The grind is continuing. Still playing hu sng,s for the time being. I have been working a lot of hours and trying to have a social life. My game is coming slowly, and I have been cashing out a bit to pay down some debt, so I have not been able to focus on my game as much. I have been really giving a lot of thought about what I want to do work wise. To me work life balance is very important and I have none of that right now. Best advise I can give anyone is find something you truely love to do. As you get older, you realize what is important, things like family and trying to live the best life you can. It took me 36 years to figure that out. As soon as I can, I look foward to the next phase....Hope all is well at the tables!

Mark

2008 has been a very crazy year thus far. I took a promotion at work, so I have to do a lot of traveling, meeting with clients, feedback to corperate......Blah. I was offered a marketing position, turned it down because I do not know crap about it, so decided to stay with large account sales. Since they are large accounts, they need a lot of tlc. Enough bitching. Poker has been going very well. I have focused my efforts on HU and HU sng. The rake at the cash games is tough, but it is important to get the hands in. SNG's are a good time as well, they are beatable and they really add up on rakeback. I have had to update my goals for the year. Now I want to continue to enjoy playing, but be able to punch at anytime. My sister lives in Denver and my goal is to spend a lot of time out there this winter. Good luck at the tables!

Mark

It is heads up sngs! They are fun to play and it is a good break from cash games. I have added hu cash games in as well as six max, now some heads up sngs and all things poker stay fresh. I can be a grind sometimes to get from under the daily playing of one type of poker. Heads up cash games have helped my 6 max game greatly, while the sit and gos are nice way to play some poker, work on some hand reading, and have some fun. Skiing trip went well, no broken bones to report, and I have to get some hands in to get the bankroll back to where it was. My goal is to have it around 3k at the end of march. That is a lot of sngs, hu and 6 max at 50nl, but I hope it works out......Take care and good luck at the tables!

Mark

Played a lot of small pots and lost a little less than a buy in thanks to this baby:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2097613

My notes on the villian was he would commit to tptk hands. He/she is a very solid TAG player and the hand was priced for the call. I sucked out a buyin verse a donkey with feels good. I lost some short stack coin flips, other than that I am playing better. I still may be calling too much, so I have to focus on that. The issue at this limit is that sooo many callers preflop you almost have the odds to play any two cards. Boston Bruins have a big game in Pittsburgh tonight, so I am done with poker. About 500 hands, but my thought process was on, my reads were good, results just did not work out...Happens!

Take care!

Mark

I am still playing two tables and having some solid results. I am rolled for 100nl, but I think I will stay at 50nl for a little while until I can fix the leaks in my game which I still have. Hopefully by the end of March I will have more than enough hands in and can feel better about my game and move up. I am in no real rush, and I feel it is better get my play up to par and control my emotions after bad beats etc. I am posting a hand and my thought process:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2093277

The flop is great but the turn is terrible. The reason I call the river is two fold:

1. Most believe that I am only beating a bluff. I think two pair hands will bet the river in this spot after my check on the turn.

2. I show down a good hand, I start to gain respect from the table. I have heard this is stupid, but in my experience, it allows me to 3 bet a little lighter and and 4 bet/shove with a wider range. I want people to think that I play only strong hands and that I cannot fold larger ones that are beat.

I have a copy of Tommy Angelos book and plan on reading it over the next few days. Playing two tables is tough to grind hands, but I think I can get about 15-20k in for the month. I am going skiing in Colorado this month and I have poker money to pay for it. It will be the first time I can use poker money to pay for something I want and it is a great feeling. I could keep it in the account and go up limits sooner, but I honestly feel I have still too many leaks in my game to be a solid player at the next level. The level after that is the tough one from those I have talked to and I have to have a solid foundation to build upon. One thing that I am still working on is player ranges and if my hand has value, and at times in sessions I find myself playing my cards and not the villian I am up against. That is what I am working on now and I am a long way from being good at it.....Take care and good luck at the tables!

Mark

Having a rough go of it past two days. Not losing really, just not winning too much. Getting killed with top pair top kicker hands. I feel this is my biggest leak by far. I really have to not commit too much to these hands and trust my reads more. I wish I had some interesting hands to post, but I do not at this time. I have to remember to bet for value and fold when I know I am beat. When my computer broke I was playing some of my best poker. I have to slowly get back into it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2065327

I played this hand very poorly and lost a ton of value. I think my river call is ok and I have to raise the river bet. Getting back into play has been a little more difficult than I thought. I am winning at a good rate, but hands like this I am losing value. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will be back in full swing. I just got my i tunes back on my new hard drive so I have some background noise while I play. Last night was strange playing poker with no music. Good luck!

Mark

The journey to get back to playing poker was a long one. The last two weeks have consisted of a lot of travel for work and my harddrive crashed. I have no music, photos etc, but I can play some cards. I will put up some hands over the next few days. I will be leaving again next week, so I have to hammer down this week! Take care!

Just finished packing for a two week business trip, then a week on vacation. My poker hands will be non existant, hopefully get in about 2k between trips. Playing two tables limits my hands, but winrate is nice, so I cannot complain. The hardest thing about this amount of travel is the affects on my two dogs. The lady who takes care of them is great; she treats mine as if they are her own, but it is not the same. My female got sick last night and when I dropped her off I could tell she was getting stressed out. Plus I have to take them to the vet when I get back. Anyway, I will update when I have something good. I just picked up Tommy Angelo book. I hope to have that done before I get back into playing too much. The last 10 days of the month are going to be poker. poker, poker. I cannot wait until I get to 200nl so I can call it quits......Who knows when that will be...

Good luck all,

Mark

I have a computer again and contact with the outside world. My PC caught a nasty virus and I had to get everything "Dumped" out and start over...Yeah my porn is gone! I am waiting for my new poker tracker code and hud is set up. Poker wise I have decided for the next 10k hands to play two tables. After that I will go to three. Three is as high as I will go. Looking over my database before the crash, when I play four tables I suck! I was down over 6.5 buyins. Some were bad luck, others were bad play and some were tilt. I just need to play my game and I will be fine!