jesus, last night kinda proved why the business that i'm a part of can be a truly brutal one. i run a card game in a town about 30 minutes south of here. the game runs $1/$2 pot limit omaha, omaha 8 or better, and the 5 card variations of those games (greek) with a $300 minimum buy-in. well, about an hour into the game, the blinds jumped up to $2/$5 and there was a constant straddle of $15 being placed every hand. that meant that, every 8 hands, you were posting roughly $22 in blinds. there was a guy that lost $2,300, another that dropped $1,000. unfortunately, my coach and partner did not do well with the game. at all. he lost $2,100, and recouped just $166 from the rake. i don't think i've ever seen him so...shook up. like, i've seen this dude drop $5,000 in a day and shrug it off as nonchalantly as if you were blowing a dollar on a double cheeseburger at mcdonald's. like, he was shaking, his voice hollowed to a whisper, and he couldn't look at me for the longest time.

i made decent money ($250) for as short as the game ran; we were expecting a 8 hour game and it only ran 5. but to see the dude that taught me the game, that helped me realize that money is insignificant so long as you're playing your best, just, shatter before me; that messed me up quite a bit. i tried to talk to him on the way home about poker and found that, wow, i just couldn't. it's like, hey, wanna talk about all the hands you played well but still lost 25% of your bankroll with? just doesn't work so well, there. it kinda hits home, the brevity of what can possibly happen to me on any given night if i'm not careful. i don't want to play any games that i could potentially have a two thousand dollar loss in a single night. i can withstand something in the neighborhood of $300-$500 in a night without it seriously affecting my lifestyle at the moment. i'm working on getting a comfortable bankroll built up; it just takes some time. i made some frivolous purchases this month, anyways; 3 video games (borderlands, call of duty 4, left 4 dead 2) that cost $200, some hair stuff done, lip piercing, and so on. the only real outliers that i have for expenses in the coming months are christmas and mom's birthday in february. that's really it. i hope to get a lot more than the $800 that is currently my poker bankroll. i'm a bit short still, but remember; i've been backed for 3 months, so my technical bankroll was zero for a while. a near four digit bankroll is a start, and it should be in the $1,200 range by next week, which means i can start hitting phil's game back up comfortably.

i want to road trip again this year. i haven't really thought of a good location; i've already been to california, new jersey, and florida this year, so my areas of interest have went down significantly. i can go north or west, basically. chicago is an option. salt lake city sounds nice. bangor, maine, would be interesting. i just want to go, somewhere, drive by myself for a while, then meet some different people and just, i dunno, enjoy myself for a few days. i may just say fuck it, grab a notebook, a suitcase and a change or two of clothes, and hitchhike for a few days around the country. i might die or get robbed or some shit, but, it'd be fun in the least bit. i think the concept of the railway hitchers in the early century was fascinating. so, why not try it once?

maybe i'm just strange.