Rape Monday (11/28/2011)

I came into Monday looking forward to grinding out a session, nothing out of the ordinary.

Out of nowhere I proceed to lose -$1000 in 2 fucking hours.  What can I say?  Good times losing 20% of my months profit in two hours.  i'm starting to hate the game again thanks to tonight.  At least I had the discipline to walk away at the -1k stop loss I have daily.  

I haven't had to actually use the stop-loss in 2 and a half months.

Tonight was a horrific disgusting mind-fuck of a downward fluctuation in a incredibly short time.  I was fine with the way I played.  There was the usual -$100 getting blinded and losing every possible situation.

Then I join a new table.  Get dealt AsKs, two callers.  POT $60.  Flop Ks 3d 4h .  I bet $40, 1 fold, BTN raises to $85.  I call.  Unfortunately this is a deep-stack unknown player.  The raise is either nuts or some sort of Kx.  He was a younger guy so I thought there was a good chance he wasn't nutted here.  

TURN 2s

I check, he checks.  I was planning to check raise the turn, but now I'm pretty much check calling any river unless the flush comes in.

RIVER Jx

I check, dip-shit bets $140 into $160 I call.

He has KJo.  Sweet great start.

I then switch to the most profitable table in the casino, there is a well known fish there.

I take a disgusting cooler against a mid-stack almost immediately.  BOARD:  A Q 4.  I cbet 90 into 140 on the flop multi-way with AK.  Mid stac limper check raises to 80 more all in.  He of course has A4 after limp calling my 35, and holds, why not.

Soon after I get AK again (lol).  Raise again.

FLOP A 2 2 multiway.

I bet 40 into 60.  Mega-fish calls, 1 fold.

TURN K

I bet 100 into 140.  Fish thinks and raises to 300.

I push in 90 more all in.

River x

Fish has 52o

There goes 1k

there goes an above average month.

I'm fine getting the final 290 in on that board against the fish.  I have to be good like 29% of the time.  I beat plenty of his Ax, but I lose to his 2x combos.  Tough session.  Going to take off the rest of the night, I'm obviously never even close to recovering from that in 6 hours, or even 50 hours knowing me, so whatever.  I don't trust myself to continuing playing after I'm already down a thousand in a session, that's why I have the stop loss.   

And this is part of the evaluation period.  If I can really deal with this bull-shit another year, or 3 years for that matter.  Maybe I should just get into commercial real estate through a family connection.  If I work hard in that area I don't have to worry about losing 20% of my monthly profits in two hours.  Then maybe go back to poker when I have a 50k+ bankroll so this stupid shit doesn't stress me out as much.  If I can't deal with nights like these I shouldn't be playing pro. 

Hopefully it will be another 2.5 months before I lose -1k in 2 hours on a 2/5 table.  But the scary thing is I have no control over it.  IT could happen tomorrow.  And how long I can be ok with that I'm not sure.

Streak Ends (11/23/2011)

After playing 15 hours on Monday and Tuesday combined, I found myself asking: Why the fuck did I even play?  Why couldn't I just go on vacation being happy I've had an above average month.  But really there are no streaks.  It's just making the right decision during every hand.  Remember?  It's just random cards coming out and how you make the best of what you're given.

For the two days I finished down just under $900, the most I've swung in a month.  This is really normally, but I've just been fortunate the past few weeks.  I really did not have a lot of fun Monday/Tuesday.  The games were bad most of the time and I could just not get anything going.  It feels like I didn't win a pot over $100 in the past 15 hours.

I'm leaving town tomorrow, at least I tried to put in decent volume before the holiday.  I should be back on the tables by Friday night.  Still up over 4k on the month so not the end of the world.

-bag

Solid Week (11/20/2011)

This was a very solid week for me.  I finished up +$2800 in 37 hours.  That's 4 winning weeks in a row.  My next target is to do everything in my power to make it 5 winning weeks in a row.  This upcoming week will be a tough one to stay focused.  Thanksgiving is going to break up 3 days.  Also I'm going to be traveling a lot.  Hopefully I should get in at least 30 hours, and I want to hit the weekend really hard.

