Restlessss

So I realize I have not posted on here since like seventeen years ago. One of the only reasons is because I don't play online during the school year. That's been a move I decided to make since the beginning of the semester because playing online definitely hinders my ability to start long term work. hehe. I have been very honest about not playing, though I sure watch ISilDur1 quite a lot and it's given me a closet desire to learn omaha. Howeverrrr, I don't think I have the bankroll or time to start any time soon.

I have about six more days of this semester till I can play again! Definitely feeling really restless to play because looming finals and papers are just crazy. So, in a nutshell, this post is to further procrastinate. At the end of the summer, I cashed out most of my winnings. My goal was to be able to afford for books and I actually did that. Just realized that now. I left myself about ten bucks in case I had any free time before I made my little semester long choice. I got sick early on in the semester and decided to play a few MTT sng's on a friday afternoon where I ran really well and now have about 127 to mess with when I am able to play again.

My goal is to just gain more confidence with the later stages of MTT's. I will have okay bankroll management when I play again, but I don't give a shiiiiat if I just lose my bankroll on this go around. I expressed my opinion on Hoyazo's blog about what MTT's feel like, but I plan on just running over competition.

Writing this, I am quite hung over, but expect to hear from me definitely more consistently. =)

I Fucking Hate The Yankees

SO MUCH.

Yeah.

It's time to play cash.

Hammer Playin Pompous Ass FTW!!!!!

Wow, what a joy it was to look at my dashboard this morning and see my man Hoyazo just chop for 51k. Like, unreal. For all the time that he is in awe over other fellow bloggers just ripping the WSOP, he goes out and SHITS on the Venetian. Like, I've had a big fucking smile on all morning long.

I haven't talked about poker recently, but I've been on quite a killing. Up over 500 already this summer. Not sure when to move up in stakes, but it's amazing what running good does to your head. I feel like I can beat anyone, which obviously is not the case. I still make some big key mistakes.

One for example: It was a 5 dolla 45-man and I had AQ in the hijack pos and raise to 3.5x because of a limper and get min raised by the co. Uh oh. This was as I was 6-tabling so I don't have too much time to either vomit over what he has or think about what decision I have to make. However, obviously an inkling that a donk is playing his KK or AA. Flop comes Q22. Nice. Real Sexy. Pot is 900 and this guy leads out for whole pot. At this time, all my previous thoughts of already being beat go out the window and I rr AI (me being an aggro mofo) and run into AA. This, I feel, could be a situation I could have avoided, arguably. I think his range of hands here definitely includes hands I crush (after the flop), but if I were playing AA on that flop, I would definitely lead out for the pot as well and pray the guy has AQ. I think JJ is definitely in his range, but 99 and 1010 hell no because why would they minraise my ass with a set mining hand? So i think KK AA AK and even AQ are all more likely hhands that this guy is holding. Looking at the actualy hand history, I still had 2200 behind even after the 900. If I was actually thinking coherently for a change, I could have just flatted since I was in position and possibly made the laydown on the turn. This definitely is a sign that 6-tabling still is not bread and butter. This all being said in retrospect.

Lastly, Capital Grille was phucking phenomenal. When I made the reservation, they asked if this was for some special occasion. This dinner celebrated a bunch of different things, but most currently I said my birthday. So when we finally sat down, every waiter that friggin walked by my table said happy birthday as well as our table having those colored happy birthday little metallic thingies all over the place. This place does it big. I got the big-time sirloin (recommended by father OES) and the gf got the filet mignon (as predicted). It was really cool, cutting into a piece of steak and knowing that my skillz at the table provided me the opportunity to live large for a night.

I hope everyone that read this epicly long post didn't die of boredom and makes it through another work week!

Official Poker Rankings

As many of you know, the website Official Poker Rankings is a site that allows players to check up on their own stats as well as their opponents and friends and see what tournaments they play as well as their successes/failures as well as their percentile among the site that they play on. It provides a comprehensive stats program, which I orgasm looking at because it is soooo cool. It shows me that I come in first place in 9-man sng's much more often then second and third. Today, not thinking it was any different day, I went to check up on how my friend did on a tournament. I was absolutely outraged to find that Full Tilt has decided to remove all ties with Offical Poker Rankings because it apparently, "gives players an unfair advantage" and "very similar to how a shared hand history database works." This is total horse shit. Official Poker Rankings is a free site that everyone can use and the only help it gives is letting opponents know how skilled the opposing players are. It also lets me to track the big dogs and see their scores, but now I'm left in the dark.

