Bad Start...

Well, my wife's in-laws were in town on a surprise visit for most of this week, and just left today.

I've still been doing well as far as eating and working out are concerned, but have played a total of 22 hands of poker... Pathetic. I also haven't managed to take many pictures.

I'm going to try to get hands in today and tomorrow, but I have to do the monthly update of my rakeback directory today, and that takes a while because I suck at website design/management.

So, it looks like this blog is likely to get serious on Monday. I apologize for the delay, but I haven't announced the creation of this blog to anyone yet, so none of you should really know about it anyway lol.

Until Monday, good luck in poker and in life...

Frank

Ps. I'm doing normal on-the-floor push-ups now! (but only 5x5... At least I'm progressing!)

Fitness

FITNESS

I never was in great shape. Sure, I was active when I was younger (soccer, basketball, tennis, golf, downhill skiing, etc.) but I never really worked out.

My Mom is a health nut. Growing up, while all my friends enjoyed Cocoa Puffs and Chips Ahoy, I enjoyed NutriGrain and Fig Newtons. There was never, EVER any junk food in the house. I think my Mom was trying to instill healthy eating habits in her children, but it had the complete opposite effect on me.

Once I was out of the house and in college, my eating choices were all about what tasted good, and I over-indulged frequently. Within a few short years, I developed the habit of eating one HUGE, unhealthy meal per day, and right before bed. I've continued this lifestyle up until pretty much last week, which is well over 10 years of poor eating.

The most I ever weighed was 240 in college, around 1999 I believe. Overall, though, I've maintained about 225-230 for the past 10 years. Since I'm 6'2", I carry it pretty well, but I'm very embarrassed to take my shirt off in public, and avoid it at all costs. I'm sick of feeling that way about myself.

In 2004, I tried the Atkins Diet. As a result, I was still able to overeat and drop down to 185 by my wedding in October of that year. You would think that 185 on a 6'2" male would be pretty good, but I still didn't like the way I looked. I still had a spare tire, and was "skinny fat", as they say. The only working out I did during this time was bodyweight calf-raises on a daily basis and stair push-ups and crunches once in awhile. Shortly thereafter, I went back to eating too much of whatever I wanted and have gotten back up to around 225.

The main reason I haven't worked out in the past is because I have Ankylosing Spondylitis, which is basically arthritis of the spine. It came on when I was in my early twenties and sucks really bad. My back hurts all the time, and it's exhausting. I can't even stand for more than 10 minutes at a time without the pain becoming severe.

The onset of Anylosing Spondylitis (AS) prohibited me from doing a lot of things I enjoyed in the past. I used to go skiing in Vail every year with friends... No longer. I haven't skied since I was 22, which is really depressing. Golf has become much more difficult, and last summer the neck pain became so bad that I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to enjoy the game again. AS sucks... Period.

Anyway, I'm no longer going to use AS as an excuse for not being in shape. I've been eating better for about a week now, and I've been working out to the best of my ability. The pain of AS really limits my weightlifting options at the moment, but I'm hoping to get stronger to the point where my strength offsets the pain of working out and I can develop a more normal routine (if that makes any sense); however, I'm not going to adopt any extreme weight training programs (if it's even possible, given my condition) until I'm in decent physical shape. I'm also not going to attempt any radical diets like Velocity. I've tried all that stuff and I fail every time. I'm honestly surprised that I was able to stay on Atkins.

So, without further ado, here's my plan:

DIET

1. Eat relatively healthy, but don't limit myself to the point where I can't enjoy my food
   
2. Eat in moderation, 5-8 meals per day

WORK OUTS

1. Work out when I have the time, but on a consistent basis (do at least something daily)
2. Start with what is manageable given my current level of fitness, and work my way up when appropriate

I'm not going to be counting calories, just eating what I think is the appropriate amount of a given food. A lot of you fitness buffs will likely scoff at this, but this is what I'm comfortable with for the time being. If I don't get the results I want in a reasonable amount of time (6 months or so), I'll reevaluate.

I'm seriously limited to what I can do weight-wise. Most of you won't understand, but I'm in bad shape and deal with chronic back pain. I simply have to start small.

My tools:

Adjustable-weight dumbells


Sand Bag w/ Adjustable 8lb Increment Bags


I'm also using stairs for push-ups until I develop the strength to do a normal push-up. I can do a normal push-up but not very many. I am currently on step 2.

Push-up Diagram via Superior MS Paint Abilities


So that's what I'm working with. I'm going to be doing squats, dead-lifts, push-ups, military press, dumbell curls (isolation I know blah blah blah), with calf raises mixed in whenever/wherever because they're easy. I hope to eventually add in pull-ups once/if I ever have the strength to do so.

I'm not going to be setting aside hours a day to work out. I'm going to be doing it on my time, when I have the time. Maybe a little here and a little there, 2 or 3 times a day. Again, if I don't get the results I'm looking for, I'll reevaluate.

Next post, Day One of Accountability.

Until next time, good luck at the tables and in life...

Frank

Day Four or Thereabouts...

Welcome to x2ski's Fitness and Poker blog.

I'm just gonna start rambling in order to get things started, so here we go:

POKER

My name is Frank and I'm a 31-year-old professional poker player. I say "professional" because poker is my only significant source of income. I also have an online poker rakeback directory that brings in a few dollars a month, but it is nothing close to a livable income.

Anyway, I only play $3/$6 limit hold'em on Absolute Poker. I've been stuck at $3/$6 since October of 2004, which is pretty freaking pathetic, but that's just the way things are I guess.

