So I was able to get out of the house for about a 3 mile hike in the Adirondacks. I just needed to get out of the house. I needed to get away from cranky. Super windy but the sun was out so it wasn't too cold. I haven't been out hiking since early winter so it was great getting back out on the trails. Hiking and motorcycle riding are my two outlets that just put me in another place. Great to just get out and listen to music and clear your mind. Can't wait for warmer weather so I can ride the bike to the trails and work on completing the rest of the Adirondack Fire Tower Challenge. Think I got 5 or 6 done last year so I have my work cut out for me.

Not sure if I will play any poker later tonight so I thought I would give an update now.

Today I cut my tables down to 2-3 so I could work on being a little more aggressive. I realize I have been playing a little too passive. I'm not re-raising, c-betting or attempting to steal blinds nearly enough. So I basically worked on that a little today. I got out of my comfort zone with 3-betting a bit more, check/raising a bit more and trying to get my VPIP/PFR gap closer together. I realize I've been flatting a ton which is way to passive. I need to turn the aggression switch on... stop flatting... stop playing questionable hands out of position. What I kind of did today was if I have a hand I would normally flat with so I could see a flop... I asked myself... is this hand good enough to raise with and if the answer was no then I didn't flat and I would fold the hand. I'm starting to see why flatting all the time is a bad habit so I'm working on it.

I guess that is all for now... again not sure if I will play anymore today but I guess we will see. Not much volume but I'm ok with it so I can work on my game a little.

2 sessions: 4:01 hours @ 2-3 tables for 581 hands played w/ 86.66 BB/100.

Heading out to the garage to put the battery in the motorcycle. If I can get it running it looks like I will be taking the first ride of the year. Not a bad weekend, got my first hike in for the year yesterday and hopefully my first ride of the year today. Hopefully she starts.

Played a little this morning... I think my 9th hand in I get J3o in the BB, SB calls .01 and we see a flop. Flop comes K3J rainbow not a bad flop for a BB special. Turn comes a 5 and River is a J. We basically go back and forth on the river and end up getting it all in. Villain flips over J5... OUCH

Anyways: 1:35 hours @ 2-3 tables for 385 hands played w/ 20.52 BB/100.

UGH... just finished an hour session and a skunk decided to drop its @ss right outside the house. All I smell is skunk. Anyways I managed to get the old girl running earlier today so I went for about a 2 hour ride and froze my @ss off. LOL Still a good time regardless. Always good to get the first ride of the year.

Played basketball tonight as well so I'm pretty exhausted... warm ups I was nailing everything... game starts and all the sudden I become a noodle and I'm shooting everything short. Pretty sure I only hit 2 shots all night. Didn't turn the ball over too much and had a bunch of rebounds... oh and I didn't get hurt so actually it was a good night. LOL

Anyways I just finished my 2nd session for the night. Didn't get many hands in today as I was pretty busy and when I wasn't busy I decided to relax and watch golf. I didn't feel like sitting in front of the computer playing cards all day.

Session 2: 1:09 hours @ 4-5 tables for 385 hands played w/ 25.90 BB/100.

Finished my work for the day, don't feel like playing poker just yet so I thought I would get on and ramble.

1st thought... went to Subway for lunch. They have a special 6" sub, cookie, chips and a drink for $5.99. Tell the women I want that special and give her my order. She does the sub and passes me off to the chick at the register. I tell her I want the meal deal. Ok so I guess the meal deal is different than this special. She rings me up for $7.99 plus tax. I say isn't the deal $5.99 and she say oh yeah well you didn't get the cookie and you said you wanted the meal deal not "that" deal. Holy f&ck... why would I spend $2.00 more for less food you dumb c&nt? Did she not think to say... hey idiot why don't you get the other deal.... nope she doesn't say **** and basically says I told her the wrong thing. OMG I pointed to the ad that was on the wall ffs... I can't take the incompetents. It is everywhere and I would guess to say at least 75% of people take zero pride in what they do. I blame this on the parents and I guess to some extent society. I've told my kids from day one... it doesn't matter if you are shoveling sh&t for a living... do the job the best you can and take pride in what you are doing. It can be the worst job in the world but you should go home feeling good knowing you did your best. As a society we are doomed... every generation gets worse and worse.

