CARDRUNNERS

Last night I was sitting around killing time. Gaucho asked me to sweat him so I did. While I was sweating him I was talking to my friend Brian who plays on a fringe site (rather not say which one). He kept telling me how easy the site is and how it would help me get out of my rut. He even offered to stake me to play there for a very fair %. With all the poker talk, I couldnt help but want to play. I said fuck it, lets go for the gold baby. I threw 5k on the site and crossed my fingers. I had it up to about 8k in an hour adn was feeling great. I decided to take a break adn then saddle up for an all night session. I was going to get my roll back w/ the help of this site and some running well. I soon was up to 10k or so on the new site and decided to have a friend ship me some money on ftp so I could play more tables. I got it up to 6 tables and just rolled all night long. Long story short, I won 16k in about 12 hours of play. I even tried to make a run at a 10/20 table and probably ended down about 1 buyin there. Basically I destroyed 5/10. My confidence is back and I feel great. My bankroll is sitting right around 22k now. Not a great roll, but it's heading in the right direction.

I guess 2/4nl just wasnt for me. I really just couldn't bring myself to play 2/4nl regularly. Frankly, I've just played 10/20nl for too long to suddenly drop to 2/4nl. For those of you that ask "WHAT!?!? youre playing 5/10nl w/ a 6k roll???" Yea, thats not exactly what I preach. However, my situation is different than most. If I go broke, I can def put more money back on (which I likely wouldnt) or just get staked. I guess in the end I was willing to take the risk of being staked rather than trying to grind it at 2/4nl. It would have taken me more than an entire month at 2/4nl to make up what I was down in the first 10 days of this month. The bottom line is that I was willing to "go broke." The bankroll management I teach is so that you don't ever have to worry about going broke. If you have no fear of going broke online, then things are different IMO.

I still like the idea of taking time away from poker and dedicating it to other things. I still plan on doing that. I feel a ton better now that my roll is in a much better spot now. I don't think I'll play much, if at all, more this week.

It's been an interesting period since I withdrew my roll down. I've obv really struglged and I've had a sever lack of confidence. I feel pretty damn good about my game again. My hope now is to get the roll up to a comfortable 50k or so and just throw on cruise control at 5/10nl.

Some people thought that I meant I was going broke overall. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I won't say the number, but I have a very substantial amount of money invested in the stock market and sitting in my bank account. What I meant was that I am almost broke online. Before the legislation, I was keeping around 150k online. I withdrew my accounts down to 30k. Since then, it really has been a roller coaster. I have not been playing well. Frankly, I think seeing such a drastic decrease in my bankroll online has messed with my head. I have played graet poker at times, but there are times where I have played just absolutely terrible. SOme of the tilt sessions I've had lately honestly take me back to like 2 years ago when I had no control over my tilt. It's pretty frustrating and I'm having trouble getting past it.

Anyway, right now I'm on a 15k downswing for the last 40 days. In aug and sept I made 55k and 70k respectively. It's very frustrating to go from doing well at 10/20nl to playing 5/10nl and losing. That being said, stretches like this are bound to happen in poker careers. I need to get through it and I will.

As far as depositing back online, that isn't something I will do. When I first started online poker 3 years ago, I was not good with my money at all. I would work hard all week and win and then lose my entire bankroll and then some on the weekends when I played drunk. I'd wake up to the fact that i lost it all and a couple hundred more that I had deposited. I didn't have a couple hundred to lose back then. I was stuck as much as about $1500 at my peak. When I finally started winning at poker, I told myself I would never deposit again. Part of the that came from my dad's advice. He was worried I would go on a run and get used to playing higher stakes and then start losing and piss all my money away. Another part was I felt that once I took money offline, it was no longer for poker. Once it's offline its for investments or purchases. I still feel that way today. It's been over 2 years since I deposited out of my bankaccount and I that number will only grow. I know it's not completely rational. The fact that I'd take a stake over just depositing again seems dumb, but I don't think so. I feel like if I'm at the point where I lost all my money online, something is seriously wrong. I won't argue that things have not being going well lately. My head isn't straight. That means there is a problem I must fix. Blowing through a 30k roll at 5/10nl is not good. I believe that players play their best when they are on a stake because they don't want to lose other peoples money. I believe that if i went bust and took a stake it would help me get back to playing my A game. That being said, I'm really gonna focus on not going bust. I really don't want to take a stake.

