January is Over

Well, January is finally over and it has been one of the most profitable months I’ve ever had.  I ran really good this month and really cant complain about anything.  I tilted pretty hard during a couple of sessions and probably cost myself an extra $1 or $2k in profit, but that is sort of expected considering I’ve always had major tilt issues.  I really need to concentrate on not tilting in the future, since there is really no excuse for it and it is just plain silly to get upset over losing a few hundred dollars when I am already up so much.  This month I mostly played 200NL and 100NL, but played probably 6 or 7k hands of 400NL and 600NL.  Since I had such a good month, I plan on finally taking a legitimate shot at the mid stakes games next month.  Once February starts I will not play anything lower than 400NL unless I am playing HU.  I really want to put a solid months of hands in at 400 and 600NL (Maybe mixing in some 1kNL when tables are good) and just see what happens.  I feel like I have the potential to make even more than I am now and that I am sort of wasting my time screwing around at 100NL constantly.  Im actually really pumped about the next month starting and really hope that I can play my best and not tilt while playing the higher stakes games.  I talked to fantasticcow the other night and he assured me that the mid and high stakes games aren’t really that tough and that I should have no problem beating them as long as I can keep a cool head.  Speaking of fantasticcow, he told me that he bought a new tempurpedic matress and was raving about it, so I decided to check them out today as I have been thinking about buying a new mattress.  They are pretty nice, but quite pricey.  I guess I could justify the purchase by saying that I will be spending a lot of time on it, but I will have to see how I do in February.  I already spent way too much money in January, and I would hate to drop another $2k+ on something that I really don’t need.

On another note, ever since I read the PTR article on best places to live and play poker, Ive been researching the island of Malta off the coast of Italy.  Looks like a sweet place and definitely want to take a vacation there at some point in the near future.  Might actually consider moving there if I end up liking it and continue to play poker for a living since you don’t have to pay taxes on gambling winnings there.  It would be pretty amazing to be able to actually keep 100% of the money I make.  Ive been looking over my tax situation for last year, and it looks like I am going to end up having to send the IRS a check for $20k+ in April and that sucks big time.  I had no idea how much of your income actually goes directly to the government until now.  It also sucks when they don’t take money weekly and you are just hit with a huge bill at the end of each year.  Anyways, if anyone wants to take a trip to Malta with me, let me know.  I’m down to go whenever.  I looked at some houses for weekly rentals and they were cheaper than I thought they were gonna be.  Couple really nice ones for around $700/week.

Anyways, I gotta get going so I will stop boring you to death with lines of text.  Hear is my profits graph for this month.  The blue line includes rakeback, live play, and PLO/PL 5 card draw play.  All in all I played about 90 hours which is pretty good for me.  Gonna try to put in around the same volume next month.