50k Player's Championship Final Table

Sorry about not blogging for a few days, I was catching up on some much needed rest and time with the family.

The final table was just a surreal experience.  I arrived at Rio about a quarter to 3 with the final table scheduled to start at 3.  As soon as I walk in the door there's a camera guy following me and filming me walk from the entrance to the Amazon Room.  It was a really awkward experience for me, I didn't really know whether I was supposed to just act normal or do something silly.  I'm not really one to ham it up for the camera, in fact I'd be much happier if the cameras weren't there at all.

So then I get near the Amazon Room and they whisk me off to do some photoshoots and some promo stuff for the ESPN broadcast that will air in a couple months.  So I'm doing that stuff for like 15 minutes and then someone comes in and says the final table is about to start and that we need to get in there asap, and I get there and they're already almost done with the player introductions.  I'm glad though because by this point I'm just ready to play.

The official final table is an 8 handed table, but we still had 9 people left since we had played until 5:30am the night before without being able to eliminate the last player.  So while we're 9 handed we're still playing the mix games, and I run pretty good and chip up to nearly 3 million chips before someone was eliminated.  Then as soon as we get down to 8 handed we take a half hour or so break and now we are playing no limit holdem for the rest of the final table.  I would have preferred to play the mix games because I definitely felt like I had a bigger edge over the remaining field in some of the other non-nlhe games, but it is what it is and I still liked my spot playing nlhe.

Unfortunately pretty much nothing went right for me once we started playing exclusively nlhe.  I don't think I ever won a pot that had more than a few chips in it.  Every time I raised it seemed like someone picked up a big hand and 3-bet me, and I don't really feel like I was getting picked on or anything because quite a few of the hands ended up being shown and were all strong hands.

So by the time we get down to 6 handed I'm last in chips with like 2 million, and then I pretty much blinded down to about 1.2 million when I finally pick up a big hand with AKo.  Matt Glantz opens utg for 150k at 30k/60k and I'm in the cutoff and obviously I shove, and it folds back to Matt and he tanks for like 3 minutes.  Obviously I would have liked him to call here as I'm pretty sure I had him dominated but he eventually folds.

So maybe like 5-10 hands later I get QTdd utg and raise to 125k having started the hand with about 1.4 million.  Minh Ly calls on the button and everyone else folds.  Flop comes AsQs6h and I check to Minh because I'm pretty sure he'll bet pretty much always here and I feel like I can get the most value from my hand by letting him take control of the pot.  I have no plans of folding at any point in this hand because I know I'm crushing his range here and he likes to keep firing when he senses weakness.  So anyway I check and he fires 150k and I think for a bit and call.  Turn comes ten of spades putting 3 spades out there and making me 2 pair.  I check again and he fires 380k, and I still feel like he can have tons of weak hands in his range where he's trying to push me off a marginal hand, and also some hands with decent equity where he hopes he can get me to fold, like something like KsTx, so anyway I shove at this point for like 1.1 million total because I'm more than happy to just take this pot at this point with the way the board looks.  I considered just calling and checking any river to him again but I'm happy with how I played it.  Unfortunately for me he instantly called and obviously I knew I was in terrible shape and he turned over 87ss for the flush.  River came the 3c and I was eliminated in 6th place for 300k.  Considering where I was on day 4, down to 17k chips at 40k/80k limit with like 13 people left, I definitely can't complain at all about finishing 6th, but obviously going into the final table I did have much higher hopes.

Then as soon as I bust all I want to do is find my wife and get paid out and leave.  But then they ask me to do an interview.  I said no at first but they kind of pressured me into it so I did it.  I think it was a little awkward because they asked me about my bustout hand and I'm really bad at explaining my thought process in an interview situation, my mind just wanders all over the place and I end up not making much sense.  So that lasts for a couple minutes and now I think I can just go get paid and leave, but then another girl grabs me and says they need to do more promo/interview stuff with me.  At this point I'm just getting annoyed but I don't want to come off like a complete jerk so I just say to make it quick.  Unfortunately we have different definitions of 'quick' and all this stuff ends up taking like a half hour.  I actually didn't mind doing this stuff as much as the previous stuff though.  This was stuff like saying "5 DAYS"  "8 GAMES" "THIS IS THE POKER PLAYER'S CHAMPIONSHIP" and was actually kind of fun to do.  Then they took me into another room where I was asked to do some strategy interview for a new segment they're going to do on ESPN.  Basically stuff like asking me what advantage do live pros have over online pros and vice versa, and what I thought of my fellow final tablers.  This part was a little annoying for me because they wanted me to incorporate the question into my answer and I kept forgetting to do it and had to repeat my answers, but I think I came up with some good answers.

So finally I get to payouts and that part goes quickly at least and then I have a nice dinner with my wife, which was the first time we've had a nice dinner alone the whole series.  I was just glad we were able to find a babysitter to take care of the baby and she was able to come out to my final table, since we weren't able to for my o8 final table.

Been an interesting series so far, I feel like I've been both really lucky and yet somewhat unlucky at the same time.  Lucky in that both of my cashes are really nice cashes and in both of them I was the short stack with around 15 people left and ended up finishing 2nd and 6th, so I definitely got my share of rungood in those crucial spots.  Without that I'd just have 2 mincashes.  On the other hand I've had nice stacks in a few other tourneys this year and definitely could have cashed in about 5 other tourneys if not for unfortunate events close to the bubble.  But obviously overall I could never complain about having nearly $600k in cashes in a series, considering my best series previously was probably around $60k in cashes.

I play the main event tomorrow.  I'm definitely glad I chose to play day 1d because I needed a few days off after playing every day for 5 weeks straight.  I feel really refreshed right now and am ready to do some good things in the main event.  Obviously I need tons of rungood for the main but anything can happen.

WSOP Day 36, 50k Player's Championship Day 4

You guys get the quick quick version because I'm sure most of you were following me anyway, but basically I started the day off good and got above 2 mil which was close to the chipleaders, then as the bubble approached I lost a lot of hands and was down to 500k, then the bubble burst and I lost more hands and I folded a triple draw hand with probably like 500k in the pot on the end with only 17k behind.  So whatever I think I'm probably done.  Then I quadruple up and triple up on the next 2 hands to get to over 200k and stuck around 200-500k for the next few hours, basically winning every time I was all in and losing any time I wasn't.  I had a few ridiculous suckouts to stay alive, hitting a 2 outer and a 3 outer in separate pots, then went on a massive heater at the end of the day and ended with 2,315,000 chips and am currently in 4th out of 9 people left.

I hope this is all coherent because it's like 6:30 am and I just got done playing for like 15 hours.

Anyone interested in hand histories just go to pokernews , I need to get a little sleep, we restart at 3pm.  I'm pretty sure it will be shown on espn2 with a half hour delay, but don't quote me on that.  I will tweet and let you all know where you can watch it though.

EDIT:  I believe it's on espn3.com not espn2.

WSOP Day 35, 50k Player's Championship Day 3

Entered the day with about 400k chips and ran kind of bad the first couple levels and was down as low as like 150k at one point, then I went on an absolutely enormous heater mostly in the stud games for the last 3 levels of the day and ended with 1,304,000 chips.  I'm currently 3rd in chips with 29 people left, paying 16 spots.  I feel like I'm playing absolutely great the last couple days, there was only one pot where I think I messed up today.  It was a triple draw pot where I had a decent feeling the guy was trying to snow but I let the 3rd guy stay in the pot and he ended up outdrawing me.  Another big pot I tried bluffing a stud pot with an ace doorcard where I checkraised 5th street against a guy with a 257 rainbow board and then bet the rest of the way, but he called me down with pocket QQs.  I'm fine with that play though as I definitely think it works often enough in that spot to be profitable, and he definitely had a much stronger hand than he usually would have there.