2nd thought and I know I keep coming back to this but I can't help but think how unrealistic it is going to be for me to reach 1 million hands. At the rate I'm currently playing it's going to take me almost 5 years. LOL I mean this is completely idiotic. For one thing at what point am I going to lose interest in posting anything related to this challenge? At what point are people going to say... holy sh&t give it up already and stop posting. I guess I could just tilt it away and be done with it. LOL Ok I clearly won't be purposely losing the BR. I guess I'm all for a challenge but I think I'm an idiot for this one. I still maintain I'm not going to stop but I just don't see it being reached. I mean if we get this house I'll be spending a great deal of my free time working on renovations, barns, landscaping...UGH... ok I guess for now I'm going to stop thinking about 1 million hands and focus on just getting better... I will also try not to mention this again.

Last thought so I can end this madness is that I did some reading on the RED line in the graphs. I said in the beginning I didn't know what any of those lines meant. Well I took the time to read up on it... I now know why my red line dips so much in all my graphs. Not going to lie and say I understand all of it but what I got out of it was that I was folding my blinds way too much... which I've already talked about... I also realize I wasn't trying to steel nearly enough which I've talked about as well... and I also realize I'm going to showdown a lot. Over the weekend I tried focusing on being more aggressive and getting out of my comfort zone... again I mentioned this already. But I took a look at my graph for this week and it is way different looking then my other ones. Not to say it won't end up looking like the others but it shows I adjusted my play a little. I will also say that I'm starting the week off with a great deal of profit... Not sure how much of that has to do with be a little more aggressive and how much of it has to do that I'm running good right now. On the flip side of I did read a post by someone who said don't focus so much on the red line and that untimely the green line is really what matters. So just like so many things in poker you get advice from all different angles. I guess what I will take from it is that it showed me that I was being a bit to passive but not to obsess about the red line. Who knew there was so much to this game... it seems simple... it's just cards right?! Ok well I'm heading to the gym with my daughter then I might play some poker.

Super tired so I will keep this short. Everything seemed to be working well for me tonight. Was catching cards, was stealing blinds and actually pulled off 2 decent size bluffs. I try to keep these to a min. but sometimes the only way to win a hand is to try to steal it. I did get caught with my hand in the cookie jar once tho... Was running really well then I had the winds taken out of my sails when I got it all in pre with AA vs KJs he got the str8 on the river. If this hand holds I would have had a really nice night. I almost called it a night at this point because this one effected me for a few hands. Grind and grind and slowly build up the chips only to lose a huge chunk in one hand... Still trying to deal with this...But like I said it only hurt for about 10-15 hands and I was over it. I tried to get my $ back from this guy but unfortunately that table broke about 5 min. later so I had to kiss my $ good bye. But I did manage to win my money back elsewhere.

Anyways: 2:51 hours played @ 3 tables for 633 hands played w/ 21.64 BB/100.

Was planning on taking the entire day off to play poker but I just got an email with returned drawings so I guess I will take a break from poker and do some work. Like I said before can't let poker get in the way of making actual money.

So I've been planning on doing a 3 day fast at some point. I've been trying to get myself mentally ready for it but this morning after breakfast I got sick to my stomach again. So I'm saying f*ck it and I'm starting my fast now. Last meal was at 9am. Going to shoot for 3 days of just water. Hopefully the headache won't be too bad. I did a 3 day fast over a year ago and it wasn't that great during it but after I felt really good. One weird thing that happen after the fast was that I stopped chewing my inner cheek. I had tried everything to stop doing this for over 30 years and nothing worked. But for some reason after my fast I never chewed my cheeks again. That was over a year ago... weird but I'll take it. Anyways we shall see how this fast effects my game as I'm sure I'm going to be cranky which will likely make me play sub par. If I notice this happening I will stop playing.

Games were super juicy today and full of Russians. Not sure if they are bots, don't speak basic English or just hate Americans in general but I can't seem to get any of them to say a word. LOL

One hand during my session was an all in pre flop with AA vs K3s (clubs) Flop comes QT8 hearts Turn is Kh and river is Kd. Guy with K3 was UTG and shoved preflop says to the guy with AA "That was an awful call" LMAO What a d*ck.

