Recent Developments

I'm not sure how many people actually still read this blog, but for those that do I apologize for the lack of posts lately. Now that we are finally situated I feel like we are starting to get into a little bit of a groove again. I have applied to a couple of jobs here at the local district attorney's offices and the public defender's office but the job market is tight here and there are no openings so I am still sitting and waiting and crossing my fingers that something will open up. This week I also applied to become a member of a couple of appellate panels where if I were I accepted I would be appointed to handle the appeals of indigent clients here in California. I am worried that even though I have experience in appellate practice, it is not in the areas they are looking for, but I will keep my fingers crossed there as well.

In the meantime, I have started a internship/volunteership with the public defenders office so every Tuesday and Wednesday I go to the local court and help the assigned public defender with her misdemeanor calendar. She has a huge caseload and it is impressive to see her knock all of her cases out quickly and efficiently but also giving her clients quality representation in the minimal time she can spend with them. The courtroom is just one exit away from my wife's clinic, so we get to carpool and then the local cardroom is just across the street from the court so I have been playing some 20/40 limit on those afternoons.

Fresno has been bad to me in terms of poker profit, but hopefully things are turning around as I have had a couple of decent winning sessions lately. So the future plans are to keep the fingers crossed that I can get hired somewhere and to just keep on grinding until then.

Finally feeling settled

So the whirlwind summer is now basically over.

Sell the house in Sacramento, check;
move out of house in Sacramento and into new rental home in Fresno in 3 days, check;
drive down to Santa Barbara the day after moving in to Fresno house to drop our dog off with the in-laws since we were going to Guatemala, check;
drive down to L.A. to my folks' house that same day to catch flight to Guatemala, check;
spend a couple of weeks in Guatemala, check;
return from Guatemala and spend a week in Santa Barbara, check;
return to Fresno for four days and try and tidy the house up a bit and get cable and internet set up, check;
drive back to L.A. to spend ten days with my folks and my sister and her family who was making her yearly summer mecca to Balboa, check;
drop my wife off as she and her best friend fly to Spain for 2 weeks, check;
fly to Boise to celebrate my step-grandmother's 100th birthday, check;
drive back to Fresno and spend a week waterskiing and hanging out with 17 extended family members on King's River and have 12 of them stay at my house, check;
drive back to L.A. to pick my wife up from her Spain trip, check;
spend the next ten days with our respective families in Santa Barbara and L.A., check;
take my wife to the airport for her girl's weekend in Chicago with friends of hers from medical school, check;
drive back to Fresno for what should now be the last time for a while, check;
pick my wife up from the Fresno airport, check; wife begins new job here in Fresno, check;
we explore Fresno on our bikes and find a nearby farmer's market, check;
I update my resume and send it off with cover letters to four legal offices/firms, check;
I finally make it out to the local cardroom and play some live poker, check.

And... phew now that the summer whirlwind is over, the fall whirlwind will begin.

It's been a while...

So it's been a busy couple of months. My last post was me heading to Vegas for the WSOP. Unfortunately the Series was a huge bust for me this year, but I am still glad I went and gave myself one last shot.

Since then, we sold our house, moved out of of our Sacramento house, moved in to our Fresno house, my wife finished her residency, we went to Guatemala for a couple of weeks, we went to Santa Barbara for a week, and now we are now back in Fresno and are finishing the process of setting up our new house.

We still have a good month of vacationing left to do and will be spending that time between Fresno, L.A., Santa Barbara, Boise, Kings River, and Spain. After that, it will be time for me to start pounding the pavement and getting my resume out there in my quest to get back into practicing law again. Until then, I plan on enjoying my summer to the fullest.

In Vegas

I've made it to Vegas and have registered for the $1k event today at noon. I'm excited to be here and excited to start the grind again. I found a cheap apartment/hotel which is just off the strip. It's somewhat skeezy and right under the flightpath of the planes coming in, but the location is great, it has a bed, shower and tv, it's gated so I feel safe, it has this computer for me to use, and it is CHEAP!!

