Monday was a great day for me in winning 6 buyins. My plo tracker says I was running way above expectation, but I felt that I was running ok an and not over expectation. The next day I played about 3 sessions for about 1500 hands. The first session went ok winning about a buyin the next one I won about 2 more, then I played and decided I wanted to drink some while I played. Needless to say I got a little buzzed and started runnning bad. My PT said I was running about 500 below expectation. B4 when this would happen I would just continue to chase the winnings until I got even. This time I had much more control and stopped when I normally never would. At one point I was up 500 during the last session yesterday then had a swing all the way down to 500 for the day, then I won a few hands got to being only down 1 1/2 buyins and called it a night. Few things I learned, I am learning how to recognize when to quit and am actually quitting, then something I already knew, dont play when I am drunk. Today I played some rush NLHE and broke about even, played some mixed game and lost about 100 or so, then I played a 700 hand session of PLO and made about 5 buyins. Played very well and beat up on some fish in PLO. Started to take some bad beats and decided to quit b4 I did anything crazy even though the games were pretty good and I was still playing well. Tomorrow I think Im going to load up about 8 tourneys thru the night and try to get a little more familiar with trny NLHE since Ill be playing in a few events this summer in Vegas. Hopefully tomorrow I can book a winning streak with two wins in a row.

-Peace out all

So since my last blog I have played a decent amount of poker and played some some great sessions. There have also been two sessions that did not go the way I wanted. It is amazing how well a person ccan play when things are going great. Then the second some fish beats you out of a pot or two everything can go down in freefall. In two sessions over the last 5-6 weeks I had the two of the three biggest losing sessions in my 4 year poker career. I just sat there continuing to make bad plays, bad bluffs, and ran bad. These two sessions almost brought me into the negative figure in cash games for the year. The last one was last Monday and I took some time off and tried to figure some stuff out. I spoke with some proven players that had some great advice and I think I figured some stuff out about myself and my game. I realized that if I am going to continue to try to make money playing this game that is what I need to try to do, MAKE MONEY. Instead of trying to make money in those tilt sessions I was trying to outplay people and play to try to prove myself. I was also trying to chase losses, sometimes you just have to cut your losses and wait for the next day. No matter how juicy games are, sometimes its just not your day and there is nothing you can do about it.

rn

Since last week, I got some good advice and have been implementing it in 3 of my sessions and it has been working. I have recooped some of my losses but still have much farther to go before I am back to where I was. I would like to have my game in top notch shape b4 I make it out to vegas in about a month.

rn

Also, if anyone is interested in getting a PLO study group together to go over hands I am game. Also if there is one that already exist and would like to bring in another person let me know.

rn

Peace out all

The last two months have been pretty busy with things that do not include poker. I have gone on an awesome trip to The Big Island with my ex-girlfriend. That is another thing that has been going on in my life. I broke up with my GF of over a year. She is an awesome girl but our personalities just dont work. I am a person that will do/try pretty much about anything. She on the other hand is very close minded about many things which made things difficult because I am constantly wanting to push limits and comfort zones.

Traveling
Enough babbling, went to the big island, got a rental car and circled the island while doing pretty much anything someone could do while visiting the island. We stayed at hotels, resorts, hostels, and camped. The trip was awesome and eventually I want to post some pics of swimming with dolphins, turtles and hiking some serious trails.

Jobs
- I recently went through a job application process for a govt agency and was not offered the job after about 3 meetings. This took up a great deal of time after Feb. 5th and that is why I stopped playing poker during the time I was applying for the job. It was rather heartbreaking for me not getting this job, becuz this particular job that I was going for was a job I have been interested in for years. I hope it is not the end all be all for this job but I need to be realistic so that I keep options open and do not dwell on things.

Poker
-Since Feb. 5th I have played over 12k hands on FTP at limits from, 10/25 to 1/2 and have made a little over 2k running pretty well. On stars I have played about 5k hands and have made a little over 1k. I have also made a decent amount playing tourneys, not sure the amount but around 1500 to 2000. I really need to learn how to put hand histories and graphs on her to save time. I have played some great poker and not so great poker. What I have learned that I already knew but really need to follow is that I should not play more than 4 tables. I am fine playing up to 8 tables of PLO when things are going well and decisions are easy, but when I am running bad/playing bad everything just gets amplified. I make many bad decisions that are very costly.

On a good note, I have moved up to 1/2 and hope to stay here permanently. I need to continue to review hands which I have been doing, continue to add little wrinkles into my game which I am finding really fun and continue to put in a good amount of hands so I can improve and keep familiar. I will try to keep this more frequent as it really helps me get some things out of my head and lets me get some frustrations out when I have them.

