[Pat Southern]

1. I just completed BobboFito's 3 day coaching program. I flew out to Boston and stayed with him for 3 days putting in quite a bit of time going over the WHY something is right, rather than the WHAT is right (which I was previously focused on). I'm starting to realize that the only way to take my game to the next level is to improve my actual understanding of the game, rather than try to learn what moves good players use. In that time we transformed my game from 21/18 to 30/25.
Also, I spend a good ammount of time over AIM discussing hands with a group of people I've met through either the tables or 2+2.

2. I want to eventually be beating 5/10 to 10/20, maybe higher once I get there. But for now, if I reached that and it was my ceiling I'd still be very happy. Essentially I want to beat the games for enough $ to never NEED a job, and once I find a job or business venture I enjoy to still use poker as a nice supplemental income.

3. I moved up to 2/4 about 20k hands ago. I took a year long break after going out to Vegas for the WSOP in 2006. Put a little $ in around July and rebuilt my roll starting at .25/.50. this year I've made about $40k, lifetime probably around $150k through a myriad of games (limit, MTTs, SNGs)

4. I'm kinda lacking when it comes to strong strategy posts. A lot of that is because I wasn't that confident in my thought process before my coaching program with Bobbo. I knew what most of the correct moves were, and most of the time I knew why; however, in some of the more complex situations (usually where good posts come from) I was pretty unconfident. I had a few theory posts in MTT a loooong time ago, maybe I can drag those up.

5. I'm 22 and just graduated from UC Davis (in California) with an Econ degree. Eventually I will probably go onto some form of higher education, either getting an MBA or going to law school.
I took up poker because I needed a competitive outlet that used to be filled by high school sports. Mainly, because I wasn't good enough to play football at Davis.
Because the job market isn't that great I decided to just play poker rather than "work for the man." It's going fine thus far, but I'm hoping to break through to a higher level of thinking (and hopefully earning) by early next year. This is also the first time that I"ve ever put in significant hours. While in college I played maybe 8-10 hours a week, now I try to get in at least 25.