Anyways this session could have been a little better but I played 2 hands late in the session that didn't go so well. After the 2nd one I decided it was time to walk away a winner and ended the session.

Going to do a little work then I will be heading back to the tables. I think I'm going to play 1 table of 5NL along with some 2NL. I've been running pretty good this week so I might a well take a stab at 5NL.

1:48 hours @ 4 tables for 494 hands played w/ 24.90 BB/100.

Sooo let's talk... I will say this again... I really wish I had poker friends I could talk to them about things like this. I was playing 4 tables and doing well. At this table I'm about to talk about I was actually up almost 1 buy-in. That was from playing 51 hands... then this guy comes to the table who I end up playing 154 hands with. These are the guys stats for 154 hands played: VPIP=86, PFR=57, AFq=74, AF=7, CbetF=96, CbetT=80 and CbetR=67. These stats are f&cking ridiculous. Any pre-flop raise he would re-raise it by .02 or .04. EVERY single time he got into a pot it was a re-raise of that amount. So on top of those two things the guy was catching cards all over the place. During this time I'm excited because I know it's just a matter of time before I get some of his money... well during this time I'm watching him play 85% of his hands I can't catch anything... even if I open my range up to get involved with him I couldn't catch the board. It was SOOO frustrating and tilting. By the time I finally gave up and left the table I ended up losing 2 buy-ins.

Here are my best hands once he sat down... 33, 77, 88 (that was it for pocket pairs) Not one premium pocket pair. I had AKs once, AKo twice and AQo once. Those were the best hand the entire time.

So here is what I don't know what to do... I know he is a player you want at a table.... but he is at my table and he is tilting me by everything I just mentioned above. So should I be sticking it out or should I leave the table? I played a long time with this guy waiting for my chance and it never came. Meanwhile I end up losing 2 buy-ins. Thank God I was running well at the other tables but basically I played 3 tables so I could feed 1 table. F&CK I had to finally walk away because I clearly was not going to win at that table. I can't believe I just played this long of a session just to break even all because of 1 guy and 1 table. IDK do I leave earlier and miss out on busting this guy or do I stick around like I did and let it effect me when I can't catch him. IDK what the answer is. I'll get over it but I feel pretty frustrated over this.

Anyways: 3:34 hours @ 4 tables for 900 hands played w/ 3.81 BB/100

So we are officially 1 day down on the 3 day fast. Feel a little weak with a slight headache but nothing awful. I think I'm feeling better this time around compared to the last time I did this. Still early so I'm sure it can only go downhill from here.

Played 1 more session last night while waiting for my daughter at jujitsu. Started out playing 5 tables but I wasn't able to focus on them all... lol I think my mind was a little fuzzy from not eating. So I narrowed it down to 4 tables. Wasn't doing so hot early and also played JJ poorly and it cost me a buy-in on that hand alone. I did manage to play better the second part of the session. I still ended up loses this session but I was able to get half my losing back. I chalk that up as a win. Got almost 2k hands in yesterday.

Final session: 1:34 hours @ 4 tables for 429 hands played w/ -19.23 BB/100.

This will be the lowest possible winning session ever. Started off in the hole and only got hot at the very end. I probably shouldn't have played because I'm a bit pissy from fasting and I really didn't enjoy playing. After starting out in the hole I set a goal of either 10 pm or even and I broke even just before 10pm. So here I am to say I'm up $0.01 for the session... It amazes me how good I am at this game.

So tomorrow will be 2 full days of fasting. I just have to make it 1 more day to reach 3 days. UGH I just want something to eat.

Got the bank appraisal back from the bank and all is good so we keep moving forward with the new house.

Ok turning off the computer and going to watch Final Destination 3 for about the 12th time. LOL Love this movie.

1:18 hours @ 2 tables for 202 hands played w/ 0.25 BB/100.

Played awesome tonight. Can't wait to play again tomorrow.

2:20 hours played @ 3 tables for 536 hands played w/ -21.64 BB/100. Awesome.

Mental note: Don't play poker when fasting... hard to focus... easily agitated and over all just not a good idea. With that said... not sure I will do another 3 day fast again. It's just not that fun. I might do the 24 hour thing as that is easy but I think I'm done with the longer fasting thing.

Had something to eat... feel rested and my mind isn't cloudy so I'm going to play a little poker... see how it goes.

