The rapidly plunging ROI and other whinings...

Arrggghhh! There are nights one has to wonder if there is such as thing as winning at poker! Of course I know there are those who do but the ups and downs can just be brutal! When I win I feel wonderful and when I lose I feel like total crap! I can't imagine someone with bi-polar disorder playing poker, the swings would surely send them straight to the insane asylum. Anyway no matter what I played last night I just couldn't get anywhere. Had some total stupid donkey ass moron call my shove with QJo, it never ceases to amaze me how many idiots think this is such a great hand when it's only queen high, OMG! Anyway he hit a jack and me and my AQs went to the rail. I chalked that up as just one more loss for the night.

Well last night sucked so badly maybe that means tonight will be a major improvement. We'll see!

Another week....

This week was okay but nothing spectacular. Thanks to my poker buddy Kelli I discovered a fun tournament on Pokerstars and I've played in it 3 times this week with one cash. It's a quintuple 4 max shootout with a $2.20 buy-in and I really enjoy playing it.

On Tuesday we had our first ladies poker study group and it went really well. We have a really great group and I think we will all learn a lot from each other over the weeks to come. We spent the first few minutes getting all the software set up and running. We then took a few minutes and went over a turbo sit-n-go I had played earlier. I don't know how educational it was because I had run insanely good throughout the entire game but I think we did hit on a few points that helped each of us.

The PokerVT guys did their study group last night and I was on with them to help them get up and running. They are a really great group of guys and I might have to crash their sessions from time to time because I think they will sometimes be covering cash games and I'm the only one in our ladies group that plays any cash.

I would so recommend PokerVT to anyone who is serious at getting better at poker. The pro instructors there are really great and interact a lot with all the members in the forum and in the Sunday member game on Pokerstars. I have been a member for about 8 months and it's amazing how much I've learned and how much my game has improved. I have also met numerous great people through the forum and I really enjoy discussing poker with them. Our final game of the 12 week +EV series is this Sunday and I am so happy to have qualified to play. I really can hardly wait.

This Tuesday we also started playing a private game on Full Tilt and it was really fun playing with 7 other nitty PokerVT players. It's so different playing people who have a clue than the usual donks you find in most games. It's funny when someone posts on the forum saying they think they could win more if they were playing good players instead donks, yeah right. I remember thinking the same thing when I first joined PVT. Give me fish and donkeys any day instead of a bunch of nits who know what they're doing.

Tommy's sister is off the ventilator and improving daily but she still has a long week ahead of her. Tommy is having his surgery on February 10 so I will off a few days with him.

I've played a little rush poker on Full Tilt, what a weird way to play cash. The first couple of session cost me a little but last couple weren't too bad. As long as you play super nitty ABC poker you should be able to make money.

Technology is amazing! It's so cool to be able to talk to people all over the world and share one computer screen and talk about poker. Reminds me of the Jetsons. Jane stop this crazy thing.....

[IMG]http://i49.tinypic.com/jhvwc4.jpg[/IMG]

What will Full Tilt think of next...

Rush poker and shallow stack tables are the new things at Full Tilt. Rush poker is really crazy I've tried it twice and lost about 2.5 buy-ins. You play about 300 hands per hour and it's the very height of ABC poker. No reading anyone and no one reading you. New players every hand. It's a true haven for short stack poker. Great way to earn iron man points though and pay more rake.

Speaking of short stack poker, Full Tilt also added shallow stack tables. Finally a place for the scum of the earth to play against each other. Funny thing is the icon for the tables is baby poop green, fitting I say.

This has been a pretty yucky week for poker. This month started with a bang but my graph line and my bankroll are on a decline. Got to fix that soon!

Work is work! Tommy's sister has improved a little more but is still on the ventilator. We're trying for figure out scheduling for Tommy's surgery but it looks like the middle of February will be the best time.

Well since nothing exciting is going on I guess that's about all. Maybe next time I can talk about some big poker win, even a good small one would be nice.

Nothing much going on. My sister-in-law is improving slowly. Poker totally sucked last night! Full Tilt has started Rush Poker which is insane.

A funny and oh so true joke:

THE DIFFERENCE IF YOU MARRY A SOUTHERN GIRL


The first man married a woman from OHIO. He told her that she
was to do the dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple of days,
but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes
washed and put away.

The second man married a woman from MICHIGAN. He gave his wife
orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking.
The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it
was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes
were done and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The third man married a girl from THE SOUTH. He ordered her to
keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed,
and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the first day he
didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything but by
the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a
little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he
could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher. He still has
some difficulty when he urinates.

Things are looking up...

My sister-in-law is improving slowly. They stabilized her heart rate and she has been able to digest food through the feeding tube for a couple of days. Her breathing has also improved.

Poker wise things are going okay but I've definitely had better days. Things were just kind of off.

I'm starting to like to play super turbos. I love the fast pace! I really have to work on my mtt game. I'm pretty strong with single table sit-n-goes especially 6 max but I'm just a bit weak with big fields. I'm going to try to watch some of the JCarver and Pearljammer videos on PokerVT and try to figure out where I'm missing the boat.

I'm looking forward the PokerVT final game for the 12 week +EV tournaments. 51 qualified and I'm certainly glad to one of the 51. Looks like there were about 132 playing over all. PokerVT has some great prizes for the winners. We are playing the final game on Full Tilt, thank heavens! I really hate Pokerstars and I so happy to be playing this on FTP.

Well not much more to say at this point.

Downswing swings up...

