A Hell of a Day! Hell I say!

So, today is one of the craziest days I've encountered in quite some time.

Pokerwise, I took third at the finals for our local poker league winning $25. I was so close to taking it all down however, a couple unlucky flops when I was well ahead took me out. I went all in preflop short stacked against the chip leader with AJs vs. 35s and he hit the straight on the river. That said, it was the positive highlight of the day.

On the negative side, first, I had trouble getting my car started in the morning because the fuel gauge got stuck and I didnt realize I was out of gas. Then, on the way home from my daily happenings related to non-poker work, my engine blew up on I70 making the loudest noise, I've ever heard from a car, along with leaving a huge black cloud of smoke that completely masked the highway behind my car. Good news is that I've got a backup vehicle to use until I can save enough money to buy a new ride.

On top of that, I've been pretty much broke for the month, as I haven't worked and my seasonal employment doesn't start for several more days. I jumped on my Mountain Bike in the freezing cold weather and headed to taco bell to charge a few tacos on my credit card. Unfortunately, it was declinded. I then proceeded to spend my last $1.90 to my name on a cup of coffee and a peanut butter snickers before heading out to the final table of the tournament. I was starving and needed some energy to ensure I could play well. My final stop was the post office to see if a check that I've been waiting for to come in for weeks has arrived and thank goodness, it had. The last time I recall being this broke was after finishing my term in the Army and heading off to college in California. I was living on .99 cent jumbo jacks and working in a locksmith booth in Los Angeles.

Although my vehicle blew up, I had no cash to my name, I really didn't sweat it! The check showed up in the mail, I pedelled my bike down to the bar, I managed to pursuade my ex to buy me dinner, I performed decently in the tournament and won some cash, and ended the night celebrating with Nick, the winner with a couple of free shots of Petrone.

I'm really impressed how I kept my composure, battled through the adversity of the day while managing to get a free meal, free booze, and some cash!

I'm really not sure how, but hopefully, in some strange way, this experience will help me become a better poker player and person in general. I'd say, things are pretty much as bad as they can get, minus contracting a deadly or life threatening illness or disease, and yet, I'm pretty damn happy. I'm proud of that!

Things can only go up from here and I'm prepared to work as hard as I can to turn things around.

Peace.

Tilt o Rama

Well, since embarking on this journey, I've been doing quite well while I learn the ropes. That was until this weekend. After buidling my stack from $80 to $120, I quickly lost 2/3rds of it very quickly.

Most of it was lost playing 6-handed 5NL. I believe several factors contributed to this down swing.

1. Catching several bad beats on the river in big pots when I was ahead on the turn.
2. On some of those pots, Min reraising and giving my opponents a chance to stay in the game with marginal hands.
3. Playing into loose aggressive fish on large pots with pairs and marginal hands because I thought I was above their range of hands. Often to be dominiated by Premium pocket pairs.
4. Not reading the board close enough to identify the 1st, 2nd, 3rd nuts.
5. Not paying close enough attention to my opponents betting range of hands from various positions.
6. Not calculating winning outs and pot odds and comparing the two before making important decisions on the turn and river to ensure I have +EV.
7. Applying 100NL strategies to micro stakes games. Players down here are far two aggressive overall and opening hand ranges need to be adjusted accordingly. I find playing at around 16/10/7 is better than 27/16/7.

So... In the meantime, I'll move back down to 2NL and work on all of it while I build my stack back up.

Exploring the Limits and Flavors

For the past 10 days or so, I've been grinding the same same 2NL full ring and 6-hands short stack tables. I think it's nice to mix it up on occaision to ensure my interest and attention to details at the table remains at a high level.

Case in point, last night, i was tired and continued to play attempting to catch up. This lead to countless misplays from every position on the table. Hopefully, I can be disciplined enough to recongize my breaking point and shut her down at the optimum time during each session.

This morning I entered a 90 player $1.10 sit-n-go and finished a mediocre 45th. The tables I were seated at were very tight aggressive and I didn't get very many playable hands. Of course, as the blinds started to climb and I was under 10BB, I got aggressive and my AJo got busted out by a Set of 4's.

I also played a 9 player $1.20 sit-n-go and finished on the bubble. Again, blinds were creeping up, I was short stacked and got busted out by a set.

That was enough mixing it up for the day. I jumped back to cash games and quickly recouperated my sit-n-go entry fee losses playing 6-handed 5NL Shallow Stack tables.

I'll play another session later today after I run through the Jon Ettinger videos at Pokervt.com again. I need to fine tune my opening range and and 3-betting strategy a bit as I still think I'm playing a bit too tight.

My No Limit Holdem Newb Leaks

• Not stopping when I'm no longer giving 100% of my attention to the game
• Playing into loose aggressive fish when I damn sure know better!
• Paying to see the monkey piss when I have a good idea that I don't have the best hand

The Journey Begins.... or Will it End Abruptly?

So yeah! Here we go! I sure picked a hell of a time to start playing online poker seriously. For years, Although I've been playing at Full Tilt and PokerStars for years now, I've only really been putting a lot of effort and time in to developing my game for the last two weeks.

Then today, browsing the PokerVT.com forums, I come across a thread that is discussing new internet gambling Bill being introduced by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada.

In a nutshell, the Bill will put a temporary block (at least 15 months) on internet gambling, more specifically online poker by U.S. citizens wanting to play at any international based online poker room that would ever want to seek a license to operate in the U.S. Two of the main sites would potentially include PokerStars.com and FullTilt.com.

There's far more to the story and I'm not long-winded enough to go over the specifics, however, this could significantly hamper my hopes and dreams of becoming the online poker professional that I strive to be in the near future.

Generally speaking, I believe the entire move revolves around the following agenda: 1. The Government pursuing a piece of the the tax revenue of a increasing popular new international based commercial market that in booming. 2. The existing U.S. based commercial gambling industry wanted to steal and monopolize every facet of gambline available to U.S. citizens both brick and mortar as well as online.

As I said, there's far more to the story, however, I'll stop my rant right here. There's tons of information and commentary on the subject if you're truly interested in the topic.

A good place to get the scoop from the poker players perspective is the following thread:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/brace-yourselves-2-2-americans-say-goodbye-online-poker-until-months-into-2012-a-933472/