Rags to Riches

If any of you bothered to read two posts ago, you'd know that I've been forced to stay out of school for a year. My greatest fear was my parents reaction but wow, what a crazy turn of events. I finally got the balls to tell them straight up and they seemed pretty calm about, even supportive. Not to say that my parents are Nazi's but they usually give a huge angry lecture after every stupid move I make. +1 for a life heater right there.

Poker? Wow, my shot at 25NL was pretty fail and what is worse is that I lost to bad players. Most of them were station donks and I suppose I tried to get fancy too often. Microstakes is microstakes and I simply don't have the hand reading ability to play LAG at these levels. I don't mind dropping back to 10NL, a little humbling is good for everyone once in awhile.

So, I have one year to do whatever I want...work? Travel? Volunteer? I want to do something good, maybe lend a hand in third world countries. No, I'm not being self righteous or anything, I've already been to Africa before to do this sort of stuff but short term. Another alternative is to work on my poker game but I'm not going to delude myself by thinking I can make it as a professional player. Some people have different strengths and weaknesses, I'm satisfied as being purely amateur for the rest of my life. I'm sure if I dedicated a buttload of time to it, I could become successful but I have other things in mind at the moment.

Anyways, I'm out and as always, thanks LP.

Hello faithful readers, lets start with the shots at 25NL so far...

It has been going okay, I have plenty of leaks I have to fix. I've been going back down to 10NL after I'm feeling a little spewy to gain confidence and de-tilt. The biggest problem I have so far is with the short stacks. I give them absolutely no respect and try to "outplay" them by 3betting and whatnot. Simply put, I should be trying to nail them with solid hands and destroying them with my superior kickers. Against normal stacks, I've been trying to adopt a LAG style of play. This is -EV to me at this point because I simply don't have the skill to play it proficiently but because of a few heaters, I've been able to be up.

In order to counter this behaviour, I've been playing a little tighter to be prepare for some variance. Weirdly enough, I find that there are more spewtards at 25NL than 10NL. I'm playing on Titan (which I'm assuming is soft compared to PS/FT) and there seem to be more nits at 10NL. I would like to give credit to Ryan Fee's Guide To 6max, which I've been studying for a bit. Double/Triple barreling (guide shows you how and when) might be too fancy for 25NL but I've gotten away with some decent pots using it. Trying to balance being fearless and not spewy, finding it difficult to do so.

Here are some stats so you guys can berate/advise:

10NL
VPIP: 25.1
PFR: 20.3
AGG: 5.37
3BET: 7

25NL
VPIP: 27.3
PFR: 22.5
AGG: 5.95
3BET: 6.5

Now for my live tournament...

My friend is going away to HK for awhile so we've decided to organize one last tournament. There's going to about 30 people with a buy in of 25$ each. I'm not bragging but I think I'm a favorite to win, considering most of my friends (and friends friends) are fish. I've been playing some donkaments on PS recently to sharpen my game but I'll have to admit, still pretty bad. Hopefully the tournament turns out nicely and win some money :D

I've always been a skeptic of work out gimmicks and programs I've seen on TV. Machines that can trim your stomach line with vibration, yeah right. The P90X advertisement has been no stranger to my television set but there was never any interest in it.

One day I was discussing work outs with a friend that was prepping for the army. I mentioned my lackluster style of exercise which included bench presses, basic curls and some cardio. Better than nothing of course but not disciplined at all. I wasn't making any huge gains and I suppose the best it did was keep maintenance. My friend berated me for my piss poor devotion and told me to try out the P90X system.

I lol'd pretty hard until he said he was using it. This guy used to be pretty skinny but now he was cut like a diamond. He was evidence so I figured I'd try it out. He warned me about how intense it could get but shrugged it off, thinking he was exaggerating a bit at this point.

Got the DVD's and manual, it was pretty easy to set up and go. Equipment was very basic, the only thing I had to buy was a chin up bar which was only 20$. Started the first DVD and wow, what a nightmare. This was the most intense work out I've ever done and I hurled right after. The next morning, my body was like a board, I couldn't move any joints or I'd be reeling in pain. Ahh, the delicious pain of muscle soreness...

I'm on week three and the results have been fantastic. Body fat percentage has dropped down two percent to ten. My arms are already bigger and my chest is more defined. Pretty awesome stuff. Poker players are prone to get lazy from all that sitting down so if you want something that will really give you a nice work out, try P90X.

(I am not affiliated with Beachbody or P90X in any way, just trying to give you guys a heads up on this awesome program.)

www.beachbody.com