Summer Bod

After five years of excessive drinking and having every pizza place in town on speed dial, my body has officially taken a beating. I've put on the freshman fifteen twice over. I have never been a very skinny person, but I never considered myself out of shape until now. This weekend, I was playing sand volleyball at my sister's graduation party and was winded after only one game. As a result, I've decided to dedicate this summer to getting back into shape.

My plan consists of the following:
Mondays- Strength Training (AM) Cardio (PM)
Tuesdays- Circuit (jumprope, lunges, pushups, situps, wall sits, planks)Cardio (PM)
Wednesdays- Strength Training (AM) light cardio (PM)
Thursdays- Rest, (golf, walk, or bike ride)
Fridays- Strength Training (AM) Cardio (PM)
Saturdays- Cardio
Sundays- Rest

Aside from the fitness training, I also plan to limit my daily caloric intake to 1750 calories or less. I went to the grocery store yesterday and loaded up on chicken, pork, eggs, fruits, veggies, and nuts. Optimistically, if I can stick to this plan, I should be able to drop anywhere from 30-40 pounds this summer, which would get me back to my weight in high school.

Free Time

Online Poker, as I once knew it, is no more. The Department of Justice has seized the domain names of the top three poker sites, effectively putting me out of work. Reading some of my old blog entries made me realize how much I will truly miss it. Poker has given me an avenue to satisfy my competitive streak in a way that I haven't experienced since playing high school basketball. In addition, poker has afforded me an exciting, carefree lifestyle, free of the constant burden of money troubles. It has been a truly memorable aspect of my life and is something I will never forget.

Now that online poker is out of the picture, I've been doing a lot of soul searching in an attempt to figure out what life holds in store for me next. I will probably try to grind a meager living at casinos for the summer. After that, I will begin my final year of school as a student teacher in 3rd grade. Finally, I will enter the real world. I had always considered the possibility that I could play poker semi-professionally for the rest of my life. That is seemingly unrealistic right now. Besides, I'm not sure that the poker lifestyle is something in which I would truly like to embark upon. It is, at times, stressful and unreliable.

I have many exciting plans this summer. First of all, I plan to play a lot of basketball and golf, two things that I neglected last summer. Travelling will also take up much of my time. I have trips planned for Vegas, a roadtrip to the upper northwest US, and our annual family trip to a lake in Wisconsin. Aside from these, I have put reading on my summer "to do" list. This winter, I read the entire Harry Potter series. This rekindled a love for reading that I haven't felt since 3rd grade. Reading is a beautifully magically experience; one that I have under-appreciated through the years.

And lastly, since I will have so much free time, I guess I will try to update my blog a bit more. So for you three people who actually read this, enjoy!

AP Yearly TLB

I finally started to put in a little bit of volume in the past few weeks and have gone on a tear up the TLB. I was sitting at 15th in October and am now ranked #5. My goal is to finish top 3. The top 3 players in the yearly TLB win cash prizes as well as a $5500 Aruba seat. To do so, I'll need to get some big wins. I've had a gazillion 4 figure cashes, but only 1 5 figure cash this year. I'd like to add one more before the end of the year, hopefully a win in a major weekend tournament. I'll try to post updates semi-frequently but I get lazy sometimes and just don't feel like it

What happents in Boji...

This weekend was labor day weekend, which meant no school on Monday. My roommates and a group of our friends decided to go to my best friend's family cabin in Okoboji. It is a huge cabin with 11 bed rooms about a block from the lake. There was a group of about 15 of us, which included 4 of the hottest girls I have ever known personally.

We left friday evening and ran into some stupid detours that ended up sidetracking us and turning a 1.5 hour drive into a 2.5 hour drive. Once we got settled in, we started drinkin and playing card games. This lasted well into the night. At midnight we celebrated one of the girls' 20th birthday with a round of birthday shots and some singing.

The next morning, once everyone was awake, we packed up a cooler and took off for the beach. It was a beautiful day- 75 degrees and sunny. There was a floating dock about 40 yards out from shore, so the group swam the cooler out there and hung out on the dock, tossing the football and sipping some drinks. There were a bunch of families there to celebrate the beautiful day, and I imagine they were quite amused at the site of 15 drunk college kids jumping off a floating dock trying to catch footballs and beer cans.

By 3:00, we were completely out of beer (about 2.5 cases) so my buddy went into town to get 2 more cases. He returned with a plethora of grill food. Brats, Hotdogs, Hamburgers, Chips, and a bunch of other stuff. We all swam into shore and grilled, then ate.

