December Results

Stupid Limit poker messed up this month for me. I did have some PL Omaha winnings along with a couple cashes in MTTs (around $150 total winnings). Here are my limit and NL results for the month:

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2008 Poker Goals

I have been thinking over the past few days what I want to accomplish out of poker in 2008. 2007 was really non-existent as far as poker goes. I don't think I really played any until October and then I spent WAY too many hands at the Microstakes Limit games. In fact, it was only a few days ago that I finally pulled my head out of my ass and started playing NL. Then I started making money.

In 2008, I want to play strictly no limit poker. The variance is reduced and I actually win when playing NL. Limit is more fun and you can break even and still have a pretty nice bankroll too, but NL is where all the donks are these days. I'm still in the $25NL games, but I've almost got enough bankroll for the $50 games. I think I'll spend another 10K hands at $25NL and then move up. I'm making $14/hour at the $25NL games 6 tabling. Of course this is over a small sample size, but my win rate seems pretty standard and according to PokerEV, I'm running below expectation.

I also want to get out of the microstakes ASAP. My bankroll isn't ready for that yet, and I doubt my game or mind is ready for higher stakes games, but I will working on that as much as possible. I'm going to spend a lot of time studying the game and working on various aspects of my game and I'm going to spend a lot of time grinding. My goal is to be comfortably bankrolled and playing $1/2NL by the end of the year. If I can make $15/hr playing $25NL, why not make $60/hr playing $1/2? That's a little tongue in cheek, but I really have no clue what a decent hourly rate for $1/2 would be right now. I've never played the games and I don't know how difficult they are and such. I think staying at Full Tilt is also the best idea as well. I get 27% rakeback which will help the bankroll as much as anything. I don't play enough hands to warrant a switch to Stars. The good stuff on Stars comes if you are Supernova or Supernova Elite. I doubt my volume of play is enough for those rewards.

I want to play a bunch of hands in 2008 too. My goal for the year is 200K hands across all limits. I'm going to focus on cash games exclusively, so I'll probably steer clear of most tournaments, but I might play a few to break up the monotony or take advantage of an overlay. 200,000 hands equates to just under 17,000 hands per month. That's towards my upper boundary of the number of hands I can get in during a given month, but that will also bring me to my next thing I want to change in 2008 when it comes to poker...

I want to treat poker like a 2nd job instead of a hobby. This will be a part time job of course since I already have a full time job sucking the life out of me. My goal is to log 12-15 hours a week. I'm not sure how many hands those kinds of hours translate to though. It might be more than 17K hands per month, it might be less. I'll just have to see. I'm assuming 60 hands per hour per table, so if I'm 6 tabling, that's 360 hands an hour or 5400 hands per week for a 12-15 hour week. My calculations could definitely be off there, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, I got a spreadsheet set up that will act as my "time clock". I'll clock in at the beginning of the session and then clock out at the end and this will help me keep track of my hours played, my bankroll, and my hourly rate. Right now I have to rely on Poker Tracker for an hourly rate, but I'm not entirely sure how accurate that figure really is.

Next, I want to play the entire year. I usually start slacking around spring time and then eventually quit playing during the summer. If I'm going to treat poker like a job and actually make some real money this year, then I need to play the entire year. This will take some discipline. However, if I spend my time playing poker instead of watching crappy TV, I should be fine. Even if I continue at a $15/hr rate for the full year, I'm still going to make $10K. However, I'm assuming I'm going to move up and I'm assuming my hourly rate will increase. If I can double my rate, then we are talking $20K. I can't imagine the $50NL or even $100NL games being that much tougher than the $25NL games, so I think a $30/hr rate is feasible. So that brings me to my last goal to shoot for...

$25,000... that's my goal for poker winnings during the year. This seems like it's do-able if I just put in the time. $25K would really be awesome as well. I don't really intend to go much higher than $1/2 as far as the games, so a big portion of that will go to my savings instead of staying in the bankroll. $4000 would be a decent bankroll for $1/2 I guess. I'll probably keep half of my winnings in the bankroll and the other half in savings or some other investment. I'm not entirely sure how I want to manage my winnings, but I'll figure that out as I go along.

