I'm still on the heads-up tip. I've been slowly picking up my hours, but it's not enough. My life is somewhat busy these days and I'm often doing other things. It's a major goal of mine now to put in enough time to get back in the proper poker mentality.

When I don't play enough, I'm rusty and don't make the best decisions; in addition, I pressure myself to win too much. I do notice a difference when I'm back on a regular schedule; I make better decisions and don't sweat the occasional loss. At this point, I feel like the mental game, keeping a consistent A-game, is the only thing holding me back. Of course, that surfaces in a lot of ways-- not tilting, not making weak or frightened decisions, not sticking through a tough match for reasons of ego-- but as far as the basics go, I feel pretty comfortable hand reading and board reading and making opponent-specific moves. There's always a part of me that recognizes the right play; the key is listening to it, and not to the distractions or the ego or the other reasons I might want to do something else. (I've lost more money at poker making giant moves that my own chain of logic had convinced me were genius, and I would look like a genius if they worked, when in fact nothing about the hand except my desire to win the pot suggested they would.)

I've been thinking about playing a live series soon. It's been a while, and I'd have to check the upcoming calendar. Probably it would be in early 2009; that should give me enough time to contact some of my usual backers and investors and see how much money I could raise for such a venture. I've been out of the loop in that regard lately; it would be good for me to reconnect with the friends I've made and the community of support I have in the poker world.

Oh, the Cardplayer piece is up. It's about a hand I played at the WSOP this summer, which I believe I wrote about on here when it happened. You'll enjoy it if you haven't heard about it already, though. (And as you can see by the included photo, I'm much classier and more important-looking than I was when I started out.)

Well, back to the holiday season and putting in some more heads-up hours. Anyone have anything they want to see me write about?

I only had one cash in the FTOPS, but I played a very small schedule. I finished 46th in event 19 (out of some 2200-odd). A deep run that I couldn't quite sustain until the end. Disappointing, but tournaments usually are.

So it's back to the heads-up. I'm still playing this on the regular, though I had a tough session today (lost two flips for stacks and two other stacks where I got the money in as a big favorite). Nothing you can do about running bad, although I don't think I had my A-game today. Again, focusing on bringing that every time is vital to my progress as a player.

It seems like I'm moving in the right direction, though, and it's just going to be a work in progress as I work to maintain the discipline full time and continue to plug leaks. The goal is to play perfectly all the time; I will probably fail, but as long as I don't beat myself up over mistakes and continue to learn why things work and don't work, I will at least play well most of the time.

A little more in the next day or two as I have a couple of random thoughts.

the HU grind has been going okay. I've had a profitable run at it, at least, although I've also had a couple of sessions I should have quit sooner. Even so, my discipline is improving as I go. It's a process, of course, but I feel the more I play, the more my old instincts to play well return, and then I've been developing the discipline and patience to not spew stacks if I'm not winning as quickly as I would like to be.

I'm still not putting in as many hours as I'd like, and I think I'll have to restructure one or two things in my life to make that possible. For one, I don't really have a proper setup at present, and my laptop is on the fritz (again).

I sold some pieces to the FTOPS, so I'm gonna play some events in that over the next week. If I pop a big score, great.

Life is good; I'll keep updates coming as anything interesting happens.

Well, I haven't written in an extremely long time, and it's largely because I've been laying low, and partially because it's been a busy/crazy time outside of poker, and I haven't had much chance to play. We survived Hurricane Ike okay, but were without power for five or six days, and I had to miss part of the WCOOP. I came back in time to cash in the final two NL events, including the main. I took a little time off after that.

I've been playing heads-up, trying to pick up more and more hours of it as I rebuild my bankroll. It's been slow going, though. I've been pressing too much and getting myself stuck in bad situations. Getting into the flow of the game is crucial in heads-up; even if you feel a player has enough leaks that you should have an edge against him, so much is dictated by the action / reaction that if you're against the ropes, it's often best to just quit, or at least slow down and get your bearings, rather than press for a situation to make the money back. I've learned that the hard way; I've never been that good at the discipline that takes.

I've also been considering getting a backer for tournaments, playing more of them online, and heading to a few live tournaments as well. The variance is insane, but I'm too good at them to pass up the opportunity. I don't have enough money to play them on the regular right now (certainly not enough to play at the highest stakes where I'm a winning player), and not being able to fade the variance makes it tough to make the correct plays. As much as I prize being able to jump into whatever game is good, and being able to operate on my own schedule, I simply don't have enough money to effectively do that now, anyway. If I can make more getting backed than I can the other way, I owe that to myself.

I have something appearing in Cardplayer soon. I'll let you know when it comes out. I'll also put up a couple links to other things I've written or places I've appeared in the media. I'm pretty bad at self-promotion, but anyone reading this, I figured, would be interested in that sort of thing. (After all, what's a blog where the blogger has too much false modesty to tell you anything about himself, anyway?)

Back to the bankroll grind. I haven't had reason to be optimistic lately, but I'm going to keep trying.

Haven't posted in a while. Haven't played much or done anything of note. I've been throwing in short sessions of HU cash, to get my head back in the game. So far so good-- not great, but good; I am winning, although if I ran better and didn't make mistakes I would win more.

The WCOOP starts tomorrow and I'm selling action to as many events as I can (I can't afford the WCOOP right now). If you're interested, contact me and I'll give you the details.