Slow month - need a vacation

September has been a shitty month thus far - I was down on the month playing up until Monday when I went on a +9500 2 day swing....I took 4th in the 40K Stars for 5k, then the next day took 3rd in the 30k KO on FTP for a little over 4k...I've also had some cashes here and there under 2k to keep me moving....At this point on the month Im +3k with a dismal 11.49% ROI (didn't count my 5500 aruba seat in this figure)....oh well thats MTT poker - I've been feeling alot better about my late game....Ive been getting deep in alot and just getting unlucky - hopefully before the month ends I can get my profits to atleast 10k, but even if I don't I don't mind where Im at.......I've gotten in roughly 230-240 MTTs during the month, so Im definitely on pace to match last month of around 320-340...at this point Im just trying to do no more than 8 tabling, and maybe as I get more comfortable with MTTs/get better, I'll start 10-12 tabling, but for now I'd rather play less volume and keep a higher ROI....Aruba is right around the corner - I leave a week from this Sunday and I'm very excited...this month has been killer on me and I really need a relaxing vacation and a shot at big money with nothing to lose. It really is a great time down there and I wouldn't go anywhere else for vacation. I'll be gone for 6 days, so when I get back I'm going to start grinding real hard so I can keep my volume up for the month. I'm dieing to hit a big score and plan on working real hard to get it. Stay tuned.

won aruba package

september has started and so has a downswing....ive been bricking everything even though ive been happy with my game....ive improved alot in august - reviewed alot on PXF and talked to better players about HHs I had questions on....obviously I have a ton to learn but im feeling good about my playing now - my goals are really to crush AP/Cake and be a decent winner on FTP/Stars - its funny how different Stars and FTP are from AP/Cake - a big winner on AP could be breakeven on those sites, or even a decent AP winner could be a longterm loser....it really is a different ballgame and if your able to beat FTP/Stars at a decent ROI then beating AP is a joke..

so I ended up shipping the 20,000 credit entry Aruba package, where 40 entered and they gave one package away...I played pretty standard the whole way - there was one player who continually would open so eventually I got around to 3 betting him light but found he would not fold to 3 bets so after those spots decided to nit against him...4 handed he was CLin - I basically tried to play some pot control against him postflop and try to see cheap showdowns with my marginal hands....eventually though he never slowed down, so I picked up KK and had him stack me up to the CL.....I took him out and came into HU with 80k to 40k at 500/1k......eventually i got him down to 20k and got A8 in against KQ and held....see u in aruba

August coming to an end - weight loss/get in shape goal for September

So August is coming to an end and I figured Id post up the stats along with my weight loss plan for the month....the week started off good with a +3k day on Monday, but I leaked back that profit throughout the week, which included bricking the 1k on tilt and the 1k on ap....always fun! here was my bustout hand in the 1k

Stage #1853895732 Tourney ID 4570889 Holdem Multi Normal Tournament No Limit 300 - 2009-08-26 23:59:58.006 (ET) [ 2009-08-26 23:59:58 ]
Table: 17 (Real Money) Seat #6 is the dealer
Seat 6 - Z06FANATIC (6,809 in chips)
Seat 7 - BREAST MILK (4,205 in chips)
Seat 9 - LOCKDOWNTEX (11,435 in chips)
Seat 1 - THEBUBBLE1 (12,397 in chips)
Seat 2 - KRS528 (10,508 in chips)
Seat 3 - ALBARI (9,694 in chips)
Seat 4 - BOANERGES7 (12,735 in chips)
Seat 5 - POTROAST00 (8,896 in chips)
THEBUBBLE1 - Ante 25
KRS528 - Ante 25
ALBARI - Ante 25
BOANERGES7 - Ante 25
POTROAST00 - Ante 25
Z06FANATIC - Ante 25
BREAST MILK - Ante 25
LOCKDOWNTEX - Ante 25
BREAST MILK - Posts small blind 150
LOCKDOWNTEX - Posts big blind 300
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to Z06FANATIC [6c 6s]
THEBUBBLE1 - Folds
KRS528 - Folds (Preselection)
ALBARI - Folds (Preselection)
BOANERGES7 - Folds
POTROAST00 - Folds (Preselection)
Z06FANATIC - Raises 700 to 700
BREAST MILK - Folds
LOCKDOWNTEX - Raises 2,150 to 2,450
Z06FANATIC - All-In(Raise) 6,084 to 6,784
LOCKDOWNTEX - Calls 4,334
*** FLOP *** [3d 4c 8d]
*** TURN *** [3d 4c 8d] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [3d 4c 8d 3h] [Qh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Z06FANATIC - Shows [6c 6s] (Two Pair, sixes and threes)
LOCKDOWNTEX - Shows [4s 4d] (Full house, fours full of threes)
LOCKDOWNTEX Collects 13,918 from main pot

