Return to the Casino!

I played at Barona last night for a bit. It was pretty fun. I first off played some Casino War while waiting for my friend to get there. I try to stay away from house games since they're obviously -ev, but I managed a $30 profit here :D But then lost $40 at craps, lol.

I sat at 3/6 and then played some 4/8 kill when the table opened up. I played pretty well except for one particular hand. Oh well.

You know what I like about playing live? The feel of the chips. When you bet, you feel as if you're actively putting something in motion, rather than just clicking around like an idiot. I need to work on my image though. Either people see that I obviously know how to play or for some reason they don't like me, even though I laugh along with their jokes =/

I've decided that when I play live over at Barona and other San Diego casinos, I'm going to play a LAG style simply because i'm there to enjoy the game. Making money is the goal, but, it's not that important. I want Casino time to be my stress free time since I don't play often (due to $4 rake and seeing/playing a low amount of hands). Also, it's fun to work on postflop play against donks. To see what works and if you can really push a bad player off a hand, etc etc.

Still feeling very indifferent, oh well

gnightt

Short Handed Hold'em

I forget if I mentioned this in another post but I'm going to start concentrating on short handed limit hold'em. I'm going to start at the 2/4 level, play about 5000 hands, then 3/6 - 5000 hands, and then 5/10. I have about $2957 in my br now.

I really like short handed hold'em! On Sunday, while waiting for my friends to pick me up, I decided it was time to get in some poker action. Finally too! After like a 2.5 week hiatus, I load up FullContactPoker, join some 2/4 hold'em games, and bam! made 60 big bets in 1 hour! ($241). That was really nice. After not playing poker for awhile, 4 tabling 6handed games was crazzzy! Just so much action, click click click click click!! My poker game has suffered a little, but I'm not worried about that, but I noticed mentally, I feel much better. The break from cards was good. I wasn't worried about making river bets or playing from the gut. If I got called and lost, I'll move on to another hand - is what I kept thinking and really, even when someone made a dumb flush, it just didn't bother me that much.


Last night was fun and not fun. I decided I would finally ask HER out. I'm really close friends with her. We enjoy each other's company and our trust is unquestionnable. I've really known her for about two years now and I wish she was mine. Heh, I called her up and asked her to have some coffee with me, while we were chatting, we reached one of those quiet moments where you're out of words to say but you still want to talk. I was about to tell her to wait as I was going to get her present, but then she spoke: I have a boyfriend now.


I don't know why I'm writing this in a poker blog. I guess I want this to be an honest accout of poker and my life. But who knows, maybe I'll find this entry to be dumb and take out this latter part.

Anyhow, it was tough. But I really do love her, either as a friend or more and I want her to be happy. It's not something I want to accept but what can you do? That's life, and I hate it, truly, maybe just sometimes. I don't know. Now a day later, I feel indifferent. What should I be doing? At least I didn't blunder and make my friendship awkward. I have a headache from last night. That hurt, she's not a bitch though. Far from it. No friend of mine should call her that. They just don't understand. If you can't understand me, you can't understand her, trust me on that one. And you shouldn't label someone or something you don't understand with an insult. She's special. When I'm with her, it's not enough to sit there and talk. I want to be able to hold her and give her comfort, because that gives me comfort. Everything revolves around me doesn't it? That's what happens when you own a blog. So many times I wanted to reach out and hold her hand. It's not like I'm a sap, I'm just trying to be honest with my thoughts right now, and please respect that.

I lost a big part of me that night. A big motivation of mine was to have a big sum of money while dating my friend, so that we would never have to worry about money for food, travel, anything. At least now I can save it up and jump up the limits faster though :)
Hah, that sounds so shallow. Ouch.

If poker goes well this week, then I'm going to go to Viejas and play their $300 buy-in tourney. I hope I take it down :) I will take it down, unless my Aces get cracked.

Home! Poker! Yaya!

I actually haven't played any poker yet as of Saturday May 27, 2006 in the UNITED STATES.

Ya I'm home. I caught a stomach booboo though. My dad said I have inflammation of the stomach, so maybe it was the 2 beers that did it to me. Anyhow, flight home was hell, I was in major pain, and I don't feel like reliving it here.

Now for some poker intensive "discussion"

AKs in a 6 Man Sng

and
First Hand in 50 man sng

Those two hands gave me a lot of trouble. The AK hand I posted my exlanation on why calling is just as good a move as pushing preflop. No one wanted to believe it and stuck with just pushing preflop. I don't want to go into an in-depth explanation again but it's in that 1st link. The results don't prove my explanation to be right or wrong but I wonder what the 3 actual cards though...would've been interesting.

I was really proud of the 2nd link - 50 man sng. Some people said I was a fool and that calling an all-in w/tptk is a surefire way to go broke. Language sure is a pain though. I'm pretty sure those people who responded to me thought I would ALWAYS call all-in w/tptk. The biggest overlooked line I wrote was

"OP, you have enough info. From here on it's your read, your gut, that is most important. I gave you my reasons for calling, and everyone else (hee!) gave explanations for folding. Folding isn't a bad option at all, calling is definitely riskier. If you did call, what were the results btw? "

It's so easy to get caught up in the whole "you can only do one thing here" mood or "it's too risky." I didn't see anyone else advocating listening to your gut - which btw is the most important characteristic to poker. You can make all the arguments you want about what "gut/instinct" is and how it's online poker but bottom line is, the play was fishy, he listened to his gut, and he came through - and I'd be very surprised if he lost that tournament, especially with that image. And I'm sure you poker players out there have experienced the same situation. There are times when we're wrong but there are also times when we've thought "WHY DIDN'T I LISTEN TO WHAT MY GUT TOLD ME TO DO?!??!"

You know what's funny? Everyone who posted in those two links probably won't give me credit for my thought process or lengthy explanations. Instead, they'll be more stubborn and say what they advocated is better, which is fine with me, give up pots w/tptk and let me take em down please. But also, I wonder if I won any respect there or if I'm still going to be considered a donk because my posts did not advocate what everyone else thought to be the "best play." Oh well, that's life.

I don't think I'll be playing cards after this post though. I hate playing for only 5 mins, when I play, I like to plaly for at least a few hours.

I saw my friends and my few days home have been really happy. Especially last night, and I hope this summer continues to go my way.

Gnight people!

mkSong

DOMINATION - LITTLE PUNKS DON'T MESS

This is my last post from Korea unless something super awesome happens today.

Yesterday I witnessed something amazing. I improved so much at Go in 1 week, and also in just 1 day, it's amazing. I didn't get to accomplish my goal of taking on a particular kid or two at equal level. But instead of a 4 stone handicap, I played him with a 2 stone because the teachers were really impressed with how fast I developed. We beat each other for a 1-1 score - I hadn't beat him even with a 3 stone or 4 stone handicap! As for the other kids, ohhh man, I put this one kid into a minus score two times and another minus on a different kid. Rawr. The kid who got minus'd twice, he beat me evenly the first week I played. I just went on a tear, no mercy. It feels great to be the shark.

I also beat the guy instructor for the first time! I forget if I mentioned this but a day prior I had beaten the female teacher on a 6 stone handicap. That was a nice victory. But this was even better. I've played him so many times on a 9 stone handicap and finally I edge out a victory. He did help me a little on some key events, so the victory is not entirely mine, but there were some moments where I showed some great knowledge of the game.

I'm satisfied to come home now. A little sad that I'm leaving the country though...at least I'm not getting kicked out =))

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look! waves!

I'm a little scared to play poker again. Tourneys not so much but back to limit hold'em. My broll is $2713 I believe. Instead of picking up 3,6 LHE, I'm going to invest some time into short handed 2,4 hold'em. If I lose 100BBs, then I'll play some 3/6 and work it up until I get the hang of short handed LHE. From what people have said at FullContactPoker.com, lots more fishies out there in short handed games and it's easier to isolate them - thus more $$$! Gotta go where the fishies are.

See ya,
Mikey Song

Vacation pt.2

yep, still on vacation

remember how I said Go is an enjoyable game? It's not that fun after you consistently lose to 9 year olds who are better than you. People go on tilt when they get sucked out in poker, I go on tilt from one mistake in Go, meaning, I put stones wherever the hell I feel like. I go on tilt more easily in Go than I do in poker, what?!?! ya...

That's all I really wanted to write about from over here lol.

Oh, I got a necklace for a friend of mine that I like...Um...I have really bad taste in jewelry...or just fashion in general. I brought my cousin along and pretty much every necklace I pointed at, she shook her head at. --' Oh well...an hour later, we finally picked one out!!! yay!!!!!!! I better not lose it!