My main goal for all of this work is to set up a wonderful 2009. Let's assume I make my $25K goal playing poker. Add that in with money I intend to make in other aspects of life such as my job, investments, and other projects. I would like 2009 to be the year that I exceed my job salary with poker and other investments that generate a passive income. Then hopefully in 2010, I can tell the boss to fuck off?!? Wishful thinking. I can't imagine wanting to play poker full time, but I would have so many other options, I could still swing it.

That's all I got. So Happy New Year everyone. Here's to making 2008 the best year ever! I'm going to donk around here at the office for a little while and then head to Charleston for New Years Eve festivities. See ya next year!

Sonofagodamnguitarherobitch!

One of my Christmas presents this year was Guitar Hero III for the Xbox 360. When I got it, I noticed it was the wired version. I don't have a good setup for a wired version of that game, so I decided to trade it in for the wireless version (only $10 more). Unfortunately, there weren't any to be found in my area, so my aunt who lives in Charleston said she'd exchange it for me. Nice!

She was able to score 2 wireless GH3's from a Wal-Mart in Charleston. One for me, one for my cousin. I just met up with my other cousin to retrieve my copy. I was all pumped up and ready to battle against Slash and that hack Tom Morello.

I hurried home and quickly opened the box. The shiny black Les Paul was very nice looking. I was suprised because the SG that came with GH2 was hideous. I got everything put together and popped in the disc. It had to update my Xbox and I was ready. BUt, wait. The motherfuckin' guitar wouldn't work.

I thought I was just an idiot at first. You know, the 30 year old gamer, who is losing touch with technology and just can't figure out these new age gadgets. However, after RTFM and checking things online, I was doing shit right. My fucking guitar was broke. It will semi-connect to the console, but the only thing it will do is turn the damn thing on. The console doesn't see it as a controller and won't add it for whatever reason.

So now I have to trade this one in for another one. Worst of all, it came from a Wal-Mart, so now I have to go back to the hell hole and deal with customer service. I can't catch a break.

House Pics coming soon... more poker

I've been promising pics of my newly renovated house for months now. However, my camera is dead and I never did find my charger. So I finally broke down yesterday and bought one. Amazon wanted $32 for a charger. I got mine off ebay for $0.49 + $5 shipping. Hopefully the seller is prompt and the USPS doesn't take forever for it to get here.

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I spent most of day inside my house yesterday. The only time I ventured out of the house was the Walmart trip. The rest of the day was spent inside, cleaning, doing laundry, cooking, and playing poker. It was actually a relaxing day.

Today, I have some more poker planned. I'd like to get in at least another 1000 hands to finish off the month. This will put me close to 20,000 hands for the month of December. This will be the most hands I can remember playing in a month ever with the exception of one month where I did a 30K in 30 days challenge. I came up short and ended up playing like 24K hands that month, but that's the most I can remember playing. I think I definitely would have broke that mark had I started 6 tabling the Full Ring games more than 8 days ago.

6 tables seems to be the most comfortable to me. I have played as many as 8 tables at a time, but when I tile more than 6 tables, the HUD stats get a little too small for me to read at times. I feel I could comfortably 8-10 table for a decent win rate if I had a second monitor. I do rely on the PA HUD stats a lot.

I'm still working on my game a bit. I have been focusing on various things to help me out and they seem to be working. In fact they took what I thought would be a for sure losing month and turned them into a winning month for me. Again, I have been focusing on table selection. I have also started building a buddy list for my sites as well. Another thing I have really focused on the past couple days is isolating the fish on my right. This accomplishes a few things. One, you get heads up with the worst players a lot and they are easy to outplay post flop. Also, you kind of get under their skin, expecially after you have raised their open limp 5-6 times in a row. They start putting in a bunch of money with mediocre holdings.

I filtered out only NL hands and it looks like I'm now making $14/hour playing the microstakes. That's a brag in my book. The bankroll is getting close to the $1000 mark. This would give me 20 buyins at the $50 level. I want to spend at least 10K more hands at the $25 level, but I might incorporate a $50 table or 2 into my game as I see fit.

I got one more post in mind. It's going to be a 2008 poker goals post. I'll post it up later on today maybe.

10K Hands

I've hit 10,000 hands at the $25 NL level now. The best thing is that most of the hands were played in the last week (well, 8 days but who's counting?). I played right at 2000 hands today. What has gotten into me lately? I could have actually stopped at 1000 hands today and ended up with the same results though. My 2nd 1000 hand session of the day was basically me getting stacked of a few times from some cool deck dealings and then making that back up.

Here are some stats for my first 10K hands at $25 NL:

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Sickest Graph Ever...

TheBryce... my poker hero:

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I hate Wal-Mart

So, I got 2 Christmas Gift cards for Wal-Mart. My brother got me a $50 card and my aunt got me a $25 card. I needed groceries this morning, so I decided to get some free groceries with my gift card. I dreaded going to Wal-Mart, because I normally avoid that store like the plague, especially this time of year. However, it was 11:30 a.m. so, I figured I'd miss the early morning traffic and the late afternoon traffic and just fall kind of in between the rushes. Right..

So I get there and luckbox my way into a good parking spot. I like to get the spots just across from the shopping cart return area or somewhere near it, but semi-close to the store (not too close). The perfect spot opened up. Maybe this trip wouldn't be so bad after all?

I felt like I was re-enacting a version of Frogger as I dodged traffic to get to the store. Can we ban cell phones and driving already? Douche bags. I successfully make it into the store without getting killed or threatening to kill someone and grab a buggy. And I was off.

When I grocery shop, I hardly ever use a list. I just go through each aisle carefully and choose what I need/want. I started off in the produce area and was immediately put on shopping tilt by the idiots on the "I'm too sorry to walk my fat ass around the store" carts. I hate these things. They are a nuisance to other shoppers in the store and I guarantee you 75% of the people on them don't need them. This one particular woman looked rather healthy. I even saw her get up and grab a few items without any signs of a handicap. I think her goal today was to piss me off. Road rage in a grocery store.

As I went through the freezer section, Mrs. I'm too lazy to walk so I'll ride a scooter was coming through. She got past me and then had to back up to get something. That's when I noticed the damn carts make back-up beeping sounds like a large truck does. I chuckled inside. Then I noticed something else at the end of the aisle. A one legged woman WALKING and pushing a cart right in front of the fat ass with 2 legs in the scooter. I chuckled again. The one legged woman did have a metal prosthetic leg, but still...c'mon! If I were riding one of those scooter and saw that, I'd feel so damn guilty that I'd have to take the thing back and hoof it the rest of the way, but that's just me.

After picking up my groceries, I hit the electronics section to see if by some miracle there would be a Wii on the shelf (there was not). So I headed towards the checkout stand. I of course picked the slowest cashier on the planet. She was like the Monk of supermarket clerks. She methodically, yet slowly scanned the person in front of me's groceries and built perfect walls in the plastic bags so they would stand up well. Bravo! Only it took 45 minutes to ring up $100 worth of groceries. Now it was my turn. SHe again slowly rang up my groceries, but her bagging technique was perfect. She even put things together (like all the frozen stuff, all the meat, dairy, etc together). It was nice, yet it took a while.

When it came time to pay, my total was something like $98. I gave her the 2 gift cards I had and then dug for my debit card to finish off the remaining $23. She scanned both gift cards and it still said I owed $58. I told her that those gift cards should be for $75. However, when she rescanned them, it showed a $25 card (right) and a $15 card (not $50 like was written on my card). Turns out somebody fucked me in the ass on this one. It was either a.) my brother (which I wouldn't it past him because he is basically a piece of shit) or b.) WalMart when my brother bought the card, they could have fucked something up when loading the money onto it. Who knows? It's a problem that might never been solved. I really don't care though, although I was frustrated for having to spend the extra $35. Had I known that, I would have just saved those cards for something else and went to a better grocery store (and less frustrating).

