Euro trip

I'm currently in the the middle of my trip through Europe. In Edinburgh, Scotland right now. Already been to New York and London. Headed to Newquay, England tomorrow to hopefully do some surfing. It's going to be a little chilly but they have wetsuits so it shouldn't be too bad.

I'm tired of sightseeing and ready to start doing some things. Walking around cities gets real old. From my previous trips I should've known this but for whatever reason I always forget and never plan ahead. Maybe one of these times I'll get my shit straight and plan a trip rather than trying to wing it.

I've got a ton of pics but I decided not to bring my laptop so I can't upload them. There's no way in hell I'm ever not going somewhere without my laptop. Internet is like $2 for 20 minutes which is quite ridiculous.

Poker has been non existent in my life the past few weeks. I tried unsuccessfully to qualify for the EPT London event and that pretty well ruined my results and my will to play. I think I finished -3k or so but that was with about 8 hours of actual play. I was really excited to play in a £300 tournament while in London but the day I wanted to play was sold out. Once I get back to the states I'm going to refocus on my career instead of enjoying life/slacking off. Having been away from the game for a few weeks has made me realize how much I actually enjoy playing it.

So close

I played in the $215 EPT shootout to the London event yesterday. I played the same tourney last week and won my 1st table but finished 9th on the final table when I stacked off with AK after some guy limp raised me preflop with AA. I swear anytime somebody limp raises it's AA or KK 95% of the time.

This week I once again won my 1st table. I caught the early chiplead and never really relinquished it until we got to headsup play. I then went completely card dead, never getting anything better preflop and always missing the flop. I eventually got it all in with A4 vs 88 and missed. 1st place was the package and 1k. 2nd place was 1k and nothing else.

I also played in some random 55 rebuy and finished 22nd out of 255 or so people for $355. 1st was 14k, that would've been nice.

August recap

Had another good month of SNG's. Only played 1200 or so but still finished $10k+. Played in 10+ Sunday tournaments and/or major event qualifiers and failed to cash. Very disappointing but small sample size.

Saw the first few episodes of the main event on espn. I made a brief appearance in part 2. It was towards the end of the episode when Jennifer Harmon busted. I was sitting in the 7 seat and had about 10 seconds of face time and an inaudible line. Good times.

Of late I really hate poker. Financially it's been good but I'm not deriving anything else from it. My competitive spirit for it has been diminished. I'm currently searching for a way to reignite it. Live play usually cures this lull I feel every couple of months. Right now I'm targeting the EPT London event. Stars is running satellites that I will continue to play for the next week or so to see if I can luckbox my way into a seat. I might end up flying over there regardless and winning some live satellite for a seat. The event will give me a a good excuse to see England, Germany, and Amsterdam.

Pic of my BMW

Picked this bad boy up 2 weeks ago. It's a jet black 2003 530 BMW. It blows my 98 Mazda 626 out of the water.

July results. Resolutions for August.

July isn't over just yet but I don't plan on putting in any kind of volume today. Last night I went out and had a few drinks. I came home and loaded up a set of 10 SNG's and didn't money in one of them. Got overzealous on the bubble in one of them but other than that I thought I played 98% to perfection. I've vowed to not to do that again.

As far my July results, they look at lot better than how I feel about them.
+$10,235 11.2 ROI
+2k in bonuses and rakeback
-1k in MTT's

I was up over 15k a week and a half ago but a combo of running bad and making a few errant mistakes and my results were back down to earth. Still, this will be my 1st 10k+ month from purely SNG's.


Now for August. I've found that setting goals is pretty pointless. Saying that I'm going to play this many hours or this many SNG's is bad thinking. In order for me to truly be motiviated play more than I I have been is to slightly alter my lifestyle. I've been going out too much and need to cut back. I plan on only going out 2 nights a week from now on. That's still a lot but a lot better than 4+ nights. Baby steps.

I've got a lot of activities planned for this month. A friend and I are planning a bar golf outing for pretty much all of Cape on August 10th. It's just a glorified pub crawl but you have to dress up in ridiculous golf outfits and keep score. The following week we are going to have a huge back to school 80's bash. Then on the 24th I'll be going up to Wisconsin to see Rage Against the Machine. I think the week after that is Labor day. These should give me plenty of reasons to work hard during the week.

September I plan on going to Europe. Of course, that all depends on how well my August goes. I pretty well want to pay for my entire trip in August(is this a goal? Hope not). This should give me a little more incentive to put my hours in.

Going to go look at cars now. Will put some pics up if and when I finally buy one.

