I am a Donkey

As part of my 12 step program of being in Donkey's anonymous, my first step is admission.
Hello, My name is WillWonka and I am a Donkey... (Hi... Will!!).
After the last 30 days or so, I must be a donkey as I continue to donate to the masses.

As my last message explained, I have not been doing very well at the tables so I decided to take a little break... well, it looks like the break will be extended as I did go back to the tables on Wednesday. I started up 5/10 sessions on PokerRoom and Ultimate Bet. Poker Room started off bad; but then turned around as I finished up a little over $200. I then closed out of Poker Room and went exclusively on UB. Things went bad there to begin with also... then things turned... to the worst... It is always fun when you get AA on one of your first hands... not fun when they get cracked. I have to admit that my losing hands were not all due to bad plays from others.. they were just catching the cards... The aforementioned cracked Aces were from a T9 that happened to flop a straight. It was from a known bad player so I stayed in... even though he never re-raised me... so I should thank my lucky stars that I didn't lose more. Having 99 beat by 28 just plain hurts... even if it was a big blind special. Anyway, I ended up down almost $500 on UB.

We'll get back to poker in a minute; but let me talk about something a little more exciting.. at least at the moment. FOOTBALL!!!!!!

I am doing my picks. Usually, I don't post any picks until about week 4 or week 5; but Scurvy Dog's BonusBug has a section for sports picking and I put my week 1 picks there. The bad news is that I only went 3-3; but was very close to going 5-0-1. A few last minute scores from the bad guys did me in. Poker Nerd is also making some picks on his site. Anyway, I will start putting my college football picks on this site as well. For week 2, my top 6 picks are:

1) Ga Tech -12.5 vs NC
2) Minnesota -13 vs Colorodo St
3) Va Tech -20 at Duke
4) Florida - 29.5 vs La Tech
5) Air Force -7.5 vs San Diego St
6) Boston College -27.5 vs Army

Overall last week, my picks went 27-19. I have never have had any luck on Pro Games so I shy away from those. Just a note... I rank all 119 Division 1A football teams via a spreadsheet that I created. I then take those rankings with my associated power ranksing and come up with a spread for the game. I then compare that spread to the actual spread to come up with my picks. So for the most parts, the picks above are solely computer based picks based off of my computer spreadsheet. My top 6 picks are typically around 60% for the year. We'll see how it goes this year... since I am publishing them.. they probably won't do squat... lol.

As a Texas Longhorns fan, the UT / Ohio State game could be the game of the year. Ohio State is a slight favorite; but I don't see them staying up with the Horns. I may be a little biased.. lol... and of course I look forward to the Oklahoma game every year...


Now, back to our orignally scheduled program... poker. I have now had 5 straight losing sessions and since I hit my all time high water mark on August 6th, I have bled away $2,739 which comes out to nearly 20% of my bankroll. We all read of the variance swings and bad cards and whatever you want to call it; but this is as bad as it has ever been. I did have one 5 session losing streak early on in my poker playing that accounted for a 37% loss in bankroll; but the bankroll was pretty small back then and it didn't take too much to swing the percentages one way or another. So, now, the recurring question remains on what I am going to do going forward?? I don't know. It's pretty frustating right now; so for sure, I am going to take a little more time and mull things over. With football starting tonight and going through the weekend, that should help divert my attention.

One thing I would like to do in the interim is post some of the big hands from the last 5 days. One of the things that I serverly lack is the opportunity to talk poker with other poker players.... at least online poker players. I do have a couple of guys at work that are poker enthusiasts and it helps to talk to them; but it is not the same as chatting with people that are out there online playing and are experiencing some of the same things that I am (whether good or bad). So I would like to start posting some hands (aka Scurvy Dog) with some of my thoughts during the hand and get some feedback on them (although they won't be as entertaining as his). I think this will help two-fold. One, I won't be out there playing right now when I shouldn't be playing. I honestly sit down to the table now and say to myself "I wonder how much I'm going to give back today?". Obviously not a good attitude to take. Secondly, it will help me review my play.

Thanks for listen to me ramble. I will start posting some hands either today or tomorrow.


Oh, btw, a second baby Wonka will be entering this world next March/April. We are both excited and afraid of the times to come.