CARDRUNNERS

Yesterday we got up and packed up all our things so that we could head to Detroit. When we were getting ready to leave, I noticed both my wallet and my sunglasses were missing. I was 99% sure I had left my wallet on a desk in the main room. I was convinced someone had moved it and I was pretty angry that it was gone. We spent a lot of time looking for it and it never turned up. Same thing with my glasses. Well, I ended up finding my wallet today in the front pocket of a pair of pants I had worn the other day. I had actually checked those pants twice, but only looked in the back pocket. I never put my wallet in the front pocket. I'm not really sure what it was doing in there, but I sure felt like a jackass for thinking it was someone elses fault. The glasses never turned up. I really don't know how those dissapeared. I guess I'll have to go buy a new pair next week.

We all met at my uncle's house for my grandpa's 80th birthday party. Literally everyone from my family was there, including people who skipped July 4th, so that was cool. My brother and I dominated the family in Boche ball. Boche's a pretty sweet game that is always a good time.

My cousins and I went to see Superman at night. It's a pretty good movie. It's defnitely worth seeing. I think it probably was a little too long.

I'm watching the world cup now and then we are going to head back to Chicago. It's about a five hour drive. I've made the trip so many times that five hours really doesn't phase me at all. I'll probably sleep most of hte way anyway. My dad always insists that he drives the whole way...I'm not complaining. My hope is that I will have enough time ot play about an hour or two when I get home. It would be nice to get a session in since it's been so long since I've played.

I'm not a huge fan of either of the teams in the World Cup, but I'm not a fan of France at all. Therefore, I'm gonna root for Italy.

I'm gonna rant a bit now so bear with me. I've been doing some thinking today (I'll to why later) and I think I've come to realize something important. I'm gonna rant a bit now so bear with me. I don't think I'm reaching my potential in life. Don't get me wrong, I've accomplish a lot and I'm really happy with what I've done, but I think I could do better. I'll start with school as an example. I do pretty decent, but I could definitely do better. It's not even that I don't spend enough time (i don't). I don't put a ton of time towards school but thats because I value having fun more than a few extra percentage points. Its that the time I do spend isn't spent well. I tend to half ass the studying I do. I feel like I could probably be 100% more efiecient if I put in my best effort. This brings me to poker. Half the time I just don't play my A game. I know I'm not playin gmy A game, but I play anyway. I should just not play when I'm not playing my best. My time would be much better spent and I would have less stress. This brings me to the reason I started thinking about this. Yesterday I tilted pretty bad and lost about 7 buyins. I lose 5+ buyins way way too much. If I could cut out those really bad sessions, I would be winning much more money. My job is the same way. I do an okay job, but I could be doing better. I am going to be there anyway, I might as well bust my ass and do the best I can. I am really going to focus on putting forth a better effort in everything I do.

I think its important to ask yourself if you are always playing your A game. Be really honest with yourself. I've been asking myself this question for awhile, but I always either convince myself that I am or ignore what I know is true. If I really want to become the player that I envision I can be, I need to really live up to the statement that I will play my A game all the time or I won' tplay at all.

Sorry for the rant. I didn't really have anything else to talk about and I wanted to get that in writing for myself.

Today is going really well so far. The woman who is giving me work this week is working from home. She has sent me a few things to do through email, but so far I've had about 15 minutes of real work. I've mostly just been surfing the net and getting some things ready for Vegas. Also, the radio station I listen to during the day is doing an artist portrait on CCR all day long, so thats sweet.

The White Sox need to get their act together. I'm not a White Sox fan, but I am a Tigers fan. I grew up in Detroit and used to go to Tigers games all the time. It's nice to finally see them winning, let alone killing. They have never been a good team as long as I have liked them. Of course I want Detroit to edge out Chicago, but I was loving the close competition. A lot of my friends are Sox fans and it was fun to argue who was better. I believe the Sox are 8.5 games behind and have lost like 12/15 or somethign crazy like that. WTF? They are a good team on paper and should be doing much much better. Of course, it's not easy to keep up with the Tigers with how they are playing right now.

Anyway, I'm going to Vegas tomorrow. I'm excited and dissapointed at the same time. I think it will be a ton of fun, but I also think that not being 21 will put a damper on the trip. It's just so ridiculous that I can't legally drink or gamble in this country. ugggggghhhh.

I don't think I will have time for any poker today because I need to pack for Vegas and I think I might take a nap after work to catch up on some sleep.

I think I'm up 1.5 buyins for the month now. VN work Andrew! Hopefully I can pull in a few more before the month is over. I'm not very good live because the game is just too slow typically. I don't know if I'll even play much live while I'm there.

I spent the earyl part of the day playing 25nl and trying to make videos. I made two of them and after each taking an hour to save I realized the files were corrupted. That tilted me like a monkey. I played a bit later and dropped a buyin really fast. I realized I was tilted like a monkey and quit. I came back about an hour later and dropped another 1k. I wasn't getting into big pots, jus tlosing every possible medium pot.

