2020 Reflection

I look back at what's without a doubt the craziest year of my life.

Well, it’s been quite the year, to say the least. I started out at 500nl online (2/5) and have ended with shot taking some 10knl online (50/100), along with having quite the story from playing 20/40/80+ upstairs at the Bellagio in Vegas. While I knew that this year was going to be one for the record books for me, in no way, shape, or form did I expect to be in the situation I’m in. We’ll start from the beginning.

Early of 2020, I went to Tampa to meet up with a good friend of mine and former coach to grind some live poker in Tampa. Through working with him and his stable, I went from playing 50nl in August to 500nl in January.

After my live trip there, I joined Poker Detox in March and was enrolled for about 3 months or so. I learned a lot about myself and what I wanted to do in poker. I wanted to not only be a successful HSNL player, but I also wanted to be an ambassador of sorts and try to grow the game through social media presence in some form. It was an amazing experience joining their program and meeting some friends with similar goals and mentality as my own. I couldn’t be more thankful for my short stint there.

Plus, I ran hot… very hot

After leaving Detox, I started doing more solver work and streaming on Twitch. I had some conversations about some hands I played with Dan Zack on Twitter, and one day I streamed our conversation which many people tuned in for. It went extremely well, and Andrew Lichtenberger (Chewy) happened to be watching and sent me a DM saying how he would be in for having a conversation as well and review some spots/hands. Of course I accepted the offer, and we had a handful of streams for multiple hours just running some sims and talking about his transition into poker when he was around my age, and the drive that’s kept him going throughout his countless years in poker.

Roughly a month later, some termites entered the neighborhood I was staying at, and Chewy asked me if I had any proclivity to learning and understanding tournaments. I was in a hotel at this point walking distance from my house on my laptop when I told him, “I didn’t really have any interest in tournaments because they seem impossible to win.” After not much additional conversation, he said that Nick Schulman was involved and was going to want to look at some 6max 100bb cash spots as well as tournaments, and I obviously couldn’t turn down the opportunity to learn along with them. For the next month straight, we were in calls running sims and talking about poker nonstop.

WSOP Online was about a month away, and I haven’t been to Vegas yet, so I booked a flight to touch down on July 3rd, where I got an AirBnb with a mutual friend for two weeks. This two weeks somehow parlayed itself into crashing at the Solve For Why office for a couple months, where I didn’t really have a place to stay in Vegas and I convinced Matt Berkey to let me cat-sit Chauncey (Marle’s cat) so I didn’t have to return to Florida over the summer.

While in Vegas, I played mostly 500nl for the first couple weeks, and then I got a freeroll to play some WSOP tournaments. I think the first online tournament I played was a 2k 6-max. I remember busting this tournament and then grinding the $5 rebuy and the $10 freezeout at night just to play more tournaments and get myself acclimated with the different format. I then had dusted the allotted money in the freeroll on the last tournament I was able to play in it, the 1k turbo WSOP event. I was on my third bullet, and somehow found a run to make the Final Table and placed 6th for roughly 28.6k. I guess life has a way of figuring itself out somehow. After getting 6th in that, I placed 2nd in an 100k for 18.6k about two days later. This was my first “Tournament Sunday,” and I knew how dreadful it might be to have thousands of buy-ins in tournaments and end up bricking everything. However, I found another huge score, which led to the next week winning 1st in the $500 6-Max for about 28k again.

My first month in tournaments was an absolute whirlwind where I didn’t even consider the thought of playing them at all before I went to Vegas. After having this success, I ended up taking some shots at higher stakes live games at the Bellagio. I made a vlog with Joey Ingram about it, which was an unreal experience playing 40k+ pots where literally a couple months ago I was shot taking 5/5 and 5/10 games.

After having a bad run in these higher stakes cash games losing roughly around 80k in not so long of a time, I went back to grinding online cash games and tournaments. I won more tournaments and found myself getting out of that deficit in almost an instant. I’m not sure how I ended up doing so in about a month and a half, but then I started shot taking some 25/50 and 50/100 online on WSOP. I lost back around the same number in even less of the time it took to grind it back, and was feeling a bit nervous, just not being used to these swings that I was currently experiencing. A few weeks go by, and then Berkey convinces me to fire a tournament at the Venetian, an $1100 MSPT where prize pools were crushing the guarantees, meaning that there was going to be much more money than advertised.

I fired one bullet on day 1 and ended up finding a bag for a top 10 stack in chips for my flight. Fast forward to Day 2 where I came in 20/146 in the field, and fresh off of having dinner with Nick, just talking about how poker always finds a way for talent to succeed. I also spent the morning before Day 2 in the hot tub, watching a show I enjoy where this sentence was spoken, “I’m not sure why people get nervous if they’re supposed to execute the things they repeat day after day.” It resonated pretty hard with me, because I know how much time I’ve spent off of the felt on my game to where I just need to play the way I know how.

After finding a fortunate double with QJ vs AQ, and winning with 88 against JT on J84T all in on the turn, I think I was probably top 10 in chips with roughly 80 people left. I didn’t really think much about it, but just that I have to continue to play my game and see what happens. Heading into dinner break at final 3 tables, I had and overwhelming chip lead, having double what second place had at the time. While eating Chipotle upstairs at the Venetian with some friends, I was buzzing with the mentality of, “I’m winning this tournament, no doubt about it.” Fast forward to 6 hours later and 4 hours of playing a final table, I had all the chips in play.

1st for 201k.

My first live tournament I played in Vegas, I won for 200k, with the prize pool slightly extending over 1 million. Out of roughly 1250 entrants, we got the job done.

Now it’s December, and I’ve grown astronomically on social media, through nobody other than Joey, and I can’t thank him enough for being there for me from when I was playing 20nl almost two years ago. I also just don’t have the words to thank everyone in my life who’s been in my corner since I left school. I was given a chance to make something happen and spent countless hours in my room just putting in multiple 200hr/mo. playing, and this doesn’t even include the study time and just having poker rack through my brain for hours on end. I love poker and I strive to be the best version of myself inside of it and out. Friends who I now call my family have definitely kept me disciplined, as I’ve been studying now more than ever in order to keep up with their excellence. I couldn’t be more thankful to Nick, Chewy, Berkey, Christian, Joey, and so many more for being there for me unconditionally. From not having many friends when I was younger, poker’s given me more than I could ever have asked for, and I want to do my part in seeing where I fit in to helping the game grow.

Onwards and Upwards