Oh hi, I didn't see you there. My name's George, but you probably know me by my pen-name, Maddox. If you hang around Club Cobra on transgender Wednesdays, you might also know me as Heather S. I have an afternoon residency there where I perform burlesque dance routines to the songs of Doug from Hoobastank, and hopefully inspire him to write a few new ones as well. I'm generally the subject of half of the tracks on any given Hoobastank album. That song The Letter was about a letter that I wrote to a former girlfriend after I ended the relationship with her. You remember Losing My Grip from The Scorpion King soundtrack? That was also about the same girl after she dumped... I mean after I split up with her. Remember Me was based on an email I sent to my publisher, Simon & Schuster, after they stopped taking my calls and blocked my number. A funny story: I saw Schuster on Hollywood Boulevard a few days after I sent the email and he completely ghosted me.
Anyway, you've reached my bedroom. This is where the magic happens, baby. No, I didn't attend Hogwarts, but I do have a wand, he, he. That's three flaccid inches of lumpy Armenian pig iron you're looking staring at.
What's that?
You're a prospective buyer here to the view the property. My nakedness is making you question your heterosexuality. Yes, of course, I will put on some clothes, but first let me give you the grand tour:
https://i.imgur.com/UZNZsf5.jpg
1. Shark wall decals
These are actual dead sharks that my enemies tossed onto my lawn in drive-by shark attacks, which were a misguided attempt to intimidate me. Little did they know that, in my Armenian motherland, shark pressing is a national hobby / sport. The best shark pressers can name their salary at one of the top teams in the Hrazdan Cement Shark Pressing Premier League, as long as that price in under 208 US dollars per month, or 58858342.4 units of my own made-up currency, The Madbux, at current levels of inflation.
I dragged the fish carcasses inside before my neighbours could steal them from me. For the next six months I stored them in the communal area under teetering stacks of unsold copies of my last book, 'F*ck Whales', that my publisher forwarded to me. It was like a literal game of the Armenian version of paper, rock, scissors – shark, whale, whaling boat. My decision to ignore the complaints of my housemates and the repeated threats by my landlord to evict me if I didn't remove the dead sharks from the property, paid off in the end. Now I have these decorative conversation pieces, the most commonly asked question being: “Where is that nauseating stench of dead fish coming from?”
I used to own four pressed wall sharks. One night this loud Greek guy called Asterios, who I used to hang out with online, called to tell me that he was flying from New York to L.A. to raid my fridge. Sadly he also ate two of the sharks.
2. Handmade cardboard night-stand
I will never forget a piece of advice that my mother imparted to me, seconds before she demanded that I give her money to play the slot machines in a casino owned by the Chinese mafia:
“When it come to websites and home furnishings, you get what you pay for.”
I took my mother's advice very much to heart when I paid $30,000 for this one of a kind cardboard night-stand, designed by the renowned ingénieur en papier, Bernarde Plumnutt. To the non-discerning eye, it might resemble the kind of box that once contained tins of soup, turned upright on one end. However, Bernarde has assured me that it was crafted by the mandibles of a team of wasps that he trained to reinvent cardboard.
Like all geniuses (myself included, he, he) Bernarde imposes exacting standards upon himself and is extremely self-critical. When I visited him to pick-up my finished night-stand, I found it discarded in the trash. It was only after I had fished it out of the dumpster, wiped the condiment stains off the surface and asked him: “Is this the night-stand you made for me?” that he admitted that it was, and requested that he be paid for it immediately in cash. When I visited him again a few days later he appeared to have moved out in a hurry and left no forwarding address.
I love the distressed sticky tape detailling along the top of the stand. You don't see craftsmanship like that any more.
3. Slime comforter
I used to do a podcast with a guy who calls himself Dick Masterson. Later, I found out that he was a rape supremacist so I cut him off. Despite his rape supremacy, a lot of people still think he's cool for some reason. Here's a fact that maybe you don't know about Dick: His real name is something in Spanish. When you translate it into English, it means 'Duck Horror'. He doesn't sound so cool now, does he?
Back when our friendship was on the rocks, Dick suggested a bonding exercise where we would take peyote in the desert so that we could commune with the the ghost of Jim Morrison, who would give us more peyote, along with some spare tickets he had to a safari park on the astral plane, where we could meet our spirit animals, and maybe even feed them and talk to their keepers.
