12:59am: Well, it wasn’t quite a “session”, but I’ve played 3 games since my apartment burned down to the ground, and thankfully have won all 3 of them. At this point, it was probably as much about morale as it was for money, but I’ll take any break I can get at this point.

Summary of the last couple days; been running errands all over 3-4 cities, some of them almost an hour away from each other. Have been back to ground zero at the apartment complex a grand total of 6 times now since the fire, including today. I had to go back there and pick up a check for $700 for half this months rent, as well as a refund on our security deposit.

I also found out that the DVR that we JUST got from our cable company was $700, and will have to be paid for by us (actually, insurance). That was somewhat disappointing because that’s $700 less money to spend on things we NEED.

I’m also 95% done making the list of everything that was damaged. You can pretty much pencil it in: $50,000 worth of damage. Thank god for insurance.

Anyways, things are starting to normalize, so pretty soon I will be able to update the blog 2-3 times a day, like you’re used to. Thanks to everyone once again for all the support, and thanks to all of you for visiting the blog - both return visitors and new.

… and oh yeah, I’ll be making an announcement soon about the 3rd video tutorial, so stay tuned.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

12:52am: Well, it’s a start. Today we received an advance on our large claim by opening up the mail and finding a check for $2,500. I put my would-be poker session on hold today to do some very much necessary shopping. I bought a pair of shoes, two pairs of shorts, a shirt and a wallet. I’m not even close to done, I just had to have something to wear tomorrow in order to do more shopping. I also needed a place to put my new drivers license and debit card (went to the DMV and bank also).

$2,500 is only about 7-8% of the total payment we should be receiving, but it was a nice gesture by the insurance company to send this money in good faith without requiring a shred of proof that we had lost anything.

Anyways, I’ll have to do a little more shopping tomorrow, but hopefully I will be able to put in my first night session since the fire. Until then, good luck everyone.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

11:51am: I just wanted to keep everyone updated on what’s going on, and what is expected to go on in the near future. We’re in the process of totaling the amount of total damage of all the items that were destroyed in the fire. I’ve had to look up model numbers and recall where specific items were purchased, as well as when they were purchased. However, obviously I can’t show receipts — so they’re just going to have to take our word for it.

I’m not even halfway though the apartment, and I’ve already totaled $27,500 worth of damage. I still have to include the master bedroom, the office, and the bathroom before I come to a final total. They are going to compensate us based on [total price + inflation - depreciation]. I’m no insurance expert, but I believe that we will be compensated for the full amount that we were covered for, as the total amount of the claim (even including depreciation) will be higher than the amount we were covered for.

After adding up all the details of the policy, it looks like we are covered for circa $30,000. While this will not cover every single item that was lost, it should be enough to get us started when we move into our next place.

As for where we’re going to stay, the complex called us the next day to let us know that they would have an apartment ready in about a month. It’s slightly bigger than the 2 bedroom apartment that burned down, however it will be $130 more a month than we previously were paying. We don’t have much of a choice, as most of the apartments in the area are occupied and cost more than even what we will eventually have to pay. We will be back and forth between relatives homes until we get the call that the apartment is ready.

I will resume my daily poker sessions starting today at some point, hopefully. Thanks to everyone who has emailed me with supportive comments — I really appreciate it. Things should be back to normal both in my life and on the blog very shortly.

Thanks Guys,
Jason

9:26am: If you guys were wondering why there was no update yesterday, it’s because Sunday at 3:00pm CST, an apartment downstairs from mine caught fire, quickly spreading and eventually destroying the whole building. I have lost everything, including all of my possessions. The only thing I was able to save was my laptop and my cat.

However, there is some good news despite this tragedy. Thankfully, I had renter’s insurance. So almost everything I owned was fully covered.

Right now, my GF and I are staying with family. I will do a full update of the blog later today when everything starts to settle down — including yesterday’s hot chick, today’s hot chick, and updated daily videos as well.

Here is a picture of what was left of my apartment after the fire. Notice the complex in the background, which is what it looked like before it burned to the ground. I will post more pictures in a little while.

