November is off to a great start

So I decided to start November off with my most profitable single-day take in my poker career. Maybe starting a blog helped? Who knows, but SHIP IT!!!!!

So glad to have last month behind me. I made almost as much today as I did the entire month of October. Short term variance, obviously, but who gives a fuck? It feels awesome. Not to mention I woke up at like 1 p.m., didn't put on pants, and just sat around on my couch all day drinking bourbon, playing poker, and owning fantasy football. Pretty awesome day.

I only played 16 tournaments today and pretty much ran in god-mode for all of them. I finished in the money about 50% of the time, which isn't too much higher than my standard finish, but I won 6, with 1 2nd, and 1 3rd. I felt like I was paying more patiently down the stretch after the bubble broke and was able to up my finishes. Good cards obviously helped, but I was able to find some good spots and exploit weaknesses I had noticed in my opponents. Damn it felt good. No screen shots from my sessions, though. I will try to remember to take more of big hands for future blogs.

Started my first session at 4:23 p.m. and finished up at 8:30, so just over 4 hours. I think I could get used to a $91 hourly rate. Hopefully I can keep it up...

What is wrong with Tiffany Michelle?

I just finally got around to watching last Tuesday's telecast of the Main Event tonight, and my god, I have never wanted to smack somebody so hard in my life. What is wrong with this girl? I mean, I know she has to create an image for herself that she won't be pushed around like a little girl by the big boys and whatever, but can you be any more of a cunt? She called clock on a hand she wasn't even involved in when the guy was making one of the biggest decisions of his life. Was she trying to put everybody on tilt? I am watching this 2 months later, and it put me on tilt!!!

I've never understood how people can be so calm after stuff like that goes down. I'd have lost it.

October Results

For my first real post, I'd like to take advantage of the new month starting to put October behind me. I ran like complete ass for the first half of the month, and only managed to pull ahead towards the end. All in all, it was easily my least profitable month since moving to FTP, with the exception of July where I only played $5-$10 tourneys.

I'm a member of Sharkscope and all of the stats I post are pretty much going to be screenshots from there. If you aren't a member, I'd highly recommend it (no I'm not a shill; companies tend not to sponsor unknown people with only one blog under their belt). Its really helpful to find out who the fishies are at your table, and play them accordingly.

Here are my graphs for October '08 (click to zoom):

As you can see I had just about 200 games logged this month. I was on travel for about 90% of the month (I actually only slept in my own bed 5 nights all of October!) so I didn't put in quite the volume that I wanted to, but as bad as I was running that might have been ok. I didn't get even until about game 100. It was such a frustrating run; AK < AJ, KK < KJ, AA < 44. It was just so frustrating to run so bad. And if I was even slightly behind when the money went in, I might as well have just logged off, because there was no chance in hell I was drawing out on somebody.

If it hadn't been for me running in god-mode on the $22 turbos for the month, I would have had my first losing month on record. Not happy times. But overall, a $387 profit for the month (not counting live wins in Atlantic City). I can't really complain since there are people out there losing my yearly salary every month (Dreg's List). I have a feeling November is going to be much better. Let's get to the tables...

Welcome to VTBalla34's Poker Blog!

What's up everybody? I don't know how you stumbled across my blog, but thanks for coming out. I wanted to start this blog to track my poker results and help find leaks in my game, and generally keep me off tilt when I'm running bad. First a little about myself:

I'm 26 and am a proud graduate of Virginia Tech. Go Hokies!!! (Even though its VERY hard to root for them sometimes). I am an engineer for a defense contractor in Maryland. We work with the Navy's TRIDENT Submarine weapon system, which is basically the most badass thing known to man. I've been doing that for 3 years now and really enjoy it. I live right beside of work, so my commute is pretty awesome. I want to get back into the gym and play more basketball (since I played in college), but at the end of the day, I'm usually just too lazy. And besides, its really tough to not come home and get on the internet when there are so many poker players just waiting to hand you their money. Which brings me to my second point:

I am kind of addicted to online poker. I've logged about 1,000 SNG's since mid-July on Full Tilt Poker and have made a pretty good profit in that time. I'll be posting graphs and shit to track my progress, so all of you can follow along. Don't worry about selling me out to the IRS; I pay all my taxes in April!

Since starting with $5 SNG's on Ultimate Bet (as TKEStunna) in the Fall of '04, I have probably logged close to a million hands of poker. Ultimate Bet's software sucks when it comes to interfacing with add-ons, so I'm not sure how much I made on there, but I did pretty well. In around the July timeframe, I received Colin Moshman's "Sit N Go Strategy" book and have improved my game significantly. Around that time, I made the move from Ultimate Bet to Full Tilt (as VTBalla34) mainly due to the superuser scandal, but also because FTP has >>>>>>> volume than Ultimate Bet, which makes multi-tabling so much more profitable. I usually play between 4-6 SNGs at a time and am going to work up to about 10-12 once I get a dual-monitor setup. Since moving to FTP, I've made ~$3k in just over 3 months. Not bad part time, but I'd certainly like to up my volume and try to pull in more disposable income. I post on Cardplayer Forum as VTBalla34.

So without further ado, welcome to my blog and tell your friends. Feel free to leave any comments, be it praise/hate/indifference whatever. I've made a lot of people angry online with my Phil Hellmuth-type banter, and have come to terms with that. So haters, bring it on. Let's roll, ya'll........