Technically I'm still at the tables; but since I took a four hour break and resumed past midnight, I figured it'd be a good breaking point. Here's the numbers for my mistake free last night:

7 hours (1 table)
169
2367.38

Awesome! Table was hot hot hot. I had a blast too doing it. Best part is, no humiliation notes to list off. And even better, the magic lasted another 4 hours. No humiliating plays for 4 hours at 4 tables! Party poker is awesome I'm happy to report. I had a guy hand me his entire stack with A high on a rag flop. I don't think I'd ever seen that on UB. Took a few bad beats too, but came out on top. One hand, not a bad beat, but still pretty notable. I call a raise with AQ, flop comes TTQ. I bet, he calls. Turn Q. I bet out, he raises, and we're both all in! Freaker turns over TT. Oh well, I guess we all get hands that play themselves.


4 hours
94.1
2491.48

I'm enjoying the upswing while it lasts, but I'd better get back to the tables. I'm down a buy-in because of a mistake, and that means I owe two hours to fix it.

Tonight I had a relaxing session squeezed between studying for finals. I just wrapped up a computer science project that took me all damn day. I've decided I hate programming, it takes me 25 minutes to write the thing and six and a half hours to debug it. Not a fun afternoon.

Math final is up tomorrow. This is my second go at the class, and I need a 70% or better on the final to save myself from a third repetition in the summer. Probably shouldn't have played poker tonight in retrospect.

Before I played I swung by Borders and picked up a copy of "Zen and the Art of Poker" as most of my problems seem to be mental. Nothing in the book has blown me away at all but reading it seems to soothe me. Allowed me to play very calm poker for about 2.5 hours of my 3 hour session. Only one bad play for the books, and its really too bad:

KK normal raise re-raised 6 by MP CS with 0% pfr after 200 hands. I called it, he bet 20, i pushed all-in. 50

Simple enough. Badly played on the flop, and I still think I should have been out of it pre-flop. PT could have paid for itself on this hand, like its always claiming to do. Aside from that the night was neutral, perhaps inspired by the give and take of me reading the zen book. At the end of the night I started attacking a mega-fish from across the table. This is something I find myself doing for some success.

Basically I spot someone looking 80+VPIP FR, and 25+ PFR, I'll take AJ or TT to battle with him for his stack. I took AJ against him on one hand (he gave a raise of 6$). Flop came with nothing, but I hung out for his 3/4 pot bet (he wouldn't be betting if he hit). I fired on the turn for 1/2 pot and he called. 35-40 dollar pot now, and he fires out for 3. I call with A high and he turns over a beatiful 8d2d making a flush he caught on the river. I realize after writing this its sort of a bad beat story, and I don't like to indulge in them. Since it's already up I'll leave it, as I meant to begin it as a sort of interesting hand more than anything else.

Anyway, my Zen stayed in touch through the night, and I got through 1/3 of the book before I was done. I completely lost faith in the author when he started talking about how luck bunches together, and to be aware of your luck streaks. That just doesn't work for me, so I'll continue to read the book and treat it with a grain of salt. If it keeps me pacified during play that's good enough for me. Hell, who am I to argue with a guy who took 2nd place in the Wisconsin State Poker Tournament 1997 (Whoo!).

Here's stats for the night:

3 hours
-41.13
2315.29

I was watching Little Nikki with Adam Sandler yesterday night for a few minutes. It didn't blow me away, but I remember it having a few funny parts. The premise is that Nikki (Adam Sandler) is Satan's runt kid, and has to fight his evil brothers to save earth.

Anyway, in the beginning there's a scene where one of his brothers challenges him to mind wrestling, which he reluctantly consents. Seconds later he's punching himself in the balls, his dad walks in to see it. When asked what's going on, to protect his brother he claims he was just "Hitting the old punching bag." This cracks me up because he says it as if it were an every day sort of act to just repeatedly sock yourself in the nuts.

Some days in poker I feel I am just "hitting the old punching bag." However, today wasn't one. Today was like Delta force standing by in a C-130 waiting for the moment. All you can hear is the hum of the engines, and see the dim light of the stars. Maybe a few cigarettes glow red in the darkness. All of a sudden the moment comes: "Green light Go, Green Light Go" and after hours of waiting they charge out into the night to kill middle-easterners.

I felt like the Poker-Equivalent of Delta tonight. I sat patiently, and when the moment came it was beautiful to behold. Very little did I hesitate or make stupid mistakes. The big one was early on and pointless:

got min-raised with Ak tptk K, called on flop, pushed on turn 38
Raising with nothing against like 3 people 8
Called down small raise with middle flush, despite 2 decent being in hand willing to play for it. 8
Messed around with open-ended straight draw for more than turn 5

So there's that. Still substantial stuff, but not my usual 100+. Its amazing I can still be profitable despite these things. Anyway, the forces were in cosmic alignment, and I didn't let it go to my head. I ran hot, but rode it down cool.

4 hours
370.53
2715.32

The month has suddenly turned +EV. I'm delighted of course, since my last month was strong. I went from -2 bucks an hour to +4, and I'm fairly certain its my greatest single session win of my career. So shoot off the fireworks, my chart has shot up through the roof. Assuming I don't receive the beat down of the year tomorrow, I might be moving up to 100NL soon.

I'm pretty sure some fat-ass Air Force crew chief isn't going to tell a guy with a delta patch to put out his cigarette, but then again, those Air Force guys are jerks.

Took last night off. Well, I didn't really take it off. I had to study for my last two finals since I'd been putting it off all week to play poker. I was up all night with my head in the books. Even so I had to get a fix, so I burned most of what's left of my ultimatepoints and played a few 5.5 SNG's.

Unfortunately I have to move now, my internet is cut-off already so I may have to spend upwards of 2 days without playing. Not that I can't handle that. Also I finally took all my cash out of UB.

I was planning on posting something a little longer than this, to talk about some trends I've noticed, but the shift key on this university computer is sticky and its driving me absolutely crazy. I'll have something up again on Monday.

Long day today. My Russian Mafia class turned out to be very long. Its interesting material, but very hard to stay awake for. Additionally I ahd to clean up my apartment for my final move-out. Who would think soap scum would accumulate thickly after a year of not cleaning the shower? Took forever, which meant less time for poker.

Now I'm tired as hell and looking to fall into bed, so I'll make this quick. Two stupid errors today. One was a flashback to my hyper-agressive past and another was once again showing my tendency to play overpairs too hard. Plus I didn't glance at poker-tracker to see the calling station raising. Really bad:

Bet 3 times into fish with KQ pair of K in bluff (never bluff a fish) 44
called calling station re-raise with overpair 26

Additionally I included two $100 tables into my play. I thought about posting some stats, but really its just drawing unnecessary attention to myself. I'm a winning player with a big enough bankroll and I'm beating the level down for about 4bb. Thats not stellar, but I'm sure I can make it profitable. If I can't, I'll just drop back down. Here's my stats for the night.

2.75 hours
-158.45
2715.53

This is a few days old, but for good reason. I'll start first on a positive note.

Today I found the IRC room and met some of the people in it. It allowed me to quickly hash out some of the minor annoyances that have been bothering me. After clearing up some of the basics I was ready to dive into the day. Thanks to EmmasDad and Mac for helping me out with my questions. I think the room is a great resource and also a great way to pass the time.

My actual play for the day varied. For the beginning I was playing quite solid. Toward the end I basically had a melt-down. I made one large mistake unmotivated, and two that were clearly errors in judgement. I could definatlely feel the drive of emotion behind them, and its one of the few times I've ever tilted away money.

My previous experience of tilt has been during live games, after drinking, in the final rounds of tournament play. I get a little more ramped up when I'm sitting face to face, and have to wait for cards. Not so when I'm at home, chilling in front of the computer listening to my favorite tunes. So I decided by the end of the night to take a few days off from poker completely, including reading stuff about it and watching on TV. Hopefully it will help me out. Here's the mistakes I made:

Called min-raise then huge river bet because my overpair improved to 2nd high straight. 47.5
Turn call against all-in re-raise with AA, against good player. 27.5
Tilt all-in push with TPTK against min-raise 45
Tilt all-in push after min-raise with straight on turn with monotone board 45

I absolutely need to learn to get away from good hands that won't stand up. I'm getting killed on them. Someone after looking at my stats claimed I wasn't going to showdown enough, but I have to heartily disagree. Every time I call a river-bet or push all-in I'm getting the worst of it. I actually crunched some of these numbers and I'm down like 900 bucks for the month on stupid errors. It's a difference of 5 ptbb/100 and my actual score, 1.8 ptbb/100.

This next month is going to be the month of controlled play. My focus will be on shorter sessions with more control. Cloutier and McEnvoy claim that a player plays his best poker during the first 2 hours, and then they go back to however they usually screw things up. I'm going to carefully tread the 2 hour margin in my sessions, perhaps breaking my play up into more sessions per day. Anyway, here's my stats from last nights travesty:

6.5 hours
-88.74
2307.04

So today was my first July Foray, living and dying by the mantra of "No Major Mistakes." I sat down today knowing I was going to play 2 hours, and that those 2 hours were going to be focused on not making mistakes. I'm pleased to say that I made no major mistakes for 2 straight hours. Woo hoo!

However there was one hand in particular where my decision making process seemed a might bit quick. I believe that I arrived at the right conclusion, and had I been wrong I don't think it would have been in my mistake file. However its a little unnerving that even when I get into hands one at a time, saying to myself how I won't screw up, I still make my decision without hesitation. My goal is to be able to reason each thought out. In some senses timing out is a better option than playing. Amputating any small part of my game, a single hand where I took too long to think, will not cost me nearly as much as the benefit of well thought calmly played poker.

That said I'm not going to push the 2 hour mark on any of my sessions until I've got a good amount of time logged without errors.

2 hours
36.95
2343.99

Also, I realized I forgot to thank Derk for helping me out the other night. I met him in a foul temper and made him look at a bunch of my hands. Also, a thank you to all the people who have read my posts and given me feedback. Very kind of all of you strong players to educate the competition.