amount of chips late in the 30r.  The hand that sticks out the most was actually Tony’s hand on Bodog late in the 10k.  It wasn’t how he lost but what he said after he just busted.  “I am running terrible…whatever, life is good!” He lost a 60x hand all in preflop AK< AQ with 25 left.  Most of the time he yells loud as hell screaming curse words, usually the f word about ten times loud and piercing enough to make you cringe.   It literally still scares the shit out of me still to this day even when I somewhat expect it.  I do not believe he knows I heard him say those words because it was under his breath after he told me that AK was no good against AQ in the 10k.  While I was moping around and complaining about how bad I run (FML wrote in numerous chat box’s earlier today), I remembered what Tone said.  I instantly started not feeling so bad for myself because I just remembered that I play online poker, a hobby that turned into a lucrative job for a living, and I wake up around nine a.m. everyday at the earliest.  Life is good, life is great!

I started out playing poker like a lot of you.  I went to Indiana University to study biology planning on becoming a physical therapist.  My brother Scott also went to Indiana University who was two years older than me and a senior at the time.  Him and his roommates would drink a bottle of Jim Bean and play one or two tournaments a night.  I looked up to my brother and he was no doubt the biggest reason why I had such a huge interest in poker.  It was not Moneymaker that did it for me.  If Scott was playing poker, than I had to be playing poker also. 

I started with micro sit and go’s my sophomore year on PokerRoom.com with my roommate Landon Lengacher.  He played a lot more sit and go’s than I did and I was fascinated how much money he was winning on a weekly basis.  I played very rarely and had about $200 in my account.  I also dabbled in tourneys and profited about two thousand dollars throughout the remainder of my college years from sit and go’s and tournaments.  In the end of my senior year, I tried to be a tournament grinder for the winter living in my parent’s house.  I played for the first month and made about 600 dollars.  It was not cutting it and I knew it.  My parents knew it too, and my Dad told me to get a job for the winter.  Later that day, I was playing probably the last tournaments of the winter or maybe of my life, when I ran into a player by the screen name of The Maven on Bodog.   If you do not know who The Maven is then you must be living under a rock.  We got into a chat about something off topic and it really seemed like he was a nice guy and was dominating the Bodog tournaments on a weekly basis.  After talking to him for a while he offered to train me in tournament poker from his buddy’s house in Vegas. He said he trained to the likes of daisyxoxo, fitzfitz, and quietwinner (who is just killing it right now, congrats Austin!).   I told my parents about The Maven and that I could make a lot of money with this training.  I showed them his stats, I calculated profit, and told them what I could make if I played all winter long.  It didn’t matter to them, especially my Dad.  He was set on me getting a job and kept saying, “Poker is garbage and it will not get you anywhere.”  After a few days, thankfully, I was not able to find a job.  During my job hunt, my Mom saw my passion for the game of poker, because I would not stop talking about it. I remember being on the verge of tears telling my Mom that I do not want to regret this me entire life because you guys would not let me go to Vegas.  I am really big on not regretting anything in my life, and she knew that.  That must have persuaded her because she convinced my Dad to let me go.  They decided to let me take the chance and loaned me some extra needed cash.  I cashed off my entire bankroll besides five hundred dollars on Bodog and two weeks later I was in Vegas training with the one and only David Chicotsky.  At the time, he was living with Alan ari Engel somewhere around Lake Mead.  I had a week full of intensive training along side Dannenmann.  The experience was great and I learned a ton.  I trained in Vegas late January 2008.

After playing for six months, I somewhat made a name for myself in tournaments on Bodog. Joe hebs Hebda, an old friend through baseball got in touch with me about tournament poker at a local bar.  He was very interested and wanted to know how I became such a good tournament player.  He was not new to poker and also played numerous sit and go’s online at college.  I told him that I had been trained by The Maven, and he should do the same.  He wanted to do it, but he was new to his job and could not take a week off work.  At the time, I was an alright player, but not even close to a good player yet.  The next week, he asked if I wanted to go to the boats and play some cash games near my house in Hammond, IN.  I have not played live since training and it sounded like a fun time.  We started playing 1-2 NL around eleven a.m., when we found out that there was a $50 freeze out tournament at noon.   Joe, his friends, and I all decided to play in the tournament.  I ended up taking down the tournament, my first live tournament after training, actually, my first live tournament ever.  After winning the one hundred person field tournament, he said he could not wait for Vegas and that I needed to train him as soon as possible.  I insisted that he needed to train in Vegas with The Maven, and that I am still learning the game.  I told him that it was a great time and the wait would be worth training with one of the best in the world.  He persisted with me training him and I finally gave in a couple weeks later.  We came up with a training schedule at my house a week later in early August.  Joe had enormous success after training including winning the December monthly leader board on Bodog with a part time job none the less.  Not to mention boasting a 96 percent ROI overall.  He also is destroying Absolute Poker with a ridiculous 112 percent ROI.

