Operation: My red line is bigger than yours

[bigred]

there is resonably big poker festival end of march in london that u guys cud extend your stay for. if u want details on it then its the gukpt and i think it will be leg3 in london.

London to paris on eurostar the prices fluctuate significantly based on demand i presume, but even at the best of times 150 euros as stated here sounds a little stupid

The trains depart from kCSP int. (used to be waterloo) all the time tho. I live about 5 mins walk from this station and did a day trip to paris not long ago, was decent altho the station in paris isnt too convenient for major attractions in the city. u cant walk neway

sure u will all like london if u havent been before, i wudnt do the dumb buses, just buy an oyster and make ur own way around. its a simple city to get around unless u r a moron.

My one piece of advice i can give u as pretty much a life long londener would be : please please dont be really slow and gormless and get in everyones way like most tourists do. this is so tilting to everyone. then u end up getting shoved and bumped into loads and i know ppl who dont like it cos of that

Londoners are a bunch of nanny wankers who walk slower than turtles. You people clog my Manhattan streets with your silly accents and crisps. I'M WALKIN HYEEEEEAAAA

[Loser18]

there is resonably big poker festival end of march in london that u guys cud extend your stay for. if u want details on it then its the gukpt and i think it will be leg3 in london.

London to paris on eurostar the prices fluctuate significantly based on demand i presume, but even at the best of times 150 euros as stated here sounds a little stupid

The trains depart from kCSP int. (used to be waterloo) all the time tho. I live about 5 mins walk from this station and did a day trip to paris not long ago, was decent altho the station in paris isnt too convenient for major attractions in the city. u cant walk neway

sure u will all like london if u havent been before, i wudnt do the dumb buses, just buy an oyster and make ur own way around. its a simple city to get around unless u r a moron.

My one piece of advice i can give u as pretty much a life long londener would be : please please dont be really slow and gormless and get in everyones way like most tourists do. this is so tilting to everyone. then u end up getting shoved and bumped into loads and i know ppl who dont like it cos of that

Londoners are a bunch of nanny wankers who walk slower than turtles. You people clog my Manhattan streets with your silly accents and crisps. I'M WALKIN HYEEEEEAAAA

pretty sure we are the fastest walkers in the world......

[griffey24]

This month is laaaaaaaame.

Will probably be my first down month in 3-4 month, unless I start playing more to end the month, and start upswinging. It's definitely still possible, only down 7k right now.

Played pretty late last night, until like 2am (which is waaaay later than I normally play) because a fish was playing.

REALLY big fish, 83/45 type. Was minraising almost every hand pre, and then calling ANYYYY size 3-bet pre. I had soooooo many hands vs this whale and got solidly demolished.

One thing I notice people don't do vs huge whales is isolate enough (even somewhat lighter than normal), and don't adjust their 3bet size and opening raise sizes to the whale. If we have AQ EP and whale is in SB or BB then we should be opening to 5-6 bb's (if whale will call that). This makes it less likely that other people will call you, isolates on whale in blinds, and we build a pot with a good hand and position. Similarly, if whale opens to 2x then we should 3bet him HARDD to 14x even if that's what he will call.

These are hands from last night of me getting owned at 2/5 pounds by whale.

Hand 1
$2/$5 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($127.00)
CO ($381.27)
BTN ($695.14)
SB ($950.48)
Hero (BB) ($610.10)

Pre-flop: ($7, 5 players) Hero is BB
2 folds, BTN raises to $10, SB calls $8, Hero raises to $55, BTN calls $45, SB folds

Flop: ($120, 2 players)
Hero bets $110, BTN calls $110

Turn: ($340, 2 players)
Hero bets $250, BTN raises to $500, Hero calls $195.10

River: ($1,285.10, 2 players)

Final Pot: $1,285.10
Hero shows:
BTN shows:


Hand 2
$2/$5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($1259.80)
Hero (UTG+1) ($718.35)
CO ($1407.00)
BTN ($164.00)
SB ($513.25)
BB ($440.36)

Pre-flop: ($7, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1
1 fold, Hero raises to $25, 3 folds, BB raises to $45, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($92, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $80, BB calls $80

Turn: ($252, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $165, BB raises to $315.36, Hero calls $150.36

River: ($882.72, 2 players)

Final Pot: $882.72
Hero shows:
BB shows:

BB wins $879.72 ( won +$439.36 )
Hero lost -$440.36


Hand 3
-hands like this kind of pain me vs these players. This is the top of my range, but he's so passive and stationy I think I should even fold the flop. Definitely the turn.. and it sucks after already getting abused by him!

$2/$5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($616.16)
UTG+1 ($1018.00)
Hero (CO) ($505.00)
BTN ($1317.00)
SB ($45.00)
BB ($509.00)

Pre-flop: ($7, 6 players) Hero is CO
UTG raises to $10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $65, 3 folds, UTG calls $55

Flop: ($137, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $100, UTG raises to $200, Hero calls $100

Turn: ($537, 2 players)
UTG bets $351.16, Hero folds

Final Pot: $888.16

UTG wins $885.16 ( won +$269 )
Hero lost -$265


Hand 4
$2/$5 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($437.17)
CO ($1337.80)
Hero (BTN) ($672.15)
SB ($1554.90)
BB ($574.25)

Pre-flop: ($7, 5 players) Hero is BTN
UTG raises to $10, CO calls $10, Hero raises to $65, 2 folds, UTG calls $55, CO folds

Flop: ($147, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $100, UTG calls $100

Turn: ($347, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $278, UTG calls $272.17

River: ($897.17, 2 players)

Final Pot: $897.17
Hero shows:
UTG shows:

Hero wins $5.83 ( lost -$437.17 )
UTG wins $888.34 ( won +$451.17 )
CO lost -$10



I'm gonna focus really hard on finishing up this thesis the next few days, and hopefully have a few days I can grind properly after. Can't let this month end in the red!

[Robb]

Wow - tough hands grif - glgl on the thesis.

[griffey24]

Wow - tough hands grif - glgl on the thesis.

Thanks man! Thesis is dooooooooone! (or at least temporarily done... till more revisions are inevitably needed)

But that's ok. Tomorrow is back to the grind, break is overrrrr!

[bjsaust]

One thing I notice people don't do vs huge whales is isolate enough (even somewhat lighter than normal), and don't adjust their 3bet size and opening raise sizes to the whale. If we have AQ EP and whale is in SB or BB then we should be opening to 5-6 bb's (if whale will call that). This makes it less likely that other people will call you, isolates on whale in blinds, and we build a pot with a good hand and position. Similarly, if whale opens to 2x then we should 3bet him HARDD to 14x even if that's what he will call.

Yeah, this is something I've noticed and...well frankly havnt spoken much about because I like that most regs suck at stuff like this. People think they're adjusting and exploiting people, but in reality they're using very little imagination and not thinking of the best way to exploit them. Bet Pot buttons are most peoples handicap I think.


Those hands suck. Feels a lot like my night the other day. I gave this one guy 3-4 buyins and he was soo bad. He'd stack me with a gutshot straight v's my 2P then the very next hand give it all to some other guy stacking off with middle pair. Sooo frustrating. Even with all my money he still went busto, everyone else on the table had a great time.

[griffey24]

Shipp the return to grinding!

I have discovered the key to poker.... are you ready?...

4-tabling on one monitor while watching Entourage on the other monitor.

I think this offers me the optimal amount of distraction, to encourage the optimal amount of folding while I'm playing. Seems to be working!

In any case, return to grinding has been going well. Was up 7.5k yesterday on my first day back and now 2k today... sooo I'm back in the green for the month! Quicker comeback than i expected, but I'll take it.

[griffey24]

So this week has a lot of good and bad!

The bad: - I'm on a pretty brutal downswing lately. Down 12k the last two days (6k each day) and 15k overall. I haven't been doing a good job "stop lossing" when I notice I'm quasi tilting.. which is badddd.

The Goooood: - London is in two days! Leaving on thursday and arriving in London on friday morning. Alexos, Ravageur and Genitruc should all be arriving that morning as well which will be sweeeet. (and also a good break from poker, while downswinging)

More Goooood: I won the first round of the FTR HU tourney vs Marshall. Was a good match and he played pretty well, so glad I'm moving on!

[andy-akb]

so jealous about the london trip and wish i could make it, send jesper my regards [in the form of tons of alcohol]

[griffey24]

Busy month, busy month!

Went on the London trip last weekend (with Alexos, Genitruc and Ravageur as well) and it was pretty fun! I don't think I've ever had that much champagne in one weekend before. The weekend was hosted by Interpoker, and they did a good job!

