So this story is going to be both humiliating and a little gross...


So last Wednesday I go to Church with my parents/wife etc... We drop my son off at the Nursery like usual... Everything is fine...

Until the next day... My son starts vomiting and has diarrhea... He has never had this before at all... We call our Pediatrician and he tells us what to do... We do it and he is better by the next evening.

Queue the very next day and my stomach is starting to feel unsettled. What would follow over the course of the next 8 hours are what I can only describe as severe constant diarrhea and vomiting. So I do the standard... Drink lots of fluids, a little Gatorade, eat very dry foods etc etc... I automatically assumed that I just caught whatever my Son probably contracted while in the Nursery at Church...

2 or 3 days go by and I am gradually getting better but still not eating anything really dense or anything... For no apparent reason I started to feel really really upset to my stomach and very very dehydrated... It didn't take much longer before I was very dizzy, and then I passed out...

My wife called 911 and the whole shabang happened where I went to the Hospital etc... I was admitted and was there for a couple more days... Apparently I was severely dehydrated and if I had gone on the way I was for another day or so I could have done extensive damage to some of my internal organs...

The Dr. said it should have been obvious that I needed to see a Dr. after 2 days of symptoms not getting better. The Dr. said I had Salmonella poisoning and what my Son contracted was obviously completely unrelated... So I felt like a complete idiot and am still recovering now... I'm a little weak and my stomach can't handle too much right now but I'm definitely feeling much better as of right now....

Sorry if there was too much details...

-Josh

Before the flaming starts, I will state the following for the record:

-I think James Cameron is a great director
-I enjoyed Avatar. I was entertained, and I don't think I wasted my $$$

Now with that said, what the heck is the big deal with this movie? The story itself is pretty unoriginal. The dialogue is borderline horrendous. The acting itself is probably right about average. The special effects and 3D were AMAZING, I will definitely admit that. The movie definitely did not need to be as long as it was. Even with subpar just about everything that makes a great movie great, I still liked it...

Now tbh I could really care less that it is now the top grossing film of all time. A lot of different factors play into that like inflation etc... What I am wondering is how anyone can think this movie is one of the greatest ever made? I just don't see it... Literally... Titanic was a better film and I can't stand that damn movie... I can think of atleast 50 other films that a better than Avatar without even trying that hard...

Since when do special effects and cool 3D shit all of sudden make a movie one of the greatest of all time?

/rant

Hey blog, long time to type, or whatever...

I've been playing a lot of poker lately by my standards (like almost 30k hands this month and it's only the 20th).... I have been doing anything from 2 tabling all the way up to 16 tabling at some points. The month started off pretty horribly but I have since rebounded to what I think is a + month so far. I ran so horrible the first week I decided to not check my results for the rest of the month(thanks Jesse). I even moved down to 25NL for a couple thousand hands where I ran decent but played even better a won like 7-8BIs.

Playing on Stars has been much better than FTP thus far. I've cleared almost $300 in bonuses (which included a reload bonus at the first of the year) and will hopefully be purchasing a $650 bonus at the end of this month.

My routine has been that of developing my game while also getting in volume at the same time. At times I will play 2-4 tables, open more hands, get into more spots and then analyze those so I have a clear understanding of them and can do the right thing if a similar spot comes up while I am playing 12 tables etc... I have also been playing some short sessions while mass tabling as of late. For example, if I have 20 minutes to kill and know I'm not really going to play long enough to establish many reads or use history I'll just fire up 10-16 tables and get 300-400 hands in instead of using that time to do other things (like play PS3, etc...).

My wife has been very supportive of the increase in playing time. I am going to try to hit the 300k VPP mark by the end of the year on Stars which is worth something like 17-19k in bonuses and milestones. Would be worth more if I started the year at Supernova... Don't have too much more to talk about really... Just figured I blog since I haven't in quite some time...

Later...

I am going to use my blog as a shameless begging ground. I am moving most of my BR to Stars (like 90% of it). I have already withdrew a little over half my BR so I can deposit it on to Stars when I get the $ in my bank. Since I don't want to be out of action, but don't really want to play on FTP I am going to ask here if anyone can help me move about $1k or so to Stars. I'll get my $ withdrawn and deposited the right way eventually but I need to play everyday and will only play on FTP if I absolutely have to.

That is all...

-Josh

This blog will be short and sweet... October fucking rules... On Tuesday night I shot a 299 bowling (for those who don't know, that's one point shy of 300, which is a perfect game...) I was a little mad I missed but I'm happy anyway...

As for poker I did not doomswitch myself in my last blog and I am up almost 25 BIs in my last 6.5k hands... SHHHIIIIPPPPP ITTTTTTTT.

That's all...

Peace...

Many of you probably have no idea how big of a sports fan I am... I played tons of sports growing up (Baseball, Football, Roller Hockey...) I also ran track and field and X Country in High School... While all of that is behind me now I am still a pretty avid bowler... I get made fun of because of all the different bowling balls I have... Don't really care too much tbh. I only bowl once a week and I still manage to carry a 200+ average on a house shot which is pretty decent for someone who never ever practices... At the moment I think my average is like 212 or something...

Anyway... Playing sports growing up made me a HUGE sports fan. I'm an avid Ducks/Angels fan even though I don't live in Orange County... I'm also a big Dolphins fan when it comes to football... The Ducks got smashed by San Jose on Saturday night 4 to 1... The Dolphins have started a lot worse than I expected them to and hope they turn things around... And then of there's the Angels... Won there division AGAIN, and going to play Boston in the playoffs AGAIN and hopefully not lose AGAIN. I swear... If the Angels lose to Boston in the playoffs again I will cease to be a real fan... And by that I mean buying their merchandise, going to games each season etc... Just thought I would share a little bit about that with you all...

On to poker... I got tired of breaking even and hired Alvin again... TBH I never really thought of Alvin as not being my coach even though we haven't had an official coaching session in quite some time... I never considered hiring anyone else at all... It's also been really cool of him to randomly shoot me a message and ask how things were going, discuss with me things I was struggling with lately etc... So needless to say I'm pretty excited to further my journey and hopefully this will help me get through 50 and 100NL..

With all that being said this month has started off the exact opposite of last... I'm up 9 BIs already (Ignite boomswitch now).... I have also been dabbling a bit in HU and FR play although most of my hands have been at 6Max....

If you haven't watched the latest [vital] Myth vid where he plays 4 tables of 50NL you are doing yourself a grave disservice.... OK, the nutriding blog is over.... PEACE!

-Josh

So I'm writing this from my in laws house about 5 hours away from home. We drove in yesterday and got here at about 9:30PM... I was pretty tired so after getting unloaded and settled I went to sleep. I brought my desktop computer and my 24" monitor so I could grind during the visit. I am way behind on the amount of hands I wanted to get in this month (surprise surprise!) but I am on pace to play more hands this month than the previous 3 or 4... I am stuck in the middle of this 50k+ hand breakeven stretch... It's pretty exhausting tbh..... I am sure I have probably lost somewhere between 8-10 BIs that I shouldn't have... But being up 10 BIs in 55k hands really isn't that much even though I admit it's better than nothing...

I just finished a session and am going to post an example of a stack I lost that I probably shouldn't have. In review, I played this hand pretty horrible vs a CR member...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4728711

I didn't take near enough time to think about how the turn card may have helped villains range at all... I just saw it wasn't a diamond and blindly shoved my stack in... Pretty bad imo... Flame away...

Here's a KK hand vs a megafish where I make a fold on the river I probably wouldn't have a month or two ago...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4728731

Here KK gets ran down by AK AIPF... Pretty standard I guess, just me complaining... (It's my blog, I'm allowed...)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4728738

During this session I didn't win a single pot worth more than 40BBs... Yet with these 3 biggish losses I was still able to finish down a little less than 2 BIs... I am really confident in my small/medium size pot play... I seem to C-Bet, Double Barrel, Bluff Raise and Float with a very high % of success... If I could only run a little bit better in big pots and avoid mistakes like that QQ hand up there I know things will turn around eventually...

I will warn you ahead of time that is kind of long.

I had a pretty sick session yesterday in which I was planning on playing about 1200-1300 hands. I stopped about 500 hands in because I was running sickly horrible in AIPF pots... Most of them were against 20-40BB stacks but it was gross. I was losing with overpairs, as well as A high hands where I had villains drawing to 3 pair outs. Then when this hand I happened I was ready to auto quit all my tables(I did quit actually, despite the results of the hand because my mind just wasn't focused at all...)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4708891

As most players that frequent the Micro and SSNL forums know, I talk daily about my game and about hands with Jesse (PayMy22ition)... We discussed a couple of days ago how emotional control and mental discipline are vastly underestimated skills no matter what limits you play. Like it or not, playing without caring about, or being indifferent to results is a critical skill to master. It might be the most important thing you do to grow as a player...

Several blogs ago I talked about how being results oriented is the master inducer of tilt. I think it is so important that I am going to talk about it again. One of the comments on that blog was something to the effect of "Isn't this common knowledge and pretty well known?" The short answer is yes. The long answer is while most everyone agrees with it most people find it hard to actually practice it on a consistent basis.

I think a lot of players most fail to notice some really key things.

1). If you are running well, and having a good session, there is a good chance people at your table fear you. Use this to your advantage until you notice the gameflow changing due to recent results/showdowns. Make sure you are able to notice key differences though. Maybe you 3Bet a CO open with 87ss and flopped two pair to a villains TPTK and you get the $ in and win the pot. The result is good and you won the pot but your image might change in the opposite way...

