Everytime I look at my son I realize that there are more important things than running good at poker. Make someones day and tell them you care about them and you appreciate the things they do for you.

I have primarily been playing uNL cash games on the internet for the last year or so and I have faired pretty well. I usually don’t have the 5-6 hours on average that it takes to play a tourney. I only have a couple of hours a night that I am able to dedicate to poker. Between being a full time accountant and a full time dad to a newborn, I just don’t have the time. I decided last week that if I ever wanted to get out of the 5x5 cubicle that I spend 40hrs a week in, I was going to have to play in some bigger cash games or make a few nice scores in a couple tourneys. Since I have been running pretty bad at uNL cash games this month I decided that taking a couple of shots at some bigger NL games was probably a bad idea, so this weekend I made a conceded effort to play a couple of tourneys on Stars.

On Friday night I played 2 tourneys. I played the $10r and a $15 freeze out on ‘Stars and I ended up making the final table of the freeze out. Beginners luck???? I had 17K in chips after the add-on at the first break in the rebuy and I actually ran that up to ~$30K until I ran QQ into KK in a $60K pot in the second hour and just like that I was gone. So much for that. I am now focused 100% on the freeze out where I have an above average stack. I pretty much play ABC poker until we bust the money bubble and then I start catching cards left and right. I made it to the final table and I can’t catch a card that is higher than a 5. I am bleeding chips left and right. I end up making a bad preflop decision and try and steal some blinds with Q-7 and when the SB shoves over the top of me I have to make a decision. I know I am beat, but I look at the #s and I am getting close to 4-1, so I make the “right” play and ship some more chips into the pot, but unfortunately I can’t sweat A3c. BAH. I end up having to shove 9-10o on the CO and when someone else re-shoved I knew I was toast. The guys KK dominated my 9-10, but the flop revealed both a 9 and a 10 I got a little giddy. Man it feels good to suck out once in awhile!!!! To bad a K spiked on the turn. GG Mr_Taterhead. Regardless of the variance that tourneys entail I think I am in love again.

Wish me luck.

Pretty meh month.

Lost $530 at the Horseshoe-Bossier City on Landlord79's Birthday :(
Won $315 on Stars MTabling uNL
Won $165 on Bodog playing HU SNG's and uNL
Cleared $50 bonus on Stars.

My Jan 08 Goals were:

Play 10K hands online and achieve SilverStar/GoldStar VIP.
"Check-SilverStar VIP"
Blog here more.
"Bout the same"
And of course come back from Tunica a winner.
"Didn't end up going, but lost at the 'Shoe


Feb 08 Goals are:

1.Become GoldStar VIP at PokerStars.
2.Play 17.5K hands.
3.Win >4ptbb/100 @ $50NL
4.Take some shots at MTabling $.50/$1 on Stars.
5.Make a trip to the 'Shoe

OK, time for a quick little update. I have moved up to regularly 9-12 tabling $50NL on PokerStars after a couple of good runs at the $25NL tables. I am <100 VPP’s from becoming a SilverStar VIP, which I should be able to clear by the time the weekend rolls around. I am up close to 15 BI’s at $25NL this month online, but my live results are much less impressive.

I was able to go over to Horseshoe-Bossier City last Friday for some live $1/$3NL action and what a disaster it turned out to be. I could never get anything going and I ended up dumping close to 2BIs at the casino for the 2 days that I was there. I swear I have never seen so many J4's in my life. Sometimes live poker can be so painful. On Saturday morning I sat at my table for almost 4 hours, before I voluntarily put money into a pot and won. It was a bad weekend trip to the ‘Shoe for me, but Landlord79 had a nice little profit. Take a look at his blog for a nice trip report. This was the first time in over a year that I came back from the casino with less money than I went there with.

Here is a pic of Harper enjoying part of his supper!!!!



Good Luck, guys!!!!

Billy

Ok just a quick little weekly update for the 2 people that read this little thing they call a blog. I am still currently 12 tabling $25NL and it is going okay. I am about half way to becoming SilverStar VIP. I think I need less than 700VPPs to achieve this and then I can work on getting my $50 bonus, which costs 5,000 FPPs. I have played close to 6K hands already this month. The most hands I ever put in at Bodog was 5K and I am going to destroy that this month. I hope to have 3x that amount, but we will see.

The month started off bad when I jumped into $50NL, because Landlord79 was playing, and promptly dropped 3BIs. That is what I get for trying to keep up with the Joneses. I have recovered all of that spewfest and I am back in the black for the month. I also have already cleared my initial $50 bonus that ‘Stars offered me. I am still messing around with HU SNGs and dabbling in $25NL on Bodog when I don’t feel like grinding 12 tables of cash on Stars. I have been running pretty well at the HU SNGs.

So for the month I am up about 5BIs between cash games on Stars and Bodog and with the $50 bonus that I earned that makes me at +7BIs of $25NL.

Oh, LL79 and I decided that we will not be going to Tunica. We decided to make a long weekend trip to the Horseshoe-Bossier City instead. I have heard that the cash games in Tunica were really not that good, so that made me feel good about our decision.

It’s all about putting yourself in profitable situations, fellas.

Good Luck!!!


BJJIII

Ok so I was working on posting two trip reports from my last two trips to the Horseshoe-Bossier City and just as I soon as I hit the post button it says something like server is busy try again and you guessed it all my words vanished into cyberspace. Grrrrr.....

So now instead of detailed reports everyone gets Cliff Notes:

In 2 trips to the Horseshoe-Bossier City, I made $750 total. The first trip I made a whopping $35 and on the Friday before Christmas I made $735. The first trip I was up and down and struggled to get even and once I got up I called it a day and booked a winner. The second trip the biggest hand I had was early on when I limped on the button with 10-7o and the flop was 6-8-9 and I got a guy to stack off with me from the SB when he flopped the bottom end with 5-7o. Its always fun to be on the good side of a cooler.

For the month of December I made about $800 playing poker and most of it was live. I cashed out all my money on Bodog and made the switch to PokerStars. I am currently working on 8-10 tabling $25NL event hough I am fully rolled for $100NL. I want to get my feet wet before I jump into the waters over at 'Stars. I will probably start multi-tabling $50NL once I get back from Tunica (Jan 16-19) and then hopefully move to $100NL if the $50NL experiment goes well.

My Jan 08 Goals are:

Play 10K hands online and achieve SilverStar/GoldStar VIP.
Blog here more.
And of course come back from Tunica a winner.

Later.

This pretty much sums up my month. All at Bodog $100NL.



I didnt get to play as much as I wanted this month, but hopefully next month will be different.

I plan to get at least one live session in at the Horseshoe-Bossier City this month, before Landlord79 and I hit up Tunica for some action next month.

Good Luck and Happy Holidays!!!

Billy

/begin rant

Well I guess I shouldn't have been bragging about coming out of my downswing the last time I posted, because the poker gods over at Bodog must have read my blog and flipped the doomswitch. Since I posted I have dropped close to 2 Buy Ins over the course of 400 hands. Last night was the worst. I had KK 3 times and I lost every single time, but thank goodness I only got stacked once and that was due to some horrendous play on my part. I will post the HH later. I am at work now.

I also got it all in 3-4 times vs. shortstacks (~$50) with the best hand and they either went runner runner on me or they had draws that hit.

One hand I remember is that a guy who was horrible, like 45/1/3, and shortstacked reraised my pre flop holding of AK with 6-3 offsuit. He spiked a 3 on the flop, but I finally sucked out on someone when I hit my ace on the turn. I just knew the 6 was about to hit on the river, but it didn't.

/end rant

I am so ready for the month to end.

good luck.

Climbing the Ladder, Thanksgiving and Football

The last time I posted I was having a terrible downswing, but I have been climbing back up the ladder this week. I have pretty much wiped out all my losses for the month and I am feeling pretty good again. I am still playing $100NL and my online bankroll is getting back to where it needs to be so I can play comfortably. I have picked up about $400 in the past 3 days and it is really helping my confidence. I have been trying to play late night, when the action is much looser while I have been off work for the holiday and it has paid off, to say the least.

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving. I ate and slept way much, but I guess it is OK due to it being a holiday. We got up early on Thursday and sat Harper in front of the TV, and he watched the parades, while Ashley and I cooked some desserts for the Thanksgiving meal. We got over to the in-laws house and ate turkey, dressing and all the trimmings and then I proceeded to hit the hay for about an hour, and then we headed over to my sisters to have Thanksgiving supper with my family. We finally made it home at about 9pm and we all crashed for the night. Boy, was it a long day!!!

The Friday after Thanksgiving I usually always go to the casino to play some poker, but this year was different. I had originally planned to go to the Horseshoe-Bossier City with Landlord79, but unfortunately, the daycare we take Harper to was closed and I had no one to watch him. Harper and I ended up spending the entire day watching football and spending time with each other. We pretty much just flipped between the early games until the LSU vs. R-Kansas game came on. I know this may sound crazy, but I am not an LSU fan. Every time LSU is on TV you can bet that this guy is rooting for whoever is playing the Tigers. I was super excited that Arkansas upset them. I am always for anything that causes drama in college football, because this BCS crap must go. I am for a post-season playoff like every other sport in the world.

/end rant


My poker goal for this week is to get in at least 1K hands and hopefully pick up a couple buy-ins at $100NL.

Wish me luck.

Billy


Here is a couple of pictures of us at Thanksgiving:

Well what can I say? I have been pretty much stuck in reverse since the month started and it is not looking like things will be changing anytime soon. Since the end of October I have been on a 6 buy in downswing and my confidence is at an all time low. I have put in around ~2K hands at $100NL this month and I am stuck big time and it is only the middle of the month. I guess the good news is that I have almost two weeks of online play and I even have a “boat” trip planned for the Friday after Thanksgiving with Landlord79, so maybe I will be able to cut this downswing in half or maybe even turn a profit for the month. This downswing is probably the largest downswing that I have ever had to deal with and it is really not that big compared to the 15 BI downswings that I hear about on 2+2. I don’t know what I would do if I had to deal with one of those.

Since I am on a downswing and I was really never playing at the “suggested” bankroll for the stakes that I play, I tried to move down to $50NL, but it felt like I was playing for paper clips, so I am really pressing my luck playing $100NL on such a small online bankroll. I know that I can beat the $100NL games on Bodog and hopefully soon my results will show it.

Landlord79 and I started planning our trip to Tunica for the WPO and the WSOP events during January 2008 and we decided that we will be in Tunica Jan 16th – 19th, so if anyone will be there during that time hit us up. We will mostly be grinding the juicy NL cash games that are spread during the major tourneys and I will be playing in all the $175+$25 second chance tourneys at the Gold Strike.

I will post my online roll once I am not embarrassed. Let’s just say that the goal I set for myself probably is not going to happen unless I make a big score in a tourney. I just hope that I will have enough total roll to take a shot or two at the uncapped 2/5 NL game in Tunica during Jan08.


Good Luck everyone.

Billy


Oh this is how I feel: