Emotion VS. Intellect

My online bankroll is small, $100 to start, and reloading causes serious problems with the WW. I find this amusing because our finances are very much in order and we both have well paying jobs. Our B&M bankroll is much larger and we go to AC on a regular basis with $400 or $500. It is entertainment for us and we split our time between poker and -EV games. For some reason she is paranoid about online play. All the conversations about how bad internet players are(at least at the levels I play) and the convenience of playing online, along with the ability to play large tourneys with big payouts for a very small outlay (sattelites) do not sway WW. In fact she can argue pretty well and turns most of them around on me. "The convenience makes it to easy to neglect the family" and it's to easy to reload. The bad players means you will be sucked out on more. tourneys take to long etc. etc.
Given it will be a huge pain in ass to reload, I was going to protect this bankroll at all costs. I read all the imformation on the net about bonus chasing, risk of ruin, bankroll management and proper stakes selection. I bought and read three good books about online and low-limit holdem. This time I was going to do it right. I have armed myself to the teeth with knowledge to avoid the possibility of sheepishly begging WW for a few extra online dollars. Even if she relented it might not be worth the hassle.
First a little background over the past 5 years I am a winning player at low-limit B&M games 2-4, 3-6, 4-8 B&M. I don't have any money to show for it between dealer tokes, waitress tokes and the rake not to mention a little -EV gaming with the WW. My few forays into live cash NL have been horrible but i am still learning that game. I have won several NL STT live and do well in live NL MTT, cashed a couple of times.(once limit and twice no limit all B&M)
I have wanted to take advantage of the opportunities offered online for a while now, Online I won't have the drain of dealer/waitress tokes. I also refuse to play any -EV games online( I enjoy the community of -EV gaiming at the casino I just don't enjoy it online). In my mind it will be a matter of weeks before I have the BR (1200) to start playing 2/4. Turns out this is very wishfull/emotional thinking.

WARNING : Donkey loser story about to commence


I start with $100 on paradise and go to the .25/.50 tables and 2 table to clear the bonus. after 100 hands i am up 5.00 and get sucked out on a couple of times and am back to the starting $100. I rationalize if I move up in stakes i can protect my hand better.(yeah right players are much tighter at .50/1.00) I now start two .50/1.00 and do ok but it seems such a grind. I make 8.00 in two hours. Now i rationalize I should move up in stakes again (the thought goes like this. I play up to 4/8 live and do Ok why not bump it a bit I can't get any better here and I will make more money at 1/2. Thats still 25% of what i play live). This is now the beggining of the end I have violated every rule I set for myself and deregarded everything that learned over the past few weeks. So now I am playing two tables 1/2 with a $128( I cleared $20 bonus) BR. When I clear $20 more from the bonus my the devil on my shoulder says open a third table. the angel on my other shoulder says your playing in the clouds already. So what do i do? yep split the difference and open up a third table .50/1.00). before we get to the sad tale of how this ends realize that I have my entire BR including cleared bonuses on the table. I am playing not one not two but three tables, two of which are way above what i should be playing and one slightly above what my BR dictates I play. I am three tabling as a online player with very litttle experience. As I start to lose, i watch the ienvitable argument between the WW play out in my head. This little drive-in in my head is not the forest gump feel good story of the year it's a friggin nightmare on elm street with a little chukie thrown in for good measure. It ends with her saying "you lose money online why keep playing?" and then "YOU LOST HOW MUCH IN FOUR HOURS, you never lost that much playing 3-6 in four hours." "It must be rigged!" All of my rebuttals "you see a lot more hands online" and "with such a small BR what did you expect" don't even convince me. I realize that my brain shut down about the time I hit the buy chips button and emotion has taken over from there. I am doing everything I KNOW I should not do. my play has even become suspect(because i am palying so far below my B&M limits I'm sure I must better than everyone here and give no one at the table any credit.) Complete recipe for disaster. My brain finally caught up with my emotions and I pull the plug with $ 50 left. As soon as the computer is off all the mistakes I made start to sink in. I everything wrong that I possibly could have. Playing above the BR, going on tilt when i got sucked out on(it was limit for chrissakes can you even call it a suckout). multi-tabling before i was ready. not just clearing the bonus at low stakes and moving on to the next bonus. Not being happy with a small profit. I was the donkey that most bloggers salivate over. The worst part is I knew better, I knew the hell i would go through If i busted and did all these things anyway. Im not nearly as smart as I thought. Just thankful i pulled the plug with $50 left.
I am going to try this online thing again tonight. If it goes as badly as last night The WW paranoia may not be to far off (Who says I can't admit when I'm wrong) It may be this online poker thing just isn't for me. I would hate to give up so soon but I'm close enough to AC to make B&M my sole poker endeavors at least at the trop I don't talk myself into sitting 5/10 with $100. I am sure I will be just fine if i can keep my brain turned on and my emotions in check.

The great the good the bad and the ugly

The good news WW has granted permission for poker three nights a week online. The great news is i took down a 150 person sng. The bad news is no Foxwoods on the way back frim boston. The ugly is I have a great military post to write just don't have the time to sit down and do it. I also hope to post a few pictures in the next post.

poker bloggers don't sleep

I have been lurking around poker blogs for a few months now. It has been pretty impressive how interesting, intelligent, funny, and charitable as a group they are. Now that I have started my own blog one other thought comes to mind "Where the fuck do they find the time".
Im not talking about Pauly and the crew at the WSOP. For them it's what they do- and they do it far better than anyone. I loved there coverage and read it everyday often more than once. Im talking about all the bloggers who are able to maintain a fulltime job, playing poker, bloggin on a regular basis, trips to vegas, wife/girlfriend, kids, charitable causes, improving their game, and whatever other speedbump or curveball life throws at them. I am in awe. lets just look at the amount of time involved. Now with reading other bloggers and writing and rewriting posts then spending some time either commenting or analyzing other bloggers work. here is the breakdown the best i can figure.

• Writing a blog 3 hrs/ wk 1 hr/post (minumum)
• Reading and commenting at other blogs 6 hrs/wk on second thought make that 16 since i usually get sucked into at least one, Iggy, uber post per week
• Work 50-60 hrs most of us have at least a 40 hr workweek plus commute and any extra time put in for the "Man" either at work or at home form our laptops or on conference calls.
• Playing poker 10hrs/week this is a minumum. Most are more than twice this
• Quality time with wife/significant other at leat 15/hrs a week (that is if you want to stay married/significantly othered
• Kids- I wouldn't trade them for the world. the WW and kids are almost without fail the highlight of my week. But don't even get me started on the amount of time they can drain from what was an organized schedule. with baseball, soccer, basketball, and just enjoying the great company it can easily rival work for the biggest time expense.
• And last but not least that little category called life- the mudane shit no one wants to do but must get done in order to maintain your life, shopping, dishes, laundry, honeydo lists, yardwork, home repairs, Uncle Tom's birthday party. The list never ends espicially if you have kids.

Now lets look at the math here folks. In every week we have 168 (7X24) hours in which to do whatever we want. Once you take away work commitments, lets just say a conservative 60 hours, we are left with only 108. Next lets take out the time commitments for our relationships or pursuing a relationship 15 hrs/wk. Now were left with 93. Assorted time with kids 15hrs/wk. now were at 78 and haven't even read a blog, posted, or played a single hand of poker. lets say we play a minimal 15 hours of poker. now we just hit 63hours left in the week. Now lets say we read a moderate amount of posts and avoid IGGY like the plague. A conservative estimate puts this at 5-6/hrs per week. We just hit 58. Now we sit down and write in our own blog say three times a week. Now were at the double nickel 55. In fairness this is probably a really low estimate. Most of the bloggers I read post much more often unless they are terribly gifted it takes many more hours to put out the exceptional content I see on a daily basis. For good measure lets throw in Charitable causes, planning for and recovering from poker/blogger gatherings. This must be in the 5 hr/wk range. yep an even 50 hrs of the week left. Then we have that little thing called life. Family gatherings, runnig and upkeeping the homestead, I put this at a paltry 15 hours a week, and i'm being really conservative here. We now have only 35 hours left in the week. This dosen't include the curveballs that life throws ie family illness selling or buying a home, marriage/divorce, having a child, or the myriad of other things that can eat up huge chunks of time. Now remember we haven't even slept yet!!

I have come to the conclusion that poker bloggers don't sleep. it's just not mathmatically possible. The only other possibility is that all the shit in their blogs is completely made up. and all they do is sit around in their underwear playing poker in their parents basement. I really don't want to believe option 2 because if that's what i have associated myself with then all is lost.

