Blue table time!

I played an afternoon session today that didn't go so well, so when it ended around 4:40 I decided that I would take the dog for a walk, eat some dinner and then crank up a later nightly session (I usually start my nightly session at 5 p.m.).

So I did just that and then played bad/took some bad beats early on so I decided to unregister for the later tourneys that I was going to play and just stick with the two tourneys I was left in. Well 6-7 hours later and I made the money in both tourneys and ended up winning the $30 rebuy on Tilt (when they seat you at the final table on tilt the software puts you at a blue table - hence the title of this post) for just over $7k which brings me back out of the hole for December and should mean my 4th consecutive winning month in a row. It also brings my yearly ROI to 99.4% and brings my bankroll up to the highest I have ever had it, so it definitely was a good way to end the night.

I need to clean the house and yard tomorrow and then I am making a dinner for my wife and her best friend from work tomorrow night and then I have family coming in on Christmas eve, so I will not be playing any poker for the rest of this week. So in case I don't post again, I wish all of my readers (yes all 4 of you) a merry christmas.

Tying up some loose ends

It is rainy and drizzly here so I didn't want to clean the floors only to have them get muddied up again + I might as well wait until right before my family comes on Thursday to start cleaning = all I did clean up wise today was vacuum and clean the dishes.

I did mail off our X-mas cards, put in an evening session and watched the Survivor finale so I did get some stuff done.

I also have been added to the pokercurious list of blogs so I might pick up some more traffic that way. We'll see.

I plan on playing a full session tomorrow and then will be off for a while as my wife's best friend is coming over Wednesday night and I am making dinner and then my wife's family comes for X-mas on Thursday.

Downtime

So my wife finally had a couple of days off and I've just been relaxing and spending time with her. I bought our christmas tree, did some errands, made and addressed x-mas cards, watched our dvr'ed Dexter and Survivor, and even better I still managed to make some money even when I wasn't playing because the guy who I help to stake and my "protege" (the student who I am coaching) both won tons o'cash and I get a percentage of that so yee haw that's a nice bonus too.

While I am talking about my protege, I have to say that he really impresses me. Of the 3 students I chose, only one really took full advantage of what I have to offer and the best part is that he is the youngest student I chose (he's still in college) and was playing the smallest stakes when we began. Not only did he pay attention when we had our 1 on 1 coaching sessions, but he also used and continues to use full advantage of the group of poker guys who I talk with on a ventrilo server. I talk with some great poker minds on a daily basis and not only do we have the ability to talk over poker hands and situations but we also very frequently get into some pretty in depth poker theory. So I just don't see how someone can not improve just sitting and listening to us and joining in on our conversations. He was the only one to do this, and it is no surprise to me that he has increased his average buy-in from $1-2 tourneys to now at probably around $15 and he has increased his nominal bankroll to well over $10k in these last 2 months. So yeah, it feels good to know that I was a part in making that happen.

Full Session No Results

I put in a full session today and basically broke even. I made it to the final two tables of 2 different tourneys but just couldn't get it done. I was (and still am) a little bit upset at myself because I semi-bluffed in one of the tourneys when I had a big stack in a spot that I just didn't need to waste chips and my opponent likely had me crushed. I feel like I rarely make those kinds of mistakes anymore so it was definitely frustrating to do so.

I do feel good that I finally put in a 50+ tourney week so I did get some volume in. Charmian has been working nights the last two weeks and she finally has some time off this weekend so I will play an afternoon session and then take Fri. night and Sat. off and maybe just play the later tourneys this Sunday (if at all).

The WSOP schedule is already out for next June and I am already starting to formulate my plan. I think I am basically just going to do exactly what I did last year and try to get a $30k roll together and play as many of the $1k-$2500 WSOP events as possible as well as mix in some of the side tourneys at the Venetian/Caesars etc. Once I put the ad up on PTP I will link it here for anyone who is interested in investing in me.

Small little score

I played the $109 PLO/8 tourney on stars as a filler tourney and took it down for like $2500. Nice to have a positive day. I also got 2 hours of coaching in which went well I think (I hope). So all in all I call it a good day.

