Cush, sounds pretty good to me. I wish you all the best in poker and any other future endeavors. Whatever direction you take, keep the thread alive!

Been a split between Venetian and Wynn lately, all 2/5.

Thanks man, I certainly intend to keep writing regardless of the direction I take.

Just got back to 2+2 after a long work session (10 weeks - no days off). Looking forward to catching up on this thread.

Reading this now because of this post. Thanks!

Glad to hear. I think I didnt do a good job of explaining it.
Its a novel full of degen characters, drugs and poker... you can all read a large part of the book here to get an idea:

https://books.google.com/books?id=_H...page&q&f=false

Hey guys, been moving right along at what seems to be a good pace for me. I've been doing 2-3 days on for every one day off with sessions averaging just over 5 hours. I've been staying motivated for the most part so thats encouraging.

First session after my last update I was sorta tilted because a few particularly unsavory people at my table made me hate everyone. It was a must-move game or I would have table changed. Ended up getting frustrated trying to explain a ruling to this guy who was spouting incoherent nonsense and annoying the crap out of me when the guy next to me said, "hey man why do you even do that? You're not here for that, I know you're not. Just play your game."

I was surprised to hear that coming from this particular guy as he didn't strike me as being sharp on any level. He was dead right of course. I was able to reel it back in and played pretty well the whole session, much of which I owe to that guy. He ended up being a really cool guy in a lot of ways I wouldn't have expected so it was nice to talk with him a bit.

My mental game since that session has been immensely better. I went home afterwards and reviewed some parts of The Mental Game of Poker that apply to my particular issues and developed a few "focuses" that I've been reminding myself of before my sessions as a sort of warm up. They have shifted somewhat over the last couple weeks but its been a helpful exercise.

Results wise, I've been on a pretty good heater lately with the only significant loss of the last 2 weeks ironically coming on April 15th. I also had my biggest 2/5 win ever about a week ago at Venetian. Looking back at my records it also beat my biggest 5/10 win by about 20 bucks so it was actually my biggest cash game win ever. Had a couple combo draws get home that I got paid on and then had a whale shove 1600 into a 200 dollar pot on T65 with his supposed AA against my 66.

I'd probably rate my play over the last couple weeks at a B. Despite the upswing, or more likely as a result of it, I've definitely made some mistakes. I think for a session or two I was in "God-mode", where it didn't seem possible to lose because everything I did was working and as a result I made some errors while attempting some ambitious plays. Took a couple days off to reset and that helped.

After taking the unplanned time off in March I readjusted my hours goal, which I'll reach in my next session. The readjustment was 75% of the original goal, but I will end up with slightly more than that, probably closer to 80%. After taking this weekend off because of some non-poker stuff going on, the plan is to keep up my current pace until a few days before my trip so I can pack and get my ducks in a row and then it'll be off to Europe.

Some run good has allowed me to significantly exceed the monetary benchmarks that my original hours goal was based on, which is nice. However, poker is about hours. So while I am sort of disappointed that I failed on my original goal, I'm pretty happy with the volume I've put in and how my mindset has been since starting back up in April. Especially considering there was a point during that unplanned off time at which I was debating just hanging it up until I got back from Europe which would have put me only slightly over 50% of my original hours goal.

That over shove is sick. AA is possible. So is an open ended straight draw. Also top two in those spots, and lastly bottom set.. Pretty nice gift though.

reading shut up and deal now, pretty good so far.

Glad to see you're running good Cush. Think I might head over to V to play with you regs in May when the rake gets low.

i see this way more often than i should, it's like "here ya go if you have me beat!" lol i love it, it's the worst =)

When you get back from Europe ?

While this guy was crazy, I'm inclined to believe his AA story because of the action pre-flop. Full action is the first guy opened to 20 early, whale min 3b to 35 which he hadn't done before, I call, bb call, opener calls. Flop the original raiser leads for 45 and the whale just snap shoved. This guy is certainly crazy enough to have a bunch of other hands but I'm more inclined to believe him based on the pre flop action than if he had just opened the pot himself and tried saying he had aces. I forgot to mention that the original opener called off his stack of ~450 also and he showed 78 for the open-ender so it was really a 3 way all-in.

haha yea, these guys go down in flames 99% of the time but then 1% of the time they can really do damage if they run hot for an extended period.