I think the timing of the trip was pretty relevant, as it came right before Interpoker moved to the Boss network. I'm sure part of the timing of the trip was to keep ("win over") the regs on Interpoker through the move.

In any case, Interpoker moved to Boss this week and I haven't actually played on Boss since the move on the 19th. From those I've spoken to, it sounds like the Boss software is ridiculously tilting and also has no 'sounds' for your turn or timing down. I know myself pretty well and would definitely timeout all over without sounds.

Sooo instead of playing on Boss so far I've been playing on stars mostly. Due to annoyances of depositing I've decided to do a good old fashioned grinding my roll up. Started my Stars roll this week at around 2.2ishk after a little downswing and playing 400nl (yay BR management).

One thing I noticed about stars is that people bluff like madnesss. Coming from the land of passive nits (ie: Interpoker), its crazy the amount of bluffing that's occurring. My obvious adjustment is something I happen to be good at: calling and hero calling! Over the last 3 or so days I've run up the stars roll to around 7.3k.

I think I might move up to 3/6 at 15 buyins (9k).. so we'll see how this non-stop calling works. I might just be running into good variance of timing of calls and ppl bluffing too much.

Ok.. that's the end of my ramble!

[griffey24]

Sooo I haven't written in this blog in ages!

As it turns out... I have fulfilled part of the OP of talking to a tax lawyer a while ago... and it wasn't overly helpful really.

Other than that, I just defended my masters yesterday! Big relief, and I have been focusing on that the last several weeks instead of playing poker. Actually this was the last hand i played and I took it as a sign a week and a half ago to take a break from it:

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($412.00)
CO ($400.00)
BTN ($943.10)
SB ($402.00)
Hero (BB) ($1314.70)

Pre-flop: ($6, 5 players) Hero is BB
1 fold, CO raises to $12, BTN calls $12, 1 fold, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($38, 3 players)
Hero bets $30, CO folds, BTN raises to $112, Hero calls $82

Turn: ($262, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($262, 2 players)
Hero bets $110, BTN raises to $236, Hero raises to $1,190.70, BTN calls $583.10

Final Pot: $2,271.80
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

BTN wins $1,898.20 ( won +$955.10 )
Hero wins $371.60 ( lost -$943.10 )
CO lost -$12

I've shown it to a few people... and ppl seem to not notice what the hands actually are... pretty brutal! But was a good catalyst to get me focused on my thesis defense.

Now that that's done.... I can get back to the grind....

not sure what my goals should be for the month though..hmmmm.... $15-20k this month at mostly 2/4 seems sweet... get some cash before Vegas next month!

[Da GOAT]

sick hand, so your back playing yea?? give me a shout for rails.

[Robb]

I just defended my masters yesterday! Big relief, and I have been focusing on that the last several weeks instead of playing poker.

grats on the thesis!!

quads under quads

[griffey24]

thanksss man!

yah was my first quad vs quad everrr. Too bad it wasn't at a bad beat jackpot table.. that would have solidly eased the pain!

holy shit now you wish you were playing on a site with a BBJ

[Jack Sawyer]

Most BBJ's are awarded when quad 8's lose. So no BBJ for you!

Sucks though.

[griffey24]

Most BBJ's are awarded when quad 8's lose. So no BBJ for you!

Sucks though.

seriously? haha oh man.. that would have been EVEN WORSE then if I was at a BBJ table. How much do ppl get for that?

[BennyLaRue]

As it turns out... I have fulfilled part of the OP of talking to a tax lawyer a while ago... and it wasn't overly helpful really.

Can you summarize the convo? I'm curious (not that I think I'll ever play full time).

[Jack Sawyer]

seriously? haha oh man.. that would have been EVEN WORSE then if I was at a BBJ table. How much do ppl get for that?

LOL indeed. You'd fistpump thinking you just pulled a Miffy, and then, nothing happens.

UB's BBJ's hit for 6 figures usually.

[griffey24]

Greeetings from vegas! Havent written in this blog in foreeever.

Been here since the 5th and gonna stick around here till the 14th. The plan was to play in the 2.5k 6max event, but a bunch of us decided that the field was too solid. So we forego that event and a bunch of us will probably just play the 1.5k event on the 11th.

Me, andyakb and meeloche went to rail chardrians final table the other day, and that was pretty cool to watch.

Im doing pretty well at poker so far on this trip. I busted in a venetian event ($560) early on.. lost JJ on Q9T8 board to KJ and then KK vs AA allin pre. Sometimes these things are riggeddd.

