CARDRUNNERS

testing a long post

Taylor approached me about doing a blog a few weeks ago and I really thought it was a great idea. I have always wanted to keep a journal of some sort, but have never gotten around to doing it. This will give me the chance to do that. I am going to write some about poker and some about my life in general. I hope that I can keep the topics interesting.

I just got back from a White Sox vs. Tigers game. I grew up in Detroit and have been a Tigers fan all my life. It's really great to see them finally having a good season, let alone a great one. Unfortunately, the Tigers blew the lead they had held all game in the 8th inning. Overall, it was a very exciting game and I had a great time. I just wish that my friends hadn't been able to rub the loss in after the game.

I have been working fulltime. I must say that it is kind of taking a toll on me. I am not used to going to bed early, so I haven't been. I have to get up at about 6am and work until about 5pm. It's a long and generally unejoyable day. Looking back, I wish I had just decided to play poker this summer. That is what I did last summer and I must say that last summer was one of the best summers of my life. Luckily, I only committed to working about 2 months, so I just gotta suck it up and get it done with. I have learned that I am pretty sure I don't want to do accounting.

Poker has not been treating me well lately. I can't really complain too much, because I haven't been losing overall. However, I have been breaking even for almost two weeks now. I have lost a few monster pots as well that really have had a big overall impact on my shortterm results. I am hoping I can turn it around sometime soon. I don't have nearly as much time as I'd like to play, so I need to make the most of my time when I am playing. I have really been getting killed on FTP. It feels like that site is just out to get me. I think I might stop playing there. I don't play there much, but the amount I've lost on there in the last few weeks is pretty sickening.

On a bright note, I have staked a few good players lately. I love nothing more than staking good players. It's about the best way I can put my money to use. In the past I have made a really solid amount of money from staking players. The two players I have staked now are both great players and I expect nothing but solid wins from them.

I am going to try to blog about 4-7 times a week. I am not really sure what I will write about all the time, but I figure I can find things from my everyday life to comment on. I hope you guys enjoy reading about some of the things that I am up to at the moment. Feel free to post any feedback in the off topic section or by emailing me at awiggins@uiuc.edu. I am really new to this and I'm not exactly sure how to go about it.

Cheers,

Andrew

I am pretty frustrated all around right now. I had a pretty bad day. It was a terrible day at work. I got stuck priting out documents, 3 hole punching them and then putting them in binders for the 2nd day in a row. I have realized I really hate the 8-5 grind in a cubicle. I don't think I can do it. After work I went out and played golf. It was my first time out this year. I really enjoyed just being out, but I SUCK. I used to be around a 5 handicap or so in high school. Today I lost at least one ball a hole until I got to the 8th hole. I did par 8 and 9, so that was nice. It's just very frustrating playing so poorly when I used to be good. It's hard to enjoy golf to its full extent when I suck. I think I might go get a lesson tomorrow. My dad has one scheduled and he said I could use his time slot. My dad is about a 6 handicap. We used to have great matches. I miss those.

Poker continued to be very hard for me. I am just not running well at all. I didn't lose much at all today (about 1 buyin), but it sure felt like a lot. I lost a pot that was 3.5. buyins on stars where I had nut flush vs two pair all in on turn. About 10 min before that my top set, which was nuts, lost allin for 2 buyin pot on UB. GUy had overpair that hit a higher set. Normally I don't let these beats get to me, but I've just had so many for about two weeks now that I am getting no where. I gotta wonder when it's going to end. Oh yea, I bubbled Aruba too. At least that bubble was due to a dumb play at the end. I pushed 62s utg 4 handed. It just felt right for some reason. I had about 10k w/ 800 blinds so i had some breathing room. The BB had K2, which, of course, was an insta call. GG muddy. I think I might take a few days off. I didn't play yesterday, but that didn't do much good. At end of session I had to quit because I started to get really tilted. It's just a buildup and that's not good. I think if I keep playing I will be staring a huge loss day in the face. Maybe I will just play some PP 5/10. I haven't played that in awhile and its very low stress.

I watched a few episodes of The Office today. That show is great. If you haven't checked it out, I really think you should. I think Steve Carrell sp? is one of the funniest guys out there today. The casting is really great in that show.

Well it's almost 1am and I have to be up at 6am. Sweet.

Cheers,

Andrew

My plan to move down on PP was a disaster. I think the session I just finished was the worst I've ran of all my sessions. I lost 6-7 2k+ pots at a 70%+ favorite. That sounds absurd, but I'm not exaggerating. My morale w/ poker hasn't been this low in a long time. The only thing I can do now is take an extended break. Normally after running this bad I would be playing bad and getting in as a dog. That is what's unique this time. I am playing well. I still need to clear my head though and let the cards come around for me, because this feels like a big joke that is on me. It's just time to take my own advice and take a break.

I feel like writing this blog is going to help my game. If I write I am going to do something here I will have some accountability to stick to it. There have been times where I will finish a bad session and say that I am going to take a few days off and then I end up playing the next day. I need to stay away for a few days this time...