I'll be playing about 20-25 mtts on Monday to end the month as well as a 25 seat qualifier to Aruba on Sunday. Ill update my monthly stats if I make anything significant. With that said here's where i stand for August

+13,738.02 MTT profit - 36.21% ROI
+1988.29 in staking
+1000 credits for cash
+554 in rakeback

+16,950.31

As far as the weight loss deal - I got aruba coming up early october and want to get in better shape so I decided to do a 1 month workout/diet plan. I've also been feeling really lazy lately and want to start feeling more active - even when I go to the gym these days I get lazy and leave alot earlier than I should. So my plan is to start on Monday and go one month - I want to hit the gym 4-5 days a week, trying to do 3 miles of running and a short weight training session as well - shouldn't take more than 45 minutes for everything. Eating Im going to keep a low calorie diet with 1 day a week being a maintenence day, and 1 day every 2 weeks being a day where I can eat above maintenence....Im not looking to lose any crazy amount of weight - Im sure 10 pounds is my best bet if that. Regardless though any weight loss would be great, and if it makes me feel more alive Ill definitely enjoy that. Hopefully I can crush that goal and also crush the tables.

First 10k day

Finally had a nice day in MTTs...last thurs I profited like 10.5k after winning the 30k sniper on ap for 7500, taking 2nd in a stars 20r for 3800, and a couple cashes here and there....it felt nice finally to show some decent profit for the month, as I was hovering around breakeven/+3k......Ive been looking at some HH's from top players along with talking to people about tournament poker and watching alot of PXF vids, so I'm definitely improving here and there.....I've also really stepped up the aggression on AP - the site is super soft and the players are very passive compared to Stars/FTP...Actually theres alot of adjustments to make playing AP vs the main sites - I open alot lighter, play more aggressively post flop, and call shoves alot lighter. Its funny how I can play a tournament like the 30k sniper and never get 3 bet outside of big hands, then play a 20 rebuy on Stars and have guys 3 betting me so light....Its definitely a big change, and alot of times I find myself having to fold hands that I would normally snap so quick on Stars....I've also started staking my stakee again - I talk with him alot about poker and he plays very well - hes already staked on stars/tilt, so I took him up on AP. My only problem is I worry he won't put in the volume, but if he does he should have no problem crushing...tomorrow I got the 1k to play on AP that I qualified earlier this week and the 80k sniper.....my only goal with these tournaments is to play semi well and not make dumb mistakes - I make a terrible play in the 6 max AP 20k today that I was pissed about, so hopefully Im not lighting money on fire tomorrow...heres the stats for the month thus far

+13,427
52% ROI
234 MTTs played

Not the August start I was looking for

August has started a little slow - now I cant really complain as I'm still up for the month +2915 with a 24% ROI, I just expected a little better....Ive had one win on the month thus far, and a ton of getting to the final table and not getting top 3.....I don't think people realize how much MTTers spend in buy ins each week - I didn't even realize it till I started doing this full time....This month I've already spent 12,100 in buy ins, and even with 15,000 in cashes Im only up a couple grand. Crazy to think about. The one thing that I have felt good about lately is my late game play - I use to mentally think about the payouts and how much more I'd make moving up a certain place - after making alot of FT's with dissapointment, I guess I dont get my hopes up anymore when Im deep with two tables left....My goal is to win and I could careless about cashing for 2k, consideirng that just covers a day of buy ins....Hopefully my winning attitude translates over to actually winning some more tournaments :(

I also bought a new external monitor - its a 25" by Hanspree - some no name, but it was 250 bucks and does wonders for how many tables I can do. Now I can 10 table with basically no overlap, where before 8 tables was my max. If I can fit 4-5 more MTTs in per day that would be great and definitely worth the investment....My goal with the new monitor is to get in 25 MTTs a day, and try to do 100 a week. At 100 mtts a week, 400 a month, I should be able to invest 40,000 in MTT buy ins, and even at a 50% ROI thats 20,000 a month. I'm pretty sure thats possible to do, considering sites like AP/Cake where I do 7 MTTs of the 25 a day are prob 80% ROI sites, I just don't know what I can expect on Stars/FTP longterm. Either way I'm going to continue the MTTs for a while and see how things work out. Wish me luck.

