ThePokerhaus.com

I havn’t been playing much since the win, only a couple tournies that friends wanted to play with me and a live tourney last night. Instead, I’ve been thinking about the game. I keep wondering how I’ll do when I move up in stakes. Have I improved enough to be able to beat the $30-50 mtts? Am I gonna get crushed and be forced to drop back down? What I plan on doing is putting A LOT more work into my game. Analyzing a lot more hand histories, thinking more about hands, watching vids over and over again, etc.

A part of me wants to start playing today and another part of me wants to sit back and just kinda enjoy the money I’ve made over the summer. After all, no 17 year old I know of has made as much as I have thus far this summer, not even close. Then again I dont value money as most people do. I dont see the money in my bankroll as money but more as units in playing certain games. Now when I withdraw of course I see it as money but if someone asked me to throw away a $10 bill to prove I dont care about money, I would.

Getting back to when I’m going to start playing again, I’m not sure, probably soon, maybe even tonight. By the way, if you see me at the tables (doublemeup1 on stars and full tilt) feel free to say hello.

Peace

Double

I just took out a couple grand off Stars which will go straight into my bank account. Normally I dont give out specific numbers but I have $5,200 online right now. Now while I could play all $50 tournaments comfortably I’m not going to. Instead I’m going to play all the $26s on Full Tilt, along with the $30s on FT and PS, while mixing in some $50-$100s.

As far as staking is concerned, I’m going to be doing zero staking. In the past that has lost more money for me than it has won. I’m gonna do straight up transfer deals and thats it. No staking until further notice.

I kinda wanna take some time out to just look at previous hhs and review some more vids instead of playing but we’ll see. Speaking of vids I’m thinking of getting CR. Before that win I actually thought about switching to only cash games and while the win does change things I still want to take a shot at it.

Things I want to purchase:

Cell phone, Wii, CR, iPod, movie “300″, XBox360

I’m sure I’ll end up getting all of those things, its just how long it takes me. I’ll keep ya updated.

Peace

Double

The day has finally come. I finally got that “$5k score” I’ve been obsessing about for the last 8 months. Ever since my Midnight Madness win in December I’ve been looking for a $5k score. It was my next goal in poker and now I can check it off my list. It came Friday night in the $30k Grtd $3 Rebuy on Stars. I had been playing 10 hours of hell i mean ahem mtts, and I decided I was just going to play the $3r, the $16.50, and a $5 on FTP then call it a night. I was going to take a different approach. I blew thru 7 rebuys in the earlier $3r so I decided to only buy in for 1500 and just single rebuy as many times as needed. Well I tripled up I think 2nd hand with KTsooooooted aipf and ended the rebuy period with I think 10k.

I really dont remember much about the middle stages of this tournament but I do remember thinking that I just wanna accumulate a big stack so I could punish the table. Normally thats not my mentality but it was at the time. Looking back at the hh, it seems like I was really agg in position and eventually did achieve that big stack. After a couple hours we cashed and I think I was in 8th outta 500 ppl.

At the time I was still playing the $5 on FT and had cashed in that too but not too much later lost a race to bust so I was soley focused on the $3r.

There were 100 people left and I was chip leader. Again, I dont remember too much during these stages but I know I was the first person to a million chips and I remember feeling kinda invincible which is natural to feel as the big stack.

As we got down to the final three tables we’re now a good 5 hours in and I expected it to last a long time. I will say when we got down to the final 27 players, I was very surprised at the level of play. These guys were playing really well which def surprised me. At this point I was 8th in chips but doubled up on a very key hand, maybe the hand of the tournament for me when I won with AQ vs. JJ aipf. I wasn’t all in but I would’ve been cut down to 12bbs if I lost. I then won a really sick all in with 99 aipf vs. AK KJT flop, turn x, River: 9. That was a sick one and then 14bb hijack open limped and I was in the bb with 88 and had the chip lead. I had seen him limp with 44, 55, AT and 77 before and he didn’t strike me as the type of player to open limp in the hj with a big hand so I shoved and of course I got insta called by JJ, Flop: AA4 Turn: 8, ship the money please. At this point I’m like flippin out, I normally dont show much emotion while playin but after the 8 turned I got up outta my chair and just was like wow maybe this is meant to be.

