Long time since my last post, I apologize to those who have been asking me to update. I really want to make this something interesting to read so that people will come back, but I have a hard time finding anything I write about interesting. However, the purpose of the blog is also to allow myself to manifest my thoughts clearly into words for my own benefit. We often make plans for our lives (daily or otherwise) based on the thoughts in our heads, but there's something to be said about ideas and plans that are transcribed into written or typed words. I think it enables us to focus on those things more-so, to make them more "real". Anyways, on to the goods.
Poker has been a mixed bag. I blocked my stats on sharkscope and I haven't really looked at my results over the last month. I've definitely profited, but until recently I haven't felt like I was crushing the games. The beginning of April was really poor, then about a week and a half ago I mysteriously receive an install queue from my Account Control in Windows7 whilst im mid-session. Setup321xxxxx.exe would like to run? Odd. I've spent the majority of my life working on computers and to me this was clearly some sort of malware since I didn't run any programs to prompt the install. I clicked no, but it kept popping back up. Of course I had pocket aces on one of my tables and someone had gone all in (how cliche) so rather than risk losing my $13 buy-in I decided to just click "Yes" on the install prompt because, hey, how bad could it be? Literally 3 seconds later before I could even see the flop come out my computer instantly shuts down. Wow. I'm thinking at this point, "Okay, this is bad. But it can't be THAT bad." Oh boy, was I wrong. Upon trying to reboot the computer "blue screened" everytime it tried to load windows, even in safe mode. Meanwhile my games were running and popping off (registering 16 ahead is convenient for grinding, not so much for this). It took me about 20 minutes to surmise that fixing my PC right now was out of the question, so I went for my backup laptop. I tried to turn it on and nothing. WTF? But just a few seconds later I realized what was wrong. I had forgotten that just days earlier I had nearly tripped and fell over this laptops charger because it was plugged in a weird area and in my raging hatred for aforementioned laptop I may have thrown it on the ground and punched it. In hindsight, this was a poor decision (lol) because now I was without a backup laptop in my most dire moment of need. I spent some few minutes sulking about how unfair life was and pitying myself until I mustered up the intelligence to remember the other 3 laptops in the house. Luckily for me my mother in law was out doing errands and not using hers, so I was able to log-in, finish up the games that were up, and unregister from the others. I still lost about 10+ buyins out of the whole fiasco though.
So thankfully like I mentioned previously I've worked with computers my entire life and spent a few years doing PC repairs for various companies. I figured this would be an easy fix, just need to format the computer. Unfortunately for me I needed to backup the data from my hard-drive before formatting. I could either take it to a PC place that would charge me out of the ass, or order a part from Newegg and overnight it. I chose the latter of the two options, and even though the overnight order came two days later instead of one, I'm happy with my decision. I spent basically 4 entire days away from poker, one of which was my scheduled day off. I was worried about whether or not formatting my PC would even work, since I'd never encountered a virus quite like this before, but ultimately the time off was well spent and much needed. I feel like I came back to the game without any expectations as to how I should run and just felt all around better. I've still been reviewing my own hand histories every morning and every day I find multiple things to correct. I read somewhere before someone refer to their game as a rock that they polish up just a little bit every day, until one day they'll have a diamond or some shit. Well that's how I feel about my game as well. I learned a long time ago that I can't polish my rock into a diamond in one day and by trying to do so you'll miss a lot of things along the way. Just work on the little things you can fix, every day, and eventually you'll end up with that diamond.
Other than poker, life has been absolutely great. I had some sort of epiphany after catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror about the same time the virus happened. I am just generally unhappy with how I look. I think I've spent a lot of time justifying to myself why I am overweight but at the end of the day it's my own laziness and lackadaisical attitude towards my health that causes it. I have a gym membership, but until recently the most I've been able to go is twice a week. I wasn't really eating fast food or drink sodas anymore, but I was drinking a few beers almost every night (not light ones either) and would eat whatever I wanted portion-wise. So I decided to quit drinking and go on a diet. I also started running outside on the days that I couldn't make it to the gym. The results have been fantastic. In 1.5 weeks I'm down about 10lbs (little drastic, I know). Last gym visit instead of doing my usual 30-45 minutes of cardio I just did 10 and worked in some heavy lifting, so hopefully introducing that into my workout regimen will balance the weight loss. I should've been lifting more weights before, but I felt like I wanted to establish a good cardio base before I started trying to work out too hard. Excuses, really. But now I'm extremely happy with my progress and exercise feels like a want rather than a have-to. The extra energy you have after working out regularly is also amazing. I definitely don't feel myself wanting caffeine while playing poker anymore.
My fiancée has also been dieting and exercising more often and experiencing the same success. I'm really happy for the both of us. Our engagement party is coming up this Sunday. We should have about 80-100 people show up and I'll be grilling for everyone. It'll be the first Sunday grind that I've missed in probably a year but it's definitely a worthwhile reason. I couldn't think of my life without this girl, she's everything to me :)
I hope everyone reading this is doing well, in poker and life, and if not and I may be of service to you some how, please do not hesitate to ask. Until next time friends.
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