WSOP

Even though I am not going down to Las Vegas for the WSOP I am very excited to have it going again starting tomorrow.

I was there last year at the WSOP Academy when the tournament started. It was fun to be there in the Pavilion and look at all of the tables and just imagine that someday I could be sitting in one of those chairs playing cards with these individuals.

How exciting would that be to have that dream come true. To sit at one of the tables and hear the announcer say "Shuffle up and Deal".

Well, back to earth now and the reality of it all. Still not ready bankroll wise to spend the time and money in Las Vegas. I sit here and wonder what it takes to make that trek. How can I accomplish this goal? I have the heart but the area I live in and the games available to me are what is keeping me from realizing a dream.

Keeping positive about my goal is hard. I just need to make a plan and somehow make it come true. Travelling with the price of gas is hard and staying in motels gets expensive.

Again this year I have to say Maybe next year I can make it for a tournament. Maybe try to get to a WSOP-C and see what happens. I really like the WSOP.

Have a fun day and enjoy the show.....Thanks ESPN for showing more tournaments as well.

Tuesday

I have been reading Jonathan Little's book on tournament poker.

I look forward to the Live@thebike broadcasts on Tuesday and Friday evening. I may not watch them that night but will watch the archive edition the next day.

So far I have been charting the hands that are played by one of the players and learning from what he is doing playing this live game.

If you are going to go to the WSOP and play and would like to have some coaching get ahold of Chris Wilcox at www.internetpokercoach.com and he can help you to become a better player.

I have had him help me with my online game and I liked the coaching I recieved. It did help my game and he also gave me some things to work on to make me a better player. Give him a chance to help you as well.

Have a fun day.....

Free Poker Playing

I am not sure I am going to keep up with playing on the free site at PokerStars. Last night I was playing and trying to maintain the things I have been learning to do and it was not working. The people at this table were very loose and aggressive. They just did not seem to care about their chipstacks.

I am thinking about just stopping this type of play. It is not serving me any good to just sit there and play tight when it is just a shovefest. That was very frustrating.

I think what I will do is just sit back and build my bankroll up to a nice level and just start to hammer out at the $2-$20 table. I will not like just sitting back but maybe I can keep up by reading and preparing to
play.

I am reading Little's new book on tournament play. It is a good book and easy to read.

One of the things I noticed last night was disregard for bet sizing. I think that is important when playing. When playing preflop I will usually bet about 2.5 to 3x the big blind. That is pretty standard. After that it depends on if I make a hand or better my hand. I try to change up the post flop betting so I don't seem to get into a pattern.

When I get a premium hand I maintain my betting sizes so it disguises the hand and not show I really have something. I am also working on my connected cards and trying to play them for straights or flushes. Of course I will not bet all the way down if it doesn't look like I will make it and they are betting into me.

I have been trying to read the board a little bit better as well. I have been asking myself what could they have. Dealers around here are trying to get a lot of hands in so thinking fast is something that I am working on as well.

Well, it seems I have to put most of this on hold so we will see how it goes.

Have a fun day.....

Playing the Game

I sat down at the computer last night and opened up PS to start playing some more Free Poker.

I am wanting to learn patience with the hands and playing when I have a chance to win. The group tonight was Loose Aggressive. They would limp into the pot and wait till the flop came out before they would do
anything.

This meant there were quite a few chips on the table and we hadn't seen the flop yet. I decided this is the time to just play along if that is what they were going to do and play the flop as well. If I had a good flop I would raise 50 to 75% of the pot and see what happened. Usually a couple of people would come along for the ride.

I wasn't winning a lot of pots but I was able to stay right around the $340 area with a buy in of $400. I figured it was just a matter of time and patience until I would get a hand I could slow play and then build the pot.

I did finally find that hand and it was a 56 offsuit. My thinking was they were connected and I could see the flop cheap. The flop came out 789 and I had flopped a straight. I bet to build the pot and had one caller. My only concern was if he had a better straight since mine was in the middle. But he was calling anything. I ended up winning the hand when he called all the way down and I took down the big pot for me for the night.

I ended up playing 27 hands tonight and was up +118 to make the total now
-445. That play on the first day really hurt. I am doing better. I will try to play tonight.

Have a fun day.....

Poker Time

I haven't had a chance to play on PS the past couple of days. I have been working on the stock market and some other stuff.

I have been watching the Live@thebike and I really recommend it for those that want to watch a live game and learn from the announcers. These announcers are players themselves so they offer some good advice.