So now we’re down to 2 tables and some douchebag who turned out to actually be an fcper raised, he literally raised every time it was folded to him in the hijack, cuttoff, or button and I was still cl. He had 16bbs so I thought it was perfect opportunity to resteal with Q8, he called with AK and lost when I spiked an 8 on the flop. He then proceeds to be the biggest whiner I’ve seen in a long time. He posts for the first time in 11 months that hh on fcp and crys about losing, etc, etc. Call the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaambulance.

I then lost two big alls ins with AQ and both were probably the two plays I’m not sure if they were correct or not but we suddently had reached the FT and I was in a distant third. Keep in mind at this point, we’re a good 7 hours into this tournament and I’m as focused as I can be. Theres 5 grand to first so I said to myself if I’m gonna bust from this tournament I better not say I really fucked that up. Two hands in I get AA, raise in the cs, bb repops and I flat. Flop: AKQ 2 clubs, chkchk

Turn: 6c  he fires 360k, I shove 1.2 mil he folds. Blinds were 30/60k and after I raised the next 5 hands I had taken over the cl with 3.2 mil to his 3 mil.  

Unfortunately I couldn’t do anything because the table was so loose. This one guy was raising every single pot and I was oop against him so I was helpless. We must’ve been a good 30-45 minutes in before we got our first bustout and the next 2-3 took a long time too as the short stacks reeeeeeeeally wanted to move up in money. Its kinda obvious when you fold every single hand and thru the blinds to get down to 3bbs and then open limp. lol

Again forgive me, I dont remember too many hands but what I will say is that I was playing really tight, I tried opening some pots but I’d just get rr so I stayed reeeeeeally patient. I was never above 4 million. We got 3 handed and I still wasn’t above 4 million! I had 3 million one guy had 6 million and the other 7 million. A sick cooler with flopped straight vs. turned flush got us heads up. I thought I had played really well throughout this grueling tournament and I was really pumped for heads up. Second place was like 3200, first 5300 so 2k difference.

I went into heads up with a 5:1 chip deficit. Worried? Honestly, no. When we started heads up play I had 20bbs but that soon changed when I hit my straight vs. his flush draw.

 So now I have 6 million to his to his 12 million. Blinds 75k/150k

I didn’t know how he was gonna play heads up but my guess was he was gonna see a lot of flops, lead at a lot of flops even when he wasn’t the preflop aggressor, and not reraise too much pre.

After trading a couple small pots back and forth he raised otb and I repop to 1.5 mil with 3 mil behind with 55 and he smooth calls. Flop comes 678 and I ship it in and he calls with J9. Turn: 6, geez how many fuckin outs do I gotta fade. River: A, please ship the 2:1 lead

9 hands later I still have 12 mil to his 6 mil and raise otb with KT and he flats

Flop: AJQ two hearts

He leads for 360k, I rr to 900 and he ships. I’ve never called so quick in my life. He shows 62hh, oh god, i’m yelling PLEASE ONE TIME BLANK

Turn: brick

River: brick

SHIP THE FUCKING TOURNAMENT!!!! ONE TIME!!!!!!!

No fucking chops for this guy, I want ALLLLLLLLLLLLL the money. ALL OF IT, I SAID ALL OF IT.

I proceed to just go crazy yelling and shit and then put on the official Mtt win song (”what you know”–T.I.) and I’m dancing around, singing, yelling like theres no tomorrow. At this point its 5am and Matt shows up to my house with no shirt on. lololol

So after celebrating, he wants McDonalds and I tell’em its my treat. He gets his food and goes into Sunoco without a shirt on. loooooool

I fell asleep at around 7am and woke up around 6 and actually missed going to a concert in Rhode Island with a friend which I felt really bad about. Sorry Brit : (

So how does this effect my online poker future I’m not sure yet. I still havn’t decided how much money I’m going to take out, what tournaments I want to play, if I’ll start staking, etc. I really havn’t put enough thought into it yet, I have a general idea of what I want to do but I’m gonna think about it a little more and let you know.

Before I forget, I wanna give a huge thank you to all the railers and friends. I cannot thank you guys enough for all the support. I’m lucky enough to have people rail most of my tournaments from start to finish but I do really appreciate all the support I received in this tournament and all my other ones. On FCP, here on the haus, aims, texts, phone calls, etc. Also the people who kept telling me that I’d get this score even when I didn’t think so. You guys know who you are and I love each and every one of you.

