rock bottom for the summer

well i hit an ultimate low for the summer in all aspects of life so this is what this post will be explaining. be warned there will be plenty of juicy details but also plenty of complaining.

ill start with life first since its the more juicy details. well me and the girl ive been seeing from the beginning of the summer just went through some roughness. on monday we ended up getting into a tiff which sparked an argument and we both said some pretty mean and regrettable things to each other and she left after we were done fighting. thursday she came over to talk about things and we discussed a lot about me and her which went a little like this.

basically the fight made her start thinking about me and her together. i also was thinking the same thing. we both like each other a lot but her emotions are growing for me and i am able to keep mine where they are at. i never intended to get really serious with her and she understood that but with anybody, attachment is inevitable. it basically came down to we werent right for each other. we do have a great connection and chemistry, the sex is great, and everything is perfect for a short term relationship. the only thing is that we would not last as a long term relationship at all and thats what it came down to. she was getting more feelings and started looking at the relationship going further but she knew we wouldnt work as did i. she wanted to just be friends and i agreed.

i cried after she left cause although i never intended to date her for a long time she filled my emptiness and made me feel validated. when she left it was all gone. breakups are never easy but after i went to sleep thinking about it i woke up refreshed. the best thing about me learning all this day game that i never had before is that when a relationship ends i now know how to get another girl in my life. although im not "over" her quite yet i know there will be other girls. doesnt mean im not sad still :(

another good thing is that she really does want to keep contact with me and i can really use a female like her as a friend. she understands me and gets who i am so i can turn to her for a lot of female advice. a little suprise though is that she came over today cause we agreed on being crazy and have "break up sex". i told her would want more and she said she can come over every friday for sex and thats it which is fine. i can tell she doesnt want to let go cause i really do mean somthing to her but im just not the guy that would be able to be with her which i totally agree with. so it looks like that came to a halt about a month before i thought it would. since my last long term relationship about 2.5 years ago i had a couple short occurances with girls in my life and then a girl i dated for about a month in washington so this girl was the closest thing for me getting back into the dating world. it kinda made me question what ireally wanted. i think this subjext is long enough so i might do another post on the details a bit later.

poker was amazing, it just sucks that it wasnt amazing in a good way lol. i hit a cold deck like i never have before i such a short period of time (1 hour). so this is how the first hand goes. i flop middle set on a A Q J board. turn is a Q and river is an A and guy shoves for his remaining 50bb, i sigh and fold. no biggie right, what ever. next scenario i bluff off 50bb (i dont bluff that much in 10nl) another no biggie. now the sparks fly. i raise pre with 66 and get 2 callers. flop comes J 7 4. both players have a high vpip so i feel like this flop is dry enough i can stab at it even though i have a little equity. both players call. turn is a 6. alright! with both players calling than they should be able to call again i bet 3/4 pot. both call. river is an A kinda crappy card but people dont fold i shove they both call villan 1 has JJ and villan 2 has 77. yeah set over set over set how often does that happen. 5 hands later i have 66 raise pre and get like 4 callers flop comes 6 5 2. i bet out and player to my left raises. i feel like he has an over pair so i just smooth call. turn i like a 9 or somthing. since i called if he does have an over pair he might check through so i lead out about half pot and he shoves i call hes got 34 and holds. 2 hands later it folds to the hijack who raises. cutoff 3 bets really small. i feel like they were both stealing. i have kk on the button i just flat call. hijack 4 bets small, cutoff flats and i min 5 bet. hijack folds and cutoff shoves and i call AA vs KK and hijack says he had KK as well. last hand  theres a lag that raises early with one caller i have AK and 3 bet. raiser folds and other player calls. flop comes 8 K 2 two spades. he leads out and i just flat. turn is a blank. he checks i bet he shoves i call and he has AK of spades. river is a spade. and in a short hour i lost 5 buyins (50$) and log off frustrated. again i will do another post about this topic a little later

well my mom came to see me on tuesday to get some lunch and after fighting with my girl. work was frustrating i was a little frustrated. she showed up late and i was all upset and had an argument with her. so yeah i got my mom all pissed at me as well. which i hate doing. im not even going to attempt to run any daygame this weeknd. plus ive got a couple lovely pimples on my face that just look so inviting.