Yea I figured this promotion would attract all the nits


June 19th

I'm just there for the comps and free coffee

Now I know why they call you the WORLD's biggest nit; you're not just a run of the mill kind.

Not much poker since my last update, but since I'm done until I get back from Europe I figured a quick post was in order. After a fun non-poker weekend I played a couple mid-week sessions, both of which were pretty meh. I was not in a good mindset to play for a variety of reasons.

One of the sessions I went in much later than I usually do. Whenever I do this things generally go bad because I'm not mentally prepared to play. Its a mental game leak for sure, but I just play better when I'm on a regular schedule and thus generally skip days when I can't play close to my usual hours. This isn't necessarily that bad but it definitely hurts me on days that I could get in a session but don't because for whatever reason I can't play when I usually do.

Had a bunch of non-poker social activities (read: drinking) line up a bunch of days in a row so given the 2 consecutive sub-par sessions and my lack of both rhythm and time to regain it before leaving I decided to just cut it, enjoy the weekend, and spend this week getting ready for my trip. The fact that I had already surpassed my adjusted hours goal made it an even easier decision.

So yea, had another fun weekend doing non-poker stuff and so far this week have been running around getting things in order for going out of town. Still have a few loose ends to tie up but basically all thats left is to pack.

Its starting to set in that this trip is actually happening. I never would have thought a year ago I'd be taking a trip to Europe but I could not be more excited. I'm also a bit anxious, but I always get that way before I fly so once I'm there any anxiety I have should subside.

I'll be very interested to see where my head is at when I get back. Lately a lot of things have made me very grateful to be playing poker for a living. I've been able to take a lot of time off lately to do things that are important to me and there aren't many jobs I know of that would allow it to the degree I've done. Also little things like the maybe once a month I have to set an alarm make me appreciate doing what I do.

I have a couple other things planned later in the summer, including a trip back to Wisconsin, neither of which I had to ask anyone whether I could go. Basically as long as I can afford it, I can do whatever I want. Ironically its the time I spend away from poker that helps me see this perspective.

This freedom isn't likely to be around forever. Contrary to what some assume, I don't make that much money. I just have a low monthly nut and choose to take advantage of the freedom poker allows rather than grind full time hours. One day I may have responsibilities that don't allow me to do this and I'll have to either grind full time hours or get a "real job".

For now though, I'm going to enjoy the freedom while I have it and do my best to put myself in a position in which I can keep it as long as possible, ideally for my whole life. What exactly this entails I'm not sure. Either way, upon my return I'll be playing out the remainder of the WSOP and making any changes from there.

So the cliffs of the last few paragraphs is that right now I feel pretty "zenned up" about poker, to borrow from a previous poster itt. That being said, for reasons outlined in other posts, I still don't see poker as a long term thing. Presently I'm just trying to focus on the right now and enjoy life as much as possible and right now poker seems to fit the best.

The point I'm trying to make is that my current zenned-up-ed-ness with regard to poker may have me coming back with a burning desire to grind/move-up/get serious with learning other games. On the other hand, knowing in the back of my mind that poker isn't my be-all and end-all may put me in a state of mind ripe for discovering something completely new while I'm traveling that I'd rather pursue. This is probably more of a continuum rather than a binary outcome, so the result will more than likely lie somewhere in the middle.

And that is the point I've been trying to make since the paragraph that started "I'll be very interested to see where my head is at when I get back". I get long-winded sometimes for those that haven't noticed. I could edit some out but I think there're some useful musings in there so I'll keep it. Also I'm lazy.