With word of mouth around the region, I got in touch with my roommates friend from college a couple months later.  Tony bigtone52 Calabrese was extremely interested and seemed like a perfect student. He had no job and my roommate said he would be completely dedicated to poker.  I trained him in the middle of October.  What a tournament beast he has become in such a short period of time.  He is ranked 22nd in the world for 2009 silver player of the year on bluffmagazine.com and not to mention 5th on the Bodog yearly leader board.  Oh yeah, he also was in a horrific car accident where he was thrown out of the front wind shield of the vehicle and suffered major brain injury a couple months before training.  He had to wear sunglasses when training because at the time he could not stare at a computer screen for more than an hour without his brain throbbing in pain.  I am extremely happy with my student’s, now my great friend’s success.  While playing tournaments on Bodog shortly after training Tony, andyvanslyke, an online tournament regular coined us three the crew name of The Midwest Connect Poker Crew a.k.a. MWC poker crew.  MWC poker crew is growing at a fast pace, and now contains a total of seven online players playing on all different sites.   

If someone asked me right after training in Vegas “Where do you expect to see yourself in online poker in a year and a half?”  I would hope my answer would have been close to where I am right now in online tournament poker.  Sure, I have not had as much success as some of The Maven’s other students; but I am very happy where I stand.  In 2009, I have won a 12K package to the Main Event on Bodog, took down the March TLB on Bodog while profiting over 12k, and recently have had great success on Absolute Poker profiting nearly 7k in my first 150 tournaments under the screen name MWCSTR8NUTZ.  Total in 2009, I am pleased, not satisfied, with profiting 45K playing what I would consider less than half time (fewer than 1500 tournaments).

So what is next for StraightNutz and the poker crew?  Joe, Tony, and I are moving to Bloomington, IN on August 13th where we plan on playing online poker tournaments full time. Full time meaning thirty tournaments a day, five days a week minimum! Tony just told me that he would not be surprised if he only took off two days a month the first three months after we move in. He said his brain injury is now about ninety percent healed.  Like I said, tournament beast is an understatement.  I am extremely excited and determined to becoming a great, not good, tournament poker player.  I believe by completely surrounding ourselves with poker and not having any distractions in our way, the MWC will make a big splash in the online tournament poker world in the near future.  I believe that all three of us will be in the top ten of the 2009 silver online player of the year rankings and creeping up on the gold rankings by the end of the year.  To keep tabs on the Midwest Connect Poker Crew, we are creating a website which will contain bios/pics, blogs, tournament updates, prop bet videos, tournament challenges, and other great poker tournament related topics.  I want to send a shout out to Flush634 for recently helping/discussing tournament strategy with me, the Bodog regulars, and a big shout out to the entire MWC poker crew.  I have big expectations for us.  My dream is finally starting to come true and I can not wait to see what the future holds!

