Baudib blog: Live poker/return to online in 2014?

Hi all:
I decided I'm going to try to keep a blog/journal on my poker sessions. I used to do this on another site, but frankly, there were few good players there, so I don't feel like it really helped me much. I feel like, at this point in my poker "career," I need feedback from better players who will call me on bullshit or tell me how I butchered hands.

Background: I've been on FTR forever -- since 2005. I'm probably the worst player who's been around this site for that long! My story is probably pretty typical: I started playing MTTs and SNGs. I read a few books, then discovered FTR. My early results in small BI MTTs were fairly spectacular, which was probably bad because it made me think I was way better than I was, and it's hard to improve if you think you know everything. Any early success I had, I probably owe to people like drmcboy and chardrian and the other great players that posted regularly on this site back then.

After the inevitable downswing, I got really burned out on MTTs. I tried playing other forms of poker...I got into PLO, HORSE, 8-Game. I became a moderately winning player, and started playing live poker regularly in 2007. Since then, I've never had a losing year at live poker. In the months leading up to Black Friday, I started slowly getting into MTTs again. I started playing 6-max microstakes online, and was a breakeven/slight loser at NL25 6-max on Full Tilt. But in late 2010/early 2011, I felt I was making large improvements.

Improving: I had several light-bulb/ah ha moments during that time. Again, a lot of it was from reading stuff on FTR from people like ISF, Renton, nutsinho and Sauce, some of it stuff that had been posted years earlier. I find that very often, there are tiny moments where a good player says something that crystallizes a key concept in a simple way. One example: ISF's post about bet-folding. Another: Something Jungleman said on 2+2 about "thinking what hands your opponent can be bluffing with."

Black Friday was devastating to me, because I was really focused and felt I was making major strides. I actually had a couple of moderate cashes in MTTs the week before BF.

The layers upon layers of learning needed to become just competent in this game is staggering. Compared to the vast majority of live players, I feel I am very advanced. But really, I'm just a fish in a small pond. Playing against good players is fun sometimes, and challenging, but I know that almost all of my profits come from bad players.

I'm realistic about my future in poker. I'm pretty damn old for someone who is still basically a small stakes player, and I know that I'll never play poker full time. I'm fortunate that I don't need to, as I have a pretty good job. I go to the Borgata in AC for the various opens every few months, and I've met a lot of the tournament grinders. I don't envy their lifestyle at all -- it's a brutal grind.

I talked to Jay Rosenkrantz a few months ago, when "Bet Raise Fold" came out. I explained to him my situation, that I realize there's a ceiling on how good I can get, that I have a full-time job I can't walk away from. He told me that I should try to play better each session than the last, and to try to learn every time you play. Again, something really simple, but good advice.

Anyway, enough b.s., I'll get to some sessions now.