Just had to stop my first session. Down almost 3 buy-ins. Not going to b&tch or complain as I'm slowly starting to realize this is just poker. Here are a couple hands:

AQo vs ATo Flop KAQ rainbow Turn 2 River J some how I didn't manage to get stacked off probably because he checked the river to me and I checked it back...

QQ vs TJo Flop 95Q rainbow Turn K (get it all in here) River 4. Stacked

AKo vs J7s Flop JK7 rainbow (get it all in here) Turn 3 River 6 Stacked

These are my 3 largest losses of the day and I don't think they are bad plays so I don't know what else to do but keep playing. But I need to stop the bleeding at this time and walk away for awhile. 3 buy-ins running like this is going to be hard to get back today.

Guess I'll go find something else to do for awhile.

Have played 5NL twice this week for very short times. EV at 5NL but I do not dare play any while running like this.

Feels good to update after running poorly without being angry/upset/p*ssed off. Feels good to be under control and walk away. I do have a bit of anxiety about losing 3 buy-ins so soon in the day but I think I will be ok after I take this break and start over.

One last thought... I think I'm going to hit one of my old Full Tilt Poker Forum buddies up and see what he thinks about reviewing my sessions. I'll see if he is interested and if he feels like he could help or not. See what he says.

1:11 hours played @ 3 tables for 220 hands played w/ -119.50 BB/100 ouch!

hey jaecubed this is a huge challenge. 1 million hands is really massive volume. do you have graphs of your results thus far? how many tables do you play? what site?

im curious to know how the stakes are your playing.

Had the worse run of this challenge.

Three of a kind vs Full house
2 pr. vs Full house
2 pr. vs better 2 pr.
Three of a kind vs Full House
2 pr. vs Full house
Three of a kind vs Str8
2 pr vs Three of a kind
2 pr vs better 2 pr.

I probably should have quit a LONG time ago but I guess I haven't learned yet. I felt I was running ok but I just kept getting it in and getting my nutts kicked in. Basically lost all profit for the week in 1 day. Not happy with myself for not leaving sooner but I don't feel I tilted too badly at any point. I wasn't happy but I don't feel I played poorly.

What a brutal day.

I ran 3 sessions.

session 2: 4:41 hours @ 4 tables for 1,313 hands played w/ -14.58 BB/100
session 3: 2:01 hours @ 3 tables for 501 hands played w/ -44.71 BB/100

Lost a total of 6 1/2 buy-ins alone today. Disgusting... Guess it's a good thing I ran well most of the week to absorb this kind of loss. At least I still have a BR which is something I wouldn't have had earlier with my tilt/need to win back loss issues.

Well I guess there is tomorrow if I decide to play. Don't feel like it now but I know I will tomorrow.

Yeah I've stated this in the thread about putting zero thought into the number of hands I chose. I only play part time so it's going to take me forever to finish this... unless I continue to run like I did today it will be over soon. I have a long ways to go. LOL

Normally I do this on Sat. but I'm calling it a night. I did get back on for one more session and managed to win 1/2 a buy-in. After the day I had I decided I was happy with that and walked away. LOL

So a few things.

1. I worked on my red line in the beginning of the week and it looks pretty good until about 1/2 way thru. Then it took off and looks like it normally does every week.

2. I'm not a 100% sure on the All-in Adj. line shows me that I'm running a little unlucky? I guess I should look further into this but I believe it kind of shows I'm getting a little unlucky here. IDK

3. Graph started out pretty good and then started to peter out. today absolutely crushed it. Sucks going from about $20 profit to a little over $3 for a whole weeks worth of playing. Makes you realize how silly the money part of this actually is. Hours of grinding for $3.00 sounds ridiculous.

Overall I'm not sure how I feel about the week. I think today being so recent in my head and just being a really bad day I'm not sure about much. I think again I might have open my range up a little but then again the hands I'm losing all-ins with aren't really those hands. IDK guess we have next week to figure things out.