On the housing front, it looks like we have found a place to rent in Fresno. It seems to be in a decent neighborhood, is much bigger than our current place, and has a nice big backyard for Chula.

Adventures over Memorial Day

Most of the property management companies in Fresno shut down over the Memorial day weekend but we still wanted to at least look at the outside of some homes, so we drove down to Fresno on Saturday with the intention of looking at some homes and then meeting my L.A. family at a campsite in the mountains between Fresno and Bakersfield.

Of course, as usual, we got a late start, so by the time we got to Fresno we could only look at a couple of homes before we needed to head out so that we could actually set up our tent before it got dark. The campsite was a ways up in the mountains at like 5000 feet but to get there you had to pass elevations of over 7000 feet.

Long story, short - we got snowed on. Not rain, but honest to god snow. This freaked everyone out and in short order the dirt road which we took to get down to the campsite soon became a muddy mess with huge trenches from where people who did not have 4 wheel drive or know how to drive had been spinning their tires.

We decided to wait it out and see how the day progressed, and although it stayed cool the sun came out and the road got dry enough that we were confident we could get out. One of our group then went and talked with a ranger who said more snow was likely that night so we decided to pack it up and head back. All of us made it out with no problem, but when we passed the 7000 foot mark we were surprised to see at least 6 inches of snow, so we were also happy that we left when we did rather then risk it.

We then spent the night in Fresno, and yesterday we spent the day driving all throughout Fresno and looking at possible homes.

I am planning on going back to Fresno this Thursday and will be looking to set up as many showings as I can and hopefully find us a place to rent. I then will head off to Vegas and play some events before coming back to Sacramento for Charmian's graduation from residency.

WSOP bound

I finally got my money from PokerStars today and I have also received a decent amount of interest in people wanting action from the ad I put up on 2+2 so I am now definitely going to make my yearly mecca to Vegas....

And I have to say that I am getting pumped. I know my excitement always wanes when I get there, but since I haven't played tournaments since April 15th (Black Friday) I am excited to get back to my bread and butter. I am also excited to have the chance to go for a threepeat of WSOP final tables in 3 years.

Wish me luck....

WSOP Stake

It may be too late, but I have decided that I am going to try and get to Vegas for about ten days this year so I can at least play some of the WSOP.

I made an ad on 2+2 here. So now I will just wait and see what happens.

Rental House Hunting

So with our house now sold we are starting the process of looking into where we will be living in Fresno. From the internet searching I have done it looks like we will be able to live in a much bigger home, possibly with a pool, and pay less in rent than we are currently paying for our mortgage. So now we just need to find something and sign a lease.

I am continuing to have problems withdrawing my money from Pokerstars which is frustrating because 95% of the people I know already have their Stars money. I think it has something to do with my long last name, but I don't know for sure. I am confident I will get my Stars funds, I just want the issue dealt with now so I don't have to waste any more time with it.

Live poker continues to go ok. I am now positive that I would have to play at least 5/10 to have a chance at making a living playing live poker, and I am not so sure my edge would be that huge in 5/10.... So I am still planning on applying for a "real job" once we get settled in Fresno.

Sold!

After a super tiring and frustrating process we have finally sold our house. For reals this time. At this point it feels like every possible hurdle in the process is just a means for someone to make money rather than as a true way to secure that the buyers are getting the home they have agrees to pay for. Pest inspection = $1500. Home inspection = $500. Loan appraisal coming in under our agreed upon price = $5000. But, whatever, it's done, it's time to move on, and hopefully we can reset, reboot and start saving money again when we are finally settled in Fresno.

I am continuing to play a lot of live poker, and it is going fine. I am not making a ton of money, but I am definitely profiting.

The WSOP is coming up and I really want to go to Vegas and try and make my 3rd final table in 3 years but I don't know if it is going to happen. I may try and get a last minute stake. A lot will depend on how likely I think it is that I can get staked with a lot of online money still being tied up right now.

Adjusting from Online to Live Play

So I've been continuing to go to my local, somewhat divey, cardroom on a daily basis and although playing 1/2 live would not generate enough income for me to make a fulltime go of it, for now it is at least bringing in some money and is hopefully teaching me a few things about adjusting to live play.

I have had some success playing live the last couple of years at the WSOP, so the fact that I still am bad at estimating how many chips people have in their stacks and still take forever to push out exactly $xx in chips to call a bet doesn't bother me. My biggest adjustment so far has simply been the need to reel in my impulse to join the other fish at the table and play a "let's gamble gamble" style of poker rather than be patient, wait for decent opportunities and then pounce.

The problem for me has been twofold: 1) the vast majority of the players are shortstacking - so they are buying in for somewhere between 20-30 Big Blinds rather than the full 100 Big Blinds which I buy in for - yet they generally have no real concept of stack depth or pot odds. So they are more then happy to call a 6 BB preflop raise (which is 1/3 of their stack) with a hand like 33 or K7s and then just play fit or fold postflop. What this means for me, is that preflop aggression, which is what has become so pervasive in the online MTT world, is no longer as useful a weapon, because my opponents will just call me preflop which starts a calling train, and then forces me to play fit or fold as well because I can't really try multiple street bluffs against opponents who only really have enough to call one more bet. So I have to become more selective in the hands I am going to play - in essence the easy way to beat the game is just to become a nit. Which leads to...

2) The play is slow. I am part of this problem because when I do actually play a hand I am not afraid to take my time to make a decision. But the bottom line with live play is that you are going to get to see somewhere around 25-30 hands an hour tops. Whereas online, playing 8 tables at a time, I could see 250 hands an hour. And slow play leads to boredom. And boredom leads to wanting to play more hands. And seeing all the fish playing their 85o and A6o, and K3s type hands makes me want to start playing those hands too, which leads me into playing like the fish and wanting to gamble gamble as well.

My plan this week is to just keep live grinding and hopefully stay out of the fish pond.

On the house front - we have had our inspection which went ok. The buyers want us to credit them $500 for possible repairs, which we agreed to. The appraiser for the loan came yesterday, so if he agrees that our house is worth our agreed upon price, then we should be go to go. At a minimum, we should find out soon.

Playing Live

For the last 4 years I have made my living almost exclusively from playing in online MTTs. After Black Friday, that is just no longer an option for me. But much like I was in limbo 4 years ago when I was waiting for my bar exam results, I am again currently in limbo since we are leaving Sacramento at the end of June and have planned quite a bit of family/vacation stuff for July and August. So since I have an abundance of free-time on my hands, I have decided to finally look a little more deeply into the live card room scene here in Sacramento.

So far I've only been to two establisments: the Thunder Valley casino which is just outside of Roseville about half an hour from my house; and the Limelight cardroom which is on the corner of Alhambra and J which is less than 2 miles from my house (actually close enough to walk to if I really wanted).

The benefits of the Limelight is that it is so damn close, players get dinner for free, and the play so far has been pretty weak. The detriment is that they only offer 1/2 NL and most players only buy-in for $40-60 so it would be hard to pull in the $200-400 a day that I would need to average to make not getting a real job a viable option.

The benefit of Thunder Valley is that they offer $1/3 up to $5/10 NL and although I haven't played in anything higher than 1/3 yet, the games do not seem like they are incredibly tough so averaging a little less than half a buy-in a day at 5/10 might be possible. The detriment of Thunder Valley is that it is a ways away, and it is an Indian casino which means they don't follow California's statewide ban on smoking on the casino floor so you end up coming home smelling like an ashtray.

