The Concert and The Hike

My daughter, Anna, and I made a last minute trip up to Cherokee this past weekend to see Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. The concert was great, Joan Jett is still rocking as hard as ever and we had a great time there on Friday night.

The next day we drove over to Bryson City and had breakfast with my great friend Kelly, then drove up to Deek Creek for a hike. This was my first attempt at any long hike since my quest to become, well much thinner and much healthier. We did the Deep Creek, Loop, Indian Creek 4 mile trek. Of course, not doing enough prior research, we took the hardest of the two options for our route. The Deep Creek route to Loop trail was the steepest climb up the mountain but hey it was also the best work out. Three and half miles of the hike were great and actually pretty easy but the half mile straight up loop trail was pretty rough. It was winding and narrow and pretty darn steep. I had to make a few breath catching stops along the way (felt kind of like interval training) but overall we made it in reasonable time. It took us two and half hours total, so basically a little over 35 minutes per mile. Not my usual 10 minute mile on the Advanced Motion Trainer at the gym but these were real mountain peeks and lots of nice photo ops to get in the way.

The best part is the feeling of accomplishment. I spent so many years totally and completely out of shape, now being able to make a semi hard 4 mile hike just plain makes me pretty proud of myself. If you're sitting around on your ass complaining about how everything hurts, then get up, get on a good work out schedule, get those pounds off and stop that pain. My back and knees used to kill me. I honestly couldn't walk 2 city blocks at a medium pace without my hip hurting something awful. I had to walk down steps one at time because my left knee hurt so bad. After and during that 4 mile hike I had zero back, hip or knee pain. My lower back and hip almost never hurt at all and neither do my knees. Six months ago I could have never made that hike but with some hard work on strength, cardio and ab training all that has completely changed.

Last weekend we also did a short but damn hard hike up Grandfather Mountain near Boone, NC. That one was almost 100% a rock climb, not the wall type but it was climbing rocks not up and over dirt and roots. It was rated a hard climb for experienced hikers and it definitely was but it was so much fun. What a view from a mile high, no we didn't climb up that far, probably only about a quarter mile straight up but great nonetheless.

Wonder what we'll come up with for this weekend....

For all of you missing out on life because you hurt, you can't exercise saying you can't is nothing but an excuse, even if you truly believe you can't you can. Get off the pain meds and hit the gym and then the mountains and hills. There is so much beauty you are missing.

Let yourself live, NOW

"My Mom used to say there's a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there for it, or you can put yourself in the way of beauty." Wild - Cheryl Strayed.

Never put yourself, your emotional hurt or physical pain in the way of finding the beautiful things in life. Don't use pills, alcohol or excuses to keep yourself from living. Stop waiting to live, stop finding excuses, find yourself and start living now. Remember how precious life is. Remember every one makes mistakes, everyone has regrets. Find your beauty, find your inspiration and get out there and live the life you're meant to live.  

At some point in my life, someone said to me that I was the only person in this world who could make me happy, it was no one else's responsibility to make me happy. Unless I could find my own happiness within myself then I would never find it through someone else. I wish I could remember who said that to me. The best possibility was my Psychology 101 teacher but I'm just not sure. It's the truest thing I've ever heard and it's helped me through many rough times. 

We never know how long we have in this life so stop wasting the time you have. If you're in a bad relationship, either fix it if you can or get out of it if you can't. If you're in a bad job, get out of it. Everything has a fix you just have to want to find it and sometimes make the scarifies to make it happen. 

Sometimes there comes a time we realize that the time has come for us to live for us. Especially women, we raise our kids and take care of our families. Just about the time our kids grow up our parents start needing our help more and more. So take every minute you can to live for you. You worked for it and you earned it, so stop masking your misery and pain with drugs, alcohol or excuses and live every minute you can. Just make time for you and take time to find yourself. 

I was kind of lost for a long time and only over the last few years started finding ME again.  There is another line from the movie Wild that really struck home with me "I was a daughter, then a wife and then a Mom but I was never just me." ( loosely quoted) that's how I've felt most of my life. That feeling was never stronger than early in my marriage, when I couldn't even figure out where I went, much less who I was. I voted for Reagan for his second term for God's sake and didn't vote for Bill Clinton either time, I mean WTF? I would have never done either before marrying a Republican, or now, and losing who I was and what I believed in. Holy shit, I even joined Junior League in Douglasville and played the private school, country club Mom for way too many years. None of that was me, it was me trying be what someone else wanted me to be and what who I had convinced myself I was supposed to be.

I thank God daily that there was obviously a part of the real me still there and that my daughter saw and learned from that part and not the part I was showing to the world. Now I hope she gets out there and lives the life I missed. 

