So the Lakers-Celtics finals game yesterday was cool as hell. We were like 16th row center court, great seats. The game was good, and all around I'm extremely glad that we went. The drive was about 4 hours each way, but it really wasn't too bad. I guess that was one of those once in a lifetime things.

Now to the good stuff (I use that phrase loosely). I dropped about a hundred dimes last night (I haven't slept yet). I mean, it's whatever, I'm honestly not all that upset about it. I've said it before in this blog and on poker forums I'm sure, sometimes you need a slap in the face wake up call. I didn't play very well, got kind of fancy, but basically ran poorly. I think the last 6 months even, I've run average or so, and never this ridiculous.

Anyways, I ran 55k or so below equity it says. Couple that with losing nut straight to second nut straight [1], and 3-bet bluffing the river for 200bbs [2], and I don't know how terrible the day really was. I'm trying hard not to be results oriented; and I actually think my general feeling at the moment is that I played okay today (I'd say for stretches I played phenomenal, and other stretches terrible, but mostly above average).

So let's see... I played 3 sessions against Lars/present. Lost 8k in the first one, should have lost more but was playing well. Lost like 30k in the second; he hit n run me, I made a bad call, etc. In the last one, I won a little bit; and then I hit n run him. I ended up dropping 32k to him over like 5 sessions I think. He kept doing this gay suckout thing [3] [4] that I didn't like. I think I'll play him again in the future, but probably sell some of my action.

Then I played a long one tabling session with John Juanda. I won't say much about John except that he plays better postflop than I thought he would, despite his frequencies being off in some areas. I felt like too often I was "forcing" the game speed up and acting way too fast (everyone tells me I act too quickly). I think I'll work on just general timing for next time. John was really fun to play. He ended up only winning a few thousand from me, despite ridiculous swings. There's a good chance John's fold button was broken.

There were some really good 50-1 6m games running. Those games I actually did the best in, despite a bad hero call [5] (although frankly, I guess I still like my line- so I could say 'incorrect' hero call, lol HRL). I got sucked out on kind of nasty style in one of those games [6] and again in stupid 25-50 6m on Stars [7]; people do funny spewy stuff. I also got coolered a little bit pre, stupid stuff like 9s and tens and queens to pawket rawkets when we were like 4 handed. Bah.

I almost forgot, I played Stinger heads up for a while. He's obviously good, and was fun to play heads up. I think since he's loaded and has no game selection either I'm sure, we'll play a few more sessions when I can't get action until he owns my soul too badly and I have to quit him.

Man, that was a long two or three or four sessions or whatever I did today. I also had dinner with some Leggo guys since Greg is in LV now. We've got another dinner tomorrow night, and then some planning for a big party at the end of the week. I'll keep you guys posted.

For the record, here's the graphtasticness of the last 24 hours:





Ship ship mcgipp.

Hands:

------------------
HAND #1
------------------

Full Tilt Poker, $100/$200 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $25,044
Hero (SB): $30,961

Pre-Flop: 7 8 dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero raises to $400, BB calls $200

Flop: ($800) 9 T K (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $575, BB calls $575

Turn: ($1,950) 6 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1,650, BB raises to $5,800, Hero raises to $29,986 and is All-In, BB calls $18,269 and is All-In

River: ($50,088) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $50,088 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
BB showed J Q (a straight, Ace high) and WON $50,087.50 (+$25,043.50 NET)
Hero showed 7 8 (a straight, Ten high) and LOST (-$25,044 NET)




------------------
HAND #2
------------------

Full Tilt Poker, $100/$200 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $52,141.50
Hero (BB): $44,873

Pre-Flop: A Q dealt to Hero (BB)
SB raises to $400, Hero raises to $1,555, SB calls $1,155

Flop: ($3,110) A T 5 (2 Players)
Hero bets $1,700, SB calls $1,700

Turn: ($6,510) K (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB checks

River: ($6,510) 3 (2 Players)
Hero bets $4,600, SB raises to $10,650, Hero raises to $41,618 and is All-In, SB calls $30,968

Results: $89,746 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
SB showed Q J (a straight, Ace high) and WON $89,745.50 (+$44,872.50 NET)
Hero showed A Q (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$44,873 NET)




------------------
HAND #3
------------------

Full Tilt Poker, $100/$200 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $10,961.25
Hero (BB): $40,584.25

Pre-Flop: A K dealt to Hero (BB)
SB raises to $600, Hero raises to $2,111, SB raises to $10,961.25 and is All-In, Hero calls $8,850.25

Flop: ($21,922.50) 4 4 J...

Just over 12 hours before tipoff, Jimmie and I have decided to go to game 5 of the Finals in LA. We'll drive there tomorrow morning when we wake up, and hope to pick out some tickets online tonight. We'll probably drop pedestrian four figures on the tickets, but definitely get good enough seats to make the experience 'memorable' or something.

Today was a pretty cool day. I followed up one of my worst days (with lots of live losses, a depressing loss to Erick Lindgrin in the HU tournament) with one of my best. I binked out another HSNL 'reg' on FTP for some good cashflow, including a 50k pot with Q8. Other than some fun online poker, I layed around the pool and walked around some casinos lazily. It was a pretty relaxing day and it's amazing how much your last session of poker effects your mindset in all of life. Finished the day playing board games with the guys in the house, and watching Jimmie destroy dresden and get his day up to six figures.

We almost sat in a 100-200 game with a mandatory button straddle for 500, but we found out the button straddle was 1k and the min buy in was 100k. We didn't feel like chopping up that much action and we didn't feel like losing six figures in live cashflow so we sat it out and ate at this steakhouse in Caesars. I don't know if I'll end up playing big live games this trip, as I don't have as much cash on me as I would like and I've done nothing but lose in live stuff- kind of gay for my 'live roll' and such.

JGP (Jonathen Gabriel Patgorski) made the final 16 of the HU tournament before going down in flames to Gavin Griffin. I think there are a few other acquaintances of mine that are deepish in it. Speaking of which, mastr/ Scott Sievers won a bracelet in a 5k NLHE tournament, and BBJ/ Ben got third in the same event. Tournaments are all completely hidden random luck but congrats should go out to both of them anyways, since they're both pretty cool cats.

Otherwise, our house has a total of 1 cash thanks to JGP in several dozen tournaments. Pretty disappointing, but it's not like tournaments take any skill anyways.

I need to get on this ebay shizzle to get some tickets.

Little update to knock off a blog post for the fanboys:

Blue Man Group: ...was awesome. Went and saw them tonight with my cousin and Ryan. It was my cousins last night in town, and neither of us had seen it, so we went and saw BMG at the Venetian. This was also my first time in the Venetian, which seems to be a pretty ballin' casino, I would hate to never be able to go back there again because I was blacklisted. Without digressing too much more, I'll say that BMG was very entertaining. As was described to me before hand- it is entertainment that doesn't really fit into a genre. They sing, they dance, they do improv, they play with paint; it's just a very entertaining 100 minutes of life. I was constantly looking at something, listening to something, or thinking about something.

I actually got a few texts while I was in the show, namely because I wanted to know the results of the game. Surprisingly, Boston overcame a 20+ point deficit in the first half to win game 3. This is important for a few reasons: First, I offered Jimmie 12 to 1 on a few hundred bucks that the Lakers would win when it was like 26-7 just over midway through the first. He declined (whoops). Second, I am not definitely going to game 5 in LA (unless I get deep in the HU). I'm pretty pumped. I've been a pretty big Ray Allen fan for a long time, so I'm rooting for the Celtics.

H.O.R.S.E.: ...is certainly not a collection of strong games for me in poker. I know nothing about anything limit, nothing about any math associated with poker, and nothing about split games. However, I bet $10k on a 5k hand sample 3-4 tabling against Jimmie on September 1st in HORSE. Starting middle of July, I'm going to spend a week getting up every morning and teaching myself a game, then grinding a bunch of hands of midstakes HORSE HU. This is a good way to get myself familiar with games that I want to be able to learn by next year anyways. I may not get very good fast, but this challenge will make me get decent ASAP (I'm hoping). I may or may not look around for a personal coach, but I have to find some literature soon enough to learn some math type of stuff so I don't make any glaring mistakes.

I might go back and read some David Sklansky or Super System material too!

