life just feels adventurous when you go out everyday

"One of the reasons I like living in a foriegn country is because your everyday interactions are more absurd and unusual, and life just feels adventurous when you go out everyday."
---
this was from a question/answer thing by a high stakes poker player "kane kung fu" and i like the part in bold a lot because it fits with what i've been thinking about.

"how am i"

my family asked if i'm doing ok and they sounded worried because of what i wrote below.

it's really not a big deal. i still am ok, and thing are getting better.

i just wrote that after a frustrating session where i lost two big pots in a row that i was a 90% or so favorite to win, and it sorta set me off after having that happen so much.

so anyways my last few sessions i made $3k and feel like i'm starting to play good again...and life is otherwise getting better too.

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caption:
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i havent won in 3 1/2 months!!! in fact from my highest point i've lost almost 12k! grooooosssssss!
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maybe u noticed but poker and stuff is driving me a bit nuts. part is me playing bad, but at least as significant is how lucky others are.
like ppl are putting in most or all of their chips with 8-20% chance to win and they do, that's the way things are going lately.

i'm going to take another break, and get coaching from a high(er) stakes pro. also just as important is im going to get out more around flagstaff, join a club or two and go socialize more.
like arnold schwarzenegger put it, "AHLL BE BOCK"

GOT A PUPPY YO!!!

here's some pics of him and other flagstaff stuff.





here's my building



and a trail to a mountain/hill right outside my apt!



view of east flagstaff from a mountain about 3 miles from my apt. my place is right past the rectangular purina factory building in the center.

playing bad

losing so much is starting to make me play bad. not horrible, but little things where if i was winning, i would not be doing.

for example, i just had this hand:

Ultimate Bet
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $1./$2.
4 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: $197
Button: $619.50
SB: $363.75
Hero: $336.85


Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is BB with :kd :ad
UTG raises to $7, Button calls, SB calls, Hero raises to $35, UTG folds, Button calls, SB folds.


Flop: :kc :9h :8h ($84, 2 players)
Hero bets $80, Button calls.


Turn: :2h ($244, 2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $110, Hero raises all-in $221.85, Button calls.


River: :6d ($687.7, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $687.7)



Results:
Final pot: $687.7
Hero shows Kd Ad
Button shows Jh 4h

my play was good/standard pre flop and on the flop. my read is this guy would call any two suited cards pre flop and on the flop with any pair or any straight or flush draw.

on the turn, my plan was to check and fold if he bet. the reason is there arent many worse hands that will call if i push, he has a flush a lot, and he will check behind with hands like 9sTh, JhTs, and probably KsJh.

but when he bet, i convinced myself he could be bluffing or have KsJh type hands. sometimes he will, but this particular player has a flush too much of the time for me to profitably continue in the hand.

i should have folded, but losing so many hands caused some short circuits in my brain, and made me "gamble" on the small chance i had the best hand.

i wanted to win so bad, i actually gambled instead of playing logically...wow.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

i am fucking fed up with poker right now. the number of pots i am losing is way out of line. it certainly can be just bad luck, but it's getting insane.

every time i have a set, someone has a straight. if i have a straight, someone hits a better hand on the river. if i have an overpair, someone hits a set...etc blablabla

for the first time ever, i might lose all the money i have on the main poker site i play. im not giving up on poker, after all ive made several 10s of thousands playing it despite the latest streak, but i think i'll just give up playing that site.

recently i withdrew my balance to $3k there, and with these losses it is down to $700 now. so either take the rest out, and play another site, or make my second-ever deposit (beside the $50 i put up 2 years back...).

folding

today i'm no longer a folding KK virgin. i feel like telling it fairy-tale like, so this is how it went down...

it was a $400 buy in online 6 handed game, and a weak-tight tag player with full $400 stack raised utg (first position). there was a short-stacked caller (maybe $160 stack) in late position, and i reraised to $60. the guy in front of me instantly cold calls the $60 with about $80 left (lol), and action is back on mr. weak tight.

without hesitation, he 4-bets it up to about $150. i actually forgot what hand i had, and thought, "damn...he has aces." then i see the late position player move all in.
action is back on me, and as i'm impulsively sliding my mouse to the "fold" button, i look back at my cards to see i have pocket kings. for 20 seconds i hesitate between push and fold, then i realize i need to go with my read so i fold.
the player behind me calls, and after the 5 cards come down, the weak-tighty shows the AA.

it was a kick-ass feeling to make such a big lay down and be right about it. later on, i made another big fold and was right. folding is such a rush!

seriously though, making reads like these and acting on them (not just folding but also bluffing, calling, etc.) involves intense concentration; a lack of impulsiveness...and it's this lazy, grinding, mentality that's keeping from me becoming an expert player.

<3 flagstaff

flagstaff is the shit...
my apartment is finally 1 bedroom...and it's freaking huge, with a trail going through mountain-like hills, and lots of other fun shiot.
people seem even nicer here than in wisconsin, at least so far.
there's still lots of bars and people my age who like to party/havefun.

but it's been super stressful for me lately with finding a place and dealing with the massive (for me) $ i've been spending, but once things feel finally "set up," and i get back to making graphs like the ones in my recent posts, i can see myself getting a lot healthier over here all around.

weeeeeeeeeeee

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

just back from live poker in albuquerque, nm and i made MONEY! just $400 but i had some drinks before so that's pretty good.

otherwise last month i lost a bunch, because of the stuff i wrote in the last blog, but then this month i made most of it back in just a few sessions - played one in o'haire airport, one in a fast food place in mississippi, and one or two in a hotel.

i'm excited to find a new place in flagstaff this week, even though this whole being a gypsy thing has been a great experience. here are some random highlights:
1- ran into black bears TWO times while hiking alone in the smoky mountains. they seemed more scared of me though haha.
2- an overly-nice middle-aged chick bought me round after round at a bar in fort worth texas, along with giving me $100 cash (wtf?). good times.
3- blew a tire at night on a remote highway in TN. a jolly old chubby guy pulled over and helped me, then invited me over for dinner. he and his wife then tried to get me into baptist christianity.
4- fired 50 rounds from a glock at a picture of osama bin laden at a shooting range in dallas TX.
5- met cool ppl around my age in chatanooga TN, my favorite place so far i think for that reason.

i could write more but i'm tired now, and still not sure what i think about a lot of it anyway.

DOWNswing...asking "why?"

i played a bunch more today, and actually started losing, and i couldn't get myself to stop playing. eventually i lost another $2k which really sucks right now.

the thing was, i knew i was a better player than 70-100% of the ppl at the tables i was at. but, in reality, i wasn't playing better because i didn't make the adjustments i needed when stuff happened, and was generally not thinking much at all...just playing MY cards (winning in poker is mostly from playing OPPONENTS cards). of course a big part of losing was people putting money in with little chance to improve, and then they do improve and i lose...
but mainly i wasn't betting my good hands well, and made untimely moves when i had bad cards.

i've got to quit playing for a while. and when i do play, ask, "are you just playing your cards?" if i am then i need to get myself to stop.

ugg

i'm playing like such crap lately. i'll be good until a random hand where i play bad, and then it sets things off.

tonight i lost $2,000...i need to wake up and play good again. it might be stress from getting ready to move, and stuff.

july...

I didn't play much this month (less than 1/2 as much as last month!) and when i did, actually didn't play very well, at least compared to June (still good enough to beat the games I played...). ANYways i made some $, about 6k including my bonus/rakeback monies, which I'm very happy with all things considered.

the best part of july was i took a few trips to visit friends outside WI, and had a lot of fun. getting some more balance is good.

actual deeper thinking in a hand i played

there's two hands here. the first one is with the same person i play against the second hand, and is sorta important to think about the second one.

my read on this guy is he was TAG (this basically means he was folding a lot, but when he did have a hand he was raising...tight-aggressive).

pre flop, i had a sorta tough decision to call or to re-re-raise (4 bet) him with my pocket kings.

there were two reasons i called:
-enough money went in pre flop, that as long as the flop doesn't have an ace than I'll be fine going all in, and he might think i'm bluffing.
-i felt he would look at this as a decent spot to reraise me with hands like he ended up having, which he would fold if I 4 bet him pre flop. if i thought he most likely had a good hand like QQ or AK, then i woulda just went all in pre flop.


******* Hand 1 ********

Ultimate Bet
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $2./$4.
6 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: $787.40
UTG+1: $1012.30
CO: $281.60
Hero: $469.40
SB: $400
BB: $711.55


Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is Button with :ks :kh
2 folds, CO calls, Hero raises to $18, SB raises to $62, 2 folds, Hero calls.


Flop: :8s :8c :tc ($132, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $90, SB raises all-in $338, Hero calls.