Gl at the tables,

 SN

August 21st, 2009

By: Joe jhebs Hebda

Perseverance

As most of you already know the Midwest Connect Crew has moved into Bloomington, IN. We all moved down here with the intention of making loads of money, and bettering our poker games, in order to move to the next level. However, life is always a struggle, and nothing in life is easy. The crew started out with a rocky first day, but we quickly found our bearings in the new house. The difference between good and great poker players is one thing: perseverance. Good players are always conent turning a small profit, whereas, great players are always looking for that extra edge in order to maximize their profits. Poker, like life is not an easy journey. The game is not for the faint of heart. Whin I sit down on the felt it is war. Due to my instilled competitive nature, I despise losing. However, it is impossible to win every tournament you play; the main thing is that you take something from every tournament you play. It doesn't matter whether you took that two outer on the river , look aside from that and see if you made any mistakes earlier in the tournament. The main goal is always to become a better player, and eventually become the best. The only way once can do this is through perseverance. Poker is an extremely swingy game, and gets the best of about ninety percent of the players that take to the felt. The main thing is to work through these swings and come out playing better than you have ever played before. Many players will hate on you throughout your days, claiming that you just run good. There will always be critics no matter what your line of work is, however, it is key that as a player you stay emotionally detached from the tables. This is something even I struggle with on a daily basis due to the fact that I hate losing. This is the reason the best players in the world continuously put up numbers. For example, as a Chicago kid, I have to drop the Michael Jordan reference. Michael was the best because he worked the hardest and no matter what crossed his path he persevered through it. He was one of, if not the best to ever play the game of basketball. He lead the Bulls to six championships, and has a list of records a mile long. For any player especially new ones, you must put in the work in order to reap the rewards. Poker is a long term game, and you are not going to hit for 40k overnight. Although it has been done, it is highly unlikely. For all those players grinding 15hr days, you will reap the rewards. In the long run there is no doubt that through perseverance; the Midwest Connect Crew will be one of the toughest groups of players on the net, and maybe even the world.

A special congrats to quietwinner and dannenmann for taking down some huge scores in the last few months. You guys deserve it keep pwnin.

As always good luck on the felt.

September 3rd, 2009

By: Steve MWCSTR8NUTZ Skowronski

Change Your Mindset, Change Your Results

I heard from many online professionals that when you first start playing full time expect to lose a lot of money because the long hours are very strenuous and it takes time to adapt to the full time grind of a multi table tournament professional. They were right! The Midwest Connect Poker Crew has been in Bloomington, IN since August 13th. The crew started out ice cold and the 300k challenge in which hebs, bigtone52, and I challenged each other to profit three hundred thousand dollars in one year from August 15th, 2009 to August 15th, 2010 seemed like it was unattainable. We were down close to six thousand dollars after the first week (I was down over two grand the first Sunday playing in the new house). I thought that I was prepared, but my actions and results beg to differ.

After the first week I was down money, but more importantly, mentally I was way off course. I was screaming out loud after taking beat after beat, and I kept saying very negative connotations throughout the whole day. Some example are: “Obviously…Of Course!”, “I can’t ever win these flips!”, and “Why would I ever get there on that massive draw!” I never screamed out loud in my old house because no one was around me. I lived with my friends, but most of the time they were in the basement, when I was grinding in my room. They all had normal jobs and did not play online poker for a living. Now that bigtone52, hebs, and I all play in the same room, I feel obligated to scream out loud and show them what a bad beat I just took. With all three of us doing this, I get to see triple the amount of bad beats in one day. With the crew playing close to ninety tournaments in one day, that is a lot of bad beats seen. Also, with all three of us screaming in the room, it does not exactly make for a great environment for staying positive.

In the life of a professional online poker player, staying positive is very crucial, probably the most important attribute you can have. The techniques I have picked up while working my way up to becoming a professional in the last year are the biggest reason why I am making money and have such a positive attitude towards the game. First off, in the last two weeks, I have noticed that screaming out loud only intensifies the bad beat by at least four fold. Usually, I can get over a bad beat in a couple of minutes, but that first week in the new house it was taking me at least ten minutes to get back to the proper mental state for playing good/solid poker. Secondly, I stopped saying negative connotations completely. By saying these out loud or even just in your head you expect to lose the next crucial situation along with the one you just lost. I stopped saying anything negative out loud and it took me about a week to stop saying it in my head, but now I expect to win. Finally, visualization is a great technique I learned within the last six months. I do not use this technique when I am playing, but I try to use it after every session right before going to bed. It is more of a stress release technique, but it also helps with staying positive for the next day’s session and helps me fall asleep faster. I got this very helpful idea from the book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and tweaked the technique towards poker. As poker players, it is natural to always remember the lost crucial late flips or big draws that just did not pan out instead of the big hand that held. Even after playing in over 3500 tournaments I would still lose sleep from thinking about them. Not any more! In bed, right before I try to fall asleep, I visualize me winning the huge flip and getting there with two over cards and the nut flush draw! Furthermore, I then visualize me heads up eventually taking down the tournament. This technique took me months to perfect, but it is huge for getting through and sometimes forgetting about the daily grind!

