- Quick update

Since that last update, life has been good. I've taken more time off (had a little 2.5k downswing) and didn't really feel like playing for a few days. Yeah, it'll set me back on my 20k for the year goal, but I still should be able to get it.

Anyway, got to see Earth, Wind and Fire and Chicago do a joint concert at the Nokia Theatre (by the Staples Center) on Tuesday and went to a Dodgers game last weekend. Been killing terrorists and general citizens on my new Playstation. Other than that, I'm pumped for this camping trip next week.

In preparation for the trip, I'm going to try to get 1000 games in the next 8 days before I leave. 125 games in a day is not impossible, but with how much time I've taken off I'm not sure how well I'll play. Meh, I'll update as the week goes.

- New Goal

After looking at my stats for awhile, I think it's easily attainable for me to reach 17k games played this year. There are about 5 and a half months left in 2009 and I really didn't play too much in Jan. and May. With about 9500 games already in the bag, I'm going to shoot for 20,000 total. I won't get much volume in August because of an awesome chance to go camping at Zion Nat'l Park in Utah for a few days with some buddies (who are then hanging out in LA with us for a few more), but Sept on should be good (sans a wedding in October).

I figure if I get 1k more in July that'll leave me with only 9500 or so for the last 5 months. Admittedly, 1900 games per month will be a definite stretch - especially when I hit the inevitable "run bad" streak - but I figure having a game oriented goal in mind will be better than a profit one. Now that I'm mixing in $60 18s/45s, I hope to average somewhere between $4-5/gm for the rest of the year (I'd love for it to be closer to 6, but let's be realistic and happy with the low end, fatty). Maybe we'll say goodbye to these student loans by Christmas after all. Maybe.

- Vacation #2

I was expecting humid, muggy Wisco summer weather, but it's been perfect since getting back yesterday. There are actual clouds in the sky (not smog or haze) and seeing grass/trees/flowers that can grow naturally without a massive aqueduct/reservoir system is refreshing. LA is a great place to live for awhile, but there's not way in hell I'll live there for the rest of my life. Besides, the DQ up here has some Girl Scout Tagalong cookie blizzard special going on. Random win? I think so.

My website should be up and functional relatively soon as I'm spending much of my time here figuring things out and annoying Yardledoo. Not having to play poker for awhile is awesome.

- The Jazz is all about the Swings.

And so is the poker. So, after the terrible frustration that was May (yeah, yeah, we all know I ran bad for about 1/2 of it and played profitable, but not nearly stellar poker for the rest of it), June became a welcome surprise. Without a doubt, it was the best month of results I've ever had. I played really well, but definitely ran very well in important spots for the majority of my playing time. I mean, when you're on the final table of a 180 man w/ 65k stack and you shove KQs at 3k/6k blinds from the button and get called by AA and AK and still win? That's special. Did nothing wrong, just got lucky in some key spots AND held when I had the best hand in many places, too. I'm not going to really talk numbers on the month, but I will say that I made more profit-wise in June than all of 2008. Sweet.

Still wish I could've gone to South Carolina, but by deciding to stay in LA, I earned enough to get a sweet new laptop and an awesome bed. I feel like a big boy now. Seriously, I've been sleeping on a freakin big air mattress since I can remember (grad school...2006 to present). Last night was the best night of sleep I've had in years. No kidding.

I think the 180s will continue to be a pretty nice cash-cow at these stakes. It's weirdly relaxing to play games that are so far within your bankroll that there's .01% chance of going broke (arbitrary stat for the blog post: check). I mean, I'm still gonna keep playing $12 180s and $27/35 18/45 mans for quite some time. Inevitably I'll have another month like May again and hopefully it'll be less of a psychological drain as it was last time. Just looking over my sharkscope graph from when I was playing 9-man games (notably less high-variance than mtt-sngs) I noticed several 500-1k game break-even/losing stretches. So, I figure if I can at least play decent poker through the next one, it should last no more than that. Ok, no more talk of May from now on. Good riddance to that bastard of a month.

4th of July is tomorrow. Sweeeet. Note: it's actually referred to as 'Merica Day by James and me. PBR and brats and blowing stuff up. Be sure to celebrate the birth of your country by blowing up a small part of it.

- New computer. again.

You know what's better than a Dell that doesn't operate properly with your external monitor? A Macbook Pro. You know what's better than a Dell that has a video card that forces fuzzy lines/broken screenshots across tables while you're trying to play? A Macbook Pro. You know what's better than a Dell? You get the picture.

This thing is freakin sweet. I mean, I didn't have to install drivers or anything when I plugged in my external monitor, mouse, or secondary hard-drive in for the first time. Just wow. So much more powerful and easy to maneuver than my old (read: month and a half old) Dell. Luckily, I'm selling it to a friend that really needs a reliable laptop - which, for the record, that Dell will do perfectly for what she needs. It's not like it's junk. It's just not what I expected or needed.

My sleep schedule might finally be coming around. I'm getting closer to being able to stay up for most of the day without having to take a nap. For those that don't know, Yard and I made the mistake of playing through the night a few weeks ago and it's been a complete disaster ever since. I suppose when you have no real obligations or work to focus on this is what happens. I like the daytime, though.

We've got a keyboard and a couch now. Our living room is actually starting to resemble a living room. Finally.

Probably going to polish off that Stars bonus I was mentioning earlier. Should take about 70 games or so (1750 vpps) which will be about 4-5 hours of work. It's nice to know that they're doing these full "supernova elite" style fpps gifts this month, too. Weeee! $2400 bonus! That'll buy several beds.

- Ego checkins...

I forgot to post a story I found interesting from the other day. James and I both witnessed it happen and were both surprised at the audacity and stupidity of some of the pro players.

On Sundays, all poker sites run what are called "Sunday Majors" which are basically just large-field multi-table tourneys with big buyins. The mother of them all is called the "Sunday Million" on pokerstars that has a 1.5 million guaranteed prize pool (I think, unless they upped it again recently). Our story takes place in the weekly precursor to the Mil called the "warm-up" (pretty fitting, eh?).

It involves a player that I do not know personally. We've played against each other on several occasions and he is, without a doubt, a very good player. He sticks to the low limit buy-in multi-table games because he crushes them for more than most guys at the higher buy-ins beat their respective levels. Although, he's not without faults and leaks, overall he is certainly within the top .01% of players at his buy-in level. (side note and brag post: I'm currently beating the levels he plays for more than he's averaging...but that's over a considerably smaller and insignificant sample size. So when the 'readjustment period' from my 'run like God period' is over, we'll have something to discuss)

This past Sunday he ran well/played well (whatever you want to call it - when you're up against a HUUUUGE tourney field, you have to have both) and made the final table of the Sunday Warm-up (750k guaranteed prize pool). 1st place was worth 135k, 2nd was 100k, and 3rd was 71k (rounded numbers obv). When the table got to 5-handed, one of the players requested a deal to which the player I'm referring declined. Once at 3-handed, the players had the tourney paused and discussed the deal. Player 1 (the guy we watched) initiated the deal and asked for the break.

Player 1 (guy we were watching) was in first and, according to an even chip-chop ratio, was due 107.5k since he was currently in first. Player 2 (not a good player at all) was offered around 102k and the other guy somewhere around 92k. Whatever the numbers added up to, there was also 10k left on the table for the winner (pokerstars rules). Player 1 (from hereon referred to as "idiot hero") said that he was the best player remaining and deserved 115k or no deal. Bravado. I'm sure he was assuming both players would roll over and accept a 2.5k loss to ensure at least a huge score better than 3rd. Instead, the guy in 3rd typed something along the lines of "BWAHAHAHA" in the chat box and said no way. In all honesty, if the idiot hero hadn't stated "I'm the best player here so I should get more" he might've been able to talk his way into it. Unfortunately, the 3rd place guy (who was just as cocky) said no deal and to play it out. Idiot hero immediately rescinded his comment and says "ok, let's just go with the first deal, then." To which cocky 3rd place dude goes "nope," Now, that should've just been the end of it and they started playing, but idiot hero just HAD to fuel the fire a little bit more by saying "Fine, then. I don't care. I'll just ship the sucker and you can suck it." (something to that effect - probs a little more vulgar, but I can't remember exact wording) The game resumed.

