- bought a car

Don't freak out, it's just a '94 Saturn...yeah, really balla. Btw, I hate the term "balla." It reminds me of the unbelievably stupid frat guys at IU running around with their pink polo popped collars. Granted, I was a stupid fraternity guy when at UW-EC, but still (and never, ever with a popped collar - unless it was to mock the Chad's and Kip's).

Dropped down to the 38s to try to get some confidence back and curb the animosity towards poker. Gone are the days when I would break a mouse because of the 40th bubble in a row (really only happened once and the new mouse I bought was totally worth it). Since this is pretty much my job until the music stuff starts to hit big, I've got to sack up and avoid any negative emotion for as long as possible when I'm playing.

From the 1st to the middle of the 13th I dropped about 50 buy-ins at the $60 9-mans and, if you add in the steps, that goes up a little more to about 55 or so. I thought I was either going insane, playing absolutely terribly, or the games were just becoming impossible to beat. Kept checking hands and situations and have come to the conclusion that I still like to call people lighter than necessary. Just because I see a player pushing a proper spot for any two cards obviously does not mean he's pushing that light. The variance was probably caused by a combo of my erraticly wide calls and some pretty stupid luck (almost went back to see how many 80/20's I lost, but probably would've just started crying). You know, overall I think I could improve my value-extraction skills, too. Was watching one of the best regs at the 38s (and probably across most of the sng levels) Goldneagl while we were playing against each other tonight and he seems to always get the most from his hands. Not saying I suck at it, but I think while playing 15-20 tables at a time, I certainly don't get maximum value from all situations and hands.

Oh, yeah, also the fact that I was playing against 4 regs in nearly every $60 killed me. A few of them really know their push/fold well while others just know general guidelines. Example: Ok regular pushed into me with 1490 chips at 75/150 from utg (I was BB). I was expecting something along the lines of 77/88+, AJs+ (which if run for a 7-handed table in sngwiz would be a correct range based on the majority of the table's calling range), but he obviously flips over KQo when I call with QQ...guess who won? The good thing about him turning his King, though, is that he'll probably make the same mistake again.

The goal from here on is table selection. Late at night and early in the morning there usually aren't many grinders at all. I'll probably just try to aim my playing around the decent hours or move down to where they're not playing at all. After all, what's the point of playing for practically no equity at the 60s when I can move down and still average $3-4 per game? Hopefully I can get back on track to make 10k profit and 7.5k in bonuses before Christmas. Probably won't get much playing once I leave for Indiana in a week, though.