We have moved!

The new site is up and running.

http://www.donkatlife.com

Also, the RSS feed is new so, you will need to resubscribe to the new feed if you view through an RSS reader… http://feeds.feedburner.com/DonkAtLife

Getting Back to the Grind

I have a little more time for a proper post this morning.  I’m coming off a little mini-vacation from poker.  I had such a rough week on the tables over the weekend that I really didn’t want to look at another poker hand for a while. 

I thought my Full Tilt check withdrawal should have been here by now.  I checked my mail yesterday and still no check.  Then, out of coincidence, I got an email a few minutes later from Full Tilt thanking me for my deposit.  Hrmmm… I made no deposit and this one was the exact amount of the check I was expecting.  Another email soon came and said they had to cancel my withdrawal (even though I had been sent a letter telling me my check would be unaffected).  So, 16 days after the withdrawal and I’m back at square 1.  Ugh… I hate the UIGEA.

The good news is that I got another $100 bonus for my efforts, so I will go ahead and grind on that a while.  I’ve decided to go ahead and move up to $50NL for the time being.  I have enough bankroll, and it will also speed up the clearing process for that bonus. 

My ultimate goal in the $50 games will be to continue to build my bankroll and then start working on my heads up play a bit.  The HU NL games are the most fun games that I have played (besides 2-7 TD) on the net.  I’m no heads up genius or anything, but I feel that I have a considerable edge over the competition.  I know the HUNL games can be swingy, so I’ll wait until I pad my roll a bit more before continuing into those.

Lastly, I finally got Wordpress installed on the new site.  Now, I just need to get it working the way I want and I’ll be all set to move this blog over to the new location.

Lack of updates on my end.  Sorry about that.  I haven’t been in the office.  This won’t be a proper post either because I have training in a few minutes.

I have been working out of town the past 2 days.  I have in-office training the next 2 days.  Friday can’t get here fast enough. 

I played a bunch of tournaments over the weekend and ran like pure ass.  I tried to make it up by playing 2-7 triple draw and run like smelly ass.  I lost a good chunk of money over the weekend.

I haven’t played poker the past 2 days because I have been getting home late.  I went to my parents house to watch the HR derby Monday night.  Last night, I had intended to watch the All-Star game on MLB.tv, but what was I thinking?  It was blacked out of course.  Fox, ESPN, and MLB are tight.

Maybe more of a proper update later on.  I still haven’t began working on the new site either.  So much to do, so little motivation to do it.

Moving / More MTT Thoughts

This website will be moving soon.  I bought a domain and hosting plan for it.  My goodness is webhosting cheap these days or what?

I’m still waiting for my account to be set up and all that jazz.  Then I’ll have to install Wordpress and mod it up a bit.  Hopefully everything will be ready for me to work on that over the weekend or even this afternoon :).  I’ll post the link whenever it’s ready.  The main reason for the move is that Wordpress is some much greater than Blogger.  Plus I want to open up a couple other blogs under some sub-domains.  Hey, I like to purge my brain into the keyboard which sometimes comes out as a blog post.  It’s how I keep my sanity.  It’s my drug.  I don’t claim to be a good writer, but I will claim that writing calms me more than just about anything these days.

Now for the more important stuff.  I have been giving though to the whole MTT concept and how to incorporate more into my play.  I think I will try out the cash games during the week, MTTs on the weekend type thing.  This way, I can buy into some of the larger events (player wise) and not have to worry about sitting around for 8 hours.  I know I won’t have to be at work the next day.

I’m also going to only set aside a certain portion of my bankroll for MTTs.  This way, I can 1.) keep track of my winnings easier (since Pokertracker doesn’t seem to handle that aspect well) and 2.) protect my cash game roll.  I’ll probably play mostly $4/180’s on Stars and satellites to larger events.  This way I should be able to build my MTT bankroll and then eventually move into buying directly into the higher buy-in events.  I can also move up the 20 table scale by going from the $4 –> $10 –> $20 or whatever they spread.

Congrats to Iggy for making the money and surviving day 3 of the WSOP.  I know the little man has to be exhausted right now, but remember the field is full of donkies and with your patience at the tables, you can take this bitch down for the bloggers.

I sucked it up last night on the tables.  I tried playing in several satellites and stayed away from the cash games for the day.  I cashed in zero of the tournaments I played.  I went deep in all of the tournaments but 1 too.  The 1 I didn't go deep in was a triple shootout where I did get down to heads up at my first table, but the dude made 2 hero calls on me and beat me.