It feels great to be in such a great position in this tourney considering I ran pretty bad all of day 1, then doubled up on a nlhe hand on day 2 to get back to the starting stack, then ran bad again for 2 more levels.  I'm really happy that I was able to weather the storm without getting impatient or straying from my gameplan for this tourney.  Also nice to play in such a well-structured tournament where you can run bad for over a day and still have a chance to win.

Table draw for day 4:

296 1 Jeffrey Lisandro 330000
296 2 George Lind 1,304,000
296 3 Gus Hansen 774,000
296 4 --empty-- --
296 5 Robert Mizrachi 500,000
296 6 Marco Johnson 570,000
296 7 David Oppenheim 159,000
296 8 Minh Ly 715,000

WSOP Day 34, 50k Player's Championship Day 2

Started the day with about 80k which was about half the average stack, but the 3rd hand I pick up JJ in middle position at 500/1k blinds in NLHE.  Erik Seidel limps, I raise to 4k, everyone folds to Erik who calls.  Flop AJ2 rainbow, check to me, I bet like 5500, Erik checkraises to like 13k, I call.  Turn is a 5, Erik bets like 19k I call.  River is a 4, Erik bets 30k, I go all in for like 15k more and Erik tanks for a few minutes but finally calls and my hand is good.  Pretty crucial getting a double up on the 3rd hand of the day.  After that I hovered between like 120-160k for the next few levels, then went on a mini-rush in the 2nd to last level to get over 200k for the first time in the tourney.  Then the last level I got down to like 150k with a half hour left in the day, then went on an enormous rush in the limit games, scooping like 8 pots out of the last 20 hands dealt, and ended the day with 398,500, which is probably around 10th in chips with 74 people left going into day 3.

Table draw for day 3:


Scott Clements 213000 Amazon / 296 / 1
Andrey Zaichenko 291000 Amazon / 296 / 2
George Lind 398500 Amazon / 296 / 3
John Hennigan 204300 Amazon / 296 / 5
Phil Hellmuth 271200 Amazon / 296 / 6
David Oppenheim 608000 Amazon / 296 / 7
Benjamin Lamb 704500 Amazon / 296 / 8

WSOP Day 33, 50k Player's Championship

Event 55, $50k 8-game:  Had a really tough table all day with Bill Chen, Robert Williamson, Daniel Negreanu, me, David Bach, Joe Cassidy, Barry Greenstein, and Brett Richey, in that order.  Obviously there aren't many easy tables in this tournament but there are definitely better ones than that.  I pretty much went on a slow downward slide all day in the limit games, but picked up a few big nlhe pots to stay afloat, which is pretty much the opposite of what my plan was.  I think my biggest strength is the limit games in this format, but sometimes that's just the way the cards work.  The last level I was really unhappy with how I played a stud8 hand where I definitely could have bluff raised the river and won the pot.  My board was Th4h6hKc and I had split tens from the start, and his was 7c9c9s6s, and he value bet 2 pair into me on the river in a spot where he's usually just betting a low, since I had bet every street previously, but if he reraises my raise he almost always has a low and in that case it's hard for him to have 10s beat, so if I raise the river obviously it's a really tough call for him to make with just 2 pair.  It's a play I know to make but for some reason just didn't think he'd be betting 2 pair very often there.  Also another triple draw hand where I was upset at myself for now snowing in a pretty obvious spot.  Funny thing is I probably would have lost the pot anyway but still annoyed that I didn't make the correct play.

I ended the day with 80,800 which is about half of average stack.  The good news is we still have plenty of play left as the next level is only 2k/4k for the limit games and 500/1k for the big bet games.

Here is my seat draw for day 2:

Tom McCormick 150800 Amazon / 364 / 1
Marco Johnson 138000 Amazon / 364 / 2
George Danzer 192200 Amazon / 364 / 3
Ashton Griffin 190200 Amazon / 364 / 4
Alexander Kravchenko 107900 Amazon / 364 / 5
Erik Seidel 147200 Amazon / 364 / 6
George Lind 80800 Amazon / 364 / 7
Dan Shak 87600 Amazon / 364 / 8

WSOP Day 32

"I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be."


50k Player's Championship at 5pm tomorrow.

WSOP Day 31

Sorry forgot to post this last night.

$1500 PLO8:  Lasted a long time in this one but never had more than about 3x the starting stack.  Got down to the final 150 people or so out of 900 with 10k chips at 500/1000 blinds, utg opened for 2200, I pick up Ad2d2h3h in the small blind and flat call.  I feel like raising is pretty bad here because I doubt he's really folding anything and I'd rather be able to get away from some bad flops if I need to.  So anyway big blind folds, and flop comes QT8 with 2 hearts.  Not the best flop for me but I do have a pair and a baby flush draw and a really good backdoor low draw.  So I lead for 5400 (the size of the pot) since I have some stuff working for me and also I should have some fold equity if he completely missed the flop, and he puts me all in for about 2k more.  He flips over KK45 with no flush draw which I'm in pretty good shape against, probably a slight favorite.  I hit a 3 on the turn which is a decent card for me, meaning any heart or any card lower than an 8 and I will survive, unfortunately I don't hit on the river and bust with about 15 minutes left in the day.

Taking a day off today because the ladies event is the only event today, then I have the 50k Player's Championship tomorrow at 5pm.

WSOP Day 30

Event 50k, $5k NLHE: Late registered and had about the starting stack when I went to dinner break where the waiter spilled Coke all over me. Luckily it didn't really show once it dried and even more luckily I was at a decent restaurant and hadn't ordered yet and the manager came over and said they'd comp my meal. So I played it like any good poker player would and ordered the shrimp cocktail with the filet mignon and the lobster tail. It was quite tasty but it was even tastier since it was free. After dinner I got back to the poker but not for very long. Bustout hand I had 12k or so at 200/400, I raise utg to 850 with KK, person 2 spots behind me calls, big blind calls. Flop comes J97 with 2 clubs, bb checks, I can tell that the cold caller likes the flop so I check intending to checkraise him. Cold caller bets a little over 2k, the big blind checkraises to like 5k. I'm not crazy about my hand at this point but I'm pretty sure I can't fold, so I go all in for my last 11k or so. Cold caller pretty much snap shoves for like 35k and big blind tanks for a few seconds but finally calls.  Cold caller has QQ and big blind has 77, board runs out with blanks and the 77 wins and I bust. Kind of an annoying hand in that if the QQ 3-bets preflop then almost certainly the 77 folds and we get it in and I double up, but oh well.

I also played the $2250 mega-satellite for the $50k 8-game, I only made it thru 6 of the games before I busted. Was the first satellite I've played at the WSOP in probably 4 years.

I remember back in the early 2000s I would go to the WSOP for a week or 2 every year and just grind the single-table satellites and mega satellites and occasionally some cash games, and I barely played any of the actual events. I think from 2001-2006 I played maybe like 5 events total and didn't go even remotely deep in any of them. 2007 was the first year that I really started playing events, I think I played like 15 that year, and then have played between 35 and 40 each year since 2008. I'm not sure why but back then the actual events just didn't interest me at all back then, and now I can't really get motivated to play anything but the actual events. It's really is a different culture now though at the WSOP. The events didn't hold near the prestige back then that they do now, and obviously the prize pools were way smaller.

