Bad Blogger

For the past couple of weeks I have been thinking to myself that I am a really bad blogger. Not just due to the fact that I've been like a once every 3-4 weeks type of guy, but mainly because I make claims that I don't follow through with. Like, it's completely unacceptable to say in a post something like "ok I need to rest up for some huge world series of poker event where millions of $ will be on the line, and if I bust out early I'll go play some big cash games," and then not post a word for the next three weeks. If I were someone who tries to read my blog, I would at least one of the following: 1) unbookmark my blog (if it ever was) and never check back ever. 2) text or e-mail me telling me how bad I am at blogging/life because I never update during the WSOP which is basically the only poker event that anyone cares about. 3) Cut the internet at my house because I obviously don't know how to use it. 4) Stop being friends/family members/acquaintances/strangers with me.

I had been planning on making this my retirement post, but then I decided that I don't really need to retire the blog. However, from this point on, I am not going to claim to be a guy who is going to post everyday or even every week or every month. When I was in vegas from the end of may to June 18, I had the internet in my room for about 5-7 of the days, and the last thing I wanted to do at 3am after playing 14 hours of poker was to log on and write about the bad play I made to bust out of the tournament and the following 10 hours of cash games I played. I really thought that I'd be able to make posts from my iphone, but I don't think I can which made it tougher. Had I been able to do that, I could have posted every day after a tournament something like "all in preflop with JJ against someone who overplayed 99. 9 on flop, good game me." or "tried to bluff someone cuz I thought he was bluffing me. Turns out he wasn't. Back to the cash games."

With this in mind, I will now try to recap the last 3ish weeks. I already posted about my first 3 WSOP events. After that, I played in three more of those, 3 $550 tournaments at Venetian and a $1060 at Bellagio. I didn't cash in any of them, leaving me 0-10 in tournaments on the trip. I did have decent stacks in the last 2 WSOP events, the Bellagio, and a massive stack pretty late in one of the Venetians. I started to really feel like I was playing well in tournaments toward the last five after feeling like I played below my A game in 2-3 of the earlier ones. 0-10 might sound bad, but it's actually very easy to do. Since about 10% of players get paid any given tournament, an average player would cash in 1-10 that he/she played in. Given my history, I would generally cash in about 2-2.4 out of ten. I could bust out some statistics and figure out the chances that I could go 0-10 with a sample size of 10 to show the large variance, but I don't feel like it and would probably screw it up anyway.

WARNING: This post is about to take a 180 from negative to positive :)

If you had told me that in my 20 days in Vegas in June I would play in 6 WSOP events ond go 0-10 in tournies altogether, I would have thought it would surely be a losing month, and probably by a lot. In actuality, at the end of each night I was there, I was up for the trip. I absolutely killed the cash games like I never have before for this long of a time. I wasn't playing very high stakes, 5-10 and 10-20 only, while 10-20 has been my game of choice for the past several months. I ended up coming home with the amount I brought+my main event buy-in (10K)+another good chunk of cash. Considering the fact that tournament results were so poor, I was elated to have such a good trip.
I had a lot of fun there too. I went golfing once, went to the pool several times (I love the Wynn pool, even if it is 105 degrees outside), ate good food, watched a lot of sports, and played a lot of poker.