2:09pm: Well, as promised, I am now on a better sleep schedule. I woke up today around 8:00am, and decided to put in a morning/afternoon session. The results were mixed, but for the most part good. I played, in my opinion, completely lights out. However, the three times that I lost I got turned or rivered when the money was all in and I was ahead. However, I did get lucky once, when I flopped top two and the guy flopped a flush, and we get it all in on the flop and I turned a full house. So “decision wise”, I’m probably more like 8-1 rather than 9-0 when you include who was ahead when the money went in.

There’s a very interesting hand with a good bit of metagame involved that I want to share with you, but it’s going to take a while to analyze it and type out my thoughts, so I will post that later on.

In the meantime, my GF has to work night for the first time ever tonight, so I have to run by the local cable company and pick up a HD DVR box. I have TIVO, but I never hooked it up to my new TV because it’s not a HD DVR, and I didn’t want to go through the trouble of setting everything up when I knew eventually I’d get around to doing what I’m about to do today

More later… good luck to everyone playing today.

*EDIT*, 6:58pm: Was able to get in one more game before I watch the Hornets game on TV, and I won it, so now I’m 6-3.

3:43pm: I find myself in the midst of a very awkward sleep schedule. I’ve been blogging and playing so much that I’ve now deviated from my normal 2am-10am sleep schedule. The average time I get to bed lately is somewhere around 9am, leaving me with only about 6 hours to sleep. From a return on investment standpoint, this is probably the most profitable time to be playing poker (according to my hour-of-the-day SharkScope stats). However, is it really good for me? Probably not.

First off, this sleep schedule isn’t really conducive to participating in society. Human interaction is important, even when your job is to sit in front of a computer 8-12 hours a day. This is one of the things I miss about my old job as a bartender. When you wake up at 4pm, you’re getting up just as everyone is getting in, which therefore limits your exposure to other human beings.

It’s also not very conducive to staying in tip top physical shape. Like many before me, I am guilty of owning a membership to a gym and not taking full advantage of it. I never said I was perfect, and this is something that I look forward to changing in the near future. It takes a very organized and composed personality to perfectly balance everything in life.

How you walk the fine line between balancing life and poker goes a long way into determining how happy you are as a person. When I’m not on THIS particular sleep schedule, I feel like I do a good job. However, inevitably I always find myself staying up progressively later each day. That being said, it’s not totally my fault though. If there’s one thing I’ve come to learn about myself, it’s that if my body doesn’t want to sleep, there’s no way in hell it’s going to let me force it. I’ve always been a night owl, ever since the early days of high school.

I went to private school, and had to be up at 5am everyday in order to be there for 7am. 80% of the time I’d stay up until at least 2am talking to girls on the phone, and the other 20% of the time I wouldn’t go to sleep at all. I did all of this while maintaining my top 15 class rank (out of 400), but admittedly not working as hard as I could have. I actually got on a better sleep schedule in college, although not much better, but that was because I had a steady girlfriend throughout.

Point being, I think we all — including myself — need to evaluate whether or not we are maintaining a healthy balance of life and poker. What I normally do when I want to get back to a normal schedule is to stay up all night, therefore making me tired when normal sleeping hours arrive the next day. That’s probably what I’m going to have to do in order to get back on track, but I will. More later…

5:44pm: Is it me, or have movies steadily gotten worse every year since around 2005? I remember when I used to look forward to at least 1-2 good movies coming out every week, and now I’m reduced to 1-2 good movies every two months, if that.

The reason I’m asking is because it’s been a long week of poker, and I decided to get out of the house tonight and do something extra-curricular. It’s important to maintain a good balance of poker with personal life. If you don’t reward yourself with some fun every now and then, you might lose the motivation to make the money in the first place.

Anyways, I’m off to grab some dinner and see “Leatherheads” with my GF. Good luck to anyone playing tonight, but if you’ve been playing a lot lately, reward yourself - go have some fun.

