the every day struggle

I'm trying to find balance. torn between what i want to be doing and where i want to be and where i am. Although, everything in life should be manageable. I'm just gonna ramble...

This is life. Those of us that let it out through journals find that we can express this angst about life in a deep and healthy way, hoping the reader will understand where we are coming from. Transferring your negative energy into something positive is key to day to day success. I guess life is a game, you can pull the chord at any point and choose to stop playing otherwise you're in it for the long haul.
Everyone faces this, therefore no one's life is more or less important than another.
People turn to religion for this sole justice. 'treat your neighbor as you would treat yourself.' Makes sense, there doesn't have to be a deep seeded story as to where this came from. The good we do upon each other will only help us. It's only when we can't handle the situations and put the weight on someone elses shoulders rather than our own is when things become unbalanced.
I guess that is my religion.
Any morals that you live by become your religion. I do believe people are good for the most part. Maybe some just get lost.

I'm not sure where this is all coming from or why. My life has taken alot of twists and turns in the last couple months and i'm starting to wake up from this. It is necessary to learn from your experiences in order to move forward.
Whether some people make certain decisions that others wouldn't have made, had they 'been in the same situation', might come from some sort of method to their madness. Maybe only time will tell.
What are mistakes anyway? I guess its the things we do that negatively impact us and the people around us. Is it possible to always be aware of how we act towards each other? It doesn't seem likely when we're caught up in the moment. We rely on our subconcious level to take over. Somehow, chaos always stirrs up. There are stresses in the world and we are the sponge that has to soak it up. I guess when our brain is overwhelmed, we panic and lose control in our lives. This constant up and down seems to have an overbearing toll on our minds.
So in a buddhist sense, our goal in life is really to just maintain day to day balance.

Easier said than done = /

After a long hiatus from blogging...

I am back. I don't really know why i stopped. Maybe laziness or just a culmination of things that got to me. Why did i start back up? Probably because this is the best way for me to outlet what is on my mind, and lately there are lots of new and exciting things that i can predict developing, so why not capture the moment.

In terms of poker i've still been in a funk. Still battling to rebuild a roll here and there but also grasping the reality of life in terms of finances. The cost of living is high and if you can sustain your own then that's a win even if it looks like you're even. In the long run everything evens out.

"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. " - Thanks Tyler.

So what is on my mind?

GRIND.

To quote the King

"my buddy larry longlegs always says that if you havent found something you would die for then you are already dead"

Maybe it's natural to be having this 'life-changing' and optimistic mentality since it is the New Year, literally for an hour and 16 minutes now, but I can't deny I have huge expectations of myself for 2010 and beyond. The way i behave this year is a reflection of what i will become down the road....So may as well give it my all.

The difference this time is that i'm not alone.

I have many people that are going through this same thing all around me. In poker and in the music biz.

I don't know much about the music biz but what i do know is that it's one of the most competitive fields and to actually make it in it really reflects your true talent. To be able to undeniably penetrate so many people with just words and sounds is unlike anything else.

So where do i see myself at the end of this year? Literally sky is the limit. Despite all this optimistic or 'day-dream' thinking it is also important to stay grounded and realize things take time. Life takes time and you have your whole lifetime to perfect what it is that you do. Perfect is a funny word since there is no such thing, just as close to perfect as u can get.

Steeve had a good quote

Except i can't find it right now so i'll edit later and fill back in

Basically these last couple months i've been renting out an apartment in newark and living with a couple of aspiring up and coming artists. It is a gaurentee that you will be hearing Cash and Steeve Sam along with whoever else they decide to vibe with. They are the definition of struggling artists. They live through their music. What i have found though is that there's more drama in music. In poker you keep to yourself and it's you against the world. With a group, you have more people in the struggle and even though the benefits are that you help each other through it, you also take out your frustrations on each other which can have effects.

They do motivate me to keep going and without them my struggle would be much harder. People are in your life for a reason, so rather than butt heads why not take time to be open minded and see what they have to offer. I do think we are hesitant to ask for a hand once in a while. Maybe our pride gets in the way.

So back to poker...i do plan on putting in alot more hours and taking it seriously. Definitely going to start taking more shots at bloomfield when possible and AC. Maybe by the summer i'll actually have myself a little roll and can go out to vegas with King Niche and Bob. I've always known that poker didn't have to be such an isolated game and have always been excited to meet new people. Too bad in the past most people are not as open minded as you would hope and prefer to keep to themselves but recently I have found people that do have the same Grind on the Mind mentality and most importantly realize the power of working together. With this, i feel extremely confident that this year will be life-changing.

new site

switching to a new site for blogging that actually has ppl responding to my posts and i can show hands better.
http://www.pokerisrigged.com/showthread.php?t=2598

Bankroll: $2k

On a pretty good run. +$655 today @borgata, after some expenses i'm left with $2030 total. I'm confident I can keep it up and i need to keep winning just to pay back my debts. I currently owe close to 5k to 3 people. This weekend my friend is doing the 1500+150 deep stacked at Borgata so i'm gonna be playing 2-5 and probably crash at his house in Margate. Hopefully i can keep running hot. I still have 2 free nights at the Taj so i should use that next week, we'll see.

