Friday, December 12, 2008
Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Vail
I leave on saturday for Vail with Dave P. The rest of the n00bs get there sunday and it's quite the group. 12 of us in total will be out there. Brad and Pete have a condo for the winter and the rest of the group rented a 10 person condo but it only has 5 beds (2 king and 3 queen) so instead of sharing a bed with dave or somebody else he and I are going to stay with brad and pete and I think I'm gonna buy a cheap mattress cause I'll be out there more I'm sure. They say it's supposed to snow a foot or 2 between sat and sunday evening so I'm getting super pumped...I'm a little nervous though as we fly in a 20 person jet to eagle airport from denver and that might not be happening and if it does a lot of the time people get sick I guess. Great. Owell it's a 3 hour shuttle ride or something if we can't fly. I just hope to get there sometime saturday night.
I'll try to give an update from out there. Wish me luck on the flight and snow!
Friday, November 28, 2008
thanksgiving on the farm
It's always a nice true vacation as except for maybe a few low-stakes hands in the car on my laptop, it's poker free.
We are all ready to go skiing and snowboarding out west but nobody really has any worthwhile snow. I was able to convince jay, dave, billy, and dave p to get vail season passes too as it's just such a good deal so we're hoping they can get some snow soon. It works at Vail, beaver creek, heavenly, Arapaho basin, and Breckenridge. All for $579. Their website says 620 now but if you have a friend refer you you can still get it for 579. Pretty sick.
There has been talks of a pickup pond hockey type hockey game as well as some snow football once we get some snow and I'm looking forward to both. I've only skated now twice in the last billion years but owell it'll be fun to go screw around as most people are about as bad as I am.
I got a sick new laptop a few days ago and so far I really love it. It's the ultraportable toshiba R600 which has a 12" screen and weighs 2.5 pounds. It also has a transreflective (or something) screen that works in direct sunlight so I'm seeing some poker on the beach in my future. It also has a solid state hard drive which makes it faster and more durable. The battery life seems to be about 4 hours which is 4 times better than my last hunk of junk. The one negative thing is there is only 1 speaker and it's brutal as far as sound quality. Not a huge deal but annoying nonetheless.
Everyone laments about vista and this has been my first experience with it and so far I really like it. I haven't had any crashes or issues and I like how everything just seems smoother and thought out. I did HATE the UAC (the thing that pops up whenever you open a program or file and asks you if in fact you wanted to do that) as well as was confused as to where to find how to enable hidden folders to access my poker stars hands (which are stored in the user apps dir instead of program files) but past that it seems pretty sleek.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Rise Against
Some seasons out west are snowy in November and I've been following the weather daily and it just hasn't been. I've been ready to pack my bags and go for a couple weeks but nowhere has much open and I'll just have to wait. The long range forecast is warm and dry, too. Hopefully early December will be different.
Michelle and I went ice skating last week and it was my first time on skates in probably 15 years. Since I ski and rollerblade it came back nicely and it was fun to get out there and cruise around with how much hockey we watch these days. Some of the guys are talking about a pickup game, that sounds really fun. Matter of fact I'm gonna go make a few phones calls and see if we can set that up next week.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
LA and it's aftermath
So the last 3 days I've been trying to fix it. 2 nights ago I was able to crash from 230am-630am which I figured wouldn't be that bad because I should still be tired the next night...so when I went to bed at 230am last night I figured I could sleep. But then it was 430am and I still hadn't gotten a wink, so I got up and started playing poker. I lost my ass in like an hour so I had to quit and just kill time. A few friends had spent the night so I drove them home at 11am that probably wasn't a super good idea... I was sober but it was like i was drunk from being so tired. We made it though. I fully intended on sleeping when I got home but then I was talking to a buddy and I'm like "damn, I've made it this far, should just stay up all day and sleep at like 8 or 9pm and wake up and play the heartland poker tour tourney at 9am." So that's what I did. I played poker for 8 hours straight and man was it tough. the 4pm-5pm stretch was by far the hardest but once I got to 6pm it was smooth sailing minus the fact that I started seeing colors on white paper in addition to having the standard sleep deprived vision impairment. I actually did alright in my marathon poker session.
When I got in bed a little after 8, my body was kinda past the whole sleepiness thing. Adrenaline had obviously kicked in and so I had a couple beers and watched the end of the wild game and when it was over, conked out quickly. I woke up at 1230 for no reason and was like screw this but was able to quickly fall back asleep. Then I woke up at 230 and had no such luck. I tossed and turned. No chance. Argh. I gave it a half hour now I'm gonna go give it another shot.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Johnny Chan
Johny raised in MP, I 3 bet right behind with TT, all folded, he called.
Flop Q74 with 2 hearts.
He c/r I call.
Turn offsuit 9
He checked I bet, he called
river offsuit 2
He checked I bet, he folded.
I mean, if you woulda told me 5 years ago when I first saw this movie that I would be playing poker some day for real and not in some contrived situation(like some tournament) with Johnny chan I would have thought you were out of your mind. Now the only person left who I'd like to play with is Doyle brunson and I can't imagine playing with him outside of a tournament really. I also kinda want to play lhe with Phil Ivey cause I hear he's one of the best and I want to see if there's anything subtle I can pick up from him...
So far so good on the trip, but anyone who has played big white chips knows it can change drastically in a hurry...wish me luck!
Monday, November 3, 2008
boys night
It was one of the better dinner experiences I've had and I eat out a lot(more than i should). Our waiter was one of the best I've ever had - he was really attentive and helpful (and yet not annoying/over the top) and even called us a cab to get to the game. The food was really good. We all got steaks of somesort and everyone was pleased. One of the appetizers stood out as really good - it was like beef tips or something. Basically rib eye marinated in BBQ sauce and then grilled with some peppers or something. It only comes with 2 so it's pretty small but it really hits the spot.
We started with some wine but then got intrigued by the $25 dollar 750ml beers at the bottom of the list so we asked the waiter about them and he said he personally picked them and they are all fantastic. We decided why not try all 3 so he got us all 3 glasses and poured them all and it was quite the sight with 3 beers, a glass of wine, and water all in front of everyone on this little table. 2 of them were Belgian imports while the third was from some small brewery in Colorado. All 9-10% alcohol content. They were super good, as was the wine, so much so that we decided to get another bottle. Schneider said it may be one of his favorites. I hope he wrote it down because it wasn't very expensive.
All that eating and drinking and we were ready for some hockey. Dave P and I had 20 bucks on how long the cab would take to get to the stadium. I had under 7 minutes and Dave had the over. 6:05 later we were there. There was a light we coulda missed that woulda made for a sweat butttttt our cabby decided yellow means go. ship it!
The wild game started off far more intense than many and we were finally like YES! there is going to be a fight finally! (I've been to 5 games so far, 0 fights) Nope. Just some scuffling. The game was tight and down to the wire but we just couldn't capitalize on the most power plays I think I've ever seen. Montreal was sick at killing them and ended up winning which was well deserved in my book.
Going drink for drink with Pickett and Dave P is recipe for disaster so by the third period it was time for a round off for beeker. Those boys don't slow down. Schneider had stopped after round 1 or 2 at the game. By the time the game was done I was feeling like a little extended break. We walked to a local bar and Dave and mike went in for a drink and Schneider and I waited outside cause it was super nice out and just pretty chill and talk a little trash with Montreal fans...most of which had came down from Manitoba. They were all real nice and fun to chat with.
Chal was at the game (but not with us) and somehow had gone home after so we swung by his house and then went downtown to meet up with some of the other boys (Frank, Adam, Johny, Justin). We got apps/drinks at the 508 which really hit the spot for me. We hung out there for awhile then hit up the drink and stinky petes or something where nothing notable really happened. By 1am I was ready to just go home and relax so Dave p, chal and I came back here to chill. Chal was giving me grief about being kinda tired, demanding I stay up so I told him I'd promise him an hour. On the way home Dave P slept most of the way so as we're pulling up I'm like ok everyone have their cell phone and wallet (chal has lost like 4 cell phones in cabs). Chal said yep and dave didn't really respond. We got out of the cab and Dave p is like oman my phone must be in the cab. Wtf i just asked if you had it. Haha. It was there and all is well.
One side note I didn't understand is we called a cab from my house initially and Dave p got caught up in traffic on the way here so when I told the cabby to start the meter, our buddy will be here in 10 minutes he said "god dammit" and was all put out. I don't understand? Is it that crappy of a rate that they get to charge for waiting or what's the deal? I thought cabby's live for big fairs and ours was going to be at least 50 or 60 bucks cause we had to swing by Pickett's, too. Of course on the way we missed a turn because we were too busy talking and he was pissed about that too. Who cares dude? The meter is running and it was our fault. We don't give a shit. Must be just an unhappy person. Pickett lost the paper rock scissors for who had to pay and wasn't there for most of the shenanigans so I'm not sure how much he tipped him, but I wouldn't have given him anything which I'm sure would compound his view of the world but, hey that's not my problem...I was pleasant.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
afternoon off
Saturday, October 25, 2008
canterbury tournament
I hate Canterbury. I don't hate too many things, but they seem determined to stick it in your ass and just make you know that it is in fact your privilege to play there and you are not a customer who is paying them. I hadn't been there in six months previous to this tournament and I really doubt I'll be there in the next year until the next one. That said, there are quite a few people who work there whom I like and it sucks that the only place I see them is there.
On one of the dinner breaks I was 2nd to act (utg+1) and I looked down at 92o so I stood up and started walking towards the buffet. Somebody started hollering my name. I looked back and it's the floor and he's irate that I 'folded out of turn'. Yes, i suppose very technically I did, but it's not like this was even a remotely critical spot of the tournament and surely not worth hollering at me for. I said sorry and kept walking away. Everyone does this. It's not like I'm some out of norm out of line renegade.
The tournament sheet said play was going to be until 27 players or midnight, whichever came first. From the get go that seems OK. They pay 27 ($1270 which is a huge 190 dollar profit from the buyin) and playing longer than 12 hours is kinda long. Ok. But when you have a really stupid structure and it's 9:30 and people are literally getting knocked out every 2-3 minutes it doesn't make sense to make everyone quit and come back the next day. Most people have jobs and other things they need to be doing. It sucks to have to come back and bust out and 'break even' especially if you had to drive a long way. They were going to prolong it but there were a couple 'strongly voiced' players who insisted they stick to it so they did. 80% of the players wanted to keep playing. From a direct business perspective I don't totally blame them, it made a ton of people have to come back the next day who otherwise wouldn't have and they probably spent some money. But from a rational standpoint it's totally brutal. It didn't help that after they decided we were done they collected our ID's and made us sit there idly for 25 minutes. Take our ID's, let us play until you are done with that shenanigans and then send us home. That would make more sense at least.
33 minutes into playing today we had gone from 27 to 18. After about an hour and a half we were down to 9.
I went into the final table 2nd in chips. The only player who covered me was some young kid who 'looks sorta like eminem'. He definitely looked out of his element and was right to my left. A few hands in I raised to T37000 with with AQdd T5000/10000 and T2000 ante. I had been raising smaller but this spot seemed right. I had about 400k chips and he had perhaps 700k and the avg stack was ~220k. He called and everyone else folded.
The flop came AhQsTh and I led for T60,000 and he instantly sat back in his chair like damn. Then he said "raise, one hundred twenty thousand." I immediately hated my hand. I was pretty sure I was folding. Nobody who knows me would ever call me a folder, but jeez, I'm not a bonehead either and this goofball is telling me he flopped a straight or three tens. Or he could have AT, QT, or a flushdraw right???? I went into the tank for like 30 seconds. Some asshole older guy who couldn't stop needling Blake the day before called the clock on me. Ok fine. I hadn't said a word after he raised because I didn't want to give away my hand. Well, now I had to figure out what was going on so I did my standard talking. Asking him what he had, running through different hands etc and he was just staring down at the felt. Good move by him for sure. Then I asked him if he had king jack and he looked up and looked me in the eyes. That was the decided moment in my mind. Most players fitting his description will not all of a sudden look at you if you call their hand out. They'll be like OMGOMGOMG don't make a move, he'll know you have it. Sold. I said all in and he SNAP-called. hmmm. I showed AQ and he showed KJ and byebye beeker. All that good playing and making good reads to blow one and go out to the only guy who can break me. So frustrating. There were a handful of pretty short stacks so I coulda folded and still had an above average stack and easily gotten some decent money. I've lost many 'huge' pots in cash games without blinking at all and for some reason this just hurt really bad. I was in the worst mood I've been in in years. I don't know what my problem was, but I was super crabby.
As I'm walking out of the tournament area I ran into Pickett, troy, frank and another buddy who had just came down to sweat. They didn't even get to see one hand. After cashing in my chips and getting a beer I'm sitting down kinda stewing a little bit at an open table when a dealer walks by and spills my beer everywhere including partially on me. Haha. My initial thought was oman...when it rains it poors, but given how ridiculous the timing was it actually made me in a better mood. It's like the world is testing me. Oh yeah, life is good.
So we get to the wild game and the guys want food and I have to use the restroom so I go find one. I walk down to our seats and take a seat. The boys are sitting in seats 5-7 and I sat in seat 4. There is a ~45 year old couple in seats 2 and 3 and the guy kinda snaps "you have a ticket for that seat?" I'm like what? Yeah? He says ummm actually you don't. Then I realized the boys didn't scoot all the way in. We have 5-8 and I'm in 4. It's the 2nd game of the season. Sorry, I'm off by one seat. Ok. "well if whoever has that seat comes you're going to have to move" "ok fine yeah I will don't sweat it" and I thought it was over there. I got back to the game. Then like 30 seconds later his lady friend turns to me and says really bitchily "no really, if somebody comes you're going to have to move, that's not your seat." I thought for sure she had to be joking cause it was just like mega-bitch tone so I asked her and no, was serious, wrong seat dude. Pickett turns to me and says "wow, wrong day lady." I told her that "I having the worst day ever and to please just stop pushing my buttons and leave me the fuck alone, if somebody wants to sit here I'll move." She mocks "ouhhh what are you going to do, go postal on us???" I don't think I've ever went off on somebody I didn't know or said fuck to a random person but this lady was out of this world. I mean wow. I switched seats with Pickett and ignored them the rest of the time and that was that. I climbed over like 3 rows of seats the other time I came back to avoid them and the wild scored a couple goals and I quickly forgot about all that bologna. Some people though, man.
Monday, October 20, 2008
one of those days
But...it's all worth it. It's just one of those days where the fish don't leave or go bust and I'm crushing so my image is good. As a good professional - when those two come together I just don't get to quit no matter how 'sick of sitting at this stupid freaking computer' I am. Days like today make the non-poker days just that much sweeter and make me feel better about a splurge here and there.
I think I'm just extra satisfied because after my 1k/2k shot I lost five or six hundred bets and today brings me out of that hole. Money wise I'm still in it but it's not about that. That will come in due time. I have the bets and a good chunk of my confidence back.
For those of you who are playing the fall classic main event...good luck and hopefully see you at the final table...
Wow, just as I was going to post this (which is now 8 hours instead of 7) one of the big dumbdumbs quit and that's gonna be good enough for me to just call it a night. Yay. Good night.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
oopps, it's been 6 weeks
Soon enough I'll write-up about barcelona because I think it's pretty interesting considering it was my first time to Europe.
