Poker and Life

Well since last posting in this blog I have had a lot happen. After the jackpot I ended up taking probably a month off from poker (burnt out?) and just relaxed not doing too much. The month following that I got back to the grind at 6m with the intentions of really working on my 6m game and improving my play so that I can move up in stakes. Things were going well, I was on a solid schedule each day that kept me organized that consisted of playing poker, studying poker, and keeping balance in other areas of my life. I ended up having a halt in my plans that came in the form of a girlfriend that I got pretty close with pretty fast causing me to take yet another break from poker for probably like a month where I was just with her on a daily basis.

Around this time I also had a friend that was just absolutely crushing heads up poker that recommended I switch over to it. So eventually I did and was doing great. I started off at 2/4 and 3/6 heads up and just would grind heads up each day as well as just spending time with the girlfriend. I eventually moved up to 5/10nl and had like two 30k months back to back without really playing all that much but playing a moderate amount. Somethings were going wrong with my gf and I... one big thing being I realized that holy shit if I want to live the poker lifestyle of traveling around with friends, partying, playing poker, and meeting new people (girls) that I can't have a girlfriend. So like the asshole I am I broke up with her prior to leaving.

I ended up going on a 4 month long vacation with some friends where we were living on 6th street in Austin (great location), Vegas, and in Mexico which turned out to be like one big adventure with lots of fun times. I played poker here and there throughout the trip, first month very little.. making like 10k, in Vegas I got myself to play a bit more making like 30k, then in Mexico I only played enough to cover expenses. I decided though that it didn't make any sense to not be putting in more volume especially with the consistency and winrate I had at 5/10 heads up, so when I got back home (November) I finally buckled down and put in some volume.

I ended up having my best month ever for $84k with like probably 60k hands played. My winrate was very good though because a lot of winnings were at 3/6 from me just deciding getting hands at 3/6 is better than no hands and empty tables. So my plans now are to keep on grinding things out while I can and make as much as I can before it stops being so profitable to do so. I don't know for certain that HU will become less profitable but in my experience with poker anything that's easy money eventually does stop:

Party poker - Still have nightmares about this one
Cake poker - I did manage to get in early on this gold rush
Affilaite business with PP - lost this one for same reason PP shut down.
Doyles Room - UEGIA can go F itself.

So yeah, i'm going to try to play as much as I can while I still am doing great and hope things go well. I actually turned down some offers to go on some cool trips like Thailand (SSNL goes to Thailand) and moving into a poker house with some players because the timing was just really bad. I knew Thailand would be a huge distraction to grinding and will always be there and the poker house would be great for my game but since i'm doing HU right now and the players in the house all played 6m I just decided I would continue with what i'm doing now.

I can't wait to get back to traveling though sometime in February or March maybe when some friends of mine have also grinded out some more money as well. We are looking to take a big trip to Australia/Buenos Aires or something, but prior to that I want to kind of go on a cruise or snowboarding trip since I've had great fun in the past with both of those. For the snowboarding trip my friends and I a long time ago went with this place:

http://www.skitravel.com/index.php?module=CMS&func=view&id=234&tripType=2

Not sure if it would be cheaper to just get there on our own and pay for the lodging on our own but that site takes care of all that for you and i'm lazy so .. whatever. We'll see if that goes down though.

In the mean time i'm going to Borgata this weekend to play some WSOP circuit events and grind some 5/10, and when I get back i'll be back to grinding.