Ugh

I caught the flug bug on Monday and I've been layin around the last 4 days. I feel absolutely miserable. Its clearing up though so I'm happy about that. I haven't been able to play since my eyes burn if I look at the screen too long. Hopefully I'll be ready to go for the weekend push.

Sunday Million and 6 Max

So I decided to use some fpp's to play in the sunday million yesterday on pokerstars. I accumulate so many since I'm platinum. Well atleast until the end of this month because there is no way I can make 10k vpp's this month. I haven't been really playing too much. I played well, I had some good reads on people, but really couldn't get anything going. I believe blinds were 400/800 and the antes were about to kick in and i pushed in EP with AQ with 7800 chips. I ran into Jacks and didn't improve.

Overall, I was happy with my play. I maintained an active image but still didn't get any big pots brewing when i had anything. There's always next time though. I think I went out 3100th out of like 6800 or so. Going through half the field still doesn't garner me anything.

Also I'm still in the transission phase of getting into 6 max ring games. I've found that I need to play 2 to start off and add a max of 2 more to be profitable. Any more than that and it just boggles your mind. It's definitely easier playing less tables because you can pick apart the weaker opponents. Here is a graph showing a nice 2 table 40 min session I had to get things going for the day.

As you can see, I won 2 nice pots and pretty much just chipped up everywhere else. I never had to get out of line so I was happy about that. I'm pretty sure 6 max is going to be more profitable as long as I pay attention and stick to my game. The moment I start to try and get cute is the moment I'm going to start losing money. I'll update about 6 max when I get a bigger sample size in for sure.

On the home game front now. I grabbed a new table from gebhardts. They have some very nice tables, but ours need to be portable. I got one for $200 that was sitting in the back and was perfect. We had a nice turnout again of about 18. We really have to do something with the structure though. It's a pretty fast paced one that doesn't benefit the post flop players very well.

I'm thinkin about running a cash game with .25/.50 blinds and sng's on the side. We'll see how everyone likes that, otherwise we'll just have to figure out a new structure.

Other than that, I have nothing else new. If anyone has a structure btw that they like post it in the comments.

Not a Problem

Get em Lee

Burnt out

Over the last 3 days in January, I played a little under 10k hands. 8-10 tabling .50/1 for a long period of time certainly took its toll. What's surprising is that I actually made money. Reads weren't an issue, I was just playing abc robotic poker. Yesterday I played about 1k hands, but only while 4 tabling. I really don't understand how people can make money playing that many tables. I wasn't able to concentrate on position or weak players in the game.

The other big topic that's getting a lot of coverage besides the super bowl is the retired NFL players pension and disability fund or lack thereof. I read an article today in The Star Ledger written by Jerry Izenberg about this. Some of the stories that you hear about the old time greats are truely a shame. You think of some of the players today and say to yourself..where is he going to be in 25 years? I'm pretty sure the likes of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and other All-Pro players will be fine. But what about John Lynch, safety for the Broncos or any linebacker in the league. These guys aren't getting 75 million dollar contracts. Plus they subject themselves to probably the most physical abuse among the players.

This article just makes me respect Tiki Barber's decision to retire a TON more. He is a very bright man and values his health more than fame and fortune. Don't get me wrong he loves the game, but he sees the longterm issues of playing a lot more clearly then most players. He has 2 kids, both under the age of 5, and wants to go outside and be able to run around with them. Take a look at Jerome Bettis. He was quoted in espn the magagzine for saying that it takes him literally 5 minutes to go up stairs sometimes. His knees are completely shot.

What's this have to do with poker you ask? Money management. You see a lot of these people getting paid 8 figure deals and they live in their HUGE houses with 67 cars and live a lavish lifestyle. Well what are you going to do when you retire? What if your're like Terrell Davis and sustain a career ending injury? Ok sure, you're getting paid 8 million dollars a year. That doesn't mean you have to have bills totalling 500k, plus a 2 million dollar house, with a 275k car, with a house in california also. How about actually only paying yourself 4 million a year, and putting the other 4 million in savings and not touching it.

We as poker players have some of the absolute best and worst money managers in the world. What kind are you?

Here is the link to the article I was referring to

http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=24685860