2010 Poker Wrap-up

Well it was a not so great year overall. I ran bad for a bit. Played bad even longer. Managed to turn things around near year's end and all told with RB and bonuses I earned just over $9K.

Here is the year in graph form:


As you can see, I ran pretty meh a couple of times but managed to end the year ~$200 over AIEV. Total luckbox ldo. My hourly on the year with everything included? $22.90! Hell yeah ship the unskilled laborer pay!

Also lol at my "volume" under 240K hands? Pathetic! I've actually upped the amount I've been playing over the last couple months (more tables and longer sessions) so hopefully I can add to that next year (more later).

I have also recently (last ~4 weeks) started getting some coaching from ChuckTs. It's amazing to talk to Taylor about poker and realize just how poorly I currently play in a lot of spots. Honestly I'm making a ton of mistakes and still winning (ok barely winning) so I think the demise of the game may be greatly exaggerated (if the government doesn't kill it that is).

So let's get to goals for 2011:
1. Continue coaching with Taylor. I have payed for another ~12 hours so I'll continue at least that long (couldn't pass up his rate).

2. Play at least 340K hands. That's 100K more than this year but it shouldn't be too hard honestly.

3. Win more than I get from rb + bonuses. It was close this year but rb + bonuses was greater by about $120. Sad really. I'd be a rb pro but I don't even play enough to be that :( .

4. Take on a protege (for free of course). Yeah I know, why would I want to screw up someone else's game right? Well I plan to find someone, likely a CCer, who REALLY REALLY sucks and turn them into someone who just really sucks. See the difference. ;) I think that by helping someone along I can elevate my own level of thinking and thus help my own game, so it's totally selfish.

Anyway, guess that's about it for poker goals. Oh yeah guess I'll throw in one more: Update this PoS blog at least 6 times! Yeah that's right bitches bimonthly updates in your face!

So that's all. See you in a month or so with another update.

Happy New Year!

O hai there

Well it's been so long since I updated this thing that I don't even remember what we were talking about. Oh well I got new shit going on so let's just start over.

Life
Still getting the biggest thrill being a Dad. The kid is the awesome. Seriously when people talk about having kids being the greatest thing I know all you people without them are like sure kids are fucking brats. And they are. Especially other people's kids. Your own kid though is the greatest person in the world.

Here is a recent pic of the boy.


Poker
Been playing 100nl for a bit now. Seem to be running well and playing OK. Recently started getting some coaching and after only 1 session I'd say we've identified a pretty significant leak. I'm working on plugging it now. It's kind of hard because well it involves betting too often and I LOVEEEEE betting. Anyway I'll get there.

I guess I'll throw a recent hand up here too just to make this like the most cliche poker blog ever.



Figure the flop raiser has to have folded 44 there because if he had any sort of draw he'd certainly have to call since he only needs like 15% equity to BE.

Anyway I'm out. I'll lie now and say that I'll be back to write again soon but realistically I'll see you guys next year around June! :)

Feb. Update

Wow, can't believe I haven't posted here yet this month. Things have been going really well. All's well with the wife and the baby is awesome. He's getting so big. It seems like he does something completely new and incredible every day. The pic above is one of my favorites from this month.

Poker has also been treating me very well. After my last post here I had my session with mpethybridge which I though went great. He really helped me to see some really basic spots were I was spewing $$s. Since our session I've played ~21K hands at 100nl with a running hot WR over 5BB/100 (it's actually over 7BB/100 this month). Now I'm not dumb enough to think that WR is sustainable but I def. think, just by eliminating the spew mpethy pointed out, I'll end up with a very nice bottom line.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend his service to anyone. He really knows his stuff and I'd be willing to bet that he can save you the cost of his session very easily.

I also was challenged to a HU match (best of 3 HU SnGs) by PokerChild69 at CC. I tried to get some real trash talk going to build up to it, but he took things a bit too seriously so basically it was just us playing some poker (how boring). We played yesterday and I ended up luckboxing my way to a 2-1 win. We both had some major suckouts in our respective matches. PC actually played OK but he was a bit too willing to get AI with some pretty weak holdings. Oh well at least I won and now I get to give the proceeds away for people to play in the charity tournament that has been set up to honor MrMuckets. He was a CC reg. and genuinely good human who passed away last year due to complications from heart surgery. He'll be missed.

As for March, I'm in a small volume prop bet with some of the kids over at CC. I'm supposed to play 25K hands or I owe $25. We'll see how that goes. My guess is that I'll end up paying out $25!

Guess that's about it. Good luck to all in March.