I got home on Friday the 20th I think and decided that I was just going to relax and not play any poker until I returned in early July for the main event. Sunday morning rolled around and I had nothing to do and the house was vacant. I decided that I may as well try to win a seat to the main event as I did last year so I don't have to pony up the 10k myself. I signed up for 2 WSOP satellites and I also decided to play in the big sunday tournaments on each site as I do most sundays. I got very close to a WSOP seat when I took 5th in a tournament that gave seats to the top 2. I had a nice stack, but was forced to get it all in preflop with AQ vs. a maniac with KJ. Of course I didn't win as a 62ish% favorite in that hand. I would have had a massive stack and been all but a lock for one of the two seats. Literally about 5 minutes before that hand I had busted out of the stars sunday million when I ran QQ into a guy's AA that he played very well and I busted out of that after having a very promising stack. Although that was worth $1400 (1st place was like 160k), my blood was boiling after the two consecutive bustouts from tournaments that looked so promising about 10 minutes before. I went from being on the brink of a big score to below even on the day in about ten minutes. To my credit, I took a lap around my room, kept my composure and focusing in on the one lonely table remaining on my screen: The Full Tilt 750k guaranteed (their big sunday tourney). This tourney was still quite early, not even to the money yet. I went from a decent stack as we entered the money, to a very short stack, to top 10 in chips with 200 people remaining. We widdled ourselves down to the final table where I stood 2nd or 3rd in chips. Quickly I became the chip leader and stayed that way until we were 7-handed and I got a guy all-in with 66 vs. my KK. Nothing is easy, so the 6 on the flop left me just below the middle of the pack. As blinds and antes escalated and 3 more players got eliminated, I became the short stack. At this point I was guaranteed 30k with 50k going to third, then 80k, and 132k. I got all in twice (and way behind) within about 20 minutes, but they say luck evens out and my A3 sucked out on A10, and my A10 sucked out on JJ. Now all of a sudden I was back to above average. I now started picking on one played who was obviously scarred to bust out and my stack continued to grow until I was heads-up and about even in chips. I immediately started playing very aggressively, and took a 7 million to 3 million chip advantage. My opponent was a very good player from Sweden, so I knew that he was going to try to make a move soon. After his preflop raise (which was not uncommon, he was probably raising about 30% of the hands) the flop came J 6 3 and I had J8. After he bet around 700k, leaving himself with about 1.5 mil, I really thought he would be calling my all-in raise and I would be two cards away from the win. He ended up having AA and now he had a 6-4 advantage. I got down to 7-3, battled back to even, lost 1.2 million bluffing, and then this hand came up as he was ahead 6-4. He raised, I called with 96s. flop was 9 7 3. I had raised him about 3 times on the flop after he had raised preflop so I figured that at some point he would think I'm full of it. With that in mind, flopping top pair heads up made me believe that I had the best hand here about 90% of the time. So he bet the flop, I made a small raise hoping that he thought I was full of it, and he shoved all in for what little I had remaining. He had 10 10 this time, and he held up to win the tournament.
I was very happy with how I played heads-up. I really controlled the match and I feel that it would have been over much sooner had I not been the won picking up the majority of the pots. It was fairly unlucky of me to flop top pair when he had overpairs twice, but in heads-up against a good player with blinds so high, there's no way I'm ever folding either of those hands. I would have liked to win, but I have no regrets and 80k.

I'm leaving for vegas again tomorrow to play in a free tournament that the Wynn is having for all of their players that played for 50 hours in their room in June. The top 10 players each get 10k. I don't know how many players qualified, but I hope it's not very many. After that, the main event of WSOP starts July 3. There are four day 1's, so I will play one day between July3-6 and then again on the 7th or 8th if I'm still in. For the players still remaining, everyone continues on the 9th.

PS- I know I'm supposed to spell out numbers instead of using the actual numbers, but I didn't. If it bothers you, you can cut and paste it onto word and change tham all before reading it.

Quick Update

I have not been able to update as much as planned because I can't figure out how to add new posts from my phone which I thought should have been very easy. I am leaving right now to play in a WSOP event right now after not playing since wednesday because my brother's bachelor party was in town last weekend. I played in two more events last week that I haven't posted about. I busted very early in both. The first one I was all in with AA vs. QJ on a J55 flop (I was 90% to win), but a jack hit the river to send me out. The other one I got all in with 66 vs. AA on a 8 6 3 flop. Again I was about a 90% favorite in the hand, but the turn and river were both diamonds to give him a flush, and I was left with almost no chips.
Cash games on the other hand have been going very well, and I have to leave right now.