After I loaded my groceries into the truck and started out of the parking lot, I vowed to never buy another thing from Wal-Mart again.

I'm only one man...

and I don't even give a fuck either...

Every year between Christmas and New Years, I'm the lone person in the office. The other co-workers save their vacation for this dread season. Normally this is OK. It's usually a slow week as people are off work or just slacking off in general. Of course, not this year. I've had at least 45 support calls so far today. That's an astounding number. Why can't these fuckers give me a break already?! At least it's Friday and I can go home in a couple hours and veg out for 2 days and put this hellish week behind me.

Work this week has really hampered my poker play as well. I had every intension of playing 5K+ hands this week. I had played over 1000+ hands for several days straight just before Christmas and was willing to do the same thing this week. However, work got me so bummed out, I chose to cut my poker sessions short for some veg out time on the couch. After all, I'm treating poker like work these days and I just don't feel like working.

I have played poker every day though. Instead of my 1500 hand sessions, I've been putting in some 500 hand sessions. All of my play the past few weeks has been at the $25 NL tables. I'm winning, but not as much as I should be. I think my winrate over the past 5K hands in $25NL is somewhere around 6.5 PTBB/100. Not too shabby. However, glancing at my Poker EV graph (which I don't have right now ... still at work) shows my Skanlsky bucks are rising rapidly as my actual winnings graph doesn't go up quit as steep. I've taken some horrendous suckouts lately. The good news is that I'm able to recooperate from those suckouts and still have some winning sessions.

I've really focuses on table selection this month too...especially in the no limit area. I thought I would have a hard time finding 4-6 tables of $25 NL Full Ring on Full Tilt, but with some patiences, I've found several fish that are willing to pay for my Christmas debt. I think the holidays have really given the fish population a boost lately.

Tonight, I'm going to try to play some poker. However, I'm also going out to one of my friends house to watch some movies and maybe play some Wii. I'd much rather do that right now than do anything work or money related.

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Lastly, on the New Year's resolution front, I've got 3 cans of snuff left to my name. Once they are gone, I'm done. They should run out just as I ring in the new year. Look for next week's posts to be more "cranky" than normal.

Party like it's 2008

It's hard to slack off at work when douche bags from Pennsylvania are blowing the phone off the hook with constant tech support calls. You think you're not happy now...wait until you get my support bill.. That'll teach you to work on the holidays!

Which brings me to the subject of this blog...2008. 2007 was kind of a shitty year now that I think about it. I didn't really accomplish anything exciting except for buying a home. My best friends spent the better portion of the year on house arrest. My job sucked. I didn't really do anything exciting other than a couple fishing trips. I really can't pick out a truly awesome day throughout the whole year. 2007 was the year of the Blah. I want 2008 to be better. Here are some goals (not resolutions) for the new year.

200,000 Hands of Poker

This is a lot of poker for me, however it's also a lot of money for me if I can suck it up and just grind it out. I want to make poker a "part time job" in 2008. Instead of just playing for the fun of it. I want to play for the income. I want to make as much as possible playing poker. I want to meet or exceed my current salary with poker winnings. At the stakes I'm playing now, that's virtually impossible. However, if I dont' go overboard on the cashouts, I can move up in limits and my hourly rate will go up. I want to play for 12-15 hours per week. This means I can play 3 days a week for 4-5 hours per day and still make a good wage. This will help out other 2008 goals I have set.

Be debt free (with exception of the house)

This one speaks for itself. Now that. My vehicles are paid for... I don't really owe for anything else. So I'm in good shape, but I want to be in better shape here. I only owe on a single credit card (nothing major) and my kitchen appliances are on a 1 year same as cash plan. I still have about 6 months left on that thing. However, the appliances should be getting close to being paid off.

