---------------------------

That line is what my win rate looks like so far this month. Only 1500 or so hands, but I've won $6...awesome. I was up as high as $12 today, but just finished my first session with a whopping $0.85 profit. That's +$0.60 over my last 2 days. Heater please?

Instead of things that piss me off

Something that makes me happy instead... The band is back together and playing again March 8th. They have a new drummer after losing the best local drummer I've ever heard, but they still got one of the baddest guitar players in the state (my buddy Spook) and a fantastic Bassist (my other buddy Doug) and they will be rocking the house down this Saturday!

Getting a handle on my debts

I hate owing money more than anything. I hate credit cards and hate borrowing money for any reason. Why? Because of interest! Interest sucks. Today was my bill paying day and I get an itch to alleviate all my debt every month when I pay bills.

I'm not in too bad shape, but I could save myself a ton of money by getting rid of some of these animals. These are my debts at this time

House: $75,000 (6.75%)
HELOC: $11,000 (6.00%)
Credit Card: $4200 (11.99%)
Misc Bank Loan: $1500 (11.00%)
12 Month Same as Cash loan (0% until July 2009, then like 92080938580%): $400-500

So, as you can, nothing major. I don't consider the HELOC and Mortgage a bad loan though. However, the credit card, bank loan, and 12 month same as cash deal or bad debts that should be paid off ASAP.

My gameplan is to start at the bottom and work my way up. Baby steps, huh? The 0% loan will hopefully be paid off at the end of this month (assuming all goes well poker-wise). Once I conquer that one, it's on to the bank loan.

Killing the 0%/Same as Cash loan will save me $200/month. That's the amount I've been paying on that loan the past few months. That's much needed money in my pocket every month. The bank loan on the other hand is not costing me much per month. However, it's sort of a floating line of credit that I have at the bank. The past few months it has increased a lot. It was the easiest and most convenient way for me to get access to extra cash fast. Plus the interest rate isn't too terrible, especially for a loan such as that. Assuming I never access that loan again, it still only costs me about $25-30 month, but is a nagging pain in my ass.

Speaking of pain in the ass ... the credit card loan. I turned to my credit card too many times in past years. It started as a gas card. Then I needed a PC. Then something else and something other than that. Then I bought a house and it was easier to buy my stuff at Lowes on my credit card than it was to go to the bank and get some money out of my HELOC. That didn't work. 99% of the money on this credit card is for items for the Pisgah House.

I have a few things going right now and then I'll be ready to refinance my house and roll that HELOC (costs me about $115/month right now) into my mortgage ($486/month). I'll also take my added equity in the home (it should really jump way up considering the renovations I have done and the comps in the area) and pay off my credit card with the added equity. Then I will pay that off ASAP. I just want the lower interest rate.

Let's review what all of this will save me per month:

House Payment ($486/month). This will go up a bit. I'm fine with that. I don't expect it to go up more than. I just need to check on closing costs and such. I'm pretty ignorant on that. But assuming that's all covered and won't be part of the loan. The payment will go up a bit, but not more than $200/month.

Credit Card Payment. I pay between $200-400/month on this thing and haven't actually charged anything to it in a while. Getting rid of this debt saves me $200-400/month out of my pocket and $40-$50/month in interest.

Misc Bank Loan: This will only save me about $25/month. But it would be nice to reset that loan and have the line of credit just sitting there for emergency or something. Nothing else.

0% Loan: By paying this off, I'm saving $200/month.

So all together, I'm saving $425-625/month on 3 of the bad debts and adding $150-200/month on the good debt (mortgage). The net gain in my wallet is $225-$425/month.

Add those savings in with the savings I expect to see with my "no eating out for lunch anymore" challenge and we've just freed up a bunch of money every month. It all seems rather simple when you map out the plan. Is my theory flawed here?

Poker night

There's nothing better than it being poker night and having the ambition to play at the same time. That's what tonight is shaping up to be. It's the one night a week where I have no obligations. I use this night for my "me" time. And I've got plans for the evening in phases.

