Back in Sac-town

The photo is me and Jack - my nephew from Dallas.

I'm back and continuing the laziness. I actually played 3 tourneys today, but for whatever reason I can't get the new update on Tilt to download on my desktop so I can't use my pokertracker and don't really like playing on this laptop. I think I will be getting a new computer next year because it is now like 7 years old and is just getting slower and slower.

Our Wisco friends' flights got canceled so my wife and I will just enjoy vegging out a bit this weekend. She needs and deserves it - she works way too much. I am hoping to get in a couple of movies since so many good ones are out now.

Christmas is pretty anticlimactic this year since my wife is working 30+ hours, but we will be celebrating with her family when they come up next week for new years.

In Dallas

So I am enjoying my time just chilling with my family here in Dallas. I have gotten a couple of messages from people wondering about the possibility of becoming my "protege" next year. I'll be honest and say that I really haven't given in that much thought, so I am not sure exactly what it will entail or how I will go about picking possible students. No matter what, it won't happen until February. Once I do figure it out, I'll make sure to let interested people know.

Depending on how well I travel, I should be home tomorrow - and then we have some friends coming (this time if they travel well) from Wisconsin on Friday. Then my wife's family comes up to visit us for New Years so I probably won't be playing or posting much until next year.

Getting bored?

So I have been doing nothing the last couple of days and thought I was getting bored enough to play today. Turns out I am bored but still not really into playing. I entered 2 tourneys at 5:00 with the plan of playing the quarter million on stars and the sniper on UB at 6:00 but after I made an iffy call in one and got coolered in the other I just decided to hang it up.

Tomorrow I have some errands to run before we head off to Dallas so I won't be playing then either.

Motivation seems to be my achilles heel - hopefully I can figure something out because the only way for me to make more money is by playing more volume.

Year in Review Time/Goals for Next Year

At this time of the year there are always programs recapping the last year on tv, so I figured it is time for me to do so as well.

My goals for this year were:
1) pass the bar exam
2) attain at least a 50% ROI playing poker
3) make $100 k playing poker, and
4) get back in shape.

I accomplished 1 and 2 and although I didn't make 100k I made enough so that with our combined income we lived perfectly comfortably. I am still woefully out of shape so of the four goals that is the one I failed most miserably.

I also became an instructor for pokerpwnage.com which was unexpected but has gone really well so far. So all in all, I feel like I had a really good year.

My goals for next year are going to be pretty similar to last years':

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 am also seriously considering taking on a student or two as a sort of "protege" and will coach them in return for a percentage of their winnings. The only thing keeping me back from announcing this at this point is that I want to really concentrate on getting my volume in first - once I feel that I have that under control and have time for coaching I will do so.

The rest of this year will consist of playing when I can but there is going to be a lot of non-playing time too with all of the visits and visitors we have planned.

Getting Christmasy

So I haven't played since my final table on Tuesday (which really shouldn't be a surprise with me). When I actually put in volume I let the house go to crap a bit, so I've been catching up on raking the yard, cleaning the garage, just generally getting the house in order.

I also bought a christmas tree, only to realize when I got it home that it was too big for our tree stand. So a couple hours of using the crappy saw that I have and shaving parts of the trunk off and I try again... only to realize the tree is just too damn big for the plastic stand that we had. The f-bombs were definitely flying but today I walked the dog to the neighborhood hardware store and got a new stand. And finally we got the sucker up. Yay for small successes.

Pokerwise I am thinking seriously of what I want my goals for next year to be. I am debating about whether I want to take a student or two on or if I just want to focus on playing as much as I can. I do know that I want to try and double my volume - if I can keep around the same ROI as this year and double my volume I should have a super successful year.

Tomorrow my father-in-law comes in and my wife is off for the weekend, so I'll probably be back and playing next Monday.

Little hot streak going

I got 5th in the Nightly 100k on pokerstars. I feel I played really well overall so even though I am disappointed not to take down the 1st place (which was over $20k), I still can't be too upset.

The last three days I've played I've made a final table so that's pretty amazing especially considering the low volume I put in (I only played 4 tourneys tonight). My bankroll is comfy again too, which just takes a lot of stress off.

A big part of me is considering just coasting into next year with a nice profitable December and not really playing anymore this month, but we'll see how bored I get.

Errands

I haven't played much because I am just getting stuff done. Yardwork/x-mas shopping/cooking/etc. We are going to be doing quite a bit of family/friend visits as well these next 4 weeks so I definitely won't get a full schedule in this month.

This weekend my father-in-law comes. Next week I go to Dallas to visit my sister and fam. X-mas week we have some friends from Wisco coming in. And then New Years we have my sister's family coming in.

I will try and get a session in tonight and the rest of this week until my suegro comes in on Friday.

Big steps

I won the $55 Freeze out on Stars for over $15k today. It feels great to win again and plowing through a field that big (almost 2000 entries) is really tough. Basically I won back everything I lost playing cash, so I am just vowing to myself that I won't play cash anymore. I win money playing tourneys, I lose money playing cash - so it should be a no brainer.

Anyhoo - my wife is off tonight and tomorrow, so I'm taking a little time off and then I'll be back at it next week.

Small Steps

I got 3rd in the afternoon $55 tourney on Fulltilt. I still felt a little (ok a lot) deflated as I got reamed/coolered in 2 huge hands late. It's easy to say all you can do is get it in good and focus on your play not the results, it's a lot harder to swallow when 3rd place is 2700 and 1st is 6k.

The nice part is that I finally had a positive day after so many consecutive losing days. The bad part is that it really only covers about 3 days of losses.

I am playing really really well though, so I feel a big score coming...

Volume is tiring

I played really well this afternoon, but didn't get much of a break in during the afternoon like I usually do and played like poo tonight. It was my first time playing like poo for a while so I just need to make sure not to play when I'm tired.

Tomorrow is another day...

Poker time

Well, I finally have like a two week window where I can put in a lot of volume. November was really frustrating because I played so little in terms of tourneys and I never got a real good score, and I was playing quite a bit of cash which just went horribly so my bankroll has suffered.

The last two days I have (and will be) playing a lot of tourneys, and I am playing great, but just not getting rewarded. Yesterday was full of bad beats which just shows I am getting it in way ahead. Today was not bad beats as much as it was just never winning a race when I really needed to.

My bankroll is now the lowest it has been for months, and I am anxious to get it back up again, but I need to make sure to just keep playing well otherwise I have a tendency to get overaggressive trying to make things happen and I just blow up opportunities to make deep runs.

Turkey weekend

So the plan was to just make a baked chicken for me and the wife. Instead she invited 4 others so while I was shopping I figured I might as well just get the free turkey at the grocery store. Of course there were only like 10 turkeys left at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, so I got the smallest one, which was a svelte 19 pounds, and after a couple of hours of hot water down it's throat, tom turkey was finally thawed enough to go in the oven.

I was definitely concerned that it wouldn't get done, but in the end it was just fine. We actually had a really good time with a co-resident and her husband... maybe too good of a time, as my wife spent the next day recuperating.

Today was absolutely gorgeous out so we took the dog for a nice walk, and then went and got a little shopping done. We topped it off with a movie and saw Changeling, which we both thought was one of those movies you should probably watch at some point, but isn't really necessary to see at a theater.

Pokerwise, I am playing a full day tomorrow and as usual after a little time off I am excited to play. Hopefully I'll remember it's just one mile out of the marathon so although I hope to have a great day results wise tomorrow all I can do is control my play and let everything else work its own way out.

Grindin' Some Back

I got 4th in a small tourney for like $1.5k. I took a bad beat 4 handed but I can't bitch too much because I gave a lot of bad beats as well. At this point I am just pissed at myself for donking away all that money playing cash - but there really is nothing I can do but move on, play well, and win it back.

I will be playing a small aft session tomorrow and then will be off for a bit again as my wife actually has Thanksgiving off.

So happy turkey day to all!!

Bad Sunday

I cashed just one of the 13 tourneys I played today. But my losses were all due to bad beats or coolers so I am playing very very well. Just going through a bad spell.