In addition i just wanted to mention that in honor or this poker blog being graced by the presence of Bobby Bracelet my next post will be about, my ass kicking name taking, time with the 3rd Ranger Battalion. I haven't decided wether to go with the "There I was, knee deep, in brass, links and hand grenade pins" (with links refering to the small pieces of metal used to hold belts of ammo together for a machine gun not the gay links to other blogs everyone likes so much) or the group of rangers out on the town drunk variety the WW hates so much ( she has to rehear them every time a group of us get together. For her sake it will be good to have a new audience to unleash these stories upon. So Bobby if your listening and feel like weighing in I would gladly honor your request. Least i could do after you took the time to give this crappy brand new blog a fly by.

RLTW

P.S. there will be a prize given at the Bash at the Boathouse given to the first one of you civilians to figure out the RLTW at the end of this post stands for and post it in the comments. It is how I will end all my posts from now on.

Weekend went awry

I leave for boston in about two hours. Im going to the red sox orioles game on saturday. I have been pumped about this trip for weeks, but now I would rather stay home. With the crap at the airports WW didn't want to fly. Who can balme her. So now I have ten hours of driving to look forward to. It would all be worth it if the sox hadn't just been swept by KC. yep that's right the baseball team with the second highest payroll and two of the greatest sluggers of all time coudn't eek out a win in three games against the royals. As a die hard Red Sox fan since the days of Carl Yastremski the last couple of years have been great, The past had been fogotten and I had high hopes for the future. After last night i'm starting to get that feeling in the pit of my stomach every time I watch them play - just wainting for the sky to fall - it's a terrible way to live and now I have to go watch it in person.

On the bright side we may stop in at Foxwoods for a little time at the felt. So maybe this blogs first trip report will be in order when we get back. The last time we were at foxwoods the wife stacked almost everyone at the table, which is quite an acomplishment cosidering we were playing 2-4 limt. It could have been even more if she dind't whiff on a few check raises (the table checked around).

It's because of this, and a last longer bet at a local homegame, that I have to announce to anyone we meet and anytime we play poker that "My wife is the best poker player in the house. (I told you all in my first post that my manhood was almost gone already) I figured I should get it out of the way here before WW finds the blog and asks why I haven't told all 1 of you reading this blog that she is in fact the better poker player.

On a seperate not i want to give you readers a list of upcoming posts. This is more for myself as a reiminder, because right now i have a lot of contenet in my head and know the inevitable dry spell will come soon.

1. How stating a blog can make even cofident people extremely self conscious and uncofident.

2. live poker tounements.

3. trip report

4. ongoing struggle with WW over online poker

5. leaks in my game

6. My first blogger tourney (if things go well with # 4)

7. My family

8. some actual poker content (this is a poker blog right?)

one rung at a time

I have been wanting to start a poker blog for a long time but the "gayness" factor has kept me out until now. I was in the military special operations community for a number of years (a long time aga) and blogging would officially complete the removal of my sac. It's has been coming for a long time now. Between getting married and having children, the once mighty army Ranger who roamed the globe with junk to rival bobby bracelets, Is now just an overweight, couch potatoe who enjoys poker. In this blog I am going to write about my poker endeavors, life as it is now and life as it used to be. So if your interested in a washed up spec ops soldier with stories to tell. or a half ass poker player trying to balance family and poker then this may be the blog for you.
I am going to try to break into the lowerarchy of the poker blogging community by crashing the BASH at the BOATHOUSE. It's to close to pass up, and sounds like a great time. In addition to the yearly trip to vegas with WW (stands for Wonderful Wife/ Wicked Wife depending on the context) I live close enough to Atlantic City to make it down on a monthly basis, so there will be plenty of brick and mortar coverage here. Right now the hotbutton topic between WW and this ranger is online poker. The results of that battle will determine how much online poker content you get.

That brings me to the title of this blog. Once the terms of the ceasefire on online poker have been worked out I will be bring you updates of climbing the rungs of the poker ladder. Im not sure exactly where I want this ladder to take me but be sure i will bring you along with some military flavored commentary. I would like to play poker full time and pay the families bills but right now the bankroll/ability level is far from that. One rung at a time I hope to get there.