Until next time.....

Took a shot yesterday at 1/2 and played/ran bad at the same time. Not a good combination. I lost 3 buyins at 1/2 and about 2 at 50/1. I am going to kill some terrorists playing COD after this to blow off some steam. I looked over my hands and def. misplayed some and could have controlled my losses. I am going to try a session where I do not bluff unless I have blockers to the nuts and see how that works for me. Probably wont bcuz I love to bluff. I played on bodog some later that night and recooped some of my losses. Play is so bad at the low stakes but the software gives me a headache and is really not worth it. Prolly not going to reach my 10k goal this week as I will not be playing tonight and will not play this weekend bcuz I have a charity poker tourny tomorrow and the super bowl sunday I am at like 4k hands now and have had a bad week. Oh well, maybe I will get to play a 400 hand session tomorrow or sunday and run like god for a break even week. Until next time...

Yesterday was one of those very interesting days in poker where I lost just under two buyins but it felt like a win. I played about 700 hands on stars and was stuck quite a bit after about 3 to 400 hands. I lost a bunch of flips and bluffed some ppl I shouldnt have bluffed but continued to keep my head on straight to book a 50 dollar winner.

I then took a nap because I had a super hard chest workout yesterday and then woke up and played another session of 50/1 deep with antes. These games play super aggressive and have a bunch of week players in them. From the very start I was losing money. I was treading water around down two buyins when I ran into quads with my nut boat for a 500bb pot. After I reraised his reraise and he reraised mine I seriously considered folding my second nuts. But because of the possibility of horendous play and another strong boat I called. I even typed in the chat I cant believe this, you have quads, this is so sick, this fucking sucks, sorry if I am slow rolling you but I know u have quads and called his shove to be shown flopped quads. After that I lose some flips and 60/40s and am stuck almost 1K. I pulled my chair back from my computer for a few seconds and told myself I could only play if I was going to not tilt. I convinced myself that I was going to continue to play solid and then the tides turned. I won almost every flip, won every showdown, all my bluffs were being affective and I stacked a big donk that I had been targeting the whole session for the next hour. It felt awesome. I got all the way back to only down 100 and then made a bad river call after I over half my stack in good on the flop and turn and decided to quit. It felt like a huge win that I could rallly back from being stuck almost 10 buyins to being a small loser for the day. I am going to load up a few 50/1s and 1 1/2 table now and see how it goes. Until next time.....

So this week I decided I was going to try to make sure I reached platinum star status for the month on stars and play Full Tilt Trnys for the most part. I reached the platinum star today which was the last day I could do it and released the 650 bonus. Kinda pumped about that cuz it was only 40k fpps oppposed to the normal 50k. I probably only played around 5-6k hands this week but played an insane amount of trnys. I ran very good in the trnys I think. I havent played this many tournaments in a while and it felt like I ran good. Especially late in tournys that I played earlier in the week. I ended cashing for about 1000 in an HA Pot limit tourney, not sure what place. A couple of 100$ dollar cashes. Then on Thursday night I played some great trny poker. Had some very good patience and took 5th in the 150k double guarantee. 1st was for 34k and and I can honestly say it is the first time I have ever been mad about making 9k. I got my money in good vs. a spaz that somehow has 300k in cashes. The whole time he was at the final table he would just open shove every time. He was also the chip leader the majority of the time I was there until he got snapped off by A9. The very next hand he shipped again and I made a tough call with A4ss vs his TJo. He hit a ten on the turn and knocked me out. I had ran very good in this tourney though winning all my races up until then and a few where I was further behind than that. So I cant complain.

Today I played two biggest tourneys and cashed in both. In the Sunday million which was two million today I was on fire in the beginning of the tourney and had a top 20 chip stack about 3 hours in. I got caught in a big bluff and lost about half my stack and still had a way above avg. stack. I was getting beat up a bit when I finally picked up KK in the SB and got the the BB to shovel in 40bb pf with AJo and an Ace binks on the flop and good bye that tourney. I cashed though so that was ok. Then I was running super hot in the double Tilt tourney as well. I had a monster stack of 100bbs when I got my AK in vs JJ for 60bbs. I missed and the very next hand the same guy gets JJ again. I smooth call with AQdd. Flop comes K22dd, he checks I bet, he shoves and I miss again and am knocked out of the tourney. I was kind of perplexed by how bad his shove was becuz I am bet calling off another 25-30bb unless I have him drawing very thin or in this case am probably a slight fav. Either way out of all of the hands I had today I only regret playing the AKo so fast. If it is vs. a 20bb stack I have no problem with flipping but vs another big stack this is probably too reckless. I dont like to shove a ton of chips in the middle and pray I am flipping when I am that deep. I think I can out play the majority of trny fields especially in the Sunday Million. Either way, live and learn. Great week though, and a close to a solid first month of the year.

This week I will go back to grind mode and am going to mix in 1 1/2 table with 3 .50/1 tables whenever I play. I want to play 10k this week really bad. I will prolly play some more trnys. I really like the HA trnys as the NLHE players suck at PLO pretty bad. Until next week though.........

Last week was a good week. I did not make my 10k hands a week goal. I missed it by about 2k hands. Still very good for me though. I played the bulk of my hands (6070) at .25/ .50. and made around 500 at this limit. I was 6 and 8 tabling the majority of the time. I find myself making some really silly decisions making basically hero calls on boards with flush possibilities with sets and straight in situations where certain opponents are never bluffing off their whole stack. Calling down a 30/20 player or higher may be ok in certain situations but is almost never ok against a 18/10 player or less. Especially when he is bettting every street into you. I also had a few big pots where I found myself in tough spots oop with mediocre flushes. I ended up just check calling off a couple of stacks when the boards did not pair up. I am not sure the best way to play these situations. Maybe leading out one street and giving up if someone calls you ip is ok. It just seems bad sometimes as certain ppl will call with two pair and sets and can easily take pots away on the turn by betting the turn and river as it is rather tough to check call two streets with mediocre flushes and be a profitable play. I could counter that by playing the nuts in the same manner sometimes, but I do not run into enough opponents that are competant enough or attentive enough to remember that I played a certain hand the same way. I just need to know which opponents are capable of making the play and which are not.

Anyways I then played some tournaments one night. I played 4 smaller ones and found myself making stupid mistakes because I just was disinterested in playing the tournnaments. I was knocked out of all but one. It was the small daily double A. I had some very easy hands to play and built a good stack. Got a little aggro in some spots and got played back about 4 times in a row. I had a small stack but managed to get tens and kings all in and they held to get a good stack. We then were down to 27 players and I did not win a pot until we were down like 18 players. It was ridiculous. I was down to less than 8bb and got AQ ai with kings and lost. Not sure, but I think I could of raise folded. I had around 8k and think maybe raising to 1800 or 2k and folded. Not sure though, I mean I am really only behind 4 hands and I happened to run into one of them. If I raise fold I have about 6k. Blinds hit then I am left with about 4k if I dont have a playable hand.That seems like a really small stack which makes me think I should just get it in.

While I was playing only 1 trny I loaded up 3 tables of .50/1 and ran super hot making around 700 over about 500 hands. I ran about 350 over expection. I played the deep ante games and it seems like players are def. over aggressive in alot of spots. I def. need to play tighter in some spots pf because of the antes, but I think there is a lot of money to made at the .50/1 limit. PPL were 4 betting weak aces super deep and just flipping their hand up basically which makes it super easy to play against. I think 200bb deep even good aces should not be 4 bet all of the time when you are oop and even sometimes ip.

So the big things I found out about my game that I need to fix are: quit shipping stacks just because they are only 40bb. If I am going to continue to start out playing with these stacks I need to play correctly all the time and not just say " oh well it is just 40bbs, its only a small mistake." Those small mistakes add up over the long run. Probably had like 80 dollars worth of these mistakes last week. Need to clean them up and quit paying ppl off with mediorcre hands. So until next week.....

This year I am rededicating myself to poker. I finished school in the fall and am going to make an effort to climb the omaha ladder. In 2007 I had a huge year for me in NLHE Tournament online and live cashing for around 100k. I then decided to switch to cash NLHE and did not dedicate myself to it like I did tournaments. The next year (2009) I switched to PLO and played a decent amount and made some money, while taking down a few tournaments. This year I am going to fully dedicate myself to PLO. I am running PLO manager and reviewing every session, reading anything I can get my hands on, and watching whatever video I can find. Eventually I want to find some good PLO players to talk hands over.

Putting in hands has always been a problem for me because of my procrastination and lack of ability to stay interested and focused on one thing for a long time. Not sure how I did so well in tourneys. Anyways I am going to update this every week. I will post the amount of hands I played, any new findings with my game I have discovered, stakes I have played and the amount I have won. I really want to attempt to put the kind of work into my game that BT puts into his. Within the last couple years I have really started to notice that in almost all aspects of life, the people that work the hardest at what they do are the most successful. I want to see if it works for me as well.

Goals-
Move up to 5/10
Play 10-15k hands a week ( this is a ton for me, may change later on)
Continue to study and analyze regardless of results
Have a 100k year