Military Poker

It's cliche, but it suits the occasion.

Welcome.  My name is Nick.  I am currently 25 years old and serving in the U.S. Army as a Forward Observer in a Light Infantry Recon Unit.  I am happily (and recently) married and currently living in Colorado.  I am set to deploy to Afghanistan in March of 2012 and am looking forward to the experience.  I have a solid history of playing NL Hold'em both live and online.  I have a degree in Business Administration and am looking to further my education with another degree after deployment.  I've got two immediate goals; play poker and get in shape.  Obviously I've got some specifics lined up for both, but those are generally what I'll be focusing on for a long long time.

Play Poker.  Obviously that's why we've all come together on deucescracked.com.  I'm not looking to set a lot of specifics in terms of 'play poker' at the moment because I know that if I set a goal I can't accomplish, I will steer off course very quickly.  I do have some basics though.  I'm looking to put real money online again.  A couple years ago I became involved with the deucescracked community and started playing some microstakes NL and definitley saw some improvement.  I took my knowledge to some live fullring games (.50/1 NL) and had my moments of crushing my competition.  I was made aware of some of my major leaks and would like to make a second attempt at bettering myself towards a game that I have played for over ten years and if done right can become lucrative.  So I'm going to start studying via deucescracked and when I feel comfortable set myself up with a bankroll on a 'credible' site for microstakes.

Get in better shape.  This means a lot of different things for different people so I'll tell you what it means for me.  As a forward observer in the Army my job is pretty physically demanding.  I haven't been on deployment yet and would like to strengthen my success overseas by increasing my physical performance.  For anyone that isn't aware, the U.S. Army grades it's soldiers using a PT (physical training) Test.  This PT Test consists of 2 minutes of pushups, 2 minutes of situps and a 2 mile run.  It's graded on a point system which can be found at http://usmilitary.about.com/od/army/l/blfitm22to26.htm.  I scored a 261 out of a possible 300 on the last test a took a few months ago.  I am taking another test in ten days and expect to do a little worse because I haven't been working as hard.  Here is where 'get in better shape' comes into play.  Yes, in the Army we do PT every morning, however, it is only enough to maintain and not improve.  I'll need to add an additional workout on at least three days in order to see some major improvements over the next few months.  My general idea is to utilize Saturday (one of my days off from morning PT) to do a practice test each week, while adding a day of running and a day of weight training to Monday through Friday.  If anyone has any better suggestions, or if there are any fellow soldiers in the decuescracked community, please chime in!

So there will be more to come from me, both shorter and longer posts in the future.  I'm looking to get some discussion going on the following topics to help me get started:

1) U.S. Sites recommended to deposit on,

2) Videos/Books recommended to watch/read,

and

3) Phsyical Training advice to increase pushups, situps and my 2 mile run.