Through the eyes of otbdave...

I have not posted in a long while, although there is a ton going on in my life, poker and otherwise...

First I will start with poker:

I have taken a break from live poker since my final game I hosted, a $300 tournament near the end of summer at the end of July or early August.

I accomplished a lot of nice goals coming down the stretch of my live games.

- $100 Winter Tournament: 1st
- Spring League Points: 1st
- $100 Spring Tournament: 2nd
- $50 Heads-Up Championship: 1st
- $300 Final Tournament: 2nd

This marks the end of 2 yrs of hosting games where I have met some of my best friends and I feel we have all learned and grown together immensely. I will definitely miss playing with a lot of the guys.

I am planning to resume live play again the first Thursday in October. This is a pretty long break from absolutely no live poker.

So, my thoughts about this...

I feel that in order to be a healthy competitive poker player that I must prove to myself that I can handle breaks. I guess what I am saying is, I want to show to myself that I really have no addiction or attachment to (live) poker.

I did not take a break from online poker. This is due entirely to the fact that I am not willing to lose my 16 month ironman status. Furthermore, my online play is extremely minimal, less than one hour a day.

Over this break I have found myself missing my friends that I used to play poker with, but not so much the game itself, for the most part. However, I watched some live poker on tv (which I almost never do) Day 1D of the Main Event to see BBP member Gilva on t.v. After watching some of the live hands, it just got me licking my chops about how terrible some of the play is during these events. It gets me very excited for when I will get to head down next Summer.

I am also very excited about playing at Gemini regularly. I feel this challenge will be the next major chapter in my poker development, and I fully expect to be able to beat that game.

During my break from live poker, I have been absolutely on fire playing online poker. I am not sure this is related, but it is hard to decide either way.

I have made my third attempt to begin playing 200nl regularly, and I am nothing short of destroying it. I can't believe how many easy pots I am winning due to very inexperienced play from my opponents. I am finally convinced I can beat this game and I can beat it hard. Over my "small" sample of 25,000 hands or so, I have triple with winrate (BB/100) of top 200nl player tulegit21. Of course, I have been running good as well. It seems like when I get in 80% to win, I am winning at least 80% of the time. I have even sucked out on monster pots one or two times.

So, enough of the poker, and on to life...

I have made a pretty firm decision to move to Chicago once I graduate and of course after I head out to Vegas for a lot of the Summer.

I am planning to live with my girlfriend, Shannon, along with my older brother and his wife. I think it will be an awesome time living in a high rise in downtown Chicago and I can be a kid for a few more years. We are planning to get a two bedroom two bath which run $2000-$2600 a month in Chi-town.

Id this isn't enough, I turn 21 in less than 12 hours, I am having LASIK surgery in 8 days, OSU plays USC in 3 days, and classes start in a little over 2 weeks...

Bring on the madness!