A few hands into the action, idiot hero and cocky dude are involved in a huuuge pot and idiot hero makes a loose call and loses the monstrous pot (not going to debate the call or the hand, since this post isn't about how the hand was played). He's completely crippled with about 4 or 5 blinds - considering the fact that they were deep stacked with over 40-50 blinds, that's insane. So, to recap:
- idiot hero offered 107.5k
- shoots off mouth and offends cocky dude
- retracts demand but is refused
- pours drano on his tongue
- loses huge pot and now is virtually guaranteed 3rd

Simple math - 107.5 - 71 + potential 10k = 46.5k

Yes, that's right. By stroking his ego he jeopardized more than most make in an entire year (and yes, 46 thousand is a HUGE amount of money to this guy - he still plays the low limits remember). As it turned out, the guy in 2nd place ended up suffering a bad beat to the chip leader and our idiot hero luckily squeaked into 2nd for 100k. BUT, that doesn't change the fact that he wanted a deal, blew the deal discussion, and nearly screwed himself big time.

Maybe this isn't that big of a deal to most people. However, why on Earth would you want everyone at the table to know - let alone believe - that you're the best player left? I mean, when pro sports teams "guarantee" a win in a Game 5 or 6, they so often put their foot in their mouth. Anyone remember Hasselbeck in Seattle against the Packers in overtime? "We're gonna take the ball and we're gonna score!" Picked off by Harris. Game over. Shut your freakin mouth, idiot.

Competetive spirit is huge in these games just like in sports. Jabbing at someone's ability - especially someone that doesn't CARE about 3rd place is a death sentence. In my opinion, if you ask for the deal and want a little more, fine. Ask for it. Talk your way through it. Don't be a giant pos and tell everyone that you're the best and deserve it (even if it was true, which it was). Use your brain, dumbass.

- Putting on big boy pants

Obviously things have rebounded. One of my former roomies at Eau Claire and a fellow poker player that will remain nameless (I'm not sure if he even knows/reads this blog, but all the hilarious stories involving him from the past could come swirling back if we're not careful) has been grinding the $2 180 man sng's on stars for the past couple months with decent results. Now despite his success, he knows that there are many leaks he needs to plug and that he will make a ton more at them soon. Seeing his consistent success even without A+ poker got me to thinkin:
Me: You know what, Fatty?
Me: What?
Me: I think you should probably try to play a bunch more 180s and see how they go.
Me: Yeah, but I haven't had any success at them yet this year.
Me: But you've only played around 200...could just be running bad. Plus, if you get a lesson and really check out some of your shove adjustments, you could make some serious cash in a short period of time.
Me: You so crazy, Fatty.
Me: True that, yo. Let's go get a burrito.
Me: Greek style?
Me: Nope, just regular type.

That was actually excerpted from my head. Sweet.

So, since June 1st I've added 180s to the usual fare of 18s and 45s. Mid-month result-fest? Let's do it.

509 $12 180s (yeah, real high roller over here...) with 92% roi and $5395 profit. Yes, it's impossible to keep making $10.60 per game at these, but it feels great to get a good jump on them. Kind of like the feeling you get when you see a cat jump from a telephone pole like Rocky from the old Bullwinkle show. Go look it up on youtube. Seriously.

I'll forgo the other results thus far since they've just been rebounding from the May crapfest. However, I will drop the subtle fun-bomb that yesterday was the best day of poker in my entire life. I made more in a 12-hour stretch than I've made in any tourney and more than in several winning months. James watched for awhile and will vouch that I really didn't do anything wrong - just everytime I got my chips in a spot that they had to go in, I would win. Sure not every time, but nearly every crucial all-in I took down whether racing or crushingly ahead. The 3 180 wins alone accounted for $1800 of the profit which was barely half of the day's total. Pretty incredible to have a day like that (but I doubt I will have another day like that for a very long time, maybe ever again).

On to other news -

Had to make a really tough decision this month and, to be fair, I'm still not sure it'll be the right decision in the end. My Mom's side of the family goes on a major vacation every other year. For the past several trips, they've gone to Kiawah Island, SC and rented a huge four-story beach house (just south of Charleston, near the Georgia border). Since I've had theme park gigs and KFW, I haven't been able to go for 9 years. After looking forward to this trip (starts June 21st) and hyping up the fact that I would be there, I had an awful May (as already discussed). Thus, my bank account here and back home was too depleted to get a plane ticket early.

