CARDRUNNERS

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

So on sunday I had a great day early in the day in cash at 10/20 and then didn't do so well in mtts. I was still very pleased with my day. Before I went to bed, I decided to play some PP 5/10nl. I got KILLED. This is the 2nd time in 3 sessions I've gotten rocked at PP 5/10. Overall, I'm on a 9 buyin downswing there. I am pretty furious about that. I just don't get PP sometimes. I go on huge rushes, but in the end I give most of it back. I think I am playing fine, so I think it's just he variance of playing with bad players. After all, I've been playing well enogh to beat 10/20 lately (im on a huge upswing there). I think sometime soon I'm really going to break through on PP and go on a huge rush. I hope that comes sooner rather than later.

I was so furious about dropping 5 5/10 buyins on Sunday that I haven't played poker since then. It wasn't the money that upset me, its the fact that I am not winning a lot on PP and I am more just treading water. I feel like I should be really really killing that game as I think it is one of the softest out there. I just haven't felt like playing poker at all since then. I am going to be in Michigan all next week and I will have dial up internet, but I don't think I will play at all that week either. It is possible I will go 2 weeks without playing. The funny thing is overall I am on one of the best upswings of my life. There is no point in forcing any sessions though.

I had a really good workout today. I am already sore as fuck. I can only assume I will be a dead man walking in the next day or two. My left arm is pathetically weak and I really need to work on that. I'm really glad to finally be challenging myself with working out though. It's something I wish I had done a long time ago. As one of my friends who works out a lot told me, "wiggins, no pain, no game, son."

grrrr. One of my stakes ended yesterday. I won't get into how bad it went, but it basically set me back to even for staking and I was up a lot from staking people. Anyway, I got what was left of the stake sent back to me on UB. I was hard pressed to find good games on stars, ftp and PP so I decided to play some UB. I forgot how bad UB players are. After basically not playing there for a month, I have learned to like the slower sites. At this point, I think UB is too fast. How crazy is that? I had to really focus to slow down and think through my hands...something I never used to do. It helped me to play well and I really cleaned house. I picked up about 6 or 7 buyins on UB and 1 or 2 on ftp and stars...great day! I think I am going to have trouble not playing at least some UB in the near future. Man do I hate paying them rake though.

Today I played for about an hour. I ran horribly and kept getting in setup situations. Luckily two of the major setups were against a guy who was stuck bad on stars and was playing very scared. One hand I had QQ vs his KK on a baby board w/ a short stack allin preflop. I managed to only lose 1k. It just didn't feel right. He didn't bet once, just called my bets and checked after me on the river. The other hand he had 33 vs my AK on a A32 board. He raised the flop and I was going to get all in on the turn, but the 3rd flush card hit and we both completely shut down. No more money went into that pot. I only lost a $600 pot. WOW.

Anyway, I lost about 2 buyins today. Oh well. It's gonna happen.

I'm heading down to Champaign (where U of I is) for the night. I havent been to campus since mid december ,so I am pretty pumped. Basically, all of my good friends are meeting up down there tonight, so it should be a big party. The bars are only age 19 to get in (Why? who knows, but I like it) so we are going to hit the bars hard.

Tomorrow my plan is to chill and play some MTTs and also record a new CR video. I just hope I'm not too hungover.