We returned to the cabin in the early evening. Everyone was beat after being out in the sun all day. Some of us crashed and some of us watched college football. Around 8, everyone got a 2nd wind. We decided to go into town for a carnival and free concert. The carnival setting was very cool. It was a really small carnival, but still very fun. The setting reminded me of a california type boardwalk.

After the fair, we got some pizza and bought 3 more cases. We returned to the cabin and started drinkin again. We played this game called "Landmines." To play, players take turns spinning a quarter. While the quarter is spinning, the player has to take a drink of beer and pick the quarter up with 2 fingers before it stops spinning. If they fail to do this, they have to drink and start over. If someone finishes their beer, they can place the empty can anywhere on the table (including right on top of the spinning quarter). If someone does this while you are spinning, you have to finish your beer.

The game was so wild with so many people and before we knew it, the table was almost completely covered with empty beer cans.

I cannot say what happen next as I have been sworn to secrecy, but I will tell you that the rest of the night was a blast.

I woke up the next morning hugging a garbage can that reminded me of how out of control i had gotten the night before.

We decided to leave that morning and I returned in time to play the 200k. I ended up placing 12th for $2100. Unfortunately I ran into AA blind vs blind trying to steal with K7 and suffered a final table bubble. Later that night, I placed 2nd in the 40k for $6500. I really played well and ran well, which makes poker easy.

Gran Torino

When the movie Gran Torino came out, it was one of those critically acclaimed movies that I tend to stay away from. People hype it up so much that whenever I do actually see a movie like that, its either really disappointing or really wierd (man, movie critics love wierd movies). However, this weekend I rented it and I must say, it is an awesome movie. It's the best movie I've seen in a really long time. Clint Eastwood is so freakin balla, even at his advanced age. The plotline is great, and there are a lot of nice subtle messages sprinkled throughout. Its got everything you could want in a movie- action, humor, sadness, and a powerful message. It really made me think about how we percieve people of different cultures and create boundaries based on these perceptions. This movie gets my highest recommendation for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Poker has been decent lately. On Tuesday night, I took 4th place in the $15k guaranteed for $1750 after forgetting to add on and having only 3900 chips after the break. Then on Wednesday, while driving to Lincoln, NE with my mom (we went down to visit my sister who attends school at UNL), I won the $55 10k guaranteed on Cake poker for $2200. I got really lucky as a shortstack when my 10-8 beat AA to double up, then again when I shoved a late position limper with 47s against his AJ and hit 3 of a kind 4's. After that, I cruised and played really solid with a big stack. I'll probably take tonight off and get back at it again on saturday. I haven't had a 5 figure cash since March, so I'm hoping to get another one here soon.

Disadvantages of Multi tabling

Sundays are my biggest poker days. I usually play about 8 tables at a time, sprinkling in 12 early in the day. Though playing this many tables reduces variance and increases my chances of hitting a nice cash, it can backfire in some instances. Here is an example from yesterday:

Its about 1:15 P.M. and I am just beginning to recover from another night of moderate/heavy drinking and downing 1/2 of a large pizza from Gary's Pizzaria. I have 12 tables going, 4 of which are sngs and another 2 of which are sattys. I am 4 handed or less in all the sngs and the blinds are huge in the sattys (turbo rebuys for the 100k). (to those non poker players out there, this basically means that I have to make 6 fast decisions at the same time, and each one is essential to winning or losing money). I am frantically clicking buttons and darting my head back and forth when all of a sudden it hits....

Anyone who has ever topped off a night of drunkeness with a fat, greasy pizza knows exactly what "it" is. "It" is a form of the most ungodly, foul-smelling, sloppy shit you have ever witnessed.

It came without warning, causing me to jolt forward in my chair. Panicked, my eyes darted towards the bathroom a mere ten feet away. However, I was frozen in place, shackled by 12 flashing screens, all holding the promise of fortune. Greed held me captive in my chair.

Moments passed as I tried desperately to control my sphincter for just 15 more minutes. My efforts proved to be useless when, at the exact moment that I trapped a guy with the nut straight to win a $530 seat, I helplessy shit my pants.

The fecal matter quickly seeped towards the edge of my shorts, finding a resting place on the black leather chair beneath me.

Broken, ashamed, disheartened, and alone, I sat crying in a pile of my own shit for the next 20 minutes while I finished the rest of my session.