It really isn't an issue of "not enough money." I mean, Mom and Dad offered to cover the trip knowing that I'd pay them back. The problem is that I'm living in LA, wanting to play trombone, sleeping on the floor, and having to pay a lot of student loans. I'm tired of it being a massive monthly struggle that I can't overcome. I figure if I go to Kiawah, I'll have a buttload of fun that can't be measured in dollars (my uncles and cousins are just a bunch of college kids at heart - beach parties and getting kicked out of go cart tracks for a whole week). But, if I stay, I'll not only save the 4-5 hundo plane ticket. It'll also guarantee another 6-700 games (even if they don't run great, it's still an average profit of 3-5/game...call it a min of $1800) plus a $2400 'cash incentive' bonus that pokerstars is just offering this month. I guess I can't shake the feeling that 2400+1800=all the soundproofing stuff I've wanted to get so I can start practicing again+a bed+a keyboard so I can get the composition stuff going again. By not going, it's a $4500-5000 difference. Frankly, that's just too much to pass on right now. The tough part is that I have a lot of disappointed relatives now and there's no good way to explain this. Mom and Dad understand, but are still sad. I mean, I don't lose sleep over too many things, but I've had a rough couple weeks over this. Oh well. I don't know.

Colingilliland.com should be fully functional within a week or so. I'm planning on spending some more time setting it up (read: Yardley is pretty much the best teacher at this stuff...I'll probably just annoy him with all my stupid questions). Might be moving this blog over there. Will keep you posted.

- It was the best of times

False. May sucked. Definitely the worst of times. Kinda felt like I was going crazy for several different parts of the month. Let's go through a "hit-list" of all the awesomeness that was the not-so-merry month of May.

- Kicked the month off with a four day losing streak (not even a single winning session...bizarre to say the least)
- Had 4 different $1000 downswings within the month (at buy-ins of $27 and below, that's more than just variance, but really didn't play bad enough to have that massive of swings)
- 18 mans - 997 games with a loss of 198...pretty surprising considering I'm still averaging $3/gm for the year. Maybe it's just a readjustment period I was due for, but I'm sure I shouldn't have actually lost money at these for an entire month (actually just 3 weeks)
- 45 mans - 463 games with a profit of 213. The lone bright spot has to be the $27 with a profit of 570 over 183 games. Of course, that means that the $12 45's were abysmal. Weeee.
- To top it all off, the computer I finally bought really doesn't work too well with the Pokerstars client, but Dell won't let me return it because it just past the 21 day policy period. Son of a monkey crap.

Hokay, now that that's over, we can move on. Toward the end of May, I started to pick apart a few of the leaks. While I can't attribute the entire month to bad play, there were definitely several days where I lost every other overpair/underpair all in pre-flop situation (as a reference point, I should win those 80% of the time, but it was certainly closer to 50-60% - over the course of 200 games, that will kill you). Fortunately, after discussing several spots with Yard, I'm pretty sure I was sometimes taking unnecessary risks too early.

The players in these low stakes games are terrible (in general). It's not uncommon for someone to go all-in on the first hand with KTo or to call your utg raise w/ 84s, flop bottom pair, and call through the whole way for pot-sized bets. So, I found I was compensating a little heavy by really trying to get too much value in spots where I figured I was not best - just under the assumption I was because of the copious amounts of donkish play. To complicate things, when the cards continue to beat you down like a kitten leg punching a bowl of grapes, you kind of have a tough time delneating borderline/unnecessary aggression from stupid beats. Anyway, that might not be too cut and dry, but May was the painful combo of variance mixed with confused, overly-adjusted poker. Winning mixture? I think notsies. Nazis? No, just sounds the same.

In other news, Cone-zone is back! I know he was saying it for weeks, but I'm really glad he hasn't adjusted his show to account for the blue-hairs. They tweaked the band's opening arrangement (still sounds great), but they should make sure to keep getting full band shots whenever possible (yes, I'm biased, but sweet jebus they're funny).

- Great start...

Pretty much the worst possible start for the month. Just under 750 games on the month and I've made absolutely nothing. Weee. First 250 games kicked off with an enjoyable 3 days of losing. I think it was the first time I went literal days without a winning session (sessions usually go between an hour and 3 hours...and it's pretty rare to play 4-5 sessions a day and lose each for 3 days). Next 400 games went fine and made a lot back to at least be break even over 680 games or so. Then lost the profit today.

Online poker sucks. I want to play my freaking trombone. Of course, that would pull in even less than the nothing I've made this month :).

Welp, that should do it for melodrama and whining. Let's see how the next 750 go.

- Time for work.

Vacation's over. I had a blast in the Midwest. Didn't realize how much I missed seeing a lot of my old friends and family (I use "old" to indicate that our relationship's started years ago - not the "old" in the sense that they are not my friend's anymore or "old" in age...that should adequately clarify or confuse).

The first couple days I was in Bloomington, IN to finish the last requirements of my Master's Degree. I guess the 7 minutes I spent playing scales, transposing, and sight-reading piano music indicates that I am, in fact, worth getting a TROMBONE PERFORMANCE DEGREE. Stupid freakin random requirements. At least it's done and I never have to worry about Db major arpeggios for the piano again.

On the 6 hour drive from southern Indiana to Wisco, I was lucky enough to stop just outside of Chicago in Munster to see L0bsta for lunch (unlike the crustacean, lobster, l0bsta is bearded human that plays poker). We got pizza. His mom made us a veggie tray. We made memories. Incidentally, the pizza was from Edwardo's (awesome Chicago-style stuffed pizza) which has a chain no more than 5 minutes from my friend's in Milwaukee...small world, L0b.

Wisco was great. Gained probably 50 pounds. Everytime I go home, even if the kitchen isn't over-stocked in preparation for my arrival, I still manage to run up the grocery bill - partly because the food is free and partly because the food isn't stuff I normally buy. Result? I eat waaay too much, but it's vacation so who cares? The grandparent's 60th anniversary party was a lot of fun, too. I've got a huge extended family and whenever everyone gets together, it's pretty much food and drink and stupid jokes for days (my idea of a good time? I think so...). Plus, my uncle's hunting lodge (where the parties usually happen) now has a sweet ATV that he bought for his kids. Nothing really beats a 5 year old flying way too fast barely missing trees and creeks through farmland.

Welp, now I'm back and need to play about 75 games per day to get 1500 for the month. Yard has been here for a few days and seems to like the apartment (except for the lack of hotties lounging by the pool).

- April Results and Vacation

I promised to give an update on the previously noted "banner month" of April. Since poker is a high-variance game in general, the way the month started really couldn't continue for a whole 1500 games. I was averaging around 5.50/gm for the first 850 or so, then went on a stiff 1250 downswing for a few hundred games. The last couple hundred of the month turned around and got an average of about $3.75/gm for 1500. Really was hoping to average 4 or over, but there's always May. As I get closer to decent sample sizes (around 2k games) for the individual 18 and 45-man games, I'll include stats for them, too.

Since no one can control the way the cards fall, I decided to start rewarding myself for monthly game quotas rather than how much profit I earn. Figure 1500 games for months that I can't play more than 3 weeks is a solid goal. April's reward? New lappy. Hopefully it'll arrive in LA around the time I get back from the Midwest. Like April, May will probably just be a 1500 game month since I won't get back to LA before the 10th. If I reach the quota, I'm buying DDR for my Wii. Yard thinks that's stupid...and I think he's stupid. Boom. Roasted.

Welp, I'm fried after playing piano for 7 hours each day for the last two days. The piano exam is at 2 pm Friday...say a prayer for me. See you on the other side.

- Vacation. Sweet mother of crap, vacation.

I wanted to get 1500 games in April. 1500 games are done as of a few hours ago. Result? SPRING FREAKIN BREAK, bishes!!

- SCOOP results, other results, and fast-approaching trip plans

Hi people,

The SCOOP tourneys and p5s OT prop bet are done. We deeeeefinitetly didn't win that one. Disappointing that the one night my team got really deep was the only night I really should have been with my buddy that was fixing my car. All the other events were pretty standard tourney bust-outs. The one silver lining is that I've started to take an interest in some of the non-HE games around. While playing one of the PLO events I realized how much I suck at anything other than nlhe. Maybe I'll pick up a book.

Even though the internet sucked causing me to miss the entire first week of April's sngs, I'm having a pretty huge month. Yes, the lethal combo of decent variance and playing well help a lot, but I can't discount the "vacation time" I got from March 30th-April 8th. Sngs with a clear head are much easier (duuuuuh). We'll see how much the pseudo-vacations help over the next couple months (gone for a week in early May and a week in late June).

Like I said, it's been a banner month. I'll post the results at the end of the month when there's a sample size worth discussing, but for the time being, I'm just happy to have rent/food/airfare/etc. covered. Hopefully I can get enough socked away this next week to really soundproof the crap out of James and my rooms.

Angie, I know you read this - if Jake's got spare time over the weekend, I'll try to give him a call to talk for a few mins about some stuff I'm looking at (by the way, I hope the baby's not giving you too much trouble. Boll and I always love pickle-mango-pizza-tacos-ala mode, too - and we're not having kids yet).

Alright, I'm all hopped up on Mountain Dew! It's actually a workout supplement called NO-xplode (basically "healthy crack"). Once it kicks in I start to bounce of the walls a little bit...which means it's time to go to the gym.

Fatty time.

- internet suckins

Y'know, I really have got a lot to be thankful for. This is not meant to be a "haha, my life is sooo great" ('cause it's really not), but I really only have 3 things that consume my general life right now: music, poker, and my health. So when one of those 3 (poker) gets it's cheerios peed on (maybe that expression doesn't transfer well) life can get frustrating.

I finished the move into the new place and started buying all the random necessities that every new home requires: dishrack, cookware, gunrack (maybe the bloods and crips need a new member); the internet situation, however, sucked. AT&T couldn't turn my internet on until the 7th. Why? I went to Best Buy and got the modem I needed. I had all the necessary cables. Maybe they knew that I'd already socked some money into the SCOOP tourneys and just wanted to force me to use the random crapalicious wireless connections I could get through neighbors that weren't smart enough to password protect their routers. It's not like I'm some random kid that just needs the web for surfing/homestarrunner/theonion.com/espn etc. Bah. Anyway, it's up now and I can resume playing.

The rest of this month had better be stellar. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes (and plane tix, piano, new computer...).

- updates galore

While I sit here listening to the uplifting and reflective big band stylings of the Maria Schneider Orchestra, I realized that no blog entries have been made for awhile. Wipe your tears and get ready for news.

Poker is going fine. I've dropped most 180-man and upper 45-mans from my daily routine, but will probably add them back when my confidence returns. $27 18-mans are absolutely getting crushed (probably due for a downswing, but maybe I'll just stay lucky forever). I really didn't play nearly enough this month mainly b/c of the combo of not feeling like playing, getting angry over a couple day downswing, and going to Vegas last weekend(which turned out to be one of the worst vacations I have ever taken - didn't even gamble or play poker...not going into detail; just need to forget about it). Turns out the 6-day break I had towards the end of the month was just what I needed, though. I'm pumped for April.

One of my IU bud's and another poker guy from PocketFives are playing the SCOOP (spring championships of online poker) on Pstars for a week or so during the month. I've played so few tourneys lately and these will give me ample time to grind more sngs. I believe we all payed 100 bucks each into a prize pool through PocketFives that will pay out 9k to the winning team (3 players/team) over the course of the SCOOP. There's a points system and it's based on all of our results. Plus, the guarantees for the different sized buy-ins are ridiculous. Maybe I'll get lucky and run well (20 or 30k wouldn't be a bad way to kick off the new apartment...wait, whaaat?).

My last day in this apartment is tomorrow. Managed to find a sweet split-level, 2 bed/bath apartment just a few blocks from here (walking distance to gym/grocery store/restaurants) for less than I'm paying now. The best part is that so few people are renting in this area right now b/c of the economy which makes for some cool incentives (like the option of 1 month rent free or 2 weeks free + 42" plasma tv...we're taking the TV). Now I can actually buy a bed (no more damn air mattress) and get some furniture going. Anyone that's reading this is welcome to come visit. Anyone that's not reading this can bite me.

One last note - I'm thinking of playing a couple of the smaller WSOP events this year. I'll put more info up the closer it gets, but I'm going to offer shares of myself if you're interested. Wouldn't you like to risk $100 bucks for a chance at splitting a $500k finish? I thought so.

