The holidays are over and its time to head back to the world of classes, homework, term papers, and beautiful women (God really did bless Texas). The next couple of days are going to be hectic while I try to get everything connected again so don't expect a speedy response to any e-mail, then again, has anyone recieved a speedy response from me?

Due to a never ending flow of spam posts, I have temporarily disabled comments. Having to delete 50 posts an hour about debt reduction and making my man tool into "a love machine" is really starting to piss me off. I don't even have any freakin' debt right now, but I must admit, the whole love machine elicited a couple curious clicks; I was totally let down with the solution.

If anyone has any clue as to how to prevent spam comments in movable type, please, PLEASE, send me an e-mail. Other than blocking IP addresses which has done little in the way of stopping the influx, I have no idea how to fix the problem.

As most people do around this time, I have been thinking quite heavily about what I want to get out of the next 365 days of my life. 2004 was a stressful but enjoyable year for me. There were very few things in my life that I couldn't smile about. I met a wonderful woman that makes me smile like no one else can. I pulled out my 4.0 for the second straight year. I scored a great internship. All in all, there were very few bad things that happened to me in 2004. Yet, even with all the good things that happened last year, I feel strangely unsatisfied when I look back on it.

When I reflect on what I learned and how I grew over last year, I feel empty inside. I have a natural urge to learn everything I can about whatever I engage myself in and do whatever it is "the best I can" as cliche as that sounds. When I look at all the things I took up in 2004, I didn't even come close to scratching the surface when it comes to getting better at any of them. By and large, last year was a "get my feet wet" year in relation to a lot of things, college clubs, golf, work, but most of all poker. I have been playing for a couple years off and on, but nothing serious. 2004 was to be the year that I grew in my mastery of the game. Unfortuantly, I don't think I made much progress in that department.

When you look at my numbers from last year, you wouldn't think that was the case. Remarkably, they turned out pretty well. I was up more than I ever thought I would be. However, and I think I said this before, poker is not about the money for me. All I care about is getting better, making better decisions, better reads, better bets, just overall playing better than I did when I first started. The money comes second.

Over the last year, I haven't done that. I am still making the same mistakes that I made when I first started playing. I still get to attached to big hands, calling when I know I have been beat. I still don't play position the way I should. I still see way to many flops, hell I see almost as many rivers for that matter (almost 20% of my hands I see the river, but I win more than half of them). I still don't take the time to stop and think before I make a decision. I still am the type of guy that you would want sitting at your table.

I know what the leaks in my game are, and I know, for the most part, what I need to do to fix them, but I just can't seem to do it. This year it all changes. In 2005 I am going to make a conscious effort to plug the leaks and that starts tonight. I have completely emptied the Poker Tracker database and am starting fresh. The bankroll has been emptied except for $100 at party. The goal is to start at the lower limits and work my way up mastering each level as I go. I'll stick to the general rule in moving up the limit ladder accumulating 300 BB before changing levels. I hope to pick up an average of 40-50BB a week but that depends on how much time my schedule allows for poker and how quickly I learn to play.

As far as obtaining the knowledge to hone my game, a lot of it comes with playing and critical, true, reflection on my game. There will be a lot of that. However, there is s also ome schoolin' that I can't provide myself. To satisfy that need I shall turn to the blogger community. I have learned so much from them already, and I know I can learn so much more and now I hope I will be able to implement both the old and newly acquired information.

Maybe I'll be back at the 3/6 tables by the end of the year and turning a healthy profit. That would be nice on the pocket book, but I really don't care as long as I am learning something.

With that said, wish me luck as I take step one of my thousand mile journey.

"It's a roller coaster. Sometimes you're high, sometimes you're low. Right now, it's our low point. There's nothing I can do right now to change it. ... but I'll be all right. I'll fight through. The sun will come up tomorrow." - Jason White

Two years in a row the bowl game has been their "low point" ... and man have I enjoyed the last two years. There is nothing better than watching the team that beat my horns get absolutely walloped. I take pleasure in knowing their fans get a little taste of what I go through every time the Red River Shootout comes around, wondering where the hell did all the talent go! What an embarrassment in front of millions of people.