First $20r win of 2009/FTOPS #1

Most of my full poker days begin at 11:00 with the $20 rebuy 6k guaranteed. It is one of the softest fields on the site. I have numerous final tables over the years with few wins. In 2009, I had yet to win... until today. I came out on top for $1800. I can attribute this win to a combination of running well and a weak final table. Unfortunately, the win pretty much breaks me even after a ridiculous cold streak of cards. On top of that, I wasted all my good luck on a small tournament on the night when I was playing the 80k and the FTOPS #1 $1million guaranteed.

I just busted out of the FTOPS tourney after flopping a set on a board of 10 j Q. Of course villain had AK and I couldn't improve. That would have given me a top 40 chip stack, granted there were still 3,000 players left.

Tomorrow I will continue trying to satty into FTOPS events and hopefully gain a little ground with my tilt bankroll

FTOPS

So I got back from vacation refreshed and was ready to get back to the game. Unfortunately, I forgot how to run good. I'm going through one of those stretches where I'm getting beat in every way possible. Despite this, I have decided to get some money on FTP (where I never play) to play some of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series events. You can check out the tournament schedule here:

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/promotions/full-tilt-online-poker-series/schedule.php

I'm hoping to satty into all the NHE events, as I don't have the bankroll on tilt to buy into all of them. Hopefully I start to run a little better when that time rolls around.

I've also decided that I need to do a better job limiting my spending. The other day I was just thinking to myself, and realized that I spend my money on useless shit all the time. I'm gonna try to draw up a budget sometime this weekend for use in the 2009-2010 school year.

Vacation!!

On Thursday night I continued my run in the $30 rebuy tournaments by taking 3rd in the AP 15k. The final table was very strong. Some of the players included rock3656 (49th ranked player mtt player on p5's) Dark_Hawk2000, Bzimzim, DaMortician, and some others. Bzim lost 2 huge flips to rock to bust out in 6th. I made a HUGE mistake by playing a hand really poorly and was down to 20k. Luckily rock was trying to abuse a bubble, so he gave me a few walks and I was able to chip up in some other pots. I eventually doubled with 99 vs rock's K4. 3 handed I lost 2 huge pots, going into each as the favorite. The first I raised from sb with j8 suited to 28k. BB called. The flop was J 7 4 with 2 clubs. I bet 35k villain shoved 200k. I didn't think such an overbet meant he had a jack, so I called and he showed a flush draw. His draw hit on the river. Then I lost after 4 bet shoving rock3656 with A10d. He turned over KJ. He hit a jack on the river to send me out in 3rd for $1890. One thing about rock was that he NEVER seemed to miss. Within the last 2 tables, he won j7 vs AK, Q10 vs JJ, AQ vs 1010, 55 vs AK, KJ vs A10 and a couple others. He never got them in too far behind, but he NEVER lost the flips either. MBN

Tonight I will be leaving for vacation in Iron River, WI. Some people might be thinking "didn't you just get back from vacation, I thought you went to Vegas?" My answer is that Vegas wasn't vacation. Iron River is VACATION. There is nothing more relaxing for me then spending a week on the lake. I have been attending vacation up north with some family friends for the last 5 years. They are an awesome group of people (there are about 25 of us). We go fishing, boating,and swimming. We lay on the beach, play sand volleyball, grill out, and watch a baseball game. My day can be packed with activities, or I can sit around and do nothing. Thats the beauty of it-I'm on nobody's schedule but my own. Another thing I love about Iron River is that it is almost completely isolated. The biggest nearby town is Duluth, MN which is over an hour's drive away. There is no internet service and the cell phone signal is really weak. That means I can leave the world behind for awhile. This also means no poker for almost 10 days!! The timing for my break is really bad, as I've been playing solid and running pretty well lately. I was up almost 10k this week, one of my best weeks this year. Hopefully I can continue my run when I get back.

If you're not first, you're last

Any fan of Will Ferrell knows these famous words from Ricky Bobby- "If you're not first, you're last." Though I don't believe this to be entirely true, I do understand where Mr. Bobby is coming from. In tournament poker, so much of the thrill of playing comes from actually WINNING the occasional tournament. For me, these wins drive me to continue playing even moreso than the money. There's something about that 1 next to your name that really seals the deal on a well played tournament.