First full day in a long time

I played two sessions today for a full day of probably over 10 hours of playing and just couldn't finish how I wanted to. The best I did was make the final table bubble of one tourney... Always a little frustrating to play that long and play pretty well and not get rewarded. I realize the last couple of months I have gotten a big score early in the month which has made things very easy. This month I have started slowly which means I need to dig myself out of a hole before I can feel better. And at the buy-in levels I am at now it is also pretty easy for that hole to get pretty big, pretty fast, so hopefully things turn around again soon.

I have also picked up a couple of coaching hours through pokerpwnage, so that should be a nice way for me to earn some side money each month.

Back to the Grind

I played my live game on Friday night and won the small tourney that was held and online I have been playing basically one session a day. It has been rainy and dreary here so other than taking Chula for a walk every day I haven't been getting out that much.

Charmian is stuck in the midst of working the night shift and was on call today so I haven't seen much of her. She was actually off yesterday but since she was working nights all last week her sleep schedule was all screwy so she couldn't get to sleep until like 7 in the morning and slept until 3 pm - and then had to wake up for work at 5am today so she basically woke up to go back to bed.

Anyhoo, she is on nights again this week which makes it hard for me to do anything other than hide in the garage during the day while she sleeps so that I don't wake her up.

Year in Review/Goals

This time of year is always a time to review how the year went and refocus on goals.

My goals for this year were to:

1) I want to maintain an ROI of at least 50%
2) I want to profit 100 k playing poker
3) I want to play at least 2500 tourneys (doubling my volume this year - and basically guaranteeing a 100k year if I can get close to a 50% ROI)
4) I want to continue garnering more exposure in the pokerworld which will hopefully lead to more moneymaking opportunities (sponsorships, writing deals, etc.), and
5) I want to get back in shape.

I have close to a 100% ROI for the year, I made close to 100k, I made a WSOP final table and through my pokerpwnage work I feel that I am gaining more exposure so I feel happy with goals 1,2, and 4.

I will end up playing about 1300 tourneys for the year which is just 1/2 of my volume goal so I failed there pretty miserably. And I am in the worst shape of my life so that was likewise a fail.

I also took on a couple of students and I feel like I have helped them make strides in their poker game. All in all I feel like I had a very good year, and feel very fortunate for the success I had. I continue to struggle with the volume/not wanting to make poker a grind balance but I do feel good about the fact that the vast majority of time that I play I am in a good mental place and thus play at a high level and with relatively few mistakes.

My goals for next year will be exactly the same as they were this year - the only difference is that I want to focus on getting back into shape as my primary goal.

Playing some again

I have put in two afternoon sessions the last two days and feel like I am playing well/fine just missing out on the big hands you need to win late in tourneys. So I will continue to play sporadically the rest of this month and continue to play my home cash games as well.

I also went for my follow-up appointment with my knee and it looks like I basically have lost a lot of cartilage in the knee. My options are physical therapy, some weird lubricating shot, and lastly surgery. I have decided to start with the pt and then just go from there. We'll see what happens.

Couple of pics

Thanksgiving was good. I am a family guy and I got to spend time with almost all of my family (one week in L.A. with my dad's side of the family and one week in Santa Barbara with my wife's family) so I am a happy camper.

I didn't take as many pictures as I would like but here are some of us with Chula on a Santa Barbara beach hike.

Home Again

After a two week jaunt visiting family in L.A. and Santa Barbara I am back home and exhausted from the 6+ hr drive today. I will try and post a recap later.

I am almost embarrassed to post it...

I decided to play an afternoon session today and I won one of the 7 tourneys I entered for just over $7k. I am obviously running just insanely good lately - whenever I play (which is rarely) I win. I realize the downswing will happen, but riding the upswing sure is nice.

Maybe Belichick's a poker player

On Monday Night Football this week, Coach Bill Belichick's Patriots went for it on 4th and 2 to go with a 6 point lead from their own 28 yard line with just over 2 minutes to play and the Colts left with only one timeout.

For those that don't know football, the situation basically boils down to this. If the Patriots gain 2 or more yards they win the game because the Colts will not be able to stop the clock. If the Patriots don't gain the 2 yards, the Colts get the ball back and only have to go 28 yards to try and get a touchdown to win the game in those last 2 minutes.

The other option for Belichick to have chosen is to punt the ball in which case he guarantees that the Colts will get the ball but they most likely will have to go closer to 60 yards in those last 2 minutes to score a touchdown rather than 30.

