Feb/March

Feb was a great poker month, had alot of fun and feel like it has been probably the most I have learnt in a single month since I started playing. I feel like I am on a massive rush and felt myself getting a little over excited so I decided to slow it down a bit/take a couple of days away from the grind and think about my situation at this point in my life and just chill out with my mates. I obv couldn't help puttin in a lil session here n there lol. I feel that taking these breaks after running so well can help prevent the next downswing from happening.
Feb:
Mr Jasonc6 came and stayed with me in London for the first week of Feb, we had alot of fun playing 2 live tournaments and alot of cash games/drunk cash gaming is always fun. (Congrats to Notgoingnewhere on his win in the £300 entry live tournament for £13k) We also went out on the piss up which was cool to see jasonc gettin drunk but still being in control of himself and not giving into the peer pressure of shots coming from his close mate maximilian0407 who's bday it was :).

I started of the month playing my first $350 games and ended the month feeling very comfortable in the stakes and found myself sittin some $550's against selected oponents. Its always nice to have first shots at new stakes work out because so often it doesn't. I guess I was really ready and motivated to play the higher stakes. I am definately considering moving up again soon, but I don't like to jump into the deep end without being 100% ready, and the main thing I consider when moving up is have I got enough roll to take a potentially big dwnswing and have I got the confidence to be sat by regs of the higher stakes. When playing 350s I made sure I was ready to be sat and too rematch as often as regs wanted to and I think I played really well against the oponents I was fearing the most but I had fun and ended up alot in the new stakes :). So I woun't be open sitting 500+ too regually but moving up is something I will be considering in the forcoming months.
On the mtt front of things, I decided to play a bunch of mtts, I feel REALLLY comfortable in how I am playing in mtts, and feel I have become a much better mtt player lately. I had some cool deep runs some notable ones were 2nd ina $24 donkament for $3600 and a 17th place in the double deuce when my kings were crackd by the all in pre jacks. I would have been 4th in chips and winner got $35k.
I also had a big realisation on how well I can handle things poker throws my way, I never even tilted after the hand got cracked, maybe I am just in such a good place I havn't been result orientated at all lately in poker, I guess this is easier for some to do, I think its probs one of my stronger points.

I booked 3trips last month. One for the EPT/WPT Austria I am going to be flying out to snowfest for my first ept main event and then to vienna for my first wpt main event. (I sold 70% of action cus 7250euros seems a lil out of my br at the moment lol) I will be flying with Jasonc6 to meet serkules in snowfest and then we are all catching a train to vienna to meet notgoingnewhere to play the wpt. I also read on livb's blog he will be going aswel so would be pretty cool to see him.

2nd trip I will be taking is to go to California for 2 and half weeks and then to Vegas for half a week, but I might end up n vegas earlier depending on if I want to play some wsop events or not. I will be flying into San Fran and will travel through california staying in hotels along the way, hopefully can pop in and see oopa11 for a catch up and then I will make our way to vegas for the pool parties and fun times :).

3rd trip will be with my brother and some friends I grew up with, we will be going to vegas for a week, hopefully I will end up playing a bunch more live cash games this year than I did last year, would be cool to get a better feel for the 2/5 game and maybe 4/8 5/10 games depending on what my finanial situation is like nearer the time.

So that brings me to now, I am feeling very happy and confident in myself at the moment but I need to start eating more and puttin more structure into when I grind because at the moment I have no routine and sleeping patterns are pretty messed up. I will be preparing myself very hard for the trip to Austria so I might blow out some steam this week because I don't want to touch any heavy drinking sessions just before I go away. I am still thinking of a new topic to talk about and have had some ideas such as: 'The effects of drink on a poker player', 'how to tell distant family and friends you now play professional poker without them looking at you like your about to loose the shirt on your back', and 'multi personalities in poker.' I will try and cover all 3 subjects at some point in the future.