The poker side of things has been pretty interesting. August was my biggest month ever and by mid sept I was having a top notch september too...so I pressed while in barcelona. I found a couple good $1000/2000 spots (where I had 400/800 once and 500/1000 the other time) and went with it with my friends having the other half of the action. The first night got out to a bad start but I recovered vs benyamine HU and only lost a little. The 2nd night I played just benyamine and man do I feel like I have a big edge on him. He folds sooo sooo much. We were going back and forth and he was starting to run hot when this hand happened and it was downhill from here:
Full Tilt Poker Game #8043391767: Table Vina (heads up) - $1000/$2000 - Limit Hold'em - 14:41:57 ET - 2008/09/12
Seat 1: uglystyles ($61,474.50)
Seat 2: David Benyamine ($64,463)
David Benyamine posts the small blind of $500
uglystyles posts the big blind of $1,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to uglystyles [8h 8d]
David Benyamine raises to $2,000
uglystyles has 15 seconds left to act
uglystyles raises to $3,000
David Benyamine calls $1,000
*** FLOP *** [9h 8s Ks]
uglystyles bets $1,000
David Benyamine calls $1,000
*** TURN *** [9h 8s Ks] [5s]
uglystyles bets $2,000
David Benyamine raises to $4,000
uglystyles raises to $6,000
David Benyamine calls $2,000
*** RIVER *** [9h 8s Ks 5s] [7s]
uglystyles bets $2,000
David Benyamine calls $2,000
*** SHOW DOWN ***
uglystyles shows [8h 8d] three of a kind, Eights
David Benyamine shows [Jc 9s] a flush, King high
David Benyamine wins the pot ($23,999.50) with a flush, King high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $24,000 | Rake $0.50
Board: [9h 8s Ks 5s 7s]
Seat 1: uglystyles (big blind) showed [8h 8d] and lost with three of a kind, Eights
Seat 2: David Benyamine (small blind) showed [Jc 9s] and won ($23,999.50) with a flush, King high
I played a little bit longer but he kept me down and after a bi it just felt like he had all of the momentum so I quit and haven't played it since. I played some 500/1000 but ran bad there too as well as at the lower games. I started playing lower to get my confidence back and I ran really bad. I lost like 600 bets average of like 30/60 probably. I've since won over half that back since and I'm going to keep playing tons of $15/30 until I get them back before I get back at it too much. I've just really been game selecting for 100/200 and 200/400 and pretty much just grinding. It's been relaxing to say the least. I ended up losing a little in september which was my first losing month in quite awhile I think. I was definitely due. I'm down a touch here in october but it's not stressin me. I know how the game works and I'm in such a good mental state with it these days that I don't even think about getting to the positive as much of a goal. I just want to play well and find good games.
I started really looking at houses but I only want one on a lake and I'm pretty particular about things so that leads to high prices and not much selection and with everything in the economy and the fact I'm gone so much anyhow has made me rethink it. I'll probably just see how the winter goes and there's a reasonable chance go with it in the spring. A couple buddies want to get a condo in Vail and it's tempting me. They would be using it as their primary residence....but I really want to still live in MN so if I did it i'd probably live at both. I love it here...the seasons, the people(friends/family and just people in general are cool), twins, wild (which pickett, schneider, dave P, and I got season tix to for the first time this year). The home opener was quite the fun time.
In the past few years I haven't been at home for a month straight ever. Travelling is very fun and I'm very lucky and blessed, but this past month it's been nice to get into a little rythm here at home. I've been pretty focused on getting a lot of work done (both poker and business related) and workout a lot as the ski season is rapidly approaching. I'm jonesing really bad and can't wait. I suppose I'll take a quick trip out to cali before winter but by the end of november if I haven't really gone anywhere I wont burn myself out as bad by being gone a lot. For now I'm just going to keep enjoying fall in Minnesota.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
My story part 3
I remember the next part vividly - It was just over a year ago. I was on a plane to Vegas with Schneider for the 2007 wsop. I was miserable poker wise. I was down to 10k online. I recorded a couple sessions the day before to have him watch them. He watched and I started asking the most basic of all questions, like ok so say you flop 2nd or 3rd pair and the big blind check calls, what are your thoughts about betting the turn versus checking and calling a river bet. I had so little confidence. I only had played 2 tables during these sessions so I could 'focus' more and he said he thought I was playing pretty well and that I should try playing 1 or 2 tables for a month or two (instead of 4-6) and cut out the IM/phone/internet distractions as much as possible. It had gotten so bad that it seemed like far to often I was wondering "ok so who raised preflop" and that definitely is bad. We all do it from time to time but the frequency was far too high. I realized he was right.
So that's what I did. I cut down the tables. I cut down the distractions. I started finding the weakest opposition at $8/16 HU lhe (1v1 limit holdem). If I felt like they even had 'half a brain' I wouldn't play them. I would just wait another 10 minutes and some guy on tilt would show up and lose like 200 to me and I'd rinse repeat. It was like taking candy from babies at a rate of something around $100/hour which was a pay cut from what I had been used to before, but still really good money and the destruction was good for the confidence and patience good for the psychy. I did that for a few months and started working the higher games back in, except this time at the 1-2 tables at a time. I then found cake which at the time had a bunch of sports betters and they were just gamblers and I had fixed my bad habits so it all came together nicely. I was quickly back playing $50/100 and $100/200 and finished the year really strong. On December 25th I was having one of my best months ever. I gave back like 75k over the next 3 days and given a few personal things plus going on a cruise jan 2 or something it seemed like a good time to start a break. I didn't start 2008 for poker until like Jan 13th. I'm not really one for big long breaks, but this seemed appropriate.
This year hasn't been all that interesting but it's been really good. It really hasn't been all that swingy. The one thing I'd say about 2008 is quality hours. I've cut back to something like 25 hours per week (and more and more 15-20 hour weeks). Basically i cut out the "ehh I really don't feel like playing but I may as well (and the games aren't that great). That's not to say I don't play when I don't want to, I've definitely had more of those sessions this year than other years. I sat down at my computer at 5pm a couple months ago planning on just playing a few hours. Then a new tourney winner joined and seemed determined to give it all back. After about 5 or 6 hours I knew I was in for the duration. 14 hours later I had won 35k and while I was 'pissed' my sleep schedule was screwed it was obviously worth it. I had a similar session in LA in February. It was a high-stakes locals birthday so all the top local players were out with him and I was left in a 6 handed $400/800 game with $15/30 caliber players. This was a day after playing a tournament until 7am (and getting 2nd!) so my sleep schedule was backwards. I started playing at about 5pm and realized at about 4am I wasn't leaving until I couldn't see straight or the game dynamic changed drastically. After 15 hours I was hurting, but I was crushing and I don't have a strong disdain for money so I plugged along. Around noon a few tougher players joined the game and made it more full (7 or 8 handed) and I couldn't see straight so even though it was still a good game, it was time to quit and book another 35k win. I think I was at the table for 19 hours, by far my longest session ever. There is just something innately satisfying with these sessions to me, perhaps because it truly feels like 'hard work' while the other hard work is at least sort of interesting.
One thing I've been wrestling a lot with this year is what games to play. I've spent quite a bit of time playing no limit as well and while I've had good results and it's pretty consistent, it's just not even close to as fun or motivating to play. I've had tons of success/fun at heads up (1v1) lhe but it's not always easy to find somebody who will play me. If I could play just that I would. Running kinda bad at 6max lhe has lowered the appeal for me with that but I still play it. Live poker that isn't short handed has lost pretty much all appeal. At the series this summer I think I played maybe 10 hours total of live poker other than tournaments. The hourly is better online and it's really turned into a snorefest to me to play 9 handed poker. I still love a good short/hu game but those aren't that easy to come by. The whole playing 5-10 hands per hour bores the shit out of me, really. I guess I'm kind of an action junky that way. I can play if the game is big or if it's a social game, but grinding it out is pure misery. So I've pretty much cut it out.
I think one of the toughest things about heads up lhe is pride and that's one of the main things I've focused on. You have to have supreme control on your emotions and your ego or you're just not going to have all that much success. There's just far too much momentum involved and when the other guy has it, it's so much harder to have an edge. Also, there is constant bullshit happening that if it bothers you, it's easy to just start giving money away. Which is basically what I aim for doing to my opponents. The style I play targets this weakness in players. I play hands in a fashion where I get really lucky sometimes and it frustrates them and they don't know how to adapt and just go off. This is why if I'm not making hands and not
getting lucky' I don't play very long versus people. They are in confident mode because 'I've been spewing to them' and I have to suck up my pride and give them the victory and come back another day when the emotional state is different. I haven't tried to get even in months. Forget it. It's not like I was going to spend that money anyway.
