As my blog title would suggest, I'm not having a good run in tournaments... Last year I was Canterbury Park's Fall Poker Classic player of the year, which has made me play the events this year in a quest to try to defend my title. With two to go, I've cashed in 0 of them (played all of the points-qualifying ones but one...). The good news is that If I go first and 2nd in the last two, I could still retain that title if nobody else accumulates any more points than the current #1 ;) Oh well. I think I've been actually playing them pretty well, but have ran bad at times -- specifically with regards to rarely winning flips, and being in standard reshove spots with hands such as AJ that commonly get ran into aces, etc. The structure of these tournaments are such that they would probably be more accurately labeled as turbos (apart from the main event and perhaps the two $500 NLs), and I think I've been gambling appropriately without going overboard. I can't complain however, I ran well enough to win their $1500 tourney in August.

One of the things that's refreshing about Canterbury is that there's a person there who is honestly the most happy-go-lucky person ever. I mean like in the, "I'm just happy to be on Earth, breathing" type of way -- in a way that seems totally 100% genuine and is really likeable. It makes me ask myself how long has it been since I've felt that impassionedly blessed, just to be in the here and now, with that sort of giddy-euphoric sense of joy for no particular reason. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a happy person, and I'm grateful for who I am and what is in my life -- that said, I think the last time I've ever taken a breath of air, and felt that ever so rare happy-chill-go-down-my-spine for no real reason of jubiliation other than just because, was in 7th grade. I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so.

The moment I'm thinking of was several months after I broke my leg (pretty badly... think of the break like a jar of pillsbury croissant dough, the break spiraling all the way up my tibia) playing football, and I was finally able to take my first walk without stumbling over. If you've never had a leg in a full cast for 4 months, let me just say that you lose almost all your muscle mass and your leg becomes an unsightly twig. I remember the doctors sawing off my cast and telling me that it'd take probably a week or two before I'd actually be able to walk, to which I obviously assumed they were idiots and tried to take a step, only to topple over under my own weight. I remember feeling so dejected that those crutches I had used for four months, wouldn't be put away in the closet and that I'd still be wearing a removable-walking cast. And then, I remember the first time I was finally able to put all my body weight on both legs and successfully take a few steps without losing my balance or toppling to the ground. In that moment of time, I took a breath, and truly felt a sense of euphoria and feeling of aliveness like what I tried to describe at the beginning of this story.

I don't think I really have any point in typing that, other than perhaps my thoughts showcase one of the downsides to living a life which you spend too much time striving for more and more and thinking of the future and never being truly satisfied with where you're at -- rather than taking the time to relax and soak things in for the greatness they often are. I sometimes consider whether I should try working some grungy, horribly unsatisfying and tiring job with crappy hours for a few months, just so my eyes can be opened up to the real world that so many people face, to remind myself how awesome of a life that my poker playing provides -- and maybe even get another one of those spine-tingling-giddy-feeling-for-no-reason feelings after the fact.

All of that said, things are still going super well online. Here's a link to how things have been going in $50/100+ since I started my 'grinidcore' quest on September 2nd (and probably the last image link I provide in awhile because I've done enough bragging lately in this blog):

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1148/sincegrindcorecj3.jpg

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/6479/20086maxte3.jpg

The above link is to my 2008 in $100/200 and $200/400 games online. I'm showing it for a few reasons:

1) I read on forums occasionally things about how the CR pros only blog about their wins and not their losses, and how those wins are only replacing the losing sessions that aren't blogged, and how we're in fact all break even players (LOL). Yeah, it's true I've probably done more poker related blogging during winning streaks. That's because I try not to harp on negative stuff.

2) I figure it might be motivating to some of you LHE players. Yeah, even I've experienced a 600BB downswing this year. LHE is painful, why do we play it?!?

3) I'm really hoping that my downswing is over with...

4) I'm really happy that even with a 600BB downswing, I still have a 1.4BB/100 winrate in virtually all six max games. I only know a few people with any amount of sample size this year who are winning more than 1BB/100 in them.

