Working a regular job on the side makes for better poker

I know most poker players dream of playing poker for a living. We tend to view the regular working stiff as a hamster running on a wheel and getting nowhere. For most of us, the 9-5 M-F life is just too boring and predictible. After struggling through several months of making a living only through poker, I finally took a part time consulting job. I now have a supplemental income that pretty much covers all my bills. I have discovered that poker is a lot more fun when it is supplemental. The bad beats hurt less and seem to happen much less often. It is amazing how much better you can play when you are not in a must win situation. So my advise for all of you thinking about "going pro", is to make sure you either have plenty in the bank and a huge bankroll to start with, or have something part time or on the side to help with the bills. You will be much more successful and have a much better time.

Good luck!

Why are people so stupid?

Ok, before I get into stupid people, I got knocked out of the tournament from my previous post by a stupid person.

Now, on to stupid people. Stupid people are unaware that A9, even if it is suited, is not a good hand. Not only that, they dont realize that it is not a good hand to call off all your chips preflop. Stupid people think that hand is great and they are idiots. I hate them and they should not be allowed to win at poker, even if they hit their 3 outer, or flop two 9s, suck out a four card straight. If you play A9 and happen to get super lucky because you are a moron, you should actually have to forfeit your hand and give the pot to the guy who actually knows what he is doing. Dont be a stupid person.

Til next time

I'm Back?

Well, I am not sure that I am back, but at least I am going to get a post in once every six months or so. Seriously, I am going to make an effort to post more regularly. Poker hasnt been kind the last six months, so it has been hard to motivate myself to post here. Also, I have started playing online again, so it is easier to post while playing, which is what I am doing now. Actually, I am playing live and online at the same time. Talk about multi-tabling.

Regarding my online play, I am focusing on my specialty, multi-table tournaments. I typcially play the 45 man turbos on Stars, although I am currently in the $70K guaranteed ($11 rebuy). I have only had to buy in once so far, so hopefully I can make this a cheap overall investment. I will post again later with my results (it could be several months from now, but eventually I will do it). If you would like to see how I am doing, my username is Strumey. I currently still hold my shark status at sharkscope, but have been on a bad run lately, so it might be in jeopardy.

A couple more things for this post...I may have a friend named Travis help me with this blog. He is an excellent poker player who has really dedicating himself to becoming an expert. He has read almost every major book on poker, and plays regularly both live and online. Although he is a tournament specialist, he can hold his own in cash games as well. I look forward to having his help in reviving this blog. Also, be sure and check out Bill's blog regarding his bachelor party in Vegas. It is some very funny and inspiring reading.

Update on my bill paying

Well, it has been a rough run for me since I am in a must win position. I had a terrible run in February, and made a slight recovery in March. The big problem is that I havent gained any ground and the bills keep coming. I have had some staking, so that has helped a little, but the big wins get cut in half, and that hurts when the pressure is on.

Tournament play has been solid, but the cash games have been dragging. I am actually typing this while I play today and am up about $700 in a crazy $5/$5 game. There is at least $25K on the table. Wish me luck

I also started working in the sports memorbilia business, so I have had less time for poker. I really love the business so far, and plan to be in this for a long time. So, if any of you want any cool autographed sports stuff, just give me a call and I will get you a good deal.

Back to paying bills with poker

Well, I am officially playing poker "professionally" again. I am only doing it part time as I do have other means of earning income, but due to some unfortunate business conditions, I am back in a must win situation.

I really dont like the pressure of a must win, but I have built up the bankroll a little to support something like this. My record keeping is good, but the pressure to make the bank each day does make it harder to stil to my rules of 2 buy ins per session. I have a couple of tournaments this week, including a $500 buy in that should be a big payout if I can money. I was thinking about posting my earning needs on here and track it with yall. Is that something that would be interesting to follow? Let me know.

Good luck!

Sticking to your rules

As many of you know, I started tracking my results starting in January. I have started to track results many times, but always lost interest and eventually quit. I am now a month an a half in, and I am still keeping track despite having a terrible start to February. I have made up some ground this week, but it was tough to write down several big losses in a row.