Crack Poker

Just a quick update to say that my wife's surgery went well and she's feeling better every day. It took her a little longer than we expected to recover but she seems to be getting closer to 100% now. It was pretty tough going there for about a week with her being unable to lift or hold the baby. She had different friends here with here each day after the 1st day (when I stayed home) since I had to return to work. I was then responsible for all the evening/overnight duties. Very tiring to say the least.

I actually ended up postponing the session with mpethybridge because she just didn't feel well enough on Saturday for me to leave her alone for 5 hours. I look forward to rescheduling it very soon. God knows I need it.

As far as poker goes everything was going well until Full Tilt unleashed crack poker upon the world this past Tuesday. It's very much like a drug in that I can't get enough even though I know it's not good for me. I've dropped many buy-ins sitting at the crack tables and I didn't even mind because it made me feel good. Just needed to see 1 more hand, to hold AA (and have them cracked) 1 more time, to be set-mined OOP in a 3bet pot yet again. I just needed more. Quick fold. Quick fold. Raise. 3bet. Quick fold. The buy-ins blurred by so quickly. I was losing AND having fun. But I think I'm on the mend now. No more crack poker for me. Honest. Well maybe just 1 more hit!

Funny How Something So Small Can Cause So Many Problems

Poker is going well. Winning a little and play decently. I have scheduled a stats analysis session with mpethybridge from 2p2 on Saturday. Supposedly this guy knows his shit when it comes to finding leaks (not that a blind man couldn't find mine) so I'm excited to here what he has to say. My guess is that he'll look around at my stats for a minute or two, tell me to stop being such a spewtard and take my money, but we'll see.

In other news, my wife is going in tomorrow to have her gall bladder removed (hence that horror show of a pic at the top). She had gall stones (again see the pic) and they're causing her fits of pain. It first cropped up the Sunday after Christmas when she woke me up at 4:30 AM complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath! Scary shit right? So I called the ambulance and they took her to the hospital, gave her nitroglycerin (which helped), and ran a litany of tests (cardiac enzymes, cat scan, stress test) to rule out heart problems. After being in the hospital for 24 hours or so they said it was probably an esophageal contraction and that it would likely never happen again, no worries.

All was fine until this past Wednesday evening when the exact same thing happened. Again I called the ambulance (fast entry to the emergency room and I can wait for someone to sit with Harlan before going in). Again they gave her nitro and again they wanted to run the same basic tests. This time however my wife mentioned her gall bladder to the Doc (someone had asked her if they checked it the previous time) and though he was skeptical he said it wouldn't hurt to check. Fast forward 5 hours and they're releasing her with orders to consult with a surgeon the following day, they had found the stone and the gall bladder needed to come out. So that leaves us where we are right now with her surgery scheduled for 11:30 today. I'll be staying home with the boy and her mom is going with her. If all goes well it will be an outpatient deal and she'll be home early tomorrow afternoon. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, that's it. I'll update her condition next time.

I'm Back Bitches!

Yeah, you read it right, I'm back. Since my last post I had my son, plenty of pics of him at His Blog if you're interested. He was born a month early and spent 12 days in the NICU but he's great now and growing like a weed (18 lbs. at the Dr's office today).

I'm just now getting back into playing any real amount of poker (12K hands so far this month). I think from the time he was born (Oct. 7th) through the end of the year I played ~25K hands. It just seemed like there was always something else to do or that he needed to be fed/held/changed/whatever. Don't get me wrong I'd never trade any time with him for a few thousand hands but it really did put a slow down on my pokery time.

So what's changed? Well he's sleeping a little better now so I have some time to play when he's down. So I've been taking advantage and actually putting in longish sessions for me (2-3 hrs per). I think a lot of it springs from reading LeatherAss's book "Treat Your Poker Like A Business". It's really quite good at the motivational type stuff.

I also made the jump back up to 100nl FR this month. As many of you know I've been attempting this move for WAY too long now (50>100>50>100 repeat until your head spins). I'd been dicking around at 50HUNL in December and toyed with the idea of playing that through the start of the year but despite winning at a pretty huge rate the swings were brutal and I just didn't think I wanted to subject my fragile little brain to that (I'll leave the HU to eNTy's fragile little brain). So when I decided to go back to FR I figured it was time for another 100nl shot. So far it's been OK. I've won a couple hundred despite taking some beats (8 BI's below AIEV whatever that's worth). Biggest thing is that so far I've managed to play without tilting too badly. So no super spew just yet but when I do I'll be sure to post it here.

Well that's it for now. If anyone's still out there I'll be back to posting at least semi regularly now. I'm never going to be an every day blogger but I might try to put some random crap up at least once a week.

Oh yeah, I have no idea about the video at the top but it was the 1st thing that came up when I did a search for this post's title.