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It\’s been quite a while since the last blog.  Things have been busy and do not appear to be getting any less so for a while now.  Work has been hectic, life has been full, and cards have not been flying across the table.

My 2 son\’s have been keeping me really busy when I am at home.  The 2 1/2 year old needs somebody to play with him all the time and the 3 month old has something wrong with his stomach and needs held and walked around all day so that he is not crying.  The doctor has him on some culture drops to try to produce good bacteria in his system to help him out.  I can actually see a difference since he started taking them.  He started smiling a couple weeks ago, even though it is only for a few minutes then back to crying.

I guess working this rotating shift is finally going to pan out.  I will be leaving the 1st shift one week, 2nd shift the next week, 3rd shift the next week after doing this for 5 years.  I am being promoted from account manager to Senior Account Manager at another location.  I will be pulling in about 8k more a year but will increase my drive time by 35 minutes each way.  No comparison though, its a straight 1st shift position, and it looks like I will be in a little better position workwise too.  The other good thing is no more weekends, right as football season gets here.  I only have 2 weekends off a month now.

My VP of operations put in a very good word for me, as well as my boss and some other people in the company.  That made my head swell up a little but it feels good to be recognized.  I am always trying to do what is best for the company.

After my last post I went back home for a couple of weeks.  I drove 1000 miles to Kansas to visit my parents.  It was a good trip except I found out that my dad has been suffering and been making many trips to the doctor.  They thought he had rhumatoid arthrius.  Tests came back negative but they did find out he has Hepatitus C.  You could see it is taking a toll on him.  He is walking slower and gets worn out easily.  Thats not like my dad that was a driller on the oil rigs for 20 + years. 

I got some fishing in a few times since last time I blogged.  I caught 1 5lb walleye and a few smaller ones on a trip to lake Erie last week.  That would have been a lot more fun if I had not stayed out drinking and playing poker the whole night before, after getting 2 hours of sleep the night before that.  I did win enough in poker to pay for the trip though and kept on drinking until we got off the boat that night.  When I finally got home that night I slept 10 hours and woke up feeling worse than the previous day.

I had also taken a trip to Kentucky for the weekend and took the wife and kids to the Mammoth cave area.  We went to Kentucky Down under (really cool for kids) and Dinosaur World (also really cool for kids).  The whole area was really nice.  We did some hiking, camping and tried to make a cheap trip out of it. 

So my last couple months have been full of trips, a little bit of live poker, and work.  It\’s time to slow down for a while.  My wife and I blew through 7k in July between the trips (gas) and bills.  Fall should get a little slower and give me a chance to get on the Stars a little more.  I need to get that bankroll rolling.  I\’ve played a little online but keep spinning the wheels at 60.00.  When I have been playing I have a lot of fun though and thats what got me into poker in the first place.

I have not been able to play much the last two weeks.  My wife and 2 sons have traveled back home to Kansas to see her parents and sisters.  I have been painting the inside of the house and moving furniture as well as preparing to leave for Kansas myself the day after tomorrow.  I will pick up my wife and kids at her sisters and go to my parents for 2 weeks.

We have a camping trip planned for the 4th of July weekend in the riverpond area below Tuttle Creek lake.  It should be pretty fun.  All of my Aunts and Uncles and Cousins will be staying there for the three days and we will be doing a lot of fishing and swimming.  I had some luck there several years ago catching some descent Walleye in the riverpond.  I had a lilttle ABC plastic boat while I was going to college at Kansas State University.  One of my friends and I took it out one day.  We were catching several walleye.  I got one on that would have probably weighed 5 pounds.  We did not have a net to get it in the boat so we decided that we would both lean to one side of the boat and try to submerge it under water then pull the fish right onto the boat and lean to the other side and have it on the boat.  When we tipped the boat it made a wave that turned the fish.  As he turned the hook came out of his mouth and I was crushed. 

I was able to play 2 games the last 2 days as I was getting ready for bed.  Both of them were 2.20 Heads up SNG\’s.  On the first game I started in the small blind with Q6 diamonds.  I called and he raised to 100.  I called.  The flop came 7D 8D 4C.  I bet 100 and he called.  The next card was the 5D.  I had made my flush and had a chance at a straight flush.  I checked trying to let him make a steal at the pot.  He checked.  The river was a Qc.  I bet all in and he called with a QJ.  I won the game on the first hand.