I set a lofty goal and a "I'll be satisfied" goal at the beginning of the year and I've crushed the satisfied goal and if I don't run into some real bad variance I should be able to pull off the lofty one! I'm pretty pumped up but at the same time know that mr variance could come along and crush my soul for a number of months again, so I'm not trying to focus too much on it. I just plan stick to my guns and play more good poker while not getting too caught up in it and forget to work hard.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
twins angels
As of 9am that morning I still wasn't positive Schneider was gonna make it and then dave got sick (like strep not hungover sick) so I called dave p and him and hoppmann were at the bar after a long night of poker and had been drinking since like 7am. He wasn't hard to convince to join us so he packed his bag quick and we met up at the stadium.
Every time I go to an outdoor game it just makes me want the twins to hurrrrrry up and finish the stadium!
Friday, August 22, 2008
august
August has been a great month. I started it out up north with my family/extended family at a camp that boarders the boundary waters. Lots of hiking/canoeing/card games/beach/reading/relaxing etc. No TV's/computers/gambling/cell phones except a couple small spots where I could get updates on the twins. It was fantastic.
I came back determined to really get my grind on and I did exactly that. After a few months at about half-pace, I've been playing a good amount again, almost all either 100/200 limit or 5/10 and 10/20 no-limit. Most of the 100/200 limit has been heads up and I've really honed in my game at that. I had my biggest day ever (minus the schneids stake which doesn't count IMO) and my biggest week ever as well. It just feels so good when you put in lots of hard work and it pays dividends down the road. Obviously there is a good amount of luck in the short-term, but I've really put tons into my heads up limit holdem game over the past 2 years and it's showing. I'll talk more about this in my reflection post.
Past that, I've been golfing the amount I had hoped...2ish times per week. I've also kept up on my workout plan (no less than 3 times per week) as well as joined a fall softball team. The twins have been a lot of fun lately too. Now they're on the road so along with Jon's schedule it seemed like a great time to head to San Diego again. We're going to drive up to Anaheim Sunday morning for the angels/twins which should be really fun. We tried to get a tee time next week to Torrey pines (where they played the US open) but it was too late. I'll have to remember way in advanced next time.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Minnie
We've been playing a 30/60 HOE (and one night SOE) game up at running aces a good bit lately(like once a week haha). I think we're going to try to make it like a regular monday game or something. Online I've been really mixing in the NL lately because it's been going so well. Other than that I've been playing a bit more $100/200 cause confidence/online $ is higher again. I've also been mixing in the PLO from time to time to to see if I can really figure that game out. All said and done July was pretty solid especially considering none of my world series fishies cashed and I didn't either.
The twins have been really fun. Went to all of the white sox games and had planned on todays game but when I stepped outside at 2pm I decided it was too nice and bob and I golfed instead. Not a very good round, but it was absolutely gorgeous out so it's all good.
Tomorrow I go up north by ely with my family/extended family for a little annual north woods getaway. It's gonna be fantastic. No poker, no computers, no tv, basically no phone. Nothing but relaxing/games/north woods stuff. I'm really excited!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
world series of poker main event and san diego
The main event was pretty dumb again this year. I played great and had my table image honed in and got a guy to stick KQo in preflop when I had aces but for the second year in a row I didn't win (at least last year I got half the pot when the board flushed and neither of us had the suit). I then got AJ in vs a small stack with 88 on a AJT8 board for most of the rest of my chips, and busted out with a very small stack with A7s vs KK.
It really is incredible how soft of a tourney the main event is and given that it's a little disappointing that none of the players I had pieces of did anything notable. I'm not disappointing in them at all of course, but just how dumb big live tourneys are luck/variance wise. Almost everyone had a sick couple of hands they lost.
After Vegas I headed to San Diego again. I've always wanted to golf when I'm out there and we've always kinda talked about it but never followed through. I decided to buy clubs out there so I'll be more motivated to play when I'm there and hopefully we'll golf enough that it'll cover all the fees of renting clubs and playing with rentals kinda sucks anyhow. I've never had nice clubs before and man did I find some I really liked by more or less getting lucky at the store I think. I'm not the hugest fan of the 3wood/fairway wood I got but the iron set (mizuno rx-25's) are awesome. I wasn't planning on it, but now I think I'll have to pick up a set for here in MN, too.
Dave also bought clubs, so we golfed 3 days in a row. I shot my best round ever -an 81 which is kind of bogus cause i had 2 4-putts and a couple others that I really felt should have dropped. I'm gonna play a ton here back in MN and hopefully soon break 80. I think it's time I find a driver I like and work on it. For the past 3 years I've just stuck to a 3 wood cause I can hit it like 230 down the middle most of the time and that's generally good enough cause it keeps me out of trouble. Now it's time to take it to the next level.
Changing topics...I've always loved screwing around in the ocean if there are decent waves. It really makes me feel young again getting just owned by them and it's so fun. Maybe I should try to learn to surf sometime.
I better get moving...
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Minnesota
Everyone laments about the winters and that is understandable. The cold can really suck and be miserable, but it can be really fun too if you try...go sledding, play snow football, have a snowball fight, go ice skating, go skiing/snowboarding, go snowmobiling. Also, with poker I've been blessed with the ability to travel a lot so I don't spend long enough here to grow weary of it. Falls and springs aren't too shabby, either.
This past week in MN has been incredible and exactly why I love MN.
Saturday: had a bbq...great food, infinity beer, badminton, yard games, bon fire rock band.
Sunday: golf, work in the evening.
Monday: Wake boarding and water skiing with the boys on pickett's boat. Twins game.
Tuesday: Work and errands during the day, twins game then check out the new Running Aces card room
Wednesday: Go fishing and plan on wake boarding but it was too windy, rats. Stop up at running aces for an hour and go home and just sit in lawn chairs on the patio with Dave P and chill for a couple hours enjoying the evening air.
Thursday: Financial planner meeting, work, golf chipping game at the park, taste of MN, bar roof/patio
Friday (4th): had some guys over for badminton and hanging out then go to twins before lighting off a bunch of fireworks followed by the bar.
A pretty kickass week if you ask me.
Now I have an hour to get ready for vegas...gotta go start winning the main event. I've got pieces of a bunch of guys in it too so hopefully I'll make out one way or another! Wish me luck!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
twins/padres part 2
We went to a bar/patio after the game to get apps/beers b4 jackie (dave's 17 y/o bro) drove me to the airport. I was still buzzin when I got on the plane and and the cute girl next to me asked if she could switch seats with me so she could be across from her girfriends. sure. We small talked for a little bit and she said she was from mn but didn't go to the game...seaworld instead which seemed weird, but who was I to argue. Some people really don't like baseball and I'd been drinking so I didn't really think much about it. I started reading a magazine and she was talking to her friends and about 5 minutes later she turns to me and says "actually I lied to you, I was at the game, I'm boof bonser's fiance." HA! I got pwned. The other 2 girls were Justin Morneau's fiance and Brian Buscher's wife! They were really pleasant and holy cow does morneau's fiance have quite the engagement ring.
Some pictures:
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Twins/padres
We went to the twins/padres game last night and sat up with the people in the 2nd to the top row in the upper deck behind home plate. At one point this dude started a chant that at least a 3rd of the section was chanting "sit down faggots" when we were cheering. It was a little bit awkward as I'm almost positive 2 dudes in our row were gay, but meh, what are we going to do. I'm sure there were others, but those 2 were the obvious ones. He also got the mascot to come up and steal billy's hat and wiped it on his crotch would be and farted on all of us. Definitely well played.
It was actually kind of a meh game baseball wise because there was no scoring from the bottom of the 1 until the 8th. The beauty of outdoor baseball though is it didn't matter. It was like 70 and calm. Fantastic. After we went back to pacific beach and out to a bar to meet up with billy's gf. I love having a jersey on of the opposing team after a victory.