My blog is messed up!!! For some reason the profile and links and all that stuff are on the far bottom of the blog. I can't figure it out :( If you know how to fix it, please help me out!!

thanksss,
i'll be your bestest friend foreverrrrrrrrrr
<3
Michael Song

KAA BIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really couldn't help myself! I was looking for new blogskins since, if you noticed previously, there was something wrong w/my blog where the links were being displayed on the bottom.

Anyhow, this is very temporary. i just wanted to play around, though I do love the Kirby show. I have 22 eps of that dled, heh...and for the record, kirby doesn't make me queer --' It's actually a pretty funny show if you watch it. Stupid pink puff ball...

I'm enjoying the motherland. It's been about a week. I think I'm ready to come home. I don't know...

Oh well, anyhow I was on a big happy high yesterday. I sometimes watch my friend Nick play his SnGs and once in awhile we argue about tournament hands. I consider myself to be a pretty good tourney player, I also used to play SnGs instead of ring games for money - too much stress though. Anyhow, I played a 5.50nl turbo tourney and a 22 dollar nl 10 man sng. Lost the 5.50nl but CRUSHED, the 22 dollar one. I never got a real premium hand either. I just stole blinds like a mofo and put pressure on those bubble boys. It felt really good to be able to show that I still know what I'm talking about when it comes to tourneys!

SnGs...I like em. Winning one makes you feel like you're ready to take on the world. Losing one makes you annoyed, and losing 10 in a row drives me crazy. That's why I don't like playing SnGs, yet I play ring games where I have at least $400 out of the $2700 i have on the board? Since the blinds never rise up, there's just no pressure to make stupid decisions...although when u're down $400 immediately, that's also a downer - which is why I'm not sticking to any particular format for making money :) I love playing SnGs, they're so much fun! But I also believe there's just too much dead money out there in those cash games to ignore. Gotta hunt those fishies down, chomp.

I really wanted to play in Viejas's (Indian Casino near San Diego) monthly $100 buy in tourney, but they raised it to $300!!! Grrrrrr, bastards! Maybe I'll play next month's tourney. I just don't feel like risking 10$ of my broll on a tourney, especially when I have no idea how good or bad the structure is. They do have super satellites where the blinds increase every 8 mins, so mb I'll play 3 of those - risking about $105 a month for that. who knows.

ahhh, I feel so indecisive, like a stupid bubble just floating around like....KAAA BIIII (that's how they pronounce kirby in japanese).

pyung! pop goes the bubble.

mmmmmmikeysong

Vacation!!!

I'm currently vacationing in Korea right now. If you haven't guessed, I am Asian. I didn't choose mikeySONG because I like to sing a lot, it just happens to be my last name, although I do like singing! Just not in public D:

Not going to play much poker while I'm here, if any at all. So what am I doing? Well, yesterday I went to the mall......and today I finally started Go lessons. Go (in Korean it's called Baduk) is a 19x19 board with black and white stones. The object of the game is to conquer as much territory as possible...man, I'm getting spanked by these 9 year olds. It's embarrassing but by the time I come back from Korea, I hope to be able to play them evenly. I've been playing w/3 and 4 stone handicaps...the only win today came from a super clutch move by me where I ended up killing off the guy's entire base. I was annoyed though, in anguish, the little boy clenched the stones in his hands and messed up the board. Bastard, I wanted to see by how much I won! Oh well, Life...

I hate that expression "that's life." Is it odd that I feel I have more control over poker than anything else at this moment? For instance, a little something today made me upset and the first thing I thought was "I wanna play some Sit N Gos, at least I can push people around."
Holy crap! I'm a bully!! D: Theoretically, if you invest your time and effort into something, you should be happy no matter the outcome? Ugh, I hate that, so why do I play poker? I'll answer that in part B), I don't want to digress.

