DonkeySquad

This is the first week of my attempt to lose weight.  I weighed in today at 161.8lb which is 7lb lighter than last week.  This is a good start for me, but I was hoping for 10lbs.  I did not work out as much as I should have this week, but none the less a good start.

My Goal for next week is to be under 160lbs.  I also want to put some more time on the treadmill and bike.  I worked out twice last week, so this week I am shooting for 3 or more. 

I am not sure how I am doing in relations to my oppoents, but I think I might be on top.  I still think I am a shoe-in to win the money.

I just finished weighting in. I weigh 168.8lbs and I am planning on losing at least 30lbs. I would like to get down to 130-135lbs by Jan 2nd which is when the contest ends. I think the Biggest Loser will win $300 or so. We all put in $40 each so hopefully I will win it. I think I have a very good chance of winning, but I think I am the lightest person in the competition.

One thing to pad my weight was to drink 48oz of Gatorade and eat a sandwich and and ice sandwich before I weighted in. I think that added an extra 4lbs to my weight. Only time will tell if I can stick to my plan and lose the weight. I will probably put the winning into my poker bankroll or buy something for my camera. If I don’t win, well at least I would have gotten into shape and lost some weight.

This weekend is Labor Day and because of it, I get a day off on Monday, Sept 1st.  I am going to try again to have a “Pro Day”.  I am going to get up early, and act as if this was my profession.  I am planning on logging 4-8hr of poker with some breaks, watching training videos, taking notes, and evaluating my play scattered through out the day. 

I am going to play 2-6 tables at a time and probably play at the NL10 or NL25 tables.  I am hoping this time goes better than last time.  I am going to open up a word document with my notes from the two videos I watched as well as taking notes on how I am feeling, my play, my energy levels, and any other thoughts that pop into my brain.

I will post these notes as well as a summary of my day on Monday. 

After watching the last video, I was itching to play and I started to watch Phil Ivey play some 2000/4000 Limit OH H/L.  He seemed to be getting killed by David Bengemine, but after a few minutes he came back and looked about break even.  While I was watching, I opened up a .05/.10 NL Holdem game and watched some really bad players play.  It got down to two players and I decided that I wanted to play for a few minutes.

I sat down and got bluffed into me a few times when I had the goods.  I also over bet the pot on the river with my made flush.  So in about 15mins I made $25 on the NL10 tables.  It felt good to win and feel like you are in control of the table.

One of the things I am trying to do is not get “married” to a hand.  That is really hard for me to do.  Even with my winning section, I found myself getting married to a hand when my opponent showed strength.  Lucky for me, they were bluffing every time, but I need to learn to lay the hand down more and allow myself to get bluffed off a hand.

I did not go over my notes from the two video during this short section because it was not planned.  I was planning on just watching, but these players were so bad that I felt like I needed to sit down for a few minutes and play.  My next section, I will have the notes ready and try to implement more of the strategies from it.

I have always though of myself as a proficient poker player.  I have read several poker books (not all the way through but large parts of them), watched about 200 poker training videos, have tracked by winning/losing through poker tracker, started a blog (this site), encourage and taught others how to play, and played 25,000-100,000 hands in the past 5-years.

Yet after all that, I am not sure if I have become a better player or not.  I have no good basis to see growth in my game.  The only way I measure it is if I have a winning day/week/month/year.  I have no way of knowing if I am actually learning and getting better or am I just getting lucky/unlucky.

I need to find and put into practice a way to figure out if I am getting better and how to apply what I learn to grow in my game.  I have tons of resources at my fingertips.  I can post of forum boards (twoplustwo), watch poker training videos (stoxpoker), read poker books (local bookstore), talk with other poker players (PM people online or talk to poker friends in person), and go over my play in Poker Tracker.

It seems like a daunting task.  Where do I start?  I remember some advice I heard on one of the poker training video on how he worked on his game.  He does not look at the special cases, but works on the fundamentals.  What I mean by that is he finds the best plays to make in the common situation that you will face a lot in the game.  I have never really determined how I play in these specific situations and how profitable those plays are.

To accomplish that, I am going to watch all the NL Holdem 6-max videos over and take notes about specific situations and how I should/could/would play those situations and against what types of players to make those plays.  I have about 125 videos to go through so I will take me some time (probably a year or so), but I feel like that is a good way to start identifying these common situations and trying to put them into my play.

I will also post my notes on this blog and my thoughts about these common plays.

A friend of mine is trying to get back into shape.  He does not look all that bad, but he has hit about 220lbs which is a lot for his height (5′11″).  He holds it well, but he wants to lose 40lbs to get back into “Football” shape.  It made me think about my weight and how much I need to work on it.  I have been gaining about 3-5lbs per year since I graduated high school.  I am now at about 165-170lb and want to get back down to about 145-150lb. 

Another possible motive to lose weight is my work (day job) might through together a pool to loose weight.  They were thinking about everyone throwing in $20 and after 3-months the person who lost the most percentage of weight (weight lose/total starting weight) would win the money.  I think it would be a great motivator to try to get down to “Wrestling” weight which is 130-135lb (what I wrestled at in high school). 

Getting in shape with a friend and winning some money.  Sounds like a win win for me.  I would put that money into my bankroll or by some camera equipment with it.