2). If you are running bad and losing, there is a good chance people at the table are going to call you down lighter. Tighten up, and use their stationy tendencies against them by value betting more often and a little more thinly. And obviously, don't bluff too much until you think your image has changed in the tables eyes... If it seems like the table is going to be neutral EV because you can't get a lot of credit, then leaving the table is probably best...

These two things are not limit or villain dependant. Even the worst of fish will be able to notice that you aren't winning many pots or that you are betting and then giving up a lot. One thing I like to do is use my table mods to my advantage. I have a table mod installed that has 12 different felt colors. I decided to take a few of those felt colors and assign certain meanings to them. Then I can change the felt color based on how I think my image at that table is as a reminder to tighten up, loosen up etc...

So what does this have to do with emotional control? Well, I think a lot of us do the exact opposite of the above when we play. We tend to protect our wins and tighten up when we are doing well and we tend play worse in attempt to get even when we are losing. Long story short, whether or not you are winning or losing you are prone to results oriented tilting. The core of eliminating this tilt is emotional control...

The study of human emotions is not something that has been around for very long if you compare it to normal philosophy, science etc... Most, if not all of us, have probably been conditioned since birth that certain things should make us happy and certain things should make us mad, sad etc... Simply put, it is very very very hard for a large percentage of the human population to remain indifferent to just about anything. Personally, there are some things that I tend to be indifferent about. For example, I have family members that have "issues"... For some it is drugs, others it is laziness, others have emotional problems. While I care about their well being and wish them no harm, I have developed this inability to feel sorry for them when they continually make decisions that worsen their condition. Call me cold, but their problems are not my problems... So lately I have attempted to treat my poker results the same way I treat hearing about my meth head Uncle going back to jail... I encourage you to try and find something in your life that are emotionally indifferent about and attempt to emulate that state of mind while you play.

-Josh

So first off I want to say that I decided to invest in a 24" monitor... WOW am I happy about that. Also made sure to go out of my way to find one with 1920x1200 resolution instead of 1920x1080 which seems to be standard... This bad boy makes 6 to 8 tabling a breeze... I also have a 22" wide screen that I have rotated to view forums etc...

So anyway I played a pretty good amount of hands yesterday and ended up down about a BI... I'm pretty sure I ran somewhat bad and quite honestly I am trying as hard as I can to simply ignore individual session results. I am still down about 5 BIs on the month after my horrid start but I'm not even close to done putting hands in. In fact, I am pretty sure with my schedule the rest of the month I will be able to put in between 40 and 50k hands total.

So here are some hands from yesterday... Didn't have too many really tough spots tbh....

Villain in this hand is pretty aggro... He loves flatting opens IP... I thought about check/raising the turn but didn't want to shut out his bluffs and I was pretty sure he'd fire the river when checked to... I almost made a Hero call after the river came bad and decided against it... In hindsight I think a better alternate line is to just C-Bet the flop and look to C/R the turn...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4694582


I'm pretty happy with this next hand tbh... Both villains are regs on the nittier side... What can I really hope for? That they both have an OP and are putting this much $ in? Nice river FTW.... Too bad I made the right play...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4694588


This next hand was fun... So much for top set...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4694595


This hand here is EPIC imo... Villain is a multi tabling reg, (like 12+ Tables)... He still manages a 19/16 type style... I have quite a few hands on him and I have his postflop play pretty much nailed... He folds to 3Bets just about always... He also C-Bets like 90% of flops... So I decide flatting KK pre and just calling a C-Bet is best... I know villain will fire again with any top pair, and I also know if he checks back the turn he will pay off a river bet as wide as say JT... The board runs out kind of bad and I am content to just check it down...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4694600

So yeah... I had KK vs AA preflop and didn't lose my stack... w00t!

Nothing much more happened of note really... I got AJ in vs a 40BB fish who had QJ and I lost... I got AA in for 50BBs against another fish who flopped bottom pair and a flush draw and lost... Pretty standard stuff really... Just need to come out on top in more of those....

-Josh

Yesterday was well... It's done with atleast. I had the worst day of my poker career both in terms of BIs lost and actual $$ lost.

I guess it just comes with the territory and it was bound to happen eventually. Unfortunately, if I lose another 6-8 BIs I'm going to have to move down to 25NL. Not because of my BR (If I move down at that point, I'll still have over 40 BIs for 25NL) but because of confidence really. I'm not going to bother reliving the hands that caused yesterdays losses. I am proud enough to say though that only one of them was a bluff I ran and I think it was a pretty good one. I got hero called by by a mid-pocket pair that can just never be ahead too often. So I think the bluff was +EV long term especially since I do flat big pairs OTB with decent frequency.

So I am going to try and update with my progress/results here just about everyday to keep myself accountable for putting hours/hands in. My two biggest leaks are not playing enough, and paying off fish too often. So far this month I am doing well in both of those departments. Here is what yesterday looked like, might post a graph later but you should get the picture:

Hands: ~1300
Profit/Loss: -$380

Here is to hoping things pickup quickly and even out as I continue to grind...