The next game I played last night took a little longer.  It was about 5 in the morning and I needed to be up at 9 in the morning to run a bunch of errands.  We played for about 20 minutes.  I got chipped down to about 600 in chips and managed to buy a lot of small pots to keep me afloat until I finally got him to call an all in when I held pocket K\’s.  He called with A J but the Kings held.  I managed to climb back ahead in chips and he started to go all in every hand.  I waited for a spot and called him with KJ against his QT.  I paired the K and finished for the night. 

I am pretty lucky to be up 4 dollars and only played the 2 games.  I feel like when I play less and play when I really want to win I have better success.  I still have some success when I multi-table and play several sessions back to back, but I do not have the win rate I do when I play one game a day.  I also think that multi-tabling takes more of the varience out of the game though and is much more profitable in the long run.  I wish I could just win every game though!  That would make it a lot easier.

I was planning on leaving work at 3:30 pm but of course Friday at the end of shift something comes up.  So I got out of work about 4:10 pm.  With a couple of stops for alcohol and gas we took off down the road for the 2 1/2 hour trip.  The tourney started at 7 pm and we left town at 4:30 pm so I knew I would be showing up late.  I called the poker room and they said they would draw a seat card for me.  I then called the hotel we were staying at and let them know we would not check in until after 1 am. 

The drive was pretty uneventful.  My buddy and I talked the whole way down and he kept saying I have a good feeling about this.  You are going to do good.  I was starting to get pretty nervous.  I have only played 7 live tournaments before and those were pretty small.  I had placed in the money 3 of those times.  I kept thinking about the blind structure and the fact that everybody that would be playing has taken 1st place in their smaller tournaments so they had to be at least descent players.

We missed our turn off interstate and had to drive 15 miles down before we hit another exit.  We turned around and made it to Belterra about 35 minutes late.  When I walked in I went straight to the cardroom and they showed me to my seat.  I had missed about 4 blinds and the blinds were going up for the 3rd time as I sat down. 

I was really nervous and since I had came in late I decided to sit and watch how the table played before I moved into action.  It was a good thing because I was card dead anyway.  Finally, a couple of players mentioned that I had not played a hand yet and it was about the 4th blind.  I decided that would be a good time to play a hand as my table image must be tight.  I raised from the button as it was folded to me and the small and big blind bailed out of the hand.  I had a couple more hands that I walked with that round then I went back to sitting waiting on a hand.

The table as a whole was playing very tight poker.  Somebody would raise and the rest of the players would get out of the hand.  There were not many showdowns.  The person to my right seemed to be a very educated player.  He seemed to be picking his spots very well and played fairly aggressively.  The 2 people I wanted to get in a hand with were sitting across the table from me and was hard for me to take advantage of their poor play.  The person to my left was low stacked and started playing extreemly tight.  The second person to my left would call anything down to the river (unless I was in the hand). 

We started out with 6000 in chips and the blinds increased every 20 minutes.  After a couple hours of play we had not lost a single person off my table.  The other tables had lost a couple players each.  When they finally moved the player to my right I was able to take over where he left off in aggressiveness.  I picked up a lot of small pots and my stack got back to comfortable.  It would wittle down to about 3 blinds then I would catch pocket AA\’s 4 times.  None of which got a call, even though I was being aggressive.  We finally got down to 2 tables out of the starting 6 for the session and everybody was pretty excited knowing that the final 10 players advance.  I was on the low end for chip stacks and knew I would have to fight to make the final table for the day.  Bad thing was that I was not getting any cards. 

The largest chips stack was across the table, there were a couple of people with about 10bb\’s, but the rest of us were battling the blinds trying to make it with blinds at 2000/4000.  That is when I came into my biggest hand of the day.  I was in the BB and had pocket 8\’s and there were two three others who called the blind leaving me with about 9000.  The flop came out Q small card small card.  First to act bets 8000.  The 2 other callers fold and the decision comes down to me.  I will only have 1000 left if I call.  There is a Queen on the board, the other 2 cards shouldn\’t matter but I have not been on the table long enough to get a read on the guy.  I really need that pot to stay in the game and have a chance to run deep the next day.  Then all of a sudden he flips his cards on the table face up pocket 7\’s.  I look at the dealer and ask what my options are.  She said I could do whatever I wanted, so I said raise all in.  He was very frustrated and said I did not see his cards.  I did not see his cards and mucked his hand.  It was only 1000 more to call and he could have caught to send me home but he threw them in.  I then had a very descent chip stack.  He went all in on the next hand and threw his chips all over the table.  Nobody called so he had to rake them and the blinds all back.  The next hand the blinds were at 3000/6000.  I caught AK and bet 12000,  against  the large stack in the BB, I thought the blinds were still 2000/4000 or I would have bet more.   He folded and I raked the blinds.  The next hand would have put the next BB all in with 2 1000 chips.  We were playing hand for hand though and on the other table we heard all in.  Everybody stood up and then another all in.  One of the all ins won and sent the other to the rail.  We were down to 10 for the night and everybody celebrated a little and shook hands.