My day at work today was much better. I mostly was doing research during the day, so it wasn't so tedious and I got to learn some stuff. I had to read up on SOX which is pretty dry, but I find it somewhat interesting at the same time. I think tomorrow they will have some reasonable stuff for me to do too, so that's good.

One thing I've noticed w/ poker lately is that I tend to be whinning a lot more than I used to. I'm not sure why. I feel like I need to vent my bad beats. I got away from that for a long time, because I think it's stupid. Although, I won't argue that it does help make me feel a bit better. The bottom line is that no one cares and there is no reason to bitch about beats to other people. I am going to get my act together and get back to a 0 whine policy. I think it's best for everyone involved. I need to realize that this is just variance and it's bound to happen. I will get out of it soon enough. I am seriously considreing playing poker out of college. If I am going to do that, I really need to repair my approach to poker. I need to treat it as a business. That means no making runs at 25/50, no tilting, no bitching...just solid play. The next year is going to be a test for me. I need to look at it as that and start treating it like that starting now.

I've had a very negative tone in my first few blogs. Don't get me wrong, I am a very happy kid. The last week has just had me really pissed off. It's just a mix of a ton of things...work, poker, sucking at golf, not being 21 (sat at buffalo wild wings and drank a sprite while watching the game while all 6 of my friends drank nice cold beers from the tap...ugh). I need to get this negativity out of my life though. It's not good for me. On a brighter note, I started working out today and that felt good. I think that will be a good way to get rid of any frustrations. I am also thinking about starting to meditate. It sounds weird, but I think it would be good. I tried it awhile back and didn't get too far, but I think I can do it now. I want to become more spiritual.

Better luck at the tables than me....

Cheers,

Andrew

So I just read Taylor's blog about the other night when he was in my neighborhood. I guess he got pulled over and the cop told him that it's a nice neighborhood and the people don't like people with shitty cars turning around in their driveways. Well, that reminds me of how much the cops in my area suck at life. Unfortunately, I managed to have a few runins with the law in high school (i got two underage drinking tickets). The 2nd one I got was my graduation night. We had about 10 people chilling in my friends basement. We weren't causing any trouble and we were just hanging out. A few kids were playing video games and I was jamming out on guitar with a few other kids. My friends mom called the police ot tell them we would have some cars parked in the driveway overnight (they give tickets if you don't call them). The cops came out and saw that there were empty beer cans in the recycle bin which was sitting out for the next mornings pickup. My friend's graduation party w/ family and friends had been earlier so there was obviously a lot of empty beer cans. The cops then knocked on the door and demanded entrance. My friends parents of course said no and told them to get a warrant. Warrant, who needs a warrant when you can just arrest the parents? So thats what they did, they arrested both my friends parents and then proceeded to give us all underage drinking tickets. We had hid all the beer by thne, but they made us do a breathalizer. Going back, I would have had some balls and told htem to fuck off ,but I was young and scared by the police back then. The police also had the balls to tell us that they were doing us a favor by only giving us 1 ticket (they claimed there were 2 other things they could have ticketed us for). They also then faxed mug shots ot the local news. My friends parents made the 10oclock chicago news the next day. They turned it into a pretty big deal. All of the chicago radio talk shows were talking aobut the situation. Pretty crazy.

I'm sitting at work right now trying to kill some time. There was a new episode of entourage last night which was a good episode. I love that show. I convinced my dad to let me buy HBO for the house so I could watch it. I have always wanted HBO. My family recently got digital cable wihle i was abroad, but my dad is concerned about my 10 yr brother seeing things on HBO. I told him I would password protect the channel. HBO is badass.

I've decided to hit the books per se and really reinvent my poker game. My numbers for the year are solid, but I'm not where I wanted to be in June when I set goals starting the year. I'm on pace ot make about what I made last year and I was hoping to about double what I made last year. My mtt and sng game has fallen off and when I look at my aggression factor in PT it's not where I want it to be. I look at the players that I consider the best online cash game players (ie. sting, taylor, EM2) and their aggression factor is well over 3. Mine is hovering around 2 lately and thats just not good. So, I want to work on both cash and mtt/sng. I plan on studying a lot of the videos on this site and also on PXF. I think I'll mostly play 5/10 while I work on my game.

I made it very deep in the FTP 200k yesterday. I took 23/~1100 people. I played great teh whole tourny and my hands kept holding up. I ended up losing a massive pot to bust w/ QQ vs KK. I almost sucked out too. If I had caught my flush, I think I would have been in GREAT shape to win. I also gave the hand a lot of thought and I think I should have folded QQ preflop. I had plenty of chips ot make the final table by chipping away at small pots. I should have avoided a big pot where I was gambling at all costs and I didn't. I think my tourny game is coming around, but I'm having trouble closing. I think by years end I can be one of the top mtt players on the net. That is my plan. I won't play nearly as many mtts as a lot of the players, but I just want to get solid at them again.