Poker is gone but I have this blog so I might as well use it for golf

I forgot I still had ownership of this until today. I figured that since I'm now focused on playing golf again after what happened in the summer I might as well look into using it, even if no one in the world outside of myself ever sees it.

Since relocating to Murrieta, CA I've had the chance to play four times with scores staying the the low 80s. They haven't been the toughest courses but its still better than I thought it would be. I took some lessons in hopes of rediscovering a few things and so far its helped. I've made a few purchases (a new bag, a rangefinder and of course some golf balls) and I've started a stretching routine as well. I need shed a few pounds, well, more like 10-15 (but who counts those anyway) and I realize I'm closer to 50 than 40 years old also.

Still, until the calendar turns to 2017 I won't feel that I've really turned the page on the old stuff and started something fresh and new. There is too much in 2016 that I'd like to leave behind and I'd avoid revisiting it as much as I can. I don't know if I even use this blog or if it'll even see the light of the internet day, but if I do it'll start in January. Don't hold your breath, though.

Dealing with The End

I have finally admitted to myself that my poker career is over. I didn't want to say it but the facts are there. Since Black Friday an American really can't safely play online. Sure, you can still play on a few sites but the risk is still high. Depositing and, more importantly withdrawals, are difficult. Plus the move to Houston ended my home game and bar game runs as well. I just don't play anymore.

So why have I waited until now to "retire"? The final straw happened when I discovered I couldn't get PokerTracker3 to work anymore. I had all my record-keeping in there. Well, not true, I do have stuff on paper but its not the same. I can't look back at old hand histories with that. So its all gone. With that I just threw up my hands and said "I'm done with this shit" and deleted it all. Poof.

I managed to withdraw off of a couple of sites but I still have money stuck on a couple of others, not including the Full Tilt and UB fiasco shit. Considering that I technically have about $100 or so that I *could* play with. I just don't feel like it anymore. Today I actually had a little time and opened up one of the rooms and logged in. I stared at the SNG lobby for about two minutes, said "nah" and closed it back down. Nothing excited me. The traffic there was iffy at best. I just couldn't get myself interested enough to take it seriously. For a moment I thought maybe I'd find a game to blow all I had on there in one game, all or nothing like... but nope, even that didn't interest me.

A week ago I tried being "reckless" and took the $40 or so I had on one site and played blackjack with it. I ended up winning $15, LOL. Then I saw they are having a special poker series with low buy-ins. Looking at it, I could play in nine of them before I went broke, assuming I do not cash. In the back of my mind I just wanted to keep the option open since it starts next week. Will I actually sit down and play? Right now I doubt it. But I wanted to keep the idea open.

The other site I have cash on is a site that my buddy Marc also has cash "trapped" on and I think he still plays on there. I kep thinking that maybe I'd do the same, maybe joining a few games with him like we used to. Again, do I really have the desire to play? Just in case, just in case... I'm saving the money instead of trying to blow it in the casino on the site, even though I wanna be reckless and just risk it all on black or something.

Bah, I'm rambling now. Who cares. Poker was fun and certainly profitable while it lasted. Thanks to people like Jennifear, Stu, Scott, Vincent, Marc and countless others for helping me with strategy, confidence and sanity. Thnaks to my wife, Maggie, for putting up with screaming in the middle of the night (good and bad). I'll miss poker. Who knows, maybe I'll be back.

The Absense (and Frustration) of Poker

I was on Pokerology again and answered a post there about how people sometimes can feel disinterested or dishearted about playing (the post is here: http://www.pokerology.com/forums/general-poker-discussion/4297-just-dont-feel-like-playing-poker-mo.html). My answer looked more like a blog entry than a forum post and then I realized, "Hey, dumbass, you HAVE a blog. Use it!" So I did. Below is what I wrote. If you don't play poker it might not make as much sense to you as if you did but its here if you wanna read it.

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OK, time to answer. I'm just not sure how to answer.

I've gone thru several swings that I thought would never end. Each time I managed to just work my way through to the other side because I wanted to prove to myself that I could. I still found the game exciting each time I played, especially as I was still getting my feet wet and learning how to play my best. Perhaps the potential of learning some new key point about the game was the major reason I could plod along.

When Black Friday hit, well, that was different. I didn't really want to risk playing that much. I'd occasionally try on UB or Bodog or even Cake and Carbon but by June I'd had given up on playing on a regular basis. I still played in the home game when I could and I'd troll Pokerology too. I read a few more books and kept trying to learn. I still had an interest in the game, I just felt shut out of actually playing.

Now, I'm a little inbetween. I've actually played about 5 or 6 days in a row online, just not for a long time or more than even a single table at a time. Hell, my most common game has a BI of a whopping $0.11! When I play, I just don't really feel like committing a couple of hours to it so I play these super-turbo SNGs mostly (and running horribly, glad I only lose pennies and not dollars, woof).

Some of this also has to do with my personal life. As some of you my know I am in the midst of a move from Orlando to Houston, in fact the movers will be here next week to pack up all our shit and ship it out there where my wife has already been at her new job for four months now. Meanwhile, my son, three cats and myself will finish out the school year in an apartment with about five pieces of less-than-desireable furnishings... the Ritz it will not be. All in all its not the perfect time to be grinding anything online.

Once we all get settled in Houston I'll be needing to find a job. During that time I might just see how the online landscape looks and take a chance at it. I wouldn't be able to make a living, thats for sure. The bankroll I had has either gone back into my life money or is stuck on FTP and UB. Depositing even a fraction of what I had is neither easy or likely very smart, but I might try to find a way to at least get **something** going on Bovada (Bodog), Cake, and Carbon. I may have to take a riskier position as far as BRM goes as well. Who knows, that's at least four months away.

All I do know is I miss playing online they way it used to be. Without having the option of playing on Stars, FTP and UB it just depresses me. I've honestly thought of just giving up on poker since there just didn't seem to be a good reason to play, especially after taking viscious beats in a stupid .11 game over and over again, LOL.

But then something decent seems to happen to bring me back. I won a 24-player-max "MTT" on Cake, which jacked my "bankroll" there by 500%. I still play in the bar games every Wednesday and last night I won a bar tab. I still plan ways that I can use my $70ish "online bankroll" and run it up like I did when I first started with SNGs and micro MTTs. I want to... I just don't know if I want to spend the time since it might end up as a waste of time in the end.

A couple of forum regs have suggested to me the idea of playing live. Sounds like a great idea except for the fact that now just isn't the time. In four months I'll be out of a job and I just don't want to take the risk with any of that money that I might need in reserve. I've played a couple few times and actually have had success in the $35 MTTs on Saturday in Daytona... I think I taked about my 2nd place finish in my blog. Yes, I realize that there is a decent chance I am going to be the best tourney player entered whenever I go (one of the local bar-type poker tours sponsers the gig and those players really do suck). Perhaps I've been spoiled but it seems driving to Daytona and "one-tabling" for 6 hours just doesn't seem like to best way to spend my time.... if I had the time.

I've thought of maybe trying to teach or coach somebody as a way to stay involved but I just don't know if I really can do that. I know some stuff, basic stuff, but I'm still just a student myself. I just wouldn't feel right since I've never been a pro myself. How can I charge anything if I'm not even currently making anything myself? Seems silly to me. Even doing the videos I've done can be a little uncomfortable, which is why I try to make them more entertainment than anything else. I like talking about the thought processes involved and all that, but I also like to think that I can be open to other ideas and opinions about the game. Maybe that is why I like answering in the forums so much, I can see the feedback come in as they get posted. I'd love to talk shop over Skype with some people, peer-to-peer, about hands, situations, general game subjects, whatever, whether it was one-on-one or a huge group. That would help keep me interested to.

Hmm... seems I've strayed from the subject at hand. In the end, yes, I've been frustrated. I've been frustrated by players, by my epic downswings, by Black Friday, by my own life. Still I remain involved with the game to this day. I may not ever get back to where I once was but I still have the PokerTracker file to prove I was there.

So, how ya been?

Good question, huh?

I haven't posted anything on the old blog in a while, I know. With poker being as it is I just don't think to do it anymore. I've been on Twitter (@RyckyRych, feel free to follow) and I've posted a little nonsense here and there since it doesn't take very long and also doubles as my Facebook status thingy.

What little poker I have played has been fine, I min-cashed in Daytona last month, been doing OK in the home games when I get to play, and even have played a little online on Carbon and such. I won a 45-man game just the other day and I have to say the competition just wasn't very good. Despite that, I still needed a couple things to go my way but for the most part these guys do bad things, mainly to themselves.

So much for poker, at least what I can remember. In other news, we are moving to Houston. My wife has secured a position at her company's corporate location and they are going to pay for the move and all that also, which is a relief. She starts in a couple weeks and will have temp husing and everything. Meanwhile I get to stay here and try to sell the house. Yay.

The move is exciting and frightening all at the same time. This house is a financial burden, I won't lie about that. I admit I will be happy to get out of the obligation one way or the other, in fact we had considered selling the house and finding somewhere else to live next spring even before the new job opportunity came up. On the other hand I really like the house and Cameron generally grew up here. We are settled in, comfy and all, and I really do NOT want to see what I find once I start clearing away the decade of shit we've piled up around here.

Of course, once I end up out there I'll need to find a job myself. That might not happen for another 6-9 months for all I know but the thought is still sobering. I understnad Houston is a happening place for jobs and there might be some chance I can catch on with where my wife works too. I admit, if poker were to come back to the US I would naturally fall back on that while I look, possibly with the thought of doing it full time if it works out right. One can only dream.

Hmm, what else can I fill this post up with? The Cubs still suck, though as I write this Theo Epstein might take the GM job. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not but it can't be worse than what they had before. My Vikings still suck also, even though they might be the best first-half team in the history of the game. We won't mention the Magic since they ain't gonna be playing anytime soon. TBH, I don't care if they do or not. The Lightning are my best hope, they were one game away from the Cup Finals last season, maybe they can find a solution in goal for the long term and get it done, eh?

The last thing I'll mention is a sad one. Piper, my #2 cat, the black female we had, went missing a few weeks ago and has not shown signs of any return. A cat next door also came up missing and a group of others around the corner in the same subdivision vanished as well. Who the fuck goes around taking cats? Does that really happen? Yeah, insert the chinese buffet jokes here all you want but I find it strange. I had a woman at Petco tell me that there are coyotes around Apopka, but seriously? Coyotes? I've never seen one. I'm gonna go with the idea that she finally wandered off too far, got lost, and found someone to take her in. She has a coolar and a microchip so you'd think someone might check but you never know. I'm still gonna go with that since the alternatives are unsavory.

Anyway, we are being pretty careful with our #1 cat Pippen and #3 (now #2 I guess, sigh) Peepers when they go out, even though neither one goes too much further than the front yard. Our newest kitty, Pixie, doesn't go outside at all and will never see the light of day, especially now.

Well, guess that's about all I can think of for the time being. Maybe I can think of something else to say a little sooner next time. I am gonna try out the Daytona gig again this Saturday, hopefully it'll be worth an entry on its own. If not, well, I'll think of something.

Back to the Bar

Since Black Friday has closed out the serious online poker, I've started going out the play the free games at Gator's Dockside here in Apopka, even if just for entertainment's sake. Marc goes every week so its nice to be social and all that stuff. I've always enjoyed playing these things even if the competition is technically bad.

One thing that I do actually "practice" is playing live poker in general. Even though I'm having fun while playing I still actually try to see if I can pick up tells from these people. I also try to see how well I can keep track of people's chip stacks and such. I've played in these things off and on for years now but I figure I might as well not get too lazy in the even I get to play something more serious, like that Daytona tournament. Without all this time spent at these games the transition from computer to live would have been much tougher.