Well my downswing has turned around a bit. Last night and tonight I actually had winning cash sessions and tonight I played in 5 sngs, 2 - 9 man super turbos, 1 - 45 man super turbo, 1 6 man regular and one 90 man KO. I had one first place (6 man) and 1 second place (9 man ST) for a small overall profit. My sng profit added to my cash profit was pretty nice.

I received an email this morning from Full Tilt telling me that they had discovered cheating in a game I was playing and that they were reimbursing me $5.00. Funny thing was the first email I received was sent to the wrong person and it said they were reimbursing me $44.00. Glad to know they on top of these things. I can't help but wonder what game it was.

The students are back at school from the Christmas break and it's nice to have them back. I supervise about 10 student workers and our office hires about 25 total and they all love to hang out in the work room outside my office area. They say the funniest things and I totally enjoy having them around. Nothing like a bunch of 18 - 22 years olds to brighten my day. They are the brightest spot of my job which is so boring when they are not around.

Today was really funny because most of us watched American Idol and we were having a great time singing that Pants on the ground song. That guy was so funny.

On the home front my husband is going to have to have prostate surgery and sister-in-law isn't any better so at least things are looking up on the poker front.

Whine: 25 tournaments in the last 3 days and...

If you like reading real downer blog this one is it. I'm usually a positive up beat fun person but not right now.

I have now played 25 tournaments, mostly sngs and a few mtts, and I have only had 2 cashes. One second place in a micro stakes sng and one in an MTT (small one).

Honestly I have never run this bad before! It was on 3 different sites too!

I think it's time for a poker break. There are a few books I've been wanting to read but haven't because I'm always playing. At this point in time with all the things that are going on I think my life and my poker playing are on a major downswing.

I know I should just blow it off but when so many things are going wrong at one time it's just harder to blow off the losses.

I definitely am having super bad karma!

My sister in law is actually worse. Her kidneys and digestive system aren't working and she had to have dialysis today. Things are looking really bad. Then to top that off we got the report from the doctor on my husband's prostate biopsy and they did find cancer cells. We have to meet with the doctor on Thursday. When it rains it really pours.

Well sorry for the whine if you didn't stop reading this at the warning at the beginning you should have.

Wow 9 tournament no cashes

Yeah I know variance but bloody hell! I don't usually run that bad. I won't even talk about my awful cash session. God I hate to loose and I hate to loose money even worse. I just thought I'd cry after losing the last game but I didn't, well not much.

I played badly in some of them but my luck just sucked. If I never see AK again it won't be too soon. I won't even talk about the donkeys and their donkey luck. Oh God this is turning into a bad beat blog...

Life is just kind of sucking around here right now. My husband's sister is in I.C.U. in critical condition and we don't even know if she's gonna make it and if she does we don't know what kind of shape she'll be in.

Work is boring and I just can't focus and believe it or not I'm just getting really sick of poker. Not the game just the variance and downswings.

Well that's my bitch post for the night. I'll just think about it tomorrow, after all tomorrow is another day! I need a Tara to go home to. (Gone With the Wind reference for any non southerners reading this).

Venture into 8 game mix territory and other things

I played my first 2 8 game mix 6 man sit-n-goes last night (or early this morning) and finished 3rd in the first one and won the 2nd one. I have played a few games of HORSE before with couple of wins but I never played 8 game before. It was great fun and a good break from holdem.

Today is the 11th game of the +EV PokerVT tournament. I have already qualified for the final which will be on January 31. I would love to make another final table during this set of games and thus move up on the leader board. It would be really nice to finally get a bounty too.

Poker wise 2010 started out with a bang and I have some ridiculously unsustainable ROI for the month so far but variance has shown it's ugly head and my ROI is becoming more realistic everyday.

Overall I'm running pretty decent but I really hate to lose especially when I do something really stupid on the bubble.

Well enough for now. I'm going to play a little more 8 game before the PVT tournament.

Poker Discovery

Well I've been thinking of starting a blog to talk about my journey through the poker world so here it is.

A poker friend of mine uses this blog spot and after reading his new blog I decided to create one of my own. I started playing poker in August of 2008 and fell in love with the game. I had never really gambled or played anything other than 5 card draw prior to this.

While on a cruise over the 4th of July 2008 I discovered gambling and video poker in the ship's casino and I was hooked. Luckily I was more hooked on the poker part than the other types of gambling.

After coming home I started watching poker tournaments on T.V. and then the 2008 WSOP coverage started and I was totally hooked. I saw the ads for Full Tilt and PokerStars during the T.V. tournaments and promptly downloaded both Pokerstars and Full Tilt and started playing for play money. It was love at first site and I started reading everything I could find about poker strategy.

Around January 2009 I discovered the freerolls on Players Only (Cake) and started playing there. In late February or early March I won some gold chips in their gold chip freeroll and then won a seat to the $250,000 guarantee with the gold chips. I then deposited $60 on the site and started playing for real money about a week before the $250,000G. I played in the 250 and came in 49th of 909 for a win of $625.

In May of 2009 I joined PokerVT and it has been wonderful. I have learned so much from the pros on that site. The forum there is great and members have been almost as much help to my game as the videos have.

In August I played in event #6 at the World Poker Open in Tunica and came in 31 out of 267. Unfortunately I finished just 4 short of the money. Considering this was my first big live tournament I can't really complain. I won my buy-in through single table satellites (won 2 of those). It was great fun and I can't wait to attend a big major tournament again.

As far as online poker goes it's of course been up and down but I am starting to see some significant improvement. My stats are looking good and I have a 2 digit ROI for my Full Tilt games.

Well enough for now.