Return to Action

Wow, long time no blog. After keeping a very steady blog for over half a decade, I have been terrible about blogging this past year.

After so many years of blogging and in general being in the poker public eye, it sure has been nice to maintain a much lower profile lately. I haven’t paid anywhere near as much attention to what is going on in the poker scene for the past year. Shoot, I don’t even have a PTR membership anymore (the accuracy of their Merge network tracking is somewhat of a joke these days) so I don’t wrap myself up much in all that stuff. I have been mostly focusing on enjoying myself, my family and of course the game of poker, albeit on a much more limited basis.

I guess given that I don’t have much interest in the nosebleed scene nor do I care at all about the tournament scene, I guess that has left me with nothing left to accomplish in poker other than just continuing to make more money. So as a result I have had trouble motivating myself to try and achieve greater and greater things in poker. It seems much more gratifying to do things I enjoy, hang with my kids and focus more on enjoying life rather than feeling like I had to achieve something all the time.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still very much a poker pro and have actually been playing quite a bit since April with some really nice success. The difference I suppose is that I only play when I feel like it. Sometimes that means playing 180k hands in a month like I did in May, and other times that means barely playing at all which has been the case the past few weeks.

One thing that has been pretty cool about poker post Black Friday is that since I no longer have an abundance of 5/10nl + games at my disposal, nor do I have to worry about staying on top of VPP’s or anything like that, I have for the first time in my career been free to simply experiment with different plays and focus on becoming the best player I can be. Boy am I glad for that because my game is much better than it has ever been. I no longer worry at all about making a “mistake.” I guess you can say I have full confidence that as long as I think through a play as best as I can, then it is probably fine to make. I don’t really care what the “standard line is” or what the latest video maker says is right or wrong. I just do whatever the hell I feel like doing at the tables and the results have been outstanding this year.

I have also taken an interest in heads up play this year for the first time in my career. Again, I have no idea if I made a video for Bluefire Poker or Poker Strategy (the two sites I regularly produce content for) on heads up play whether I would be flamed or not. I have no idea what is “standard” and what isn’t. I just play how I feel like playing and have been having a lot of success against mid and high stakes regulars. I may make a video on heads up, but I probably won’t. I really don’t see the point and really don’t feel like opening up about my thought process. Who knows, maybe I will get the itch to do one at some point.

I have been really digging playing golf at my home club, Pumpkin Ridge, lately. I played every day last week and had a lot of fun. In 3 weeks I am going to see if I can defend my title as club champion. I have played less golf this summer than I did last summer, so I don’t know if my game will be super sharp or not, but as usual I will give it my best and see what happens. There are some good players out there so I will have to play some good golf if I am going to pull it off.

Last week I played the Member/Guest with my friend Matt Bolt (Mbolt1). We had a great time out there and it was definitely a trip to remember. One of the bigger thrills of the week was playing with John Ashworth, founder of the Ashworth clothing brand. As a kid I used to wear Ashworth clothing exclusively and Freddie Couples was one of my favorite players. To get an opportunity to play golf with Mr. Ashworth was quite a thrill. What a great guy too! He was a true pleasure to play golf with. He was what golfers call a “purist” which I guess I am at the core as well. If it was up to me, we would be playing with 30 + year old equipment and all of the golf courses would play like the courses at Bandon Dunes. Unfortunately those days are long gone.

As fun as the Member/Guest tournament was last week, it wasn’t even close to the most thrilling thing I experienced last week. I am proud to announce that I have become the first member of Americas Cardroom ACR elite team . I have known the folks at ACR for quite some time now and they are some fantastic people with a commitment towards excellent customer service. Combine that with a poker room that is growing like a weed, it seemed to make for a great fit for me. ACR also started a massive progressive rake race dubbed “The Beast” where prizes for the top rake earners can be a bit of a game changer for them, especially as the bonus pool continues to grow and grow in the months ahead.

All in all I am quite excited to be representing Americas Cardroom will be playing quite a bit there, especially at 2/4nl and above, but I’m sure as the weather ceases to be amazing here in Portland, I will be grinding as many tables as I can in an attempt to see how well I can do in “The Beast.” Right now “The Beast” is paying out a little over $10,000 a month for 1st place, but it wouldn’t be shocking at all to me if it is $25,000 or more for first by the end of the year. Americas Cardroom is growing so quickly, it is nothing like it used to be. I used to play there a little bit earlier in the year, but the games were pretty sparse above 1/2nl. But since the advent of “The Beast,” the site has just totally blown up and now it is a great place for multi tablers to play 1/2nl and above.

I will work on blogging a lot more in the near future. I have been terrible about it this year. I guess it is just the kids and everything else that has been slowing me down, or maybe a lack of inspiration, I don’t know really. What I do know is that I am going to commit to a much more frequent blog. I will try to get some more interesting hands posted and talk about them in my blogs from time to time. I know people generally like when I do that, so I will work on finding some more cool ones to post.

Good luck at the tables. I hope you will join me at Americas Cardroom , but no matter where you play, I hope your game continues to come along as you are hoping! Improving each day is what this game is about. If you can walk away a bit better at the end of the day than when you started it, then it is only a matter of perseverance before you are a great poker player.