Friday

What does it take to get good at what you want to do? Commitment? Time? I am trying to figure out how I can become better at what I enjoy doing. I started out playing home games with friends and then I moved to playing online and when that became an issue with our state and then our country I then moved to playing in the casino's. I have been playing at a number of casinos mainly in the low buy in tournaments. I have learned something about myself and that is playing in the short stack tournaments with the rounds at 10 minutes just isn't what I want to do. I want to play and develop into a player that is patient and will work a strategy in a game. I enjoy the 20 to 30 minute rounds and the chip stacks that start at T$10,000 and up. This gives a person time to study the table and to see what needs to be done to increase the chip stack. I have been reading and following the blog of "thedanplan" and where Dan is taking 10,000 hours to become a golf professional. I really believe he can achieve this by doing the hard work it is going to take. You will always have people telling you that you will not succeed but then they are unwilling to step out of the box and try to be happy in something they want to do. I have to continue to tell myself that if I put in the hours and the time that I can get better and play the game of poker like I know I can. Now you ask why this talk? Even though I have put in a lot of playing time and now I am dealing the game of poker in a casino I need to continue to achieve my goals. This last week I have put some time into thinking about the game and what I am going to do about getting better. I do read poker books, magazines and watch some live poker on the internet. Now it is time to put the work in. The time I spend dealing in poker is not going to change. What is going to change is the playing time. My plan right now is to play one deepstack tournament per week. It has to be at least T$10,000 in starting chips and has to be at 20 to 30 minutes for each round. Since I want to get better at the cash game as well I will be limiting my starting buy in per week and this will hopefully force me to be more patient. At this moment I do have a bankroll that has grown by what I do in poker and I need to continue to increase this bankroll to be able to play in the bigger tournaments. I am also writing my experiences in a notebook as well for each game I play. I need to be able to look back at the areas that I need to work on. Some of these will make it into the blog. It is time to put in the work and make this happen. Yes, it is fun but getting serious about it is also needed. Have a fun day......

Thursday

Seems like I have slowed down in blogging. I have been adding things into my schedule that it has been hurting some of the things I have done in the past. I am looking at starting a web site that would take in a little more than what I can do on here. Exercising on Tuesday and Thursday nights now. Things that just take up time. I have been playing some $2-$6 and $2-$10 spread. I am doing well with it and my bankroll would be going up except I have had to use some of it for other things we have needed. It is nice to have the ability to use the bankroll but of course the intention is to use it for poker only. We have some constant players at the casino we play with at the table and it is interesting to watch these players. We have a person who has changed his game to be more loose aggressive and that has matched up to another player who is loose aggressive as well. One of them is a psychologist and to watch him put pressure on someone for a pot is amazing. Of course he will do that to me and if I have the hand I will play it down. He does have a couple of tells and it has worked out for me. The other one I have watched enough now I think I have a tell on him as well. Now I will try them out and prove them wrong. If it works I can use them for awhile until they figure it out. I keep changing what I want to do with tournaments. I enjoy playing the live game but then again I enjoy the tournaments as well. I am thinking about playing one tournament per week and trying to find a deepstack that would be fun and something I can learn from. Playing the shortstack tournaments have not been fun for me and I tend to just get rid of chips early. We will see where this goes. Have a fun day.....

Sunday

This week has been busy for me. I deal poker on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and will try to play in the afternoon at the live table if I can. Sometimes I end up dealing the live table and that is alright as well. On Friday I visited my Dad and then went in to play the live $2-$6 spread game. I spent three hours playing and I walked away even. Where can you go and spend playing something you enjoy and walk away with the same amount of money you walked in with? Not many places I am sure. I am trying to be a better player and playing certain hands instead of my normal just have fun hands. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the opponent has and what he is trying to do while I am playing. Paying attention to the hands that I am not involved with as well. I did deal two Monte Carlo's back to back days and with one of them I dealt the Regressive Bad Beat. That was exciting since you don't get them very often. It is fun to see the faces and the reactions from the players. This past month I have let my bankroll slide down some and I need to get back to growing it up again. Paying some things that needed to be done. I did join the Club 24 fitness and am working out on Tuesday and Thursdays. Another reason for not hearing from me as often. I am so out of shape. This last session I was able to make it all the way through the 3 circuits. They say it does get better. I am walking in the morning and I hope that is helping as well. See if I can get some weight off. Have a good day and play smart......