I'm going to study up a little bit on MTTs this coming week and put them as part of my arsenal again.  They are too soft not to.

Tonight, I'll be going to the newly constructed concert hall type building they opening in town.  There will be a Bluegrass band playing that I've never heard before.  I'm not a big bluegrass fan, but a music and local music fan, so I'll go check it out...especialy for free.  I'm most interested in this huge building they have erected in town.  It looks fabulous!

MTT Madness

I’ve been a good little boy for 10 straight days.  I’ve stuck to the cash games and I’ve grinded.  I’m on pace for my 20K hand month (I think).  So I’m going to take a night off from the cash games.  Instead of cash games, I will run a few tournaments on Stars and/or Full Tilt.

I’m looking for a couple big scores to boost the bankroll.

River on!

Not an hour after my last post, my buddy Charlie called me.  He is the other half owner of the cabin and the contractor on my house last year.  He said him and his cousin Danny were definitely going to the river.  So the trip was on!  Nice!

I called the usual suspects to see what their status was for that week.

Rusty – Oldest of the crew.  Recently married, awaiting child. One of those What Can Brown do for you guys who wears brown shorts and brown socks to work if you know what I mean.  He works for a Hypermega Global Corp. type company and they have all kinds of procedures for vacation days.  He’s pretty sure he can get off the necessary days.

Bub – 2nd oldest of the crew.  Definitely the most blonde.  Fun to get on a sleepless induced tilt.  Even more fun when he’s drunk.  He said he would love to go and will make it happen.  Bub is a trooper when it comes to fishing.

Roger – My oldest friend.  Personal problems kept him from attending these trips the past 2 years.  He’s going to check about getting the days off.  My mother is his boss, so I’m not seeing a problem there :)

Jason? – Other owner of the cabin. I’m sure he’s working on the park somewhere.  Doesn’t answer his phone.  Checks his email like once a century.  His status is very doubtful as I have mentioned the reasons in my last post.  Jason originally started organizing these trips and I hope things work out so that he can go.  He needs a break anyway.

Danny – Cousin to Jason and Charlie.  Overall good guy.  Kind of looks like Sloth from the Goonies, just not as sexy.  Danny has a knack for landing women that are way out of his league.  It’s either all personality or he’s hung like a horse.  By the looks of his up and coming bride to be, I’m guessing it’s the latter.  She’s way too hot for him :)  Danny is the fish at the poker games.  It’s not that he sucks or anything.  He just lives to spew.

Mike? – 2nd oldest friend.  Mike and I don’t get to hang out much anymore because he spends his spare days jumping from airplanes.  Myself, I’m afraid of planes and have never really had the urge to follow him down to SC on these trips.  Mike is the quiet guy that can probably outdrink anyone on the trip.  We grew up in the pool hall together (along with Roger), went to college together, and both loathe our IT jobs together.

So, what can we expect from this trip?  Well, it’s mostly poker and fishing with some horse shoes on the side.  There will be drinking.  There might be some magical tea passed around.  Fish might actually be caught.  There will be grilling and a lot of chilling.

Danny is getting married next month too.  This means, there might be a trip to Charlestown for a bachelor party.  This means a redneck version of The Procedure.  Poker, Booze, Strippers… not necessarily in that order.

Charlestown has strip clubs and a casino.  I’m pretty sure they are running table games now that they are legal too.  If that’s the case and if the Powerball winner that lives beside the cabin comes along, I will try for a stake in the highest stakes game they spread.  If Mr. Powerball gets hammered and starts handing out cash like he did last time this mini-trip happened, then that cash will skip the strippers’ grubby mitts and land in my pocket so I can stake myself :)  That’s how I roll.  I don’t care much for Mr. Powerball anyway.  He’s a pill popping douche who likes to show off his money :)

Vacation Fail

I’m 2 weeks off a vacation and now I have another one scheduled in 3 more weeks.  However, I’m not sure if it’s going to happen at this point.  For like the past 15 years, a bunch of us friends pack up the vehicles and head for Front Royal, VA to do some fishing.  It looks like perhaps last year was our LAST year doing this trip.  Nobody seems to be able to get their shit together this year and get the days straight (we’ve been going the first full week in August for the past 15 years).  The guy that owns the cabin just married the anti-Christ.  They have a child that was born back in December.  So that complicates the issue.  However, the real reason is that the guy is a superintendent at a popular WV state park and has a hard time with his schedule during the summer.  In short, he has managed himself into a corner where nothing gets done if he’s not there.  So he has to work 7 days a week during the summer.  I don’t know about him, but I went to college so I could get a job where I didn’t have to do such things.

