Back in Chicago

Sorry for the lack of updates. I ended up being pretty busy in LA with all the poker stuff and going out on the weekend.

My trip to LA was awesome. I stayed with my friend Adam for the first night I was in town and we ended up just playing some online poker and going out to eat. Then I went and stayed with the 5 clowns in the Mansion, who I stayed with last time I was in town. I reviewed some HH's with Sparks and talked to a few of the other guys in the house about my poker game and I think I kind of figured out where my major leaks are. A lot of it has to do with not paying enough attention to situations and making them too complicated by occasionally throwing in retarded bet sizing.

I had pretty good results when I was playing online in LA and at the airport. Not sure exactly how much I won, but it definitely was more than I had won for the month up to that point. I now have pretty good confidence in my game and I think the only thing from holding me back now and being able to crush again is volume. Volume is an easy fix: I'm just going to work like CRAZY in May and try to get a ton of hours in while playing my best.

Adam and I also hit up Hollywood Park Casino to play some live NLHE cash on my last day in town. We ended up playing some $5/5 NL and I finished up about $300. I was up quite a bit more but doubled up some fish and lost $400 when I open raised to like $60 from EP with AK and he called from the blinds... flop T8X with a flushdraw and I checked behind... he led an A turn and blank river and I called him down because he had been bluffing a ton earlier in a similar fashion... this time he had a set of 8's. I like the way I played the hand and Adam agreed that I played it fine against that particular player.

In LA for 9 days

I decided to make the trip back to LA to visit my friend Adam and the guys in the poker house (Seth, Sparks, Craig, Jason, & "The Captain"). Should be a good trip and I plan on doing a lot of poker playing, sweating people's sessions, talking poker, and hopefully improving my game. I'm sure we'll find some time to go out over the weekend though, so it won't be all work and no play!

New day

I didn't end up downing shots of Patron last night after my session, although I sure felt like it.

Basically, what I learned from yesterday, is that I can't allow myself to look at the HEM results during a day of playing poker. Not even between sessions. I must wait until I'm completely done for the day, or, better yet try and wait until the end of the month. I'm going to take small steps to rid myself of this continuing bad habit so my goal as of now is to not peek at it until I'm finished playing for the day.

Grinding all day today, we'll see how it goes.

Full ring again?

Nute has suggested I give full ring a shot again.

I feel like giving myself a shot right now after playing 5.6k hands of frustrating, nut peddling, ridiculousness poker. Lost 3 buy-ins, lost to a 2 outer, ended up running a boat into quads twice for stacks.

FML.

NHL Playoffs!!!

Tonight is the first night of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs!!! I'm leaving the office now to catch the Red Wings vs. Coyotes game at 9 PM. Hockey playoffs are by FAR the best postseason to watch in all of professional sports. The intensity levels & physical endurance needed to win the Cup are unmatched in any other professional sport.

Not convinced? Tune in and watch a game or two and you'll see what I mean.

Taxes

I absolutely despise tax season. I literally spent all day trying to organize all my receipts, etc. and I'm still not done!

Also, my assistant pretty much spent all day trying to fix my printer so it would work with my computer... we ended up giving up, calling Dell... they say the only way that they can help us is if we pay them $90. I finally give in. Pay them their money, they mess with my computer for another 5 hours and fail at fixing it as well. GG printer. Should have just chucked it out the window and bought another one but I was hoping to get it fixed today so I could start printing out some of my records for 2009.

Hopefully I'll finish up this mess early on tomorrow so I can actually play poker. Just dealing with this mess for one day makes me thrilled that I didn't end up being an accountant for my job. Man, that would suck so bad in my opinion... it would pay the bills, but drive me absolutely bat-shit if that's what I did for my job.

I need to be more organized in 2010 so next year isn't this chaotic.

Schedule time & goals time

I'm going to churn out both of the things in the title before Monday.

I've been grinding a ton lately with mixed results mainly due to a multi-tabling tirade experiment that I've basically given up on. Back to four tables and now I've said that for the 48,325th time.

Hand of the day

Good night/morning!

Poker stuff

Had a really big day yesterday... wasn't gonna post about it because I didn't want to get doomswitched, but it happened anyways today.

Here are some fun, super old, poker mantras/tips I wrote out for myself to put in front of my computer in 2006-2007 that I found when I was sorting through some old stuff. LOL.

Fun weekend, good friends

Had a blast this weekend with my friends. Some of them were visiting from out of town and a few were from Chicago as well.

This upcoming week is definitely grind week, as I haven't put much volume in yet and we are already on the 5th day of the month. I'm going to try and get a ton of volume as well as play when I feel like playing too. I'm not going to force myself to play just to get volume in.

I will however be setting some type of goals for the month... still haven't decided on what the goals exactly will be. I'll probably post them up on the next blog post. Hope everyone had a good Easter!

Update

I've been pretty busy lately, trying to get a bunch of hands in, organizing my stuff for taxes coming up soon, and now hanging out with some friends that are in town this weekend. Last night we went out to Rockit bar and had a pretty good time. It was PACKED in there!

I'm playing a few sessions today and then going out tonight again. I plan on playing a ton tomorrow and continue organizing my stuff for taxes. I'm going to think about some goals for April, since it's a new month and I want to have something to work towards. My goal-less months lately haven't been that effective so I'll switch it up a bit and set up some goals for me to try and hit.

Hope everyone is running well!