Bollettieri Academy

Often advertised as “Where Players Train”, and “World’s Toughest Playground”, my home of three years is entirely too humble. It cannot be described how different the lifestyle here is than a typical childhood upbringing. Everything is run around giving you the best possible opportunity to become a better tennis player. In a world of diversity, I found a place where I could narrow my focus and dedicate myself to something, without having to worry about living a balanced life.

Today was my last day of practice, and tomorrow will be my last day in Bradenton, Florida. After playing hundreds tournaments in a few dozen countries, most of which I traveled alone, I’m a different person. When three years ago I was a fairly competitive sixteen year old, now I’m regularly practicing with (and being humbled by) some of the best juniors in the world.

I left morning practice with some inspiring words from my group coach, and thanked my private coach this afternoon for everything he’s done for me. Every afternoon we hit, for two hours, all year. Only because four hours in the morning wasn’t enough. Only because mediocrity has never been enough. Only in a place where improvement is a way of life. Thanks for everything, Florida.

Poker/reading update

I’m nearing the end of playing 3/6 as my main game as I have done well recently. I think the majority of my action will be at 5/10 over the next month or so and we’ll see how that goes. I have been playing well and the results have actually worked themselves out, which unfortunately doesn’t always happen. We’ll see what I can do with the rest of the summer.

I finished End Of Faith and am a couple chapters into The Ancestor’s Tale, which is very interesting. It’s basically a description of the evolutionary processes that came about to end up with the current species inhabiting Earth. One thing that struck me as pretty fascinating was the many organisms that evolve not by natural selection, but by deliberate human intervention. Unknowingly, people who cultivated things such as bananas, or raised cattle, picked the ones best suited to fit their needs (consumption, obviously) and disregarded the “unfit”, whether a cow or a banana with too many seeds in it. (Yes, wild bananas have seeds in them; if it weren’t for people picking the better ones over thousands of years, the tasty fruit would offer an undesirable crunch)

My other current read, Hawking’s A Brief History Of Time, I’m taking slow and trying to read a little bit every night. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who has an interest in what’s accepted in physics right now. (and although the book is only a revised version of something written a couple decades ago, to my knowledge not very much has gone on in physics since then) If I could get these done by the end of the month I would be happy, but it all depends on what I feel like doing during my down time. I remember someone remarking that while poker players don’t necessarily “work” the amount of hours as normal people (mid-high stakes players anyway), a good amount of their time is spent essentially waiting around to get into the right mindset/mood to play. Some days I just flat out don’t feel like playing and while on the surface I may think of myself as lazy for not doing so, I understand that the repercussions of forcing myself to play will not only be a waste of time but actually cost me money.

Lastly, one resolution I decided today was that I’m going to put some thought into my political views, as I flat out have never taken the time to consider even who I’d rather have as president. If nothing else it will give me something else to argue with people about, as religion is getting a bit tiring.

Summer training

I was out for a couple weeks with a shoulder injury, tendinitis apparently. The trainers were shocked that I had been at the academy for three years, as they don’t remember ever seeing me. I had a minor knee problem a couple years ago but aside from that I have been very healthy. I tend to just play through little aches and pains, I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing. Seems to me that if you can’t brush off superficial injuries then you probably need to reconsider what you’re doing; taking days off for things like blisters sets your training back and can get you behind pretty quickly.

The most frustrating thing about the injury was coming back after not playing. I don’t know if it’s the same in other sports but as a tennis player I can say that after a couple weeks of very little practice, much of which didn’t involve a racket, my timing was definitely off and it took a while to get back into a groove. Especially after I was probably playing the best tennis of my life right before the injury. I mean it really takes at least a week or two of intense training to get my strokes to feel the way they did. I’m just getting back to that point now.

Summer practice is different, we have a much more reasonable 8am start, going until 10 or 11, with a second practice at 1:30 until something like 3 or 4. Our coach runs a pretty good practice, very tough but that’s to be expected. He’s definitely one of the toughest coaches anywhere, and all the proof you’ll need is 30 seconds around him, or in a 500 foot radius of where he’s coaching. It’s kind of fun watching the wide-eyed summer camp players who witness the verbal abuse that we have to tolerate (we’re always on the front four or five courts), what they come to experience for a week or two, we consider a lifestyle.

Hubble mission landing, French Open

The scheduled 11-day mission to upgrade and repair the Hubble telescope extended to just shy of two weeks due to weather conditions here in Florida. The US space shuttle Atlantis safely landed Sunday morning, despite the 1 in 80 chance of catastrophe which the 2003 Columbia leaves us an all too recent reminder. Having followed the launch several weeks ago, I learned that the mission included installing new batteries, new instruments, and upgrading technology.

From the telescope used to discover the 13.7 billion year estimation of the age of the universe (seemingly incompatible with the 6000 some odd years believed by christian fundamentalists), it seems that we’re less than a decade away from another more advanced earth-orbiting telescope. Obviously the Hubble has far and away exceeded expectations, but maintenance is such an expensive undertaking that it is nearly cheaper to design and build a new telescope altogether.

The French Open began today, Roger Federer fresh off a win in Madrid, defeating Rafael Nadal in the final 6-4 6-4. However Nadal is still clearly the favorite, with an unprecedented 28-0 record at the French Open. He commented on struggling with the elevation in Madrid, where balls fly a bit more freely than in the more favorable conditions of Roland Garros.

Federer’s clay court game has been widely debated, many skeptical as he’s yet to win a French Open. Federer’s response, “I don’t have a clay court problem, I have a Nadal problem”, seems to accurately describe his three straight final round losses on the red clay that the reigning champion calls home.

Back to grinding/new reading list

After taking a break from Atlas Shrugged to read a couple other shorter yet interesting books, I finished it up last week while timing my next book order to arrive at around when I got done. As anyone who reads Rand knows, it’s not light stuff and requires a lot of concentration to really take in everything about what she’s trying to get across. Nonetheless I found her ideology enlightening and fairly congruent with my own. (which is still in development, of course, as my open-minded nature requires)

The four new books I’ve chosen to tackle are:

The Story of Philosophy (Will Durant), The Ancestor’s Tale (Richard Dawkins, End Of Faith (Sam Harris) and A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking)

If I’m able to finish these before the end of the summer, I’ll probably get something by Clive Cussler or Stephen King, as the books I’m reading now are pretty heavy and I should probably take it easy on my brain for a little while, before school starts.

As for poker, I’ve been playing a good amount in the last week or so with great results. I’m mostly playing 2/4 and 3/6 right now, usually 10-tabling. There’s not much stress involved, which is nice. I can sit back and listen to some of my new music, as well as appreciate my new portable amplifier (which has surpassed my expectations, I mean really blown me away at how much better my music sounds) I’ll leave the price tag out of it, by the way.

I think I’m going to continue playing 2/4 and 3/6 almost exclusively for another month, until the big ultimatebet promotion finishes.

If all goes well I should net a few thousand from it, and be ready to tackle the bigger games again.

The Texas Tech Red Raiders finished their season with a first round loss in the NCAA’s to the University of Washington. After winning the doubles point, the Texas Tech #1 and #2 won their singles quickly and it seemed as if the #27 ranked Huskies were going to go home early. The next four matches all went to a third set, Tech leading 3-0 at this point and needing one victory to clinch a second round entrance.

Losing all four third sets was a harsh representative of the Red Raiders’ 2008-2009 season, in which eight of their twelve losses were 4-3.

Tech is losing six seniors this year so I’m excited to help rebuild the team after a disappointing year. The past few days it’s been rainy here in Florida and the forecast doesn’t seem great for the next week or so. I’ve got about a month left in which I am eligible for USTA tournaments, which I’ve been playing occasionally since I can’t play any ITF junior events this year. (since my 19th birthday is in 2009) My last junior tournament will be a national open in Texas next month, and a win would be a nice way to end up, perhaps to avenge my poor showing at the end of last year. Florida tournaments are generally clay court, and as someone who didn’t grow up playing on clay (or even outdoors, no less) I think I’ve improved on the dirt significantly in the past few years.

Beating Sharapova in straight sets a couple weeks ago was proof that I’m beginning to develop a feel for how to deal with staying balanced and figuring out alternate strategies to the hard-hitting baseline game I’ve become accustomed to on hard court.

However I’m certainly not against never playing on clay again after I leave here, Americans often have a strong distaste for the long grind matches that so many Spanish players have grown up playing.

Closer to College

I’m counting down the months to going to school, which the more I think about, the more excited I am. In the mean time I’ve been working hard at trying to improve my tennis as well as make as much money as possible before I inevitably will have to cut back how much poker I’m playing.

March 23rd was my high point of the year in terms of total profits from poker; something seemed to have happened the next day because for a stretch of a couple weeks, I didn’t win many pots and lost a lot of money. As is typical this year, I have struggled to get anything going in the 10/20 games, despite having been game selecting pretty intensely. (which was a byproduct of initially losing in the games, but hasn’t seemed to help) I stopped playing tough opposition at 10/20, only sitting in games that were particularly profitable.