I suck at running good

I've put off writing this because it sucks reliving events that don't turn out they way you had hoped. I would love to write a full trip report of the main event but it would take 30+ minutes. My table makeup consisted of:

Seat 1: Euro guy, a limit specialist.
Seat 2: Jennifer Harman
Seat 3: Some guy decked out in WPA gear. Pretty sure he was a pro but certainly wasn't that great.
Seat 4: Some mid 30's guy with jean shorts. Seeing his outfit I knew he was probably a weak tight guy.
Seat 5: A very outgoing singer/actress. She was very attractive and a lot of fun to play with. Her poker skills could use some work.
Seat 6: A Euro pro.
Seat 7: Me
Seat 8: Another mid 30's guy. Another weak tightie.
Seat 9: Another euro guy. Probably a pro.
Seat 10: Some guy got moved here after the 1st break. Mid 30's weak tight.

To make it short, st 300/600 I limp utg with red 4's with about a 42k stack behind me. Guy with about 10k limps directly behind me. Aggro tard who's already been caught bluffing twice raises to 3200 from CO(we have even stacks). Both blinds fold, I call, and shorty folds. Flop comes 246 all spades. I lead into him for 5k, he raises to 15k, I shove, he thinks and says he's committed and calls with AsQx. Turn 7 clubs, river 8 of spades. I'm left with 75 chips after the final count and go out on the ensuing hand.

So that sucked. After I busted I immediatly booked the next flight home as I was completely burnt out on Vegas.

The Main Event looms

The big dance has arrived. Day 1 is tomorrow and the final table is 11 days later. I know it's a pipe dream but somehow mining through the field, it'll be 7k+, and making it to the final table would be so incredible. 9 players will have this distinction. 7000/9 = a 1 in 777 shot at making the final table given all players are of equal skill. I'd like to think my chances are slightly better at least 1 in 500. Whatever, I can still dream about it until I bust out.

After the big show I'm most likely headed back to Missouri even though we've got the house until August 6th. It's so hard to work here. So many distractions. I also hate going out here as drinks are way too pricey and I have yet to have a night to remember in Vegas.

We were going to play in the Rio 1k mega satellite today but when we got there it was a complete zoo and the line to register was a good 2 hour wait. Instead we jetted over to the Venetian for their $550 at 5 PM. I couldn't hit a flop and I was down to 6500 from the 10k starting stack. At 100/200 25 ante a MP raises it to 600 and gets to callers. I look down at AK on the button and shove my stack. Folds around to the 2nd caller and he hims and haws for a minute. I try to look uncomfortable so he calls, he eventually does. Unfortunately, he had 77 instead of something like AQ or AJ. I miss and am sent packing.

Online has been going great. After only winning 2k or so last month I'm already up over 5k this month. I know this will probably jinx me but I don't care as I've been running unsustainably hot. I really want to get 2k SNG's in this month but I doubt it happens(hopefully I'll be playing in a certain tourney until the 17th). For whatever reason I'm so f'in lazy when it comes to working. For example, I'm writing this blog instead of playing.

Back in Vegas

The trip home was a good time. I saw a lot of friends and had way too much fun every night. Plus, no poker for over a week felt really good.

I got back to Vegas on Monday after missing my flight on Sunday. It was really dumb for booking a flight the day after a wedding. I actually caught the same flight as my buddy that was flying out to see me. While he was here I continued to party way too much.

Saw Hoover Dam for a 2nd time and decided I'm never taking the dam tour again. On Wednesday night we went to see the Crazy Girls show at the MGM. It was only 50 bucks and well worth the money. I fell in love with about 3 of the girls and every skit they did was amazing. It felt so good when my buddy left. I'm way too old to be going out 7 out of 8 nights. That much partying probably took a year off my life.

On Thursday I played the 1k Stud 8 or better event and never got anything going. My table had 3 name pros and there was only 1 or 2 weak spots. I played fairly well but got outdrawn a few too many times.

Yesterday I entered the 3rd largest live poker tournament ever, event 49 $1500 buyin. I started out on a very good card rush. Hit a set vs a guys top pair, won a 3 way all in for 1/3 of my stack with 99 vs JJ vs AK, won 2 fairly large coinflips that would've hurt me but not busted me, and got AA, KK, and QQ a couple of times in which I won medium sized pots. I did lose a fairly large pot with AA on a 873 2 suited board. Got it all in on the flop and the lady had pocket 8's. I didn't feel too bad as she was probably the nicest person I had ever played with and had supposedly just gotten out of the hospital after getting a cancerous tumor removed. I managed to recover and got my stack up to 45k at dinner break when the average was 15k.

