So May finished up my 2nd full month @ 100nl full-ring. I didn't post April results so I'll post that graph below. I feel like my results are kind of meh. Sure I've been doing faily well, but I feel like I could have done a lot better. I can remember a dozen or so spots from the last few months where I stacked off in marginal spots, some bordering on spew. If not for these mistakes I'd be showing at least a 5bb/100 win rate, and have an extra $1K or so to show for it. I guess I'm not really unsatisfied, but I know I can do better. I also need to get more hands in. Back in March I put in 46K hands without much trouble, so I feel like 45-50K is a good number of hands for me to shoot for in June. Sometimes I feel like my girlfriend is a huge Succubus, and really hinders my ability a lot of quality hands/month in. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage this and stay off life-tilt.

I also need to get some more coaching. I started getting coaching from DamnRinger in mid-April (can you tell where on the graph?), and he has really helped. The last few weeks of this month, though, I've been pretty tight on time and haven't had any more coaching sessions. I'm really going to need to get my game in shape if I plan to beat the next level. I am rolled for 200nl at the moment, and would like to take some shots pretty soon. I will start to take shots as my confidence increases and if good games are available.

That reminds me of what I think has been a big part of my moderate success the last few months. Game selection. Game selection has been huge for me. I have been a huge nit when it comes to sitting at and staying at tables, and I think it really makes a big difference. Finding those donks and sitting w/position on them just makes things so much easier and more profitable. It didn't seem to make much of a difference at 50nl and below, but as I move up, I think the work I put into game/seat selection will be key.

On the non-poker front, I went to Orlando for Memorial Day weekend. My girlfriend and I met up with my friend Nate, who I worked with in WA, and his wife. Nate just finished his first year of grad school at UGA, and just accepted a job at Eastern Washington where he will finish his degree. It was great to get together with them before they move back to WA. We did a lot of hanging out by the pool and drinking, going out to eat, and just chillin overall. We planned on all going to Aquatica, which is supposed to be a cool new water park. We purchased tickets at our hotel, drove over there at 10:30 am, and it was filled to capacity! So we ended up exchanging the tickets for Sea World tickets. I had not been to Sea World since I was like 12, and I have to say it was a total blast. The Kracken, their roller-coaster, is pretty awesome, as was the water ride there (Atlantis, I think). The shows were great too. I was kind of thinking that seeing Shamu was a little kid thing, but it's actually a pretty amazing show. Sea World is owned by Anheiser Busch, so they have free beer samples and a tour that allows you to learn about and try a bunch of different beers. Very good stuff overall.

The last 3 days I've been helping out my parent's friends who are 100% busto. They had to be out of their house by the end of the month, so I've been helping them move their stuff to a storage unit. It's a pretty sad story. I'll call them John and Jane. Jane has been a good friend of my mother's since they were like 20, and she married John who comes from a fairly wealthy family. John's main job for pretty much all of his life was to manage his father's money, via investing, savings, ect, and has always been successful investing for himself. Jane, despite having 2 master's degrees, has never really worked and just made and sold fine jewelry from her home on the side. So about 10 years ago things started to go downhill for them. John's parents were divorced and each still had plenty of money, as did John and Jane. John's mother started to develop Alzheimer's, at which point some scumbag swooped in, married her, and got her to change her will, leaving all of her money to him (I think around $6 mil+). He did this before she was deemed legally incomptetent, but by the time it was found out about it was too late for her to be able to change anything. This dude also managed to convince her that John was not even her son and was just trying to steal her money. A short time later, John's mother dies and this dude skates off with the money. He dies not long after, and his kids (who are not even related to John's family) end up getting all the money. Pretty fucked up. It gets better.

So John's father is still kickin and has plenty of dough, but he starts to die of mesothelioma. At about this time, the father's daughter-in-law is hitting some hard times and decides to come forward with a child abuse story. She's in her 20's at this point so it's past the statute of limitations for a criminal trial, but she is somehow able file a civil case to sue the father. For those of you who don't know, it's much easier to win a civil case as you only have to show a "preponderance of evidence" in you favor to win as opposed to "beyond a reasonable doubt" as in criminal cases. Well I think the father dies before it goes to court, and John inherits his money, but the daughter-in-law is still able to sue the estate ($2.3 mil at this point), meaning she can still go after this money that now belongs to John. My father is representing John and Jane now, and he knows that there is a fairly high likelyhood that if this goes to trial they will lose most of the money. The daughter-in-law's case sounded pretty bogus, but apparently jury's love to give tons of money to anyone they half-way believe in this type of case. So my father negotiates a settlement for $400K, which he highly suggested they go with. Well, the mother-in-law comes in and says that she knows her daughter is lying and will testify against her, blah blah blah, and convinces John and Jane to take this thing to trial. Of course it turns out the mother-in-law was on the take and backs out once the trial starts. At the end of the trial the daughter-in-law is awarded the entire $2.3 milloin estate.

After the trial, John and Jane still have money, but John is severely depressed from all of this and goes on chip-spewing suicide tilt in the stock market. He is a brilliant guy, and was always very successful with investments, but I guess he just flipped his lid and couldn't recover. Once they start to become broke, they sell their waterfront condo for $700K and move into a house that they are renting while they try to get things put back together. John never really recovered from the whole ordeal and continued to gradually lose the money from their condo, and Jane became kind of paralized from the whole ordeal herself. My mom's friend who's a psychologist said it's kind of analagous to a rabbit that is standing frozen in fear next to a coiled rattlesnake. They know they are doomed if they don't do something, but it's such a shock that they can't bring themselves to move. They have tons of nice stuff that they are selling off, but they are so far in debt that it doesn't really help. They are filing for bankrupcy, but I don't know enough about that to know whether or not it will help their situation. They've lived a millionaire lifestyle their whole lives and are suddenly broke, which has left them in a state where they are not strong enough to start over. I have no idea what they are going to do, but I hope they can find a way out. They are great people and I remember them being so nice and happy before all this hit. Jane survived breast cancer twice and now has to go through this. My father and I used to go fishing with John when I was in high school, and I remember him being very smart and interesting, whereas now he's kind of depressed and crazy. So anyway it's totally fucked up and I feel terrible for them, so I've been helping them move. I wish them the best.

Wow longest blog entry evar. Ok the graphs: The first one is from April 1 to May 7. The second one is the rest of May (started using PT3 when I got back from TX):