If you're still young and unattached, then get out there and live and be who you are meant to be. Don't wake up 10 or 20 years from now wondering who you are and where YOU went. Don't have to spend 5 or 6 years trying to find yourself again 30 years later. Make your changes now, even if others my get hurt. If you don't you'll either regret it later and find yourself having to really work hard to make those changes or feel so stuck you don't know which way to go. 

Most importantly, be who you are not who someone thinks you should be. If you aren't sure who you are figure it out before getting stuck in a bad relationship and wasting years before you figure it out. If who your are with is constantly criticizing you and trying to change you, they are not the one for you. The one for you will love for exactly who you are. 

I'm lucky so far in that I've been able to return to the real me without wrecking my whole life but who knows what lies ahead. 

Just to clarify the change in blog focus, I'm not playing much poker right now. This time I truly have lost that lovin' feeling so this blog will likely be taking another direction for awhile. Poker was a catalyst for finding me again and I'll always be thankful for finding it at a time I needed something most. 

Evolution of a poker player...

I've been playing poker for about 6 years now. The last 3 1/2 years were the more serious years. I never cease to be amazed at the difference in my play and thinking from one year to the next. I might even say just 6 months to the next 6 months I see many changes. 

I've occasionally looked over hand histories from the first few years I played and I couldn't believe I played some hands like I did, not to mention the limping. I've always watched videos and read poker books and even had some coaching from time to time. What's really telling is how I learn from those things now versus how I learned from them in the beginning. In the beginning I tried more to emulate what I was seeing in the videos or reading in the books. At that time if I learned something I took it as an absolute, as in never raise/fold with a 10 to 15bb stack, never limp the small blind with those stacks, don't defend your BB with those stacks etc.

As time went on and I became more experienced and more confident in my play, I learned not to emulate but to take certain parts from what I was learning and mesh that into my own style of play. I learned there were absolutely NO nevers in poker. There is a time and spot for all sorts of unorthodox play. That to do the unexpected will daze and confuse our opponents causing them to make misreads and mistakes. 

Another thing is mental game, people will tell a player who's only been playing for a year or two to read books like The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2 (Jared Tendler) or The Poker Mindset (Matthew Hilger, Ian Taylor) and tell them how much things like tilt, unrealistic expectations, etc. will improve, even tell them those books will rid them of these things. While I'm sure a novice player will get plenty of useful information from those books, until they've played tens of thousands of hands and been through numerous downswings will they really see a drastic change in their mental game. Newer players tilt, rant, mishandle a downswing, are result oriented and don't understand what long term really means. They play more in the here and now so how can anyone expect them not to be results oriented, after all aren't results how society measures success? 

I've been beaten every way imaginable and at every "worse" moment. It's after experiencing these beats over and over and over that we start to become immune to them. Each downswing I've had I've been able to better handle because I know eventually it will end. I remember my first real downswing swing back in 2010 on PokerStars. Of course it happened to hit at the worst possible moment, don't they always? I had been playing in the PokerStars Women's League and at that time I was in the top ten and had a great shot at the number one spot. That spot paid a ladies package to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, including expenses. I think it may have also paid out some bonus money. Well the last month comes and so does my first really bad, and what I thought at the time, prolonged downswing. I still managed a 7th on the leaderboard, out of over 800 women who participated, and earned a decent bonus but had that downswing not hit I had a great shot at the number one spot but as every poker player always says "that's poker". 

I handled that downswing awful, I did everything you shouldn't and thought it would never end. It ended and between the first of March until Black Friday hit I had won over $6K. That was a lot for me back then and was so welcome after what I perceived at the time to be a horrible downswing. Boy was I wrong, I'd give anything if some of my other downswings were that short lived with that little money lost. 

So, the next time your responding to a forum post or talking to a novice player and you want to tell them not to be results oriented or not to post bad beats or to stop whining about those beats, realized they really can't help it. It's all part of their evolution and until they have the experience to understand how negative, and annoying, whining about bad beats or being result oriented is it will really do little good to scold them for being that way. Chances are a very large percentage of now experienced poker players were exactly the same when they were new to the game. 

I've been thinking recently how many players, who showed a good amount of talent, aren't around anymore. My first Skype chat group is pretty much down to two or three people when at one time there were probably at least 15 or more active players in that group. Poker is a tough game and only a very small percentage of players are winning players over the long term. Another small percent can manage to be around break even but the vast majority of players just don't last that long because they can't handle it or get tired of all the losing. It's tough to lose money, it's tough to stick with it through a downswing that lasts for months, so many people just give up. I've wanted to many times. If you search this blog you'll find the evidence of that. 

