Another poor week

Actually I guess it wasn't that bad, but it sure seems like I've been getting killed lately. So far on Cake this month I've been up and down all over the place, and my play has been weird too. It's been a while since I was a "regular" in a cash game like I am on Cake now, where you and your other regular opponents both know so much about each other that it opens all sorts of new possibilities in terms of plays you might make on each other. I guess when I first started playing 3/6 on Stars I was in this situation and I adjusted pretty well, but those players obviously weren't as strong as some of the good 25/50 players on Cake. Anyways people asked for graphs but I can't import Cake hands in my database so here is my best attempt. I should warn you that art was basically the only class I could never get an A in in school so don't be too critical:


Anyways given the size of some of those downswings I think it should be understandable why it feels like I'm getting killed even though I'm slightly ahead for the month. I'm also down on other sites mostly because I've been getting killed at tournaments. I've been taking a lot of bad beats lately which is pretty standard in tournaments really, but I've played so many tournaments in my career that I never really question my game anymore, I've just been unlucky for the most part. My only real leak is that I find the early stages of tournaments pretty boring and I don't really focus at all. Lately, this has been made even worse by the fact that the buy-ins for most of these tournaments are very small compared to the amount I'm playing for in my cash games. So the tournaments seem less important and my play has probably been a bit sloppier than usual.

Oh yeah Europe plans have been finalized, I'm going with the schedule from my last post. I've booked my flights and I basically have all the arrangements for Barcelona taken care of. I'll try to get London all sorted out this week. Also, I'm moving to Toronto in the fall. I'll be living with my friend Brad who I lived with through most of my undergrad at Waterloo, so that should be fun. We used to play a lot of poker together back when I first started getting into the game, but he has since given it up for the most part and started working a real job. I may have to try to turn him back into a degen. Anyways I chose Toronto because I have a lot of friends in the area (and not so many in St. John's anymore), and as I'm planning to travel a lot this year Toronto is a pretty convenient centralized place to be. So I'm flying up there on the 22nd, then from TO to Spain on the 26th, Spain to London on Sept 8, and back to TO on Sept 16.

Finally, if it wasn't obvious, I have officially decided to drop out of my Masters program at Waterloo (most of you probably didn't even realize I was still enrolled). So for the indefinite future I'm a poker pro. I'm very happy with the decision so far, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted even though I'm somewhat disappointed in myself for not being able to finish. I didn't really like what I was writing my thesis about though, and I've always believed you should do something you really enjoy. Playing a game for a living is in a lot of ways a dream come true, and the money isn't too bad either.

Mike