Phase 1: Grind out the cash games until I get hungry. I figure regular NL $25 should do the trick as it's my main game these days (hopefully not too much longer though)

Phase 2: After I get hungry, I have a nice juicy ribeye and potato for supper. Meat and taters baby.

Phase 3: Razzmatard tournament. I have a $26 token reserved just for this bad boy. I'll probably play it on the laptop and watch American Idol at the same time.

Phase 4: Win millions of dollars and get a real life. Geez I'm a sad human being.

Cruising

I took some time today to study instead of spending all my time playing. It cuts my hands in about half for the day, but is very much worth it. I spent some time reviewing hand histories, some time on 2+2, and watched a good video on Stoxpoker. Those videos always get me motivated to play. I usually sit down to watch a video because I don't really have the motivation to grind. Then about 1/2 way thru, I pull up Full Tilt and begin datamining. Then by the 3/4 point I'm already checking out tables and putting myself on waiting lists. That motivation is worth the subscription fee by itself.

As for my session today...what a bore. I got absolutely no hands to play. My VPIP for the day was 19.5%. That's about 6% below my overall for a $25NL 6 max game. My preflop raise percentage was around 14% which is about 6% below my overall as well. I couldn't find any spots. I had good tables, but couldn't make anything happen. The only pots I could win were bluffs and Ace high "soul read" hands such as:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter


BTN: $29.95

SB: $21.75
BB: $96.80
Hero (UTG): $31.60

CO: $27.95

Pre-Flop: A 8 dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $0.85, 3 folds, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) T 3 5 (2 Players)

BB checks, Hero bets $1.50, BB calls $1.50

Turn: ($4.80) 6 (2 Players)

BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($4.80) 5 (2 Players)
BB bets $2, Hero calls $2

Results: $8.80 Pot ($0.40 Rake)
BB showed A 2 (a pair of Fives) and LOST (-$4.35 NET)
Hero showed A 8 (a pair of Fives) and WON $8.40 (+$4.05 NET)



Yeah, I'm bragging on that one...fuck you... it was my 3rd most profitable hand of the day. My single most profitable hand of the day netted me a whopping 29BBs.

I played a few hundred hands and lost exactly $0.25. Sick downswing I know. So far, I've played a fair number of hands this month, but the results aren't there. I had a small win in my 1st session and a breakeven session today. Things will get better as I continue to grind and polish the game.

Oh, and I was going to play in the $2000 Razzmatards tourney tonight, but missed getting home by like 5 minutes. Fucking red lights every 30 feet in a town with 40 cars.

New video

I made a new video week before last and forgot about it. I have uploaded it. This time things are a bit different. Again, I have decent table selection, but I tilt a bit. Nothing major, I just got impatient. Also ignore the glass and such crashing in mid video. I was being a little clumsy at the same time.

2/21/08 - 67 Minutes $25NL 6 Max

A poker 30 day challenge???

I want to apply this 30 day challenge thing to poker somehow. But I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to say "I have to play 1000 hands/day for 30 days" because I tried that before and it leads to bad things. You end up just going through the motions and pretty much just playing bad poker when you are forced to play X hands per day.

I'll think about it over the lunch break.

Disappointed

I'm so disappointed this morning. Evidently Scott Fischman luckboxed his way into a victory during the the big blogger game and is amongst the leaders for the WSOP seats or whatever for the BBT3. That's not what is disappointing me, though. I'm disappointed that there aren't more whiny posts about it. C'mon folks, one of the biggest douches in poker luckboxed his way to a victory in a blogger tourney. You can do better than that!

I decided not to play the Big Game and use my $75 token for other purposes. The decision to not play any BBT3 events was a pure EV decision. For me, a WSOP seat is not a prize. Sure it would be nice to win millions of dollars, but the chances of that are slim. That being said, sitting beside 8000 stinky mouth breathers regurgitating bad beat stories isn't my idea of a vacation. Also, the fields in this event are tougher than your normal tourney because a lot of the players study the game more than your average poker player.

