Changes

Things change and I am changing again. I have decided to move my blogging to another site. I now own the domain name of the site and it will be better to access. I hope everyone will make the change as well and follow me to my new site. Let me know what you think of it and keep the comments coming in. This new site will also allow me to categorize each blog and you can look at just the ones you want to read and not all of the posted things I will write about. The new site is: www.mysevenfouroffsuit.com Hope to see you there......

Things are Looking Better

You have those times when you don't think that anything is working for you and you have to wonder what you are going to do next. The last two months have been like that for me. I am talking about unemployment and worksource. When the casino closed down, on September 24, I felt lost and not sure of what I would do next. I did know that I wanted poker to be a part of whatever I continued doing. I didn't need to deal poker but I wanted to continue playing and getting better at the game. The next day I did apply for unemployment benefits since I had enough hours and getting something while I looked for my next income source. When the unemployment got approved it was a relief to be able to get something each week. Now I would have to search for three jobs per week. My problem then was what do I apply for? We as dealers knew there were no jobs available in this area so I started to apply for whatever was available in retail working in the customer service area. I started working with Worksource as well and finding out we were dislocated workers we had more avenues opened up for us. I went to the local community college to see what there worker retraining offered and was signed up for some computer classes that I could take at Worksource. I was also signed up to go through their program and see if I could take short term classes to get a certification in a subject that interested me. This last week I was approved for the classes and will be going to the college for one year and will achieve a certification in Computer User Support Help Desk. At the same time I was also approved for extended unemployment while I am going through the program. Now I am working with Worksource to get the funding to complete the program for the year. The help I have recieved from the employment specialist has been great. She has pointed me in the right direction and will be following me throughout the year. At the end of the year she will again help me to find employment if I don't come up with something on my own. I will be putting on a poker home game this Friday evening. This will be my first one and I hope to have one or two each month. I would like to see if we could do a seat in the Wildhorse Roundup or something else that will encourage play. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $280

Final Nine Poker Event

The last nine weeks the Joker's Casino has been holding a Freeroll tournament in the bar area. This has not been connected to the poker room except that we have been given cards that allow for added money when playing in the poker room. This has been fun and because it is a freeroll the players are not all poker players that spend a lot of money on poker. I woke up this morning knowing that today is the day. Having the nine of us play with the opportunity for a part of the $1,000 prize pool. I started getting a little nervous also knowing that we all could have spent the nine weeks of playing and may not end up with any of the money at all. I worked out an option that would give everyone money and still leave a lot of money for the top three players. I wanted to talk to the players at the beginning and see if everyone would agree. I approached two of the players and told them my idea and they informed me that one of the players had told them that he would not agree with anything. That told me what I needed and knew that it would come to playing the cards and working hard to get into the money. I knew I was going to play a TAG type of game at the beginning. I normally do this anyway and I would wait to see who was going to be aggressive. The guy in seat 7 next to me was the best player at the table I figured. I was in seat 8 and had the best position on this guy. He also came out tight and a couple of players, one in seat 9 and the other in seat 6 started playing rather loose. Having seen these two before this was not unusual for them. The person in seat 2 also was playing a little tight and I haven't seen him do that before. I was saved on the river from elimination with my KK near the start when I went up against the player in seat 9 with QQ. He got a 7Q7 on the flop for a full house and on the turn was a blank and the river gave me a K for a nice full house as well. Wow, survived that one. I had JJ on another hand and I threw them away and someone had a better hand at the end. When we got down to five players I presented to the table the proposal of giving 5th place some money. Everyone agreed on the $50 for fifth and we continued on playing the game. I became card dead at that time and a couple of other short stacks came back and was able to build their stacks up and I then was the short stack at the table. I got 33 and decided to make a stand and went all in with this hand. The person in seat 8 had raised it T$600 and then I went all in and everyone folded and before he decided to make the call I had a brain fart and turned my cards over. He looked at them and now it was up to him to decide to call or fold. Mistake on my part for sure. He said he figured he should call and he turned his cards over and had A4. On the flop he got a 4 and I didn't get any help with the pocket pair. I was out of the tournament in 5th place. It was fun and I will do this again when they start up another freeroll tournament. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $280

Sunny Weather

Things change on a dime around this part of the northwest. We are drying out a bit and with the clouds moving away it will be a cold one tonight. It would be nice to head south for the winter. A small group of us went for lunch yesterday at Red Lobster. It was fun, small group being three, and enjoyable to sit and talk and eat some seafood. Being housebound at this time it is nice to get out any time I can. During our lunch we got a text about a company looking for dealers for their parties they were putting on. They call them casino nights and people are having them for their christmas parties or whatever. They are having so many of them right now they are running out of dealers to help out. Doesn't sound like a bad idea and I decided to get ahold of them when I got home to see what they were about. Having never heard of anything like this before. I did send the email off and got a reply saying they would like it if I wanted to join them during this party and deal the Blackjack game with them. I am definitely going to do this as I am not working right now anyway. It should be fun and some extra money. I say "extra" but not really. I am not sure what this will do with my unemployment but I will have to report this to them when it takes place. I am not sure if this affects my college stuff as well. It isn't a job but it is earning money. Unemployement does frown on that. I was told yesterday that one of the guys that is in the final nine playing this weekend is already making deals for the money and we all have not had a chance to sit down at the table yet. This will be interesting to see what happens. I would like to see all nine of us get some part of the $1,000 prize pool and play the game as usual. Any money in this tournament is positive since it was a freeroll anyway. I was able to get first place of $50 and a third place of $25 gift card during the nine weeks and this is the icing on the cake to get some of the prize pool. I know I am a very happy camper if I can play poker. Being housebound just makes it difficult. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $230 Bankroll = $3.15

Another Day of the Same

Yes, just another day of rain here in the pacific northwest. Usually over here on the east side of the state we don't normally see a lot of rain. We just put up with it and then the sun comes out and we forget that it did rain. I played some Micro poker last night and I did not do well. This may be the fastest I go through the $5. Once it is gone that is it. No more retry. I am playing the .02-.05 NL cash game. I was doing alright at the start and then I got involved in a hand that I should have let go and didn't. Once that happened I continued to try and get the money back by playing more hands. At that amount of $$ everyone wants to see the the flop, turn, and river. I just got disgusted and before you know it I was down and that was it. One of the other things I am trying to do is play at least 50 hands before I stop. Another day and we will see how I do. I woke up last night and reached over for my scooter to get on and go to the bathroom. As I got up, I moved my leg with the boot on it, and set it down on the cushion of the scooter and I started to fall. My foot hit the wheel of the scooter and I brushed up on the closet door. I ended up with weight on my right foot, which had the surgery done, and I moved quickly to get myself upright. I made noise in the bathroom as I couldn't get the door closed behind me. Nothing like waking my wife up doing all of this. I try to be independent during this but then I end up hurting myself in the process. I called Worksource yesterday and found out I scored 100% on my assessment test on the Windows 7 Operating System. I will go in next week and work on the next class which will be on microcomputer concepts. This shouldn't take me very long and then I will be good to go in January at the college. This is a whole different story and will get into it at some later time. I will be glad when this stuff is all done. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $230 Bankroll = $3.15

House Bound

I am just not used to being house bound. Now that the surgery is done I am in the recovery mode. My foot is getting better each day I hope. I went to the Post-Op appointment on Monday and he said the foot looks good. He had an x-ray done and we took a look at it. When you look at the big toe you see the socket is now metal and stands out. Then you look back behind the ball of the bone and you see two screws. My goodness they look big for that size of bone. I asked him if he was going to take them out. I was just kidding of course but he said no need to take them out. I think he thought I was serious. So now I wait to go back on Tuesday next week and he will take the stitches out. One week closer to being able to walk on the foot. I have been playing Zynga Poker the last few days for the heck of it. It is free and at least I am playing. I am working on some Micro poker at the .02-.05 NL cash game. I am unable to give specifics about this but at least I can play some live. You will see my bankroll is starting at $5. Last night I was able to get it to increase by $1.01. That is a good start. I am not sure what my goals are for this but it is a start. I would like to move up but not sure when I would like to try the higher level. I am in my first week of the 3 weeks of not being able to work out at Club 24. I am anxious to get back to my schedule and keep up my program of loosing weight. Last I checked I was at 227 pounds. As long as I don't overeat while I am off I am hoping I will not gain much weight back. This is a constant struggle. Have a fun day.... Bankroll = $230 Bankroll = $6.01

Weekend is Done

I did nothing over the weekend. I was unable to go down to Joker's Casino on Sunday to play in the final freeroll event. There are nine of us that will be headed back to the casino next Sunday to play in the final. This should be fun and the money available is good. Today is my post-op day with my doctor. I still have at least a week and a half of no weight bearing on the foot. I can't drive since this is my right foot. Makes it hard to go do some of the things I need to do. My pick-up sits out front and no one to drive it. At least I still have my bankroll and maybe I can get it to grow by adding money into it for the next couple of weeks. I will also be starting another bankroll for a micro poker game I will be starting to play. It will have $5 to start. I will use it to start playing cash games first. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $230 Bankroll = $5

Thanksgiving Week

Surgery was done on Wednesday. Thanksgiving is done and now we are in Black Friday the shopping nightmare. This past Monday I was able to take my test at WorkSource and I felt I passed it with no issues. The test took me about 40 minutes and I was done and out of the center and on my way home. There were so many things to get completed before I have the surgery done. I now have one more class to complete in the month of December and I will be right on track. On Monday afternoon I received a call from Columbia Basin College wanting me to come in and go through the orientation on Tuesday instead of November 27th. I was good with this as it will be another item done, during the surgery time, and since I will be non weight bearing it means I can get this done and will have an appointment December 4 with WorkSource. The meeting went well and I will be starting my classes in Computer Science in Janurary. I will be a student again and this time will be going for a Certificate for Customer Help Desk. On Wednesday I showed up at the hospital at 6am. The surgery started around 7:30 and I was back home around 11am. The foot is very painful right now and I am taking my pain meds as directed. I am hoping this will go well and the pain in my foot will go away and I can start my weight loss program again. Being off of my feet and not driving for three weeks will be hard. Thursday was Thanksgiving and having my family around was nice. I may not have been all that alert but it was nice having them here. My wife put in a lot of work for the meal and then taking care of me as well. I am hoping to be able to play some poker on Sunday. This is the final weekly event before the final table on December 2. I only plan on playing the tournament and not play any live afterwards. I am rethinking about my goal of reaching the $500 bankroll before playing in a larger game. I could reach that level playing the bigger games instead of piecemealing it with the lower game. If I play like I should I could get this up in a faster timeframe. Or, it could drop and then I would have to play the $2-$4 level anyway. At least I could try it out. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $230

The Weekend Ends

It has been a good weekend of playing poker. I went down to Joker's Casino and signed up for the Freeroll. This is week number eight and we only have one more week of tournament play until the nine of us will play for the $1,000. This will take place on December 2 and with the people already in it should be a good game. The person that won the seat at the end is another known player that I have played against for some time and that should help as well. He is very aggressive and will play a LAG type of game. I just hope I have good position on him at the final table. As you can see I did not win the extra seat but that is fine. Like I said we have another week to go. I did get another opportunity to sit down at the $2-$4 limit game. Again I started with my usual buy in of $20 and this time since we played the freeroll I was given a card for $5 extra at the live table. After about 30 minutes of play I was up over $40 and again I started thinking about the amount I have and getting up and leaving before I gave that back to the table. Then my mind went to the comment by FlushDraww and I figured this was about me and not my thoughts about what others thought about me. Plus it was an opportunity to get back to where I was to start the weekend. After the button went by me and I played a couple more hands I took my chips to the cashier and went home. I felt good about the night. I have to remember this $2-$4 game is so small and it doesn't last a long period of time so whatever I can get is what I will build my bankroll with. I have to remember my goal and keep building anything towards that $500 so I can start playing the $2-$10 limit game. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $230

I Will Never Learn

I went down to Joker's Casino last night to play some $2-$4 limit. I did go down and waited for the table to open up so we could play. There were six of us that started the game and that meant each of us started with the extra $10 in our chip stack. My buy in was for $20. Starting with $30 with the extra was nice. I started playing my usual strategy and got the stack up to $50 and at that point I started thinking about getting up and leaving with the profit. We lost one of our players and put us at five and if I would have gotten up to leave that would have killed the game. We had been playing about an hour at that time. I have always had an issue with getting up and leaving thinking people would think bad of me if I did that. I don't like the hit and run type of player but then again I like to leave with a profit as well. I ended up staying an extra thirty minutes and in that time I ended up giving all of the money back to the table. So, instead of getting up and leaving with a profit and an increase in the bankroll I leave being $20 down in the bankroll. Good job steve. Today I am going to play in the Freeroll and see if I can get another seat in the final table. It would mean we would have one less player and we would be closer to the money. This will be week number eight and that will leave one more week and then the final nine will play for the $1,000 prize pool. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $210

Friday Poker

Every once in a while I will get to play in a poker home game. Getting ready for the Monday exam and playing some Saturday live poker. I have been working on completing the Windows 7 operating system and I am taking the test on Monday. Hopefully I will get through this and will be ready to go on to the next class. That will be in a few weeks though once I am able to get back on my feet and drive. I played in a home game last night. It was a $5 buy in and we had a full table. I played a tight conservative game waiting for the cards before I would put money into the pot. This is my usual anyway so nothing changed. I haven't played with these players in quite some time so my knowledge of them was from months past. The table was mostly loose aggressive and my position was good as well. I just waited and in fact I played very few hands in the first tournament. I ended up chopping when we got down to two players. We did start a second game for the same buy in and I tried to open up my game a little bit an ended up in third place. At least I got my money back for the second game. The night ended with an increase to the bankroll by $20 and that was good as well. I had fun and hopefully we can get a live game started soon with this group. Tonight I am looking at going down to the casino and playing some live $2-$4 limit. They have a special going that if you start at the table you will recieve an extra $10 with your buy in. That would be a good start to see if I can increase the bankroll from there. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $230

It's the Weekend Already?

It has been a busy week for me doing my daily workout and spending time at Worksource taking my computer class. Looking forward to the weekend to play some poker and the surgery that didn't happen. I have been getting my workouts in on a daily basis and still have not looked at the scale to see where I am at. When I was at the doctors office, the other day, they weighed me on their scale and I was at 231. I know that is not correct since I had my clothes on and I should be around the 227 mark, and if that is correct I am headed into another month without loosing any weight. I know the inches are coming off and people have mentioned that I am looking better. Wish it would show it by loosing the weight. In fact the winter jacket I bought last year is now too big for me. My other jacket is not warm enough and is slightly smaller. The problems with loosing weight and having to buy different clothes. I think that is a good problem to have. I have been taking a class at Worksource on computers. The class is called Operating System Windows 7. I figured I will get this one in and then do one more called Concepts. This one will give me the hardware and software concepts. I am ready to take the test on Windows 7 and will do that on Monday. Then I will start the Concepts class when I can get back into Worksource after the surgery. I have not played any poker this week. I would really like to spend one or two evenings playing the $2-$4 limit game. I have been thinking about some goals for this and I would like to stay at this level until I build up the bankroll to $500 and then move into the $2-$10 Limit Spread game. At that point anytime I am below the $500 I will move back to the lower game and build back up. I didn't go to the Wildhorse Roundup this past week since my bankroll is not big enough to pay for the buy-in. Playing tournaments just takes too much bankroll and not enough money being made on a consistant basis. The smaller tournaments like the Freerolls and the $5 tournaments are the ones I will probably play and see if I can get the bankroll up without depleting the money. The Surgery that was to take place on Thursday did not happen. I was called on Wednesday and was told the part did not come in and they needed to reschedule me. Now the surgery will be on the 21st of November. I quess I will definitely be laid up for Thanksgiving. I think someone dropped the ball and didn't get the part ordered that was needed. This will put me a week behind with my schedules and I have two important meetings on the 27th and December 4. I will not be weight bearing at that time and may not be on crutches either. Hopefully I will not have any problems with the job hunting during this time. We are now headed into the Thanksgiving week and I hope everyone is thankful for something. I am thankful for my family and friends and the opportunity to give everyone reading my blog a snippet of my life while I write about what I do with myself. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $210

Weekend

I have been getting ready for the surgery coming up this Thursday. I started a computer class this past week as well. Poker for the weekend as been fun. Working out at Club 24 and my weight loss journey. I went in on Thursday to start all of the pre-op and finished up on Friday. I am ready to go and it will take three weeks for the foot to be ready for some walking or at least weight bearing. Since this will be the right foot I will be unable to drive so that will make everything very interesting. Considering I am still trying to get employed and must put in my job applications. Now, even though I can't walk doesn't mean I can't look for work. It just means I will be on crutches. One of the items I am doing at worksource in conjunction with our community college is computer classes. I have two that I will be doing and one of them I started this past week. It is the class on Windows 7. It is basic information but since I have never gone through it I want to make sure all of the computer stuff is taken care of before I start taking more classes in this. The next one is on the computer concepts. I started a class a few years ago for the C+ class and it looks something like that. I just want to get through these. Not being able to drive for three weeks will slow me down definitely. I played in two tournaments this weekend. The first one was Saturday night at a pub and it was fun. There were about 24 players and in that situation we all had to take our turn in dealing. I didn't do well but it was fun to get out and play. I then played in the Free Roll on Sunday at the local casino and I got first place and a seat into the final tournament with a prize pool of $1000. That was important to get this seat and have the opportunity to win some money. I did win $50 for this tournament as well. That always helps the bankroll. I am still working out at Club 24 and I have gotten myself pretty tired. I have been doing the 3 miles on the treadmill and 8 miles on the Recumbent Bike. I haven't made it all of the way through the bike riding the last couple of days. I have been tired and just unable to finish. I have been at least getting my walking in on the treadmill. I don't know what my weight is right now since I have been staying away from any scales. I just don't want to know. The surgery will have me not exercising for at least three weeks so that will be interesting as well. I will have to make sure I don't gain weight just sitting around with my leg elevated. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $210