The Champ

Don AKA doublemeup1

Well the Main Event was today and it was just as exciting as I thought it would be. Granted only 9 ppl showed up but the buy-in made up for the lack of people. The structure was the best one we’ve ever had. We started with 2,000 in chips blinds 1-2 and 25 min blinds. A big hand came up in the rebuy period. It was folded to the sb who was a half hour late and this was his first hand. He raised and I flatted in the bb with 87dd. Flop: 874, he bet, I raised, he called. Turn: J he bet 1/4 of my stack and I had him covered by a little bit. I know the player from one previous tournmanet and I put him on a big pair which could’ve been JJ but I shoved and to my surprise he insta called with TT and somehow I faded it. I stayed in the 3k-4k range till the final table of 6. Matt was the first to bust at the final table in 6th on a blowup from frustration of losing a few small all ins where he got unlucky. More on that later. So I was cut down to 2k with 5 ppl left blinds 30/60 and 3 paying when the hand of the tournament came up.

Loose button limped, crazy sb limped, I see a flop with A5o.

Flop: A62 two hearts

Sb leads, I call, button calls.

Turn: 5s

He leads again and now I know for sure has a strong hand. How strong? Well his range is anything b/c we have an agreement of not raising each others blinds. For all I know he could have AA. I didn’t think he had 34, a set or A6 were possible but I felt I had the best hand and if I didn’t then it’d be time to go home so I shoved and button tanks. Now I know he has A7-AJ and I’m hopin for him to call and eventually he does. So now it comes back to sb who calls! Woah, so I say “set?” he says “two pair” I flip my hand up and he flinches in anguish as he flips up A2. Button shows A9, the river is a blank so I triple up to 6k. At that point the blinds were only 30/60 so it was the hand of the tournament without a doubt.

The button who was pretty short ended up shoving AJ on a KK3A7 board after the river, got called by 77 and when he saw it he flips out and punches a chair. Like WTF. He was so pissed I was scared and I didn’t even have the 77! That seems to be a disturbing trend in our home game. In the last 3 SSOP events, 3 different people punched a chair, punched a door, and flipped over the table. Whats weird is that it comes from people who claim they dont care about poker which obviously isn’t true. I mean I undestand they’re upset that they busted to a bad beat after playing for 6 hours or whatever but do you have to punch a chair? Also, on Matt’s bustout, he got his money in with A8 on the turn with no fold equity on a JT45 board to KJ and then starts sayin “this is bullshit, unfuckin real………..” After hearing him still talking about how unlucky he is 4 hours after his bustout I tried to tell him that he got his money in dead he said “shut up, you dont know what you’re talkin about.” He bitches more than anyone I know and that upsets me. He goes on and on and on about how unbelievably unlucky he is and how good he plays. Sometimes I think that he just keeps going on and on about it just to make people think that hes the unluckiest player in the world and if he had any luck then he’d destroy the home game.

Another change thats been occuring a lot lately is that no one wants to play what I like to call “friendly poker” of just limping in and seeing the flop. Even early on in the Main Event, there was always a raise preflop. Its getting a lot more aggressive which definitely isn’t good for me. My big advantage is post flop but if I always have to pay to get there, it brings down my skill advantage.

Anyways back to the actual tournament. So we stayed 4 handed for a looooooong time and I kept slowly accumulating. So I open limp otb with AA (If I limp all the random bs, I gotta limp AA too, plus even though they’ve seen me show down AA in limped pots they never give me credit for it) the sb shoves, I call and he has KJ. Flop: KKJ haha, kk nice hand sir. You dont see me kicking and screaming running out in a tirade. Anyways so maybe 90 minutes later we’re still on the money bubble and the button raises to 600 with 2500 behind blinds 150/300. I didn’t know what to make of it but I sensed he was weak so after a lot of diliberation I shoved with K7cc and he snap called me with AA : (   He definitely did a good job of selling it by walking around what I thought to be nervously and saying “c’mon hurry up Don.”

Flop: QJT

Turn: 9 obvvvvv

Now we were 3 handed, in the money and I was cl.

I think next hand I shoved in sb with Q5, bb had 2bbs and called with J3

Flop: JJx   kk nice hand

I shove again in the sb with 78 and he calls with 9T

Flop: A9x

Turn: T

River: 6 obvvvvvvv

So now we’re heads up I have 14k, he has 7k blinds 200/400.

We went back and forth for maybe 15 hands before he opened otb for 1400 total, 3k behind. I shoved Q9ss, he tanked and called with KJo.

