Graduation
I graduated from college for the second time! I am thankful for all of my experiences, but happy to be done. School can be a major grind. Now on to bigger and better things.

Future Plans
Continuing to work at current job until end of July. Getting a little frustrated and bored with that job. I am too loyal to do this, but I would love to snap quit. I also do not want to burn bridges as the connections as this organization may aid me in finding employment in the future. Quite a few of the parents are higher ups in the community, though we have a wide array of low to upper middle class families. I have a great reputation with those who have seen my work and would hate to taint that reputation.

I start my new career path in September with an area firm. I am anxious and excited about this transition in my life. Big changes ahead, but I think they are for the best. Over the next months, I will be studying for the CPA exam. The exam (well, four exams) is more of a long-term project, but should be able to get a fair amount accomplished before the end of the year.

Poker
Did not play the interwebs poker in April. So far in May, I've played just over 10 hours, which is not too bad considering finals just got over. I have a goal of playing 50 hours/month. I think this is attainable, but it's definitely NOT a sure thing. If I get myself in the habit of playing, I will get it done. I am definitely a creature of habit. I am conflicted between focusing all my energy on CPA exam or splitting my focus between poker and the CPA exam. Part of me wants to give all my effort to the exam, but meh. The money of online poker is drawing me in. I was not too keen on playing much until I started to put together a budget of income from job and monthly expenses. Not a lot left over at the end of each month, so poker can obviously help significantly.

Nevada dealt the first hand of regulated, online poker in the United States which is exciting. New Jersey should be coming online by the end of the year. If we can get a few more states to combine player pools, I think the implications are exciting. I am considering going to Vegas in August to grind some legal online poker before I start my new job.

That's all I got. I'll prob try to update the end of each month to see if I am meeting my goals. GL at the tables.

I cannot believe February is coming to a close.

JANUARY
I played 33 hours of poker in January. School started January 22nd and I didn't play another hand until this week. That is really disappointing, but in fairness I've been busy and poker is not a priority. A month without poker when I have funds online might be a record. Watched quite a bit of college basketball, almost exclusively B1G conference games. Went to the Iowa vs. Wisconsin game with a group of 16 people and had a blast drinking before the game and watching the Iowa victory.



Work is going well, but can be frustrating at times because we are a super small operation. The amount of work I have to do is directly tied to the presence of my boss. When he's not around, there's not a whole lot I can do. I finally have a few projects where I can work independently and will no longer have that "what to do?" feeling.

FEBRUARY
In early February, I started looking at getting a new car. Surprisingly, the true cost to own a new vehicle versus a 6-year old car is not that different. My car needs brakes and tires relatively soon, so it was now or never. I'm not baller or crazy enough to buy a crazy nice car like a BMW or Audi, so I just stuck with what is economical but yet very nice (don't hate, haters). I devoted a ton of time to researching, test driving, etc. After a couple weeks of non-stop obsessing about cars, I ordered a Ford Fusion on Monday. Hopefully it will be here in a couple months. It came down to the Honda Accord or the Fusion. My vehicle will look similar to the photos below.

After ordering the vehicle, I finally decided to play some poker again. It's nice to be back playing again even though I have not played many hands. I e-filed my federal taxes today, so that was nice to get out of the way. I won't be filing the state taxes for a couple months since I owe them money!

Have a ton of exams and projects coming up this week and next, but they're spaced out relatively well and I do NOT give a fuck anymore since I have a job lined up, which is an awesome feeling. I'm looking forward to spring and playing more hours in March.

Long time, no blog.

2012 was an interesting year. My poker playing decreased significantly, but is now increasing again (more on that later). I focused on school in the early part of the year. In May, I started a part-time job relevant to my career. I still work there and will continue to do so through July or August of 2013. Fall 2012 was easily the busiest I've ever been in my life. I had six classes, 20 hours of work per week, found and moved to a new place, and was interviewing for a ton of full-time positions. I somehow survived the madness and took a full-time offer with a local firm starting in September 2013. After I accepted the offer, the madness decreased and I was able to give more effort towards school and even found some time to play poker. After approximately 40k hands this year, I learned I have very little interest in grinding 6max for ********, so I've been playing HU recently. I don't have enough time and energy to devote to playing super solid, tilt-free poker, which is an absolute necessity at 6max. The end of the year wrapped up with me feeling good about poker and looking forward to 2013.

2013 is likely going to be a shock to my system. I've never had a full-time job besides poker. I enjoy my career path and I think that's the most important thing to maintain sanity in the working world. I graduate in May, will work at my current job in the summer, and then start the career in the fall. I only have four classes in the spring, so I'm hoping to play a fairly significant amount of poker. I've got three weeks to get the year off to a good start before school starts. I am considering buying a house in my new city as the rental market seems crappy and I hate living in shitty apartments with trashy neighbors. Not sure if I can get a mortgage given current income level, but I do have a good credit rating and a lot of assets. I have the contract from my job offer to start in September, not sure if they're willing to factor that in or not. If this was 2007, I'm sure I could get a mortgage! Buying a house would also give me some motivation to play more poker.

Kind of a ramble blog, but tried to go chronologically. Off to bed, can't wait to grind tomorrow night after work.