Politics

Three of the areas I truly stay away from are politics, religion and sexual behaviour. There are so many views and the arguments start when you get going into any of these topics. That is why I will stay away from them. Now that the election is done I hope to see all of the signs come down in a rather short time frame. Our lives will continue, and we must live within the parameters that we have. All of the new laws, new taxes, higher prices and what ever else is put upon us. I guess the two that have me stumped for the state of Washington is the new law for recreational use of pot. The other is the same sex marriage. I am not going to discuss the same sex marriage one since I don't want to and I don't have to. I am leaving that one alone. The other one is the recreational use of pot. I guess we can all now start our own farms and grow pot and then sell this to the recreational users. What does this do for all of those in jail having been put there for being in possesion? I do see that the state will make money by charging a 25% tax on growing, then a 25% tax on wholesaling and then a 25% tax on retail. Maybe the state found a way to make up the deficit. The other part of this is the fact that I am still unable to play online poker in my own house in this state. We have asked to be taxed and still nothing. Our lives are not important when it comes to smoking pot but the state wants to protect me from myself in spending my own money when playing a game that is a skill level game. I must say I do enjoy my time in the casinos and I don't mind playing the games there, but the games available are not what I would like to play with the bankroll that I use. You see, I don't use household money to play the games. This is my recreational money and I always hope it is growing to allow for bigger games. Plus being in a smaller town the casinos are not the tribal casinos that attract a lot of people. If there was a way to move to another state I would do it but I have a home here in Washington and that would make it hard to sell and move to another state just for poker alone. That does not sound reasonable. For now I must move forward in trying to find a job and taking classes to see if at 56 years old I can move into a new career. Can I get hired? We will see. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $180

Sunday Poker

I finally got out of the house and went down to play some poker. I entered the Freeroll event the Casino has going in the bar area. This is not connected to the poker room and is run a little differently. It doesn't matter it is still poker being played for some cash. First place is $50 and a seat into the final table at the end of nine weeks and they are playing for $500 prize pool. Today I made it to third place and walked away with a $25 gift card for the casino and if I play the $2-$4 limit game I could buy in for $20 and recieve $5 extra in chips. I am all over that since I will be in the black before I even started. When I finished with the tournament I did go into the casino and sit down at the $2-$4 game. During the short session I was able to get K10 and I ended up getting the high hand with a KxKxK on the board. Now if I could get the game to last a couple more hours I would get $50 for the High Hand. That didn't work out since the game only lasted about 30 minutes after that. My luck in not getting that HH. I did end up with a $5 positive. Overall the day was good. We have been working on the house and we got the tub out of the master bathroom and now I will turn towards working on the toilet, sink and floor. Since it is still a functioning bathroom I hate to completely tear it up since the money comes in slowly in trying to rebuild it. We are good at deconstruction and slow at construction. This week I have appointments with Worksource and have my orientation in the computer room for some classes. Putting in my three job applications per week is going alright. I have a hard time putting job applications in unless I know that I can really do the job and would like the job I am applying for. There are some who just put out applications just to get the no and I can't do that. Just doesn't feel right. So many things run through my mind for small businesses that I feel I could do myself. I need to just take the time and see if any of them would work. All of this takes $$ of course. I wish it were easier. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $180

Lost My Drive

I really need to get this thing in gear again. It has been a rough number of weeks trying to get myself back to playing and doing something. I have not played any live for a couple of weeks now. I have been letting my bankroll just sit until I have the right frame of mind to get back and play again. This unemployment thing has really got me second guessing myself. I don't mind trying to find a job but then all of the other stuff I have been doing at Worksource and now looks like school in January. I keep screaming I don't want a career at my age I just got out of that a few years ago. I really enjoyed watching the WSOP this week. I was rooting for Merson and he won. There was some good plays made by all of them. I was surprised that Balsinger made it so far but he really turned it on in the later stages. I was really surprised the Hungarian chose to go all in with that much of a chip stack unless he really felt Merson was not going to call him with the all in. I watched until about midnight and then had to go to bed. Wow, it went almost 12 hours til the end. I will have surgery in a couple of weeks and will not be able to get on my feet so that will be interesting as well. Wish I had online poker, that would help out while I am down. Crutches here I come again. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $150

WSOP Time

I can not believe it has been a week since I have blogged anything. I have been working on my unemployment issue and that is taking a lot of time. I did get to play the freeroll Sunday afternoon and bubbled the final table. I have four more weeks to try and win at the final table for the $1000 prize pool. Would really like to be a part of the final nine and play for that. We didn't have the Friday night home game this past week. We will see if we are able to keep the group together and maybe play this week. I am still working on building another octogon table for our living room and then we can play here and have some room. I am also hoping to get a live home game going as well. The big time sucker for me is doing all of the pre paperwork for trying to get trained in a new job. That means I will need to go to school again this coming January. I am not looking forward to this but if it means a job then I will do this again. I just hope someone would like to hire a near retirement age person. Have a fun week. My bankroll is up again the $20 per week. If I don't play then I guess it grows. I really would like to play soon. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $150

Weekend is Done

I played Friday night in the dealers home game. We have been able to keep the game alive and we have added a couple of people. We had 16 players this time. It was nice to see some of the players we have dealt to and they seem to be enjoying the time as well. I did not do well in the game this week as I did not make the final table. I did end up dealing to the table when it got down to the final seven. The tables only allow room for eight and when we get down to the seven it is nice to have someone come in and deal for the players. I also played in the Sunday freeroll down here at Joker's Casino. I did not do well in this one either. My straight was beat by a bigger straight on the river and then my QQ's got beat by A5 when a straight came on the river as well. Got to love it. I ended up getting paid today by Islands Casino for my last paycheck. I worked a whole week and they paid me for 8 hours. Just a little bit short of the hours I did work. Should have been around 24 hours but at least I got this. I am finally done with that part. Now I am waiting for my dealer license refund from the state. They said they were sending that out this week. Since I am off work now I will be having some surgery done in the middle of November. This has been needed for quite some time and I figure lets get it done before I get involved with something else. Now I am trying to complete the paperwork for unemployment and the dislocated worker program and hopefully I will get trained to do something else. I would like to get back to working with computers if I can manage some education to get some certifications and go from there. We will see what happens. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $130

Interview Time

I can not believe poker is taking a back seat at this moment. I have been busy this week doing other things like looking for work. I have been doing my two hours in the club every day and that wears me out. I weighed myself the other day and I am now down to 228. Remember last month I was down to 227 so getting back to that number is a big accomplishment. Loosing weight has become such a struggle for me and it really shouldn't. I do notice the inches coming off so maybe that is what is happening and I just don't see it that much. Right now playing poker is something I want to do but I need to keep the bankroll in tact and will use it to play a bigger game other than the $2-4 right now. Yes, playing is fun and enjoyable but I want to play in the games that give me a better chance of getting somewhere other than the small game. We have still been practicing the Omaha and 7 card stud game and they are fun. No where near going out and putting money on the line for them though. I went to an interview today and it was interesting. I had to complete a computer test in the 10 minute time frame. If I did this then I would go to the next step and get an interview. I made that with no problems. I won't find out if I have the job for at least a week. Customer Service position and it is only seasonal so that means I could get the job but only have it through Christmas and then be unemployed again. I really would prefer having a job that I could be happy with and stay awhile. I am still waiting for my final check from the Casino. They are over a week late now and I have left messages and no one is returning calls. I am starting to think the owner has stolen my paycheck and not only mine but others as well. I can't even get a call back from the WA State Gaming Commission on my license renewal. Not sure what to do next. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $110

My Tuesday

Sometimes days just don't go right and today was one of those days. The casino I was working for closed its doors on September 24 and that meant there were 100 of us out of work within a matter of 15 minutes. We as employees have been working through this and individually some have new jobs and others are still working on getting new employment. One of the items that we have been waiting for is the last paycheck. It was payday on October 10 and some of us still have not seen the final paycheck in our mailbox. I have been very patient in waiting but now it is getting to the point where I will need to do something. My options are to contact the L&I and see if they will be able to help me. My dealer license was to be renewed as of October 3 and since the casino was closed I asked the Washington Gaming Commission to return my money for the new license for the new year. Since there are no jobs in the area and I am not going to move I will no longer deal poker. That is now something in my past. I will continue to play poker since I enjoy the game. I found out today that since we were not notified as employees in a facility that had over 50 employees working that we are considered dislocated employees and have the benefit of unemployment and getting training for new positions. My problem is that I don't have enough hours until the casino posts the 3rd quarter hours and I am now waiting for that to happen. So, I have no unemployment coming in until he posts and no paycheck that should have been here before now. I am still waiting for the refund of the dealers license. As you can see it was a very bad day and I hope things will only get better as the days move forward. I really need something positive right now. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $110

More Poker

On Sunday I got up and started the day as usual. I got myself going and went to Club 24 to start the new week working out. I am looking at some Core exercises that I can do to see if I can tighten the abdominal muscles now. I know I am loosing inches and I have some areas, especially in the stomach area, that can use some additional work. Not sure if I should add this to my day of walking and biking or if I will take a couple of days and just do the core exercises by themselves. Could depend on the time involved and how I feel after the workout. In the late afternoon the casino, here in town, has a freeroll they are putting on for 10 weeks. Each week the winner gets $50 and then all of the winners will come back on the 10th week and play for the $1000 prize pool. I decided to play this tournament and came in 6th place. It was fun and there were not very many people playing. I am not sure why. This is being put on in the bar area and not by the poker room. Doesn't matter to me since I would like to win one of these to get myself to play in the final for the $1,000 prize. The poker room had a Omaha Hi/Lo $4-8 limit game going. I am really not ready to sit down in this game. After reading what Flushdraww had to say I am even more not sure whether I am going to get involved in the game at all. When you start to figure out what the possibilities of winning are and the pots I am not sure I want to even start. We still have a group that is playing and practicing Omaha and maybe that is where I will keep this for now and not get to anxious in moving to this game. My interest still lies with the limit games and since $2-4 is the only one that seems to be going right now near me I will continue to get the bankroll to grow. Hopefully today I will receive my paycheck from Islands Casino. This will be the last one since they closed their doors on September 24. The owner does have a Casino over in Longview area and I still want to visit and see that casino. He did take our chairs that we as dealers bought a few months back and he did say we could have them back if we came over to the casino. We really would like them back even if it is just for the principle of the thing of not letting him have them. I went online to the Washington State Gambling Commission site and found out my name is still active for dealing. I did ask the state to refund my money since my license wasn't due till the 3rd of October and the Casino was closed on the 24th of September. They said they would do that but then I see my name is still active. Maybe I should look for a dealing job somewhere. Not sure I want to since I would rather play than deal. Just not my dream job. I had fun for the year but I would rather play. I see one of the other dealers was looking at being a prop for a casino and that would be fun but I am not sure about the bankroll aspect of doing that. It is time for me to get this day started and will get over to the Club for day 2 of this new week. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $110

Busy Friday

The afternoon and evening were busy for me. I did get to the club and I did my workout. No issues with that as I finished in my alotted times. I must say I do feel better when it gets done. This was my 6th day in a row and I am taking today off. I have to let my body rest at least one day. I did a total of 18 miles of walking and 48 miles of bike riding for the week. Not bad for an old man. The dinner with my Dad went well. I had the Kibolsa with sauerkraut and he had the BBQ Beef on a bun. I was glad to have chosen the other as that would have been a little too much bread for me. The portion sizes were perfect. I told dad that this is the way I should be eating anyway. I was not left being hungry when I was done. They also brought in a christian singer which was nice but I was having a hard time because I was thinking of Mom the whole time. She would have loved the music and the fact we were together eating dinner. I know Dad is having issues as well but the way we deal with issues is not deal with it and not talk about it. It still really hurts not having her around but I also have to remember we lost her awhile back to Alzheimers and she was not the same person for a couple of years. Still I miss her and her smile. Love you Mom. The only thing left to do was to go to the home game and play some poker. We had a nice get together with more dealers tonight and we started playing the home game. I again was able to get to the final table and chop the pot with five of us and I got $40 to put on my bankroll. A few of us stayed later in the evening and started to play .5 - .10 Omaha Hi/Lo. This allowed me to play cheap and see hands to see how I would play since I had all of the practice during the week. It didn't go very well for me. We each started with $5 and I ended the night down $3. At least I am now seeing hands and watching the better players playing the hands. I hate two pair. I got myself looking for the high cards and should have been looking for the lows. I figure some more practice and I may get this game. Overall it was a good night and it was nice to get my bankroll back up. Have a fun day..... Bankroll = $90

Thursday Play

My workout this week is going good. I have now gone five days in a row working on the treadmill for three miles and then the recumbent bike for eight miles. I am working on my interval times with each of them and I am looking at the 1/2 mile increments. As long as I end up with the proper time how I get there is not an issue. So, the total amount of miles right now is eleven miles. It is taking me 1 1/2 hours in the gym. Since I am not working I am now arriving at Club 24 at 1PM and out by 3PM. This gives me time to get home, make dinner, go to the casino if I am scheduled to play. Hopefully my weight loss will be better than last month when I do finally weigh in. I am scheduled to visit another Doctor in a couple of weeks. This could involve foot surgery. This will have a great impact on my exercising for a small amount of time. I know I must get this done and this is the best time to do this before I start to look for another job. I did go down to Jokers to play in the $2-4 limit game and I started out with the $20 buy in like I had planned. We had been playing for about 15 minutes and I had my stack built up to $45. My goal is to get a double up and then stop playing. This time I let greed get in the way of what my goal was. I continued to sit there and play and I got upset with the guy to my right playing every pot. I knew he was new to the game or at least he acted like it. I walked right into that mindset and before you knew it I had given all of the profit as well as the buy in back to the table. At least I had the right mind to get up and walk out. I was not going to play more than the $20 I was putting up for the night. I hope I learned something from this. My issue is when do I walk away from the table? I don't like the person who hits and runs. I don't want to be that person but I also want to maintain my bankroll and keep building it to be able to play in the bigger games. My next opportunity will be next Monday to play in this game again. At that time I can add another $20 back to my bankroll. Tonight I am going to have dinner with my Dad at the Assisted Living Home he is at. He talks about the food not being good but then when I go and eat they tend to do well. I do believe him though since institutional food is not the best stuff to eat. Well, I am off to the Club and time to get my workout going. Looking forward to tomorrow when I will take the day off. Have a fun day...... Bankroll = $70.00

Wednesday

After last evening I was ready to get to the casino and play another evening of $2-4 limit poker. My day got started at noon today going to a friends house to practice playing Omaha Hi/Lo. I have been doing my study and now it is time to put in some practice sessions. I first stopped by my favorite wings place in town and picked up some Hot Wingz. We practiced Omaha and 7 card stud for a total of three hours. It didn't seem that long but when you enjoy playing the time does move fast. It was a good session and now I understand what I am looking for in the hands. Being patient and playing the top quality hands will be very important for me. We will practice again on Thursday. I then went to Club 24 to do my workout. It would have been easy for me to say lets wait till tomorrow but I don't like to take the time off since I want to lose this weight and get myself prepared to run a 5K at some point. I also feel better when I get to the club and start my workout. It just makes me feel good to do the time. This meant of course that I missed the evening $2-4 limit game. The next time I can play will be Thursday evening. Wednesday evening is the Omha Hi/Lo $3-6 limit and I am not ready for that. I would still like a bigger bankroll before I start. Have a fun day.... Bankroll = $90

Bankroll Time

I really needed to start off well with the first live game of the week. As I said yesterday I will use $100 as seed money for the bankroll. I will only use $20 per week to start and once that is gone I will have to wait till the next week to play again. When I started this same project over a year ago it went well from day one and I could only hope I could do this again. I sat down at the table with my $20 and started playing some hands I knew I shouldn't be involved with. Sometimes I will chase cards and that is not something I need to do. Old habits are hard to break sometimes. Learning pot odds and the percentages of cards showing up has been a hard one for me but having spent a year dealing and watching a lot of flops, turns and rivers I have some sense of reading and knowing when to play the cards. At least something good has come from the year of dealing. When my chipstack got to $10 I then realized what I was doing. I needed to be more conservative and wait for the hands that I needed. By that time I was down to $10 and would I have enough when the time came to play. I understand all of the player types at the table and they are playing loose passive. I needed to be patient. I did get a good hand in the big blind and played it for the straight and was able to get $20 in the pot. After that I got KK's and was able to add another $30 to my chipstack. I then was able to wait for good hands as I was over the $20 I was hoping for this evening. If I can double my buy in I am very happy. After an hour went by my chipstack was at $90 and I was finished for the evening. Tonight my bankroll is on track and is started. My plan is to play Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evening in the $2-4 limit game. Get the bankroll up and then possibly play in the tournaments. I played in the tournament after the cash game and did not place. Tournaments for me are what I call money suckers and I loose more playing them and not cashing to replinish the bankroll. I really like playing them but would rather play a deepstack type of tournament than the $5 lottery type. Lately I have been studying the Omaha Hi/Lo game and will be working with a couple of people to get ready for the live play. There is a $3-6 limit game I would like to get into but I want to be ready with my bankroll before I start playing. Playing online is an option but is illegal in the state of Washington and the only thing I could do is play the free money games. At least I would be able to see hands and practice. Have a fun day......

Slow Weekend

The weekend is finally done. This was the first weekend in a year I have not worked. It was a strange feeling not having something to do at all times. On Friday evening I did play poker in a home game. It was fun to sit down with the dealers again and with some of our friends. We chopped the prize pool at five players and we each got $30 for our efforts. I must welcome Flushdraww and giving me a shoutout on your blog. I am always looking for people that are trying to make it in poker and talking about how they are doing. I did not go to Club 24 on Saturday. I am going to take at least one day off maybe two during the week. This meant I was at the club on Sunday doing my workout. I was really sore in the feet and shin area and did not meet my time intervals until the end. On the recumbent bike I took it a little slower and that meant my workout lasted longer. That was fine with me. I made enchiladas on Saturday and now have enough for a few days as leftovers. My nutrition status over the weekend was not good. I ate a lot of junk food and that made me feel sort of down and heavy. I know how to solve that. I will be playing a tournament tonight and I am unsure whether I will play in the live game before. I have been studying the Hi/Lo Omaha game and would like to build a bankroll and see how I do with that. Tomorrow a couple of us will be getting together to discuss Omaha and how to play strategy and play the cards profitably. I would like to give myself the best chance to win and get my bankroll going again. Over this last year I had my bankroll up to $2500 and then we had issues with our heat pump going out during the summer and then our car had issues with oil and the radiator. It took a lot of the bankroll but at least we had the money to pay for these items. It just means I will have to work at it again. I plan on starting out small again like I did a year ago with $100 and play it up from there. I was playing $1-6 Spread limit at that time and now will have to work with $2-4 limit and see what I can do. We will see how I do tonight. I was able to watch some of the NASCAR race on Sunday and that was interesting to see the wreck at the end. At least Jeff Gordon made it through and he is now 5th in the Chase standings. The Seahawks are looking good so that is nice to see. I don't like them playing my Rams though. It is hard with my two favorite teams in the same division. I have been a Rams fan since the 60's so my allegiance stays with them. Have a fun day......

