Brief life update

I haven't been in much of a mood to blog lately. A combination of being extremely busy and fighting off a late Christmas season stomach flu. Since I spent Christmas over at Ali's place in Connecticut, they were gracious enough to allow me to recover on the couch for as long as I needed. I needed today to recover in addition to Monday so my day has more or less been spent in a bathrobe, watching TV and playing some online poker.

I funded my account with $100 a few days back in an effort to practice some bankroll management. Chris Ferguson's now famous $0 to $10,000 challenge had the following rules attached to it, which I am going to experiment with. Here are the rules:

1. Never buy into a cash game or SnG with more than 5% of your bankroll.
2. Never buy into a MTT with more than 2% of your bankroll.
3. If at any time in a no-limit or pot-limit game the money on the table represents more than 10% of your bankroll, leave the game when the blinds come to you.

The last week or so, I've been playing micro-limit Omaha/8 and doing fairly well, building up my $100 in about $130. But in the past 24 hours, I tore up two tourneys. In the first, a $5.50 buyin O/8 limit tourney, I placed 8th out of 197 for a $29 payout. The amount of the payout isn't as important as the percentage of my bankroll. I played that particular tourney very very well, being very patient and not getting mixed up with sub-par starting hands.

The only reason I busted out in 8th was that I got distracted and accidentally called a raise and a re-raise with something like A3KT, with the Ace suited. Then, I got pot-committed when the flush draw flopped and I whiffed the river. Bad play on my part and very representative of how a 4 hour tourney can get ruined by a 3 second lapse of concentration.

The second tourney, played today, I chopped for 1st out of 87 participants. It was a $3.30 buyin Stud High tourney and I cashed for $65. I was close to going out near the bubble when I managed to get rolled up 5's paid off to the river. The very next hand, I got rolled up 10's, but everyone folded by 5th street. Still, the cushion put me into the money and then I was able to capitalize on position over a fewer shorter stacks. I accepted the chop offer of my heads up opponent, Gwar666, who was basically even with me at the time.

So now my balance is just over $200. I'll feel very accomplished if I can grind it to $1000.

In the meantime, it's been hard playing poker at the Wall Street club because it's been hard to get participants. I'm hoping it's strictly because of the holidays, though I know that part of the reason is a serious loss of bodies in the past few months. It seems as if the entire Crackhouse crew has gone incognito. Slayer is more or less engaged in Jersey City, Darko is kinda whipped, Tae and Sean have given up on downtown, F-Train and CK have gone to the dark side, Abbie's found love (Weeeee!) and W has turned pro and can't be quite bothered with "bowling time" (though to be fair, she's still active). Yes, most of the old crew has gone their separate ways, but that doesn't necessarily mean the end of Wall Street Poker as we know it.

Perhaps it was ambitious to set up two tables. I still have the option, but in the meantime, I think I'm going to stick with a single table and only open up the second if I feel the overflow warrants it. In addition, after this season, I'm going to abandon the rankings system and stick with freelance tourneys and cash games as the whim dictates. This will allow me to be more cavalier in my scheduling which, let's face it, is needed as my relationship with Ali grows. I can't do this forever you know....