BIG pot ... and other news

i can't sleep so i figured i'd just blog, i'll start it off with my new biggest online pot to date. i might as well analyze the hand while i'm at it, my thought process was semi-interesting.



so here it goes. preflop is pretty standard when we're this deep seeing how well my hand flops. on the flop i obviously flop the nuts and would bet my life on it.

he had checked to me twice after 3betting preflop and had c/r'd once and c/c'd once. my thinking was that this board was just too perfect for him to cbet if he didn't have a hand, so he must be planning to c/r a monster because he knows i'm betting 90%+ of my range when checked to. so when he does c/r me (like i knew he would do) i decide to 4bet and just try to get it in because i really didn't think he was ever doing this light.

i like the min 4bet because it allows him to spaz out on the off chance he was buffing and decided i was full of shit, which is exactly what happened. feels good to pick off a 300+BB bluff, doesn't happen too often.

the sad part about this session overall is i only ended up like 1.5 buy-ins. i started off playing 6max but i was getting cold decked and no action on my good hands and ended up dropping ~2 buyins and decided to see if i could find a good HU match. but hell, i shouldn't complain. i'm just happy i'm having winning sessions and doing well.

more exciting news ... I CAN WITHDRAWAL EASILY! full tilt added an option called "cash pick up". all you do is wait 24-48 hours for them to authorize it, then they email you a verification code. you take this verification code to any moneygram location and just show your ID and the code and they give you cash. best part is my bank is a moneygram place, so i just have to run to the bank and can just throw the money into the bank.

as soon as i found out this new thing i took out 600, hopefully it authorizes sometime tomorrow so i'll have the cash on thursday. once i get the money i'm going straight to IKEA to get all the crap for my "office". i told myself i want to shop around a bit more for the monitor, but come thursday i'm sure i'll be impatient and just go pick up the nicest 22" at best buy and be satisfied.

i'm hoping having a desk and comfortable chair will allow me to focus for longer periods of times because i just get sleepy laying in bed and start to lose focus after an hour even. so with the coming of my "office" i've started thinking about how much time i actually want to play per month because i'm already really motivated from doing well this month on top of finally getting my desk that i've been talking about for 2 months now. here's how i hope the next few months work out as far as poker/school/work.

august - i'm debating whether i want to talk to dar about skipping a semester of school or not. i really am motivated to go to school and get a degree, but in the scheme of things having 5 or 6 months to get settled into a routine with poker would be incredibly helpful.

i plan on just sticking to 100NL through august regardless of how i run, hopefully i can run up my bankroll because idk if i'll be comfortable taking a shot at 200NL with just 4k. i'm really going to buckle down and try to put in 25 hours/wk, which is just 5 hours a day 5 days a week. i'm thinking those days will be wed-sun because the weekends are the best times to play and i like having mondays free for wild rivers :) my rakeback would look something like $1750ish if i actually 4 tabled 100 hours. my average hnds/hr is at 381 x 100 = 38,100 hands at a very modest winrate of 3PTBB/100 would be $2,286.

so theoretically i could be looking at $4036 if i just play a solid game and grind out the minimum next month, it's a bit harder than just saying it though. but i will put in the time and effort and really try to make that a reality because have a 4k month would be absolutely amazing. we'll say that my bankroll will end at 3500 this month, it should be higher if i keep playing but who knows how i'll run. so, i hit my 4k next month and this puts my roll at 7500. i withdrawal 1400 for my credit and my roll is down 6100. i still have 30.5 BI for 200NL which is incredibly comfortable.

september - this is when i plan to take my big 200NL shot. to me 200NL is kind of the start of actually making a decent living playing poker. i'm not saying 4k a month is something to sneeze at for a 20 year old college student, but i could be living fairly well off of 3PTBB/100 at 200NL. at this point i may or may not be in school, i'm not sure. if i am in school i won't be able to be playing 100 hours/mo, but i'll for the sake of this we'll pretend dar is supportive and understands i'm not just bs'ing and really do want to go to school and let's me do my thing.

so my thinking is i would still stick with 100 hours this month as well, same schedule as last august. at 200NL if we run the same numbers we are making roughly $2,500 from rakeback and $4,572 from grinding out the 3PTBB. so now we're looking at a 7k month and putting our total bankroll at 11k (except a very happy/excited blog post if/when my roll hits 5 figures btw).

assuming i run decent and don't have to drop down and have a huge meltdown i plan on taking out around 1k a month to pay for all my expenses as well (insurance phone vikki food gas and other stuff). this applies for last month as well, i'll just be throwing all my islands money in the bank as well. actually my roll would be at around 9k after i took out 2k (1k per month).

october - i plan october to look a lot like august, just keep playing 200NL hopefully and grind out another winning month. we'll just go ahead and say i run normal again and make 7k, minus 1k for life, which would put my total bankroll at 15k. fun fun, if this all goes according to plan i will be a pretty happy person.

november - ok, so here's when i want to start kicking things into gear. assuming i've been at 200NL the last two months and been doing well and winning i want to start pushing it. not in a bad way, but i just want to start playing a bit more to make it more like a full time job (because i'm hoping this will replace islands by 2009). so this month i want to play 30 hours weeks instead of 25.

at 120 hours we're now looking at $3,200 from rakeback and $5,486 ... $8,686. not that much more money, but i just want to be playing as much as possible. if i feel like i'm burning myself out at this point i may bounce back down to the 100 hours, it'll just be a feel thing.

anyways, total bankroll would be looking at 15k + 7500 = 22.5k.

december - so this month is kind of it, if everything goes according to plan up until this month this will be my last month before i actually attempt to be a professional player. obviously i turn 21 this month so that is a big factor in it because i love playing live.

i want to play my 120 hour again and we'll add another 7500, so that makes 30k. now i have to decide what i want to do with some of this money, because there's really no reason to have 30k tied up in the bankroll.

first thing is first, i want my own car. i'm perfectly fine living at home for now and don't have a huge urge to get out of the house (although come this time i may change my mind about this). i would be willing to take out up to 15k for either a fat down payment on a new car or if a find something used i like that should be enough to just buy anything i would want straight up.

this would leave 15k online, i might decide i want to take some of this money out and play some live 2/5 either up at commerce or down at morongo a few days a week. i'm not 100% sure if i will do this now or wait a few more months, we'll see at the time.

anyways, assuming all has gone well to this point, i should have saved up a few grand from islands money as well. this money should suffice as backup for losing months and whatnot. if everything is going well at this point and i've been a winning 200NL player for 4 months i plan on putting in my 2 weeks at islands, registering for classes in the spring, and playing full time while going to school.

ugh, this all sounds so nice but making a plan and actually doing it are two different things. i mainly write all this just to show myself what i could actually achieve if i put the time into this though. poker is just so draining on me mentally and i need to be constantly reminding myself why i'm doing it and what my goals are. i guess that's what this blog is for, right?

so yea, there's my plan. whee. maybe i'll throw a girlfriend in there at some point as well ... idk whether to wait for her to bring up talking about us or to bring it up myself. she still says she's not sure what she wants, but to me it's pretty obvious she's just torn between what she wants and what she thinks she should do. the last thing i want to do is be pushy though because ultimately i just want her to be happy and not bring more stress on her while she's busy with school and getting ready for london and everything. i'll give it another week then bring it up again i guess.

i think that's all that's going on right now, i'll update again after i get my "office" set up.

-geoff