I am proud to say that after week two I am actually up two grand thanks to a win in the twenty five dollar 10k on Absolute Poker tonight! Mentally, I am a lot stronger and staying positive from the techniques I discussed above. The crew overall is up over five thousand dollars and putting a nice dent into our tournament challenge, 7/44! I hope this blog helps online players with some of the mental aspects of the game or at least allows them to tweak my techniques in order to stay mentally strong. To see the details of our tournament challenge, read other blogs by the crew, and to keep tabs on the MWC Poker Crew, check out our website at midwestconnectpoker.com.

Best of Luck,

Steve “MWCSTR8NUTZ” Skowronski

October 30th, 2009

By: Steve MWCSTR8NUTZ Skowronski

WSOP Circuit Events, 30K+ Online Profit In October, midwestconnectpoker.com Updates, and Beyond

I just got done watching game two of the World Series and I am not happy with the outcome since I despise the Yankees. I am an avid Chicago Cubs fan with being born and raised around the Chicago area in northwest Indiana. I was a pitcher throughout my high school years at Lake Central High School in Saint John, IN, and always looked up to the Cubs dominant pitching rotation. I just have to say that the pitching duel between A.J. Burnett and “the most influential player to play in Yankee stadium”, Pedro Martinez, was a joy to watch to say the least. With Burnett’s knee buckling curve ball and Pedro’s devastating change up, I was astounded by their talent and wish I could be in their shoes.

…but I was thrown a curveball in my life and ended up in the poker world my senior year at Indiana University in early 2008. I just got back from busting in the $555 WSOP circuit event in Elizabeth, IN at the magnificent Harrah’s Horseshoe Casino Southern Indiana. David “Whitey03” Whitehead and I decided to give our luck a try in the one day event. I did not have any luck in either of the Elizabeth or Hammond, IN events, but was very pleased with Hammond’s 1,412 entrants in the $345 first event which was a record setting field. Poker has come a long way since the Moneymaker effect. In both Hammond and Elizabeth I felt that I was the table captain and best player (which was not true last year), but things just did not pan out for me. I was never able to build a stack in both tournaments with short stacks crippling me four different times in Hammond and being non-stop coolered while losing with AA three times in Elizabeth (making the correct lay down with them showing their hands in all three instances). The pain of losing on the $555 was dampened by the $2-$5 cash game the night before where I cashed out $1241 at 2:00AM after a 5 hour cash session.

Although I did not have any luck at the live WSOP circuit events around Indiana, I had a lot of online success with my most profitable month yet as a professional online poker player. The month of October netted me just over 30K in profit, breaking the pocketfives top ten in the Indiana sortable rankings, and also became 84th place in bluffmagazine.com silver online player of the year rankings updated today. I ran well on Absolute poker this month with me taking down some big tournaments. I was able to take the down the largest tournament of my career with 1,068 entrants in the $20 15K Sniper. Also, I was fortunate to be victorious in the $30 rebuy 15K guaranteed and get 3rd in the $300 100K. On Bodog poker, I was able to take down five tournaments: $150 5K, $69 3K, $12 rebuy 3K, $32 turbo 2K, $10 3K. I am very pleased with my October results and I see only bigger results in the near future.

Our poker crew, Midwest Connect Poker Crew, has a website midwestconnectpoker.com that has been up and running for about two months now. I am finally learning how to update it on a weekly basis. The website has everything you need to keep up to date on our poker crew, including jhebs and bigtone52. The main index page has summaries of the past week tournament victories along with the past week/monthly money winners and tournament challenges completed. It has history of the crew, member pages that include online stats and info on the players along with pictures and average online schedules. Also, we have a tournament challenge page that has 45 tournaments needed to be won in a span of one year. We took every weekly tournament that Bodog and Absolute Poker offered that had a buy in of $10 - $300 on the two poker websites including the Sunday majors. I am very proud to say that we have took down 21/45 tournaments in the challenge in just two and a half months. I alone have taken down a little over third of the challenges with 16 out of the 45 won. We also have a $300K profit challenge which we challenged ourselves to profit three hundred thousand dollars as a crew from our Bloomington, IN move in date from August 15th, 2009 to August 15th, 2010. We currently sit at $55,476 profit in two and a half months in the challenge. It is short of the pace needed, but I have no doubt that the crew will persevere in the challenge. We also have a blog page in which our crew members have wrote poker blogs about the daily grind of being a professional online poker player, including this one. The website is always being updated and would love to hear some ideas about what we can do to make it better for the viewers. Send your ideas; I would love to get some input!

