I'll take potpourri for 200, Alex

So I have a lot of random stuff to write about in this post, so here it goes.

First of all, here is my live 20/40 graph from October, complete with annotations. I've been saying it all along, but now hopefully you can get a picture of just how much variance is involved in this game. It's pretty sick. Also, to catch everyone up, I won a contest on 2p2 to design an avatar for a fellow poster, which is what is referenced in the graph. For details on the thread and avatar designing process, you can see the Small Stakes Thread in which I won $100 and the BBV4Life One in which Leo gave away $400 for what turned out to be a very ballin' avatar.

Next, I've made a few decisions regarding how I'm going to move forward now that I'm officially a professional poker player. I bought a book (which came highly recommended) that I'm currently working on that is teaching me a lot about the ins and outs of filing your taxes and the like. To make a long story short, this year I'm still going to file as a hobbyist, but next year I'll basically be filing as the equivalent of a small business owner, and therefore be able to make certain business deductions. For example, I might be able to write off my cell phone, a percentage of meals at the table, and things like lodging and travel costs if I travel to, say, Reno, Las Vegas, or LA. In preparation for this, I've started keeping written records (not just excel spreadsheets) of my wins and losses, and am planning to write a business plan. Scary stuff.

Also, in an effort to stave off any sort of ill will or just plain getting wise by my opponents, I've decided I'm going to make an honest effort to play at Garden City more. I've fallen into a rut and had played at bay 101 something like 25 or 30 times in a row before last week. I played at Garden City today, and things were just as I remembered them (for those of you who don't know, I played basically my first 200 hours of live 20/40 exclusively at Garden City). Once or twice a week should do the trick.

Next...results from the last few days have been pretty uninteresting and uninspiring. I played an hour of 40/80 today and lost 500 bucks basically just by folding my blinds, winning one or two small pots, and losing one or two small pots. I then broke even in four hours of 20/40. Friday and Saturday also amounted to a wash (up 200 something Friday, down 200 something Saturday). Here is one hand from a few days ago worth reading about. In it I make a couple of thin calls (preflop and on the turn), and then do something on the river that was very, very read-based.

I guess that's all for now. Happy Voting!