Turn: :ad ($808, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $808)



River: :2c ($808, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $808)



Results:
Final pot: $808
SB shows Jh As

my plan worked perfectly, we got all in on the flop. unfortunately he hit his ace and i lost.

but the important thing here was he made a pretty big semi bluff both pre flop and then again when i bet on the flop. he probably though i had a hand like 88 or 99, and would fold when he check-raised.

....

now the hand where i make a big-time spew.

this happens around 20 minutes later, and we hadn't played any hands vs each other since then.

i haven't reraised him pre flop for the entire time we've played, and so i thought it was about time i did that.

i reraised with A8s, a hand that figures to be better pre flop, but is hard to play post flop, so my goal was to just win the pot pre flop.

unfortunately he calls me...now it gets interesting. i flopped middle pair, and there is a possible flush draw. i was worried he would push if I bet and i wouldn't be sure if i should call with just a pair of 8s.

so i check it, and he bets. i looked at it like he was just protecting a weaker hand like 99, and raised him all in. he insta-calls, and turns over the hand i LEAST suspect, Q9o for top pair.

i honestly haven't seen a TAG player play this way before, most would dump everything worse than AQ pre flop (some call with a lil worse but not Q9)...
but after thinking it over, i think he actually played well. here's why:

-he should expect an aggressive player like me to reraise eventually pre flop, and that after it being so long i'd be getting a tired of folding to him pre flop, like i was. this means, he can profitably call my reraise with weaker hands, and plan to bluff me all in on the flop, since my trashy A8 hand is very unlikely to make a very strong hand.
-in the previous reraised pot, I bet with a good hand on the flop and he shoved over it with a weak hand. SO he should expect me to bet again if i have a good hand, since i'd want him to shove over again.
in other words, why would i check-raise??? oh ya, cuz i dont have a good hand and want him to fold, duh!!!


******* Hand 2 ********

Ultimate Bet
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $2./$4.
6 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: $189.80
UTG+1: $662
CO: $281
Button: $425.70
Hero: $428.60
BB: $427.95


Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is SB with :ac :8c
3 folds, Button raises to $14, Hero raises to $48, BB folds, Button calls.


Flop: :8s :qs :4c ($100, 2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $72, Hero raises all-in $380.6, Button calls all-in $377.7.
Uncalled bets: $377.7 returned to Button.


Turn: :ah ($552.6, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $861.2)



River: :tc ($552.6, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $861.2)



Results:
Final pot: $552.6
Hero shows Ac 8c
Button shows Qc 9h


THE MAIN LESSON HERE:
if an aggro tag is folding a lot in the blinds to button raisers, and then finally reraises, it's not as likely cuz they were waiting for pocker aces as they are just "taking a stand" witha more marginal hand.

this means, assuming they aren't likely to make big mid-pair type calls, that calling with some speculative hands like Q9 will be profitable, as long as you shove over a c-bet, or be willing to make a big call if they check-raise like this hand.

june graph

played decent (actually good, but have realized a lot i can improve on still...) and results show it!

patience danielson

i've been playing better lately and a lot of why is better patience. last night i started getting frustrated, because every time i had a decent hand, people kept on getting more help after the flop to beat me.

but i realized i was getting frustrated, so i reminded myself to stay relaxed about it.
in the past, i wouldn't realize the frustration brewing, so i'd start forcing the issue - making some bad bluffs or calls. usually this led to a blow up, and i'd have to quit the session.
but this time i stayed patient, waiting for the right situations to make moves and best ways to bet hands.
this seems like a good lesson for life too, not just poker...

EVENTUALLY i hit some majorly good spots, and i ended up with my 2nd biggest day ever, about $3,500. i prob will be over $15k this month!

after a year of living on about $1,400 a month, it's exciting to make this much money for me. i just paid off my credit cards (about $10,000), and bought a real nice laptop, and still have a lot left in the bank. still am saving up to start investing eventually...
but i'm planning one more big withdraw in mid june, so i'll be set for my journey across the southern US (thinking maybe $2,000 cost?) to eventually find a home in Flagstaff.
got any good ideas of where to stop? so far i'm planning chicago, st louis, memphis, nashville, dallas, albequerque, then flagstaff.

whew, no more myspace...and Aspiration Time

i just transferred my blog from myspace to here. it's worth it...myspace had some errors, and randomly required ppl to log in to view my blog.

so i just thought about some specific aspirations cuz of a forum thing here.

here they are:
pay back college loans (~30k). i'm halfway there so far.
succeed in 5/10 and up. but i'll need to improve more to do that...get more coaching or something.
longer term, to invest $ and get involved in something new, probably real estate investing or a new business.

some roadblocks...
- too much time online, like forums, watching cardrunners etc. need to keep on getting out, meeting ppl, and having fun.

