Self imposed $1k @ 10nl challenge & Blackhawks win!!

A few days into this month I had a -12 buyin day at 25nl and decided to drop down and made up a 1k @ 10nl challenge for myself. I did this out of annoyance for continuing to fucking run bad, to help make sure I am playing a fairly basic game and to just have a fresh new challenge for myself. I have been guilty in the past of trying to outplay or over think plays at 50nl and lower in the past and I think I have been doing it again recently.

I originally wasn't gonna play anything above 10nl until I made $1k but realized that I'm burning money by not playing higher during this self challenge. The graph above is how I am doing so far. I am hoping to continue this pace and make $1k under or around 100k hands.

Mentally my poker confidence is probably around 50%. It just seems like every session comes with a set over set, KK vs AA along with multiple sets losing to 4 flushes and straights. All of those things are standard but when they are happening every session and every 1k hands or so after 500k+ hands it has beaten me down. Unfortunatly I have been taking my anger out on people at the tables by berating people as well which is just totally unacceptable. I'm hoping that completing this little challenge will help me regain my confidence as well as composure.

The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup also this week which is awesome. I watched the parade today and is such a great feeling to see a group of young and talented players receive what they have worked so hard for.

This weekend will be busy with the US world cup game against England, my cousins wedding and another cousins birthday. The wedding along with the rest of the weekend should be a really good time.

Finally moved and getting settled

I finally moved home at the end of April. The trip took me around 42 hours total as I only managed to sleep for 4-5 hours the entire time. I attempted to sleep for an hour in a McDonalds parking lot in Albuquerque New Mexico, then woke up and drove another 4 hours to Amarillo Texas where I managed to get around 3-4 hours of sleep in another McDonalds parking lot the first night. I woke up around 4:30 am and powered the rest of the way home arriving around 2am California time.

The drive wasn't actually that bad. I lost around 3 hours due to construction/accidents and I didn't have any car break downs so I couldn't really ask for much more. The drive was around 2200 miles but was kinda fun. I drove through snow in Flagstaff Arizona, got sleeted on before Albuquerque and then got rained on most of the second day driving through Oklahoma and Missouri. Arizona and New Mexico are just baron and a vast nothingness but it starts to get green around the middle of Oklahoma again. I got a chance to catch up on conversations with a few people on the drive back so that was great also.

Last week was my first week being back in northern Indiana in about 6 years. It's nice being back in my home area. I am realizing how much I missed the lake's. I am excited to get back into fishing within the next month or so. Hanging out on the lake is also coming up and should be fun and provide some random entertainment for me as well.

It's nice how laid back and slow paced everything is here. I lived in Indy after college then moved out to San Diego and I feel like I can finally get a foothold established somewhere and slow things down for awhile. One of the great benefits of playing poker online is that I can do it virtually anywhere I can get a good internet connection.

Short term I am looking to get a few personal things taken care of and get settled in and embrace the idea of possibly living in the area for an extended period of time. It sounds weird to say it but it's nice to be able to choose where you want to live and not be forced by job, family or other obligations. After living in the city then on the West Coast I feel like I could really enjoy the lakes area and can see myself sticking around, getting a small lake house or something practical and just kick back, play poker, travel and enjoy life.

Cheers to the upcoming summer and always having fun no matter what life throws my way! Oh and I finally got back into the green yesterday so winning money is always a good thing.

A 40 hour work week = Win

Above is the first 40 hours this month, not counting rakeback/bonuses. I measured it this way to make it feel like I have a "real" job. It's very funny to think about how different my life would be if I was still doing a job that was unfulfilling and menial (imo). 10 years ago I figured I would be married with a house, kids and a 9-5 office job by now but I am very happy with how my life has turned out to this point.

I know I talk and compare poker to a normal job a lot but it comes up in discussions with other poker players so much. It's normally in the context of "I used to do this job for X amount and wanted to kill myself blah blah". I guess it's just the excitement and joy from doing something you love and it seems so ridiculous to do anything else for an income at this point in my life. I hope to ultimately transition into a trader, maybe day trader maybe not, as the concepts and risk aversion are very similar. I enjoy reading and following the market and research in my spare time so I can definitely see myself investing over the next few years and 5-10 years down the road only doing that and playing poker for fun.

Moving home will be a good experience as my good friends in Indianapolis are having their wedding reception in early May, my cousin is getting married in early June, then there will be big parties around the 4th of July and I'm sure more things will continue to pop up to keep the boredom at home to a minimum. It should also allow for me to devote a lot of time to poker as well, with minimal distractions and help get all aspects of life in order. I'm very curious what I will be saying about "home" 3 months from now. I hope I am still enjoying it as there are enough quality people around to make things fun. It will also be interesting because I haven't been home for an extended period of time for almost 4 years. I kinda feel like that person in the movie that goes off to the big city and has to go back home for some reason.

I'm enjoying my last few weeks here in SD. Joey got tickets to the Padres vs Braves game last night which was pretty fun. Petco park is cool and down town SD is really nice to begin with. I'm still not sure if I will start my journey home late next week or the following week. I'm not in a big hurry and am just trying to enjoy the last few things I can before I move.

I'm gonna continue grinding it out in very minimal stress games and hopefully keep running and playing well.

Who knew I ran bad?

Haha, just trying to stay positive through this sick stretch. I noticed the above graphs while compiling all of my into for taxes for 2009. Taxes, lovely......yah right.

The top graph is 25nl and the bottom is 50nl. It is what it is. I am still winning through this stretch so that's good, obviously. I think people running bad and saying they don't win because they run bad is only an excuse for ~200nl and higher. You are bad if you can't beat 100nl and below, it's not because you just run bad. I haven't played much 100 but know a bunch of guys who do and I'm confident I can beat it when I make the move up.

I will be moving home to northern Indiana within the next couple of weeks. As I said in my last blog I have a lot of stuff going on in my life that needs to be taken care of and my lease expiring here in San Diego is perfect timing for me to do so. I am no longer looking at moving home as a bad thing either. It will allow me to get 100% of all aspects of my life together. It will be during the summer time as well which is the "good" time to move home and enjoy the lake. I'm sure I will be devoting alot of time to poker as well and should just be very good for me all together.

I have also opened myself up to the idea of even staying at home longer than the summer, eventhough that isn't my intention. I think it would be a pretty good life to live in the area I grew up, buy a lake house, a boat and have a very comfortable stress free lifestyle. Like I've said since I began playing poker, I will just go with where ever life takes me and make the most of the possibilities that I come across.

25 for life yo!!

It would only be fitting to follow up a moving home post with a busto/run bad poker post right, haha. Above is this past week at 25, where I have dropped down to regain confidence to move back to 50 again.......still working on that confidence thing.

It's kind of funny because I don't like talking about running bad etc because when I hear someone talk about that, it normally means you suck and your using a scapegoat. So, to that I admit I do use it as a crutch or a scape goat sometimes. Lately I feel as though variance has just beaten me down to a nub and with all of the other things going on in my life, it has started to weigh on me heavily. Despite the past few months and all the real life things I still don't hate playing poker. When I come out of this stretch of what the fuck everness I will still love poker. In the past when my job/career has gotten to a similar low point, it has been where I have figured out what else I want to do, yet I find myself still wanting to play poker. Poker really does make me happy, as sickening as that may sound considering my past few months. All I can do is try and focus on playing better, making the right plays and not tilting and things will come around.

The next few weeks will undoubtedly be tough but I'm just gonna put my head down and grind. I don't really have another option and it's just what I have to do.

I have almost made it through the entire series of The Wire and I have to agree with most people that it is one of the best series ever. The writers/cast do a really great job of giving it such a realistic feel as well as a compelling story line that you can't help but like it.

Cheers to playing better and things will get better!!!

Dash

Moving home for the summer

Well after much thought over the past couple months I have decided to move home for this summer for many reasons. The first being that my step father had a heart attack a few months ago and things have been rough for my parents. So moving home to help them out as much as I can is the least I could do. Just helping out with the little things and being around to see my mom will help. My mom has missed me greatly so I am looking forward to spending time with her as well.

