I've always had respect for those who could document their journeys; especially those who can make it interesting and fun to read. I'm not the best orator and I'm not very good at gathering my thoughts, but I'm willing to recognize it. Of all the things I struggle with in life, being half-assed is the one that bothers me most. I consider myself a smart person, hard working, dedicated and very hungry, but the lack of clarity in my thought process is beginning to show up more and more, proving to be the biggest bridge I need to build. It's almost as if I'm not used to the pressure that decision-making can cause. I stutter and buckle whenever I have something valuable on the line. 

I've attempted journals and blogs before without much luck, giving up when things got difficult. This was before I started looking at myself with an honest eye. In the past when I would see other players with successful blogs and equally successful results at the tables, I would wonder why they "wasted" so much of their time writing and documenting these wonderful adventures. I would justify my lack of writing to me just being smarter and wanting to play more instead of wasting my time writing. Needless to say it didn't take me long to realize it was just me being incredibly lazy and ignorant.

I want to create an open channel where I can let my thoughts out and receive feedback from an amazing member base that Runitonce has here (I've lurked since the opening of the site and it's like nothing I've ever seen). I want to have something I can look back on and see the progress I've made both as a poker player and as a human being. I believe I have a lot of insight that I can offer to the beginners and younger players. I really want to stop being so introverted with regards to how I approach the game. With that said, I would like to start sharing ideas and putting my thoughts out there to be criticized, which is something I've been very leery of doing in the past.

At the moment, I primarily play live nlhe up to 10/20. I'm going to slowly get into other games as time goes on, as I feel like I'm missing value not being able to sit in any game, especially plo. I didn't have a ton of experience when I started, just passion and hard work. I'm extremely obsessive when it comes to things I enjoy and poker is no different. I can honestly say that I love the game more today than I ever have. I have created an extremely good balance, making sure I'm always happy with where I'm at. I knew this was what I wanted out of my life, so I made it happen and haven't regretted a day since.

My goals in poker are pretty undefined at the moment. My only real goal is to work as hard as I can and build the biggest bankroll possible; the bigger your bankroll is, the more opportunities you have in poker. I don't have anything specific that I would like to achieve, I just want to make sure that I keep learning and moving forward.

Ego is something I've battled with a lot as a poker player. I've never game selected well because I've always found myself superior to everyone I'm playing with. I've also gotten off sitting in bad games because I felt like they made me better; in my mind, not being scared of playing with anyone made me better. When I sat at a table instead of spotting the weakest player, I would pick out the strongest player and attack them. This isn't a winning strategy. As time passes, I begin to realize that poker is less about "who's the best" and more about who has the biggest bankroll and plays the most. Having an ego and not game selecting is just bad, it adds stress to your life, and it doesn't make you as good as you think it will.  I think it's important to test yourself and keep pushing the boundaries; battling unnecessarily isn't the way to go about this. The players I respect the most now are the disciplined ones who never make big mistakes and never get out of line. They're the ones making the most money, they're ultimately the best.

I get to play a game for a living. How I choose to run my business of being a poker player now will dictate if I can do this in the future. There are a lot of really cool opportunities that poker allows you to experience and taking advantage of them is the key.

I play at least 40 hrs/week and am starting to play a little more online.  I have money on Sportsbook and will be playing on there a few hrs/week.

My results haven't been as good as I want them to be so far.  Over 3k ish hours I'm winning at about 5bb/hour.  This is at all stakes from 1/2 to 10/20.  Improving this is obviously a priority. 

My actual goals for this thread are to:

-Update it 4-5 times/week. 

-Post/cross post hands 4-5 times/week

-Get better at poker

-Get better at journaling and emptying my thoughts. 

-Take a lot of pictures and keep it interesting. (I would love ideas for this)

-Just get a little better at everything. 

I just got back from Vegas and had a drunken 2/5 session at Aria with a good friend and we wanted to see who could build the biggest stack in all red chips.  That's NBA player Janeero Pargo in the background.  He was chill as fuck and hung out with us all night.  He had more fun than we did I think.