But cash games have been goin well. Was playing 2 5 but played some 5 10 and will probably stick to 5 10 for rest of trip unless things start goin bad. So far so good though.

Ive been running baddd at credit card roulette though, so far paying for 3 straight meals! rigged some more.

Gonna head to a cirque show tonight wtih alexos and halvsame, and then grand canyon on wed with some more guys. Time is goin pretty fast so far.

More updates to come!

[oskar]

In any case, Interpoker moved to Boss this week and I haven't actually played on Boss since the move on the 19th. From those I've spoken to, it sounds like the Boss software is ridiculously tilting and also has no 'sounds' for your turn or timing down. I know myself pretty well and would definitely timeout all over without sounds.

The sounds are exactly where you don't need them, which is why I would switch them off entirely on boss...
They got a new software a couple of weeks ago that I haven't played on yet... I have a friend who sais it's better.
fwiw I was timing out all over the place for the first couple of weeks, but you get used to it. You have to overlap the tables somewhat so you see them popping up.
But yeah, their software sucks a lot.

[kmind]

grifffffffffffffffffffffffff I suck at facebook sorry man got your inbox. I'm alive how are you?

You guys suck. Tell Alexos to stop nitting it up. I'm drunk still. Tell meeloche HI!

[griffey24]

Haven't updated in a while, and this month is going laaaaaaame.

Started the month up around 7k and ever since then on a 17kish downswing. Lost around 12-13 buyins at 5/10 (including 10k in one session) and then 7 or so at 3/6 since then.

I started working for my masters supervisor full time, and will keep working until the end of September, so I haven't been playing much in the days. I'm not sure if the games are harder in the evening or something, but somehow I doubt this.

Also I've been playing a lot of these losing sessions right before bed. Then I end up thinking too much about all my dumbass hands, which has effected my sleep somehow. Does anyone else have this?

Anyways... it's all pretty lame. Running really bad this month in terms of coolers and also a few k in EV.

Goals for the rest of the month:
-book a winning session
-try to 6 table at most
-stop getting into 80/20's preflop

[BigPapi]

I play after work as well and it's more difficult to play longer sessions, since you're more tired and not focussing as much as you would like. Perhaps this makes it look like the games are harder?

I used to have the same thing thinking about hands in bed. That sucked so much, I nowadays just review my session after playing (pick some hands to discuss with my mate, send them to him with my thoughts) and schedule it so I have at least 30mins-1hour to watch some (comedy) show I dl-ed and take my mind of things before I actually go to bed. It's always important to be relaxed when you go to bed and not wondering/thinking about stuff, cause you can lie awake for what feels like ages and sleep less comfortable, while instead you could have stayed up 30mins more (some are even 20mins) and be relaxed and sleep well.

[griffey24]

I used to have the same thing thinking about hands in bed. That sucked so much, I nowadays just review my session after playing (pick some hands to discuss with my mate, send them to him with my thoughts) and schedule it so I have at least 30mins-1hour to watch some (comedy) show I dl-ed and take my mind of things before I actually go to bed. It's always important to be relaxed when you go to bed and not wondering/thinking about stuff, cause you can lie awake for what feels like ages and sleep less comfortable, while instead you could have stayed up 30mins more (some are even 20mins) and be relaxed and sleep well.

Yaah good advice bigpapi, I should do this. The thing that sucks about this is when you're grinding past when you wanted to sleep and then its midnight and you gotta wake up at 7 and you don't wanna 'waste' another 30mins-hour!

[BigPapi]

yeah, but when you dont want to waste another 30 mins, you'll waste them anyway when you're just lying in bed thinking about hands. I know what you mean when you're just grinding till late, but the next day you'll feel even worse after work, so it will effect your play even more (at least with me it does), so it's very important to keep to your schedule. It's off course easier said then done, but I usually try and put in some standard sessions during weekdays and then have a big one on friday night and some more during weekends if I can. It's all about finding a balance between work/sleep/poker and relaxing/having fun

[griffey24]

Oh and another thing I want to work on is my out of control non-showdown winnings.

My non-showdown winnings are massive this month. Probably like 25k or more, and my showdown winnings are down like 34ishk. Clearly there's a problem here!

I'm like some anomaly on FTR, cause every graph I see has huge blue line and zeroish red or huge blue and negative red. If I can potentially find some balance between my lines I think I'd be doing pretty well.

