Still at it

Good news: I've still been grinding!

I'm running insanely bad but still trucking along. I have some July goals that I wanted to share with you guys

- 1,200+ games (av stake >$100)

- Top 20 on the FTP high-limit SnG Leader-Board

- Review a solid amount (coaching my students counts)

That's it. No profit goals or anything like that. If I play 1,200 games I should make around $4k in rakeback, and another $1k (if not more) in bonuses. I can't control how I run so there is no point in setting any profit goals for such a small sample of games.

I got the random motivation to become one of the top SnG players, which means I need to make sure I play solid and most importantly put in a shit ton of volume. Because in the end all that matters is how much money you make - I could be the best player in the world (trust me, I'm not) but if I keep playing less than 1,000 games (sometimes 0) a month I'm not going to accomplish anything but just getting by.

Today only managed to get 40 games in 4 hours because for some reason they were running deathly slow. I would've played an hour or two more but there were literally no $119s or $236s with anyone but me in the lobby for a good 15 minutes and I only had 3 tables running at the time.

June Results

Didn't play much, if at all, the first two weeks of June but the last two weeks I've been grinding which is great. It's about time.

Games Played: 889

Profit: $2,220

RakeBack: $2,200

Bonuses: $300

Steps: $1,500

Coaching: $500

total: $6,720

this is bringing me out of the breakeven stretch I've been on the for the last ~2k games which was really killing my confidence, though TBH I'm not extremely happy with the results but again I can't complain. I'm just happy that I'm finally grinding and planning on keeping it up.

Yesterday and today were obviously brutal days :(

Life is crazy

My good friend, poker student and roommate Killa just left the apartment, for good, 5 minutes ago.
Two days ago his sister was found dead in her home - and now he's flying back to his home-town to be with his mother and family. Because of his visa status he won't be able to come back to the US. He's going to apply for a new one but it's safe to say he won't be back any time soon.
I obviously feel horrible about what he and his family are going through.
He was a great roommate and is a great person overall and I wish him the best and all the strength in the world to get him through this. It's going to suck not having him as a roommate anymore.

life is crazy, shit can hit you from nowhere, life is short... enjoy it.

Updateaments

What's going on world?

I know, I suck at updating my blog. To be honest I wasn't even thinking about the blog but a friend of mine brought it up today and said he'd like an update so I figured I'd get back at it.
Blogger.com has some new layout design thing so I tried tinkering with that and this is what I came up with. Hope you like it :). If not let me know so I can change it to something easier on the eyes.

Not too much has changed in poker since my last update. I still suck at grinding, but I have been putting in some volume over the last couple of days and I hope I continue to do so.
I've said it a zillion times but I hate the fact that I've let so much money just pass me by because I made enough money to pay bills and go out and have fun and was content. Financially I'm fine at the moment as long as the games stay the way they are but you can never be sure of something like that and I really will be kicking myself in the future if something happens and I'm not able to make the kind of money I can make right now. I don't put the same kind of value on money that most people do - I'm young and don't have any real responsibilities (i.e; kids) yet so it's not like I'm really worried about being broke but at the same time I know that I should be saving up.

In some non-poker news I started working out a few months ago (not sure if I mentioned it here or not) and really putting an emphasis on not being such a weak skinny POS. At the time I was 5'9" around 145lbs - I started a program called "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe which is basically a 3x a week program of compound weight lifts (for me: squat, bench, deadlifsts, press, and chinups). I am now sitting around 172lbs. I went from squatting 85lbs (3sets, 5 reps) to squatting 245lbs. The progress was pretty sick and I've gotten a lot of attention and complements (as well as accusations of steroid use, lol) for it lately. It's a really awesome feeling and I'd recommend for anyone to give it a try. A lot of guys I know have been in the gym for years and not seen the results I saw in a few months. If you're interested give me a shout out and I'll answer any questions I can.

OK back to poker. I've been on a bit of a break-even stretch, I think just over 2k games, which is totally standard but it is annoying and it definitely hits your confidence a little bit. I've decided at least for now I'm going to play more $60s and less $236s for a little while to decrease my variance. I'm sure it's a little bit -EV for me to do this short-term but I have a feeling if I crush the 60s and 119s for a while like I know I should then I'll feel better and be able to grind the 119s and 236s more which is definitely +EV long-term.

I've been playing some of the WSOP "Step" tournaments on FTP. I've played a few step 6's and so far have played two step 7's. Both times I lost the step 7s to a guy named jossel - one in 3rd place and one in 4th place (AA < 22 ... sigh). He's a really good player and I actually got to chat with him a bit and seems like a nice guy. I'm going to be playing another one probably tomorrow. It would be a little too nice to snap one of them off for the $12k so I don't think it's going to happen, but I can dream, can't I?

OK hopefully this has caught you guys up to speed. I'll try to update more frequently but for now I'm going to go rent a movie on iTunes and pass out.

Nite.

Sorry

Sorry for not updating the rest of that month. Had a lot going on and I kinda forgot about the blog.
I ended up playing over 1,500 games across all sites. I was up around $13k at one point but finished the month something like +5-6k after rakeback and bonuses.

I was on a little hiatus from playing my normal games on FTP for the past few months, I was doing some other things that treated me well. I'm pretty sure I am making my Ali-like return to the games now tho.

Played for about 3 hours today, games were loading slow only played 35 games but managed to end up on the +side somehow to the tune of $1,850. Not a bad start imo.

See you at the tables.

Day 13?

I forget what day I'm on. I hope 13 is right.

forgot to update last night so I'll include those results with todays.

Played: 66
Profit: -$766

Games to go: 1,071
Profit to go: 9,541

Today I played 50ish games, but they weren't loading very fast so I'm not upset. I feel like I played very well almost the entire session and even tho I lost I strangely don't feel bad at all. It's like finally my brain was going "you're running bad and if you keep playing this good you'll be fine". I hope I can keep that mentality up.

Killa moves in on Friday, I think it's going to be fun to sit down 2m2mm style and just grind out poker for hours. My game also improves when I coach him so that will be great for both of us.

I just got back from the pool hall and I'm exhausted, I'm going to pass out. Gnite world.

Day 11

got like 3 hours of sleep, then woke up to go with killa to get some shit for the place. mattress, computer furniture etc. Bought myself a few nice colognes while at the mall, ship.

I started playing some $220+$16 sngs today. They don't run a whole lot so I didn't get much volume in.

I was doing so well up until I got the cold, now I'm behind pace and it's going to be a bitch to catch up.

Games: 37
Profit: $289

Games to go: 1,137
Profit to go: $8,775