Got $1500 PLO8 at noon tomorrow which is a great value event, and then $2500 Mixed Holdem at 5pm.

WSOP Day 29, Trifecta Accomplished

Event 47, $2500 Omaha8/Stud8, Day 2:  Came into the day with 9400 chips playing 600/1200, lost the first 2 hands I played and was busto within like half an hour.

Event 48, $1500 NLHE:  Got in this just as late reg was closing and stayed around the starting stack until right before dinner when I picked up AA and tripled up to get to around 10k.  After dinner I had a hand where I flatted a raise in the cutoff at 150/300 with QTcc and the big blind called too.  Flop came Q75 with 2 hearts, and the big blind led for 1600, the original raiser folded, and I went all in for like 7k more and he thought for a while before finally calling with A5hh, ace on the river.  I don't think I've made day 2 of a NLHE tournament yet this year.

Event 49, $2500 Triple Draw:  One of my best games.  Had pretty good tables throughout the day and got my stack up around 20k just after the last break but then got moved to a new table and didn't win a hand, and in triple draw your chips can go quickly if you don't win any hands, as mine did, and I busted with about 20 minutes left in the day.

I doubt I'll do the daily WSOP blog updates next year, it's just too much of a grind and probably boring you guys a little.  :)  It seems silly to quit now though with only like 5 days of prelims left.  I hope if anything you all can appreciate how much of a grind the WSOP becomes though.

$5k NLHE tomorrow at noon.

WSOP Day 28

Sorry forgot to update this yesterday...

Event 46, $10k 6-max NLHE:  This one didn't really go as planned, I late registered in the 150/300/25 level and within 20 minutes I had lost half of my stack to get down to around 15k.  My last hand I pick up 66 in the small blind and it's folded to me and I open for 900 and the big blind calls.  The flop comes 457 with 2 diamonds and I lead for 1200, he makes it like 3500, I go all in for 15k and he thinks for a bit and calls with 98dd, hits a diamond on the turn (and the river for good measure) and I'm busto in like half an hour.

Event 47, $2500 Omaha8/Stud8:  This was such a great value tournament for me.  I was at tables where people were definitely in a gambling mood and hit my share of pots early but ran a little bad at the end to end the day at 9400 chips.

WSOP Day 27, Bubble Time

Event 44, $2500 Razz, Day 2:  Ran my stack up to like 80k at one point which was probably close to the chiplead, but then lost a few big pots as we neared the bubble.  With 44 left and 40 spots being paid I was down to about 20k playing 2500/5000 and called an early position raise with (74)2 with him having (xx)3.  My board ran out (74)2848(4) while his ran out (xx)3TAT(x) with me betting every street including the river.  He pretty much instacalled my river bet with an 87 and I was down to 1200 chips after that hand.  I'm not sure if he would have called if he just had a ten low but obviously that's what I was hoping for.  Then after the hand I look up at the board and see we're down to 41 players now, having lost 3 players in the minute or so it took to play that hand.  There's pretty much no way I would have played the hand in the first place if I had known we were down to 41 already but obviously with me thinking we're still 4 spots from the money I want to try to accumulate chips still.  Anyway next hand I get 953 and go with it since I'm basically all in anyway, end up making a jack low against a better jack low and bust out exactly on the bubble in 41st place.

$10k 6-max NLHE at noon tomorrow and $2500 omaha8/stud8 mix at 5pm.

WSOP Day 26

Event 43, $1500 NLHE:  Won an early allin with AQ vs AK and eventually ran my stack up to about 13k from the starting stack of 4500 by level 6, but then lost a big allin with KK vs AQ and was down to like 2k at that point, and the last hand before dinner I got allin with AK vs 88 and busted.

Event 44, $2500 Razz:  Had a pretty good table draw with some people gambling a little too much and a few other pretty tight players.  Was a really swingy day for me, I was up to 24k from the 7500 starting stack just after dinner break, then a couple hours later I was down to like 5k, then an hour or 2 later I ended the day with 34k which is probably top 5 in chips going into day 2.

$1k NLHE is the only tourney starting tomorrow but the odds are pretty slim I'll be in it, I'd have to  run extremely bad in day 2 of the razz and bust in the first hour.

WSOP Day 25, At Least I Played for 6 Hours Today

Event 41, $1500 Limit Holdem Shootout:  Really got a pretty good table draw with only a few good players but just kept getting coolered and was down to below 1k after the first hour, somehow I hung on for another hour or so before busting.

Event 42, $10k PLO:  Got it in in huge pots as a small dog twice in fairly standard spots, won the first one to get to around 45k, lost the 2nd one to get down to 20k, lost some more small pots to get down to like 14k.  Pick up KQQh8h on the button at 2/4, open for 1100, bb calls, flop 772 with one heart, bb checks I bet 1100 he checkraises to like 3600 i minraise to like 6300 he minraises to 9k, I feel like he can be on air at least some of the time but I don't know how often (maybe never?, I dunno he was young) plus I should have something like 10-15% equity most of the time so he doesn't have to be bluffing very often for me to go all in, anyway, I raise all in and he snap calls, and has A7xx, I hit a king on the turn to pick up a couple outs but blank on the river.

$1500 donkament at noon tomorrow and $2500 razz at 5pm.

WSOP Day 24, Even Shorter Day

Event 40, $5k NLHE 6-max:  Registered before the first ante level, about 20 minutes in I lost half my stack with A4 vs Q6 on a 44766 board where I checked the flop, bet the turn, then puke-called on the river when he bet full pot.  If I was any good maybe I can find a fold there on the river but I'm not much for making hero folds.  Maybe 10 minutes later cutoff raises to 450, small blind calls, I ship about 6k with 98c because I know cutoff can be pretty wide and small blind probably almost never has a hand he can call with, anyway opener has JJ and I lose.

$1500 Limit holdem shootout at noon and $10k PLO at 5pm tomorrow.

WSOP Day 23, My Shortest Day So Far

Event 37, $10k HORSE, Day 2:  My 34k stack was down to like 10k after playing the stud8 round, then I went on a rush in the holdem and omaha rounds to get back up to like 50k.  Had a really silly spot in the stud round where I accidentally raised when I meant to call and it cost me 6k although I did have a big draw anyway so it wasn't really a terrible raise but since my draw missed, obviously it was.  :)  Anyway got whittled down to like 15k then my last hand in stud I raise with (A6)6 2 diamonds, get called by a king, we get it all in by 5th when I have 66A84 with 4 diamonds and he has (Q8)K4Q, but I brick 6th and 7th and he wins with queens.  Kind of a weird spot for him to get involved with KQ8 with me raising first after the bringin and pretty obviously having a hand I'm not planning on folding since I only had 15k left at 2k/4k but whatever it's probably not terrible anyway.

Event 39, $2500 PLH/PLO:  Errrrrr.  Ummmmm.  2nd hand I'm the big blind, 2 limpers, button raises to 400 at 50/100, I call with 6643ddss, limpers call.  Flop comes Q86 wtih a diamond and a spade, check around to button who pots it, I repot it to basically go all in, first limper pretty much instantly goes all in which is a pretty bad sign for my hand since she should have an overset pretty often.  Button calls and limper has 88xx and button has KJT9 and it turns out both my backdoor flush draws are live at least.  Seems like a pretty unavoidable spot for me considering how the action played out.  Anyway board pairs and I make the lower full house to bust on the 2nd hand.

5k 6-max NLHE at noon tomorrow, I'll probably late register during the ante levels.

