Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

I got back from vegas about a week ago. I attempted to do the drive in 2 days which would essentially break down into 2 days. I did 16 hours the first day which was a breeze. I got a hotel room in Oklahoma City and passed for 3 hours. I wake up at like 3am, and for some reason think its a good idea to start driving again. It’s probably because i hate being in the midst of traveling. I just really like being home, or at my destination not any middle ground. Anyways, terrible idea.

Firstly, I hit the world’s most ridiculous thunderstorm in arkansas. It was literally a 9 hour long storm of just total downpour. While I was doing this, I decided I needed to fight off my urge to sleep via pummelling my body with red bull. I’ve drank alot of red bull before, but never like this. I drank roughly 64 oz of red bull within an hour. I went into la la land promptly after that. I don’t remember a vast majority of the 5 hours that followed. I just remember having some of the craziest thoughts i’ve ever had. I kept counting in my head for some reason. Everytime I got to 200 i would just start over. It was the most bizarre thing. I couldn’t relax and wasn’t thinking right. I for some reason thought I was going straight to DC on my trip and kept having to correct myself mentally. I realized I was in no shape to drive and finally got a hotel room right before memphis (which usually would only be about 6 hours of driving but it was 9 hours while doing 45 mph (thanks storm). I went to check-in and couldn’t even remember my home address I was so fucked up off RB. I straight looked at the attendent and said “i don’t know” when he asked my home address. I then went up to the room to pass out. To my dismay I was completely incapable of relaxing, let alone sleeping. It was a nightmare. I knew i was absolutely exhausted but my heart was racing. I was talking fast and still having crazy thoughts. I thought for a minute there that was actually going insane or having a manic episode (tbh what i experienced was likely very close to a manic episode minus blacking out). Finally, I called Leigh and she told me to drink a ton of water and basically wash the red bull outta my system. 16 glasses of water and 4 pisses later, I could think again and finally slept. I know this story is hilarious… but it was honestly one of the stupidest/scariest things i’ve ever done. NEVER DRINK THAT MUCH RED BULL!

I made it to charlotte the next day off of a cup of coffee and absolutely no red bull. I spent the last week preparing to move and hanging out with my charlotte friends. It was a good time, and today I finally drove the u-haul with my car in tow up to DC. It was an easy enough drive and went without any issue. Driving a truck is actually kinda fun until you get to a road work cattle chute… those are not so fun. 2 feet of room on each side is tight to say the least. I will be moving my stuff into my new house tomorrow. Me and my GF will be living with my best friend from college and another frat brother. It should be interesting, as we have never lived together, but I have lived with my bff. yes i know bff is gay… that’s why i used it.

I also got word that I passed the FE exam like i thought I did. It is a great feeling and I’m really glad i didn’t give up after the 3rd time. I feel pretty damn good. That said, I have absolutely no intentions of working any time in the near future. I took the test simply for an elaborate backup should i ever need one. I have loved the past 7 months of being professional and honestly I can’t imagine waking up for work again or not being my own boss. I like civil engineering but not enough to get paid shit and have only 6pm to midnight available as my own time. It doesn’t get better than working 2 hours a day and still making a very comfortable salary. At the end of 2009 however, I will definitely assess my options and how I feel about poker and make a decision for 2010 (I’ll give ya a hint though… unless I lose money the rest of the year, I will not be working in 2010.)

That’s a nice segway to my poker playing in July. I have not put in much volume this month but I am up money. It’s nothing special but for 15k hands its not too upsetting to be up 3k. I will be putting in alot of volume in august and beyond so I’m not too worried about it. Also other big news, I’ve moved back to FTP. I finally found a way to get money on FTP, and have since ran that up to a 1/2 roll. I will be cashing out my cake roll over the next month and trying to actually deposit on FTP. The games are FTP are so good compared to cake, its actually unbelievable. Cake is definitely dead… now that said… who needs cake money for ftp?

I have one more trip to do before i’m done travelling for the summer. I am going to my family’s beach house next week and will be out there just enjoying the sun with them. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t go but my dad is just being really really persistant about it for some reason. Usually, he lets me decide but this year he really is pushing so he must have his reasons. How bad can a week at the beach be though? After that week, I look forward to buckling down and playing alot of poker and having alot of QT with leigh.

Take Care ya’ll.

Alright… so maybe I overestimated my drive to blog while I was in vegas. I’ve gotten countless feedback from you guys that I am killing my own blog. My bad.

So lets go over the first thing first. I haven’t started running better yet (actually lets not say it like that) winning again yet. I have been trying really hard to improve portions of my game while I’m here and still manage to make 2 or 3 really awful mistakes a session which continue to just take away my winrate. On top of that, I am still running pretty bad. However, at this point i think its fair to say its not the run bad and I’m simply playing exploitably. I’ll go ahead and post my graph since I arrived in Vegas about two months ago. It’s been pretty frustrating breaking even for 2 months, but that stress is the price you pay for not having a real job i suppose. I really don’t have too much to complain about though, as I can break even for the rest of the year and still basically make my previous salary.

Here’s my graph since arriving in Vegas. As you can see its been more than swingy and at no point shows a trend, very bizarre considering my entire year to this point was an escalator to the top.

(Click to Enlarge)

Here’s a few updates from my life. I am leaving vegas on the 19th and trekking back across the country. I will be then moving to Washington DC by August 1st to live with girlfriend, Leigh. I’m really excited about this. We are also living with my best friend from college and another fraternity brother. So it should be a pretty nice situation. I’m really excited to open a new chapter to my life as well however leaving Charlotte will suck ass.

I have managed to spend about 10k in vegas, and put on about 10 lbs. I managed to not see a gym and not eat 1 healthy meal this summer. Its been a complete disaster on that front. I honestly don’t think I can ever do this to my body again. I just can’t wait to go home to reasonable meals and a gym. I’ll prolly spend the rest of the year taking these pounds off but oh well.

Vegas has been the time of a lifetime though. We have done some of the craziest shit ever, and its been done on basically a daily basis. I don’t really have any outrageous stories off the top of my head but basically everything has been great. I just really wish I could have put in more than like 6 winning sessions while I was here. Anyways, I’m heading off to bed. Hopefully that’s somewhat suitable enough for a blog post if anyone still reads this.