Well since my monkey tilt I have pretty much won it all back so that is good. I won just under $200 (at 1/2) through about 500 hands two nights ago, then last night through about 400 hands I won just under $300 buck (at .5/1). I feel as though I am back on top of my game. This site is a Godsend. Before when I was playing bad I never know what to do and I would end up busting what I had online, now with the help of the site I can come to the forums with questions, or take a day or two off and just watch videos and look through PT for leaks.

When I play bad, I know I am playing bad and need to correct it or stop for the day. It is the only big issue I am dealing with. I know I don't have the time to put in more than 20-25K hands/month, and I know I am a winning player at 1/2 and under. I just have to stop having blowup days. I woud like to get my roll up to about 10K (in account) and maybe take a shot at 2/4 in the next couple of months. I deposited $1,000 the beginning of last month and I have cashed out $2,000 plus the $3,000 I have in account. I think this goal is attainable. Although I think I am happy at 1/2. I like being able to play comfortably and since I do not rely on poker money for anything but going into investment account, maybe I don't want to risk moving up until next year some time. Who knows.

My g/f just got home from school last week so poker has taken even more of a back seat. I am only putting in an average of 200-300 hands/day now. Once she starts her summer job that will pick back up to about 600-800 hands/day. I feel like that is a good number to bang out after work or before I hit the sack.

I think back to the days when I dreamt of being an online poker pro, and I really don't think I would ever want that life. I don't know if I could handle losing weeks without the guarantee of my 'real job' paycheck coming in every other week. I don't know if I could play my A-Game if I knew I NEEDED the money. I think my situation is great right now, and I would like to see how the next year goes.

I'm off to the beach tomorrow night with my g/f and her family. That will be a nice little getaway. Then I am off work Mon. and Tues. so, once again, that will be nice. Ok this is turning into a ramble session so I will call it.

Good luck at the tables!

So after my session of super monkey tilt (Monday night I lost about 1300 overall with mostly .5/1 and 1/2 NL with some FHE in there too). I lost a few tough coolers and then went on complete steam. Eventually I pulled 2K out via bank transfer to stop myself. I have plenty in to keep it up and running but I need to stop letting that happen every few months.

Anyways, I took the night off from poker last night and headed to the golf course with my dad. I am playing in a Tuesday night league with him which should be a good time. I was 4 over on the front when we stopped. Not too shabby for the 3rd time out on the year.

After my hockey game tonight I got back on and played for an hour. My standard 4 tables of .5/1 and drew some pretty good tables and had some hands hold. Ended up making just under $300 which is a nice little rebound. Hopefully I can keep it up and have no more tilt nights.

Here's my stats on the evening with the wonderful graph from Monday night behind it, ha.

Well today was rather disappointing. I ended up winning about 120 bucks through 1500 hands at .5/1. I don't feel as though I'm playing well at all. I feel like my play has gotten worse the last couple days. I'm calling way too much...preflop, on the flop, and on the river. I need to go through PT and analyze some hands and figure out where I'm leaking.

Blah...back at it again tomorrow.

So day was a rough day with some lucky/good results. I grinded my normal 4-tables of .5/1 and was up about 160 or so after an hour. All was going well and for some reason (not even a bad beat) I started going nuts. Raising and bluffing in terrible spots, running bad, playing tough tables without moving and ended up down about 220. I took a break to watch some basketball and came back later.

I sat a 3 .5/1 tables and saw a very weak 1/2 table and sat there too. This turned into a great decision. I decided I wanted to break even and call it a night, but it turned out better.

As you can see I ran sick for about 30 hands against calling stations/bad players. Here is my hand distribution for that tiny sample.

Needless to say, luck is a beautiful thing. I am still not happy with how I played, I feel like I have been playing awesome until the last two nights. I guess the brightside is, even though I feel I am playing badly, I made money overall in those two nights.

