Trip12s

Short Break

2010-02-13T14:15:00.001-08:00

I know it's been a few weeks since I posted a blog but I have thought about getting back into it. My life has changed just a bit since my last post and I plan on detailing the small changes that have occurred in my life. Wait for blog..... soon

Dave

Trying new things

2007-04-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

Finals are here and my life is unbelievably hectic.

I think I am going to try to start some affiliate programs on all the major poker sites. The newest site, Cake Poker is probably going to be the best one to use. I will probably start a couple of websites, some offering rakeback and others not. If anyone wants to sign up on Cake Poker for rakeback, email me at joey_pistone@hotmail.com and I will give you as good of a deal as I can.

Other thank that not a lot is going on, I have been playing some poker lately. I killed HU limit hold-em on Full Tilt last month. I really must have ran disgustingly good because I was averaging like 30BB/100Hands. I have been playing some SNG's and HU when I have time but there isn't a lot of it.

Update

2007-03-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

I figured I could update since I have some free time on this lazy Saturday.

My life is pretty hectic right now. This week I was in class or teacher aiding for 25 hours and doing homework for another 25. I have only had to do this much homework one other time in my life. I think it is good for me though, I need to learn how to organize and finish my work, especially when there is a lot of it.

Spring Break was last week and my friend Alex and I went on a "basketball road-trip". We went down to Oklahoma City for the Big XII championship, swung down to Texas and spent a couple days at South Padre Island, then drove up to New Orleans for the 1st and 2nd rounds of the NCAA tournament. We had awful tickets for all the games, but we ended up sneaking down to the lower levels for most of them and even sat front row a few times, which was awesome. Watching basketball live is such an experience, these guys are so much bigger and faster up close. It makes me want to get court side seats for an NBA game sometime.

In other news, on the encouragement of my girlfriend, I got a job at a summer camp from June - August this summer. It's a really, really nice camp in Southern Maine called Camp Takajo and I will be the head basketball instructor for boys age 8-10. I am really excited about it because it is an actual summer long camp that the kids come to for two straight months. Apparently it is ran fantastically and they have a 96% retention rate from year to year. I am really excited about the opportunity.

I should also mention that I am dating a girl named Rebecca who I have dated a couple times before. She occupies a lot of my free time, the little that I have, and I couldn't be happier.

It looks like everything should be on track for me to student teach next semester and then graduate (again) with my teaching degree next December. I am really ready to get out in the classroom and have an opportunity to influence other people's lives. It's such a huge responsibility, but I can't imagine a more rewarding profession for myself.

Alright, that's all, thanks for keeping up and God bless.

Thanks for still checking

2007-02-02T16:19:00.000-08:00

Only the most hard core readers of my blog still even check it anymore. I haven't posted in over a month so I don't blame anyone for losing interest. The thing is that I am just sooooo busy right now with school that I am not even playing any poker at all really. I have probably played two or three days this month.

School is going great, I am having a little trouble keeping up with my 19 hours but I should be alright. I am doing some teacher aiding at the Seward Middle School which is pretty fun. I have been spending most of my free time with a really amazing girl who I just started dating, which I feel is really good for me.

I am playing in the $1,500 buy-in tourney at the WSOP Circuit event in Council Bluffs. It is pretty much the only tourney that I will be able to play at this Circuit event because of all my school.

I don't think I will be posting on here very often, unless something drastic changes, so if you only check once a week it might still be to much :)

My life is good.

Moving

2006-12-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

I got back to Lincoln yesterday afternoon and spent most of the day apartment/house hunting in Seward. It's not as easy as I thought it would be. I am trying to find a fairly nice two bedroom place somewhere fairly close to campus, but there just aren't a lot of options. It seems like there are only two types of apartments to get.

1) Old, run-down, two bedroom $400 - $500 a month
2) Nice, new, four bedroom duplexes $900- $1,200 a month

I can't see how anyone would get the older apartments if they had more than two people. The difference in quality is quite decisive.

There is one apartment complex that is significantly nicer than all the others, so I set up a walk through today at 6:00. If everything works out I will probably rent it and get everything moved to Seward this weekend.

That's my news for the day :)

Finally

2006-12-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

My unbelievable trip is finally almost to a close. However, it did get even more bizarre before I got to Lincoln. I'll write a full ridiculous report after the holidays. Through everything though, if I had to do it again, I'd say that I'd be about 20:1 to make it home for Christmas. Everything just BARELY worked out.

Right now I am going to take off to go to Burlington, Colorado and spend the Holidays with my Dad's side of the family. I will post again after the weekend, until then everyone have a very Merry Christmas. Also thanks for stilling keeping up with the blog, even through these uneventful poker-less months. I am looking forward to '07 where I already have some big things planned.

another night across the pond

2006-12-21T15:14:00.000-08:00

At least I made it to London today, but my flight was delayed 5 hours out of Dusseldorf, so I missed my connection to Chicago and am currently at the Marriot in London. In other good news, I have to rent a car to get from Chicago to Omaha because all flights are booked till Christmas. I am looking forward to the 11+ hours of Driving from Chicago to Colorado in the blizzard that is forecasted. At the moment I will consider myself lucky to get to my family before Christmas Eve. sigh........

Bad Beat

2006-12-20T07:57:00.000-08:00

Ughhhh.... The weather in London sucks. My flight got canceled from Dusseldorf to London so I am staying another night in Germany. I have the same schedule tomorrow so it will hopefully just set me back one day, but they are saying the weather looks bad tomorrow as well so we will just have to wait and see. The worst part about this is that I booked my trip in two seperate legs... meaning that I booked from Dusseldorf to Chicago, then Chicago to Omaha. This would normally be no problem if everything went as planned, but now I have to get my CHI-OMA flight changed manually, instead of with the rest of the trip. It is kind of a pain, but what can ya do.

They put me up in a nice hotel, so that is good. I will get a good night's sleep and hopefully be able to get home tomorrow night.

Wicked Family Fights

2006-12-19T14:26:00.000-08:00

I'm about to head back home tomorrow, I have a had a great time over here and always love spending time in Germany but I am ready to see my family for Christmas too. My flight leaves at 11:05 from Dusseldorf and I don't get into Omaha till midnight.... :( four hour layover in Chicago

If you aren't a poker player/fan you probably won't be terribly interested in the next part of the blog. If you do happen to be a poker player (as 95% of my non-family readers are probably) then you absolutely need to read on....

If you haven't heard already, the biggest scandal to hit the poker world in some time is going down as we speak. Apparently in the last three days the on-line poker world was taken aback by the 3:12 a.m. post on 2+2 by recent poker kinda-celebrity Brandi Hawbaker (a.k.a. Brandi Rose). I won't go into the details of the post but it involved accusations towards "Captain" Tom Franklin involving theft, manipulation, and sexual assault. You can read the post here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php Cat=0&Number=8448402&amp;amp;amp;page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

This, needless to say, sparked thousands of responses and reactions across the poker world. Brandi claims that she is still owed somewhere in the range of $9,000 from Mr. Franklin and has been hitting up his friends looking for money (Phil Gordon and Doyle Brunson have both reportedly given her cash) Many of the responses this post has garnered involve accusations about Brandi herself. Several very well respected individuals in the poker world have spoken up with their stories about Brandi Rose. Recent WPT champ Mark Newhouse has been one of the most vocal and his story paints a very different picture of this girl. You can read Mark's story here:

http://www.pocketfives.com/4F749D4A-E243-42BC-80AE-03D5AC4C74BA.aspx

All sorts of rumors are circulating about the validity of Brandi's claims and many smaller stories have been coming up that bring her integrity into question as well. She really claims to be at her "rope's end" and it has been reported several times that she has attempted suicide recently. Not to be out-done, the ever eccentric Dutch Boyd has decided to get in on the mix and has been acting very, very odd over the last week. He claims to have been in an asylum recently and just got out in time for the DBNAPC. Also, an alleged incident between him and Brandi Hawbaker occurred two nights ago in which she claims that he stole her passport and she punched him. The details on that rumor are very unclear. But, it is very clear that something has gotten into Dutch Boyd recently as you can tell from these two videos:

http://www.pokerwire.com/results.php?title=mike-matusow&uid=25034
http://www.pokerwire.com/results.php?title=daniel-negreanu&uid=25022

*you have to wait for the Dutch cameo in both

The biggest controversy of all involves all three of these characters (Cap't Tom, Brandi, Dutch) in a video where Dutch alludes to himself being taken into the desert by Tom and shot in the head, with two graves dug beside him (referring to Brandi in the other?). This video and others can be viewed at:

http://www.pokulator.com/poker-videos/

*player seems to work some times and not others
There are several other videos on this site that show exactly how far off the deep end Dutch appears to have gone. There are reported stories of him acting very bi-polar during the tournament's first two days. He received several penalties for acting out of turn and left the room, only to return carrying a pizza box and saying something about having a hard drive stored in a toilet at The Orleans Casino.

Other links to sites with information:

http://www.bankrollboost.com/brandi-hawbaker.php
-Info on Brandi Hawbaker

http://www.pokerlistings.com/blog/wpt/season5/whats-eating-dutch-boyd
-Dutch's antics at the DBNAPC

http://kickasspoker.blogspot.com/
-General info on the incident

http://www.dutchboyd.com/blog/2006/10/selling-out-never-looked-so-good.html
-Dutch/Brandi banter about her controversial Full Tilt photo

http://people.tribe.net/kallisti
-Brandi's own personal blog where you can get a feel for exactly what goes through her head

This is the most excitement, gossip, controversy the poker world has seen in some time. I'll try to keep up with it but the international travel tomorrow will make it hard for any "Breaking News".

Apologies

2006-12-11T16:08:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I haven't blogged for almost a week. I think this is one of the longest stretches I have taken off in the 9 months that I have been writing. There really hasn't been a lot of news to report as of late. I am still hanging out here in Bonn with my friends. We are having a really good time just chilling and enjoying the ridiculous amount of free time that our occupations give us. I have also untaken a pretty large project on-line which has been taking up a lot of my time. I have been doing a lot of code writing and app development and am pretty much teaching myself and learning as I go. I have a limited knowledge of basic computer languages, but have really been pushing myself lately. This knowledge will end up being really helpful down the line if I ever need to teach any basic coding classes at the HS level.

I have 9 more days over here and the only thing that I really want to see in Western Europe that I haven't already is the French Riviera and Monte Carlo. So I think I am going to head down there for 3-4 days before I leave. I may take off on Wednesday or Thursday, we will see.

In other news, although my good friend Shannon Shorr dropped down to #5 in the POY race, he has a chance to get back up to #2 today in the $5k NL tourney at the Belliagio. As many of you have read on his blog, he has an average stack with 19 left after day 1 and is eyeing the 400k+ first place prize. Shannon also is on the cover of Card Player College edition this month and has a really great article written up about him. You can check it out at the link below. He's a genuine, stand-up guy and I am proud to call him a friend of mine.

http://www.cardplayer.com/cpcollege/article/16345

Ughhhh

2006-12-05T05:54:00.000-08:00

Everything that only has a fleeting impact on my life is going wrong. The Baskets lost the other night in their game to Cologne. They played alright for the first half, but the Cologne went unconcious from behind the arc in the 3rd quarter and it really disrupted Bonn's whole game plan.

The Huskers played fairly poorly against OU and managed to lose by two TD's. This is a very sore subject with me. I feel most sorry for Auburn.... War Skers. Any side bet Brandon? Also NU basketball lost to 1-5 Rutgers, won't look good on an at-large resume come Febuary.

I play in a very competitive Fantasy Football league with a bunch of college friends. My Fantasy team is trying incrediably hard to give away the last spot in the playoffs. I need something to go my way this week.

My good friend Shannon just got knocked down to #3 in the Card Player Player of the Year points race. A cagey vet named Nam Le snuck ahead of him with a final table the other night. Shannon still has a few more chances to reclaim the 2nd spot so I'll be cheering him on.

I also came down with a mild case of the flu a couple days ago. I think I am getting over it now, but it is never fun to get sick.

Ahhh, woe is me, my life is so awful.