New Goals

Things are always changing around here. I have had a very good week and now that it is Friday I am ready for the weekend. I am going to take it easy and basically try not to do anything. This will be the first weekend in almost a year that I have been off. When you work in a casino or any retail establishment there is no time to take off. My weight loss efforts are still in full swing. After seeing my weight go up by three pounds for the month of September I am now more focused and determined to lose the weight. I have been setting new goals for myself and will be working hard to achieve them. My workout still consists of working on the treadmill and the recumbent bike. I am very comfortable with those two pieces of equipment and feel I can get the workout I need to lose this weight and build stamina. I am now walking three miles per day and riding the bike for eight miles. My new goals are to walk a 20 minute mile. Today was my first day to look at the numbers and see where I am at with these times. My first mile was +35 seconds. The check at 1 1/2 miles had me at -15 seconds. When I reached mile number two I was at -1:10 and that was looking good. My 2 1/2 mile was at -2:20 and the final third mile was a -3:45 under the total time of sixty minutes. I will adjust this as I go since I want to eventually get to jogging. My goal is to run a 5K. The recumbent bike is a little bit different. I am doing the eight miles and have set my goal to be at 4:15 per mile. I did reach that goal today so this will give me something to work on. My goal is to maybe do a bike race at some point. You see I said maybe. This past week I have been playing in tournaments around the area in the local casino's. I would prefer a live game but at the level I want to play there is none around here at this time. I have been getting to the final table but not cashing in the tournaments. I tried playing in a Hi/Lo Omaha $3/6 limit game the other night and it wasn't a pretty site. I will have to study that game a little bit before I try that again. Now that my poker dealing license has expired I will not be dealing again. There are no jobs in the area and I am not interested in moving away from here to get a job in a casino. I will see if I can find something else to do with my time. I was able to watch Phil Hellmuth win his 13th WSOP bracelet. It was the WSOPE main event and he was a different person playing from what I have seen before. It was nice to see him win the bracelet and I really don't think anybody will be able to catch him in the bracelet count. The St. Louis Rams did well last night. Now, I understand it wasn't a game you really wanted to watch and both teams were not spot on but for me a win in the W column is still a win. They have now beat two teams in their division and that is a good thing. Have a good day.....

Weight Loss Journey

My weight loss efforts continue to move forward. After the casino closed down and feeling the after affects from this I must continue on with my plan. This is the first of October and I put myself on the scale to see where I am at in the new month. I did not like what I saw. I have gained three pounds and I am at 230 pounds now. I am not happy about this. I worked my butt off and I gained weight. I changed my eating and I gained weight. I am at a loss right now in what I am trying to achieve. After losing the job I didn’t just sit around and eat junk food. I still had my nutrition shakes and snack bars. I ate dinner but still that should not have made me go backwards. I guess I will need to work harder now if I want to achieve my goal. I am still not sure what I am going to do about work. This month is the end of my three months with Club 24. I will need to carry on by myself and keep myself motivated. I talked with my sister and she thinks I should run a 5K. One of my dealer friends mentioned running in a marathon as well. If I do this it would be a big milestone for me. Maybe I should set my eyes on a new goal and see where it will take me. I am still doing the 7.5 miles on the RBike and the 2.5 miles on the treadmill. Maybe it is time to increase each by a half mile and start pushing myself a little bit more. I have the time.

Poker

I am having a hard time right now accepting what happened to myself and all the casino employees. We had heard rumors for a long time but after some time goes by you just figure it isn’t going to happen. I always said I would ride this horse till the horse was gone. Now that it has happened I am still not ready for this. I have been trying to keep myself busy this week by playing tournaments but will eventually need to do something else with my time. One door closes and another opens and I need to keep an open mind at what will come next. I have been playing at Joker’s Casino and will probably continue with them playing live and some tournaments. I played a couple of days at the Crazy Moose Casino and I doubt I will be going back. I even played at the Lucky Bridge Casino and I definitely will not be going back to that Casino. I will be spending time at Club 24 earlier in the day and that is about the only plans I have at this moment. The dealers all got together last night and we had a potluck type dinner and we spent time talking with each other. Finding out what each person is going to do and just overall catching up with each other. We laughed and played a tournament into the evening. Everyone will be missed. I talked to one of the dealers and I explained to him I was having a hard time with this and he said he understood. I told him that when I left my job with the Hospital I didn’t feel like this. He said that the reason for these feelings is because this time it was a job you loved doing. I really did enjoy myself and every morning I would get up and go into the casino early because I wanted to not because I had to. I hope I can find another job like this one. It wasn’t the money it was the people that I was around that made my job enjoyable. Have a fun day…..

What to do?

Today has been a rough one for me. I didn’t sleep very well last night. I got up this morning and was unsure of what to do with my day. I got a call from the poker manager and we go and pick up another dealer and head off to the casino to see if we can pick up the remainder of our stuff that was left behind yesterday. Walking into the casino was different. All of the tables were gone as the owner was cleaning out everything. Not much was left and it became so real to me that it was over. The question remains is he going to open up in another location? I personally don’t see it happening. It looks as if my time working in a casino is over and I will need to accept this and move on to trying to get another job. I did file for unemployment today and will see if I will be accepted and what I will need to do. The big question now is what am I going to do? Where will I end up? I was able to work for a year and it felt good to do something and feel like I was being productive. I did not go to the gym today. I just didn’t feel motivated to go and work out. I probably should have and maybe get rid of some energy. I did go and play some poker at Joker’s Casino in town here. When I got there I found one of the dealers I had worked with waiting for a game to begin. I joined him and after some time went by we had two more Island employees join us. We ended up having fun playing together again. Maybe we can get a few more of the regulars over to start a game at Jokers. We played $2-$4 limit for a little while. I will need to adjust my game to the new limit. Playing $2-$6 and $2-$10 is just a little bit different. We then played in their tournament with 21 players. I ended up in 5th place and bubbled the cash. I already miss the Island players. Tonight I am going to get some sleep and then tomorrow it is a new day. I will play in a tournament at Crazy Moose Casino and then I will need to get to the gym and get my butt in gear.

Goodbye

I arrived at work today and started preparing the room for the poker players. Everything was normal and the routine of preparations was going well. We did not have a lot of players start out with us today but we did get a live game going before the tournament. Since we didn’t need all the dealers I was able to play in the tournament today. Little did I know that this would be our last tournament. Once we were done we started up the live game again. We were waiting for the 1pm tournament to get started and at 12:45 it happened. It didn’t take long once he walked into the building. In a matter of fifteen minutes the casino was closed. All the players were ushered out and the doors were locked. We helped move the chips to the cage and my time with Islands Casino was over. Will they open somewhere else or will they be gone for good? No one knows for sure. I really appreciate the poker manager giving me the opportunity to deal poker and learn something new. I gave up on myself twice when I started a year ago and he wouldn’t let me quit. He saw something I didn’t see in myself and that was the willingness to learn and to keep at it and not quit. I also gained a new family of friends and wish everyone good luck in whatever happens. For me I will now turn my energies toward my weight loss goals and finding a new place to play poker. I will miss everyone and that includes our players who played with us every day. Thanks for all the memories.

Weight Loss Journey

After one day off and not being able to work out I went into the club and started riding the recumbent bike and treadmill. I find it a struggle and start to wonder if having that time off really is worth it. It was just one day. I have to think back and Tuesday was Revolutions and Wednesday was the semi-private class. On both days I warmed up by walking on the treadmill. Saturday I get up and weighed myself and I am surprised that I am up in weight. I tend to go in a three pound window, and then lose one pound, and then I am back into that window of three pounds. I wish it was easier. Maybe if I just gave up eating all together it would go faster. I know that won’t work. Keep with the program. Today is going to be a big day at the Casino and I will see if I can get to Club 24 before the end of the day. I ended up being done at 3pm at the casino so headed over to start my workout. Spending the time allows me to think about the day and what has taken place. I am starting to enjoy the time working out thinking about things that have come up during the day. I start out on the treadmill and by the time I have walked 2.5 miles it has been 45 minutes. I get off and then go right over to the recumbent bike to ride the 7.5 miles. It will take me about 35 minutes to get this done. I will sometimes get to thinking about being tired of working out and then will have to work on my mental attitude and I think about my goals and even my little goals of watching the calories. I have to remember this is a long term plan to get this weight off. The evening time was taken up by going to a program and hearing the story from the person who rode his bike across America. It was interesting and this person is the one that gave me inspiration to do what I am doing today. Now it is time to get ready for tomorrow and another workout is coming up.

Poker Play

On Thursday we had the poker league and I really needed to play well and gain some ground on the other players before they are out of reach. I started out well and was collecting chips. In fact I was chip leader for awhile. We play for six rounds at fifteen minutes each and at the end we count up the chips to see who is in each place and then we give points to each spot. We have eleven players and today I got eight points. I will need to have some good outings to catch the leader in the next three sessions. In the last twenty minutes of the game I went card dead and I tried to keep things going and I ended up losing all my chips and went out in 4th place. That is the eight points for the week. I played some live tonight and did not do well. The evening tournament went the same way. I played K2 and the flop comes AKK. I go all in and was called by a person with K8. The eight played and I was out of the tournament. Not a good day overall for playing cards. Now I begin my work week and will not play much until this next Wednesday when the deepstack tournament takes place again. Have a fun day….

Deepstack Tournament

I was so prepared to sit down and play in the deepstack this week. Mentally I was ready to do battle and use my chips as soldiers and have them go too battle for me. Physically I was ready as I have been working out and being able to stand the amount of hours it would take to reach my goal of the final table and cash again. Once you get a taste of being there you want to get back again. I sat down with T$20,000 in chips and I always start tournaments playing tight. No sense getting involved too early for the very little in chips you can win. In the first hour I played one big hand when I had pocket jacks. When the flop came out it was xJx. The player in seat nine started betting and I would re-raise. I didn’t want to see anything that would beat me like a flush or straight. On the turn came another blank card and he bet T$6,000 and I re-raised the pot to T$12,000. Basically I was willing to put my tournament life on the line for the set of jacks I was holding. The player in seat 9 did fold his hand and we didn’t have to see the river card. My set of jacks were beating his pocket Aces. That was why he was pushing so much. I am not sure what I would have done if the jack didn’t show up on the flop. After that I was patient and would remain around the T$35,000 chip area. During the second hour it would remain the same. We were still at four tables and the blinds were moving up every twenty minutes. It was during the third hour that I must have lost focus or I had a mental lapse. There was one player at the table I was trying not to play against since he is a friend of the person I had words with last week. I was not going to back down from him and this one cost me dearly. I had QJ and the flop came out xJx. The turn was a K. This is where I should have laid my hand down. I was being stubborn and felt I was still ahead of him. He bet and I completed the bet. I think he was being stubborn as well and didn’t want to give up on his hand. The river came off and he bet and I called. He told me good call and I thought I might be good and then I show the QJ and he shows the KQ. That hurt my stack and soon after I put my last T$6,000 on K10 and lost to a flush. I didn’t make it as far as I wanted but I do need to stop playing against those I want to get even with. I need to let the cards do the talking for me. I felt my bet sizing was good and I did play appropriately until I got caught up in the mental game with the other player. Have a fun day……

Weight Loss Journey

I am now caught up with the weight loss journey. A lot has taken place this week. My workout schedule is now 7.5 miles with a resistance of 8 on the recumbent bike and 2.5 miles on the treadmill with an incline of 1 and at 3.3-3.5 mph. This is taking me about an hour and a half to complete. I was not sure if I would be doing revolutions again because of my schedule. On Sunday while I was there I saw a sign about a 4:30pm class being offered. This very much fits my schedule and on Monday I told them I was interested. My plan is to do revolutions on Tuesday and the semi-private class on Wednesday at 5pm. On the other days I will continue my bike and treadmill workout. I had my visit with my physician and he was surprised and very happy with my progress. My A1c was at 6.6 and he said definitely we can change the insulin pump delivery. We made some changes and I will be in contact with his office on a weekly basis to see if we need to make more changes. My nutrition is still going well. I am drinking a shake in the morning and one at noon. Making sure the calories and my carbs are being met. If I need additional carbs or calories I have a snack bar that I can eat. I will eat one meal a day and that will be the evening meal. I will try to keep that simple and easy and still within my nutritional needs. Right now my motivation is pretty high. After the visit with the physician and the director of Club 24 I am ready to keep the weight loss push going. The revolutions class was very hard for me. We did six different exercises one minute each and then a one minute rest. This was done five times. It felt good to get done and know we accomplished our goal for the day. On Wednesday I had the semi-private training session and the trainer helped me make sure I did my exercises correctly with good form. It was nice to have someone there watching me and make sure I was doing them correctly. I felt like I had another strong workout and felt very good afterwards. This next week I may have a bump in the road as I am still on Jury Duty and will need to call in on Friday to see if I need to report this next week. Have a good week and make your workouts fun…..

Weight Loss Journey

We are now in the first part of September with my weight loss plan. During this time due to my schedule at work I have had to stop going to Revolutions class. That doesn’t mean I have given up on my goals it just means I have to work harder now to achieve what I want. My visit with my doctor comes in a few more weeks and we will see what he says about my weight loss. I have found that I am very tired. I am very sore every morning when I get up. I am sore when I get out of the dealers box when dealing poker and very sore when sitting for any length of time. I guess sore is good since I am actually doing something. My nutrition has gotten better as well. I am not eating as much and with the new drink I am having in the morning and the one I have at noon I am doing well. In the evening I have a dinner and am finding I am not eating as much as I used too. Certain things, I am finding, I am not hungry for anymore. My routine for exercise at this time is 6 to 7 days per week. I am doing 7.5 miles on the recumbent bike and 2.5 miles on the treadmill. It is a really good workout for me and lasting about 1.5 hours. My heart rate and my blood pressure have been in the normal range. My blood sugars are in the low normal range as well. This is why I am anxious to visit my doctor and see if we can lower the insulin I am using. My weight at this time is now at 227 pounds. I have finally reached the 20’s where I have not been in a long time. My clothes are starting to feel big on me and soon I will be forced to go shopping. I am really thankful for Club 24 and the equipment available for me to use to be able to keep working out and then I can reach my goals.

Live Play

Thursday night is the one night I can play four to six hours of live play. It works into my schedule and I have done well that night. Our poker manager has moved a tournament, and if you play two hours of live before the event you are in the tournament. The live play actually started at 4PM and I sat down to get some playing time in. We actually had this live game go for three hours and we ended up with two tables. One was a $2-$6 Spread game and ours was a $2-$10 Spread Kill game. It was interesting and fun playing the three hours. I ended the session up $80 and was able to go home early. I was getting some good cards throughout this session. On Friday I didn’t play any cards as I had to take my dad to the doctors and get some other stuff done before I started my work week on Saturday. It seems like I just get done on Wednesday dealing and then the weekend comes real fast and I am off at it again. I am working on my weight loss and making sure I am getting my time in as well. Let’s hope for a good week on the Island and in paradise. Have a fun day…..

Weight Loss Journey

In this blog I am going to write about what happened during the last half of August. Just a couple more and I will be caught up with the weight loss journey. I have been having issues with my mental attitude. It is coming from not losing weight fast enough or the fact that I have one night where I eat something and I gain a pound or two back. It gets frustrating for me. Somehow I need to get my mental part of me going again. Since I have a problem with time working out, I haven’t done anything with the revolutions class. I have been working out five to six days a week on the treadmill and recumbent bike. I don’t know if this is enough to get me to my goal or if the revolutions workout is where I should be. Club24 does have other workouts available and that might be what I need to look at as well. I decided to try something new with my workouts. I was doing 30 minutes on the treadmill at 3mph with an incline of one. On the Recumbent bike I was doing the 30 minutes at the resistance of eight. I would do this every day. I needed to set mini goals for myself to keep me going so I would watch the calorie counter and would make sure I hit a certain number before I stopped. This would also increase the time I was walking and riding the bike. I then added the mileage to my goal. I would now set two miles plus the calorie number in my mind as the goal to hit before I stopped. I did the same with the recumbent bike and I would get myself to six miles and the calories had to be over the 200 number. This helped me get back on track and excited when I would reach these goals. I did have one day where I was starting to fall asleep on the bike. My blood sugars got too low and I stopped my work out and went and ate some food. I can tell when I might get myself in trouble and am aware of when I should back off on what I am doing. I will see my physician in a couple of weeks to see if I might be able to decrease the insulin pump and keep at my goal of getting rid of it completely. One item we did find out for next year is that our health care reimbursement allowance will be cut in half. One big reason for me pushing for weight loss and getting myself off of the insulin. That would save us a lot of money. My nutrition has been changing. I decided to join a company that has a weight loss plan and I am going to try this to see if it works for me. I am finding myself naturally not as hungry or wanting to eat the foods I ate a lot of. Now I have my workout with Club24 and I am happy with my routine, and now that I have added the nutrition part I hope to see some better results. Now that it is at the end of August my weight is at 230 pounds. I have lost a total of 13 pounds since May. I also went on a shopping trip to try on some new clothes. I am so close to dropping a size in my pants and my shirts. Maybe next month I will be able to purchase some new clothes. I am anxious to see the weight drop into the 20’s. I feel better and hoping I am looking better as well.

