canterbury tournament

My friends convinced me I 'had to' play at least the main event of the fall poker classic at Canterbury. Fine. I can handle that.

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.

one of those days

I sat down after softball this evening just planning on working a little bit with the baseball game on in the background...well then every bad player and their helpless brother thought it would be a good night for a marathon session...so here I am 7 hours later. I wanted to work out. Nope. I wanted to go to bed and fix my sleep schedule. Nope. I wanted to watch the new entourage cause I hear it's good. Not yet.

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.

oopps, it's been 6 weeks

There are quite a few more than interesting enough things that have happened over the past month and a half but I just haven't felt overly motivated to write them down. A big part of the problem is since Barcelona(where I went for 9 days in sept) I've felt like I would have to write about that before writing about anything else. This was combined with the Twins crazyness at the end of September and I just wasn't sitting around feeling like typing.

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.

My story part 3

For a few years, I'd put 30-40 hours per week with poker pretty much. Obviously there were off weeks but on average I really put a ton into it and it paid off well. The games were great and it was hard to do much wrong by putting more hours in. About a year and a half ago some things changed. It kinda started with the UIEGA closing down some of my favorite sites. The games had changed. I still played really good poker but I didn't change with them. I continued to try to play 4-6 tables and just mash out the hands/hours. I lost for like 3 months straight. I was confused and perplexed. Most people would have chased their losses. The fear of somehow not being able to play poker for a living at the time 'scared' me into dropping down, and then down again, and trying to figure out exactly what was going on. I was running bad, that was for sure, but at this point (-1000 or so bets and somewhere around 150 or 200k over a 4 or 5 month period) I wasn't looking for excuses. It was time to rebuild from the beginning. My bankroll was still in good health, but I really didn't want to have to deposit. I hadn't ever had to dip into my bank account and I was determined not to.

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.

twins angels

On Sunday we were at the twins/angels game in Anaheim and doing the standard away fans thing which led to a nice little away team section. The 6 of us who came together was 16 or 17 by the 7th inning. Anaheim fans definitely seemed to be more the casual fans than the over intense ones. Other than 2 drunk alpha males nobody really gave us much grief and billy put them in their place quickly. We decided to give the game back/away so instead of some sweet camaraderie we had to leave quietly but it was still super fun.

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!

august

I started working on a big poker reflection post on the flight from MN to SD but I wasn't able to finish before landing. I'm probably half done and when I'm motivated to finish it I'll do it...but I don't feel like it at the moment yet I feel I should update my blog.

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.

Minnie

Jay was in town for a bit and threw a siccck birthday party. We started by a little grillin/outdoor stuff and went from there to britts for a little hiatus before aqua. Some of the guys know people who work there so we got a sweet deal on the top area. It worked out great and major thanks to jay for setting it up/getting like 40 people to come/paying for it.

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!