WSOP Day 22

Event 35, $5k PLO, Day 2:  Went into the day really short on chips with about 20k with blinds 600/1200 with the average around 70k, but got it in with QQ65 double suited against some AAxx hand, hit a 5 on the flop and a 5 on the turn to double up to like 46k.  A few hands later I triple barrel bluffed with the bare ace on a flush board and he finally folded on the river, and I got my stack to around 80k with like 80 people left when I get this hand.  I open under the gun with AhKhQx6x to 3200 at 800/1600, Tom Dwan calls next to act, and the big blind calls.  Flop comes Ad3h4h, big blind checks to me, I bet 6500, Dwan calls after thinking a bit, big blind folds.  Turn comes 7h and I lead out for 13,500 and after thinking for a while Dwan raises to about 29,500 and I immediately see the possible straight flush but I don't feel like I'm deep enough to fold and folding is probably pretty bad against someone like him anyway.  So anyway I shove for like 40k more and he snap calls and I know I'm screwed before I even see his hand.

Event 36, $2500 NLHE:  Late reg'd for this after busting the PLO, only lasted like a half hour, got it in with top pair against a set in what may very well have been an ambitious spot, but I mean we were only like 35bb deep at that point, hit 2 pair on the turn to pick up 4 outs but missed the river.

Event 37, $10k HORSE:  Ran really bad for the first 6 levels of this and my stack was below 15k at one point from the starting stack of 30k and it looked like I might be able to pull off the trifecta of bustouts for today, but then I picked up some hands including being rolled up on 2 consecutive hands in stud and winning pretty good pots on both hands.  Also had fun in a razz round where I went all 8 hands without looking at my hole cards on any of the hands, folding 6 of them because I had a big card and raising the other 2 and stealing the antes because it was folded to me with a small card.  Razz is such a silly game really.  Anyway I ended the day with 34k which is probably close to average.

$1500 NLHE at noon tomorrow and $2500 PLH/PLO at 5pm, will play either one depending on if/when I bust from the HORSE.

WSOP Day 21

Event 35, $5k PLO:  Ran really good at the beginning including getting it in in a huge 3 way pot with AA and making a flush to scoop the pot.  Got up to 62k by dinner which was probably close to the chip leaders.  After dinner I got switched to a much harder table and also was pretty card dead and basically slowly spewed chips for 4 hours and ended the day with just over 20k chips, with the average stack being 70k.  About 110 people left with 48 spots paid.  Restart at 2:30.

Gonna play the $10k horse tomorrow if I bust the PLO, really looking forward to this event as I feel I don't have any weak games in HORSE and the mix game events really suit me well.

WSOP Day 20

Event 33, $10k Stud8, Day 2:  blah blah lost every hand i played and busted in like 20 minutes, no fun.

Event 34, $1k NLHE:  Got my stack over 10k and actually made a dinner break finally in a noon event, but busted on the 2nd hand after dinner when i ran QQ into AK.

Hilarious hand from the $1k today, on the river David Bach bets all in for his last 800 or so into a pot that had at least 6k in it already, the board is AQ9J8 with no flush possibility, his opponent tanks for at least a minute and asks David "Do you have the ace?" while it looks like he's mulling over a call with a pretty weak hand, finally he calls and David flips over AJ obviously thinking he's going to win, and the other guy flips over QT for the straight.  It was pretty ambiguous as to whether he was intentionally trying to slowroll or was just really not very smart, but the whole hand was pretty funny.  Even David laughed at how silly the whole situation was as he was walking away.  If any pro did that they'd probably get scorned at the very least but really all you can do is laugh when an amateur does something like that.

WSOP Day 19

Event 33, $10k Stud8:  Really weird day, I had a very passive table and the pots were really small all day.  My stack was between about 24-30k all day and I ended the day with 24,700.  We restart at 3pm.

Sorry about the little rant a couple days ago, I really don't feel bad or sad or whatever, but you guys get the worst of me on these updates sometimes because I'm usually blogging right after I busted from something.  I consider myself very lucky to even be in a position where I can play all of these events every year and I really do enjoy it even during the bad stretches.

I think the biggest frustration for me this year is that after my 2nd place finish I had a great shot at winning player of the year if I could just get a few decent cashes to go along with it, but I haven't really gotten anything going in any other tournaments.  I was in 8th place in POTY standings I think after my cash and now I'm in 19th.  I definitely still have a shot at it but I would need to run pretty good in the next couple weeks to get there.  I actually have no idea what the player of the year wins but I do know it would be really neat to win it.

WSOP Day 18

Event 31, $3k PLO:  I feel like PLO is about my 10th best game if I were playing against good players, but these PLO fields at the WSOP are always so ridiculously juicy.  I chipped up from 9k to about 14k in the first few levels, then got it in with KQJ9 against T876 on a T97 board.  Without running it I'd guess I'm about 50/50 here, he might be a very slight favorite since he has 4 full house outs.  I hit a jack on the turn to make a higher straight but his full house outs came into play when the 7 came on the river and I was down to about 2k chips.  A few hands later I get it in with JT97 on a T95 flop in a 3 way pot, I'm up against another guy with T9xx and the other guy has 55xx, so basically I have 4 win outs and 2 chop outs, plus other backdoor straight and flush draws.  Unfortunately he hit a 5 on the turn to end all suspense.

$1500 NLHE tomorrow which I don't know whether I'll play yet, because I definitely want to play the $10k stud8 at 5pm, an event I got 10th in last year.

WSOP Day 17

Event 29, $2500 10-game:  I ended up skipping the $1500 NLHE to make sure I could play this, as I think this event is probably one of the best values for me.  Really never got much going, kept losing my chips in limit games then doubled up twice in plo, but just kept making second-best hands over and over in spots where I have to pay off, and ended up busting in level 7.

The grind is definitely starting to get to me a little, I have only 1 cash in 19 events so far.  I know obviously the one cash was a really good one, so who am I to complain really, but it's funny how poker screws with your head.  I haven't gotten even remotely deep in anything in the last week or so.  Was really looking forward to quite a few of the events this week and I didn't do anything in any of them.  I mean I feel like I'm playing fine still and that's all I can do.  I really have no idea how people play tournaments all year round without going insane.

3k PLO at 5pm tomorrow.

WSOP Day 16

Event 26, $2500 6-max NLHE:  Busted pretty quickly in this one, called a guy down with JJ on a KKxxx board, thought he could be bluffing, he wasn't.

Event 27, $10k Limit Holdem:  Ran really good in the first 4 levels, picking up tons of big pairs and a few sets and I turned 30k into 58k by dinner which was probably one of the top stacks.  After dinner was a different story, I doubt I won more than like 3 pots in the next 4 hours and busted with about 15 minutes left in the day.

$1500 NLHE at noon but I might skip this to make sure I can play the $2500 10-game at 5pm, not sure yet, I'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow.

WSOP Day 15

Event 24, $5k NLHE Shootout:  Had a ridiculously hard table with people like durrr, charder, Shannon Shorr, and Ashton Griffin, and really an entire table of people who are good players.  Somehow I chipped up from 15k to 40k in the first 4 hours without ever really winning a big pot, then I went really card dead when we were short  handed, and ended up heads up with a 135k to 15k chip deficit.  I won an all in with KJ vs AT when I hit a jack on the river, then I slowly chipped up to around 50k to his 100k.  With blinds 600/1200, we get it in preflop and I have 66 against his AQ, flop is ace high with 2 hearts, turn is a heart giving me a flush draw, but I blank the river to finish 2nd at my table.

Event 25, $1500 Stud8:  Busted just in time to register for this one, and I wish I hadn't.  Had a great table draw with people ready to gamble, but unfortunately I never dragged a single chip and busted within about 40 minutes.