so yeah that was my week of crap. im just going to not try and do much this weeknd except maybe watch some pickup material and browse the poker forum and look at shit on the internet. my spirits are hard to crash specially with a little variance like this so i will quote a line from the movie "batman: the dark night"

"The sky is darkest just before dawn, and i promise you dawn is coming"

stay tuned for the next couple posts if your interested in the indepth thoughts of the subjects i mentioned.

going anywhere? nope.

well i've got a little bit to talk about i suppose but a little more let down than anything else. ill start with poker since i feel ive let myself down in that more than anything. so my first session for the month went decent and i won 3 buyins which was good. the next two sessions i ended up losing 1 and 2 buyins resulting in a break even week for me. pretty lame. the last 2 days i litteraly just bairly turned up the aggression and felt like it went to shit. i got pretty frustrated over this last week that my preflop opening range out of position is going to be slimmed down to see if it creates any difference. the 10nl on merge is a bit softer than the 10nl on stars from what i remember. the 10nl on stars had a decent amount of regs on it and you knew who you could play back against. the player pool on merge is pretty bad which results to having to play pretty much for value and if you step to far with the agression than it shows and thats how i felt this week. playing for straight value is fine and dandy but its a bit boring. mix that with only playing 6-8 hours a week and you might see where the frustration builds. i feel like ive been tickled with a feather the last couple of months. pickup went alright for what i did. i ended up going to the state fair one last time and did a couple approaches but didnt get anywhere and this weeknd i did 2 more approaches but didnt get anywhere. its starting to get pretty slim in anchorage. today its 50 degrees and sunny so its starting to get chilly and all the girls start going into hibernation. im still glad im out approaching anyways and keeping me fresh for when i move to cali in november. so far this month has been a bit frustrating. work is moving along but its getting to the point where its lost its spark and im starting to get tired of it. ive got 7 weeks left and the last 4 are going to be grueling but well worth it. poker and pickup have been going really slow but i cant expect a whole lot after working 12 hours a day im more focused on being able to practice both before i move and start trying to get decent results. kinda lame this week but thats how its going to be for the next 7 weeks so just bare with me and then we'll get into some real excitement! but untill next time cosmonauts stay tuned :)

low volume, low results. august review

well everyone based off the title of the blog you can safely assume how the month went for me but here are the details.

in the life category things seemed to go pretty smoothly. at the beginning of august i was a little annoyed with how july went so i just decided to take a break from things for about a week. the rest of the month was fine but the things that mainly stood out are that i was getting really antsy waiting for the month to get done with just so that it could be september already and i would be that much closer to moving to L.A. also the state fair was going on the last 10 days so i planned to go to that which was fun other than that life was pretty much the same work, poker, daygame. (although there wasnt much of the last 2)

poker was interesting this month for what i did play. with me taking the first week off from grinding anything other than work i wasnt able to put in the number of hands i was usually capable of, but i was able to put in a whopping 12.5k hands woot. the best part about it was that my last 2 hour session i lost 4 buyins  which was my biggest losing session this month and ruined my profit. according to hem i only made 2 buyins but im up 45$ this month (4.5 buyins)

i know i made a 5$ bonus so i might have been able to make 20$ in rakeback or maybe hem was off a little bit. anyway before my last session i was winning at like 5bb/100 i know it was only over 12.5k hands but it was nice to have a decent winrate compared to last month.

this month i found myself working on cold calling mainly preflop and working on playing specific player types. although my results were'nt the greatest i feel like i played really well and took in a lot of information that i havent necessarily always payed attention to. im most likely going to do the same this month and hopefully be able to put in about 25k hands and maybe make 100$. also i have been searching the details on how the commerce casino is and everything that goes along with it and i found out that a 5/10nl and 10/20nl pro by the name of bart hanson plays those games regularly and after looking him up i found out he does a podcast for deuces cracked about live play in those specific games.

its cool though cause deuces cracked is the site i use to study at and since hes playing in 5/10 it will give me a really good insight into the games while im there. i have some free time today so i listend to a couple podcasts and i think that i will be able to learn and take advantage of a lot of things from the podcast that will help my game a lot so im looking foreward to that.

daygame was pretty much the same as poker. very little volume and very little results. i did 5 approaches last month and that was all the results i did. it was a slack month all around but in my defense its not like i pussied out and didnt approach girls. its that i didnt come in contact with many situations to approach any girls. this month is already going better though and ive done 5 approaches and already got 1 number so hopefully i can put in a bit of volume with that as well.

since im a little more frequent with the girl ive been seeing that i picked up when i first got here i figured it would be pretty disrespectful to go with another girl. i dont find it wrong to socialize so thats what im trying to do when i approach. im just trying to practice my daygame and any number i do get i will practice my phone game since i need to work on that as well but i wont pursue the girl after that. for some reason though if i can set it up maybe after i hook the girl i can push her onto one of my friends and maybe share the wealth haha. anyways those are the goals for pickup for pretty much the next couple of months.

all in all though things went alright in august. a lot better than july. im really looking forward to this month and just put in as much volume as i can with the things i want and just get september done with so i can be into october and then onward to cali. pretty excited so i cant wait. but untill next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)

not enough time.

since my last post on wednesday the world almost came to an end and if it werent for me and my cat like reflects i dont think anyone would be living. or maybe that was just a dream i had. anyways not a whole lot has happened since wednesday pretty much the running theme for the summer. i worked untill saturday ant noon and went and hung out with some friends. we were gonna go to the state fair that was going on but had to wait till 4pm till one of our other friends got off. we didnt end up going untill 5 and with all the traffic we didnt get there untill 630 and it closed at 10. the first thing we did was go on rides which was a mistake. we all ended up being nauseous and after that we just wanted to eat and then we wanted to leave.

i mean it was fun but we really didnt do shit haha. i did have the intentions of running daygame there but there was two factors that came into play. we got there late and after being nauseous i really didnt want to talk to anybody. its not all that bad because id say 80% of the girls there were 16 and under and anyone who was old enough to talk to almost certainly had a boyfriend with her. add the factor of it being super packed means that it wouldnt have been all that good anyways. im probably just being a little bitch though.

 poker was a bit frustrating this week. i made a little bit of money this last week and was running at 5bb/100 hands and then i ended up losing 3 buyins today which put me at 3bb/100 over a 10k hand sample this month. this whole month has kinda been frustrating with poker.

the main issue always coming down to volume. im actually winning at like 4bb/100 over however many hands i have but just putting in 3-5k hands a week just makes it a long annoying process. thats me being a little bitch again if you couldnt tell. either way im still up for the month so i guess its alright.

 something i have worked on this month and i have seen results is playing specific player types. now if you played a solid ABC style of poker that was profitable than you could do pretty decent at 10nl and probably 25nl but the more you move up you have to be able to play different player types and make plays accordingly at thats really what i worked on this month. i have been paying really close attention mainly preflop with who i play and making sure i have a plan of how im going to play them before i call them. which leads me to another aspect that ive been working on is cold calling. basically just been trying to limit the amount of cold calling i do, pretty much same concept if i dont have a plan or reason to cold call then i pretty much dont. so those aspects i have been working on have went pretty well this month i thought and i know will do tremendously well in my live game.

 on a side note there are a few posts im really looking foreward to making in the future. one is playing poker live, live vs. online, why i daygame and daygame in general, my future expectations and thoughts, and my winter goals and expectations. i guess im just excited to log my thoughts but there will be some good info in there for you guys too so those will be a good read. but untill next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)

running out of time

ok guys i missed my chance to post on sunday due to having to work and then the girl came over so i had to wait till today. not a whole heck of a lot that is new except for a couple things but mostly just the same grind.

 poker has been going relatively slow. ive come out of my downswing from last month ( 2.5 buyins ) at least for now. im up 6 buyins at the moment in 7.5k hands, i would be up 8 but yesterday had me lose some hope :( although i havnt put hardly any volume in this month or this summer. im mainly playing for practice after work and inbetween daygame. i have been practicing new insights to the game and furthering my understanding of everything and really just putting a lot of thought into how i go about my play. like i said even though i havnt put that much volume in i feel like i have progressed a lot which makes me even more excited for the winter when i start to grind 5/10 nl at the commerce.