Flop: Q94

Turn: 3

River: 6

Ship the Main Event. So obviously Matt is going on and on about how lucky I am and obviously I got very lucky to win but he doesnt understand that I put myself in a position where if I had lost the K7 vs. AA I still woulda had a ton of chips and same with the 78 vs. 9T. He doesn’t see the times where when we were heads up he lead 900 on a AQ44 board and I raised to 2900 with T2o because of a hand tell I had on him to which he insta folded. Or when in a 3 way pot checked down to the river pot on a A4548 board I called with QT to a river bet and it was good. Sure I get lucky but when you play as many pots as I do you’re bound to get lucky and until he faces the fact that hes not adjusting his game to horrible players and stops saying hes the unluckiest human on the planet he’ll never put up good results in the home game.

It was a great way to end a good run at the first annual SSOP. I won the SSOP player of the year. I won 2 bracelets, had two 2nd place finishes, and 3 5th place finishes. My goal was to win 4 bracelets and while I only won 2, I had two more shots at winning a bracelet so overall I’m pretty happy with my results and it was a ton of fun.

As for online poker, I did something last night I’ve never done before. I played two final tables simultaneously. I was at the Daily Double B FT and a $5 mtt FT. Basically I blew both of them. I finished 2nd in the $5 which SUCKS. My last hand I shouldn’t have shoved and after reviewing the hh, I made a couple small mistakes leading up the FT. In DD B, my last hand I had 43 on a 564 flop and shouldn’t have shoved, it was silly and I completely fucked it up just like my last 3rd place finish and the 10th place before that. All 4 tournies I was the cl at some point. Blahhhhhhhhhh just gotta learn from them. The money I made from them might mean me moving up a little bit or withdrawing a little bit.

Later guys

Double

As the title says, the Main Event of the SSOP is approaching. It was scheduled to be today but has since been pushed back to Wednesday. Its gonna be the biggest buy in live tournament I’ve ever played in which will probably make for more tension in the air between players. I expect big things for me in this event as I didnt reach my goal of winning 4 tournaments.

I ended up skipping the stud event and playing the no limit on Saturday. I finished 2nd which was so dissapointing. Then in the heads up event on Sunday I busted first round to Matt. I was just getting brutalized but I wasn’t playing my best. I almost folded AT on a A72r flop to his c-bet and if I was playing my best I would’ve. We’ve played so much with each other that I easily could’ve. I can’t blame the coolers and bad beats, that first round bust is my fault.

At the moment, with one event left, I’m in 2nd in the SSOP Player of the Year so it comes down the Main Event. Its really anyones game. I’m still in first in the SPOY standings but that doesn’t end till November.

As for the 12 tabling…….uhhhhhh….yeahhh about that. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately in full ring cash games. Its been a blast and I’ve been doing well. I’ve also picked up playing sngs and have done extremely well. I’m sure its due to good variance though. Who knows what I’ll start playing next. Dare I say non hold’em games……….dun dun dun.

Double

Monday night I headed over to Matt’s house and after a short time of playing 9 card omaha and watching HSP we headed out. We met up with a bunch of ppl, did some stupid shit and came back to his house at 2:30 am……….sober. We woke up pretty rested all things considered and were ready to play the first annual SSOP event. It was a NLH event and I ended up finishing 5th. Blinds 75/150, nitty player made it 450, i reshipped for 2100 with AQ, he had AK, gg Don. Overall I thought I played pretty well in that event.

We ordered the PPV live coverage of the ME FT Tuesday afternoon during the tournament and we all were sickened when Lee busted so early. We all agreed before Yang called that he had to have AJ or better but somehow he found a way to call with A9 which was his first aweful call of the FT but obv it was good and it held. Matt and myself ended up staying up for 14 hours of the 15 hour FT while prop betting the whole time. Funny story, when Corey Zeidman the guy who slowrolled Jennifer Harman in the 2006 ME came onto the set with Phil and Ali we bet how long he’d stay on for and I bet the under on 3:15 am. We were listening to see if he was still there and a couple minutes goes by without a word from him, 3:15 rolls around and theres still no sign of Zeidman so I take the bill and all of a sudden out of nowhere 5 minutes later Zeidman starts talking! He slowrolled me! lmao

The final table play was just flat out aweful. People were standard raising 5x bb, like wtf. Yang played really bad at the final table and you could tell he was gonna be bad when within the first half hour he opened for 10x the bb. The one thing I’ll give him credit for is that he kept the aggression up but hes a terrible player and what the hell was he talking about asking God to flop a set for him or somethin, weeeeeeird. I thought the runner up and my pick to win Tuan Lam played pretty well at the FT and while I know he didn’t have hands I still think he played a little bit too passively. I think if he holds on the final hand he most likely wins the ME but Yang wasn’t going to lose that night.

So Wednesday after the FT ended we slept in and headed out to get Arby’s and then to the Omaha event. We went 1-2 in it. Pretty sick, we havn’t gone 1-2 in I dont think any tournament we’ve ever had and it comes in an Omaha tournament. I’m not an Omaha expert so I just played really tight and applied tournament strategy to make some well timed moves and heads up it didn’t last too long as I was a big dog in chips and Matt held over me. I thought we both played well with him playing a little better and taking down his first tournament in a very long time so I was happy for him.

We took a short break, went to McDonald’s and headed back to play what was supposed to be the Mixed Hold’em event but was changed to a NLH event. We got to 4 handed and I had 12bbs in the sb, button limped, I shoveled A6o and Matt beat me into the pot with two kings, it held and I had 3bbs left. Picked up AK, they all folded, bah. Next hand picked up AT, they all folded, bah. Next hand picked up 22, was called by J9dd, J on turn, gg Don. I thought I played decent in the event so didn’t sting too much to bubble.

That night we were degenerates and just played each other heads up live cash games like 20 times and a zillion 9 card omaha hands and I just got owned. There was one sick cash game hand where he limped in the sb, I raised TT, he called. Flop 442 I bet he calls, Turn 4 I bet he calls, River J I shovel he calls with KJ lol  Its funny because when we play heads up theres like 20 level thinking because we’ve played so much with each other. So after all that madness we started playing some online tournies, him getting staked into a 45 man, and me playing a $11 6 handed multi.

In sick fashion he won the 45 man and his backer finished 3rd. As for my mtt, I made my first FT in 3 months and finished 3rd. I was really dissapointed, not on the bad beat that busted me but that I played shitty 3 handed after playing so well throughout the tournament. Blahhhhhhhh what can ya do, gotta move on.

Although it was a great night online for us, we got to bed at 9am with the nlh event taking place Thursday at 1pm. We managed to get up and play it exhausted. Unfortunately the turnout was horrible. I think we had 6 or 7 ppl. Out of all the events thus far I think I played that one the best and actually took it down. There was a hand in the rebuy period early on where there were 2 limpers, I tapped the table with ATdd and the flop came KQx checked around, Turn J Matt bet 80, I repopped to 280, he reshipped for about 1100, I snap called and he had A2. While his play was reckless, again it was multi level thinking because he knows I’m capable of making that move with complete air and he knows I know that he could easily have 9T or at least two pair so I’m folding probably 65% of the time. Anyways so I doubled and after he lost a big pot he open pushed for 50x bb dark. He got called by AJ and woke up with 53o but didn’t suck out so he was busted. The dark shove was due to suicidal tilt and lack of sleep. The 53o has officially been named “The Matt Stevens.”

So thats where I stand so far in the SSOP, took 5th in the first event, took 2nd in the Omaha, took 5th in the NLH, and won the last NLH yesterday. The stud is today at 3pm, and then Saturday I think theres another NLH, Sunday is the heads up NLH, Monday is satellite day, and Tuesday is the Main Event. I’m not sure what I’m going to do the next couple of days, I planned on heading back to Matt’s Saturday as today was supposed to be an off day and then stay till Tuesday but with some recent family issues I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I came home today at around 5 after being at his house since Monday night.

I was having such a great time playing live poker all the time, living off fast food, prop betting on everything and just living the pro poker player lifestyle that it sucks to have this put a damper on that. I have no idea what I’m doing the next couple days and the worse case scenario is that I dont play any of the remaining events. I hope I dont have to do that but that might have to, we’ll see what transpires in the next 24 hours.

Double

So much poker is being played right now and I for one am loving every second of it. Lets start with the Main Event. Right now they’re gotten down to the final table and the only notable left is Lee Wakinson. Scotty Nguyen busted in 11th place which was really dissapointing. I really wanted to see Scotty make the final table. He was playing so well and got up to 16 million at one point but he admitted he blew it. Scotty is a great poker player and a class act so it would’ve been great to see him go after Main Event title #2 but it wasn’t meant to be baby.

Now the Main Event Final Table will be airing 3pm Tuesday. Unfortunately the first SSOP event is on Tuesday starting at 11am. From what I’ve been told the guy hosting is going to order ESPN pay-per-view so we’ll be able to see it and I’m guessing Matt and myself are probably just gonna stay there to see it. We might stay to see some of it and then go back to his house to watch it on his plasma tv or catch it for free online is possible, I’m not sure yet.