I've been fairly successful so far, I've picked up three or four wins at Gator's, one of which was just in time to qualify for All In Poker Series' June monthly. I'll tag along with Marc tomorrow and see what happens, even if I'm be a small stack. They give out extra chips for multiple wins so others there will have a slight edge on me there. So far for July I think I have three wins so I'll even out the odds a little in August.

Last night I decided to play with another group, Final Table Poker Tour, at El Potro in Apopka. A friend of mine that I work with, John (Johnny Callbox, as we call him) plays with this group each week. They seem to have their shit together a bit more as they can pump out 10-12 single table games in a 4 hour period. They have quarterly gigs and have some agreement with Deep Stacks University also, they always seem to have something set up with those guys. I think for their quarterly in August they have The Grinder set up to have some sort of class you can buy into.

Anyway, I went last night and ended up winning a game so I'm qualified for their gig now. The players here are different, generally they are older, don't raise quite as much, and will rarely reraise or check raise without the goods. I was reminded of that in the first game when I guy had limped in with a pocket pair, and then reraised my flop lead after hitting his set. Even though I had top pair I knew I was beat but I thought (wrongly) that he could have the draw often enough. Also, top 2 get the win (no heads-up) and we still had 8 players left at the table at 500-1000 blinds... it was time to get some chips. I got smoked instead, oh well.

I did have a slight confrontation with some blonde chick in the 4th game, the game I won. I think I got under her skin slightly at the 3rd game as I would make my move (meaning go all-in) just ahead of her several times. As I said, most of these people don't get the math involved, they don't really know when they are short in chips. She kept folding though and I kept showing strong hands (99, AK, AQ, etc) just to make sure they knew I wasn't just going on a lark. Of course I didn't show the T8h one.

Back to the 4th game. A younger guy (relatively speaking) raised to 600 at 100/200, the opening level of these games. I've seen him raise a wide group of hands, from 97s to 88 to AK. After a few calls, including the blonde chick, I elected to call from the SB as well. Flop comes 632 with 2 hearts for a pretty flush draw. Ah, what to do against these players?

I've been reading the Gus Hansen book "Every Hand Revealed" lately and thought I'd see how his philosphy might work against multiple opponents. These guys won't generally show aggro tendencies, the only guy I worried about was the guy that raised and I already knew he was quite wide... he'll fold to pressure from me. So I lead out 1500 into a 2600 pot, leaving 1700 behind me (yeah, they don't start deep). All folds excpet the blonde chick, who calls seemingly reluctantly.

The turn is a Kc... nice scare card I would think! If she did have A6 or something she could fold, or who knows she might even go with a worse flush draw. In any case, she has shown shge can fold at the other table, so I shove immediately with my flush draw as backup. She calls and turns over K4, ugh! She called the flop bet with a gutshot and hit her king instead, ouch! Guess she had enough of my shit and spite-called me on the flop and hit the turn. Thanks alot, Gus.

Anyway, the trouble starts as the river falls... the Kh! She hits trips and gets excited but fails to notice I get bailed out and hit my flush. My turn bet had put her all-in so she is gone... wait, the dealer gives her the pot! Umm, excuse me? I say to the dealer I have a flush, moving my cards on the table where they were displayed when we got all-in. Should be no problem, but the blonde chick seems to disagree, saying that I had already "folded". What? I inform her that I can't fold since we were all-in and the dealer does try to clean the matter up by apologizing for his mistake, but she cops an attitute and dumps the chips on the table in front of her, saying "It doesn't matter, I really don't care." and storms off. Nothing really serious, she didn't make a scene but I saw the shadow of the bitch in her as she left, likely the frustration of finding out you lost when you had the chips in your hand.

I went on to win that game without too much trouble, picking my spots as needed and staying out of big hands when three-handed. I saw the chick was sitting in a booth behind me while playing and decided that I would at least smooth things over as I might have been a little defensive about protecting my own hand. She was very cool about it by then and actually thanked me for taking the time to say something to her even though she knew I had done nothing wrong. That made me feel better also, generally I prefer people to think I'm nice even when I'm trying to destroy them at free poker.

