January rules!

Finally, a couple of hand to turn things around last night and today :)

Sweet slowplay of quads
One mo' time

Well, OK that's just 2 hands in a vacuum. I'm actually playing like God and running even better over the last week...



So who wants to go pro with me? Non-stop fun!

Oh, and you know you're running good when your rakeback provider figures out they overpaid you & fixes your balance to make it -$162.

Awe-inspiring totals for the month:

Non-stars (liveaments, FTP, misc junk) = +$348
Stars = +$1,100 (-$3,700 cash + $4,800 FPP value)
But VPPs are on pace at 87k, so I'm a pro who dominates obviously.

Assuming I actually manage to run at $0 all-in luck going forward while playing the same crap not-quite-breakeven game I played for 1 month, here's what my year would look like:

Cash "Win" = -$26k (-$4k Jan -$2k x 11 months)
FPP bonus value = $56k
Milestone bonuses extra value = $23k
Elite Packages = $10k cash + Main event package (entry + $2k cash + hotel) + WCOOP ticket

Projected 2009 = $63k cash + $10k WSOP ME seat + $5k online donkament seat


Oh the glamor and glory of the rakeback pro. This is as sexy as being Snout Man at the Sara Lee bologna assembly line.

But I'm still pretty damn psyched for it. Sweatpants >> income, and bizarrely I'm starting to look forward to playing tomorrow after thinking I'd vomit if I saw another hand an hour ago.

If a baby seal waddled by to ask how I'm running, it's even money I'd club it, stuff it with Sklansky bucks, & send its fuzzy head to Myron in a box

I'm just sayin'.


Miles = 75
80,303 VPPs (101% of pace hooray i loooove the pokerz)
+$2,690 Net (-$1,725 from play +$4,415 FPP value)

Here comes the sum

What makes me more of a degenerate fringe member of society?
a) Seeing the scary glimmer of sunrise as I'm off to bed 3 nights this week
b) Cackling alone and making oh-so-white-boy ghetto finger gestures at the monitor at 4 am because of this...
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3680938
How you like me now beeyotch? -> spell-checked suggested I change that to bewitched, but I won't
c) Noticing that right now within my line of sight in my "office" I have no less than 3 casino dice, 1 lit up dice lamp, a geeky poker hat piles o' poker books, a deck or two of cards, a coffee mug with 50 $1 casino chips?

Ship the uptick, freaking finally

In the twilight between Day 6/7:
Miles = 16
16,600 VPPs
+$896 Net (-$39 from play +$935 FPP value)

Oh and bye-bye Full Tilt, cleared the $500 Year-End bonus. Being done with IronMan for anywhere from 1 month to forever feels like running naked down a hill in Vermont to jump in a pond at 40 degrees. Which is fun, ask Amy (or Josh).

Some numbers

Stars Day 3 1/2
10,478 VPPs
+$240 Net (-$347 from play +$587 FPP value)

I'm just going to lump all the non-Stars poker crapola into one lump sum (all the live play, occasional FTP bonuses, Cake freerolls, Absolute pathetically bribing me to come back by randomly sticking $40 into my account, etc.). Plan is to only track and look at that junk monthly.

I can tell already this SNE grind is going to be semi-sweet sick self-inflicted pain. If I'm going to be alive March 1st, I think I'll need to bag the Pokerz when we hit Aruba Feb 19th for a week. So my goal until then is to not lose my whole $5k Stars roll while cranking out 3k VPPs/day until then. If I make that, I'll have 150k when we get back 2/26 (on pace will be 156k).

As for the $s, If I make it to 150k with a busto $0 balance but making no more deposits I'll be up about $4k (from earning $9k worth of FPPs - $5k of bustoness). Definitely meh at best, but the big $s come from 500k-1M anyway. At least that's the rationalization I pretty much need to keep playing almost but not quite breakeven poker without poking my eyeballs with a stick.

I'm not updating Mr. Blog again until I actually win once.

2nd thoughts

Get it? Jan 2nd? This is what 4am with no carbs does for the Humor factory. Except now it's the 3rd, so now we have both wrong & not funny.

Overkill maybe?
Click me, I'm one wacky hand!

(Oh right, for those of you who have jobs and can't see this because it's on a gambling-related website... sucks to be you. Really. Sweat pants >>> income IMO)

Miles = 7
VPPs = 6,840 (under 994,000 more, I can taste the Elite goodness)

I've decided to include the value of FPPs earned to make myself feel better by padding my stats. I'd still have made more money staying in bed for 2 days with a YTD net of -$159. How does a Pro make up for a negative win rate per hand you ask? Volume, baby, volume.

Jay's random Life Tip #1:
Try not to drop and then drive over your iPhone headphones-microphone. I've found it reduces sound quality. Really, it does.

Let the degenerate stupidity begin...

Decided to start the year by being both healthy and practical. Woke up at 1150pm, took this as an omen that I should get up on 3 hours of sleep, suck down 3 cups of old coffee and play until the sun showed up.

14-to-20 tabled PLO ($0.50-$1 and $1-$2)

Shape of the curve a lopsided semi-smirk

Won the first pot for a sweet $40 uptick. The thought of "Oh please oh please let that not be the peak of my year" came unbidden into my head, this is not a good omen but winning the first all-in sure is.
This was followed by gorgeous Grimstar-like steep 7-buyin freefall with the capper being top set no good vs middle set. Of course followed by violent head rubbing and 5 minutes of ramping the LAGtastic spew factory into full production. So hours 1 & 2 of 2009 not so good.
Lucky for me laptop lost internet connect when I got stucko $800 at 3am, so I got a chance to cool down. 4 hours of grindy-grindy, sun burning the bejesus out of my eyeballs at 645am, and we're back to -$84 and 3,630 VPPs.

1.3 hours of FTP grind 1-2pm to clear 10% of 10k points for $500 Jan bonus and up exactly to the dollar what I lost in am.

So much drama for no real results, but I'm on pace baby!
Miles = 0
VPPs = 3,630 (6.2 hours on Stars)
Win/Loss = $0

ONLY NINE HUNDRED NINTEY-SIX THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY VPPs TO GO! IT'S LIKE I'M HALF DONE ALREADY!