What news from the world of men?

The light...it burns... I've been elbow deep in paperwork of the most horrendous kind, more specifically contractual documentation. Ugh! Mufasa! So, I've done little other than wade through terms like interconnection, infrastructure, and "organization a" agrees to (blank) for "organization b." Really mind numbing when you hit the same form sheet for the umpteenth customer. But that's why they pay me the "big bucks." I'm still waiting for them.

It's trick or treat night, and I'm still trying to decide whether or not I'm going to be working over tonight. I'm hoping and leaning toward NOT! Just too many things going on. Last night was a long evening anyway. I did my walk at lunch, then when I got home, I fired up the treadmill, for another 30 minutes. Then, I made dinner and went over Cole's story, for his Reading test the following day. In the midst of dinner (the kids and I) Teresa walks in, it appears that Whitney neglected to tell me what I was supposed to be doing...mowing the lawn. So 'round about 6:30, out I go to "start" the task. I finished the mowing. Couldn't trim, or much else. In fact, I think I'll have to go back and double check the yard for missed patches of grass. It gets really friggin' dark by 7:30. I had to ask Cole to turn on some outside lights, so I could get as far along as I did. I'm sure the neighbors were getting a good laugh at the idiot in the dark with the mower.

I realized that I had not mentioned my online play, or bankroll in a while. Well, I haven't honestly played in a while. I have moved my Bodog account up to the $175 mark. Oh and last night I dabbled at a couple of $1 SNG's on Sportsbook.com. The first, I crippled myself when I hit a boat, and lost to the bigger one. Oops! The second, took a LONG time. The chip leader decides to take a powder when we're down to 5. Me and "Bitsy Bets", polish off the rest of the table and then I think his name was "hix11" finally rejoins us. It took a long time, but I finally caught up to him, and between me and "BB" we finally took him down. So, here I am, looking to come out with more than I put in on the two SNG's. Now I'm focusing on the heads-up game. I'm applying pressure in all the right spots. I'm catching up, in a big way. I started heads up with $2,500. I made it to around $7,200...THEN, the table freezes! I check my connection, and it's okay. I hit Google, and I'm still surfing. I even refresh the tournament listings on Sportbook, and it is responsive. Only too late do I close the table and re-open it, to find my stack has been ravaged down to $150. It's shit like that which makes me wonder what the hell is going on sometimes. But the "what" was..."me losing." Same story...you've read it before.

I've listened to several podcasts lately, and I've listened to some of the "top" online players recap their rise to greatness in the poker world, from lowly beginnings. Annette_15 the winner of the WSOPE, all 19 yrs of her, relayed starting out at freerolls, and finally winning $9. Then maneuvering that into SNG's and then Multi-table tournaments. Over time she took that to around $20,000 before really starting to "move money around." She like many of the other interview-ees, espoused the virtues of Bankroll Management. Not just playing your best, and learning and discussing every day, but they found that time was the best weapon available, and the only way to get it was bankroll management. Enabling yourself to play the long term grind. How it wasn't always fun, but absolutely essential. I actually think I might have been further along had the ban on Internet Poker became a semi-reality. I "flinched" a bit too much when they pulled the plug. I withdrew from some places but continued to play as before. Of course I blackjacked some of it off. And the player base continued to improve, since it was more difficult to get money out there, so only those who had money out there, and knew how to keep it and earn it, were your competition. The fish in the pond, weren't fish, and you were no longer in a pond anymore, my friend.

Well that'll have to bring the post to a close. An alarm went off letting me know it's meeting time, very shortly. Oh goodie, I can feel my fun-factor meter beginning to rise.

Regards,

cheer_dad