On a differnt note, the quote was chosen not merely because it allowed me to take a jab at OU, but because it describes my poker play today. 128 hands played without a single win. Variance sucks.

127 hands I look down and find nothing but cards like 92o. Whats worse, I couldn't even play a single hand. If I limped in pre-flop, the pot got raised at least 5 or 6 times the big blind. If I raised pre-flop to try to steal, I got re-raised all-in. You would think I owed the table money with the way it was working me over. It wasn't all bad though. Out of all 127 hands, if I played them down to the river, I only would have won two of them: one when my ten would have beat out pocket eights and another when my 95 would have hit the straight. My outlook: at least I didn't fold a bunch of winning hands like I usually do during "dry spells". No, this was a TRUE dry spell. No cards and no winning hands.

The 128th hand though, I thought I had broken the spell. Nope.

I'm dealt cowboys in the BB. Four people limp, small blind raises. I, still not over the fact I finally got a raisable, scratch that, playable hand, re-raise all-in. I get two callers, a guy in middle position and the small blind. MP flips over pocket tens and SB shows pocket queens. I about wet myself when I saw how far in the lead I was. Finally, I was going to win a pot. Yeah, guess what the first card on the flop was. Yup, it was a ten. Should have known with the way my day had been going.

The remaining four cards were rags and I was left with nothing. I thought about rebuying for a moment before my better judgement came back. The way my day was going, I either would have pissed it away making stupid decisions or just had my stack blinded away. Either way, it wouldn't have turn out profitable so I just went and took a nap instead.

Today was a low-point, but I'll fight through and the sun will come up tomorrow. The cards will eventually change and pots will again be pushed my way. Until then, I take solace in knowing two things.

First, I played the hands right. I maintained discipline and thats a step in the right direction from where I usually find myself during dry spells where anything suited is good enough for to go all-in.

Second, while like the Sooners, I went to sleep having suffered a big loss, unlike OU, I'll wake up tomorrow and still have my dignity.

As a sidenote, the sun didn't come out in Norman today, it was cloudy/rainy ... sorry Jason ...

For those who are addicted to the apprentice ... and have a gambling problem ... like me ...

From bodog.com:

Currently Todd, the 34 year old sales manager, is listed at the favorite at 3/1 odds. Close behind Todd we have John and Tara from the Street Smart team and Erin from the Book Smart team. All three are listed at 4/1 odds. At 5/1 odds another crop of street smart reps are in the fray with Chris, Audrey and book smart Stephanie. Danny and Verna, both representing the book smart team, are listed at 6/1 odds. The two contestants who are currently in the long shot position are Tana and Angie from the street smart squad. Both contestants are listed at 12/1 odds.

With poker becoming a cornerstone of modern day American pop-culutre, it is interesting to observe how its terminology has saturated main stream media. From articles about college football to OPEC, poker lingo has been invoked to catch the reader's attention and convey the author's message. Sometimes it works, a lot more times though it doesn't.

Therefore, partly inspired by Jay Leno's "headlines" segment and partly because at 3:30 in the morning it sounds like a good idea, I present "Poker in the Headlines".

The point is to highlight occurences where poker terminology is used that seem out of place. The first candidates are as follows:

From the The Houston Chronicle on Sunday January 02, 2005.

Headline:

Top pairs in title game play like royal flush; How's this for star power: Bush, Leinart, White and Peterson?

A snippet:

Because the BCS is constantly bombarded with criticism anyway, maybe the name should be changed to the World Series of Poker.

After all, No. 1-ranked Southern California and No. 2-ranked Oklahoma will push all their chips into the middle of the table while holding a pair of aces.

Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush of the Trojans vs. Jason White and Adrian Peterson of the Sooners.

Two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks. Two young running backs who virtually defy description.