$2500 NLHE 6-max tomorrow at noon and $10k limit holdem at 5pm if I bust that.

WSOP Day 14

Event 21, $10k Stud, Day 2:  Went into the day pretty shortstacked but hung around for a few hours with not many chips, and then after all that waiting I got my last chips in with 22A vs 555, not exactly the best spot.

Event 23, $2500 8-game:  Was really looking forward to this event.  Unfortunately it didn't go well.  I ran good in the limit games but in a NLHE hand I paid a guy off with pocket aces when he had a set, in a spot where I should probably lay it down but I paid him off for some reason.  After that pot I ran good in the limit games again, but then lost all of it in a big plo pot where I got about 1/5 of my stack in preflop with AAK9 with one suit, and got the rest in on the KT8 rainbow flop, and the other guy had T875.  Not much I can do there really, even against the hand he had I have about 36% equity, and I really think I could have gotten it in as a favorite a lot of the time since on the previous break I had heard him talking to his friends about how he was going to gamble it up in this tourney.

5k nlhe shootout at noon tomorrow, then 1500 stud8 at 5pm.

WSOP Day 13

Event 20, $1k donkfest:  Registered in level 3, busted in level 4, nothing very interesting.

Event 21, $10k stud: Ran good in the first few levels to get to around 50k chips but then ran bad the last level or 2 of the night, ended the day with 23,400 which is probably about half of average stack.  We restart at 3pm.

1500 plo and 2500 8-game tomorrow...2 great value tournaments to play.  Will play whatever I can depending on if/when I bust the stud.

WSOP Day 12, The Short Short Version

Event 18, $1500 NLHE:  Late reg'd, busted within an hour AJ < QT.

Event 19, $2500 Limit Holdem 6-max:  Had a ridiculous table draw at which it's definitely possible that I was the worst limit holdem player at the table.  Mix that with a little bit of runbad and it's a sure recipe for a quick bustout.

WSOP Day 11

10k 2-7 NL, Day 2:  Ran really good, getting action on my good hands and got down to about 23 ppl left with 170k chips which was probably about average stack, with the tourney paying 14 spots.  I know probably like 5 of my readers at most even play 2-7 nl but I'll post the hand anyway.  Playing 2k/4k blinds, utg+1 opens for 12k (playing 6 handed), I call in cutoff with 7532x, bb reraises to 42k, utg+1 folds.  I figure he has a pat hand here almost always but I also thought he could be kind of weak and I have a really good draw and maybe some bluffing equity if I decide to do that since I still have like 120k behind.  So anyway I call and he stands pat and I draw a king.  He checks to me and I tank for like a minute and I just decide I can get him off his hand often enough because he has to know I have a strong draw and could easily have a nut hand here, so I go all in and he tanks for at least 2-3 minutes and I really thought he was going to fold, but unfortunately he finally called with a 98642.  Oh well.

1500 donkament tomorrow and 2500 limit holdem if I bust that.

WSOP Day 10, Sooooo Close to a Bracelet

So yeah like I'm sure most of you know I finished 2nd place in the 10k o8 event for $287k.  Thanks so much to everyone who showed up to support me, and everyone who was watching online, it was so much fun having so many people in my corner rooting for me.  Hopefully I get another shot at bringing home the gold this year, but I'm completely happy with how I played the final table, so I'm not disappointed at all.  I lost a few key pots, any of which easily could have won the tourney for me, but it's pretty hard to be upset about getting 2nd place considering with about 25 people left I was last in chips and actually had less chips than at the start of the tourney.  On the other hand obviously it's hard to be that close and not be able to finish it, but I'm sure I'll get another opportunity sometime in the future.

It definitely feels good to get that WSOP monkey off my back though, since I've played somewhere between 150 and 200 WSOP tourneys in my life and never even made a final table before.

So anyway after busting I entered the 10k 2-7 NL tourney (event 16) and I made day 2 with 43,800 chips...maybe that will be my next chance?  Who knows...stay tuned to find out!

WSOP Day 9, It's Bracelet Time (hopefully)

Event 11, $10k Omaha8, Day 3:  Ok so yeah I'm really tired and sick right now so this blog post will be pretty short, but yeah I have about half the chips in play 3 handed right now and I'm guaranteed $214k at least, with $465k for first.  We restart at 3pm tomorrow, feel free to show up and root me on if you're in town.  :)

WSOP Day 8

Event 11, $10k Omaha8, Day 2:  Ran really good for the first half of the day, getting my stack close to 200k at one point which was in the top 5 in chips shortly after dinner.  Then I went really card dead as we neared the money and I basically folded almost every hand and lost most of the time that I did enter, and as the bubble finally burst with 27 players left I was down to 52k chips.  After the bubble I didn't get a hand for a round and was down to 27k when I got it in in a 3 way pot and made a full house to triple up, then shortly after I got it in in a blind vs blind spot where we both had the same aces up on the turn but I rivered a straight to double up again to about 170k.  Didn't play any big pots after that and ended the day with 168k which is 14th in chips with 22 people left.  We restart at 3pm.

Gonna go rest up now, I have a nasty cold and had another minor nosebleed today at the table, luckily this one wasn't very bad and I don't think anyone noticed.  I swear there's something in the air here in Vegas that doesn't agree with me because every year I come here I get sick in the first week or 2 and I rarely ever get sick anywhere else.  I would blame it on the dry air here but I think the air is just as dry in Phoenix...who knows.

WSOP Day 7

Event 10, $1500 NLHE 6-max:  Late registered for this at the 75/150 level, got my chips in with TT vs AK about 15 minutes after that and busted.

Event 11, $10k Omaha8:  Had a pretty good table draw and ran pretty good all day, except when I came back from dinner and blew my nose just as we were getting ready to resume play, and then my nose decided to start bleeding.  It took like 10 minutes to get it stopped and I had to go to the bathroom and miss some hands to take care of it, and there was blood on my shirt and shorts, obviously on the one day I wear a white shirt.  Luckily most of the blood came out pretty easily when I cleaned it in the bathroom so at least I didn't have to walk around for the last 4 hours of the day with an obviously bloody shirt.  Anyway, I ended the day with 52,300 chips which is a little above average, and we restart at 3pm.

I'll play the 3x chance NLHE if I bust before late registration is over for that, but that's probably pretty unlikely unless I run bad in the o8.

WSOP Day 6

Event 9, $1500 2/7 NL, Day 2:  Kept up the rungood for the first couple hours and got my stack up over 100k with 35 ppl left when no one else had much more than 50k.  My table broke at 35 and unfortunately my rungood didn't transfer to the new table, losing like 7 showdown pots in a row including the last one where I got in my last 30k with 97532 pat vs 8654x draw, obviously he catches a 3 to bust me in 31st place with only 28 spots paying.  Just so damn frustrated right now considering how big a chiplead I had.  There wasn't really a hand I could have played differently, every hand I got it in with was standard, I just couldn't win any of them.  Bleh I guess I'm used to the wsop torture by now so whatever.

$1500 NL 6 max at noon tomorrow, and $10k omaha8 at 5.

WSOP Day 5

Event 7, $10k PLHE, Day 2:  Started the day with 41k at 500/1000 blinds.  First hand the big blind is sitting out, I'm on the button.  Cutoff raises to 2300, I call on the button with T8ss, small blind raises to 6500 and has me barely covered to start the hand, cutoff folds, I call in position.  Flop comes K42 with 2 spades.  Small blind leads for like 12k, I'm not crazy about the spot because it kind of seems like he likes his hand, but if he's even folding a very small % of the time then I pretty much have to shove since I have decent equity when called, so I shove and he calls with AJss which is pretty much my worst case scenario.  Jack comes on the turn and I'm drawing dead, busting on the first hand of the day.

