CARDRUNNERS

I managed to just lose another blog entry. It was a huge entry too, because it was my 2008 Resolutions entry. I'm typing this entry in gmail and I'm going to do this for every entry from now on. Gmail auto saves every few minutes so it's hard to lose an entire entry. I just accidentally closed out the other one. Makes me pretty mad. Anyway, let's get to it again.

2007 was a year of big changes for me. Graduating from college was easily the biggest change. Even if my day to day stuff hasn't changed all that much, it's still a ton different being in the real world. It's like the entire way you view life changes. My friends are all different because they are humping real jobs that most of them don't like. It's weird for me, because on the surface things aren't that much different. Like I said though, things sure feel different. I also went from playing an insane amount of poker to not very much at all. CR shifted to a full time gig. It was great to be able to put in more time on CR, because that was a complaint of mine going into 2007. I just didn't have enough time or maybe I just had too many distractions to really put the effort into CR that I wanted to.

One of the things I started to focus on at the end of 2007 was growing up in general and also treating my body better. I feel as though I can act pretty immaturely at times. That was fine when I was a 19 year old living in a frat house in college, but that's not who I am anymore. I tend to drink too much at times. I really want to cut back on drinking in the new year. I'm rambling a bit. I'll get into my specific goals.

1. Get in the best shape of my life. I made good strides on this in 2007, but I will really need to focus on this if I want to get to the next level. I guess my overall goal is to get cut and to also get in good cardio shape. I just want to feel very healthy. I'm going to cut out junk/fast food. In fact, I think the food aspect of getting in shape is much harder than actually working out. I have to be really dedicated to this to accomplish it. A CR member also told me about crossfit.com. It's a pretty cool site about getting in overall good shape. I'm considering just following that.
   
2. I want to cut down on my spending. I don't really spend a ridiculous amount of money and I'm normally pretty good about it, but I feel myself slipping a bit lately. I don't have any big purchases on the horizon so I think I can do ok here. I want to average less than 5k in total expenses a month.
3. Integrate more spirituality into my life. This was a goal I had last year that I totally struck out on. I recently read a book, Blue Like Jazz, that a CR member recommend. The subtitle is "nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality." I think that sums it up pretty well. In general it just kind of opened my eyes up a bit about a lot of things in life. One of my roommates is pretty religious so I think he can help me out some here.
4. There is so much I want to accomplish with CR. I won't get into the specifics now. CR made huge strides in 2007 and I want to continue to see that happen in 2008.
   
5. Get back to grinding poker more. In 2007, I really got away from the things that made me a good poker player. In a nutshell, I stopped taking the game seriously but still tried to beat higher stakes. I want to make a good push at 2/4nl. There I can get a few solid months under my belt and fine tune my game so that I can get back to really doing well at 5/10nl.
   

I started grinding 2/4nl 6max yesterday and today for my new challenge. Below are my PT stats. I've been running well and I'm really happy with how it's gone so far. I need to get back into the habit of saving HHs while I play. Since I already have a big post going, I'll save that for my next post.

There's some tweaking I need to do on my stats. I'm not too far off though. I want to be tigther, come in raising more and be a bit more aggressive.

The Wire starts in a week. What an amazing show. I'm finishing up season 4 with my roommate right now. I just can't say enough good stuff about that show. Best TV I've ever seen. I'm very pumped for season 5 to start. Check out this promo.

So I've been running pretty shitty lately. I definitely can not win a hand against a shortstack, and TrevRob I feel your pain. Fuck short stacks. I'm trying to play atleast one 9 table session a day for about an hour. I am keepin pace to make platinum on PS this month and plan on getting the 650$ probably. I want a T.V., but I'm not moving into an apartment until next fall and dont really want a badass tv in my dorm room. I have about 4200FPPs this month and should be able to get 10k easy.

My miserable luck of late...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1796246

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1796250

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1796253

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1796260 fuckin short stacks...

A few winners...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1796262 perfect flop...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1796264 Hmmm

Today I played a session early on and dropped a buyin over 1k hands. I didn't run well and made a few mistakes. Tonight I 6 tabled and ran very hot except for the 99 hand where he rivered his 2 outer. Blah..

Today: +$338.65

Month: +$1,394.80

Not a whole lot to report about as of right now. I had the most boring New Years Eve in the past 10 years of my life (by choice). For some reason I stayed in and played an ass ton of poker. But I got 2007 off to a great start at the PLO tables. I'm phasing out NL completely soon. This was mainly January 1st session...



Been working a lot, as usual, trying to figure life. Me and Gold talked about how we should analyze and reflect on 2006 and make 2007 even better, improving upon bad things and keeping the good constant.

Looking back, i accomplished an ass ton this year. Got my first real job and overcame the struggles that came with it. I saw too many concerts to count, had endless wasted moments, mostly good, some bad. Saved a good amount of money and traveled more in 1 year than most travel in a life time. Oh and I went to Las Vegas probably 12 times.

As far as 2007, I want to improve in every facet of life. After reading muddy's excellent blog about resolutions, it got me thinking. I usually don't do resolutions, and if i did, i certainly didn't follow them. I'm going to strive to adhere to everything I say.

This list will be on going as I'm somewhat scatter-brained right now and can't divulge everything all at once.

- I want to travel just as much as last year, however, not just for work. I will definitely be visiting my buddy Timmy in Manhattan, along with maybe some CR members. This summer I'm also planning on going to Chi-Town/Wrigleyfield Bleachers to meet up with SteamBoat, Muddywater and GP, for a wild weekend.

- I want to go to Las Vegas, if not move there, as much as this past year. I just about averaged once a month and January is looking like a blank month. I'm going out there for work February 8th and the following weekend for NBA allstar weekend with Steamboat, Muddy, GP and who ever else wants to go. (Hopefully LL2 and Denny at the very least will go). I'm already working on hook ups at a party at Tao, another club tbd, and the best news, a guy I'm chill with just got a huge job as a VIP Host at Scores. < - - - - - wow. lol.

- I want to fuckin master PLO. I want to read MANY books about this game. I'm prepared to ditch nlhe to excel at PLO online. I also wanted to strictly follow proper bankroll management guidelines and just work my way up slowly, quit trying to build Rome in a day.

- As much as i learned this past year in my new job (which is an ungodly amount), i want to duplicate that this year. I'd like to, time permitting, take and obviously pass, at least one Microsoft certification course.

-Become a 'motorcycle rider.' Right now, I've passed a basic course. I'm about 1000 hours worth of riding behind where I want to be. I'm glad I'm taking my time in this process, learning how to ride, purchasing, practicing, etc.

-To be continued...

I crushed the USC game, and got LSU tonight at -8.5. Go Tigers!! BTW...the Giants introduced Barry Zito today. I couldn't stop smiling, ear to ear baby.

As always, take care and GL.