Thursday, December 10, 2009

Luckiest of the lucky

It's amazing how people so lucky in life can feel so sorry for themselves that they aren't multi millionaires. We are the luckiest 1% in the world and I personally feel I'm in the top 1% of that 1%. I certainly need to remind myself that even though it's abundantly clear after 5 seconds of thought.

Not sure where I'm going with this. Guess I just want to start to be more satisfied with life and not to sweat the small stuff. That small stuff includes day to day poker swings. I also need to stop looking at others that make tons of money and think they are somehow luckier and/or happier.

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

BTW, Poker is still going great even though those 2 paragraphs might make you think different.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Back again

Plan on posting more often. A quick update. Haven't bought a house yet. Moved to Florida. Got engaged. Still not playing enough hands a month.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Thinking of buying a house

I've started looking into buying a house. 2 years ago I was fairly certain I was not going to buy a house in 5-10 years but things change. The market was so inflated then that I would've probably lost at least 10% of my investment if I bought then. Since the market is so beat down now I'm looking into it more. I really want a dog and a place I can call my own.

Something about being completely independent makes me smile. Right now, I'm paying some guy money for his mortgage. Why? The me from 2 years ago would say renting gives you an easier out if you decide to move away or travel for an extended period. Well I don't think I'm ever going to be moving away and having my own place will help me from doing the one activity I despise, moving.

I won't be buying until at least 2009 so hopefully real estate prices continue to fall until then. Hoping to have 100% of the cost of the house saved up by then(looking at homes in the 150-200k range). I'm not going to pay it all off but will put a huge down payment down. I figure it's going to be a complete bitch to get a decent mortgage rate with the current state of the economy and the fact that my income comes from poker. Luckily, my credit rate is flawless.

With all that said, I need to get my grinding shoes fitted. My goal for next month is 25k profit. Really confident that I can make more but don't want to set the goal so high that I end up quitting halfway through. Alright, I'm off to GRIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, September 29, 2008

Back again

Not much has been going on since I got back from Vegas. I only played a few events out there and decided to skip the main event. Tournaments aren't nearly as fun as they used to be. I used to look at the big prize and dream of winning it and going on to become a sponsored pro. Nowadays, all I have to do is think of how much I hate sitting in a casino playing poker and that stops me from entering any tournaments. It's weird, less than 3 years ago all I wanted to do was play live tournaments for a living and now I'd rather drive a dump truck all day They glamorize it so much on tv that people don't realize that it's not even a tenth as exciting as they make it out to be. Almost always it's a big fucking disappointment or a huge tease. I don't enjoy either.

I've really settled into cash. The idea that I can play and quit on a whim is amazing. It's also way easier on me mentally. Sit n go's would stress me out so much, especially during downswings. Downswings for cash stress me out but not nearly as much. IMO, it's a lot easier to tell in cash when you are getting royally f'ed up the ass by the cards. For whatever reason knowing I'm playing good and getting screwed is much easier mentally.

I'm making a vow to update this thing on a regular basis. I've got some future topics in mind that have nothing to do with poker. A lot of stuff about life and fun trip reports. Stay tuned.

Michael

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Chilling in Vegas

Didn't make as much as I wanted to in May due to not getting in very many hours. The weather was amazing in May and I spent a ton of time outside, hiking, playing tennis, bbqing, etc. It would've been nice to make a ton of money but I'll gladly take the 8k or so I made and the good times I had.

I'm now out in vegas for the WSOP. However, I've only played in a few events and haven't cashed in any of them. For whatever reason I'm just not very into the Series this year. The more I'm around live poker the more I dislike it. It's just not as fun to play as it was when I was first learning. It also is a complete grind since the variance on the tournaments are so ridiculous. I'm convinced the only reason to play live events over online is to get a sponsership. Still trying to decide if I want to satellite my way into the main event. Almost played a mega satellite at the Rio today but just wasn't in the mood.

Online has been going really well for me this month. I'm slowly moving up and taking more shots at bigger games when I notice a fish. Played some 25/50 the other day and made 3k in less than 100 hands. Also crushed 10/20 for a bit. I'm not that comfortable playing that high just yet so I really need to grind the lower stakes to give me a little cushion in case I run bad at the higher stakes. I'm excited to play a lot in the next couple of months so I can put a lot of money away for the future.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Time to set some lofty goals

For whatever reasons I always set goals and never attain them. Most of them have to do with a certain number of sng's or certain number of hands. I think it psychologically hinders my ability to play as I feel like I'm forced to play to meet my goals. Ultimately, I go on a downswing, in part from the stress of trying to get my hours in, and don't achieve my goal.

The goals that I have attained are more material and I'm sure more fulfilling than getting in a certain # of hands. In 2006 when I still had my 8-5 job, I set a goal to qualify for the World Series. Through a lot of luck I achieved that goal in late May. Not only was I really proud that I was going to be in the "Main Event" but it also gave me the confidence to make the leap into playing fulltime and quitting my desk job.

Next major goal was set in Sept/Oct of that year. I had always wanted to go to Australia and was trying to find a reason to go. Eventually, I started talking to a 2+2er that lives over there and he invited me to stay and grind in his apartment right by the beach. There's was no way I could turn it down and by December I was sipping cocktails on Bar Beach in Newcastle Australia. One of the coolest experiences of my life. It wasn't really a "work" goal but one of those things that you always tell yourself that you are going to do.

After that it was Vegas in June of 2007. I wanted to stay in Vegas and play in a lot of events last summer. My year had been really shitty up until I won a sat from Stars and that 12k gave my bankroll enough boost that I could take some shots in some of WSOP events. Before I went out there my goal was to final table an event. I knew it was a longshot but eventually ran really good in the NL Shootout and final tabled it to get 5th. Boom!

I did fail in one of my major goals in that I didn't get to play in any of the EPT event's that I wanted to. Really wanted to satellite into the London event but it wasn't meant to be as I got headsup for a package only to get 2nd. However, I still made the journey to Europe and had some wonderful experiences, including surfing on one of the best beaches in all of Europe.

In december I won a main event package to the aussie millions which was really huge. I hadn't really tried that hard to win a package but there was a huge overlay tournament and I got really friggin lucky and won my package.

My next major goal is to make 30k next month, 20k to use at the WSOP this year and 10k so I don't feel bad if I go 0 for 20k in events. It's a very lofty goal as I'm going to have to grind a ton of cash and probably luckbox into a 5-10k score in a mtt. However, I'm fully confident that I'll make it. Will try to update along the way. Of course, if I'm losing hand over fist I'll probably never mention this goal ever again.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Sick = hard to play

So I went to the doctor's last Wednesday finally and found out I had Mono. It cost $200 which was really ridiculous as all the did was swab my mouth and take some blood. I was 95% sure I had mono but I had really started feeling terrible so I thought I'd get it confirmed just so I didn't have to worry about having some deadly disease.

Since then I've been taking it pretty easy but have started to feel a lot better. I'm back to working out eventhough the doc says I should take 4-6 weeks off. I had been sick for 2 weeks before I went so I think my body has pretty well fought off the virus.

Poker playing took a hit while I was sick. I'm up to about 20k hands this month with ~4k profit. Had a huge 2k+ day a few days ago eventhough I only played 1500 or so hands. Even now that I feel healthy I find it hard to play. Bad habits are hard to break and my work ethic continues to be shit.