well, as most know I was backed with EeeTee2008 for turbos and such, well that has ended. As far as details I’m not comfortable revealing them, but it (as far as I know) was in no relation to my performance, I was not the only one let go. I wish the best for Elliot in the future and hope a life upswing commences for him soon.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m working into finding a new backer for the time being unless I hit big in the miniFTOPS events this weekend, or hit it big in a Sunday major I hope to satellite in with using FPP’s. I’m finally over my cold/flu/sickness so I’m feeling great. The weather is improving as well so that’s always preferred. New car is registered, old one is sold, the life upswing for me appears to be continuing!

I’ll make a more proper blog post later in the week, until then. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

cj

financially, my life is improving. i sold my civic and with some poker money have given my roommate half of the money owed. with some more poker money to come and taxes i hope to give him the rest. i will still owe him a bit more for the coming 2 months as our lease doesn’t expire until MAY 30th, not April 30th which i anticipated. that also gets me a bit annoyed, but ohwell, i can tough it out and eat some ramen for a bit longer i suppose. the new living quarters hunt has slowed, mostly due to being busy @ work and of course being miserably sick. positively though, i did make the final 2 payments of the credit cards i had, so weeeeeeeeeee no more credit card debt. i also was able to consolidate the remaining money from my repossessed car so that will cut that payment by 2/3 a month for the next 19000 years. exaggerating, but not far from the truth imo.

poker wise, i did have 3 winning weeks in a row. i wasn’t burning down the town and rolling in money, but a few hundred here and there is definitely welcomed and would appreciate that becoming a consistent happening. unfortunately the 2 sessions i’ve played this week went terrible and i have to play extreme catch up if i would like to make even $1 of profit this week. 100-200 buyin downswings are not uncommon in the turbo’s, and with me still being a sub-par skilled turbo player, it is to be expected during my learning process. i hope to improve my schedule to allow myself more review and learning time, so with adjustments and time management improvements i will get there, slowly but surely. i have a friend who also approached me to stake me in a few of the full tilt poker mini FTOPS events. i dont really like full tilt all the way, but i do feel that it is +$ev to play at least a few of the events and play as well as i know how and hopefully make some serious coin. i feel i am capable and i really feel positive in the future during the miniFTOPS so hopefully i can update a blog post with me rolling around in a couple stacks of 100′s.

so anyway, hope everyone is doing well and makes lots of money doing the things they love. think positive thoughts for me during my sessions the next couple of days as we all know how whiny i can be on a bad run of cards.

cj

poker has been going well. as i mentioned the last post i am now being backed to play turbo 180mans and turbo mtts until i can get back on my feet. at the same time it allows me to learn from the best and with the best @ these games. also learning HOW to beat these games is the key, anyone can run well and luckbox a few, but really knowing the brass tax behind them will allow me to become (hopefully) a much more profitable LONG TERM winner. long term is not something most players or people in general focus on, so that is really a point that i am trying to improve and solidify for an overall more positive outlook on most things in life. over about 2 weeks of sessions @ these games i am a slight winner overall. the swings are brutal and the break even sessions are disheartening, but i am still new @ these games and with practice and repetition i hope to improve to a much more consistent status. its tiring working 40hrs a week @ a real job, then at least 30hrs a week @ poker while still maintaining a girlfriend and a life (lol friends), but it will pay off in the long run for myself and everyone affected by my negative life path lately. i have been playing more than studying the game, because for me the trial and error and real time thoughts about the games improve me more than reviewing some math behind a hand i played 2 days ago. not to say it isn’t a useful tool, because it is, but some peoples brains work a little differently than others. so something thats good for me may not be well for another, and vice versa.

on the non poker front. i am looking to move into a less expensive apartment/townhouse/house @ the end of april thereabouts. because i am behind on bills and such, i really need to get somewhere heaps more affordable for me as well as a little less “maintenance”. having a large townhouse is just not efficient for someone who spends a lot of time @ work or on the computer and when im not doing either, i am out somewhere else with the girlfriend or the dog or both. i haaaaaaaaaate moving, so hopefully this process is painless (doubt it). also, finally @ the start of March i will have made my last credit card payments to finally have those out of my hair! i am so excited for the upswong my life is experiencing in terms of my financial state. yeah, i am still way behind, but i can see the light. after those 2 cards are gone, i will have a consolidation loan from my SUV that i had to give up, and then the money i owe my roommate for the current months of rent. i am also getting my moms 95 Honda Passport and selling my 88 civic, so that money will go directly to my roommate as well as my tax return which i will hopefully complete and send in in the next few days. progress is progress no matter how far you progress.

