pokerbob hand conversations

Pokerbob made a super funny post to his blog and it's definitely worth checking out here.

november coming to a close

Wow have I played a ton of poker this month - somewhere around 45k hands online. To the 8 or 10 tablers out there that's nothing I know, but when I play limit I play 1-3 tables and when I play no-limit I average around 4 with all the table switching and laptop play...so hours wise it was a sick month and the most time I've spent playing poker in a long time. I probably averaged 35-40 hours online per week.

I finally put up a couple good sessions at Canterbury, too. I'm sure I'm still down there this year.. but I made a dent, that's for sure. My live NL session in Cali definitely helped the bottom line as well.

Because I played so much no limit and almost no $100/200 my swings this month were very low. The end of the month has been kinda slow, but nothing crazy. I did start playing some more limit again though because the good Canterbury session put me in the mood/a better mental place. Limit is just so sick.

3 good months in a row. Wish I could throw one of these in the sick 8 month streak i had last year into the middle of this year. Owell, I made it through it and am definitely more aware/seasoned because of it. I just have to stay sharp and not get complacent or before I know it I could be wondering wtf again.

I finally started buying stocks within the last month. Before I would just buy vanguard funds but I really want to understand the markets and be more involved and the way I learn things is hands on so I talked to a few people, read some stuff on fool.com and dove in. I have 5 positions and that should be enough for now. The next money I invest I'll just get another fund, as I don't know enough yet to want to put toooo much into individual stocks but I have enough in there to make me care/pay attention/learn.

I don't want to jinx her, but Kelsey is feeling really good about some job prospects here in the cities. She graduates in 3 weeks and has been really giving the job hunt her all and I think it's really going to pay off.

Thanksgiving was a fun time. We always go down to Worthington, MN (3 hours south west of here) where my dad grew up on a farm. I don't get to see them very often so it was nice. I also got to talk money and all that with my parents on the car ride and I always like soaking up what I can from their experiences.

2.5 more days left in the month...I can win another 5-10k right? Wouldn't that be nice.

an update

I've really been spending quite a bit of time playing no limit these days and I've just been happier as a whole. The limit games were really sick for awhile and I took good advantage of that, but I haven't really seen them lately and NL has been so much more interesting and the money has been good. Also, it seems like everyone I know who plays limit is either currently frustrated by it or has been strongly in the last few months. It's just such a sick game...

I don't know how my earn compairs to limit as my sample size is pretty small (maybe 20k hands this month) but if it's around what I've been making I'll be more than content.

My guess gauging from my NL friends is I'll be quite happy with it...but I have plenty to learn before getting to that stage. I'm a pretty fast learner though and I spent quite a bit of time learning NL at the beginning of the year (perhaps 150k hands) so I'm not a complete n00b.

I've been very dedicated and have been putting in reletively long hours these days and have been splashing in HU PLO and stud 8 or better at low limits just to know more games.

One last bit is I've finally started buying individual stocks in addition to my mutual funds. I've been slowly tryin to better understand investing and going head first into the market has been seeming to assist the learning process. I probably spend a half hour per day reading about different things and soaking it all up. I've probably bought enough stocks (5) for a little bit and if I could get my money off poker sites faster it'd be time again for another good mutual fun investment.

I had nice timing on monday I think it was...as I was talking to schneider at canterbury and we agreed Target might be a decent company to check out for investing so tuesday I started looking at it and it had missed q3 earnings numbers by a hair which sent it down 4.5% to it's 52week low so I snatched it up right away as I think it's a good long term spot. Time will tell.

I'm in Worthington (3.5 hours sw of tc) for a few days seeing my grandparents which I see only once per year. I really wish it was more and perhaps this coming spring or summer I'll come out here again.

I'm dieing to get out skiing and the snow isn't lookin that great so far out west but you never know, it could come quickly. Brad L has a place in vail and if they can pull some snow out of their ass soon I'll probably go out there in a week or 2.

Til then, poker poker poker and crossing my fingers kelsey's interviews keep going well and she gets a couple job offers she really wants.

Leaving SD

It's been a real nice 11 days...even though it was uncharacteristically cloudy and dreary most of the time but there was enough sun the last few days to make it better.

Having 3 good poker players in 1 house is hard for game selection...and jay often beat me to the limit games so I found myself playing some NL again. Ahhh, what a nice change of pace. It doesn't help that I've been running super hot at it, but it's been fun and there's just something really satisfying to stacking a guy. Just another tool in the toolbox...being able to play more games. They play higher than I do for NL so I didn't have to compete for games. Also, it was great timing cause I could always ask them about the tough hands and discuss other hands as well. It's no surprise they've all been killing it this year.

Dave and I were bored one day so we started playing $.5/1 PLO heads up. I played pickett as well as some random guys on the net and played 2400 hands and lost 12 buyins. I importing the hands into pokerev I found out that I was running 12.5 buyins under expectation in all-in pots. LMAO PLO is such a funny game I guess.

Kels comes tomorrow for some job interview stuff and to see me...which I'm really looking forward to.

free days

It doesn't happen all that often...i mean, sometimes I'm confused as to what day of the week it is...that's normal and isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the days where multiple times during the day you react to things as if it were a completely different day...and I'm sure everyone experiences this from time to time.

I went through the entire day today thinking it was saturday. I just got reminded for the 2nd time that in fact, it's friday. Tomorrow is a freebee. What a gift. Life is goood.

biggest NL pot of life

Dave, Jay, and I went up to a small casino here in san diego to play $10/20 blind no limit. There was a player who as pokerbob would say had a "strong disdain for money" who we had played with for awhile. He had about 7k in front and I covered by like a thousand.

He open limped, which meant that he had 2 cards that were suited or remotely connected, another moron limped, folded to me in the small blind so I made it $220 with TT. The open limper calls and the other limper folds.

The flop comes T64 rainbow, I bet $400, he raises to $1400, I make it $3400, he goes all in for ~$7000 I call. Turn 4 river 7. 14k pot my way. Rigggged!

Still broken, leaving anyhow

I really have no idea what's wrong with me. I've been feeling more or less good the last few days but I still have plenty of gunk and a stupid sometimes productive sometimes dry cough that is pretty prominent. I've don't really remember having a cold like this before (weirdness wise). Perhaps I have a sinus infection or bronchitis again. It's definitely not like the death plague of bronchitis we all had last year, at least not yet though which is good.

I was supposed to goto Cali a week ago but haven't felt up to it...but I wanted to go badly so I treated my body really well and didn't even leave the house from Sunday til Thursday. I just laid low - worked and watched 4 seasons of survivor lol. While I still have some symptoms I don't feel particularly crappy now so I'm outta here...flying out at 4pm today. Enough putting it off. It'll be plenty chill anyhow so it's not a big deal.

If this crap doesn't start lessoning maybe I'll see a doctor in cali.

late night music

There something to be said about having a house to yourself and cranking the shit out of a sweet song at 4am.