Random thoughts

Truth here. My first post to the blog.

"play it for truth"

This phrase is the genesis for my nom de plume "Truth" as well as an overarching statement of the optimal play style we all strive for. I'm not sure which of us came up with this phrase, or if we stole it from someone else. However it is now our personal battle cry, our mantra to remind us to play good, play well, and win.

Play it for truth, we say it to each other when leaving for a major tournament. Play it for truth, we say to ourselves when faced with a tough decision. Play it for truth, play well, play strong.

Some background on me, Truth. I've been playing poker for about 4 years now. I've been successful for about the last 3 years. I have several fairly nice cashes under my belt, and I am ranked in the top 1500 worldwide for Player of the Year 2009 (not that I am a real contender this year). My primary card room is Bay 101 in San Jose, California, and that is where the majority of my live tournament play has gone down. In the past I have played badly online, and I feel like there is a disadvantage to the anonymous nature of that environment.

For roughly the last year I have been working with Ninja on his game. As he has written, he had no fundamentals whatsoever just one year ago, lacking even basic structures such as hand strengths and basic game play. Over the course of that year, we have become roommates and have been working regularly on our collective game theory and strategies. His play has evolved rapidly, occasionally reaching plateaus, but accelerating at such a pace that often from one month to the next his play is so much better as to be unrecognizable.

He is good now. Not great yet, but good. Together we have devised various drills and exercises to enhance various areas of his play. His extensive background in game design and game theory has been extrodinarily helpful in coming up with new ways to approach certain common poker dilemmas, and I have even adopted certain small tactical moves that he has pioneered into my own play style.

This evening I am hosting the first of a series of home tournament events. The overall goal is to build up a stable of strong players, practice our skills with each other, and eventually build up an organization that can send our top players to big events. In my next post I will describe the custom poker table I am having built, one of the extravagances afforded by my latest big tournament cash.

Thats all for now.
-Truth