Update

2006-12-02T10:14:00.000-08:00

Well I am still here in Bonn, enjoying my time spent with these friends. We have been pretty busy doing quite a bit the last few days. On Thursday night I tagged along with the team to scout an opponent in Cologne. The team we watched was pretty good, the only player I really recognized was Kenny Gregory from Kansas, but they played really well as a team. Bonn has a big game tomorrow against Cologne, it's a pretty huge rivalry so the game is sold out, but Stark managed to secure me a ticket. I am excited to see these guys play.

Tonight we are stayng up late and watching the USC - UCLA game at 10:30, then the NU - OU Big XII Championship which starts at 3:00 a.m. here. One of the guys has a Slingbox (probably the greatest invention in 5 years) which is the reason we are able to watch them. I am pretty excited to watch the Huskers dominate OU, and I would really like to see USC go down so the REAL national title game between Ohio St. and Michigan can be played. Being from Southern Cal, John is a HUGE USC fan so it will be fun to cheer against each other.

Poker wise I have actually been playing quite a bit the last couple days. I have been trying my hand at 1/2 NL and I just can't seem to grasp the game. I think I am playing well, even though I have been running very poorly, but I still don't think I would be a big winner in th game. I am down about $1,200 through 3,000 hands which is 6 buy-ins and seems like quite a bit. I think that even if I was running average I would only be up a few hundred at the most which makes me think that I am not grasping something. I think I may switch back to 5/10 limit as that seems to be my bread and butter. I have always felt that I was a pretty exceptional limit player but the monotony of the game wers me down after a while. Alright, thats all the news I have.

Back in Germany

2006-11-30T07:46:00.001-08:00

We caught a flight back on Tuesday afternoon and arrived back in Regensburg late that night. It was kind of hard to leave the beauty and warm weather in Greece for balmy, brisk Germany but it is nice to be back here. I caught a train back to Bonn yesterday morning and am now just hanging out at John's place relaxing a bit. The lack of travel will give me a chance to catch up on some things the next few days, particularly putting up some pictures of the trip so far. So, here you go:

Greece

2006-11-30T05:09:00.000-08:00

Lake Como, Italy

2006-11-30T05:04:00.000-08:00

Zermatt

2006-11-30T04:54:00.000-08:00

Innsbruck

2006-11-30T04:44:00.000-08:00

Zurich

2006-11-30T04:34:00.000-08:00

Bavaria, Castles

2006-11-30T04:27:00.000-08:00

Greco Thanksgiving

2006-11-24T00:07:00.000-08:00

Anna, Allegra, and I all arrived in Athens yesterday afternoon to celebrate Thanksgiving with my Aunt, Uncle, cousins, and a bunch of their friends here in Greece. We actually are having the official celebration on Saturday, since it is not a acknowledged holiday here in Greece, and did a bunch of grocery shopping yesterday. I think we bought the only three turkeys in all of Athens when we found some at the local supermarket after a few hours of shopping. It should be a lot of fun on Saturday and we are all looking forward to helping make the traditional meal.

Last night though we had a very traditional Greek meal and my Aunt even taught me how to make Tzatziki, which is probably my favorite Greek food. Today we are going to go all around Athens and see the Acropolis, Ancient Olympic Stadium, and several other lesser known places. I haven't been able to get my pictures on a computer yet so as soon as I do I will put up a bunch of them. Happy Late Thanksgiving!

Lake Como...

2006-11-22T11:56:00.000-08:00

I just arrived back in Germnay after spending two days in Italy at Lake Como. I got to see some of the three major towns around the lake; Menniagio, Belliagio, and Como while I stayed at a really perfect lake-front hostel in Como. The weather wasn't great but it cleared up this morning before I left and allowed me to get some good pictures. Tomorrow morning Anna, Allegra, and I are catching a flight to Athens to spent Thanksgiving with my Aunt and Uncle. Hopefully we will have enough time to hit up an island as well.

Ahh, Zermatt

2006-11-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

I do not have a ton of time to write, so I will keep this brief. After leaving Innsbruck I headed to Zurich, Switzerland where I was scheduled to meet Anna. I got there a day early and spent it familirizing myself with the town. All in all I would have to reccomend Zurich to anyone who has a chance to visit. I meet a really cool kid from Texas and an Australian at the hostel the first night I was there and we went out and had a good time. Anna arrived the next day and we spent a day in Zurich before heading out ealry for Zermatt. It was kind of disappointing when we first arrived here and I could tell it was a big let down for her. The weather was foggy and cold, the grass had all died, the weather was to bad for sking and the town just did not look terribly pretty. Our feelings changed today however when we woke up and found out that the slopes would be open and we went up to the lift to rent our equiptment. I can not even begin to describe the amazing day we had after getting to the summit. The clods cleared, we had bright blue skies, the snow was great, it was just awesome. I do not have the pictures on this computer to show you but I will put them up as soon as I can. They are really some of the best pictures I have ever taken, I am really anxious to print some off. Wow, sking in the shadow of the Matterhorn on a beautiful day is right up there with my greatest days ever. Plus the best part is, we get to wake up and do it all again tomorrow.

-note, Swiss comuters do not allow the spell check button so errors are inevitable, my appoligies :)

Bavaria, Austria

2006-11-15T00:00:00.002-08:00

I left Regensburg on Monday morning and decided to head down to Fussen to see the Neushwanstein Castle. This castle was the dream of Bavaria's King Ludwig II who ruled in the late 1800's. It's better know as the "Disney Castle" becasue it inspired Disneyland's Cinderalla Castle. Kind Ludwig was a interesting ruler and I really enjoyed learning about his life as much as anything while I was there. To say the castle was magnificent, breathtaking, or incrediable would all be understatements. The enviorment could only be best described as "surreal" while I was inside viewing the incrediable detail to the themed rooms of Ludwig's childlike immagination. He was an avid fan of the arts and has whole rooms painted with scenes from famous stroies like Tristan and Isolde and the mytholigical Swan Knight Lohengrin. He was actually known as the Swan King and many porcelain swans decorate the entire castle. Ludwig was also obsessed with the composer Richard Wagner and built a concert hall on one whole floor of the castle for performances. Needless to say, I became really interested in King Ludwig's life and stories during my visit.

After I caught the last train of the night back to Munich, I checked into a cool hostel called "the wombat" which had a distinct Aussie theme to it. I stayed in a dorm with a couple of kids from China and Japan, respectively, and had some really enjoyable conversations with the both of them about the Asian view of U.S. politics as well as the struggles China's economy is having through this tremendous growth period. They were genuinely fascinating and made me very envious of their extreemly fluent english.

Yesterday I woke up early, checked out of the Wombat, and caught an ealry train to Innsbruck, Austria. The train ride was great because about halfway through, the morning fog lifted and we entered the edge of the Alps. It's really hard to descirbe the size of these mountains. When you see them you actually have to take a second and realize that they really are that big. It's hard to compare them to anything else because they are much bigger than the largest mountains I have ever seen, which would be the Rockies. I want to put up some pictures but can't yet because I don't have my laptop with me. Innsbruck is a bustling town that caters to the high-end luxury ski crowd. There is a lot of history in the town which makes for a unique mix of new-money and old-tradition, all with the enormous Alps looming in the back ground. I walked around the town for several hours and took in as much as I could, but my exhaustion caught up with me and I crashed late in the afternoon.
I am heading to Zurich this afternoon to meet up with Änna tomorrow and spend a couple nights there. From there we are heading to Zermatt on Friday, sking on Saturday/Sunday and returning to Germany on Monday. I missed the train to Zurich this morning by five minutes, so I have a 4 hour wait till the next one... hence the large ammount of time to write this long post. I don't think I will be able to put up pictures until I get back to Regensburg next week, but I should be able to post at least once or twice more in between then. Until then, thanks for reading

Alright, Pictures

2006-11-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been ridiculously awesome so far. We've been doing all sorts of things and I've been meeting all sorts of really awesome people. Anna has been a great tour guide so far and we are having a blast. I'll tell you a few of the highlights:

Thursday: Arrived in Regensburg, helped with the community "multi cultural" dinner. It was all sorts of different foods from all sorts of different countries and you moved from place to place meeting people and eating different things... all of which were really good. After that we went over and met one of the most interesting characters ever, a California kid named Ted. Ted convinced us that life is better enhanced by a little alcohol and shots ensued. I had only slept an hour the night before so I crashed early.

Friday: Woke up at the unholy hour of 10:00, which actually felt really good. Anna took me on a walking tour of the city while we simultaneously ran some errands. I forgot my coat in Bonn, unbelievable I know, so we went to the sports store and bought a nice ski coat that will work perfect when we hit the Alps in two weeks. After seeing most of the city we met up with Allegra (who will be joining us in Greece for Thanksgiving) at a really nice Italian pizza restaurant. FANTASTIC meal, even though the pizza was served on a plate that was only maybe 1/2 the size of the pie. After dinner we met up with Ted and two other CU students Scott and Erin and took a local train to a nearby small German town. One of their teachers/friends (only 25 years old) named Bianca was starring in the local community theatre production. They help it in the towns Audi Auto dealership and had a make ship stage, concessions, ticket sales... very fun and personal feeling. The play was really fun to watch even though it was all in German and I couldn't make out many words : ) After that they held an Opening Night Party type thing and we drank champagne and socialized for a while. Upon arriving back in Regensburg I crashed for the second night in a row, exhaustion is impossible to fight.

Saturday: Great day. We woke up at the even more unholy hour of 9:00, I actually am starting to get used to it. Anna and I walked to the Banhopf (train station) and caught a day train to Munich. It's only about 90 minutes away so a perfect afternoon trip. We went to the tourist information center and got a city map, walked around the inner city for a while, and found the Haufbrauhaus. The Haufbrauhaus is one of Munich biggest attractions and reminded me A LOT of Oktoberfest last year. It's one big festive restaurant where the beer is served in liter mugs, the band plays traditional Bavarian music, and the bratwurst, schnitzel, and pretzels are impossible to pass up. We ate, drank, and talked there for a few hours and generally just had a blast. After that we walked to the nearby open market and bought some fresh cheese to take back to Regensburg for our dinner party. We met up with the same group from the night before when we arrived from the train ride back and headed to Allegra's dorm to make an Italian dinner. We had a really great meal and a lot of fun as we drank wine and talked for several hours afterwards. After several bottles, Ted convinced us that the night was young and we headed out to check out some of the local bars. We ended up at a circa 1974 type place called the Orange Bar that was fully equipped with retro pictures and decor. We even ran into a few other Americans there and enjoyed the great atmosphere. Once again, I crashed after we got back.

To much fun.

Ted - obviously

Regensburg

2006-11-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to leave Bonn this morning at 10:00 to head to Regensburg, but I missed the train so I had to wait around for two hours to catch the next one. I just arrived here in Regensburg and my good friend Anna was waiting at the train to meet me. She is studying here this whole year as a part of her German major at CU Boulder. It's really great to see her, we have a really unusually strong friendship that a lot of "ex's" don't have. She seems to have activities planned for the entire weekend and I think I will enjoy getting to be a guest and having a full time tour guide for the next few days. We are cooking Chinese food right now as a part of a whole dorm-type dinner event that they are having and afterwards I think we are going out to meet some of her fellow CU students for drinks. I'm sure I will get some pictures tomorrow to put up.

Unprofitable

2006-11-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

I have decided that the 10/20 Limit game on Stars is pretty unprofitable. There are really not any BAD players at all, there are a few who aren't really good but most of the players play very profitably. I have been running bad in the game the last few days and it hasn't helped me play all that well, but I really don't think it will be a game that I will want to play consistently. I have ended up down about $1,300 which I am really pretty happy with. I probably need to exercise better discretion when it comes to table selection, so I don't plan on playing this game anymore.

A big fad here in Germany is playing Foosball at clubs, I have no idea why but the Germans seem to love it. So we went out last night to "Carpe Nachturne" and decided to get our "kicker" (as they refer to it) game in gear. We aren't very good at kicker, which makes it even more fun because the Germans take it VERY seriously and all seem to be world-class players. I teamed up with a guy named Jeff who played his college ball at Penn. We are both pretty bad but we were holding our own and celebrating excessively anytime we did something remotely positive. Chest bumps, high fives, and white-boy dance moves were common in between our rare goals. The Germans were very good so they didn't seemed to get mad at our antics, and it probably didn't hurt that I was the by far the smallest one in our group at 6'4, 220 lbs. We ended up getting beat three games in a row, so we had to drown our sorrows with some good German Lager.

