so yeah, had to unregister my main event day1 from day1a to day1b, since I dont want to be hungover. feeling a little fuzzy typing this right before i collapse into bed.

before arriving i spent the entire day at the venetian. preface: i played craps with yellowsub86 and stevesbets the night before at the Palms and made $1500 since I rolled for 25 minutes (apparantly this is good). So I decided to spend the $1500 the next day, and experience true Vegas for one day in my life.

got some shoes, some jeans, a shirt, a belt (nice additions to the future wardrobe) and spen a few hundred at the Canyon Ranch Spa in the venetian (best spa ever). got a great massage and then got a great haircut+styling all for about $200. I was in a perfect mindset to play day 1a the next day, but then i realized that the leggo party had beer pong and lots of liquor. WHOOPS.

highlights:

- met infinite people for the first time/got drunk and forgot i had met them before (SORRY FRANKLIN). im not going to bother listing the infinite names, but I will say that if I did NOT meet you then it was definitely my fault, to be fair there were tons of people there.

- victorious in beer pong with alex (dubness) over tri nguyen (SlowHabit) and a nice girl named Anya who had to put up with his supercrazyaznmonkeyball antics (love you treeeeeee).

- devastating loss in beer pong with alex against shaun deeb and KingDan. booked $100 on the match, down -$100 propping

- watched KingDan and Shaun Deeb face Alex and Tri. down to 1 and 1 cup, saw Shaun and Dan miss like 15 times. gave Dan 5:1 on $100 that he would not sink it on his very next shot, and he obviously sinks it because he's King f*cking Dan the clutch master mcGee, and Im now down $600 propping. FML

- seems like bobbofitos and theASHMAN were crushing some basketball the entire day. propped $100 on theASHMAN versus charder30 in a 1v1 basketball game versus slicknastyAK, ashman wins. I FINALLY WIN A PROP. only stuck $500.

- those were the only gambling related activities to speak of, dont make it out like i was being a degen the entire evening... just 15 minutes out of 6 hours. i met tons and tons and tons of people, and enjoyed sipping on cranberry+vodka+orange juice drinks.

- it's amusing how much more socially accpetable scantily-clad bartenders are when the population of a house goes from 7 to 70. furthermore some Leggo corporation decided to give one of the bartenders $600 to go topless. myself on the sidelines saw the hilarity of everyone moving from outside to inside slowly. I quoteth Vitas: "AND NOW THEY KNOW WE RUN THE STREETS". lawl. whatever floats the Leggo boat, I suppose.

- the house was sooo sick. giant fridge, tons of burgers/hotdogs/pool/patio/swinginghammockchairs/.basketball court/beer pong. verrrrrry nice.

- at some point greg decided to toast to everyone not rememberng events after 5am. I REMEMBER THINGS CLEARLY GREG. You should have toasted to the bartender's tip jar that crashed to the floor not 5 seconds prior.

- FionnMac is a messy drunk

- Aaron Jones is obviously the greatest of all time. Matt Probability a close 2nd.

- Oh right, I have to do a pokercast audio thingy before I go to bed. WHOOPS. Better get on that.

- Did i really just recap a party that ended only hours prior. THIS IS HOW COMMITTED I AM TO LEGGO.





- PLO video is on the site, however soon it is public depends on how much Probability loves me. <3

Going into the main event i'd say I had a productive series, when you look at the hard numbers I had a nice profitable series, but it was emotionally draining all things considered. I grossed around $94k in winnings before the main event on $38k or so in buyins, and since I had half of myself I profited a little under $30k. I'm freerolling for more profit on the main event, of course, but profiting is certainly fine with me given the insanely high variance of these things.

Some things I'm going to look to change for next year:

- Going to get a place at CityCenter or Panorama Towers during the main event instead of staying at a house or the Rio. I feel like Panorama is the perfect compliment in distance to the Rio while at the same time not feeling trapped in casino hell.

- I will probably be cutting 9handed NL tournaments completely out of my schedule. I feel like half my time this WSOP was spent folding with 20 big blinds, ten handed, on a crowded table filled with the unwashed masses. I also ran bad at table draws during smaller buyin fields, I think (not a large amount of incredible fish, I guess). I feel like if I limit my schedule to 6max NL, PLO, and a random mixed game tournament if I'm in the mood, will keep my mind fresh for each individual tournament, keep me happy at the prospect of playing tournaments I enjoy playing (I hate tenhanded $1500 tournaments and they put me in a bad mood) and I won't feel so mentally bogged down coming into the main event. It's pretty rough right now trying to refresh my head with only 3 days before the main event. My brain is zonked. I might go to the Venetian spa tomorrow.