OLD POST: June 12, 2007

just got graph thing to work

here's most of my poker graph since May 1 (1 or 2 thousand $ in the upward direction is missing since not all the hands were imported. so it should be up a bit more...)

OLD POST: June 11, 2007

biggest day eva

saturday i made like 4 thousand bucks, it was pretty exciting.

in the race to 30k $ i mentioned before, i am now in 2nd or 3rd out of 7 people, at +10k ish since may 9. ill need to keep running/playing hot to win it though...the guy in 1st says hes about to start playing a lot and hes already around +15-20k.

OLD POST: June 3, 2007

mayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy weee

+10k!!! best month in poker yet, and also biggest swing ever. can't get the graph thing to work so i'll just write stuff.

at one point i had swung down over 5k. i'm playing at higher levels though, so it's about 13 buy ins, which ties my biggest swing ever, except last time i played $50 buy in so that was just $650.

wow i've come a long way since then. just last year in june i was playing $25 buy ins. this month i played almost all at $400 buy ins, with a tiny bit of $200 and $600 mixed in. last june, a big day was to win $100. now it's winning $2,000.


in other news, i've decided it's time to offically put DormSource on hold (potentially permanently), and to move to the south west. i've wanted to live somewhere where it stays warm for a long time, and this is a good chance. i'm thinking flagstaff, az but maybe california.

if all goes to plan i'll eventually travel some outside the US, and get into some sort of business, probably real estate investing.

OLD POST: May 4, 2007

so i just made last month's $ in 5 days...

i'm riiiich b'otch!!

here is may 1 - may 5:





just getting warmed up for the competition may 9

OLD POST: May 1, 2007

meh small stakes is gettin old




so i started off very rocky this month, lots of experimenting and some real bad play, but as usual picked the ball back up and ran with it at the end.

im starting to play more and more of 400nl, and enetered a race with some poker buddies to see who can make $30k the fastest. one of them has made that in one month, two different times. so my new target now that i did 5k in a month, is to do 30k!!! hahaha. we'll see how it goes though, you never know, i can get intensely competetive for this sort of a thing. and the prize is about $1,500 (6of us put in $250).

OLD POST: Mar 31, 2007

holy




shit did i have some swings this month! nothing like losing $2,000 in a few days, then winning it back a few days later. $1k down, $1k up, rinse and repeat.

but then, like every month (how weird? or am i just focused at the end?), i manage to pull out of brokesville and make ~$3k in a few quick bursts, and fended off some short bust.

i've been sick though, and that's made me play worse. i think i learned a little this month, mostly getting better at folding, and picking up on bluffs. but this cold made me lose some dough for sure, by felting crap or raising weak hands out of their seats when i held the nuts. still, feel i got better at hand reading, and a little at the floating/reraising things i wrote a while back about needing to master. oh and i am getting ok with playing 4 tables at once.

i've been improving with social stuff, hanging out more with friends in madtown but feel still a need to get out more. going to fly with a friend to new mexico on monday though...he asked me if i wanted to go a couple days ago..it sounds like fun, and ive made some $ lately to spend so that will be good (spontanaeity yaya). otherwise i need to try out this nature preserve and bike-repair volunteering..and more live poker.

OLD POST: Feb 28, 2007

mo money



results for febrauary -- i broke 5k, and then i broke 6k! (counting my bonus and rakeback monies)

pretty tired now. oh, the last 2 days i made $2k. weeee. 400nl imma comin.

OLD POST: Feb 26, 2007

halfway

I ended up playing 14 hours. I won about 1,100.
but that doesn't count time spent thinking and reading about the game.
lets see if i can beet 14 and 1,100 this week!

OLD POST: Feb18, 2007

28 hours

this week i want to play 28 hours of poker and see how much money i make. can i? will i?

OLD POST: Feb 14, 2007

rambling rant- i made 10k...except i cant take money out

still beeng playing/running good, up about 2k so far in only 5k hands this month...and...
for my first time, i have $10,000 at one time in my poker bankroll! but it's on a poker site, and they aren't letting me withdraw it to my bank...and haven't replied to my emails. a little scary, and frustrating for me.
they're one of the top 5 most popular poker web sites, so i doubt they're ripping off like 10-50,000 ppls. they better reply soon though...!!!!

OLD POST: Feb 7, 2007

results in for january, and money sucks! life ok etc.



that's january results. i made more $, and spent less time on poker. yay for making money, boo for it meaning much. oh, and since ive been making so much, i should be starting the $400 buy in level soon! that means lotsa money, or busto...but bring it on biotch! i expect money over busto by 100000:1.

ANYway, been doing more stuff!

signed up for 1 credit, Technology Entreprenurship, as a guest student. basically it lets me meet ppl at the class, maybe learn, but mainly lets me use exercise facilities...YES! i played raquetball 2 days ago, kicked ass, going again in a little bit. exercising really boosted my mood and helped me sleep better (lately have been up til 5am-8am every night, sleeping badly til 12-4pm...).

also made a new friend or two. still looking to meet more though. same with getting out of the house, going better but still want more...

but things are looking better overall now!

OLD POST: Jan 17, 2007

money money, MONEY

So I made almost $3k in the first 4 days of this week...weeee!

I decided to just post one graph each month to make this less cluttered, but I'll still describe stuff so far....The month started, like usualy lately, on a slide for about $500 or something. Then I climbed back to even, and went up and down some hills...pretty much exactly like last month, until this week, where I've shot straight up from -200 to almost +2800! I'm feeling more confident lately, and making better decisions...catching some monster hands and a suckout here and there helps (yesterday I stacked someone for $200 getting all in with a flush draw + pair vs a set...hit a flush on the river though). This $5k in a month dream might come to reality this month.

Other than that, I'm starting to spend/waste less time on poker websites. Too much of the time it was just me zoning out, but I've started to watch more movies, and read more (finished The Hobbit, and almost The Fellow Ship of the Ring in the LOTR series). I haven't gotten out of my "house" as much as I want to, but think I've made progress...reading at cafes, tutoring high/mid school kids, contacted a volunteer org for restoring nature preserves and hiking (hopefully I do that), but still want to do more...specifically, going to try to get a cashier job at a low-traffic shop, something I can use to just talk to people and be out more for extended times, but not something stressful.

My goals this week: get dormsource.com working again, keep improving at poker (analyze big and some small pots each day), plan something fun with greg or devin and/or call joshua...possibly contact chelsey. find four places to contact for cashier type job.

OLD POST: Dec 26, 2006

merry Christmas - more graphs!



today I won over a thousand bux. hooray for easy money on Christmas. getting less bad beats is also fun. oh and letting people think im playing crazy when im really not is fun too.

well, 5 more days to get 3 more k...can I do it?

OLD POST: Dec 20, 2006

sweet, sweet moola...you are the love and hate of my life



hooray for today!

yesterday and today I think I won almost $1,000!!! at live poker I made about $90 (very fun, and more profitable, at least per table, than online..) and about $100-150 online. then today kept the trend and shot up another $700-800. winning is fun. Still have a (long) shot at the original goal, just need $4k in 2 weeks.

OLD POST: Dec 16, 2006

fucking bull shit

I keep getting bad luck. just ended tonight with flopping the nut straight, and getting all in on the turn. of course someone rivers a boat and destroys all my profit for the night. FUCK!!!!!

so I'm at about even for the month so far still, but I am getting comfortable with 3 tables. goal this week is get comfy with that and start mixing in #4, at least if I can get my second monitor working.

GETTING REAL PISSED OFF NOW!!! halfway through the month, and my downswing has pressed on. I'm at about $0 profit, and have about 2-3 weeks left of cash before I need to draw from my bankroll again. lately it has been more like 80-90% bad luck too (i've actually been playing a lot better)!!!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGg. anyway I feel I'll get out of the rut, just a matter of time.

OLD POST: Dec 15, 2006

poker thoughts of novice level

I got some fun going...live poker again any day of the week, more going out w/ or w/out friends...

but the main thing I want to write about is poker. I've made some thoughts, and they have to do with conquering the increasingly difficult levels of poker. even at $100 buy in, which used to be exceptionally easy to win tons of money (at least compared to what I am used to making), it has become at least twice as hard, filling with sharks (good players) and the fish (bad player) are dying out. the key will be to make my growth outpace the growth of the sharks, so I can gobble the sharks. sounds just like a corporataion!

anyway, my first realization, now that I have become novice (only took 1 or so years of beginnerdom), is that poker requires a lot of adjustment. don't get me wrong, I THOUGHT about that before, but only lately is it really hitting me. some of it is simple stuff, like I keep raising, raising, raising...eventually someone else starts calling, callling, or raising back. at that point I need to adjust, otherwise my chips get gobbled up via lots of small bites. the adjustment is to play less hands and play them a little slower.

speaking of small bites, that's another realization, that big pots usually are just big hand vs slightly less big hand or good hand vs fish's terrible hand. I read about this on a poker website, but probably the majority of the chips people win are in small pots, especially when playing mediocre/good opponents. some ways to win small pots:
1- raise pre flop, bet flop. easy enough and I have pretty well mastered this, and so has every other novice.

