November: Yay an upswing.

Hahahaha, yeah right, I wish. This month was just as bad as the rest of them were with the exception to the one cash. I pretty much know how it is at this point and I expect nothing less then to get fucked every time I sit down to play online poker. As I go through the numbers I think I did go through an upswing. It actually would make perfect sense. I more or less run good once every four months for a short period of time and its about that time so I am due, right?

You tell me. These were my big finishes. This is what an upswing looks like for me.

4/3429*
32/1332
19/468
16/1647*
31/5823*
8/1242

I also made final tables in the 180 man tournaments 7 times. Overall I finished 4th twice, 6th, 7th, 8th twice, and 9th. Basically for the 180 man tournaments to be worth your while you have to get top 3. As you can see I didn't get top 3 once. I came into every final table except for one of them as either 8th or 9th in chips.

Also, * means that the tournament had a very large first place. Large enough for me to jump up and down like an idiot had I actually won.

The 6 MTT's that I just told you about are the best I have ever done in a short period of time. Of course my upswing has to be halted by the fact that I have to lose back to back coinflips in one tournament, can't hold up when I have the best hand, and can't suck out when I have the worst hand. That's some upswing.

I seriously have the worst timing ever when it comes to poker.

I pretty much never shove bad hands anymore when I am short because I get snapcalled by some bullshit hand every time as if they know what I have. This even happens if I haven't done anything for 45 minutes. Proves that no one pays any attention. More or less, I have lost every time I have gotten all in with a bad hand. On the flip side, I lose numerous times every day to people shoving with 8 5 and cracking my A K.

When I play a hand out and have a big pocket pair, the Ace almost never comes on the flop. Its really nice.

However, every time I get all in with a big pocket pair and they have A x I lose 9 times out of 10. Which fucking blows because I am getting knocked out of every tournament this way.

Of course when I have A Q against K K, I can't tell you the last time I hit what I needed too.

Every day I play except for the rare days that I actually win, I lose the biggest pot I play. Great timing.

I am also losing to 3 outers at a disgusting rate which proves that the percentages on 3 outer hands is really wrong. I probably lose every other time with good regularity every time I get all in with A K against A 3. And believe me people love calling my all ins with there rag aces. It's almost like they know how the board is going to come out.

My solution? Yes I have one. I'll tell you at the end.

Degen Adventures:

I was going to write about this last week but never got around too it. I had a really degenerative trip to Las Vegas two weekends ago.

I am not going to go detail for detail as I don't want to set any records for longest post ever but I'll sum it up.

1. I started the trip by buying a 1/4 ounce of kush.
2. I then got picked up from work by my "free" ride. Win for me.
3. We got to Vegas and we got to stay in a 2000+ square foot suite for free. Win x3 for me. We stayed at Ballys on the strip.
4. There were 5 guys total. It was ballin.
5. I ran sick hot gambling the first night and at one point was up $800.
6. By the end of the night I was up only $160. Which is okay since its the first time I have ever come up the first night of a Vegas trip.
7. The next day I proceeded to be down as much $760 at one point. I brought $1000 cash with me for the trip.
8. With only $120 left in my pocket and $120 in chips on a poker table (the only time I played poker the entire trip) I proceeded to go on one of the sickest card runs ever and went from $120 to $730 and call it quits for the night. I hit the nuts 4 times on the turn and overbet huge on the river and got called every time because no one ever believes I have anything.
9. I am now only down about $200 and meet up with the rest of the group across the street.
10. They decide to go to a strip club and I decide to not be the only one not to go even though strip clubs are against my religion. (I'm obv not religious.)
11. Without even trying I drop $180 in the strip club and didn't even get off. I paid $30 for the cover and another $20 for 2 drinks. Just walking in I spent $50. I was then attacked by two strippers which turned into an $80 lap dance.
12. I spent by far the least and overall two guys got laid but spent $700+ and another guy got a handjob.
13. My crazy degen gambler friend Kevin woke up at 8:30 the next morning to go place sunday football bets. (We went to bed at 6:00 am)
14. I gave him $300 and tell him to put it all on the Buffalo Bills. He does.
15. I go back to bed.
16. I wake up a few hours later and wake up to find out that I won my bet and go downstairs to collect my winnings. Hell yeah.
17. From 10:00 Friday morning while at work until I got home Sunday night I was either stoned or stoned/drunk. It was awesome.
18. Overall, I went to Las Vegas with $1000 and came home with $880 in my pocket. I was by far the big winner for the trip and it was by far my most successful Vegas trip to date. The room alone would normally be $600-$1000 per night.
19. I never went to bed before 6am the entire trip.

In terms of live poker, I have played 3 times since playing online and have run sick hot each time. Overall, I am now up $1000+ in live poker.

My solution:

Although I am extremely disappointed with my performance on stars, I am still extrememly proud of what I have accomplished since April.

In April, my life was literally in 20 pieces. I had no job, no money, thousands of dollars in debt, no where to live, court fines, and had upset a lot of people.

I now have my own apartment, no debt (except my car payment), courts are all paid up and happy, a job, and the most money I have ever had in my life.

Although I have much less money right now then I initially projected, I still look at December as a complete free-roll as this is the first month where I won't have to make any debt payments so money should start stockpiling even more.

For the month of November I came up a whopping $1400 playing poker. My stars account currently sits at $2529. Oh I forgot to mention that I am on a $1700 online downswing since my 4th in the rebuys. Shocking.

This is my new plan. Stars hates me and I hate them. You can't only play tournaments. I have unfortunately learned this the hard way.

I have redeposited $1000 on Cake. I originally did this too move it over to a sportsbook but saw a sick freeroll and just started playing randomly. I am up $100 on the account and am playing 50NL cash along with a tournament here and there.

I have two laptops. One for Cake and one for Stars. At my peak, I will have 4 games going on the one computer and then will have 6 going for Stars. For Stars, I have started grinding 50NL which surprisingly has a lot of action along with my tournaments. I will start receiving rakeback once again which is huge and will become a bigger player in the Stars FPP program. So long as I don't run bad at every avenue I am trying I expect December to be a very very good month. I am however on the weed wagon and that is my biggest challenge. Today was my first day playing sober and although I was able to do it, it was very difficult.

Since April, I am up over $20K+ in poker which shocks the shit out of me considering how many big pots I lose.