overall my attitude has been far improved. i know that the people i talk with regularly that knew how i was before can attest to that, so i am proud to say that i am getting stronger in controlling which emotional state i need to have at the forefront during the day. i do get overwhelmed and stressed @ work, but dealing with difficult people is not something i feel i am all that cracked up to do these days. on that note, my FAFSA information will be submitted March 25th and hopefully processed within 1-2 weeks or so, at that point i will be able to hopefully have enough money to go back to school and after applying for grants if needed, have enough to live off on so i dont have to work. my goal is to quit my job whilst getting a degree via online school with UMD and playing poker in my free time to garner a little extra cash and save enough to make the professional status transition again. cross your fingers that i receive enough for that to happen because that would be a huuuuuge positive life boost.

so just wanted to update this before i started my day. need to go meet someone about my 88 civic to hopefully sell that this weekend and then grab some food before i start my poker session of the day. the girlfriend has a friend in town so she’ll be preoccupied so hopefully i can catapult myself into some cash before the sunday funday begins! good luck in life and @ the tables all.

cj

most substantial and what the few people who read my blog will care about, are the changes in poker. being staked has its advantages and disadvantages and sometimes with the good does come the bad and that’s just part of it. nothing i have experienced staking wise has been bad within the stakee/staker relationship so nothing negative like that. sometimes you just have to find your niche and what works for you best, after all that’s what life is about. nothing is perfect and trial and error are the best ways of finding what works best for you. so with that little rant comes the news that i have changed backers/teams. i do feel that this one is one where i belong to be honest. yeah i’m sure that’s what everyone says, but it’s true. won’t really get into details but i am now under EeeTee2008 who is known for his mass multi-tabling abilities and his achievements within the turbo speed games. he is slowly transitioning to larger games and i have no doubt he has what it takes to really move through those fields with ease. under his agreement i will be with a great team of up and coming grinders who are all great minds in themselves and we will all be learning, growing, progressing, improving, etc together which is very helpful. EeeTee is also a great overseer so there will be little digression and all focus which, lets be honest, i really really need.

now, i’m an impatient and stubborn person (you are all shocked i’m sure) so like stated earlier, finding a niche hasn’t always been smooth sailing for me. i feel i am on the path to success wholeheartedly and hope to be more than excelling soon to be back on track to where i want my life to go. i am extremely thankful to everyone who is currently helping me and who has helped me in the past, whether it be being on the bad side of me bitching or staking me when no one wanted to take a shot on a huge unknown. i don’t need to name names because you all know who you really are, so thank you. please know i am always here for you like you are for me. i feel loyalty is a dead quality in so many people so i am glad to have some loyal surroundings, and know that my loyalty doesn’t come easily, so again thank you for being different. i’ve said it a few times that my generation terrifies me and its inability to function correctly so it’s glad to see that some people are also different and the ones who are out of my generation are willing to take those changes on a potentially volatile individual.

on a more personal life perspective, i have just gotten over a bit of stomach flu. holy crap, f that. no way do i wish that on anyone. it came out of nowhere, lasted for about 24hrs and left me in legit pain for another 24hrs. i don’t get sick hardly ever, and if i do it’s just a 2-3 day head cold, so this was very rare and unexpected for me to deal with. thanks to emily most of all and also my mom for helping me out those couple of days. also over the last few weeks the weather has been far from good. of course it’s winter but we’ve had a few weekends of pretty intense snow storms which is pretty rare for this area. those storms have thrown off my groove and i am just crawling to get back out of the hole and back into a routine. now that i’ll be back playing poker again as well hopefully things normalize as soon as possible. besides lack of motivation, which should right itself soon, not much else has really gone about personally.

one pretty large thing that i’ll have to be dealing with soon is a potential move. ideally emily and i had intended to be able to move out of state within the next few months, but financially i will not be ready unless something drastic changes. i dont feel comfortable making a large move like that in my position, so a few things have to be solved first. that lands me with finding a new place to live here in Richmond. where i live at the moment is great, but it is far out of my price range now and i’d like to upgrade to somewhere with at least a fenced in yard and preferably a garage or extended driveway. hopefully my current roommate is interested to find such a place because he’s a great person to live with and we get along great. he’s very level headed and easy to get along with, so it makes for a stress free living environment which my psyche craves. i haven’t prepared myself for lease searching, and i’m honestly not looking forward to that or the process of moving, but it has to be done, so it will be.