And to change gears a bit, people have asked me a few times, "why do you like the Twins so much?" Here's why: win or lose, at least the Twins are our baseball team with our own guys. Our guys are players we develop in our farm system, or trade for. We don't go out and spend zillions of dollars on big names, simply because we are a small market team and can't. How many other teams in MLB, or any professional sport, can make that claim year in and year out, all while still being extremely competitive almost every season? I can't think of too many (in the MLB, us and the A's have a longstanding tradition of this, and this year's Rays also fit that mold). So, yeah, as a sports fan, it's fun (and amazing) getting a front row seat watching young talent develop and reaach their potential (and in the case of this year's Twins, drastically overachieve). Am I bummed about the way our season ended? Absolutely. I'm also peeved that major league baseball hasn't changed their tiebreaker procedures, since there is no way we should've had to play the tie breaker game at Chicago when we beat them in the season series. But regardless, this year's Twins team provided our state with a fantastic, captivating season -- and certainly high hopes for the next 2-3 years (until we are again stuck trading away our talent because we won't be able to resign them, repeat and rinse this same farm system process...). There's truly a lot to look forward to when the new stadium opens in 2010.

When driving home a few days ago, I heard this song on the radio and at about the 1:30 mark it gave me shivers, cuz they play the chorus of it at Twins games before the start of the bottom of the 9th when we're down by a run or two... The shivers caused by a sort of out-of-body type flashback to many awesome comebacks this past season.

It was a fun run in 2008, here's to 2009!

If you don't care about MLB or the Twins, quit reading now.

""The Twins are 1-7 in Blackburn's past eight starts, though that's not all his fault. He has three quality starts in that span, but has gone 1-4 with a 6.00 ERA.""

Tonight, Blackburn is scheduled to pitch against the White Sox. We've got 2 more games against them, then a 3 game series with the Royals. We're 1.5 games behind the Sox.

Please Gardy, for the love of god, go to a 4 man rotation starting tonight, and bump Slowey to today and Liriano to tomorrow's game (they're the next two in line, and our likely 1-2 next year...Liriano 1, Slowey 2). You use a 4-man rotation in the playoffs, and the next two games are essentially win-or-die games. We can throw Blackburn against the Royals, but the next two games are MUST WINS.

I know it's not going to happen because if it was going to we'd have already heard it, but please grow some balls Gardy and make this change.

I forgot to tell this story in the blog I wrote an hour ago, and think it's share-worthy:

One hand in the Commerce $400/800, it got folded around to the SB, Doc. He is a spot in the game and probably knows it because earlier our game got down to me, Cece, and Jimmy Gorham and we were going to quit until he came over and said if we played bigger (at the time we were playing 2/4) he'd come play with us. Anyway, Doc raised, and I called in the BB with K8. The flop came 954 with two of a suit, I hold the king of that suit. He bet, I called. Turn Jack. He bet, and I felt a lot of weakness in his body language, so I called again. River, queen. He bet, and I stared him down and even though I'm an online player and a LHE player at that, I have pretty good reads live and could just tell he really didn't want a call.

So now at this point you'd assume I raised because all I have his K8 on a 954JQ board, right? Naw. I had to go for the ultimate soul pwn call, and threw in my $800 for the call.

Doc stood motionless for a second, I think semi-expecting me to flip a hand so he could muck his cards. I didn't flip mine though, so he then announced, "ace high."

At this point, I figure I have to save face, and say, "how big?" He finally flips over his hand: A3.

So I was right, he didn't want a call.

I sheepishly mucked, as the table stared perplexed at what just went down. And to think at the beginning of this entry I called him the spot. I mean, WHO calls 3 streets with K8 on a 954JQ board?!? Only someone as crazy as me, I had to go for it...The lasting effects of being right about it can be monumental in a session. I feel like getting to show a call like that and being right is the type of hand that can stick with a table for hours and get you to assert dominance over it. During the wsop, I played a hand against Max where I made a pretty nifty king high call down vs him on a similar type of board and was right, and proceeded to go on a mega-rush. I don't think the mega-rush happening after my "pwn call" was a a coincidence.

Hope you enjoyed that story, and don't forget to read my other blog I wrote an hour ago...

