Playing Poorly

Thursday+Friday: -$1,373
Hours: 4.25
To Date: +$55,050

Not only have I not played as much as I should have on thursday and friday, but I'm also not playing even close to my potential. Thursday was fine, but yesterday I really ended the day off bad. The last session of the day I had to cut short b/c I kept on making stupid fucking bluffs that I knew wouldn't work. I lost 600 that session and should have broken even or maybe only lost 200 at the absolute most. Actually looking back on yesterday, the last session of the day was really the only one where I played downright bad. But it still kills me b/c it was one of the most I've spewed off chips in a long time! Anyway, I kinda feel like punishing myself in some way for my play. Something like forcing myself to drop down to $200 nl and play a certain # of hands until I can move back up to 2/4 and 3/4nl. And I would have to play my A game for those hands or else I would have to keep playing at the lower limits. But I probably won't end up doing that if I see that the games I normally play are looking good today. We'll see though, all I know is I HAVE to play solid today or I'm gonna freak out on myself!

I Love MY Life

Wednesday: +$2,294
Hours: 3.5
To Date (in 2007): +$56,423

My life is great right now! That's all for today...lol.

Internet Poker vs. Live Poker

Sunday-Tuesday: +$1,901
Hours: 9.25
To Date: +$54,129

I think I've been doing a good job of motivating myself to play since I posted about that in my last post. I've been doing some things at the tables against some of the solid regulars that I play against everyday that I think will make me more money against them in the long run. Anyway, I was talking to someone the other day about playing poker full time on the internet compared to live at a casino/cardroom. He was saying how sick of internet poker he is and how much he hates it, and can't wait until he moves so he'll be close to a casino and can play there most of the time. And I was saying how much more I like playing on the internet and that even if I lived at a casino I would still play on the internet for the majority of the time. There are definitely negatives and positives concerning both however. So, here's why I like being an internet pro compared to a live pro. First and most importantly, playing multiple tables on the internet for the most part is MUCH more profitable. You see about 3 times as many hands on the internet for each table compared to sitting in a casino at one table. So if you are playing 3,4,5,6, or more tables on the internet you are seeing an enormous amount of hands, which in turn allows you to make more money. Now, your play does diminish a little for each table you add on, but w/out going into too much explanation and taking forever it is much more profitable to play a couple tables or more on the internet than playing at a casino. Secondly, staying with this concept, the internet is unbelivably and not even comparable to live poker when we are talking about speed. No dealer, multiple tables, quick one click buttons, and time bank limits all make for very fast play. There are numerous advantages to this. It's more profitable, and it's not boring b/c you are playing hands very often and almost always have a hand to play. In a casino you can go for a couple hours and only be able to play a handful of hands during that time, which can become not only VERY boring but also quite frustrating as well. One of the best things about internet poker is that it's more profitable, but at lower limits compared to live poker. To make up for the number of tables and the speed of the internet you have to play significantly higher limits live. While this is exciting and fun at a casino, there also comes pitfalls to this. The swings are very large and very long! On the internet you can grind lower limits and play numerous tables, which makes the swings lower than when playing big limits live, and most importantly makes the downswings and breakeven stretches MUCH shorter. You also don't need nearly as big of a bankroll when grinding these lower limits on the internet. Lastly, the convenience of being able to sit down on your computer anywhere in the world w/ internet access and play vs. players all over the globe at anytime is hard for the casino/cardrooms to beat.
Now, there are numerous things about live poker that are really nice. First of all, the players typically are MUCH, much worse than on the internet. People that come to casinos and cardrooms are gamblers and looking to have a good time. So, that is the best thing about live poker to me, the players for the most part are just terrible and it's awesome! Also, for a little while it can be really fun to play in a cardroom and have actual money in front of you and it's exciting to rake in a big pot to your stack. It's also nice to be able to be social and talk to other human beings at the table for a change. But like I already said, this gets old after a while and just not being able to see more than 40 hands/hour gets to be extremely boring.
Overall, I can't imagine being a live pro. The internet has given so many players the opportunity to make a lot of money in a short amount of time. I am so grateful for internet poker and the life it has given me and will continue to provide. But I will from time to time make the trek out to play some live poker to change it up and break the everday grind of internet poker.

Another Day Another Dollar

Thursday-Saturday: +$1,695
Hours: 4.25
To Date: +$52,228

I took Friday off, but played 3.25 hours on Thursday and only 1 hour on Saturday. Last few days I haven't been feeling as motivated to play as the few weeks before. I always know this when my sessions start shortening to 1 hour or less a lot of the time. I find myself looking at the clock after 45 minutes or so. Sometimes poker is just such a grind and so monotanous. I really want to get in some good hours to finish off the month though, so got to motivate myself to play. The only thing is, I have to make sure to not just force myself to play when I don't feel like I will play well becuase that is when poker gets horrible for me. So I need to motivate myself to WANT to play, and to want to play WELL! That's all for now folks, don't feel like typing much right now.

Wow...Where Do I Start?

Last 11 Days: +$1,219
Hours: 29.5
To Date: +$50,533

It's been so long I don't know where to begin. I guess I'm being a little dramatic...lol. It's only been about a week from my last post. But it has been over a week and a half since I last posted my poker results. Basically, after playing and running really well for over 2 weeks I hit a very sharp downswing. The severe, main part of the downswing was actually only a few days, with the rest of the time getting back to being down a little and then back to above even a day ago finally. The first two days of the decline were intense however. I went on about a -$7k downswing in only those 2 days, by far my worst monetarily wise. Actually, nothing too crazy happened surprisingly. I did on the first day make a huge mistake that cost me a little over $1k, as well as a few other mistakes as a result of being off my game in the first 3 days. But that's pretty much it. Mainly the reason it was almost twice the amount I have swung down before is because I was playing a lot of very shorthanded games. I was playing a lot of 3/6 no limit tables late at night with only 3 or 4 players, as well as a descent amount of heads up at both 2/4 and 3/6 tables. The swings associated with these shorthanded games, especially heads up is obviously a much bigger difference. Anyway after the initial 3 days I made my way back, then swung back down a little, and then hovered around even for a couple days. Finally a day ago I was back in the black and said completely bye bye to my evil downswing. Anyway, wasn't a HUGE deal, I'm so used to the swings of poker by now that I can handle them pretty damn well these days. Still can be a little scary and obviously quite frustrating and stressful, but not too bad at this stage in my poker career. Mostly, I just got out of the groove of updating and became lazy with it and didn't prioritize posting like I should have. I have more I want to talk about but I'll save it for the next post because I feel like this post is just getting too long at the moment.....plus I want to go hit the tables right now!

June Rakeback

I guess this would be a good time for me to add in my rakeback from last month. Considering in the last few days since the last time I posted I have been on the biggest and sharpest downswing of my poker career. I'll post about that next time tomorrow probably. But I made +$1,643 on UB and +$122 from FTP. So overall in June I profited +$1,765 from rakeback. That makes my new total to date on the year(until I add in the last few days results): +$49,314

I'm gonna look at that number for a couple minutes right now and just enjoy what that looks like, becuase when I post tomorrow(or actually later today, it's 12:07am) that number will be MUCH lower.

Friday: +$4,272
Hours: 5
To Date: +$47,549

Im already up almost $10k on the month after only 1 week! This heater I have been since the last week of June has carried on to this month with a vengance. Not only am I running very well, but I'm playing the best poker of my life too. Had a session yesterday where I made $3k in 2 hours, pretty sweet. It feels like my dreams are coming true, and I can't even explain how good I feel right now. Anyway, I need to add in my rakeback from last month, I guess I'll do that next post.

Gotta Keep the Ball Rolling

Monday-Thursday: +$3,274
Hours: 8.75
To Date: +$43,277

I only played one session on tuesday and didn't play at all on wednesday, the 4th of July. But the 3 days I have played I have averaged around +$1,100 each day, so that's pretty good. I feel like I'm playing and running well, except I could be up a lot more if I didn't keep getting sucked out on in HUGE pots once and a while. But other than that, I have no complaints at all about how the month has been going so far in the first week. I just want to put it some serious hours in the near future and keep this ball rolling. I have been having some serious issues with Ultimate Bet about cashing out. I am trying to cash out a little over $3k and apparently as a new security issue I have to send in my drivers license(with current correct address), my debit card, and a recent statement. No problem right? Wrong! My driver's license has an old address on it! So annoying, and there is no way I'm waiting for 2 weeks to get a new one and then not getting my money that I need now in another month. Anybody else having some of these same problems with them? Or does anyone have any suggestions for me about what I should do???

