work

ugh, i have a ton of work to do in the next few weeks.

my taxes for one...i definitely have to get on those. probably going to have to pay a late penalty or something, getting all my poker hands organized and shit is a hassle. so annoying, i hate taxes.

i have to enroll in my online spanish class. i have to pay my speeding ticket and call this texas judge. i have to check housing for next year. one of these days i'm just going to stop putting it off and get to it.

i sometimes think i've got some extreme slacker problems. i can't ever do something ahead of time, it always has to be last minute. in theory i'd love to get stuff done early...but for some reason, just can't. i also have a large paper due nearing the end of the semester and i'm slacking heavily on that.

my summer schedule is shaping up. i still don't know where to go (or if i'm going anywhere at all) in may. i still have to figure out my housing stuff though (as well as some other stuff, like scuba diving certification).

poker has been going swell. actually not really...it's alot of ups and downs (such is PLO) and i've been swinging several buyins each day. it's pretty stressful and not very fun. in tracking all my PLO hands though, i'm pleased to see that i'm about +20k with rb over 70k hands of PLO (mostly 1/2). so not bad. i've definitely ran very hot and very cold in many instances.

with that said, i don't think i'm going to make this much $ this year. i've seen my passion for poker slowly dieing with each year passing by. i just don't enjoy it as much anymore, and if it were up to me, i wouldn't mind never playing again.

ok maybe not NEVER again, but you get the picture. playing recreationally would be fun i suppose (playing live every now and again). the sad part is is that i'm pretty much playing recreationally now...i play probably 10k > hands a month (pathetic i know). i still enjoy coaching and what have you.

maybe it's time to learn a new game. PLO was the fire that rekindled my poker passion in the summer and i really enjoyed learning a new game. NLHE is very boring and i haven't played it in a while.

i'm living w/another poker player this next year (or semester). i'm hoping that will get me motivated to play more hands. when i was in vegas with other players, i played a shitton of hands. it was easy to play 30k hands when you saw carrotsnake playing for hours each day.

i also did a review for slowhabit's new PLO book coming out soon (x-posted on DC forum)-

I was chosen to be a reviewer for SlowHabit's new PLO book.

first, a bit of background- I've been playing PLO for the past few months now. I have received probably ~20 hours coaching lifetime from Parlay Slow (he has a Late Night Coaching with Joe Tall and I for a PLO video). I've been beating up on FTP 1/2 (running well obviously) and feel decently experienced in the game (by most standards).

Tri's book is a good primer/introduction for many NLHE players wanting to transition over to the game. I would not recommend buying this book if you play 1/2NL or lower. I'm not quite sure what the price will be, but there are concepts that are presented that (while not incredibly advanced) can be difficult for 1/2 players and lower.

If you currently do not think about hand equity and future planning (ie. having a plan for the hand, understanding what you want to do on various turns/rivers), this book will be hard for you (and PLO in general). equity and future streets are two large concepts that Tri hammers in this book, and without giving away too much content, is vital for understanding PLO.

Tri goes into many general situations, alot of preflop examples, equity charts, equity comparisons, etc. It is pretty well detailed and will help many NLHE players understand how different PLO really is.

A few concepts presented that I liked-
-equity discussion, how well our hand held up against his range of hands.
-betting the turn...I think this is a nice, good concept that many PLO players don't do enough. also the donk betting section is very good as well (and i agree with all of it).
-explaining many general concepts (albeit basic), such as what boards to c-bet, when to check, etc. This isn't simply a blueprint for you to gauge every hand or play on, but a nice concept-builder of what you are doing and WHY. (This is of course why we buy products as these, is to understand WHY we do it).
-comparisons to NLHE play- since many of the consumers will be NLHE players looking to come over, I liked how many of Tri's examples are put into NLHE terms. Why x is good in NLHE but why it sucks in PLO, and vice versa. It's always nicer to understand something when you have a foundation to work from.

What I thought could be improved-
-This book is about 75 pages long. I think that the book could benefit from having a little more content in some of the areas, primarily the general concepts section. As stated in other reviews, Tri's primary method of communication is using hand histories and equity charts. This is a good way to show by example. I think adding just a bit more (few more examples perhaps) would have been nice.

-It's hard to have a fully comprehensive book that is engaged in EVERY situation. Tri does a nice job explaining many of the general concepts, but still misses a few. As stated in the sixpepper's review, Tri misses out a bit on some other general concepts such as limping the button, overlimping, full ring play, etc. Squeezing wasn't really addressed either, though it's harder to squeeze in PLO as often when compared to NLHE.

So overall, I liked it. As a semi-decent/semi-experienced PLO player, I still learned a few new points. It also stabilized many of the concepts that I had either learned or thought about previously. Overall, it's definitely worth a buy if you are a mid stakes player looking to make the jump.

hope everyone is running better than i am in april.