WSOP event #2

I played in the second event of the 2008 World Series of Poker yesterday. It was the largest non-main event in WSOP history, and the 4th largest live poker tournament in history. It was a $1500 no-limit hold 'em event, which is the smallest buy-in at the WSOP. I busted out about 3 hours which was fairly standard because you only start with 3000 chips and the blinds start at 25/50 (you don't start with many chips). I wasn't unhappy at all because I thought I played well and just didn't make any hands and ran into some hands when I tried to make moves.
However, I jumped right into the cash games at the Rio and played for about 8 hours with a break in the middle to eat dinner with a friend of mine that lives in Vegas. I ended the night up 5600, which is an excellent start to the trip. I am currently in the hotel room playing in the big sunday online tournaments, and then I might go play some cash games later tonight.

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.

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.

March

March was pretty uneventful from a poker standpoint. I've been coaching the Laguna Beach JV baseball team which is taking up a good chunk of my days. I've been playing a little bit online the last month until the last 10 days or so when I really picked it up (when I say picked it up, I mean I've been playing like 2-4 hours instead of 0-1 hours a day). It's been going pretty well in cash games, but I haven't had much success in tournaments online since the LAPC. Oh well, that's the nature of tournaments.
I've been dabbling a little bit it world series of poker main event qualifiers. In the few that I've tried (probably about 15) I have a 2nd, 7th, 11th, and 13th. In these you basically get nothing for 2nd and a 13K prize package for 1st (except when I got 2nd it was good for 1500). The 2nd place was very disappointing after I lost the heads up match against one of the top internet pros. What made it worse is that I went onto his site (he owns a very highly regarded poker instruction website) about 15 minutes later to congratulate him, and found out that he had been sending me messages trying to split it with me even though he had the chip lead! Boy did I feel like an idiot. Oh well.
I played live once in march and lost $4200 at commerce which made this month barely a winning month. Although March was my worst month since June 07, I didn't expect anything out of it because I knew coaching would be very time consuming.
April will be almost all online as well, and then it will be less than a month until I head out to Vegas for the world series. I haven't figured out my schedule out there, but I'll pretty much be out there for most of June and the first week of July at least. It should be fun, and I'll try to update this more all the time but especially when I'm out there.

LAPC Main Event

This post is a little late I guess, but I busted out of the main event on Sunday. Somehow I managed to make it thorough the minefield that was Saturday with about 11,000 chips from my starting stack of 20,000. We only played for just under 10 hours on saturday which is less than I thought because I was very tired. I was involved in many interesting hands on saturday and unfortunately I only won a couple of them. I was in many tough spots, and just kinda ran bad in general. I was missing flops, my opponents were hitting flops, I had bad tables and seats, and I didn't pick up enough big hands. Overall, I was lucky to get through day one, but as a short stack I only lasted about 1.5 hours on Sunday.
Usually at a starting table of these events you will have a couple very good players, a couple solid players, a couple decent players and at least one or two pretty awful players that are very good to pick up ships from. However, my starting table had to be the toughest in the tournament. Here is the lineup:
Seat 1) Brett Jungblott (Part of "the crew" from the early 90's, a known live and online player)
Seat 2) Erik Lindgren (one of the top 20 most know pros, millions in career earnings)
Seat 3) Josh Ariea (more than one WSOP final tables)
Seat 4) Jennifer Tilly (actress, wasn't great but she finished 12th in this tourney)
Seat 5) Vanessa Selbst (online instructor and very good player, at least one WSOP final table)
Seat 6) Juan Carlos Mortenson (2006 WPT champion, 8.2 million in career earnings)
Seat 7) Me (some guy who looks like he got lost on the way to the library)
Seat 8) Nenad Medic (Full Tilt poker pro, won the world poker tour at Niagara Falls, etc.)
Seat 9) Some guy who was a world poker open bracelet on and was a good player

So basically I had an all star table even though there are many younger internet type players that are sharper than some of these guys right now. I felt very comfortable among this group and after playing at this table for 8 hours before we broke, I definitely feel that I would be a long term winner against this lineup although it is full of big name pros. All in all, I enjoyed the tournament, it was a good experience, but nothing really went right, which can happen in any given tournament.

On a positive note, I've been doing very well online playing 6-handed and especially heads up. This short month is going to end up being my best to date as I expect to finish the month up in online cash games and tournaments as well as live cash games and tournaments.