This will help me with building wealth and generating more income as a result as well.

Become healthier and at least 50 lbs lighter by 2009

I'm not the posterboard for health. I eat too much. I don't exercise. I'm lazy. That used to not be a problem. Now that I'm 30, I feel the effects and they suck. I've always got something wrong with me. Right now, I have tendonitis or something like that going on with my elbow. My back also hurts on occasion. I'm just a soft, out of shape bastard. This is the cliche New Years resolution that everyone makes and never follows through on it. I hope to buck that trend.

I think this will be easier than it sounds. I have plenty of outside chores to do during the warm months. If I cut out fast food all together, then it should be a breeze. I've gotten into this cooking thing and it's a fun hobby. I haven't had fast food in probably 2 weeks. This is coming from someone that usually has some sort of fast food every day.

Become Nicotine free

This is more of a financial decision than a health decision. I dip snuff and have since I was 16. It's never really bothered me health wise. However, it's starting to add up in my wallet. Snuff has risen to almost $5/can in my area. I'm too spoiled to dip the cheap shit though. I honestly believe the cheap stuff is the kind that causes cancer (not really). Anyway, I dip over a can a day. Let's assume a can a day. That's 365 $5 cans a year. That's almost $2000/year and if you count my fishing trips, it's probably well over $2000/year.

Another reason for this one is that I hate the fact that nicotine controls me. I don't like anything controlling me. I have to have my dip of snuff in the morning, at lunch time, and any time I'm in a vehicle. It's crazy. It's not like it's even that enjoyable. Once I get past the physical withdrawl symptoms (week or 2), I should be OK here. In the past when trying to quit, I'd do good for a few weeks and then fall back. This was because I loved it back then. It tasted good and all that jazz. Now that it's not really enjoyable to me, then I will hopefully have an easier time with the mental addiction.

Develop and Exit Strategy for my job

I want 2009 to be the year I go self employed. I'm tired of lying bosses, his retarded ex-wife, the prudes in this office who have zero clue about a good time, and just the IT job market in general.

So, in 2008, I want to generate some revenue streams to replace my salary. I don't fully expect to do meet or surpass my salary in 2008, but I'd like it to be close. Some plans I have for accomplishing this goal is to 1.) Play poker obviously 2.) Use the Internet to my advantage and work on some money making ideas with that medium (don't want to give too much detail here) 3.) Real Estate... I would like to pick up at least 1 piece of rental property that cash flows. I have some other ideas too.

I want to make it so that it costs me money to go to work. When that happens, then I'm free!

Have fun

I just didn't have fun in 2007. I took 2 nice vacations, but that was about it. For the most part, I stuck around the house and scratched my balls. I get in a rut where I have 2 phases in the day 1.) work phase 2.) dreading going to work tomorrow phase. So I spend as much time as possible by myself in my house because heaven forbid I go out and have fun and make the time pass by quicker. Yes, I'm fucked up in the head.

I want to go out on the weekends more. I want to entertain guests more at my new house. I just want to be more social. I'm not going to sit around waiting for "something to do" to just pop up. I want to create that "something to do". I want to fish more, golf more, go on more trips, etc. I always use work as an excuse not to do these things. Not anymore. Who cares if I'm sleepy the next day at work. It's not like I do anything productive half the time anyway.

Be a good son/friend

This is the most important to me. I have wonderful parents. I don't show them enough love either. They do anything in the world for me and I do realize that and appreciate it. I, however, feel as though I take that for granted at times. I want to spend more time with my parents. They are good people. I had a couple friends lose parents this year and I don't want that to happen to me while I know that I could spend more time with them, yet don't.

My friends are also important. I am lucky to have founds some great friends over the past years. I don't take the friendships for granted. However, I do have spurts where I don't hang out with my friends as much as I should. This is usually when I'm in that "waiting for work" stage. I sacrifice going out, because I'd rather stay home and just veg out because work is coming up soon. I'm sick.. I know. I just want to be a good friend.