I learned that through their percentile ratings, that 80% of all online players are LOSING players. This fact might be a reason why Full Tilt wanted to cut ties because this shows that a disproportionate amount of players are giving their money to Full Tilt. This is obviously not a great idea of mine, but anybody else have reasons why Full Tilt really wanted to cut ties with OPR because their reasoning already is pretty bs.

Brag Post

Just made reservations for 730 at The Capital Grille on my birthday (June 24th babyyy). I would think this makes a run at whatever Hoyazo is talking about in his Prime talks.

The bill we be payed for by the lovely donks over at Full Tilt Poker and also may be attributed to my incredible skillz.

I've been looking forward to this night for a long time and pumped that it actually is going to happen. This is a big instance that my girlfriend actually likes when I play =)=).

I Lied.

So in my earlier post, I wrote that I was done for an indefinite time. That time meant... three days apparently. My friend decided not to want the transfer so me, having the poker bug, wanted to give it another go. Of course, crazy shit happens and I promptly get sucked out in my sng's. Another day goes by. I wake up and feel good and tell myself, let's multitable sng's again. I don't understand why I would feel that way, given my results, but proceed to run like a KENYAN GOD. All my flats on the bubble with A6 against his K2 were holding. I won all my 80/20's and even sucked out a few times to TAKE DOWN 6 sng's-- 5 nine-mans and 1 27-man to amass a huge pay day. When I run good, I don't amass second and third place earnings, I fucking annihilate tables.

With this day, it really shows me that you win some/you lose some. I definitely feel like I am an above average player by all means, but results fluctuate so crazily.

One pattern that I wonder if any of you reading this could explain is this interesting downward motion of one's bankroll after they cash out a bit. It's happened to three other people than me who cash out x amount of dollars then proceed to lose a large chunk of their remaining roll. I obviously know Full Tilt isn't rigged, but it's funny to think about if FT does it this way:
Full Tilt Mod: Oh I see this fucker just took out 160 from our system. Let's fuck 'em hard now. (pushes button to lose 10 straight sng's regardless of statistics).

To be honest, I can easily believe that, but no it seems pretty impossible that shit goes on. What goes on in the mindset of players to completely suck ballz after they cash out? I really did not feel any different after I cashed out 1/3 of my roll besides relief.


In other news, congrats to the TOC players. It was awesome to watch, despite feeling completely horrible for Hoyazo making a big testicle call. And congrats to CK! You gots to love her.

Lastly, this badass picture that BJ Nemeth took is rockin' my wallpaper as we speak.

The New York Yankees

Dan Shaugnessy, consistent sports writer of The Boston Globe wrote, "They [The New York Yankees] came to town in first place, winners of 19 of 25 games. They left the Hub early this morning with bags over their heads, reeling from yet another loss, yet another sweep at the hands of the Boston Red Sox."

0-8 against the BOSTON RED SOX this year.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

Yikes

So. Yeah. Fast forward about a week. I have never seen so many sick things and sick tilts that I am absolutely disgusted. I don't feel like articulating every single thing I've witnessed, but it was bad. I think my online days might be done for an indefinite time. I lost about 120 straight, which definitely chunked into my roll. I'm gonna transfer my remaining roll to a buddy of mine and just enjoy my summer Full Tiltless. Goals? No thank you. I tried remaining positive, and definitely cut down my play, but even when I was single-tabling, Full Tilt was relentless. I am sure that I made a few bad plays along the line, but lately, the same system I was using to build a solid roll completely came up from under me.

Online poker is such a bitter world that after a few days of not playing, I feel the urge to play again. However, I'm gonna bite the bullet and cut my losses. It's so hard since I'm so immersed in everything Full Tilt and everything WSOP, but I got's to. It really isn't worth my time or effort. Sorry for the rant post and repetitiveness, but I gots to. Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend.

Where I'm At

The past few weeks have been pretty sweet. My back is finally better so I can start running and bballing again, which is definitely missed. First and foremost though, one of my poker buddies, Toots just launched a great blog, which he already left an incredibly chock-full post of poker content in his Odyssey of heads up cash. Definitely a must-read.

With poker, I go in phases. Lately, I have become a sng reg. It's been definitely a profitable journey thus far. I seem to change my mind with my direction, but I'm open to change. During the last week of finals, I went on a crazy tilt. Obviously my mind was not in the optimal mindset and I steamrolled my bankroll down into the 200's when I was at around 400. It was mostly tournaments, but sixty dollars of cash to that I lost quicker than Hellmuth playing that crazy Chinese Poker.

