Pokery Update and Other News

Well let's see it's been 2 months so I guess a big recap is in order.

March was basically spent entirely at 50nl and ended up being decent. I won at 5BB/100 but only got in ~14K hands. Still it was a solid winning month and I hadn't really been having those so very positive.

Unfortunately April didn't see the trend continue. Well I did end up for the month overall (barely) my graph for April basically looked like this, V. It was an interesting month because I decided to start the month playing 6-max. The problem is that I ABSOLUTELY SUCK AT 6-MAX!!!! After I realized this and moved back to FR 50nl I won at a little less than 5BB/100 and recovered my loses for the month.

I guess the FR parts my past 2 months led into the perfect storm that has been May thus far. I started the month with a fairly small BR because I cashed out (via transfers to friends) about $1200 to pay for my WVU football tickets. In the 17 days I have played since I have more than doubled my BR! I began the month at 50nl and won at 13BB/100 for 5K hands. I also started staking KingCurtis from CC at the beginning of the month and he had a big cash to pad my roll by about $180 so far. Anyway after 1 week of play I was rolled to take yet another shot at 100nl. Predictably it started a little down when my first 2 sessions I lost 2 buy-ins but then things turned around in a HUGE way. On the month I have played 9K hands at 100nl and I'm winning at 9BB/100 (including a 7BI downswing in the middle). It's been pretty sick. I'm running better than expected in all-in pots (about 2 BIs better) and I just think I'm playing better poker than I have for a long time. I'm seeing lines, making great reads and more important than anything else I've stopped tilting my $$ away!

To help with the tiling, I've been following the breathing techniques espoused by Tommy Angelo and Jared Tendler. I've started reading books on meditation and practicing it away from the tables. I'm trying to play (and live) in the moment and focus completely on whatever it is that I am doing at the moment. Being able to instantly forget (or clear) a bad beat, or even more importantly for me a bad play, has made a huge improvement in my game. Taking control of my breath is what's helping me to return to the moment and concentrate fully on the hand I am currently playing. I know it sounds like hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo but it works for me, so I don't care. It's also helping me to play longer sessions and at the same time quit just at the time when I'm no longer able to play my best. It's a really great feeling.

And now with all that out of the way, I come to the biggest news of all; I'm going to be a Dad!!! My wife of 10 years, as of a few days ago, and I have been trying for years. We've (well mostly she's) gone through fertility treatments and we were getting set to pay serious $$ for invetro-fertilization when she got pregnant the old fashion way! I like to tell people that I actually got to be in the room during the conception because we just didn't think that was possible. It's such a great feeling and I'm so excited to be a Dad. She's due in early November (she's about 15 weeks in) and so far she's doing great.

Well there it is, a great (big) update. Things are really great at the moment and that's all I can ask for.

See you in a couple months???