Event 9, $1500 2/7 NL:  Not really much to say here, just ran like god all day, with all my good hands getting paid off and I don't think I got caught bluffing a single time.  Ended the day with 52,200 chips which according to PokerNews  is by far the chip lead; they have 2nd place with 33k chips right now.  But anything can happen in this game since there's so many big pots, but obviously I like my spot going into tomorrow.  We restart at 3pm with about 70 people left and 28 spots being paid.

WSOP Day 4

Event 6, $1500 Limit Holdem:  Had a pretty tough table draw for this one considering it was a $1500 buyin.  Never got much going, got to dinner break with 1700 chips at 400/800 level, but then went on a little run the next few hands to get to around 10k, but then lost a few hands and tried to ninja the shortstack for a while but it didn't work.  Busted just in time to register for...

Event 7, $10k PLHE:  Registered for this one at the end of level 4.  Played pretty tight the next 2 levels and ended level 6 around 28k, then the last 2 levels I got in a few pots.  My chips got down around 16k at one point, and I got up to 60k from there without ever being all in, but I lost a few medium pots right at the end of the day, ending with 41,300 chips, which is a little below average.  We start day 2 at 3pm.

Will play the $1500 2/7 NL at 5pm if I bust this one.

WSOP Day 3

Event 4, 5k NLHE:  Had a really tough table draw today.  Obviously a field like this has a lot of good players but some of the other tables looked way better than mine.  Never really got much going, my peak stack was around 35k from the starting stack of 15k, and I busted with about a half hour left in the day.

At least I lasted long enough to miss the 1500 stud I guess.

1500 Limit holdem at noon tomorrow, and 10k pot limit holdem at 5 if I bust that.

WSOP Day 2

Event 3, $1500 Omaha8:  This game is boring but people play so bad at it.  So many 7-way limped pots and people missing so much value on every hand.  Anyway my day was pretty uneventful, I think my peak stack was like 8k from the starting stack of 4500.  And I made the least optimal use of my time possible in this tourney.  I won or chopped 3 pots in the last 15 minutes before dinner break to get from 900 up to 2800 chips going into dinner, then lost them all on the first hand after dinner.  And dinner break was extended like 20 extra minutes because the chip-up took forever, so basically I waited almost 2 hours to bust in one hand.

5k nl at noon tomorrow and 1500 stud at 5pm if I bust that.  5k gonna be huge with probably over a million to first.

WSOP Day 1

Event 2, 25k Heads-Up NLHE:  In this structure we start with 25k chips at 200/300 blinds and can add on for 25k chips twice during the match.  I drew Steve Billirakis in my first match, who goes by MrSmokey online.  I've played lots of sngs with him over the years and he's a very solid player not the kind of player I'm really hoping for with this structure.  The match started off slow and for the whole first level (levels are 20 minutes) most pots were won preflop.  He won about 5k chips off me in a decent pot where I laid down 3rd pair, but other than that not much happened.  So we go to level 2 which is 200/400.  One of the first hands of this level I raise the button to 800 with a6dd, he 3bets to 2500, I call.  Flop comes TT6 with 2 spades, he bets 3200, I raise to 8k and he shoves and I call, he flips over KK and I don't suck out.  So now I use my first addon chip, and maybe 5-10 hands later I get KK and get it in and he has AA, and I don't suck out.  Now I'm down to my last 25k.  We get into level 3 which is 300/600, I minraise the button to 1200 with A7, he raises to like 4k and I shove for like 25k and he calls, flop comes ace high so I'm in good shape to double up, but a 5 comes on the turn and I'm done in about 45 minutes.

$1500 Omaha8 at noon tomorrow.

WSOP Time Again

Well it's that time of year again.  I don't really feel like I have much different to say about my attitude going into the WSOP than I did last year, so I'll just link what I wrote last year:

http://jorj95.blogspot.com/2010/05/most-wonderful-time-of-year.html

The one key difference obviously being the baby.  I hope he is a good luck charm.  I promised him I'd win him a bracelet this year so I have to uphold that.  Luckily he's probably slightly too young to remember just in case I don't happen to win one.

First event is tomorrow, the 25k Heads Up event.  I'm playing pretty much every event, basically signing up for the next one when I bust, just like I have the past few years.

I will try to blog every night like I did last year but I'm not promising anything.  I will definitely update my Twitter a lot if you want to follow me during the events.

Also I'm not on PokerStars Team Online anymore as of a few weeks ago, because I didn't want to relocate right away, and I may not want to relocate at all.  I wasn't ready to commit to all that yet, having just had a baby and having bought a new house.  I'm not going to worry about any of that stuff until after the WSOP is over anyway.

I have nothing but good feelings towards them still and am happy to have represented them for the the last year or so.

Now time to put up some good results for once at the WSOP!

WSOP Package

Quick post...

I'm selling pieces of myself for the WSOP for anyone who wants a fun sweat this summer:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/184/staking-selling-shares-live/jorj95-full-wsop-packages-1034461/

Black Friday & Other Ramblings

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I actually had a blog post mostly written out the day before Black Friday and was going to finish and publish it on that Friday, but then deleted it because it would have been a silly post in light of what had just happened.

It was mostly about NAPT Mohegan Sun, where I got on the feature table with people like Daniel Negreanu, Victor Ramdin, Vanessa Selbst, and Andrew Li who is one of my best friends in poker and goes by the name of azntracker.  It was my first feature table and it was a really loose fun atmosphere and probably would have made for great tv, but who knows if it will ever even be edited into a broadcast at this point.  I'll be sure to link to it if it ever shows up somewhere on the internet.

After we both busted from that tournament, Andrew and I spent a day together that started with going to breakfast at Mohegan Sun with Kevin Thurman, who goes by WizardofAhhs on PokerStars and needbeer on twoplustwo.  It was supposed to be a quick breakfast because Andrew and I were planning on going on a road trip around the New England area that day, but the breakfast ended up lasting around 3 hours because we were having such a good time talking about poker stuff.  Ironically one of the bigger topics was how we all were putting in a lot of volume the last few years on PokerStars since you never know how long the games will last and you might as well make as much money as you can while you are still able to.  Little did we know the games would be unavailable to Americans just 2 days later.

After that Andrew and I drove around Rhode Island and went into Newport and toured a few mansions which was really interesting, then the next day we drove to Boston and had lunch at a restaurant inside Fenway Park. I've been to quite a few baseball stadiums over the years but there really is something majestic about Fenway. It's funny coming from Arizona where people definitely enjoy sports, but people only really care about the teams when they're doing good.  It's just not the same as a city like Boston where everyone is fanatical about it and every radio station talks about sports all the time, even the music stations.  I kind of enjoy that culture where people are so passionate about things like that.

So after Fenway we had a few hours before we had to catch our flights, so we went visit my friend Sam and hung out at his apartment for an hour or two, talking a lot about poker stuff.  It's almost sad thinking about those conversations now, because we were so naive about what was about to happen.

Well then we flew home and the next day, Black Friday happened.  I won't go into the details because many other people could give better accounts of it than I can, but basically the 3 biggest American online poker sites were blocked for Americans by the Department of Justice.

My first reaction was that I was dumb for leaving so much money online, but then I pretty much instantly realized that PokerStars would never screw over its players like that.  And true to form, they initiated payouts about 10 days later, while a certain 2 other sites haven't even begun payments yet 3 weeks later, one of which just filed for bankruptcy.  So much kudos to Stars for the way they've handled the situation so far.