For the week long SSOP I think I’m gonna chill at Matt’s house for the majority of the days. We plan on playing all the events and I’m pretty pumped for it. It starts 28 hours from now. I have very high expectations for myself. I expect to win 4 of the 8 the events. I dont think thats an unreasonable goal as my win % is 38% in all the regular tournaments and while all the events aren’t nlh I still have more experience than most of the people there in the other games. I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated on how I’m doing.

Now to the Bellagio Cup where Kevin “bel0wab0ve” Saul took it down for 1.3 million. I have mixed feelings about this. As most of you know I’m a huge Mike Matusow fan so for him to finish 2nd, that sucks. I do actually like Kevin as I’ve watched a lot of his PXF vids, seen a lot of his posts in the p5s forum and watched a lot of his interviews and he seems to be a decent guy and not a total asshole like most of his internet pro peers. That being said, I could be totally off when I see the broadcast. I do have mixed feelings towards his win as I read the rail thread for him and once again clueless people attack Matusow just for the pure fact that hes one of the best tournament players in the game and a member of p5s is playing against him. I wont drop anymore names of online players that I’ve lost all respect for but its really sad.

In the Main Event Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman finished 19th. As I mentioned in a previous blog, the things he said in that Mirage thread about Ivey caused me to lose all respect for him. As I read the updates about him I thought to myself I wish I never opened that thread because if I didn’t then granted I wouldn’t know how truely huge the egos of most top internet pros are but at least I could root for an online phenom to win the Main Event. But instead I found myself wanting him to bust. While I didn’t find myself wanting Kevin to bust I knew all the while he was pwning the Bellagio Cup that this allowed the retards to say “look matusow got pwned by below, live pros suck, online players own weeeeeeeee” while anyone with a half a brain knows this to not be close to the truth. Mikey was outchipped 4:1 and gl telling me you’re not going to stick your money in with an open ended straight flush draw on the flop but w/e some people will never get it. I dont mean to keep harping on this subject and I hope people dont take it the wrong way. I’m not saying that the top players on the internet aren’t capable in the next 5-10 years to be at the forefront on the live poker scene but at the moment there is not an online poker player thats even close to the level of the top live tournament pros. Sorry, Kevin Saul doesn’t play better than Negreanu. I think even Kevin would tell you that and thats why I like him. He doesn’t seem to have the rediculous ego and thoughts about live pros that most ranked players do but maybe I’m way off who knows.

As for me playing online, lately I’ve been cashing a lot which is good but not making any final tables which is not good. I finished 10th in a $10 on stars the other day where I held the cl from 3 tables on and I kinda feel like I blew it. I had two hands where I knew the guy had complete air and forced him to a decision and both times he looked me up with air. One of them went something like this:

Folded to me in sb, I raise 9To, he calls.

AK4r

I bet he calls

Turn: 8

I bet he calls, at this point I’m very confident he has a dry king

River: 6

Theres 30k in the pot and I knew he might call anything up to a pot sized bet and he had 50k left so I shipped him in and he SNAP CALLED ME with KT. I dunno I went with my read, pinned his hand, and was positive he wasn’t calling and was way off. I only played one tourney yesterday, the rediculous 100k grtd $10 on stars. Two weeks in a row now I havn’t woken up in time for it. (3:30pm est) I woke up at 4:30 and had 5bbs left. I doubled 3 hands in and from then on I cruised for a couple hours and ended up busting 600/17500 for like 5 cents as usual. The structure is aweful but its just such a total donkfest with a huge prizepool I’ll continue to play it. Hopefully one of these times I’ll make a FT as I havn’t made one in a really long time and then get a win. 

As the World Series comes to a close that means its time to pay up and get paid for my prop bets. It turns out I actually did pretty good! I still have a couple left as of right now and I’m sure i’ll make a couple more. One bet I made at the beginning of the Main Event was I bet the under on 5 Americans making the final table and with the final table being established minutes ago I’ll have to see if I won that one. I also have like 5 bets on what the river card will be. lol

I hope Lee Watkinson takes it down and that Rain guy busts first. Btw I think hes gonna be a jerk at the final table. Anyways, heres my predictions:

1rst-Tuan Lam

2nd-Raymond Rahme

3rd-Lee Watkinson

4rth-Jon Kalmar

5th-Philip Hilm

6th-”Rain” Khan

7th-Lee Childs

8th-Jerry Yang

9th-Alex Kravchenko

Cheers

Double

Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple of days, I havn’t been busy, just lazy. Let me start with the biggest thing going on right now…….the World Series of Poker Main Event. Ah, the madness of it all. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I love prop betting and what better event to prop bet on then the Main Event? As of right now, I think I’m down one bet as Hellmuth busting on Day 1 really costed me but I was fairly close on the number of entrants so that won me a couple. I never thought I’d be so interested in the last card of the Main Event but seeing as I have like 6 bets on it, it kinda am. I need it to be the 2s and I’ll be golden. But back to the Main Event; I’ve been reading every update, watching every video, reading every blog and so on and I’m not too happy about how the Day 1s went. So many big names busted out. Doyle, Chan, Hellmuth, Ivey, Matusow, the list goes on and on. Two people who I was very happy to see make it past day one were Daniel Negreanu and my friend Rob who also survived Day 2a with 215k, GOGOGO.

Of course you can’t have a WSOP Event without some controversy as was the case with the David Singer incident. For people who dont know, basically what happened was Singer had raised all in after the flop and his opponent took his phone out and shut it off to which Singer asked the dealer what she was going to do as he felt that his hand should be dead. The floor was called over, they ruled his hand was live, his opponent called now knowing that Singer didn’t want him to call, Singer didn’t catch up and was eliminated. Now from what  I understand, I have to agree with Singer. Apparently you can’t take your phone out for any reason during a hand and if you do then your hand is declared dead. Singer and Bloch’s hands were declared dead in previous tournaments when they took out their phone. David called Jack Effel whos the tournament for the Main Event and when Singer asked Effel if he would’ve made the same ruling, Effel didn’t answer which leads me to believe that Singer got a bad ruling which is unfortunate. That should never happen, if you announce a certain rule several times a day then it should be enforced and the fact that it wasn’t is a shame.

There have been some interesting things that have happened such as Madsen in a jester costume which was pretty funny. Oh btw, Madsen was in a scene on the Real World! I kid you not, I was watching Real World Las Vegas: Reunited and in a scene where they were partying, Madsen is clearly seen in the background. Oh yeah and I saw Courtney Friel as some type of coorespondent on some political station……..weeeird. As for the Main Event, I’m excited about the upcoming days and you can be sure I’ll be following every second of it.

Another thing I’m addicted to is 9 Card Omaha. Its the best game ever. I saw it on “I bet you” that show with Laak and Efandiari and I’ve been hooked ever since. Basically what you do is make a wager beforehand and then each person is dealt 9 cards and you discard two. Then you see a flop and discard another 2. Then on the turn you discard one more and after the river you reveal your hands and whoever has the best 5 card hand wins. Also if you have the nuts at anytime post flop you have to announce it and you cannot take back any of your discarded cards. Its soooooooo much fun. I lost $20 playing $1, $2 a game but won some of it back in a later session : )

With the All-Star game being played yesterday, that marks the halfway mark in the regular season. My Red Sox are currently in first place with a 10 game lead on the Yankees. Now even when it was 14.5 games I kept telling everyone including my fellow Sox fans that we cant be too comfortable and say the Yankees have no shot at winning the division. I still stand by that, I like the lead, the lead is good but we by no means have the division rapped up. With that said I’m happy with how our team played in the first half of the season and I think we have a team capable of winning the World Series.

Today I’m due for a cell phone upgrade. I’ve had the same phone for as long as I can remember and I’m sick of it, its old, it has no cool features, etc. I’m stuck on what new phone I’m gonna get, I can’t get the iPhone because I have Verizon, I’ve heard the Treo is sick but if thats gonna cost me some money instead of a free upgrade I prob wont get one.

Another thing I’m thinking of getting is an iPod. This is waaaaaaaay overdue just like this laptop was. I’ve thought about getting an iPod for the longest time but now I’m actually serious about it and I’m hearing a 30gb iPod is the way to go so hopefully I’ll get one in the very near future.

I also wanna get a desk and chair for this laptop as I wanna avoid another stepping on the mouse to break the monitor deals. Unfortunately the spacing in my room is shitty so the desk has to be small and I’m picky about what I want.

