DaMatrix Trilogy

Only a few posts left to go on this blog. Yesterday I played quite bad - actually, I've been playing quite bad for over a week now. My patience levels have dropped to rock bottom. Maybe it's because I'm waiting for the year to end so that I can make a fresh start but I also haven't been feeling too well.

I'm very happy with what I've achieved this year from no bankroll. Hopefully, the next stage, DaMatrix Reloaded, will be even better but it will be at least another year before DaMatrix Revolutions (Revelations might be better)!

That's right, my poker progression is a trilogy. In Part I, I have become a decent all round player albeit at low stakes. I've read a lot of books, watched a lot of poker, developed my nickname, played a lot online but in comparison, I have played almost zero live poker.

I think I've played 2/3 comps at the broadway casino, 1 at Star City, WHUPC main event and 500 euro freezeout, Maxim King of Poker, VC Poker Cup 2005 and the Doyle Brunson sixpac. Not bad from no bankroll though.

With everybody playing poker nowadays, I think having a poker image is almost as vital as skill when it comes to the 'bigger' picture. I've been very lucky in that I adopted the Matrix nickname after being called that several times in my first encounter with the Devilfish at the VC Poker Cup 2004. It helped that I busted him by giving the whole idea of building on the name some credibility and history. Similar to how the 'fish got his name.

The Da prefix was added to make it easier to secure an online alias at sites. I had the prefix on a previous alias so some continuity there. Since I'm Italian, it also gives some of that style to it too: DaMatrix was born.

Over the past year, DaMatrix has played all the common forms of poker: hold'em, omaha, stud and draw. If I was to give myself a score out of ten, I'd give myself 3/10 to all of them. Multi-tabling different websites and different games has got to stop as I am probably playing at 30% of best - hence the 3/10.

That's in Part II. Concentrate on playing as little sites as possible, focus on my main poker skills and develop a few more ideas. I will also try to find a mentor, get hold of a white rabbit card protector, win a major tourney to facilitate sponsorship (I can dream), defend my Maxim King of Poker title and meet/play against Phil Hellmuth who probably has the closest playing style to me.

Afterall, I have played at the same table as Devilfish and Doyle Brunson - and Phil Hellmuth can't be considered great until he plays me, lol. In bit torrent episode 23 of the WSOP 2005, Hellmuth did play against probably a long lost relative of mine. Hellmuth made that decent laydown with AK on a 44AQ board against Passantino who held AA. When the turn was a Q, Passantino should have checked again if he would have correctly assumed that Hellmuth would be scared that he had AA/QQ/AQ with a big bet here and because of the preflop action. Because of Hellmuth's cards, Hellmuth put him on QQ rather than AA or KK and this "read" is revealed on the video too.

Anyway, long way to go before Part III: releasing my own poker perfume! ;)