Checked my stats vs PT4 and I need to update per PT4 and not what I have as a running total in this thread. To tired to try to figure it out so I will just go with what it says. Updated in Red

Week 6: (3/23-3/29)
Hands Played: 6,808 (Total: 32,455)
Money Won/Lost: $+3.53
Current BR: $79.48

So we are a day removed from yesterdays @ss kicking. I spent all of this morning watching videos, reading blogs, searching the forum, reviewing my hands and posting a few hands on here. Basically taking some time to study and see what happen yesterday and how to mentally move past such a bad few sessions.

In the review of my hands I saw that my biggest winning hands I was a huge favorite (All-in equity), while the biggest losing hands I was a huge underdog. Some of it was getting it in early when I was just up against better hands and shockingly I got it in later in the hand when I was ahead early but let them in later in the hand to beat me. I believe I need to be more aggressive post flop when I make a monster hand. I know this but it looks like several times yesterday I checked to "trap or show weakness?" and it looks like it backfired. Basically it looks like I didn't play as well as I should have in certain spots yesterday. At the time I didn't feel I was playing that badly but review says otherwise.

Talked to my old poker buddy who use to help me back in the day by reviewing some of my sessions... but it looks like he was helping me with tournament play. I didn't bother asking him to review my sessions after he said cash games never interested him. LOL Guess I'll have to figure something else out. I really think having someone review one of my sessions will point out some serious flaws. I'll have to start searching the forum for something on this.

I think when I decide to play today I'm going to only play 2 maybe 3 tables so I can really focus on what I'm doing. I need to make sure I'm playing my hands correctly.

I guess that is all for now.

Only 107 hands in for the day and I had to stop. Looks like the run bad is still around and I just can't deal with it right now. I've posted my AKs hand on the forum to see if I'm doing anything wrong. I'm questioning everything right now.

AKs vs JJ Flop: QAK Turn: T (this is where I got it all in, behind) so I'm question how I'm playing.) and River: 7.

88 vs AJs Flop: AT8 Turn: Q (get it all in here, ahead this time at least) River: K

Again I know this is poker but I mentally can't take it right now and need a break. I guess I'm just a poor loser.

0:44 hours @ 2 tables for 107 hands played w/ -42.52 BB/100.

Ok boys and girls... I'm glad I posted a few hands on here today as I got some feedback on something that is/was clearly a leak in my game. It's actually a very simple thing to fix and I'm a little embarrassed because I feel I should have known better. It was pointed out several times that my 3-bet sizing is incorrect. I'm not taking into consideration whether I'm OOP or not when 3-betting. It was said several times that my 3-bets were too small and both times I was OOP. So I can fix this easy enough.

I also realized maybe I should cut my tables down a little so I can pay more attention to the players at the table. This won't help my quantity of hands being played but I think I'm missing out on how players are playing at times and I need to be able to know how players are playing to help me decide what I should be doing when dealing with 3, 4 and 5 betting. Again something that I can easily fix. I just hate giving up the extra hands knowing this is taking forever as it is. Guess being a better player is more important at this time than trying to get more hands.

Still haven't played anymore today. Decided to take a break and do other things. I might try to play a little later tonight but not sure. Feels good to take a break... I think I needed it. Sucks that I'm losing but it's helping me with my tilt issues and it's making me dig deeper into my game to see what I'm doing wrong. It's also opening my eyes to how proper BRM really does matter. You hear it all the time but what does it really mean... Oh I know it means don't play higher stakes than you are BR for... but actually what I'm getting out of it is that if you are following it and you are losing it really isn't that big of deal in the grand scheme of things. Yeah while it's happening it sucks and yeah I want to win that money back NOW but what is 6 buy-ins when you still have 45 buy-ins left. It's such a small fraction of a total BR. This also makes me realize that I will always have a high number of buy-ins before trying to move up. It just helps with the anxiety for my type of personality. Others might think I'm being way to safe but I need to do what makes me feel comfortable. If that means 100 buy-ins so be it. LOL

Ok going to watch a little UFC and then maybe I will play some poker we shall see. (What this means: Next post will be me b&tching about more losses.)

OMFG this game is such bull sh%t! I just can't take it anymore!!!! F&ck this challenge and f&ck poker... I'm done... Didn't want to disappoint as I said my next post would be me b&tching.

Actually I didn't play last night.. Decided to take the rest of the day off after the quick session in the morning. I watch all the UFC fights and then watched boxing. Felt good to take some time off. I have some things to do this morning but I will play a little when I get back before having to leave for basketball tonight.