daygame has gone super slow this month. at the beginning of the month i didnt do any untill after like the first week and then a couple times i went out there wasnt hardly anyone i wanted to approach and yeah so far i have done 5 approaches. and havnt got any results. the bright side of things is that i get this sunday off so when i get off at noon saturday i am going to go to the state fair that is going on and i am going to bust out a lot of approaches im gonna guess somwhere around 20. so that will bring my monthly total up a little bit and im sure i will have some stories to tell so i would suggest reading my next post ;)

the downside of things is that pretty much after the state fair things start to get chilly around town as it turns to fall and that means day game will get a little worse. ill still go out just as much but im thinking my results will be a lot lower. just another thing im looking foreward to when i move to L.A. for the winter... CALI GIRLS

life has been going real smooth lately. i have been working 7 days a week which has its good and bads. checks are bigger, no days off. over all though im liking this summer season so far and i feel like ive been using my time on and off of work really well. im still seeing the same girl and its still "not serious" which is perfect for me and she agrees as well. the cool thing is if shes single when i come back up for next season then we might do this whole thing again which would be sweet cause i wouldnt have to try and find a new girl for the summer and shes pretty good in bed.

other than that things are pretty much the same, still just counting down the days till november 1st. just over a couple months away. man i cant wait. so untill next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)

repeat?

alright this post will be a little shorter compared to the last post, mainly do to the fact that shit hasnt hit the fan yet. also the lack of anything going on in the past 5 days but heres the details

so life got a little more uninteresting this week because we started working 7 days a week 12 hours a day so yeah my 1 day weeknd was destroyed. to put it short i really didnt accomplish anything in the life category. so that pretty much sums up that section for the week.

i accomplish a tad bit more in poker compared to the life section but not much. i think i put in about 3k hands so far and im up 1 buyin woooo too early to tell if im still getting hit with variance or not but we'll see this next month. i do have a bad fortune though. a fellow blogger and poker player that i follow named rosh has been running bad lately. now that might not mean anything to you guys but i have ran almost identical to him for the last year. so if this pattern continues i will be on a crazy downswing. i am looking forward to playing this week though cause i worked out some new preflop strategy that seems pretty solid so im going to give it a whirl this month. other than that not a whole lot has went down. but i do have 3 weeks left for the month.

daygame has also followed the running theme for this week and i hardly got anywhere with it.  i was excited to get back out there this weeknd because i didnt run any game for like 10 days and i was anxious to do some approaches. i did 3 which was horrible for the weeknd. 1 approach went well on a tourist chick but she ended up having a boyfriend that she was meeting later so no results. unfortunitly for the next 3 months daygame will progressively get worse. main due to the summer starting to fade away but daygame was never really that good here in the first place. i am looking forward to having a day off in the next 3 weeks though. if i do i will go out to the state fair that is going on and i will for sure be doing like 25 approaches garunteed. thats about the only thing i can look forward to.

other then the lack of excitement, things have been going smooth and just counting the days down till the winter as usual. ive got a lot of goals for this winter which i plan on achieving. lets just say ive put the standards pretty high for myslef this winter and failure isnt a option. anyways untill next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)

july review, mid summer statistics and analysis

I know its a little late for a july review but i planned on doing it last sunday and got a little busy and ran out of time so i had to wait till now. i do have some new news and ill be going over how the summer has gone so far and where i expect it to go for the rest of the summer. this will most likely be a long post so buckle up

ill start with poker. anyone who read my last post knows that i was going through some variance and i was only up 2.5 buyins for the month (25$) well the poker gods must not have been very pleased with me because i ended up being down for the month making july my first losing month in almost 2 years. the total loss was -25$ haha thanks to rake back. heres the graph

i think my holdem manager was off a little bit and didnt record all my hands but it was close enough. the most horrible thing about last month was that i only played 22k hands in 24 hours..... yeah over that whole month if i would of had the time i could have gone through that in 4-5 days but thanks to my work schedule i literally play 5-8 hours a week.. fun. its no biggie though cause in june i was running at like 12 or 13bb/100 hands so the average between this month and last month is 5bb/100 hands

this month was still frustrating, i felt like i was playing mediocre for most of the month but still felt like i was playing well enough to beat the games. i did run bad for a bit but some of it didnt have to go as bad as it did. i think my biggest leak this month was calling down too light. there were more than a few spots where if i would have taken the time i could have easily found a fold but called despite it. i feel like me playing 12 tables had a little to do with it so for this month im only going to play between 8-10 tables.