WSOP HU: ...event starts tomorrow at noon. I'm excited, and I'd say since I haven't played an event in a while I'm fresh, and therefore a lock to win. But seriously, the structure is not good and if there was any way the WSOP could make a heads up tournament "less skillfull" they have managed to do it (surprise!). I'm still super stoked, it'll just mean that when I get to certain stack depths I'm going to be limping a lot of buttons and trying my best to hit up the "live pro let's see a flop" strategy.

All in all, Vegas has been pretty good. The poker has been kind of bad, but I've made up for it a little bit online and just having a good time in life. On the online poker side of things, I've been dying to play Takechip again since he ran bad against me last time and won about $30k from me. I hope to see him on very soon and play him forever, or until my eyes begin to bleed, whichever comes first.

Be good.

Not me, obviously.

Last night I was sitting around doing nothing waiting to go see the Love Cirque Du Soleil featuring Beatles music, and Jimmie got an instant message from Chewy saying that we had a horse heads up for a bracelet. To my surprise, Tom Chambers, a 2p2er who I had bought 10% of in all his WSOP events about a month ago, was heads up in the Stud8/O8 event. I know nothing about either of these games, but I left early to stop by the Rio and hopefully get a glimpse of the HU action (and meet him). By the time I got there, the rail told me that his opponent ran scorchingly hot during heads up play, and scooped him a bunch of times and overcame a chip disadvantage to win the bracelet. I think watching heads up would have been hilarious since I don't know the rules and would have had to continue to ask who was winning the pot and why.

I actually hadn't read an update email from him since two days ago when he said he made day two in this event, but without many chips. I remember thinking "O, maybe he'll cash," and now he scores $141k for the bracelet. It seemed to be very exciting for him, and I know he's very good with game theory and math and mixed games, so everything is deserved. He's the type of guy that has been around poker and 2+2 for a long time. Met him briefly after his second place finish, and he seemed like a cool guy who I am nothing but happy for.

Between that and a little poker online, I'm almost unstuck for the series!

Cirque Du Soleil Trip Report:

It was awesome. There are always ten thousand things going on at once. I was, quite simply, very entertained and amazed at the **** that these people were doing. I'm usually not a huge fan of art and theatre (as terrible of a blanket statement as that is) but I really loved this. I hope to go see a bunch more shows with my GF when she comes in.

My cousin gets in today, I think he's gonna stay with us for probably just under a week. He's not really a poker player, but he played with us back in the day and to some extent got me started. I know he'll get along really well with the guys in the house because he likes to have a good time. He doesn't know much about my poker success and will probably be blown away by our degenerateness. Wow, can't believe spellcheck didn't yell at me for that one.

Over and out.

Today I ended up taking a shot at 200-400 since DB was sitting. I had been stuck 40-50k since I got to Vegas, but I climbed halfway out of the hole by booking a 75k win where I had 1/3 of myself. I wish games like that would run more often, it's a rush playing that high. I did fade a set on a monotone board when I flopped a flush against Krantz, I'm running incredibly hot right now it seems.

Tournaments continue to be pretty terrible for me and everyone I know. I'm pretty sure the house, which has to be one of the sickest of the poker houses in Vegas, has like zero cashes. My boy Ryan won his first table in the $5k shootout, but Jimmie lost heads up. Seems like that tournament would be the most suited for me of perhaps all the tournaments (except the $10k HU), but I decided to take the day off because I basically promised myself I wouldn't play too many of these stupid things, and I'd been running badly at them and am not really that robusto in live bankroll.

Gabe and I had a discussion today with the guys about whether or not we were +EV in the $1500 PLO event on Monday. Given than neither of us has played 1000 hands of PLO lifetime, and have read little to no (none pretty much for me) literature on PLO, we still think we're both +EV in this field. I might actually play it for ****s and giggles, I think it would be incredibly hilarious if either of us went deep in it. The play will probably be so incredibly bad, it'll come down to who runs insano, because every hand you have awesome equity in PLO.

My parents are coming in tomorrow. I get along with them very well, so I'm excited to see them. They were already on their way out west for vacation, and they decided to look in on their little Aaron in his element. I won't mind showing them the ranch and whatnot, and will probably see a show or two and take them out to a nice meal or three.

I'm pretty tired right now because we went bowling late and played a bunch of arcade games. I know, long, exciting night, amirite?

Be good.

Today was a sort of fun day, but pretty draining.