Not getting much volume in this week but I think the break is mentally needed right now.

Just wanted to give a quick update.

Just ran a 200 hand session and want to take a break. I want to go back and review a few hands that I tagged. Probably going to post them on the forum to see what I should be doing in certain spots.
Very last hand I was going to play I get KK. SB raises it to .04 I make it .16 villain calls,
Flop comes 3hJh5s I bet .20 and villain shoves 1.40 I call we are all in. Villain shows Th9h Turn comes 5d and River comes 6h. Feels good to have the hand hold. I didn't want to hit and run so I said I would stick around for 2 more orbits but guy ended up leaving the table so I left right after him.

0:57 hours @ 2 tables for 200 hands played w/ 68.50 BB/100. Feels good to have a winning session.

Thought I would update before heading out to basketball... So thought on tonight...
1. Don't get hurt... that is always priority #1
2. I wanna dominate tonight. That is always priority #2
3. Don't get hurt... that is always priority #3. You get the point.

So I didn't get to play nearly that many hands today but I just wasn't feeling it today. I just wanted to watch TV. without being distracted playing poker. I did play 1 more session.

I ended up doubling up (2) different short stacks during this session and both of them did the ole hit and run. A holes. Then on the other table don't I notice 1 of the little DB jump on... so I made sure to say hi in the chat and call him out for hitting and running on me. LOL He played 1 hand and left. What is the point of doubling up and then going to another table? IDK what some of these people are thinking.

Ok I need to get my @ss out the door... Plan on playing later tonight so I will update when I finish that session.

0:37 hours @ 2 tables for 89 hands played w/ 84.27 BB/100.

My basketball game is as streaky as my poker game... hot one min. and cold the next. Took a shoulder to the mouth and got cut up but I will take that over a real injury.

Came home and played my last session. Didn't run very hot. Got a little tilted when guy who is playing 80% of his hands beats my KK with his 72o. Got it all in pre flop against this guy and I get beat with that. Probably tilted 5 hands before getting it under control.

Calling it a night and going to bed. Probably won't play tomorrow. Have a bunch of work I need to get done, Dr. appt. and then a school function. Maybe after all that I might have time but not sure. We will see.

1:51 hours @ 2 tables for 349 hands played w/ -19.34 BB/100.

0:36 hours @ 3 tables for 143 hands played w/ -174.48 BB/100 Done!

To p*ssy last night to put anything other than stats. Had some super mood swing going on last night. I was super excited to play some poker right when I started. Think I got about 10 hands in when I get AKo in MP. I raise it up to .06 CO re-raises to .10 (this leaves him with .29 behind). Folds to me and I just shove. He raised like an idiot so I'm assuming he will call like one as well with lesser hand. Sure enough he calls with AJo Good everything as planned with the exception of a J on the Flop and A on the Turn and a J on the River. So immediately I go from being in a great mood to a " oh boy here we go again". Wasn't p*ssed but my mindset is already going down hill. Play the next 120 plus hands watching absolutely nothing going my way and everything going everyone else's way... I know it's poker... I know its 120 hands but my mood is getting p*sser by the min. OH sweet pocket Aces in BB.... everyone folds to me... Figures... very next hand same table pocket Aces sweet... standard raise... folds back to me. So you can see how the night is going how my mood is going. I basically tilt the last 10 hands away, losing 1 1/2 buy-ins during this 10 hand session. No one to blame but my self. Here is the thing... I'm excited to play, things aren't going well and my mood is slipping, I know I should probably call it a night but I just started and I want to play. Well then this type of thing happens and I end up tilting money away and need to leave anyways. I wonder at times if this is where poker is an addiction to me. Why didn't I quit sooner when I knew tilt was right around the corner?

Good news I eventually left the game when on tilt and still have a BR.
Bad news I didn't leave soon enough.

I'm trying not to make these a rant session after a losing session but I do want to put out in writing what is going thru my head at the time. So altho this is technically a rant post it isn't nearly as much of a rant if I had posted right after last night session. I was pretty hot and knew anything I wrote would be a complete b&tch fest.

Guess I'm over it at this point, with the exception that I'm still not happy with myself for losing 1 1/2 buy-ins due to tilt.