... well it still is to be honest :-) I was just looking through some old screenshots and came upon the one above. This was my very first MTT win on March 19, 2010 in the $4.40 4 max 1000 capped game on Stars. I wasn't very good back then so I have no idea how I won this tournament. Well I guess that would be luckboxing for sure because I had little skill then. What's the funniest thing about this is how excited I was to win $640. Now I bitch and moan if that's all I win in a tournament, and unfortunately with only being able to play on the remaining US facing sites $640 is often 1st and 2nd place money in so many of the tournaments available. So I guess this is the part that's no fun really. Poker is just so much more stressful now for several reasons. First not having the big field MTTs that we had on PokerStars or Full Tilt makes the payouts so small it's very hard to win any significant money. Second playing the same real good regs in almost every game is extremely tough. Third playing for my only source of income (well household secondary income to be honest), especially in the current US conditions, is very stressful. So while I still enjoy playing and wouldn't give it up for anything it's just not the fun past-time that it used to be. There are some positives to the current situation though. I've had to really work much harder on my game than I ever would have if I were still playing on PokerStars, as I'm sure I've said previously, but all in all poker was just way more fun on Stars and Full Tilt. On a different, but somewhat similar note, I'm contemplating spending a few weeks in Rosarito, MX playing back on Stars and the soon to relaunch Full Tilt. I don't have enough details to make a decision right now but it is currently an option. It would be so much fun and a great experience, not to mention an opportunity to make much more significant money. Some of the people going are really great players and it would be a great opportunity to learn from some the best, which makes it even more enticing. Hoping to finally have a good weekend, especially a good Sunday, this time so I have my fingers crossed. Making lots of money is always fun.
I had planned to not take any days off from poker until after Poker Maximus was over but after the last few grueling days I changed my mind and decided to take today off, it is after all Labor Day. I had planned to go to a fine arts festival at Marietta Square but the weather decided not to cooperate with that idea. Instead I slept until I decided to get up then went out for dinner and frozen yogurt. I'm about to watch a couple of movies with my daughter and then go to bed. I have to admit I couldn't help but rail one friend's final table but that was my only transgression for the day. He's been running pretty badly and I really wanted to rail him in hopes that he wins this. He works hard and he's really good at poker but he's been seeing the bad side of variance without much of a break for a too long. I'm actually railing him while writing this and he just suffered a couple of really nasty beats. I guess since technically this is a poker blog this is my second transgression for the day but what can I say. I'm really excited about Poker Maximus and I'm planning to spend the next couple of days reviewing, reading and working on leak finding to get ready. I'll play some but I'm going to play a bit of an abbreviated schedule and devote more time to working out some kinks. I've been getting way too frustrated after suffering some too frequent but typical beats over the last few days so I'm going to try to work on that aspect of my mental game as well. On another note PokerStars is running WCOOP with guarantees up in the millions while we poor U.S. players get Poker Maximus with a $530 buy in high stakes Main Event with only a $200,000 guarantee and a $60 buy in mid stakes Main Event with only a $150,000 guarantee. Lucky people who don't live here. Last Poker Maximus all the guarantees went up pretty high since the turn out was much higher than expected but with the departure of Lock Poker who knows if that will happen this time. I'm going to remember the 6 Ps while trying to get prepared for Poker Maximus: Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance So here's to the 6 Ps and Poker Maximus! May the rungood commence! Update: My friend finished 3rd, he recovered nicely from the first beat but lost a hand with QQ v JJ, the guy hit a set and that hand took most of his stack :(