This blog is actually a testament to my own evolution. Sometimes I go back and read early post and have a big laugh over how dumb my thinking was at the time. In a year or two I'll probably be reading my latest blogs thinking the same thing. 

As a player you learn and you evolve or you'll won't make it for long. Play and play some more, study and study some more. Stick it out and find your leaks and figure out how to fix them. I think the difference in a decent player and a great player is commitment and study, and no playing doesn't take the place of reviewing and studying. You should be reviewing, reading and studying at least 20% of the time you play. If you play 5 hours a day then you should be studying at least an hour. I have to admit this and bankroll management are my greatest nemisis. I just plain don't review and study enough and I suck at taking shots and not practicing proper bankroll management. It's not easy but it's a must. 

Good luck and here's to evolution....

As usual this got way too long, hope you all made it this far. 

Disclaimer: I'm writing this late at night, after playing and super tired so please excuse any errors. 

As a reward for reading all this, here's a video of something that reminds me of many poker players I know... 

Drunk monkeys. 

Choosing to be Victorious!

First thank you to my friend Kelly for posting this on Facebook. By my last bust of my first WSOP trip I was feeling all these negative feelings. I was feeling totally defeated and had decided I could never be good enough to beat this game of poker that I so love. After getting home and having time to rest and reflect I realize that I spent a lot of time "saying" I work hard at poker but do I really?

What is working hard? Is playing a lot working hard? Do I even play a lot, or nearly as much as I should? Do I spend enough time reviewing my game and looking for reasons why I lose?   Do I spend enough time studying and watching videos or reading to learn new ways to approach the game? The answer to most of these things is no, I don't.

So instead of blaming my losses on variance and other things it's time to figure out what I need to do to win. Time to stop talking and start working, really working. Time to realize I do have what it takes to beat this game if I just spend more time playing my A game and a lot less time on auto pilot playing my C game.

We all play our C game at times but the real winners play their A game much more than their C game and as we improve our A game our C game improves as well so that those times when we slip into our C game we are still playing a winning game. Right now my C game is not a winning game. My A game is but I don't play it often enough. I'd venture to say that I play my A game about 30% of the time I play and the rest of time I'm playing my B or C game. Then I complain about running bad when in reality I'm just not playing as well as I'm capable of. 

In Vegas I really did get the bad end of the cards a lot of the time but made plenty of mistakes and some times I just totally spewed. I do the same online and I've gotten to where I play much too loose in the wrong spots. So instead of giving up and feeling defeating I hope to turn this experience into inspiration and use it to get my game where it needs to be and end victoriously. 

Vegas and the WSOP

Well I don't want to spend time blogging about how god awful I ran, even though I did. I bricked everything, the only cash I had was chopping a $125 sit n go for $540. I could do nothing right, constantly ran good into better, rarely got even my best planned bluffs through and just generally couldn't have run much worse. Of course I made some mistakes as well but nothing huge that I could put my finger on. 

I played 21 tournaments and/or sit n go satellites and had only that one small cash. It was discouraging at best and soul wrenching at worse. My game obviously needs lots of work. While I truly don't seem to be able to win flips where it counts most. I truly believe no one can have the bad results I've had for the length of time I've had them and not be doing quite a few things wrong. 

I'm sure at this point my total lack of confidence in my decisions is having a huge impact on my overall game but I also think I just have some leaks I'm not seeing. 

The time has come to step back and re-evaluate everything. I don't know if I'm even capable of beating this game anymore to be honest, at least not without a lot of work and effort. 

Vegas was fun, I got to meet a lot of people I'd only known online and they were all the greatest. We had several fun nights and overall that part of the trip was really fun. 

One of the best things was seeing a friend from online make two really deep runs in two bracelet events, one of which was the Millionaire Maker where he finished 7th for over $211K. He later finished 3rd in a $1k buy in event for another $204K and chopped a daily deepstack for $20K. I can only imagine how he must feel. He's a very good solid player so combining that with the cards just lining up and things going right for him must be an amazing feeling. Maybe some day I'll get to know how that feels, right now it seems so unlikely. 

I got to meet my backer, who is a great guy and I really appreciate his support and backing for this trip more than words can say. He's the best backer anyone could ever ask for and I feel so bad that during the whole time I've been with him I've never been able to make a dime for him. Luckily he understands variance and how truly brutal poker can be. 

