I've been pretty lazy recently and it's been about a month since I last updated. On Febuarary 18th I went to Mexico for a week with my girlfriend. We stayed in Tulum, which is a very secluded and beautiful area of Mexico. We stayed in this wonderful resort called Las Ranitas, which is right on the beach. It was really a sureal experience. Everday we would get up, eat breakfest, then go lounge on the beach for a few hours. The water there is absolutley amaaaaziiing. Its just soo warm and refreshing. At night we would go to different restruants around Tulum, all of which were very good. My favorite one was this place called Posada Margherita, which was an Italian restruant. They make the pasta by hand there and it isss sooo fresshh and yummy. Ironically, we only really ate "mexican" one of the nights that we were there.
I played a little bit of poker while I was there but to be honest I kind of wish I hadn't played any. The internet connection was pretty shaky and in general I think it would have been better just to take a week off from poker entirely, but overall, it didn't really effect my trip. It was so nice and relaxing to get out of the cold city for a week in the heart of winter. It was also awesome to go away with my girlfriend and get to spend a lot of time together. She works a lot now a days so we don't have as many opporutintys to hang out as we used. All in all, it was a great trip and I definetly plan on going back soon!
As far as poker is concerned, things have been going very smoothly recently. I managed to win around 16k at 600nl last month while putting in a lot less volume then normal. I don't think this a coicendence, as I definetly tend to play better when I'm playing less. I am going to try and put in more volume in this month and make a shot at the UGL on PTR for 600nl. Hopefully I won't get too burned out.
Since my bad run in cash games at PCA, I've ran really hot in live cash this year. I won about 8k at the borgata and since then I think I'm around another 16k in just two sessions! If I can keep this up I may have to just become a full time live pro. I've been playing more mtts than usual online which I don't neccesarily think is a good thing, but they do keep me motivated to grind. I am thinking about going to Mohegan Sun for the NAPT in april. I will try and post again soon.
-Will

A couple weekends ago I went down to the borgata to play in the borgata open winter main event (3500 buy in). I haven't been to the borgata in a while but I really like their cash games and tournaments. I don't think there is a better place to play poker in the east coast. During their tournament series's, the poker room really comes to life. It's constantly bussling with people, a lot of whom have just busted from a tournament and are most likely steaming. I played 5-10 for a while on satuarday but couldn't really get anything going, and ended up losing a couple thousand. This is always frustrating because the games were really good but I definetly wasn't playing my best.

I decided to play the main event on sunday, as opposed to monday, because I figured the field would be a lot softer. I got an awesome starting table which basically consisted of me, jdags, and a bunch of live fish. Most of the day was pretty uneventful and I chipped up to about 45k from the 30k starting stack. Late in the day, i picked up aces for the first time and raised, getting flatted by a huge fish to my direct left and jdags in the small blind. The flop came ak10 rainbow and jdags checked, I cbet and the fish raised 3x pretty quickly. Jdags flatted out of the small blind which suprised me, and I had a desicion on my hands. I ended up deciding to flat to disguise the strength of my hand. The turn came a wonderful king, and we both checked to the fish who bet again pretty quickly. Jdags folded, and I decided to make a small raise. Agiasn't a better player, I would almost never do this, but I just felt like this guy wasn't folding. He called pretty quickly, and the river bricked. I made another big bet and after a short tank he called, and I won about an 80k ish pot. That pot really put me in a good position, and I ended the day just short of 90k.

I took it easy on monday, and tried not to play too much. I went to the gym and had a good dinner with some friends. I got a good night sleep, and felt refreshed and ready to play in the morning. My table looked very soft, aside from Robert McLaughlin, and Jasin dewitt, who both only had around 30k to start to day. Jason was to my direct left, and early on he raised utg, got flatted by Robert one seat over, and I called out of the bb with 44. The flop came a42 rainbow and it went check check. The turn brought a 10 of diamonds putting a backdoor flush draw out there, and I led, and Jason called. the river was another 4, giving me quads, and i decided to check. Jason bet out about 5600, leaving himself with less than 20k behind, and I thought for a bit and put him in. He ended up calling after a mini tank, and mucking. It was a perfect way to start the day, and it was pretty much smooth sailing from then on. I worked my stack up to around 160k, before my table broke with about an hour of play left in the night.

I was moved to a new table where I proceeded to lose a couple smaller pots, before picking up queens in late position. Someone opened from utg +1 and I three bet pretty small from the cut off. When it came back to him he insta jammed for like 75k total. I never really considered folding, but I did think about it for a little while since his shove represneted more than half of my stack. I ended up calling though, and he had AKs, which I held agians't. I ended the day with 236k, once again almost trippling my starting stack.

After play ended for that night, I was really hungry and went to this asian restruant noodles of the world which I love, but is probably not the best thing to eat late, to get some food. I ate a bunch of stuff and felt kind of funny afterwords. Unfortanetly, I woke up in the morning feeling very nauscious, and went downstairs to get an eggsandwhich before play started. I was unable to eat any of it though, and I felt kind of funny, but it was time to play.

My first table broke very quickly and I got moved to a table with, Jcmousaxx and Adam Wesley on my direct right. There was also this lesbian chic who was probably the chip leader a couple seats to my left. She was doing all kinds of kooky shit and pretty much playing every pot. I ended up picking up some good hands, (AK, qq) and winning some smaller pots with them. I was up to like 260k at my high point, but it all kind of went downhill from there. Jblaze20 was moved to my direct left, along with another aggresive player with a lot of chips to his left. As the day went on I felt like every hand I opened was being flatted, and I was being outplayed after the flop, or turn. I bled down to like 140k as we were on the money bubble.

The bubble broke pretty quickly, and I contuined to slowly lose chips to the blinds and antes. I ended up getting moved to another table and shoving pretty quickly with aks over a preflop raise and losing to q10. It was a frustrating way to go out, especially after doing so well on the first two days. but tournaments are tournaments, and i def didn't play my best on day three. i cashed for 8400 which is really not bad at all.

The next day, I decided to hang around since some of my friends were still there, and I ended up playing some cash. I took a shot at 10-25nl because the game looked soft. I bought in for 4k which is not nearly enough for that game but whatever. It ended up working out really well and I cashed out around 13k. It was very good way to end the trip, and took a lot of the disapointment from the tournament out of my mind. I went back to the city the next day, which is where I am now. Things have been going pretty well online, although I haven't been playing too much. Valentines day is coming up and I am really excited because it will be my one year anniversary of not smoking weed! This is a huuuge accomplishment for me and it will be great to celebrate it with my girlfriend. I am also going to mexico on the 18th with her for a week, which should be a blast. Hopefully I will blog again before then!

-Will

Well this is really tilting but I just had a long ass trip report written but it my comp crashed and I don't feel like writing it again so I am just going to concise it into some cliffs;

-I min cashed the main event for 15k after a very up and down and frustrating tournament.

-I lost every big pot I played at 5-10 cash, including an 8k pot with aces where I 5 bet preflop and lost to 109 offsuit, and a 6k pot where I got it in with kings vs queens preflop.

-I played in 1-2 plo game with a bunch of buddies the last night and we managed to busto Lee Jones! (he was being way too serious and a stickler for the rules). I played every hand blind preflop and ended cashing out like 3k for my biggest cash win of the trip!

-Overall I had a really amazing trip, even though poker didn't go so well. I got to meet a ton of really cool people, had a bunch of great meals, stayed in an amazing resort (cove baby!) and will almost certainly go back next year!

Sorry for the shortness of this post really don't feel like writing more right now although it's probably a breath of fresh air for most of you after reading my lengthy 2010 recap. Anyway gl on the tables, I know I will need it!

-Will

Everything was going well in July, until I had a really awful session on one of the last days of the month. It was late, I was tilting, and i didn't stop. I lost about 8500 on the session which is a lot considering how tight I play. But it wasn't the end of the world. I tried to forget about and eventually passed out.

I woke up the next morning and immediately started playing. This has always been one of my biggest problems as a poker player, but in 2010 I was particularly good about starting off my day and doing things before I sat down and played. On this morning, that all went to shit. I loaded up my laptop in the dark depths of my room and proceeded to lose another 4k before I could stop. Extremely angry at myself, I tried to move forward and forget about the two bad sessions I just had.

After coming back from the beach, I put in another session, and lost around 5k. At this point I was devastated beyond titled. I had lost more than 17,000 in less than 24 hours. I decided to give myself a 24 hour exclusion period, to make sure that I wouldn't play anymore.

