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.