Time to stop being retarded

Ok - for those of you that get offended by the word retarded, you can pretend I wrote mentally challenged instead.

Anyhoo, I have just been way way too results oriented this last week which has led to me being frustrated more than I would like. I always do my best when I just focus on making good decisions and letting the results happen. To be perfectly honest, I don't even know how good my decisions have been this last week because all I was doing was focusing on my bad results.

I am taking the rest of today and tomorrow off, and am already looking forward to getting back to it on Sunday.

I also e-mailed the volunteer coordinator at the Boys & Girls Club so hopefully I will start getting out of the house at least once a week and doing something useful in the near future.

Still grinding

Back to the grind. I finally played over 10 tourneys in a day again yesterday - played so/so.

Today I played perfect and just ran bad. I had one horrendous beat on the bubble of the 50 rebuy on stars that sent me in a tizzy. I am playing FTOPs tonight, but I think that will be it.

Here's to running better.

Trying to get my head back on straight

For the second night in a row I took some bad beats/coolers early on and just knew I wasn't in the right mindset so I just packed it in. I might take tomorrow off. The good thing is I am not tilting my roll off. The bad thing is I am not getting in any volume. But I'd rather not play at all then play bad.

Once a crybaby always a crybaby

I don't know what it is about me that I still take every bad beat personally. It's more than that though, I still get annoyed whenever I lose a race. I expect to win everytime, and when I don't, I turn into a 5 year old and want to throw a tantrum.

As you can guess, I did not have a good night tonight. It started off bad in the FTOPS event which was my biggest buyin for this series at $1k. I lost early on in a blind battle when my 7d9d ran into 4h6h on a 6d8d6s board which is basically a cointoss. After that I quickly lost in other tourneys in bad beat situations and then I just decided to pack it in for the night and not register anymore.

The crazy thing is that I know I am having a kickass year. After my score last week, I have over a 100% ROI, I have made over 50k this year (in less than 6 months), and I am doing it all in a very low number of overall tourneys which means I am taking tons of time off. Yet even knowing all of this, I still want to break my keyboard whenever my QQ loses to AK.

Sunday

Sundays are big days in online poker. Most of the sites havea big guaranteee tourney and since most people don't work on Sundays, a lot of players who have "real" jobs will take their shot in these tourneys. Since Sunday is usually my wife's day off, I normally don't get to partake in these pretty lucrative tourneys. I got to play today which is always fun, but didn't get any huge results. In fact, my net sum for the day was exactly $1. Better than losing I guess.

All I needed in 2 of the tourneys I played was to run a little better, but my play was fine - I know in the long run, I will get there again.

I also got a run in today for the first time in a long time, so I will try to continue with that. I was hoping to play volleyball tomorrow night, but I forgot I have agreed to play the $1k FTOPs event, so maybe next week.

Other than that, life is good. I am enjoying watching the Olympics, getting back in shape, and even though I am not playing the volume I would like, I am still enjoying playing.

Whoops

I was supposed to play the FTOPS $300 1 rebuy/1 add-on tourney today and thought that it started at 6:00 when it actually started at 11:00. Worst part is that I was awake and ready to play.

Back to some goals

Wife is back to working lots, no family reunions in the near future, no big item purchases coming up, lots of free time = time to get back to some goals. Working out, running, playing volleyball, basketball, and maybe some volunteering are all in the mix.

I got my first workout in today; tomorrow I am planning on running. We'll see how it goes...

Pokerwise, I should be back to a full schedule tonight. I'm just going to continue to concentrate on playing well, and let the results come from there. I'm also going to be finishing up my video for pokerpwnage this week. So far we haven't got my account set up there, but I actually always learn something from reviewing my own play, so it can't hurt.

wheeeee for 5 figure scores

well I didn't put in the volume I wanted, but I got the results I've been wanting. I got 3rd in the nightly 100k guarantee on Stars for $16k. I've been running so horribly on stars this year that it felt nice to finally turn it around.

The FTOPS (a series of higher buy-in tourneys on FullTilt) starts tomorrow, so I'll be back at it for that.

Mr. Fix-It

I am absolutely horrible at fixing things. That's why we bought a "turn-key" house - I might have the time to complete the projects necessary for a fixer-upper, but I have neither the know-how nor the patience to actually do them. Which is why today I feel super impressed with my fixer upper tasks. First I switched a sprinkler head from a full circle spray to semi-circle so that our deck would get a little less doused everytime the sprinklers go on; second and more impressively I fixed the kitchen faucet. The water pressure in that sink was just atrocious. I ended up breaking a filter off, but it worked and there is still another filter at the end of the faucet so I really don't see a problem.

On the poker front, my plan is to start playing tonight around 5, and to get a full session in tonight.

Weekend Off

My wife just got home from call, which for a resident means that she worked a 24 hour shift. But she is off the rest of the weekend and Monday as well, which means I am taking the rest of the weekend and Monday off too.

I continue to love the flexibility that poker gives me. In fact, it is that flexibility that finally turned my wife around and made her a proponent of me playing poker rather than practicing law. If I had a "real job," there would be times when she is off that I would have to work; we might not be able to get the exact same weeks off for vacation; I would want to spend some of my time off playing poker. Since I get to set my own schedule, none of that is true, and we are able to maximize what little time off she gets together.