The dealers counted down our chips for the next day.  I ended up with 43000 chips from 9000 in the last 10 minutes of play to put me in the top 25% of the field.  We went back to the motel to have a celebratory drink and get some rest for the next day of play.  They did not announce the payouts but I knew the final day all players got some money.  I tried to figure out how much by figuring up how many tournaments were played in 4 months and how many players could have been at the tournaments and how much out of each tournament went towards the prize pool.  I calculated between 80 to 120.00.  That would be pretty good, considering I spent 60 to get down there and the room after splitting the cost with my buddy.  I really wanted the main prize.

I did not sleep real well throughout the night but felt really refreshed in the morning.  We drove back to the casino to get checked into the tournament then went to eat at the buffet.  I had Saurkraut and Polish Sausage and the pot roast.  I only had about 20 minutes to eat but I got a lot of eating done in that time.  I walked back into the poker room just in time for the dealers to start handing out the chips.

The table I drew had a lot of the players I had played with the night before.  I even drew a seat to the left of the the guy I started to the right of the night before.  I knew I had my work cut out for me when I saw that. 

We started play with blinds at 1000/2000.  I was card dead for the most part.  I finally saw AJ suited and the guy to my right raised about a 3rd of my stack.  I decided to fold and wait for a better spot, as he likes to raise a lot with A K and J A J falls out on the flop.  He got called to showdown and his AK beat another players A rag.  I was a little dissapointed but felt I had made a pretty good decision overall.  He kept raising on any descent hand I had, unfortunately I had a feeling my descent hands would not hold up to the types of hands he had been catching.  Any of them that went to showdown showed me I was right.

I finally got pocket 4\’s on the button and it was folded to me.  I raised 2X bb and the blinds folded.  I needed that to make it to the final 2 tables.  Along the way with about 32 players left one of the guys said 2 more players until we make more money.  I still did not know what the prizes were besides 1st and 2nd so I asked.  They said we were at 476. 00 and would go up to 650.00 with 30 players left then 914.00 with 20 players left and once on the final table it would go up with each spot.  I was very excited.  I thought 120.00 was good for a free tournament, but 450.00.

I made it into the top 20 but the blinds were getting high and most of the players were all short stacked.  I figured we would be down to 7 or 8 players in the matter of 30 minutes or less.  People started going out right and left.  I was in a position where I had to make something happen in the next two rounds.  Then something happened, the hand before my BB was really slow played all the way to the river.  Right as I was getting ready to put my chips out the blind buzzer went off and the blinds went up to 10000/20000.  I only had 25000 chips left!  5000/10000 was not too bad but wow, I needed a miracle BB.  I did not look at my cards.  One person called and it was folded to me.  It was make or break time.  I called my last 5000 all in and he called and turned over AQ.  I showed K8 and the flop came out A 7 A.  The turn was a Q and my final table hopes were crushed as I went out in 13th place.  In all actuality I was very happy to make it to that point as I was very card dead all day.  I went to the cashiers cage and before they even started counting my money they annouced that the final table had been reached.  If I could have just made it through that blind I would have made the final table.  Oh well, 900 bones makes the trip well worth it.  Not quite the 10000 seat with 4000 spending money they awarded 1st and 2nd but now I know I can run deep.  I was glad I ended up 13th out of 240 players.

We stayed at the casino and played some slots and some 2 4 limit poker the rest of the day and headed home.  I broke even on the rest of the games, so minus the hotel and gas to get there I was up 800.00 on the trip.  I will sit that back for a trip to Vegas this October.  Nothing like a free trip to Vegas! 

I am going to go to bed early tonight to be well rested for tomorrow\’s big game at Belterra.  I have dreamed about this tournament for the last 2 nights.  My friend and I will depart on the 2 1/2 hour drive after work tomorrow at 3:30 PM.  The game is at 7:00 so I will try to get out of work a little early.  I would like to get to the casino and have an hour to calm down and focus before the game starts.

I will update how the trip and the game went when we return on Sunday.

My buddy and I decided to head down to Belterra Resort Casino and Spa for a little gambling fun.  We had been going to Vegas every 6 months for the last couple of years but the bills seemed to be a little harder to pay this time.  We took off after work Monday morning at 7:30 after a 13 hour shift.  We had booked a room and figured we would gamble a little, have the excellent buffet and take a nap around 1 pm. 

I had made the trip a couple times before so I figured I would not need to mapquest the trip.  Unfortunately, we missed our turn about 15 miles outside of Cincinatti and kept driving most the way through Kentucky.  Honestly, it didn\’t feel like we had driven 2 hours out of the way.  We turned around and drove back about the same distance to the casino from what we had started out.  We made it to the casino a little before noon.  We checked in and went down to check the poker room.  It was pretty dead but we were told it would be going strong around 1 PM. We headed to the penny machines where we played about a nickle at a time and both won enough off 5.00 to pay for the buffet.  We cashed out and had some of the most unbelievable pot rost you have ever seen.  We then went to the room for a nap.  We had just worked about 40 hours in the last 3 days not counting the 4 days before that.

I woke up around 7 PM and we headed down to the poker room.  We got right in the 2-4 limit game.  The cards hit me in the face and I was soon up to 120.00 from the original 40.00 I bought in for.  I knew that most of the time I play limit I barely get above 3X my buy in and considered getting up but it was still early so I continued playing.  Fortunately, when the night ended I walked away with 60.00.  My buddy did not fair as well.  He ended the night down a little over a buy-in. 

We continued to the slots after the poker room closed.  My buddy walked around and put in 20.00 in random dollar machines to hit for 112.00.  It was very good for him since he had only brought a little over 100.00 in the first place and was down 40.00 in poker already.  I hit right after him for 40.00 on a quarter machine.  I ended up 70.00 up at the end of the night.

I woke up the next day about 30 minutes before the start of the daily tournament.  I woke up my buddy and told him that I had to play this tournament.  I had a feeling.  It was 70.00 and I had just won 70.00.  I went down and registered.

I did not play for the first 3 rounds while I watched the competetion.  Finally, I had grouped the players into loose, aggressive, easy or tough.  I had 3 opponents I wanted to get in a pot with.  The first came against a guy I call the caveman.  If you have ever seen the Geiko commercial, I know this was the guy.  He would walk by and people would be humming the song that is played on the Geiko commercial when the caveman is going down the skywalk.  Anyway, this guy was loose.  I got QQ and raised 3X the big blind from the button.  He raised in front of the BB and everybody else folded.  I re-raised him all in and he called with something like 10-5 unsuited.  My Q\’s held.  I had a couple more descent pocket pairs but the table aggressor was betting strong and I was out of positon.  A few rounds later I had K 10 spades in the SB.  Everybody folded to me and the BB (a really tight player that only plays premium hands checks.)  The flop came out with 2 spades, the rest low.  I checked and he checked behind.  The turn came Ace spades.  I bet 3X blind and he re-raised half his stack.  I re-raised him all in and he called with trip 6\’s. Nut flush held and one of the 2 guys I was worried about was gone. 

With that hand I held close to 1/3 the chips at the table.  I thought about getting aggressive but the blinds were not worth steeling and the only people that would call me would have premium hands.  I waited for premium hands and let everybody take each other out. 

When we got down to 4 players I started thinking of the sign I had seen on the lobby desk that said anybody that wins gets a seat at the invitational tournament.  I decided it was time to pour on the aggression.  It worked well and I did not get called the first few hands.  When I finally got called I had pocket A\’s, then pocket K\’s to take out 4th and 3rd.

The last player was not afraid to get all of his chips in.  I remember one of the players said he was having good luck with his all in\’s. His reply was it works all but once.  It did and the last time he went all in he had a pair of K\’s for top pair but I had just hit a set of Q\’s on the flop.

I won 250.00 plus a seat in the invitational that I will play this Friday.  The structure is looks like something that will work very well for me.  There are 4 flights of 60 players.  Each flight plays down to 10 player and takes their chips to the final day.  The last day all of the players get paid up to the final 2 that get a seat to the WSOP Main Event + 2000.00, or 7000.00 with the rest being raffled off to the rest of the contestants.

So this Friday I get to play the largest event I\’ve ever gotten to play.  I am very excited.  I have even been dreaming about it and winning.  We\’ll see how it goes.

That is the story of my first shot at greatness.

