When I was still in Wisconsin I bought a Trek mountain bike and was planning on starting mountain bike racing.. Two outbiddings on houses and I all of a sudden found myself in Vegas with 5 guys ive never met before.. Throughout college I steadily put on more weight, I think I was always around 200 lbs but throughout college I skyrocketed to 246.9 at one point. I went through some tough times and all of a sudden found myself weighing 210ish… I then hit a plateau, didn’t really lose anything from March til now.. In the middle of August I decided I wanted to get serious about getting in shape, lifting weights.. eating right.. etc. I hired a personal trainer who kicks my ass 3 times a week. Ive learned so much about fitness and my body over the last month and a half.. and I am really starting to get self esteem back that ive lost over the last few years. My confidence is beginning to sky rocket, which is obv huge for a poker player. Most importantly, im eating really healthy, No more fast food( aside from my double chicken wrap from subway w onions, tomatoes, pickles lettuce and mustard). The only time its hard to follow my diet is when I play a live tourney for 12 hours and then bust out. Usually you give it your all and you are just drained, and fast food seems like a quick fix to the problems I may have at that time. Working out 3 times a week( lifting) really keeps you on track, I know that I have a meeting with my PT at X:XX and since I paid for it I dont want to just skip it. My body is slowly starting to transform into what it used to be, it’ll take a while but I can already see results. I used to think personal trainers were a joke, but honestly.. my worst workout with my personal trainer destroys my best workout ever without one.. He pushes me til failure and though it may hurt at the time, I feel so good about myself after.

Reading  2+2 cash game threads inspires the shit out of me.. These guys have goals to play 40k hands and make 30k in a month.. and these are at modest stakes. It’ll take me a while to transition from tourney donk to cash game grinder, but im more ready then ever to do it. My tourney volume numbers are wayyyyy down in the last few months/ this year.. the truth is, if I would have focused on cash games over the last 5 years, id be a millionaire right now.. instead im just grinding out tourneys hoping for that big score. That is changing though folks. Tourneys are no longer fun for me, ive accomplished more in online tourneys then alot of people and I just dont feel that motivated to grind tourneys. Cash games are new and exciting to me because its something I cant beat. Also, playing a ton of cash games will help me when I play live tourneys and even some of the bigger online tourneys.

     One of my goals was to go for Nova-elite next year,  Im still not sure if this is something I realisticly want to attempt, I think I need to become more of a grinder before I can take a task on like that. Last year I came close to becoming nova but I came up short, this year I will do it easily, but I think thats because ive played more higher level sngs and cash games then ive played in the past. If the legal landscape on online poker changes and the lower level games get softer, then ill focus on massive multi tabling for nova elite, but we’ll see.

Best of luck at the tables and in life.

Well, as many of you know, Sundays are normally brutal for most MTT grinders. For some reason I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept thinking about the Sunday tourneys. I woke up with a winner’s mentality, ready to win; only one problem, I didn’t. You can honestly play your best poker ever and still lose thousands of dollars in a day. It’s heartbreaking because the highs can be so high, but the lows can be brutally low. I’ll be taking off of poker a week which is the longest break thus far in my career. It will be nice to do things that have nothing to do with poker.

Spadeskillz once again went deep where he took 3rd in a 6 max tourney for 3k and change. I ended up finishing 15th in the same tourney. It would have been pretty awesome to be at a final table with my roomie but it just didn’t happen. BigChipsHi also went deep in the 80k 55 tourney. First paid 21k but he busted out in 8th for 2500 or so. Last but not least, Lag-tard Vtlaxer went deep in the FTOPS Main but busted with AJdd vs 66 on an 8d4d2h board for a top 20 stack; so disappointing. It’s just a matter of time before these guys pop off a huge score.

There are two spots remaining for fantasy football league that ItwasSuited is running so get in it while you still can. The draft is Aug 30th. We plan on running an ItwasSuited open type tourney. We will have a few bounties on a few of my horsies and I. We are aiming for the first week of September and plan to make it monthly but, if we get more traffic, we could make it a weekly thing. A definitive date will be posted in the forums when the date and time are finalized.

I plan on writing a blog or two a week about strategy to succeed at poker from a mental standpoint. During downswings you have a lot of time for reflections and I think writing a few blog posts on mental strategy will help my game as well. Best of luck at the tables.

Just finished my first personal trainer session at the local gym here in Las Vegas. It was intense to say the least. I’m sure in a few days I’m going to be sore in spots I didn’t know existed. Currently my weight is 207 which it has been at for about 6 months. I’ve already come a long way considering a year and a half ago I was around 240. I think having a trainer there to push me will help me in the long run to stay healthy. On the poker front, I have been taking days off like they are going out of style. I am going to Chicago to visit my lover for a week so it’ll be good to get away from the game and just relax. Other than traveling, I got a staking offer for the 2500 FTOPS which I may accept, if not, I’ll definitely play the full load on Sunday and try to make some money.

Congrats to Spadeskillz, Icallseat3, Striker1114 and BigHuni for having huge weeks on the virtual felt. Spadeskillz has improved so much over the last few months that I think it will help my game as well. If you haven’t checked out Scott (IcallSeat3) Sitron’s blog you can find it here. He is the only player I know that I will willingly admit is better then me. Best of luck at the tables!

This morning, feeling super fresh, I woke up at 8:30am and ate a banana and jellied toast while awaiting the long day of Sunday majors I’ve come accustomed to. At 9:00am I fired up the tourneys but ran pretty awful early. As the day progressed, I continued to build my stack in the Sunday Million in which I wound up in the final 120 yet busted on a re-steal gone wrong. I seriously felt like people just 3 bet me non-stop and lately it has been really hard for me to get a chip in the pot. Maybe I am just opening it up too much when I should be sitting back and waiting for hands. Overall, I am really sick of folding ‘til I am forced to shove and rely on a coin flip or 60/40.

I did make money today which is always a good thing; however, I don’t think I’ve been playing my A game lately. I started reading a book by Dr. Phil called “Self Matters”. The content is about viewing yourself in a better, more self-assured way and I really think it will do a lot for my confidence in the long run. I am trying to implement a stricter daily routine: getting up in the morning, working out, eating well and even showering before I play a session. In addition, I think it’s important to schedule one or two days off per week so I can get away from the game and clear my head. For so long I was completely consumed by the game and now, I can honestly say I’m not “addicted” as I once was.

I posted a hand from the Sunday Million on the forum that I think is more difficult than it may appear. Congrats to my horsie Mikey who went deep in the Sunday Million. I plan to attempt updating a few times per week but that’s all for now, gl at the tables!