The detriment at all live rooms is that they rake $3-4 as soon as you see a flop and then you are expected to tip dealers on any pot you win so you really do need to play at higher limits so that the rake doesn't take away so much of your profit. Of course the higher you play, the better (in general) your opponents are...

Anyhoo, there are two more rooms in town the Capitol Casino and Casino Royale which according to their websites and from what I have heard may or may not have higher games. At this point I will probably just keep heading to the Limelight since it is so close and I am making a profit. If/when the game seems to be drying up on me I will probably try and take a look at the other rooms in town.

On the house front, the inspector came yesterday and I assume we will hear relatively soon if there was anything horrible that he found. The whole telephone game when realtors are involved gets really tiresome (inspector will give report to their realtor, their realtor gives report to buyers who will then probably have questions/concerns which they relay to their realtor who then talks to our realtor who then will finally talk to us) but I guess you just have to play that game. Hopefully all went well and then our next and last hurdle will be the appraisal of the house by the buyers/mortgage company.

In Escrow

We are now officially in escrow. At this point we need the house to get appraised at the agreed upon price so the loan goes through and then we need to have little to no problems when the house gets inspected. If all goes well we are closing June 30th, which is Charmian's last day of work.

On the poker front, I am going to try and play some live poker this week at the various card rooms around town.

On the job front, I still need to get my resume in order and then start shipping it off to firms and state agencies in Fresno.

Moving On...

Here is a really good overall look into what happened last Friday in the online poker world.

On the housing front - we are really close to getting a deal done. The prospective buyers and ourselves are $5k apart right now. Unfortunately we don't have anymore wiggle room. The last deal we offered will mean that we have to take every last cent we have in our savings to closing. So it is now up to the buyers and/or realtors. Either they come up with that last $5k or the deal just won't happen. With my online funds in neverneverland just paying our monthly expenses is now going to be super tight so hopefully we can finalize a deal and at least get this house monkey off our back.

The Sky is Falling/Black Friday

For most people in the U.S., April 15th is known because it is the last day in which you can file your taxes without a penalty. For U.S. online poker players, April 15th will be known because that was the day that the online poker sky finally fell. For the past couple of years, every 6 months or so there would arise some new tidbit which would make the online world get their panties in a bit of bunch amid rampant speculation that all of the poker sites were about to be closed. Well yesterday that actually happened. The fouders/CEOs of the 3 biggest online poker sites which allow US players to play were indicted yesterday on charges of bank fraud, illegal gambling, and money laundering. In response, PokerStars and FullTilt (the two biggest sites) no longer allow U.S. players to play on their servers. UB/Absolute poker is no longer allowing players to deposit or withdraw but they can still play there.

So what's that mean for me, a professional poker player who plays a majority of his poker online? Well it means for right now I am out of a job. I attempted to withdraw the vast majority of my bankroll yesterday, but I have no idea if the transaction will go through or not.

If I am able to access my funds then for the next couple of months at least I will focus on playing at the live casinos and card rooms around here. If not, well then there's not a lot I can do but sit and wait.

No matter what, I have decided that now is as good as a time as any to get back into the "real workforce." Poker has been super tough for me this last year as it is, so keeping poker as a nice hobby that can bring us some extra income but not something that we are depending on to pay the bills may very well actually reduce the stress in my life.

So I am going to start working on my resume and my first plan of attack will be to apply for positions in the D.A.'s office and the Public Defender's office in Fresno. I really enjoyed my criminal law experience when I was in law school so I am hoping that I can get back into that field in Fresno. From my experience, criminal law is much more flying by the seat of your pants, there is lots of time in courtrooms and in front of judges and not as much time writing briefs sitting in an office and I really enjoyed that.

On the housing front; we are in the midst of offers and counter-offers and I am hopeful but not 100% confident that we can get a deal done. The next couple of days should be interesting...

Not a lot to update

There hasn't been a ton of stuff going on here. The house continues to get quite a bit of traffic but we still haven't got any bites yet. Pokerwise I am continuing to get my feet wet playing cash where I believe I will finally be profitable once I learn how to let go of top pair/overpair hands.

Back from Jamaica

We put the house on the market right before we left for vacation so that our house would be empty, Chula (our dog) would be out of the house and not shedding her hair everywhere, and to try and get as much traffic through our house as possible while we were gone.

Between my work on the house and Charmian's consistently brutally long hours we decided to treat ourselves and went to an all-inclusive resort. We went to Sandals in Negril Jamaica and had a really relaxing time. We pretty much were just super lazy and enjoyed spending 8+ hours everyday at the beach. We did partake of pretty much everything they had to offer at least once tho - we went snorkeling, waterskied, went kayaking, used the gym, played tennis, and Charmian got a massage. But the rest of the time we just read books, played scrabble, drank lots of drinks and ate lots of food. And it felt good to just be lazy.

I spent today starting to paint our back deck and will finish that tomorrow and once I complete that our house is done. So far we have had quite a bit of traffic but no real bites as of yet. We are going to have another open house this weekend and then it's just wait and see. At this point we have done everything we can so now everything is out of our hands and we just have to hope for the best. I am not super confident that we are going to be able to sell the house because the market is so depressed in this area - but at least we will know that we did everything we could.

If it doesn't sell, then we will either look into a short sale (which from what I understand depends more on our lender than anything else) or we will just rent it out.

Pokerwise my plan is to pretty much just focus on cash games this month since I need to be able to leave the house on short notice if anyone decides that they want to take a look at it.

House is ready for the market

The weather here has been terrible - raining every day for like the last week which made things like taking cardboard boxes to storage problematic. But the house is now done. The staging lady came tonight and did the finishing touches and I've got to say it looks nice. As always it took much longer to do all the busywork involved to make the house look pretty. Touching up the wall where our coat rack is turned into me just painting the entire entryway; putting in sod; putting in mulch; vacuuming; dusting; mopping; cleaning all the kitchen appliances; etc. All I have left to do tonight is do one last cleaning of the floors and clean the bathroom. Hopefully the potential buyers will think our house is as nice as we thought it was...

Still working on the house

Our plan is to get the house on the market by the end of next week so I have been working at getting it "openhouse" presentable. I have done the vast majority of the work so this week and next will just be taking the last couple of loads to storage/goodwill; doing some minor paint touch ups and then cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Our backyard was looking a little straggly so we decided to lay some new sod and to try and reduce the money pit that this house has become I figured that I would try and do it myself. So I rented a tiller from Home Depot, got it home, and even figured out how to start it up and use it. For me, this is a pretty huge accomplishment considering that changing a lightbulb is about my peak for doing handyman type stuff. So it shouldn't be a big surprise that as soon as I set the tilling blades into our yard the whole thing went KA-CHUNK KA-CHUNK and spit out a brick and then stalled. Stupid me figured that it was just some stray brick so I crank it back up and hear and feel the same massive KA-CHUNK as another brick is thrown out of our yard. So now I sigh, get the shovel and spend the next 2-3 hours shoveling the whole back yard and unearthing about 50 bricks that were all about 1 inch under the top soil. Of course I rented the damn tiller for only 4 hours and if I went over the price went something ridiculously high like from $75 to $225 so now I had to scramble to till the yard so that I could return it in time.

Long story short - I got the job done, but man what a hassle. The yard does look nice now though - hopefully the sod takes. It's supposed to rain this whole week so that should help.

Pokerwise, I have been playing short sessions of Heads-Up $10/20 Limit. It's a super swingy game but I am liking it because I can play for small sessions which fits in with letting me be able to get the house prettied up.

Some Progress

I rented a storage unit and have made quite a few trips with my pickup so the house is looking emptier. It is still a mess and there is still quite a bit to do, but progress is being made. We are going to be putting it on the market at the end of this month and then we'll just hope for the best.

Poker is taking a back seat at this point but I have been playing some cash both online (up and down) and last night I went to a local casino with some friends and made over $700 which always feels nice.

Sick and Tired of Losing

I

AM

JUST

FED

UP

OF

LOSING!

whine whine whine, cry cry cry. Same old same old. Play 24 tourneys. Cash in 6 of them. Get a 16th, a 17th, a 25th, a 33rd, lose money for the day. Rinse and repeat. I need to stop getting coolered late, I need to win a flip late....

I NEED A FUCKING WIN!

Too much work

We were supposed to go to Carmel Valley this weekend with my wife's family but my wife has too much work to do to prepare for a grand rounds presentation that she has to give next week. I have major problems in general with how many hours our medical system makes residents work in general. I understand that they have to get their training somehow and that involves lots of hours but I think they should probably add a year of residency to each program so that the residents are working more like 60 hour workweeks rather than 80 hour workweeks. On top of that, I think making residents have to do all this extra work (M & M's, grand round presentations, and a chief year project) is just ridiculous. Anyhoo, the trip is now off so I should be putting in some volume this weekend instead.

Poker continues to frustrate the bejesus out of me. I have 2 10ths and a 7th in my last two sessions. My 10th today was in a $55 tourney on stars that had over 2000 entries. First place was worth over $15k, 10th brought me like $700. Bah.

Our whole house fiasco has also occupied a ton of my time this week. I have done a lot of research into the financial implications of renting our house out rather than trying to sell it. While there are some tax breaks, we are still going to take a huge hit no matter what we do so I still am leaning towards putting the house on the market, taking our lumps and moving on. We shall see...

Stressed Out

Poker continues to go poorly (even though I feel I continue to play well). Our house situation is just going to be a huge money drain that is looking like it's going to be ugly ugly ugly. My wife has like 3 different projects going on on top of her 80 hour workweeks. So all in all, life is not at its pinnacle right now.

A huge cash infusion from a nice poker score sure would be nice....

Back in the Saddle

I've spent the last couple of days getting the house at least somewhat presentable. I have net with 3 different realtors and now will have follow-up meetings with all of them where we get into the real nitty gritty and discuss listing prices, costs, staging, etc. The market in Sacramento took one of the worst dumps in the country so I am not looking forward to this at all because it is very likely we will not only lose our entire down payment but will also have to bring a check to closing. But I am also not real keen on renting our place, having to be landlords from a distance and taking a monthly hit since we wouldn't be able to rent it for close to what our monthly mortgage payment is... and then still having to put it on the market in a couple of years with no assurances that the housing market is going to rebound significantly.

So long story short, I think we are just going to tuck our tail between our legs, take a huge financial hit, and be done with it and start over fresh in Fresno.

On the poker front, I put my first session in last night and it was the same old story. I cashed in 6 out of 20 tourneys with 2 8ths, a 14th, a 21st, a 27th, and a 33rd. So yeah I continue to get deep in lots of different tourneys and I just fail miserably at closing.

Back Home Again

I'm not super keen on announcing my future vacations on this blog just because I don't really love announcing that our house is going to be empty for a decent period of time. So that's why I wasn't updating a lot recently. My wife had a week off and we headed to Santa Barbara. She had to do quite a bit of work while she was there so it wasn't a super exciting vacation, but it was nice, as always, to just relax and be treated like royalty. My sister's kids are the biggest germ carriers I've ever come in contact with so whenever I visit them, I get sick, so unfortunately I spent a good part of this last week recovering from a nasty head cold.

Anyhoo, I just got back from the 6 hour drive home. I am meeting with a couple of realtors tomorrow. And then I hope to be getting back into the poker swing later this week as well. Right now I am more worried about getting the house ready to be put on the market then anything else, so we'll just see how poker fits in and I'll go from there.

