The Amoeba

I am so effing pissed right now.  I had my first slipup in 2 or 3 months and played after having a few drinks yesterday.  I made a GODAWFUL decision in a pot, and it cost me a buyin.  I lost 2 buyins in the session.  WTMFHGD (What the mother fucking hell god damnit).  To punish myself for being a dumb cock, I have made some sick goals to be accomplished by 3 a.m. Monday morning:

1.) 50 hours @ real job

2.) 18,000 hands

3.) go to secretary of state and register car

4.) trash all boxes and miscellaneous bullshit in entrance room for house

So it was a huge negative that I played anebriated yesterday, but a small positive to take out of it is that after I made my horrible decision, I was so disgusted with myself that I immediately shut down Stars and took a shower to wash myself of the filth of bad decision making.

Another record for me, 4136 hands today. A few things about this broken record; I am very proud to have stuck with it, because as you can see the first few hands were a bit rough. I remained tilt free and just played my game. Also, this record should not last long, as I am adding another goal for the month; break this record by playing 5k hands in a day.

For the month I am at 14.2k hands. Reaching 50k is gonna be a chore to say the least.

Nice prediction on the colts game, LT did a great job cheerleading and leading his team to victory lol

I love the NFL.  I can’t get enough of it.

My beloved Steelers fell to the Jaguars of Jacksonville last week, which was a huge disappointment.  I’m not so much disappointed that they actually lost; more in the way that they lost.  They basically gift-wrapped the game for Jacksonville, allowing a 96 yard kickoff return, and giving away 1-2-3 GARBAGE interceptions.  Then, in the second half, Jacksonville gave the game right back.  The refs called a phantom holding call on a twopoint conversion, but later made up for it with a horrible pass interference call against Hines Ward’s defender.  That was hilarious.  So with the game on the line, 4th and 2, David Garrard runs 30something yards to set up a chipshot field goal which pretty much ended the game.  Tyrone Carter, #23 for the Steelers, got pwned on that play and on MJD’s touchdown catch earlier in the game, and after his abysmal day, I don’t think he will be back with the team next year. 

Anyways, I’m over that game.  Some comments on the other games:

Jags Pats :  God damn I hate the fucking Patriots.  I picked them to lose this game but deep down I know they are going to win.  They might even make it look close for a little while but that homo bitch Tom Brady will stand in the pocket for 32 seconds before throwing the ball into triple coverage to Randy Moss and they will score enough stupid touchdowns like that to beat the Jags.  Hopefully the Jags can beat the piss out of them though, so they are beat up for next weeks game.

Colts Bolts : Norv Turner lol.  I think Indy is flying under the radar a bit this year.  A great position for them to be in.  If I’m Indy, I am stacking 9 in the box and making that cocksucker Phil Rivers try to beat me.  He still hasn’t proven anything, and without Antonio Gates there offense is not nearly as potent.  I like Indy to win this one handily, but won’t be surprised if LT keeps the Chargers in the game.

Pack Hawks : I don’t know, these teams are both kind of erratic.  Green Bay looks good in run and pass, as well as having a good defense.  Seattle is pretty much the same, but there run game has been suspect this year, and they are going to be going to a hostile hostile HOSTILE environment in Green Bay.  With homefield advantage, I’ll take the Pack to win in a close game.

Giants Cowboys : Giants have looked good lately.  I like the RB combo with Jacobs and this new guy Anderson?, and the offensive line has runblocked pretty well.  Get those two guys going, and the Giants should be in the game late.  I think this game is really a tossup.  If TO is healthy, I go ‘Boys, if not, I like the GMen

I was.   But I’m not anymore

Good thing I did though, or I may have gotten discouraged early with the NL cash.  I will keep plugging away now, and should be in good shape for 50k hands this monthh after the weekend.  I am at around 8k hands right now, with lots of play time planned for sunday.

I played 25nl for a couple days, took a shot at 50nl, and am now there permanently, for the time being.  lol.  The ‘roll is approaching shot-taking time for 100nl, so I’m hoping to recapture the hot run at that time.  No stats or anything til the end of the month.  Seeya then!

I’m revising my goals for the year and for January.  I would like to get away from stt a bit and try my hand at nlcash full time.  I’ll explain why when I update my results at the end of the month.  Here are the goals though, they are very simple:

January:

50k hands

2008:

Average 50k hands/ month

Have one month of over 100k hands

Have one day of over 8k hands

Use bankroll strategy: Move up when @ 18 buyins for next level (1800@ 100nl), take 3 buyin shot.  Move down when @ 15 buyins.  Until nl400.

So I’ve been meaning to post these for a little while…. I just moved into a new house on the 4th of December. Before buying the house, I had been bouncing around in apartments for 6 years. It was time for me to own my own property. The market is down right now, and I have a secure job with a nice side income + earn potential, so I decided to stop paying rent and start building some equity.

There were several criteria when I was looking at places:

1.) lake property

2.) large property

3.) 2 stories

4.) quiet neighborhood

5.) close to work (<20 min commute)

6.) Lake orion (city north of detroit that I totally dig) area

7.) Move-in condition, but a few improvement areas for weekend projects and customization

I pretty much nailed all 7 of them, at a fantastic price!

Kitchen:

Kitchen II:

Living Room:

Living Room II:

Driveway:

Back Porch, You can see lake in background, 200 yards back through my wooded backyard :

12 inches of snow on new years:

Save the best for last, playing poker on 56″ lcd and laptop:

My laptop has a DVI out, so it was very simple to hook a DVI to HDMI cable from the laptop to the big screen.  I just plug the cable in, and set my properties to “extend desktop onto second monitor”, similar to a normal dual screen setup.  It’s great… as you can see I am laying down on a couch with a blanket and a trackball mouse, comfortably grinding away.   How’s that for a comfortable work environment?

There is so much more to see, and I absolutely love the place. I just haven’t had time to put together an actual portfolio. Maybe I’ll have time this month…

“December Goals: 480 sngs, 12% ROI, 60/40 HU finish distribution, 6 tabling consistently with 8 tabling sporadic, get pictures of new house online

December goals will be extremely difficult to reach because I am in the middle of buying a house and have final exams, but it will be fairly important that I reach them, as I am trying to reach supernova next year, and getting a head start on the higher buyins will be imperative.”

I didnt’ quite reach 480 sngs… I could have, but I elected to play some nl cash for the last 3 days of the month to clear my silverstar status. 480 sngs @12% roi = $375, and I made more than that this month, so I pretty much nailed my goals.

December Results

- 390 sngs @10.7% roi = $271

- 1st and 2nd place Finish distribution of 15.1% / 12.1% = 55.5/44.5, so I missed that one, better luck next time

- Cashed in a couple mtts, and ran well @ 25nl full ring

- +$461 on the month

January Goals

351 $6.50s, which would bring me to an even 1000 $6.50s played

700 $16 sngs

10k hands 25nl cash full ring

2008 Goals:

Supernova status

$60 sngs

1000 sngs / month

10k hands/month at nl full ring cash

I think if I make 25k I will be pretty happy.

Edited to add: I also accomplished something I never thought I’d be able to do this month, and that is play 100 sngs in one day.  You can read about it here:

100 sngs in a day 

Things have gone pretty well since my last update.  I had an unfortunate run where I went 32 tournaments without taking a 1st place, but that poop seems to have passed.  I set a personal record for sngs played in a day (60… hoping to break that today?) as well as profit during one set of 6 tourneys (5 1sts, 1 2nd), wins in a row (4), and buyins made in one day (20).  A little unofficial goal I have is to play 100 tourneys in one day before the end of the year. 

As far as next year, I feel pretty good about the direction that my game is heading.  I’ve played 500 9-man tourneys since starting back up, and have learned (re-learned?) a ton.  I feel much more confident about my decisions in certain situations, and being able to analyze situations on the fly.  Multitabling was a bit of an issue at the beginning, as 6 tables was a bit overwhelming.  But for the last 200 or so games, I have been averaging over 6 tables at once, and have gone up to 10 tables for a few brief periods. 

Despite some nice statistical achievements during the last month or two, the things I am most proud of can not really be expressed in numbers.  I have played tilt-free poker for MOST of the time I have been playing.  I really think my 100buyin + 1000 sng @ each level rule is a major contributing factor to this.  Another little trick that I have learned to help me deal with downswings is, when I am in the middle of a brutal swing I visualize my long-term graph.  There are some pretty sick swings in that graph, but the obvious trend is an upward trend.  It’s just a nice visual reassuring reminder that I play winning poker, and the current down trend that I am on will soon be a blip on another upward trending graph

I am so lazy. I have only played 20 tournies since my last update. Not that I haven’t been busy though;

I got impulsed a 56” tv into my living room, so that was a lot of work to get it all set up . Very much worth it though. Watching tv, or playing video games, or anything like that has totally changed for the better. I wouldnt even call it ‘watching’ tv now… more like ‘experiencing’. The thing is way too big for the room, which makes it perfect. Getting my laptop fixed and hooked into the tv are my next little projects I will be working on .

So now I’m left with 9 days to play 380 tournaments. We’re pretty settled in the new house, so my poker schedule and life in general will start falling into more of a routine soon. That will be nice. 2007 has probably been the most event-filled year of my entire life. It was seriously an unbelievable year. I’ll sum that up in my last blog entry of the year when I reach my goals.