First post of the year, woohoo! Just about everything here in Phoenix is going great. My first couple days back I was still stuck in holiday mode and I ended up eating junk and watching 300 episodes of The Office per day, but that was still pretty sweet anyways. Once I got started working out again I was in full golf/poker/workout mode. I was falling into a great groove with all three right before the holidays and I’ve kept it going nicely since I’ve been back. I managed to get myself into a solid daily schedule too, and I’m a type of person that needs that type of thing otherwise I end up like a lost puppy without a clue where to go or what to do. A standard day for me has been to wake up and play 50 sng’s, head out to the golf course for some practice and 18 holes til dark, home for dinner and 50 more sng’s, followed by whatever P90X workout I’m supposed to do then go to sleep. It doesn’t seem like much when I say it like that but I have barely any time to do “nothing” which is fine since I have nothing else to do other than waste time doing random internet things. Sometimes it’s kind of nice to not have a TV and a phone.
As for poker, I started this month on a 3,000 game stake for the $27s/$38s which I was excited about because I would be able to hit supernova by March and then I would be a rakeback champion along with an improved (I assumed) hourly. They went quite well off the start, I ran nicely and the games were soft, and then I just kept running into a wall, followed by a wall, followed by a wall, then a cliff that transformed into a neverending pit, so that has sucked. I’m down a bit over $1k on the month, but with $805 in FPP sats and bonuses I’ve managed to keep it close to breakeven. My HEM has missed a bunch of games but I am $2500 below EV over about 1100 games which is kind of sick considering it’s fairly low stakes. After I had my new worse day ever yesterday and lost around $800 my roll was getting pretty short so I figured I would just drop back to the $16s and crush away. It grosses me out a bit thinking that had I just stuck with $16s I’d be almost guaranteeing myself $6k/months with the volume I put in, but I was just unlucky to hit a bad patch on a short roll on a short term stake. Playing the $16s is going to help my life happiness as well. I normally separate my poker emotions from real life but I think it’s had a bit of an affect on me lately. I find myself getting upset on the golf course over trivial things, and generally acting like a baby out there, which I definitely wasn’t doing in November when things were going better in poker. The problem with poker right now is that I “need it” because I have a new set of golf clubs that I want to order immediately ($2500) and I have to pay before I order them, and they will take 4 weeks to get here. It’s making me mad just typing about it!!!! GIVE ME MONEY NOW I WANT MY GOLF CLUBS AND WANT TO RETIRE FROM POKER FOREVER!!!!! Sigh. On top of that I’ve been set on playing the Canadian Tour Q-School at the end of March in San Diego, and that costs $2800, along with the $30-$40k it will cost me to play on the Canadian Tour for the year. That 2nd part shouldn’t be a big deal though since I expect to be making cheques on top of playing poker on the road, but if I have to be cooped up in this place (IN PHOENIX, IN JANUARY) spending all my time playing poker so I can buy some golf clubs and play in golf tournaments the time I spend on golf will suffer and so will my game. In the next couple weeks, including today, I’m going to be busting out some 200 game days just so I can get money as fast as I can. Doing that for more than 2-3 days will completely rot my soul so I am going to make sure I get myself out on the course every couple days at least to stay sharp.
^^This is not completely accurate but it gives the general idea. I think I wasn’t playing that great at the start of the first dip and got into a bit of a snowball. Once I caught that and started focussing hard and playing well things didn’t want to co-operate with me, but that’s ok. I’ve mentioned this before but having downswings, or whatever negative thing happen to you can be nice sometimes because you can figure out where you were going wrong and be better the next time around.
I’m excited about the next little while, I just need to get back to making the steady $ I’m used to so I can do what I want, when I want. Phoenix is no place for a young man to be stressing balls.
Bye Mom.