As for online poker, I STILL havn’t played that much. I can’t believe it myself. I think its mainly due to my outrageous sleep schedule. The last week or so I go to bed at 5am at the earliest and wake up at 2pm at the earliest. For example, as I’m writing this blog at 9am, I still havn’t gone to bed yet. Basically I’ve just played some of the later tournies like the Daily Doubles on Full Tilt and the Midnight Madness there. I’ve cashed prob 60% of the time but nothing further. Oh well. If I dont play those tournies and I’m bored at like 5am I’ll hit up some cash games and I’ve been crushing. I did something sick this morning at 7am where I 8 table’d for 90 minutes or so and won 5 buy ins. I havn’t 8 table’d in a looooong time and it def was fun. The last couple nights I tried out some sngs which I also havn’t played in a long time and did pretty well. Out of two stts, I won one and finished 2nd in the other. In two 45 mans, I bubbled both and in two 18 mans I finished 3rd and 6th. One of these days I’ll get back to playing as many tournaments as I should.

One last thing I wanna mention before I go is the SSOP (Southington Series of Poker) is coming up which starts July 17th and ends July 24th with the Main Event. Heres the schedule:

Game Type                    Date                   Time                                                   

Limit Hold’em                 7/17                  11 a.m.                              

No-Limit Hold’em            7/18                   1 p.m.                                

7 Card Stud                   7/18                   6 p.m.                                

Pot-Limit Omaha             7/19                     5:30 p.m.                      

Limit Hold’em                  7/19                      9 p.m.                          

No-Limit Hold’em             7/21                      6:30 p.m.                     

Heads-Up NLH                 7/22                       6 p.m.                        

Satellite to ME (NLH)        7/23                       1,3,6,8 p.m.                 

Main Event                      7/24                        10:30 a.m.       

Later Guys

Double         

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee city. I shipped it out Monday and I got it back Thursday which was strange. It made me think that we shipped it out wrong or something. So we opened up the box and tried to turn it on but it wouldn’t turn on. We couldn’t figure out why so I called support and I talked to a retarded Indian support guy for an hour and a half before he finally came up with the conclusion that it had to be shipped out again. I was pretty bummed about it because I knew it would be another 8-10 business days before I’d get it back but oddly enough my step dad somehow someway got it working and it was back into my hands working on Friday. I’m pretty stoked to have it back. I definitely appreciate it a lot more now.

This also means that online poker is going to come back into my life in a big way. Just as I thought I was getting away from it…….  ; )

I also did come up with a “plan of attack” if you will as far as the tournaments I’m going to play and that is I’m just gonna play a ton of small tournaments like $5s, $10s, $1r, $3r etc. I have a bankroll that I can play those really comfortably and I think although I’ll be missing out on a bunch of money when I do win one of these that the fact of me losing a huge % of my bankroll before I do and therefore playing bad outweighs that. I’ll have plenty of time to play during the summer and thats what I want to do. I want to multi table for whole days at a time if possible and really prove something. Its July so I have 2 months and counting.

I played one live tournament since the last time I talked to you kids. One of them was tonight where I was the 2nd person out. This is a rarity. In fact I dont remember the last time I didn’t at least make the final 5 people. It was a weird tournament, the structure was really fast but I doubled thru really early when the following hand came up. Blinds 10/20, I uncharacteristically raised to 50 otb with KTo, sb calls, bb folds.

Flop: J56r

He checks, I bet 75, he makes it 205, and hes probably the 2nd or 3rd best player in the game and he never lets me beat him in a pot plus I just was in the mood to not let him run over me so I shoved for 800 more and he TANKS for idk 5 minutes and says all this stuff and finally he calls and flips over AA. WTF. Theres no chance he ever folds that hand, I know that for sure. It leads me to believe that he slowrolled me which kinda put me in a bad mood. I wasn’t angry, or upset or anything but instead of being really upbeat and lively I just sat there really quiet, not talking to anyone. I stayed that way for the rest of the tournament until my eventual bustout. The other thing that bothered me was my friend completely FLIPPING OUT after taking a bad beat. Hes pounding the table, cursing nonstop, storming out, it was like Phil Hellmuth x2. I just dont understand why people act that way. Just be a man about it and stop bitchin. In my bustout hand it was raised to 100, i jammed for 360 more with ATss he called with JTdd. Flop: 883r Turn: J River: 4

I got up, shook his hand, said “nice hand man” shook everyones hand, said ”good luck” and left. Is that honestly that hard to do? It just baffles me. Anyways, I know I didn’t play that well, I think it was due to me being hungover from the night before, my friend flipping out, and me being slowrolled all combined to me not really wanting to be there. I prob played my B game. Oh well, I’m looking forward to the SSOP coming up July 17th. Details to come………..

Double