All in all, I'm optimistic for 2008 being a good year. Although 2007 was a blah year, I did learn a lot about myself and what I want in life during the course of the year. That should trickle through to 2008 and them make 2009 the best year ever.

Christmas Hangover

'Tis the season to be a slacker. I'm the only one in the office until after the first of the year. I take my vacations during the warm weather months. The other co-workers take a week of theirs during the Christmas->New Years week. This really equals a vacation for me as well. We usually aren't busy. The boss is usually on the road or working on his sales stuff for the next year. This equals me in the office by myself with minimal phone interruptions. This usually means I slack off all day long too.

Christmas was decent. I got some nice gifts. I got some badly needed tools, 2 pairs of real shoes, 1 pair of bowling shoes, Superbad (funny as shit!), Guitar Hero III for the Xbox 360. I got a few other odds and ends as well. I finally got my parents to keep from going "all out" for Christmas. THey still spend way too much on me and other relatives and friends. However, they are much better than before. Now If I can just train them into having a more simple Christmas in the future. My parents had like 25 people in their house yesterday. My mom was worn out from all the cooking. My aunt was having anxiety attacks trying to get everything ready. It was a mad house.

As far as poker goes, I took yesterday off. I actually fired up Full Tilt to datamine some tables, but then ended up just deciding against playing. I opted to watch Superbad instead. I'm not going to make Iron Man on FTP this month. This was mainly due to the PokerStars bonus I had to clear. I have 6 days left in the month and have to get 6 days of 100 FTP points. That normally wouldn't be a problem. Except on New Years Eve, I'm not going to be able to play. I'll be leaving from work to go directly to Charleston for my New Years festivities. I'm still going to try to play a lot though because of the double point promo. I really want an iPod Touch. I'm a ways off right now, but I'm grinding.

In other news, I've still been unsuccessful in finding a Wii. My cousin's husband's parents had one they didn't need and he is supposed to check on that for me. I doubt they still have it though. I have found a few online, but they are all bundles. This bundle shit is a rip-off. I mean when the fuck am I going to find time to play 10 games? Maybe if you spread it out over the course of a couple years. I mean check out this bundle on Toys R US's website:

This Bundle includes: Wii Console, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, Transformers: The Game, Bee Movie Game, Crash of the Titans 07, Dewey's Adventure, Zak & Wiki: Quest for Barbaro's Treasure, Raving Rabbids 2, Geometry Wars: Galaxies, Petz Dogz 2, and Soulcaliber Legends

The only game interesting to me in that bundle is Geometry Wars: Galaxies. Why would someone pay $700 for a console and 10 shitty games that nobody wants? Hopefully the eBay prices will drop way down today.

Ho Ho Ho

It's officially Christmas in my neck of the woods. I got an early Christmas present courtesy of the donks on Full Tilt Poker.... a few free buyins :) I have played a ton of hands over the past 3 days. I won, but below expectation. I finally broke through and had a decent day today despite several sick suckouts that crippled me. I wasn't worried though. The games were too good tonight to not be beaten. I got pretty deep on one table. I had 2 donks at that table with over 3 buyin stacks. I busted one of them when I flopped a set against his pocket kings.



Merry Christmas everyone!

Running at Expectation

I think I'm finally done with limit poker. Sure it's exciting and fast and fun. However, I just don't run well enough nor do I play enough hands to get through the tremendously long periods of breakeven or losing play. Basically, the game tilts me.

I played a BUNCH of Full Ring $25 NL yesterday. I played over 2000 hands which is a new record for me. I wanted to take advantage of the Full Tilt double points promotion. I think I made around 650 FTP points yesterday. Nothing major, but a lot for me. I'm still a long way off from my iPod Touch.