SNG's
My new thing, which I've played about 100-150 sng's in a week and a half span is to 4-5 table the 6.50 turbo's On Full Tilt. I usually play three 9-man's and one 18-27man. This allows me to get more experience in the 18-man format where I definitely lack skill and experience compared to my 9-man takedowns. Lately, I have taken down two 18 man's and came in 2nd in a 27-man, which definitely gives me confidence in my game as well as a boost in ROI. I got up to as high as 340 in my roll and cashed out a bit to treat the gf for our two year anniversary. Kinda crazy to think it's been that long already, but pretty sweet too =).

My Goal
I think a very attainable goal by the end of the summer is to make enough money to pay off my books for next semester. I am certainly not working as much as I was last summer, so some extra income would be great. Other news, I got another final table under my belt cming in fourth out of 244 people for a nice cash as well. These past few weeks has definitely been a profitable one,raking in about $265 from mostly just $6.50 buy-ins, but also showing me that this MOFO has a bit of skilllzz!!! But also, this situation doesn't hurt either.

Mookie

I'm going to play the Mookie tonight. That is all. =) =). First time for everything.

Being grateful

So despite this lovely economy, yours truly has a summer job. However, I'm not sure if this is how the business world works, but does every job require connections? My first job in High School I worked at the local ACE hardware. I got the job because I knew the bosses son. Second job, worked for Kelloggs cereal. Got the job because my dad's girlfriend works for Kelloggs. This new job, my best friend's sister works for the deli that I will start working at now. Don't get me wrong, I work my ass off when I'm working, but it seems that the business world that I've been a part of is all about "It's not what you know, it's who you know." I'm also very grateful that I've obtained these jobs and I seem to be at the right place at the right time.

I've always had the careless mindset that I will get a job with little trouble (before any of the connections listed above have come arise). It's kind of the luck I attract when everyone around me is talking about their bad beats and here I am with AA on the button. I certainly have had my fucking share of bad beats, but I am not one to dwell on my shit, which I think works in my favor in a spiritual way. I sway where the wind blows me. When I was little, I led my soccer team in scoring while my dad was the assistant coach. He told me (and it was true) that I just got garbage goals. I somehow ended up exactly where the ball was going to be. I never had the skillz, the speed, but I had the crazy skillz for opportunity

Poker works the same way for most scenarios, but opposite when I play large MTT's. I will be in my flow for around two hours, but immediately when I start to think about the payouts, my game detiorates and my mind gets hazy. This has obvious effects on my game, but also completely changes my mental strategy of swaying where the wind blows me. Instead, I am constantly on guard and concerned about my hand rather than other peoples. I think this mindset has my friends plagued with the need to find a summer job. I'm sure there's a logical explanation to everything, but fuck it, this metaphor I'm crafting at 1am is workin'.

Anyway, I'm kinda stopping on the whole MTT's for awhile and just focus on cash since that's where my big-time success is. I'm gonna try to only limit my play to off days because I know that I will just steam-tilt my br away if I play after work. Plus, I my aggro-exploiting self when I my mind is thinking efficiently (John Madden comment). Hope everybody has a good weekend!

Oh Goodness.

This is the week from hell in the college world. 3 Finals, One paper, and one HUGE project away from finishing half of my undergraduate college career. I have crazy procrastination skillz. Poker just allows me to procrastinate without having to battle myself as I am sitting at my desk trying to get legit work done. That is why I banned myself yet again on both stars and tilt because I apparently just want to find other means at which to waste time. I get a lot of crap from my friends from my constant self exclusion, but I really do have trouble not playing to procrastinate.

I went to the Sox-Yankees game on Friday night. It was the first of 3 games of this wonderful weekend. After Jason Bay tied it up with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and Youkilis's walk-off dinger, I practically had a religious experience and reflected with my friends on what we just witnessed. All I can remember is screaming so loud that my throat hurt for the rest of the night. Fenway was electric. The crowd was actually not incredibly into it all game until after Neil Diamond's lovely "Sweet Caroline" and that promptly pumped the crowd up for the rest of the game. After the game, they were giving out free "yankee hater" bumper stickers and I prompted to take four or five because I am sure I can find uses for these (like covering the douche bag's door who lives above me who's a big yankee fan).