My biggest leak right now is 3betting pairs/marginal hands and jamming over 4bets. 20% equity preflop is a good way to kill your blue line, that's for sure.

[griffey24]

Alex and I are both on solid >17k downswings right now.

We instated a propbet to end the madness

1k hands today.. whatever limits.. ship the other person $200 if they are in the green at the end. $100 if EV is green but real monies is in the red.

Hopefully we both break even from this bet.

Hopefully it's not from both of us losing more.

[kmind]

Sigh that sucks but glglglglglglglglgl to both. Update us!

[Alexos]

obv i won the propbet, shippp! wheres ma moneyyy?

we need more of those, i think we both played better because of it

[griffey24]

obv i won the propbet, shippp! wheres ma moneyyy?

we need more of those, i think we both played better because of it

oh man... so rigged.

So I ended up losing the propbet. Stacked off once with AA and once with JJ.. so I was down around 700ish after 1k hands. That was the "end of bet" mark.. so he won. Figures 100 hands later I get back into the green!

But I agree, I played INFINITELY better during that propbet. Completely solid, and very aware and conscious of not being stupid and spewing since I had to be good by 1k hands.

I'd be willing to do this bet any day we both know we'll play 1k hands.

[griffey24]

Soo things are goin' bad.. reallll bad. This is the first time in a long time I've been legitimately frustrated in a while, and it's not only cause I'm downswinging. But usually when I downswing, it's cause I feel like I'm playing bad, or like an idiot, and at least during those times I feel like that's in my control.

But the last 3 weeks have been brutal. Around 37 buyin downswing, and a lot of it I've felt has been completely out of my control. The statement is true "you will run worse than you've ever thought possible".. and I'm in that mode right now. Not only through EV, but also just losing with cooler hands that I know I need to be stacking off with, or having horrible turn/river cards come that kill my action etc. Pretty much all forms of running bad resulting in this lovely graph below.




The result of me running bad has been the destruction of my stars roll from $36k to around $9k right now... going from 5/10 to 2/4 in the matter of 17k hands.

I'd rather not re-deposit out of money I've already withdrawn, so I guess I'll just go into rebuild mode.

Made a propbet with alex that I could run 5ptbb at 2/4 over the next 20k hands, so I'm starting that now. This is my first downswing >$20k where I've legitimately felt I've been playing ok for the most part, and am mostly at the hands of lady variance. Hopefully she turns soon!

[kmind]

sorry man. Is that your whole poker roll or do you still play at other sites? Let's talk/sweat/breathe poker the next few weeks. Much love griff I truly have full confidence in you that things will get better...much better.

[bjsaust]

But I agree, I played INFINITELY better during that propbet. Completely solid, and very aware and conscious of not being stupid and spewing since I had to be good by 1k hands.

Should be obvious, but this is very telling. It suggests you can play a lot better than you have been if you'd only focus more. You need to find a way to play like that all of the time.

Fwiw I've basically quit playing before bed. I just cant seem to focus at that time of day. I think I do, then I review later and wonder wtf I was doing. Then since I played bad of course that plays on my mind in bed. Its just safer for me now to not play than to play nights.

yeah the hardcore fast downswings are brutal where in a few thousand hands you're like wtf happened I just got coolered/bad beat 10 times in a row

long downswings just generally end up being break-even stretches and don't really destroy your BR

[donkbee]

That's just brutal ... I hope it turns around for you soon.

[jyms]

I had a quote that was on my desktop for a long time back when I turned things areound after I discovered Laggyness. it read

"Squeeze them like a vise, Don't smash them like a hammer". I was making way too many plays that were folding out hands I beat.

There is no way all those non showdown wins are vs hands better than yours unless your playing like 55/45. You are not finding times to fold when guys are playing you. I think that the opponents have you pegged as the aggressor that will fire barrels and let you put money in in spots where you will bet. You need to find a street to stop letting them get value from made hands since that's where it is going wrong the most.

What is your went to showdown, won $ at showdown and won when seeing the flop stats and how do they stack up vs other PS regs on this site?

[bjsaust]

Been thinking about this nighttime playing thing. Do you have a routine? Likely you're just a bit mentally wrecked after your full days work. Maybe thinking of something to refresh yourself before you start playing. Just take a shower, or maybe go for a jog first then shower, something like that?

[griffey24]

Thanks for the support guys!