To be honest, it took me a while to recover from that 24 stretch. It really fcked my mindstate up about poker, and I just couldn't get over it. It was always in the back of my head I would book small wins here and there, and get a little momentum going, but I would always offset them with one big, tilt induced losing session. If you look at my PTR graph, it makes a big V towards the end of the summer, and then just kinda goes blehhh for the rest of the year.

In September, I moved into new apartment on Spring and Mott Street with my roomate who had helped me quit smoking weed. The apartment was huge, and I was really excited to move in. In a lot of ways I just needed a physical change of scenery, although aside from poker I did have a very good summer. But I needed to get focused again, and get back to winning.

At the end of September, I played in the Wcoop Main event. I had a seat through SNE, and initially my goal was to play aggressive and get as many chips as possible. However, once we got close to the money, I really just played for the mincash. It was really embarrassing, but at the same time I really just wanted lock up 10k. I ended up barely making it. It was certainly not the situation I wanted to be in, but I was happy to win 10k, especially since my entry had already been paid for.

I broke even for most of October before hitting a nice little downswing towards the end of the month. My roll on stars was really low because i had just cashed out a decent amount. I had to drop down to 200NL which SUCKED because I was barely getting any VPP's there, and I still losing at the tables. Luckily, I ended up taking 7th in a 50 rebuy tournament on the last sunday of the month for like 4500, which was a huge boost to my bankroll at the time.

Although it sounds kinda sad, that score gave me a big boost of confidence at the time. I ended up hitting a couple smaller scores in the next week, and then in the second week of November I finished 5th in the super Tuesday for just under 20k. This was another big boost of confidence, and even though I realllly wanted to win, 20k was 20k, and suddenly I was rolling again. Lol donkaments!

I kept grinding cash for the rest of the month, and continued to break even, but I didn't care that much because of the trny scores. At the end of the month I played in the USA coop 500 main event and ended up finishing 21st for 4k after playing 2days of poker. I was pretty crushed after putting in all that work, but November had been very good to me overall and I really couldn't complain.

After breaking even for the first two weeks of December, I caught another big break on the second Sunday of the month. I ended up winning the 162 6max on stars for 22.5k. This was enormous for me. Winning 22k was awesome, but it was finishing 1st that felt really soo good. I've played a ton of tournaments in online poker career, and only won a couple of them, and this was by far my biggest win. The money certainly didn't hurt either. I went from having around 6k in my account at my low point in October to having almost 50k 2 weeks into December. I was ecstatic.


Although I was able to finish the year with a great run in a tournaments a nice little upswing in cash, I still have very mixed feelings about 2010 as a whole, as far as poker is concerned. This year has been very profitable for me, and that's something that I should never take for granted. I've also become a lot more disciplined, in terms of the hours that I play, and in my ability to control my tilt and quit sessions when I need to. I am extremely thankful for this as well. At the same time, I really don't feel like I've improved that much as a poker player. I still find myself auto-piloting almost every time I play, and just going threw the motions as opposed to really thinking about all of my decisions. This works as far as SNE is concerned, but in terms of becoming the player that i want to be, it's not going to cut it.

The game's have gotten sooo much tougher than they used to be. In 2006, I was making 10k easy in a good session playing a few tables of 2k NL. Now I struggle to make that much in a month, 24tabling significantly smaller limits. Was a better player then than I am now? Of course not, but the other people who play this game for a living online have gotten a lot better as well. And frankly, most of them have surpassed me.

I am very humble when it comes to poker these days. When I sit down at the table, I don't think that I'm the best player. Hell, most the time I don't think I'm the third or fourth best. While I may be realistic, this is not mind state conducive to winning poker. Over the last few years, I've settled for this mind state, and I've been happy to make as much as I have in rakeback as well as the profits I've made on the tables. But I am no longer content with it. I spend so much time playing poker, that I might as well try and become the best player that i can be while I'm doing it. After all, what do I have to lose?

Don't get me wrong, 2010 was a great year for me. Perhaps the best one of my life. After letting go of weed, I really feel like I slowly started to learn again, and grow as a person. I want to continue to do this, and I really believe that I will in 2011. But I also want to learn and grow as a poker player. I think that one of the biggest reasons why its been difficult for me to do this is because that poker consumes my life so much sometimes that it really feels like a chore, or a curse, and not something that I am blessed to be able to do.

In 2011, I really want to find more of a balance between poker, and the rest of my life. When I sit down to play, I want to be excited, not burned out. Poker is an amazing game. It is so simple yet so complex and challenging at the same time. I love the challenge, but it has taken a lot of out me since I started playing in 2004. I am only 24, but sometimes I feel like I have lived 10 lives as a poker player. I really feel that the most important thing I've learned this year is that as much as I love poker, if I can't learn how to balance it with the rest of my life, then I will ultimately have to let it
go.

I apologize for the length of these last 3 posts, as well as the poor grammar. It felt good to write them. I am going to spend the next few days relaxing with my girlfriend before I go to PCA, which I am very excited for. I hope that this will be a great year for everyone. Much love.

-Will

After quitting weed in February, I was really riding a "life" high. Everything was so new an exciting! Even just the simplest things, like going out for a walk, all of a sudden pleasure-able experiences. The winter was over, the weather was getting nicer, everything was looking up for me. Little did I know things were about to change.
Late in March, my girlfriend went to Mexico for a week with her family. We agreed to keep in touch by email while she was gone. That monday, I went down to the Borgata with my roommate and some friends to celebrate his 21st birthday. We took a limo down and had a blast. He ended up bluffing me off a huge hand at 1-2 where I had pocket aces on a akq6j board where he shoved the river, and I tank folded and he showed k5 offsuit. To this day I'm honestly not sure if he was value betting or bluffing.
After everyone went back to the room, I decided to stay up and grind some 5-10. After all it wasn't everyday that I was at Borgata. I ended up playing a really late session, and by the time I got back to the room, everyone was sort of ready to go back to the city. I was exhausted, and didn't really feel like making the trip, so I decided to extend the room and sleep. I woke up the next afternoon, and ended up playing more poker. I remember I had a really good 5-10 session where I won a monster pot with a turned straight flush vs a rivered boat. I decided to extend the room another night, and see how long the run good could last.
Since I hadn't planned on staying more than a night, I didn't bring my laptop down with me. The next night I found a friend who was staying there and used his laptop to grind tourneys. While I was grinding, I checked my email and saw she had emailed me a few days ago. It was a decent sized email, talking about her trip and what it had been like so far, and how much she loved me, ect. I kinda just skimmed it because I was focusing on the trnys and wrote her a really half assed response, which I didn't think much of at the time. Soon after that, she wrote me an email back saying that she was very disappointed in my response, and that it made it seem like I didn't really care about her. Again, I didn't think too much of it at the time, and just figured I would smooth things over when she got back.
On her last night in Mexico, she sent me a very heartfelt email basically saying that she didn't know if she could be with me anymore. It really caught me off guard, although it had been building up for sometime, even long before she had left for Mexico. She needed someone that not only cared for her, but was able to show it through their actions. It worried me, but I wrote her an apology email and figured I'd just win her back when she got home.
When she got back, she was really upset. She didn't want to see me, and said she wasn't sure whether or not she could keep going in the relationship. All of a sudden, I realized how serious it had gotten. I was about to lose the person that mattered the most to me in my life, and all because I was incapable of showing my feelings. We had some really intense and heartfelt conversations on the phone the next few days, with a lot of tears on both ends. She told me that she needed some time to figure out whether or not she could be with me anymore, but that she couldn't afford to be hurt again.
I went home to Long Island to visit my family for a few days. I spent a lot of time talking with my mom about the situation. She was also very upset, as well as worried. She knew as well as anyone how far I had come, and how important it was to keep this relationship going for me. That night, I wrote my girlfriend a really long email, basically trying to put my feelings and emotions for her into words as best I could. The email really got through to her, and she decided to give me a second chance.
Since then, our relationship has really come into its own. She was always an amazing girlfriend to me, but I certainly wasn't always the best boyfriend to her. That real threat of losing her, and the love that we had, made me realize what I needed to do. I need to give back what she had given to me, which was everything. I am by no means a perfect boyfriend. I certainly still have plenty of flaws in that department. But I have really come so far. For someone who never had a girlfriend before, to tell you I've been with Abbie for almost a year and half now brings me the greatest joy. She is truly incredible, and very much responsible for helping shape me into the person I am today, and the one I will be tomorrow.
I've had many highs and lows in poker this year, but none of them compare to that feeling of loss I experienced in March. Nothing can come close. It was a feeling of total emptiness. I felt like I would be alone forever, and I never want to feel that way again.

Speaking of highs and lows, this year has been a real roller coaster poker wise. I started the year off on a nice win streak, then broke even for a while, with some bad losing nights. Overall, I was pretty content with the beginning of the year.
When july came around, I was really excited for vegas, and the main event. I had played in it the year before, for the first time, but was very disappointed in my showing. I got high on every break and ended gradually dusting my stack off before getting the last of it in with akcc and losing to akss. Needless to say, I was in much better mind-frame, and I felt like the wheels were really in place for a big showing at this years main event.
I had a pretty soft table on day one. There wasn't any crazy fish, but everyone was playing pretty solid aside from a few weak spots. I took advantage with a fair amount of bluffing but played very conservatively throughout the day, not putting any real chips at risk. With less than 30minutes left before we bagged chips, I had about 40k with the blinds at 2-400.
One of the only other good aggressive players at the table, Jerry Payne, opened for 1k in late position and I decided to flat on the button with k9cc. The blinds got out of the way and the flop came down k94, with two hearts. He checked to me to and I bet 1600. He called pretty quickly, which i thought was a bit strange. The turn came an offsuit 10, and he led 2500 without much thought. This is obviously not the best card for my hand, so I decided to play it safe and just call his bet. The river came another k, and I made kings full of nines. He checked to me, and I bet 6k. He thought for a little while, and then slid the rest of his stack in. Immediately I felt sick. In any other tournament I would have snap called, but this was the main event. Was he really making a move? I didn't think so. His play screamed k10 me, but I called pretty quickly, after all that was the only that beat me. He said "nuts", and flipped the k10 over. My stomach dropped. It was the most disappointing feelings I'd felt from poker in a long time, I was still in the tournament, but with a measly 4k left.
I managed to double up and make day 2, but didn't last very long. I stayed in vegas for a few more days and played more tournaments, which was a bad idea. The awful taste of my main event bust out hand was still in my mouth, and I was playing far from well. I played the venetian 5k and as soon as I busted i booked a flight home, and got the hell out of there.
Getting home was great. I went from this hellish desert filled with evil casino's to my peaceful home in Long Island. I spent tons of time with my girlfriend at the beach, and in my pool, relaxing for the next few weeks. I was just so happy to be out of Vegas. Playing online felt like a privilege, after sitting around smokey live poker tables for weeks. I started winning again, and things were great. The k10 hand seemed like it had happened years ago. Everything was going smoothly. I was having an awesome summer, and then, disaster struck.

Stay tuned for part 3!

-Will

Ah, what a difference a year makes.

