Damn, has been too long. Guess I should update everyone. I am finally home and have been home for almost 2 weeks straight without having to go anywhere (except for those trips to the DRs office to get my broken finger looked at, more on that to come). Anyways, I am back to playing poker, and trying to make this a profitable run (more on that in a bit also). Other than that, I am not planning any more trips until mid-late summer/early fall. So hopefully I can get some games in and maybe we will get the shop finished so that I can start on my personal home poker table.
On to the poker. I am in the middle of another month long BAP/HEEB. The last one didn't go too well but it finished with a bang, so I was hoping that that momentum would carry over, wrong. I had 1 day in the positive then proceeded to go on a downfall. Just seemed that I couldn't get a key/pivotal hand to hold for me, which was resulting in more money going out than coming in. I took a sweat session with Herschelw and learned alot. The hard part was to find a way to put it into my game. One of the things that he said and then I again read in USCphildo's Blog (this was a recommendation by Herschlw) and that was that you should ask yourself what are you trying to accomplish with your actions? I started to question myself in this way, and also opened my game up quite a bit in my EP-MP game. This in turn caused me to be involved in many more hands with cards that I would usually never play but in LP unopened hands, but the advantage was that it also meant that I was involved with more hands that my opponents would not put me on, so I was able to get more chips when I did hit. Another addition to my game is the semi-bluff, this is something that I had not utilized to my advantage in the past, and have been really working on honing my skills in this so that I can better utilize it against my opponents. As with the playing a bigger range of hands, the semi-bluffing has also allowed me to trick my opponents into thinking I am not holding as strong of a hand as I am representing, and has started resulting in me getting stacked, rather than just getting a few chips. As with anything in poker, it is an ever changing game, and you can never learn/know everything. Over the next few months I am going to be really emphasizing on improving my game in any way that I can. Wether it be reading, ghosting, or joining a poker training site (which I probably will be doing pretty soon since Herschelw, USCphildo, and a few others will be joining forces in a new poker training/coaching site that will have the normal poker videos, poker articles, but will have the addition of a few other key things that I will not comment on until they open up for business the first part of June.
Off to my finger, what can I say? I took a bad beat, hit the chair, broke a bone in my hand just beyond the first knuckle on my pinky of my right hand. This happened on a Saturday, 3 hours later was in the ER getting x-Rayed, Tuesday was an appointment with my regular doctor, then Wednesday it was the orthopedic doctor, who said they can't cast it (because of my ring finger being so screwed up because of my arthritis), so the best they could do was buddy tape it and that I need to come back in about 2 weeks. So now I am not able to use my right hand very much, but I am getting by.
This weekend I will be smoking my first brisket and ribs. This is going to be fun for me, and I have already started getting things ready. We had to special order our brisket, but I already have the ribs in the fridge with a home-made dry rub already on it and soaking in (never ever ever dredge your ribs, they should always be dry, even during the cooking process). I am going to be making some homemade potato salad also, and throw some chicken on also at the last minute. Should be a great feast for Sunday for me to watch the Races (both indy and nascar).
Well, I think this has been a good update for everyone. I will do my best to give another update within the next few weeks.
GL to all on the tables,
Merch
