Started playing poker again.

So its been a long time since my last post, and its mainly because I got busy and poker playing got shelved. But, here we are again, a couple years later and I've decided to make poker a fun hobby for my late nights and weekends (when possible).

I have made my main goal winning a sunday major on FT or PS.

I've currently been playing 16 tables at .25/.50 NL on FT to build up my BR a bit. The games seem harder, and I'm still not playing my best - but I'm getting back to that point again.

I've also been taking a shot at heads up. I'm about even currently with a few hundred dollar up and down swings. Scary, but its interesting. I like the 1 vs 1 mentality of it - it reminds me of solo in War3 to an extent. Its all about figuring out what a single person is doing. That is interesting for sure.

I've also taken a few shots at higher limit games, thus far with terrible results. I end up losing a weeks worth of grinding in a session and have to go back to my multitabling craziness.

I'll try to update this as I go, but once I get up to 2k on FT I'm going to start really pushing hard on playing in as many $200+ buyins per week as possible.

General update.

I am now a happy tribe member of Red 5 Studios located in Aliso Viejo. Yay!

As a environmental artist / level designer, my job is to build the world our yet to be announced game takes place in. I've noticed a huge change in what I notice in games and real life. For instance, I've been studying the types of hills and cliffs in Winterspring and Hellfire Pennisula. And now my drives to work are filled with visions of cliffs, rivers, and rocks...

It is a really cool environment at Red 5; they treat us all really well. Its great being back in the game industry, my lunches involve games of Warcraft III and Starcraft and talks about the things we love, hate, or are looking forward to various games.

Now that I'm starting to settle in, I'm hoping that I'll be able to start updating this again... we shalt seeeeeeee.

Last post as a free, uh.. single man!

So I'm getting married in two days and then its off for a month long honeymoon. Its all going to be a blast, and I figured it was worth noting that now that the stress of everything is calming down Kristin and I are getting along and happy. The next month will be amazing! Once I return I will probably rejoin my poker adventures, but until then good luck out there guys!

Recent Happenings...

Things have been a bit all over the place for me over the past few weeks. I'm getting married in less than 2 weeks (07/07/07), which is pretty crazy whenever I think about it - actually getting a bit anxious and Kristin, my fiance' is clearly stressed while she finishes up all the details.

On July 8th I'm leaving for a month long honeymoon, starting out in England and going throughout Europe, finally ending in a two week cruise/tourfest in Greece. Having been into history for most of my life, I'm really excited to travel and see many of the places/sites of things I've read about.

Partially due to this trip and also simply because the timing felt right, I decided to leave Mission Geoscience, where I've been working for the past 6 months. Its a nice place to work and I'll miss all the friends that I've made. A few of them live nearby and will hopefully continue to be friends long after my last day, which is July 3rd. They mentioned some type of goodbye celebration, which will be fun; they really have treated me well...

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm also looking into getting a job in the game industry. I interviewed to be a game tester at Electronic Arts in LA a few weeks back, and they have offered me the job once I return from my trip - in August. My sister has also been of great assistance in helping me look for a design position in southern California and I'm hoping that some of her contacts can help me land a job as a junior designer or level designer somewhere cool. I actually have a phone appointment with one of her friends tonight and he's going to show me the ropes in ZBrush. I've wanted to make games for a long time so now that I have a degree, I'm hoping I can use my amazingness to find a good job somewhere.

I recently started playing some poker and some Warcraft III again. Both have been pretty fun and I think I'll do my best to make sure I leave myself some free time to do both of these things in the coming months.

I'm still working on a Warcraft III map, Overrun, when I have good chunks of time. I probably have a good 30 hours left until all the essential stuff is in there; hopefully I can get it fully functional soon.

Ramping up for Vegas

Figure I'm going to go home and play some poker today. Been taking some time off, but with the bachelor party looming, definitely need to get some hours in so I can pwn all the tourists...

