February turned out poorly. I was having a decent month then I decided to take a shot at 200NL under sub-optimal conditions. I quickly dumped 1.5 buyins and then proceeded to lose several more buyins at my normal stakes of 50NL. I dropped down to 25NL and proceeded to win 6.5 buyins which got me up to over 20 buyins for 50NL again, but the momentum didn’t hang around and I have been stagnant to losing ever since. I had KK 6x on the 28th and ran into AA 2x and lost to sets and a flopped str8 on some of the others. When the 2nd strongest starting hand can’t hold up for you when you are dealt it 6x, then you are destined to lose money. Crap, I had AA get 4 bet by K-Jo. I smooth called with position to trap him into another bet, and of course he flops the joint on me.

Enough whinning, Feb turned out like this:



($73.92) at FRNL - Lost $325.90 taking a shot at 200NL
+$10.00 in FT bonus
+$0.46 in Rakeback (just opened a new UB account, one session)
+$8.80 at HORSE
Total, ($54.66)

I could have squeaked out a winning month for Feb, but I got one outted when my top set ran into middle set. We got it all in on the flop and the villain proceeded to turn quads. Still though, I haven’t had a losing month since Sept and losing $55 isn’t so bad when you look at it in comparison to my wins.

I started March off on Saturday by winning one buyin at 50NL, but that got erased last night when I dropped $80. Apparently my Aces are auto losses against KK no matter when the money goes in. Also, TPTK is no good against J-2s in a raised pot. The villain defended his BB, flopped bottom pair then turn trips on me. I never put him on a deuce of any kind, but it cost me $10 or $15.

In general, I feel that I’m running bad and subsequently that I have started making more mistakes. Hopefully, I can get these leaks plugged and get back to some winning ways.

March Goals:
Earn bonus + rakeback on my new UB account
Maintain Goldstar on Pokerstars
Make $1k online
Make a trip to the casino to take some easy money from the live donks
Find and plug some leaks

Mid-month Update on my “Break”:

My February goals were:
Reinvigorate my spiritual life.
Create new habits
1. Prayer time
2. Reading time
3. Exercise program
Purify my body, through a strict diet.
Retool my calendar so that I am doing things based on what is important, not what I feel like doing.

Well, I can’t say that I have thoroughly kept any of my stated goals for the month. I’ve played about 7k hands online, (which isn’t much.) It’s definitely a lot less than I would have covered if I weren’t considering myself on a break. I’ve done well in regards to live play though; I’ve declined several home game invitations and two invitations for trips over to the casino. I’ll definitely be making a trip over to the Horseshoe on Saturday, March 1st (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.)

I’ve done fairly well w/ increasing my reading time, but my prayer and meditation times are mostly unchanged. If reading helps to improve your spiritual life, well, I’m probably doing better in this area than I was before this month. I’m also thinking about spiritual matters more often, but taking the time to stop to pray and meditate just isn’t happening.

I did make an improvement in my sunroom, which I am proud of. I used some of my bankroll to buy a nice, cushy love seat that my wife and I can both crawl into and do some reading together. We’ve already turned the TV off on a few nights and sat together for some reading time alone. This is very +EV for the marriage, though I’m sorry to say that we haven’t “broke in” the new furniture yet. The wife has some sort of problem w/ the neighbors being able to see us. I guess it IS a sunroom…

My strict diet only lasted a week, though I’m just now having caffeine again. An exercise program is yet to be considered and is as of yet non-existent.

I’ve probably done the best in regards to my calendar retool. I’ve been writing down what I spend the majority of my free time doing. I know this is reactive instead of proactive, but at least I’m looking at what I’m doing and can view it in terms of whole months and weeks. It also helps me to know what my normal activities are during the week and this allows me to stick to a better schedule and plan accordingly.

Overall, it looks like I’ve hit 2 areas on my list to some degree and haven’t budged any on the rest. Not a very successful break, IMO. I guess that I’m just a degenerate gambler at heart and am struggling to fight my way out of this cubicle that I call a job!

January was a nice start to the year. I had a good trip to the Horseshoe-Bossier City and got fully rolled for 50NL on PokerStars without having to deposit anymore money. I wish that my earn rate at 50NL would have been higher, but a wins a win and a few of the losses that I took were unavoidable suckouts.

In a borish economist voice, "The chart is upward trending with a few rough patches at the end. It looks like we've found ourselves a winner."


I will be taking a break from poker in February. It’s not that I’m burned out or anything, I just need to put my priorities back into order.

My goals are to:
Reinvigorate my spiritual life.
Create new habits
1. A prayer time
2. Reading time
3. An exercise program
Purify my body, through a strict diet.
Retool my calendar so that I am doing things based on what is important, not what I feel like doing.

I recently bought Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham on audio CD, The Essays of Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Lawrence A. Cunningham, and No Limit Theory and Practice. I won’t start reading NLT&P until March. I want to keep my mind clear and focused upon the long-term.

I’d like to apologize for delaying so long in posting my 2007 results. December was an absolute sputter after a great month such as I had in November. I only made $275.00 in December, $100 of which came from bonuses. Bodog didn’t give me a very fond farewell either, in fact, you could say that it kicked me in the rear on my way out.


Here’s how I closed out at Bodog:



I got a pretty warm welcome at PS to start off with though:



2007 Looked like this:



2007 Results:
$1,800 in Live Ring
$100 in MTT (17 of them)
($50) mixed games/other
$2,810 online FR
$255 in Home games (mostly tourneys)
$1,650 for the BBJP at the Goldstrike in Tunica, MS
$200 in Misc (sidebets, poker room promotions and bounties)

Total of $6,700 in profits for 2007

This was definitely my best year yet. I moved out of the micros for a while on Bodog and really built my roll to something that’s got some girth. I dropped back into the micros when I went to PokerStars, but I only deposited $200 on that site.

Despite losing an arm and a leg in Biloxi during the Gulf Coast Poker Championship, I was still able to turn a profit in my live play by taking the Shoe for 5 buyins over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I fully expect to make at least $10k in 2008, and truthfully, if I make less than $20k, I’ll be disappointed. Poker is like a snowball that you get running down hill. The bigger your roll gets and the bigger the games that you play in the more money that you can make. This is all contingent upon you not getting in above your head though and spewing off all your hard earned money in a short period of time.

Here’s to a great 2008!!!

Just wanted to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! with this Christmas card.

BJJIII and I made a trip to the Horseshoe-Bossier City this weekend, I hope to have that report up soon. I netted a $120 profit while BJJIII took home the chedda w/ a $700+ win.

PokerStars has been good to me in December and I have all of my money off of Bodog. I'm only 170 points away from Silver Star, which I don't feel is bad since it's my first month there and I'm still learning to multi-table well. I hope to earn the rest of the FPPs by this weekend so that I don't have to cram just to make SS. I've played up to 12 tables comfortably at 25NL and hope to move up to 50NL very soon where my FPP earn rate will double. My 10k hand estimate appears to be on target for my moving up plans. I'll move up to 50NL short for a while, but plan on staying there until I'm fully rolled for 100NL.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and remembered that the reason we celebrate this holiday is for the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!