Been awhile...

I figured I was due for an update in the blog since it's been quite awhile. The main reason I haven't blogged in a long time is that I haven't had much to blog about. I feel it's tough for me to blog during school because I really don't do a whole lot that's worth writing about. It's the occasional class or two, drinking on the weekends, and hanging out with Lauren. I also play poker an hour or so a day, but I don't want go in that direction. I do have some good news for my faithful readers. Now that Christmas break is here, I have a lot to blog about! Not only will I be free from school duties for about a month, I have a lot of upcoming travel plans. I am heading down to Florida in a few days and our new condo should be finally done, so I can post some pictures of that. Following Florida, I am heading down to the Bahamas with my family, Lauren, and a couple of friends, so that should be a blast. Don't expect a tan from me after all of the stuff I have read about skin (and other forms) cancer, but I will definitely be going to the beach (just covered in about 2 inches of 65 spf sunscreen). Once all that is over, I will have my last semester of school and then will graduate and finally start getting paid for doing work. I actually want to write a post some day about my career prospects, but I don't want to discuss that just yet.

Lauren and I are also panning another Europe trip! This time we are hitting more of Central and Eastern Europe. We are going about it a little differently this time. Instead of going to 5 or 6 places, we are going to just visit 3 and spend more time in each place to really experience the culture. I think we have decided on Munich, Germany - Prague, Czech Republic - and Interlaken, Switzerland. Munich seems like a nice city and they have these beer gardens which are right up my alley. Also, you can see some extraordinary Bavarian castles by taking a couple hour train ride outside the city. Prague seems really nice from what I've read. It was voted the top place to visit in Europe by tourists, plus my Dad's grandfather came from the Czech Republic, so I've got some of this culture in my blood. The last one we are visiting is Interlaken, Switzerland. I never heard of Interlaken, but I know Switzerland is beautiful so I did a little research (Lauren did most!). This place is absolutely gorgeous. The views are like those you only see in movies. There are just tons of snow capped mountains in the Swiss alps and they are all breathtaking. There is a lot of hiking and exploring paths you can take to really see some of these beautiful views. This place might be my favorite. I just love nice views, and I am making sure that my house has a good view of something, whether it's a city, mountains, or the ocean. You can count on that.

More to come in the next few days...

November Poker Results

Laptop


Desktop



Live: +3000
Tournaments: +350
Tilt Bonus: +600 (only 100 cleared so far)
Stars Bonus: +285 (not cleared yet)
Rakeback: +270

Monthly total = $6400

I wasn't sure how to include the bonuses, so I just added them on now. Other than that, this was clearly my best month ever (not including my WSOP final table). Most of my profit came from really soft live games at a local casino, but it's definitely real money. Plus I got to put about 2k of those winnings into the bank, which allows me to let my online roll grow instead of withdrawing. As far as my results in online cash games, they really weren't that spectacular from a numbers stand point, but I ran pretty shitty this month. Just about every session, literally, I would be getting ready to quit with a small win, and then I would be dealt KK and inevitably run into AA. I didn't suckout once, but the funny thing is the one time I had AA vs KK I ended up losing, so kind of weird. I also had 4 set over sets that costed me at least a buy-in. So all in all, still turning a decent profit online is kind of an accomplishment for me this month. Hopefully I will start running better and will be on the favorable end of some of these coolers because I think I am going to play solely 2/4 this month, unless it goes poorly and I'm forced to move down.

Hopefully I will be posting some big numbers this month, even though I'm not sure how much I will get to play with finals, the Bahamas, and Florida coming up. I'll see what I can manage...

Forgot about the blog

It's kind of ironic because I read a lot of blogs over the course of a day, but I somehow neglected my very own blog. I guess I should update since it's been awhile since my last post. We just had a week off for Thanksgiving break, and as a family tradition, we did the exact opposite thing that most families do on this holiday. Rather than cooking a turkey and spending time with all of your relatives you only see once a year, we went down to Florida and relaxed in the 80 degree weather! I actually kind of like doing this because it is too cold in Pittsburgh this time of year, but I also do miss making the turkey and pies and other traditions like that.