From the South China Morning Post on December 31, 2004.

Headline:

Opec sole wild card in crude poker

A snippet:

The production ceiling will be on the table at Opec's next meeting on January 30, when members will also consider raising the cartel's reference crude price, currently between US$ 22 and US$ 28 a barrel.

...[snip]...

He may be right, the speculative elements - like wild cards - notwithstanding, Opec is playing its supply card against market forces.

Admittedly, the headlines aren't funny, but the stretch the author's make to link the terminology used to whatever their subject is what is sort of funny. It doesn't really fit, but poker is popular ... so lets do what we can to ride on its coattails.

If you have watched the news, read a paper, or seen any form of media over the last week or so, then you know about the devastating Tsunami. Everyone is doing whatever they can to help, including the poker community.

From Poker Stars' website:

The past week we have all witnessed a great tragedy unfold. The recent East Africa and South Asia earthquake and tsunami disaster has devastated many parts of the area, killing over a one hundred and twenty thousand. Many more have seen entire families lost, homes washed away, crops destroyed, and water sources contaminated.

With your help PokerStars plans to reach out and lend a helping hand to the millions affected by this disaster. Over the next several days we will be collecting donations from any PokerStars player willing to give. We will then match those donations dollar for dollar and submit the money to the International Federation of Red Cross.

We hope you will join us in lending a helping hand; each dollar you can spare will give two dollars in aid for those who have lost everything.

Information about how to donate can be found here.

I don't know if it is a marketing move or if the people behind Poker Stars really care. As long as the money goes to those who need it though, and from what I can tell it does, I really don't care.

If you can spare anything at all, I would urge you to consider donating to the relief effort.

Apparently, I forgot to change the post status of the pervious post to publish when I wrote it so if you are seeing a post from the 28th that you hadn't seen over the last couple days, its ok, the brownies you ate for dinner weren't "special".

At any rate, I am back from Cali and what an unbelievable trip it was. 43 hours and 3283 miles logged in the car and 7 days of incrediblenss with friends.

For all of you who didn't see the Texas vs. Michigan Rosebowl, you missed an amazing game. It was back and forth the entire time. I think watching the game gave me an ulcer. However, I am proud to announce that Texas kicked Michigan's ass (yeah a one point victory is an ass whoopin in my book)! Vince Young silenced all of his critics. The drunk guy next to me kept calling us "The Aggies". I have never heard 40,000 Michigan fans get so quiet. And I got hit on ... a bunch of times.

Outside of the game, I went and did all kinds of fun stuff. I participated in a little "float decoration" for Cal Poly's Rose Parade float. When I say decorate though, I really mean fill plastic viles with "flower food". Boring job, but the people we worked with were hella fun.

Got to ride in the "Army of One" hummer ... you would think for a promotional vehicle it would at least have comfortable seats and automatic windows ... yeah, I know I'm spoiled.

Got to meet the Rose Court. Damn those girls were hot and they definately didn't look 17 ...

Went out to Santa Monica and watched the sun set on the beach which was quite a humbling experience. After feeling at peace with myself, I decided it was a good idea to try the carnival games on the pier. Yeah, I blew 20 bucks trying to get a whiffle ball in a box. The carnies made it look so easy .....

Don't eat the food in China Town and "Massage Parlor" really means massage parlor ... damn Rush Hour for making it seem like something else!

Got lost in downtown LA ... five times ... after we bought a map.

Welcomed 2005 with poker and alcohol, what more could I ask for? Oh I know, more people to think I'm 21 and not ask for my ID. Why can't anyone in Austin do that for me?

Watched the rose parade and had little kids try to break my ankles. I swear, parents really should put some kids on a leash. Still, it was nice to finally see the parade in person rather than on TV.

Vegas on the first ... need I say more.

Saw the Hoover Dam. Had all of my "dam" questions answered.

Drove through New Mexico twice ... I still don't know what it looks like.

It was an awesome trip.

Expect stuff related to poker in the next post.