She smiled louder than I had expected

1,426 Hands

I bought a cd off of itunes today. Will Stratton came out with his first cd this month. It's along the lines of Sufjan Stevens' acoustic stuff, so I'm listening to it right now. It's very good so far.

I wanted to talk a little about playing poker when no one realizes it. I have two roomates, and they often ask for favors while I'm playing poker. My desk is in the living room facing three large windows in the front of my apartment. I placed it there so I wasn't stuck in my room for hours and hours at a time. Also, I was the one to find the apartment after MANY days and weeks of searching, so I decided to put my desk wherever I wanted.

So about asking favors, I really don't mind, but I often explain to them that I cannot stop what I'm doing. "Hey can you help me move this?" yeah sure, "ok 1 second.... ok lets move it" sorry dude can't for a sec, I have AQs, 44, J8s on the button and I flopped a junk 2 pair. These windows of opportunity to do anything are very small.

I also don't flip out anymore at the computer when I'm losing. So to the average person, it just looks like I'm uninvolved with anything when I play. The same goes for phone calls. I often talk on the phone and tell someone I'm playing cards. I don't mind talking for a bit on the phone, but if I need to make a decision, it's hard to just cut someone off in the middle of a sentence. "HOLD ON" and I put down the phone. This can be very very rude, but if I chose to pick up the phone, I'm going to have to do that sometimes.

Going to the bathroom while playing 350+ hands an hour can be a nightmare also. At least twice a day, I sprint back and forth to my computer. All it takes is one missed hand to alter your entire session. I didn't work on being an extremely patient, disciplined poker player, to miss my one opportunity in 1,000 hands to win a monster pot.

I used to hang up on people practically when I lost a big pot on the phone. Now I handle it much better.

I think it's important for me to realize that what I am doing really is work. I'm going to be doing this as a career, and I'd better start treating it like a career. Although I think it's my responsibility to make the people around me realize that this game I'm playing on my computer is actually important.

I'm not sure if I've come off as angry in this post. It certainly wasn't my intention, but I refuse to read over my posts before posting to check as see.

Things are ok right now. Things are even good. I think my family is really starting to see some very good results from my poker playing. They are supportive even without really knowing exactly what I'm doing. It will be an adjustment when I get home, but I think if I establish that when I'm playing poker I really can't do anything else, things will be fine.

As far as poker, today was rough all around. Many many coolers/set ups/beats, but I am extremely pleased with my results. I' m most proud of keeping my cool.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1113382 This hand demonstrates my ability to be conscious of my table surroundings even while multitabling. I almost timed out preflop. As soon as the reraise went in I stopped in my tracks. This ability to lose next to nothing with KK vs AA really makes me believe that I can be really good one day.


Today's Net +$11
Total Goal Left $12,327