The game that is played is a 5-10 NLHE and they are live for 3 hours. They are on the air on Tuesday and Friday evenings at 7:30PM They have four announcers and they rotate through.

There is one player that seems to always be at the table and so this week I am not only watching and listening to the announcers but I am charting the hands for one of the players. They do show the hole cards. He is a winning player and this will give me an idea of how he does it in this game.

I also got the new book from Jonathan Little yesterday and I have started reading it as well. I think he is a down to earth type of teacher and will naturally help. Another good instructer is Chris Wilcox. You can find him at Internetpokercoach.com and he will do teaching as well.

Another person you need to watch is a new one that just put up a blog yesterday. This is Aaron and he can be found at www.aaronbertelsen.blogspot.com and if you follow him you could also learn from him. He is a Cash Game player that has played for a number of years and wants to get to a new level and play cards for a living. I know I will be keeping track of his progress.

Have a fun day.....

Rainy Weekend

The clouds came in and got ugly looking. We ended up having thunder and lightening and the rain just poured down. I guess you could say it was raining cats and dogs around here. It really cooled the weather down from the high 70's and now we are lucky to get out of the high 50's.

After posting to the blog yesterday I put more thought into what I wanted to do with both the Stock Market and my Poker playing. I think I got myself sidetracked and started some bad habits in both of them. Since I can't play online for money and I didn't like the $2-$20 limit spread I was playing I was just getting trapped into a corner and not thinking about what I was trying to accomplish.

I decided to play some Free Online Poker last night and see how I would do with this. I really like to have the emotion and the feel of real money but also need to be realistic at where I am at at this moment.

I started out with $1,000 in free money and put up $400 and started to play like I would normally play at the real tables. I figure by seeing the hands and playing that way I should be able to get myself into a pattern of seeing the hands and playing properly.

I was not sure if I should play for a certain amount of money or play a certain amount of hands. I decided to play 50 hands and see how that went. I actually ended up playing 60 hands and when it was all said and done I was -$636. Such a great start.

I figure I am a little rusty in my hand reading and sure enough I was not paying attention like I should. I walked into hands that I should have let go. I then tried to get the money back and things just got worse.

After that session was done I then decided to not play the amount of hands but to concentrate on reading the cards better and to play for a certain amount of money. As soon as I reach the amount I have set for myself for that session then I will stop for the day. I will start out small until I am able to read the hands better and work up the amount I will play for.

This afternoon I then set myself for $50 and would stop after that. I did well and 9 hands into the session I was up $73. I wanted to continue to play but then told myself that I am setting these boundaries and will follow through. If all goes well then I will up the amount and play more hands later in the week. I am looking for improvement in the skills and not so much of the time I will spend playing the game.

I know that 9 hands does not make a session but it was positive and I felt I was able to do what I wanted. I need to make sure that I don't get too aggressive with hands when there are other options on the board. So far the play of these individuals are not real loose. They are willing to throw away hands if they are beat. They don't seem to have to see the river card and go to showdown. Makes it seem like a regular game.

For the time being I will log my results and see what happens. As far as playing in the live $2-$20 limit spread game, I will start back up but not right now. I think if I put myself through some training online maybe it will pay off at the real table.

I am trying to be more goal oriented and will see if it works.

Have a fun day......

Something New

I am rather excited about a new project I am going to try and put together.

I was reading my group of blogs last night to catch up and I have a new one that I am watching and it is called "The Dan Plan". The reason this caught my eye was because here is a guy that has quit his job and he is putting is sole time into becoming a Professional Golfer. He figures it will take 10,000 hours and that is what he does on a daily basis.

He has a golf coach and a golf physical coach as well. One of them is giving his time to him since this is such an interesting plan. He is working from the inside or closest to the cup on out. He still has not hit a driver and he will not be doing that until it is time. He has gone through the putting part of 1 Ft, 3 Ft etc and now it looks like he is being allowed to hit the golf ball from 50 yds in when he plays the round.

What a way to learn and I hope he makes his dream. I will definitely be following him on his journey.

I got thinking about it last night and why not do something like that for me. I can call it the "The Steve Plan" and work on being a Poker Professional. What would it take? I would need a coach that would lay out the plan and then a nutrition coach to prepare for the long hours of playing since I am a diabetic. A fitness coach as well to take care of the stress of sitting and not moving. Is this possible?

I am going to try to put it together and I am going to try doing this via vLog as well. Never been good at movie cameras but it could be interesting to see what I am doing along the journey. I have always been a loner in learning but I really need some help on this one. I really would like to be a Professional Player and see if I can make it with my skill level.

Must have a plan.......What is the plan.......How long will it take.....
What do you think?.......

Poker Thoughts

It has been about a month since I have played any poker. I have done a lot of thinking and some reading about poker. Trying to keep my head in the game and not giving up.

I am trying to set up a new BR to try and get myself going again. As you know I don't like the $2-20 game here in town but I also can't just travel outside of town to play since that will take up my BR as well. With that in mind I am going to get back to the $2-20 game and really try to get my mind in the proper spot.

I don't want to play tournaments at this point. I want to get myself into the live cash game and put a lot of effort in making this work. It may take me a couple of weeks to get myself ready but I will do this.

Anyone have thoughts on the $2-20 game and how I should approach this and make myself a winning player?

I need to get back to writing more on this blog and keep everyone informed on what is happening with the game.

Have a good day.....

Post

I wrote a post yesterday and now it is gone. I am not sure where it went. I wrote it in the afternoon and then was looking at the blog in the evening and didn't see the post. Since I wrote it on my laptop I thought it might show up there for some reason. No, it isn't here either. Don't know where it went.

Working on the lessons from my Poker class I attended and the Stock classes as well. Putting them on word and then saving them on the computer. At some point I would like to use them in my blog.

Have a fun day.....

Feeling Better

Yesterday was my first day not getting up at 0230 and doing the paper route. I slept in till noon. I really needed that sleep to catch up and now that the six days are over with delivering papers I can get back to other things.

What a week this has been. The taking down of OBL. It was amazing how we, the royal we, were able to find him and especially where they found him. In my opinion I think they knew where he was. Does this mean we are done in that theater? We can bring our troops home? Great job to our military and all of those involved.

This week I also sold my two stocks that I was in. I sold CIM and ARR and was in profit in both of them. They are dividend stocks so I do plan on getting back into them when they go back to a demand zone. I am still looking for other dividend stocks that I can get involved with. I need to spend some time going through my lists that I have and finding the right ones.

I still have not played any live poker and not sure when I will go back to the casino. I am still spending my time reading and thinking of the game but not putting any actual time playing. I am thinking about spending some time at the free tables though just to have some fun and stay focused with the game.

I have been following all of the drama since Black Friday and still think it is wrong to do away with something that does not hurt any one and especialy when we are allowed to "gamble" with the horses, lotto and other things. Just does not seem right. I have been seeing a lot of ads about other poker sites and they are still taking US players.

Now AB/UB going bankrupt. I was surprised to read about that one. I wonder if Helmuth and Duke saw that coming?

Definitely need to give "Internet Poker Coach" a read. If you are thinking about having a coach then get a hold of Chris. You can even sign up for his class in Las Vegas coming up shortly. He helped me with my online game and I highly recommend him.

Have a fun day......

I am Sick and Tired

I was feeling a little tired the other day and really not thinking too much about it I continue to do my daily routines. You remember that I said that I had not been sleeping very well. That continued on and I think I finally wore down my immune system enough that I was open to anything that was crawling around. I now have a cold.

The person I sub for on her paper route called me on Wednesday to ask if I would take the next 5 days starting on Friday morning. At that time I said ok not a problem. At least I would get paid for 5 days of work.

It was 0330 in the morning on Thursday morning my cell phone rang and I picked it up and it was the paper carrier. She was sick and wanted me to cover for Thursday morning as well. I rolled out of bed and got the morning started and new that we were going to be an hour late getting the papers out. All papers have to be delivered by 0530. I moved and was finished with the route at 0550.

Still I have a cold. I am working through this and have one or two more days to go before she comes back. This will be a 6 day stretch of waking up at 0230. As long as I am somewhat getting a few hours of sleep we can make it to the end.

It does feel good to be out there walking in the early morning air. To be able to take the deep breaths and gives me something else to think about.

I have been watching "LOST" and yesterday after finally reaching the 4th season I am not going to watch any more of it. The show has taken a turn to more of the dark side of the island and finally figured out this show has Biblical undertones. The fight between the good and the evil. Anyway I don't normally watch that type of stuff even though I do like the story line just not what they are doing with this show.

I have been trying to come up with ways to keep my poker playing up and not loose my playing ability. I have been toying with the idea of going ahead and playing the Free Money and just play my game. I know people like to call all the way down but if I play my game it will still give me the opportunity to see hands right now.

I really don't want to play the $2-20 game but I may have to form a strategy and keep at it. I don't know, I am just thinking about it at this time.

It was nice to get the dividends in my account this past week. I will be working on the portfolio more.

Have a fun day.....