Fuck cancer

My girlfriend's sister died last week at age 38 following a 4 year long fight with breast cancer. Needless to say that this kind of events puts things into perspective. Also needless to say that I have not been playing much poker...

No recaps for last month, no goals for this one. Just a weird numbness and fatigue. The last week was long and with little sleep (I can only imagine how it must be for my gf and her and parents and other sister). Right now we are all struggling to try to find some semblance of a normal daily life. Me mostly trying to be present and helpful, the family being over their heads with the preparation of the ceremony and stuff like that... all while coping with their loss.

I am not too sure why I am making this post is. Not too sure what the point of it is either to be honest. But I felt like this was an event that I had to leave some trace of, somewhere, in some silly way.

RIP Sandra...

2008 recap : falling short

Well 2008 has come and passed, it had it's big ups and down both in poker and in life and now is the time to take a good hard look at the year and think about the future.

At the beginning of 2008 I set a few goals for myself.

Move to NL25 before this summer and to NL50 before the end of 2008

Well I did manage to move up to NL25 around May, but as the clock hit midnight and 2008 was a thing of the past, I am still an NL20/NL25 player, my bankroll being a few buy ins short of moving up. Part of me is telling me that I should cut myself some slack. My father's sickness, moving to a new condo and having my laptop stolen sure took their toll on my playing time and who knows if I would have made it if not for these events.

I still managed to take a few shots at NL50, and bonus whoring combined with the renewed motivation I have should put me back there pretty soon.

Play live games on a more regular basis

That one I just let go. Went to the casino a few times and quickly grew tired of the electronic tables the Montreal and Gatineau casino spread (yeah, I know, the Gatineau casino is now spreading real tables and the Montreal one should be doing so soon too). I frequented a few poker rooms in Montreal and had fun, but it's my feeling that "poker rooms" attract poker players, while casinos attract, well, anybody. Hence I don't feel that playing in poker room is as +EV as playing at the casino.

So with all this I just decided to let that one go.

Develop a game studying routine

Did I manage to do that? Yes and no. For quite a while I was participating in frequent session reviews, posting hands on forums, reviewing my own play and the play of the regulars I meet often. Then I just stopped. Right now I'm trying to get back into it all but I have to list that one as a fail.

Put more serious time in another game than NL Hold'Em

Again that's a mixed one. I spent some time on the Pot Limit Omaha tables and read a great book on that game. I still love that game and I'm pretty sure I'll keep going back to it from time to time. That said, if I want to be honest with myself, I did not play as much as I intended when I stated that goal. I guess that's one of the good things about setting goals, with hindsight it helps reassess your priorities and where you're really at.

So, what to make of all that? 2008 was mostly a good year for me poker-wise. Reading back my archives I see how far I've come (and how far I still have to go!). Sure I fell short a bit, but one year ago I was barely playing NL10, now I'm on the verge of playing NL50 and that is despite everything that life threw at me.

I am proud of what I've achieved, thrilled about what's to come and ready to face the challenges of 2009.

Tilt inducing co-worker

I get to work this morning, sporting a head ache and a serious coffee withdrawal. As soon as I open the office door, a wall of noise hits me like a ton of bricks.

A co-worker that I shall leave nameless, is screaming over his cell phone, arguing with god knows who about some money he apperently paid for no good reasons. The way our office is designed, it's a large open space. So when someone makes noise, it bothers everyone.

I sit at my desk, waiting for my PC to boot up so I can at least try to listen to some music to counter this barage of noise when I suddendly realise that all of this is over 35$! Pretty sure a bunch of my co-workers would have chipped in 5$ each to give him his 35$ just so he would shut up.

Guess I should at least tell him how annoying that little tantrum of his was and that the next time he should find a private space to scream through his cell phone.

After my coffee... maybe...

June recap and July goals

Well here we are, it's that time of the month.

June goals were
- Play 12,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Deposit on CD Poker and start clearing the 200$ 1st time deposit bonus there
- Keep updating this blog.

I am definitly satisfied with the amount of hands I played (even though I'm a bit short). Month ended up in the red... this is only the second time it happens to me since September so no big deal.

About starting to clear bonuses... I fail on this one. That said, I'll get to it soon. I hope to get to it before the end of July, but July is pretty busy for me so I am not sure it's the right time to start the grind of bonus clearing.

Now on for July. Well as I said, July will be pretty busy for me, so I will set smaller goals for myself.

- Play 10,000 hands of NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Start reviewing sessions at least once a week.
- Start getting a healthier lifestyle.

Now about the lifestyle thingy... feel I've been letting myself go a lot lately. I eat crap, don't sleep quite enough and don't exercice near as much as I should. So there it is, I want to start improving on at least 2 of these 3 points.
1) I want to start bringing healthier lunches to work.
2) I want to take some time everyday for a bit of exercice.

Sleep? Well.... sleep will come later I guess ;)

Week end recap

This week end was our first touch football tourney of the year. Our team has been through a lot of changes in the past year and the lineup is quite different. Actually there were a few players that were playing with us for the first time.

Anyway, things got off to a pretty bad start, we lost our 2 first "qualifier" games. The way these tourneys are done is the first 2 games you play are used to rate the teams and then the real tourney begins. We lost both qualifying games although they were both pretty closely fought. It all started kinda bad for me as in the first game I had a hard collision with another player that left me gasping for breath and with VERY sore ribs (not sure sore is the right word... they're hurting like hell is more like it.). That's the problem with being tall, in the event of a collision, other people's shoulders come straight in your ribs.

Anyway, on sunday we opened up and won all our games... except the finals. Oh well, it was fun seeing the progress we made as a team over the whole week end and I definitly see good things ahead for the Marauders this year! Now if only these ribs could heal...

What? Poker?? Oh yeah... I played a bit and won some money.

Mid month update

Well all it took was a few unexpected family matters to put me way behind on my May goals. I'm actually not doing too badly considering that I have been playing NL25 for the last few days, but on the volume side of things well I'm not even close.

With touch football tournaments right around the corner, family events popping up and good weather trying to bring my ass outside, it will be very tough to hit the 15K hands mark. But I'll still give it my best shot.

Results-wise, May is going very well so far. Yesterday I've had a sick day and managed to make about as much playing NL25 as I did working my day job as a software developer!

Outside of poker things have been going pretty good. As I've mentionned, touch football tournaments season is about to begin and I think we'll field a pretty competitive team this year. Anyway we should be good enough to make it interesting. For the first time in years, the QB position seems to be settled and has some stability. This should be huge. I see big things this year for the Marauders!

I've also been planning on brewing beer again. Not sure what we'll do yet, but a good buddy of mine named Charles and I will try to come up with something good towards the end of the month. Sadly, probably won't be ready to drink until the end of summer.

I've also started planning a trip for next year. I am still undecided on the destination. Finally watching "An Inconvenient truth" (if you haven't seen it go watch it! Like right NOW!) last week made me want to visit some northern place. Guess the great north needs to be seen before it's gone. Anybody knows of good tours in Greenland or Alaska??