I finally got to play for the first time since I started this blog.  I played 3 NLH 9 person events and finished pre-money in all of them.  I played poorly in them.  I wanted too play to many hands and I was not catching any cards.  Then I played a Omaha H/L SNG and finished 3rd to get my money back for the four games.  The person that finished 2nd barely had enough chips to cover the blind and I should have waited him out but I had trips that ran into quads and I wanted a better stack to battle for 1st.  I could have used the extra 2.00 though.

My wife is out of town visiting family with the new baby.  I thought I would be putting in a lot of time playing poker.  Unfortunately, it is also a good time to do some projects I have been putting off.  The last 2 days I have been painting the rooms in my house.  I will be doing that all week except for Friday when I go to play at the Invitational tournament at Belterra Casino.  I will update on that tomorrow.  I have a lot of painting to do and I am trying to get the house looking better so I can put it on the market or make it nicer for us to live in.  My wife will be happy when she gets home to see all that I have gotten done already.

I started out with 40.00.  I have built that up to 56.00 using the bankroll management that Chris Ferguson used on full tilt to build his bankroll from 0 to 10000 dollars.  Here is how I plan to go slightly modified.

No more than 5% on any SNG of ring game

No more than 2% on any tourney or MTT SNG.

I can try 2 larger tournaments a week but for no more than 5% of my bankroll.

As I build my bankroll I will be able to play larger games.  I might stay at one level even if my 5% would allow me to go larger in order to learn more about the level and pad my bankroll for the learning curve of the next level.

I usually play SNG\’s as the time I have to play poker is limited.  I spend a lot of time with my wife and 2 boys.  My oldest is 2 and the youngest is less than a month.

Live Play Accomplishments:

1st – Belterra Casino tourament 10 players 75.00 entry.  Also won a seat in their invitational to play for 1 of 2 WSOP seats.  More to come on that as that tourney is this Friday and Saturday.

2nd – Stratosphere 36 players 70.00 entry.

2nd – Riviera 18 players 60.00 entry.

I have also had lots of home game wins.  Online I have had several final table appearances on freerolls and very small buy in tourneys.  My biggest cash to date is 46.00.  I will improve on that as my bankroll gets larger.

This will be my first ever blog.  With hopefully many to come. 

First about me.  I have really gotten into poker since the Moneymaker World Series.  Before, I thought poker was sitting around with a few friends playing penny nickle dime five card draw.    I didn\’t really start playing right away but I kept seeing more and more people that started to play online and talk of the successes/failures they have had.  I listened and became interested but thought back of the days sitting around the kitchen table losing the allowance that I had earned through the hard work of vacuuming, cleaning and taking care of the pets.  I had always thought that any gambling on the internet must be rigged.  It was not until I took up playing poker that I realized that it was not gambling but a game of skill.  Put yourself in the right situations and get paid.

I started out by playing a few home games.  I was hooked and wanted to learn more about the game.  I signed on with pokerstars.net and played with play money and started to do alright.  I ran my account up to 10,000,0000.  With selling a few mill off along the way.  I knew most of the players on play money were donks and knew that when I stepped into the real money scene I was soon to be the fish but I thought maybe, just maybe.

That brings me to a little before now.  I played and I did ok.  I would put on the minimum on Stars and play for a while.  A whole group of us at work actually started all at once.  They would bust out and I would transfer them 10 or 20 bucks and they would give me cash.  It was working pretty good.  I started to get my bankroll up then it would tumble back down.  I actually busted out a few times and had to reload.  That got hard with Netteller going away.  I started to witness something.  My friends were playing large games and I was playing small money so I could play longer to get a good feel for the game.  They would go broke and I would start building my bankroll a little at a time.  Another thing I noticed was that I would come home after a home game and play horrible poker if I lost and great poker if I won.  If I lost I would chase my money by playing larger games.  Sometimes it worked but not often.

I learned about tilt easily.  Bankroll management did not come along until earlier this year when I was reading Full Tilt about Chris Ferguson making $10,000 from 0.  I decided to follow his strategy only I was going to put on 40.00 and make a run.  I have been doing o.k since.  Barely a winning player since then, but overall with cashouts barely a losing player overall.

I started reading blogs about 2 months ago and see what a helpful tool it can be.  Thank you to ThePokerenthusiast and Flammpoker for your posts and my great reading pleasure if you ever check out this blog.  You are inspirations to start my own blog.

This will be my story of my adventures in the poker world that I love.