Predator314's Poker Journal

Holy shit, I actually have a LITTLE bit of poker content today. I was going to play some poker last night, but fell asleep very early. As a result, I was wide awake at 7:00am. So I fired up Stars and Full Tilt. I played about 300 hands and lost again. However, I played as well as I could. I just didn't get a lot of hands... again. I only lost like $24.

I started using TiltBlocker again. I'm not sure why I quit using it in the first place. It's amazing how something so simple can help so much in keeping your head on straight. I actually thought I had a big losing session.

I'm going to try to get at least another 700 hands in today. My DVR cable box broke....again, so I have a 4 hour window where I have to be here today. If they are going to have the house call people working on Saturday, why not open the main office, so I can just go there and exchange the box personally, when it suits my schedule? Cable providers, telephone providers, banks, and the post office are all retarded in my book. But that's another post for another day.

Today's poker music: Damn Yankees

Well, I need to rename my blog I guess. Predator314's Poker Journal is too misleading considering I haven't played more than 2000 hands in the past month and a half. Most of my recent posts have been about my personal life anyway. This one will be no different.

Yesterday was a good day for me. I got plenty of sleep the night before. Also, I did something Tuesday evening that I'm very proud of, yet I can't really tell anyone about it. Let's just say it was was for the good of all mankind. Only a select few very close friends know what I did and they are very proud. The only reason I'm keeping it a secret is because of the fallout that will/could possibly ensue as a result of what I did.

Last night was league bowling night too. I bowled decent the first 2 games, but sucked the last game. My scores were 181, 194, 147. The 181 was actually a crappy game because I had 3 strikes in the first 3 frames, then a 9-spare, then another strike, then I sucked the rest of the game. It should have been a huge score. Oh well, our team took all 8 points and we are a perfect 16-0 this quarter.

I'm attempting to try to make myself somewhat interested in college basketball since it is the only thing on TV these days. I watched parts of the WVU game while I was bowling last night. Then when I got home, I watched some of the Duke/Maryland game. However, it wasn't very interesting and even though I've seen it 298937 times, Meet the Fockers got most of the viewing time.

Tonight, I'm just going to chill out around the house and hopefully get to bed early. I have to go to Mocksville, NC tomorrow for work. I think it's only about 2 hours away from my house. Plus I don't have to spend the night or anything, just down and back. Hopefully my installation will go well and I can get home early.

I really cannot stand basketball. I do go to a few of the local high school games every year. But that's just because it's my alma mater and I really go to hang out with friends.

Last year was a little different though. WVU faired very well in the NCAA Tournament. Hopefully this year will be much of the same. WVU handed Villanova their first loss of the season.



I'm actually looking forward to March Madness this year.

Is it Friday yet? It's been a bad week so far. Last week, I didn't go to work any. I was seriously sick all week long with a nasty stomach virus. So when I get to work this week, I gotta hear about missing the entire week and how it affects the company. I know how it affects the company. I don't want to hear about it everytime I am sick and don't feel like being at work.

So I'm at a crossroads here. Where do I want to go in life? Fucked if I know. It's really depressing too. The only thing I know is that honestly hate my job.

Reasons for hating my job

o My boss is a prick. He's not ingorant and he's a pretty damn good salesman. However, I just cannot stand him. He has no sense of humor. He expects nothing in your personal life to affect you going to work. He cannot handle pressure at all and it's embarrassing to be on-site with him when he starts to flake out. Worst of all, he is condescending to others, especially people that work jobs like fast food. I refuse to order with him for fear of getting a loogey burger.

o I have to wear a tie. This really isn't a big deal, but it irks the shit out of me because there is no good reason for it. I can understand being dressed up when going to a customer's location, but we do not have customers here. The only people that come into our office throughout the course of the day are the UPS Man, Fed Ex Man, and an occassional salesman.

o My job is mind numbing work. It's not demanding. Some of my responsibilities include setting up new Windows 2003 and SCO Unix servers for new or upgrading customers, coding enhancements, bug fixes, etc to our software package, technical support, on-site training for new customers, and on-site installation of new servers for new or upgrading customers. It's just mind numbing work now that I've been here for 5+ years and know everything really well. The days pass by VERY slow.

o I dread going to work every day. It's literally work making myself go to work anymore. I don't miss a lot of work, but I do use every personal day and vacation day available to me. I've never had a job where I dreaded going in so bad. I need a job where I actually enjoy going in or at least don't mind it.

o The employees. We are a small company and there are only a couple of employees. I'm the newest, yet I've been here for close to 6 years. The other employees here are good people, just not my type of people. There's no chit chat or anything like that. I'm the only one without kids, and if there is any non-work discussion between us, it's usually about their kids. I need someone I can tell a dirty joke to every now and again to break the tension.

o Travel. When I took this job, I figured the travel would be a nice change of pace. We have customers in various states from Illinois to Florida and most states in between. Most of my customers are in the 5-6 hour driving range. Some of the places I've been to are nice, some are scum holes. I live in a rural community and love it. People put down West Virginia, but I think it's a great state to live in. Hardly any traffic, beautful scenery, and it's just a laid back state. However, with that comes some disadvantages. We don't have any major sports teams and there's not much to choose from as far as concerts/shows go. When I go to Atlanta, I'd like to watch a Braves game or a Falcons game. Not with this job. We work from the time we get there, to the time we leave. We are even expected to work on enhancements in the motel rooms at night.

Good Points of my Job

o I don't have to deal with the general public.
o It's an easy job
o Pays good (not great)
o Free health insurance
o Profit sharing

I'm not sure what I want to do with my life. I do know what I don't want to do. I don't want to work here forever. I'm also not sure of what will become of the company once my boss retires. I'd say he is probably close to 60 years old right now. I've been to his house and seen his toys. The guy is loaded. He doesn't finance anything, so he's liquid too. I'm sure he will be retiring soon. One of these days I'm going to ask him what will become of the company when he retires.

Now that I've been out of school for a while, I have a better perspective on what is important. When I was in school, it was all about the money. So that's what I went for and look at me now. Updating this stupid blog, bitching to the entire world about how much I hate my job.

So if it's not money I'm going for, what do I want in a job?

I want to work doing something that I enjoy. I used to enjoy working with computers, but I've grown out of it. If I am to work in a team atmosphere, I'd like to do it with people more like me. At least someone with a good sense of humor and doesn't always have some sort of drama going on.

I'm not all caught up in "making a difference" in the world. I just want to do something that is fun and I get paid for it.

OK, so now that I've pretty much narrowed it down to something fun, let's take a look at my hobbies and how I can maybe/maybe not make a career out of them.

Hobbies

o Poker (of course)
o Shooting Pool
o Bowling
o Video Games
o Golf
o Music
o Movies/Television

Lets start with poker since this is supposed to be a poker blog. I just don't know if I have what it takes to become a professional poker player mentally. I don't think I'd have any trouble making the money to live life. I have a good winrate. I've survived the ups and downs. But how will I react if I have a losing month and my mortgage payment depends on my poker winnings? How long can I do it for a living? I'm 28 now. What will the poker industry be like in 10 years?

I don't have the writing talent of Otis or Dr. Pauly to become a professional poker blogger/writer. These guys have a very special skill that makes their writing stand out. So if I'm to make a living in the poker industry, it would have to be by playing the game.

Shooting pool, bowling, golf: I don't have the talent in any of these sports to play them professionally. I guess the closest would be pool. However, the life of a professional pool player is not a decent one. Sure, you've got the lucky few who thrive on TV and have big time sponsorships. Most other ones make their money by gambling. Pool has also become a "chemical" sport. I'd venture to say that at least 75% of the pool players that make a living at it are also hopped up on cocaine. I had a well known professional tell me one time that when he was on coke, he could spot God the 8.

Golf is fun to play. But again, I don't have the talent. The guys you see on TV are fucking amazing. A couple years ago, I was playing 3 to 5 times a week and was rapidly moving towards becoming a scratch golfer. It was amazing how much my game progressed from the beginning of the year to the end. Of course that will happen when you play over 200 rounds of golf in a year. As far as working for the golf industry, I'm not sure what I would do. I'm sure there are various office type jobs working for the PGA, USGA, etc. I am qualfied to be a greens keeper :)

Bowling: see Golf. Not good enough.

Video games are intriguing. Development of video games is something that I'm perhaps qualified to do. However, I've looked into it and everything I read is pretty much the same thing. You have deadlines to meet, you've always got someone over your shoulder telling you about the deadline and you work very long days. That's not for me.

The music industry is something that I haven't really looked into a whole lot. I love music. I play guitar, but not well. So don't expect to see me on stage rocking out with Ozzy or anything. However, the industry is so huge, there's gotta be a crap load of stuff I could do. One really fulfilling thing would be to help some up and coming bands/artists break through into the industry. I've listened to a lot of local bands. We got some quality talent in this area. Better than 95% of the shit you will hear on the radio. They can write their own songs, play their own instruments, and actually sing. Seems like a winning combo to me. I'm sure there's a lot of politics in the music industry, but I'm gonna check into careers in the music industry anyway.

Getting work in the movie/television industry would more than likely require moving to L.A. Not a chance. I'm sure L.A. is nice for some people. A country hick like me wouldn't last a month.