On the other hand, I think I may have fallen a little too much in love with this whole idea of setting my own schedule. After reviewing my stats last night, I realized that I have only played 600 tourneys this year. For most pros, that equates to two months worth of tourneys or less. I don't play as many tables as others, but even I am surprised at how little I have actually played this year. I can easily play 12 tourneys in an 8 hour day. 12*15=180. So even if I just played every other day I should be playing at least 180 tourneys a month. In fact, I have averaged just 120 tourneys per month (I have only played 5 months this year because I didn't really play in January or February as I was studying for the bar exam). That means I have played only 10 full days of poker per month on average. Although I want to make sure that I don't play so much that I get burned out, I also realize that I am losing money by not playing - the more volume I can play (as long as it is around the same ROI), the more I make. So I need to play more. My goal is going to be 200 tourneys/month.

Small victory

I took down the Big Double "B" on Tilt for a little over $3k. Nothing huge, but it keeps my bankroll going in the right direction. The funny thing was, I actually got super frustrated tonight because I just have been taking some horrible beats. This tourney was the last one I was in for the night, and everything just worked out. I played mistake free, and got a big enough stack that even when I got sucked out on I could keep grinding my stack back up. The only thing I feel bad about is that I didn't record it as I was playing - it would have made a good video because it was one of those rare times where I was the chip leader with like 100 left and stayed at the top until the very end.

First pokerpwnage video

So I recorded my first segment for pokerpwnage today. I decided to do the $26 Knockout that I won on Fulltilt a couple of months ago. I am actually surprised at some of the moves I made early on in that tourney as I think I misplayed a few hands and was playing way tighter than normal. But I also think a lot can be learned from mistakes, so hopefully people will like it. Even if they don't, I always end up gaining from doing the videos as it gives me insight into my own play, so it really is a can't lose proposition.

I am about to fire up some tourneys and am hoping to put in a pretty full day. We'll see how it goes...

Back to the grind

Well the title of this post really isn't fair. I am back to working again, but I have to say that I still really enjoy playing so it isn't a grind at all. I know quite a few poker pros who no longer enjoy playing - for them poker really has become a grind. Thankfully, it's still not like that for me. I think a big part of it is that I take lots of time off and with my wife's guaranteed income I am fortunate to be able to do that. So I'm not working 7 days a week. I'm not playing 16 hours a day. Basically I am not burning myself out.

Tonight is just another example of my refusal to force myself to play. I normally would be playing an evening session, but the Cubs/Brewers game is on and I'd rather watch that. So I am.

Anyhoo, I didn't make any money today, but I played well. Tomorrow should be a full schedule. I am looking forward to it.

Car buying

So we got it. We (more like she) chose an Audi A4. It's deep-sea blue and has a whole bunch of nice gadgets, such as navigation and bluetooth (meaning we can talk on the phone without having to punch any buttons), so it's a nice new car. Now that we have it, my wife is in the "did we pay too much for a car" phase, but once she drives it on a daily basis, I'm pretty sure she'll be happy with it.

Anyhoo, now that it's finally here, I can also get back to work, and getting back in shape, and finding someplace to volunteer.

Car shopping

My style of shopping, is much different than my wife's. However, after a second weekend of re-testdriving, looking at colors, and doing research on edmunds.com we have decided on a car we want. Now all I have to do is haggle a bit about the price today and then hopefully it will be ours w/in this week.

I feel bad that we dragged our sister-in-law to all of this, but my wife was very happy to have her help. It was nice having her here as well.

I need to finish a video that I had promised to do for grinderschool, and then I need to start my first one for pokerpwnage. I'd also like to start playing again this week.

Weekend Off

My wife is actually off for the entire weekend and her sister came up to visit for the weekend, so I am just going to chill and spend some time with the fam.

Being able to have this flexibility is one of the many reasons why I hope that I can continue to have success at playing poker professionally.

pokerpwnage

I was asked to become a guest instructor for a new poker training site called pokerpwnage.com today. The site already has quite a few of the top ranked online tournament players as instructors, including USCPhildo, GhettoFabulous, UHBigTex, and Assassinato. Since I do not play anywhere close to the volume of these top ranked players (they play about 4 times as many tourneys as I do), I am not nearly as well known as them, so I was somewhat surprised even to be asked.

Anyways, my current poker goals are: 1) to keep winning at the same rate that I have been this last year, but also 2) to get my name out in the poker community as much as possible to try and bring in some other money making opportunites such as this one. So I am excited to this, and hopefully this site will take off and people will like my videos. If so, maybe some rizenesque opportunities could come my way. We shall see...

Nice Sunday score

I got 5th in the 200k guarantee on UB for just over 10k.

I was a little disappointed not to win it since I was in first place with 6 to go, but winning 5 figures in a day is still a big deal for me.

So wheeeeeeeee!!

Poker Year in Review

After getting 9th place in a big tourney last night and going to place dejected that I didn't get a top 3 finish I realized today that I needed to take a step back and review the year.

For the year I have played 540 tourneys, cashed 87, final tabled 16 (5 firsts (all on Tilt), 1 second, and 1 third).

Considering that I really didn't play much the first three months of the year since I was studying for the bar, I am very happy with both my profit (over 30k) and ROI over 70% for the year.

I am still on target to make over 60k this year, for my roll to grow, and for good things to keep happening. The toughest part for me has been the mental aspect since I am always expecting to win it still frustrates me to run bad. I also still want to become more socially and physically active. But all in all, I really have nothing to complain about. When you add in the fact that I passed the bar and can become employed if I need to, life really is purty good.

This weekend we should be test driving some cars, once we make the final purchase I'll post pics.

Back from Vacation

I just got back from a great couple of weeks relaxing, playing, visiting family in Santa Barbara and L.A. The plan now that I'm back is to make a whole bunch of doctorish appointments (I need new glasses, dentist, etc.), buy a new car, and of course play some poker.