On a poker front, I've been 6 tabling sng's for a nice profit over on stars. the 650 turbo's are pretty soft with on avg like 1-2 players doing the same thing as me. I just so can't wait till I can play over the summer where I don't have school in the back of my mind.

A Recap

Yo! Do I know you? I am glad I don't feel pressure to write frequently on this thing cause I sure as hell don't post too often. Anyway, I have been really trying to get some hours in online and I definitely have some legit results to prove it. 3.5 weeks of cash so far and I have seen my roll rise from 165--406. It is now at a healthy 381, which is a result of donkey plays and consistent suckouts in the mini FTOPS satellites that Full Tilt runs as consistently as my donkitude right now. Cash has definitely had it's ups and downs. Pretty much what I learned so far is that 3betting regulars is a lovely tactic (with the help of Poker Copilot) and to never play poker at 3-4am. I have really gotten down playing 4 tables of 6 max and have been working in the fifth table from time to time. One example of a play I like to do sparingly, but has worked very consistently.

I raise to .30 from the button with any two cards (this scenario happens to be with K2).
a regular (whom I identify using poker copilot with his VPIP at 20 with his PFR to be close to the same thing as his VPIP) notices ive been stealing a lot and 3 bets me to 90 cents. I think for a bit, but knowing exactly what I want to do all along, I confidently raise to 3 dollars and he almost instafolds. Yeah, this is uber aggressive, but that's my style. Soon I hope to be able to organize all my hand history to break more hands down for analysis by anyone out there. I've had great experiences talking to my roommate about stategy and he always seems to convince me that I should have thought it this way, despite it sounding completely counterintuitive. Below is the update of my br. Have a good rest of the week!

Update

So sorry I havent posted in awhile. I have certainly not been lacking on the poker playing front, but for some reason I have not felt the need to post. Like Cmh76 I have delved into the cash games to see how well I will do at something completely different. At the same time, I decided to download the software Poker Copilot (specifically for Macs) in order to track my progress and test out this Heads-Up Display that seems to help out a lot of cash gamers. I get a 30 day free trial, which seems like a perfect time to test out cash as a whole anyway. I started out with a roll at 165 and now im looking at a roll with almost 285 in one week. It's been a very positive experience so far and I have never seen this sort of positive consistency ever in the online world.

My system is I play 4 tables of .05/.10 where I buy-in for $8 each. I've received criticism for why I don't do the maximum buy-in (10), but I don't know, I just feel more comfortable this way. So thanks to this program, I'm able to see my bankroll chart, every hand I've ever played, how well I do at every position at the table and so much friggin more! It really is my nerdy poker statistics dream! Anyway, above is my progress, which has had its ups and downs, but always going up so I must be doing something right! I also limp quite a bit and raise about two thirds of the times that I am in a pot. Cash has definitely been really refreshing from the sng and MTT grind.


My goals: If I still can keep on building, once I get to 550, I will take 150 out and buy this cool program then take my gf out to dinner for the remaining 100! I have no idea how to spend 100, given my college kid broke status, but any suggestions will be taken into consideration. Have a good week all!

You can only win so many flips...

So on the eve of my journey to Turningstone, I decided to play a shit ton of online poker to "pre game," shall we say before we depart. I ran like death for most of the night, getting sucked out of 3 and coolered in two sng's and MTT's respectively. However, as I was 3-4 tabling, I noticed that my 5 dollar turbo was going nice and smoothly and that window was just sitting there. I took down an 18 man and decided that I would focus on just this mtt. I final tabled that bitch, but IGH when my K8 couldn't hit against 77's. But here am I looking short as hell at the table. I am very grateful to come in second because I got sucked out once and coolered once when we were already in the money.

ANYWAYY, We are leaving at 2 in the morning and should arrive at around 7. I hope to be coherent enough to stand when I get out of the car, but my vacation has started!

First tourney is a 50 dolla deep stack turbo at noon. HERE WE GO.

BBT4/ I'm a Donk

So I watched a good amount of the action at the final table of the first big event in the BBT4 that I hear so much blogging about. I only watched the final table because I donked out of a large 10 dolla freeze out 35 spots from the money. fml.

Anyway, congrats to Hoyazo for a deep cash. This guy, if you don't know him is a great and consistent blogger. He gets a lot of harp for being pompous from time to time and steamy, but he really is fun to watch and very nice if you need help with anything. He advised me on the proper way to take screenshots awhile back and I recommend his blog to any player and advise to read all of his deep runs that he has posted on his sidebar.

