I had honestly been dreading October since July or so, when I finally laid out a concrete plan to move from San Diego to Boston. For anyone that moves a lot, if the days that you move aren't in the bottom 5 worst of the year for you, then damn, either share your secrets with me, or your year sucks! As expected, the actual moving part sucked. I drove into Boston from New jersey (a 4 hour drive usually which took me 12 thanks to rain/traffic) and arrived with a packed car, on our busy street with nowhere to park and no way to avoid the downpour going on outside. Hmm, fast forward an hour or two, and all of my things had finally been hauled up our steep staircase to the third floor and sat drying on the ground while I talked my way out of a parking ticket. Luckily the house is super sweet and despite a pretty unpleasant day, my new roommate Marc was around who I hadn't seen in a while, and we just had a few beers and enjoyed the novelty of Boston's ambiance.

The next few days were spent in a mad rush to buy all the new house particulars (bedding, desk, etc) and shipping my car back home since it's pretty much impossible to park in the back bay and you otherwise have to pay 300/month to keep it in a garage which I just refuse to do out of principle. Since my roommates hadn't moved in yet, I had a very free October and chose to use my time productively and log a ton of hours playing poker. This turned out to be a fabulous decision and I wound up having my best month ever by a pretty decent margin. I won't post my full results just because I'm a bit superstitious about it, but here's the update on the HU match that I blogged about in my last post:



It was a very swingy, fun match and I'm extremely happy to have come out on top in the fashion that I did. Usually I wouldn't post a player's SN in this situation, but since it's pretty blatantly obvious that this was a shared/bought/whatever Swedish account used by a competent player, I don't mind doing the shameless brag. So yeah, tough to have a bad month when things go this way.

Poker-wise, I feel like I grew a lot as a player throughout October, and just hope to keep up my good schedule/work-ethic all the way through November as well. I feel very confident about poker now and honestly that's half the battle for me sometimes.

So clearly poker went great, the trip to Miami that I blogged about last time was a blast, and when my roommates finally arrived, I instantly remembered why I had decided to leave behind amazing San Diego for chilly Boston. The 3 guys that I'm living with are my three closest friends from high school and it's just amazing how well we understand each other. I'm an infinitely happier person around them, and I absolutely can't wait for the rest of the year. Halloween weekend was the first weekend that we were all together and it was a big drunken blast. I went as the cookie monster as part of a group costume. Obligatory pic:



Haha, man the costumes were a hit!

And here's a more artsy picture taken under a blacklight of me at one of the parties that I love:



So thug haha :)

So that's that. We're all getting settled in and the place is coming together terrifically. Yesterday my roommate took me on a walking tour of Boston to get to know the city, and I gotta say, cold weather aside, I love it. Boston reminds me a lot of San Francisco's northeast counterpart; the city is easily walkable, has a beautiful waterside location, and is full of culture. Can't wait to get to know the city more intimately throughout the coming year!

And things have just been rolling on otherwise. Poker-wise, I'm off to a hot start again in November and hope to see the trend continue. I even played my first session of 100/200 in over a year and a half today, and somehow squeaked out a little win!

Hope all is well with you guys, thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Mike