There was about 600 people left after dinner break and 320 spots got paid. I knew I would money if I didn't do anything stupid but playing just to money is a terrible strategy in these large tournaments where top 10 get paid so much more than everyone else. I went card dead the first hour after dinner. My image wasn't the greatest and with a big stack nobody ever believes you have something so I played pretty tight. Eventually, I picked up 55 in the SB. It folds around to me and I raise to 2400, blinds were 400/800. BB raises to 7000. The BB has been really friendly and is definitely just a casual player there to have fun. He hasn't been too active but he's not the type of player that is afraid to go busto 200 or so before the money. He has about 15000 behind him after the raise. I decide to shove as I think I have some fold equity and winning this hand will really set me up to dominate the bubble. He instacalls with AJ and he wins the race. I would've been up to 66k if I would've won but instead down to 22k. I'm fairly certain I made the right move as even if it was -Cev I think my future equity is much greater with a huge stack as I could've really picked apart all the medium stacks.

After that nothing really exciting happens for awhile. I would pick up a few small pots and then would get knocked down when I raise pf and my cbet gets check raised. Wasn't hitting flops and didn't really pick up any decent cards to play back at anybody. Eventually the bubble burst. I had about 17k and the blinds were 800/1600. Folds around to me and I look down at 72s and shove. With blinds and antes this shove is almost always correct as SB and BB rarely call correctly here. SB and BB fold. Few hands later I pick up KK and raise some 2.5x BB and get no action. I think I win the blinds and antes one more time when my bust out hand occurs. Sitting at 22k I'm in the SB with QQ. A blonde hair kid that looks exactly like one of my friends but has blonde hair and scandanavian raises to 4500. I think for a few moments and shove. He thinks for about 20 seconds before calling with K9s. Vs my range there it's a pretty bad call but I could care less as I now have a 66% chance of getting my stack up above average. Well the flop comes 2 of his suit and the turn brings him the flush and I'm sent packing. So lame.

I get something like 3k for my efforts. Of course, it takes Harrah's over an hour to pay me out. I would've gone home earlier if I hadn't have busted out, bleh.

Ready to go home for a vacation

Played in the $1500 event on Saturday. My first table was very soft and I was running it over. Ran my starting stack from 3k to 6k without any big pots. I was very disappointed when it broke a little after the 1st level.

I had one interesting hand at my 2nd table. With blinds at 50/100 a big stack limps from the CO. I complete from the SB with K9s and BB checks. Flop comes A94 rainbow. I check and BB checks and big stack of course bets 200. I know my hand is good here as almost nobody with a big stack ever limps with an ace from the CO. I contemplated raising but thought he's most likely drawing thin as 2 broadway cards are most likely raising PF as well. Turn is a low diamond putting 2 diamonds on the board. I check again and he bets small around 500. I call. River is another low diamond and I check and he bets small again. At this point I know I'm beat but I make the crying call and he flips over Q9 of diamonds for the flush. I'm not real sure how I should be playing a hand like this especially out of position. I got moved to my 3rd table a little after that.

My stack size dwindled down to about 6500 when I lost a pot for over 15k with QQ vs AK vs AT. King on the turn and I'm left with 1500 and soon bust out with T9s. If I win that pot I'm more than double the average stack. I guess that lucks recirculates so it'll hit me sometime in the near future, preferably in the main event.

After that event I was pretty well burnt out on live MTT's. Played in Stars and Full Tilt's WSOP qualifiers on Sunday. Made it within 100 players of the seat at Full Tilt but lost a crucial coinflip that probably would've locked up a seat then I misplayed a hand by not cbetting when I should've. It sucked pretty bad. I've also been running crappy in SNG's. Still up for the month online but it seems since I final tabled the shootout the gods have been frowning on me.

Tomorrow I'm flying back to Missouri for a much needed vacation from Vegas. Since being out in Vegas all I've done is eat, sleep, and drink poker. Haven't done anything for entertainment besides going out the first night I got here. Hopefully, this trip back will help me recooperate for the stretch run of the WSOP.

5th in the shootout

Blah, didn't get my first bracelet or my first 6 figure pay day. I missed every flop and just couldn't get anything going. Luckily, I still managed to move up the pay scale to 5th for 36k.

We were sequestered the duration of the final table and you could only bring 1 person with you to watch the final table. Once there, if they left they couldn't come back. During our break we were escorted by a security guard to the bathroom and a conference room with snacks. It was a little weird being on break/peeing with the other guys at the final table.