so there are a few snippets within the last few paragraphs i want to zoom in on and that’s emily and my financial standings. i have a great girl in emily, she really does mean heaps to me and i’m very lucky to have found her and have her a part of my life every day. she is helpful and understanding and a fresh mind to talk with daily and really absorbs and processes information that i really never expected. she has a genuine interest in interacting with poker as a whole and that is very refreshing and even motivating to succeed. unfortunately, because of my financial state i am not able to spoil her like i wish to, but when things change, i surely intend to. i do feel a bit helpless and that i’m taking advantage of her, but her understanding surpasses mine in dealings with hardship (regardless of her personal experience with any hardship or not), so shes just great to have around overall. now, obv money isn’t the key to happiness, but once solved will make things easier for me to stomach. my mood will improve when i dont worry of bills getting paid and thus my mood towards life as a whole will improve. i will then be able to spoil emily in not only material ways, but in caring ways that i lack because of my depressed state of frustration and hopelessness. with time and with increasing patience life will improve financially and that will positively snowball into a happier relationship with her and hopefully with those around me.

tl;dr but thanks for checking back. hope everyones doings are proper and all is well within your daily grinds of all shapes and sizes. as an aside, please watch There Will Be Blood if you haven’t already. cinematic genius tbh.

cj

more woe is me emotions about having to deal with a daily grind job I just don’t think I’m cut out for this life after all. I thought it would relieve some stress but it’s just creating more. f being positive it blows. on a posi note though I will be done with my credit card debt the first week of march and onward will begin the process of moving away and being who I want to be. hopefully within the next year also a good poker friend from across the pond will finally get off his ass and move here, we’ll see.

I am currently at work just updating this a bit so if you’re reading pray to the poker gods my slump turns into robusto and I can be the person I want to be asap.

cj

it is expected that a new player to a certain level plays one of two ways. one is a super nit and loses a lot of value because of being scared money which I am not. the other is playing almost hyper aggressive to build an image because of anxious feelings in the games at hand. I am the latter and don’t see that drastically changing except for incorporating a bit more nit in my game. I have recognized a few leaks but when it comes down to it I just need to hold in big pots which isn’t a leak so much as it is just frustrating.

I would like to be pro again by mid year so I’m gonna have to ramp up my game and really stop fuckin around. I would also like to get in supernova pace which given my current grinding ability should be well within reach. I’ve talked with Jerome a couple times in regard to my mental aspect of my game and it’s surely something I intend to improve but it’s not something that’s done overnight. to an outsider it’d easy to point and change but when it’s your problem it’s a lot harder. that’s not saying I’m giving up but I’m gaining a more realistic approach to repairing my flaws. I want to succeed so badly that I’m becoming impatient and that’s bad. I’ve always felt that I’ve put a lot more into this game than a few people I regularly speak with but maybe I’m putting time and effort into the wrong aspects. althought training sites and strat posts are good I feel the best way to learn, improve, and adapt is by playing far more than watching someone else run hot for one hour and take that as the norm.

so my yearly goals haven’t really got in full gear yet but it’s so the third week and my impatient mindset is again a large bane of my existence. I plan to hit the gym a fair amount while moving up to a serious money making cash stakes level as quickly and efficiently as I can. with that will come the ability to live and save while dropping my 40hr a week job which I loathe having to have. I didn’t want that to happen but it did. I guess I’m just not cut out for the working world anymore.

bored of writing hopefully that wasn’t to lengthy. good luck all.

cj

Yesterday, I went from a life low in the morning, to 20 hours later being at a poker high. I registered my usual session, but started a tad later than usual. Lost really quickly in a whirlwind that didn’t feel like bad play or running bad, it was just forces acting upon other forces. Anyway, that was fun and already being mentally and emotionally exhausted I cut my registrations off around 8pm EST with the late $3 rebuy and $8 turbo. So on I went playing a few games just auto-piloting and passing the time. Within about 30 minutes after the rebuy period ended, I found myself with just that one lone $3 rebuy tournament to play and with the long 15min levels, it could be awhile. It was around then that I decided, if I’m gonna lose I want to lose knowing I made no mistakes, so if I’m only going to have one table, I’m going to play as correctly as I know how. So that’s what I did, and from around 9:30pm EST 6:30am EST I played correct and well and outplayed and out-maneuvered and ended up becoming the winner of that tournament for roughly $6,000 USD. WHHHAAATTT? Great feeling amirite? Nothing better? Well, ya it feels great and not to seem unappreciative, but I’ve won it and larger tournaments before, so more than excitement I felt relief. With my portion of my winnings I will be able to release some strain on my conscience by paying my room mate for a large portion of our bills that I’ve neglected. That feeling, is greater than winning if you ask me.