- Hire a chef during the WSOP next year. The WSOP in general forces your lifestyle to get really unhealthy, and the foods available in the Rio that are healthy are kinda scarce (just random fruit and sandwiches which gets monotonous and its hard to avoid the temptation of a cheeseburger and a pepsi when you're really hungry in a hurry). Next year I'll look to hire a chef to just make me some healthy meals and store them in containers to put in my bookbag and eat during breaks. I feel like I've gained 5 pounds or so this month and feel like a huge slob. I'm looking forward to San Diego, where I'll be able to decorate my own apartment and have a personal gym.

On that note, San Diego goals:

- Find a cool pad with carrotsnake. Hopefully some friends can let us crash on their couches as we scout the internet for some cool apartments, and hopefully we run good and find a cool apartment soon. I plan on staying in San Diego for at least a few years barring something random happening.

- Buy a new wardrobe. I look like a hobo half the time in Vegas (which isnt too bad since everyone else looks like a hobo, lol), and I donated most all of my clothes in Athens. When I get into San Diego I'm gonna do a bunch of research on which places to go to and what clothes to get. Some people would say just go out and shop, but I don't consider myself well versed in clothing or style so having someone else (be it a person who works at a nice clothing store or a guide on the internet) is always a help with me.

- Buy p90x. I've heard very good things about this program, and combining the DVD with a home gym and a general nutrition plan should get me into cut shape by December. That's the goal, anyways. There's no more excuses re: my health.

- No more soda. I took a break from my no-soda thing while in Vegas, because frankly it's just too hard to avoid for me the way I prepared coming in, but getting back into San Diego I will look to just drink water and fruit juices and protein shakes. That's an extension of personal health/fitness I guess, but whatever

- Cash out once a month, on the first of the month. I'm going to get way more responsible with my poker accounts with regard to logging for my CPA. The government is getting increasingly nitty with poker players, and accordingly if I get audited I'd like to have everything out there. I will keep most of my cashgame play to PokerStars (since they have the most secure login system + they can give you an account audit if you request).

- Internet dating. For a long time in Georgia I had put dating on hiatus since I knew I was moving to San Diego and I was just uncomfortable starting any kind of relationship knowing that was on the horizon + I'm a college dropout in a college town. I had multiple relationships that came as a result of mutual friends, but coming into San Diego and only knowing people through poker will probably hurt those prospects. Since I'm just not the kinda person to approach random girls I don't know at all in certain situations (eg "The Game" or whatever) or hit on girls at clubs, then I have to work with what I know, and internet dating looks cool. So, I'm excited at the prospects of this.

- Learn to surf. Hopefully Cosmo gets me the hookup for some quality surf instruction. As is I'm not very coordinated, but if I learned to surf that would be a huge plus.

I'm running out of ideas so that's all I've got for now. On the Leggo front, I just made a PLO video which I thought was excellent and hammered on concepts of playing fewer tables to make better decisions, and starting deep tables because ratholers can die in a grease fire. It's been an hour or so and the video is only 10% rendered, though, so I'm gonna have to wait a while for it to get finished. When that finishes, I'm going to redo the 109r sixmax (which seeing it now months later I think I misplayed a ton of spots which Im embarrased to show but whatever), and when that finishes I will do the hand replaer review of the handhistories submitted to me by Leggo member "Kirkdiese"

Hopefully my next Leggo entry talks about how I'm crushing the main event, but if I don't then I'm at peace with that. I think I care less about this tournament than anyone else entering. I mean, I'll play fine, but I won't be the slightest bit disappointed when I bust. Just like my 6max, I'm just accustomed to busting on the very next hand, and if I don't, then I'm freerolling to the next hand. It's a very cynical approach but then again tournament poker is a grind and to get really excited about any one tournament is a pretty shallow way to look at things.

1time though, amirite? lol...

-c

So "hell week" is almost over, or rather hell 2 weeks. This week is gonna be taking it pretty easy, with only a few random caesars events and a 1500NL. Next week will be a 1500NL, the 5k sixmax, and then I've got the main event in July.

Unfortunately I lost my wallet around a week or so ago, and more than anything it's just been an inconvenience with respect to driving my car. I'm about 98% sure there's nothing wrong with my drivers license, but there was a stretch earlier this year where I drove without insurance for a week and if I dont pay the $30 fine or whatever maybe my license is in trouble. So I've been avoiding driving my car, which by the way makes it more or less retarded to be living in a house in the first place. Sadly, the Rio is fully booked, so I'm just gonna have to tough it out.

What I will have to do from now on is keep wallets/phones/stuff in cargo or back pockets that have buttons on them. I just can't trust my regular pockets.

But yeah, the extra free days means doing some Leggo work finally (as alluded to in the prior blog entry), catching up on some lost sleep, and checking out some Vegas food places.

2 days ago I went to "Lotus of Siam" (recommended on 2p2 by Admo), located in a ghetto strip mall, which I rate overall as an 8 out of 10 (but better than any other Thai place Ive been to). The selection of items on the menu were incredibly vast, and the stuff I got (crispy duck with drunk noodles, thai beef jerky, crispy rice with sausage) was very good! Sadly the air conditioning was way too strong tho, brrrrrrrr.

Second place I went too/can reccomend is Carnevino (sp) at the Palazzo, the Mario Battali italian joint. Just overall good italian food, good service, and good wine. No complaints whatsoever. Italian is kinda hard to screw up or excel above others though, in my opinion, since italian cuisine is basically taking good ingredients and throwing them together. Anyways, that place is also good.

I am also 7 for 7 on credit card roulette and have not paid for a meal yet. Plus I am up $80k in WSOP'aments. So I guess it's fair that I lose my wallet in a taxi to balance everything out o_0.

Now it's time to take a nap and get ready for the 2500 mixed tournament at 5pm. I consider myself above average in every single limit game for this field (whereas a bunch of NL/PLO players have never played limit in their lives and will prob have huge leaks), so by virtue of being competent at limit and good at NL/PLO I think I will have a ridiculous ROI in this tournament. Either way it will be pretty fun I hope. I cant promise that I wont come home tonight sorely regretting introducing any form of limit poker into my life, but hey, I just might come away a bracelet winner! Which would be suuuuper cool, since a bracelet in a mixed event carries some higher level of prestige imo.

All for now, next update probably comes if/when I go deep in something or sometime around July 4. I will have the following videos ready by the main event:

- 200NL sixmax NL
- 200PLO sixmax
- user-submitted tournament review
- 109r sixmax final table
- maybe a powerpoint presentation on WSOP/live poker related stuff

ok so its time to stop being such a fkn lazy Leggo coach and actually get to making videos. I will solve the current 109r sixmax quandry with Vitas asap on Friday since I have no live tournaments to play, and I will make one video on Friday regardless. Since all I do is play 1/2 NL or PLO, it will probably be one of those videos.

before I leave Vegas I kinda want to do a powerpoint presentation on tournament mindsets, but i wouldnt know where to start with that. all i know is, a lot of my cashplayer friends dont know much about donkament specifics and it certainly cuts into their ROI when they do stupid things that they chalk up to coolers.

=========

oh right, the 5k. well, I played a ninja-stack for a good stretch, tripled up to 50bb when my 11% equity edge held in a 3way all in (yep I said held, A432 > TT55 and Q876cc on 542cc.) but after that I lost some random small pots and blinds moved up, so it got to the point where I was really short and just looked to get the money in, but in the process of waiting for my "spot" to stick in chips I moved up a payladder from other people's aggression. wahoo! 17th for 18.7k, cant complain. it should help update my hendonmob and make it even sexier! I love adding to my live resume =)

apathy is still in with 12 left btw, hopefully this time he wins a PLO bracelet! go Peter!

5k PLO, I have 52.2k going into day 2. blinds will be 1k/2k. I was a shortstack ninja, stabbing people in the eyeballs with my katana most of the day.

Highlights include 3betting AAxx for over half my stack three seperate times, getting flatted, and flop coming Axx and getting a check fold. Winning before showdown is so fkn clutch in this game.