something i did notice was that i was starting to take advantage of certain player types more. depending on if they were a fish, lag, tag, nit, abc or whatever it seemed like i would go about the situation differently in trying to exploit the player more rather than just playing a set style. even though this last month felt horrible i dont think it was all so bad because it was only 22k hands it was just spread over such a long period. im going to try and work on not calling down so light and maybe tweak a couple small things to my game but im going to keep things pretty much the same and if this month goes bad again than ill have to set out time to go over my database and find my leaks.

well this last 10 days for daygame was really slow as well. i havent done an approach in august yet for a couple of reasons. this last weeknd i decided to just take it easy. me and the girl ive been seeing decided to drive about 40 miles out of town to this hotel and just get away for the weeknd but we got there and the place was booked. so we came back got dinner and a movie and then stayed at my place. last month the results were ok in certain aspects i did 22 approaches and i got 2 numbers. i didnt go on any dates and havent slept with anyone new other than the girl ive been seeing. partly due out of respect for her since its more than just a friends with benefits thing. over all july was ok for daygame just put in a little more time and got a little more experience from it. im going to be switching a couple small things this month and see how they work out.

so far this summer things have went pretty smooth i thought and im suprised at how some things have turned out. we'll start with poker. well in may i was playing on lock poker and then they dropped out of merge and my holdem manager stopped working and i lost all my data so that month kinda sucked especially since i ended up exactly break even. june was good cause i made 32 buyins in like 25k hands and was running well and playing well. july sucked because of what i had already stated. overall i like how things have gone and i feel like the next 3 months i will do well.

pickup is a little interesting on the other hand. so i met the girl ive been seeing right about a week after i got here. it was actually within my first 10 approaches of being back in AK. if not for that i might not have had a girl in my life for the summer. i went over my numbers and ive only done 60 approaches and got 10 numbers since starting this summer. i felt like i did way more but i guess not. theres a good and bad to those results. the good thing is that my numbers ratio has got better since i was in washington i was only getting about 10% numbers. now im almost getting 20% numbers. im still getting the same lay % which is 10% of numbers i get i end up dating or sleeping with (it really is a numbers game)

the bad thing is that 60 approaches is horrible. just like with poker. if i had more time off of work than i could bust out a whole lot of progress but my summer is the slow time of the year. the action for me lays in the winter and thats where the suprise is.

so originally i had been wanting to go to miami for the winter. i was pretty set on it and i was going to have a friend come along as well. well this last week i was thinking of a different place and my direction instantly changed. to throw it out there, the new destination is L.A. the idea just popped in my head last week and i thought and thought about it and then did some research on everything i wanted to know about the place and everything just made me want to go there even more than miami. the main reason is the commerce casino. if anyone played at the commerce they know what im talking about but the commerce has got THE BEST action in a single casino for poker. they have 160 tables of cash games going and on average 7- 10 5/10nl games going. its around the clock action and everyone that i played with this winter that played there said that i would make a lot of money.

i dont have any doubt that i will be a winner at the 5/10 nl games there and it really just made me excited to get there. the next thing that made me want to go was all the entertainment that california has to offer alongside with all the beaches and hot girls. so this winter should be pretty prime. the downside is the crime and kinda ghetto ness of LA but i found a nice area to live thats close to places that i want to be at for relatively cheap and ill have my friend as a room mate so it will be pretty cush.

to basically sum up the whole post its me whining that i work too much (72-84 hours a week) and im not able to do the fun things i want :(   the rest of the summer should go about the same as it has been going so far. just trying to practice daygame and poker enough to keep my mind fresh untill i move to  LA for the winter and start killing poker and daygame. i have huge expectations and goals this winter and i think ill be able to accomplish a lot of things i really cant wait. im sure i wanted to post more but im losing my thoughts so ill have to save it till next post, plus this one is long enough. so untill next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)