Jyms - A lot of my redline is from calling down too much (ie: all the spots I lose in, end up going to showdown) and from value betting thinly on the river w hen checked to (so hands that could goto showdown, end up being non-showdown losses). The only spewfest part of it (which is still big) is 5bet jamming light pre (which results in taking down some 4bet bluffs, but kills my showdown numbers when called).

Bjsaust - I started working a month or so ago at the hospital I did my masters at. Ever since then, I've been working all day, so its pushed all my playing time to the evening. I hadn't been in evening playing mode for a long time (been grinding in the day mostly) so that's for sure potentially a cause of that.

Played 2/4 the last few days and things continued to be ridiculous. I've dropped down to 4 tables as well, to slow the madness as well. Had the gf here the last couple days, and she's been enforcing it, and yelling at me anytime she looked over and saw more than 4 tables! so that helps Too bad she's not always here to do that!

Downswing ran to around $30k, and I played a super quick session after yesterday and won two buyins in 50 hands and just booked it, to actually have a winning session. Think thats important mentally, even though hardly counts as a session. Played another short session after that, and booked another 2, so a slow grind back up.

Heeere we go, time for a recovery!

[Robb]

glgl grif

[jyms]

Yea, wa talked a bit about the redline/blue line madness. All in all, it's still about the green line. My worries for me come when my lines start to drop steady, not with any upswings, it usually points to a spew problem.

[griffey24]

Just finished a propbet wtih alex for 20k hands. He bet me earlier this month that I couldn't run 5ptbb/100 over 20k hands at 2/4. At the time I stupidly didn't realize this meant 10bb/100.. stupid ptbb vs bb. But whateves, just finished my 20k hands today at around 5.8ptbb/100. Had a little downswing today too running mega bad which made it closer, otherwise I was killing it. So ship the monies!

[kmind]

Ship dude! And wtf at complaining about running bad at the end!

[griffey24]

Ship dude! And wtf at complaining about running bad at the end!

haha it made it clooose! I woulda tilted if I ran bad and lost enough to lose the prop haha.

[Alexos]

thats 39 hands too many, u LOSE BIATCH

[jyms]

thats 39 hands too many, u LOSE BIATCH

He was doing his best to lose the bet. About 18 more looks like he would have lost

[Genitruc]

thanks a bunch for the rail last night. it really helped me to talk through some things as well as just being a lot of fun having a friend there with me during a shitty run.

now let s add some run good to the play good imo.

[Alexos]

Rejuvenate this blog when you'll be jobless in 4 days, yes?

[jyms]

Agree.

[griffey24]

haha yaaah I should rejuvenate. Haven't posted in a while.
This was the first post of this blog:

Goals for this year:

-200k (or 300k) in 2009 (and consequently, call some sort of tax lawyer and figure out this whole grey area of paying taxes in Canada)
-I'm sick of the Raptors games not being on cable, so I need to get raptorsTV
-Along those lines, I need a new flat screen tv
-I'd like to go to the gym on average 3 times a week (and potentially gain like 15-20 lbs of muscle)
-Perhaps most importantly: Finish writing my thesis and defend my masters, so I can get on with things
-Once I'm done school, travel a lottt (which may hinder the monetary goals but we'll see)

In terms of the goals outlined, this year has been both very good and very meh.

The biggest accomplishment was finishing my thesis/masters. I'm pretty happy about that, but that consequently sucked out a lot of playing time for the year. Probably the lowest hand volume in several yrs.

The monetary goals are waaaay off. The move from interpoker to stars has been rocky and swingy, and not having the interpoker bonuses/rakeback to fall back on in rough times sucks pretty hard. I'm hoping to close out this month strong (~$20k) and end the year at a reasonable $75kish. Not near my goal, but acceptable given that I've been working full time this yr on school/work.

I got raptorstv and TSN2 a few weeks ago, so I can finally watch most/all the raptors games! So that's goood.

I spoke to a tax lawyer, though it wasn't overly conclusive.

I haven't done the travelling that I wanted to do yet, but I'm going to Sri Lanka for two weeks in Dec, so that should be good!

And last but not least, gym 3 times a week is mega faillll. But I bought a set of these:
http://www.powerblock.com/Sport5.0.htm
Which have been pretty useful while I'm slacking on actually GOING to the gym.

Sooo yah.. most of the goals are quasi accomplished. Let's finish this yr strongggg.