June Results, July Goals

Total Profit for June: +$15,707
I made a little over $14k from just poker, and another $1,500 from rakeback. I'm pretty sure that my Ultimate Bet rakeback hasn't been added in for the last few days either, so that could be another $200 or so. I played about 90 hours total for the month. So I made right around $170/hr. June was definitely my best month ever in poker, and I've been waiting for a month like this since the beginning of April. June has really got me re energized and focused on my game and excited for the next 6 months of the year.

My main goal for July is to put as much effort into my play as possible and to play the best I am capable of every time I sit down to play. I also want to focus every day on things I can do to get better. I want to play over 105 hours total for the month, as well as put over 5 hours a week into my game away from the tables. I think that is pretty much it for now. I'm not setting a monetary goal for the month because I really have no control over that. All I have control of is what I have listed above, and hopefully the results will plentifully follow.

Start of the month

Sunday: +$1,434
Hours: 4.25
To Date: +$40,003

Other than a HUGE mistake I made that cost me over $1k, I have continued to play really well. II played a 3.25 hour session last night, which is very long for me. But it just shows how much I'm really enjoying playing poker right now. I normally can't play much longer than an hour or two. But since I've been working hard on improving my play and changed my style, I've realized almost every session I play is like 2 hours or more at a time. I'm really excited for the last 6 months of the year, I believe they are going to be very good to me. Anyway next post will be my results from last month, as well as my goals for July.

Recoverd from a small mental breakdown

Thursday-Saturday: +$4,786
Hours: 11
To Date: +$38,569

I'll explain what I mean by the title in a sec, but first a little summary of my results. So I got back from Vegas on Thursday and hit the tables for 2 sessions and made around+$1,500 in a few hours. Then on Friday I started out great in my first session, but then went downhill from there. If I didn't play this horrible chump heads up at the very end of my last session on Friday, I would have made around +$2,500 on the day. But instead this guy hit some miracles on me and I only ended up making +$350 on the day(more on this later). Then yesterday I only played 2 sessions for 2 hours total, but had great results and played great profiting just under +$3,000. Anyway right before I left for Vegas I was really thinking hard about how I can improve my game. I decided that when I got back I was gonna change my style and strategy a little. It's been going great and I really feel like I have taken my game to another level. I'm not gonna say what I have changed, but I've just tweaked my style a little. I'm very confiedent that I will make significantly more money now playing this way, and I'm really enjoying playing lately a lot. Now the reason I said I recoverd beautifuly from a mini mental breakdown is because on Friday after I played this guy heads up and lost about $2k I really lost it for a half hour or so. I had a great session going, was playing VERY good and was up over $2,000 in the first hour and a half. Then a HORRIBLE maniac that I was playing w/ earlier at a 6 max table sat down to play me. I had already taken around $1k from him earlier and I had $1,600 on the table. He only sat w/ $250 so I felt like I probably shouldn't play him, but I knew he would rebuy numerous times and was really bad so I decided to play him instead of stopping for the night. Well, we got all in 3 times in the next 15 minutes and he won every time. I was a big favorite every single time the money went in the pot. He was extremely annoying and talking shit the whole time as well, so that made it a lot more frustrating. Long story short, he took about $2k off me and I ended up breaking even on the session. For some reason I just lost it after and it really bothered me. I think w/ all the crap I hold in in poker, this just brought it all out in me and I freaked out. Anyway, the reason I say I recovered really well is becuase then on Saturday I didn't know if I even felt like playing at all, as if the wind was just taken out of my sails. But I got my mind right and ended up playing and had a great day yesterday, and most importantly I kept playing really well like I have for the past few days.
Next post I'll give my results for June, it was my best month ever!