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.