I just got done watching game two of the World Series and I am not happy with the outcome since I despise the Yankees.<SPAN> </SPAN>I am an avid Chicago Cubs fan with being born and raised around the Chicago area in northwest Indiana.<SPAN> </SPAN>I was a pitcher throughout my high school years at Lake Central High School in Saint John, IN, and always looked up to the Cubs dominant pitching rotation. I just have to say that the pitching duel between A.J. Burnett and “the most influential player to play in Yankee stadium”, Pedro Martinez, was a joy to watch to say the least. With Burnett’s knee buckling curve ball and Pedro’s devastating change up, I was astounded by their talent and wish I could be in their shoes.
<SPAN>…but I was thrown a curveball in my life and ended up in the poker world my senior year at </SPAN><SPAN>Indiana</SPAN> <SPAN>University</SPAN><SPAN> in early 2008. I just got back from busting in the $555 WSOP circuit event in </SPAN><SPAN>Elizabeth</SPAN><SPAN>, </SPAN><SPAN>IN</SPAN><SPAN> at the magnificent Harrah’s Horseshoe Casino Southern Indiana. David “Whitey03” Whitehead and I decided to give our luck a try in the one day event.<SPAN> </SPAN>I did not have any luck in either of the Elizabeth or </SPAN><SPAN>Hammond</SPAN><SPAN>, </SPAN><SPAN>IN</SPAN><SPAN> events, but was very please with </SPAN><SPAN>Hammond</SPAN><SPAN>’s 1,412 entrants in the $345 first event which was a record setting field.<SPAN> </SPAN>Poker has come a long way since the Moneymaker effect.<SPAN> </SPAN>In both Hammond and Elizabeth I felt that I was the table captain and best player (which was not true last year), but things just did not pan out for me.<SPAN> </SPAN>I was never able to build a stack in both tournaments with short stacks crippling me four different times in Hammond and being non-stop coolered while losing with AA three times in Elizabeth (making the correct lay down with them showing their hands in all three instances). <SPAN> </SPAN>The pain of losing on the $555 was dampened by the $2-$5 cash game the night before where I cashed out $1241 at </SPAN><SPAN>2:00AM</SPAN><SPAN> after a 5 hour cash session.<SPAN>

<SPAN>Although I did not have any luck at the live WSOP circuit events around </SPAN><SPAN>Indiana</SPAN><SPAN>, I had a lot of online success with my most profitable month yet as a professional online poker player.<SPAN> </SPAN>The month of October netted me just over 20K in profit, breaking the pocketfives top ten in the Indiana sortable rankings, and also became 84<SUP>th</SUP> place in bluffmagazine.com silver online player of the year rankings updated today.<SPAN> </SPAN>I ran well on Absolute poker this month with me taking down some big tournaments.<SPAN> </SPAN>I was able to take the down the largest tournament of my career with 1,068 entrants in the $20 15K Sniper.<SPAN> </SPAN>Also, I was fortunate to be victorious in the $30 rebuy 15K guaranteed.<SPAN> </SPAN>On Bodog poker, I was able to take down four tournaments: $150 5K, $69 3K, $12 rebuy 3K, $32 turbo 2K.<SPAN> </SPAN>I am very pleased with my October results and I see only bigger results in the near future.

Our poker crew, Midwest Connect Poker Crew, has a website midwestconnectpoker.com that has been up and running for about two months now. I am finally learning how to update it on a weekly basis.<SPAN> </SPAN>The website has everything you need to keep up to date on our poker crew, including jhebs and bigtone52.<SPAN> </SPAN>The main index page has summaries of the past week tournament victories along with the past week/monthly money winners and tournament challenges completed.<SPAN> </SPAN>It has history of the crew, member pages that include online stats and info on the players along with pictures and average online schedules.<SPAN> </SPAN>Also, we have a tournament challenge page that has 45 tournaments needed to be won in a span of one year.<SPAN> </SPAN>We took every weekly tournament that Bodog and Absolute Poker offered that had a buy in of $10 - $300 on the two poker websites including the Sunday majors.<SPAN> </SPAN>I am very proud to say that we have took down 20/45 tournaments in the challenge in just two and a half months.<SPAN> </SPAN>I alone have taken down a third of the challenges with 15 out of the 45 won.<SPAN> </SPAN>We also have a $300K profit challenge which we challenged ourselves to profit three hundred thousand dollars as a crew from our Bloomington, IN move in date from August 15<SUP>th</SUP>, 2009 to August 15<SUP>th</SUP>, 2010.<SPAN> </SPAN>We currently sit at $44,476 profit in two and a half months in the challenge.<SPAN> </SPAN>It is short of the pace needed, but I have no doubt that the crew will persevere in the challenge.<SPAN> </SPAN>We also have a blog page in which our crew members have wrote poker blogs about the daily grind of being a professional online poker player, including this one.<SPAN> </SPAN>The website is always being updated and would love to hear some ideas about what we can do to make it better for the viewers.<SPAN> </SPAN>Send your ideas; I would love to get some input!

What is in store for the Midwest Connect Poker Crew in the future?<SPAN> </SPAN>I am starting to figure out the grind of being a professional online poker player.<SPAN> </SPAN>Since moving to Bloomington, I have not been consistent with sticking to my 5 days a week 30 tournament day schedule. In October, I only played 82 tournaments on Bodog Poker which is well short of what it should be. My Bodog Poker online schedule should be playing ten tournaments a day on average.<SPAN> </SPAN>I should have been playing 200 minimum. On Absolute Poker I played around 225 tournaments, which is also short of my preferred schedule. I play between 15-18 tournaments a day on Absolute Poker, so I should have played around 300 to 380 in October.<SPAN> </SPAN>Although I was well below my preferred online tournament schedule, that was the most tournaments I have played in a month since I started playing online poker. <SPAN> </SPAN>I look up to players like daisyxoxo, 011pokerdr, and beland66. I aspire to be a more astute online player and plan on putting in the same volume as them within the next year. <SPAN> </SPAN>I looked forward to November with the Bodog Poker Open 4 Championship Series starting on November 1<SUP>st</SUP>.<SPAN> </SPAN>I plan on November being even bigger than October for the crew.<SPAN> </SPAN>I should be playing at least 500 tournaments because the WSOP circuit events are over and there is nothing besides Thanksgiving to distract me from my goals.<SPAN> </SPAN>I am very excited about the future of the Midwest Connect Poker Crew and I have very big expectations for jhebs and bigtone52.<SPAN> </SPAN>They have been running extremely bad for over a month now and I hope November brings some much needed luck to their side. <SPAN> </SPAN>I think that November is going to be the biggest month for the crew yet and hopefully we will put a huge dent in the 300K challenge along with keeping up the pace for the tournament challenges.<SPAN> </SPAN>I hope that a Sunday Major will be taken down and off the list for the crew in order to get the Midwest Connect Poker Crew on the map in the online poker community. As always, good luck at the tables and expect to see more of me on the virtual felt in November.
Steve “MWCSTR8NUTZ” Skowronski <SPAN> </SPAN><SPAN> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>