Back to my game, Idk. might need a break until TStone, but no biggy. I will pull through!

Spring Break and Turningstone

It is almost finally here. The time where I regain sanity from all this work that I have been doing and also time for me to get over this cold! I have had some variation of the plague for the past two weeks that has been getting worse/getting better/getting worse in f*ing weird stages. Anywhoo, I will get to sleep in my very own bed starting tomorrow night and play some crazy amounts of online poker since the gf is working.

Tuesday, oh Tuesday! Normally I have terrible Tuesdays (alliteration intended) with 3.5 classes in one day accompanied by work and a 9am class. However, this tuesday,
Ferociousness, his friends from home, and I will be shipping up to Turningstone Casino in upstate NY! This will be my first real casino experience since most casino's I am still not eligible to play given that I am at the wee age of 19. I have been working at my college's library like a fiend to save up enough money that I feel comfortable taking with me! We will be leaving Tuesday night and plan to arrive at 3am or so. We then will just start playing from then on! Pretty crazy, but should be an awesome time. I am sure we will also be playing all the nightly tournies. I have had a little 100 dolla buy in experience, playing in only one, but cashing for a nice $900 in a 4 way chop. I can't wait to partake in this Spring Break Experience and will most definitely blog all about when I get back! Hope all is well with everyone!

The Connection Between AROID and poker

First off, I have not posted in awhile. It's kind of a refreshing thing to be writing this right now! I have been UBER busy here at the college as now I have survived the first round of Midyears with 1-2 more rounds to go!

I wanted to write about this awhile back when I read Hoyazo's good posts about his opinion on AROID, but just havent had the time. Anyway, when I saw the video with Rodriquez and Katie Couric, something struck me of a connection between this whole steroids debacle and a possible tie to poker. Back in the 90's with the MLB, steroids were illegal, but nobody tested. Im sure that with the players, they just wanted to get ahead and were worried that some farm kid was going to overpass them if they didn't themselves take that ball-shrinking medecine I know it is not deemed illegal, but what about poker software? I haven't done much research into the companies that make these programs and also given that I have a Mac, most software is not even compatible for me. Also, I am just not good enough or trying to make a killer profit in the online world to even want poker software. However, my friend has it and seems to make a large profit with the help of this software. This HUD display that shows a player's betting patterns right on the screen as your playing allows my friend to play 10-12 cash game tables at a time. Also one can know everyone's 3bet percentage or fold to 3bet percentage without having to take notes! Definitely seems to be some sort of edge. Another connection too, is I am sure that a donk wouldn't use this to their full advantage, but so wouldnt steroids! You usually just dont have some Joe Schmo take steroids and expect to get big. It's those heavy weight lifters or a-holes like AROD that take steroids.

Anywhoo, that's some fuel for thought. I hope to post later in the week about my poker playing as of late! =)

lol donkaments

I <3 New Zealand and their funny shows on HBO, but this really brings a smile to my face.

It reminds me of 3-4 years ago when I would play on stars in those 10,000 person freerolls. I'm sure everyone has been there, but looking back on them, (they were fun as shit) but also pure death for two reasons:

1.) if you cashed, the first pay structure was .04 cents. quite the bargain. dodging a minefield of about 8,500 raging donkeys and staying up till ridiculous hours for a fraction of what my mom pockets when she does the laundry. been there, done that. simply embarassing if I ever responded truthfully to someone's "What did you do over the weekend?" question.

2.) They played hand for hand in EVERY LEVEL OF PAY STRUCTURE. yeah.

Anyway, things have been stagnant on the poker front. I have been on a heater with heads up sng's finally playing 100 h/up's and actually winning 60 of them. you better believe it. OP AHHH me. Despite that, I have been lacking in my usual skill with regular 9-man's, but Im sure I will bring that back to form. That's about it coming from me, but hope everyone enjoys their Sunday!

Hot and Cold

Lately, I have been playing with some consistency and overall have seen some nice progress with the occasional donkyness from time to time. However, I have seen my bankroll double as a result of some good tournament play. I have made two final tables in six days. I also played my very first 24+2 and actually ran really well until about two hours in when I got massively sucked out to come in second in my other MTT I was playing at the same time. This caused me to make moves when I could have just sat on my massive stack. However, here is what I was looking at after the first 45 mins into the 28k guarantee.
The hand that put a large hurt on me was about fifteen minutes after I got sucked out in my other MTT so I wasn't playing optimally at all. However, it wasn't too bad of a play imo.

