I had a really good day yesterday, and I lost about $10k.

LOL right?

That's pretty much the reaction I got at the karaoke bar last night when my friends asked how I was doing. When I'm at home, most of the people that I spend time with are in the service industry. Normal people. My favorite kind.

This weekend has been a big one for online poker (for my makeup, for others' bankrolls). Yesterday I played the $1k LHE and the $10k HORSE. I got really unlucky in the LHE, and was pretty unfortunate in the HORSE. I was surprisingly calm with the losses as I was super stoked for the events, but I really am getting better at controlling my tilt and frustration. Days like yesterday (and they way things are going right now, today also) are going to happen, and there's nothing I can do about it. It's a necessary element of the profession that I've chosen, and since I do thoroughly enjoy the freedom, $, excitement, and opportunities that are products of this profession, I have accept it. Not only do I accept it, I realize that it's a good thing. If the winners never lost there'd be no game, no profession. Our game would be as dead as chess, pool, backgammon, gin, or bridge as far as gambling goes. There'd be no money.

So I bust from the $10k HORSE, and as I am in the hand that I'm doing it in, my roomie walks in, says, "Hungry?" I bust, say yep, and we go to get some Mexican food. Not pissed, not upset, and it felt good. Danny and I have a good dinner, and get to talking about something that we've been talking about a lot lately. Climbing. As in Rock. It was the cornerstone of my recreational endeavors (and the inhibitor of my online poker career) during my season in Colorado (Jan 03 - May 05). I could fill a book with stories of the climbing that I did, the places it took me and my dog Jake, the connections that I made with friends, kids, and random strangers. I remember being in pretty decent shape :).

Climbing is a sport that requires a partner. Furthermore it requires a knowledge of local conditions. I had neither of these Minnesota nor in Las Vegas. Turns out my ex-wife in Minnesota is an avid climber these days. How come we fail to find things like this in relationships that could have potentially saved said relationship? Or perhaps we try and be more like our ex's wanted us to be after the end of a relationship? Example: me wanting to be domestic these days. I wonder if that's the case?

Anyways. I've been on Danny for a long time about getting a harness and some climbing shoes so we can go climbing. He brought it up again yesterday, and I was finally like, we're going climbing.

So we get home, look up the climbing gym, and head to the other side of town, Charleston and Cimmaron. We talk things like, on belay, belay is on, climbing, climb on, take, lower, rappeling. I even introduced him to advanced commands such as "rocking" and "tamping". He had a little introductory class for liability reasons (insurance company doesn't want non-staff teaching how to belay). I'm fine with this since it's my ass hanging from the rope while he's learning.

Danny learns everything he needs to know to get out on the rock, and we spend about an hour doing some routes. The technique and balance came back to me quickly. I was able to do this sloping 5.9 cleanly, and I was proud of this back in the day I never climbed higher than a 5.10c.

We drive home, right past the strip, right past down, top down on the mustang, and all we can talk about is getting out. Red Rock Canyon this week. A road trip to Joshua Tree. No, a road trip to Joshua Tree, then Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Moab, Zion, back to Vegas. Yosemite! Sleeping on the face of El Cap overnight. Sharing a banana on the face of El Cap overnight. Mmmmm.

The plans of future adventures, the hope of something old and something new, made us pretty stoked about life. Instead of the routine for both of us, we have something to do. A hobby if you will.

When we got home I dug up some literature for Danny. A Petzl catalog that reads more like "Freedom of the Hills" than "Sears". A Falcon Guide for Red Rock Canyon. Freedom of the Hills, 7th edition. Danny, who failed every reading lesson in high school, spent the last 2 hours of his night before work with his nose buried in those books.

I fired up some internet poker. I played a cash session, sat in 5-10 PLO and 1-2 HU NLHE. I won like $1400 in the PLO, having AATJ ds hold over KKxx re-raised pre money goes in on the T66 flop and winning several smaller pots.

Heads up though is where I really had some fun. I've been working on my HU game a lot in the past several months. I'm pretty sure next time I get heads up it won't result in a 2nd. Perhaps I need to work on getting heads up again. LOL. Anyways, I just plain tortured this guy. One sequence of hands goes I open, he folds. He opens, I re-raise, he folds. Repeat. I give him a walk, he opens button on the 6th hand of this sequence, I re-raise again, he calls this time. Flop Kxx, I check, he checks. Turn A, I check, he bets 2/3 pot, I call, river a brick, and I check/call 2/3 pot again. My QQ beats his QT. I would have felt superused if I was him honestly (he was bad and it wasn't that difficult to run him over - I'm not bragging or talking about how good I am or anything). What I am talking about is that it was fun to play poker. Even though it was 1-2 NL. I enjoyed it.

In today's WCOOP main, $5k buy-in, 10-million guarantee, pleasegodletmerunhotonetime-ament, I sucked at coinflipping again. I accumulated nicely and am really happy with how I've altered my style after getting Erick Lindgrowned at Legends. I lost a flip to Sub (Jeff Williams), he typed 'ul', and I was like, whatevs, doesn't matter in the short term, and honestly meant it. Yes, I was disappointed, a little bummed. I am quite tired of losing. But there's nothing I can do about it, and I've finally accepted the fluctuation (bitch that it is) that comes with poker. Jeff made some reference to Phil Jackson and zen, and I really don't understand what he was talking about there, but this poker thing is a lot more fun when you don't tilt.

Umm, in other news... I suck at fantasy football. I am 0-4 in money leagues and 2-3-1 in free leagues. It's not looking like I'm going to play win any games this week. In no particular order:

FU to:

Ben Rothlisberger
Chad Johnson
Tom Brady's ACL
The 8th draft pick
Matthew Berry
The Seahawks medical staff
LT
Addai until today
Brandon Cantu

Soooooooooooo...

That is all.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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