Dick's spirit animal turned out to be a orange monkey with a tiny, scunched-up face, who immediately stole our remaining peyote and scampered up a tree with it to have a vision quest of its own. I was amazed to discover that my spirit animal was the slime creature from the videogame Dragon Quest. I was hoping that it would communicate wisdom and enlightenment, but it just sat there oozing grossly, with a permanent frankfurter grin plastered inanely across its face. Things get a bit hazy after that. I was arrested naked, driving the wrong way along Highland Avenue on a stolen rider mower that I had mistaken for a jet-pack.
To commemorate my vision quest I paid some bedding technicians, who I met loitering outside MIT, $30,000 for this bespoke slime comforter, manufactured entirely from soy in a Japanese laboratory. The reverence that women show when I explain the comforter's spiritual significance to them is heart-warming. More than one girl has told me: “I'm not fucking you anywhere near that thing.”
4. Cuck pole
This chic, open-plan wardrobe is perfect for the cuckold who wants to get closer to the action without actually taking part. No more standing in the dark, peering furtively though a crack in the door. Simply position yourself behind this rack of clothing, and steal as many shameful glances as you want between the sleeves of your jackets, while your girlfriend engages in session after session of vigorous bare-back pounding with the guy who packed her groceries at Walmart.
This set-up has the added benefit of leaving your bottom half exposed. At any moment your girlfriend can glance over at your skinny, bare legs and the shrivelled stub of your pallid genitalia and be reassured that she is making the right decision in terms of fulfilling her sexual needs. It's win-win all round!
5. Armenia National Security Service listening station
One of the many sacrifices that I made for my father's sacrifice entailed allowing the Armenia National Security Service to annex part of my bedroom for use as a listening station. From this base of operations covert operatives gather intelligence that they use to influence American elections and bend the malleable political framework of this decadent, so-called western superpower to the iron will of the east. There is a good reason why you can't spell American without Armenia.
To ward off unwanted scrutiny, the listening station is concealed behind a green stealth curtain which, when drawn, resembles an impenetrable, corrugated green wall. Western nations would gaze with envy upon Armenia's superior camouflage and concealment technology, if only they were able to spot it.

I am an electrical engineer who likes math/statistics and has gotten attracted to the game of poker because I have stumbled on an MIT course about poker accidentally. Ever since I have played with my friends and tourneys. For about a year now, I have played at the local casinos for about a year now playing mostly $1/$3 with a $300 buy in and usually topping off when I am 200ish or less to 100bb, 2 buy ins stop loss (or 1 buy in after a bad beat or even earlier if players are just better than me). I have won about $7000 so far with about 200ish hours of play, however, I realize that this is pretty statistically insignificant so I want to do a sanity check if I am doing things right and I should continue. All feedback is welcome.
I study poker for about 10-20 hours per week for the last 3-4 months (where most of my winnings started coming from). I studied from the MIT poker course, splitsuits videos on youtube and Crush Live poker mainly now (I sometimes double check my hands by using flopzilla or couple of my friends that also play at the same stake, I have none that I know that plays larger).
So here is my play style, I am what you would call a nit I guess ( I am still not sure why this is bad since it seems to be printing me money at these low stakes). I am not just waiting for pocket aces/kings ace king but pretty snug, on the button, I would have my widest range at it would usually not be above 15%. (my loosest range is something like this: 22+, AKo, AQo, AJo, ATo, A2s-A5s, KQo, KJo, QJs, JTs (only when deep and in position, sometimes QJo and JTo).
EP I open premiums and 99 (99-AA) for 5-6X ($15-$20) as well as AKo, AQo, AJs (AJo and ATo I fold). I open limp 77, 88. For low pocket pairs like 66 and lower and everything else, I fold. With premiums QQs+ I will 4 bet if 3 bet (queens I will fold to a 3bet shove or if an opponent is super tight). I prefer not to play jacks or tens OOP but I will call a light 3 bet (of $45 say especially if multiple people called, anything larger that is $60 I fold JJ and lower).
MP I increase my range to KQs, KJS and AJ, ATo, but will let go of these to a 3bet. I usually over limp or open limp with KQo, KJo or just fold.
LP I overlimp or call with A2s-5s if I am getting 3-4 callers in front of me. I will over limp QJ and J10, I will, however, open raise KJ and KQs almost 100%. I will 3 bet pretty 100% Ace-10/J/Q/K type of hand, suited or offsuit, and will 3 bet with 99s plus. (KQ/J suited I will sometimes, and ONLY if I have a super tight image, if i was card dead or just showed up with monsters, I will 3 bet bluff with).
I will set mine if pot odds are good or more likely if implied odds are more than 10X (I know some people are saying it should be 15-20x or even 25x so this may be a leak). If hit a set, I play pretty straight up, if I am OOP and there is a draw heavy/wet board I will not slow play, I will bet large and I will raise OOP on a wet board 3-4x. I will check raise oop if I have a good read on my opponents if I find that they will cbet a lot. On dry boards, I will bet small OOP and Call/check in position and then turn up the heat on the turn.
I don’t play suited connectors one gappers lower than JT unless I am on the BB and I check. In limped pots I just try to follow the rule of never going broke in a limped pot and I always try to play mathematically and usually fold second or third pair even if I hit if a bunch of people call in front of me (unless I got a draw and I am getting the pot odds for it).
I play pretty ABC post flop, if I hit, I will bet usually around 66-75% of pot, if I miss and I am in a position with hands like A/K I will call one street usually. If I was the original 3bet/raiser with 10s+ and an Ace or a king comes on the board (high cards good for my range) I will usually fire once or twice. Generally, I will C bet only if I hit the flop or if the turn will bring me the nuts/better equity (for example I have Ace 2 of spades and it is 8s/10/s/Kc). I fold TPTK to a 3X raise 90% when the opponent is likely to have a set or two pair, the 10% of the time I call when I do NOT block any draws (say there is an ace high board with two spades and I do NOT have Ace or King of spades it is more likely for my opponent to have a draw; I only do this with players that are higher thinking players like 2/5 players and really good 1/3 players since I noticed they sometimes do this with their draws). Other times I call a raise is when the opponent usually was very short, to begin with, and the SPR was already around 1.5 or less.
I don’t fold a set unless I have a read that the opponent has a flush draw and it gets there and even then, it is tough for me to fold, lately I started putting a blocker bet in these scenarios in case they don’t have the nut flush, they may call instead of just shoving. idk if this is correct line of thinking. (usually, I don’t care about straight draws, usually, I focus just on flush draws but this may be a leak).
As for bankroll, I am very surprised when people recommend 50 buyins and such, it seems to me that that is waaay to much variance, I cannot see myself losing more than 10buyins or even losing 3-4 buyins with this strat (of course I may be drastically overlooking things) playing 1/3. Now that I have 20buyins plus, would this not be a good enough bankroll to play poker regularly on the weekends and be profitable?
I did try online too, but man I feel it is waaaay harder, I could not beat 10NL. Heck, even 5NL at pokerstars zoom 4 tabling I feel like I may be a slightly loosing/breakeven player. Might be doe cuz I am bored and I am not using a tracker. Feels like a much different game, wherein casino people are just sooo impatient to play (I am guessing this is because of the 2hour wait times for poker in my city).
I know it is not much info unless you see my hand histories but still, I would like the general feedback to see if I am on the right path and what I need to do to get and keep getting better at the game (how to study more efficiently, books to read)!
​
EDIT:
​
Some more info:
I try to never bluff fish and calling stations.
I am also aware of other people being aware that I am tight, so if a good player calls and he has seen me fold hands for 2 hours prior, warning bells go off when he check-raises me if it makes sense that he has hit a set (otherwise they fold to a cbet). I usually play "slippery" here and don't mind folding top pair or over pairs like aces (This is usually against players that are good and that are well aware that I am playing tight and ofcourse if we are both deep, if SPR is low enough ill ship it). To counter this, I do 3bet sometimes with King Jack/Queen suited as i mentioned to steal a pot or two if they are folding too much to my aggression and giving me too much respect.
If new plays join and they have not seen me fold that much, I can usually get them when i do hit my hand, of course, i won't be trying to 3bet bluff them because they won't have a tight image of me yet. To add to this, this is where I make money. There seems to be alot more volume in 1/3 where players come and go in a session alot more often. I find that 3/4 other guys stay at the table while the rest of the seats are rotated. Here is where I make my money, yes the other 3/4 guys know I am tight and will fold when i 3bet with my aces but the newer ones wont be as likely and will pay me off.