July wrapup

July has came to an end, and because OPR/PokerDB are pretty inaccurate I don't have an exact figure on profit. PokerDB missed a ton of FTP this month - even AP looks low, and since Cake isn' t tracked it makes things even harder....I could rummage through account balances but Im too lazy so I'll try to give a ballpark figure. I did well once again this month on AP, lost on Stars, slightly up on FTP, and maybe even on Cake? I think Im looking at +7k roughly, so we'll go with that number for now. For August I'll be able to give exact amounts as a fellow poker player made a great spreadsheet where I just enter in the buy in and the result and the excel sheet calculates the rest....

Last week I had a brief 3 day trip to the Borgata in AC- we ended up playing about 10-12 hours of poker over the 3 days - all 2/5 NL. I didn't feel like getting tied down to MTTs while I was out there, and the 2/5 NL game is soft so I figured I'd give it a shot. I ended up maybe +450 on the trip - Im easily a winner in the game but shear boredom made me make some -ev plays...Another issue is figuring out chip stacks - I had one hand where an aggressive player opened in MP1 to 20 or 25 pre, 1 guy calls, I call out of BB with Q10s. Flop comes 244 with 2 spades. First guy checks , I check, original raiser bets something like 60 into a 80 dollar pot....I take a look over at his stack and decide to make it 175 to go with the intention of calling his shove.....It looked like he started the hand with 300 or so, so really the only course of action here is to c/r commit myself and hopefully get him to lay down on the flop here.....at this point he goes all in and I ask the dealer how much more it is to me......Dealer says something like 245 more to you - d'oh. Apparently he had like 450 to start the hand, and I had that covered, so here I am stacking off a FD for nearly 100 bbs effective, oops.....Anyways he turns over KK, I dont get there and now Im realoading another 500....its funny how when the money is infront of you how much things change - online I could careless about 500 but taking it out of your wallet and placing it on the felt is a little different feeling...

It was a fun though and a nice change of pace...It is wierd getting use to the chips though - alot of times I was making a bet and taking forever to count out as alot of times your dealing with the 5 dollar chips and they love to stick together....It definitely felt akward....another thing is how dirty the poker room is - those chips have been all over the place and I dont think they ever clean them or replace them for long periods of time....playing live poker and eating food immediately after with your hands is -ev and I wish I washed my hands more when I was down there...

more to come half way through the month - now back to losing this ftp 50r1r1a

Southcjay hits big, Im shooting blanks

I've been having a good time with MTTs this month even though I'm not up all that much (roughly 7-8k at best)....They really have renewed my interest in poker and I actually look forward to starting them when I wake up. There's not a better feeling then winning a tournament, especially a larger one with a bigger field. Of course when you win the tournament you have to realize the ridiculous amount of luck that went your way, but knowing you were #1 of that field for that day is a good feeling. So yesterday my buddy jay won the FTP 50k and came 2nd in a 50r1r1a on Stars for a nice +20-21k day. Thats always nice to see when I had a -1100 day :(....He was due though he had been running like shit in MTTs the past month. Even though I had a -1100 day, I felt great about my game and had no spots where I regretted how it went down. I made one final table yesterday, the afternoon 30r on FTP, but busted 9th after losing 2 flips with 10 people left. I came into the final table with like 7 bbs and was basically out 5 minutes later. I also was deep in the 40k gtd on Tilt but had AK cracked by AQ and some other nonsense go down. Oh well, thats tournament poker. I've been watching a ton of videos lately on PXF from the likes of JohnnyBax, Sheets, Rizen and a couple more. I gotta say, if you don't subscribe to a training site your missing out on a ton of positive EV....Even if your a big winner in whatever game you do, its always good to watch other sucessful players and how they approach things. I think alot of people don't join training sites simply based on ego - to think spending 20/mo is not worth what is available on the sites is ridiculous.

Next week Ill be spending 3 days in AC with Southcjay at the Borgata. AC in my opinion is a pretty big dump outside the Borgata - the other hotels are garbage and the area is very ghetto. Our plan is to play a couple of the daily tournaments over there (they got a 340 on Friday), and probably some cash games. I haven't had much success live even though the players are terrible, so I'll be looking to tear up the 2/5 NL game and maybe higher if things are going well. My postflop has definitely improved over the past month or two so Im sure I could easily beat the 2/5 NL game longterm, and probably a slight winner at the 5/10 NL. Its funny because online I'd prob barely a slight winner at 1/2 NL and probably a loser at 2/4, yet in person the stakes are alot easier. After that my birthday is coming around and I'll prob relax with my gf for that one. Can't beleive Im going to be 24 and still playing online poker. What a waste I am.