As for me, after a few days of trying to comprehend everything that was happening, I started trying to figure out what I wanted to do now.  If it was possible I wanted to try to relocate in time for SCOOP, so I could attempt to defend my Player of the Year title (and win some money hopefully).  I was really close to getting a place in Vancouver and then in Costa Rica, but it was just stressing me out way too much to try to relocate with a kid and a dog and get set up in a new country in a span of 2 weeks, so a few days ago I decided to just hold off and relax for a while, and it was definitely the right choice.  I'm in a good enough spot financially right now where it doesn't make sense for me to rush into anything.

So now the plan is that we are going to go to Cleveland in a couple weeks and bring the baby to visit with my wife's family, and while we are there we are going to make a road trip to Toronto for a few days to see if it's somewhere we'd want to relocate.  We definitely won't actually relocate until probably August at the earliest though.  Since the WSOP is coming up in a few weeks it really doesn't make much sense to get a place now then come back to Vegas for 6 weeks immediately after that.

We aren't even sure we want to relocate at all yet anyway.  If I can find a way to, I'd rather stay here in the Phoenix area since we just bought a house and we do really like it here.  I might try playing some live cash games after WSOP and see how that goes.  Honestly I don't even know what kind of cash games go in the Phoenix area anymore as I haven't played cash games in the casino since 2004.  I could always fly out to Los Angeles for a few days at a time and play some games at Commerce too.  I don't really know yet, but I'll worry about that after the WSOP is over.  For now I'm just going to relax; no use stressing about it now.

Besides this all just gives me time to hang out more with this little guy, and that's definitely not the worst thing in the world.  :)

One last thing...I have no idea what my future is at PokerStars and with Team Online, but no matter what happens I've thoroughly enjoyed representing the best online poker site in the world.

A Slimmer, Leaner, Healthier Jorj95

So after seeing pictures of myself when Cooper was born along with other motivators such as constantly feeling fatigued and just simply wanting to be healthy as my son grows up, I decided to finally do something about my eating habits.  I weighed myself on Feb 15 for the first time in probably 6 months at least, thinking I would be around 240 or a little more, like the last time I weighed myself, but instead I weighed in at 258.6 pounds (I actually took a picture of the scale but I can't seem to find it now).

After a few minutes of research on the internet, I found the secret of weight loss:

It all seemed so simple.  And me being the type of person who either does something full-scale or not at all, that very day I decided I was going to start eating healthier and probably more importantly, just quit eating huge portions.

The first 5 days or so were really tough, I was probably averaging around 1000-1200 calories a day if I had to guess (I didn't really keep track but I made a point to look at the packaging sometimes).  For comparison I was probably averaging something like 2500-3000 calories a day before that if I had to guess, and probably even more than that on some days when we would go out to eat.  I know 1000 is probably a little lower than what is considered "healthy", but the way I'm wired, there's just no chance I can make gradual changes.  I really needed to kick start it as quickly and as dramatically as possible.  

I wasn't really eating that much healthier at that point but I was cutting my portions in half, and sometimes less than half, and also quit snacking on crap food like Cheez-its late at night.  I was pretty miserable and hungry for a few days and forced myself to go to sleep with a growling stomach a few nights but I got over it pretty quickly.  Gradually I started adding healthier foods to my diet, and also upped my caloric intake a bit and I'm probably averaging something like 1200-1500 a day now, which is definitely more sustainable for the long term.

So anyway after about 7 weeks of making healthier choices, I weighed myself today:

I have to say it's pretty exciting to lose 21 pounds in 7 weeks.  The really crazy thing is that except for those first few days it really hasn't been that hard at all, and in fact I find a lot of foods that I loved before to just be disgusting now.  Also with the baby around, we're just naturally not going out to eat as much, and I'm also just busier during the day so I don't have as much time to think about being hungry.  I'm just super motivated to do this and not as a temporary thing, but as a permanent change to my lifestyle.

I wasn't even going to post this to the blog at first and have hesitated to do so for a few weeks now, because frankly it's somewhat embarrassing that I am as big as I am, but I know if hundreds of people were aware that I'm doing this, that there will be pretty much zero chance that I will fail at this.  Whenever that delicious cookie is staring me in the face, I'll think of my blog readers.  Okay, maybe I'll have one cookie, but even that would be a huge improvement over what I used to do.

My original goal when I started was to get down to 200 pounds by the end of the year, and maybe something like 170 by the end of next year, but that almost seems too easy now.  I really feel like I could get to 190 or even lower by the end of the year without much more effort than I'm already expending on this.  I know the weight gets harder to take off as you lose more so I'm not getting my hopes up too high, and also I don't want to set unattainable goals and set myself up for failure.  But 200 seems more than reasonable, that's only about a pound a week for the rest of the year.  As long as I'm eating reasonable portions every day I can't imagine this will be hard at all to accomplish.

Just for fun here is a recent pic of our family:

Poor Cooper looks like he's trying to take a crap, but he's still pretty cute in my biased opinion.

Big Event Day 3

Lost JJ v AQ and 88 V AJ on consecutive hands, busto'd 4 spots from the money.

Get to hotel room, log into PokerStars to play a couple hours of Super Tuesday hypers, win back my main event buyin, ez game :)

10k bounty shootout starts on Thursday, with day 1A on Thursday and day 1B on Friday.  I won't know which one I'm playing until tomorrow but I'll put it up on Twitter when I find out.

Big Event Day 2

Quick update because I just got back from dinner with Victor Ramdin (who is honestly one of my favorite people in poker, just such a nice genuine person) and one of the tournament directors named Mark, and we split 2 bottles of wine between us and had a ton of seafood and steak, and now I'm really tired and ready to sleep up for tomorrow.

Anyway, I have about 133k chips now which should be just slightly below average, with 69 people left and 56 spots being paid, and we restart at noon tomorrow.

I can't remember any hands right now except that I busted nanonoko with JJ against his 88, which was pretty cool to be honest.  :)  I love nano but I have to admit it was fun to be the one to bust him.  Sorry nano!

Yeah ok time to hit the pillow and get some zzzz's, hopefully I have some rungood in store for myself tomorrow. Also good luck to Victor who is absolutely crushing with over a million chips and is by far the chip leader, and also my friend Ryan Hughes who has something like 230k.

Also I did a quick interview with my good friend Nichoel Jurgens on Live at the Bike tonight.  I don't have the link but I'm sure if you google Live at the Bike it can't be that hard to find.

68-tabling hypers

I was just bored while playing satellites for the Sunday Mil today and since the games were going off like crazy due to the $5mil guarantee, I wanted to see how many tables of Sunday Mil hyperturbos I could get going while still being able to play somewhat well.  I got up around 55-60 a few times then right before the Sunday Mil started I really went for it and registered for everything, and got up to 68 at one point:

The screenshot doesn't show the last 10 or 15 tables because I couldn't make that window any bigger on my laptop.

It was probably kind of dumb to do this because I was misclicking a ton, although I don't think I ever timed out at a table.  Also I'm at the hotel in LA for the tournament and I don't have a backup computer if something were to happen.  But oh well, it worked out, and I made a little bit of money in the process.

Unfortunately I busted the actual Sunday Million tournament about 20 minutes into it in 48,711th place.  The tournament ended up getting nearly 60,000 entrants with a total prize pool of nearly $12 million and a first place prize of over $1.6 million plus a new Lamborghini Gallardo, which is all just so insane for a $215 buyin tournament.