And also, a song I rediscovered tonight that I had forgotten how much I love:

First, since there were comments asking me to talk more about this hand from my last blog, I will:

thunderbro posts the small blind of $25
Mike Schneider posts the big blind of $50
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mike Schneider [9c 8d]
thunderbro raises to $100
Mike Schneider calls $50
*** FLOP *** [4s Td 5c]
Mike Schneider checks
thunderbro bets $50
Mike Schneider raises to $100
thunderbro raises to $150
Mike Schneider calls $50
*** TURN *** [4s Td 5c] [5s]
Mike Schneider checks
thunderbro bets $100
Mike Schneider calls $100
*** RIVER *** [4s Td 5c 5s] [Jh]
Mike Schneider checks
thunderbro bets $100
Mike Schneider calls $100
*** SHOW DOWN ***
thunderbro shows [7h 8h] a pair of Fives
Mike Schneider shows [9c 8d] a pair of Fives
Mike Schneider wins the pot ($899.50) with a pair of Fives

Basically, in a HU match where I flop a backdraw straight draw on a lowish board and my cards don't actually connect with cards that _could_ make a straight (since there's a 5 and 4 out there, that'd be a 2, 3, 6, 7), this is a decent flop to checkraise a fair portion of the time because it's likely to miss my opponent a lot, the cards that hit my hand look innocent enough, and a lot of cards that don't hit my hand look like they could hit my hand (the 2, 3, 6, and to a lesser extent 7, although that actually gives me a good redraw). Anyway, when he 3-bet me on the flop, I made a choice that I thought it was unlikely he'd play a ten fast this time (based on the game flow). So then the 5 paired on the turn which now makes it less likely he could have a 5, and again I called because I thought a straight draw was his most likely hand he'd play fast on the flop. The river was a blank in relation to thinking he might have A2, A3, 67, 68, or 78. When he bet the river, I ruled out A2 or A3 since those are hands that would check behind because they only beat a busted straight draw (unless he's genius enough to think I could have and call with worse), and it becomes a fairly easy _tough_ call with 9 high.

Alright, so in other news, I made a trip to Los Angeles again on Thursday, and returned Sunday. I left a lot of money in my box at Commerce the last time I was there, so I went mainly to go get and return it to Minnesota with me. While there, I obviously played some cash games. The first day was 300/600 and 400/800, which I won $34,100 (and started off the session down $30,000... nice upswing!). The next day was a shortish 200/400 session where I won $3300. The next day, after busting out of some online tourneys, I played some 100/200 and won another $2800. Pretty good trip for a few days. My spreadsheet is still shouting at me to be a live pro haha. If I could be promised to see 400/800 games like that first night, at least a few times a week, I probably would be...

Operation grindcore is still going well, though I've been starting to inch back up to more 100/200 and 200/400 and less 50/100 and 30/60. Not that there's a problem with that, since my whole mentality is light-years ahead of where it was at a few weeks ago.

Since I've been including an image of the progress, here's the latest screen of how it's been going since I started my little "grinding quest" on September 2nd:

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/7772/grindcoreday20tg0.jpg

And as always, go Twins! I'll obviously be at every one of these next 3 games versus the White Sox... 2.5 games back, a sweep would be the greatest thing ever.

Overall I've been doing pretty well with putting in hands and mainly sticking to smaller stakes. Since I decided to start "grinding" a little more, I've only played 200 hands at $200/400, the rest of my hands have been between $30/60 to $100/200. Sometimes I've been playing 7 tables, other times when I feel like taking it easy I've just had one table going while having DVDs or sports on in the background. I'm happy with my results thus far, though to this point I'm -$6000 in 30/60. Haha that's got to change.

Here's the numbers to this point, if I can keep up ~750 hands/day average for the month I'd take it.

HERE'S THE URL TO THE IMAGE SINCE THAT IS KIND OF SMALL: http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/5200/grindcoreday10xt1.jpg

Now for one fun hand:

thunderbro posts the small blind of $25
Mike Schneider posts the big blind of $50
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mike Schneider [9c 8d]
thunderbro raises to $100
Mike Schneider calls $50
*** FLOP *** [4s Td 5c]
Mike Schneider checks
thunderbro bets $50
Mike Schneider raises to $100
thunderbro raises to $150
Mike Schneider calls $50
*** TURN *** [4s Td 5c] [5s]
Mike Schneider checks
thunderbro bets $100
Mike Schneider calls $100
*** RIVER *** [4s Td 5c 5s] [Jh]
Mike Schneider checks
thunderbro bets $100
Mike Schneider calls $100
*** SHOW DOWN ***
thunderbro shows [7h 8h] a pair of Fives
Mike Schneider shows [9c 8d] a pair of Fives
Mike Schneider wins the pot ($899.50) with a pair of Fives

Good luck everyone, and enjoy the weekend too! Oh, and go Twins! I made a deal with one of my best friends and former roommates who now lives in Columbus, Ohio, that if the Twins are at least tied for first by Saturday night, I'd book a flight to Ohio for the Twins Monday-Wednesday games against the Indians. Going to need another win or two vs the Orioles and hopefully a WSox loss or two, but it can happen!

