general stuff and end of year

I didn't play a ton over the Christmas holiday. I should surpass my most hands in a month by a few 1000. Starting in January I should be hitting 100k hands regularly
Only 2 more weeks of full time work and I can't freaking wait. This place sucks the life out of me. I don't have plans yet for new years and my gf is going out of town.

Looking back on a year is always a bit strange because it's easier to look back on a school year + summer. A year ago I was living large playing live 1-2 and moved up to 2-5 when I took a shot with $1500. lol That is so sad. I went broke when my hot streak turned cold, got a job, and started the trek online. Summer kind of seems like a blur but consisted of going to denton, tx to stay in a 3 bedroom apt alone while playing poker, video games, drinking and hanging out with my gf.
Since moving to nl100 4 months ago I paid off my credit card, bought a truck, have 2k in savings, and at the moment have 44 buyins online. The whole year up to the last few months I was on a strict budget. I'd get paid on the 10th and pay 3-400 on my credit card and 50 on my student loan leaving myself with about $250 for 2 weeks of food/beer/entertainment. Then I'd use the paycheck on the 25th to pay for the apartment have $250 left over.
It's kind of sad that the highlight of this year was going to Austin when I first got staked.

drifting

I've continued drifting in and out of good play for the entire month. Bad play is characterized by not being in complete focus and trying to figure out what they have. What happens is I turn into a little bit of scared money and haven't been going to showdown as much, which has increased my w$sd % but I bleed profusely in non showdown pots. When I am on my better game I feel like I turn into Negreanu despite still having appropriate aggression on each street. I start calling down with any pair in certain situations raising my wtsd and lowering my w$sd but overall increasing my wins and not just giving up pots. I think the reason my overall $ goes up has something to do with people not being able to continue aggression w/o monsters or air and missed draws. When a blank hits the board I get the extra bet out of a bluff and get a free showdown against hands that have marginal to medium value. The good news is that my win rate for the month is still over 2ptbb/100 and overall at stars is right around 2.97ptbb/100.

I let my boss know I want to go part time starting January 12, telling him I'd be taking some classes again. I might take 1 to 2 at the most but probably won't. My goal is to play a minimum of 100k hands/month which would put me at approximately 420k vpp's = $28,500 in bonus.

My schedule will be some thing like this for monday through friday.
8-12 work
12-1 lunch and nap
1-3 2k hands
3-4 exercise and shower
4-6 1.5-2k hands
6-12 relax, put in another 1k-2k hands, video game, go hang out and do whatever

I'm going to finish my christmas shopping once i get off of work and put my plan in motion by getting a membership to a small city owned gym.

I haven't been pressing myself the past few nights playing a little over 1k hands each night instead of ~2500 to get rid of some long term tilt and make sure I'm playing my A game. I felt like I wasn't thinking clearly about each decision I was making and getting a little too far marginal situations when I didn't lay out plans. Of course hind sight is 20/20 when I have my first solid session in a week and a half where I wasn't recovering losses, hitting sets and sucking out when the villian gives me a free card.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

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progress and grinding

So far I've played 20k hands which is a ton. I should be able to play more hands than I did last month for a new personal record. Yesterday I stayed home and played 5k which I believe is the most I've done in a day.

Grinding is not something that comes naturally. I've been steadily increasing my hand average/day and it is coming more easily to me. I still find it very difficult to play for very long outside of my room and desk.

I'm $1250 on my way to my $2000 goal for the month. While the goal was low and $3000 should be easily attained each month I found it messing with my mind set. Getting a session started with the pressure of winning 20 buyins caused me to play a little scared and erratic. I hope I've gotten over it. Also I hit 50k fpp's and bought a $650 bonus which I should be able to clear in a week or so.

Over the weekend I played a hand at 1-2 where I was still playing badly and got in a very unconfortable spot. Normally at .5-1 there's never more than 2 people with much more than 100bb's so deepstacked situations arrive much more infrequently. The hand I played was one that, based on his hand, would make me feel like the best player ever or retarded and spewy. I'm at work so I don't have the history.

Anyway, villian and I have 175 bb's for 350. Villian was good and active. I have AKo on the co.
villian raises from mp1. I 3b to about 24. villian 4b's to about 70.
flop 7xx
villian bets about 75 and i shoved.

Now 100 bb deep I can easily shove or fold preflop. We had played a few hands together but hadn't gotten anything to showdown. Now obviously AA and KK never fold. QQ might but I probably wouldn't if our roles were reversed. JJ and TT can find a fold here but it isn't nearly as likely to 4b these oop imo. If he has AK he folds as well.
I'm quite embarrassed of the hand. Sure I could easily play AA and KK this way which I suppose was what I was doing. The problem was that I called the 4b preflop looking to pair mine. Deviating from a plan for no real reason is never good. Anyway he turned over 44 for a set and I was drawing dead to runner runner straight split.
I had 3b a few times on the table but hadn't been crazy. If I had any overpair he's getting very bad odds to hit the set and against my hand we're flipping preflop. Being deepstacked he can call the 3b and set mine. Everything about this hand pissed me off and him being oop was the worst part.

dec start

Well so far I've played 4800 hands. I'm about $250 below expectation, down $120 in non showdown winnings, and am playing horribly but am up about $40. All that is a pretty good sign of how easy nl100 full ring is and that I'm pretty good at beating it.

I've been going to bed very late and feeling pretty bad at work. Taking a nap before I play doesn't make up for being sleep deprived.

I have a good friend taking up the online poker fight again w/ $100 playing nl10. I convinced him to play full ring and he watched me play for about 2 hours the other night. He could be successful at it because he could win live but I have doubts about the work and time he will put in. Playing underrolled and at a micro limit where you earn nothing with dreams of everything can lead to frustration without insense motivation.