slowlane123's poker blog

Hellooooo there...

I ended up taking some time off at the end of last month. I had some friends in town for UFC and decided I would officially give up on my 100k hand goal (I played 88k).

I've hardly played since my last blog, maybe 5k hands total. Everytime I seemed to sit I'd be dealt KK vs AA or set over set repeatedly in the first 15 mins to the point where I decided I really need a break.

So now I've had an extended break on par with my longest break from poker since I started playing. I'm excited and ready to get back into it. Tomorrow I will start back at 200nl rush. I'm going to be playing some long sessions this weekend. I've been studying my game a lot during this break and watching a lot of videos to keep poker on my mind but without the pressure of playing.

To fill the void music has taken over. I must admit I am completely addicted to writing music right now. My new guitar has set me alight with new things to write about and new sounds to create. The band is sounding great. We've rehearsed every Sunday for the last 3 weeks and each time we improve and find new things to add to our songs.

Instead of waking up excited to play poker, I have been waking up dreading the fact that there's 'x' many days until our next rehearsal. Monday mornings are the worst.

Today I woke up genuinely excited to play for the first time in a while. Sadly I had my final DC episode rendering all day and couldn't play. It's probably a good thing being that I was up till 4 am thinking about band names and the songs we've written. I can't get it out of my head.

This afternoon I played tennis for the third time with an old friend from school. We used to play a lot of state tournaments together. For those that don't already know I played the state/national circuit when I was young. I quit school at the age of 15 to pursue tennis full-time and eventually gave it up due to lack of desire/injuries wearing me down.

I was the number 1 doubles players in Australia for my age group and number 6 for singles. With such a reputation it was frustrating in our first week of hitting to be beaten 6-3 in my first set in close to 2 years. I played poorly and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. Last week I broke a string and had to use his racket so we didn't play a set. Then, this week I figured out what I was doing wrong on my forehand. Under-rotating my shoulders was causing me to constantly catch the ball too early and lose control. Needless to say I served like a beast today and managed to beat him 6-3 (with a double break wooo).

Fitness has been going well. I took a few days off at the end of last month and have been strict with it this month.

I'm very happy with where I'm at in life. I feel ready to get into some serious hours of poker for the rest of the month. I will update results when I feel like it.

If you haven't watched this video yet, do so now: