Shot taking ftw!!!

Had a nice shot taking session early today with Joey sweating/coaching and it went very well. I played about 2k hands of 100nl and another 2k hands of 50nl overall today. It's amazing and demoralizing at the same time to find out how many leaks I had and how truly terrible of a poker player I am. It is hard to hear how awful you are at something but if you want to get better you have to be honest with yourself and be able to take constructive criticism.

Having lived here for a few days now I have started to get into a routine. I got a gym membership, since Joey was already working out 5 times a week and that has been great mentally and physically. I missed working out and it's nice to have someone else to go with and it's also a great break from poker as well. After 3 hard days of lifting my body isn't as sore as I thought it would be. I have also been closing out my workout with at least a 1 mile run each night.

It's a surreal feeling to sit here and think that I'm not going back to Indy in a few days. I will miss my great friends but I am also very happy and optimistic to continue getting better at poker and moving to San Diego. A little over a year ago I was at a low point in my life and I never would have guessed that I would be playing poker successfully for ~9 months now and in a position to move to San Diego, just because I can and want to. I can only imagine where I will be 1 year from now looking back at the great accomplishments I have achieved as well as my life progression.

Overall this month was a failure yet victory at the same time. I did not achieve 300k hands or get the 2k milestone bonus but I did move (temporarily) and get one step closer to San Diego and have started aggressively shot taking with Joey being a big help. I failed a couple prop bets but rocket/goosefrabba was really cool and let me buy out for a little cheaper, shouts out to goose!

October is going to be a busy and awesome month. I'm gonna finish saving up for the move, move and actually be seeing sandy beaches and palm trees within a few weeks........sick life!!

@ Joeys for a couple weeks

I "moved" up to Joey's for a couple weeks on Friday. I came up here to stay and continue to build my roll and bank account before we move to San Diego.

Obviously living with Joey has certain benefits, such as the above graph. See if you can spot where Joey was sweating and coaching me, lol. I'm really looking forward to learning alot and talking poker on a higher level. I think it will be highly beneficial to the both of us, living together. Yes, I think Joey will benefit as well because I actually do help him with things as well but he will obviously help my growth and poker development much more than I would him.

It hit me yesterday that I won't be going back to Indianapolis. It's a weird feeling since I have came up here a few times before always knowing I would go back "home" and now my home is here and then San Diego. I'm very optimistic about my future and even immediate future till the end of this year. I am really going to work as much as possible and devote basically 100% of my efforts into my poker game and getting better to move up. I wan't to really focus until Christmas time and hopefully the work will pay off. I have put myself into a situation to capitalize on the tools and opportunity I have to really get better at poker and just have to make the most of it.

Football is on today and I think Joey and I are going up to Chicago to hangout with a couple 2+2 guys who play higher stakes for the Bears game which should be alot of fun. Will be kinda funny since I play for a living at micro/low stakes and all the other guys are at least mid stakes pros but I'm sure it will be fun.

Go Bears!!!

5 Days till I leave Indy

After a great weekend and going away get together Saturday night I am closing in on my final 5 days here in Indy. I had a great time with everyone who came out and I couldn't have asked for a more fun/chill night with friends. I will definitely miss some people once I leave but that's what things like facebook and cell phones are for, plus I will be moving to a great vacation spot so I'm sure I will see some people in the future.

Our lease is not up until the 30th but I have decided it is probably best to go ahead and move Saturday for numerous reasons. By moving Saturday it will allow me to spend more time with my family, as opposed to leaving Tuesday and seeing them for an hour that night. I am going to be staying at Joeys for a week or two before we move, therefore stopping by and seeing my family before I go to his place is along the way. It will also give me an extra couple of days of solid grinding as well to continue to pad my bankroll and bank account before moving.

We have settled on an apartment and location but unfortunately the earliest we could move in would be October 6th. No big deal as I could use the extra time get my bank account to a more comfortable level to move across the country.

I am really excited about the move and am basically over Indianapolis and am looking forward to the next part of my life. I'm really looking forward to taking my poker game/career to the next level and living with Joey will definitely help me tremendously. Also, just the idea of living in San Diego where it never snows and is basically climatically perfect is a pretty awesome thought as well. My focus for the next few months once we are moved will be moving up and getting my poker career to a place where I will feel comfortable financially, start to plan for my future and have time for a girlfriend and dating again. Not that I am opposed to hanging out with girls or whatever but having a girl in my life is -EV because they take alot of time and are somewhat distracting. I don't mean to sound callous towards having a girlfriend but I tend to devote alot of time towards a girl and a relationship when I find a girl I'm really into and it cuts into poker, which I am not ready to let happen at this point.

I have also never been west of the Mississippi either so the move really presents many new experiences for me and my life. I am very optimistic and am curious to see where I will be in 3 to 6 months.

Poker is going alright......I'm 14k fpps away fromt he 1k cash bonus and about 38kvpps away from the 2k milestone bonus. I would like to reach both before moving but I'm not sure if I will hit the 2k milestone or not, which If I don't I will hit very soon once I have moved.

I'm up a few hundred at 50 since I've started playing in ~20k hands. I feel as though I am playing well, making good reads and making great lay downs. I have def spewed 2-400 which sucks but is all part of the learning process. I've also managed to run KK into AA a gross amount of times, I think 13 or 14 through this stretch as well as some other sick things but that's poker. I am feeling very comfortable and confident I will be able to continue to beat 50 and get better and better.

50 nl for good????

So obviously this afternoons sesh at 50 went really well. I played for ~4 hours and shipped $3hundo and ran kinda bad but felt like I played some of the best poker I've ever played. My reads are on, my lines for hands are improving and I definitely owned and got owned a few times but it's all part of the process.

Well I have started trying to solely play 50 for good. Joey and I worked out a good staking deal and he is helping me a ton with things. It's amazing how far he has come in 1 year and I have nothing but respect for his work ethic and game and am very fortunate to have him in my corner and willing and wanting to help me as much as he has and will along the way.

It's amazing what moving up and playing higher will do for your psyche when things go well. I felt as though I have been at 25 way too long and fortunately, Joey believes in me and is willing to help me out tremendously. I am just going to continue to play alot and focus on improving and hopefully things will start to pay off, which I believe they will.

I can't say my life has been totally distraction free lately as I met a great girl on her birthday night Saturday night and have been talking with her the past few days. She has a great fun loving and outgoing personality and am looking forward to hanging out with her. It's kind of nice to move past some toxic people in my past and meet someone who is pretty fun.

Gonna go out to amateur comedy night again to support a friend and hang out with some friends. Should be alot of fun like last time and I'm looking forward to it and shipping 3 hundo this afternoon definitely puts me in the mood to go out............eventhough I wanna stay and just crush.

Can't get rid of variance

The first 11 days of this month have been super swingy. It's just so sick how many flopped sets I lose with, how many rivers I'm getting raised with 2pair and better hands. I've essentially played 30k hands of breakeven poker the past few days. It's kind of sad and good but I'm getting really used to "running bad" and all the swings.

I've cut tables to 12-18 for the time being and have been crushing again. I'm hoping to cut down a little bit on my variance as well but its hard to do sometimes against fish that you can't put on a range of hands ever.

I'm going to try and only play 12-18 tables for another 20-30k hands and see how it goes. The extra money I'm making more than makes up for the fpps and extran hands I would be getting in. I've also temporarily decided to just play 25 without taking 50 shots and just aim to make at least $200 a day from 25. I know the amount of money I need to make by the end of the month to be comfortable to move and $200 a day will easily get me there. I think I am going to try and make 2k from 25 and then start taking shots at 50nl when I have some money saved and bills taken care of.

I also have this ongoing battle with my penis as well. I was out the other night with some friends and 3 girls were into me and I just choose to walk away and not do anything about it for some reason.........seriously fml. These aren't ugly girls that I'm not into either I just think its a combo of many things going on in my life now that lead me to not wanting to do anything with a girl at this time. Oh well theres always the next day and the next to finally say fuck it and do something about it if I wanted.

Supernova free roll is today as well as saturday afternoon games which are always sick good.

Extremely swingy day = Annoying

I had one hell of a variance laden day yesterday. Started off the first sesh stuck ~$200 in 900 hands, $150 of which I lost to a super fish running 94/45. I got it in 5 times against him 2 ahead, 2behind and 1 flip and lost all 5 obviously. I was also deep when I had JJ on the button and the fish open raised to $26.05 utg, obviously I ship over and lose a 300 bb pot to his AQo on an AQQ flop, to get the fiasco started. I tilted one buyin to him with QTo but the fish was literally shoving over every single one of my raises so whatever.

That pretty much layed out the path of my day. I grinded my ass off for ~5 hours to get almost back to even, took a break then came back and dumped another 4-5bis and decided to call it quits for the night.

