CARDRUNNERS

I had a super busy week at work and I honestly had nothing to post about. One night I had some dinner w/ people from work that took all night. I just went bed when I got home. We basically just shot the shit w/ some of the guys that work for crowe. It was a pretty good time actually. One guy had spent a year in Belguim and another was a huge golfer, so I had plenty to talk about. Thursday, I played 9 holes after work. I played pretty bad, but I was just messing around w/ 2 of my friends on a pretty crappy course. I didn't keep score, but I'd guess I shot about 50.

On Friday I had people over to my house. We debated through email during work whether a keg would be a good idea or not. I always said no. I didn't think we would finish it, because none of our friends are around this summer. Well, we got one anyway. We only drank aobut half of it. Pretty pathetic. I hope I never have to dump out 1/2 of a keg ever again in my life. It's depressing. On a lighter note, one of my friends from U of I was in town fo rthe weekend. He's a really solid guy and I hadn't seen him since mid december. It was fun to hang out with him.

On saturday my friends went downtown. Since I'm not 21, I was stranded at home. I watched A history of violence. I had heard it was a great movie. It was ok, but def not great.

I haven't had much time to play poker. My loss on Tuesday was kind of the last straw for me as far as some of my bad habits that I've picked up in the past few months. I made a list of things I am going to do in order to make sure I am plyain gmy best game.
1. Follow stop loss of 3 buyins - I'm never playing my A game after I lose 3, so why keep plaing
2. Don't play more than 6 tables - I just don't play my A game when I 9 table
3. Play little or no HU - Sometimes you have to play HU because there isn't action, but otherwise I won't play and I def won't play against good players
4. Play shorter sessions - I start to lose interest after awhile. I need to only play when I am totally focused
5. Practice good table selection - this is very important at 10/20 and I've been sloppy with it lately. The new 25/50 games should help make the 10/20 games easier.

I've preached a lot of those things but I have been lazy about practicing what I preach. So far I have been doing well with them. I played on Friday and stopped when I got down 5500. Today I only played for an hour because I got bored. I think these rules will really help m ybottom line and I think w/ a good effort I can follow them. Most of these things are things I used to do but have just gotten lazy about lately.

Today I lost about 6500. That's more than my stop loss limit. That occured thanks to being down and then losing 3k at the same time on two other tables...sweet. Here are some highlights.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?441554
First big pot of the day.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?441555
I like how I played this hand. I actually won it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?441573
Pretty standard stacking. Not much I can do.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?441579
I gues it was a pretty bad raise on river. The player is terrible and it sure looked like a blocking bet to me. Stupid to raise though I guess.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?441581
I probably should have just folded on the turn. ack.

The last two happened at the same time and thats when I called it quits.

I think I played pretty decent. What can ya do. This 85k is probably going to be pretty hard unless I run well most of the month. I can't have too many more sessions like this one and the one the other day.

I'm kind of pissed that the stars, ftp and ub games have been terrible lately. The party games seem to play with a pretty high variance for some reason. That vaelosis dude is ruining the stars games and nothing has been running on ftp or ub.

I'm going to go get high and watch V for Vendetta. I love not being 21. I would have been out getting wasted and not playing tonight if I could get into a bar.

Oh yea, I did win about 1k playing PLO for a video earlier.

I don't think I'm going to have much time to play tomorrow because I am going to go see the MLS all stars play Chelsea. That'll be a good time.

Today: -6538.35
Overall: 1889.89

9110.11 behind pace

Wow. I had a wild day at the tables today. I started off at 10/20nl on Party. Within 15 minutes I was down 5k. I decided to move down to 5/10nl so that I didn't have a terrible day. I was down probably 3k or so at my peak there. I was running terrible and tilting pretty bad. I got back to down 1k at 5/10 and down 6k on the day and quit. I wasn't sure if I would play any more today.