For Belichick the decision to go for it blew up in his face. The Patriots failed to convert, the Colts got the ball back and proceeded to score the winning touchdown in dramatic fashion. And the football commentators immediately gave him hell saying it was a retarded decision to go for it and they should have punted.

But according to this nytimes blog Belichick's decision mathematically was correct. The calculation used by this blogger is very similar to EV (expected value) calculations that poker players make all the time. According to the blogger, the EV of going for it was .79 and the EV for punting was .70. So going for it increased the Patriots' chances of winning by around 9%. If this were a poker decision, going for it would expect to gain you more chips and it would be an easy conclusion that going for it was the best play.

A common mantra in the poker world is to "stop being results oriented." A player's natural instinct after losing a big pot or getting busted from a tournament is to go back over the hand and figure out a way that he could have played the hand differently so that the bad outcome would not have happened. E.g. "If I had folded that AQ preflop instead of shoving my last 15 BBs I would not have run into AK and would still have chips left to play." But after playing thousands and thousands of hands, poker players finally begin to understand that as long as you keep making decisions which gain you chips in the long run, then you can shake off the times where those plays lose you chips in the short term on that specific hand.

I think the football world is being results oriented in criticizing Belichick's decision. If his team had converted the 4th down I don't think this controversy is even created. If anything, Belichick would be lauded for being ballsy. Is it common for coaches to go for it on 4th down in that spot? No. Does that mean it was the wrong decision? No.

I got my lazy ass out today

So I finally got myself out and going early today and went on a 1 1/2 hour bikeride. It was a beautiful fall day and it felt good to be out by the river but man I am out of shape. So it definitely was a good thing to get out and moving. If I actually remember I will try and take the camera with me tomorrow so I can take some photos.

Still just chillin'

I still haven't played an online tourney since I won that UB tourney 2 weeks ago. I just haven't felt the mojo to play, so I'm not going to until I do. So I cleaned the gutters, played some live poker today with my poker group and enjoyed watching one of my online buddies take down the 70k on pokerstars when I got home.

Wheee?

So I played in a cash game again last night. It was (for me) just a $20 tourney and there were 40 people who showed up. I ended up running like god late and chopped it when we got down to 3 players for like $270. But I feel a little bad about it because for me, I am just playing for fun, but for a lot of these guys $200 is more than they make on a daily basis so I would almost rather just break even or even lose a little bit than make money since the reason I am playing is more just to shoot the shit and get out of the house than anything else.

Anyhoo, I still haven't got the urge to get back to work online but I did finally vacuum and tidy up the house today and put in a little bit of a ghost session with one of my students so I feel I accomplished at least a little bit.

Tomorrow I play in another cash game and then I am planning on just taking everyday day by day.

Trying to find some motivation

I really haven't done anything since last Wednesday when I won the Sniper tourney on UB. I want to get the house cleaned up but haven't; I want to get back in shape but haven't exercised; I want to stockpile more money for my poker bankroll but haven't played...

It would be one thing if I was out living it up everyday and having a blast, but I am not even doing that. Instead I spend my days surfing the web, watching tv, and reading. And while it is always nice to veg out for a day or two it gets pretty boring when it goes on for a week... yet I still can't find the oomph to actually do anything.

The good thing this week is that my live home game group has 3 games this week, so I got to play last night, and will play again tonight and Friday night in a live setting with a good group of players where I always have fun.

I is bored!

So there is no way that I will be able to not play the rest of this month just because I would be way too bored. So the plan at this point is to get myself and the house back in shape and then play poker whenever I want. I am planning on playing quite a bit of homegames these next couple of weeks since I have no pressure on making money the rest of this month. But just sitting at home and not playing and watching my friends play is not very thrilling so the sit on my profits and not play plan is out.

I is Famous!

I got mentioned in the weekly roundup article on P5s. I am pretty sure when I signed up for pocket5s they asked where you were from, so I entered my birthplace, Nigeria, as my answer. So I am now the number #1 ranked (and only) player from Nigeria - in fact I am the #1 ranked player for the entire continent of Africa. The Nigerian Nightmare is back!!

Wheeeeeeeeeee

Not an FTOPs victory but I chopped the $215 sniper tourney on UB for $21k which is my biggest online score of the year. Always feels good to take down such a nice score. I'm sure I'll take tomorrow off and then I'll have the battle of making myself play or just being a lazy bastard. Not such a bad battle to have tho.