As I do session reviews, study and recall my play and emotional state during various sessions, tilt really is my number one hinderence. It's not monkey tilt where I'm just shoving T4o over raises or anything but it normally happens when I lose 4-5 big pots in a row to hands that I can't really do anything about. I get mad at the fact that I feel like I am always running bad. This is obviously a bad mental state and I do my best to try and avoid thinking like this at all costs but days like yesterday are nearly impossible for me to not think like that. I know in the long term I want fish calling pot size bets 2 streets to hit gutshots/flush draws but its annoying when by the time we get to the river we can never (barely ever) find a fold.

Joey was getting on me about thinking like that and again I normally don't think or talk like a fish but there are days where you try your hardest and it just isn't going to happen. I guess that is true with any profession though. I've been experimenting with different things to help keep me in positive moods during sessions. One is taking breaks every ~2 hours or so to give my mind a few minute break from the constant strain and stress of focusing and concentrating on decisions. Two, I have been trying to leave the chat room open with the guys and I find that it keeps me a little looser, mentally as most of the guys are really funny and there is always something funny to talk about. Third, I try and be physically clean such as taking a shower before a session, brushing my teeth and hate having my hands greasy. I'm probably developing some sort of mild OCD. The fourth is my environment. I bought another scent globe yesterday, try and have sunlight shinning in during the day and drink lots of water. I'm just going to keep focusing on these things and just play my game and crush like I know I can.

Today should be an interesting day as I'm having a really strong urge to grind, not sure if I'll go for 20k today but we'll see how the day progresses.

Labor day distractions.....

Now that Labor day festivities are over (almost) I can now refocus on nothing but poker again. I have fallen behind pace and am probably gonna play 20k hands Wednesday or Thursday of this week to catch me back up.

Saturday was good times as people were in town for various Labor Day get togethers. I had a +$500 day Saturday and decided to book the win after only 5k hands and go out and celebrate with my roommate and friends.

Celebrate we did! Two of my friends do not drink so this always makes for an interesting dynamic when we go out as most of the time, noone wants to get stuck talking to the sober girl in a group of girls. This is exactly what happened of course.

My roommate has stepped up his game recently and proceeded to buy 4 shots and him and I go look for girls to give 2 shots to. I was somewhat against this as I think it is somewhat creepy to just walk up to girls with shots, asking them to take them. Anyways, he does it anyways, makes eye contact with a girl and off he goes asking me to follow, I reluctantly follow, not because I do not like girls but because I just think its creepy to walk up to girls with shots already, like "Heyyyy girls we got these ruphie shots for you". I obviously do not condone, nor have I ever done this to a girl and wish nothing but the worst for those who do but I can't help but think that's what it looks like from a girls perspective. I walk over and start talking with the 3 other girls as he has one cornered and shes into him. I am entertaining the group, do introductions, say some funny things to lighten them up a bit and of course there is a sober, "I hate men and don't wanna be out with my drunk friends while they have a good time because I'm too pretentious to attempt to have a good time at a bar" sober friend. We talk about careers and they seem excited and interested that I play poker for a living.

Now the sober friend is probably the biggest obstacle you will face at the bar scene while attempting to hit on girls. She is the gatekeeper and ultimately the decision maker to when and where the group of girls go, unless it is a Bachelorette party or some special occasion. My sober friend spotted the sober girl and attempted to distract her while I entertained and ran game on the other two girls. Then for some reason, the very beautiful brunette (Really like brunettes) who had a nice rack, apparently (I was later reminded) was totally into me and I knew it at the time but just didn't care. This has been a growing problem the past couple of months as I have these girls T'd up and I just don't care. It's almost like I'm just doing it for the challenge then once I realize I can get them, I dont care. Soooo apparently my penis has stopped cooperating with the rest of my body and I am not happy with the current cold war between my brain and penis. That pretty much sums it up, have a gorgeous girl into me and I'm like F it lets go somewhere else......and that's pretty much the night.

I think part of it could be that I am so focused on poker and moving that I mentally don't even want to deal with girls because they are so much -life EV it's not really worth it, unless I am just gonna hook up with them. I am not one of these types of guys either, my mother did all too well of a job raising me properly and to respect women well enough that I normally can't hook up with a random.....fml right.

SO, poker, me......256k hands left this month basically. Up 10 bis today so far and probably gonna play at least one more 3-5k hand sesh before going to bed.