I came back before dinner and decided to play some 5/10nl for about an hour on Party. Something interesting that I've noticed is that I can play 8 tables pretty easily if I spread them out between my two screens and don't resize them. If I play 9 on one screen resized it becomes much more difficult. Don't ask me why. I'm done ever resizing tables. I don't like how small they get. It just makes it hard to follow the action. Anyway, I was going back and forth between being up 1k and down 1k and then I went on a sick sick rush. I won all three of these hands in the span of 2 minutes.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?452776
I was pretty sure the guy floated me on the flop. The huge bet on the turn made it even more likely in my mind. Sweet river. I'm not sure I blame him for calling.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?452778
Geez. I had some history with this guy so this was an instacall.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?452779
Pretty standard.

That session I won about 5k and was then down 1k on the day.

I ate dinner and didn't play for awhile. I came back and this time decided to play a few tables of UB. I was playing 3 10/25 and decided to add a 5/10. I ran really hot at the 5/10 table adn got up to a 5k stack. I did pretty well at the 10/25 too. I won about 7k that session to end the day up 6k. Here are a few UB hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?452962
Damn, I really do play loose on UB.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?452972
AQ???? Are you serious???

I'm up about 11k at 5/10 the last two days. I'm definitely going to be playing more 5/10 in the future.

Today: +6160.47
Overall: +33325.47

325.47 BEHIND pace

I played for about an hour or so today after I got home from my first class. I have another class in about an hour. I probably won't play anymore today because I want to try to get some work done for Cardrunners and I also plan on going out tonight. I've gone out everynight since I got down here and I don't see any reason to end that streak just yet. I didn't run very well today and I kind of feel that I haven't run that great overall the last few sessions. I also just haven't been putting in the hands the last week. That's ok though, because my buffer that I had built up is keeping me in okay shape.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?469750
This was a pretty tough hand. I couldn't decide if I should bet the flop and what amount I should bet. I ran low on time and opted to just check to see what he would do. I probably would have pushed all in to a bet, but I'm not entirely sure. The turn card let me know I was in the lead and I didn't want to let a hand like AK hit broadway for free, so I bet out.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?469783
The villian is an aggressive player and this seemed like a great place for him to make a squeeze play. Unfortunately, he had AA. I'm not sure or not if I should get away from this hadn given the circumstances.

I might play a little more later, but I doubt it. I'll hopefully play a good amount tomorrow afternoon though.

Today: +3093.48
Overall: +71633.65

5633.65 AHEAD of pace

I just realized somehow I was off with my day numbering. Looks pretty dumb that I have August 27 listed as Day 26. Anyway, I just have no urge to play poker lately and I don't want to force it. Forcing myself to play poker when I don't feel I will play my A game is something that I have worked on a lot and it wouldn't seem right to just ignore that and play. I am somewhat dissapointed because I feel I won't be able to play enough to be able to get to my goal. That being said, I'm very pleased with how the month went overall. I think I learned a ton and I won a lot of money. I also have gained a lot of confidence. I know am much more confident about how I stack up at the 10/20nl level. It's good to know to have the added comfort of that.

I think part of the reason I'm burned out is because I played so much early in the month. Another reason is that I'm back at school. I'm busy getting the year started and I'm also enjoying the time I am spending with my friends. A lot of my friends I hadn't seen in almost 9 months due to being abroad.

I'm hoping I can get a big urge to play one night and just play through the night and have a huge session. I just don't feel like I have it in me to play a long session. The few times I have played lately I feel like I want to quit after only playing 30 minutes. That's not how I usually feel.

Another aspect that I think has played into the way I'm feeling latley is that the fact that I'm not planning on taking a job after college is finally hitting me. I decided not to do the 5 year program for accounting that I had always planned on and therefore a lot of my friends are curious as to why. It seems weird to tell them that I'm going to run my website and play cards for my job. I find it pretty scary in fact.

I only write all this because I know a lot of people have been following my progress and I feel that I need to explain as to why I feel I won't acheive my goal. I was in great shape right before I left for school. It was just a combination of a lot of things that made me need to step back from poker for a bit.

The last I played poker was sunday night. I saw Elky sitting and had to sit for a bit. I never got into a groove and played quite poorly. I stopped after about 30 min and I dropped about 3k.

Today: 0
Overall: +69911.08

7088.92 behind pace