SippinCriss

A lot more is said than done. That nicely sums up the last 4-5 years of my life. Looking back to when I was 16 years old, if you asked me where I was going to be when I was 23 (almost 24!) I’d have told you the PGA Tour. That might be a little unrealistic, but had I actually stuck to the path I had planned on I’m sure I’d have at least some success in professional golf by now. As it is right now I haven’t even played in a professional event. So many times in the last few years I have planned on playing xx rounds of golf in the next few months, getting my handicap to a certain point by a certain date, making $x,xxx dollars in x months, losing xxxxxx lbs in x months, and just steadily falling short like it’s my job.

It’s not the worst thing though, had I actually stuck to everything I planned on I may have ended up having more success, but I’d also miss out on a lot of life in general, things I have learned about myself and others, and great times with my best friends and family. I think I have grown up a bit as well… more than I would have anyways, and I’m still young. They say a golfer peaks somewhere in his late 30’s/early 40’s. Steve Stricker is 43 (#2 in the world currently), and Vijay Singh became #1 in the world when he was 41. While I’ve been in Arizona I haven’t been as productive as I had planned to be, but it’s still been “fine.” It’s definitely miles better than it would have been had I still been in Canada. This hasn’t happened to me much in a while, but right now I’m making great use of my time and feeling like I am getting the most out of my day, and even better than that I can tell that it’s going to continue. I’ll find out soon enough if it actually will, but I just feel like enough is enough and it’s time to get it done.

Anyhoo, I’m pleased I’m getting back to the golf course every day. It actually wears me out pretty hard. Today I hit balls and chipped for an hour or so before my round, (68 woop woop) had some lunch, and then grinded a practice session for 3 hours. I went home completely dead, but I still had a 2 hour workout to do and 50 sng’s to play, but it was nothing a red bull couldn’t fix. A friend told me that red bull is like drinking gasoline, and it’s probably similiar health-wise so I’m going to put in an effort to cut it out of my diet, it’s just hard when it makes the difference between a nap, and a workout session and $. I’m going to make a small change in my weekend preflop strategy too and just tighten right up. I’m getting flatted and floated constantly with all sorts of garbage and it feels like it’s costing me some money, and even if it’s not it’s super annoying when loose morans keep flatting and floating me especially when I can’t make a pair or a draw. The games were great tonight though, if this dose of golf ends up being a bit much day in day out I might take a day off every week or two and just spend all of a Saturday shipping the nickels.

Also poker related, I recently found out that Stoxpoker is being merged with Cardrunners. As far as I know not every Stox coach will make it over to Cardrunners, which is a shame, but understandable. Since I’m going to be back in Canada in just over 4 weeks I’ve been looking forward to putting some videos out, so I’ll have to wait and see if they want me at Cardrunners. I’ll find out for sure sometime next week and post about it here when I find out.

Thanks for reading! If you guys haven’t heard of Mumford and Sons, then wtf r u doin? Check them out now! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay1z1Z0p6Xg

2k games in 10 days becomes 1,600 in 8 days, but no matter. In total I played 60.2 hours, and made $3325. Made the cashout for my new clubs, and now tomorrow I can FINALLY not be cooped up in here all day and enjoy the beautiful Phoenix weather out on the golf course where I belong. I CAN’T WAIT!!!!!

What a grind.

This is my plan as of 2 days ago. Money is a little tight, what with the whole economy and everything, and I’ve been stressing out about it especially while playing golf, so I decided I would just punish myself for a week or two and see what I could produce. I wanted to keep a steady daily mix of golf and poker, and I kind of need to, but first things first. If I don’t have the money to buy new clubs, enter q-school, and travel to tournaments, then it doesn’t matter a whole lot where my golf game is at.

For all you math wizzes out there, 2k games in 10 days is 200 games a day, which works out to about 7.5 hours of clicking buttons. It doesn’t seem so bad, especially if you don’t play poker, but it’s pretty draining to make a decision (fold) every 3 seconds for 7.5 hours. I already got myself behind yesterday and only played 150 games and didn’t help myself out much by losing $20. Sometimes days when I win/lose a small amount/breakeven can be satisfying if I was down $500 at one point, but I started off hot and just kept getting worse and worse. It really irks me to not ALWAYS be at my highest profit point, I’m just lucky I play low stakes and can usually hit that point every day or two.

Anyways… I’ve only put in a wimpy 175 games so far today and would like to get caught up on yesterday’s laziness, so I’m going to go play more.

I hope you’re all familiar with this beauty 90’s track from Soul II Soul, and it’s been in my head for the past couple weeks in getting myself prepared to my normal life, which can be difficult to fall back into when you go away from it for a while.

February was fantastic, I’ve never had more fun in a single month in my life. I went to Vegas, saw some of the best golfers in the world live, got to spend time with my family (except for my sister) hanging out here in Phoenix, doing the pink jeep tour in Sedona, checking out the Grand Canyon, Hollywood, Medieval Times, Disneyland and California Adventure, then up to Vancouver with some of my best friends to see an amazing Matt Mays concert, which was all capped off with Team Canada winning the gold medal in mens hockey and I was lucky enough to roam the streets of Downtown Vancouver afterwards. I spent some time yesterday youtubing reactions from Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal, if you’re Canadian I suggest you do the same, it will bring a smile to your face. It made me wish we had a camera set up where we were watching the game because it was total mayhem, grown men jumping up and down hugging and screaming, pretty sure there were even a tear or two shed… but then again there was a lot of dust in that apartment.

It’s time for me to get on my productive daily life grind, which should include 100 sng’s, 18 holes of golf w/ a couple hours of practice, and a 2 hr workout 3 days a week + cardio on my workout days off. Some days it’s hard to fit it all in even while making good use of time but it’s important I stick as close to it as possible. It’s pretty impressive how far off track you can get on vacation, “Sure I’ll have pizza 4 days in a row, I’m on vacation!” Luckily I don’t think I got too out of shape in a 3 week span so I should be able to get right back into form.

For you Stox guys who are reading my blog for the first time and wondering why I haven’t had any videos out recently, it’s because I’m a Canadian visiting the United States, and won’t be able to make any videos or do coaching until I return to Canada at the end of April. I’ve had a few questions about my golf as well, and my plans right now are to grind hard the next 3 months and then get through the Canadian Tour qualifying school at the end of May. Being in Phoenix and spending time with some solid players has given me a good idea of where my game needs to be to have success at the professional level, which is important and something I think a lot of guys like myself looking to make it as a professional don’t understand.