Today...after the standard beach trip we're having a bbq and then round 2 of the twins. Hopefully another victory so we can bring out the brooms tomorrow when we sit front row behind the twins dugout.
I really think anything Jay touches is lucky. Last time I was out here when I played on his computer I crushed and it's been nothing different this trip. I've probably been playing 90% 50/100 and 10% 100/200. No no-limit and no plo. I'll get back to plo when I start running bad at lhe.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Vegas round 2
My first table was actually pretty soft...I'd compare it to a 100/200 live game. Definitely a sweet table pickup. I ran really bad and after like 6 hours our table broke and I moved with something like 12k chips when we started with 20k. I get to the next table which was the sickest table I've ever been at:
1 Andrew Prock (writer of pokerstove)
2 Tuan Lee
3 Howard Lederer
4 me (bicyclekick)
5 David Oppenheim
6 Chris (death donkey)
7 Marco Johnson (crazy marco)
8 daniel Negrauneu
9 daniel Alahi
I didn't ever flop anything and the two times I actually had hands I got beat. Luckily I busted out 20 minutes before the end of the day so I didn't have to come back the next day with just a few chips. At least I lasted longer than schneider and hoppmann. Haha.
The last night crazy mike decided he wanted to play a $4/8 mixed game at the venetian. The mix would be homo (holdem, omaha high, mikes crazy pineapple 8 or better, and omaha 8 or better. It was actually quite the line-up.
1 A2TRM
2 dr_olson
3 jessie (mn guy)
4 KPR
5 Crazy mike
6 me
7 hoppmann
8 schneids
9 dave p
Most people bought in for 5 racks while crazy mike knew better and bought in for 10...I think everyone but 2 people had to rebuy. Crazy mike played literally 100% of the hands, and before action would get to him he'd put out 20 and if anyone else wanted to could announce 20 and it was auto-20. Every once in awhile people would limp or only want to play for like 3 bets and he'd flip out. It was quite fun and ridiculous...most pots were 3 racks or more. Schneids, hoppmann and kpr decided to go a little over the top on messages. Schneider spent 550, hoppmann like 350 and kpr like 350. Goofballs...go to a spa. It was so much better than doing something similar at canterbury...because everything goes. If you get a card dealt face up...tough deal with it. If you arrive to a hand late you can have 4 cards off the top of the deck, etc. Just no bs rules.
I feel like it's been forever since I've been to a twins game...I guess it's probably been 2-3 weeks but now that I'm home and the twins are home I'll probably go to a couple. I'm really pumped for next week...going to san diego on monday to visit the boys and see the twins/padres!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
San diego / Vegas trip report
San Diego highlights: padres game, riding bikes on the beach, our house combined winning 100k in a day (i was the smallest slice of those who played...GO FRIENDS!), watching the season finale of lost with like 10 people.
In vegas I played the $1500 NL tourney and played my best tourney poker in awhile and almost cashed but didn't quite. I also played the $5k mixed holdem event and felt like I played well again, but was ridiculously card dead late and couldn't get anything going.
I played about 4 hours total of cash games. 9 handed live holdem to me is just pure boredom these days. I did get to play some live plo and just because it's so different I enjoyed it.
I played a $10k freezeout with crazymike and won. He beat me the last time we played live, so it was nice to get some redemption.
Everything above is overshadowed by the fact that a buddy of mine Ducci won the $1k rebuy tourney for 650k and a WSOP bracelet. He had a super tough final table and worked it over really well. We had quite the cheering section and it was super fun to just be a part of watching him win. The celebration the next day was quite the blast too, dinner at michael mina's at the bellagio then table service at tryst. Congrats ducci, you earned it buddy!
As we were leaving the poker room the night ducci won the tourney, another friend of mine tony rivera (more commonly known as togni)was getting deep in the $10k mixed event and ended up scooping it for 483k. Since this tourney involved 8 different games it was thought of as one of the toughest tourney's of the wsop. Nice work togni!
When I got home last night another friend of mine told me his friend Rep (and my acquaintance/friend...we've played a lot in the past 3 years but haven't hung out outside of poker minus maybe a dinner) won the $1500 6 handed NL tourney for $383k. The 6 handed part makes it a much more skilled victory in my opinion because it really forces you to get involved in pots instead of waiting for good hands. Congrats rep!
On the plane ride back I got really into the book 4 hour work week. I bet I'll finish it up in the next few days. I'll save my full recommendation until I'm finished, but so far I think pretty much everyone should at least check it out.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Off to San Diego and Vegas
Pickett and I are heading out there to visit the boys for a few days before heading to vegas for the beginning of the world series. I just looked at the sd weather and not that it's going to be bad, but oddly it's going to be about 7 degrees colder than MN every day. Haha. I think we're going to catch a padres game or two and with so many good poker players in one house teach each other a few things.
On saturday we fly to vegas. A number of people will be meeting up with us there...hoppman, dave p, schneids, kirby, and since it's series time I'm sure a number of other people. I have to book the hotel today, but I think we're staying at the Rio as we are all pretty sick of the bellagio. Contrary to other years, I really don't see my self playing that much for cash games at the B, but instead some tournaments and just enjoying vegas...more pool time, maybe some golf, less grinding. Maybe a few combo online sessions (1 person playing with 1-2 people watching/discussing) with all these great minds as those were really awesome last year. As always, I'm sure we'll grab a few shows as well as I usually love em.
As far as poker lately, I took about a 2 week serious LHE break as I was just feeling off and like I was running bad and I didn't want to slip into something bad and be tilted/off for the series. So I took to learning PLO. Hard game. I am making some good progress, but I've played 6k hands and am down 2700. Most of that is from a couple 5/10 sessions, but most of the hands are at 2/4 where i'm up $192!!!! I think with another 6k hands I can make another leap. An old friend of mine told me it would take 20k hands to learn how to not get it in with the 2nd nuts and 100k hands to figure out the flow and when and how to play different draws. Guess I've got a few more years to figure the game out.
A guy who doesn't play cake, but for some reason stalks the games messaged me yesterday about a guy sitting $100/200 who he'd never seen who seemed brutal. I was feeling kinda pumped up from my music and I can handle losing cake money if the guy beat me, so I sat. He ran like god right away and got up like 6k quick, but was playing bad. I think the 2 weeks off improved my mental state, as I was focused and not frustrated. I battled back a little while still running kinda bad when my foot hit the power button on my UPS (the battery backup for my computer) which turned everything off. Ugh. My computer was being dumb so it took at lesast 10 minutes to get back to the seat and the guy was gone. Rats. I still was sitting there and about ready to do other things when that same friend asked me why i wasn't playing him again. I hadn't noticed he had sat. SWEET. i'm in. Bizot was on his way over to play badminton with chal and I, but that would have to wait.
By this time Jay had noticed the guy and since another player sat at one point, hopped in. As friends, unless a 3rd person sits, or the other doesn't want to play the guy heads up, lets the guy who had the fish first play him out of courtesy. I was running kinda bad and was down 10k by the time bizot got here. The fish joined a 2nd table I was sitting at and then I went on the biggest heater in the last year as far as I can remember. I went from down 10 to up 20 in about 20 minutes. I either had it pre, flopped it, or turned/rivered it every single hand. The fish kept reloading and jay was getting pretty sick of my bs and apparently owes me a nice beer over the head when we get there. We played another hour or two where jay got most of the money and eventually sent the fish to busto land. I had got back down to up 12k at one point but finished on a nice note at +21k and brought me back to the black on the month. This was a nice surprise as I had given up on may and just wrote off the fact that I'd lose 20k two weeks ago. I guess I still could in SD, but I bet I wont.
Luckily we made quick time of busting the fish as we still had enough light for badminton! Jon had got some new birdies which made a world of a difference over the stupid ones that came with the set that we tried to use on Saturday. Now we can actually have a reasonable game.
I better finish packing...
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
I'm not dead
As far as what I've been up to...
*a good number of twins games
*softball
*golf - only twice so far this season... I need to learn how to hit out of the sand again, I seem to have forgotten. The weaher hasn't been exactly great yet.
*poker - up and down and up and down. Still going well but pretty swingy.
*hanging out with jon because he finally got a new job that doesn't kill him hours wise
I got new tires for my car (acura tl) cause one of my old ones got a hole and so far they seem so much better. Jon knows tires so he helped me pick them out and I'm pumped for the winter for not having tires that blow (these got way higher winter ratings). So hopefully this winter you wont hear any "yeah but my car sucks in the snow" excuses from me.
I have to finish setting usemywallet up but it appears that it now works great for getting money off cake (previously not possible for 2 months) which relieves some stress as I have a significant chunk on there. So that'll be nice to get to a safe place. I still have a healthy amount on a small site that is having cash flow problems since epassporte went away and held onto some of their money. It really is funny the stuff we as poker players put up with to be able to play online. Having money just floating out there not being able to access it or 100% trust the people who are holding onto it almost seems really stupid. I guess we are gamblers. That said, I no longer will play on absolute or UB because I don't trust them.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
sick, cod 4, H&R
Kels was in town for work and her dad had to trade cars with her so we went to dinner tonight, which was nice to finally get out of the house. When i was driving home I was feeling a good chunk better and wanted to do stuff so when I got home I went on the eliptical for a half hour. I'm still plugged and what not but I don't feel like death at least. I can handle plugged.
I think i'm gonna goto the golf range tomorrow. Bout time for that season to start.
Friday, April 18, 2008
yuck
which led to this:
I've always wanted to goto a micro game and just be dumb and ram and jam. Usually I'm too nitty, but today I didn't care. Buy-in for a dollar, go all-in, the software auto-rebuys for a dollar if you lose, rinse repeat. It really is interesting what it does to the table. I really wanted to get a 20 dollar stack but the highest i could get was 18.
Off to the twins game now.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Denver report
Oh there was one funny/hostile happening. The day before the 2nd game when we were walking down the street/mall area to catch the bus thingy when some 25ish year old hippy looking girl just started yelling "fuck you" at us incessantly and loudly. That's all she would say. Maybe it was "fuck you wild fans or something" but anyhow, we keep walking and get on the bus and her and her friend had kinda followed us so she's still yelling at us when we get on the bus and this young dude who is sitting on the bus is like "I know those two girls they're awesome." Billy said something to the guy about how much he thought they sucked and in true denver form the guy responded "Yeah I like her but could see why you guys think she sucks." Billy said a few more things but the guy just sat there like meh I'm just happy to be here who cares what you say.
The 2nd game was definitely the worst hockey game i've ever been to. There was essentially nothing to cheer for other than the occasional power play kill or potential fight brewing. By the time we scored and made it 5-1 it was over and we couldn't even stand up to cheer. We gave it til perhaps 6 minutes left in the 3rd just to make sure not to miss anything epic, but dipped out a little early to avoid leaving with the masses.
I haven't seen it yet, but I've been told by a number of people that we were on TV. I'm curious to see it so I'll have to buy the NHL tv thing again when it gets archived. I bought it today but the game isn't there yet. Rats.
With the twins starting, the ski trip, taxes, exciting end to the wild season, and now the post-season, I've really been working less than ever and it's exactly what I need. Anyone who knows me knows I work a little too much and don't really take enough time off/away from poker. That isn't to say I haven't been playing, I have...but maybe closer to 10-15 hours/week the last few weeks as opposed to 40+. It's been going well, too. I got an elliptical and have been using it too. I really think with that and the nicer weather, it'll be inexcusable to not be in good shape.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Off to colorado for the wild/avalanche
So we leave tomorrow (monday)afternoon and come back wednesday evening. Just a super quick jaunt out there but it's gonna be great. Thursday is another home game and since Kels couldn't make it down because of the blizzard on friday (3rd one up there in 15 years go figure) will be coming down to watch it. Man playoff hockey is fun. I was talking to a buddy earlier and we were discussing how ridiculous it was that we didn't really pay much attention to hockey until the last few years and how awesome of a sport it is.
I should go try to grab some sleep...
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Helicopter skiing in utah
Skip the next 3 paragraphs if you just want the gist and see some pictures of our helicopter skiing adventure.
Dave P and I have been wanting to take a late season trip out, so I've been following the weather for the last 3 weeks or so, and nothing has cought our eye. It looked like there was going to be a storm sunday so we were going to follow it closely. I got back from canterbury saturday night at about 1am and looked at the weather and they weren't overly excited about the storm (the national weather service) so I talked to dave and dissapointingly told him it wasn't looking good, but we'd re-eval in the morning. I woke up and nothing had happened. I felt oddly tilted at limit holdem (it's been going well lately), so I decided to play some tourneys. I played them on my laptop which didn't have my weather bookmars, so with all the comotion of playing tournaments with a couple friends over I forgot to check the weather until 630pm. I looked, it had dumped and was dumping. I called dave and he was at his parents and hour out of the cities and the flight was going to be at 930. Hmmmmm. If we absolutely would have crunch timed it, we could have made it. Even though I'd thought of going, I wasn't remotely ready. I hadn't even showered for the day. We decided that getting in at 4am and trying to get up to ski at 7 would just be too much and we'd get to sleep earliesh and wake up and re-evaluate.
I woke up at about 11 and our dream was coming true. It had snowed like 14 inches so I called dave and said hey buddy, we're going. 745 flight. Quick layover in denver and We'll get in about midnight and it'll be sweet. He was in. I looked a little more in depth into the weather and it had now snowed about 18" but had stopped and was going to be nice and calm until tuesday night. My brain started churning. At the beginning of this season I told myself I was going to go helicopter skiing and it's april and I hadn't so I thought I'd call the outfit out here on the offchance they have an opening. It is april after all. 6 seats left. OMGOMGOMG I called dave and he told me he'd think about it and call me back in a few minutes. He called back and we decided we only live once. Lets do it. I called the powder-bird back and we were booked!
We fell asleep at about 130 or 2 and had our alarms set for 7. It was suprisingly easy to get up even though we were tired...the excitement had pretty much taken over.
We got picked up at 7:50 and had breakfast along with the orientation. They give you an avalanche beacon (used to find you if you're buried). There were 22 other people there, broken up into 4 people per guide, 8 people per group. They fit 4 people + the guide in the helicopter per ride then they go get the other 5 people and then you ski together.
You get dropped off on a tiny ridge, sometimes a rocky tiny ridge, that if you were foolish or not careful you could definitely fall a longggg way and hurt yourself/kill yourself. You pop your skis on and the guide ski cuts the run to make any snow that's going to avalanche, slide and then sets a left most or right most line and you take turns going every minute or so to make it so only one skier is exposed at a time so if something does happen, it's only to 1 person.
The snow on most of the runs was incredible. Somewhere around 20 inches and untouched by anyone. Perfect turns and face shots galore. Almost all of the runs were "the best run i've ever taken" and man was it money well spent (about $1000). All those nights i've stayed up far later than I wanted playing in a game with a guy who's giving it away or just the day to day grind...I finally treated myself to something purely selfish and a little over the top. It is my birthday tomorrow, it's a little birthday present to myself.
Helicopter orientation
Helicopter landing
me
dave
runs from afar
first run from the top
looking up
the tracks from some of our group
another angle
dave ppppp
An oldschool silver mine from the olden days when there was a lot of silver mining in alta.
A look back at snowbird. Our hotel in the middle
From the ridge, alta in the distance.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
twins tickets for this weekend
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
hockey and baseballs
Tonight was the home opener for the twins and our season tickets were a good chunk better than i anticipated. They are 'row 21' but the rows start at like 7 or something and there are 32 rows, so half way up is definitely awesome. We are right on the line for the net so if you're not paying attention could definitely catch a ball off the ol face. Paying attention ftw.