Driving Miss Daisy Coming to an End

So I've spent the last half-week here in Dallas. My only true job duty was to drive my sister's kids to school (and one ballet lesson) and pick them up. My mom was also here so her duty was more of the true childcare role and I have to admit that she took the vast vast majority of that role so I had somewhat of a cakewalk. I was able to sleep in. I didn't have to wipe any butts or make any meals. But I did at least give her a bit of a break every day when I played with them and bounced them on the trampoline, or pushed them on the swings. Anyhoo, I am heading back home tomorrow and my real life will be ready and waiting for me.

My backer has decided to let me go and I really can't blame him. I have been a losing/breakeven player since August so paying me to either lose money or breakeven just doesn't make a lot of sense financially. 90% of a negative to a breakeven number is still a loss...

I thought about trying to keep putting my salary deal out there but I have decided that I am just going to bite the bullet and resume playing on my own dime. To be honest even though it definitely adds stress, I am also looking forward to it. I want poker to be my career. And if it is going to be my career then I either need to make money playing the game or I need to find another career. So it is sink or swim time for me, and I am hoping that everyone sees me swimming like Michael Phelps sooner rather than later.

Off to Dallas

My sister is going on vacation with her husband to some exotic place and needs someone to drive her kids to school and soccer and whatnot while she is gone, so I am heading off to Dallas tomorrow to re-enact Morgan Freeman's role in Driving Miss Daisy.

I have been working really hard this month so that I would be able to get my 400 tourneys in before I left for Dallas and I finished my 400th tonight. So far I am about as close to break even as you can get for the year (I am up $132.55 to be exact). I am really liking how I am playing lately. My in the money percentage is at close to 20% and I am getting deep in many different tourneys - I just need that elusive late run good and everything should fall into place.

Once I get back from Dallas my plan is to start calling realtors and tying up whatever loose ends are necessary to get our house on the market.

Broken Record Post

I almost didn't post this because I know it will sound like a broken record, but I haven't updated in a while and I don't want those who actually do check this blog out to think I have died.

So poker has been the same as it has for a long time for me. I am making a lot of deep finishes. Even a couple of final tables, but still just can't get that big score.

Everyone keeps telling me that all I can do is continue to put myself in the position to make the big scores and eventually they will come. My only worry is that maybe they just won't come anymore...

Back to winning

I was supposed to go to the driving range this morning, but it was raining so instead we just had breakfast and shot the shit. I then got some errands done this afternoon and put in a smallish session tonight. It started off about as bad as it can get with bad beats/lost races/and just getting brutalized over and over again with KK (either running it into AA or raising per getting called and having the flop come A hi). Anyhoo I stayed the course, ground it out and somehow managed to make a profit for the day.

The day was still frustrating - I got 2 14ths and one of them was in the 75k which I just seem to love final table bubbling; and my JJ lost to 55 all-in preflop for a 30+ BB pot at a $100 Final Table putting me out in fourth.

But.... I did also make two final tables and I am now back to just barely profitable for the new year. So instead of ruminating on the frustrations I am going to try and focus on the positives.

I am playing well. I am giving myself every opportunity to get deep in tourneys and get big scores. I am healthy and still get to make my own hours. So hopefully this will be a good way to kickstart my long weekend where I am heading to S.F. to hang out with my family.

I'll be back grinding away again next week.

Not a lot to report

We went to D.C. for a family reunion over New Year's which was short but sweet. I don't see my step-brothers very often so I enjoy it when I get to see them and their families. Watching the Badgers lose the Rose Bowl was disappointing but at least it was a really fun game to watch.

Pokerwise, the new year is unfortunately starting off very much the same way it ended. I play well, I get deep in some tourneys, I keep missing that elusive huge score. Tonight I played a small session after watching the Seahawks/Saints game and managed to final table and get 5th in the nightly 75k on Tilt. It was a nice chunk of change but it was also agonizingly close but not quite there to a huge score. 1st place was over $18k, and my fifth place finish was under $5k.

I will keep grinding and hopefully have a huge post to report soon.