I haven't posted much lately, mainly because I've been trying to overcome a crushing downswing.

With about a week and a half left to go in 2008 and lots of travel around Christmas, my 2008 online grind is almost complete, and it was pretty much a mixed bag. I had some great months and some really brutal months, and I am really ending the year on a bad note and without much confidence in my game.

To start out with some good, my overal stars results for the year are pretty ok:



The downside is a brutal 180-man slide starting in October and continuing as I write this message. Over the last 700 games or so I've averaged about -$1/game:



The only reason that the graph is not straight down is that I've had some success in 45-man tournaments during that time, mitigating the overal SNG losses. However, all told I am finishing year 2008 with about a $2,000 downswing, or about 20% of my total 2008 profits.

In addition to the $6,500 made at pokerstars in 2008, I made around $3,000 at Cake and $1,000 at AP for a total online taking of $10,500.

Add about $2,000 made in live cash game and tournament profit for the year, and I cleared around $12,500 in total poker profit. My goal was to make $20,000 this year, so I will fall well short of that unless I happen to get a big score in the next 2 weeks.

I am in fact pretty disappointed in both the overall numbers and the recent downswing. I made nearly as much in 2007 while playing much less volume (although mostly from 1 big live score at WSOP-C). I think variance is really kicking me in the ass the last 3 months, and nothing hurts your confidence more than running bad for an extended period of time. I hope to recover my bankroll soon, and I willrenew my $20,000 profit goal for 2009.

See you all at the tables.

My maxim is as follows:

We all suck at poker.

Ok, maybe not all, but almost all, even good winning players with access to all the poker information now available, are no where near maximum potential. If we continue to learn and get better, maybe one day we won't suck so bad.

But, there will always be people who suck worse than us, and we can still make a decent profit off of those people until then.

Agree/disagree?

I'm sitting on my back porch eating yet another can of progresso chicken gumbo I heated up on the grill. This is the exciting life of someone in a town thrown out of whack by a little storm named Ike. If not for my blackberry I would have gone crazy a while ago. At least I have some communication with the outside world, even if it is just on a 2" x 2" screen.

The night of the hurricane was, well I have no idea because I slept straight through it. My girlfriend says it was bad, that she never wants to go through it again and that next time we are leaving town regardless of what the authorities say. To that I say, "meh, how bad can it be if I slept through it." All I know is I woke up to a leaking roof and a backyard that looked like this:

Since then the neighbors and I worked to fix the broken fence and kinda sorta hopefully fixed the roof. We still have no electricity but it's feelin pretty good to have running water again. I think of it as a sort of camping vacation, but in your own house.

Anyway, everyone I know made out ok from the storm with very minimal damage. The biggest complaints are from people being bored. I have to admit I kinda like the quiet and I'm not really bored at all, but I do miss my internet pokers.

talk to ya'll again when I am back up and running.

The GF and I went on a trip to Northen California last week. I really wanted to stop by Club One in Fresno but I just didn't have time to make it down there with other obligations. We did make a quick run through Yosmite National Park and I was very impressed once we got away from the crowds. A few highlights:

Yosemite:





Travertine Hot Springs in Bridgeport, CA:


Bodie, CA, a ghost town:




So, on to Harvey's Lake Tahoe. Harrahs' comped 2 nights but Saturday night was $400 because there was a KISS concert that night. I only go to play 4 donkaments because Harvey's only has 2 a day. On Thursday night the $80+15 field was all locals who seemed to know each other. I ended up shoving KJ into 66 and flop comes 66X. GG me. On Friday morning I won their turbo-esque $30+10 for $250 over a super weak field. On Friday night I chopped the $100+$20 for $600 in a 5-way even chop. The final table included two members of the rock band ZO2, who were opening for KISS on Saturday. I busted one of them 6 handed when he limped QQ on my 3 5 BB and the flop came 5 2 6 with two diamonds. He shoved his remaining 6 BB and I call and hit a 3 on the river to bust him, immediately after which we chop the remaining $3k prizepool. On Saturday morning I played another $30+$10 turbo with no success. Still pretty solid results for my small amount of playing time.

Harvey's seems to be full of hand-me-down Harrah's equipment. We had an "updated" upgrade room and it still had out of date furniture and even had a scary tube TV in the bathroom that was no less than 12" deep for a 10" screen. The room was still nice and I have no real complaints. The poker room is pretty standard and only the cash tables had auto shufflers. There are no poker comps of any kind and time is not tracked.

We walked across the street to the Mont Bleu on our last day, and it is by far the nicest/newest casino on the small Tahoe strip. The poker room is right at the entrance and seems to offer an identical tournament schedule/structure as Harvey's. If I return I'll play there as play is probably softer and Harvey's doesn't offer any poker comps.

Today I took second out of around 5900 runners in the stars $10 30k guaranteed tournament for my biggest online score ever, $5k. First paid $7300, so I can now say the most I ever lost on a coin flip is $2300.

PokerStars Game #18800361103: Tournament #94712572, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXXII (60000/120000) - 2025/07/13 - 19:48:08 (ET)
Table '94712572 485' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 3: brad2002tj (3388172 in chips)
Seat 5: MilanRabsz (8383828 in chips)
brad2002tj: posts the ante 12000
MilanRabsz: posts the ante 12000
brad2002tj: posts small blind 60000
MilanRabsz: posts big blind 120000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to brad2002tj [Qh Ah]
brad2002tj: raises 240000 to 360000
MilanRabsz: raises 720000 to 1080000
brad2002tj: raises 2296172 to 3376172 and is all-in
MilanRabsz: calls 2296172
limbi8888 [observer] said, "NO DEAL ??"
*** FLOP *** [6c Ad 3d]
Dantes_11 [observer] said, "AAAAAA"
*** TURN *** [6c Ad 3d] [7h]
*** RIVER *** [6c Ad 3d 7h] [5h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MilanRabsz: shows [4h 4c] (a straight, Three to Seven)
brad2002tj: shows [Qh Ah] (a pair of Aces)
Floppus [observer] said, "haha"
Floppus [observer] said, "lol"
MilanRabsz collected 6776344 from pot
limbi8888 [observer] said, "WTF"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 6776344 | Rake 0
Board [6c Ad 3d 7h 5h]
Seat 3: brad2002tj (button) (small blind) showed [Qh Ah] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 5: MilanRabsz (big blind) showed [4h 4c] and won (6776344) with a straight, Three to Seven