I was dealt Q5o in the sb about two hours and fifteen minutes into the tourney. Co makes it a solid 3x to 1800. Having seen this guy be quite aggressive near the button, I pushed the time button so I can have time to fake like I'm pondering make a decision when I was pretty set on restealing here. I was real card dead for almost an hour straight so this (in my tilting head) looked like the place to chip up again. So I decided to make it to an even 4000 (with about 8000 behind), repping some pretty big cards despite my gross ass hand. He thought for a long time, but eventually made the call. The one thing I regret is not having a solid read on this guy on his playing ability so I only could put him on a range of a small pocket pair like 77 or 88 since I really had no range on him from previous hands. The flop came an ace high, rainbow board. So because I dont think my post flop play is that good, I'm usually very aggressive preflop and on on the flop. I open pushed him on the flop, obviously continuing with my aggression on this hand. Again he pondered, but reluctantly called with A4o. And i was sent packing with my complete air of a hand and just short of the money.

I am kind of firm that I would have made this play tilting or not, but it was obviously not the right move. I feel I'm very aggresive, which obviously is good and bad.

Anyway, I am curious for any feedback from anyone on how I played the hand or the way I phrased the hand, since I'm still a pretty new blogger. =)

Mental Funk

Coming into this week, the last full week of winter break for my college, I was all psyched to visit one of of my good friends in Maine with a bunch more of my friends. It being so close to my thirty days without online poker, I decided to ease up on my ban and play on pstars because I still had a teency amount of cash moniess on there and everyone else was going to be playing too. I ended up really well, grinding my big $1.80-$35.00 thanks in part to the special donkeys on the low limits of stahhhs. I began to play again, only to tilt so fast that I stopped playing after only a douzen sng's. I actually cashed the first six for a few nice scores, but I tilt soo fast. I have to find a way to recover fully recover.

Fast forward a few days... I still don't have my game. I am playing close to usual, but I just feel like I'm going to lose every time I register for a tournament. Obviously, not the best mentality. Having this mentality definitely doesn't help if you're playing MTT's so I'm just not gonna play very consistently to not playing at all. I fair alright in H/UP's just because I still feel I can outplay people there, but I am in a serious mental funk. Not good not good. 

However, I have other priorities anyways, given that a new semester has just begun. This set of classes definitely seems to be the most demanding of my college experience thus far. Holy tits.

Zee Goals for 2009

After reading Hoyt's great review of his 2008 goals, I thought it would be a good idea for me to create a set of goals for myself to follow or not follow as 2009 gets underway. I want to make it clear that these goals are not going to be a constitution for me that I live by every day. Some goals will obviously be more prevalent than others, but I am doing this as a way to gauge progress as well as look back  and see how smart/stoooopid I was.  Without more bs, let's get into it baby!

Goal: Play situational poker while keeping strategy in mind.

To clarify, it feels like I play more strategy based poker and not use the current situation to help me make decisions. This is an obvious flaw in my game, which will be difficult, yet not impossible to fix because I'm gonna have to make an adaptation in my thought process despite the easiness of going back to my game where I live off of aggression, a lack of cognitive thoughts and making plays based on the book. So, I would like to just play more thoughtfully, than do what is easy when I play on the virtual felt.

Goal: If I ain't feeling good, don't play.

This will also be a tough goal to accomplish because I like to play to let off steam. This mindset has never been a profitable time to play at all. However, this hiatus of the past thirty days has shown me that I can limit myself no problem, which definitely was reassuring. So given my new MTT strategy, I will gauge myself on how I'm feeling before I sign up for a tournament. Numerous times I have felt like shit, ran alright, then got massively sucked out. The times that I've run amazingly well as well was when I had no attachment with either a win or loss. I was hanging with friends, in a good mood, but I was playing that this tournament is not going to be the life or death of me. There is this weird phenomenon that whenever I "late register" into a tournament, I nearly always cash. To me, it's because I just played on a whim and had no expectations.

Goal: Break into the 300's and 400's.

I have never had a sufficient bank roll due to me cashing out or being donkery. So getting in those regions definitely would be a self esteem booster.

Goal: Take phucking FIRST in a large MTT

It's always been a hard thing for me to close the door. I have final tabled a few big MTT's but never have I took it down due to bad luck or final table inexperience. This goal probably might the most meaningful due to the amount of time that I have put into MTT's in the past.

So that's it. I hope to look at this next year and see if I actually, hopefully, somehow accomplished these goals.    =)