Derailed temporarily

With the purchase of a new computer and a major car repair, I was forced to cash out most of my bankroll. It almost made me puke to click the button.. but since I didn't want to tap into our savings, I think I did the best thing.

So I am faced with a new challenge. Rebuilding the roll. So in between real life work and being sick the past week or so, I have played a few DONs and regular SNGs to pass the time while I decide what direction to go.

I was offered a staking and coaching deal by a big name player, but am not sure I will accept. With todays changes by pokerstars, I am leaning towards just going it alone. The guy who offered the deal is a short stacker and I am not sure I want to go that route. I am a proven winner playing a 50bb+ stack.. so I almost feel like I am regressing if I switch to short stacking, if only temporarily.

I may try an interesting challenge I have been wanting to do for some time. I was thinking of starting at $50 and starting at 2NL at 6max 24-tabling. I would play a pretty ABC preflop game and move up according to a specific BR schedule. I think it would be a good test of mental endurance and fun to see how high I can go in stakes and how quickly I can build a roll.

I will think about it tonight and decide later. I am still stinging from my bad fortune this month.. but have always had a positive attitude about such things and know it'll only be a minor setback.

Not a fun week one

It wasn't the play at the tables that made for a less than stellar first week. Me and my two kids came down with the flu on Tuesday and then on Friday afternoon, my computer died.

So I frantically ran around all Saturday morning and afternoon trying to get my laptop fixed. It was a power issue so I went to the Best Buy I bought it from and they said they couldn't do anything because then power connection inside is soldered. I tried a new power cord.. no luck. I replaced the inside connection and had my brother sodder it.. nope. So apparently it was something fried on the motherboard.

So there I was on a Saturday afternoon, missing the best times of the week to play poker, with the flu, and suddenly in the market for a new laptop. Blech.

My budget for a new machine was $750 so I ended up settling on this. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+/+AMD+Turion%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+6GB+Memory+/+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Dark+Gray/1572108.p?id=1218270199430&skuId=1572108

I bought my wife an Asus last year and she has been very happy with it. The things that attracted me most to it was the base ram and the nice video card. I finally got it completely setup last night and fired up 24 tables of 25NL. Without tweaking anything performance wise, everything was smooth and seamless. It was the least amount of lag I had ever had while 24 tabling. I am used to about a half second delay whenever I click a button before the next table pops up.. now its instant. Bring on 40 tables! :)

I am a bit disappointed that I missed all of the prime time hours last week, but overall I am fine with how the week went. After rakeback, I did increase the bankroll some and hopefully am gaining my sea legs at 100NL. I ran like complete ass in my early Friday session or I would have had a near break even week.. more than I ever could have asked for.

It sucks that I have now had to take 3 of my 18 "sick days" already. One for being sick and two for not having a computer. So already I am a bit behind for the year. All I can do is keep plugging along. Here is the graph from week 1:

As you can see, until my Thursday night double doomswitch (I ended up recovering it all by nights end but dropped $500 two separate times) I pretty much held my own.

I ran -.26 and my goal was better than -.5. So far so good.