Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. There have been a handful of instances over the past few months where I had some thoughts, started writing a blog post, and then after about a paragraph or two would just run out of steam. Without the everyday adventures of online poker I guess I have a little less to talk about. With that said, it’s not like I’ve been loafing around not grinding. I’ve played every week since the start of my return to the felt full time. It’s been a rather humble existence as far as my day to day living is concerned but it makes me way happier and I feel way more fulfilled than I ever did grinding out a paycheck in some cube somewhere. I figure with this blog I’ll catch up on some stuff that’s been going down these past few months, where my head is at, and then get ready to write these on a consistent basis again (read: stop being my fucking lazy self).

As I mentioned above, I’ve been grinding a lot. All of my hours this year have been spent grinding down at Foxwoods rather than splitting between there and Mohegan Sun. I just like Foxwoods better. It’s where I started when I first played in a live casino, including a few times sneaking in under age :). There are also consistently more tables running and better game selection than there is over at Mohegan. As a result of all this I’ve earned a lot of comps over at Foxwoods, for a poker player anyway. Foxwoods has a card specific to the poker room which once earned you get double the comp points at the tables of your choice. The card requires 500 hours played and 75 visits within a 6 month period and is simply call the “Black Card.” I asked a floor host 2 weeks ago how far away I was from the card, thinking I’d be well short. As it turns out I had 450 hours logged and 60 visits, all of which are from this year. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that. I should have the hours no problem by the end of this week and I’ll pick up the visits by the end of next week.

I’ve had some decent moments in those 500 hours of grinding, but I’ve yet to grab my break out moment. So far it’s been a holding pattern this year. I’ve been able to take a couple of shots up at 2/5NL but for the most part I’ve been relegated to 1/2NL and haven’t been able to shirk that buy in level just yet. The first goal on my poker to do list is to build up a BR to play 2/5NL. Once there I believe things will get a little bit easier for me from a financial standpoint. I’ll be able to pull my monthly winnings out completely rather than splitting it between life expenses and my poker operating budget. Once I get to that point, trips to Los Angeles and Las Vegas for poker would be much more feasible than they are now.

I’ve mixed in a few tournaments but predominantly my grinding has been in the cash game room. I think I’m going to try and mix in some of the daily tournaments down at Foxwoods. The buy ins range from $80-$230 depending upon the day of the week and the time of day the tournament starts. This is more just to get the practice under my belt. The couple of MTTs I’ve played over the past few months haven’t gone well. I understand that it’s the nature of tournaments to be streaky and I’m not concerned with the results of either of the events. The recent $300 event I played in during the Foxwoods Poker Classic however I felt very uncomfortable at the table. I just felt out of practice, like my opening ranges and CBs weren’t quite as solid as they could have been. I’d like to fix that. Plus I’ll get to the end game of a tournament much faster in the daily events where 100 people or less is common and the events only last 7 hours or so. The blinds will skyrocket and the structures aren’t great but that will force me to really pay attention to what my opponents are doing, how light they are going to call off, what they are opening with, and NO ONE understands proper short stack strategy in that poker room save for maybe a handful of former online grinders.

That about catches me up. My plan is to return to writing these posts once a week, probably every Monday. I don’t know if I’ll be putting them out twice a week like I did before. I’d like to, but I feel like I’m going to run out of things to say since I’m playing less hands and I have less exciting news to share. I’m open to doing it twice a week again, and if I have a cool story I’ll bang on my keyboard for a few hours and post it. For sure though, I’m going to go back to writing these once a week at the very least.

So here I am, grinding out 1/2NL, living a humble existence while I build up my bank roll, and I couldn’t be happier or feel more satisfied with myself. If you want to get in touch with me, I’m doing to leave my contact information below. If you want to get in touch with me, whether it’s a question, start a poker discussion, or you just hate my guts and a comment on the blog won’t work for you, feel free to get in touch.

As long as you aren’t at my table, good luck to you.
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It�s been a while since I�ve had a really funny story coming from the casino floor. I actually started this blog off with a couple of stories; one of them being how there was a gentleman who literally lost his pants at the table. He got up and suddenly had nothing on but his tighty whities down below. This time around things were a bit less graphic, and I was actually the center of most of the attention.

I was sitting at my usual 1/2NL table, having a pretty good session to this point in the evening. I�ve been at this particular table for a couple of hours now. Normally I don�t talk much during a session. When someone brings up a topic of conversation that interests me in some way or I have something witty to say I�ll chime in, but I won�t be the one to break the ice at the table. One of the players at the table had no trouble picking up my slack when it came to conversation. He was talking about everything from strippers spanking him to the Teletubbies. No topic was too distant a segue nor too taboo to mention. Eventually, this made its way to a discussion about me and my appearance. I know I don�t have a ton of pictures on my poker profiles so I�ll give some quick notes. I�ve got brown hair a little below shoulder length, a thick gotee, and I�ve got a black American Eagle sweater on. This gentleman decided he liked both my hair and my sweater and decided to compliment me on it. It was completely harmless and he was just a talkative and jovial fellow so I thanked him for the compliment. I even brought up how my father HATES my long hair and he is getting to the point where he�s ready to just grab some clippers, hold me down, and start trimming.

As the session wore on people started coming and going and seats opened up in the game. The dealers also attract attention depending on what dealers they are and who they know. Our dealer when all of the following happened was very personable and had people coming up and talking with him. He was constantly joking around with the players at the table and just struck me as a very genuinely nice guy. One of the people that came over to talk to him was a younger woman, maybe in her mid 20s. She came over and was scoping out the table to see if she wanted a seat. She was talking to the dealer, but at this point I haven�t even bothered to look up at her. Finally she gave me a way into the conversation, �I like playing cards with the boys, I don�t like having women at my table.� There is a seat open directly in front of her and the only woman who was at this table gave up her seat about 30mins ago. So I harmlessly said to her, �There�s a seat open right there.� Her retort to me was word for word, �Oh I thought you were a woman.�

I just kind of smiled and shrugged it off. I wasn�t expecting to be the target of a one liner so I just let it pass. It was pretty funny in the moment. Once she walked away from the table the dealer said she would have, �wrecked the game� which in this case he meant the fun loving table that we had. Apparently that particular woman likes to get into it with other players at the table. People like her are why I have headphones with me when I�m playing. In the event that someone sits down and just starts spouting nonsense I can just tune that person out. But she never came back and the table went back to being its fun loving normal self. I finished the day up pretty big and then drove back to my apartment around 1AM. In the event that my father does see this and reads it later, here is the first strong argument I�ve been presented for cutting my hair. I don�t open myself up to moments like this.

The poker world as it turns out is a very big place. Most of us got interested in this industry from one of a few tent poles. We saw Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP ME on a $40 online qualifier or we watched Rounders and got very interested in the prospect of playing cards for a living. Whatever the case may be, the poker world has a lot more going on in it than people think of at first glance. I�ve been keeping my ear to the ground to find some events to travel to and play in that would be within my buy in range (for MTTs $200-$600) and still generate enough buzz to really build some cash game action. This is to build what I am calling the �JV Circuit.� Events that are well worth my time being a smaller stakes grinder at this point in my career, but nothing so big that the poker media will suddenly be covering my every move if I win.

The easiest place for me to start is Foxwoods. Essentially my hometown casino, they run a series roughly every 8 weeks. This week is one of their Mega Stack Series, which features 4 two day events ranging in buy ins from $300-$1200 as well as some one day events that will generate quite a buzz. I�ll be there Wednesday through Friday this week using some of my comp rooms. Unless things go well that first day I probably won�t play in any of the 2 day events, but I�ve got my eyes on the $230 bounty event on Wednesday. Each bounty is worth $100, $20K guaranteed prize pool, and 25 minute levels. It�s not a hugely serious event and there will definitely be some gambling going on, but with such a huge price on each head I don�t know how I could pass it up.

Thumbing through Poker Player Magazine I stumbled upon an article for the Delaware Poker Classic. This year�s event will be from March 14 through April 2 and will actually be hosted by Greg Raymer. More importantly, the event features a very ambitious schedule with some very fun looking events. There is a $230 head�s up championship event that I would love to head down for as well as some other really solid value events for under $400 buy ins. If I can swing taking $1500 down there and grinding in some of these smaller events I�d love to take that shot. I�ve actually never been to Delaware Park so it could be a whole new experience in and of itself.

I also have some connections out in LA that are interesting. There are friends of mine that I could go out and visit, stay with them on the cheap, and catch a ride from them to the Commerce Casino. The LAPC is actually going on right now, though I doubt I�d be able to get out there for any of the prelim events. There are however some more low key series going on out there. The California State Championship has the majority of their events under $400 buy ins in the spring, just before the WSOP really gets underway in Vegas. I also have some friends in Florida that are interested in flying me down to play in some of the smaller dailies down there.

I�ll probably be able to travel to some of these events at the end of the month. I know Turning Stone and Atlantic City will eventually be destinations I�ll look to go to as well. The idea is simple, the more poker I play the better my chances are to win money and if this is the career I want to have I have to spend the time competing at these different locations.