Anyways I may share some notable experiences on here while I'm traveling, but for now thats all I've got. Though it will be interesting to see how I feel when I get back, I'm very much ready to experience whatever Europe has in store, not think about the rest, and just deal with it when I return. For those of you that got this far in yet another post of mine thats way too long, thank you for reading.

Have a fun trip, live in the moment, take some pics!

have a great time mang! Please poast up some pix while trekking around

Hope you have a great time-traveling around Europe is something you'll always remember fondly. Def post some pics.

Hey guys, got back to Vegas last night. I meant to post some pics while I was traveling but couldn't figure out how to do it from my phone so I figured I'd just do it when I got back.

Unfortunately my house got broken into while I was away so now I don't have a computer. At some point I'll post some pics but I want to get my house back in order and gear up to hopefully still play the main event so it may not be for a while.

I don't plan on writing a detailed trip report on here but basically the cliffs are that it was an awesome trip (though in a different way than I was expecting), I learned a lot, gained a lot of perspective about life/different places and am more excited than ever to return to real life ready to crush.

For the rest of the series I plan to get back on a routine and deal with the urgent things with my house. Anything that can wait I'll do after the series. That way I can focus on getting back on a routine with diet/exercise/poker. Despite only gaining 3 pounds, which is less than I thought it'd be, I'm way out of shape due to eating so many carbs. Also haven't played poker in close to 2 months so I want to knock the rust off. Depending on how I feel a few days prior to the main I may play or may not. I want to play so I'm gonna do my best to be ready but I'm not gonna fire if I don't feel sharp.

So to summarize my focuses over the next ~2-3 weeks will be:

1. Get house in order.
2. Get back on normal diet/exercise routine.
3. Get back on a poker routine.

Writing that makes me very excited to be back in Vegas and getting down to business. Hope everyone's having a good summer so far!

Side note: I have a small amount of euro left that I didn't get a chance to change back. If any of you Europeans are interested in exchanging and avoiding the absurd spreads at exchange counters shoot me a pm.

Welcome back. Sorry about the house break in. Start with the exercise routine that will help a great deal with the rest. Best of luck for the rest of summer.

Sorry to hear that. Do you have renters/owners insurance?

I hope everything gets settled quickly.

Might be there for two weeks after 28th? Hope to bump into you.

sorry about the house. my knee jerk reaction is still that you and rob are roomates. I have to stack that fish soon. Pro tip - check out the aria 2/5. I haven't played it but the games look deep/dope every time I am there.

Lol yea, most think we are brothers, roommates, or both. Unfortunately I'm the only one that stacks Rob so keep dreaming.

Thanks for the tip, looking forward to getting this nonsense in order so I can get back at it.

Yea I have insurance. Have to pay the deductible but it's not bad. I don't care about the money/possessions, it's just the time/hassle of getting new keys/cards/documents and repairs. It will get sorted out soon enough.

If you see me around definitely come say hi!

Thanks!

Damn, sorry to hear about the break in. If you didn't enjoy the joys of homeownership before ...

Sorry to hear about your house-hopefully there wasn't too much damage. Am impressed by how calm you seem to be about it. I've fortunately only been robbed once and I flipped out (didn't do me any good as it only added stress to the situation).

Anyways, glad that you're back and ready to crush. If all the TRs are any indication, games seem to be great out there.

Best of luck and hope you decide to play the main-would be a fun sweat for your readers.

Lol yea this isn't helping that sentiment, though it's not exactly directly related.

Thanks man, I'm almost certain I'll be playing. Based on how I've felt the first couple sessions back I feel good about firing at it.

As far as the break in, I've definitely stressed a little, especially considering I was out of the country when it happened and couldn't do much until I got back.

Like you said though, getting stressed out doesn't really help. I've been doing my best to take the "**** happens" attitude and try to just solve the problem at hand. Lamenting that something bad happened is futile. It happened, just fix it and move on. I tried especially hard not to worry about it while in Europe because I wanted to enjoy my time over there so that attitude carried over to when I got back. Getting back to poker in an effort to be ready for the main event helps too because I don't have time to be angry if I want to get things in order and put time in at the tables.