Some people suggested moving down to 2/4nl. I actually have played some 2/4nl. To be honest, it's pretty hard to play my best there. Hell, a little over a month ago I was 8 tabling 10/20nl. The amount of money at risk is just so different. I may go back down there though if I continue to struggle at 2/4nl.

On Friday, my three roommates and I hoped in the car and headed to Madison for the weekend. I went to Madison for halloween my freshman year and I decided I'd like to go there one last time before college is over. For those of you that don't know, Halloween is a pretty big deal at Madison. Basically everyone on campus dresses up, so it's always a good time. Nothing better than wearing a costume and acting like a retard while drinking a ton of alcohol. Two of my roommates and myself were Ghostbusters. We wanted our other ghostbuster to be the black ghostbuster, but he didn't want to do that at first. When he finally decided he wanted to be him, it was too late to get a costume. Friday night wasn't too crazy, because we waited to long to go out. By the time we left for the bars, the lines had already gotten too huge to wait in. We went to some gradute student bar and drank there for awhile. Everyone was older and noone else was in a costume. We headed back and had afterhours for a few hours. It was a fun night, but the next night was a lot better. We started drinking and playing bags at about 3pm, mostly because we had nothing else to do. We drank all afternoon and then headed to the bars at about 930. The bar happened to serve the strongest mixed drinks I've ever had at a bar. We got really shitty over the next few hours. When the bar closed we headed out to state street and hung out with thousands of people who were all wearing costumes. There were a ton of cops and cops on horses. It was good shit. When we got back to my friends house some of the guys with us decided to drive the grocery cart they had stolen earlier down the front stairs. That was a pretty ridiculous idea. Everyone that did it was hurting pretty bad the next day. All in all, it was a sweet weekend.

As far as poker, I haven't been playing. On sunday, I had to make a video. I played a short session earlier in the day to get warmed up for the video. I didn't want to make a video after not playing for a week. I did alright and won about $700. I was never feeling like playing much though. The video went alright and after running pretty bad I broke even. It's kind of hard for me to make PLO videos. I'm still learning that game and sometimes its hard to express in words why I'm making the play I'm making. Also, I'm not sure I'm always making the right plays. For now I just don't feel like playing at all. My guess is my break will last into November. I don't want to play again until my head is totally fresh. Also, I can't decide what site I should play on. I was thinking I'd just play UB, but now I'm not so sure. I do want to keep my entire bankroll on one site though. I think that will help me mentally.


Me and two of my roommates.


The head of my friends shrek costume on some random girl.


What State Street looks like.


Before.


After.

Today I was sitting on the computer working on some Cardrunners stuff and the power went out for my entire block. This left me with basically nothing to do. I felt somewhat lost without TV or computer as bad as that sounds. It was interesting because I walked out into our court and there were a ton of people out there. My roommate commented that it was the first time he had seen a lot of those people. That's pretty sad since they live on the same floor as us in a relatively small building. I decided to head next door to my buddy's apartment to hang out there. Within 10 minutes there were about 8 of us just sitting around and shooting the shit. I hang out with these guys a lot, but almost never during the day. It's pretty sad how unsocial the computer can make you. We even ended up going to the orchard to buy some pumpkins, cider and donuts. It was a pretty solid afternoon and it never would have happened if the power hadn't gone out.

Basically, it was a good time for something like that to happen. I need to shift my focus away from poker for awhile and today just reenforced that. I have been sitting at my computer way too much lately and that's going to change.

I decided I'm going to take the rest of the month off. I need a break. That means I'll have my first losing month in over a year. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. It's really not that big of a deal. It's just a bit frustrating. When I come back I am going to regain my focus. I decided to move my entire bankroll to UB (I'm leaving 30k on) and I'm just going to focus on 4-6 tabling the 5/10nl. I've said this before, but now I'm actually going to do it. I was playing with fire by playing the bigger games. I can't afford to go broke. Basically, I'm going back to the basics.