Here's a few of the bigger hands from my sessions:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2555641

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2555637

I am not sure I like this call or make it all that often, but I had just stacked him a few hands before which opens his range up enough to make this a call I was happy with.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2555634

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2555630

So I'm at work and have been casually browsing through CardRunners as I always do and I have decided that a blog is a good way to hold myself accountable for my play. I plan on updating nearly every session I play, for a while at least, with key hands, how I played, how I ran, etc.... Hopefully that will help me stay on top of my game.

I guess I will give a history of my poker journey to start since I can't post any HH's or PT screenshots from work.

I am a pure product of the Moneymaker effect. I watched him donk his way through a much tougher field (percentage of pros compared to amateurs), than there is today. The game looked interesting and I began playing play money on PokerStars. This was my senior year of high school back in 2003. I played some home games with friends (.1/.25 NL), and played play money for a few months. I gave it up when my senior summer hit as I was preparing for college and spending some time with my friends before we went our seperate ways.

Fast forward to the end of my freshman year in college. As my friends started coming back from their first year of college we started playing again, alot. We played from about 10pm-3am probably 5 nights a week and had between 7 and 15 people a night. We got buy ins up to about $200 max before people started not wanting to go higher, so we had alot of money on the table some nights. After winning over $1500 bucks from my friend I made my first real money deposit onto PokerStars. After losing a couple of deposit donking around in cash games I began playing small stakes MTTs.

After about 2 years of playing on and off I was entering my senior year in college and I only had 2 classes left to graduate so I had alot of free time. I began to take MTTs very seriously and joined PokerXFactor to help my tourney game. I had a few nice cashes (played the 100r once in my life and chopped it for about 13K, chopped the nightly 150 for 25K) and ran average. I had won enough to pay off my school, car, and other expenses so as I looked toward graduation I was in a great financial situation.

Fast forward to Feb. 2007. I have about 10K in my PokerStars account and am getting bored with MTTs. It's not that I am doing so well that I want more, or that I am doing so badly I need to give up, I just wanted to try something different. So I did what every smart, unexperienced cash game player does, hop into a 30/60 LHE 6-max game on stars. After running my 10K to about 35K in a month I though I was unstoppable. I stepped up to 50/100 and variance/lack of skill/tilt kicked in. I lost 25K in one night and immediately cashed out my remaining money, vowing to give up the game and take my winnings and be happy.

I still dabbled around in tournies and other whatnot, but I had cancelled my PokerXFactor membership, taken money off all sites I was playing on, and pretty much given it up.

Through my internship senior year I was offered a Marketing job at a large sporting facility in eastern Pennsylvania (Body Zone Sports & Wellness Complex. www.bodyzonesports.com (not a plug, just if you want to see how large this place is)) I worked there for about 4 years already as a cook for some money during college so I figured I'd take it. That is where I sit now, in my nice big office :). It is very easy to get bored with the 9-5 life, and the money is plenty, but it doesn't give me the freedom to do what I would like to do, like getting a nice house, a nicer car, stuff like that. I decided to go back to poker, and take it very seriously.

After researching the training sites, software, rakeback and whatnot I decided to take a rakeback deal through thisisthenuts.com and play on a site called Players Only. I played there Jan.08-Feb. 08 and made about 5K, but didn't feel as though I was playing well, just running well. I was 8-tabling 200NL, but wanted to take my game to the next level.

After emailing FTP asking to be added to their rakeback list early in Jan., I got the email from the last month saying I was eligable. I signed up, deposit, and decided to join cardrunners. Since then I have dropped in limits to .5/1 and am really trying to learn the game inside and out. I have put in about 9K hands and am running about 10BB/100. I would like to put in another 10K and have a 5K roll in FTP before moving up to 1/2. I have won about 2500 since moving to FTP and focusing on CardRunners, and I feel like my game is 10 levels higher than it was 6-months ago.

I would like to keep this blog up to date for entertainment value and to hold myself accountable for my play. Last night I played like a donkey, way to agressive, also calling to many river bets, and I had my first losing night in the past 8 days. down about 315 bucks. Hopefully I can pick it up and make a pretty entertaining blog.

Good luck at the tables!