I pretty much missed Saturday again this week.  I partied like a normal person on Saturday night after only playing two hours.  I just didn't feel pressured to play, I wanted to go out.  Going into Saturday I was already up $2800 in 35 hours, so taking off seemed reasonable, especially conisdering some friends came in town.  I mean 35 hours is decent volume and the week had already gone so good, so why not enjoy myself a little?  Whatever I've been doing it has been working for me.  It could just be extreme coincidence but here is my general schedule during the past 4 weeks:

1)  The last few weeks I have been putting in 35-40 hours of play.  I used to push myself to log over 40, but I haven't seen the point recently.  It might be more +EV to keep it around 35 so I don't burn out, especially if the week has been really good.

2)  I've been missing some Saturdays.  It's not lazy.  It's just the past two weeks I have grinded hard all week up to Saturday.  Then Saturday comes around and I'm up a lot of money and I feel like hanging out, so I HANG OUT.

3)  I've been hanging out 2 nights a week, just doing whatever I want.  Sometimes I'll smoke with friends a night, sometimes I'll go out to a club or something.

4)  I've been doing Borgata's football pick sweepstakes weekly for fun.

5)  I work out two or three times a week.  Nothing crazy, but something. 

6)  I've been studying the game less than usual.  Yes I meant to write LESS not more.

That's about it for now.  Taking off tonight.  Trying to keep my expectations dirt low while staying focused.  Another important week ahead.  Every week is important.

-bag

IN DA HOUSE (11/18/2011)

IN DA HOUSE

UP +$1385 TONIGHT

FO SHO

-the house

nice fucking week so far.  Let's wake up tomorrow and get ready.  WE know all Friday's suck.  WE should be so lucky to earn $20 per hour tomorrow with such a shit game!

Everything going good but keep the expectations dismal and skeptical at best.

I was extremely high when I wrote this, don't worry just weed.  I've been smoking once or twice a week to keep myself relaxed at this point.  It has been good to change my mindset from poker.  It has helped me to realize, I control my life, poker does not control my life.

If anything I want to look back and realize how high I was when I wrote this.  And maybe it will be lol.

So actual things I would have wrote about (trying to not sound high):

Keeping expectations dirt low:

despite the fact that you actually just had an amazing night and this month is going great.\

Bust your ass this weekend so you can take a holiday off comfortably:

It will be fun.

-wow

Life is Good (11/17/2011)

Life is good right now.  I haven’t had any astronomical upswings, but I’ve been logging steady winning weeks.  I’ve been playing mistake free and I feel my emotions are in check.  Here are some results during the past few weeks:

Week 1 (10/25- 10/30):  +$1070, 34 hours

Week 2 (10/31- 11/6):  +$745, 39.5 hours

Week 3 (11/7- 11/13):  +$2005, 34.5 hours

Week 4 (So far this week):  +$755, 20 hours

I only played 4 hours on Saturday and won a good amount.  My roommates/friends were having a party and I would have felt bad not going.  But I felt like a slacker not playing at all on a Saturday night!  So I compromised and played 4 hours, deciding to leave no matter what.  It felt great to leave an amazing game on a Saturday night.  It also felt good to hang out with actual friends on a Saturday night.  Poker doesn’t control my life.  I control my life.

This week has been quietly good so far.  It feels very uneventful, but small steady wins are completely fine. 

I’m going to try to play Thursday (tonight), Friday, and Saturday.  I want to log good volume because Thanksgiving will break up much of next week.

Again my results haven’t been amazing and I'm always pushing, but stringing together wins makes me happy.  The results have been good enough during the past 4 weeks.  During the next 6-12 months I want to be averaging +4k per month.  With this average I can live comfortably and add at least 2k to my bankroll each month.  It’s not always going to happen, but I think it could be a feasible average.  I’m on pace to do that this month.  If +4k per month isn't a feasible average it's my job to find a way to get it there.  If you factor in my volume that would be around $25 per hour, I think I'm close to that.