8:46pm: Well, I was busy running errands all day, so I now need to play 16 games in 3 hours in order to reach my monthly quota. It’s probably not going to happen, but I’m going to try my best. The blog has definitely cut into my poker volume, but that’s a distraction that I’ll welcome with open arms because I enjoy web design and blogging just as much as I do poker. With that being said, I need to get to work. I will post a full report after the session. And in case you’re curious, the errands I had to run today included:

1. Taking GF to eye doctor to pick up her new glasses
that I’m almost sure she will never wear.

2. Eating lunch

3. Getting new cell phone (never buy a Treo 700w, mine broke on me)

4. Getting a new Wireless-N laptop adapter (my internal adapter on my laptop was a POS)

5. Coming home and realizing that I forgot that my laptop doesn’t have a PCMCIA slot - new HP laptops no longer have them

6. Going back to the store, returning said adapter for one that fit in an ExpressCard slot

Which leads me to now, so I must get going. Good luck to anyone playing a night session with me. More later..

3:58am: Well, I didn’t get to put in a long session because I was distracted by the Hornets-Raptors game (Hornets win), and then I dedicated a solid two hours writing the article below (must read). This means that I will have to play a mandatory 16 games tomorrow to hit my monthly quota, so it should be an interesting day to look forward to. However despite the lack of volume, I was able to get in a very efficient session, as I finished 4-0 on the day. Ironically, all four of my opponents were extremely aggressive, so it was fitting that I got to use my own advice in a practical manner in such an immediate fashion. There is something I must say that I didn’t mention in my article regarding aggressive opponents. If you’re going to sit back and let them do the betting for you, you have to, and I repeat - HAVE TO be able to play good “defense”. That basically means that if you’re going to be passive (calling more than you’re betting or raising) you have to make sure your reads are spot on. Look for betting patterns. Experience tells me that if they’re overbetting the pot all day, and then all of a sudden they throw in a pot-sized bet, or under bet the pot, they’ve probably got it. On the other hand, if they usually throw out pot-sized continuation bets, and then all of a sudden, they throw in a huge overbet, they usually have it as well. In addition to this, if they’re any good, they might catch on to what you’re doing, and then switch it up and take you to value bet city, making you look like the sucker. So be aware of them being aware of you. However, with that being said, apparently none of the four guys I played today caught on, and I was able to win all four games with no problems.

Regarding the movie “21″, I have to say it would be hard for me not to like this movie because it involved three of the things I love most in life: Cards, Math, and half naked women. Fortunately, the movie actually didn’t need eye candy to stand out on its’ own, as it was pretty damn entertaining. Anyone who plays any kind of card game regularly can relate to this movie, as well as anyone who has ever engaged in any form of gambling. The movie is based on the infamous 1970s blackjack card-counting team from MIT, and the book “Bringing Down the House” by Ben Mezrich. Poker players can especially appreciate this movie, as it touches on topics we are near-and-dear to, such as statistically beating a game billed as a “game of chance” in the long run. The main character of the movie, played by Jim Sturgess, does a good job in his role of playing extremely smart kid turned rich-corrupted-sinner, and has to decide which life he wants: the pure life, or “the good life.”

As always, I won’t spoil the movie, but all of you need to get up and go see this, because who wouldn’t want to see a movie about making money, cards, gambling, and half naked women? And to boot, Kevin Spacey is an incredible actor and he very rarely (with the exception of K-PAX) chooses movies to act in that are not GREAT.

Overall, I give it a 7.0 on my VERY strict scale of 1-10.

5:41pm: Well, my GF was off from work today, so I decided to spend the afternoon with her before I got deep into any kind of poker session. We decided to see The Bank Job, which was about a 1970’s Bank Robbery in London. More specifically, it had to do with a bunch of amateurs who bit off more than they can chew by taking the contents of safe deposit boxes of some pretty high profile politicians in London. I won’t spoil the movie, but I have to say that it was pretty good. Movies have really sucked lately, which is disappointing because I love movies. However, this one definitely held its own in the “heist” genre. If you liked The Italian Job, Heat, Ocean’s Eleven, or The Score, then I believe you would enjoy this movie. I recommend it, if you have time. Or, make a note to rent it when it comes out, either way.

Anyways, I played one game on Cake before I left for Lunch/Movie and I won, so I’m 1-0 so far. I had to come back from a 2600 to 400 deficit to win the match. I doubled up twice in a row, when I flopped top two on one hand, and got paid when my opponent called with middle pair. On the next hand, I picked up pocket aces, and limped. He then raised, and I shoved, and he snap called with AKoff, and my hand held up. After that, he pretty much went on tilt and gave the match to me.

Anyways, good luck to anyone playing tonight. More later…