I was going to post about the harshness of coming back and karmic retribution for my SSing bout, getting walks with Rockets on the first hand of my 2nd session after my return, sets of Cowboys getting rivered, etc., etc., but then I remembered I've been there, done that, bought the whiny T's and threatened to quit the game :P!!! Thus, moving on... lol

I've been wanting to post about the fact that I finally enabled my MoneyBookers account for a while now, but it kinda slipped into the cracks of my summer vacations... Well, here's my chance, lol!

So, it's done. Been done for a while, actually; somewhere around July, if I recall correctly. Pretty useful, and very righteous, if you see what I mean; if you're anywhere serious with your online poker, you definitely owe it to yourself to find some way of managing your online bankroll. Sure, playing penny or nickels&dimes games doesn't require that much management, but if your goal is to climb the stakes, sooner or later, you'll be playing for amounts of more and more relevance, shall we say... And, if utlimately, you want to make money out of poker, you'll have to cash some of your winnings out...LDO, I know, but somehow, I think this is kinda overlooked and/or forgotten... And, otherwise, you're just a tourist with chips destined to go in someone else's BR. MoneyBookers is just one of the solutions available out there, and while I do not really feel like arguing their case, I will advise any half-serious player to lurk around 2+2's threads regarding Bankroll management and find out how other people in a situation similar to his or hers do handle their online money. Contrary to live Poker rooms, where the money is explicitly going both ways (it seems to be more of a question of how much goes from the players towards the house, really), there is a sense of one-way transactions with online poker rooms. I had such a feeling, anyway :). Until you go through the process of cashing out some money yourself, of course, and this is when you understand the necessity of having somekind of e-wallet set up, be it only to minimize the hassle and delays. Perhaps this thought popped in here cause I'm a winning player, though, come to think of it... lol. In any case, it is, in my humble opinion, a must.

Quick update on my play: that MB setup allowed me to shift things around a little. As of the end of July 2008, PartyPoker is out. Sorry guys, I got my books bonus, and the client just sucks asses big time, lol! I was about to move to The Asia Poker for some bonus whoring/rakeback deal, but I learned from TitanPoker staff that the famous Summer 40% Rakeback bonus I got through PokerStrategy was still on until further notice. So it's fair to say I'm settled at Titan for a while ;-). 40% rakeback ftw!!!! As far as limits are concerned, I'm pretty comfy at NL20, back to some decently played real poker (ie, deepstack poker; death to shorties!!!! Wait, can I say that anymore?!?!?! lol)... And I'll never go back to shortstacking... unless it's mandatory bonus whoring, of course ;-).

All in all, poker is back in my life, and I feel pretty good about it all... I will confess my August hiatus kinda scared me a little; since I so didn't think about the game I thought I might have gotten bored with it... Phew!! lol. Still. I. Love. That. Game. (mostly hold'em, tbh, tho ;-)... for now)

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Well, August's gone. My favorite month of the year, no doubt about it. And I did enjoy it this year; one of the best August in years to be quite frank :). But that somehow, and somewhat surprisingly, meant being off poker. As in out of the game almost entirely... Kinda weird... Enough to trigger some doubtful questioning, anyway... Turns out I went on vacation, and ended playing something like 200 hands tops during those two weeks... Plus 2 very nice, drunk, friendly sessions with old buddies... And that's all the poker I saw. Thing is, I work with computers, and the last year has tended to be all about me sitting in front a computer, be it at work, or at home, grinding my online poker bankroll with more and more enthusiasm... And when I finally hit my summer vacations, I just didn't feel like sitting at my PC... Not. At. All. Even when roaming inside cause of some stupid rain or last minute change of plans, I always opted for my couch, the Olympics, a comic or book, or some movie. I did catch up on stuff I wanted to read or watch or re-watch :). That Dune extended version is one piece of crap of editing, even though it shows some pretty interesting added scenes :P. Anywho, not much poker, to say the least. Thus, I can now say it's all my vacations' fault :P!

Still, returning from vacation tends to slow one's pace down quite a bit, at work for sure, but also everywhere else, just a little bid. The whole sit back groove, basically... And coming home from the office the first couple of days, one feels a tad more tired then used to. Thus, I decided to sacrifice August 2008, so to speak. I played a whooping 1,416 hands :|!!!! And while not being the slowest month ever, it is the lowest amount of poker played since I took it a tad more seriously, about a year ago... Check this out:


Crazy. But, then again, as much as I love the game, it felt like I needed this vacation. Time will tell...

In the meantime, for the sake of continuity, here's one of the 3 usual graphs (I figure it's not that relevant a month anyhow :P).