Another example, so let's say you put all your energy into a girl, or a guy, and the outcome is - I'm sorry but I can't date you. Uh, are you honestly going to be happy even though theoretically you should? HELL NO. You're doing all you can to hold back those tears baby!!! Well, there are some who'll just let em flow but for the most part, you're fighting to save some pride. But hey, "that's Life." Annoying isn't it? I love you - sorry but I don't. *proceed to clench fist and smile* "Don't be sorry, that's life"

blehhhhhhhhhhhhhh

B) - so why play poker if you can't control the outcome? At least if you consistently go in with the best of it, over the long run you'll come out on top. One situation doesn't ruin your life (unless you put your whole broll at stake!) I don't believe in the "plenty of fish in the sea" expression. I hate it, it implies that whomever you choose isn't that unique, that there is no special person in your life, that if she or he dies, you can go find another one. It's a horrible expression. Only people so involved in mathematical logic would make that argument. There are times when you meet someone and you decide, I want to be with that person for the rest of my life. There may be "better," whatever that's supposed to mean but the person in front of me is interesting and irresistible; life is not boring when I'm with the her and I don't want to be away from her. I'm happy with whom I'm with and I don't want another.

You know who else would abide by the plenty of fish in the sea argument? pimps and whores. Grossssssss.

You know what, when something goes wrong, you can't really complain though. In the end, all you can say is "that's life." You have to make good with what you can.

That's a huge concept in Go. I love it. It's so interesting because so many new situations come up. There isn't just one way to play, each stone you put down creates a new situation, a new option. Although I think I'm sacrificing too many stones due to bad play, it's still a lot of fun to try and improve each situation. That's how you learn anyways, through lots of mistakes.

If the best way to learn is through mistakes, why try to be perfect? Why not constantly make errors and find new solutions in areas where situations are limitless?




Because there's nothing like beating your opponent to the ground, proving your dominance and prowess at the game, showing him that in that world, you are truly untouchable.

WoW WoW WOW, What a Rush!

I was getting really frustrated the past few days. I kept losing money, then I'd be even, then repeat, then lose, and lose again. I got so mad that at a couple days ago when I took a hit, I yelled, stood up, and threw my chair down. Not that big of an action but for me it is. Usually I sigh or maybe scream FUCK, but I shrug it off and play on.

Anyways, I had deposited $783 into fulltilt - I had $800 in the bank - I decided I wanted to keep some of my bankroll in my acct incase I need money and such, it's too big of a hassle to wait 3 days to cash out from a site and then neteller! Anyhow, I ran that 783 into 1245 in two days, and after that I slowly went back down until I had about $840! What a demoralizer! Then before I went to bed, I played some more and won an extra 150 to put me at 996. And then...I woke up yesterday, 9th of May, at 4:51am and decided, what the hell, I can't go back to sleep anyways, I'll play some poker!

These next 4 hours was a BIG rollercoaster:
Instantly, in the 1st hour I lost 3 big hands.
AA vs 88 - 88 hits set
AA vs QQ - QQ hits set
22 vs 77 - we both hit a set :(

I was immediately down $200 and now I'm really frustrated and depressed. So I hang in there, and keep playing. I can't even tell you what happened. It all happened so fast. Before I knew it - no joke, I was up...big time! I had 1k in play at the tables - max buy in is $100 and for 4 tables, I basically doubled up or more at each table! It was sick, I can't really tell you any details on what happened. I remember there were a few really really loose calls by people when I went all in with the nuts.

As Mike Sexton would say, BINGO BANGO BONGO MIKEY SONG FLOPPED THE NUTS! Vince! He's in incredible position, and look! He's pushing ALL IN! Donk #1 calls!
Vince: Oh man, there's nothing like the nuts... :p

So in this 4hr session, I got knocked to about 780 and ran it up to $1666. That's some pretty serious $$$. I averaged $126.46 per hour this session and in the long run, after 29.5 hours I made $31.72 per hour, Poker Tracker says 5.07bb per 100 hands (i have 8.2k) or in total: $1035.

Granted, I am counting the bonus money ($300) from full tilt poker as part of the winnings...but, I'm using that bonus money to help me jump up the limits. Gotta hit that 10k+ goal this summer!

Oh, I'm also getting $200 back from rakeback! Rake is the cut the house takes. The max they'll ever take is $1 from a hand, but usually it's around .40 to $1. If you don't have rakeback, sign up through me! (I have to do a little self promotion!)

So, I'm pretty happy with myself =) I'm going to clear the Full Contact Poker $300 bonus and play some limit. I'm excited to play limit hold'em again. Yeah, it's hard to push people off hands but I enjoy the amount of action that there is on the flop, turn, and river. And, right now, my no limit ring game (cash game) is pretty bad. For the most part, I was playing with scared money. I didn't want to lose $100 on a bad play. Luckily for me, at the .50/1 level, they're pretty much all bad. That's how I made my money, hit sets or AA, and get it all in.

Alright, I really don't know what else to ramble about...oh!

So yesterday I hang out w/my friend and at night we smoked some cigars. Holllly crap those really drain me. I never really noticed it but whenever I smoke, I always get really tired afterwards. Last time, when we went Hookahing, I fell asleep in the car on the way home, haha! This time though, I just had no energy. It was really weird and I ended up staying for approximately 23 hours! I haven't been able to do that in awhile. Usually I just wait til it hurts to keep my eyelids open, then I know it's bed time.

That's all. Thanks for reading!

~Mikey Song

It's Not About the Money...

that's what one of the cooks in my school cafeteria said to me last week while he was talking about mike tyson and jackson being broke. And they don't even play poker! ^^

The cook sounded like really believed in that line. I respect that. Nowadays in our society, rather than striving to live, our commonly shared goal is to reach upper class. For some of us, we demand it and expect no less. It's a pretty absurd goal. People in 3rd world countries struggle to live, yet we believe we need to struggle for plasma TVs and sweet Jaguars.

Heh, I'm a victim of the upper class goal. Truthfully, I really think it's how I was raised. I was born in a well to do family, not absurdly rich, but we definitely have enough money. My relationship with my parents isn't that great. My dad worked really hard when I was a toddler. He usually left around 10am and came back at 12am, so on weekends he'd be pretty drained. And even then, I think he worked every other weekend. My mom didn't play with me much either; she was usually sleeping, watching tv, or cooking I think. Where does that leave me? Well my sister usually played with me (until I was 5) and sometimes the housekeeper. Haha, due to an inciden I wasn't supposed to talk about, I told my parents when I was 5 and they got pissed to the roof. She got in big trouble and after that we fought a lot - after all, we are 8 years apart. I had 2 neighbors to play with for awhile, but they both moved out when I was 7 or 8.

My parents would always tell me how my sister is getting straight A's in school and that I need to work hard and go to an Ivy League school. The concept of working hard and getting rich was always constantly grinded into my head. And seriously, 19 years later, there's no way I can change that concept now. I'm majoring in film, want to be a director, yet I'm more serious about poker. Poker is my source of hope to satisfy my primary goal - supporting a family financially. I'm actually pretty insecure about money. Don't get me wrong, I love to spend it, but not having it or making a girl pay for a meal is pretty unacceptable to me. And I don't use these guidelines to judge people by the way, this is how I personally feel when I'm in the situation. I've been broke several times. This past Christmas break, I had about $4 in my pocket when coming home and $0 in the bank. Now I have $2,046 to my name in poker $ and I'd like to continue rising. I don't want to get caught in a gambler's addiction and I don't want to squander away a big portion of my bankroll thinking that I can easily build up again. Why waste money??? After I'm done with poker - not permanently but to the point where I don't have to play for $$$ rather than for pure enjoyment - I have other goals I want to finish off.

So if I'm in a well to do family, why don't my parents give me an allowance? They did up until 11th grade. I got about $30 a month - probably the lowest allowance among the kids who went to private school, lol - I could make an additional $20 a week if I didn't buy any lunch - which I sometimes did, I'd mooch off of my friends' food. Back tracking for a second, when I went to visit relatives, they'd give me money since I saw them once a year. Weird custom huh...I'd always spend a lot on video games and after awhile I had about 2k in my bank. Summer of 8th to 9th grade comes along and I decide I want to invest in Sega. This was my 2nd investment, 1st being I put $$$ in IBM simply because one friend started to invest. That IBM stock later went up and split, haha. And what happened with Sega? It went from $2 to $10 !!! I invested for the sole reason that the Dreamcast was coming out, haha. My mom invested my $$$ too late and I got the stock around $3-4. I was still happy though, I had 5k! I didn't spend too much of it til later on, computer parts here and there, video games, etc etc.