What now? I'm going to take a break from everything poker for a few weeks. No watching it, reading it, thinking about it, talking about it. No poker forums, no poker conversation on Skype. Absolutely no poker at all for a minimum of 2 to 4 weeks. I just really need to remove myself from it all together for awhile then come back with a clear head and spend the next few weeks doing nothing but studying and reviewing and maybe getting some coaching. I'd like to find someone who will take some hand histories and really spend the time breaking them down and seeing what I'm doing wrong. Unfortunately most coaches just seem to want spend time going over a hand history or two that they've never previously looked at and this has just done little to really get to the bottom of the issues, whatever they may be. I'd also like to get someone who specialized in live coaching as well, since live truly is a different animal than online. 

Good luck to everyone still in the main event and to everyone still grinding it out online. 

WSOP Cherry Poppin' Time!

Cherry Bomb 

Well as we say here in the south, God willing and the creek don't rise I'm finally going to Vegas and playing in some WSOP events. I'm excited, slightly nervous and just can't wait to get there. I'm trying to play online some but just can't focus too well right now so I think most of my time will be better served studying, reviewing and preparing for the trip. 

Currently sitting here watching the live stream of the casino employees final table.  Last year I was running bad, disappointed that I wasn't going to get to go to Vegas and didn't even start paying attention to anything going on until the week before the main event. This year I'll be watching all the live streams and trying pick up everything I can. 

I'm leaving on June 18th and staying until July 6th. If things go well and I'm winning enough I may try to sat into the main event and stay longer. Unfortunately, I'm doing a lot of moving around and staying in 4 different places but it's all good, I'm just glad it worked out for me to stay that long. 

I'm joining in with some people from CardsChat forum for a team for the Little One for the One Drop. Each team member gets $222 to cover the rake and charity amount and the one who last longer gets the rest of their buy in back. We will all wear CardsChat hoodies and tweet and Facebook to help promote CardsChats. It's a great team and I'm really looking forward to participating with them in this event. 

I'll also be in Vegas for ladies week and I'll be playing a few ladies events, including the ladies WSOP event. I really enjoyed playing the ladies event in Cherokee and I'm really looking forward to playing these. Several women I've know online for a few years will be there and I'm looking forward to meeting them in person. 

I plan on doing some blog updates all along during my WSOP journey. I'm really trying to keep a positive attitude and make the very most of this opportunity without worrying about the end result of each game. I hope to do my best to play each hand and make each decision the best that I know how and just stay patient and focused.

Bottomline I just want to....
(language warning)

Sexism alive, well and thriving... WARNING RANT!

Many women and even men may look at these ads and find it hard to believe people really had these type of attitudes towards women. They may even think things like "thank God it's not like that anymore". Well I have some news for you, it's not that much different now than then. Then men thought of women as inferior and expected them to stay "in their place". While that's bad and wrong at least back then men showed women respect. They didn't call them names, unless it was their wife in an angry moment, and they honestly, for the most part treated the women in their lives with respect. 

I find it amazing that the generation of women who fought the hardest for female equality raised sons who are more sexist and more disrespectful towards women than any generation of men before them. 

Poker is a very male dominated field so when you play a game that is very male dominated you have to expect and tolerate a certain amount of sexism, it's just the price we pay. 

I love how men will say when talking about the WSOP or especially the WSOP Main Event "well how often do you see women get deep in those events". I find the fact that they don't even realize the statistical odds of a woman making a final table in a game where only 15% at best of the field are women ridiculous. The odds for a woman making the final table of the main event are something like 10:1 or worse, yet men use this fact to say women just aren't as good as men at poker. 

Then there is the way women are treated on many poker forums, it's deplorable. I have to say I only run into this issue in off topic/news/gossip areas of forums (which I generally stay out of for this reason) but some of the things I've had said to me and the way some moderators acted like, "if you're gonna post here you gotta live with it" is just inexcusable and totally outrageous. 

Here are a few recent quotes from one forum for your enjoyment: 

• "I'm actually surprised everybody agreed you suck. your vagina has no power here, OP. a few pics might change the score tho."
• "skipped last post, woman again. sigh, guess i'll have to X thread"
• "You should just go back to Facebooking and building your Pinterest wall."
• "skipped dixis post because i know she is a woman. someone let me know when it has been removed and the thread is safe again"

This was all in response to a comment I made regarding Game of Thrones which was in no way a spoiler, those idiots wouldn't know a spoiler if it jumped up and bit them in the ass. 

Even when some guys are buying action from women they are more willing to invest in ladies events versus mixed field events.

Sorry it's just all piled up on me lately and I'm likely taking exception to things that are not meant the way they come across but this is the 21st century and you'd think things would actually be different for women by now, unfortunately while sexism may be wearing a new face it's still there.