I am taking off from Bonn on Friday to meet up with my good friend Anna in Regensburg. She says she has some fun plans for us over the weekend and mentioned something about spending Saturday in Munich. I'm looking forward to seeing some of Eastern Germany.

Gross

2006-11-06T01:24:00.000-08:00

Ughhhh.... I woke up at 9:00 this morning and decided to try putting in a good session of 10/20 on Stars. 9:00 here is 2:00 a.m. central time in the States so I figured it would be a decent time to catch some Sunday night fish. With that in mind, I opened up four tables and went at it. After about 20 minutes of playing I started to think to myself "Man I am getting killed", then I tried to think of the last hand I won and I suddenly realized I hadn't won one yet. I figured it would pass but it didn't, I kept playing even though the tables weren't as good as I had hoped. I made myself quit after about 90 minutes because the tables just weren't very profitable, I was running very poorly, and I wasn't playing my best either. I ended up down about $850 which is my biggest losing session in LHE in a long time. Not the optimal start I was hoping for here in Germany.

Last night John and I went over to one of his teammates apartments to watch NFL games. One of the guys is from Chicago and an avid Bears fan so he has a Slingbox and gets like 30 American channels. The guys I met so far are real cool and we had a good time.

Germany

2006-11-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

I just arrived in Bonn after about 20 hours of traveling. I am pretty exhausted but excited at the same time. I enjoy traveling about as much as anything else that I do so I am really looking forawrd to the next 8 weeks.

For some reason I can't write comments on my own blog, not sure why but it just won't let me. I didn't put the last post up looking for pity, I put it up because I almost couldn't believe that people were unable to recognize the story as a joke, and also because I thought it was hilarious and hoped most of you would enjoy it. Sometimes I will write something and believe that it is insanely funny at the time I am writing it only to re-read it later and realize that it really isn't funny at all. No great professional has ever been afraid of faliure or rejection, so I don't let it bother me.

I think I am going to hang out in Bonn for about 4 or 5 days before heading to Regensberg this weekend. I guess the Baskets (original name for a pro basketball team) have like 7-8 Americans on the team this year, so John says that they go out and enjoy their minor celebrity.

Some People

2006-11-03T16:46:00.000-08:00

I like writing comdey/fiction type stories and I have been hopping on pocket fives and writing a few things. They are mostly poker related short story-type posts, sometimes people like them, sometimes not, but today I think I realized my audience may not be up for the humor.

Here is my post:
Re: Why doesn't one of the internet studs write a book?

I just finished my book and it is in the process of being finalized by Random House Publishing. It is scheduled to hit shelves on Dec 13th, just in time to make a great stocking stuffer.

It's called, "The Easy Way to Winning Thousands Playing Poker" - It chronicles my rise to the top of the internet world and includes some of the secrets to my success. I start off playing .50/$1 LHE on Party Poker and you get to see my bankroll swell through the chapters as I reveal the secrets that make the intermediate players into champions. There's a couple reviews from well respected pros that will grace the sleeve:

"I HIGHLY recommend reading this book for players of ALL levels, There are secrets in here that most pros would pay NOT to have published" - Harley Hall

"At first I didn't believe that eating a whole bag of Funions before a LHE session was THE ONE KEY to success, but after giving it a shot and winning the next 17 sessions I am a firm believer" - Stu Unger

"This book introduced me to so many new terms; "Call-Equity", "Foldability", "Ship Theory".... It's full of little gems that improve your game and alow your bankroll to EXPLODE!" - Phil Ivey

"The Tells section of this book introduced me to ideas that are LEVELS ABOVE the greatest players in the world. To call this book a Masterpiece would be doing it a disservice. If Game Theory is a blank slate the Joey_Pistone is the illegitimate love child of Picasso and God." -Poker Legend - Maureen Feduniak

"If you want to win at poker, read books... If you want to annihilate every opponent you ever play, read THIS BOOK. Most of the pros will tell you to fold a flush draw if the odds aren't there... This book goes beyond odds and into the world of Expected Future Table Image, allowing you to NEVER FOLD A DRAW AGAIN, and most importantly ALWAYS hit it." - Todd Brunson

"I thought this book was a joke and challenged the author to a heads-up match so I could expose him for the phony he is.... After only 3 hours he had completely broken not only my spirit, but also my bank account. I'll never underestimate Joey_Pistone again" - Andy Beal

--------------------

Here was one of the replies:

by AcTiOnJaCsOn on 11/3/2006 15:42

sounds like a good read if those quotes are in fact true

.........wow

wait... another genius:

by tgr0ss on 11/3/2006 18:56

yeah so if im doing this right...your book was finished in 98 thast how stu ungar has a review on it? since he died in 98 .. your 24 wrote your book and became rich when you were 16 when online poker was just beginning?

phil ivey said many times hes never read a book but cool

and you broke andy beals bank account? ... hes a billionaire? ... must not need the money from this book eh?

Lots on the table

2006-11-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I am in kind of a mad rush to get everything done that needs to be done before leaving tomorrow. I have all sorts of errands to run and things to pick up, pack, drop off.... And I also have to make time to see Borat tonight. That makes me extremely happy. I haven't played any poker in the last couple days so there is no real news there. My friend Nate did go Back-to-Back yesterday in $100 MTT's which is quite a feat. It's hard enough to win one, let alone two in row.

I leave tomorrow from Omaha at 10:45 and after a layover in Chicago and another in London before arriving in Dusseldorf on Sunday afternoon. I'm excited for another adventure.

Today's agenda

2006-11-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

- get a haircut

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T13:36:00.000-08:00

I got back into KC last night around 8:00 after a short lay-over in Nashville and made the 2 hour drive back to Lincoln. I've pretty much spent all of today working on things that I need to get done for Europe. I was dumb enough to book my flight out of Chicago rather than Omaha, so I decided to just book another flight to Chicago so I don't have to drive the whole way. I also booked my tickets for Thanksgiving from Munich to Athens. My Aunt and Uncle celebrate a "American/British/Greco" style thanksgiving with a couple other families that they know there, so I decided to join them for that. One of my friends Änna is studying in Regensburg Germany this semester, so her and one of her friends are going to tag along in Athens. After I got those tickets booked and I also ordered my Eurail Pass as well. I got a "Selecti-pass" which means I can travel for 15 non-consecutive days during a two months period in any of the 5 following countries: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and Denmark. I'm actually getting very excited about the trip. I have a lot of people to visit and there is so much more to see :)

Poker wise I four tabled some 10/20 for a while today, only put in 1,000 hands but ran fairly well and booked a $800 profit. I probably need to put in some work over the next few months but doubt I will do a lot while I am traveling. I'm planning on taking my laptop and an extra monitor with me so that I can grind some while staying in Bonn but that will probably be the only place I put in any significant hours. Not much else to report, Happy Halloween

Poker, Peppers, and Thiefs

2006-10-29T08:53:00.000-08:00

None of us lasted very long in the $1k main event that they had yesterday. It was pretty uneventful for me, I had QQ first hand raised 7x the BB and got 4 callers. That's the kind of day it was.

After we busted out Jon, Tim, myself and Tim's two buddies Mike and Nick all took off for New Orleans to check out this VooDoo Music Festival. I hadn't ever been to a big outdoor concert type of venue before, so it was all new to me. The place was gigantic and filled entirely, there must have been over 100,000 people there. They had 6 or 7 stages where different bands performed and there were tons of tents that sold all sorts of things. We got to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers perform on the main stage and although we couldn't get really close it was still awesome. They put on an amazing show and it's easy to see why they have been the best at what they do for so long.

After the concert finished we started the 20 minute walk back to our cars and when we finally got there we realized that either Jon or Me had left the interior light on in the car. Bad beat, then as we got closer we realized that our stuff was all open and thrown around the car. We all suddenly realized that someone had broken into our car and stolen everything. I was immediately heart broken.... I had my laptop and $4,500 cash in there among other things. We looked through our clothes bags and it seemed like they only stole our Ipods from inside the car. Oddly enough both of our digital cameras were taken out of our bags but left in the car. We then popped the trunk, to see if they took our laptops and saw that my entire laptop case had been dumped out but they left my computer!!! I then reach into the pouch of my computer case to check and see if they somehow missed all my cash, low and behold all $4,500 was there. It was the best beat ever. They literally looked EVERYWHERE in the entire car, glove compartment, ash trays, console, even the sunglasses holder. I think the only possible place I had put the money was the one place they passeed up. Unfortunately Jon's laptop wasn't in the trunk and we thought it had been stolen as well. Then a few minutes later we found it inside the car with everything dumped out of it, but still there. So, all in all, the thieves passed up two $400 digital cameras, two $2,000 laptops, $4,500 in cash, but they did steal both of our $200 Ipods. They say Mississippi is the most uneducated state in the union.... Louisiana must not be far behind :)

We are gonna go walk around Bourbon Street and check out the French Quarter today, then go see My Chemical Romance at the Festival later this afternoon. Needless to say we will be leaving all of our valuables in the hotel.

That didn't take long

2006-10-27T18:23:00.000-07:00

I'll run through my 3 hands that I played after the dinner break:

Hand 1: The very first hand it folds to me in the SB and I complete for 400 more with J4, the big blind raps the table and we take a flop. FLOP: 886 rainbow, this looks like a good flop for me and I decide that since the BB is a fairly aggressive player I will check raise him on the flop to take the pot. I check, he bets 1,200 which looks very week, I make it 3,200 straight and he instantly announces all-in. I muck.

Hand 2: I'm in 2nd position and two very tight players are in the blinds, so I decide that I am going to raise with any two hoping the rest of the table gives me credit for a hand when raising from 2nd position. I squeeze J 10 off and make it 2,100 a 1,300 chip raise. It folds to the tightest player at the table in the BB and he calls..... great... FLOP: 662 two diamonds. He checks, I ponder and bet 3k, he folds... back up to 14k in chips.

Hand 3: Very next hand I squeeze AQdd UTG and make is 2,100 again. Again it folds to the BB who is a rather young decent player and he makes the call. The flop comes AKJ, KJ of hearts, I'm not very thrilled about this flop but he checks it to me and I again bet 3k the exact same way that I did the hand before. He immediately announces All-In and slams in a stack of pink chips that has me covered.... yea, gross... I think for a minute like I normally do, running through the possible holdings I can put him on before studying his body language and deciding what I think he has. I decide that Q 10 is slight possibility, AJ is more likely and AK is unlikely since he would have re-raised pre almost certainly. I rule out AA and KK and finally decide that he has one of the following hands... AQ, AJ, JJ, KQ (least likely) or a heart flush draw. I am in bad shape against all of these hands except the flush draw and AQ / KQ so unless he looks like he's really making a move I have to fold.... I look at him and immediately see his heart and pulse is RACING.... I almost instantly say call and almost yell, "NO HEART"..... then he flips his hand.... AQ..... of hearts.... so gross, he nails the free-roll on me and I bust from the tournament right on the bubble... dang

Tomorrow I think we are playing the $1,000 buy-in "main event" for this series. The winner gets a seat in the 25k buy-in WPT Championship along with 1st place prize money.... I'd take that.

Dinner Break $500 NL

2006-10-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

I have about 17k in chips at the dinner break of the $500 NL tournament, this puts me in a fairly good position with around 25 people left. I should be slightly above average and have been accumulating very nicely without putting many chips at risk. 1st pays around 26k so that will be nice :)

$4,400

2006-10-27T00:12:00.000-07:00

I got 2nd in the second chance $200 NL tourney tonight for 4.4k, I am not ecstatic that I lost but I'm not terribly upset either. I feel like I was a better player than my heads-up opponent, but I started off down 4-1 in chips and lost a 150k pot with A 10 vs. K6 that would have given me a 2-1 chip lead.... so all in all it just didn't go my way. I did bad beat a bunch of people earlier in the tournament to build up a big stack. I'm pretty convinced that you usually need to dish out at least 1 or 2 bad beats in order to final table a large multi of this structure. The guy that beat me was a real nice guy and I think he was appreciative of the fact that we were 2 of the only 3 people at the final table who didn't jump around and complain after taking bad beats. It makes in a lot easier when you lose to a nice guy.

I donked off in the $300 NL earlier today and didn't do anything, we ate at the Brazilian place again and it was delicious again. I'm not sure what are plans are for Saturday but I know that we are going to play the $500 NL tournament tomorrow and are planning on going to New Orleans on Saturday for the VooDoo Music Festival.

Shipping Pots

2006-10-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

Limit Omaha is an easyyyy game. I got 6th in the tournament last night in a field of 38 :) The game is such a crap shoot, even late in the tournament in was not uncommon to go 7 or 8 handed into the flop, the guys just love to limp. I was the only one at the final table under the age of 60, so I felt like I had a distinct endurance advantage, but it didn't work out. I actually went bust when I got all in pre-flop blind, then realised that the dealer had given me 5 cards after she dealt the flop and my hand was declared dead :( bad beat. I still banked a whopping $452 for the $200 buy in, I think I'll use the profit for a down payment on a Bentley.

Today is the $300 NL, which we will obviously crush. I'll tell you how much we win later tonight.....

Mississippi

2006-10-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

We got in late last night to the airport in New Orleans. It was a quick flight from Houston, where I met Kristopf, and the limo was pulled up right as we were getting our bags. It was kind of cool getting to see the area at night, it was like an hour ride to the casino so we got to see a lot of the coast line. I met up with Jon and we had a late dinner around 1:00 and then went to bed so we could get up for the event this morning at 11:00.

The event was a $200 NL tourney and everyone was pretty awful... they are the type of players who really think they are good because they have an intermediate understanding of the game, know all the terms, all the plays, but they don't know how to use them or use them properly at least. There's so many times at the table when someone will say something and I'll just silently think to myself "man, your an idiot", but when I look around the table everyone else is nodding in approval. It's kind of funny actually.

The structure of the tournament is very shallow, we started with 1,500 in chips and blinds of 25/50 with 30 min levels. You really have to accumulate early or else blind down. I won one pot pretty early when a young girl made an incredibly obvious lead-bluff on the river after missing her flush draw. A lot of intermediate players do this after their opponent has taken control of the hand the entire way. It's a wild bluff that never works but they continue to try it. A few minutes later I doubled up a guy with AQ vs. KK and found myself with only 800 chips. I then doubled with AK vs. A 10 and and was back up to about 2k. about 15 minutes after that 3 people limped for 150 and one guy (aforementioned type of novice) pushes for 1,300 trying to steal all the limps, I over push with AQ and he says "man, I was trying to steal"...... no kidding? He flips 57 off and nails me on a flop of 63A.... 9.....4 I then gave my remaining 800 away with 89 off suit. I wasn't unhappy with how I played, it just didn't go my way and a little luck is crucial in these shallow MTT's.

We got all sorts of comps so we are eating at this really nice Brazilian restaurant. I'm looking forward to it because I've never had Brazilian food and Jon says it's great. We also have a Tim Krank sighting, which is always a pleasure. He's another circuit traveler that we have met in Barcelona this spring.

Tonight is $200 LIMIT Omaha bay bay.... easy win

10th sucks

2006-10-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

soooooooo bad..... man, it really hurts. I played very very well, I felt the whole tournament.... damn

rough beat

2006-10-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

took a round beat with 18 left for 3 mill in chips QQ vs. QQ

10 left, last in chips but fighting

Sunday mill

2006-10-22T20:00:00.001-07:00

final 4 tables of the sunday mill if anyone wants to watch 1.9 million in chips... first is $180,000

name: runencold

Poker Stars

Eurotrip

2006-10-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

I had been planning on going back to Europe for a while, since this summer at least, but the date has kept getting pushed back due to a number of different things. First, I wanted to go to Oktoberfest but ended up having to delay it when I started to re-think going back to school. Now that I am signed up and all registered for my classes next semester I am pretty much free and clear till January. So, the other day I was messing around on Orbitz and looked up ticket prices, I found a really cheap ticket from Chicago to Dusseldorf Germany and decided to book it. I'm a little to spontaneous sometimes. I have a lot of friends to visit over there and my Aunt and Uncle in Greece so I decided to go for about seven weeks. I'll leave on November 4th and come back on December 20th, just in time for Christmas. I'll be spending a lot of the time in Bonn Germany, where one of my good college friends plays pro basketball, but I will also be going to Regensberg, Munich, Zermatt Switzerland, Athens and the Greek Islands, and Gothenburg Sweden. I'll probably end up going a few other places as well, I kind of enjoy not knowing exactly where I'll be and what I'll be doing. Just trusting myself with a map and no itinerary is my idea of fun traveling. I'll probably be playing quite a bit of poker on-line while I am in Bonn, but other than there I will probably just be traveling. A couple of my friends here in the States have shown some interest in coming over and meeting me for part of the trip. Since I have spent some time over there I feel like I could be a competent, yet novice tour guide and I'm sure we will have a good time. If anyone else is interested in joining me for a little while, just let me know.

Sunday majors today so I'll play a little poker.

Pokerless Life

2006-10-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

I haven't been playing at all for about the last two weeks. I just really have no desire to play right now, and usually when I am feeling like that and still play, I do very poorly. I never posted my numbers for September, but I had a very good month, for me, being up over 15k. This makes me wonder why I still have no motivation to play any poker since that is one of my better months this year. I think that the reason for this lack of motivation is a number of things, one of them being that the money no longer motivates me. Actually, This is a very good thing for me because a poker player needs to detach himself from the day-to-day, month-to-month swings of the game. The fact that the money makes no difference says that I am doing a pretty good job of detaching my emotions. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder what would happen if I had a losing month. That has never happened to me in my career, but I know that it inevitably must happen at some point. Would the money, or significance of losing the money, make me feel different emotions? I think that it probably would because I remember that I still get frustrated when I have losing days. I am not sure if it would motivate me to play though, if I had a losing month. I'm afraid that it would do the opposite and I would be less likely to play..... wow, I am just rambling nonsense that nobody, or very few people, would even be interested in. I should keep a diary of stuff like this for myself and leave my blog for stuff that is actually interesting to the 100 or so of you who consistently check it. hmmmm, let me find a funny picture to make it up to you.

The Departed

2006-10-18T17:22:00.000-07:00

I went to finally see "The Departed" last night with my friend Nick after hearing great things about it from a lot of different people. With a cast as powerful as it had and a director the caliber of Scorsese the movie definitely had a lot it live up to. It didn't disappoint. If you haven't seen it I definitely recommend that you do, it's rare recently to have a film that is as gripping and well-developed as this one. Alright, enough plugs.

After the movie we met some of Nate and some other guys at a bar and played darts for a couple hours, good times.

I have a lot of stuff to get done (i.e. dishes, laundry, cleaning stuff) so I had better get on that. I'm anxious to head out to Mississippi on Tuesday and see my friends Kristoph and Jon Little. I am trying to talk Nate into coming along for some small buy-in multi's but it looks like it will be a hard sell.

Also, the magazine "Entertainment Weekly" featured Borat on it's cover, Check it out:

Home

2006-10-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

I just arrived back home after an uneventful flight back. Phoenix was a blast, the city is so alive and growing, it reminds me a lot of Vegas in the respect. We didn't get to go to the game last night, but if you watched it you know we wish we would have. We did watch it at a sports bar with a bunch of Bears fans, oddly enough, which was pretty intense. I'll writed more later after I get everything unpacked.

AZ

2006-10-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

I got into Phoenix last night around 7:30 after a short lay-over in Denver. My friend Preston was there to pick me up and we headed straight for the ASU campus to hit up a bar a grill that was allegedly one of the "Top 10 college bars in the US" according to VH1 or something. It was pretty cool there but kind of dead for a Thursday night so we hopped around from bar to bar and checked everything out. The highlight of the night had to be when we got to a bar called The Tavern. We were sitting out on the patio doing some people watching when a couple of underage kids tried to get into the bar with a fake ID. Not usually a big deal but I guess this bar had been having trouble with minors and was really working hard to check the ID's very carefully. They actually made the girl in front of us show three forms of ID before letting her in. Anyways, so usually if a kid shows up with a fake they will just turn him away, or, at the worst confiscate the ID.... well, not here. I guess they detained one of the kids and called the police, in a couple of minutes two bike cops show up and start to put one of the guys in cuffs. All of the sudden his friend just jumps the cop, puts him in a head lock, and tries to slam him on the ground! The other cop jumps up and tackles the first kid who is in cuffs as he tries to run away and calls for back up on his radio. A couple of the bouncers from the club run over and subdue the one who had the cop down and both the kids fight till their death to resist this arrest. At one point they had to mace AND tase them. We tried to figure out what would drive the two retards to make the decision to jump up from a minor misdemeanor to a full blown felony. We finally decided that they either had to have some sort of arrest warrents on them already, or else they had some sort of drugs on them. Either way they are both retards and will deserve the jail time that they should inevitably get.

In other news, A really nice guy I met in Lake Tahoe called me yesterday and offered to fly me down to the World Poker Open in Biloxi to play in some events. Apparently his good friend runs the Imperial Palace, where the tournament is held, and is really going to take care of us. It should be a fun time and a good opportunity to get some more live tournaments under the belt.

Joke

2006-10-11T00:20:00.000-07:00

My good friend Shannon Shorr who is #2 in the Card Player "Player of the Year" race was recently excluded from the new Professional Poker League draft. This league is supposedly compirsed of the 64 strongest professionals in poker and definatly includes a lot of elite players, but also a TON of awful players. I'm very disappointed the Shannon wasn't include and was passed over in favor of the following "professionals":

19) Martin deKnijff - one of the more legit on this list, but really what has this guy done? Grade: F

27) Nick Schulman - A very good player and one I'd compare to Shannon, just not as acomplished: B-

28) Jack Fox - Seriously, did someone draft this guy as a joke?: D-

29) Josh Arieh - Terrible: F

32) Linda Johnson - Although a nice lady just not a player AT ALL: F

34) Esther Rossi -2 final tables and OVER $60,000 in winnings over the last 8 years!: F

35) Mimi Tran - If she says "I do it for Joshua" on TV I'll give her a D, but... : F

39) Jennifer Tilly - I'll take the doll in a 5k heads up match: F

40) Chip Jett - at least he isn't the creepiest guy in the world: F

41) Tony Guoga - I'm not sure if I'd play If I was Tony knowing Esther got drafted before me: F

42) Liz Lieu - Gets an F for Poker, but grand prize in the Sweet Hats Contest: F

43) Evelyn Ng - I'll give you TWO good reasons she's in: F

45) Mike Caro - They say those that can't play, teach... never more true: F

46) Phil Gordon - Rich former .com millionaire, and member of the much rspected "Tilt Boys": F-

47) David Williams - Has as much game as he does confidence in his sexuality: F

48) Amir Vahedi - I thought I saw this guy selling T-shirts "3 for $10" outside the Nugget this summer: F+, for the comback

Co Captain: T.J Cloutier - If this guy played cards as well as he Threw Dice he'd have 75 bracelets: F

Other players who got the shaft include:

Greg Raymer

Joe Hachem

Nam Lee

Phil Helmuth: F

Dan Harrington

Alex Jacob

J.C. Tran

Allen Cunnigham, obv didn't want to play: A+

Cliff "Johnny Bax" Josephy

Eril Sagstorm

Thank God they didn't include Shean Shiekan or Jamie Gold, that outstanding move may be enough to get me to watch a couple episodes now.

They obviously had to include some of the women because I think they had a "At least 1 women per team" rule. Which is really lame, and offensive to the women who actually would have made the cut.

A little poker

2006-10-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

I really haven't played a lot of poker in the last week, I did play the sunday majors and but finished just out of the money in all of them. It was really disappointing because I ahd built up really big stacks (like top 10 in chips) and then just gave them all away it seemed like. I have played a little cash games but haven't really had the desire to do much.

Tomorrow I get to go in and meet with one of the Dean of Education to discuss what classes I need to finish up and how exactly I will get my degree. I'm anxious to see just how long it is going to take to get done. On thursday I am flying to Phoenix to visit one of my good friends and roomates from college. We are probably going to catch a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game and maybe the Cardnials game on MNF.

That's all for now, I have to go wake up Nate so we can go to the post office to get his passport application.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2006-10-06T23:07:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has ever seen a "Tuff Fish" video you must follow the link at the bottom of the page for one of the funniest things I may have ever heard. If you are someone who reads my blog but doesn't understand poker very well, or hasn't seen the legendary Tuff Fish in action... then a lot of the humor will be missed.

If you are a poker player and by some miracle, haven't ever seen a Tuff Fish video, follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StsG95-zdjg&mode=related&search=

If you know Tuff Fish and don't believe that it is possible to die from laughter, follow this link

http://tuffish.ytmnd.com/

*make sure the volume is on*

Still No Poker

2006-10-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

So since I haven't been playing any and don't have much to report, I thought I'd plug the movie that looks like it may be the funniest cinematic experience in 10 years.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

If any one has seen "The Ali G Show" staring British comedian Sasha Baron Cohen, then they may have seen some clips of his altar ego "Borat". This is one of the most ingenious and funniest ideas for a character, and a movie, ever. Here's a review from Scott Weinberg or efilmcritic.com

"Those familiar with Cohen's Da Ali G Show are no doubt already crazy about Khazak news reporter Borat. As I stated in my review of Ali's Volume 2 DVD, "So convincing is Cohen's portrayal of the character that he often gets his interview subjects to lower their guard, and when that happens ... hilariously embarrassing things are bound to happen. (Watch how easy it is for Borat to get a bar full of Arizonians to sing along with "Throw the Jew Down the Well!")"So going into the feature-length Borat adventure, I already knew I was in for (at least) a few chuckles. I was underestimating the flick by about 65 laughs.Lensed in a slyly effective low-budget documentary style, Borat focuses on Khazakstan's favorite (fictional) son as he hits New York City, falls immediately in love with Pamela Anderson, and begins an impromptu trek across the country. Along the way he meets with politicians, socialites, prostitutes, frat boys, cowboys, and homosexuals -- all of whom manage to give Borat an extra-special taste of what "America" is all about.Fair warning, though: This is not some puffy little road movie full of enlightenment and warmth. What the Borat character does is so slickly smart (and smoothly amusing) ... I'm beginning to suspect that Sacha Baron Cohen might be a satirist on par with Swift, Bruce, Kaufman and anyone else who makes the deflation of societal ugliness his main target in life.Some might take offense to some of the material found in Borat, as it's rife with jokes about nasty old Jewish stereotypes and the "inequality" of woman and the like. Me, I choose to look at it a different way (and with a name like Weinberg, I'm obviously Jewish) -- Borat's absurdity and ignorance serves a reflection of our own, only Cohen take great pleasure in pointing out how moronic racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism truly are. Plus his "backwoods foreigner" routine really does bring out the latent ugliness in a lot of people. (Watch how Cohen subtly extracts some horrifically unkind gay-bashing from a "normal Joe" cowboy dude.)But it's not all socio-political satire and alarmingly sly commentary; Borat is packed with every flavor of humor under the sun: satire, spoof, slapstick, and scatalogical schtick are thrown onto the screen at every opportunity. Plus the flick has THE funniest battle between two naked men that you'll ever see. Or want to see.
Frankly I laughed more often during "Borat" than I have at all of 2006's multiplex comedies combined. It's so shockingly, brazenly funny that I'm stunned to see a studio like Fox embrace the flick. Here's hoping they don't trim one second of its 82 minutes before its theatrical release."

To see a trailer, follow this link: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/borat/trailers.php

I can't wait

No Poker

2006-10-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't played much poker in the last couple days, I did make a FT in a $20 tourney the other night, but got 9th which is basically worthless. Yesterday I went to Seward and met with someone in the admissions office to talk about going back to school. They really didn't seem to know what to do and just sent me to Financial Aid to see about any scholarships I got get, and then sent me to my old advisor to see how many classes I'd need. So at least the ball is rolling on the whole process. After I got done there I went and sat in on the basketball practice and got to see a few of my old teammates that I hadn't seen for a while. The team's personnel is different than in past years so they are running a different kind of offense. It was really interesting to see Coach Schmidt, who has always been known for his methodical grind them down offense, switch to a run-and-gun type of approach. After than I went to dinner with a few of my friends and we caught the Concordia vs. Doane volleyball game. All in all a pretty good day.

U.S. Legislation

2006-10-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

Several days ago Congress past a bill that will essentially make on-line poker illegal in the U.S. I won't go into details about the legislation but you can find more information on it by following this link: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_news/news_story/1424?class=PokerNews

This will basically change the face of on-line poker forever. None of the on-line sites will shut down, but several of the major ones (Party, Stars, Pacific) have indicated that they will shut down the accounts of all U.S. citizens. This will dry up A LOT of the action from most of the losing players in the games, as most of the biggest fish are Americans. It will essentially dilute the pool of players so that the ratio of winning players to losing players will be much higher. This means that even if an on-line professional were to move outside of the U.S. to play they would still have a much harder time making a successful living.

I don't believe in coincidences, and I think that I am meant to view this as a sign in my life. The life of a professional poker player is not as glamorous as I imagined. It has been great to travel and meet all the exceptionally interesting people that I have in the past three years. The money is better than any other occupation and the freedom it allows me is second to none. Still I seem to wake up every morning feeling empty and un-fulfilled. I feel like my life right now has little bearing on anything not directly related to me. I don't feel like I am helping anyone besides myself and consequently I feel selfish and immature.

I have had a nagging feeling over the last several weeks that I need to change the direction of my life. I scares me to think that I may wake up one day 10 years from now and realize that I wasted all the talents I have on myself. There are only a few things in my life that I am truly passionate about, and becoming a teacher is by far the biggest. Becoming a great teacher and coach is something that I have wanted for a long time, and I think it's about time that I stopped shoving it to the back of my mind.

Basically, I think I am going to go back to school for another semester and get my teaching degree. I need to meet with an advisor and see just exactly what classes I need to finish up in order to get my teaching certificate. I was fairly close to graduating with a degree in education, so I would be very surprised if I needed to take more than one semester's worth of classes.

I'm not sure what will come to pass for the future of Poker in the weeks and months to come, but I plan on continuing to play if some of the sites stay up. I have basically gotten all my student loans paid off in the last month, and it would be nice to be able to pay off my last semester's worth before I start at school in January.

WCOOP ME

2006-10-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

The WCOOP Main Event just got underway, I'm not playing it but most of my friends are so hopefully one of them will take down the MASSIVE 1.15 Million dollar first prize. I'm playing most of the other tournaments, so hopefully I can win a small 100k from one of them.

Iowa was fun, we didn't get tickets to the game but went to a bar and watched it with 300 screaming, drunk Iowa fans. Time of my life.

I also have to give a special notice of the latest memeber of my family who has caught the poker bug. My older sister Rhonda just won her 2nd tournament today. A $6 5-table SNG on Party for a nice return of $75. She also won a $6 multi on party several weeks ago for $1,000. I got to watch her run over the final table today and she's actually got some pretty good game.

Heading to Iowa

2006-09-29T15:24:00.000-07:00

My good friend Alex (background) and I are heading out for Iowa City in a hour or so to catch the Iowa vs. Ohio St. game. I'm really looking forward to seeing a big college football game as I am sure the atmosphere will be electric. It's also always a good time to hang out with Donny (the fish holding the sign) and Tony. How can you not love these guys?

Welcome Swedes

2006-09-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

I just checked my stats on the site and I've had over 50 hits from Sweden today. This is undoubtedly because of Mats Iremarks new site and his link to this site on it. I wasn't sure what kind of celebrity Mats has in Sweden, but it is apparently more than I thought.

I also just found the link to "Team Hink", which is a group of four young Swedish guys who I have met traveling in Europe. They are really great guys and exceptional poker players. I've posted a link to their site on the left.

Tourney Donkey

2006-09-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

Multi's are tough. I've been playing about 20 multi's a day for the last four days and it's really exhausting. It's also really tough to final table the big events. I'm having some pretty moderate success making the top 50 - 20 but it seems like I have to catch a break or two to make the Final Table. I am up about 5k this week, mostly thanks to the 4th in the $11 re-buy, so it is looking fairly profitable. However, I also know that the strange thing about playing multi's is that most of your profit comes from the big scores. If you can break even on your tournaments where you don't make the final table, then you are doing fairly well. The big scores that you get from your wins are more than enough to pad your roll.

I also need a couple more deep finishes to bring some life back into my run at the weekly TLB on Stars. I think I have dropped to 21st right now due to others accumulating more points than I have in the last couple days.

I think I may go to Iowa this weekend to hang out with my friends Donny and Tony and catch the Iowa vs. Ohio St. game. Donny is maybe one of the funniest guys I know and it's always a blast to hang out with him. I just hope we don't end up at a bar with a pool table, I think I single handedly doubled Tony's bankroll with my pool losses this summer.

I'll probably take my camera so that I can get some pictures to liven up the blandness of this site.

Oh also, my good friend Mats Iremark just got his new website up. It's an exceptional design and when I actually get famous enough to justify building my own site, I'll want one like this. Check it out at www.matsiremark.com

9th on the TLB

2006-09-26T14:55:00.001-07:00

I just checked my Tournament Leaderboard Rank on Poker Stars and I am currently 9th on the list. I am still almost 1,000 points behind Jason Strassar but if I final table a couple more tourney's this week I should be able to climb up to at least the top 3. Here's the current Top Ten:

1. strassa2 1983.18
2. thugmpneymkr 1517.97
3. BarnyBoatman 1144.99
4. clarkinatarr 1119.35
5. ElRupert 1105.28
6. Kenny Rap 1076.77
7. ricestud 1057.98
8. thorladen 1044.97
9. runencold 1000.81
10. MaltLiquor40 991.59

Disappointing 4th

2006-09-26T03:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished the 55k guaranteed $11 rebuy on Poker Stars in 4th place. It is pretty disappointing since we were all pretty even in chips when it got down to four handed. I still got $4,100 for 4th, but first would have been 14k, which I really wanted. I got pretty deep in a couple other tourneys as well but no final tables. I am very happy with my play right now and feel pretty confident that I can come fairly close to winning the TLB on Stars. That's about all the news for today :)

Multis

2006-09-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple days but I've been playing poker pretty much non-stop since Friday. I played mostly Multi Table Tournaments (MTT's) all weekend to break up the monotony of fixed limit hold'em. I didn't do well in any of the major's yesterday, but I decided that I wanted to try to win the Poker Stars weekly tournament leaderboard this week, so I played a bunch of smaller tournaments as well. I was close to doing very well in a few of the, I got 40th in the $22/RB when my KK ran into 10 6, got 33rd in the $11/RB, and 20th in a $20 tourney. I also played the Bluff Poker Tour $10 tournament on Full Tilt and got 2nd for 1.3k. The Bluff Poker is a series of tournaments over several months which each player earns points for. The winner at the end of the season gets a entry into a live tourney in the Bahamas or somewhere like that. If I play most of them I am pretty confident that I can win it.

I think playing multi's all week will be a good break from 5/10 and by next week I'll probably be bored of MTT's and be ready to grind again.

If I had won all 4 of those tournaments I would have made about $40,000, and If that would have happened I would have made 1/6th as much as my good friend Cody Slaubaugh won in the WCOOP event yesterday. Cody (thugmoneymkr) got 2nd in the $1,000 buy-in NL Hold'em tourney for almost $250,000. Cody lived with us in Vegas this summer and is now the 4th person from our house to have a score over six figures since Vegas. I like to think that patience is rewarded....

WCOOP event #6

2006-09-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of yesterday playing in the WCOOP (World Championships of Online Poker) Event #6, $215 NL Hold'em w/Rebuys. I started off well and doubled up early with JJ vs. QQ on a Jack high flop. This didn't last long though as I lost several tough hands in the next 30 minutes and had to rebuy. I won a few pots before the break and after the add on had about 13,000 chips, plenty above average and was only in for $800. I played for so long that I can't remember all the hands but I slowly built my chip stack over the next 3 or 4 hours and when we hit the money (270 players) I was in the top 20 in chips at 110,000. Then things turned a little. I went pretty card dead over the next 3 hours and never saw any big pairs. I kept my stack sustained by picking good spots, stealing the right pots, and re-stealing in key positions. When we got down to the final 80 or so I started to get a little excited, even though I was relatively short stacked with only 170,000 and blinds of 4k/8k. I had several steal attempts that didn't work when a bigger stack re-raised me, once showing his Aces. I couldn't get any cards but stayed alive. About an hour later we were down to 40 or so and I pushed all in from the cutoff, trying to steal with 99. Unfortunately the BB woke up with AA and I was out in a very disappointing 41st place. First place was almost $225,000 and I really wanted it, unfortunately it just wasn't my night. I was very happy with how I played though and am optimistic about my multi table improvement over the last two months. I'll probably grind some 5/10 tonight and play some multi's tomorrow.

Very Odd

2006-09-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

I just put in a 1,007 hand session and am really happy with how I played, plus I felt like I ran decently enough. I had a few one and two outers on me in pretty decent pots, but not anything upsettingly bad. I kept my head the whole time and they really didn't affect me. Usually I never pay attention to how I am doing, if I am up or down, during the session and just wait till the end to see. I usually guess how much I made or lost and am almost always very low on my estimates, meaning that I usually do better than I think. Well, I would have guessed that I was up 300 or so on this session, so it was pretty decent and that means that I was probably up 500-600 or so. Well, when I checked at the end I was down $40.... It was really bizarre because I really played well, didn't run awful, and never really made any mistakes. It really threw me for a loop.

It's just really kind of frustrating I guess. I mean I had a session where I feel like I SHOULD have made money. Nothing went wrong really and I played better than I have in a week. I guess maybe it's just that I am getting more immune to the bad beats. That really could be the only reason I can think of, maybe I ran worse than I realized. I don't know.

I am really disheartened at the moment. I'll try to make some money tomorrow.

No idea

2006-09-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how I only lost $650 tonight. I had to stop playing because I really knowingly started playing very badly. I really need to work on my extreme tilt composure, although I hope it never becomes something that I have to call upon often.

Boring

2006-09-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

I played way to much today, it would be a good thing, but it was the wrong things I was playing. I played a bunch of Multi's and Satelites and played really well in all of them, just well enough to almost make the money or ALMOST qualify. It sucked. I only put in about 2k hands at 5/10 and think I may have made like 300-400 or so, it was all so spread out that I'm not exactly sure. I need to get out and do something sometime soon, so I may go visit my friend Jon Little in Florida sometime in the next couple months. He's the ultimate grinder and I think staying with him and watching his habits could be pretty beneficial. Right now my biggest enemy is fatigue and burn-out, so i am trying to figure out ways around them. My numbers are acceptable, but I know they could be higher. Since I get rakeback now, I think I will just withdraw my rakeback $$ for living expenses which will leave my poker bankroll untouched and free to grow as much as I want it to. I should probably get around $2,500 a month in rakeback which will be plenty to live off of.

Also, one of my good friends informed me that his brother hit the Bad Beat Jackpot on Party Poker today for a cool $164,000...... sick

My blog gets boring so I figured I'd take a picture of my hair and let you look at something, I have a running $500 bet with my friend Nate on which one of us will cut our hair first. I guarantee victory.

September Numbers:
Hands: 21,463
Profit: $8,373.07
BB/100: 3.9
Rake Back: $1,161

Upset

2006-09-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

I don't think I'm mad that the Huskers lost, USC was clearly a better team and our defensive secondary has a lot of work to do before being able to stop them. I am mad that our offense never took a chance and it looked like we played scared the whole game. There was a lot of talk around the state about how it appeared that Callahan wasn't trying to win the game, but just trying to not lose big, I think that seems fairly accurate to me.

After the game on Saturday I didn't play at all, far to depressed, so I went out with some of my friends. Yesterday was Sunday and traditionally Sunday's are big for poker players. This week was even bigger as the WCOOP (World Championships of On-line Poker) got under way. PokerStars had a $500 NL event instead of their regular $215 Sunday million. It was a huge field and I lost exactly 97% of my chips 5 minutes into the tournament when I re-raised a pre flop raiser with an gut shot straight flush draw. I actually had another guy push over the top, and the original raiser call, so I was getting slightly better that 8:1 to call off the rest of my chips. I ran the hand on CardPlayer and found that I was 45% to win, but it didn't happen.

I also played the mill on party and cashed for like $500, and I almost cashed in the FullTilt 500k guarantee but came up just short. The day was pretty uneventful otherwise and I just relaxed and watched TV for the rest of the night. I want to put in a lot of hands at 5/10 this week and make some money, so I will be focusing on that for a while.

Friday night lights

2006-09-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

Instead of heading out to the bars with some friends like I normally would on Friday night, I decided to actually put in a session. But before a good session you need to re-fuel your body so Nick and I decided to go out to eat at Famous Daves. It was delicious. After we got back I really wanted to play which is unusual, especially since I have been running less than optimally. I put in a really good four hour session and felt like I played really well. I dodged a few of the tough hands that I had been running into and actually posted a good win for the session. The numbers for tonight ended up at 1870 hands at + $1,407. This is more the kind of session I have been expecting and it is nice to put one up. One change I did make was that instead of six tabling, like I had been, I decided to just four table. I felt like when I was six tabling I didn't get as much of a chance to pay attention to the way my opponents played and I think it was costing me a bet here and there. I think I will stick with four tabling for a while until I really get the hang of it and feel comfortable enough to move up to more.

Earlier this afternoon I played a few little sub-satellites on PokerStars and won a $475 seat in tomorrows super satellite to the EPT Dublin event. I think it would be really awesome to get to go to Ireland again and would be really pumped if I won the package.

September running numbers:
Hands: 19,319
Won: $8,169.14
BB/100: 4.23

I'm a little disappointed in the BB/100, but I think it's mainly due to the 2 losing sessions this week.

Go Huskers!!!!!
Prediction: NU 27 USC 21

Party = Adidas

2006-09-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

Adidas recently launched a new ad campaign featuring the slogan "Impossible is Nothing". This catch phrase is meant to give the impression that despite the long shot odds, sports dreams can and do happen. I think Party Poker should buy the rights to this slogan and use it in their new TV adds. They could show sreen shots from the tables I play while the television audience gasps and sits in anticipative silence as each 2 and 3 outer nails the river.

I HATE bitching about bad beats, but I also just need an outlet to let a little frustration out so that I don't explode. You are the lucky outlet. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Done, I promise from now on I will make no mention of any bad beats.

I played well for the first hour of my session, then slumped off a little towards the end so I quit. I played 683 hands and lost $296 on the session.

loving it

2006-09-15T17:17:00.001-07:00

***** Hand History for Game 5178736092 *****
$5/$10 Texas Hold'em - Friday, September 15, 20:09:40 ET 2006
Table Monster #1293670 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: hitking57 ( $251.30 )
Seat 3: bridge6989 ( $247.75 )
Seat 6: MarieG777 ( $309.96 )
Seat 1: Joey_Pistone ( $323 )
Seat 5: letitride50 ( $128.75 )
Seat 4: jhjf2007 ( $190.50 )
bridge6989 posts small blind [$2].
jhjf2007 posts big blind [$5].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Joey_Pistone [ Kc Kh ]
letitride50 calls [$5].
MarieG777 calls [$5].
Joey_Pistone raises [$10].
hitking57 raises [$15].
bridge6989 calls [$13].
jhjf2007 folds.
letitride50 folds.
MarieG777 calls [$10].
Joey_Pistone raises [$10].
hitking57 calls [$5].
bridge6989 calls [$5].
MarieG777 calls [$5].
** Dealing Flop ** [ As, 7c, 3d ]
bridge6989 checks.
MarieG777 checks.
Joey_Pistone bets [$5].
hitking57 calls [$5].
bridge6989 folds.
MarieG777 calls [$5].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ]
MarieG777 checks.
Joey_Pistone checks.
hitking57 checks.
** Dealing River ** [ 4d ]
MarieG777 checks.
Joey_Pistone checks.
hitking57 checks.
MarieG777 shows [ 7h, 2h ] two pairs, sevens and twos.
Joey_Pistone doesn't show [ Kc, Kh ] a pair of kings.
hitking57 shows [ Jc, Jh ] a pair of jacks.
The time at which hand ended:Sep 15 2006 20:09 ET
MarieG777 wins $101.50 from the main pot with two pairs, sevens and twos.
You have options at Table 109577 Table!.

Playing well

2006-09-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

I just put in a 90 minute session 6-tabling on Party and felt like I played really well. I actually ran worse (I didn't think it could get worse) than I have already been running, but I fought through it and didn't allow myself to go on tilt. I was really impressed at one point in the session with my composure. I was in very large pots on 3 separate tables: On one table I had a pretty solid hand against a couple of terrible players, KQ on a KJ10 flop. We got 3 bets in on the flop and the river was a Q, one of the guys flipped A8 to take it down. On the next table at the same time I called a raise 3 ways out of the BB with 99, flop comes A 9 3, DINK!, check call to keep the SB in as well, turn A, DINK!, I lead, 3 bet because I know he has Ace garbage, river Ace :( I check called even though I shouldn't have. On the last table I take a free flop out of the BB with 56 off suit, The flop comes 235 and I lead call a raise against a very bad aggressive player. The turn is a K and I check raise, he calls, river is a 10 and I bet, he calls and shows 10 7 off, no draw. After that hand I sat there and forced myself to not go on tilt, it was pretty relaxing actually and I was impressed that I could keep my composure as well as I did. I ended up playing about 750 hands and lost $550, no worries.

When I said a few days ago that I believe that it would be next to impossible to have any significant losing day, I was wrong. It is possible, but REALLY unlikely. I'm pretty sure that it just isn't going to happen really almost ever. I don't like to talk about how bad I am running, but to give you perspective, I really can't imagine running worse and have never experienced anything worse than the last few days. I fully expect to make a ton of money this month and as long as the improbable subsides for a little bit, I will.

Running bad

2006-09-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

I hate running bad. There were times tonight that I just sat for a few moments and stared at the screen in disbelief about the way a hand had played. I can safely say some of the worst players in the world play 5/10 limit on Party. These players are what make the tables so profitable and without them there wouldn't be guys like me, but the times when these players get very hot can be extremely frustrating. It really isn't a normal frustrated either, it's more like a personal attack on me frustrated. When you play 2,000 + hands a day you get to the point where you pretty much KNOW if you are going to win the pot before your opponent acts on the river. If you were beat they world raise, so when they just call you expect to get the pot, with some of these players, they just call when they should be raising and THAT is what really bugs me. I fully expect the pot to come my way and then BAM, they flip the 2nd nuts and rake the chips in. It's like they are slow rolling you on-line, or as close as they can possibly get to it. I can just picture these guys sitting on their couch ignoring their screaming kids and disfunctional family, playing a little 5/10 on Party, and thinking to themselves..... "Man I'm just not sure of Queens full is good here, he could have flopped Quad Deuces and have me beat, I better just call after a 6 or 7 second deliberation for dramatic effect."

Okay, I am done ranting, I was going to actually post a couple of the hands I had crush me tonight, but even if I did I am pretty sure some people wouldn't believe that they were real and I had changed the Hand History in some way. I played like 2k in hands today and thought I was down quite a bit, but ended up about $300 or so.

I did in fact lose money the other night, $500 to be exact. I ran bad and was really truthfully playing poorly. I made myself quit even though the tables were fairly soft because I was playing so bad.

Here are my numbers for September so far, not one day :)

Hands: 16,052
Won: $7,794
BB/100: 4.86

As you can tell my BB/100 has dropped significantly during this cold stretch, it's to be expected. I am trying not to focus on that number, or the profit and instead focus on the # of Hands played. If I just try to put in a lot of hands and play as perfectly as possible every session then the profit will take care of itself.

Awful Day

2006-09-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

I just played for about 2 hours, 900 hands, and HAD to stop because I was running so incredibly bad. Almost every hand I had for about a 20 minute strech got outdrawn on the river. I know that this is going to happen but it happened so many times in a row that I could feel myself about to TILT so I had to stop. It was really ridiculous, I almost lost money on the session, which hasn't happened yet and really now I don't think that it is likely. I may play more later, but right now need a break tonight.

Still pwning

2006-09-08T02:48:00.000-07:00

Hands: 11,309
Profit: $7,511.24
BB/100: 6.64

Sick

I'm going to a wedding this weekend in Valentine Nebraska, two of my very good friends are marrying each other and I couldn't be happier for them, congrats Tommy and Keira. I'll probably be back and playing on Sunday.

Going strong

2006-09-07T00:30:00.000-07:00

First off, the picture is of my set-up in my "office". I just got the 2nd monitor today, it's the first time I've used a dual monitor system, and I have to admit, it's really sweet. I'm the type of guy that has a hard time concentrating and differentiating between very small tables. This new set up allows me to have four full size tables open with no over lap. My roommate Nick had the extra monitor, so he's letting me use it and said that he would probably just sell it to me later.

It hasn't really felt like it, but I have been CRUSHING the games on party. I will be playing and think that I am down for the day or just about even, and when I check it turns out that I am way up. I am pretty sure it's because when I start running bad, I feel like I am losing money, but in fact I'm breaking even or making a little despite the "bad beats". My numbers are sick, way above what I expected at this point. I played 4 tables for about 5 hours today and didn't feel like I ran particularity well, but ended up almost $1,800. Right now I can't see this approach ever not working, I know it is early in the experiment but I feel like I am actually running bad and making a lot of money. I don't think that it would be out of the question, if I ran very very well, to have a $5,000 day playing 5/10 limit. That's mind boggling. I'm almost at 10,000 hands and have been at this only 8 days. Here's my numbers...

Hands: 9,824
Won: $5,962.71
BB/100: 6.07

If I can maintain at Six BB/100, I will be very happy.

First 5k hands

2006-09-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

here's the numbers through my first 5,000 hands in this 5/10 6-max experiment. 5,000 hands is still a small sample size, when I get to about 25,000 - 30,000 I will have a much better idea about how profitable grinding low limits could be.

Hands won: 15.76%
saw flop: 30.05%
won: $2,954.93
BB/100 hands: 5.91
pre-flop raise 16.68%
showdowns won: 56.6%

If anyone has a good idea about where these numbers should be at, any comments or advice would be really appreciated.

Chuck Hoang Wins!

2006-09-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

My very good friend, Adam Geyer just won the Poker Stars Million guaranteed for a cool $156,000. That is a very good day. He goes by the name "Chuck Hoang" on most sites, but on Poker Stars he goes by "simmsux". Congrats to him, it really could not have happened to a better guy. Now I am just anxious for my turn :)

Getting pwned

2006-09-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

I didn't have a chance to write about it, but my session friday night went very poorly, I got pwned by bad luck and it was really awesome. I mean that seriously, because I ran awful and still made about $200 over 700 or so hands. This is really exciting to me because I was begining to think that I was just running hot and the when the heater ended I would start losing money. That looks like a much less likely explanation now.

I spent the weekend in Kearney with my family. My mom was married this morning to a very nice guy named Lowell. It was great to see all my family altogether and I'm very happy for the new Mr. and Mrs. Peeks. I think it's spelled that way :)

I'm anxious to put in a lot of hours this week before heading out again next weekend for another wedding.

Slowing down some

2006-09-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

Well, my pace has slowed down a little bit. I played yesterday on Stars for a couple hours and couldn't really do much, plus I ran pretty bad, and the tables were pretty tough. It cost me about $200 or so over 300 hands. I decided since the games weren't very good I would try my new account on Party and deposited $500 into it. I have to say that I have never been very fond of Party's cash games. I always felt like they were pretty full of decent players and it would be hard to ever make a lot of money. That defiantly wasn't the case last night. I ran very well, had a bunch of big hands hold up, and most importantly was playing at tables that were very weak. I don't know if it will keep up like this but if it does, then I am going to be very happy :) I ended up on the night 300 or so I think, not the insane $1,000 days of 5/10 that I have been having, but still a very nice day for only playing 800 hands or so. Nick Van Newkirk, my roommate, and I decided to go out to the bars around 10:30, so it cut the night short. I'm probably gonna grind here for the next 5-6 hours then I think we are going to go out again tonight.

Hands: 3,497
BB/100: 6.28
Profit: $2,197.86

Acceptable, but I want to get to 25,000 hands by the end of September, if not more.

Even better

2006-08-30T22:18:00.000-07:00

I just finished playing for today and thought I played very well, with the exception of a 2 or 3 hands that I feel I could have played differently to either maximise my profits of minimize my losses. I put in another 1,180 hands and ran at 9.1 BB/100 hands. I actually feel like I ran better yesterday and that the games were harder today so I don't know why the numbers improved, I played almost the same I think. I guess with this small of a sample size, it could have just been one or two pots where my hand held and that made the difference. I'm excited to keep this up and for some reason actually enjoy grinding this out. I imagine that it will get old after a while, but if this pace keeps up I may not get tired of it for a long time. I'll post my running numbers for those of you who understand them at the bottom of the post.

My mom is getting married this weekend (Congrats Mom) so I will be busy off and on until sunday with the big occassion. I will probably try to put in some more hours tomorrow though and maybe friday if there is time.

2,564 hands of 5/10 on Poker Stars
24 hours and 3 minutes
won $1,972
hourly rate: $81.97
won per hand: $0.77
BB/100: 8.2

Good News... Finally

2006-08-30T00:09:00.000-07:00

I played about 1,000 hands of limit on Stars today and it went really well. I played well, the games were fairly soft, I moved tables quite a bit to find the best games, and I ran fairly well, or at least average I think. I didn't play more than two tables at once and I used Poker Office on every table that I had. I really have to say that I feel like a retard for never using Poker Office or Poker Tracker before this. After becoming accustomed to all the numbers and what everything means, it's really the single most useful tool any on-line player could use. The information it gives you just helps you with so many borderline decisions and allows you to make the right play so much more often. The self-analyziation that it enables on your own game is also pretty amazing. You can really tell where your leaks are over the long run and what types of plays you are making that are profitable or unprofitable. Okay enough with the plug.

I averaged 7.87 Big Bets per 100 hands today, which is a very nice day. If I could average those numbers everyday I would be very happy, and very rich in year or so. I know that it will eventually lower some, but I'm excited to see what I can do to maximize the potential in my game.

I feel like I finally have a plan of attack for the next several months, but I usually get to excited about things right off the bat and end up disappointed a few days later. Hopefully that will not be the case this time. I just want to be like Jon Little for a while and have incredibly boring days where I grind out ridiculous profits.

Decent Sunday

2006-08-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

I played three of the Majors yesterday along with the 50k on Pacific. I didn't play very well on Paradise and busted somewhere in the third hour. I played very well on Full Tilt and got all my money in with a dominating hand (but I don't remember the exact hand) and somehow lost, tragically. I played in the Stars $530 and tried to make a little noise in it. We got down to about 200 players and I lost a VERY large pot with a semi-bluff flush draw that didn't get there. I then navigated a short stack very very well for about an hour and had myself back up to 27k (half the average at that point) There was a guy to my immediate left who really didn't seem to grasp any tournament stragegy and had been dwindling away his monster stack down to about 50k. It folded to me in the SB with blinds at 1,500/3,000 and I shove my entire 25k into the pot with AQ, fully expecting him to call with almost any hand. I screamed CALLLLL!!!! at my monitor while he time banks and finally eventually called with J7 :) Unfortunatly, he hit a Jack and I was out, but I was still pretty pumped about getting the exact result I hoped for from a very unique situation. He went on to get 8th, a borderline Miracle from the hand of God given his plays.

I'm playing a bunch of multi's today because I have been playing them disgustingly well lately, but I haven't done much today. Have taken a few bad beats in key pots that have ended my chances.... ouch, as we speak just got two outed.... it burns a little :)

Lots going on

2006-08-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

Playing lower stakes than I am used to is kind of frustrating at first because I feel like I should be able to beat the game EVERY time. To tell you the truth, a lot of these lower stakes games are much, much tougher than some of the high stakes games on-line. It's really amazing how many really solid limit players there are at these levels, it makes me kind of suspicious that they may be bots, but who knows.
Another downfall of being poor is that I find it difficult to justify playing a lot of bigger buy-in multis. Fortunately my roommate thinks I am a good tournament player and is willing to put me into a few of them. I came really close to making him some real money yesterday in the PokerStars $300 tourney. I ended up getting 10th but played almost perfectly I think, so that has me very optimistic. I'm playing in most all of the majors today, something I haven't done for a while, so I will update tomorrow about how I did.

Back in Lincoln

2006-08-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

I just got my stuff moved into my temporary residence in Lincoln. The house is HUGE, like 7 bedrooms and I am the only one living here, so it will be pretty nice.

Poker is not being kind to me since my return from Canada. I have started off running really exceptionally badly, and I don't usually say that even when I am running very badly. The poor fortune is in return causing me to play worse than I should be and that is frustrating me even more. I almost want to just go broke so that I can re-grip reality and start all over. Not really :)

Leaving Vegas

2006-08-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

The trip is over for my part and my buddy Nate and I are going to take off this afternoon heading back to Nebraska. I am leaving on Thursday to go fishing in Canada with my dad, so I am pretty excited about that. I am also anxious to get an apartment and just sit there and grind on-line for a while after we return from the fishing.

Shannon and Adam both cashed for around 25k in the Main Event, so our house does show a little hope I guess. The trip as a whole was disappointing at best for everyone. We all had dreams of Final Tables every tournament and no one could seem to get anything done. It ended up being a great learning experience and I'll take a lot away from the trip.

I won't post anything until about the 22nd, so no need to check up until then.

Main Event going well

2006-08-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

The Main Event is going very well for several of my friends. Shannon is the chip leader from our house and three of my others friends/housemates are still in as well. Day 3 will start tomorrow after everyone gets a break today. Here's the chip counts:

Shannon "Bluffforrent" Shor - 174,700
Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin - 112,000
Adam "ChukHoangRocks" Geyer - 83,000
Cody "thugmoneymkr" Slaubaugh - 22,000

You can keep updated on Cardplayer if you want to see how they do tomorrow. I think there are about 850 people left and first place is an unbelievable $12,000,000 (Yes that is TWELVE MILLION dollars). I have 1% of Shannon action :) So root for him extra hard.

Main Event

2006-07-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

The Main Event starts today and if you aren't really familar with poker this definatly is the "World Series", "Super Bowl", "NBA Finals" of poker. Everyone in my house has a seat in it except for me :( I tried to qualify for it on-line but wasn't successful, I should have probably tried to qualify earlier in the year. Next year I'll make sure I get it done early. I did have a glimmer of hope yesterday when a friend of mine from Michigan (who won a braclet in the $2,000 NL event a week ago) came up to me and said he had heard I didn't have my seat and was thinking about putting me in. But, I didn't hear back from him last night so I assume that it isn't gonna happen.

I'll update on how all my friends are doing in it as it progresses. I have made a TON of new friends since I've been out here so inevitably at least one of them will go deep into the tourney. It'l be fun to cheer them all on and a have a small percentage of a couple of them, so maybe I'll make a little money from it if they go deep.

not been playing

2006-07-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't been playing much lately because I was in Colorado Springs for one of my best friends weddings. It was a lot of fun and it made me realize how much fun I we all had together.

I played some on-line today and ran fairly poorly but still made some money, so that was good. I am going to try to get back in the grind of on-line play so that I can re-build my bankroll. As of right now I am not planning on playing any more WSOP events and am going to stop myself at 0 - 11. Not what I had imagined but I'm not going to let it ruin my life or anything. Thanks to everyone for keeping up on the reading and I'll try to do better on updating consistently in the future.

$1,500 NL today

2006-07-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

wish me luck

No good, got coolered when my AK lost to QQ in a battle of the blinds. I had a good ammount of chips but it was still early. Today is the $2,500 PL Hold'em event, I love Pot Limit!

Update

2006-07-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

well, I played the $2,500 NL short handed event on Thursday and lasted all on 10 minutes. I then went over to the Bellagio with Shannon and Eric and played the $1,000 daily tournament that they have been running during the series. I played really really well and when we got down to 19 people (top 18 got paid) I had an above average chip stack with 55,000. I called a standard raise out of the BB with 66 and checked when the flop came 886 (BINGO!), the original raiser bet 12,000 and have about 25k more behind him. I feel like I did a fairly good job of selling him the idea that I had a low pair, like 77 or 55 and raised all in after thinking for about 2 minutes. He pretty much immediately called with 10's and he seemed almost sure he had the best hand. It was a pretty big pot, over 110,000 in chips and the winner would defiantly be the chip leader. The turn came and 8, so it counterfeited my full house and he won the pot. :( First was $67,000, would have been nice.

I'm gonna take a break from playing the tournaments for a little while, my bankroll is suffering to much even though I feel I am playing better and better each time. I'm gonna focus on playing on-line for a while and try to make something happen.

Another Pic

2006-07-12T03:55:00.000-07:00

I had another Pic on CardPlayer.com today, they seem to like me for some reason even though I can't seem to cash. I played really exceptionally well today, maybe one of the best tournaments I have ever played. I ran very poorly however, couldn't win any race and lost alot of hands I had dominated. I made some exceptional reads and great calls and had a lot of chips $35,000 with about 70 people left. I proceeded to lose 2 races and a hand where I had a large draw and busted in 56th place, when 54 got paid. Kind of sucks, but I can't ask to play any better than I did and if I keep it up, I will really make some noise.

Good Weekend

2006-07-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

The wedding in Kansas was really great, it was a good break from Vegas for a couple days and I'm really glad I got to be there for one of my best friends on his big day. I just got back in town a few hours ago after our flight had to make and emergency stop in Palm Springs... kind of unexpected. Tomorrow is a 1k NL event that I'll play in and I think there is a 2k PL event on tuesday as well. Looking for my first cash is getting frustrating, so hopefully that streak will end soon.

On a good note, one of my good friends Scott cashed today for 18k in the Full Tilt $200 tourney. It's his 2nd final table in a row in that tourney and he's really starting to becoming a spectacular tournament player. He'll be coming out here later this week with Alex Michel to play a few events.

Updates tomorrow will mean I am doing well.

Update

2006-07-06T02:53:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't updated in a while, you can usually guess that I have not been doing really well. I am fairly frustarted that I didn't cash in my first five WSOP events and decided to take a break from playing the events. To top off that I also have been doing fairly poorly on-line and am down on the trip since we got to Vegas. So, needless to say poker is not going well at the moment and I don't plan on playing any more events until next week after I get back from my friends wedding in Wichita on Monday.

Non-poker wise the trip is fantastic. My roomates are some really great guys and we all get along really well. We have been having a blast hanging out at our house, lounging around during the day and then going out at night. The night life in Vegas is some of the best in the world and we have gone to several really fun clubs. There are a bunch of stories, all of which would be wasted in writing. One of my roomates did throw his laptop into our pool today after taking a series of bad beats on-line. I will be here tomorrow and then fly out on Friday.

Photo

2006-07-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

I was checking on cardplayer to see who was left and bumped into a photo of me. You can check it out at :

http://www.cardplayer.com/tournaments/multimedia/3195?show=photos

click "photos 41-50" and it's the 2nd one.

2K NL event

2006-07-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

This is really the only event that I have gone very far in so far, so that is the reason I haven't posted about any of the tournaments really. There really just wouldn't be anything very interesting to read about. This tournament looked like it was going to start off the same way after the first 15 minutes. I bluffed off 1/2 my chips in a fairly large pot due to a bad read and found myself down to about 1k. Our table then broke since it was one of the lowest numbered tables and I got moved to a exceptionally soft table. I proceeded to run over this table with my very small stack and worked it up from 900 chips to almost 7,000 without even showing a hand. I played really exceptionally during the second thru fourth hours and the only hiccup I had came right after the 2nd break. The hand went as follows:

A small stack under the gun raised all in for 1,100 chips, I squeeze AK offsuit in 2nd position and call the all-in. I medium stack in middle position who was a fairly tight player re-raised all-in for 1,800 more. I really felt bad about my hand at that point but had to make the call. The UTG player had 66 and the middle position player rolled over AA. Ouch. So that knocked me down to about 4,500. Scott Fischman then got moved to my table and was seated two seats to my right. This made me very happy because I know how he likes to play fairly well and felt that I could exploit him with my position. I stole some hands and re-raised him a couple times building my stack up to 11,000 without still showing another hand. Our table broke after that and I was moved a couple different times, eventually to a very wild, loose table that had a lot of chips. The blinds were 300-600 with a 75 chip ante so it was costing me about 2,000 chips every round. I didn't have any steal opportunities for about two orbits and was blinding down to about 7,000 chips when I decided to push with 55 UTG to try and steal the blinds. It probably wasn't a really good spot and looking back I think I would lay it down next time. I got called by a very loose and novice player who had KK and that was it for me. I feel really good about the way I played am much happier now than I was after the first four bust outs.

I'm not sure if I am playing any events this week before flying back to Kansas for one of my best friends weddings. I'll check the schedule and decide in the next couple of days.

ughhhhhh

2006-07-02T02:37:00.000-07:00

came close today in the 2k NL event, got around 200th. I'll post details tomorrow, I need sleep desperately.

doing poorly

2006-06-30T01:40:00.000-07:00

Things aren't going exactly as planned. I lost yesterday in the PL hold'em event about 2 hours into it. I flopped a set of 4's but got dominated by a flush on the river. Today I played the $1,500 Limit event and actually made the first break! I had over 4,000 chips about 2 hours into it and then started to run cold. I ran into KK three times in a series of 10 hands, and it tilted me. I played poorly after that and feel like I gave the chips away. Tomorrow I will play the $2,500 NL 6-handed event, hopefully it will go better.

A roomate of mine, Jason got 46th in the PL event yesterday and John Little is still in the Limit tourney with 27,000 chips. He'll start again tomorrow and will have a very realistic shot at making a final table. I'll update again tomorrow.

Quick exit

2006-06-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I didn't last very long after I re-raised from the small bling with AK and a very aggressive young player moved in with AA. Since you only start with 1,500 in chips it really doesn't take long to go bust if you have a bad set up hand like that. Hopefully today will go better since I have had success with Pot Limit Hold'em in the past.

Today's event: $1,500 PL Hold'em

Moving Day

2006-06-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

Today we woke up and moved into our new house in Henderson. It's a really nice place with a great pool/backyard area that will be perfect for grilling out and having people over. Donny got into town last night and he came over to meet a bunch of the other guys we were staying with. We had a fun night playing pool at Lurped (Marcus's) house and declined to go to the spearmint Rhino when everyone else left. Yesterday we also played all of the major Sunday tourneys and our house did pretty well. Aaron Bartley (GambleAB) got 14th on the Poker Stars 1k tourney, BelowAbove and myself got in the top 100 of the PartyPoker Million Guaranteed and the big winner of the day was PearlJammer who got 3rd on UB and 3rd on Party for a total of 95k.

Earlier today we went to the Rio and I got registered for 3 events. I am playing in the $1,500 NL tomorrow, the $1,500 PL on Wednesday, and the $2,000 NL event on July 1st. I will update on my day tomorrow after we get done, but it will probably be very late.

.........

2006-06-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

I can't think of a title for the post because it will be very very random. Yesterday we woke up late after having a semi-quiet night here at the house when the cops only had to stop by once. Gank and a couple of his buddies had stopped by again and I went to bed early (like 2:00) before pretty much everyone else. After waking up late I went for a swim for a while and then we went to the Bellagio to play the $500 tournament again. Nate, Marcus, SamENole, and Nordberg all played in it. I busted about 5 minutes into it when my Kings ran into Marcus's Aces. No big deal, I had to kill 5 hours so I went and played some 30/60 and made about $1,000 in a fairly tough game. After a few hours there Nate, Marcus, and Nordberg had all busted and SamENole (real name: Matt Smith) was the only one left. They were down to 6 handed and it was taking FOREVER to knock someone out. Marcus, Nate, and I decided to all play some 2-5 NL while we were waiting for Matt to bust so we could go eat. I have to say that this particular game was one of the softest games I have EVER played in. I don't know if all NL games are like it but it was pretty unbelievably easy. I made a couple good hands and got max value for them, also made one spectacular bluff on Nate and ended up about $400 in 30 minutes before we quit. Matt was STILL in the tournament, so us three plus a girl named Lisa all went to Noodles to eat. I had heard great things about the food at Noodles and I wasn't disappointed. I still don't think it can compare to the Dragon Palace in Seward though.

After we finished eating, Nate and I went over to the Rio and he registered for a couple events while I had them transfer my "front money" from Lake Tahoe down to Vegas. Front Money is kind of like casino credit, I gave Harrahs in Lake Tahoe $10,000 to hold on to so that I didn't have to carry $20,000 with me to Vegas. It's just in case I got robbed or something I wouldn't lose everything I had on me. Anyways, it took them almost an hour to get all the paperwork through and get me my money. It worked out perfect though because SamENole was staying at the Rio and needed a ride to our house just as we were leaving. We got back to our house and Nick really wanted to go out for the night, even though it was already past midnight. I agreed to go and six of us all hopped in a cab and headed to the Ghostbar at the Palms. I had heard that the Ghostbar was one of the best clubs in Vegas, maybe that got my expectations to high. It was really nice and since it's 56 stories up it has the best view in town, but the whole place just was kind of mellow. We got a booth and a couple of bottles and had a pretty good time because all the guys were a lot of fun. We met a couple of nice girls from New York and the night ended up being all right. After we rounded everyone up at around 4:00 we went downstairs and since there were six of us we just took a limo home instead of a cab. I'm already wore out and it isn't even the weekend yet...

short stories from Vegas

2006-06-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

My roommates here are really cool. I'm having a blast hanging out with them. Last night we went out to a club called Blondies in the Aladdin Hotel and had a good time. "Gank" (wsop bracelet winner Brett Jungblut) and I played Beer Pong there and went 4-0 to keep his undefeated streak alive. The bar really wasn't that great but the people and beer pong made it a lot of fun. After that we went to a restaurant at the Aladdin and ordered breakfast. Josh, another one of my roommates actually chugged a whole bowl of Ranch Dressing for $200. The picture of him tipping back the bowl while it is streaming down the side of his mouth and onto his clothes was priceless. It's a good thing he did it also because he lost the coin toss and had to pay for the meal, which was just a hair under $200. After we got home we hung out for a while and Josh had a "friend" come over who he met while he was at a gentleman's club. We hot tubbed till like 8:00 a.m. and finally crashed by 9:00. The girl was actually really nice and not a stereotypical "stripper" like you would think.

Today we woke up late and I went and picked up my car at the repair shop. I also played a $300 NL tourney on Poker Stars with Nick and Josh. We actually killed the tournament and all final tabled. I took a rough beat and made a bad play and busted in 7th, but still won about $4,000 from the tourney. This trip is going really well and I hope it can keep up. On-line Phenom "SamENole" is stopping by tonight so it will be fun to meet another great player like him.

Keep the rush

2006-06-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Vegas last night and as soon as we got off the interstate my car's alternator started on fire. After that drama we got it towed and Nick came and picked Nate and I up. Nick is a really good poker player who is also from Lincoln and plays under the handle "ahhh_snap". We are staying at this unbevievable house that they rented for the wsop. It's really a beautiful neighborhood and a amazing place, to bad we only get to stay at this house for the week :)

Today we went to the Bellagio and Nate, Nick, and I all played their $500 daily tournament. I played really well and fought through a super cold streak when we were down to two tables. I ended up playing very well at a weak final table and had 85% of the chips when we got down to 3 handed. I talked the other two guys into a deal and took the lions share of the $20,000 prize pool. I ended up with $7,905 and a cool trophy. Vegas is off to a great start.

Nate plays beautifully

2006-06-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

Nate played great poker for two days during the Main Event here at Lake Tahoe. He suffered a rough set-up and lost with KK vs. AA when they were down to 14 people and got knocked out. He rode the short stack very well for almost the whole tournament, but if he would have won that last hand, he would have had more than enough chips to make the final table. Not to get down on himself for too long he immediately won a $150 tourney on Party Poker last night for $13,000. He is looking like he will become a very very good tournament player.

Today we are leaving Tahoe and going to head to Vegas. Another friend that I know from Lincoln is already in his WSOP house so we are going to stay with him for a few days until our house is ready. Most of the other guys are coming down around the 25th, so he will have a weeks head start on them.

VEGAS baby! VEEEEGAAAAAS!!!!!