So this week sucked. Arizona got hit with a hard freeze (100 year old record) and we had pipe burst in my house on Thursday. I came home from work to find a river running through the house and I had over an inch of standing water over 3/4 of the house. Thank God we're renting this place, but a lot of our stuff has some significant water damage. The property management place sucks and I was lucky to get the carpet folks out to remove all the water. They've left 5 huge fans here and it's going to take another couple days to dry. I had to go to Home Depot and fix the plumbing problem myself (hopefully they will reimburse me as I'm sure I saved them money over a plumber). On top of that, they've had a gas shortage due to the weather and we were without heat and hot water yesterday. Not fun. Anyway, it just solidifies in my mind how happy Meghan and I are to get out of Arizona and go back to Virginia. Our house is almost finished being built and we're excited to get back east. No casinos where I'm at, so either I'll have to drive to that place in West Virginia (has anybody been there yet?) or we'll have to start making our commute to AC again. Or I'll have to get better online (which has yet to happen).

As for poker....made $700 at a live 1/2NL game in town. I'm back in the black for the year. It's a profitable game, but the atmosphere sucks and the players are annoying and I always get the nagging feeling I'm going to get robbed once I step outside....It's not my favorite place to play. Maybe I'll just host a game when I get back to VA.

Good luck at the tables.

Well January was filled with a number of ups and downs. After all was said and done, I ended up down $379. i played a number of different games this month both live and online. Online I lost $2344; live I won $1965. I played mixture of LHE and NLH and a couple of spread limit games. I mostly played limits ranging from 3-6 to 30-60 online and 8-16 to 15-30 live. Overall, I'm not too disappointed with my play this month. I made some mistakes and got a little tilty in a couple of games, but overall I remain encouraged about my progress.

My wife, who has a keen eye for the obvious, tells me I should just quit playing online. I think she has a point. I never seem to be able to hold on to the money online. I run up my account pretty high and then I just seem to dump it. It is pretty frustrating actually. Oh well, February is a new month. I better figure it out quick because were moving to Virginia in March and there aren't any casinos nearby....I can just see it now, all CR members are just salivating right now. I got a feeling I'll figure it out though.....

Good luck everybody.

Today was my wife's birthday. We had a great time. I took her skydiving yesterday and we did a nice surprise birthday at work for her today. She really enjoyed it. If you haven't been skydiving, I highly recommend it. Even if you just do a tandem jump or static line, it's well worth the experience.

Today was also an important day because my final term of college started today. The classes don't appear to be too difficult and I expect to do fairly well in them. That said, I do have a piece of advice to offer all the young folks who are debating whether or not to stay in school - DON'T quit school!! It has taken me over 12 years to finish my degree. A quick background:

I went to Oregon State until I ran out of money. On the outs with my family and not wanting to be that guy who never left their hometown, I elected to join the Army (this was '98 so before the 9/11 world). The Army turned out to be a great thing for me, but one of the main reasons why I joined was to take advantage of the college benefits. Given the OPTEMPO it became very easy for the idea of finishing college to take a back seat, and it did. Years later, I started to take a class here and a class there until I finally piecemealed things to where they are today. And I have to say, it sucked. As you get older, it truly becomes more difficult to be a student. You have so many other competing priorities in life that it becomes very difficult to stay on track. Bottom line, get the shit done while you are young and don't have a whole lot of other life distractions. I've been deployed multiple times, married, divorced, changed locations and assignments numerous times, got remarried, built a house, got a dog, had an ailing step-parent move in, etc....You see where this is going. When I'm in class now, I've still got 15 other things on my mind and I'm only 32. It doesn't get easier as you get older. It just makes sense to get it done.

Sorry about the soap box pseudo-rant. Poker went well today even though I only got to play a few hands. Since I've got class until the end of FEB and were going to be moving right around that time back to DC, it seems like poker will probably be taking a backseat for awhile. I may get a few thousand hands or so in on the weekends, but I just can't imaging getting much more than that. Oh yeah, because in addition to that, I've got this ridiculous fitness, weight loss, stop smoking bet with a good buddy of mine. Here's the deal. We have one year to get down to our respective fighting weights. For me its 190, for him it's 200 (he started @ 215, me @ 205). In addition, at the end of the year we will need to take the Army and Marine Corps respective physical fitness tests (high score on both wins). In addition, you have to stop smoking for the year. This is where I think I'm way ahead in this bet. My buddy is a great guy, but he's a flat out chain smoker, and when he drinks it's uncontrollable. It's a 1k bet and if you smoke, it's an automatic loser. I have no problem quitting (the bet started in October and I've been fine with only the occasional craving). My problem is with the weight loss right now. I've actually gained weight. I'm near 215 after the Argentinian honeymoon, so I've got some work to do. Thankfully, I've got plenty of time. We'll see what happens. I'm guessing I've probably won already as my buddy has probably caved on the smoking, but who knows? Maybe he's finally quit this time. If he has, this could be pretty interesting.

Here's an update on the house progress:

Anyway, long post. I hope everyone has got off to a decent start to the New Year. See you at the tables (5NL). Take Care.

2011 has got off to a good start. Everything seems to be falling into place rather nicely. The construction on our new home is coming along nicely, school starts Monday for me (my final two classes for my BS ), and I've finalized my wife's birthday surprise (we're going skydiving tomorrow). Oh, and poker went well today. I'm currently at 5nl and I averaged 8bb/100 today (it was only 1k hands, but so what). I'm really excited about what this year has to offer. I hope everyone else's New Year got off to a goo start too! Good luck everyone!

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am, and I have a tendency to get a little down at times. And then I see shit like this....and I'm reminded that I have it pretty good.

I really like the muzzle awareness! This guy's got mad game!!

So, I'm not winning at 2NL. I've got 31K hands and I'm a -.91bb/100 player. Does anyone see anything obviously wrong here that I'm missing? I've watched some of the Verneer series and I feel like I'm getting better, but I'm still just break-even at best. I'll take any advice. Thanks.





http://tchpoker.blogspot.com/2010/12/2nl-31k-hands.html

This totally crazy, but somehow I've managed to totally screw up the CR blog page. My latest blog actually posted as another user. Sorry dolcekitten, I don't know what the deal is. It also backdated the Blog to August 2008?!! Crazy. Anyway, I'm too stupid to figure out how to upload photos from my computer. I think an easier thing for me is to just create an external blog with a link. i found this to be easier to upload photos, etc. Anyway, here it is.

http://tchpoker.blogspot.com/

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and a great New Year. 2011 is going to be great! Good luck everyone!

I'm writing this as I'm sitting here in bed next to my wife on Christmas morning. Our boxer is at the foot of the bed snoring like crazy and I've got my cup of coffee beside me. Life is pretty damn good.

I'm not a big holiday person, but sometimes I find days like Christmas, New Years, etc. are good opportunities to take stock of your life. I can't believe how much things have changed. A year ago today, Meghan and I were sitting in a hospital in Tucson waiting for her terminally ill mother to die. We had taken her mother in (cancer) and she was living with us when she got very sick on Christmas. There wasn't anything doctors could really do anymore and so we were playing a little bit of the waiting game. To complicate matters, my g/f (now wife) and her mother had an absolutely toxic relationship and for the year while she lived with us, things were pretty fucking miserable. To this day, I have nothing but the utmost respect for my wife in the matter. I would never have tolerated this woman the way she did (or even would have allow her to move in with us). Anyway, we spent the next three weeks in the hospital. 2010 got off to a terrible start. She eventually passed (after being brought back 3 times...against the directive, which is really frustrating). We eventually had to make the decision to take her off the ventilator and Meghan and I watched her expire. The really terrible part was that Meghan had to make the decision and at this point her mother was actually conscious (in tremendous pain, unable to speak, but conscious), so we all just looked at each other while she passed. As you can imagine, it sucked. It was a terrible way to end things, even given the dynamics of their relationship. I don't think either of us were really sad (she was a terrible person), but I think we were more relieved. Strange part is you start to feel really guilty because you don't feel particularly bad because somebody is dead. It took a couple of months, but we got back normal.

About a month later I proposed to Meghan. She and I had been together over three and half years at that point, and we'd been through a lot and we still loved each other. We actually met while we were both in Iraq. So we've seen each other at our worst and when times are tough. We figured if we can make it through war, cross country moves, new assignments, crazy families, and death, then we can probably make it through anything. The wedding planning began in earnest and we elected to get married in Vegas in October.

Meghan and I love Vegas and we've always had a great time there. What we wanted to do was have a fun, low-key wedding where people could just get away for a weekend and have fun in Vegas and spare a couple hours of their day on Sunday for a wedding. We got married at the Wynn in the Primrose Courtyard and we were able to rent out the Country Club @ Wynn for dinner (The CC is closed for dinner on Sunday, so it worked out perfect). It was a great experience. The staff at Wynn was first-rate and everything went off without a hitch. The photos turned out great, the ceremony was awesome, dinner was amazing, and it seems like everyone had a great time. It's too bad I'm so fucking computer illiterate because I would like to post some photos, but I can't figure out how to upload photos properly using iManager. If anyone can help me out, I'd greatly appreciate it. I would prefer to not have to photobucket or snapfish all my photos. I just think it's easier to upload directly from my computer. Does CR do this because of space issues?

I'd like to post some honeymoon photos from Argentina too, but....

I have a tendency to ramble, and it's fairly obv this blog has just turned into a stream of consciousness post. Bottom line, I just now realized how lucky I am. Meghan and I are moving back to the Northern Virginia area (I'm being re-assigned) and we're building our dream house in a nice golf course community (my handicap is too low right now, but that another issue). We've got our health, a great dog, a nice car, good jobs. We're very lucky.

Now if only I could just beat 2NL! I love playing poker, and I've been playing for about 12 years. Sadly, I'm a long time loser (most losses coming online). I also fell victim to blackjack as well (quit playing table games years ago) It isn't until recently that I've decided to really get serious about poker. I know I'm not good, but I think my problems stem more from bankroll mgmt issues and tilt. I also thought I knew a lot more about poker then I actually do. I was a CR member a few years back, went busto (for around the 100th time) and dropped my membership. I recently came back to CR and really have tried to take my improvement seriously. That said, I've tilted four times so far and played in games way above my skill and BR. I didn't go well. It's a very bad feeling to do something you know to be stupid. You get embarrassed; you get angry. Your ego takes a beating and its easy to get frustrated. On a positive note, when I've really buckled down and played in the appropriate games I've done ok. Not great, but at least I'm not losing. It does give me some hope, and I have to say the CR videos, forum, and interactions with other members has really helped me a lot. I appreciate it. Thanks.

For 2011 I've got some very specific poker goals. I probably should write a separate post for 2011 life goals (got plenty of those).

1. Reload, but smartly. I've been playing for years without rakeback. Not a smart idea. I think I've fixed this issue.
2. Get a coach. Even though I'm playing at the micros, I'm still going to enlist the help of a CR coach. I also would like to have someone analyze my PT3 stats (I'm open to suggestions).
3. Take all play seriously. In the past I've played while distracted, bored, drunk, etc. Those days are finished.
4. By the end of 2011, I want to be a reg @ 100NL. I'm about break-even @ 2nl after 30k hands. I think it's possible, especially with some coaching and discipline.

Anyway, that's enough for now. I just re-read this....What a ramble. Oh well. Merry Christmas everyone. I hope everyone has a great day!!