So here I sit again, wondering what vacation #2 will bring.  Vacation #1 was decent in the beginning because my Dad and I took the boat out fishing for a few days.  Vacation #1 was supposed to be Bonarroo, but I really enjoyed my time with my Dad.  More so than I would have with a bunch of filthy hippies.  We might sneak the boat out during this vacation too if his work schedule permits.   If not, then I’m not sure what I can do.  I really don’t want to spend another vacation sitting around the house.

I’m actually going to get with some other friends and see about maybe putting together a beach trip.  There are issues with that as well because one of the guys is starting school that following week, so I’m not sure about that either.

Long story, short… Vacation plans are “iffy” at best this year.  Getting old is gay.

One of dem days

First of all, how does this happen?

I still contend that Isabelle thought she was experimenting with another chick.  Well, I’m off to buy a scarf…BBL.

Ok..back.  Last night was one of them nights on the poker tables.  You know what I’m talking about.  Get the money in good, the cards come bad.  You miss flop after flop and never are able to get to a showdown.  Those type of nights.

The good news is that I never really paid attention to it being one of those nights until my session was over.  I knew it was a tough night.  I tried not to worry about it because I also knew I was playing very well. 

When all was said and done, I felt like I had been through a war.  I played as hard as I could for my timeframe I set aside prior to starting my session.  I finally pulled up Pokertracker to check out the carnage and was almost floored when I saw the Amount Won column show green.  Not only green, but +2 buyins green.  WTF?  Did I not import some hands?  A quick check of my Stars balance agreed with my results.  Nice!

We are a little over a week into July and I’ve already surpassed my winnings (minus rakeback) for June.  Hopefully this trend will continue.  I will attribute a lot of the winnings from just running good, although I have taken a fair share of beats this past week.  Mostly, I can attribute my winnings to good table selection, having a sound mind when playing, and just plain good poker.  Also, I’ve matched my total hands I played in June, so that helps :)

I’ll be trying to sweat Iggy today in the WSOP, but it’s hard to sweat a magical dwarf who has no real name nor face.  I’ll rely on Pauly to keep me updated :)

LOL FullTiltaments

After 1 month to do a simple bank withdrawal, I lost confidence in Full Tilt.  But I got my money and all was good.  I went to make another withdrawal this month and they have “temporary” problems with teh payment processor, so checks are my only choice for withdrawing my money.

Today I get this:

Dear WiredAces77,

We wish to inform you of a temporary issue with our payment processor which has affected a small number of recent check withdrawals.

If you are affected by this issue and experience any difficulty cashing or depositing your recent check, please rest assured that we are fully aware of the situation and working to resolve it as swiftly as possible. we will contact you when we receive further information on the details of your recent check withdrawal.

In the interim, please reply to this email or contact checkquestions@fulltiltpoker.com for clarification and assistance.

We appreciate the importance of receiving your funds in a timely manner and apologize sincerely if you have been affected.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker Support

PokerStars #1

Trying to stop spewing with Aces/Overpairs

Some are wins, some are losses.  Here are the first batch of hands without results, but with reads.  How do you play these?

These hands all come out of my last 20K hands played

--------------------
HAND #1
--------------------

Villain is 35.91/9.55/2.88 after 220 hands:

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

SB: $28.05 (112.2 bb)
BB: $53.95 (215.8 bb)
Predator314 (CO): $62.80 (251.2 bb)
BTN: $32.65 (130.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is CO with A A
Predator314 raises to $0.85, BTN folds, SB calls $0.75, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($2.55) 2 7 4 (3 players)
SB checks, BB bets $2, Predator314 raises to $8, SB folds, BB raises to $18, Predator314 raises to $61.95 and is all-in, BB calls $35.10 and is all-in

--------------------
HAND #2
--------------------

Villain is 14.17/10.63/2.29 after 254 hands

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

UTG: $18.80 (75.2 bb)
MP: $34.25 (137 bb)
Predator314 (CO): $32.40 (129.6 bb)
BTN: $32.65 (130.6 bb)
SB: $9.75 (39 bb)
BB: $29 (116 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is CO with A A
2 folds, Predator314 raises to $0.85, BTN calls $0.85, SB calls $0.75, BB folds