I also noticed yesterday that I can still make Iron Man Bronze level by getting a few 100 point days throughout the end of the year. Hopefully I can make it without any trouble. I definitely got my points in yesterday. I even played for a while after midnight, so I'm over half way to getting my points for today as well.

I have a cake in the oven right now. As soon as it's ready, I'm going to hop back on the tables. I can't play for superlong because my brother and nephew are coming in to do the Christmas thing.

FTP Double Points

I logged into FTP yesterday for the first time in a while. I noticed their double points promo from now thru Jan 5. I decided to take advantage in hopes of putting together some points for something decent from the store. I don't have a shit load of points or anything right now, but hopefully this will help me step my way to a new ipod or something.

I ran like hell again yesterday, but got about 500 hands in this morning and ran like normal. Just slow grinding. I've been playing full ring $25 NL lately. My no limit results have been fairly decent as of late. Why do I continue to waste time (and money) on the limit tables?

Merry Christmas everyone!

This will most likely be the last time I blog before Christmas, so I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish all readers a very Merry Christmas!

Last night, I wanted to log some hands, but didn't want to stress too bad about my recent downswing. So I just dropped back down in limits a bit. I played some $10 NL. Also I decided to play full ring to reduce some of the stress factor. I faired decent. The Full Ring was sort of boring, so I had to play some more tables. Instead of my normal 4 tables, I was able to keep up with 8 fairly easily.

Playing 8 tables gave me an opportunity to try a new tool (new to me). It's called Stars Planner. It's just an AHK script that allows you to preset your screen layouts. I'm sure all you big multi-tablers already use it. I need to get a script that will auto-click the TIME button though. I had a couple instances where I had some decisions to ponder and had a few other tables beeping at me in the process. It's a pain to have to click on all the TIME buttons while still trying to make a decision.

My biggest problem was the fact that PokerACE HUD's stats were unreadable to me when the table was resized small. I'm not sure if there's a fix for this or not. I wonder if Gametime+ is any better in that department?

Today is my last day of work until Wednesday. All my Christmas shopping is done. So I intend to play a bunch of poker. I want to finish off that Pokerstars bonus. Then I'll probably mix up my play between Full Tilt and Stars. I opted to work on the Stars bonus this month as opposed to keeping up my Iron Man status on FTP. However, I'll have a $25 bonus starting next month on FTP due to my Iron Man status last month. Nothing huge, but it helps.

I also plan on doing some cooking during the break. I'm going to attempt my first cheesecake (strawberry). I also have a Caramel Cake I'm going to try (also a first attempt at a cake). Lastly, on the non-sweets side, I'm going to attempt to make some Hellmandollar Potatoes. Those should be easy. One of my friends is deep frying us a turkey on Sunday. I've never had deep fried turkey. I'm not a fan of regular turkey, so I'm kind of skeptical about the deep fried one as well.

Lastly, I received my Christmas bonus last night. It's not a huge sum of money or anything, but it's a decent amount. I'm going to take half of it and put it towards paying bills. The other half will be the start of my "Live Poker" bankroll. There should be some games running at the local establishment this week. I know they played $1/2 last night and I would have probably played had I been able to get to the bank in time.

More Heat Pump troubles

I have been remodeling this house I bought back in June. I have had constant problems with the heat pump. First it was the thermostat. Once that was changed, some circuit board fried on the inside unit. That was fixed. Those 2 things were minute and cheap to fix. Then I started having more problems after that. WHen the weather turned cold, I switched to heat mode, only to realize I had no heat! So that cost me a couple hundred bucks to fix the problem there.

Fast forward to week before last. The weather had took a turn for the warmer. I had turned off the heat pump. It was good enough weather where the house was comfortable without any help. Then one day it got warm. I had to turn on the A/C. I didn't really pay that much attention, but I noticed it never really cooled off in the house. Then when it got cold again, I noticed my heat wasn't work again. What the hell now! I noticed the outside unit wasn't working. That was my problem! I checked the breaker and sure enough it was kicked. Weird. I attempted to reset the break only to hear a buzz, see a spark, and watch the breaker kick again. That scared me so I called for help. My heat pump guy took almost a week to show up, but he confirmed my fears. The compressor on the heat pump was dead. Compressors aren't cheap and aren't easy fixes either. In fact, I can replace the entire heat pump for just a bit more than fixing my old one.