There are about three or four more weeks until the semester is over and Christmas break begins. This will be a nice month long break, and for me, it will be filled with warm weather as I will be in Florida and the Bahamas most of the time.

I will definitely be more active in the blog from now on and already have some ideas for upcoming posts. At the end of November, I will post my customary poker results, but I also have an idea for a reflective type post. I like the concept of what I'm going to write about, but I still need to collect my thoughts and organize them before I dive right in and put it on paper, or in this case Microsoft Word.

Until next time....

Turkey Time

My girlfriend Lauren and I celebrated our Thanksgiving today instead of next week because I will be in Florida over the holiday break. Last year was the first year we started this tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving, turkey and all. This year we got a 20 lb turkey (big) and fed some of the minions. We also went all out on the sides including mashed potatoes, candied yams, creamed corn, and some nice pumpkin pie for dessert. Here are some pictures of this festive day:




Life is really good for me right now, which is why I changed the title. It honestly feels like I am riding on cloud nine...

Changing it up

In case you didn't notice, I am taking my blog in a completely different direction. Blogging about my life as a poker player is very unfulfilling and and to be frank, is boring to read. Unless I start winning $100k in a few more tournaments, I don't see any merit in continuing to describe my 400 hand sessions with chart included.

With that being said, I want to focus my blog on all facets of my life. Poker won't be completely removed since it qualifies as a facet of my life, but I've come to the realization that I have much more interesting stuff in my life to talk about.

November Update

I have three tests this week, one of which I just took an hour ago, so I'm a little short on free time. Combine that with MMA and Thai Boxing three times a week, and you have nothing left over. I didn't like the way that was going, so I am removing some study time from the schedule to play poker.

My results have been pretty good so far, but I'm not really running that well except for one hand (luckily that hand was accidentally at 2/4 on Stars for full buy-in suckout). I have been running into a lot of coolers and just plain bad luck, but I have been hanging in there and not tilting, which has typically led me to recovering it all back. If I get some coolers to go in my favor, this could be a really good month. I have been playing pretty well on Stars (barring that one hand) and am taking advantage of people really well. I haven't been able to get any rake back on my new tilt name because I transfered $1k there to play 1/2 and ended up losing $500 in 80 hands. Since I didn't have enough money in the account to even 3 table (didn't feel like going through the hassle of transferring), I moved to Stars where I made $550 in about 300 hands and salvaged the session. Here have been the major hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668826
I felt my opponent was on a check raise bluff, so I made the very illogical play of shoving so that only a better hand will call and all worse hand will fold (sense the sarcasm). It was nice to get lucky though

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668837
Set over set here. I actually wasn't thrilled about calling because the board was so dry, but I'm not going to fold a set a 1/2 just yet. He could have had 79s or T8hh or some pair flush draw, so there is still plenty of equity in my call.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668845
I think I can fold this to a tighter player, but he was pretty LAG and already had 1/3 of my stack in so I made the crying call and didn't suck out.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668851
This guy and I had battled some earlier and I stacked him then. It felt like he was tilted and trying to get back at me after that hand, so that's why I called this light. I put him on a medium pair or complete air on this flop, which is why I just called because so few turn cards can hurt me. I wasn't happy about the 9 but there were still so many other pairs in his range that I felt I was still ahead. I unfortunately got 2 outered and stacked off.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668863
This hand is kind of sick. My opponent must have narrowed my range completely down to a King here, which I think is a mistake as I will have a medium to high pair quite often that might get blown off by his aggression.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668885
I couldn't believe I lost this hand. This guy was a huge station, as evidenced by him never raising me here.

I'm going to keep trying to squeeze in hands during this testing time and hopefully put up more results...

Halloween Weekend

Halloween weekend was a great time. Some of my friends came up, Lauren and I had matching costumes, and there were plenty of good pictures.






I would've posted more but it takes too long for them to upload. All I know is, everyone loved thing 1 and thing 2. We had random people on the street taking our picture and every gave us praise as they walked by. It was a good weekend...