I elected not to play the 2k NLHE event for a few reasons. The stakes are pretty marginal to me for just a full ring tournament, and I had been out late the night before. Last night Jimmie and I went out to eat at Ruths Chris with Big Bryan and his crew, and Dani (Ansky). This is about the time I had dinner with Patrik.

Well, sort of.

We are sitting around talking about poker (shock) and high stakes cash games, and Patrik walks in with his (wife, I assume) date. The best part about it was that Dani was talking (at hyper Dani speed, obviously) and he had his back to the door, so PA walks in and Dani keeps right on talking- but everyone else stops and stares. We all get this awesome smile on our faces like a kid in a candy store, and then the built up laughter just explodes when Dani eventually figures out that PA just walked in. He gets seated at a table very near us, and we actually listen to him try to explain poker hands to his wife, trying very intently to get some strategy tips! It was semi-awkward because he was the topic of some of the conversation we were having, but hilarious in all aspects.

After dinner, we sat around and talked about random stuff. As PA is leaving, I get the idea that we should all leave too, so we can see what kind of car he brought, watch him drive away, etc. So we already had the bill tucked away, and we all race out to see his exit. As predicted by Dani, he gets in his black Aston Martin while his wife gets into a Range, and he speeds away. We awe at the precision and power with which he operates a motor vehicle.

After dinner, we went out to a club (Moon) at the top of Palms with Jimmie, Eddie, Dani and Ben (BBJ). Ended up staying out way too late, and dropped them off at Seamless actually for some after hours partying. I think Eddie and Ben picked up some birthday girl's phone number, but more or less it wasn't happening if you ask me (the only sober person). Jimmie managed to lose 350 dollars at penny slots while we were waiting for everyone (that's right, 35,000 credits); but he was multi tabling so that task isn't quite as accomplished as it sounds.

As if last night wasn't exciting enough, today I woke up late with the intentions of heading down to the Rio or Bellagio and playing some cash games. The online high stakes games have been so dry and I haven't had any ambition to play them, I'd love to book a few five figure winning sessions (and I wouldn't turn down a six figure one either). However, I got wind that Andrew (good2cu) was at a final table for the 5k Mixed FL and NL. He was 7/9 coming in, and the final table started at 4 PM. I decided to be lazy and just stick around and sweat that all day, so we got the whole crew together and took up an entire section of the seating area. We were loud and boisterous (obviously) and our behavior didn't sit well with everyone. At one point CardPlayer actually said: "The Andrew Robl contingent is getting more unruly as play continues and the drinks flow." Jimmie found that quote on his blackberry, and we all thought it was hilarious.

What were we doing exactly? Well, almost everyone had some kind of prop bets with each other for cards to fall and colors to hit the flop. I won 4k (but was up 15k at one point) from Peter betting on red flops. Gabe actually won a lot from Peter as well I think, but I am not sure of the figure so I won't speculate. Everytime Andrew would win a pot, we'd yell "R-O-B-L Robl Robl Robl" (to the tune of J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets) or Gabe would scream "Good to see" and the whole group would wallow "YYYOOOOOOUUU."

It was a spectacle, frankly, and ESPN didn't know how to deal with it. They scolded us and gave us stern warnings and got the cameras away from us as much as possible. We had some great confrontations with the producer, most of which were priceless. My favorite two were as follows:

Once, he came over and said, "You guys can't be yelling colors and screaming during the action, these guys are playing for a lot of money." Peter looks at him and says: "You know what, we're all millionaires so I think we have some idea of the kind of money that is being played for."

Another time he comes over and says, "You guys can't be screaming across the room numbers, no one cares how many hundred dollars are at stake for your bets." To which I immediately reply, "First of all, it's thousands, and second of all, my watch is worth more than you make in like three months." I'm an ******* a lot of the time, but I don't really care.

Gabe was also randomly yelling "Andrew Robl dot com" which was hilarious. I can't wait to see the broadcast and I'm sure they'll cut a lot of stuff out.

In case you forgot poker was being played, Andrew seemingly played well and ended up getting third. He came in short, but outlasted a few guys, caught a miracle ten with tens to aces preflop, and made a good showing. I think Andrew is someone who has put a lot of effort into poker, and it shows.

I've been eating really poorly lately. Primarily, portions are just too big at these restaurants I go to. Also, I am eating way too many sweets and random junk food. I have been playing basketball 4-5 times a week sometimes twice a day, but it's not enough to stop me from gaining really unnecessary weight. I guess I'll have to try to minimize how awful I'm eating until I'm back in Indiana.

It's been an insanely long day and I'm finally going to sleep. Tomorrow is a $1500 6m that I'll probably make myself play.

Be good.

Yesterday I played in the $1500 NLHE tournament. It was Event 002, and I decided to play in it based on the fact that it was going to be insanely soft, and it'd be a good introduction to me into live tournaments (well, I guess the 10k PLH was an intro, but you get the idea).

I was just discussing with Jimmie how I'd never made a deep in a live tournament, any buy in four figures or more. I then preceded to amass a pretty big stack early with a bunch of uninteresting hands. I got to about 15k at 3-600/75 by the dinner break. I had a nice dinner at a fancy little Italian place with Jimmie, whereupon we talked about how there was actually some chance I made it to the second day.

I got moved from my easy peasy Japenesey table to a table with a bunch of nits and random tournament donks. I don't think they could put me at a table where I was uncomfortable, unless Patrik Antonius or Phil Ivey was right across the table from me looking into my soul on the regular. I ended up restealing against Michael Binger a few times, and got up to around 20k.

With 20 minutes left before the end of the day, I played a hand so poorly that I refuse to discuss it in this blog space, where all my fanboys must keep the holier than thou image of the great (legendary) aejones. So I busted with about 30 big blinds in a spot where I could not have possibly played the hand worse postflop. Again, I don't want to talk about it.

I was really close to day two though, and despite the fact that I wanted to off myself after 10 hours of nothingness I ended up semi optimistic. It's funny the way live tournaments are, I'm so much better than everyone that I can sit and analyze every hand and ranges until the cows come home, but when it comes down to making the play I know I need to be making, I have trouble pulling the trigger. The folds where I say "lol easy fold" turn into "lol $1500 tournament that I wipe my ass with" far too quickly. Mentally, I was actually pretty sharp yesterday and I kept myself from spewing until the last second. So close.

Surprisingly I have an itch to play live cash, so I might go do that. I talked to my parents today, and they'll be in town this weekend. I'm looking forward to showing them my general lifestyle and hanging out with them. They're very cool and I've never had anything to hide from them, so I might go buy them a $200 meal or something.

I don't plan on playing anything until the $1500 6m on Thursday, and then probably nothing for a week after that until the $10k HU (I would play in the $5k NLHE but I feel like just the off chance that it might conflict with the $10k HU makes it a poor decision, since the HU is by far the most important tournament for me here).

Be good.

Nah, not really.

Yesterday everyone talked me into playing in the $10k PLHE Event 1. It was a terrible idea. I really didn't want to play, and thus my demeanor was probably even worse than normal. Live tournaments are insanely boring. When compared with heads up cash online (particularly multi tabling the same opponent), I would say it's like the different in magnitude of removing a splinter versus performing open heart surgery. If that analogy is inaccurate, I assure you it's close.

I was nervously excited about playing in the event, despite my cynicism. I ended up playing pretty poorly, playing too many hands, 3-betting too much, and being card dead. It was pretty much a standard tournament for me. I made two bad calldowns and 1 good calldown. I really wish I could nit it up, but I don't even think I have that gear (despite it being inherently better to play tight in PLHE). Whatever.

Also, despite having %s of a bunch of good players, only 2% made it to day 2, and it busted within the first hour! I don't think I know anyone left in, except Dave Benefield aka Raptor, who I have talked to on AIM a handful of times and met at dinner a few nights ago. I doubt he actually knew it was me though, but my point is that we have enough mutual friends that I'm rooting for him so we can clear a 3 dozen large block of a cheering section for the final table, which takes place tomorrow I believe with a first prize of $700k.

In other, more exciting, prop betting and degenerate news: I lost in a poll to Gabe about 'who has more clout' for $1k and the rights to each other's avatar for the duration of our Vegas stay. I'm insanely surprised that he beat me and it proves how bad I run given the nature of how big of a favorite I assume I was. Whatever, BBV doesn't know anything anyways!

Today, I beat Jimmie in Bocce Ball for a gigantic prop bet. Loser has to wear a yellow polo with no undershirt in tomorrows WSOP $1500 event, with some matching yellow glasses. I will report with picture and hilarity.

Also, I don't think I told you guys, but when we were in Jimmie's sl500 convert yesterday we got backed into by an SUV. It was a very shady situation; the police wouldn't come because it was on private property, so we ended up driving down to the owner of the car's auto body shop, and he gave us his card and he's going to do the work himself in a few days. It was an insanely tricky situation but I have no idea how we could have handled it. Hopefully this hotrod custom auto body shop does a good job on it, I guess, because he doesn't seem to have much choice.

Jimmie's friend Chris (harlem41) is an insane degen with no care for money. He's constantly grinding small stakes and playing high stakes with his entire roll at a time. With barely 6-figures to his name, he bought a $25k watch (retail $37k) yesterday and had it shipped to Vegas. He's also talking about buying an Escalade if he can win like $50k next month, despite the fact that he doesn't have a driver's license.

To each his own.

Life is sort of intense out here, and despite the fact that I've been starting my days so early, I feel pretty worn out. I don't know how I'm going to fanagle it, but I think I should get a video or audio blog because there's a lot to say and typing is a pain (lazy obviously). Until then, I'll make do with this space.

I'm playing the $1500 tomorrow, we start shallow with 60 bbs but I'm planning on playing an even more aggressive style whereupon I accumulate an intense amount of chips or a bust very early. I normally wouldn't **** with such a stupid event, but it'll get an absurd amount of runners and the play will be far beyond terrible so I'll do what I can.

Be good.

I drove some 24 hours over two days with a stop in Amarillo (just over halfway) with my boy Starkey. I didn't think the drive was bad at all, I thought it was a little fun (and would be moreso if you could do it over the course of 3 or 4 days), but I got the feeling all the driving got on his nerves a bit.

So I've been in Sin City for two days now, I'll make my random assertions based on my experiences thus far:

1. The city is not as dirty as I thought it would be. I mean I wasn't expecting a ghetto, but I feel like we're in a pretty nice area of the city (good view of the strip, good access to the Rio). I actually think it looks pretty nice.

2. It's not hot yet. Everyone is clamoring about how it's 'only' 93 degrees outside. I think it's hot, but I'm expecting the worst in a few weeks (or a few days).

3. Everyone drives really nice cars. I mean they're nothing compared to my Solara, but I've seen a Lotus and some Maserati's, and BMWs and Mercedes are a dime a dozen.

4. The heat is sort of making my skin chapped, and probably causing me some headaches. I think I'm just sort of getting accustomed to the conditions; lots of mixed feelings about my habitat (the weather, among other things).

5. Our 11 ranch is really sick. It's got very weird construction, but most of the rooms have 2 or 3 queen sized beds, theres a pool with a slide, and... and in ground trampoline. I couldn't lie to you about stuff like that.

6. Everyone likes to party more than I do. This town moves too fast for me, I know I'm just an Indiana boy but I can't do the up all night thing all the time. At the moment I'm in bed by midnight and up by 9am. The last few days have been nice like that, and I feel like I'm getting more out of my day, although frankly there is very little to do before noon.

7. The house is sick. For the record, in no particular order, the house is: me, jimmie/AlusivPnkBny, Travis/Travesty Fund, Peter/Apathy, Mario/Pwnasaurus, Gabe/g-p, Todd/Snoop Todd, Max/inyaface, Jason/Pasterbator, Thuy/Shesnogood. The odds of one or more of us final tabling something is good, and the odds of one or more bracelets being shipped is pretty good.

8. We've got some of the sickest prop bets/ 'projects' ever in the works, but I can't let you know about any of them yet.

In sum, I'm kind of enjoying things. People have talked me into playing the $10k PLHE (Event 1) because of the volume of donks in the first event. Frankly, I didn't really want to play it, and I've never played PLHE in my entire life (live or online); but I think I'm smart enough to tackle the task.

I'll try to update more frequently, and let you guys know how I do in the first event tomorrow. I might also play some live cash during the week, but I'm feeling kind of lazy for that.

Be good.

Again, the story of my poker career repeats itself. I get a shot at a big break, at a big score, at a 6 figure day, and I don't run quite as good as I need to. Today I played the 25k HU tournament on ftp. First was $560k.

Today is the last day I'm here before I move to Vegas for 7 weeks. Since I'm moving out of one place and into a different place in Indy, I'm taking my personal stuff that I'm not taking to Vegas to random locations. I've spent a decent amount of time this week taking trips to a storage unit, to my place on campus, and throwing **** out and packing. I didn't get quite as much working out done as I wanted to, but hopefully I'll play basketball 4-5 times a week in Vegas. I ate pretty well and kept a nice update log in the health and fitness forum, and I'd be proud if I ate half that well (even just talking about clean foods and less sweets) in Vegas. Additionally, I've spent all week sleeping on an air mattress on the floor; one that seems to have a slow leak at that.

What I'm getting at with that life tidbit is that I was nervous about how well I'd play in the 25k. I was also a little sketched out about if I got to the final four, I'd have to delay my Vegas trip (but obviously, playing for a half million took precedent).

But I played fantastic. In fact, looking back at the entire tournament, I may just have played as well as I could have.

First, I played WLUStudent. I had no reads on him, but I got word that he had finished second in a tournament (Monte Carlo, maybe). I played very efficiently against him, and won in a fairly short amount of time. I faded a naked flush draw with top two.

For the second match, I played thecranium. I beat him fairly quickly as well (not instantly, but relative to the other matches they were quick). I think I coolered him flush over flush, and despite being down in chips early on, I never felt too threatened.

It was nice to get a good draw for the first two and be favorites in the first two matches (hidden random luck on my side!).

The third match I was probably also a slight favorite in, but probably not by anything too noticeable. I played mastrblastr, who, oddly enough, I had been talking to on AIM pretty much since the start of the tournament. We played a very back and forth match, and I made a questionable fold when I had a 3 to 1 chip lead. He fought back a little, and then he won this hand:

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 170/340 Blinds, 25 Ante, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: 25,085
SB: 14,915

Pre-Flop: (560)
SB raises to 830, BB calls 490

Flop: (1,710) 8 T 5 (2 Players)
BB checks, SB bets 1,150, BB raises to 3,300, SB raises to 14,060 and is All-In, BB calls 10,760

Turn: (29,830) 5 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: (29,830) Q (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 29,830 Pot
BB showed T Q (two pair, Queens and Tens) and LOST (-14,915 NET)
SB showed 9 J (a straight, Queen high) and WON 29,830 (+14,915 NET)

(It doesn't have my hole cards because I took it from the NVG thread and I can't find the HH on my computer)

Anyways, it's a 60-40 with him in the lead (admittedly, I thought it was closer to 50/50) apparently and I blanked the turn but he binked the river.

After that, I was decimated and couldn't really come back. I ended up getting coolered with 10 bbs.

It sucks really badly to play all that time so perfectly and lose to a hand like that. The match was weird because I didn't 3-bet him for about the first hour of it. I was card dead, never had anything better than AQ or 88, but nevertheless I just moved to 3-betting nothing (he 3-bet very rarely too). Kind of a weird dynamic the entire time.

Either way, I don't think I could have played much better.

Since I'm dealing with variance and randomness everyday, I'm pretty immune to things like this. A lot of people are very effected by losing in spots like this; I get a lot of sympathy wishes after I lose when I have a few hundred thousand in equity at some points in this tournament, but I'm not really bothered by it. What can I do to change history? Nothing.

The most amusing thing, perhaps, is the publics perception of results and history. They are so driven by Jesus Ferguson being a two time champion of some live heads up thing, which is certainly the product of him running fantastic. They are driven by sick hands which are no more than someone catching the top of their range against the bottom of someone else's range, or random variance driven calls. I suppose it's nearly impossible for people to not be fooled by randomness, and I don't want them to stop now. However, to be able to have the 'theoretically correct' perspective certainly gives some piece of mind.

I don't mind losing the 25k, since it's been out of my account for so long it's like it doesn't even exist. My two 5% pieces are playing right now and both down in their matches, but I'd really like if one of them made it to day 2 (tomorrow, the final four).

O well, I'm still very positive for the way I'm playing and the upcoming summer in Vegas. I think more than anything, I'm going to go back to my roots and concentrate on getting better at poker.

Be good.