POKER

I've continue to grind quite a bit lately at the 0.10/0.20 unlimited hold them. I lost an assload of buyins in a spew/tilt/runbad fueled 10k hand session on July 3rd. I really can't emphasize enough how you just simply cannot tilt (even subtle tilt) in today's games. The combination of rake and tough games is difficult enough to beat without spewing away your chips. Since that day, I've really tightened up as nobody folds at the 0.10/0.20 and it's important for me to make life easier for myself postflop. Although I'm playing tight, I'm still 3bing 10% when I have the BTN. Of course, I'm playing looser when the people behind me are tight.

One of the major reasons I decided to play this summer was to prove to myself that I'm not mentally weak. When it comes to looking back at poker, I always view myself as a sort of mental pussy unable to handle the swings. This summer really is about proving myself wrong. It's not about the money. I'll make $1-1.5k if I'm lucky, but I realize this summer could be one of the last opportunities I have to play poker. I had a bad taste in my mouth regarding my play last fall/winter, now's the only time I have to change that taste.

32k hands in this summer so far, 1.98 EVBB/100. Should be a lot higher, but I played so poorly for over 33% of the hands. I am really my biggest enemy in these 20NL games. My biggest tilt trigger has always been my personal mistakes. I can't really cut down on mistakes. You are going to make a certain amount of mistakes given reads/dynamics/etc. I just need to stop compounding the mistakes.

TV SHOW

I've started watching The Inbetweeners on Netflix. The show is a British comedy about four 16 year old boys and their exploits in school and chasing women. It's pretty funny IMO and 2+2 agrees. There is a 2+2 thread dedicated to the programs available on Netflix. I've found a lot of great programs thanks to the thread (including this show).

2+2 Netflix Thread

Enjoy! Let me know if you have any questions. Note: This doesn't prevent you from losing your database, but you will always have your hand histories available to re-import them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1yjzqNvM6g

I got bored this summer (no homework ) and got some money on my Intertops account (same network as Cake/Lock/Revolution). I didn't feel like depositing, so I just did a trade for real life money. I'm currently playing 20nl as I didn't feel like risking a bigger bankroll. Also, to be honest, I am really unsure of my edge at 50nl or 100nl 6max.

My first session I played like a complete monkey and lost roughly 8 buyins. A little rusty, lol. I then decided to buy a 6 month subscription to Leggo. Proceeded to watch luckychewy video and realize I was playing like a 'clown' (aejones' words, not mine). I have been on a heater (14 buyin equity upswong) since re-learning from mostly luckychewy videos, aejones zoom, and grogheadflow zuuumm. 6 max NLHE isn't that complicated. I was making it wayyyyy too difficult on myself. Notice how I'm not playing for my stack every other hand, lol. If only I could erase that first session, but this is real life and you don't get mulligans.

I'm not sure how much I'll play this summer, as I have commitments almost every weekend and I'm going to be working a fair amount. I've been playing around 9 tables, so I can get in a quite a few hands/hr. Not sure if I'll consider moving up or just slum it at NL20. As a goal, I guess I'll go for 100k hands total (probably won't happen if I move up). Got to aim high though, right?

If anybody wants to talk about poker (or life) on Skype, send me a PM. I know for a fact discussing hands/strategy is so helpful.

In before curse graph

That feeling was awesome...SIGH

Only 150 years ago, US citizens shot and killed each other over slavery.

The Civil War (all the major wars really) seem so distant, but they're not. Perspective really hit me as I watching the new miniseries on History Channel Hatfield's and McCoy's. I've been alive 25 years, which means you just add 5 more of my relatively short time alive and you're at the Civil War. My head explodes every time I realize the US Civil War was not too long ago. I cannot fathom life as it was 100+ years ago.

Random thought, but my mind is just blown every time I think about it. Sort of goes along with amurophil's blog as well. I just need to keep my mind occupied so I don't think too much about the utterly amazing things regarding human life.

Not from poker, but work. Gotcha lol! No variance is a weird feeling. I'm enjoying my job so far.

Got done with school one week ago. Crushed the shit out of it, which should make me a good candidate this fall for job openings given my experience at this new job. I will be graduating one year from now in May 2013.

I feel like I have a lot of random thoughts floating around in my head lately, but haven't been motivated to type them out in a blog. Maybe soon I will get around to it. Peace!

Hello everybody! Just wanted to let ya'll know that I have retired from poker. I do, however, have a Brett Favre clause in my retirement contract that allows me to undo the retirement. I simply don't have enough time, energy, and drive to play online poker from the United States. If I was non-US and could trust a site with my money, I would still be playing. However, I'm not comfortable leaving a big enough bankroll online to make a significant enough hourly and get in enough volume to make it a good investment. I have occasionally considered coaching, so that is something I'll keep in the back of my mind. I'd probably give away free sample coaching to a couple people before I started charging any amount of money.



I've been busy with school and school-related activities like volunteering. I've also been applying for a bunch of internships this summer. If I don't get an internship, I'm not sure what to do for the summer. I've been procrastinating plans for summer because I just really want an internship. It will make life so much easier if I get experience in accounting and push poker further down my resume so it's less of a talking point. I'm proud of poker, but prospective employers....not so much. The one internship is with the company where my sister works, so I think she should be able to have a significant impact on my chances.

I'll still be around reading blogs, making comments, and occasionally blogging if I have anything interesting to say.