I don't like gambling at all. When I was younger, I used to go up to the local casino a couple times a year with a few friends and $20 to play the slots. I never won, and always regretted dropping the $20. I would actually get sick to my stomach over such a small amount of money. Also, most of the patrons at the local casino would depress the hell outta me... Mostly senior citizens moping around, shaking their bucket of coins, cigarette in hand, seeking the next lucky machine. So freaking stupid. What a waste.

I never played poker in high school or college either, but I was in school before the online boom occurred. Things might have been different otherwise, I don't know.

Anyway, I started playing poker in February of 2004 after a few of my friends had kept nagging me about it. I was playing the Hubble's No Limit Hold'em free rolls on PokerStars for a few months, and doing ok for the most part. In hindsight, I was absolutely terrible at the game, but it was fun and I was doing ok.

Sometime in April of 2004, I decided to give real money games a shot. A friend transferred $10 to me on PokerStars one Friday. Well, actually, he transferred $25, but I only asked for $10. He claimed that $10 wouldn't be enough to get started... He was wrong.

I took $10 to the $.05/$.10 limit hold'em tables and ran it up to $25 or so by the end of the weekend. That Monday, I transferred the original $25 back to my friend, leaving me $15 left to work with.

Over the course of the next few months, I was making about $5 a day from poker. At the time, I was a struggling real estate agent. I had gotten into real estate after quickly realizing that I hated the 9 to 5 cubicle life. Real estate wasn't much better... I guess I'm not a very good salesman.

I began focusing on poker a lot more than real estate. I couldn't wait to get home from the office and start playing. I would actually be running around my apartment, getting things done that needed to be done, in a mad rush to get in front of the computer to start playing.

I was 4-tabling the micro-limits through the summer of 2004. I got married that October, and had been regularly playing $1/$2 and $2/$4 by that time. After my honeymoon, I decided to make the jump to $3/$6 since my bank roll was around $1,800 (back then, a 300BB bank roll was still considered adequate lol). I transferred most of my roll to Party, where I could get rakeback, and started playing $3/$6.

I was playing $3/$6 full-ring on Party, getting in about 40,000 hands a month, through the Spring of 2005. I was making about $3,000 from poker and $2,000 from rakeback per month, which was a nice earn for me at the time. I moved on to Eurobet and Empire Poker because I could get even better rakeback deals there, and by May of 2005 I was done with real estate, having made like $8,000 in the business, if that, in about a year and a half. My wife was due to have a baby in August, so I wanted to focus on where the money was coming from... Poker.

I played full ring on Party and It's Skins until the Spring of 2006. In the fall of 2005, Party got all hardcore about not allowing rakeback. I tried two "underground" Party rakeback affiliates who both ended up screwing me.

In March of 2006, my second rakeback deal had gone south, so I was looking elsewhere to play; however, Party had a March Madness promo going around that time, where they paid out a bonus of up to $1,500 or something to the players who racked up the most frequent player points over the course of a weekend. I switched to 6-max in an effort to win the maximum bonus, and also because I had long heard that 6-max was the shiznit. I placed in the top 20, if I remember correctly, and got about $1,000 in bonus, but I think I lost more than that in play. Regardless, I felt comfortable in 6-max, and decided to move over to Absolute Poker for it's generous bonii and rakeback.

I was a 1.21BB/100 winner while playing at Party over many hundreds of thousands of hands. Once I moved to Absolute and short-handed play, I struggled. Up until July of 2007, I was a -.5BB/100 loser, but made a decent amount through rakeback and bonii.

Losing over such a long period messed up my confidence and motivation something fierce. With a wife and baby to support, I was playing just enough to live comfortably, but hated every minute of it. I would do anything else I could to avoid playing poker... Dishes, laundry, complete overhaul and cleaning of the garage, and a lot of wasted time on the InterTubes, just surfing random crap and OOT.

Since July of 2007, I'm actually a winning player over 187,000 hands:



.07BB/100... Rock on. Nevertheless, this is huge for me motivation-wise. 2008 has been good so far:



I know it's a small sample size, but for the first time ever I actually feel like I know what I'm doing at the poker tables. I've completely revamped my game, adopting a "no fear" and "I don't deserve anything" approach. I'm actually gambling a little bit! I'm not completely comfortable with the new style yet, but I'm happy to not have to deal with constant situations in which I don't know what to do.

I used to have a pathetic 32-33% WtSD, and couldn't figure out how to get it higher. Earlier this year, I simply tried getting to showdown as cheaply as possible with a wide variety of questionable hands. Things seemed to be going better, but I had become way too passive (1.5 AF overall). I at least had found plenty of situations that were showdownable, so now it was time to get more value. I upped the aggression, and here I am. My W$WSF seems pretty high though, so I'm probably just running well, and betting people out of pots where I might get more value from a more passive line, but I don't care right now. I'm having fun playing again, and that's all that really matters to me for the time being.

Anyway, I tend to ramble on a lot, but I wanted to give you all a little background regarding poker and where I am today. Basically, I need to ramp up the hands again to AT LEAST where I was in 2005 (averaging about 60,000 hands per month) and start making some money. I'm happy to just break even in the game, and am not looking to move up anytime soon. The important thing is to get hands in, and hopefully everything else will follow. That said, the poker portion of this blog will mainly involve:

1. Hands played per day
2. Results/Statistics
3. The occasional interesting hand
4. Thoughts on my performance

I have some debt that needs to be taken care of, and if I simply hammered out hands 40 hours per week like a person with a real job, the debt would be eliminated in less than a month. Unfortunately, this debt has been lingering for over 3 years because I was weak-sauce and unmotivated. It's time for a change... Hopefully this blog will provide some accountability.

Next post, Fitness (ugh).

Good luck at the tables, and in life...

Frank