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It's funny that I was thinking about that yesterday, and then as I was watching this one anime - Onegai Teacher (Onegai Teacher) - which is FREAKING GOOD by the way! during one of the episodes, this girl gets dumped by a guy she really likes, and the teacher says something like: how did you feel before it happened? She responds: excited. And he goes on to say that a lot of times we fail in what we try to achieve, but each experience is fun and when you finally get to your goal, it's the best feeling ever. And I fully agree.

note ~ I rarely, rarely, like to relate any film or tv show to reality. I think it's very cheesy and if you're a good enough talker, you can relate almost any concept to reality, it's not that hard. Such as: the director had a camera watching a flower bloom into something beautiful, and that's just like life. Work hard and you'll blossom! aaaaaaaahahhahahah

It's hard for me to always look at what I do in poker for long term results. For instance yesterday, Friday the 5th of May, I was on a rollercoaster. Down $70, up $170, even, up $60, down $70, and up $1 thanks to two bonuses lol. It was really hard to stick to just longterm longterm longterm and not be phased by the fact that I had only managed a $1 profit. But after watching that episode, it hit me that IM A DUMMY! Do I have fun playing poker? Yes I do! Should I be phased by the fact that I didn't make money or worse that I'm down in $$$? No! why? Because I'm a winning player. Swings come and go and if I continue to play well, I'll make it back and then some. Not every day is going to be a golden day. Gosh, what an easy concept! I should just pin a note to my forehead :p

I'm gonna hit the cards today or tomorrow again, starting to feel more confident.
See ya
~Mikey Song

Recap of My Goals for Summer And My Home Experience

It's good to reflect on the reasons why you're playing poker and the goals you've set for yourself. It helps you keep yourself in check from getting too cocky or too miserable from playing the game.

In the 2nd week of April, I put $500 online and decided that I'm good enough to be a winning player and instead of trying to make money from playing tournaments, I'm going to learn how to play cash games, especially limit hold'em. Including bonus money as well, in less than 60 hours I turned that money into $1912. I had to take 300 out though to buy an ipod shuffle - i lost mine D: and 200 more for spending money - parents don't give me an allowance.

I'm playing poker because I don't want to be someone's doggy. I was fortunate enough last year to have two really good bosses at my summer job @ petsmart but the work was hell. Wake up 5:30am, get there by 6am, work til 2:30pm, then see girlfriend or sleep. Then some days I worked from 2:3o-11pm followed by the next day at 6am. See how it can be hell? Mornings were something like, let dogs into play room at 6am and clean their crap up. Then feeding time at 7am. Around 8am or 9am we let the dogs into the playroom and sit there for like 2-3 hours. Repeat throughout day. Hahha, 1st day I went there, I couldn't breathe. It was AWFUL. 2nd day I went, I didn't notice the difference between fresh air and doggy air =(

I just don't want to go through that again. I was really miserable last semester. Juggling a job like that and a girlfriend is a spell for disaster. And for the record, I know there are some jobs worse than that, but what I'm trying to say is I want to be in control of my life, in a way the master of my own fate. I have several projects I want to accomplish. I want to be a great poker player so I do not have to worry about my financial status, I want to be a filmmaker when I'm out of college, I want to be hated by people for setting up shelters, and I want to raise a family without having to worry about being able to support them for whatever it may be: food, shelter, and education.

Will I teach my kids poker? For now I'm leaning towards yes. Do I want them to play poker for a living? I'd be pretty disappointed if that's what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. I want them to learn manners, and discipline from the game, as well as logical thinking. Yes there's a chance they could get a gambling addiction but currently I'm thinking the benfits outweigh the risk. I don't want them to be absorbed with money and for that to be their only focus. I want to provide them with the support to be able to pursue their dreams but I also don't want them to be irrational in their thinking. Poker gives you such a great perspective at looking at life. I sometimes ask myself if what I am doing is +ev, if in the long run it will make me money or be worth it. When things go bad, I understand that things will improve later on and that this could just be a bad day for me. Some things are outside of my control and usually I'm in a mood where I can accept that - RATHER than do very counter-productive things like complaining and going on a tirade. They need to be in control of their emotions. There's just so much this game can teach them, as well as being a backup in case their careers go wrong. After all, supporting your family is the most important goal in my opinion.

My goal for this summer is to make $10,000 dollars from playing poker. That means by the end of August, I want to have at least an 11.5k Bankroll since I had 1.5k when I came home. So actually, I'll have to make a lot more than 10k this summer to make that since my parents don't give me an allowance D:

Haha, I also forgot to mention my situation. My parents HATE poker; they don't understand that it's possible to make money at it. I can't blame them too much as there was an incident w/me and poker last year. But my dad is stuck in stubborn mode: he keeps forgetting that poker is played against people instead of the casino. So yes, he keeps thinking that poker is against the house and that the house has an edge. That said, I cannot play 8 hours a day at home like I want to. My parents want me to get a job and if I'm home all day still making money...eyebrows will be raised. So what's my plan? To play live at the casino??? HELL NO. I like to play live from time to time but it's just not worth it. Online you see 4 tables at the same time, giving you the chance to win or lose more money at a time. Also, there's the issue of Rake. Rake is the cut the house takes from the pot. At Barona, if I were to play live, I'd either play 1/3 No Limit or 3/6 Limit - for those stakes, they take 4 dollars away! That's both blinds in no limit as well as Limit. Now think about it, every hand you play, 4 dollars is taken away. You could potentially be losing $100 dollars an hour (if you're in 25 hands and winning or tying them :p)

Online, for some sites I get bonus $$$ for playing a certain amt of hands and/or I get rakeback. Meaning I get about 27% of my rake back from the house! I've looked at my total stats and I've generated about $1.3k in rake - if I had rakeback on all of that I'd be getting $351 back.

So rather than playing live, I'm going to find a lan center. My friend offered to let me play at his house but I can only be there so many days in a row. Lan Centers i.e. Internet Cafe's charge something like $3-5 an hour. So I'll be paying $24-40 a day to play poker lol. This is really annoying to think about since I could be paying $200 a week to play cards but the profit i'll be making will be much more than what I pay at the lan centers.

I'm pretty confident I can do it. I was making $25 per hour during the 60 hours I played at college this past month - and that was at very low limits, 1/2 and 2/4. Granted I had bonuses helping me but I also made a large amount of profit without the bonuses. I don't look at bonuses as just profit, to me it's another way to jump up limits faster (assuming I'm beating the current limit) and a safety net incase I get hit hard. Most annoying thing is losing a few hundred dollars and having to work that back up - see my -$400 dollar post from awhile ago, that was sickening.

what am I going to do when I make my 10k? I'm definitely going to buy a lovesac for college :D
http://www.lovesac.com/ i want the BIG ONE!
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I've been home for several days now, got back during the day on Wednesday. Poker has been going very well for me right now. Wednesday I made $290 online and yesterday, Thursday, I made another $172. I haven't been playing 8 hours a day yet, more like a few hours each day so far. I'm taking it pretty easy right now since I won't be home for very long, that and I haven't seen my doggy in months!!! I love my dog! I didn't play with her very much last year and I honestly, I really felt like she felt betrayed or some negative emotion like that because I'd always come home smelling like dog and then I give her much attention because I was either playing a game, sleeping, or outside. But now she gets all the attention she wants, rawrrr, i mean woof woof.

On Wednesday night, after the online session, I went over to the casino. From 9pm-12am I raped the 3/6 game and made $240. And this is when I did something stupid...instead of leaving when I was tired, I decided to stay and see if I was still on a rush. I slowly lost more money and by 6am, I was down $75. Yes, I had lost $315. I was really cold decked for the most part and combine that with sloppy play, ughhhhh. Then in the last 15 minutes I went on a rush, tripling up to 90$ with Pocket Kings - 2 others were in the pot, one had pocket aces and I hit my set. I then got pocket 10s 2x - 2nd time I got the set, and pocket Aces for the last one. I decided to hit the sack and cashed out a $50 profit.

Big mistake I kept making that night: I kept thinking "man i'm down $240! If I just left I'd have $240 in my pocket and I could be spending it on this and this and this, blah blah blah" It was only around 5am when I realized - it's only 40 big bets! I've been on much bigger swings than this before, tough it and play longterm idiot! And so I did.

I like the casino a lot! I always get tempted to play the other games but since spring, I haven't really been in too much of a mood to gamble. Craps is fun but I have no idea what the hell I'm doing when I play. So for summer, I'm pretty much only going to the casino if friends play or for big tournaments or when they have a fun special: like on Tuesday there's Two Chip Tuesday, make a full house 9's or better and they pull out an envelope from a basket - each envelope has $30 to $525 in it!!! I wanna winnnnnnnnnn =(

What would I do with the 525 if I won? I'd save half of it as discretionary income and the rest would go into my online account. Gotta get to that 10k goal !

take care~

Yours truly,
Michael Song