Starcraft 2 and me.

I want to be involved in the balance of Starcraft II game - ideally as a balance designer at Blizzard at some point. Taking a page out of Zileas' book, I want a dedicated place to make balance comments and suggestions. I have always made lots of balance type posts on Blizzard's forum in the past and this time I am going to take a very focused strategy in approaching how best to fix the problems as they arise.

When I interviewed for the game balance design job last year, I felt like I was the perfect fit for it; semi-pro gamer for a few years, who has always tried to think out of the box regarding Warcraft and Starcraft. I never found out what I was missing in particular for that job, but I personally believe it was simply an experience issue. SC2's release has renewed my personal desire to get this job - even if its for WC4 or SC3!

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Anyway, life is starting to get in the way of my poker playing. I'm not expecting to post an update on here for a few weeks at least.

Looking for a job.

Now that summer is rolling around I need to decide what I'm going to be doing next year. I applied and was accepted to the Masters in Ancient History at CSULB, but I was mainly planning on completing that degree so that I could continue to postpone deciding what I want to do with my life. Obviously I have gotten much better in poker in the past year or so (my 2nd year playing) and although I could see making poker my career without the current blocks made by congress. I'm thinking that until that bill is overturned I don't want to consider making poker my lifelong job.

I have always wanted to work in games - specifically at Blizzard Entertainment, and when it comes down to choosing what I'm going to do in the future, I always arrive back at the same thing. I want to be a designer or producer on the RTS team at Blizzard. I've started working in the War3 Map Editior again and I'm going to devote about 1/2 my poker time to developing a map for the Level Design position they have open currently. They suggested I apply for this job last year, but having had very little experience working with the map editor, I decided that I was not going to be able to get it. I still worked on a map for about 4 months, and now having started in the past few weeks, hopefully I'll have a basic functional map up in the next couple weeks.

I am also looking at other companies as well. There are a lot of great companies out there, and having done some research, and been lucky to have a family connection to a few of them, I'm hoping that I find a job where I can dig in, work hard, and learn a lot.

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In terms of poker I'm still throwing around the idea of playing on Stars vs Tilt. The FPP concept requires a lot of play, and due to my new focused job search I am not sure I will be able to put in enough points to earn supernova any time soon. Really the rewards only come at that level, and I want to maximize my time. That all being said, I find the games easier to beat on Stars, and have won on all 4 sessions I have played on there. Within this I have had 3-4 pretty nasty suckouts against me and I think this encourages me to continue to play on there, having won despite these losses.

Played a bit on Stars

I played a little on Stars last night and found the games to be pretty good. I bought in short at 8 tables and quickly trippled the 200$ I had on there when I started. The FPP VIP program seems pretty solid and I could easily see earning 50-100K FPP points per month once I get going.

They have all sorts of great FPP store items for sale including electronics, tournament entries, bonuses, and more. I could easily see ordering a big screen or $1500 bonus about once a month. This seems better than the $500 or so I get in rakeback per month at Full Tilt. For example, the $1500 bonus costs 100K FPPs, but with a earning rate of Supernova status you earn 3.5x as much FPPs, its reasonable to expect to earn 3000+ FPPs in a single session. That would mean that in about 30 sessions I could clear enough to purchase the $1500 bonus, and then in earning more points, I would complete the bonus. If I could somehow eventually get up to the 1/2 games again I could make even more points, and if I could make 1M in a year, I'd get the top status, giving a 5x FPP rate. With that high a rate I could see it very easy to earn more than 100k points per month, and that would mean a lot of free money and expensive items. :D

Last Chance at FTOPS IV!

FTOPS IV - Event #10 (Main Event)

3:00 PM PST
NL Hold'em (Super Stack)
Buyin: 500+35
1.5M Guarantee

Updates to follow.

Attempt 1

Sunday Million

1:30 PM PST
NL Hold'em
Buyin: 200+16
1M Guarantee

Updates to follow.