It was about this time last year that I reached supernova elite. I had been running badly and playing even worse for the last few months of 2009, and was a good ways behind pace for elite. All of this led me to start 24tabling 200 PLO 6max in December, to earn points quicker and get to SNE as fast as possible. I ended up getting there, but just barely. I lost a ton of money playing PLO, and good deal of the little confidence in my poker game that I had left. As you can imagine , reaching SNE was a very bittersweet accomplishment. In one sense, I was just happy to be there, but at the same time I really had no idea where I was going.
December of 2010 has been a very different story. I reached supernova elite tonight, for the third consecutive year. Instead of struggling to get there, in a lot of ways I have coasted during this home stretch. All in all, I think I've profited a little under 40k online this month, before rake back, making it my most profitable month of the year( Although to be honest, I just started to keep records). It certainly hasn't been a smooth ride all year though, as I've had my share of ups and downs on the tables, and in life. Lets go back to the beginning.
After reaching SNE in 09, I immediately did a 7 day self exclusion on pokerstars. I needed a decent break from poker, for a lot of reasons. I needed to clear my head, and get myself in a place mentally where I could start off 2010 on the right foot. In about the middle of this 7 day period, I watched a movie called "Zen". The movie had an overwhelming effect on me, to say the least. It depicted the life of a Buddhist monk, Dogen, and his search to find true Buddhism.
For the majority of the movie, I was in tears. Watching these monks go about their lives with absolutely no material possessions or desires, yet in peace and harmony, made me realize just how skewed my own life had become. I had become completely obsessed with my own material gain through poker, and in doing so I had lost site of everything that really mattered in my life. The movie made me realize how backwards I had been living my life, not just that year, but for many years before as well. When I wasn't smoking a blunt, or a joint, I was probably playing poker. I had been trying my best to escape from the real world, and succeeding with dangerous efficiency. The problem was, I had been totally missing out on this pretty big thing that we refer to as life.
I started off 2010 on a mission. I was going to live Buddhist. I was going to let go of myself, and hopefully become a winning player in the process :D. Amazingly, it worked. Instead of being this frustrated miser when I played, I became a patient, relaxed monk. If I lost to a bad beat, I didn't curse the heavens, or yell at my computer screen. I simply closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and remembered how grateful I was for everything. All of the sudden I was winning again. Off the tables, I was significantly cutting down on my usage of weed, and my life was becoming the one I had wanted it to be, a lot sooner than I thought it would. But it wouldn't last.
By February, I had begun smoking heavily again, and although I was still winning, I was far from a monk at the tables. I was very easily frustrated, and all together displeased with my lifestyle. Something needed to change. And it did. After a wonderful valentines day, spent sober with my girlfriend (I was pretty much always sober around her, but as soon as she was gone I was smoking), I fell in to a cloud of smoke that night. But what I was experiencing was far from a high. In fact it was the exact opposite, it was a huge low. Weed was no longer lifting me up as it had used to, but bringing me down instead.
I told my roomate that i wanted to quit smoking weed, which I had been saying for a while. Of course he said he didn't believe me, but I told him I was very serious, and that this was for real. He jumped on the opportunity. Intially, we set out a plan to quit smoking weed for a month. We were going to do it together, and he was going to make sure that I didn't break any of the rules. For that first week, he was on me like a fucking fox. Every time I even entertained the idea of burning, he somehow popped up out of nowhere and started chewing me out, with out me even saying anything. I really couldn't have done it without him.
The funny thing is, it really wasn't that hard. I didn't experience any sort of withdrawals. No loss of sleep, or waking up in cold sweats. I just sort of stopped. What I did experience, was hard to describe in words. It was an extreme high, almost like the one I had gotten when I first started smoking weed. I had become so accustomed to smoking weed, and being high, that actually being sober for hours, then days, then weeks, was a totally new, exciting feeling. Before I knew it, the month was over, and I didn't have a celebratory blunt in my mouth. Instead I had a new goal. I wanted to go a full year without smoking.
I am extremely proud to say that it's been 9 and a half months now, and I have yet to take a hit. Not even a small bubbler rip, or a one hitter, brah. This coming February, I will celebrate my one year anniversary of being sober. And I don't plan on smoking anytime soon after that.
I know some of you are probably thinking it's just weed. Great. You stopped. Weed isn't addictive anyway, stoner! Well it may not be for everyone, but I was certainly addicted to weed. It wasn't just something I did, it was a way of life. No addiction is healthy, and overcoming this one has been one of the most important accomplishments of my life.
For those of you that are thinking, how is this guy gonna tell me this story, and still use the name dankness3? Who does he think he is? I have since emailed stars asking to change my username to "soberness3", but they respectful declined due to fear of multi-accounting.
I really didn't realize how long this post was going to be, and apologize for that, because it's nowhere near done, and I certainly won't be able to finish it tonight. Although I realize in the past that I have started post like this and have then failed to finish them, I am making it a personal mission to finish this one. I will do my best to wrap it up tomorrow, but I may very well need three parts to tell the whole story. I look foward to finishing my mission!
Goodnight for now.
-Will

Well I am about 98.4percent of the way done with my third year in a row of getting supernova elite. While this year has been full of highs and lows poker wise, that accomplishment is starting to sink a little, and it feels great. Obv it takes a lot of hours playing a lot of tables to reach SNE, and I am def proud of all of the time I've put in over these last years. However, I've realized this year that just getting SNE isn't enough for me anymore. Yes it's great accomplishment, and I truly have been blessed to be able achieve it each of these past three years. The problem is, while I've made a good amount of money, and logged millions of hands, I really don't think that my game has improved much. When you mass table as much as I have over the last three years, all of your decisions become extremely robotic. Essentially, you are making all of your decisions in a vacuum, as opposed to looking at each hand individually. When I do take the time to properly analyze a hand while laying it, the results are almost always positive. More importantly, even if my decision is not correct, I am always learning something from the situation. This is going to be my biggest poker goal for 2011, is to learn as much as I can about the game. I know that sounds silly coming from someone whos probably logged in the range of 6million+ hands over the last three years, but it really is something that I am going to need to do if i want to keep playing professionally. I am going to make a longer year end update with some goals for next year in it as well.
-Will

Super burnnntt out from grinding right now. I have like 887k vpps so i am getting close to pace for sne. Just want to finish this year out as smoothly as possible. I def want to start updating this blog more with longer posts in the near future.

Today marks the fifth or sixth time I'd say since the beginning of summer that I've lost more than 5figures in a week. It's extremely disheartening. When you play as much poker as I have, for the past six years of my life, losing continuously like this makes you miserable. I've invested so much time into the game that when I lose I like this, I truly feel like a failure. Not just a failure at poker, but at life. I feel like I've failed in existence, as a human being. Emptiness. Complete and utter emptiness.
When poker is all that you have, if poker goes bad, everything goes bad. Thankfully, poker is not all that I have. Unfortunately, it's just all that I do. I don't play basketball anymore. I don't read books. I don't walk around the city much at all. I hardly ever write anymore. Once fiery passions have fallen at the wayside. I do play poker, however. In a little more than 2months, this will be my third year in a row achieving supernova elite. This will be my third year in a row of playing at least 2.5million hands of poker. This will also be my third year in a row where i don't feel like I am successful poker player.
The funny thing is, my success in poker, or lack thereof, actually has very little to do with poker. Instead it has just about everything to do with the rest of my life, or lack thereof. I have more free time than anyone in their right mind could wish for. I'm 24 years old, healthy, and in good physical shape. But I don't do anything. I watch TV. I watch poker tube. I watch cardrunners videos, (until I get bored, and want to start playing poker.)
Poker has always been an addiction for me. When I won 250k in 06, It turned into an extremely profitable addiction. I've always told myself that to turn poker from a compulsive addiction into a successful profession, I have to maintain the same mind state whether I'm winning or losing. Yet I still am happy when I win, and upset when I lose. My friends may not notice this, as I mask my feelings from those who are around me well, I am after all, a professional poker player. However I can not mask them from myself, and they take their toll.
The world is such an enormous place. There is so much out there. I see this when I am home in long Island, or walking around the city. When I am in my room, playing poker on my computer, the world is a very small place. There is a bed. A desk. A computer. Some clothes. This is the world. There are no people. Just avatars, with numbers under them. There is no sky. Just a hyper simple background theme.
I am 24 years old. I have been a professional poker player for 5years now. I support myself and make a good deal more than most of my friends do. Technically, I have more freedom than just about anyone I know. However, when I look back the past five years of my life, I see a dimly lit room, a computer screen, and a poker website. There might be an ounce of some really good weed sitting around somewhere in there. I have been sober for 8months now, but the dimly light room is still very much a part of my life.
I don't want this to be my life anymore. I want to experience this huge wonderful world we live in. I want to meet new people. I want to work with children. I love kids. I want to spend time with dogs. I love dogs. I want to fly somewhere, not to play a poker tournament. I want to rap. I love rap. I want to play basketball, and football. Maybe some ultimate frisbee too. I want to snowboard. I want to swim in the ocean.
I also want to continue to play poker. But if I cannot figure out a way to do all of these things as well, then I think that this game is no longer for me.

So I decided that it probably wouldn't be the worst thing to start blogging again, after taking a bit of a lengthy absence. Since I've been gone, I've actually done something crazy. On feb. 14(valentines day) I stopped smoking weed. Since then, I haven't smoked once. So technically today is my 3month aniversery of being weed free. To be quite frank, I feel amazing. My head feels clearer everyday. I have sooo much more energy. I just feel better in general. The best part is that I really don't have any urge to smoke anymore. Even when other people are doing it, I just pass.

Yeah I know. My name is dankness3, something isn't right. But the truth is I feel great, and i want to keep this going. My poker game has actually suffered during this period, but I really feel like it's coming around. I will talk about this more in the future, but this is going to be the end of this entry because I am absolutley exhausted. I did manage to finish 3rd in the stars 109rebuy on tuesday for a little more than 15k, my biggest score in a while(yayyy!). I promise I will blog more in the future.

-danky