I'm done with tournaments for a while with the exception of a few. I will continue to play the Daily Doubles as I find time. I'm sure a double cash in these things are on the horizon. I'm not sure how many people do this on average, but splitting a couple grand isn't such a bad thing at this point for me. I also will continue to play the $2000 guaranteed Razz tourney because Oh man what a donk fest that tournament is! When 1/4 of the field have never heard of the game before, you are in good shape.

The rest of the time will be devoted to cash games this month. I really want to have a monster month results wise!

I hate Windows Media Player

This is the biggest piece of shit program ever. First, I was forced to upgrade to the "newest" and "greatest" version so I could watch my Netflix movies. Then I found out that I couldn't install the said newest version because my operating system (XP Media Center 2002) wasn't supported. So I had to do a bit of hacking to get that working.

Now the program only half ass works. And every once in a while I'll be watching a show and my PC will either lock up tight or just reboot. Awesome.

At least the HD streaming versions of Lost on ABC.com look amazing in it.

Loose change freeroll

I'm glad I'm winding down on this tournament kick. I'm getting bounced out of these things at a record pace anymore. I just lasted approximately 15 minutes in the Loose Change freeroll. There were 494 contestants with a > $5000 prize pool, so there was a great overlay. Add in the fact that only 3 people out of the 9 at my starting table were actually there and you got some Wowness to the tournament.

I was able to double up early, taking out 1 of the 2 other opponents at the table. Then the table broke and there were some actually people playing at the other one. I then proceeded to run my AQ into AK and then my AT into AJ and got bounced out early. It's a turbo tourney, so you can't just sit around and expect to get paid. My strategy is to go home early or build up a huge stack. I have went home early every week so far.

Oh well, back to the cash games I go.

New 30 Day Challenge

The no caffeine/water kick has been going so good that I thought I'd try another 30 day challenge. This time, the challenge is to not eat out for my lunches or breakfasts for 30 days. At the beginning of the month, I started tracking my expenses and it took no time to realize that a good percentage of my money was being wasted on eating out, especially at lunch time. Not too long after my realization, Ciff @ Chez Cliff (Formerly Changing my Direction) wrote an article detailing just my problem.

So, the 30 day challenge starts tomorrow and will run throughout the duration of March and hopefully/mostly through life. I went to the grocery store today and spent about $80 on groceries. I was completely empty, so I figure I'll spend about $20-$25 a week to keep things stocked up from that point forth.

I've already packed my lunches for the week with the exceptions of making my sandwiches. I figure making a ham sandwich wouldn't be so great after sitting in the fridge for 5 straight days, so I'll make them on a daily basis. However, I already have my chips divided up and put into individual bags. I also have the grapes cleaned and pre-bagged as well as some cheese.

I pretty much took the same menu as Clifford. 2 Sandwiches, fruit and cheese. My menu consists of 2 ham/cheese sandwiches, some pringles, grapes, and a banana. I figure this will be a fairly health meal, much healthier than double cheeseburgers from McDonald's $1 menu. Also, much cheaper in the long run.

I'm expecting to gain in the health department and in the wallet as well. I figure instead of lunch costing nearly $6 a day plus another $5 for breakfast, I'll be down to about $1 day for breakfast and maybe $3 a day for lunch. A savings of about 64% ($7/day). That adds up to about $210 month. Not a huge amount, but a definite cut.

Conservatively, if I take $80 for the 1st week and $25/week thereafter, I'm spending $155 for lunch in a given month as opposed to $330 by eating out.... so that's a savings of $175/month or $2100/year. That's conservatively speaking. I'm expecting the savings to be closer to $200/month or $2400/year.

And of course all of this is just gravy compared to the health benefits of this challenge (especially when coupled with my water challenge). I'll be munching on bananas and grapes instead of french fries. I'll be munching on honey ham instead of grease burgers with cheese. I'm going to weigh in the morning just to check so I can check my progress as the challenge progresses.

I love this 30 day challenge thing. You can use it in so many aspects of life and 30 days is not a huge number. I'm sure some things might not stick forever (like the caffeine thing... I'm sure I'll be drinking caffeine again when the challenge is over), but they allow you to see what it's like living a certain lifestyle. I can see the benefits of cutting caffeine, so I'll continue to do so even after the challenge is over....just not completely. The same with fast food. I can't tell you that I'll never go through a McD's drive-thru again in my life because that would probably be a lie. However, I bet this challenge shows enough tremendous benefits that I will stick with it 95% of the time even after the 30 day challenge is over.

I should just do what I say I'm gonna do

I decided not to quit. Every time I study a certain concept about poker, I immediately want to hit the tables and apply it. I decided to do some cash games for a while. I started out horribly, dropping a few buyins in no time. However, I rebounded because the table selection was extra good tonight and squeaked out a decent profit.

I also had this $75 token burning a hole in my pocket. The 12:00 $23K KO tourney was calling my name. I knocked a guy out early with my AJ vs. his flush draw that didn't get there. $15 ship it. I've basically been staying the same since then. I did suck out once though when I raised pre-flop, SB called. Flopped a set. I potted, he called. Turn brought 3rd diamond. I pushed, he called. He had flush. River paired the board. I fist pumped.

One thing I've been toying with is using a chick avatar on Full Tilt. I'm not sure how many people actually use the avatars, but I'm sure a lot of the fish have no concept of how to turn them on or off. Let's face it, I wonder how they get out of bed without hurting themselves in the mornings sometimes. Anyway, since I have a non-gender specific screen name, people just assume I'm a chick. I got my first compliment this evening. Some dude said I had nice tits. I obliged and then proceeded to iso-raise him mercilessly.

Anyway, there are 190 people left in this KO tournament, and I am about 1/2 the average chipstack. I've been card deal for like the last 37 hours too. I'm tired and hungry and really not in the mood. Maybe a double up will cheer me up.

***

And why is it that the dumbest douche bag monkey throwing idiot at the table is always the one that has the HUGE chipstack? It's simple, play every hand, put money in, suck out, profit.

That was a hoot

Daily Double A was fun. I got bounced out on like the 6th hand. I got it all in with my QT vs QJ on a Q,T,x board. Turn...J

I had just a few chips left after that and got QQ. I shoved, got called in eleventy-two places and came in last against everyone elses rags that made 2 pair.

Oh well, still got B and the Razz thing. Still got decent chips, but haven't had a playable hand in a LONG while. Surflexus is ripping shit loose though and is 2nd in chips.

***

And down I go in Daily Double B. I almost made it 20 minutes in that one. JJ < KK.

***

It's official. I'm becoming a professional Razz player immediately. You can find me on the cash Razz tables at the completion of this tournament. That is all.

***

Crap, now I see the downside of this game. Over 3/4 of my stack gone when I hit 4 to a wheel on 4th street and can't make a fucking 8 by the river.

***

Chip and a chair. I went from 1.5 big bets to above average stack.

***

Still in this thing. On life support with 29 left. I think I'm going to take the rest of the night off as far as playing. I'm going to study for a bit.

I have got to play more Razz tournies

Jesus Christ, these people bought into a Razz Tournament. You'd think they would know the rules first. 1st hand of the tourney:

Full Tilt Poker Game #5461876824: $2,000 Guarantee (41411845), Table 5 - 30/60 Ante 5 - Limit Razz - 20:16:00 ET - 2008/03/01
Seat 1: totoff17 (2,000)
Seat 2: Goolies (2,000)
Seat 3: J 4 Joe (2,000)
Seat 4: WiredAces77 (2,000)
Seat 5: homelander (2,000)
Seat 6: Chuckus (2,000)
Seat 7: Vinny Dallas (2,000)
totoff17 antes 5
Goolies antes 5
J 4 Joe antes 5
WiredAces77 antes 5
homelander antes 5
Chuckus antes 5
Vinny Dallas antes 5
*** 3RD STREET ***
Dealt to totoff17 [Jd]
Dealt to Goolies [Th]
Dealt to J 4 Joe [3c]
Dealt to WiredAces77 [6s 8c] [Jc]
Dealt to homelander [2h]
Dealt to Chuckus [Kc]
Dealt to Vinny Dallas [5d]
Chuckus is high with [Kc]
Chuckus has 15 seconds left to act
Chuckus has timed out
Chuckus brings in for 10
Vinny Dallas calls 10
totoff17 completes it to 30
Goolies folds
J 4 Joe calls 30
WiredAces77 folds
Vinny Dallas: lol
Chuckus is sitting out
homelander calls 30
Chuckus folds
Vinny Dallas calls 20
*** 4TH STREET ***
Dealt to totoff17 [Jd] [Tc]
Dealt to J 4 Joe [3c] [Kh]
Dealt to homelander [2h] [7h]
Dealt to Vinny Dallas [5d] [5c]
homelander bets 30
Vinny Dallas calls 30
totoff17 calls 30
J 4 Joe calls 30
*** 5TH STREET ***
Dealt to totoff17 [Jd Tc] [6c]
Dealt to J 4 Joe [3c Kh] [Qc]
Dealt to homelander [2h 7h] [9s]
Dealt to Vinny Dallas [5d 5c] [2c]
homelander bets 60
Vinny Dallas calls 60
totoff17 calls 60
J 4 Joe calls 60
*** 6TH STREET ***
Dealt to totoff17 [Jd Tc 6c] [Ac]
Dealt to J 4 Joe [3c Kh Qc] [Kd]
Dealt to homelander [2h 7h 9s] [2s]
Dealt to Vinny Dallas [5d 5c 2c] [4c]
totoff17 checks
J 4 Joe bets 60
homelander has 15 seconds left to act
homelander folds
Vinny Dallas raises to 120
totoff17 calls 120
J 4 Joe calls 60
*** 7TH STREET ***
totoff17 checks
J 4 Joe checks
Vinny Dallas bets 60
totoff17 calls 60
J 4 Joe calls 60
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Vinny Dallas shows [Qh Ad 5d 5c 2c 4c As] Q,5,4,2,A
totoff17 mucks
J 4 Joe mucks
Vinny Dallas wins the pot (1,065) with Q,5,4,2,A
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,065 | Rake 0
Seat 1: totoff17 mucked [Qs Qd Jd Tc 6c Ac Js] - Q,J,T,6,A
Seat 2: Goolies folded on 3rd St.
Seat 3: J 4 Joe mucked [Jh 4d 3c Kh Qc Kd Ah] - Q,J,4,3,A
Seat 4: WiredAces77 folded on 3rd St.
Seat 5: homelander folded on 6th St.
Seat 6: Chuckus folded on 3rd St.
Seat 7: Vinny Dallas showed [Qh Ad 5d 5c 2c 4c As] and won (1,065) with Q,5,4,2,A

a few hands later...

