Best wishes to you and yours Zen...

His preflop raise was something like forty three ...

He had two pair but I had a set of queens ...

He won't keep his stack for long
He's an idiot eurodoooooooonk (t t tss) ...
He's playin' way to strong

And I say me ... yah ME
I'm settin' you up to fall
I say me ... yah ME

Singin'

I LOVE P-L-O
Bet your stack against my nut flush ba-bay!
I LOVE P-L-O
You missed your 4-outer so shipit to me!

It's not quite Joan Jett, but meh.

Umm ... I've had a good morning.

Bah ... been there ... done that. Unsuccessfully toooo many times. It's amazing to me how addicted I am ... I can make it through about 24-36 hours (including sleeptime) before I'm overtaken by this insane and completely dominating craving. Far far worse than the booze cravings I used to have. (And that's WITH a nicotine patch.) The nicotine may be gone after 48 hours but that intense craving and the withdrawal keeps getting stronger and stronger for almost a week before it relents. If I can't make it through 2 days ... how the hell could I handle day 5?

I figure this way I can:

a) gradually reduce the dependence on nicotine (my plan is to allow myself a full pack a day ... and reduce by 1 cigarette every other day.) Also to incorporate the lower dose nicotine patch sometime in October.
b) greatly reduce the anxiety about not being able to smoke when quitting
c) use that same time to increase other activities such as running, etc which should help overall.

Trying to white knuckle it just isn't going to work for me I'm afraid. Tea or no tea.

Middle of the Month Update ... I've played 14,000 hands ... my stats are about 30/5/1.5

I've just made my own tracking system in Excel which does everything I want it to do:

how did you do it and how do you use it?

doooood PZ you are my poker hero these days. What is your $/hr winrate for this month?

I'm pretty stoked with my $24.75 but I think you must be DESTROYING that. Like, by orders of magnitude.

gogogogo August

Hey I smoked 20-40 a day for years, quit after the patch for a very long time... don't let someone calling you a pussy influence your ability to quit. It is tough, and sometimes I still want a smoke sometimes, 48 hours my ass.

Here is the deal I cut with myself... I can smoke a little first two weeks of the patch, by a little I mean one or two a day after meals, fucking or stress until I get used to the new nicotine delivery device. Then I patch it up as long as I want, stepping down when I want based on stress and other factors not what the dumb ass written by scientist box says. When I can start skipping days on stage 3 I finally quit. No real time line or concrete things so that mentally that I couldn't be defeated, if I was sticking to the plan. It took me about a year of this... but not smoking mind you to finally break the habit.

Smoke free for going on two years! Easy!

I was reading one of the "Chat with the pro's" That Full Tilt had with Jennifer Harman on it. Someone asked her what she considers a "pro" player to be. Her response was: If all your income is derived from poker your a pro. So don't feel weird for having it done.

And as far as the smoking thing yeah it was as a not to see you puss out. I somked for a few years, quit or a while, started again. Then came up with the "brilliant" idea that I should quit and switch to dip which is way worse than smoking and has more nicotine. Did that for for several years and finally quit that, been over 4 years now with no nicotine. So I've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt too