Downswinging and a few words for the wise

I am definately continuing to downswing now. At least it feels like it. Ran KK into AA twice tonite. Then proceeded to run Top set QQ into A2 on a 345Q board. He called a strong preflop raise with A2 flopped it then I perhaps foolishly?? called his postflop raise and hit my top set.... Allin there and I blanked the river....$200 pot there. Another $150 lost on the KK hands. Ran about even most of the rest of the night. Then played some 3/6Triple Draw to finish up when I spotted a guy who is a huge Triple Draw fish/winner/suckout artist who loves to cap the betting on every street drawing 3/4/5 at a time. "Fun2Draw1" lives up to his name and the guy was drawing many against me and hitting 3 hands in a row with heavy betting on every street as I was trying to outdraw the master. Considering Iwas a favorite every hand it was pretty sick. He was finishing up for the night and left. I stuck around and ran up my stack on my table image when I ran my first draw made #3 low 76532 into a drawing #2 which caught on the 2nd draw 76432 for a big pot $138. Doh....thats running bad folks.

A few words to those who criticize the fact I play poker for profit and not necessarily for just fun. Take a look in your own mirror. Do your vices pay for your mortgage bills every month? How much time do you all spend on your hobbies and or vices? I put in about 1 hour and 45 minutes a day to poker... Is that too much? Thats less than the time to watch a movie on TV. We all have them. If mine is poker then so be it. I would rather play this game than do drugs, drink, watch TV. I usually only play this game after my family has gone to bed at night and on Saturdayafternoons when I am freerolling for a chance at thousands of dollars.

I enjoy the game. I take it very seriously and I am extremely careful to safeguard against losses. I started playing in 2003 on a $250 investment. I currently earn over $1000/month just in rakeback. When I realized my days of playing field hockey and cricket were for the most part done, poker helped fill a competitive void in my life. In fact as a competitive endeavour goes, I have never had success like this on an individual level before in my life. I am not a great poker player. But I am among a group of people who have enough 'talent' to play poker profitably and that gives me a good deal of personal satisfaction. I have not fluked my way to over $20K in winnings playing low stakes poker.

The past year has seen my game take strong strides to increasing profitability and I know that I also face increasing criticism for what is perceived to be long hours of play. It just simply is not true and I want that record set straight. I play fewer hours in 2008 than I did when I started playing in 2003. I do however play many more hands of poker than I did in 2003 because I play many more tables now. I play for slightly higher stakes than I did then but I am still considered a small stakes player. My hand volume makes up for my talent level. I have the ability to make multiple decisions very quickly and that volume is the basis of my profitabilty. This year I plan to increase that volume even further while also decreasing the amount of actual time I play poker.

But I will leave the plans for that for a future post. I will also address the issue of addiction and my opinions on that. Stay tuned...

I wish all of you the very best in whatever you choose to do with your time. With your life. I enjoy poker as my chosen pasttime. I would hope that those who know me respect that. But again I will address that in the future.

Love all. Donald.