Unfortunately I lost quite bit playing cash as well this weekend so my bankroll has taken quite a beating. Time to start grinding it back - I'm due for a good win.

Meh x2

The horridness continued tonight. I am still playing fine so blah blah blah the results will come, but still tilts me to lose. I did win back about half my buyins for the night in 10 minutes playing 15/30 heads up limit so that makes me feel a bit better.

The wife is off this weekend so I should be back playing on Monday.

Meh

Well I finally got an afternoon session in and meh. I can't remember so many bad beats in a while. Only tourney i got really close to doing anything in was the $20 rebuy on tilt where I lost a chiplead pot with AK<88. So I played fine and ran bad. Seems standard.

I should be playing again tonight.

Tourneys are frustrating because you can play technically perfect and you still won't cash like 80% of the time. bad beats/failing to win races/card dead/etc and poof you're out. Adding to the frustration is that you put in 3+ hours and end up walking away a loser.

Here's to running good/keeping a good mindframe/getting in some volume.

Wheeeeeeeeeee.

Still trying to get back in the swing of things

Well I continued my delve into the sickness that is heads-up Limit Poker. It is different than any other game because you basically end up seeing on a flop on almost every hand. Since it's limit the biggest bet you have to call preflop is just one BB and since you're just playing one opponent who has position that person is raising close to 100% of the time. So you end up defending your blind an incredibly high percentage of the time.

It is a fun game but it is incredibly swingy - moreso than headsup NL in my opinion, which leads me to just get into these huge sessions where I just sit down and play and play and play and play.

Monday night I began a session and I didn't stop until noon on Tuesday. So I am still exhausted and just trying to get motivated to play. As always with me, motivation is my biggest hurdle. When you get down to it, I think I am just naturally lazy. Getting motivated to work out, to play poker, to clean the house, to do errands... it's just always more of a challenge than I think it should be. It's so much easier to lie down in front of the tv, fart around on the internet, and do nothing. Then again doing nothing gets pretty boring after awhile and so the cycle begins again.

Anyhoo - I'm going to get a run in today by running to Trader Joe's (ha killing two birds with one stone) and then will play my nightly schedule. Hopefully after a good night sleep tonight things will be start clicking back to normal.

Decided I wanted to play but didnt want to think...

So I played Heads-up Limit poker. I am now pretty cautious playing this game because even though you don't have to think, there is something about it that just sucks you in. My eyes glaze over, but I keep on playing. It's because of this that I've lost a buttload playing this game before so I was careful this time and stuck to one table. But it did suck me in again.

I think i've played like 16 out of the last 24 hrs. And I am basically even. LOL.

At least I earned a ton of points and am now super close to getting a new computer screen which should be nice.

Back to it

So the dogsitting is over and I got to actually play on Sunday which is a good thing.

The bad thing is I made a pretty spewy move in the FTOPs Main Event when I had a stack where it was unnecessary to do so and then I bubbled the only tourney I came close to cashing in which was the Second Chance on Stars. So I wasn't real happy about my play, but the leaks are definitely patchable.

I should hopefully get some real volume in this week.

Grinding some cash

I actually played one tourney today - I bubbled the FTOPs omaha event. Other than that I've been playing some small sessions of Heads Up cash on Tilt. Yesterday was about even - today was super positive. I won like 2 1/2 buyins in a small period of time. I know that HU is vey swingy so I just need to make sure to watch my tilt monkey and make sure I don't go nutso. The nice thing is I'm only playing 1/2 so I can't donk off that much. From what I've seen so far the players stick to their "normal" style and aren't real good at adjusting and adjusting is what heads up play is all about, so I might have finally found a cash game that I could excel at if I took some time to pursue it.

In other news it looks like Bush is going to storm trooper his UIGEA bill in at the last minute which has the online poker world up in arms. As I've told other people, I think a lot of people tend to take an attitude that the sky is falling when we still don't know all the info or what exactly is going to happen. If the worst possibility happens and online poker goes busto, at least I have my bar privileges...