Anyway, I always forget just how much fun it is to play these free live games. I don't get to banter quite as much (or with as much vulgarity) with the Final Table people as I do with the Gator crowd but I do enjoy the table talk. I'm sure they have no idea just how much of a clue I have as far as to how to play these games but I like it that way. I try not to "teach" anything, in fact I try to agree with most of what these guys say. If anything I get a better idea of how they play so I can adjust and in turn have more fun playing with everyone. I love playing the game still, even if I can't do it "for real" at the moment. Perhaps I'll make this my weekly fix for now. Who knows, I might win the monthly or the quarterly!

I'm still here...

... just not playing much poker.

Black Friday just sucked the life outta me really. Ever since that happened I haven't played much at all (when I could even play anyway). I was playing a little on UB until they finally shut out the US from the tables. I could have played on Bodog some but I just figured... why? Same with Cake or Carbon or whatever.

When Doyle's Room and such got hit on the second wave I decided to just withdraw everything else, even Bodog. I figure that they could be next or whatever so I might as well. I still have about $130 of my bankroll online in forms I can't withdraw but can still play with though. I have $30 of some type of bonus money on Carbon that I haven't "cleared" to withdraw and about $100 on Cake that I can't get since they have a $500 minimum to withdraw there. OK, fine. The rest I either got off already or its stuck on Full Tilt, UB, and sorta stuck on Doyle's Room (we'll see if I get that withdrawal). Bodog I'm sure I'll get and Carbon is a little iffy since I never tried before.

I was lucky that I got about $2000 off in the early part of April "just because" I wanted to keep some offline. I barely got that done too, probably just a couple days later and I'd been completely screwed. Still might get screwed on the rest of it as far as I can tell so far but I'll keep my hopes up.

I've been doing other things though. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons again. I got my son involved with something they call D&D Encounters, short games played at hobby shops and such every Wednesday night. He's really enjoyed it and I've been having fun just seeing how much the game has changed over the last 20+ years. I think some of the MMORPGs have influenced how they've set up the current rules... or maybe vice versa. I really can't tell. We've even started a game with a few of his friends in the neighborhood. I didn't realise how much fun tormenting children with dice rolls could be. Nobody's character has died though... not yet.

In June I am gonna start playing with that leftover cash. Hey, I had fun playing poker, I really do miss it. What I think I'm gonna do is "start over" in a sense and play micro cash games and SNGs and see if I can build it back up. If I end up blowing what I have left, big deal... I can't get this $130-odd anyway. If anything, the cash games should be decent practice for deep-stack play and the SNGs will still be good to keep my push-fold game sharp. Plus, it'll be fun... and this is why I started playing poker (or anything else)... for the fun of it.

Will I be updating my "progress"? Maybe. Probably. I'l be sure to let you know if I kill off the kid's characters in D&D though!

Baby Steps

I'm slowly working back toward the black in 2011. I have no problems with grinding it out either. As long as I can keep playing well all takes care of itself. I've had a couple bigger hits but nothing earth-stattering. I 4-way chopped the 6.40 super-turbo for about $330 (and the "win" as the chipleader) and I've managed to win a few of the 45-man turbo MTTs on UB. I've even won a couple 45-man SNGs on Stars. Good things are happening, just not great things.

Another good thing that happened was that FTP brought back the 54-man super-turbo SNGs by removing the On Demand gimmick from them. I did fine with the ODs but I really liked them as 54-man games since I could ration out my time knowing that I would be no longer than about 50 minutes with one of those things. They don't fill fast enough to grind them but they are great to fill a spot on my screen while I wait for bigger games. People play bad in them also. :)

We have a couple more weeks left in March and the plan is to keep plowing forward, as always. I'm hoping to use at least one night to play a bunch of 45-man SNGs on Stars and generate some FPPs, if I do it soon enough I'll have enough for the Turbo Takedown. Not sure it'll work out like that, but we'll see. I'll at least make Silver Star again, though I've yet to have time to play in the freeroll for that.

Wish me luck and I'll return the favor.