Played in the 2k NL event today but couldn't get anything going. Had a bunch of pocket pairs but never flopped a set. After the 2nd break I was down to about 12 bb's when the cutoff raises 4x bb and I shove with AT. He has AK and I get no love from the board. I plan on pwning the $1500 event tomorrow and final tabling it.

Shootout Final Table

A couple of quick things.

Finally made it to Vegas last week. The house I'm staying in is pretty sweet and only like 5 minutes from the strip.

Played in 3 of the Venetian deep stack tourney's. Made it to the money in the 1k last Friday but lost a pot with AK vs AQ all in preflop that probably would've made me chipleader with 30 people left, 100k+ for first. Settled for $1600 instead.

Entered the $1500 WSOP shootout event yesterday. My first table was extremely soft. I won a race and then got most of the chips on the table with A9 vs KQ. From there I took out the 2 remaining short stacks to take down my table and guaranteed myself $6700.

Came back at 9 PM for my 2nd table. Surprisingly, this table was still extremely soft. I couldn't fathom how some of these guys won their first table. I lucked out and only had 1-2 other players at the table that seemed to realize that you needed every chip on the table to advance to the final table. Took it down at about 4 AM. I ran pretty hot and somehow got 2 guys to pay me off for huge pots with 2nd pair when I obviously had a monster.

Final table is today at 2 PM. Bluff magazine is broadcasting it live with hole cards but it costs $50 or so buck to get it. Also, we are being sequestered which kinda of sucks as it would be a lot cooler if I could have some sweaters to cheer me on. Erick Lindgren and Daniel Negreanu are at the final table which should make it a little more entertaining. Hopefully, I can continue to run good and take it down.

The inevitable

Well I tried to make a run for it but my car didn't cooperate. I was halfway up the first mountain heading west from Denver when my overdrive light started flashing. I also couldn't get the damn thing above 40 going uphill.

Turned around and took it to the nearest Mazda dealership in Denver. 3 hours later I get a call that my transmission is shot(no shit) and it would cost 4k to replace it. I laughed and said no thanks. Tried to get the used car dealer at Mazda to buy it but he said it was worthless without a transmission.

My plan for tomorrow is to call the local salvage yard to scrap the car for whatever I can get. I then have to get an extra suitcase and a travel bag for my golf clubs so I can get all my stuff to Vegas. The sad part is it's still going to be a tight squeeze.

On a lighter note, everybody in Colorado has been extremely nice. If I was stuck in a less friendly place I think I would've gone crazy by now.

Praise Marty Moose!

Just call me Clark Griswold. So far nothing has gone right on my vacation road trip out to Vegas.

My car is officially shot to hell. When I first got on the highway my car just didn't feel right, shaking a lot more than usual and it took a lot more power to get it up past 70. As I pulled off the highway in KC my transmission starting jumping around but that had happened a few years ago so I wasn't too worried. At this point I should've realized my car just wasn't going to make it out to Vegas. However, I'm a stubborn asshole so I pressed on. Midway through Kansas(which BTW is the worst state ever to drive through) my check engine light came on and I knew I was in trouble. Whenever my car auto shifted 2-3 and 3-4 the engine revved up a lot more than it should. Afterwards it's fine but still doesn't ride like it should. I made it to Colorado Springs and am currently contemplating what the hell I'm going to do now. I have 2 options:

1) Gamble and try to make my POS car across the Rocky Mountains. Risky considering I'm still 800 miles away from Vegas.

or
2) Leave my car here and fly out to Vegas. I've got a shit ton of luggage(clothes, laptop, 20 inch monitor, and golf clubs) so I would have to buy another bag for all my clothes plus a travel bag for my clubs). Also, I'd either have to sell my car before I left or leave it here and pick it up eventually. Neither look like much fun. I'd also have to rent a car while out in Vegas. Blah, this option sucks.

Going to the Mazda dealership tomorrow morning. Maybe there's a quick fix but I REALLY doubt it.


Not much else has gone right since I've been in Colorado. The weather has been stormy so I didn't get a chance at tackling Pikes Peak.

The broadband wireless card I got from Cingular this week pretty well blows. It's worse than dial up in most areas and it interferes with my usb port so I can't use my mouse. I actually went to Office Max to get another mouse thinking it was my mouse causing the problem but $15 lighter and I now know it's the freaking wireless cards fault.


Tomorrow should be interesting. I'd be the happiest person ever if I somehow got my car to Vegas without it breaking down.

The calm before the storm

Friday morning is my departure date for Las Vegas. My itinerary looks something like this:

6/1 - Drive to KC. Have a few brewskis and stay with my brother
6/2 - Drive to Colorado Springs. Probably shoot myself for thinking driving out to Vegas was a good idea.
6/3 - Hike up Pike's Peak. I'm not in the best of shape but it's supposedly not that difficult to do.
6/4 - Very undecided on this. Thinking about swinging down to The Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park(http://www.nps.gov/grsa/index.htm) and then to Black Canyon of Gunnison(http://www.nps.gov/blca/index.htm). Might skip one or both as it adds about 3 hours onto the driving time and go directly to Arches(http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/arches.htm). Either way I plan on staying in Moab that night.
6/5 - Arches and Canyonlands Nat'l Park(http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/canyonlands.htm). Probably stay in St. George that night.
6/6 - Would like to head up to Zion Nat'l Park but I'll be more than likely be too bushed. Since Zion is only 2 1/2 hours away from Vegas it'll be a nice getaway from LV when I'm sucking wind at poker.


Once I get out to Vegas I'm going into full poker pro mode. I plan on playing in a lot of the venetian deep stack events and a few of the WSOP $1500 events. Since online sites no longer buy in players directly to the main event I'm not sure I'll be playing in it. The field is going to have less dead money and if I just had a month of losing 10k+ I doubt I'll want to drop another 10k on one tourney. Hopefully I run good. One time!

April Results. Thank God.

Notice how I didn't post any results from December-March? December and January I was Hawaii and Australia and didn't play much so that's my excuse for those 2 months. I did win a little but nothing special. Febuary and March were probably my worst two months of poker ever. I experienced a good ole 100 buy in downswing at the 60's and never really put in any sort of volume(it's tough to play when it seems you lose every session). After those two negative cash flow months I decided to work on my game a little and drop down a level during the day when the games were tough. Either I had some huge leaks that I fixed or my doom switch was deactivated.

SNG's
36's 693 played 11.2 ROI +2791.80
60's 594 played 10.0 ROI +3564.00
114's 3 played 0 ROI -342.00
119's 85 played -.2 ROI -17.00
236's 11 played 90.7 ROI +2354.00
350's 1 played 0 ROI -350

Total 1387 played 10.8 ROI +8001

MTT's
Won 12k WSOP package from Stars
Broke even in about 20 or so other MTT's

Cash
Played about 300 PL Omaha hands and lost about $600


My goals for May:
-Win 15k plus for preliminary WSOP events.
-Finalize arrangements on Vegas house.
-Leave for Vegas May 29th. I think I'm going to drive out there so I can do some side trips on my way out there.

WSOP plans

Last Thursday I was bored with my normal routine of SNG's so I decided to enter the same WSOP satellite, the 30+3 rebuy at 15:00 ET, that I won last year to get my seat. I hadn't played in any cash satellites for the world series yet this year. Well after winning a few key coinflips and having all my big hands hold up I took down 1st and the main event package. Ship it!

Now, I have to figure out how long I want to be out in Vegas. Some of the early NL events are going to be full of mega donkeys so not going out there and playing in them would be a huge financial mistake. I'm definitely going to be out there in early June and most likely the majority of the time. I had thought about going to Spain in Mid May to visit my Aunt and a friend but I really need to be concentrating on building my roll up for Vegas. The WPT just added an event in Barcelona in October so I can always go then.

Back and ready to stop being lazy

Damn, I've been lazy. Hawaii and Australia were amazing(some pics below). Unfortunately, I came down with some nasty cough in Mid January and didn't stay in Australia as long as I would've liked. I did get to play in 2 events in the Aussie Millions. I cashed in 24th place in event 7(Results) . Didn't do as well in the main event as I only lasted about 6 hours. With 30 big blinds I pushed over a raiser and a caller only to run into AA. Overall I thought played ok. I misplayed 1 or 2 hands but really nothing incredibly donkish. If all goes as planned I'll be making another trip over there next year.

After I came back I had a decision on whether to get a place in my hometown or make the jump to Las Vegas. I went out to Vegas to look at places but realized that I really wasn't ready to live the Vegas lifestyle. Instead I got probably the sweetest apartment in Cape Girardeau. It's 2400 sq ft and has a loft/office that overlooks the river.





Overlooking Waipio Valley on the Big island. There's a mile long road to the bottom in which you are only supposed to drive down if you have 4 wheel drive. Needless, to say the walk back up it was a helluva workout.



One of the many waterfalls that I saw. This one is supposedly the biggest in Hawaii.



This was my "best" picture. It's was taken at A'Beach about 30 miles north of Kona.



Me at Sydney Harbor taken near the famous Opera House.