I played day 1 of the Big Event at the Bike in LA yesterday and had a pretty good day, turning the starting stack of 30k into about 72k heading into day 2 tomorrow with the average stack at around 60k.

The most interesting hand of the day at least to me was towards the end of the day, blinds were 300/600 and 75 ante, it got folded around to the small blind who raised to 1600 and I called with 7h5d.  Flop came 872 all spades, he bet 2200 and I called.  Turn came J of clubs, and we both checked.  River was K of spades putting 4 spades on board, he bet 5k and I called pretty quickly, and my hand was good.  It's just one of those hands that looks kind of weird but when you think about it most people aren't value betting all that many hands and are going to be bluffing a lot on that river card.  The only thing that would have made me sick is if he flipped over something like 97 with no spade, but I didn't really think he'd be bluffing with a better hand very often, if at all.

Anyway we start again at noon tomorrow and I'll be updating on Twitter as usual.

New Babies, New Computers, and Old Dogs

Sorry about the lack of updates recently, just been really busy as I'm sure you can understand.

Things have been going absolutely great with the baby so far, much better than I expected actually.  I have to admit I was pretty nervous about how the baby would affect my life and my routine but I think we got lucky.  Cooper is pretty quiet and just sleeps a lot, and really only gets fussy when he's hungry.  I also never realized how much I would enjoy having the kid around.  Everything about him is just so great and I just love spending time with him and seeing him do things, even though he really doesn't do much yet.  And yeah I know I'm probably a little biased but he's so darn cute it's hard not to want to take care of him and be there for him.  I'm not really much of a "baby person" normally but it really is different when it's your own son.

Cooper wondering why daddy is resting his head on him:

Family pic:

Doing one of the things he does best:

Me hanging out in the basement with the baby and the dog (more on the dog later):

And just for fun, here's a pic of me when I was 4 days old:

On the non-baby front, I finally stepped into the modern age of online poker and bought a new computer with a 24" monitor.  I know it's not a super baller setup compared to a lot of the online grinders, but it's a big step for me, because I've been playing on a laptop ever since I started playing online.

My old laptop is there on the left side of the picture.  Actually the story is a little better than that, I first bought this computer about 10 days ago because my old laptop was having some issues and I didn't think it was stable enough to play poker on anymore.  So I bring this computer home and it won't boot up because it doesn't have Windows installed properly so I try to reinstall Windows and it still won't boot up properly.  Finally I have to take it back to Best Buy and have them reload everything on it.  When I take it in they tell me it might take up to 3-4 weeks to fix (to reload Windows properly, wtf?).  So at this point I'm on tilt so I end up buying another laptop while I'm there because I still need a computer to play on while my other new computer is getting fixed, and I don't trust my old laptop enough to play on.

Fast forward about 5 days and they call and say my new computer is ready to be picked up (still not really sure why they quoted me 3-4 weeks originally)  So I bring it home and I still have my new laptop hooked up. That night Deb and I are drinking wine and I accidentally knock my glass over and it gets all my new laptop and soon after smoke starts coming out of it and it reeks of a burnt circuit board so I obviously try to turn it off as quickly as possible.  Luckily I bought the warranty so they should fix it or replace it, but they said 2-3 weeks this time, but with them who knows how long it will really be.


Back to our dog, Peanut.

We've had him for 7 years (Deb actually got him just before she and I met each other) and he's been a great dog around us.  Basically he's just a little snugglebug and he licks a lot.  He doesn't shed or pee in the house or anything like that, and he's pretty easily trainable.  The only big issue with him is that he tends to nip at people's ankles when he's nervous or being protective of us, so we have to watch for that.  But really that was easy enough to guard against in general because we'd just keep him out of situations where he'd be nervous, or obviously on walks or whatever we'd just keep him close to us.

The problem is now that we have a baby, it's so hard to say what he might do.  He's actually been really great around the baby so far and has been sniffing him in a curious, non-aggressive way.  The biggest problem so far has been that when the baby is on our lap, he gets really jealous and will try to nudge his way in.  We've kind of solved that though by making him stay on the floor and he's listened really well so far.  I don't really think there are any issues to worry about for now, but there will definitely be issues once the baby starts moving around on the floor.  Eventually the baby will do something that Peanut doesn't like and Peanut will nip at him.  When he's nipping at an adult's ankles, the worst that can happen is the person gets a scratch, but if he did that to a baby, who knows what could happen.

So in the last few days, Deb and I both came to the realization that we're probably going to have to get rid of him soon.  She's cried about it a few times and I actually cried a little with her once (I can't remember the last time I really cried about anything, probably been since I was a kid), just because it's so sad because we know the dog really means well, it's not like he's a mean dog or anything, but it's hard to imagine him being compatible with the kid.  It's really not his fault or anything.  So we're trying to look for a new home and we're getting a dog trainer to stop by to see if they can help us in the meantime.

Here's one more pic of Peanut humping the PokerStars monkey:

I actually have more I want to blog about but I'll save it for another post in a few days.

Mini Cooper Arrives!

So yeah you may not have seen me at the tables for the last week.  That's because 6:25am on Feb 10, my wife and I welcomed the newest addition to our family!

And now here's Michael Buffer to formally announce his entrance to the world:

"IN THE BLUE CORNER (obv because he's a boy), WEIGHING IN AT 7 POUNDS 6 OUNCES WITH A LENGTH OF 21 1/2 INCHES, COOPER AARON LIND!!!!!!"


Here he is from about 15 minutes after he was born:




A proud Jorj95 holding his son:

Our first family pic:

Cooper is ready to finally go home after being in the hospital a few days:

So we finally got home on Saturday night after being cooped up (pun intended) in the hospital since Tuesday.  It's really good to be home now but wow is our routine different.  The good news is that he likes to sleep a lot, but the bad news is that his "awake time" is between about 2am and 9am, which is when we'd rather be sleeping.

He's actually made quite a name for himself so far in his few days.  He already has a street named after him right by our new house:




He also decided to run for public office. I tried to discourage this since all politicians are scumbags, but you can only control their lives so much before you have to let them be their own person:

Fortunately he parlayed this name recognition into getting his own TV show.  We should be set for life now:

He said he wanted to buy us a car with the money he's making from the show.  I wanted something a little faster, but he insisted on this:

Moving in and Running Good

So we're finally somewhat situated in the new house, which is nice.  Still waiting on my desk to be built, which will be ready in 2 weeks.  For now I'm playing on my wife's desk which is in the sewing room, so I'm definitely looking forward to moving into my office.

I bought a new computer with a 24" monitor.  I've been playing on a laptop for the last 3 years so it will definitely be a change but I think my eyes will thank me eventually.  I haven't hooked it up yet though because I don't feel like putting it together here in the sewing room in the basement then moving it in 2 weeks, so for now I'm still playing on the laptop.

I will have some pictures of my office and my new setup when I get it ready.

Been running great in this house so far.  Up over $20k in sngs this week plus I got 2nd in the $215 2x chance for $7k last night, then tonight in the same tourney I got first for $23k.  Obviously I had to make up for blowing a big chiplead last night.  :)



Probably won't post again until the baby is born, which should happen any day now.  He's due in 10 days.

5k Bounty Shootout Round 2

Bleh quite a disappointing day.  Lost every pot I played in level 1 and was down to about 11k of the 25k starting stack.  When level 2 started I got AJ in the cutoff and raised to 750 at 150/300, bb raises to 2100, I shove and he snap calls with QQ.  I hit a jack on the flop but got no further help and was likely the first person to bust today.

At least they let me keep 2 souvenirs from yesterday: