I think I have a future in graphic design....

Matt was inspired by the railbirds that did MSpaintings of me and decided he needed to do one of me too.


I decided that it would be pretty fun to do one too so.....I wasted my ENTIRE night doing this stupid thing...

Oh, the one on the bottom is their real picture if you couldn't tell.

I am actually pretty proud of it for some reason.

I'm sorry, he isn't in right now.....

If you were coming to my blog to see my doctor I apologize....he didn't need to come today.

I thought for a while that I might not be able to keep the doctor away today, but it just took me a while to get going. I hovered between even and +$400 for a long time today and then towards the end of my session I started running hot again and ended up winning $1,189. I think this might officially qualify me as being on a heater. I am not exactly sure how much I have won, but it is somewhere around 12 or 13K in the last 12 days.

However, I did notice myself losing interest in playing today and doing other things while I was playing like chatting or searching the internet. This tends to happen when I go through long stretches of success and it is very dangerous. You feel like you can't lose no matter what you do and you let your guard down and stop playing as focused as you were. I am really proud to say that I can notice this stuff as it is happening and don't wait until it is too late to try to fix it. Usually, a small break from poker will cure it. So, tomorrow I am playing in the $1500 NL WSOP tourney. I know that isn't a break from poker, but it is something entirely different than grinding online. I might take one more day off to play golf after that and then back to crushing them.

I'm getting hungry so I am gonna go see what I can come up with.

Still running pretty hot.....

Last night after I wrote my blog I played for an hour or so and won another $712 so I actually did win enough to "keep the doctor away" by winning $1602 yesterday.

Today I was all prepared to play the $1500 NL event in the WSOP, but I goofed up pretty badly. I didn't even think about registering the night before, and when I showed up today there was about 100 people in line waiting to sign up as alternates. I certainly wasn't waiting in that line so that I could start an hour later than the rest of the field. So, I headed back home to grind online. I even got up extra early so I could get my swim in for the day before I played the tourney so I wouldn't miss a day of swimming if I made it deep.

It turned out to be another successful day of online poker for me. I continued to crush the PLO and capped PLO games. I won about $1600 today. At one point I was up about $2600 and then got all the way back to only being up about $400, but ended up winning around $1600 total.

A funny thing happened tonight while I was playing online. I was only playing one table and was pretty much just killing time. The railbirds are always asking to borrow $5 and stuff, but one guy was offering to draw a picture of you using mspaint for $6. So I told him I would take him up on his offer and another railbird noticed and offered to paint a picture of me too. I told them that if they were at least quality work I would send them each $6 and I would send the best one $8. I knew the would both be crushed if they didn't win so I just sent them both $8.

Here is my picture I sent them...
Here is what they painted....
and

I think the first one is much better, because the second one has nothing to do with the picture I sent. Also, the shirt he has me wearing is a lie!

Enjoy!

Same ole, Same ole......

More of the same today, which is a really good thing.

After I posted my blog last night I played a quick session and ran/played pretty badly and lost back about 800 of what I had won yesterday, but I had another solid day today.

I played golf today and shot another frustrating 80. That is all I ever shoot it seems. It doesn't matter how well or poorly I play I somehow end up shooting 80 at the end of the round. Sometimes it is 79 and sometimes it is 81, but it never seems to get any lower. I have been hitting the ball great lately, but I just can't seem to score very well. I think there are several reasons for that.

1. One of my best attributes of my golf game (poker too) is that I am a grinder and I don't give up or get angry easily.
2. In order for me to grind I like to be able to really take my time on certain shots and also each extra shot has to mean something (for example: a stroke play tourney).
3. We are usually not playing for any serious money (I hate gambling with friends for meaningful money) and I don't have anything except pride on the line.
4. With the people I play with in Vegas I feel like I am always holding up the group and I hate that feeling so I usually am a bit rushed on some shots that I would like to take some more time for. I am trying to get comfortable with playing a little faster, but it is tough when you have played a certain pace your whole life.

I am certainly not complaining though, just gathering my thoughts about how I can improve on my scoring. You can't beat playing TPC for free everyday and eventually I will get comfortable playing faster and I will start to score a little better. Hopefully, it is sooner rather than later. I feel like I am hitting it well enough to post some rounds around or maybe even under par....which would be pretty cool.

I played more PLO today and won $890, which isn't quite enough to keep the doctor away but it'll do.

I also tried to swim when I got home from golfing, but I had just eaten a club sandwich and it wasn't sitting too well so I had to cut it short.

I'll have to remember to swim on an empty stomach in the future or at least wait 30 minutes to get in the pool like they tell you when you are a kid.

Well, it is almost 1:00 am so you know what that means.....it is time to head to the grocery store to do some late night shopping. I need to get to bed at a decent hour if I can though, because I am thinking about playing in the $1500 NL WSOP tourney tomorrow if I can get up in time.

Once I start I don't stop....

I posted my first blog in a long time yesterday and I am making myself post another one today just to try to get myself back in the habit of doing it.

I woke up around noon today and started with my typical bowl of Resse's Peanut Butter Puffs cereal. I passed on golf today since I had already started playing poker when Nick decided to go. Unfortunately, I busted my Cake Poker account so I won't be able to play anymore on there. Its not really a big deal since I think people are having serious trouble getting money off there anyway. I also played some more PLO on Full Tilt while I was losing on Cake Poker and I continued to run super hot there. All total I ended up winning about $1,450 today which is very encouraging. I always jokingly say that $1,000 a day will keep the doctor away, but it does feel like I have made decent progress any time I win more than $1,000 in a day. I am averaging around $1K per day for the last 8 days in a row which is some very nice progress.

It was kind of a struggle to get myself to do my swimming today since I wasn't dying to get in the pool like I am when I get home from a day at the golf course. Once I get in the pool and start my swimming it isn't bad at all. Even though the swimming is a really tough cardio workout I find it pretty relaxing and I actually get to do a lot of thinking while I swim. Swimming is 100 times more enjoyable to me than running or riding a bike for several reasons.

• It doesn't hurt your feet or shins.
• You don't have to deal with sweat issues.
  
• You can take breaks whenever you want.
  
• It is kind of fun to practice having good swimming form (even though I have no idea what I am actually supposed to be doing).
  
• You don't ever feel hot, just out of breath and that is a good feeling to me.
  
• I look super cool in my goggles and ear plugs while I swim.

In case you were trying to imagine what I would look like in my sweet goggles, I set up the camera to get a picture of me while I was swimming. You might not recognize me in my goggles and swim cap, but here it is anyway....

I am finally making myself blog again.....

I had a little bit of a rough stretch of poker which never makes it much fun to blog in the first place, but I was also not blogging out of protest towards the crappy internet at our new house. I filmed about 11 minutes of video of our new house, but the file was too big to upload to youtube and would have taken about a year to upload at the speeds I am able to connect to the internet with. Anyway, it was very frustrating not being able to put that video in my blog, but I am still working on getting the file smaller so one day maybe all four of my readers will be able to see it.

Even though I still don't have the video ready, the blog must go on.....

Every year it is always hard to stay in grinding mode when the world series of poker rolls around. I see all of the money getting thrown around and hear about friends winning (and losing) HUGE sums of money in monster pots or ridiculous prop bets and it is hard to stay focused on putting in the work to grind out what seems like my insignificant $125 hourly rate or whatever I am making. Here we are almost finished with the month of June and I have played less than 50 hours of online poker for the whole month! Granted, I did play a lot more live poker this month, but that was rather unsuccessful and not nearly as profitable as it is for me to play online anyway. I did have some success in the only event I have played so far when I got 70th place in the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em event #3, but that was the first payout level and I only got back $2725. It was cool to have my first ever WSOP cash though (I've only played in one other event ever.....the main event in 2005 I think).

Anyway, I feel like I am getting back on track as far as the grinding mode goes. I have put in some decent hours online everyday for the last 7 days and have actually been running pretty well. I am up roughly $6,500 in the last week. I am finally getting settled into my new house and starting to get a somewhat decent routine going.

My standard day for the last three days has looked like this:

• Wake up around 10am, eat a bowl of Resse's Peanut Butter Puffs Cereal.
  
• Head to TPC Summerlin with Nick and play 18-36 holes of golf.
  
• Come home and immediately get in the pool.
• Do some serious cardio workout swimming for about 20 minutes.
  
• Lay on the raft in the pool for about 20 minutes thinking about how rough my life is (sarcasm should be noted here) and catching my breath from my swim.
  
• Eat some dinner
• Play online for 3-6 hours and WIN MONEY!
• Goof off with Nick and Channing and complain that we don't have anything fun to do until I go to bed around 3 or 4am.
  

I think I am going to actually play in the main event of the world series this year, but I will of course be selling a large percentage of myself, because I don't want to put up the whole $10K. I will keep you updated on my progress as far as that goes.

Some goals for the near future:

• Put in my best effort and hopefully cash in the Main Event if I play in it.
• Play AT LEAST 100 hours of online poker in the month of July (I noticed when looking at my poker tracker the other day that I have NEVER played over 100 hours of online poker in a month....I am so ashamed).
  

This blog has gotten way too long and I need to leave some stuff to talk about in my next blog or I may not blog for another month again!

Busy as a bee.....

I have been really busy lately moving houses and playing a lot of live poker. The internet has been screwy at our new house lately, but should be working better tomorrow. I will post a better blog with some pictures of the new place once I get some free time and the internet is fixed.