So far, so good. I played any/all 50/100 and 30/60 games on Full Tilt for 3.33 hours tonight, with good results. And more importanty, I was enjoying it.... The fast pace of multitabling and constantly feeling engaged in the action was a needed change of pace, I'm going to keep this up for awhile and see how it goes. There was even a stretch I had six 50/100 and two 30/60 games going, all being played from my laptop. Fun :)

Here was the end result of my grinding today:

img75.imageshack.us/img75/9127/sept08grind1vw7.jpg

Even though that shows the MT ratio as 5.20, I'm pretty sure a majority of the session I was on at least 6 tables, since the first hour or so there weren't nearly as many games going and I didn't initially decide to also pop into the two 30/60 games.

First, the non poker: Because my cash game play went well in California, I decided to play the Legends main event after reading about the structure of the tourney and seeing it was a good structure. So I played on Saturday the 23rd, and busted near the end of day 1. On Sunday, I went to the Twins-Angels game (at Anaheim) with Jay, Billy, BK, John (BK's roommate), and Dave P. We had 3rd row seats about 3/4 the way down the 3rd baseline, and by the end of the game our group of 6 Twins fan had turned into about 16 strong, though unfortunately we ended up losing the game by 1. It was pretty exciting though and Angels fans were for the most part very tame. Following the game, all of us rode back in Jay's vehicle to San Diego (where him, Billy, and Dave Schnettler have a big house 6 blocks from the ocean). Then I spent the next several days playing some poker in the morning, biking to the beach during the day, having some drinks at night and a couple of nights making my way through season 2 of Heroes (incredible! can't wait for season 3).

I flew back from San Diego with BK on Thursday, and the highlight of this past weekend was going out in an escalade limo with a bunch of friends from highschool in celebration of Goodson and Kelli's engagement. The next morning was probably the most hung over I've felt in a loooong time.

Between Madeline Island, California, and then the celebration this weekend, I feel like I've kind of been on a vacation the past few weeks. I intend to play a lot more poker in September, and even started on that track while in San Diego and then the past few days.

As I continue to run bad in online LHE, one of the things I'm really struggling with is whether it'd be best to move down in limits for awhile, mainly for my own sanity. While in San Diego, I managed to play about 3500 hands, most of which were at 50/100 and 100/200 since I am trying to make myself play smaller and not care whether I win or lose much. I won $20,000ish in that time, which doesn't include red pro bonuses. It's got me thinking though: Can I just stick to "grinding" (so to speak) and accept that alone with that I'm not going to have as many huge days as I've gotten accustomed to, but likewise, I won't get annoyed and be hating life because of big losing streaks. Doing some number crunching, between my own earn rate and the red bonuses, it'd still be easily doable to make anywhere from $250,000-$350,000 (or maybe even more) simply putting in a lot of hours and playing a lot of tables and _grinding_ $30/60 to $100/200, without nearly as much stress thanks to losing streaks being much smaller numbers than what is capable of happening playing $200/400+. Ask me 5 years ago whether I'd be happy making $300,000 a year, and I'd have been ecstatic.

So then, what's my hurdle? Really, and unfortunately enough, it's pride. I want to be known as the best 6-max player in the world. I want to uphold that reputation, which can only really be done by playing $200/400+. I truly believe I either am, or else I'm right alongside the best. Yet I don't know how many more sessions my mental sanity can take of getting my brains blown in nearly every time I play at least $200/400 online. And I have to admit, it was relaxing just doing the ol grind while in San Diego. I didn't even run that hot in 50/100 or 100/200, yet managed to win $20,000 in less than a week (I ran at 2.2bb/100... admittedly far from cold, yet not like out of this world hot). I'm blogging about my mental sanity right now because today I played 1200 hands at $200/400 and lost $17,000 in it, while loudly cursing into the sky more times than I ever have in my life playing online poker (not even close.... I would guess I did about 30 times today. And those who know me know I'm suuuuper even-keeled about poker and calm about everything in general). $17,000 losses happen in 200/400 all the time, it shouldn't be any big deal, yet there I was getting twirked out about taking moronic beat after moronic beat (or coolers!) in nearly every big pot I played after managing to put in most of the action as a big favorite (other than my 99 vs KK K9x flop...). I keep telling myself, "this shit can't keep on going on forever," yet it never seems to show any sign of slowing down. Today I felt bothered by the fact my week of disciplined grinding got wiped away by one $200/400 session in which I can think of nearly a dozen $4000+ pots I got 2-6 outed in.

But, I'm nearing the end of my ropes. I want to enjoy poker again, and if that means I'm going to play smaller games and multitable the hell out of my downswing, then so be it I'm nearing that point where my mental sanity is going to have to take precedence to satisfying my ego and desire to be known as the best. Heck, maybe I can even convince myself that part of being the best is having a willingness to do what's going to make me happiest and not care what anybody else thinks about it -- which at this moment in time, is accepting a pay cut by playing smaller games and being happier not getting slapped around quite so much like I'm variance's bitch.

That's enough whining for now. I'm still very confident about my LHE game and very happy with how I've played. I know I am +EV in the games I am playing in, and I know that eventually the deck will start being a little fairer. And if it doesn't any time soon, I can always fall back on playing live, since my spreadsheet the last few months says that I should be a live pro ;). Seriously though, thank goodness for my live play, since even though the last 4 months have been the most difficult, trying 4 months of online poker ever for me and I'm quite convinced nobody in high stakes online LHE has ran worse than me over this stretch, I'm still actually up money the past 4 months...

And now, a fun little song remake that I'm a fan of. Click and enjoy, since I can't seem to figure out how to embed youtube videos yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSvrCPFXAKs&feature=rec-fresh

Having been a Minnesotan all my life, there are a few things that are almost a certainty to happen every year. Snow...check. The Vikings build up your hopes and expectations, only to let you down...to be continued. It is really tough to be a Vikings fan sometimes since they are notorious for building up your expectations, only to shatter them in some amazingly woeful fashion. Every year the season ends painfully and I tell myself, "you knew this was going to happen, don't get attached to them next year." Yet here we are a week before Christmas, my Vikes are 9-5 and atop the NFC North, and quite frankly they've been pretty impressive lately.

Last Friday afternoon, a friend and I took a flight to Phoenix for the game and to visit an old friend from high school. The environment at the game was almost surreal and it felt like we were in Minnesota, right on down to it being "the coldest it's been all year in Phoenix." I would guess that 30-40% of the stadium was wearing purple, and the cheering was definitely louder for the road team than the home team. Plus the fact we pounded the Cardinals from the first minute on made it a really exciting game to be at. Skol Vikes! Tough last two games, these'll really be a good indicator of if the Vikings are for real or not... Home vs the Falcons, and home vs the Giants (who could potentially be playing for something if they lose to the Panthers this weekend). SKOL VIKES!

Saturday we went to Casino Arizona for a few hours and I played some 60/120 that became 75/150. Solid card room, with some great games at those limits. At least I know if I ever go busto I could probably grind a roll back up at Casino Arizona. Har har. I won $4400 while playing and another $200 via staking Thorvy into their $5-150 spread game.

Last night I brought my Dad to the Minnesota Wild game, and though we lost 3-2 in OT to the Calgary Flames (bummer...we NEEDED that one to keep the distance behind Calgary smaller), it was still a super fun game to be at. Derek Boogaard laid one of the hardest looking hits on someone I've ever seen at a hockey game, and lucky for us our seats were super close to it. I haven't heard the glass make a noise that loud all season! If you're at all into that kind of thing, go to gamecenter.nhl.com/nhlgc/console.jsp and you should scroll down to "play by play ice tracker" and first click 'video highlights," then click 1st period and then watch "derek boogard hit on rene bourque."

Poker is really going well, September thru the present months have been fantastic for me both online and live, which is good for me because I'd like to get into more investments in 2009. Also I've managed to bang out like 10,000 words so far for my ambitious LHE book that may or may not ever get finished. I'm pretty proud of the content that's been produced by me for it thus far, I don't think much of it has ever been in any LHE book to-date (/end teaser).

That's it for now. Stay warm...it sounds like most of the country is experiencing colder than normal temperatures!