Today I want to talk about avoiding those big loss days. When I started this tracking process this year, I set a couple of rules for my game to prevent the huge swings I have taken in the past. The rules were simple and they are below.

1. Maximum of 2 buy ins per day. NO EXCEPTIONS!
2. No more than 2 drinks per session.
   If it is a drinking session for fun. Max is one buy in.

I have failed miserably with rule number one in February and it has cost me. I went 7 buy ins deep on one day and they were increasing buy ins, so it got really nasty. A couple other days, I got 4 buy ins deep. It is so hard to get up and quit when you are stuck, but I had a huge eye opener after going through my results. If I took all the days I had more than two buy ins and just quit after those two, I would have $4600 more in my bankroll right now. Wow! I had no idea it was that big of a difference! That includes a session that I made a nice comeback as well.

So, I am now sticking to that rule and it is out here for all to see. That always seems to make it easier to hold myself accountable.

Quick side note: I won the weekly Tuesday touranment again this week, so I have a commanding lead in the points standings which will net me a $1500 WSOP buy in.

January in the books!

Well, I closed out January and it was a good month in cash games and a loss in tournaments, even with a 2nd place finish. I am excited to continue accurate tracking of my play. So far, I am up more than I would have guessed. I am also doing a better job of managing my bankroll.

February started on a big down note with a two big loss days, but I made just about all of it back yesterday. I am a little tired from playing, so I will be taking a few days off. My next blog I will post a couple of key hands for everyone to evaluate.

Travel and Poker

Look at me! Less than a month between posts!!

The last 3 weeks have been crazy with poker. I went on two annual poker trips with some buddies and it was a blast. Dead Money in New Orleans is always one of my favorite weekends of the year, at least what I can remember of it.

Last week I was in Vegas on business, but I did manage to get a little time in on the tables. I won about $600 in cash games, but crapped out in tournaments. I think my record keeping may help steer me away from tournament play for a while. I started out with a nice win early in the month, but now I am down for the month in my tournament play. I have two tournaments this week to try and turn that around, but my cash game play is carrying me this month.

I really like that I am sticking to my record keeping. I made a really nice spreadsheet with graphs and such. It is fun to enter data after each session and check out all the graphs. If any of you would like a copy of my creation, let me know. If you have some other good poker tracking tools, I would love to hear about them as well.

That is it for now. Hopefully I will be motivated to update tomorrow after I win the tournament tonight!

New Year, New Me

Once again, I apologize for taking so long to update this blog. I think my new strategy it going to be short and sweet and more often. For some reason I have felt the need to write large posts with lots of content, and that pressure keeps me from updating as often. So, I am going to try this new approach this year and see where it goes.

For the first time in my life, I actually decided to do some New Year's Resolutions. I never did them before because I saw so many people around me make the "promises" to themselves, but they were rarely kept. I didn't really see the significance of that date to make a change in your life. If you need to make a change, just make it. The time frame doesn't really matter. Maybe it was just that the stars aligned in such a way that I needed to make several changes in my life right at the New Year, or I just needed an excuse to hold myself to them. Either way, here they are for all to see. Hopefully, I will not fail in following through with these this year, and 15 days in, I am still going strong.

1. Keep complete and accurate records of my poker play: In the past, I have started and stopped so many times I cant even count them. I generally have stopped when the cards are running bad and picked up again when the cards are running good. HA! This year I plan on keeping it simple and just tracking net profit/loss on cash games and tournaments. So far I have stuck to it and will push through the rough rides to see my true winnings for the year.

2. Keep myself in better physical condition: I know that everyone's NYR is to get into the gym and workout. I joined my gym back in October and have been fairly consistent, but not to the degree I would like. So far I am keeping with the schedule, except for the fact that I have been sick the last three days. Once I kick this cold, it is back to the gym.

3. Don't drink while playing cards: This has been an on and off problem for me. I really enjoy drinking and I really enjoy cards. Put the two together and I have a fantastic time losing all my money. My plan is not to deny this beautiful Reces Peanut Butter Cup all together, but limit my buy in when drinking and playing. I wont say my limit here, but it is definitely a hard and fast limit. So all of you can stop salivating when you see me a little tipsy at the table.

Well, that is it for today. I guess I still made this a little long. ;)