Not much to talk about. I'm still pissed that I got my ass handed to me in February. Thankfully, I found the sense to take a break and read up on the forums and watch videos to get my brain working again.

Thank you majorcrisp. That video is pretty awesome. I'm getting all excited just thinking about using some of the strategy I learned next time I play... (probably in the next 5 mins or so.)

Short post. I'll be sure to update soon as I have a feeling I'm going to be running well in the next week. I just feel so empowered with all the things I've learned lately from the forum and videos. =)

Movies worth watching: Reign Over Me, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Street Kings and 10,000 B.C.

These are a few movies I saw this month that I liked the most. I actually saw 10,000 B.C. in theaters, but it's on HBO now and I DVR'd it. The girl's just hot and well, the movie's not too bad either.

Thanks again majorcrisp!

So it's not as easy (or harder than) i thought it would be. 50NL seems to play quite a bit different from 25NL and I'm just not adjusting quickly enough. Since the month started, I'm running at -7.8 bb/100 over 6000 hands.

I'm not used to this! The last four months have been going so well! And now my Aces and Kings get cracked every other time? What am I doing wrong? I have no clue. The good news is that since moving up, I feel that I've actually learned alot from other people's play. I've taken what I've learned and applied some of those concepts at 25NL and destroyed most of my opponents. I know that 2000 hands isn't alot, but I'm running at 40 bb/100! I'd like to blame variance and small sample size for this, but I can honestly say that I was just playing pretty well. I made good bluff inducing plays and also got great value with marginal hands based on my reads...

But really, I think the biggest help has been reading the forums, watching a video every other night, and I even listen to podcasts when I'm in the car. I think these things not only provide you with good insight, but it really starts to get things working in your head... I've found myself doing something totally unrelated to poker and ideas will just pop in my head.

Since my bankroll is slowly depleting since moving up. I've started 4 tabling with 2 tables of 50NL and 2 tables of 25 NL to help offset some of my losses.

It's been a week, I was running at a worse rate earlier this week, so I suppose -7.8 is actually an improvement... We'll give it another week and see if I can keep improving...

Saw Slumdog Millionaire this week. Pretty good movie, worth watching!

February 1st... and I've got enough of a roll along with rakeback to move up to $50NL DS finally!

I didn't play that much in January and I'm afraid that I may not be in the right mindset or if I'm even ready to move up, so wish me luck!

In my last blog, I wrote about watching Jim Carrey's latest move, The Yes Man, and that I would attempt to say yes to just about anything and see where it would take me. Surprisingly enough, not much has changed. I realized that I already have the personality of being open about most things. Before even watching the movie, I pretty much said yes to everything. A couple of things I actually did the last few weeks was go to church and some kid came up to me the other day at a Starbucks and asked for a donation for his school, so I opened my wallet, found 5 bucks and gave it to the kid. But other than that, nothing else really. I will continue this for another month and maybe something interesting will come up.

On to poker....

I'm really stressing because I wanted to stay on track, which is to basically play a level for 2 months and move up. I'm so close right now. If I add my rakeback at the end of the month, I'll be super duper close to the bankroll level I need to be to move to $50NL Deepstack.

Earlier this month, I decided to take a shot at $1/$2 NL Deepstack just for fun. I thought I'd take a gamble, play some solid poker and see where it takes me... well, i was quickly down about $80 and luckily got it all in with AA vs. KK and i was quickly in the green $180. And yes. I left the table immediately after I won. It's a cowardly thing to do, but I really was playing scared poker and I would have probably just lost it back.

Excitement. Happiness. Cockiness. All feelings that I felt after my $1/$2 victory. That last feeling really got me. I went on a pretty big 1200BB downswing in the coming days. I had to buckle down and figure out what I was doing wrong... or were these donk fish lucky SOB's just that freakin' lucky?! I decided it was my bad play. I went on playing for a week trying to focus on my game and not watch YouTube or check emails while playing. I couldn't help myself, I'd say about half the time I was focused the other half not. Fortunately, I was able to get all my money back plus a little bit more.

My good play continued up until last night. I donked off a bunch of chips for no good reason, other than one of my playing styles, which is when I try to be the Captain of the table. So I got it in with hands like AQ, KJ, 88 and yep, I lost 'em all. My dumbass took a break and came back played $50NL and $100NL Deepstack to get back some chips. Mind you, I regularly play $25NL. You'll see in the graph below my latest drop... that was at the $100NL. I just couldn't push people off 3rd or 4th pair at the table I was playing in. Luckily, some guy shoved chips in with J7o and I was tilting enough to get AQo in... I won. Whew. Got my money back. It was time to leave.

I'd have to say that my biggest concern lately is my bb/100 winrate. I was playing at $10NL at a 13-15 bb/100 and even started out at $25NL playing around 13bb/100, but I've recently dropped to about 8-9bb/100 at BOTH $10NL and $25NL. I'm not sure what I'm doing differently but it's really bothering me.

Anyway, this is getting long.... here's my updated graph:



That last drop off actually goes back up... no joke. Look:




Till next time.

Happy New Year everyone! This year definitely went by fast. The speed at which this year went by really got me thinking about life. I don't want to sound emo about the whole thing, but I feel like I'm getting old. I'm 28 and although this isn't old for most, I think most of the people on this website are younger and considering I'm jobless, it makes it that much worse. Yes, I'm jobless. I've been "in between" jobs since I got laid off from the company I worked at for almost 4 years, around 5 months ago.

I've made a couple resolutions this year, and sadly enough, it's all poker related. I want to get better at HU and PLO. It cracks me up because instead of quitting smoking, going to the gym more often or something like that, I want to get better at heads up. Who cares about my health right? As long as I'm a better poker player, I'm happy.

This brings me to a posting in the microstakes forum. Citizenwind created a posting titled "Paying it Forward." He wants to give back to the community by training providing unlimited training to two lucky people for free. All he wants is that once his apprentices make it "big," that they share their knowledge with other players as well. I wanted to apply, but I couldn't think of one good reason why I should be chosen. I've already started teaching 4 of my friends the few things I've learned from CR. I would definitely pay it forward had I been chosen. Unfortunately, I don't have a shot. The one thing that I've been thinking about lately is that since we all pay CR our monthly membership fees to become better players, is it really necessary to get trained by another source?

In my last post, I said I would post some hand histories, but nothing special has happened since then, just the usual 2 or 3 outer getting there on the river and I ship it. I'm sure everyone is sick and tired of these postings so I won't post any this time.

Lastly, I watched The Yes Man with Jim Carrey today. Funny movie, you guys should watch it. It may even get you thinking about your own life. I told my friends I'd give it a try and say 'yes' to most things for a month and see if it changes anything. I"ll keep you posted. LOL.


Here's my SD and NSD winnings in the last month or so...

I don't really have much to say. I figured I'd just create my first blog entry with hopes to continue blogging regularly. I normally read Taylor's and Townsend's blogs and find them amusing. Let's see if I can make my future blogs to be just as amusing.

Thanks to CR though for making me the player that I am today. I used to be the boom and bust type of player, but now, it's definitely more controlled. Just to give a little background of myself, I used to play 200 NL make money move up to 400, 600, 1000, even 2000 NL at one point and would generally make money and lose it all. I was usually outmatched and under-rolled. Sucked big time. Nowadays, although I am playing lower limits, I have a bigger roll and the nights of ripping my scalp off are long gone... well, for the most part it is.

I now play 25NL Deep Stack and playing at 13.4 bb/100 according to Holdem Manager.

That's it for now, I may post some hands in future posts. Other than that, good luck at the tables... unless it's against me