BBZ member banks $50K after just 3 months of Seminars

If you’ve ever considered joining BBZ Poker and attending our Daily Seminars, you’re going to want to read this.

BBZ community member “TonyMacaroni” was born and raised in New York City and currently resides in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He’d recently worked as a chef and a recording studio assistant but decided to focus on poker as his main income source nine months ago.

In December 2020, the 23-year-old joined the BBZ Daily Seminars after struggling to become a consistent winner in MTTs due to issues with discipline and bankroll management.

Then recently (February 15, 2021) he took down a $1K buy-in event with a $200K guarantee on America’s Cardroom (ACR) for an incredible $52,936 score.

We sat down with TonyMacaroni to chat about his journey in poker so far, what led him to BBZ, and how his life has changed since joining the BBZ Daily Seminars.

BBZ BLOG: Hi TonyMacaroni, congratulations on your amazing score. Looking back, how did you first discover poker?

TonyMacaroni: Like many of us, my first exposure to poker was from classic High Stakes Poker episodes I’d watch on YouTube, as well as old World Series of Poker (WSOP) clips. I remember one iconic Main Event clip of Lex Veldhuis owning everyone at the table in several consecutive hands. Something about the grit and determination in these games was really compelling to me. I didn’t understand what was going on strategically, but I could feel the tension and the pain through the screen.

What has your poker journey so far been like?

A lot of me fumbling through the dark, feeling for something to grab on to with my hands. I started from absolute zero. My knowledge of strategy was built on these poker TV shows I’d been watching, so I wouldn’t say I had the strongest guidance or influences when I first started playing.

Regardless, I wanted to get in the mix, so around September of 2019, I deposited $50 on to a site and started playing a combination of $0.5c/$0.10c cash games and $1 jackpot sit & gos (SNGs). I probably vaporized that first $50 over the course of a few hours, but I was so confident that I knew what I was doing and that these results were just a product of bad luck.

I continued to deposit and lose playing micro cash, mixing in some MTTs and SNGs, paying no attention to bankroll management, tilting off stacks left and right. My “studying” was essentially just watching Youtube videos. After losing around $2K, I had my first tournament win in an $11 rebuy for $1,800, and I don’t think I’ll ever be so elated to win an event again in my life. I felt like I’d made it and that I was going to win every $11 rebuy for the rest of my life.

I then broke even/lost small over the next few months, mostly playing MTTs ranging from $5 to $20, still knowing basically nothing about winning poker strategy. But in March of 2020, the online poker ecosystem got pumped so full of dead money due to Coronavirus lockdowns, that I suddenly became a winning player. Pretty much overnight, the games were filled with weaker players and the requirements for winning became far lower than they had been before. Basically, if you had the capacity to show up and stay patient, people would be very very generous with sharing their chips.

I went on a massive upswing–$10K profit in two months of playing $5-$55 MTTs–and I decided I was ready to move to bigger sites and play some bigger buy-ins. Long story short, I got smashed for almost my entire roll by a combination of variance, and not being as good as I thought I was.

I repeated this cycle of running up 10-15k playing mid-stakes and then getting felted trying to move up too fast over and over again. I even went on a $45K upswing over three days, only to then punt off $35K over the following few weeks. I had convinced myself that I was properly rolled and sufficiently skilled to play online $500 and $1K tournaments.

What has helped you plug those leaks?

I finally learned my lesson after getting repeatedly burned by the higher stakes and decided to focus on consistency and discipline. I committed to spending more time studying, more time taking care of my physical and mental health, and to practice more conservative bankroll management. These investments in myself were more profitable than any training course or coaching session I’d found.

I think a lot about compounding effects in poker and in life and the same way negative feedback can compound upon itself into more negative feedback, positive reinforcement compounds into more positive reinforcement. The more I care for myself, the more capacity I have to care for myself. The more discipline I practice, the more ability I possess to implement this discipline. The more I learn about higher level poker strategies, the more I am able to learn about higher level poker strategies.

Focusing on these positive compounding loops has been instrumental to my recent success, in poker and in other aspects of my life, and the upswing is still swinging upward. I ended 2020 with a massive 37k score, bringing my total profits for the year to just under $100K, and in 2021, I’ve been firing some higher stakes events and seeing great results.

What inspired you to sign up for the BBZ Poker Daily Seminars?

I signed up for two main reasons. First, I had already consumed a lot of content from the BBZ coaches throughout 2020, and I felt that they were hands down the most knowledgable about theoretical solutions, and the most efficient communicators of these solutions to the less experienced player. Second, I wanted to be a part of a community of like-minded individuals who would be pushing me to grow and improve, rather than allowing myself to be complacent and exist only in my own little bubble. After about a month of studying in the seminars, I can say, confirmed and confirmed.

What have you taken from them?

The seminars have been so influential to both my game and my well being. The coaches are truly top-notch–every time I join a seminar I’m shocked by how little I know and how much more there is to learn about game theory and No Limit.

The community is amazing too. There are players of every stake level and skill level all supporting and challenging one another to try our hardest, not get discouraged, and share what we know with one another. It’s really fantastic to get to start every day by doing something so difficult and so rewarding, and the improvements in my general poker knowledge and win-rate since joining have been worth far more than the $300 price tag.

Is there a particular spot you remember from the tournament you won where your BBZ coaching kicked in?

Every spot! But seriously, the seminars and individual coaching within the BBZ community has completely transformed the way I think about building strategies and hand incentives, so I wouldn’t say there’s one specific spot that the coaching helped, but there’s definitely no spot in the tournament that the coaching didn’t help. I’m 100% sure I’ve captured more EV in every hand I’ve played since joining BBZ than I would have before.

What would you say to anyone considering studying with BBZ?

Do it. The products are outrageously undervalued, the community is so positive and uplifting, and it’s really hard to do this shit alone. I was doing this shit alone for a long while, and after the past month working with BBZ, I can say with confidence that I am never going back.

What’s next for you?

I’m just going to keep going. I have no plans for any big purchases or big poker shots, I just want to be able to keep supporting myself and my loved ones by playing cards. It’s such an unbelievable privilege to get to do what I get to do, and I’m just grateful I get to do it for a little while longer. As for today, what’s next for me is falafel and an iced coffee; a joint and some studying; and another day playing the most beautiful strategy game on planet earth. Lucky lucky me!

Do you want to start winning too? Then join our BBZ Daily Seminars today.