Yesterday was a really good poker day for me. I played insanely well, made some sick reads, and seemed to be making all the right 3bets. Simply put, I was in the zone. I started the day by placing 2nd in the cake $30 rebuy for around $1700. The player I went against HU was very aggressive, and I tried to counter by jacking up my aggression. This cost me dearly as I tried to play too many big pots. Still, the tournament ended when I 3 bet shoved with 66's and villain called with KQo blinds 6000/12000 when we were both 500k deep. I'm not sure that I really like that call, but what can you do.

During the night session, I once again crushed the rebuys on both Cake and AP. Lately I have been playing crazy during the rebuy period shoving any two cards and showing them to advertise that I am a donkey, then capitalizing when I actually wake up with a hand later in the tournament. It worked for me, as last night I went into both final tables (20k on cake and 15k on AP) as the chip leader. The cake table was really weak and the blinds were high relative to everyone's stack. I busted out in 7th after losing a small coinflip to drop from 200k to 150k, but the ugly hand took place when a donkey who had sucked out about 14 times at the final table just to stay alive min raised 16000 UTG blinds 4000/8000, I shoved AK for 150k, he SNAP called A3 offsuit. The flop was 2 4 J turn 7, river of course was the 5 to give the donkey the straight and 2x as many chips as the 2nd place player. I bowed out in 7th for $700

At the final table of the AP 15k, the players were a bit better. I lost a huge pot within the first 2 hands when I raised AQ from the button to 10k blinds 2/4. The BB (DAMORTICIAN) reshoved all in for 75k. I called and lost the flip to JJ for 150k, leaving me with 150k behind. After that, players basically just traded blinds until the blinds got too big to standard raise, then it became a shove fest. I won a few flips to stay alive as a short stack but lost AK vs A8 3 handed to drop me down. The next hand I shoved j10 and was called by a4. Luckily I made a straight and knocked out the guy who had just beaten my AK. I came into the HU match with 225k in chips compared to the 650k for my opponent. I battled back to about 350k when I picked up KK on the button. With blinds at 8k/16k, I raised to 40k. Villain reraised to 120k. I jammed it in and he snap called, turning over A10. The flop came QJ blank, turn blank, river... you guessed it... ace. 2nd place for $2700

So when the dust settled, I cleared almost $5k on the day, but it was still SUPER frustrating. I lost at the very least 6 crucial 70/30 hands on the final tables of these 3 tournaments (plus losing a huge pot AK vs KJ all in pre in the 80k deep to bust money bubble). Without those ugly hands, I feel like I would have won each tournament, and that is no exaggeration. My opponents didn't impress me at all. I guess thats what I get for winning coinflips early. However, I am consistently getting my chips in ahead, and thats all I can hope for.

Another Decent Sunday

Today my uncle from Green Bay wanted to play golf with my brother and I, so we skipped the morning session to play 18 holes. I had a miserable front nine (cursed shanks) but played really well on the back 9 and scored a +3 39. The course is a tough one and I'm not a good golfer, so that is awesome for me.

We got done playing a little after one and I was back in time to play most of the afternoon session. I started off really cold and blanked my first 3 tournaments. Then I made a deep run in the 50 1r 1a, finishing 3rd for $1300. Of course, the tournament only had 98 players, so it doesn't count for my p5's PLB score. I also final tabled the Bodog 100k, finishing 7th for $3500. That was a really disappointing finish for me. I was 2nd in chips going to the final 9 and there was only one proven player at the table (WU_WIZARD). The only real mistake I made in the tourney was when I raised QJs blinds 4000/8000 to 22,225 (I had about 350k at this point) in late position. The bb made pretty much a mini raise to 55k (with about 160k). I called hoping to hit a good flop in position. The flop was Q 9 5. He checked, I jammed, he insta called and tabled AA. :( I should have known, but the mini raise was popular at that table and it was Bodonk afterall. Still kind of a stupid mistake to play such a big hand at a weak table.

On a happier note, I finally made the AP yearly MTT leaderboard top 10. I am pretty proud of that, considering the lack of volume I have played. The pokerdb says I've played 700 mtts this year, and I'm guessing about 200 of them are satellite tournaments, which do not count towards the score. By comparison, the first place player has played over 1700 tournaments and has a 3rd place finish in the 200k, whereas my biggest AP cash is a win in the 30k. I feel like if I put in some volume during the 2nd half of the year, I can probably finish top 3. Volume seems a problem though, as I am becoming more and more lazy. I had every intention of grinding all summer, but there are just so many other things to do that are way more fun. I feel bad for the online players that put in 10 hours a day every day when the weather is so damn beautiful.

Last night in Vegas/My First cash of the trip!

Today was my last day in Vegas. Myself, Welcomeme, Chipmystak, and Yaboystu went to Ceasar's to play the $235 turbo. The tournament was actually a really good one. It got to be a shove fest at the end though. I ended up placing 9th out of 95 players for ~$700. It was a small payday but it was fun to go out on a cash. Stu and I both made the final table, but Stu took an awful beat 99 vs A8 for a huge pot to bubble. I lost a 40k pot with 55 against an old dude's 93o, which sort of crippled me and eventually I called with K10 and ran into AK and AJ in a multi-way pot. I could not see myself folding with that many chips in the pot and considering my stack would be next to nothing if I folded. To conclude this entry, I'm going to share a few thoughts from my trip.

1. I really do hate live poker, but it is a nice change of pace. These people are so bad that it would just be a shame not to sprinkle in the occasional live tournament. I see people calling 1/2 their stack to see a flop, making 10x raises preflop, and folding getting 10:1 on their money. I definately plan to sprinkle in a few live events in the future, HPT and Canterbury Fall Classic in particular.

2. I like the idea of Vegas more than I like Vegas itself. In anticipation of this trip, I was so excited. I kept dreaming of the big scores in the huge tournaments. In reality, I played only 4 tournaments, cashing in only one for a small amount. I know I am better than a vast majority of the players in these tournaments, but to take full advantage, I need to play enoguh tournaments to reduce the variance of those large fields. Aside from that, this city is expensive. Every cab ride to our place cost $35. Food in a casino typically runs from $10-$30. Everyone expects a tip on top of it all. The city is also so busy. There is always something to do. That means little sleep and inevitable fatigue. I enjoyed my experience at the clubs, but its not something I would want to do every night. Drinks cost too much, music is too loud, and the place is too damn crowded. I would much rather chill in a bar/lounge and have a few cheap drinks.

3. Sometimes it pays to take a chance. This reference has nothing to do with poker or gambling. Rather, it describes my decision to come to Vegas for two weeks and share a house with seven complete strangers. I had never met any of these guys in person and knew nothing about them aside from my notes on the virtual felt. Before leaving, the thought crossed my mind that the people I would be staying with could be a bunch of wierdos with absolutely no social skills that shared only poker as a common interest. That was definately not the case. The people I stayed with were all very cool. They are a collection of people from all walks of life, hailing from different areas of the country and all having different backgrounds. Each person offered a unique contribution to the atmosphere of the house. I hope to join up with these guys again in Aruba later this year. After this trip, I consider all of these people to be friends of mine (off the felt, that is).

4. The game has gotten a lot more difficult. In the live tournaments I played last summer, the players were all your typical "limp and try to hit" live players. Now, though most players are admittadly bad, far more players are willing to 3bet light and play LAG solid poker. With the rise in popularity of online training sites and poker books, there is quickly becoming less and less margin for error in the game. I am definately going to have to work hard to improve my game and stay ahead of the curve.

So there you have it, a brief summary of a long trip to Vegas. I didn't have nearly as much success as I had hoped for, but I gained valuable experience. I know that I can compete in live tournaments, I just have to get out and play them. This trip has, at the very least, set a foundation for my live tournament career. Hopefully it is something I can build off of.

So Close Sundays, 4th of July

The 4th of July was uneventful, but I didn't mind. We spent all day sitting around the pool drinkin mudslides (I don't care if you do think they are girly, these drinks rock) and beers and grilling. Thats a perfect 4th of July for me. Clover and Foolish are both gone, but we picked up Spin and a few of his friends and a few of his friends' friends for the day. The girls that came over were very cute. I guess they've got this new swimsuit trend where the tops are like tiny strands about 3 inches thick. These girls were sporting this particular design and it was working for em. One of the girls was from South Dakota and was going into Elementary Education, which I thought was interesting.

At night, we had every intention of going to the strip and getting a table to watch the fireworks, but the sun musta drained everybody. The sun + drinking all day at a pool is a deadly combination. Instead, I watched people from miles around shooting fireworks off into the sky from the patio in a lounge chair by the pool. It was strangely peaceful in such a big city.

I hate playing on Sundays. You wake up in the morning with so much anticipation. Everyone thinks that today is their day. I felt that way this morning. I started the day by placing 6th in the $30 rebuy for a little over $800. I lost QQ vs A5 for a 120,000 chip pot. Next I placed 13/770 in the cake $100k guaranteed for $1200. This was a crushing loss. I was 2nd in chips with 15 players to go and lost a big coinflip with 99 vs AK. That woulda put me at 600k. Instead I had 280k. I ended up getting all in with Q10 on a Q J J board in a blind vs blind battle and the player woke up with aces. It sucked cuz he was a maniac who was playing super loose aggressive, so it was really unlucky to run into his aces there. My final bustout of the night occurred in the $200k where I took 30/980 for $880. I lost a big hand with AA vs QJ after getting all in on a Q 8 8 board. I would have had 100k. But to be fair, I did run pretty well most of the day aside from a couple of those hands. I won flips and 60/40's when I needed to and played well enough to beat some huge fields.

Oh well, some other time I suppose. I have 2 days left in vegas. I have no clue what we're going to do. Tonight we might run to a casino and play some roulette (I am so due for a big roulette night). Tomorrow we are considering hitting up Lake Mead for some boating or jetskiing.

I suck at live poker

So as of today I am 0/3 in tournaments. Yesterday I lost the Binion's tournament after getting down to the final 3 tables. I never really had a giant chip stack and ended up losing a flip late for a big pot to bust around 23rd. The most notable aspect of that particular tournament was the 2007 main event champion Jerry Yang was playing in it. I wasn't at his table and he busted before I did, but it was still cool to play in the same tournament as a former WSOP main event champ. Today I lost the $560 venetian tournament before the first break. The hand was kind of a tough one, but I think I played it right. Here's how it played out, let me know what you think:

Blinds at 100/200 I have ~10k in chips.
UTG raises to 500 its folded around to my small blind and I see 1010. I make the call, big blind also calls.
Flop is Q Q 4. I check, BB checks, UTG makes it 750. I flat call and the BB folds.
Turn is another Q giving me Q's full of 10's. I check, UTG bets 800, I raise to 3000. He thinks for a while and calls.
River is a K. At this point I have a little over 5k left and the pot is around 10k. I decide to shove, he calls and shows KJ for a full house.

I like what I did preflop and on the flop. The turn gets a little sketchy. Maybe I should have led out turn and check/called river or perhaps even folded. As played, I thought that I had to jam because there was twice as much in the pot as I had in my stack.

After playing the tournament, me and chipmystack played some roulette. I bet $400 on black the first spin and the number came up zero for the 2nd time this trip. So on the day I lost about $1100. On the trip, I'm down about 2k. Hopefully I hit a cash in one of the remaining tournaments. I probably won't play tomorrow, seeing as it is the 4th of July. Sunday is a possibility, but not very likely. Monday might be the last day that I can play.

On the bright side, the trip has been really awesome. Its great to get away from the online scene from time to time.

VIP Dinner, Ghost/Moon, First Tournament

(A group of us at FIX in The Bellagio)

On Tuesday night we hit up a VIP dinner hosted by Absolute Poker. The event was held at a fancy restaurant called FIX in The Bellagio. They brought us a variety of appetizers and small entrees as well as free drinks. The price for each plate was around $60 and god knows how much the drinks would have been. AP covered it all. At the dinner, we met Belooga, Airkid, and Hollywood Dave.

After dinner, we went to the Palms to Ghost Bar. Ghost is a club on the 55th story of the Palms Hotel and Casino. It was a sick nice place, but the drinks are expensive as fuck. Since Foolishgolf shipped a $13k WSOP package, he bought a round of shots for 11 people. The total was $110. Back in Iowa/Minnesota, shots are like $3-$4!!

After Ghost, a few of us went to the sister club Moon. This place was much more clubby than Ghost. It was packed. Right when we got there some dude bumped 2lip and made him spill his drink on his shirt. 2lip got pissed and threw the rest of his drink onto the other guy. Clover did the exact same thing at the VIP party on Monday night. The dude got pissed and started yellin at 2lip. They probably woulda duked it out if security wouldn't have come over and broken it up.

On Wednesday, I played my first poker event of the trip. I played in the $330 Venetian Deepstack tournament. My play was really solid. I took a LAG approach that worked for the most part. I bluffed a few small pots and built my stack up. Three hands eventually killed me. The first was me getting all in with 2 pair on a 4 card straight board, some lady called with KK and hit a straight card to chop the pot. That woulda put me at 40k, instead I stayed at 20k. Next, I had 67 suited in the bb blinds 300/600. Some donkey raises from the cutoff to 1500 (his stack was about 15k). I 3bet to 5k. He thought forever and called. The flop was J 6 3. I jammed since there was more in the pot than he had in his stack. He called and turned over 66. The donkey set mined for 33% of his stack! And on top of that, he hit the ONE card in the deck that I don't win the pot on. About 20 hands later, with only 13k, I raised K10suited from late position and was called by the blinds. The flop came 10 high. The blind checked to me, so I jammed and he called. He tabled 88. I bet you will only need one guess as to which card hit the turn.

So my first tourney kinda sucked. But hopefully I wasted my bad luck. Jdawg went deep in the 100k and 80k last night. He took 4th and 3rd respectively. Today myself, chipmystack, welcomeme, and clover are going to play the $500 tournament at Binion's. Should be a smaller field with a bunch of bad players

Private parties, free booze, hookers, but no poker

(From Front Left: Jdawg, Foolishgolf, twolip69, myself, chipmystack, Standing from left: Clover777, Welcomeme, Yaboystu)
My first full day of Vegas was stressful in the morning. We took off around 11:30 in the morning to head to the casinos. 2lip, jdawg, and chipmystack were all playing the 1500 NL bracelet event (2lip was the only player to make day 2 and he just busted short of the money). After we dropped them off, I went to The Venetian to register for the $350 deepstack tourney. I went to the ATM and tried to withdraw $500, but the machine didn't work. So I tried another one, no success. Then I spent 20 minutes talking to my bank trying to get it activated. After we finally got it to work, I stood in line for another 15 minutes to get a players card. By the time I finally got all my shit together, the late registration had ended and they were only accepting alternates. So I said screw it and played some cash at Ceasar's for a bit. I lost about $175 after a failed bluff attempt.

At night, all of us went to a private party at Studio 54 in MGM Grand hosted by Ultimate Bet. All the UB Pros were there including Phil Hellmuth and Liv Boree. I met Debo34 and he seemed like a really cool guy. The party was sick. The booze was all free, the girls were gorgeous, and the place was really nice. Easily the highlight of the party was when Clover777 strutted onto the dance floor, grabbed this chubby gal, and stuck his tongue down her throat. Freakin epic!

On the way back, we were all pretty hammered stumbling through the casino. A few of us threw some money down on roulette. I bet $100 on 2nd third and of course it comes up zero, making us all losers. Just as we were about to exit the casino, welcomeme and clover start talking to 2 hookers. We tried to negotiate a deal for them to come deal our homegame, but the asking price was too high. Our intention was that we would all pitch in and the winner of the homegame would get a handjob from the hooker. That would be an awfully damn expensive HJ. Still, the skanks followed us to the cab and were told they couldn't come with cuz we had reached maximum capacity. They looked really sad. I didn't feel bad though, cuz hookers don't have souls.

Today we are just gonna chill out by the pool, have some beers, and grill. Tomorrow, I get back to work

Las Vegas Baby!

After a brief flight, I finally arrived in fabulous Las Vegas, NV. Instead of staying in a hotel, a group of online players and I rented a house. The guest list includes the following players:
Myself
Yaboystu
Jdawg
Clover777
Foolishgolf
Welcomeme
Chipmystack
2lip69

The house is freakin sweet. There is a pool, hottub, putting green, and patio outside. Inside are 4 bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a living room area with a big screen tv. I'll take and post pictures later. While in Vegas, I plan on playing several of the Venetian Deepstack series events. The buy ins are mostly 300 and 500 with one or two $1000 events scattered in there. I plan on playing them all. I also plan to try one or two satties into the main event at the RIO. I'll post my results every night if ya'll wanna follow me. Wish me luck!

Early Birthday Present

Two days from now, I will be 22 years old. That means I have to be grown up within 3 years. Gotta look for a wife, have kids, get a job, buy a house, the works. So I better enjoy the next 3 years for all they're worth :)

Last night, I gave myself an early birthday present by winning the 15k guaranteed $30 rebuy for ~$4300. I actually had a chance to win the TLB, making a deep run in the 10k as well, but I busted out just short of the final table. I believe a top 5 finish would have given me the win. Oh well, I was certainly happy with last night.

I neared the money as a short stack, but picked up some good hands at the right spots, doubling up with AQ vs AJ and KK vs 77. The field was surprisingly weak for the 15k, which was a pleasant surprise. I got away 3 betting light in a few spots, and even saw a guy fold and show AK to one of my 3 bet shove. I got my first huge suckout of the tournament when my QQ beat AA 4 handed (although I would have still had 100k had I lost, instead I was up to 190k). When we got HU, I was down 2:1 in chips. The HU battle lasted a long time. My opponent was very loose aggressive. Lately, I have been trying to play to my opponent's style, rather than trying to impose my own. I generally am the LAG one, but last night I played TAG, carefully picking spots to 3bet and calling to see cheap flops rather than raising every button. I played a KJoffsuit about as bad as I could have played it and lost all but 100k of my stack. Down 6.5 to 1, I was lucky to pick up KK and double vs j10. We went back and forth for a while until I picked up 99 and 3bet his 28k raise to 82k. He shoved 365k and I called. He tabled k10 and I won the race. A couple hands later, I raised to 30k with A8, he shoved 200k. I felt that he was simply frustrated at this point, so I made the call. He showed 77. Things didn't look good until the river brought an 8 and I took the tournament down. It was awesome to run as well as I did (Won 3 big flips and even an 80/20!!)

This tournament presented a bit of a dilemna for me. Early in the HU match, my opponent got disconnected. I waited for him to get back and we continued playing. However, he got disconnected again later (when I was a bit shorter stacked) and I picked up about 4 sets of blinds while he was sitting out. Had it been a player that I knew personally, I would have had no problem waiting for him. And I always wait the first time it happens. But, I realize that waiting for someone to get reconnected costs me potential blinds, and even worse, time, which all translates to money. If I wait, we play less hands and the blinds go up faster, limiting play and having to rely more on good cards/luck. So, what do ya'll think you would do? Would you wait for him to get back a 2nd time, or would you pick up the free blinds as fast as you could?

One more week of summer class

I am done with 4/5 weeks of summer class. I am sooo excited to be done. My class is really easy, but it sorta cramps my style. The class runs from 7:30 until 9:00 on MWF and from 7:30 until 11 (lab) on T/H. So I often times go to class in pretty rough shape. Since I've been chasing the MTT weekly TLB, I've spent a couple of nights where I have been up until 2:00 AM. Actually, I have had a lot of nights like that. I have been deep in so many tournaments this week. But my only significant cash was a win in the $30 rebuy for $2800. My problem is that I have been running well early in tournaments and have been running just awful deep. For example, one night I had the chip lead in both the 20k and 15k guaranteed tournaments with under 50 people left. I didn't cash in either one, running queens into kings for a giant pot and losing a big flip AK vs 1010. I've also been super unlucky. I've lost about 10 tournaments with a pocket pair or higher ace vs an ace rag. Its super frustrating to think that a week that should have been 10k+ profits will probably end up as break even because of a few ugly beats deep in tournaments. The important thing is that I am playing well at the right time.

In 2 weeks, I will be leaving for Las Vegas. I will be out there for 10 days, and plan on playing the Venetian Deepstack series and maybe a small buy in bracelet event. Aside from that, I will be attending a good friend's wedding. So I guess the TLB race will have to wait until the middle of JULY :)

Grillout, Movies, and Hating Sundays

I didn't play very much poker this weekend. On Friday, a couple of buddies came down from the cities. We had a little grillout and then drank a few beers. Apparently I was a bit more sloppy than I remember, as I heard many stories about me the following morning.

On Saturday, my summer roommate and a friend of ours went to the movie "The Hangover." We arrived 5 minutes before the show started, and the theatre was freakin packed. The only seats open were the ones directly up front. We had to look damn near straight up to see the screen. That really sucked. The movie; however, was very good. It had a lot of college humor. But to those of you who say it is the "funniest movie ever," I'd like to respectfully disagree. I am such a fan of the movie "Old School," and will probably forever view that as the funniest movie ever made. "The Hangover" was one of the funniest movies I've seen recently, alongside "Role Models" and "Step Brothers."

Sunday, I spent the entire day playing cards. I started with the 6k at 11:00 and ended with the 10k around 1:30 AM. It was a long, frustrating day. I saw fantastic cards, and built up a stack in almost every tournament I played. However, once I started to make it deep, I lost a bunch of crucial coinflips/80-20's. I swear to you, I busted out of 5 tournaments after being crippled by aces, then building back up and losing a huge flip. On the day, I had 5 cashes, including 4 final tables. My biggest win was for $1100 in the $50 rebuy 5k (8k on sunday). With cards like those, I should have probably won closer to 10k. It will be a long time before I see cards like that again. Its just too bad I couldn't win the pots that mattered deep. On the bright side, I am sitting in 19th place in the TLB leaderboard, so I might try to make a run at it this week.