- 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).