It's been a while since i have made an entry here at Pocketfives. I always did and still love to come here to get in the know of the poker world. Recently i just turned 40 years old so im officailly an old man i guess lol. Anyway it's been two and a half years since i have been blessed to see any family or friends back at home. As some of you know i am origianlly from E.St Louis Illinois; And came to New Orleans in 2005 for work after Katrina. Well lots of things have changed in these last 7 years or so; As plenty have died or just plain got locked up or killed in the hood that im from!

I always have and continue to thank God for the changes that i made in my life. But most of all i thank him for showing me the game of poker. Poker has and continues to this day to change my life for the best. I no longer drink only becuase i couldn't play optimal poker with alcohol in my system. I no longer run the streets all night putting myself in harms way ect. As far as poker goes i have gotten a lot better at playing 6 Max poker; something i have always to give a shot but never really took it seriously. Recently i was able to run deep in a w.s.o.p circuit event at Harrahs New Orleans for 12th place on May 15-16. I really wanted to final table that thing, as i have worked all of this year strictly on 6 max poker! http://www.wsop.com/players/playerpr...layerID=145422

Also if anyone interested i also keep an ongoing blog with videos, updates, interviews ect here: http://www.tournamentsessions.blogspot.com/ Recently i have really begun to take poker more seriously; As i used to only really just play as much as possible instead of putting in work away from the table. Also when i played in the wsop event at Harrahs i met quite a few players who actually play for a living. One guy explained that, "even though he plays as a pro live there is no way in hell he'd make it as a pro online". Basiclly since you get to play 1000's of hands online per day; The learning curve for the online player is far superior indeed. I told him after being at his table for about 3 hours or so, that i was going to give the entire circuit a spin for the 2013 season. It's really strange because i have $13,000 in mtt cashes live and $5000 in cash game winnings as well; even though this stretches over an 7 year period! $7k in Biloxi in 2008 at the Baue Rivage monthly 20,000 and others including the wsop cash live. Bottom line is i have decided to play the entire wsop circuit for 2012-2013 and my plan is to play one full ring and one 6 max event a each location. My supervisors at my work have pretty much agreed to work around my live poker schedule as well; Therefore if i so happen to run better than expectation i will be allowed some extra time and have my shifts covered.

Ok now as far a life in general goes, i think that it's time for me to start working out once again. The great food down here in the Big Easy is very hard to turn down. And also the job is still going strong; As well as the move to my new luxury 3 bedroom apartmentt in a gated community. I was also blessed enough to purchase a nice 1999 Ford Mustang GT with a Cobra kit for a very nice price. As far as the personal life goes it looks like i am going to be force to hang up my guns and get married. My girl is really putting on the pressure and besides she is one fine thing to look at except for in the mornings. Oh yeah i almost forgot to thank Austin Walton for taking time out of his schedule to coach me in the 6 max games! Obv i can go on and on about so much shit that has come to past since my last blog here lol!
Well now there is Las Vegas!!!!!!!! Somewhere i have never been but plan to be in July!!!! Well im sure most of you are planning to hit the wsop main this month? And my plan is to play Event #54 $1000 buy-in NL Holdem which is a 3 day event; And from what im hearing the fields in the 1k's are crazy during the series so this should be interesting. I also plan to play in the daily deepstacks as a backup plan if i don't play or run well in the 1k. I will however be spending 5 days in Vegas no matter what happends during the wsop. Well anyway this all goes back to something that i always have heard from my mother; Who is going to Vegas with me as well. FINISH WHAT YOU START!!!!! I have spent 8 years are so toying around with live and online poker; And im not getting any younger eithier LOL. I think it's time for me to get my shit together and start taking things a bit more seriously. Personally i have always been a slow starter, and very dedicated once my mind is set on accomplishing certain goals. Sometimes you can just feel the big run in life coming, and lately i have been feeling it as well as seeing it! For some reason it has taken a while to set in but now i know the secret!

We can find motivation in almost anything. The power of the internet and the instant transmission of information it provides is so powerful that entire communities can be inspired by the plight of a people half a world away. We can marvel at engineering feats that we may never get the chance to see in person. We can see pictures of the deepest depths of our planet. What may be most important is we can now share our stories faster and more thoroughly than ever before. These stories can be used to inspire, no matter how innocuous or fleeting they may appear, and those men and women that star in these stories become legendary for their personal sacrifice and dedication to their cause.