I have decided to go ahead and get a new one. I'll have some equity in the house that I can use. I also don't have to hurry that much because my emergency heat still works. As long as that works, I'm fine through winter. However, when the heat shows back up and I need A/C, that's when things will get hairy. I can't stand a summer without air conditioning. So I'll need to replace the heat pump sometime before spring.

Just another reason to keep grinding it out on those poker tables.

For those wondering...

I have several blogs that have all combined and turned into this blog. For those of you that don't read all my blogs, I just wanted to give a brief introduction of myself and what I'm all about.

I play poker. Lots of poker. I'm not all that great at it or anything, however, I do feel that I'm better than that average player. A couple years ago, I thought I was great. I turns out that everyone else just sucked. Thanks to our good government, the poker population took a hit and so did the quantity of fish willing to hand their money over to me. So my winrate took a dive as well. I got fed up and cashed out my bankroll and now here I am...trying to build a new bankroll by grinding my way through the limits. I don't have any aspirations of becoming a pro player, but I wouldn't mind making enough money to help my retirement get here quicker.

I like to invest. I'm new to the investing world. I'm still learning the ropes. I decided to step into the real estate investing world this summer. I bought what I initally thought would be a house to flip. 6 months later, I'm still living in the mostly remodeled house. I liked the house and decided to keep it for myself. That's not to say I won't use some of the equity built up to further my investing career.

I like to cook. This is my newest interest. Evidently I'm pretty good at it. Despite my abundant presence, I'm actually a picky eater. I have yet to cook a meal that I didn't think was absolutely delicious. I watched Alton Brown prepare a steak on the Food TV channel a while back. It looked so good that decided to try it. Best steaks ever! And they cost me about $40 less than what I would have paid at a real restaurant.

I am interested in politics. I love politics actually. Nothing gets me more fired up than a political debate. Seriously. Politicians are like kindergarten kids with access to the world's largest checkbook. It's really entertaining until they do something that directly affects my life. Then I get mad for them butting into my life. I'm a registered republican (oh yeah...booo hiss!), but I'm actually more of a Libertarian. I just want the government to leave me alone, stay out of my wallet, and quit trying to control everything in our lives.

Lastly, I just suck at life. I'm not a hugely popular guy or anything. I have a few VERY good friends. However, I'm not good at interacting with strangers. Mostly because I pretty much dislike everyone I meet. I don't do a lot. I barely get out of the house. I might travel for pleasure once or twice a year and it's always within driving distance. I do my best to be a hermit I think. I'm trying to change this about myself. The blog helps.

I love to write (or type up random crap in this blog). Blogging is my therapy for life's hassles.

Ho Ho Hizzle

This is my first post on the new blog. So yay for me getting that all set up.

I just really noticed that Christmas is 5 days away. Less than a week! I have done all the shopping I'm going to do. I'm not a total Scrooge, but I do only buy for a select few individuals. Christmas is not about the gifts in my book, so I don't see any sense in spending money I don't have on a bunch of stuff that a bunch of people don't need.


Again, I'm not a Scrooge, but you couldn't tell by looking at my house. I don't even have a Christmas tree up. The only tree I have is this little 4 foot deal. But it's all I need right now. I don't have Christmas at my house, but I do have some Christmas spirit.

So tonight's duty is to put up my little Pygmy Christmas tree. Maybe I'll even wrap some presents too. I can't think of anything else that needs done, so tonight is Christmas night in my house. I might even break out the Egg Nog! I draw the line at singing Christmas tunes though. When it comes to Christmas music, I am a Scrooge. I think it sucks equally. I'll probably be putting up my tree to the sounds of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.