I can't gamble on my phone, but I like it anyway

I bought a new phone this weekend. I was trying to decide between this Blackberry Pearl and the Sidekick, but the guy in the store said the Blackberry is better for work e-mail systems.



This phone is great so far. It's sleek, handy and full of gadgets. The only feature it doesn't have is AM/FM radio, but I was less disappointed about not having that when I later found out it isn't offered on any Blackberry models.

As promised, it handles multiple e-mail accounts flawlessly. The camera is the usual low-resolution quality of most phones. Internet is decent. Texting is intuitive. I'm sure this phone pales in comparison to some higher-end models out there, but it's by far the best one I've ever owned.

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Poker continues apace. I'm enjoying the 3/6 and 5/10 NL games on Full Tilt, and it's usually possible to find several loose tables. One guy even pushed in a full stack preflop with KJo vs. my KK. Amazingly, Krispy Kreme held up!

Overall, the last couple of weeks have been up and down with a general upward trend. I'm cool with that.

I was thinking earlier about the steps in my poker development that have made the biggest difference. I'll list them here:

1) Limiting my sessions to 2 hours. This improved my discipline and helped prevent tilt.

2) Abandoning a year-and-a-half long effort to climb the limit ladder, instead concentrating on No Limit Hold em, where all the money seems to be.

3) Learning more about playing shorthanded tables. Six-max is where many of the fish are.

4) Making an effort to improve my game beyond my existing education of books, the net, TV and practice. Specifically, the Cardrunners instructional videos are very valuable.

5) Improving my usage of continuation bets. Rather than pounding at my opponents every time I was checked to on the flop, I've incorporated more floating, turn bets, 2nd and 3rd bullets and bluff check-raises into my game. Most of all, I've gotten much better at learning when not to continuation bet.

6) Coming to accept that I can always play tighter preflop in shorthanded games without giving up too much value. The blinds don't hurt that much more.

The countdown is on. Three days and 23 hours from now, I'll be on a plane to Vegas.