I took a shower and didn't play for awhile adn came back with the idea of playing Party. Honestly, my last month on stars and ftp have not been that great. Party and UB are where I have really been winning a lot lately. Therefore, that is where I am going to focus on playing from here on out. I am really liking party more and more. With the monster tables there are a lot more games to choose from, which really helps w/ avoiding the v good regulars. Also, since I started using scripts, it's my favorite software on the net. It's fast but not too fast and the scripts make up for the shortcomings that party has (gives me a bet 2/3 pot button and autoreload). Furthermore, I get rakeback there. Not getting rakeback on stars is kidn of a kick in the balls. Yes, the VIP thing is nice ,but they don't give enough point sfor cash games adn they give too much for sngs. Thats bullshit IMO. Anyway, I like stars a lot, but its awfully slow and I just am not running wlel there. I won ok amount last month, but have given most of it back recently.

So, after losing 3k on stars today I came back w/ +7500 on party. I made a little bit of a gain on my pace, which is good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?448875
This hand helped.

Taylor, EmpireMaker2, and I are all playing golf tomorrow. That should be fun. I don't know how much playing I'll get in tough. I'm gonna try to get in a short session when I wake up.

Today: +4586.90
Overall: +10205.38

14544.62 BEHIND pace

I just played an hour or so long session of 5/10. I played 4 tables of 6 man and 2 tables of full ring. I was up about 2k for awhile, but I ran into some bad situations right before I quit. One of the hands I got all in pre with QQ vs KK. Not much I could do. I think I lost about $500. Oh well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?890790
I misplayed this hand pretty bad. I think my preflop call is pretty questionable because of my postion and the fact that he is UTG. Once the flop comes I like my raise to try to isolate vs the initial raiser. When jcamby calls, I know he has a huge hand. I'm thinking two pair is the most likely. On the turn I knew the Q would kill the action so I decided to check to disguise my hadn. I should have just bet it there. When the river comes I should check with the idea of likely calling a bet. When I bet, I thought maybe a hand like A10 would call, but A10 isn't one of his most likely holdings. I just didn't really think it though. Also, if I bet there, I pretty much have to fold to a raise by him, because he's not going to bluff there. These types of hands are where my rust shows. Not putting in any significant hands for awhile can hurt you when you try to think through a hand fast.

I've had a pretty crazy week as far as going out. I went out Tues, Wed and Thurs. I'm sure I'll go out tonight. I think this has been one of the most fun weeks I've had in awhile. On wednesday night my friend decided he was going to bring $400 cash to the bar and spend it all. $400 might not be a lot of money to spend at a bar in a big city, but that is a HUGE amount to spend here. They had $1 jager bombs that night and that's all he bought. He probably bought about 350 jager bombs. I'd say there were 15 of us or so that were regularly drinking them. We got hammered. At the end I was telling him to stop because no one really wanted their 17th jagerbomb, but he wouldn't. I should note that the shots around here aren't real shots (maybe a little more than half a real shot), so we didn't really drink 20 drinks. Good times.

I've been thinking a ton about how the end is coming very soon. It's crazy that I'm about to graduate college. I've had amazing times here and I know I'm gonna miss it a lot. It has been fun though thinking back on all the great times and laughing about the stupid shit we've done over the years. It's interesting to think about how much I've changed in 4 years. Can't stop change though. It's just part of life. Gotta roll with the punches.

Hands: 5,890

Profit: -1,861

Days remaining: 53

So that's where I stand right now. I was stuck as much as $6k at my low, so I'm not going to complain too much. I'm not a great 6 max player. My PLO strength has always come playing HU and even there my style didn't work much above 2/4. One of the things that stands out to me about my numbers is my very high flop AF. I don't know if that's bad or not. I also feel like I'm playing too tight. My last few sessions, I've played at like 20/16. That seems way too nitty for my liking. I figure it's not terrible though since I'm working through leaks. It's better to err on the side of being too tight.

At first I thought my opponent played this hand terribly. Looking back on the HH, it's not too bad. He had a decent hand to call with preflop considering we were both deep. That's a flop that's worth going with. Although, he's lucky I didn't have his flush draw covered. I think you need to be very careful in spots like that because you can be in ok shape like he is or you could be crushed.

This hand is fairly straight forward, but I wasn't really too sure of what to do on the flop. After reviewing it, I'm convinced it's a fold. It's a pretty standard call preflop, but you gotta give it up on that flop. oops.

I think this was dumb luck in a way. I wanted to throw up when he shoved the river. The guy was a crazy player and I knew he was capable of bluffing or showing something like top two. I basically just crossed my fingers and hoped that was what he was doing. I guess I'm not sure what's standard there. I think I have to bet the river. Shoud I typically fold when he pushes?

I really feel like I'm gonna push through soon and start posting big wins. Let's hope that's true.