Flop: ($2.80) 2 Q 7 (3 players)
SB bets $1.25, Predator314 raises to $6, BTN calls $6, SB folds

Turn: ($16.05) 6 (2 players)
Predator314 bets $25.55 and is all-in, BTN calls $25.55

--------------------
HAND #3
--------------------

Villains are:

BB: 50/14.29/0.80 after 14 hands

CO: 54.46/8.91/0.44 after 14 hands

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

Predator314 (BTN): $25.90 (103.6 bb)
SB: $34.75 (139 bb)
BB: $25 (100 bb)
UTG: $23.15 (92.6 bb)
MP: $40.55 (162.2 bb)
CO: $5.85 (23.4 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is BTN with A A
2 folds, CO calls $0.25, Predator314 raises to $1.10, SB folds, BB calls $0.85, CO calls $0.85

Flop: ($3.40) T A 8 (3 players)
BB checks, CO checks, Predator314 bets $2.50, BB calls $2.50, CO raises to $4.75 and is all-in, Predator314 calls $2.25, BB calls $2.25

Turn: ($17.65) Q (3 players, 1 is all-in)
BB checks, Predator314 bets $20.05 and is all-in, BB calls $19.15 and is all-in

--------------------
HAND #4
--------------------

Villain is 14.59/9.96/3.43 after 28 hands

Full Tilt, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

Predator314 (SB): $25 (100 bb)
BB: $24.45 (97.8 bb)
UTG: $25 (100 bb)
MP: $31.50 (126 bb)
CO: $34.45 (137.8 bb)
BTN: $18.15 (72.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is SB with A A
4 folds, Predator314 raises to $0.75, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($1.50) 6 2 9 (2 players)
Predator314 bets $1, BB calls $1

Turn: ($3.50) 4 (2 players)
Predator314 bets $2, BB raises to $5.75, Predator314 calls $3.75

River: ($15) T (2 players)
Predator314 checks, BB bets $8, Predator314 calls $8

I’m trying not to overwhelm the blog with a bunch of hand histories, but just picked a couple tough hands from my AA holdings over the past 20K total hands.  Again, some are goign to be wins, some are going to be losses.  Some are wins when I suck out, some are losses when I get sucked out on.  That’s why I’m not including the results.  How would you play any of these hands differently.  I know the results and some differently

I will also state that Hand #2 is an abomination to all this is related to poker! I blame the mushrooms.

I will post results tomorrow and maybe a few more AA hands if I can pick out a couple… maybe some KK hands as well.

I’m finally back in the office today after a long weekend.  I haven’t missed it one bit.  In fact, I could fired right now and feel nothing but happiness even though I might not be able to pay my bills in the future.  All of this, not 1 week after receiving a nice raise.  Throw all the money you want at me…I still hate my job!

I was looking at my schedule for this month.  I don’t see anything fun on the horizon.  I have a training session scheduled for tomorrow.  Next week, I have to install a new system in Charleston.  That will take 2 days.  Then after that, I get to train a new customer.  The next week…more training.  Week after that, I travel to Washington D.C. for yet more training.  The good news is that after the next 3 weeks, my schedule is pretty clear.  And I have another vacation coming up first full week of August.

I’m hoping the August vacation is to the Shenendoah.  Several of us want to go, but the guy that actually owns the cabin has been unreachable.  We don’t know if the trip is a go or no-go.  In past years, it’s always been just the thing to clear your calendars for the first full week of August.  But these days, wives and kids complicate matters.

As for poker, I’m grinding still.  I only played about 500 NLHE hands yesterday.  That’s normal for me, but prior days say me playing 1200-1500 hands.  I’m supposed to go to the P-Rays game tonight, but it has been storming all morning.  I doubt the field can withstand much more of this rain.  If that’s the case, then I’ll try to score another 1000+ hand session tonight.

This job is all the motivation I need to play poker anymore.  The more poker I play = more money I win = more I can save = bigger bankroll = me telling the boss to take a hike.

Lastly, I watched a couple movies yesterday.  First was The Grand.  I had never heard of it, but picked it up on a whim.  The movie was pretty shitty, but I got a couple chuckles out of it.  It’s a satirical, almost improvisational movie about the state of the poker industry today.  It pretty much hit the nail on the head.  I also watched the new Rambo.  If you never wanted to buy a .50 caliber weapon, this is the movie to change your mind.  They took Sylvester Stallone and his shitty acting and made an entertaining movie.  Basically, Stallone grunts and occasionally yells while firing various guns with awesome precision into enemy heads and toros.  The shootout scenes make the movie.  Nothing like seeing a sniper rifle take a dude’s head entirely off his body.  They didn’t leave out the gore in this movie and it’s fantastic if you ask me.  Just don’t expect to see good acting.  Just awesome shootouts and death scenes.

Blackberry Tilt

I'm on Blackberry tilt right now.  The little scroll ball thingy refuses to scroll down.  It will do left, right, and up, just not down...the most useful direction.  Any ideas?  This isn't the first time it has happened.  It has done this before and then magically started working again.  I really don't feel like dealing with the twits at AT&T again either.

As you might have noticed, some of the local games got raided this past week.  Fortunately, I wasn't in any of them.  You see, I hate live poker.  However, these developments have me a little distraught.  I liked having those games available when I wanted to donk around with some live peoples.  Also, there are rumors of the state police, FBI, ATF, NASA, the United Nations, or the Nevada Gaming commission calling all the contacts on one of the game host's cell phone.  I know my number is on that phone.  I get text messages telling me when and what games are running.  If above rumors are true, then I should expect a call.  I don't care.  I'll answer whatever they ask and then pretty much tell them to fuck off.  I know my rights.

I had ideas of actually skipping a few steps in my bankroll building and go win a few buyins at the local $1/2 game and deposit them online.  However, I'll put those plans on hold for a while and just continue to grind.

Grinding is exactly what I've been doing.  I played over 3500 hands over the weekend, not including a bunch of 2-7 Triple Draw hands that are not recorded, some play on Bodog that's not recorded and a couple tournies.  Overall, I've made pretty decent money, but I went through a small rough patch in the middle.  I managed to claw back through it and continue the win line moving upward.

I'm just going to keep grinding it out on Stars too.  The software is excellent and way faster than Tilt.  I hate the little beeping noises and the stealing of focus on the windows, but I'm pretty sure I can turn that off if I poke around.  The games are about the same as Full Tilt.  There are probably more non-thinking LAGs on Stars than Tilt, but overall, it's about the same.  I'll see how my win-rate looks at the end of the month and decide whether it's better to play on Stars with no rakeback or on Tilt with 27% rakeback.

The Bible Belt Hath Tightened

Dear Mr. Law Enforcement Agency:

Recently, you felt it necessary to raid a couple of local establishments.  You raided these establishments not for running drugs, prostitutes, or even weapons.  No, you stormed in, guns blazing, to break up a poker game.  We're not talking about a big time, high stakes game either.  No sir!  You broke up a couple of $1/2 games.  Huge stakes!  Now that you have raided these games and padded your pockets with several thousand dollars that does not belong to you, I have a question.  Why?

Why is it that I have to lock up everything I have because the pill poppers a couple houses down will steal anything that isn't bolted down?  Why is it that when I drive through town, I see dealers peddling their wares out in the open.  Sometimes the prostitutes will try to get in your vehicle and you have to push them back.  Yet, my friends face persecution for playing a simple game?  I won't even get into the aspect of the actual law enforcement officers I have personally played with in these games.  Not the guys you sent... NO! The guys on your payroll that play willingly...those are the guys I played with.

Dear Mr. Law Enforcement Agency, why is it that you have the resources to have someone playing undercover in these games for 4 months, yet you don't have the resources to clean up our streets?  You get on my television and complain that you don't have the resources to pay your employees overtime.  You don't have the resources to make sure your officers are properly trained or equipped.  Yet you have the resources to bankroll an officer and pay him to play poker with a bunch of decent people.  Who cares, right?  It's just taxpayer money.

Why is it that you squeeze every cent of tax that you possibly can out of business owners and civilians alike, then blatantly steal the rest?  Why is it that a man that runs a certain establishment bring so much to a single town and you take and take and take what he brings into your town...yet you still feel the need to raid this establishment and take some more?  Why is it that this same establishment has 5 video slot machines hooked up to the Governors office, yet they can't play a simple skilled game on the side?  This establishment brings in tens of thousand, if not hundreds of thousands in tax money to the town and state, not to mention the revenue that is direct deposited into the Governors pocket through the slot machines.  Once a month, he hosts an event that brings people from several states to this establishment.  As a result, the neighboring businesses also flourish...which means the law enforcement agencies and other government agencies flourish with the additional tax revenue.  This establishment does that much for you, yet you still feel the need to raid it and steal even more?

Mr. Law Enforcement Agency, why is it that you must call everyone's phone number on that cell phone?  Are you trying to intimidate me?  If so, it's not working.  In fact, I would love to hear from you.  I have a lot of questions I'd like answered.  Also, I'd love to blog the transcript of our conversation on my website.

Dear Mr. Law Enforcement Agencies .... FUCK YOU!

Rolling up a stake

I have been playing a lot of hands the past 2 days.  I started out grinding $10NL because that's all I really had the money on hand to play until my Full Tilt Check comes.  So I grinded my Stars roll up a little bit playing $10NL.  Then I got enough to play some $25NL last night.  I just 2 tabled and I owned.  I played $25NL today and I wouldn't call it owning, but if I had not got 3 out-ed in a huge pot, I would have owned.  As it stands, I booked another nice win.  The good news is that I have enough in my Stars roll to actually 4 table $25NL without the need for deposit.  I'll just put that Full Tilt check to the side and allow it to collect interest for a little while and hopefully I'll never need it.

 

I think I'll play just a couple thousand more hands at $25NL and if things continue to go well, I'll move up the $50 game. 

Hey! It was suited

Your typical 300BB pot :)

 

--------------------
HAND #1
--------------------

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

BB: $7.50 (30 bb)
MP: $17.45 (69.8 bb)
CO: $38.90 (155.6 bb)
BTN: $30.60 (122.4 bb)
Predator314 (SB): $44.55 (178.2 bb)

Pre-Flop: Predator314 is SB with 4 6
MP raises to $1, CO folds, BTN calls $1, Predator314 calls $0.90, BB folds

Flop: ($3.25) 2 T 7 (3 players)
Predator314 checks, MP bets $2.75, BTN calls $2.75, Predator314 calls $2.75

Turn: ($11.50) 9 (3 players)
Predator314 checks, MP bets $13.70 and is all-in, BTN calls $13.70, Predator314 raises to $40.80 and is all-in, BTN calls $13.15 and is all-in

River: ($78.90) 3 (3 players, 3 are all-in)

Results:

Spoiler:

$78.90 pot ($2 rake)
Predator314 showed 4 6 (a flush, Ten high) and won $76.90 ($46.30 net)
BTN mucked T 9 (two pairs, Tens and Nines) and lost (-$30.60 net)
MP mucked J T (a pair of Tens) and lost (-$17.45 net)

.

In my quest to reach 20K hands this month, I have 1/2 failed so far.  Tuesday night, I grinded.  Since my money is still somewhere between Full Tilt’s mysterious address and my mailbox, I had to drop down a level and play $10NL on Stars (didn’t have funds immediately available for deposit).  I continued to run hot at that level and ended up winning more than what I probably would have at $25NL…you never know.  I really miss the Neteller days and blazing fast withdrawals and deposits.  Fuck politicians.

Yesterday, I had to go to Matewan for work.  I’m not sure anyone outside of WV has ever watched it, but there was a movie made about the town.  Not much has changed since those Coal Mine war days.  Except now instead of train being the preferred method of transportation, they tend to prefer travelling by 1.) ATV 2.) Hitchhiking or 3.) Car…. in that order.  These are some backwoods folks for sure.  The trip was fairly uneventful with the exception of getting stuck behind a truck painting lines on the road for 10-15 miles….doing at most 20MPH down the straight stretches (which are few and far between).

Once I got home, I played with the pup and mowed grass.  Then I couldn’t miss the Princeton Devil Rays game on such a pretty evening.  So, off I went to the ballfield.  It was pretty much a sell out which is awesome to see.  The only reason there were so many people, though, was because they were playing the Bluefield Orioles, which is pretty much a cross-county rival.  I scored some cool schwag including a Delmon Young figure, a Fred McGriff bobblehead, and a super awesome Carl Crawford superhero figure:

Anyway, the P-Rays won in an exciting game and I got to cheer loudest around the swarm of O’s fans that decided to sit in my area.  So it was a fun night.

Unfortunately the game wasn’t over until after 10:00 p.m. and I hadn’t eat since 12:00 p.m. and I was about to starve.  The concession stand lines were way too long during the game, so I had to do without until after the game.  After food and all, it was pretty much bed time when I got home.  I had to let the dog out and all that good stuff, so I didn’t get to play any poker.

I don’t really have much in the way of plans for the 4th weekend.  At one point, we will try have a bonfire or something, but not sure which night.  Other than that, I just have a trip to Charleston planned to pick up an outdoor dog kennel that my cousin gave me.  I plan on grinding a lot of poker over the weekend too.  I’ll probably do my usual grinding in the morning, enjoying the day, grinding at night, sleep routine.

I’m also getting an itch for live poker.

Baseball Betting Genius?

Over the past 31 days, I’ve been betting baseball on Bodog.  They have all been $1 and $2 bets.  I’m +12.94 on the month.  Go me!

New Month New Hope

I didn’t play as much as I had hoped to in June, but I did get in a sub-par number of hands for the month and an above par (for me) number of MTTs.  The first 1/2 of the month started out fairly break even, but the final 1/2 finally saw me start to win some money.  I ended up winning 4.46 bb/100 at the $25NL tables for the month over about 5,000 hands.  I won at a rate of 76.57 bb/100 over 350 hands at $10NL (sustainable?),  Add in about 100 hands of limit poker running at 15 BB/100 or so and I have $175 or so worth of profit from the cash games.    PT3 still can’t handle Stars tournaments correctly and I refuse to manually enter MTT results, but from my calculations, I netted approx. $75 in MTTs after all was said and done.  With rakeback, bonus money, and my play, I think I made $400 or so.  Not life changing money by any means, but a good shot to the bankroll.  Now if I can only find some time to get in some hands.

July is actually exciting for me.  I want this to be my “breakthrough” month in poker.  I want to take that next step  in becoming a winning player.  I have been working on my mental aspect of the game, mostly the “playing scared” aspect that drives me away from the tables when I’m winning and keeps me at the tables when I’m losing.  I want to get in more hands, but I always seem to be finding excuses not to play.  Theoretically, real life does get in the way of me playing poker.  I have a full time job (that I hate and would love to replace with poker), I have a dog now that consumes my time, I have parents and friends that I visit on a regular basis, I have my own house and all the chores that is in involved in maintaining it.  To put it bluntly, I’ve become an adult and have responsibilities.  I have no clue how you guys/gals that are married with kids find time to even think about poker.  That all being said, I really do have time for poker.  It’s like the person that tells you that they don’t have time to exercise….but yet they never fail to find time to watch Deal or No Deal every night.  There is time for poker.

After working with Jared Tendler’s videos a little bit over at Stoxpoker.  He’s a golf psychiatrist/psychologist/whatever that has turned into a golf/poker shrink.  He has some fantastic videos about how the mind and brain work and relates them to the poker game.  I just made it through the 1st video.  I really think these videos will help my game.  He seems to know what makes up a “grinder” and has a good understanding of how poker works.  I had avoided these videos for a while, because I thought they really just dealt with Tilt, but they deal with all the brain functions during a poker session.  Pretty neat stuff.

So, now that I’m back in the swing of things, I want to set some goals for July.  I definitely want to up the number of hands I play.  I want to see that number quadruple this month.  I’m going to be out of town only twice this month and only 1 of those is for more than a day.  I will be playing solely at Stars this month.  As I was typing this paragraph, I got a response from Full Tilt on how long their bank transfers were “temporarily down”.  I got a canned response that didn’t relate anything to my question, so now I move on.  This might slow me down here at the start of the month as my bankroll will be in transit from Full Tilt to Stars.  I’ve got a little bit on Stars, but not enough to properly multitable.  I might just work with what I got and hope for the best while Full Tilt sends me the rest.  If I get low, I can reload out of personal funds and then let the check recooperate those funds.  I have no faith in getting any type of money from Full Tilt by the end of the month.  But I’m not going to let that be an excuse.  If worse comes to worse, I can grind $10NL until I get things straightened out.  It’s not about the money right now, it’s about playing winning poker.

Here is what I want to accomplish during July

• 20,000 cash game hands
• No shortened sessions.  I will sit down and say I’m going to play until X:00.  I do not stop until X:00 regardless of my results
• No reviewing of hands or anything else in Pokertracker prior to finishing my session
• Profit

July is going to be all about getting my head on straight and not letting it get in the way of my poker game.  I think once I learn how to do this sort of thing, I can sit down and grind out some pretty long sessions.