What is in store for the Midwest Connect Poker Crew in the future? I am starting to figure out the grind of being a professional online poker player. Since moving to Bloomington, I have not been consistent with sticking to my 5 days a week 30 tournament day schedule. In October, I only played 82 tournaments on Bodog Poker which is well short of what it should be. My Bodog Poker online schedule should be playing ten tournaments a day on average. I should have been playing 200 minimum. On Absolute Poker I played around 225 tournaments, which is also short of my preferred schedule. I play between 15-18 tournaments a day on Absolute Poker, so I should have played around 300 to 380 in October. Although I was well below my preferred online tournament schedule, that was the most tournaments I have played in a month since I started playing online poker. I look up to players like daisyxoxo, 011pokerdr, and beland66. I aspire to be a more astute online player and plan on putting in the same volume as them within the next year. I looked forward to November with the Bodog Poker Open 4 Championship Series starting on November 1st. I plan on November being even bigger than October for the crew. I should be playing at least 500 tournaments because the WSOP circuit events are over and there is nothing besides Thanksgiving to distract me from my goals. I am very excited about the future of the Midwest Connect Poker Crew and I have very big expectations for jhebs and bigtone52. They have been running extremely bad for over a month now and I hope November brings some much needed luck to their side. I think that November is going to be the biggest month for the crew yet and hopefully we will put a huge dent in the 300K challenge along with keeping up the pace for the tournament challenges. I hope that a Sunday Major will be taken down and off the list for the crew in order to get the Midwest Connect Poker Crew on the map in the online poker community. As always, good luck at the tables and expect to see more of me on the virtual felt in November.

MWCSTR8NUTZ

January 8th, 2010

By: Steve "BODOGNUTZ" Skowronski

Set Goals, Look At Them Every Day, and Visualize Reaching Them

It feels good to be back on the felt after a three week vacation hanging out with my family and friends. I hope that your Christmas break was as relaxing and recharging as mine. I must say it was much needed because I was burnt out after playing full time from September 1st to December 16th. I decided to write this article because before I left to go to the Indianapolis airport for vacation, I finished working on a very important piece of paper that it now taped on to the wall right next to my computer. It included all the goals I wanted to reach by New Years Eve (my birthday) 2010. You always hear great teachers and inspirational speakers talking about how important setting goals are. I have been setting goals for many years now, but I never wrote them down until the beginning of 2009 when my brother Scott told me to. He persisted on saying you have to write them down. He never really explained why, but told me that you will understand why in the future. I remember having a long week session at my lonely desk (did not have two poker roomates last year like I do now) and not making a dime to show for it. When I was down in the trenches and wondering why I choose to become a professional online poker player, I would get out my goal sheet inside my desk draw. It was the best way to remind myself what I am striving for and what I aspire to become. A great tournament poker player! It did not allow me to become complacent or discouraged. I knew my full potential and after looking at that small piece of paper, I told myself that I was going to reach those goals. I found out the reason for writing my goals down fairly quickly. I would look at them for inspiration when I was feeling down or thinking about taking time off just because I was running bad. I looked at that sheet at least ten times a month last year. Well, I am proud to say that the goals I wrote down on January 4th, 2009 were all reached (besides winning the Bodog 100K...arrrrrrgggg). All the numbers I wanted to have in my stat summary have surpassed my goals for 2009. What a surreal feeling it was to find that paper two days ago and realize that I actually, for the first time in my life, reached a true goal.

This is a great time of year for resolutions and setting goals. If you are serious about poker, I persist, like my brother did, to write down your goals! Do not just think of them, write them down and look at them every day. Not only does it remind you of your true goals every day, but it is also a great tool for starting to learn the technique of visualization. For most, the online tournament poker grind is a journey,and for me, visualization is by far my biggest tool for my recent success in that journey. It was the hardest to learn, but I use it everyday to get though the daily grind of tournament poker. Visualizing a long term goal is a great start to building a technique that can be implemented in a professional poker players everyday life. It can not only be used for goals, but also stress release techniques mentioned in my last article above. Believe in your goals and know you are going to achieve them! Focus on your goals , set your course, and have the right attitude to reach them. Keep persuing and keep believing!

Enlarge your vision,

Steve "BODOGNUTZ" Skowronski