Trials and Tribulations of an Internet Grinder

My last update was about 10 days ago and since then not much exciting has happened in the way of poker. I'm proud to say that I did spend time with my family and friends over the Thanksgiving weekend and it was a much needed break from the daily grind I had been getting accustomed to. So for last week, ending friday, I only played a mere 102 $55's and ended up in the red, to the tune of $430. I ran into soem bad luck, however, I can blame about 5 SnG exits on my poor play as I caught myself making a few impatient and reckless moves last week.

I am happy to report that this week is already starting off great. After only 26 $55's i am up over $600 so hopefully this will be one of those +1200 weeks to make up for last weeks poor results. I managed to play a couple +$100 MTT's this weekend but barely made the money in both, so nothing too exciting.

In other news, Full Tilt aired a Invational SnG live from Monaco on Thanksgiving. It was great beacuse they showed virtually every hand and it was interesting to see how the top pros play a fast blind structure SnG.

Also this weekend Party Poker released a new Beta version of their client which carries a new window resizing feature. This is great for a multitabler like myself, who does not have two 20" LCD's like all the big guns. I can now fit six poker games on my 17" Lcd and use my second monitor for more tables or work. Well, thats all for now, hope everyone had a grand holiday weekend. back to grinding for me. Holler.

Nothing exciting to report, yesterday I played 20 455's and was on fire, I finished up $800 for the day but naturaly today I played 20 more and lost $600 back getting beat up VERY badly. I knew it was coming so it softened the blow somewhat. Tommorow is the last day of the week but as of now I am up $425 so far after 20 hours of play, which is respectable enough.

In WPT news the Foxwoods ME final table will be played tommorow at 4. Nick Shulman a huge internet player (the_takeover on Stars, who won over $140,000 for 1st in the 750k garunteed) is going into the final table of 6 players with over 50% of the chips in play. That should be fun to watch on TV next season. Good luck Nick.

My most recent week ending on friday was a solid one for me. I made a little over $800 after 126 $55's. This was offset by me spending about $450 on some bigger tourneys last week but I still am int he black for the week, so its all good. Yesterday was a so-so day to start the week I lost $140 but I played great only to get thrashed by the deck. Today however, things have turned around I made around $500 in 16 SnGs earlier today and this was by getting seven 2nds and one 1st. So event hough I did great bad luck in heads up cost me hundreds extra. I am kinda dissapointed int he amount I haev been palying lately and hope to motivate myself to play 200 SnGs this week.

In WPT news the Foxwoods event started today and after Day 1 Heat A, the chip leader is Lyle Beramn with 130,000 chips. Iw ill try to throw in WPT/WSOP curcuit event updates into this blog to make it more interesting to read. That's it for now, back to the tables.

As all the faithful readers of this blog know that my recent tourney win in October really boosted my bankroll and confidence to play higher limits. I feel like it has all settled in and I am very happy with my current position and have been making constant improvments in my game, mindest, bankroll, and understanding of the real "poker world". Basically, I am just voicing my appreciation for the life I have been able to lead over the last 6 months. What keeps me going and more excited is knowing that in a very short time I should be able to 8 table the 109's and using that as a launchpad for my quest of $100,000 profit in 2006. Right now that seems out of the question but if alot of things go just right it could become a reality very soon. Enough dreaming for one day, onto my poker playing over the last few days. As of right now this week I am up about $500 over 61 $55's and 1 $109, that's right, a 109. I played my very first $109 SnG on Sunday and naturally i got 4th when i pushed KJ from the button and SB called with AQ. I was just happy to see that the one I played went just like a $55, although it would be dumb to start drawing conclusions after a single SnG has been played. I also played in the Party nightly $109 MTT it had 450 entrants and I finished 125, when I turned a flush that was not good against my opponents A high flush. It happens, but it ain't fun. I put a couple hundred on Poker Stars to start playing some heads-up matches which will definatley improve my game in the long-run. I have played about 7 between $10-$50 and only won 1 $20 match. I was getting beat up on but I will start making adjustments to improve my heads-up game. Well that is all for now, I may play the Party $109 tonight, I'll update if I do anygood in it. Out.

So this past week was one of my worst ever. I played 113 $55's and managed to lose $565. Even with the lack of profit I was pleased with my game and know that these things are inevitable. Today I slacked and wasn't too productive. I played 15 $55's and lost $25, then I dropped a quick $100 messign around with $100 NL 6 max. I also went big, or at least tried to by buying directly into the Party Poker $200k garunteed, which carried a $215 pricetag. I played decent and got busted 980th out of 1400 with AQ on a QJ6r board with the pot bigger than my stack and villain sure-enough had QJ. Oh well. This week I hope to get in 225 $55's and pick up my pace for trying to get 2000 done by Christmas.

Well October is over and it was by far the best month of my poker career. I ended up getting in about 720 SnG's , 500 were $33's and the rest were $55's. I ended up making $1,200 from the SnG's but I also had a big MTT win to the tune of $7,000 so overall I had a profit exceeding $8,000 this month which is incredible. As you may remember my goal was to have a $10,000 bankroll by Christmas and currently I am sitting at $9,000 so unless things go Horrible wrong over the next 50 days I think I may even get to the $12,000 mark by christmas. As for the month of November, my goal will be to play 1,000 $55's and clear $5,000. If I get my act together and start playing with rakeback on party I can make $1,000 this moth just from that. Well abck tot he tables wish me luck.