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!

NEW BEST MONTH EVER!!!

October may have been meh, but November was ROCKIN’! With one hot handed trip to the Horseshoe-Bossier City I posted my biggest single session win ever. This trip propelled me into my biggest month ever. I also had my best month ever at online Full Ring games, I won $1,013, mostly at 100NL on Bodog.



I definitely earned it this month, I played a lot more hours than I usually do. My typical month is around 20 to 30 hours, but I got in 53 hours this month online. I was about 500 hands short of 10k hands with a 6.2 BB/100 Hands win rate. I got in more hours due to my wife being gone for a play that she was dancing in. This caused me to miss Monday night volleyball also, which just added to the time that I could play cards online after my son went to bed.

200NL online was a real challenge this month. I took 3 shots at that game, the first one went really bad. I dropped a full buyin and made a really bone-headed play here:

Bodog No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (8 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

saw flop|saw showdown

MP1 ($125.50)
Landlord79 ($266.00)
CO ($302.50)
Button ($414.50)
SB ($284.50)
BB ($46.50)
UTG (CompleteRock) ($200.00)
UTG+1 ($287.00)

Preflop: Landlord79 is MP2 with A, A.
UTG (CompleteRock) calls $2, 1 fold, MP1 raises to $8, Landlord79 calls $8, 1 fold, Button calls $8, 1 fold, BB calls $6, UTG (CompleteRock) calls $6.

Flop: ($41) 8, 7, 4 (5 players)
BB checks, CompleteRock bets $23, MP1 folds, Landlord79 raises to $64, Button folds, BB folds, CompleteRock bets $192 (All-In), Landlord79 calls $128.

Turn: ($425) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)
.

River: ($425) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $425

Results below:
CompleteRock has 4 4 (full house, fours full of eights).
Landlord79 has A A (two pair, aces and eights).
Outcome: CompleteRock wins $425.




The second run at it I found a table with a total donk who stacked off really easily. I got into a big hand w/ him here:

Bodog No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (9 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

saw flop|saw showdown

Landlord79 ($212.50)
SB ($331.00)
BB ($200.00)
UTG ($200.00)
UTG+1 ($103.00)
MP1 ($588.00)
MP2 ($319.50)
MP3 ($183.00)
CO (theMark) ($515.50)

Preflop: Landlord79 is Button with 5, 7.
UTG calls $2, UTG+1 calls $2, 1 fold, MP2 calls $2, 1 fold, CO (theMark) calls $2, Landlord79 calls $2, 1 fold, BB checks.

Flop: ($13) 8, Q, 2 (6 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, MP2 checks, theMark bets $5, Landlord79 calls $5, BB folds, UTG calls $5, UTG+1 calls $5, MP2 folds.

Turn: ($33) 7 (4 players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, theMark bets $5, Landlord79 raises to $25, UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, theMark calls $20.

River: ($83) 2 (2 players)
theMark bets $8, Landlord79 raises to $91, theMark raises to $174, Landlord79 bets $180.5 (All-In), theMark calls $6.50.

Final Pot: $444

Results below:
theMark has J K (flush, king high).
Landlord79 has 5 7 (flush, queen high).
Outcome: theMark wins $444.



Upon further review by the 2+2 Forums, this river was better played as a raise of $60 followed by a fold to any reraise. I really have to work on these spots.

On my final shot at 200NL for the month, things finally went right. I played about 30 minutes single tabling and caught Aces, Kings and 7s for some good wins. I didn’t win a buyin back, but I did win 2/3s of one back. I think the table was just a little softer and obviously my card distribution was really excellent for that session.

I practiced a lot more table selection at the end of this month than I have in the past. It’s amazing how many players you actually recognize when you’re not overwhelmed by the volume of the micro stakes games. Most of my table selection was based on who was sitting at a table rather than by the stats of the table. It’s the same principle as playing the player and not their stats. I’m finding weak players before I’m focusing on playing loose games.

I’m happy with how my game is growing, I’m still reading Professional No-Limit (going on the 3rd month now,) and I just bought my 1st Cardrunners video. (Sorry Adanthar, it wasn’t one of yours.) I really don’t play a lot of tournaments; so I felt like a Full Ring video would be better suited to my needs. Daut’s video was at 600NL, so some of the techniques that he taught aren’t really relevant for 100NL, but I have to start learning them sometime. He also ran bad card distribution wise, which puts me into a poor mind frame going into a session, so I probably won’t be watching it that often. I’ve also made a few great contacts w/ some players that are making real money at Full Ring games. I think these contacts will really propel my game forward.

My goals for December are to enjoy the holidays and only play about 5k hands. I’d also like to visit the Horseshoe-Bossier City one more time before the year ends, preferably during the Christmas or New Years weekends. I’d also like to run in the black for 200NL this month.