Back home and still being lazy

I got back from Reno yesterday and even though we only went for the one day and night I had a blast. Two buddies of mine from the home game I play in and myself went to Reno and played in a $200 Freezeout that they have going. The tourney started at noon and we were all out of it by like 7:30 so we spent the rest of the night bowling, boozing and just having a good time.

My wife has had a really stressful last two weeks or so because not only did she have to keep working her horrific work schedule but she also had to prepare for M n' Ms where basically the chief residents get grilled by all of the attendings in front of everyone. She did well and has this weekend off so we are just trying our best to do nothing.

We watched some TV, went to the river and walked the dog, and are planning on going to the movies tonight and then sleeping in late tomorrow. She starts nights again tomorrow night which means I will actually try and get some serious poker in again this next week.

Off to Reno + some advice

A couple friends and I are going to Reno today to play in a $200 tourney and then hopefully to have some fun tonight. The place has a bowling alley and a driving range and plenty of booze so it should be fun. We are just going for the day and coming back tomorrow.

I have been joined to another skype chat group and I am a poker strat whore so I love talking about the game. One of the guys is going through a downswing and is bemoaning his luck and complaining about how poker is 100% luck and that he doesn't have any and blah blah meow chow. I know I get in this same mindset when I am downswinging as well.

Here is how I responded (I need to come back and read this post when I go through my next downswing):

Take a break - spend a day or two reviewing HHs, ghosting other players, watching vids, but definitely don't play.

Take a deep breath, look at your overall results - are you a winning player overall? Are you simply having a bad year? Or do you actually suck and need to work on your game? Be honest with yourself.

Right now you are in a total whiny bitchfest and believe that poker somehow "owes" you something; you are never "due" in poker; odds don't change depending on how you are running; all you can do in tourneys is play as optimally as you possibly can and let the results come... and they will come.

But when you start equating poker to blackjack which is what you are doing it becomes harder and harder to get out of that shitty emotional state.

gl trying - I am off to Reno

Getting back into it slowly

I spent most of yesterday just being lazy. I attempted to review my UB HH but it only got to like the midway point of the final table and then cut off for some unknown reason and that's when I went from 1st down to out in 5th which is what I wanted to check on.

I am also attempting to learn some new games so that I can play in events other than just hold'em next year and in the future.

I have some experience playing Omaha Hi/Lo but I am have basically none in any of the other games. So I have been playing some stud hi with moderate success so far. I don't know if it's because I am actually playing well or just running well at this point tho.

I just finished my afternoon session and my only cash was a 27th in the $55 90k on Stars. But after playing for 5 1/2 hours today I am calling it a day.

Sunday Final Table

I got 5th in the UB/AP 200k for $11.8k. It's the second time I have final tabled this tourney in the last 2 months and a 5 figure score is always nice but I was definitely disappointed not to take it down since I was chip leader with like 6 to go and then just could not make anything happen and eventually lost a cooler late.

Anyhoo, I might go to Reno this week and play some live poker, if not I will just continue to grind it up here at home.

Back to the Grind

I put in my first double session since I have been back. My method of playing online MTTs is to fire up around 8 tourneys between noon and 1 pm as my first session and then just play them until I am done. Then if that session does not go so well I will fire up another session sometime around 5-6 pm and play another 8-10 tourneys. On Tuesday and Wednesday I only played in my afternoon session.

But today I bricked my first 8 tourneys this afternoon so I was done early and decided to play a second session. I played 10 more tonight that started between 5 and 6:30.

After having what I felt was a really good session yesterday where I cashed in 1/2 of my tourneys, I was getting frustrated today because I wasn't getting deep or making the money in anything. In the end I did make a push in the $163 75k on Tilt and ended in 14th which as always is frustratingly close but a sign that I am playing well.

Since I have been back I have played 33 tourneys in 4 sessions, and have cashed in 7 of them with lots and lots of deep runs but no huge scores. In the end this means nothing since it is such an incredibly small sample size to really gather anything from but it does always feel good to play well.

Now the goal is to make sure that I don't get into the "if a couple of hands would have fallen my way I could be on a true heater" mindset. Because when I start thinking like that I generally start to think I am "due for some good luck" and make some overly aggressive moves which causes me to lose my stack at the midpoints of some tourneys. Instead I really need to continue to just focus on playing every hand as well as I can and let the results happen.

Back Home for a Bit

I got back home last night and after basically being gone from my house for the past 6 weeks it feels good to be back home.

Since my wife is working nights I basically need to get out of the house and let her get her sleep during the day so I played an afternoon session today and it went well.

I got 6th in the $10 rebuy on Stars for like $3k and felt like I just played real well overall. Even though I would have liked to win, it is always nice to start back on a good note.

My plan for the next month is to grind the online game, get in as much volume as I can, do some poker lessons, and then I am back to being a traveling man next month with some weddings in Portland and Madison and a weekend trip to Tahoe.

Vacationing

I drove back to L.A. immediately after busting the Main Event and made it back in record time. A whole slew of cousins and their kids were visiting my dad so the house was packed until yesterday and I am one of those people who actually enjoy spending time with family (I have friends who dread it) so I was a happy camper. None of them really understand what exactly my job entails but they all think it is pretty cool that I play poker for a living, so having them all believe that I am some sort of "balla'" is kind of fun too.

My sister and her brood are also out here for this week so my plan is to go down to their rental house in Laguna Beach tomorrow and hang out with them for a couple of days and then head back up to Santa Barbara for a retry of my father-in-law's marriage, then off to somewhere in Central California for a couple of days of camping/waterskiing with my L.A. family, and finally back home to Sactown.

I have a whole bunch of traveling planned next month to Tahoe/Portland/Madison as well. So between all of my Vegas/L.A./Santa Barbara excursions this last month and my planned trips next month I don't know how much poker I will actually be putting in. Thankfully my WSOP was at least mildly profitable so I'm just going to play when I can and take it from there.

Busto

Pretty quick exit today.

I got KQs twice and called about a 1k open and folded psotflop when I totally bricked.

Took me down to about 13k. I then KQo and went with the go'n'go versus a guy who had just won a big pot by raising to 3800 when he opened to 1200 preflop. Flop came Q hi. I shoved a potsized bet. He had AQo and snapped me. GG me.

I am obviously upset that I didn't cash, but I am very happy that I decided to play. It is a great great structure, and I am glad to have gotten the first Main Event under my belt.

Thank you to all who invested in me.

Up and down Day 1

Disappointing end to such a good start. I chipped up nicely before the dinner break and had like 55k at dinner. I talked with my wife and told her that I was going to play cautiously after the dinner break because I was happy with my stack and felt I could do some damage heading into day 2...

Then all hell broke loose. The big pot was my two pair which lost to a bigger two pair for 20k. Other than that it was a bunch of 3 outers that kept binking on my on the turn or river.

I do still have like almost 16k heading into day 2 where blinds will start at 200/400 and then go up to just 250/500. So I have almost 3 hours of 30+ BB poker and I know how to play that stack very well. I obviously need some run goot tomorrow but I still feel good about my play.

Main Event looking likely

So I made an ad late last night for the Main Event and by this afternoon I have only just over $2k more that I need to sell out. I tried getting access to put up a thread on 2+2 as well because people told me that I would sell out super fast over there, but I need to wait like 48 hours for approval to post there and by that time I want to be heading to Vegas. But it still looks like I'll be able to sell out anyways.

No matter what I will be heading out to L.A. tomorrow. From there I'll just see how it goes.

** UPDATE ** I am definitely going. I have sold all but one share and if that doesn't sell then I will just buy it myself. The plan now is to leave for L.A. tomorrow and then for Vegas on Wednesday.

Main Event??

I have very last minute decided that I want to try and play in the Main Event this year. I have put up a BAP at PTP and we'll just see how much interest I get and whether I can sell out in 2 days.

If it doesn't work out - not a huge loss. If I sell out - I am really pumped to play in my first Main Event!