Thursday, May 29, 2008

Off to Vegas

It's Thursday morning, and I'm going to be driving out to Vegas in about an hour. I'll be there until June 18 mainly playing poker. My dad is out there now for work, so I won't be playing until Saturday and I won't be playing next weekend because my brother is having his bachelor party. Other than that, I will be trying to play as much a I can handle. On Saturday I will be playing in a World Series of Poker event, and probably about 5-8 other WSOP tournaments including the main event. I will do my best to update frequently when I'm out there.

May has gone pretty well so far. After finishing up coaching in early May, I got to play live at Commerce a couple of times. Both times I had very good sessions culminating with the largest cash game pot I've ever won in my life.

Last weekend I went on a trip with 7 friends from college and had a great time. Aside from that I've been trying to get various things done because I won't be home much in the next couple months. I'm very excited for this trip, so hopefully it goes well.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

April

I guess I know I haven't been updating very much when my titles are just months. I've been playing almost exclusively online for the past couple of months due to coaching baseball everyday in Laguna. I usually get somewhere between 0-3 hours per night in, but I've been spinning my wheels a bit. It's not bothering my at all like a 2+ week breakeven/losing stretch would which I'm proud of. When I decided to take the coaching job, I decided that I was ok with three months of 0 income. I knew that I would be able to play some, but not a whole lot. I guessed I got what I asked for, netting $3200 in online cash games, but I gave a lot of it back in tournaments.

I did have another close call for a seat in the WSOP main event. This time I was the chip leader with 4 left when I got it all in with 88 vs. AQ and lost. I liked my chances when we got to 4-handed, but I would have loved it if I could have gotten 3-handed with a huge chip lead. I haven't played a whole lot of qualifiers, but hopefully I'll score one before they stop running on June 22.

Speaking of June, I booked my rooms in Vegas up until the main event this week. I'll be out there May 28-June 18, then July 2-???? I'm getting pretty excited for playing in the WSOP events, and just playing a lot of live poker. I had a blast last year during this time, so hopefully I will again this year.

May has started out promising. I played 3 online tournaments on Saturday and cashed in 2 of them for a profit of 1200. I took 4th in one of them which seemed like the first final table I've made in years. However, I went 0 for 5 the next day for -1500. Cash games are going well, as I am up close to 2000 early in May. It feels like it could be significantly more, as I have gotten pretty unlucky in some big pots. It would be nice to have a good May to allow me to head to Vegas with some momentum (and money, jk).

On a non-poker related note: I have really enjoyed coaching this year. Our team started the year horribly with an 0-3 record losing all three games by over 10 runs. Since then we have turned it around and we are 10-6, and have won our league title. More important than the record is that they have gotten so much better as a team, and now instead of coming to the field everyday expecting to lose, or being indifferent, they come with a desire to win. It's tough to break a culture of losing, but these kids are going in the right direction. Also, the Laguna Beach varsity team finished at 14-15, which isn't great, but with one winning season in the last 25 years, the program appears to be on it's way up. I'm going to get some food, then head down to Laguna for our last game of the year. Hopefully we can finish it off strong.