One job that interests me that doesn't really fit into any category I've mentioned above is teaching. I'm not good with children, but I wouldn't mind teaching high school students or college students. The college professor route really intrigues me. In my college experience, many professors did their job very poorly. All too many times, they ended up pushing their political and personal opinions on your rather than just teaching the damn class. I'm not sure what the deal is, but from the people I've talked to, it's an epidemic across the nation. I have in-depth knowledge of computers, programming, networking, etc. I currently train customers. Why can't I teach a bunch of hippies how to set up a TCP/IP network?

I apologize for the size of the post. I just needed to get some things out of my head. I'm just going polish my resume and get my name out there and see what becomes of it. Sitting here and bitching about it isn't going to help anything.

Anyone wanna help sort these bad boys out? I never thought I'd see the day when my 20GB iPod was full.

Book it... finally a winning session. Just barely.

300 hands, +$11. Bah. At least I didn't lose. I did get into that "groove" I usually get into when I'm playing well. I'm just getting "cold decked". Set over set against a LAGtard and shit like that. Hands where I can lose the maximum amount of money. River card kicked me in the nuts quite a few times too.

I feel better about my game right now though. I'm trying to improve my game greatly this year. I'm not going to be able to do it without building a bankroll back up and moving up. I've been drilling myself to put others on a range of hands. I'm trying to make a habit of calling out what I think my opponent(s) have whether I'm in a hand or not. This helps me stay out of that auto-pilot call down mode. I think this can only help me.

Some things that I plan to do that will help me become a better player are 1.) Play more hands. I'm not playing very many hands right now. Mostly because I'm feeling under the weather, but I'm slowly getting back. 2.) Clean up my work space. My computer room has become junked up and I am in the midst of a project to make this room my game room. 3.) Move up in levels. The $2/4 6 max games are a joke. I'm still beating them for 3+BB/100 despite the month long losing streak (I played very few hands during the streak). I'd like to get back to $5/10 6 max as soon as possible.

Also, the quality of the games have gone down lately on Poker Stars. Of course, I haven't been playing much during prime time hours. However, it seems like there are a lot of FPP whores out there tightening up the games. These people can be profitable too, but just not as much. I'm going to continue with Stars until I get my free iPod, then I'll probably go back to Party. I have an account on Party with 25% rake rebate, but have never made a deposit to it. Mostly because Party sucks, but if I move up to $5/10 anytime soon, that's going to be the most profitable place to play. I'll just have to use my debit card to make deposits because of my neteller account being tied to my old account and Neteller won't allow me to open a new account. When I tried, they locked my old account with all the money in it.

I guess I'll just have to play things by ear when I move up. The only places I play that spread $2/4 6 max are Stars and Full Tilt. I do have rake rebate at Full Tilt. Right now my goal is that iPod Nano, but once that is done, I'm just going to spread my money around and look for the most profitable games. Actual table selection. Although I tend to adjust well to tight/loose tables, I need to spend more time scoping out the fish and trying to find a seat where I have position on them. All too often I have the shitty player on my left and that sucks.

I'm out for now. I probably won't get to play any more today. I'm getting ready to go watch some football and bowling. Then I'm gonna go eat with the parents and then I have a bowling tournament this evening.

Tomorrow is back to work with a big stack of shit to do. Then I'm off to Richmond, VA for 3 days. I'm gonna take my laptop with me and try to find a motel with net access so I can play a little bit. I'm really tired of this travelling. Even though it has slacked off lately, I still have to do it. Richmond is not even close to being to the top of the list of my favorite cities. It seems like every time I go there, I get stuck in the ghetto. I just don't like bigger cities. I'm a backward country fucker. Let me be.

I think I'm gonna polish up the resume and try to find a different career path all together. I've come to hate computers with my previous jobs. I'm ready to try something fresh. I just don't know what. Are there any jobs out there where I don't have to work with the general public? Where I can work alone and not depend on a team atmosphere for things to work properly (there's always a weak link in the chain)? However, I would like to work with a variety of people if that makes sense. With my job right now, there are at most 3 people in the office at one time and I just don't fit in. There's no general chit chat or anything like that in our office. I think it's important to work with people you fit in with and can get along with. Just ain't happening right now.

Enough blabbing for now. My poker confidence is slowly coming back. My desire to play is rapidly coming back. It's going to be a good year. I've built up enough of a real life bankroll to not have to worry about cashing out any poker money, so my bankroll should rapidly grow once I start winning again. I'm still going to be conservative with the bankroll. I'm also going to play less tournaments. I'm just not a tournament player and don't have the patience to play it. I wish there were more limit tournaments available online with decent blind structures. I have yet to find one.