2- reraise pre flop, bet flops selectively. I am just beginning to learn this, and it is a riskier business because it starts getting into medium/big pots but is mostly about small pots.

3- call pre flop, call flop, bet turn or river. this is basically "floating" where you wait for someone to "admit" they were trying #1 and really ahve nothing, at which point you bet and they (usually) fold. another thing I am just beginning to learn.

4- call pre flop, raise flop or turn. again, risky business but very very important to do against the novices.

5- play with next to nothing against predictable opponents until you narrow down your opponent' s hand enough to make a bluff. for example, raising at a point where the exact type of hand someone has will become clear.
for just one example, your opponent will call a turn raise only with a flush draw, push all in with a set, and fold everything else. then when the flush misses you bluff, or if you catch a pair then you induce them to bluff.
this is the mack daddy, where you play a big pot with nothing and against an opponent who knows you have either nothing or a hand that's miles ahead of their's.

these are all examples of outplaying aka exploiting opponents, rather than playing cards, because they are playing too predictably. in essense, at least what I've though recently, poker is about outplaying opponents, not making a hand and getting paid.

I'm gonna learn these and other tools that I am just starting to, so I can outpace the other novice's to the "advanced" stage of poker, where you are viewed as basically a humongous pain in the arse to play.

oh, and I almost forgot along this rant that I got out of my downswing and am just about where I was at the beginning of the month, so only about 4,800 to go!!! seriously though, I think there is a slight chance, especially via learning/mastering #2-5 and playing more...til then peace

OLD POST: Dec 7, 2006

still downswingin


yup, I lost about 790 bux. it ranks in the top ten, maybe top 4 of my downswings. but looks like things are comin up again. last night i won in cash, and took 3rd in a 45 person tournament for $75 or so prize. then tonight I tried a live tourny (play money) and got 7th out of 100+ people. prob coulda gotten better but after 2 hours I was getting a little tired of playing...

and i ordered another video card so i can have 2 monitors. that'll let me play 2x as many hands, with better focus (less stuff cluttering up the games). in other words, if I can stop getting bad luck and play better, like has been happening yesterday and today, I can still make the 5k this month...we shall see.

OLD POST: Dec 5, 2006

mini downswing...bleh




graph of the first 3 days (about 1k hands) of december poker. last 2 days =

so the last two days i've lost about $500. not such a big deal if considering it is 2.5 buyins of 200nl, or 5 of 100nl, and i've played pretty good, just not my best.

the main thing has been unfortunate/unlucky situations - not gotten paid on good hands because of bad luck, bluffs getting caught way more than usual, etc. But I estimate ~25% of the 500 is from playing kinda bad while feeling "stuck" (playing to recoup a loss when not in a good mood) or otherwise annoyed/frustrated..

that's better than I used to do, but still need to get a little better at just quitting even if I am just a little mad. not go punch a pillow and sit down 3 seconds later for the next hand...actually

OLD POST: Dec 1, 2006

rambling...goals review, updates etc




that's what my profit graph for november looks like from poker (x axis is # hands, y is $ made/lost). i actually played more like 20k or so hands the last month, but lots were when I played at UB and bodog and couldn't figure out how to get them into poker tracker.

you can see it's not all up up up...the horizontal and downward parts are results of 1) leaks aka playing bad 2) bad luck. my biggest, most fundamental leak is playing when not in a good, focused mood. but i'm getting better at that.

anyway, today I played about a nhour of 200nl, and made around $120 or so. I also made $100+ on some 100nl (to warm up for the 200nl). altogether, my bankroll is at almost 6.5k, so 3.5k to get to 10k b4 1-2k withdraws the next month (mostly in the middle), but no pressure

i realized i haven't really reread my blog, and want to do that and hold myself more accountable for my goals. so here's the first step...

since the 13th, my last goals I never looked back at, I have made about 1k and played maybe 5-10k hands. I have gotten a lot better at quitting when I'm not focused, and playing when I am. bad news was the frigin DA called up cunique and so I couldn't play live poker their anymore. but I hear there are other places, so one goal is to find them by next week.

Another big goal was to get more adventure, fun, and variety in my life...and get my mind on other things than poker. I really didn't make progress on this. It's really important though. I need to figure out how to get my self to do more things. The gym membership is possible if I can make more $, and I have gone out a couple times (one free poker tourny, reading at cafes a couple times), but need to meet people and goof off more. need to think about this one...

Last but not least, I really haven't worked on my business, outside of repairing my website after it was hacked. I really need to do this in order to have a solid operation during the next fall dorm move in. The idea is I do that, and then acquire monies to bring the operation to other big schools the following year. But to acquire monies, I need to put together a better plan and talk/network with financiers NOW...but I've been depressed...but I gotta do it. so u can see this has been cycling on my mind. I keep distracting via poker and such. my goal is to use the other goals to prepare myself to do what I mention here

OLD POST: Nov 29, 2006

200nl bring it your funky ass on

I won another hundred or so today, and calculated my "bankroll" (at least, mostly money I don't need for a few weeks) is at almost $6k. So next games I play at will be in 200nl. I'm going to be extra focused and pick extra good tables...if all goes to plan, my bankroll will be at $10k before my next withdraw! Of course, poker is not always willing to stick to such plans...so come on luckbox!!!

OLD POST: Nov 27, 2006

still chuggin

I played only a little bit last week, mostly hanging out with my family. Didn't do so good, wasn't thinking things through well, lost about 200 bucks.

Then I got back last night, played an hour or so at 1am and made around $100. Then played a few hours todya, made $300 more. not too shabby. now I need to kick ass tomorrow and move up to the 200nl tables, and really let loose!

Still a chance to build enough before my next needed withdrawal in 2-3 weeks for me to stay at 200nl. That is the dream, with the goal being to keep playing when focused and positive, and getting that way through having more fun and adventure outside of poker.

OLD POST: Nov 21, 2006

WTF am i doin

I was watching this video on http://youtube.com/watch?v=lCFzC8ZpLjY and having fun

I realized, I am young, and even though I don't have much money, I focus too much on stuff like that and am wasting time where I could have fun. I want to go to a bar, or something.

so what can I do to make tomorrow be like an adventure?

OLD POST: Nov 20, 2006

broken goal, last time!

I broke my poker goal a lil bit ago, and played when not in a good mind set. I saw this guy who is easy to beat on a table, and figured wtf, easy money. I made hasty decisions though and altogether lost a buy in ($100) mainly because of that. If I wouldn't have played, I'd still have the $100. If I woulda stopped playing after the first hasty/wrong decisions, I would still have about $40.

No more doing that this week! I'm going out :) to put some flyers for a side job and sit/read at a coffee shop in a lil bit.

OLD POST: Nov 19, 2006

I lost money this week :(

UB, the website I play poker on, put out an "upgrade" which made it nearly impossible to use two poker tools that I've used for the last year (poker tracker and pokeraceHUD). that sucked, but I was determined to persevere, and I was without poker tracker the last month anyway because of playing at bodog. It just makes it harder to play a lot of tables. Still that hurt. I couldn't review my sessions or anything.

But besides that, I hit some bad luck, and played when in a bad mood meaning I made some bad decisions. Altogether I lost about $600.

But then today I won about $400. So at least it looks like I'm headed back up again, and losing the money helped me focus on staying focused, and stable/positive to make good decisions.

This week...

For poker, I'm gonna only play when focused and in a good/stable mood. If that means I make $100000 or -$100 or that I play only for 1/2 hour, so be it. But I have a feeling if I do this, then I will make quite a bit of money.

If I make quite a bit, then I'm going to get a membership at the monkeybargym (http://www.monkeybargym.com/). It's an alternative work-out, and I like trying new things out. It also is more of a social atmosphere. I was considering some typical bench-press and treadmill type facilities, but this seems more exciting and better for me. Unfortunately it is more $$, about $110 per month or $960 per year to be exact. My goal is to sign up for a month by the end of this month.

Other than that, I'm going to try to do some mental work outs, because my mind is getting sorta stale from thinking about poker all the time. My goal is to determine a new business plan for DormSource, taking into account some recent realizations...

OLD POST: Nov 13, 2006

break didn't last too long

I stopped playing poker just 2 days, but still kept reading and thinking about it, and played a little of the play chip omaha and other non-holdem varieties. I did go out a little more. At least I realized that if I can get a gym membership, then I'll be going in a better direction. and I need to keep going out and having fun more...

oh, and when I did come back to poker, it was Saturday night. I called a friend earlier in the day but he didn't call back, so I fired up my first session of real money on ultimate bet's game. I ran hot, making almost $1k after my first 1,200 hands/3days at $100 and $200nl (about 36ptbb/100 for pokerspeak). hopefully this keeps up, at least to 4 more k, then the sky should be the limit (or the legislation)....

goals this week...
goin to see if I can make 2k this week, or play 10k hands, whichever comes first. I'm running hot, so might as well see how long it lasts.

Part of this will be kicking ass Wednesday at the local live poker $200nl game. Last couple times, it's been real easy to beat (and real fun...), but have had no great $$ situations happen, so hoping for a breakthrough their and also on the UB 1/2 games.

outside poker, I'm going to call up a friend that had just called the other day after not calling for 6 months. played some pool/darts and drank. fun...so goal is to see about doing it again. and go out most nights at least to coffee shops and stuff.

OLD POST: Nov 9, 2006

poker and a little life

I'm makin blog for poker, a LITTLE about life, and the progress. mostly to help myself stay focused, and the chance someone might read it and offer encouragement. I'm trying to make lots from poker, but also stay balanced with social/physical/mental...

background stuff:

I got into poker because I was playing gin online on yahoo.com's game site when I was bored a couple years ago. They had a limit poker game too, and gin seemed relatively simple so I got hooked on poker (I have a sortof addictive personality...)

Eventually I learned of no limit, and had to get into the fun of going "all in." I signed up at pokerstars for a play account, and read the website flopturnriver.com a ton. Quickly enough I accumulated millions of play dollars, and decided to scrape together $50 for playing the real $ games. At the time it felt real risky, haha.

I followed bankroll management and everything, liek the good boy I am, and made some moola. At a point, I decided it wasn't healthy how much I was playing, so I withdrew the $400 of the $450 I won at $5 and $10 buy in tables (aka $5nl and $10nl).

Long story cut a little bit, I got back into it after taking a while off, and got back to $500 after a bunch more of $5 and $10 NL. That was last March, when I tried out $25nl and read a couple books. That went so-so, but soon enough I was at 50nl and decided to turn "pro".

50nl started great, until after around 8k hands, when I had my first monster downswing. What a great learning experience. Long story short, I broke even for 20k hands, took a break, and got a night job at Dennys.

Dennys was a great inspiration. I mean, yea there was some fun times, but when it got bad (drunk/high ppl can do some dumb things as I should know hehe), it was stressful. When I got home, I played some of the best poker ever, because I was in such a focused mindset and wanted to be able to quit Dennys.

Where I'm at in poker...and where I'm goin
here's a graph for the first few months of this whole shenanigan


so for the next 5 months, I played poker for a profession (pay for all my stuff with it). Before that, I was paying bills by tutoring students at my university and local highschools in math and chemistry. I like doing that, but wanted a change since I'd been doing it for a while and poker felt more exciting and fresh.

My poker dream is to be competetive at least at the $1k buy ins, and use the profits to pay off my debts and towards my business, DormSource - dormsource.com. Then I want to (mostly) quit poker to focus full time on DormSource and any other projects/investments I get involved in, and possibly retire from "career" stuff to travel and do some exploring and charity type work.

I have done pretty well so far. The first real "pro" month, which is when I worked nights at dennys, I made about $4k at the $100 buy in in about 10-15k hands (winrate > 20ptbb/100 for pokerspeak).

Overall I averaged about 3k each month making 14k for a little less than 5 months. It's been hard to move up because I withdraw to pay for my car repair, rent/food/stuff...added up to about 8k over that time.

Now I'm working at succeeding on the $200 buy in level. From what I read, significant more skill is needed here, but I'm confident I'll learn to beat it based on what I've played in it so far.

anyways, here's my goals for this week...

The next 4 days, my goal is just to take a break, and not play, cold turkey style. It's not really healthy how much I've been inside and playing/thinking/reading about poker and other things.

Over the break, my goal is to go out every day, and do thinking, relaxing, partying, goofing off, yaaaaaaaaaa that. I am going to call ppl who I don't call enough anymore, and have fun! Because that's the only way to get myself in a better mind. been down a while now...so gotta fix that