Full Tilt Poker Game #5461936724: $2,000 Guarantee (41411845), Table 5 - 30/60 Ante 5 - Limit Razz - 20:20:54 ET - 2008/03/01
Seat 1: totoff17 (1,880)
Seat 2: Goolies (2,510)
Seat 3: J 4 Joe (1,355)
Seat 4: WiredAces77 (1,925)
Seat 5: homelander (1,625)
Seat 6: Chuckus (1,965), is sitting out
Seat 7: Vinny Dallas (2,740)
totoff17 antes 5
Goolies antes 5
J 4 Joe antes 5
WiredAces77 antes 5
homelander antes 5
Chuckus antes 5
Vinny Dallas antes 5
*** 3RD STREET ***
Dealt to totoff17 [Ks]
Dealt to Goolies [6c]
Dealt to J 4 Joe [Kd]
Dealt to WiredAces77 [9h Qc] [Ts]
Dealt to homelander [3c]
Dealt to Chuckus [Th]
Dealt to Vinny Dallas [6h]
totoff17 is high with [Ks]
totoff17 brings in for 10
Goolies folds
J 4 Joe calls 10
WiredAces77 folds
homelander has 15 seconds left to act
Chuckus has returned
homelander folds
Chuckus folds
Vinny Dallas folds
*** 4TH STREET ***
Dealt to totoff17 [Ks] [3d]
Dealt to J 4 Joe [Kd] [Ad]
J 4 Joe has 15 seconds left to act
J 4 Joe checks
totoff17 bets 30
J 4 Joe calls 30
*** 5TH STREET ***
Dealt to totoff17 [Ks 3d] [4s]
Dealt to J 4 Joe [Kd Ad] [Ac]
totoff17 bets 60
J 4 Joe calls 60
*** 6TH STREET ***
Dealt to totoff17 [Ks 3d 4s] [Jh]
Dealt to J 4 Joe [Kd Ad Ac] [Ah]
totoff17 bets 60
J 4 Joe raises to 120
totoff17 folds
Uncalled bet of 60 returned to J 4 Joe
WiredAces77: awesome
J 4 Joe mucks
J 4 Joe wins the pot (355)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 355 | Rake 0
Seat 1: totoff17 folded on 6th St.
Seat 2: Goolies folded on 3rd St.
Seat 3: J 4 Joe collected (355), mucked
Seat 4: WiredAces77 folded on 3rd St.
Seat 5: homelander folded on 3rd St.
Seat 6: Chuckus folded on 3rd St.
Seat 7: Vinny Dallas folded on 3rd St.

****

Honest to God, half the table thinks they are playing stud. Needless to say, I'm the chipleader right now :)

$75 token complete

The first thing on my agenda this morning was to turn one of my $24 tokens into a $75 token. Mission complete.

Now, I'm off to clean my butt and bowl in the big handicap tournament today. Hopefully I can catch a nice score from it and have a live poker bankroll as a result :P

Update

I cashed in Daily Double A for a small amount. I fizzled out in the B around 660th. I'm currently sitting on a nice chipstack in the 50/50 though with 277 left.

*Edit*

And I'm fucking starving!

***

This guy on my left is very good and making my life miserable right now. Tough table.

***

In the money...hanging by the skin of my teeth.

***

Bah out in 147th.

In

I'm in the 50/50. I played both $14+1 satellites. Jeciimd took me out in the first one when my 77 ran into his AA. In the 2nd one I had the pleasure of sucking out on him as I took him out when my QJo > his ATo. I managed to pretty much fold my way in from there.

BTW

So far today, I've taken 1st in a Limit MTT and won 2 heads up double table token races and also won a 2 table token race. I did lose one 1 table heads up token race though. Overall it has been a good day. Now if I can pull some magic off in the Daily Doubles tonight!

I'm also going to try to satellite into tonight's 50/50. Maybe I can pull off a Hoy there too.

T$

So, Full Tilt has this cool tournament $ feature now. Yet a tournament token is not treated as tournament $. So basically this feature is useless. Awesome job guys.

LOLLimitDOnkaments

Put another MTT notch under my belt for this month. My 2nd MTT victory in as many weeks (I think). Again, this was was about as lackluster as winning the Donkarama rebuy a couple weeks ago.

Why can't I do this in a real tournament?

All in all, I feel I played the perfect tournament. It was limit which made it much easier on my since limit is my comfort zone. I started off slow running my KK into AA and losing a lot of my stack. But I continued to grind it out. I played a LAGGy game in this tournament trying to either win it or go home. I had some swings and survived a few all ins. The only big suckout came when I had to go all in KJ offsuit preflop with 3 people in the pot. The flop came 3, 4, 5. A bet and a fold later, I'm looking at a set of 4's. The turn came a 7 and river a 6 and I fist pump as we chop it up.

The final table was a breeze. There was one guy playing LAGgier than I, but he was what I would call maniacal. No concept of position. Just blindly flinging poo in the middle of the table. I took most of the chips from him. When it got down to heads up, things were simple. The guy was way too tight and folded 3 out of every 4 hands. I raised 100% of the time and took down most pots uncontested. He eventually let himself get down to nothign and I finished him off with my 76 offsuit.