Everyone has one of these nifty journals so I decided to start my own, although I am afraid I won't have all that much to keep you guys updated with. When I don't have much to say about poker I'll just talk about other random things happening.

March 2nd

Well, I didn't play any poker today and am not planning to. I played some yesterday and was pleased. I played a live $50+10 tournament. That didn't go too well as I was suffering from some serious FPS (fancy play syndrome) and busted out in the first hour. I sat down at a 1/2NL game for a little bit since they were starting a new game up. I'm familiar with most of the players and I just wanted to have a little bit of fun. Well, I made $180 playing for an hour so that was good. I'm not really counting any winnings or losings these days into my bankroll so when I win I plan on just spending that money buying random things. I think I'm gonna go out tomorrow and pick up some DVDs. Any suggestions? I was thinking of getting Ray and the LoTR series. I also need to get the Star Wars trilogy even though I don't even like those movies. And the Godfather series. Oh and I want to get the Fifth Season of South Park and Fourth/Fifth of Simpsons.

I came home and jumped into the $100+9 tournament on Stars. Got 22nd out of 200ish so I was pleased about that. I hadn't played since Friday when I played in the $20 Headsup Shootout Tournament so I felt like I wanted to play. When I quit playing semi full-time a month ago I told myself that I would play occasional sng's and tournaments. I think this new system is working out really well and I'm only playing when I want to and what I want to. My plan is to play 2-3 times a week and play at least two tournaments. I'm not really concerned about my bankroll at this point but if I'm making money that'll be a nice bonus.

Tomorrow I'm planning on playing in a $200+20 live tournament. I haven't played a serious live event in a LONG time but I think I'm up for spending one day/night of serious live poker a week from now on. I do enjoy playing live a lot more than online because I love the table atmosphere. This one's actually coming out of my bankroll so I need to do well!!! Wish me luck folks. I am ready to make some loot again .

And finally, I am leaving for Budapest this Saturday morning. It's spring break and I'm going there for a week with my college buddies. It should be a lot of fun. I hear the alcohol is cheap there. Yay. Hopefully I'll come back with some funny drunk stories and if I get some action I'll make sure to rub it in Kenny's face.

That is all for now. I rented 'Garden State' from Blockbuster last night. Haven't gotten around to seeing that so I'm gonna do that tonight.

Glad to see you getting back into poker.

Just one question.....Budapest for spring break? Thats a new one to me.

Budapest for Springbreak - I've experienced the traditional college 'spring break' scene and quite frankly I wanted something different this year. Budapest is probably the best place to visit in Eastern Europe and being that I am a big fan of travelling and seeing lots of different cultures and such, I thought Budapest would be good to go to. Also I grew up in Europe so it's nice to be able to go back.

On to the poker stuff now.

March 3rd:

So as I said, I went and played in the $200+20 tournament last night. We started with 35 players which resulted in a beefy prize pool of $7000. Not bad. Top five paid with first taking 45%. I drew a tough first table as a lot of the players are local pros and semipros who are experienced tourneyers. I caught very few cards and avoided disaster on this hand. I raise with AK preflop and get re-raised the minimum by a tight player. I'm already suspecting AA but I call. Flop comes KQ7 and I check-fold to a near pot-sized bet. I was thinking about calling but figured him for the Aces. He was nice enough to show them. Anyway we started with 10K and at the first break I clawed my way up to 12K after being down to 5K at one point. After that we consolidate to 3 tables and I'm moved to the table in the back room. Most of the players at this table were young college players who probably weren't any older than I am. The play was significantly looser and more aggressively, which gave me a chance to double up when this hand came up: I get TT in the SB. Blinds are 500/1K. UTG limps, button limps, and I raise to 3500. They both call. Flop comes T63r and I check. UTG pushes and I call. He has A2d and I double up. I caught no more hands at this table though and have 19K at the next break.

At this point I got moved again. We were down to just 2 tables now and my new table had a ton of poor players. I folded for a couple of rounds when I pick up AQo in MP. I raise the 800/1600 blinds to 4K with 20K total and a LP player pushes all-in. He had already done this two or three times in the last two orbits. BB who was shortstacked but a VERY good player called, so I reluctantly folded. LP shows A9o. BB has TT but an ace flops and he takes it down. I later crack a joke about the A9 hand and he gets all pissed and says "Stop crying. You got outplayed." I've seen him before at the same club and honestly he seems to have one of the worst attitudes I've seen of any poker players.

So now I'm down to about 15K. We are 7-handed at this point and down to 14 total when I pick up A7o UTG. I had a momentary brainfreeze and raised to 5K. BB called and pushed on a Q65 flop. I folded. Blinds jumped to 1.5K/3K which hit me on the BB. The first card I see is an ace but the second one is a deuce so I had to fold when there is a raise and a reraise in front of me. Down to 7.5K I pray I get a playable hand in the SB. It's QJs - not bad. CO who was a terrible player raise to 6K. I pushed for 7.5K and he called the additional 1.5K with Q9o. 9 flops and I'm out in 13th.

After the tournament I got in on the 2/5 mix game that was going on. 2 rounds of NLHE followed by 2 rounds of PLO 8b. I'm not very good at hi/lo games so I tried to play as tight as I could. I picked up very few good hands and managed to stay close to even only because I got paid off on two big hands. Overall I didn't like the way I played at all as I was playing way too loose. I was limping with total trash like K6s and K9o. Wow. In retrospect I'm shocked I came out almost even. The line-up was pretty tough and I was picking up no big hands and playing badly. I could definately tell that I wasn't playing my best poker though. I played pretty well in the tournament for the most part which I was happy about, but if I'm gonna start playing once or twice a week, it will probably take me a few weeks to fully get back into things.

I'm gonna be enjoying a week completely away from everything. When I come back I'm gonna try to prepare myself a little bit more. I only played about 8hrs straight today but began to feel really tired towards the end of my session. When I play cash games ideally I wanna be playing the same guys for a loooong session - I feel I get my advantage when I've gotten completely familiarized with my opponents.