Who am I and why do you care? Why do I do what I do?

I know that this is out of order and sequence but hell so am I for the most part and this is how it came out of my brain so this is how you all got it.

I love this game. I love to hate it, I love to love it. There is a challenge here I can not explain. It is a game of so many layers and nuances that the options and variances are boundless.
This game is so alive and full of so much that it is hard to give it a personality description.
This game is like the ocean it looks the same all over yet it is so different and so changing at all times.
The game is also like the ocean as it is a great equalizer. It does not care about you or what you do or who you are or think you are.
Once you enter the water of the game all becomes irrelevant except for the game.
It can lift you up to great heights and then in an instant SMASH you like a bug and make you feel like you have no reason to even be attempting to master such a great feet.
The smartest, the strongest, the richest, even the dreamers all become equal for a while as the game has no emotions, it does not care about you or your desires it is it’s own existence and you are only a small fraction of that existence for a short period of time.
You can play you can practice; you can even become totally immersed in the math and psychology of the game. But you can not and will not control it.
All we can do is hope to understand it and respect it enough so it will allow us to continue in our futile attempt to pursue success and improvement.
The game just as our lives goes on. We must continue daily with the act of living. We deal with the ups, downs, the expected, the unexpected and even the occasional disasters and windfalls. We go on with our adventure and our journey through life hoping to come out even or just a little ahead we go on. So do we continue to play hoping to come out even or a little ahead we continue to play.

I play poker for the challenge of playing the best poker that I can and learning as much about the game and the interaction with and around the game as I can. Poker challenges me not only as a player but as a person and forces me to look not only at my opponents, but at myself. Poker has had a profound effect on me as a student of the game and a student of human nature and interaction. I started studying poker and poker books, odds, outs, and betting strategies. I found myself studying human relations, body language, interrogation, communication, and even self hypnosis to state just a few of the side avenues that I have traveled to round my game and my abilities.

POKER CHALLENGES ME ON SO MANY LEVELS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ACTUAL CARDS OR HANDS THAT IT IS AMAZING TO ME…..

I have developed an extensive players journal and excel spreadsheet to track my own play as well as log and interpret information about regular opponents I see. I track many pieces of information hours played, hands dealt BBs earned or lost per hour/per session and overall. I track session activitily as well as overall activity. I keep a journal with pre-session entries and post-session entries to compare what I wanted to accomplish with what actually occurred. I log information about other players personalities and what there style of play is and how I interpret them at the table and how I think it best to interact with them during sessions and even situations that may arise in future sessions. My journal as of this posting is 300 pages long and contains over 100 player notes entries. My Excel sheet contains logs for over 750 hours of play and 20,000 hands dealt and this is just the ones since I started tracking on a regular and standardized form. Not the long run by any means and not the most of any player I know but it is mine and it is honest and clear. This is also all live cash play in casinos where I live (not internet play) I tracked that separately when I was able to play.

I have also started to log my game sessions on this site in the tracker area I track in a very honest and real world style I believe and you can look and see all you want. I place information from real life in my tracker that has an effect on my poker life (my bankroll) not just game session logs but actual money in and out and why and how.

I can say that for every hour I sit in a game I probably spend minimum of 20 minutes logging information about the session and my opponents as well as things I learned that worked or did not work or to do differently next time.
Even when I do not go to play I am working on my game reviewing my notes looking back at other sessions and re-reading entries and articles that I have saved from magazines and internet sites.

SO WHY DO I DO WHAT I DO??????
BECAUSE I LOVE IT AND IT IS A CHALLENGE THAT WILL NEVER END FOR ME.

If you have not noticed yet, I have never said once that I do this to make money. I would be a flat liar if I said I did not play for money I do play for money and I do make money and I want to make more money. But I am not purely motivated by money (especially at the limits I play). Money is a secondary outcome of my primary goal and that is how I place it. I used to play for and think about money and I lost my ass regular like clock work for a longer period of time than I am proud of. When the light went on and my focus became clearer I started making some of the losses back and continue to do so now. I do not chase the rabbit any more and it comes of it’s own when it is supposed to come.

Next spew from me to you
Lets play poker shall we……..