2009 is off to a good start. I've been running hot at SNG's after starting to 8-table them and yesterday took 5th in the big pokerstars $5 rebuy for $3200. With February being almost over I have already played 1/3 my total 2008 tournament volume and am up $6700 so far in 2009. Always feels good to run unsustainably hot.

SNG graph:



Not bad for a part-time poker donk.

So I made a pretty standard 12/180 play and made a new friend:

Poker Stars $11+$1 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t400/t800 Blinds + t75 - 8 players - View hand 44171
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (SB): t10390 M = 5.77
dilsor (BB): t4565 M = 2.54
Shostyfive (UTG): t4580 M = 2.54
tknight71 (UTG+1): t2460 M = 1.37
bovis18 (MP1): t8735 M = 4.85
westerfield (MP2): t11619 M = 6.46
OLDMONEY313 (CO): t1130 M = 0.63
bjhill626 (BTN): t13085 M = 7.27

Pre Flop: (t1800) Hero is SB with J 8
1 fold, tknight71 raises to t2385 all in, 4 folds, Hero raises to t3970, 1 fold

Flop: (t6170) 3 8 T (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: (t6170) 9 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t6170) 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t6170
Hero shows J 8 (two pair, Eights and Threes)
tknight71 shows K 7 (a pair of Threes)
Hero wins t6170


tknight71 [observer] said, "you dumb azz calling station"
tknight71 [observer] said, "your a freaking idiot"
tknight71 [observer] said, "get them ugly azz kids off your pic"
tknight71 [observer] said, "you have no buisness playing"
brad2002tj said, "sorry i outplayed u"
tknight71 [observer] said, "dumb fuuuuuuuckkkkkk"
tknight71 [observer] said, "out played, you made dumb azz calls and got lucky"
brad2002tj said, "best hand won"
tknight71 [observer] said, "wrong,,,k7 u had j8"
tknight71 [observer] said, "stupid"
tknight71 [observer] said, "you got lucky"
tknight71 [observer] said, "go suckkkk yourself"
brad2002tj said, "best hand won u got ouplayed"
brad2002tj said, "it was 50/50"
tknight71 [observer] said, "you will never get it...too stupid"
brad2002tj said, "either i would win or not"
tknight71 [observer] said, "you suck and you know it...."
tknight71 [observer] said, "go back to playing bingo stupid"
tknight71 [observer] said, "if you want to play the lotto, go buy a ticket"
tknight71 [observer] said, "you freaking dogball licking idiot"
brad2002tj said, "<3"

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.