CARDRUNNERS

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."

Yesterday I played a pretty long session, but didn't achieve much. I won about 1k, so that means I fell back even further behind my pace.

Today, I saddled up on Party and UB w/ the intention of getting back into the hunt. I ran pretty well and won one of the biggest pots I've won in a long time when the villian got coolered very bad. I'm pretty sure I am going to play more later. My friends are all going into Chicago tonight, so I'm stuck at home.

The golf yesterday didn't turn out as well as I'd have hoped. The weather was bad all day, but we decided to take the chance and go out and play anyway. It started raining around the 5th hole. The course was pretty empty so we decided to take a break at my house by the 6th green and see if the rain slowed down. We also need to pick up some more beer. It turned out that there were endless twosomes behind us. After smoking a bowl and waiting 20 minutes or so we decided to go over to hole 9 which is across the street from me. It was clear sailing until the 14th hole. It started to rain really hard. We decided to smoke another bowl and wait it out under some trees. It didn't let up and wasn't showing any signs of letting up. We eventually called it a day and went back to my house. We hung out and ordered a few pizzas. All in all, it was a pretty laid back day, but fun nonetheless. I was glad to finally meet EmpireMaker. He's a really solid guy. I also was able to give him my mic, so he will have one that works now in order to make a video. I was also able to get a little strategy talk in with Taylor and Blake. I've got a few things I'm going to work on in w/ my game.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?451259
Steal w/ a semibluff. Pretty standard, but somewhat interesting.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?451310
wow. That is a sick sick beat for the villian. I cold called preflop so it's very difficult for him to put me on KK. The reason I did that was because I didn't want to build a big pot OOP w/ KK when we both had deep stacks and my opponent was seemingly solid. The flop was great and I decided to c/r. There is a pretty wide range that I would c/r there. He came over the top and I was immediately licking my chops. I pushed and he called of course. Yes, there is the possibility of QJ but I don't think either one of us should get away from our hand there. I'm just glad to be on the right side of that one. I've been set over setted a few times lately, including twice yesterday, so this was a nice change.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?451370
Funpoker is a pretty wild player. I was pretty sure he didn't have a pair higher than 8s here. I held my breath and called. It's a pretty big pot for party too.

Last two sessions: +14055.16
Overall: +24260.54

5989.46 BEHIND pace

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.

What a great day. I had about 7 high school friends visiting. I always have a great time with my high school friends, so I knew the day wouldn't dissapoint. I got up at 730am so that I'd have time to take a shower and be drinking by 8am. We had two kegs at my place and my friends in the apartment next to us had 1 as well. I figured there would be a ton of people at my place at least at one point. During the early part of the day it wasn't too crazy. I think we finished the first keg by about 11. That's about the time that it really started to pick up. At one point there were probably 50 people in my apartment. I don't have that big of an apartment. We basically just hung out and drank. There were some drinking games going on as well. I played a few games of beer pong and some quarters as well. The thing is that you don't really need drinking games to get completely retarded. It's bound to happen regardless. The day started to get really hazy aobut the time the 2nd keg went dry.

I know Taylor stopped by with a crew at one point. We took a few shots. I don't think they stayed too long. The party at my place was dead at that point, so there wasn't much reason for them to stay. You can see some pics in Andy Hasdal's blog. I know I went to a bar for awhile around that time. I don't think we were there too long. After that we went to the store adn bought some more beer. It was really crowded/expensive at the bars so we figured we'd just avoid them. I tried to go back out later, but the lines were so crazy long that I couldnt get in. The night ended with my friend being dared to eat crazy shit. He ate two bananas with the peel on. He also ate a cigarette dipped in whiskey. The big challenge was to get him to eat a solo cup. It's probably a good thing he was never convinced.

The next night was more laid back, but we still got pretty crazy drunk by the end of the night. We filmed me jump kicking my friend into a sliding door in my apartment. I don't know why he wanted me to jump kick him, but it was pretty hilarious. I'm going to put the video up on youtube if I can figure that out.

Some people have commented how I haven't talked about poker lately. That's because I haven't been playing. I played less than 10 hours in Feb. I needed the break really bad. I feel fresh again and I'm going to start playing a decent amount again. I'll mostly be playing 5/10nl on pokerstars. I'll also be blogging about poker more. More to come on that.

I was talking to my roommate the other day about this time of the year. It really is a great time. We just had unofficial. It's finally getting warm outside (It was in the 70s the last two days). The NBA season is coming to a close. I just watched one of the best games in recent memory last night w/ the Suns vs. the Mavs in Double OT. It's just amazing to watch those teams play. I would have prefered to see the Mavs win, but you can't ask for a much better game. March Madness is starting today. I love the tournament. Unfortunately, the Illini aren't so good this year, but the tourny promises to be a really interesting one. Baseball season is starting up. While I'll be the first to admit that I think the Baseball season can drag a bit in the middle, I like the beginning and the end a lot. You also can't leave out spring break.

We have our spring break next week. This year me and about 13 other guys are going to South Padre Island, Tx. It's not the most glamorous place to go, but it's cheap and I know it will be fun. Basically, all of my good friends are going. We always have a great time together. It's kind of our last hoorah in a way too, because most of us are graduating in less than 2 months. The sleeping arangement should be interesting. We are cramming a ton of people in a room to keep it cheap. I'm not exactly sure how it will work, but I'll be sure to write about it once we get down there.

I've been pretty busy getting things done for school and CR with spring break coming up. Therefore, I haven't really played any poker. My plan was to play more this month, but I barely played more than last month. It's just really hard to carve out time with playing while I'm finishing up my last semester. Futhermore, I've been working out everyday and that takes about 2 hours a day. Those 2 hours used to go to playing poker. I'd rather be working out for now though. The summer is fast approaching. I knwo I'll be playing a lot this summer. I'm not in a huge rush to get back to grinding. Plus, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel as far as the legislation. It looks like Sen. Frank is looking to repeal it. I don't know how realistic that is. I do know that it makes me very happy that there is at least one person on in the government that cares about our rights.

I used to be a hardcore right wight religious conservative. I was Mr. Gun-Ho America. Then I went abroad and got a new perspective. I started looking at our government a lot different when I came back. I've become very disillusioned with our government. I'm not one of those people that is a one issue voter. I didn't start chaning my thoughts because of the poker ban. In a way, I understand what they are trying to do. I think online gambling is bad for our country. I just think that if they are going to allow us to gamble at all (ie. in vegas) they need to allow it online. THere are a lot of issues that make me very frustrated with the way our government is being managed. It's not that I've become liberal. I hope to god I can never call myself a liberal, because there are a ton of things the liberals do that just piss me off. At the same time, there are tons of things the republicans do that piss me off. I guess for now I might call myself a moderate. I wish our country wasn't a two party system. Kind of got on a rant there.

Crossing my fingers the Illini can pull out two wins. That'd be badass. Go Illini!