A new idea

I don't find much time anymore to play poker. Yet, I still love the game and I would like to start writing about it again.

I still watch all the televized poker I can come across. My 'new idea' is to start writing a post now and then about a hand or an episode I've seen.

I'll have to figure out how to be able to make easier for any reader to watch the hands I will be writing about. Perhaps I can find clips on youtube and link to them.

Somehow, I also think this might help me keep in touch with poker player I was and the writer I would like to be, hopefully, not exluding either from future ventures.

February 18th - Starting is hard

It hasn't been going all that well lately. I just cashed out money enough to last me for a month, but as I do so I have lost money at the tables.

I remember all to well how it feels like. Playing poker in the evenings, sitting in front of the computer for hours on end trying to grind one or two buy-ins in for the day, and before I call it quits I get it all-in with a set against a flush draw and just a few hands later my Aces run into a set. And so I shut down the computer with the loss of the day heavy on my mind as I try to get some sleep before school starts tomorrow.

A couple of days like that and poker starts to feel like a tough job. My plan is to try to shake the last couple of days off and keep going, but it won't take much of a loss for me to move down to $200 NL to catch my breath.

I am pretty sure that I can keep myself afloat playing a rather casual amount of hands at $200 NL, but staying afloat isn't exactly my dream in poker. In that case I could just get a regular job. Perhaps the hours would be longer, but the level of stress would certainly be lower.

February 12th - A bad session

Yesterdays session didn't turn out too great. After 2.000 hands I was down about $450. I picked some bad spots to get my money in and didn't get that many great hands.

My biggest losing hand was this one:

AKo on the Button

I remember thinking for a long time on the turn whether to call or not. At least my instincts are still working, I just have to thrust them. I do believe that in future hands this will be an easy fold. My opponent wasn't the kind of guy to play AK or AQ like that and it was a very poor spot for him to make a bluff.

I haven't got all my stats updated yet, so no bankroll stats and monthly graphs yet. I plan on getting them up and running before the end of the month.

February 11th - A much needed update.

It has been almost a year since my last update. Much has happened in my life, yet a lot of things have stayed the same as well.

I have been dating a girl, Jane, for half a year now; I have just started my 4th semester in college; and by and large life is good. I live in a crappy little dorm room in Copenhagen, Denmark, but it is very affordable, quite close to school and even closer to the train track making traveling in the city easy and enjoyable.

"It is a hard way to make an easy living"

That saying has made a lot of sense throughout my poker career. A year ago after a prolonged losing period, poker seemed almost too hard a job.

I never quit though - I played a little, lost some money, won more than I lost, but cashed out even more. My bankroll has slowly dwindled while it has been my main source of income during school. In December after all the Christmas shopping was done, my bankroll hit an all-time low since I started playing poker professionally. All the money I had online combined was less than $10.000.

So in the start of this new year, I made up my mind to start playing a bit more regularly. With that decision comes this new blog entry. I don't know if I will start writing again, but I do know I will start playing more. I have built the bankroll up again, so that I can tackle $2/$4 NL with confidence again and so far it does not seem like I have lost my touch during my hiatus.

March 15th - Easter Break

Bankroll: ~ $20.000
Monthly goal: Getting out of this rut
Monthly win: $5.700
Hands played: 10.500

Unfortunately, my luck has not changed yet. With my bankroll reaching $20.000, I will be stepping down to $3/6 for the time being. I do not believe that I am playing badly, nor are the games too tough to beat at $5/10, so if my luck changes, I will move up again shortly.

Tomorrow I am going home to the Faroes on Easter break. I will most likely not be playing much poker, since I do not have a proper computer set up back home. I have been planning for a while to buy a laptop; but until my luck changes and the dollar goes up in value, it will have to wait.

There are times at the tables, when I see another buy-in slide over to the worser hand that happened to suck out, when I do feel badly about these two last months. Yet, mostly I have been able to take the bad beats without much sorrow.
Then there are the times when I see the players I rose up in levels with - some of which I outplayed - winning life changing amounts at $50/100 and $100/200, when I wonder if a good run - equivalent perhaps to the bad run I am going through now in magnitude - would propel me to those kind of limits; then again, I know by now that more likely than not my day will come when I finally break through the barrier that $5/10 has become.

My plan has long been to return to Las Vegas in June. I have been playing the satellites on Party for a chance to win a seat at the Main Event. Now I am not certain if it is such a good idea to go this year. I have quite enough money to get by, but I have also intended for it to be used for buying an apartment here in Denmark. Dashing out $5.000 to a trip to Sin City from my savings might not be the best of ideas. I will think about it while back home and hopefully I can make up my mind to either drop the trip or go on it before school starts again.