I’ve been a diehard NFL fan since I was a very little kid and my team has always been the New England Patriots. I remember in those early days with Drew Bledsoe at the helm the knock on the Patriots was that they couldn’t run the ball consistently. So in the 1998 NFL draft they grabbed a man by the name of Robert Edwards out of the University of Georgia to fill that particular gaping wound. After a stellar rookie season, Edwards tore up his knee in a beach flag football game during the offseason. He was told by doctors at the time that he may never walk again and he came very close to needing an amputation from the knee down. Edwards just continued to rehab and to work towards getting his career back. He would eventually find his way to the Miami Dolphins where he worked his way onto the roster. It was during a preseason interview that I happened to be watching when Edwards was interviewed by a sideline reporter. The reporter said to Edwards that his coaches kept seeing, “flashes of brilliance” in his performances. For some reason, that phrase stuck with me.

I think as poker players we have an acute understanding for that phrase. We all have moments that make us love this game. Sometimes it’s lying in the weeds while your opponent bets off his or her entire stack right into your lap, others it’s about pushing your table around and completely dictating the action. Whatever the case may be, you figured it out. You got the maximum value out of your hand. Like a great chess player, you were able to calculate exactly what your opponent was going to do next and plan the perfect counter strategy to it. These are the moments we long for as players. Hell for most of us, these moments are the reasons we got into the game in the first place. We all want that Hollywood ending. That moment when we’ve “looked into our opponent’s soul” and found all the answers we needed.

It’s also easy to fall so in love with the idea of posterizing your opponent that we forget to look for the simple value that we can pick up by just playing basic poker. We get so caught up in trying to have our moment in the spotlight that we miss all the little hands that make us big winners in the long haul. Most sessions of poker are going to come down to only a handful of spots that will ultimately determine the outcome of your session, but it’s the smaller hands that will be the more numerous decisions during a typical day at the office. Yes ultimately when you get your whole stack in on a cooler hand or you get sucked out on by a 2 outer with one card to come for a several buy-in sized pot that will have the greatest effect on your bottom line. That doesn’t mean you can just go throwing away an extra bet or two paying someone off when you know you’re way behind. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be going for as much value as your hand dictates in the smaller pots. Those flashes of brilliance can blind us from our ultimate goal, winning.

I’m not suggesting don’t enjoy those flashes of brilliance when you have them. What I’m trying to say here is don’t let the fact that you just snapped off a bluff attempt or picked off someone trying to run an angle shoot on you cloud your judgment in later streets. You need to be able to put the hands in perspective almost immediately after they occur. That’s been one of my latest projects. I’ve had a few big moments lately at the tables, those hands where you start to believe the crap you’ve been saying about yourself. You start to really think you are getting very good at this game and it really is just a matter of putting the hours in before you come out on top. Just don’t suddenly forget what got you to that point in the process. Hours upon hours of hard work.

Check out the first article in the series if you are so inclined http://www.pokerheadrush.com/2012/05...tal-itinerary/

I've been desperate the way I've been playing. Too many hours, too many tables, it takes a toll.

It's always inspiring to see the high-volume guys like Naza114 do their thing but damn – people don't have a real appreciation for how hard that is. I get so dazed after a couple of days. It was different when I started, I loved it so much, but poker is not as exciting as it used to be. I guess when small wins don't noticeably change your life that dilutes things more. You have to be sick to do what those guys do, you have to real be a winner and have an almost unhealthy obsession with winning.

I've been sloppy. On my game I've gone eight winning sessions in a row (twice this year). Off my game I've dumped 60K. I'm so streaky it bothers me.

I know my other endeavors have prevented me from focusing totally on poker. It's easier when all your life is waking up, running a little, and getting to the computer. Now you have a girlfriend, 100+ students, Skype meetings, articles to write, blah.

I've been stuck mentally, not wanting to give up my fruitful side projects, but unsatisfied with my mediocre results and at times subpar play because I've been spreading myself too thin.

I didn't want to go back to grinding all the time. I don't have fun with it when I'm doing that. I was never ranked top 100 before but I outearned and outlasted many guys because I played when I was feeling it. Sometimes that meant three months of nearly every day, other times that meant a month off for no particular reason. Sometimes that meant playing cash mostly when that was working. I enjoyed life and I did well.

I'm thinking maybe it's time I let myself pursue some other things. I know, I've thought about this many times before, but I've never really permitted myself to leave poker. When I've tried to expand into other endeavors I've still been trying to play four or five days a week, or launch a company. Maybe now that the side business stuff has slowed down and money is thankfully coming in I should give it a rest.

I was entertaining these thoughts on Wednesday. “Maybe the solution isn’t always to go harder, but to have more fun with it.” Then on Wednesday the transfer didn't go through. I felt really good playing a SCOOP and taking the rest of the day off. I didn't feel like playing after that anyway. I actually read for a few hours, something I used to do daily that I hadn't done in weeks.

I went to my girlfriend's house that night and ended up talking to her stepfather after that. Him and I talk quite a bit, but that day for some reason he said, “you're always working. You don't take time for yourself to reflect. You know, sometimes you have to let things come to you.”

I didn't say anything to lead the conversation in that direction so it kind of surprised me, but I felt I needed to hear it.

The next day my girlfriend visited my house. Pulling into the garage she saw there was one weed growing from a crack. I'd never really looked at it before.

“It's a four leaf clover,” my girlfriend said. I looked closer. I swear, only one grew on my property, and it was a four leaf. I remember looking in yards for these as a kid, and how hard it was to find one. When I was looking for one.

I went to the grocery store the other day. I have scoured no less than five different supermarkets around my house looking for Dr. Pepper. I don't know why, my mom loved it growing up, so it's just some taste I attach to America and my nostalgia. Coke's alright, but it doesn't do that nostalgia trip because you can get it anywhere. But I've only ever really drank Dr. Pepper in the states, and I really like the taste of it. I don't smoke, drink, whatever anymore, this stupid little soda is like the only guilty pleasure I have. And I haven't been able to find it ever near where I live.

I was going to get some eggs real quick at this supermarket close to my house, and boom – there was a six pack just sitting there in the fridge. Stocked like they always sold it, when I've searched through their aisles multiple times while picking up other food. I wasn't looking for it, but there it was.

It all probably means nothing but I like it when things sync up. I'm sure something in my demeanor can line up similar events, but things line up on their own in life too.

Sometimes you're just pushing a mower, and while it sounds fine you know something's up with the motor. You turn it off before the thing overheats. You've worked with it for so long you've come to anticipate problems. Funny coincidences in my life aside, I can feel when I need a bit of a break and re-evaluation.

I really do believe calling coincidence simply random undermines some of the incredible subconscious tools we have as humans to recognize patterns. Sometimes you're on the way to the job and you know it's going to be your day, somehow. Other days, you feel something is amiss.

I don't know how many times I've heard one of my friends call the tournament they're going to win and then did. There's been so many times I've just known, with no logical reason, something seemingly vastly profitable was going to fail – and then seen it happen.

I saw some things lining up one time at this card game with drug dealers. I'd been in a couple of them, and this one had a few grand on the table and no one with the wherewithal to hold onto it. Still, something about the kid's eyes, something about how they were bragging about what they had, something about the guy's look after he lost a pot – I just said I'm leaving, something about this gives me the creeps. That and I was tired anyway. An hour after I walked out the kid went into a backroom, got high smoking some oxy, and came out waving a shotgun at everyone, demanding explanations about $20.00 or some shit.

Ever since then I didn't feel like some fruit paying attention to what is coming together around me.

Even my favorite atheist Adam Carolla believes in some connections we can't define or categorize. He used to have this segment on his show where people would call in with freak coincidences even.

One time he was in a small plane and noticed the guy in front of him was reading a newspaper article...about Roberto Clemente. For those who don't know Roberto Clemente was a very famous baseball player in the states who died in a plane crash. Then, like a movie, Adam's plane started bucking with engine trouble, turbulence started, and there were announcements of problems with the plane. Carolla was hopping up and down, “this is the end man!!”

Questioned why he'd be so freaked out when he was an atheist he stated he believed life gives you signs and clues, and while he survived he did believe things can line up and you know where things are headed.

There's sometimes you've driven a car forever, and it breaks down. Every mechanic you talk to says its fixable, your buddy who does nothing but work on cars says it can be fixed, but somehow you know from the way it shut down the last time – this one's done. This isn't going to start again. Then 2k later you find out just that.

Poker was very fun when I played it nearly every day traveling the world, but it was newer to me then. Now I enjoy it but I can feel that I’m not a super high volume guy anymore. I took drugs to be an aggressive person because sober I'm pretty feeble. It’s just weird watching yourself change. A few years ago I’d play cash for eight hours then tournaments for eight, get ripped with my buddies at night (or morning...or early afternoon), sleep for eight hours, wake up and do the 24-28 hour day again, until the schedule was so messed up, I was sick, and people were wondering where I was.

Poker was a lot easier then. It’s way easier to be addicted to something when its paying you thousands every week. The game’s more difficult now, or something has changed in me. I’m not sure, but I have to focus a lot more and practice a much healthier lifestyle to be focused in enough to win. When I’m just rushing from meeting to lesson to work out to ten hour session – I’m breaking down and not winning.

My Plugs: Check out my vids at Pocketfives Training, hit me up for lessons at assassinatocoaching@gmail.com, see other stuff I write with my friends at www.pokerheadrush.com, and follow my Twitter at TheAssassinato