Poker Battlefield

Playing in the deepstack tournament has become a battlefield for me. I enjoy the competition and I have to make sure I am mentally ready to sit the four to six hours it will take to play in this game. I sat down at the table and across from me was the person who said something about me and my play when I first played the deepstack months ago. Now, I don’t hold grudges but seeing him again brought back the memory and I feel I have grown as a poker player since then. I also knew I would have to be at my best against him. We did get involved in a couple of hands together. One of them I called down and gave him a lot of chips with Ace high just to see what he was playing. He didn’t have to turn over a lot of his cards and I wanted to see what he was doing. It cost me but I still achieved what I wanted to see. Again like last time he says something about my play and we have some words going between us. I am not going to back down from this bully at the table. The next one I had J9, and was in the blinds, and he raises me. I then call and we see the flop of 10J10. I put in a bet and he raises and I put in all of my chips. He calls and turns over the A10. Ok, I guess I lose this battle again. The turn brings the J and the river is an A. My full house beats his. I feel better getting some of my chips back and especially coming from him. After that we didn’t play against each other again. He stayed out of my pots and I stayed away from him. When our table broke I was moved to the main table and he was on the other table. I felt a little burst of energy to keep working and moving on in the tournament. I made it to 13th place and felt good about my play. One more good hand and it would have gotten me to the final table but on this night it wasn’t to be. I have a book about the Art of War on poker and maybe I need to bring it down off of the shelf and start reading it. It could help in the mental aspects of the game. One of the things I have not done in poker is wear sunglasses. I am not sure how I feel about it since it does make everything darker but I can see the advantage of watching players and them not knowing what you are looking at. I would like to find some and try them out in a tournament to see how I would do. I know I don’t like to listen to music while playing since it distracts me from listening to the conversations around me. I now have two days off and will try to get some stuff done around the house before I head off to work out at the club and then off I go to play some more poker. Have a fun day…..

Let's be Happy

I have gotten myself into one of those lows playing live poker. It has mostly been the $2-$6 spread game. I need to stay away from the game and just play the $2-$10 right now. I had to take my dad to get some blood work done the other day. The office opened up at 8am and we got there at 8:05 and the room was filled with people waiting for their blood draws. There was a bench outside in the hallway and that is where we sat and waited. During the time I was out there, one of the therapists from the clinic down the hall, walked by and she recognized me and asked if I was Steve? I answered in the positive and she went on to tell me I looked really good and that I looked like I was happy. Getting away from a very stressful job has been good to me. I am working on my weight and playing and working in the casino and that has been fun and good for me. There are always other stresses that come up but nothing like working with a company that doesn’t care for their employees. They seem to always enjoy putting you down and they are ready to kick your butt out the door on a whim. Anyway, it was nice to talk with her for a few minutes. We had a person get very upset today with a floor call I had to make. He ended up making a threat even though I don’t think he meant it to be that way. He did say it and that is not good. He was led out of the casino and I hope not to see him again. Some people take the game so seriously that they don’t think before they speak. I always hope the calls I make as a floor person are the correct calls. Sometimes it is just easier to deal the game and not put up with the other stuff. I guess that is what makes the job interesting. You have to remember it is just a game and especially when you are paying $2 to buy in for a $100 prize pool. Get a grip. Have a fun day…….

Weight Loss Journey

I am now into August on my weight loss journey with Club24. I am very happy that I made this decision to work out here. I enjoy the people and I don’t feel like I am lost in a sea of humanity. I am a person and not just a number. My beginning weight for the month is 234 pounds. I am looking forward to be in the 220’s and that will be my September goal for sure. My motivation is still very high as I watch the show “Extreme Makeover.” They are working for a year to lose weight and I can do the same. I have to remember this is a journey. I am now moving my belt down a notch and that makes me feel better as that means inches are coming off. My co-workers are noticing a change as well. I had my meeting with the Diabetic Learning Center and the counselor has given me some ideas on what I can eat. She also gave me ideas about meal replacement shakes that will work with my diabetes. This means I can drink something in between dealing poker during the day. I can then have a snack before working out in the afternoon. The revolutions class is going well with one exception. I am having issues with my lower back in some of the exercises. The trainer and I talked about it and he has me doing some modified exercises during the routine. It is nice to have someone watching and willing to help when things aren’t going well and you can make changes to the program right away for yourself. I also noticed on the show “Extreme Makeover” they talked about the hours that need to be put in to achieve the weight goals. I decided to try and work out seven hours per week instead of the five hours I am doing now. I added a Saturday and Sunday session. I also tried working out for an hour before revolutions and then the hour of revolutions. I am not sure I can keep that schedule going. I keep trying changes to my schedule to get the best times and the amount of hours I need to keep the weight loss going. I have also added to my morning routine taking my blood pressure and heart rate and writing them into my journal. Yes, I am keeping a journal of my meals, heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugars and the exercises I have done for the day as well as my thoughts on how I am feeling and how my day is going. If I need information about a certain day it makes it easier to find it by going to the journal. I have been at this since May and I do feel better. I feel better about myself as well. Club24 is going to get me where I want to be.

Wednesday Deepstack 9-5

Here it is Wednesday and it is time to play the Deepstack tournament. Playing in this one means a lot to me as it is the tune up to play in the Wildhorse events. I know this is only three to four tables but some of the players also play at the Wildhorse Round-ups and it is a good test of my skills. We start with three tables and ours is short handed as some of the players are still eating and not at the table. I remain at the starting stack for quite some time. I got to the first break and was around the T$20,000 starting stack level. When I got to the second break, which was new for me, I was still around the mid T$20,000 to T$30,000 area. I was moving slowly but still in this tournament. Lately I have been lasting until the mid part of the tournament and was very happy to get to the final table. Now that I have reached this level it was important to me to cash. My eye was on the top three spots. I figured at some point the table would propose some sort of cash to the lower places. When we got to six players there was a proposal to give some money to the 4th through 6th place and the chip leader did not want to do this. We continued on playing. I continued to play my cards and be patient with what I needed to accomplish. I needed to stay away from the all in and only get involved if I knew I had the top cards. We made it to five players and the chip leader still would not give any money to that place. When we made it to four players he finally agreed to give $75 to 4th place. Once that person went out I was excited to get to the top three players and knew I could open up my game a little bit more and see what would happen. I made it to heads up and now was looking at a better payout. My final hand was A7 and I went all in. I was called and he turned over Q8. The flop comes xQA. The turn was the 8 and the river was an x. I took home $445 for the effort. I am very happy with my play during this tournament in that I didn’t give up and I felt I was mentally focused on the tables. This is my second largest cash playing poker and it felt good to get back to that feeling of playing well. In this tournament I learned that it is a battle between people sitting at the table. This is where strategies are played out and timing is critical. Your chips are your army and you have to move them at the right time. Have a fun day……

Poker Friday

Ready to play some more poker I went to the casino and signed up for the 1pm tournament. I was catching good cards and winning some pots. I made it to the final table and ended up cashing for $60. It was a good start for the day. Now I am waiting for the 3pm tournament which is a $500 prize pool. In this tournament there are re-buys for the first four rounds. I just need to be patient and wait till the re-buy period is over to start collecting chips. I try not to be very active in the early rounds unless I am catching some good playable cards. I was able to make it to the last two tables and was doing well until this following hand. I looked at my hand and I have KK. The player before me went all in for about T$1600 and I had a large stack so I went all in to isolate him. I ended up getting two more all-ins after me. They turned over Ax, A10, and AJ. I was surprised at the all-ins after me and now we get to see a flop. The flop came 534 and that was not a very good flop for me. The turn brought an x. I told the dealer that she better not bring a 2, and sure enough on the river came the 2. What a bad beat for me as I would have really been ready to go to the final table. After thinking about the hand I wouldn’t have played it any differently. The outcome just didn’t go my way. Have a fun day…..

Weight Loss Journey

I am going to put a few weeks together here and see if I can get caught up with my weight loss journey. At this time I am in the middle of July and I am moving from the Foundations class at Club24 to the Revolutions class. I was a little nervous about moving up to the more intense workouts. When I started with Club24 my weight was 243 pounds. At the end of July I am now at 234 pounds. I have lost 9 pounds in two months. I need to look at this as a positive and loosing slowly is probably better than loosing weight in a hurry. The schedule I have been on I have been spending Monday, Wednesday and Friday doing the treadmill for 30 minutes and then I would work on the recumbent bike for 30 minutes. On Tuesday and Thursday I would work out with the Revolutions class. This is five hours per week at Club24. My doctor told me that if I wasn’t sweating I wasn’t working out. I am really sweating through my workouts and I do feel better. I can tell I am loosing inches around my waist. I am now moving my belt in another notch. My main concern at this time is my blood sugars. Since I wear the pump I knew there would come a time I would need to make some changes. I visit my doctor again in September and I want this to be a surprise for him. My blood sugars are getting lower now to the point I really need to back off of the insulin. This works into my nutrition status. The director at Club24 asked me to visit the Diabetic Learning Center to make sure I was doing everything I needed to do and be sure I was eating correctly. The foods I am eating are questionable but I am changing my portion sizes and not eating in between meals. Most of the time I am not hungry. My motivation is still very high and I have had some days where I would tell myself I just don’t want to continue. Then when I get to club24 I start working out and I start to feel better and I am glad I am continuing on. During this time I did play at Wildhorse Casino in a tournament and I ended up having some blood sugar issues. I am sure it had to do with my nutrition. I will need to figure out some ways to eat better when I travel and play poker for periods of time. I contacted the DLC for some time with a counselor about nutrition. I think we can get this taken care of soon. I am hoping August will be a big month for me in this weight loss journey and my time with Club24.

Poker Thursday

I spent the morning completing projects at my desk. I will let everything sit until I get a couple of days off and I can then catch up. I am so far behind in reading my magazines. It becomes old news by the time I get around to them. After everything was done for the day I put all of my things together for the afternoon and headed out the door. I was going to play the 1pm tournament at the casino. I walked around the front of my pickup and noticed the truck was sitting awkward. I looked down at the front tire and it was flat. I called Les Schwab and they were able to come out to the house and put air into the tire so I could drive down to their shop and fix the flat. Thank goodness for warranties. Since I was unable to make the tournament I finished up some other projects in the house and then left to see my Dad. After our visit I headed over to Club24 and did my workout. It was then time to head on over to the casino and catch the 6pm tournament and then start my live play. As I walked into the casino I noticed there were not very many people in the poker area. They did have a live game starting up and I was able to get my seat and put my buy in of $100 on the table. The tournament was cancelled due to not having the people but the live game was in full swing. I started off nicely and was chipping up and the table was having fun talking and joking with each other. It was around 9pm and I was sitting on a chip stack well over $200. I started watching the time as I figured I could go home early tonight since I had met my goal of doubling my buy in. At 10pm I was ready to call it a night. I had spent 4 hours at the table and was able to maintain the chip stack at $200. I racked up the chips and headed out the door. It was a good night of poker and playing with people I knew made it even better. Have a fun day……

Poker news

The week has been rather slow in the casino for poker. We do have the usual people playing the tournaments in the morning and early afternoon. I am trying to stick to a schedule of playing tournament and live play. I am playing the deepstack on Wednesday night now and will play live on Thursday night. Friday will be open to play the afternoon tournament. I played last night in the deepstack. I went out of the tournament in 15th place. The player next to me was playing loose and I made a call of his all in and lost. What do you think of this play? I have Ks and Jc. We both enter the pot and the flop comes QcXcXc. I checked and the player goes all in for T$25,100 and I go ahead and call. I turn over my KJ looking for either a club for the flush or a straight. He turns over AJ with no flush possibility. He wins the pot with his Ace high at the end. The turn was an 8 and the river was the 9. I am getting to the area in the tournament where I need to make better decisions with my chip stack. It always comes down to one or two hands could make a difference in my outcome. Earlier in the day I did play in the 1pm tournament and was able to cash so the day was not a total letdown. Have a fun day…..

Weight Loss Journey

I started back with the foundations class on Tuesday and Thursday evening. I did this for three classes and then decided to jump into the revolutions class and begin the journey. The revolutions class is a little bit more intense in the workout. It does change on a weekly basis and you never know what is going to happen the next week when you arrive. I have also continued with my treadmill and recumbent bike the other three days of the week. The first week I started the class we did 45 seconds exercise and 15 second rests. We had a total of ten stations. I really struggled through this class and felt I took a step back from what I achieved with the foundations class. I had to tell myself that over a short amount of time this too will get easier for me. I am really feeling the workouts in my legs. Especially the next morning. Getting out of bed is real slow, but once I start moving it feels better. I also need to drink more water. Remembering my water bottle is hard when I load up my gym bag for the day. I also decided to change my bike routine. I started riding 10 minutes and will then take a one minute break for the 30 minute workout. I will see if this makes a difference and if I will keep it as my routine. The first week was a rough one for me. I am having a new problem with my blood sugars. I am now going lower than I want it to be. It is affecting my job as a poker dealer as well. This is not good and I really need nutrition help real soon. My legs for the week are very tired and I am looking forward to the weekend off.

Thursday

I look around me and I am in a very big house. There happen to be boxes all around so I figure we must be just moving in or we are moving out. I couldn’t tell either way. The walls are all wood panels, every room is the same with this paneling. It does make for a rather dark house. As I walked around the house it was nice. I came upon an area of the house that was different. I walked over to the area and touched the wall. The wall opened up and there was a room that was different than the rest. It was lighter inside this room. I walked into the area and found a person inside this little room. He greeted me and I asked what he was doing. He was the elevator guy. That is all he did was operate the elevator in this room. I figured that would be a boring job to have especially in this house. The door closed behind me and he pushed the button. We started moving and when we got to the top the door opened. I walked out of the elevator into this very big room. It was very clean and at first I didn’t see anybody. As I was moving around in the room I noticed a person walking around in a maid uniform. I looked at her and I recognized her. I said “Mom, what are you doing here?” She told me that she was cleaning the room. I told her that she didn’t have to do that anymore. I also told her there were people that would help her and it was time for her to rest. She told me that she wanted to keep busy. I looked around and noticed there were other rooms and there were people in them. They were moving around doing paperwork or other administrative type work. No one was paying any attention to us. Mom had her hair done and she looked very nice. As we were walking and talking in the room I told her that I loved her and she told me “I love you too”. I then woke up from my sleep and I could remember this dream very vividly. I love you Mom.

Poker Friday

On Friday I was able to play the customer appreciation tournament. The tournament was a $10 buy in for a chance at the $500 prize pool. If you have played during the week you are able to get in for $5. The last few weeks I have been able to get to the final table and cash and I would like to do it again. In a tournament you can expect to put your tournament life on the line a couple of times. You need to find the best spot and then you need to have some luck that the cards are good. Of course skill in playing the proper cards does help. My tournament life happened to be pocket jacks and I went ahead and went all in to get everyone out of the pot. I did get a caller and I got a J on the flop. I ended up getting another one on the river for quad J’s to survive my first all in and continue in the tournament. When I reached the final table I ended up going all in again and survived. My chip stack was growing nicely and was putting myself in position for another good run. When the final table reached five players someone made a proposal to chop the prize pool five ways and that everyone would receive $100 for their efforts. The proposal was accepted and everyone was happy. This has turned out to be a good week for me playing poker. Now I get to start my work week. Have a fun day……

Weight Loss Journey

Since I have settled on a routine for working out and trying to keep to a schedule, things are going better. I finally got through the cold symptoms. During this time I was asked if I would be interested in showing that a person could lose weight by sticking with a program at Club24 and especially the trials of working through this with the diabetes. As I have said before I wear an insulin pump so I have some areas that will need to be watched closely. I restarted the Foundations classes on Tuesday and Thursday and I continued working out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday doing the treadmill and the recumbent bike. I am now working out five days per week at one hour per day. I expected some changes to happen with my attitude for working out and of course changes with my body. The item that bothered me for awhile was my legs. They are very tired and I was having issues with my stamina. Doing the Club24 now for a month and a half, I could feel some relief in my legs and being able to do the workouts. Another issue was my lower back. Some of the exercises in foundation require squats and steps. I was now having a problem completing some of them. I would work through the pain and would stop when I needed to, and take a second or two and try to continue on. I am happy to say that I can get through all three sets of exercises and that itself is a big accomplishment for me. Nutrition is still an issue in that I am now seeing some Blood Sugar numbers lower than I am used to. I have been diligently working on my breakfast foods, lunch and dinner. I need to work on this part of the meals. My motivation continues to be strong and I have been watching “Extreme Makeover” on TV and seeing real people struggle through their weight loss efforts and knowing if they can do this I can to. I have been called “the little short fat kid” and it always made me aware of my weight. Doing something about this will help that become a memory and will be a nickname that will not be used anymore. With the stresses I have had I always go to my comfort foods which are nachos and popcorn and will sit in front of the TV and watch whatever is on so I wouldn’t have to think about the problems. I am working on changing items in my life to allow myself to handle these stresses with a clear mind and a better attitude.

Poker Week

I work in the gaming industry. I deal poker for one of the local casinos. I know this sounds crazy and it is something that if you read this blog you already know. My rant today is the fact that yes, we work for minimum wage and we also receive tips for the job we do. If we do well, and put the number of hands out per hour that we should, then our overall tips can be good in the end. Now with that said why is it that our customers should care about what I earn working for them at the table. I am well aware of customer service and the fact my tips come from our customers. I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt my earning power. In fact I would want to try and enhance that and get my tips to grow. There was a conversation at my table the other day about tips and what we earned. I have always been a private person when it comes to my financial dealings. This is my first experience with tips and the ability to change what I earn. I started getting upset with the discussion and with the players thinking we earned a lot of money. One person said a dealer could earn $8,000 per month. Not where I am at for sure. I guess in Las Vegas it might be possible. I really don’t know and I am not interested in moving there to find out. I am happy where I am at and with what I make. Couldn’t we all use more? I guess I need to say remember your dealers because if you didn’t have them you would have to deal your own game. I played in the deepstack tournament on Wednesday evening. We had three tables with a couple of alternates so we ended up with over 30 players. I started on table two and was able to stay there throughout my time playing. Last week I was able to get to 12th place and this week I made it to 13th. I was closer to the final table with more chips but in the end I played a couple of hands that I will have to think about and see if they could have been handled differently. Last night I played live and since the fair is going on in the community no one played the tournament so we had a couple of hours added to the live game. My session this week was six hours and when I walked away at midnight I was up $30 for my time. Not great but it was not a losing night. I started with my usual buy in and in fact I bought into the game for an additional buy in. I was not doing well at the beginning and I think I was playing too many hands and was treating this live game like a tournament. I need to be patient and start slowly instead of walking in and being very aggressive. This game was a $2-10 Spread Limit. I am getting used to this spread and between the $2-6 and $2-10 I am enjoying this one more. I did get the Monte Carlo for Quad Q’s for $20 and then the high hand for the night at $100. That did help my bottom line for the evening. Today I plan on playing in a couple of tournaments. Have a fun day……