I have also had a couple bad months in a row with poker. I'm not talking negative losing months, I still haven't had a losing month and wouldn't expect to have one until I start playing upper small stakes or mid stakes. I have just had about 3 months in a row where my expected income, income I had and was starting to make regularly, cut in half. This would have been alright had I not been retarded earlier in life and racked up a bunch of credit card debt. I ran up a lot of credit debt just trying to hang with the people and do the things that I thought mattered in life and now that I'm a little older I recognize that those were very bad decisions and have to pay for them, every month now later in life. So, moving home to pay things off over the next 6-8 months is the main goal as I am planning to move back out here and live with an old college roommate and some others in the fall.

Another major reason is the current climate of online poker. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2010/03/no-more-delays-for-the-uigea-8051.htm. This has been in the back of my mind since moving out here but the bill was delayed until June 1st 2010 therefore allowing for some breathing room. Basically all the bill will do is make it harder for recreational players to deposit money online. That still isn't the biggest worry however. The bill is aimed at business accounts, not personal checking/banking accounts. The big worry is that banks will start to over block and enforce these regulations on the average checking account therefore making it very hard for me to withdraw my winnings. Again these regulations go into effect June 1st therefore being at home and not having ~10-15k in living expenses over my head is probably the smart thing to do for the time being.

One of the best things I love about poker is that I can just pick up and move wherever as long as I have an internet connection. Ever since I moved from Indianapolis, I have really slimmed down on the things I have to move as I was pretty sure I would be moving again after I got out here. So I haven't really purchased any furniture. It's kind of nice though. I made a choice after leaving Indianapolis to shed alot of the things that don't really matter in life. I am very happy leading a simple life and just having the necessities. That being said I have an excellent computer set up for poker but I still don't have a bed. This isn't a bad thing either. I consciously told myself I wasn't going to get a bed and other furniture until I found a permanent place to settle down again. I still haven't found that place. I love southern California very much and hope to settle down here in the near future.

At first I was very depressed and sad at the notion of moving home but after much thought it really is the best move for me and my future. I embrace moving home and really helping out and getting ahead in my own life as well. Also my main goal is to move back out here to Huntington Beach in the fall around October. That should provide a good amount of time to help get things right in all parts of my life.

A comment about "running bad"

I honestly feel like everyone who takes and plays poker seriously should suffer a 20-40 bi below ev stretch sometime relatively early in their career. The reason I say this, is due to my last ~200k hands I have ran around ~40 buyins below ev. During this time, I have wanted to quit, destroyed things, loved poker but managed to look at myself very introspectively as a person and what I really wanted out of life. I have questioned taking the plunge into poker as a career for the time being and realized, last month while still "running bad", that I truly love poker. Maybe I am semi-masochistic, maybe I am chasing the next loss/run-bad stretch? I doubt it because I hate losing and am not an avid shot taker, hence being fairly risk averse.

I always knew I liked poker better than other jobs I have had prior but even during this rough patch, I still have the desire to play and get better. It's the getting better part and wanting to work harder part that has been a huge benefit to "running bad" for me. I have been very fortunate to have a great coach, roommate and other poker friends throughout to help keep me sane and inspire me in different ways. It's the desire to get up and grind and get better that makes me appreciate and want to make the most out of my poker opportunity. I had an idea that I felt like this before but the past couple of months have truly solidified and reinforced my passion and appreciation to be able to do something for a living that a am passionate about.

I also read and hear every single day about someone who is "running bad" or running 6 buyins below ev, etc and most people really do not have a clue to be honest. I'm not trying to be mean or say I am better than others I am just being honest and a realist. I think far too often people convince themselves that they are just running bad or blame their bad play on variance and getting sucked out on when in fact you are just playing bad to begin with and it snowballs into "running bad". The reason I can say this is because I have gone through a couple periods like this. Periods where I thought I was better than the competition and had just convinced myself that my account was rigged. Don't get me wrong, thinking you are better than the competition is a good thing but I think we sometimes play improperly vs someone whom we view as inferior which can then snowball to playing other hands poorly etc etc...

All that aside I'm off to a good start this month and running above ev! I have a lot of stuff going on currently such as moving within the next month, then moving again a month or so after that, then moving again a few months later. I have a pretty busy year as far as moving around but I am ok with it all. It should help me really focus on poker and taking things to the next level. Cheers to March and F February!!!