Still Here

This past week has been very busy. I ended up taking my Dad to the "Doc in a Box" and found out he had Bronchitis. Having issues with the Assisted Living place giving meds and finding out that quite a few of the residents were very sick. They even closed the cafeteria and were feeding everyone in their rooms. I walked into the facility and find all the staff wearing masks. After that I ended up taking my Dad to the local hospital to the emergency room. I always hate going their because everything takes so long to complete. They decided to do blood work, UA and X-ray. After three hours of waiting a nurse comes in and I ask about what is happening. She looked on the computer and said we were waiting for the UA to be finished in analysis and that was it. I asked about the x-ray and she said nothing was ordered. Now it becomes four hours and then the x-ray tech walks in and says he is going for the x-ray. Overall they couldn't find anything and we got to spend five hours in the emergency room. I have been keeping up with my dealing at the casino. It is really slow right now and we are getting the first game going in the morning but after that it dies out. We can get a live game going for a few hours but that is it right now. I have played some just to help keep the game going. I really don't like to do that. Today I have a Trainer assessment to go through and then a Doctor's Appointment. Once these are done I will be going over to play some $2-$4 Limit. Hopefully they will have a game. I purchased a octagon poker table the other day and now will be able to have some dealers over to play and learn some omaha. Have a fun day.....

Monday

The weekend is over and here we are in a new week already. Time flies when you are having fun. On Saturday I worked the usual day shift and was out of the casino by 2:30. Not much happening and the live game was going but when the new shift came on I was able to clock out. The big tournament was that night and we had three of our dealers qualify to play in the $1000 event so I offered to come back and deal the evening tournament. I showed up at 5:15 and immediately got into dealing the live game and then started the tournament at 6PM. We had about 75 players which meant we had 25 alternates. It was a long evening. I normally don't deal the evening shift but am trying to push my comfort level to get better at dealing to a different group of players. I must say they are a rougher group and won't mind chirping at you when you do something they don't like. I had two errors on the night. I had a new player come into seat one and immediately he was in the big blind. I dealt the cards around the table and when I was done I took his cards because they were sitting next to me. I thought he mucked. Actually he was still getting settled into his seat and I took his cards. Floor was called over and I explained what I had done but it was ruled a dead hand. What a start for him. I apologized and we moved on. My next error was trying to give back change and my brain couldn't figure out the difference in amounts. That was frustrating to me and once I told myself to settle down I was able to get it done. The rest of the night was without incidence and I made it through the tournament. Sunday was nice in that we were able to play a $200 quarantee and that was our only tournament. We couldn't get a 3PM to go so we started a small 5 - 6 handed $2-$6 Limit Spread game. It wasn't too long until the next shift came in and I headed out for the day. Another dealer and I are looking at starting a web site that will give us the opportunity to do some things that we can't with the blog. We want to be able to give out schedules of tournaments in the area and then do a blog about our Magazine and Book Reviews. Put up a hand that we have played and let you give us your opinions on what you would have done. We like the idea and will be working on this. I don't know when it will start but I will let you know. I am also looking at trying something as well like starting with $50 and seeing if I can get it to grow playing either a $2-$6 or $2-$10 spread game. I would have rules on how I would be able to play and what would happen if I felted with the money. I found out there is a $3-$6 limit game in town on Monday's and I am going to try that out today if they are playing the game. I really enjoy this game and have done well. I usually have to go to Yakima or Spokane to play but if they do have one here I am on it. Have a fun day.......

Friday

Friday morning and I am getting ready to go for my morning walk before work. I am starting to like the time I spend walking around one to three blocks depending on the time I have before I leave. Using the bus transit system this week has been good. It is always nice to be able to save some gas and it does allow me to just sit back and let someone else do the driving. Actually it is taking about 15 minutes more than if I was doing it myself. On Thursday I dealt a live game all afternoon with the poker manager. Every 20 minutes we pushed each other and it went well. I dealt out the Regressive Bad Beat for $500 and the manager put out a Monte Carlo as well as having someone crack the black aces for $100. It was a good day for the players. I am continuing to have problems with my game and I am looking for ways to work through the issues. I am close to finding a $3-$6 Limit game and once that is finalized I will be playing that one. I have played this at Legends Casino as well as NorthernQuest and I would like to see the game here. Well, off to work I go. It will be a very busy day for all of us. Have a fun day........

Wednesday

The last couple of days I have just been dealing the tournaments. I have been trying to stay away from playing at this point to just give myself some rest from the dealing part and the playing. Sometimes I just push myself to much and I need to take a break. We have a couple of people that are very annoying at the table. I missed seeing a chip and gave a number and before I could correct myself this person was correcting me. Talking about the dealer not able to count chips. I guess if I was perfect I would be him. I have respect for dealers and what they are doing to give us a game to play. Don't give us grief. I delight in seeing this person get taken out of a tournament as well as seeing him give his chips to another person at the live table. I really enjoy being the dealer when that happens. I have started taking the bus again to the casino. I will be saving about $150 per month on gas. This also saves my bankroll as well. I have been making changes with other things as well. I am taking the internet off of my phone and purchased a phone without the contract. We will be getting rid of our landline as well. Trying to help our bottom line. Have a fun day.....