moving my life away from poker, towards new goals.

I have been exposed to poker for nearly 4 or so years now but only started playing a little over a year and a half ago. My little brother would play on partpoker before it got shut off to us residents. He would make money and play around and I didn't take it seriously after all it was gambling. Then bored one day i started and since it was with play chips it didn't matter if i lost. I eventually switched to fulltilt and moved my way up there to small cash games. I then moved on to local bar games and small tourneys, I then added playing on ultimate bet and this past november playing on stars. My game went from refusing to play to poker crazed.

I started and still do read all the websites, online magazines, cardrunners, pocket fives, bluff, cardplayer, poker news, plus phil gordons little green book. I also read fulltilts forums, and do anything i could to improve. I even ventured off to a casino now that is it legal in West Virginia now. BY the way i am up from my 3 visits there. I never would have envisioned myself setting foot in a live casino risking real money on a card game. Well it changed my life and gave me new confidence. It has however become to large part of my life and is keeping me from other things.

So despite sharkscopes terribly inaccurate reading, i am profitable online up over two hundred fifteen bucks. Live i am also up close to 100 bucks in my small stakes tourney and cash games in bars, at the casino i am also up.

WIth this said, the variance in poker crushes my mental state, i don't understand how runner runner flush, or straight chasers hit despite trying every betting trick possible. Why people play any two suited cards when it only adds a few percentage points to your hand. Why marginal players can't lay down top pair and can't be pushed of ace king with a ace on the board. TWO pair is the average winning hand in poker everyone please realize this. this means not calling all in with top pair and garbage kickers, that you should have folded in the first place. People who overbet the pot and push all in for 1400 chips in a tourney when there are only 100 chips in the pot stupid. ON stars this play is often done, atleast 80 percent more than bet or tilt according to my stats. Why go crazy on the river overbetting the pot by 15x this drives me up a wall. I should be even more successful than what i am now, the downfall the chasers and abundance of donkeys. With so many of them going crazy in a hand it lower your chances of winning the hand greatly. You can't push them away from any two cards, and well anything basically. This is of course at the lower levels.

So it has been fun, and i made alot of friends and poker has and always will be part of my life. i just will spend less time, and instead focus on getting into shape hopefully and changing my life that way. Balance and success in all areas is more important than the stress making profits at lower level poker causes. Good luck everyone....