Does winning this tournament solve my problems? No. Does it delay them for the time being? Yes. The most positive thing that comes from it, is the boost in confidence that I will generate from this so that hopefully (and I plan too) I can go on to win or score a few more times and really get my life back on track. With the holidays coming up and how I long to get my girlfriend something I won’t otherwise be able to get her, as well as my mother and my aunt and uncle who have helped me immensely over the last few months, I am welcoming any boost I need to really recognize the potential that I have in low stakes to mid stakes tournament poker. Keep your fingers crossed.

I have a few things to take care of this morning/early afternoon, so hopefully I’ll feel well enough to register and rape some more MTT’s. Tomorrow, another positive post? We’ll see.

cj

To say it was easy would be a lie, but to say it was the hardest thing I’ve had to do, not even close. Sure it’s a bit embarrassing or what have you, but it’s more humbling than anything. Being broke the last few months and scratching the bottom will teach me a life lesson I won’t soon forget, so oddly enough I am thankful for this opportunity however weird that may sound. Some people float through life and have no worries and no cares and just don’t see the world through a realistic viewpoint. I’ve always felt that I want to experience the bad and terrible so the good and great is far and wide a fantastic accomplishment so as not to take advantage of it. So I guess subconsciously some of these situations were inadvertently caused by me to learn from my mistakes if you will. Back to earlier today, I emptied out my belongings from my car, drove to the bank and left the keys with a financial representative with whom I felt understood or at least empathized with me in my situation so my loyalty went to her, which it probably didn’t matter. Within a week or so she said, I will hear from whomever and they will tell me I suppose what my car went for at the auction and what the remainder of my loan will be. From there I assume a payment will be re-negotiated and I can go on not paying that until I get a steady income. I expressed that concern to her, and she said, “well at least they can’t take your car”. Oh the humor in a bad situation, but I digress. So I left the bank, and obviously without a vehicle I began a lovely walk to my townhouse which isn’t that far from the branch, so that was good. Not so good was the fact that it is raining and it’s cold. Walk walk, jog, cross, hop, trip, etc. I went through my “walk of humble shame” and to sum up my day, stepped in a really absurd sized puddle up to my ankle and said to myself “well that’s about right” and continued on.

So I sit here, entering this blog with my desire to be as candid but precise and to the point as I can to give people that don’t have such concerns a look into “the average guy behind the screen” who does. I have ghosts, I have demons, I have skeletons in my closet, and I’m not afraid to share them in or out of the public eye. Why hide who you are or who you’ve become no matter how positive or negative society believes you are. This situation I’m currently struggling with will teach me a life lesson most will never understand and I feel that makes me a better person inside and out so the good and bad in life will be jumped over like the puddle that slowed me down earlier. Remember, however bad of you may be, there is always someone just a little bit worse than you, and if they can joke and laugh in life, so can you.

Not going to discuss poker today, maybe tomorrow.

cj

On the poker front, yesterday was far and away the absolute worst day in terms of how I ran that I’ve probably every had. I’ve had ridiculous losing days like everyone, but most of the time I’ve finalized that it was due to playing poorly. Yesterday, was not that at all. I played well in a lot of key spots but could not for the life of me win showdowns or all-ins and obviously all MTT players know that you can’t win unless you do. I registered for probably 11hrs and was done before midnight, which is just terribly disgusting for me. I insta logged off, threw my headphones down, and went to bed. Any chance I had to make a few hundred extra dollars this month was wiped out by the atrocity of yesterday’s session. I will be getting a few things handled this afternoon and probably registering through the night/early a.m. to try and make some much needed money. To outline my necessities, I’ve determined that I need about $3,000 just to feel a bit less disgusted about my current situation. To get up to date totally, I’ll need at least $1,000 to $2,000 over that and any more than that I feel “comfortable”. I hate to play the game solely to hit a big score, but if there is a time to hit one, good God do I need it now.

That was a bit longer than anticipated but still a decent read in my opinion. Hope everyone’s days and nights are well and I hope to be back tomorrow afternoon with a post outlining my new found riches.

cj