+$550, Running good in the city

Went to the new straddle club, couple of familiar faces but overall nothing special. It was a decent game, i had a few nice runs after reloading for my 2nd $200 and finishing at $955. Hopefully will go back again tomorrow but i'm thinking about just going to AC and trying out the $100+20 again, wednesday nights have some amount guaranteed so that's some incentive. We'll see what happens I guess, either way my friend Mike is going down there this weekend for the $1500 event so I'll probably tag along.

Time to turn this $12 I have left on absolute into a mill...

$120 to $1150 at Borgata

Crazy day today, got to Borgata around 2:30pm after i picked up a hundo from eng at Rutgers. I used this in addition to my $220 that i had on me and we went halves at 1-2. I was doing alright at first, up 100ish and just teatering above even and then the table died down so i switched. Missed an open ended straight flush draw on the flop and after that I just knew i couldn't play 1-2 anymore. I was tempted to go to 2-5 with it but i decided against since it was eng's money too and he wouldn't approve. anyways, i had exactly $120 and decided i'd register for the 7pm tourny. There ended up being 91 entrants so i was good to go. Early on i double up with QQ when i raised preflop to 200, got 2 callers. flop came Q 6 7 with 2 spades, sb checked i led out for $500 they both call. turn another Q. Sb checked again and this time i checked it to the other guy who bets $600. Sb calls and i flat call praying a spade comes off. River is a red T and sb insta checks and i try to think which line to take. Obviously he doesn't have a Q so what kind of hand does he think I have and what kind of hand might he have. I can't really lead out cause it's very suspicious to smooth call on the turn and then lead out on the river so i decided to check and he made a bet of about $1300. I was gonna try to make it look like a steal so i raised it to $5500 or so and he thinks for like 20 seconds and then shoves with TT lol.
After this i had 22k, blinds got to 1k-2k and i had seen 1 ace, no pairs, and one KJ. I was playing super tight but took down a pot in the blinds when i made a good call with a pair of 6's on KK86J, check check on flop, i led out for 1k on turn, check called 2.5k on river. he had A high.
So i actually did get really lucky cause i was at 17k and blinds were gonna be 1500-3k so i shove with A6 and get called by AQ and flop is A T 6 and i win. But from there i basically picked up Kings at a good time and ran it up to like 106k. We got down to 2 tables and i was feeling confident that i was going to win this thing. $3k for 1st.
So we get down to 2 tables and i pick up AA in the sb, folded around to me and i make it 20k on top blinds were 3-6k. BB auto shoves i call he has ATh and i lose that pot bringing me back down to 70k. When we hit the final table that's when i felt the game really began and within a couple rounds i was back up to $160k. Then we got even more short handed and i ran it up to $260k having 30% of the chips in play. The players were asking to chop and clearly i wasn't going to with this kind of chip stack, we were down to 7. All of a sudden short stacks kept doubling up, then i lost a couple big hands and blinds doubled up so everyone was avg in chips and we agreed to chop evenly. Came out to $1187, gave 37 to the dealers and pocketed $1150. Overall sick run but i'm really determined to use this money to go on a massive heater. Now that i have a roll to work with I kno i can go on a decent run. Hopefully all goes well.
Last week i played online mostly since i lost from that previous session at AC and Bloomfield. So i'vebeen playing $10 and $20 heads up 500chip UT's and been pretty dominant. Since i was left with only $50 in the account after Alex had lost on it i built it up that day to $212. I realized that $20 heads up sng's can give u a pretty steady win rate and sizeable too. It's really easy to get burned out from HU so u gotta really play only when u wanna play. Do not force it. I began to keep in mind this idea and the next morning Alex had lost again and I was left with $100 this time. I played the whole day on and off and ran it up to $285. The next day i transfered some to dimsumboy and had $35 left. Ran it up to $144 and then that day Alex played some $1/2 heads up and doubled it up to $289. I then played a little bit more and had some losing sessions overall down to like $250.
Anyway, i'm really confident in these heads up sng's and i know i can rely on them for extra income. You just really need extra patience but the field is so weak that its worth it to play even if you aren't on your A game. (btw just checked AP and have $12 left, way to go)

So i'm gonna keep playin with this new-found roll and hopefully things go well.
Good game

2 for 2 (+$650)

Went down to AC the last 2 nights with eng, both times he agreed to put up money for me in exchange for half my action. First night went well, i played well and aside from running into aces with kings i was still able to win $300, half of which was mine.
Then last night we went down again, Eng played 2/5 and i sat at his table. I was up $150 early on but wasn't feeling it since i couldn't play normally with an insufficient bankroll so i moved down to 1/2. Grinded there for a couple more hours after making back what i had lost at 2/5 and finishing overall +355, half of which was mine again. So now i'm up to around $300ish of my own and feel confident about going on a run with that. It takes alot of patience but these small wins are helping me keep my composure. Hopefully i'll have good things to report back in my next couple posts.