I was on fire last night. I won about 6 buy-ins in a relatively small number hands. It was really one of those situations where I was flopping sets way more often than I should and getting paid. Another thing I noticed was a strange number of bad players at the table. What was going on? I'm not sure if it was just the time of day I was playing or what, but there were some noticeably bad players at several tables. Since I don't play as much as I should I will have to focus more on things like game selection.

And if anyone cares (I know you don't, but humor me) I've had a few good days of writing. I finally feel like the story is coming alive and I'm liking what is coming out. I haven't felt like this in several years. Don't wanna lose it.

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted here and if you were some super loyal follower I apologize.

Basically what happened I was in full video making mode and kind of snapped. I had no problem just sitting down to play and talking while doing it, I knew I needed to do more for high quality. So I recorded like 6 shorter films with the intention of doing voice over later. I had a list of notes of things I wanted to say and point out. I had the notes and video player open on my desktop for a week ready to go, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

In a way, I snapped.

Nothing major to sure, but I was putting a lot of time, effort, and brainpower into it. I do this all the time with poker, but this wasn't poker. At least it didn't feel like poker. This felt like work. You remember what "real work" feels like?

Hard. Dull. Boring. Frustrating. Depressing. Never ending.

Yeah, that's what this felt like. I was depressed and had to avoid the whole damned thing. I went several weeks without even opening a table.

I think part of my problem was I never wanted poker to be a life long career. What I *want* to do is be a writer and director here in Hollywood. For me poker was supposed to be a way to get the hell out of Red Lobster and free me up to spend more time with my writing.

Except it didn't turn out like that. When I wasn't playing poker most of my free time was spent hanging around the boards or just thinking about poker. I imagine it goes for all of us that after any session (good or bad) we can't help but constantly replay hands in our head. Whether we should've called, raised more, or made that (looking back) easy lay-down. The game consumes your thoughts.

That's not a bad thing, to be sure. The only way to become a great player is to constantly analyze and think about the infinite situations that may arise. The problem for me is writing is much the same.

When I'm not writing a script my brain is often "living" the story. That is I'm thinking about the characters, the situations, you name it in much the same way we think about poker. If I can't have the story living in my head I tend to spend most of the time staring at the computer with nothing coming, or even worse staring at my screenplay and I'm instead thinking about a certain poker hand.

This has been the situation for almost three years exactly. That's when I first started playing poker seriously. In that time my writing skills have deteriorated to an almost embarrassing level. You're supposed to get better with time, I've grown worse.

No, I'm not quitting poker - gotta make a living. I will however try to find a way to strike the correct balance. Part of what I need for my writing is an audience. I've choosen you. Don't worry, I'm won't be posting stories and crap on this blog. Instead I will just use it as a more full-range blog. A place to actually write something. And I'll post poker updates like...

Played a crazy hour-and-a-half where I won 1.5 buy-ins in high variance fashion. It was stack and be stacked. I had big pairs lose to flopped sets in 3-bet pots several times. I also hit some sets to win my own big pots including a whopper 4-bet 400bb pot where my TT turned a set against his top top. When we got it all in I imagined across the interwebs the guy was yelling, "GOD DAMN ****ING COCK *****."

That's poker.

So basically I'm back to practicing making videos for Leggo Poker. Matt suggested I make a 10 minute vid and send it to him for feedback. Well I made like 4 of those this afternoon and watched them all. I deleted each one cause I didn't like them. I don't know what I'm shooting for maybe some idea of perfection.

I think I'll have to breakdown and sign up for Leggo to watch more of their vids. Get the idea of what their looking for. It's much harder than I thought. I have a tendency to wander off on topics, say "Uh...Umm" a lot, and for some reason my breathing is coming through very clear. I may have to look into the mic I'm using...

So Probability wants me to make a video for Leggo. As I've always been intrigued by the idea I agreed. I do need some practice first. I recorded a half-hour session tonight and the first thing I realize is I mostly just run my internal monologue and didn't say much. I'll have to concentrate on actually articulating what I'm thinking when I do this for real. How hard could it be?

I won 3 buy-ins. Nice run.

Just had a solid session where I won 7 buy-ins. I was lucky enough to be joined by Probability at one of my tables. We didn't tangle too much except one hand.

I raised in late position with AT and he called in the BB. The flop came A99 and we both checked. The turn was a 3 he led out and I called. The river was another 3 for a A9933 board and he made an overbet, somethine like 66 into 42. I was intending to call any river until the overbet which I've never seen him do before. After thinking it over I decided he would've 3-bet any other ace, probably not have called with a marginal 9 and very unlikely a 3. So there was a small chance of his having a full house or quads or more likely just a bluff. I called, he had KQ, ship it. I imagine he's still annoyed that he never beats me.

Just poker.

Boy I ran like **** today. I cut my session short because I couldn't bear to keep going. I lost every coin flip. What was worse is I kept getting floated only for the villain to hit on the turn. That's a nice way to lose big pots. Horrible. All of it.

So I spent 5 weeks in Asia or so. Good times. Great. Don't think I'll put a full trip report here. I did go to Macau but unfortuantely I forgot to look up which casinos had poker so I didn't get a chance to play. A heck of a city though, really dedicated to gambling.

So I came home and dropped 9 buy-ins at 1-2 today. WTF? That sucks. I ran really really bad.

Played for about two hours this morning during happy hour. I was fairly close to even, maybe down half a buy-in. That is actually fairly good considering how bad the session was going. I've run rather poorly the past week or so. This is probably why I haven't been playing as much, but I think my mind has been elsewhere as well.

Is there a convertor for Leggo poker? I'd post hands more but I find it annoying to convert them for this blog.

Played a little early this morning, lost about 2.5 buy-ins. Man, that sucks.

I lost like 5 buy-ins on Friday then I basically took Saturday and Sunday off. I need to recharge. I don't wanna wear myself out.