My Poker Story - Part 2

Hi Everyone - my previous post summarised the first stage of my poker life so far. Below I'll continue the story and touch on some lows and highs

Boxing Day...I woke up at around 4PM with the biggest smile on my face. I had the pleasure of replaying the previous nights experience with my soon to be wife over lunch/dinner and hastily made plans to head to Star City again. In short, I was there at least 12 hours a day until New Years.

My new roll swang heavily in both directions but ultimately ended up at zero. I remember feeling dirty, guilty as I’d let me wife down, angry at some of the plays I made and harshly humbled at my obvious lack of any real skill at the table. Admitting I luck boxed it was difficult to swallow and it didn’t really digest until at least 3 months later and after thousands of dollars spent trying to make something of this poker stuff. I then decided to stop playing and I concentrated on saving my taxable dollars for our Wedding in Oct 09

The wedding was amazing and it was during our Honeymoon I played my first game in 6 months, at Planet Hollywood Casino in Vegas. After clearing it with the missus, I sat down at the 1/2 table and played for 14 hours. It felt AMAZING that I was able to put together a decent session at the table. I suddenly developed some patience, not sure how or why but I took all the cash off the table by simply outlasting everyone else. I came back the second night and broke even after some bad beats and the third and final night I left with a tidy 800% profit. I was happy with how much my game had developed in the time off. I spent the rest of the Honeymoon doing the right thing, Grand Canyon, Cirque, Palms etc and then partied for a week in New York and then chilled in Hawaii for a week before returning a miserable rainy day in Sydney

Poker thoughts were put on hold for a couple of months as the company I work for were neck deep in the middle of a merger (Vodafone and 3) and it took all my time, effort, political and social caressing to maintain a job, establish new work relationships and attend drink party after drink party for the 100"s of people that were being made redundant over a 3 month period. New Years 09 was when I started thinking about life, career, poker and came to the conclusion that my ultimate job would be to play poker for a sole crust.

Early Jan I sat down with the missus over Yum Cha and together we discussed pro's and cons, agree'd to support me and together we decided on a detailed plan, approach and budget to achieve this. I am constantly reminded of how awesome and supportive wife I have. I could not do this without her support.

How am i going so far? Well, i am happy with my progress so far, the bank roll is yet to reach bragging point but when my game is on...it's really on. I am reading several good books at the moment...hanging to read "Kill Everyone" when I get enough VPP points ( i keep using them for FPP tourney's). My biggest learning’s over the last 3 months are position, "selective" aggression and even basic opening range. My biggest challenge at the moment is consistency....my APL upbringing had cemented some really bad habits which I am working on getting them out of my unconscious control. Once the above is sorted and proved consistent over at least 6 months I will deep dive into EV and live tells.

Any support, info, advice and general direction that you guys can provide will always help. See you guys around

Sam Kennedy