The 5/10 games I played in were harder in comparison, probably because I never game selected, and just played whoever came to the tables. I don’t think this can be said for many (if any) people on the site I play at, although I’m sure a handful of guys on other sites would certainly give me action. Despite playing in such tough games, up to the 23rd of March, I have had good results.

Below is my 5/10 and 3/6 graph for the site UltimateBet. The 3/6 games are easier than the 5/10 games, a lot of the good 5/10 players don’t bother playing 3/6, which softens up the games a bit and I like the consistent money I can get from them.

Here’s my 10/20 graph for the same site

Generally, poker players have a specific limit that they are bankrolled for, so they play that limit while occasionally taking shots at the next highest limit when the games are good. If they are a winning player, eventually they will move up to the limit they were originally taking shots at. I think this year has been a textbook example of when shots don’t go well; I had hopes of playing 25/50+ exclusively at this point, and it hasn’t turned out that way. However I’m still making very good money at the stakes that I am playing (cashing out for taxes right after going on a downswing wasn’t fun; my dad says Obama thanks me) and with any luck I’ll go into college well-rolled for higher stakes games. By the way I generally don’t post graphs, and probably won’t be posting many in the future.

As I’ve mentioned before, the fact that I’m not involved in any conventional education this year has made me more interested in certain things, and I have been thinking a lot about what I might want to study in college. Philosophy has always intrigued me, but recently I can’t help put think it a bit pretentious in nature. I would go so far to say that it’s possibly nothing more than an intellectual’s way of bothering people. Questions like “What is good/bad?” can be answered scientifically; a Darwinian view would suggest ethics evolved in humans: a group of animals that help each other would have a better chance of survival than narcissistic ones.

I’ll credit Richard Dawkins as he’s the first I have heard say this (however it’s very possible he wasn’t): humans aren’t hardwired to appreciate the way the universe works, because it was never necessary. The only thing really worth understanding was directly related to survival, not whether everything started with the “big bang” or that the smallest particles of matter are “strings” that require a multitude of “dimensions” for the theory to work out. One example being tackled by physicists currently is the problems that Quantum Theory present. While the math works out for this “theory of everything”, it just absolutely does not makes sense to us logically. Richard Feynman famously remarked, “If you think you understand Quantum Theory, you don’t understand Quantum Theory”. How open-minded a statement by Dawkins, to propose that his perspective isn’t the absolute? I admire such people that can take a step back and wonder about their existence from a completely objective viewpoint, not assuming anything. Among the many hilarious Descartes parodies, my favorite is “I think, therefore I am… important”.

Back to my original point, I’m less intrigued by philosophy as much of it seems to be dealing with semantics and playing with our perception of things, and more intrigued by fields like physics, and mathematics. Science in general appeals to me because it is essentially dealing with finding truth in the world we’ve come to be a part of; satisfying our curiosity by understanding, which seems to be a noble enough cause in itself.

Training, Grinding

For the past few weeks, I’ve been training pretty hard and playing a good amount of poker in my free time. I actually had to take yesterday off as well as morning practice today, only doing afternoon fitness with my private coach, because of a hand injury that no amount of tape seemed to remedy. There’s a grand prix this weekend, which is an inter-academy tournament which I am looking forward to, but I hope my hand won’t give me problems. I’m definitely hitting very well, my coach has worked on some things with my foundation and footwork; my forehand and serve feel great. Aside from losing to Vaidisova earlier in the week, I’ve been pretty satisfied with how I have been doing.

Poker has been up and down. I’m playing 6max almost exclusively, and I feel like I’m comfortable in almost any lineup at 5/10, which is where I’ve essentially been printing money this year. However, to say that 10/20 has been rough would be an understatement. Here’s a few examples of what I have been experiencing at the seemingly unbeatable limit:

***** Hand History for Game 1248713079 *****
$2000.00 USD NL Texas Hold’em – Saturday, February 07, 09:28:30 ET 2009
Table ALPHA DRIVE (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 4: PRAHLADF ( $5184.88 USD )
Seat 6: ZCJ90 ( $7758.88 USD )
PRAHLADF posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
ZCJ90 posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ZCJ90 [ As Ac ]
PRAHLADF raises [$50.00 USD]
ZCJ90 raises [$200.00 USD]
PRAHLADF raises [$600.00 USD]
ZCJ90 raises [$1200.00 USD]
PRAHLADF calls [$760.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4h, 8d, Kh ]
ZCJ90 checks
PRAHLADF bets [$3764.88 USD]
ZCJ90 calls [$3764.88 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Tc ]
** Dealing River ** [ 2c ]
PRAHLADF shows [Ks, Th ]
ZCJ90 shows [As, Ac ]
PRAHLADF wins $10369.01 USD from main pot

***** Hand History for Game 1298385351 *****
$2000.00 USD NL Texas Hold’em – Friday, March 06, 04:24:28 ET 2009
Table BUTLER RD (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Seat 3: G0N3INW1ND ( $3970.00 USD )
Seat 4: DOSUN88 ( $3396.50 USD )
Seat 5: SENIOR JOTA ( $5117.00 USD )
Seat 6: HATA19 ( $2000.00 USD )
Seat 2: ZCJ90 ( $4504.50 USD )
DOSUN88 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
SENIOR JOTA posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ZCJ90 [ 9c Td ]
HATA19 folds
ZCJ90 raises [$70.00 USD]
G0N3INW1ND folds
DOSUN88 calls [$60.00 USD]
SENIOR JOTA raises [$250.00 USD]
ZCJ90 calls [$200.00 USD]
DOSUN88 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9h, 4d, Tc ]
SENIOR JOTA checks
ZCJ90 bets [$415.00 USD]
SENIOR JOTA raises [$1200.00 USD]
ZCJ90 raises [$2025.00 USD]
SENIOR JOTA raises [$3647.00 USD]
ZCJ90 calls [$1794.50 USD]
SENIOR JOTA wins $612.50 USD from main pot
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ]
** Dealing River ** [ 2s ]
ZCJ90 shows [9c, Td ]
SENIOR JOTA shows [Ks, Kc ]
SENIOR JOTA wins $9076.00 USD from main pot

I’m not too worried though, since having such poor results at 10/20 I decided that I was going to be much more selective in terms of the games I play in. While I am most likely one of the biggest winners at 5/10 on UB in the past month or two, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with game selecting at 10/20 for now, until I’m way overrolled for it, like I am for 5/10. I generally don’t like game selecting, because I don’t mind playing tough opponents and getting into difficult matches, because it makes you so much better. I can play anyone I like at 5/10, because the variance isn’t too big with $2000 buyins, and many of the better players who I would avoid are playing 25/50 or higher. I feel like 5/10 has been my niche, so to speak, and I have never had trouble beating the games because I seem to have a pretty good idea as to what level of thinking people are on.

I’m excited to get my rakeback from last month, I get a payment once a month on the 15th. I’m expecting something like 6-7k, as well as $1300 for getting second in the rake race (my rakeback provider hosts a monthly contest for everyone registered through them).

As this is the first year where I haven’t been in school, I’ve become a little bored of my lack of education for these past seven or eight months. One website I’ve greatly enjoyed lately is TED, which hosts talks about important ideas from people around the world. One of my favorites:

Probabilities This one is pretty much exactly how poker players think, judging things in terms of EV, or “Expected Value”. It’s great to see that someone else shares my view that many people misjudge what their financial priorities should be.

Here’s a list of a bunch of great videos, I’ve probably watched almost all of them: SMP Videos

Lastly, one strategy hand as requested:

***** Hand History for Game 1296599897 *****
$1000.00 USD NL Texas Hold’em – Thursday, March 05, 05:03:35 ET 2009
Table THOUSAND OAKS (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Seat 5: ZCJ90 ( $2192.00 USD )
Seat 6: HITITONETIME ( $1215.51 USD )
Seat 1: JOETFK ( $2142.23 USD )
Seat 2: BOROVICH05 ( $1253.62 USD )
Seat 3: RUBBERSOUL ( $1998.50 USD )
Seat 4: BLACKHOLE_ ( $974.50 USD )
HITITONETIME posts small blind [$5.00 USD].
JOETFK posts big blind [$10.00 USD].
BLACKHOLE_ posts big blind [$5.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ZCJ90 [ 9s 6s ]
BOROVICH05 folds
RUBBERSOUL folds
BLACKHOLE_ raises [$30.00 USD]
ZCJ90 raises [$110.00 USD]

I make a standard 3bet light against a fairly tight regular

HITITONETIME folds
JOETFK folds
BLACKHOLE_ calls [$75.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, 6h, 4s ]
BLACKHOLE_ checks
ZCJ90 checks

I decide to check back the flop where I’d usually bet. I would bet most of the time because it seems like it’s unlikely I am going to get to showdown free against anything I beat (I’d imagine that range would be AKo (which I’d much rather get it in preflop if I were him), AQs and AQo).

** Dealing Turn ** [ Qd ]
BLACKHOLE_ bets [$170.00 USD]
ZCJ90 calls [$170.00 USD]

Standard turn call. He’s of course representing slowplayed sets, big pairs, and perhaps AQ (which I’d check if I were him), but my flop check will often induce air to try to take the pot away now.

** Dealing River ** [ 7s ]
BLACKHOLE_ bets [$425.00 USD]
ZCJ90 calls [$425.00 USD]

The river brings a four-straight to the board. Now there’s an interesting dynamic when good players get to this spot, and basically there are very few (none) hands that he can have with a 5 for a straight, so the only reason I’d fold is if I think he can value bet thinner easily. Of course he’s got to operate under the assumption that I’ll call the river with worse than what he’s value betting (less than the seemingly easy straight to have, I mean you only need one five!) so if he bets AA here I need to be able to call with KK, AQ, and JJ probably, all of which may not even be in my 3betting range.

BLACKHOLE_ shows [Jc, Tc ]
ZCJ90 shows [9s, 6s ]
ZCJ90 wins $1422.00 USD from main pot

His preflop call is too light with only $1000 effective stacks. Playing a pot out of position against another solid aggressive player with JTs just isn’t a good idea when you’re only a hundred big blinds deep. Quite frankly, I’d be much more wary and probably fold if I’m playing against one of the handful of 5/10 regulars who give me a lot of trouble, but I didn’t think blackhole is capable of making a thin value bet on this river, and is probably check/calling a lot of hands that he seems to be representing with this river bet. Essentially all I’m worried about is QQ and of course that isn’t enough to deter me from making a fairly light river call.

Signed with Texas Tech

I talked to my college counselor thismorning, and called the TT coach. I told him I would be excited to play for him and the Red Raiders. He is a great guy and I am looking forward to everything I will experience there. I have been playing excellent lately, which I’m very excited about. I am definitely going to be putting a lot of effort in the next six months to be in excellent shape for this fall.

College Deliberation

I talked with my college counselor, Scott Treibly, and we contacted the two schools which were the most attractive to me. (Boise State and Texas Tech) I think I can get a good education from either school. After talking with each coach, they both offered me a spot on the team so now it’s just up to me to make the decision.

The Texas Tech coach commented on my college video, saying that my footwork is poor, and although the video is months old, it’s probably still a fair depiction of how I play. I talked to one of my coaches and starting tomorrow we are going to be doing two hours of speed/agility based workouts in the afternoon every day.

Both schools have good tennis teams, Tech with the slightly better one. I absolutely will get competition at Texas Tech and it’s probably where I’m leaning as of now. From a strictly tennis aspect, I would imagine my best bet for improving in college would be going there.

I’m still considering Boise State however, I really liked the campus and the team is a great group of guys. In terms of academics it’s not as as strong, but both schools are fairly similar in difficulty. I think one of the bigger differences is that I would have more options at Tech, just because the school has a wider variety of courses. While Boise has a student body of something like 8000, Tech is near 30000.

I’m almost certain I’ll go in as a philosophy major, there’s nothing that interests me more at this point. A number of people have told me that even if you’re planning on going to a graduate school for business, it doesn’t mean you need to major in business.

I would imagine I’ll make up my decision within the next week or so.

Online Poker’s Future

Online poker was once extremely profitable and very easy to make money at playing a pretty ABC style of play. You didn’t have to get tricky, or balance your hand ranges with bluffs, or reraise bluff preflop (3bet light, in poker vernacular). But of course when there is money to be made, people will come to make it. In the last five or six years, the games have toughened up significantly, due to the increasing amount of tough opponents, and the diminishing amount of recreational players. The latter is caused by the difficulties of depositing money onto poker sites, as US regulations have made it a little tricky to do so. Obviously a recreational player isn’t going to jump through hoops just to play some cards.

In 2005, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA, was pased by the United States government. This law simply made it illegal to deposit money into online gambling sites by using certain methods, I believe bank wiring was the main method prohibited. However, most people thought that simply playing online poker was illegal, which is not true.

The games have continued to get more difficult and of course poker enthusiasts and professionals everywhere are hoping that the US decides to allow and regulate online poker. The billions this would generate in taxes every year are very attractive, especially at a time when the economy has been poor.

Recently, more rumblings of a possible regulation of online gambling and more specifically online poker have come about, and skeptics around the country have been brought to the happy realization that this is entirely a possibility.