- gotta figure out a way to retain supernova and some life nuggets

The games overall have been pretty standard. Had a couple day stretch where I ran like a drunken hobo, but if I stick to the lower games, I should keep avg'ing 3-4 dollars/gm. The problem that arises, though, is the fact that I'm not getting enough vpps during my sessions to retain the 10k vpps/month necessary for supernova.

*note* Supernova is a sort of ranking system used by Pokerstars to reward high-volume players with more rakeback or "fpps" that can be exchanged for money and tvs and stuff. Basically, by keeping it, it's costing me a lot less rake to play on the site.

Right now we're 10 days into Feb and I figure I'll be around 4k vpps by the end of it. If I don't get at least 10k vpps by the end of the month, I lose my status and all the benefits. Not good. I'm probably going to have to start mixing in 10-15 9-man games during the day to make sure I push over the mark.

Other than that, life is pretty good. Going to the DMV tomorrow for (hopefully) the final time in CA to finish off my car's registration. Kinda pathetic, though, because I'm probably not going to be out here too much longer. Trombone has been getting better for the most part. My flexibility had completely gone to crap over the past few months and I finally have been sticking to my lip slur material enough to see some substantial progress. During my Junior/Senior year of undergrad, my general flexibility was probably at its best. While my overall playing ability has improved a ridiculous amount since then, it's disappointing that I've gotten so relaxed on one of the most important parts of brass playing.

- Milestone bonus

Even with the inevitable bad swings, you can always count on pstars to provide a little extra. Unlocked the 200k vpp bonus and got a sweet $2k in my account. That is, until I immediately withdrew it all to pay for stuff.

- changed it up

I know I said I'd post about all that cool stuff over late Dec/Jan, but you should probably know that I fib likes it's a part-time job. If you're really curious, maybe I can give a summary of the Bpong and Vegas stuff to you through facebook or whatevs.

Had a poker discussion a few weeks ago with someone who's poker opinions are among the best in the world. Basically, she pointed out reasons why I suck and things to improve, but the main thing I took from the discussion was that 9 man sngs (the game I played 10k+ sngs last year) just isn't as profitable as it used to be. This is actually a very good thing - I felt like throwing up the moment I sat down to play 9 mans at the start of the year. Assuming I was succumbing to a heavy amount of burn-out, she suggested I start playing the multi-table sngs. Although there's a lot more variance in these games, I'm having a buttload more fun playing them then 9 mans at any point last year. The math isn't as easy (or as readily available to the general public) as the stt (9 man) math and the player quality is substantially worse.

So, even though Jan for total profit was absolutely terrible, I did make a good deal over a fairly small amount of multis:
- $25/35 18 man; 245 games; 19% roi and $1150 profit ($5/gm)
- $15 18 man; 310 games; 21% roi and $1052 profit ($3/gm)
- $12 45 man; 351 games; 51% roi and $2135 profit ($6/gm)

That is, first of all, a very insignificant sample. Won't really know much about them until 1k games (probably much more) have been played, but it's a good start and looks promising at least.

Just to show how much variance can affect the total outcome (b/c it probably looks like I made around $4k over 1k games (approximations...duh), here's the stats for $25/35 45 mans:
- 196 games; -36% roi and -$1899 profit (-10/gm)

Pretty great, huh? Honestly, those are not any harder than the 25/35 18 mans...just more variance, a few more regs, and a whole f'ton of bad beats. Hopefully this month will be better and I can get rid of the little fishbowl icon next to the mid-stake 45 man stats. I'll just stick to the low stakes 18/45s and see how this month goes. Maybe I'll post more, too. Maybe I'm just lying again.

fire up the poker

What a great break! Can't believe I haven't played for a couple weeks. Finished the year on a very nice 2k downswing, but at least unlocked the 200k vpp bonus (2k) - so, once it's released into my account it'll be even.

Lots to write about: the holidays, Vegas' WSOBP (world series of beer pong), and goals for the year. I'll probably just break them up into separate entries so that you can pick and choose which life-crap to peruse.

On the flight back to L.A. from Vegas a couple days ago, I was seated in between the two sickest members of the flight so I've been chugging tea and vitamin C like it's going out of style. Feeling better now and should get 50 games in today! First 50 of the '09!