To god be all the glory is something that i have to often remind myself. As a wise man once told me, you are only allowed to prosper as you do by the grace of god. No matter how good you are or how smart you are at this game; God allows you too do so through his blessings. Its been 8 long months since i have blogged here at Pocket Fives, and i must say ive missed it very much. I feel like 2012 will be a break out year for me for a lot of reasons; As i have made a ton of what i like to call business decisions.
I truly feel that this is the best time to work even harder on my game. My HU sng game has improved as well as my mtt knowlegde. I am very proud at how i have progressed with little or no help in the past. This just gets me to thinking about something my mother tells me all the time. "FINISH WHAT YOU START" and everything else will fall in place. Remember Victory Loves preporation if that's howits spelled. So this year i just told my number one fan, who happends to be my mother. That i would work hard and finish strong!!!!!!

I just felt like an update was in order since the last time i posted here. Any way things seem to be up in the air for me at the moment. Im pretty much just continuing to stay optimistic with the entire online gaming situation. Before black Friday i was pretty certain about my future with online poker as everyone else was; Mainly i had decided to really get in the game and handle my business. Well anyway a lot of things have changed since then; And now my future lies on two avenues one being at the mercy of the DOJ. And the other is going into the live arena that caters to a bigger bankroll that comes with playing live and less volume.

Im really caught up between two choices here, as playing live is indeed more fun too do! But at the moment it really will feel odd playing more for income instead of just getting out the house. Right now we have the Merge gaming network and a few others such as Cake; Which btw Lee Jones decided to leave and this only feeds ideas of uncertainty. Honestly i am really praying that online poker get regulated in a hurry; And i really feel like positive thinking yields positive results. I get tired of reading all the threads on 2+2 and here at P5's about all the negative shit going on without including the good as well. Online poker has gotten very large and obv no one is going to turn a blind eye to billions of dollars to be made.

As far as my income is and life in general, it's on to the work force for me in about two weeks or so. I have been unemployed for about 6.5 months now and laid off from the refinery for almost a year as well. My world has really been turned upside down from 70k a year and $1300+ a week to $600 every two week; And then too the unemployment line and $222 a week. The truth of it all and the lesson i am learning from all of this is; Money has never changed me no matter what the sum of it was. I have been pretty humble through all of this and i respect money a whole lot more than i used too. I never ever thought in a million years i could make it off such a small amount of cash for this long. But in a few weeks it will be back to work and my plan is too work part time and play poker during my downtime. The way shit has been going i just feel like all i need to do is pay all my bills and car notes/insurance ect/rent; And i will continue to move forward until shit gets better i guess.

Now for the poker /coaching working on my game ect ect. In the early goings things were off to a pretty good start post Black Friday; As i ended up hooked up with Jason Roberts AKA Roberts34 a Super Nova on Stars who really help me plug some leaks in my game. But due to the situation at hand with Stars and Tilt i really haven't seen him much or playing anymore. He really opened my eyes to a lot of shit i never understood about poker and Meta-game situations. I also got about 6 hours of coaching or so from a guy called Muck-it-fish from Part-time-Poker at a really great price. And i also ended up getting some great info from him as well. My study group has not been very active that i am a member of but i guess it's to be expected.

Now as far as my staking arrangement on Lock Poker and Cake; Things have been slowly getting better as far as my play and performance is concerned. I have improved my game 100% and i am no longer the spewtard i used to be. I think 80% of my game was purely spew with 20% going to bad play and bad beats. Im guess im down to about 30% spew and 10% on bad play with 70% going to well played! Now a days and with my current backer i have the chance of playing the $109 100K weekly Sunday event on Merge Gaming Network. And unlike before i will be able to play more so than i had the past three years of my life. I really feel like i have learned more this year than i have learned the past six years of playing online or live.

Pretty much my work ethic is getting a shitload better,and i want this to carry on too my personal life as well. I have been slowly trying to hit the basketball court, and the treadmill to stay/get back in shape. And some way some how i will quit smoking or just cut back and only smoke when i drink; which is a very rare occasion in itself. I got pretty fucked up last night but that is also rare form for me as well; But it's really funny that i write this a day after smoking and drinking it up. Hell i even been trying to keep the house looking A-1 and moping the floors and what nots LOL. But i really think the biggest thing that has happend with my game overall is my work away from the poker table. I have always played poker and wondered why i was not killing it; As i spent shitloads of time donking off playing one table at a time. Never really knew anything about multi-tabling and a tons of other shit to boot. I remember playing 16hr days and for me that meant i played around 20 sng's for the day LOL! Maybe i should have wrote a book called;"DONKING SIT-N-GO'S ONE TABLE AT A TIME"!

"I AM THE QUIET BEFORE THE STORM"

Wow! just when i had solid MTT backing from one of the best backers on PTP; Now i can only stare at my fu%king monitor and try to figure out what to do with myself. Well i guess most of us here are in the same boat as i have cash mostly on Stars i need to recover. Finally got my hands on the cash i needed to hire a great coach and right out the blue im hit by the shit truck! Now we all are forced to play on Cake/Carbon ect with shitty tournaments and structures; Along with the fact that everyone is scared as hell "including me" to deposit money.

As you all should know or if you don't i live in New Orleans,LA, as this is not my home but ive been here 5 years now. I remember when i first arrived here and saw all the bodies and destruction. And now here it is 5 years later and everything is coming back; But it will never be the way it used to be before the storm. April 15 or 16th i forget but it doesn't really matter as we are all fucked right now; Was a reminder of what things are really important in life! Like the people in New Orleans we were warned that a storm was coming; But like most of us including myself decided not to prepare for the Hurricane Katrina of online poker!

The storm has come and the levy has broken POKERSTARS and FULLTILT has flooded and the D.O.J has taken over the city. During this time we will be lost and confused just as the people in New Orleans when they lost everything they had "AND NOBODY REALLY CARED." I know i was here when all the bullshit was going down. The shooting the looting the killing ect. Everyone was scared just like you and me are now; You have a feeling that all is lost online poker will never be the same. "Let's all move to Europe where it's legal" ect ect.

But what we all have to realize and this is just my opinion; "The water will dry up and go away" and things will appear to go back to normal! But we all will have to accept the fact that it will never be the same!