I watch most twins games and really get into it, but so far with the snow and what not I'm just not quite in baseball mode. I bet by the end of the week I will be though. Our team is just so much different...it's almost as if I'm cheering on a whole new team. It was cool to see hunter there tonight and while there were a few boos there was some definite respect sent his way with a pretty classy standing O and what not. I did enjoy seeing joe nathon pwn him!
As far as poker...march has been quite the goofy month. I lost a bunch at the beginning but made a sweet bounce back. I'm very content with how things ended up and am looking forward to a great april.
Friday, March 21, 2008
snowboarding and poker
As far as poker, I've been mostly playing 30/60 and 5/10 NL but the 100/200 I have played I've actually done ok the last little bit. I played a 14 hour session yesterday which was capped off by a 10/20 nl game I wasn't leaving until 3 of the players lost their money or the game broke. At one point 1 guy had 12k, another with 11, another with 7, me with 9 and a random guy with like 2. None of them had a prayer. It lasted quite a while and I ended up winning maybe 7k in it which could have easily been 20 if I wouldn't ahve gotten 3 outted and 2 outted on the river in huge pots.
I made my third card runners video today...2 tabling 30/60. It was a decentish video imo, I hope you all like it.
Getting together with some folks to watch some college hoops tonight...gotta love march madness. I picked Kansas to win it all. gogoogogogo
Sunday, March 16, 2008
wow I'm bad at updating
I've been going to canterbury a good amount lately(4 times in 2 weeks) and every session has been the same. I get up about a rack and then I end up leaving down a small amount. I did win 175 the day I couldn't get into the 30/60 game and ended up playing 8/16 all night, but the 30/60 sessions have been weird. Usually it's like lose 3 racks one day win 2 the next or something, not this small win/lose cycle. I've been very good at sweet second bests.
2 sessions ago there were 5 times on the river where I bet my hand and if the villain just called me there was no way my hand wasn't good. but each time they called and I lost. They weren't slowrolling me, but it almost felt like it. Then again they saved me 300. I'd have like K8 on the K95K7 board and they'd have KJ and never put a raise in.
I've been feeling really solid about my LHE game these days. I'm back into my old aggressive ways and I feel like it fits the way my brain works so much better. Hands just make so much more sense to me when I do it this way vs the fancier/less reckless ways.
I've been playing a touch of no-limit on the side and except for a disaster 25/50 session where I lost set under set in the first 2 minutes then bluffed off another stack where I had no intentions of playing that game then next thing I know I'm stuck 10 and had to quit so I didn't go off. I haven't been so mad at myself for a bad play in a longggggggg time. It was a very very gross hand. Lesson learned I guess.
I've been wanting to ski really badly but things aren't quite lining up for that. Hopefully can get out in a week or so real quick. We'll see.
I'm off now to Duluth to spend a few days with Kelsey and I think her mom, sister and brother are gonna spend a day or 2 up there too cause it's their spring break. We're all gonna try to snowboard (I've done it once, Kelsey not in 4 years, and her siblings never b4) It's gonna be a blast and a disaster at the same time. Wish us luck.
I have a cardrunners video due friday that I haven't made yet and haven't decided what to make it on. If anyone has any input I'd definitely take it into consideration. Lemme know in the comments or something.
Monday, March 3, 2008
some good luck
I talked to a representative a few months ago about what it would take to get really good seats at the new stadium. He said that all of the seats behind home plate + diamond view were already taken for this year and we could get some lower level seats down the line somewhere and that would be the best bet. This wasn't overly appealing so I kinda put it on the back burner. I called again a couple days ago and he said the next day was the last day to renew your previous year seats and although he wasn't going to have anything great he'd have better seats in a few days and would get ahold of me with what he'd have. He called me the next day to confirm what I wanted...I told him the best 4 seats you can do. He said ok he'd do some checking and get back to me.
15 minutes later he called and said a 4some canceled their behind home plate seats with him and since he knew I was serious about wanting them he called me first. Yoink. 21 rows (about 2/3rds) up right behind the plate. Sick luck. Schneider and I chopped it and I'll probably only go to like 20 or 30 games and just sell the rest. Scalping is now legal and especially for premium games (red sox/yankees etc) these could sell for 3x easy. Other games no problem getting at least face value for if not a good bit more...so it's actually a decent money thing too. It would be sweet to break even and still make it to quite a few games.
Having these also assures we'll get good seats when the new stadium comes out, which like I said was the main priority. I can't wait. Bring on baseball!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Ski trip report
Sunday's skiing was just a normal old day of skiing and nothing worth talking about. We were sleeping by 10pm sunday night as it had started snowing and monday was looking to be really good early. I was up naturally monday by 5:45am and we were in the lift line by 8:30 (the lifts open at 9). It had snowed about 15" and We got the 2nd tram and were able to make some awesome first tracks on some great runs. The runs were the type of runs you pray and pray for. Sick powder and my new skis handle it wayyyy better than my old ones. By like 1pm everything had been tracked out/was bumpy and our legs were giving in due to the high water content snow so we decided to call it an afternoon.
It was supposed to snow another 6" or so after the lifts shut down monday turning to partly cloudy for tuesday so we were hoping it was going to be a good day. We woke up early again on tuesday but the snow report only reported 4" new so we were a little heasatant to get up, but convinced ourselves after a couple of minutes. Little did we know how huge of a mistake not getting up early would have been. We opened the drapes and it was a complete bluebird day. Not a cloud in site. We made it out a little later than the previous day...845 or so but still were able to grab the 3rd tram which didn't matter as we found a couple of perfect virgin snow lines. It was "only" 6 or so inches, but it was super buttery on top of a soft snow base. If the day would have ended there, I would have said it was the best run of the trip. Little did we know what was in store.
We grabbed another 2 sweet powder runs and were riding up the lift when we noticed a 10 or so person pile-up at the closed gate of an area that hadn't opened in 3 days...road to provo. As we were getting off the lift it surely seemed like it was going to open so we went over to it. Literally as soon as dave strapped into his board they dropped the rope and the race was on. As we rushed to get moving we agreed to just meet at the bottom and gogoogogo and not wait up as runs like this don't happen very often. The 20 inches from the previous 2 days hadn't been touched. It was a perfect run in the making: bluebird, 2 feet of snow, a decently long run with a nice pitch to boot. It was by far the best run I've had in years. I had fresh tracks from top to bottom. I guess I did cross one other persons tracks once when I had to exit a chute. Finally. I've been dreaming of runs like that forever and have been having horrible luck. Now I ran good on being at the top for the drop. We did a few more laps before it got pretty tracked and then I took a couple laps on a farther out line that required a little bit of sidestep/hiking up. These runs were all very unreal and better than anything I've had in probably 3 years, but still nothing compaired to that first run. Smiles from ear to ear. Everyone in the liftline kept saying how epic it was. It was sick. On our last run of the day we stopped mid-bowl and just hung out and took it all in for like 10 minutes. Just sitting in the middle of nowhere in the mountains and all this snow and perfect sun is sooo beautiful and peaceful.
Dave hadn't snowboarded in like 5 years and is now officially hooked again. It would be hard not to be after this trip. Simply amazing.
A couple vids:
Friday, February 22, 2008
frustrating sleep and off to utah
The past week has been ridiculously frustrating trying to get sleep. My body was just sooooooooo messed up from LA that it just couldn't sleep for more than 4-5 hours per night. The last few nights have gone like this:
5am-9am
2am-6am
8pm-130am
10pm-6am but toss and turn most of the night not sleeping
I'm so worn out and I hope I can get a good nights sleep tonight before heading to Utah with Dave P tomorrow for some skiing. There's a sick storm coming in that could drop 2 feet of snow. It could be super nasty though with winds gusting to 90mph. Wish us luck with the snow!
As far as poker goes I've just been playing LHE since LA and it's been goin well, minus busting my AP account playing mark seif 200/400. I'm not sure if I'll play there again...it all just seems to sketchy. Losing to him makes me down dollars but up bets and I'm feeling pretty good about everything these days so I'm content.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
2nd in tourney
I wasn't able to wire money out before coming out so I didn't have a ton of money and was starting to really feel short which I think makes me play worse so before the tourney I took a cab to Wells fargo to get a cashiers check. Good thing I wasted time and energy with that.
The $400/800 games have been sick good the last few days. I broke evenish the first night and picked up a nice win last night, playing one of my longest live sessions ever of 17 hours.
Given that session I don't really feel like playing anything meaningful today and right now I just started watching Jerico on Itunes. I'll probably go down and play some 10/20nl and get some food cause I don't get to play live NL very often and no matter what happens it can't hurt bad. I heard there's another good 400/800 game but I'm not feelin it right now.
I'm going back tomorrow night and get back into MN monday morning. Kels is in town for some training so that'll be nice then I think towards the end of the week Dave P and I are going to Snowbird in utah. Man I'm pumped, the weather is looking great!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Off to LA
I got back from a great weekend in duluth at about 1030pm and worked for a number of hours. I've really been playing more LHE the last few days with like 2 well table selected NL tables on the side.
Winter is just so busy. I don't think I've been in the cities at home for more than 5 days in a row since the beginning of december. I feel like I always get home and then by the time I've taken care of different details that don't get taken care of while I'm gone it's time to go again. I know I know rough life always being gone and traveling but not having very much structure to count on from day to day wears on me I think. I feel like this is why being a poker pro while in college was actually easier. I always had tons of other stuff with specific schedules that basically ran my life with poker thrown in. I didn't realize this until right now. I'm sure a number of people are thinking now...why don't I go back to school and get my masters or something. I bet I will at some point but it wont be the same as living on campus and I'm not quite ready yet.
I was planning on brining my skis to LA and going from there to Colorado to Brad's place but all the weather models are strongly showing warm and sunny which isn't my idea of good ski conditions in February so that trip will have to wait another week or something.
Kelsey got promoted at work today to be the manager of a new department at Best Buy stores -the mobile department! This is great news and should be the stepping stone to being an assistant store manager which is her short term goal. Congrats baby!
I better go finish packing.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
no good title
I tried playing HU nl again and ran super bad and have had about enough of that for a bit as well.
I've been playing sooooooooo much this month. About 40 hours through 6 days. I've just been really focussed and feeling great and I want the success ($) that comes along with putting the hours in. I just don't feel like settling for "decent enough" money this month. I want to crush. Even though I've had many bigger days than how much I'm up so far, EV wise it seems about right and I'll take that all day any day especially considering I feel like I've ran kinda bad.
I got some new skis yesterday and I absolutely can't wait to try them out. They are Line Prophet 100's. I have to get some bindings still but that wont be hard. I think I'm going to LA on monday and I'll be in cali for about a week and then go skiing as the long range forcast is predicting a good pattern for that time. I'm dyingggggg. Whitefish (where I was in montana) got 76" the week we left and the snow reporter guy said it was the best week he's ever had. Argh. Utah also got like 100" and had a phenominal week. I want to cry.
Forever I had a real hard time getting money off cake...and by real hard I mean I couldn't get it off other than about 5k per month but finally now I can get wire transfers from Epassporte so I finally get to 'realize/appreciate' some of the money I've won over the past 6 months. Time for some more investing. There are many things worse...but having 6 figures on a foreign poker site where you can't access your money for a long time sucks real hard.
I have been reading tommy Angelo's book "elements of poker" and realllly liking it. I definitely recommend it and I think all poker players will benefit from reading it.
Kelsey and I celebrated 2 years of dating yesterday...what a great 2 years it's been! She's amazing I love her I love her I love her.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
a funny NL day
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
ski trip, HU nl and broken bumper ftw
Well, the storm was a little slower than anticipated so it looked like sunday was going to be the only sweet fresh powder day but the weatherman was very confident it was going to snow nicely, so this kept spirits high. We were excited to wake up to 8" sunday morning. We quickly got ready and got out only to find the main lift was broken. A lot of resorts have plenty of lifts so if one goes down, it may be a pain to get to where you want to go, but Whitefish isn't like that. Well, they have an old rickety lift that can get you to part of it but that wasn't open either. Given that it was a sunday and it snowed, a lot more people came than normal (probably 4x the other days) and we were all stuck on a couple small lifts with some okish terrain that got tracked out really quickly. It was also kind of sleeting at this point and we were soaked. We went to lunch and afterwards they said they doubted it was going to be fixed so we decided to play the sunday tourneys instead. Ugh.
As we are playing the tournaments it just keeps snowing harder and harder and it's really piling up. Brad kept insisting it was soothing, but I found this very tilting as I felt screwed out of good snow and I wasn't going to be able to ski it as we were leaving the next morning. When we got back from dinner a fresh foot or so was on the driveway. :(
I read the snow report this morning to find 18" new and a mid-morning update said that this was the best skiing he'd ever had on the mountain. ugh ugh ugh. Days like that are the ones I dream of and keep my head up in low times. When I say I live for days like that I pretty much mean it. Not a whole lot compares. This is life though, there will be enough in the future, it just sucks to miss one by 'that much' especially after such a bad day the day before and a week of mediocre skiing.
We looked into staying but since brad lives in vail and they were going to get snow it didn't make sense to extend given it would have cost a bunch for him to change his flight because he fly's into eagle airport in vail. I thought about switching my flight and joining him but I had made plans to visit kels and it makes more sense to just go there and watch the weather and go next week if it's good.
Brad and I decided to chop action and make a huge effort to learn heads up (1 on 1) no limit. We played a combined 25k hands at mostly $2/4 ($400 buyin) during the week and ended up down 4 buyins but running 13 buyins under all-in expectation. In other words if you took the luck out of it and split the all-ins by how much equity each player had in the results of the hand we would have had 15 buyins more of money. So while in reality we lost money, we played well enough to win 12 buyins. This includes some 'dumb' plays we made because we were learning or tilted from all of the sick beats. We played a lot of sessions with one person controlling the mouse with the other sweating/giving opinions.
While we are competent, we still have tons of room to improve but we've made leaps and bounds in the learning process and it was a really good experience. If a few hands went a different way I really think we would have done a bunch better because I find it really frustrating as far as the learning process goes when you get a ton of negative reinforcement from good play especially when it's vs the same donkey over and over and he has quite a few stacks of your money on the table. (basically we tilted a little :( )
By the end I'd had enough and felt like winning again so I pulled up some 6 max for the last 2 days and crushed while even running terrible (5 buy-ins under expectation). I'm giving serious thought to just playing 6max nl for the entire month of february just for some total peace of mind. It seems like if I put 2-3k hands in every day, there really isn't a whole lot of frustration. Sure you lose a handful of buyins some days, but the edge is just so much greater and it's not all to the same guy and it's not in the tilting ways of high stakes limit holdem. It really seems like so many more days are the very grindy win a couple buyins and quit satisfied days. I feel like i really keep going on about this in my blogs and I really should consider it for a little while. The other games are just often fun and interesting. Time will tell but maybe I'll give it a shot. I really think $30-50k is doable most months doing this so that is very tempting. It's just pretty boring and takes a super good work ethic (which I feel like i have but most poker players don't)
Weather is so annoying. It made me upset cause i wanted to ski, then delayed our flight a couple hours which I'm supposed to just get home at like 7pm and drive 2 hours to visit Kels, but the timing of the freezing rain/snow is a little further into the evening, which I may not be able to get there now and tomorrow is a snowy/blizzardy day with wind chills reaching -40 and I can't drive there in my TL (baddd in snow esp cause I am lazy and never bought winter tires) and that would put me in on wednesday which is her last day off (she has tues and wed off). Again, this is life but just like I was looking forward to the snow, she's really been looking forward to spending her days off with me (and me with her, but with her just starting work and me travelling it's a bit different...) I'm on the plane now so i don't know what the weather is like but I'm really crossing my fingers I can make it out tonight.
/update I made it but when I got here the rain had frozen in the parking lot into a glare sheet of ice on a slight slant so my car slid at about 2 mph into another car. Her car has a scratch on the fender and mine has a cracked bumper. Stupid weather.