Anyways, pokernews.com, etc, maybe I will run better than my last PLO-ament where my AAxx got crack-snapple-popped

Technically I busted 9 short of the money, but that's an effective bubble IMO seeing as I invested a day and a half and got paid zilch.

Came into the day with 31k at 800/1600, and had two pots which dictated my day:

- Have 28k in the cutoff. UTG limps, hes a youngish guy who was solid thru 1 orbit (i just got moved). I overlimp KK97 with K9spades. Sometimes I pot it here, but shortstacked in a fullring pot limit dynamic is kinda retarded and I think it's just better to balance things by limping almost everything. The button, some spazzy-acting euro, thinks and pots it on the button. Folds to UTG who repots, and I fold (I have odds to call with just about any other overlimping hand considering he only has aces here).

- Have 24k UTG and find AA64 (A6hh) and limp going for the LRR. UTG+1 limps, EMP makes it 4500, arbianight calls OTB, SB calls, I repot to 20k, folds to arbianight who sigh-calls, and SB calls aswell. Flop comes Q93dd, the SB pots out, I put in my last 4k, arbianight snap folds, and I lose to TT99 (flopped set). Pretty gay way to bust seeing as if I somehow hold with aces threeways there I have a 60k stack near the bubble and a good pace to grind down to the final table, but as is it's whatever.

I think I misplayed one hand total (called a repot with JJT8 versus a squeeze of obv aces, didnt have enough behind to profitably call imo) and overall played well, but I'm tempted to unregister from the 5k. The 9handed element is pretty retarded, that said people still play omaha really terribly so I'm forced to play =)

The day there's a 6max PLO or a HU PLO, oh man I will be so happy!

=======

In other news, I lost my wallet in a taxi. I'm trying my hardest to not be tilted out of my mind, but my car gets in today and now I won't be able to drive it =( I called every single taxi place and left my number, hopefully someone returns my wallet/is a nice person. I'm definitely not betting on it, being vegas and all. This city is full of the scum of the earth.

So hey, I assume most of you already heard! Haha

But yeah, 6th in the sixmax. I made a WSOP final table, which is cool to get a notch on your belt like that, and I played as good as I could though I think I passed on a couple of marginally +ev squeeze spots.

There was a point when I had 500k at 6k/12k on a good table, but when we redrew to 12 I was on the tougher of 2 tables and blinds got moved to 8k/16k, then I lost a couple of smallish pots. After that I was forced to shovebot, and somehow I lasted almost 7 hours on 20bb or less. I'm proud of my patience in that regard, because there was a bunch of times where I couldn't help but think to myself "Wow, I'm gonna come off really awful on television even though this style is optimal"

Apparantly Lee Jones was remarking on my nittiness, but thank god his color commentator was ZeeJustin who noted how having Jesse Rios (some super loose passive live player) on my direct left made for difficult 20bb play. Which was true, because this guy was peeling some pretty mediocre hands from pretty much all positions and stationing 2nd pair. Stacks didn't really allow for awesome double barrels, but maybe I'm wrong on that and I could have made a sick barrel on the 777K board with QJ, but I doubt he'd folding 55 there in his life (zeebo theorem expanded).

Anywho thanks v much to everyone railing online and ppl who showed up to watch live (cosmo, TJ, slowhabit, fionnmac, jsnipes, dj sensei, travis, and others that im sure im forgetting because i forget a lot). It means a lot to have people cheering for you!

Short term plans involve not playing and letting my brain rewire. I watched "The Hangover" last night with Alex (5th place finisher/dubness_1/gary stevenson on 2p2/vegas housemate) and a buncha other people, and that movie was hilarious and I highly recommend watching it.

Usually I'd say a movie like that puts me off tilt, but as a matter of fact I wasn't tilted at all to finish 6th. I think I've put myself in a mindset as of late where I've 100% accepted that I'm going to bust on the very next hand in any given tournament and surviving to the next hand is a blessing/freeroll of sorts. I hit a couple of 20/80s and won all of my allins except 2 if i remember right, so I feel fortunate to got as far as I did with my stack.

Anyways, back on track, I dunno which tournament Im gonna play next. Probably the next 1500? Seems like a good idea. I could use some weak competition, lol. The final 100 of the 6max tournament was chock full of competent players, not like it mattered to me since I was 20bb'ing the entire way, but it still required a bunch of thinking. Playing 9 handed against 8 weak players seems like a fun opportunity to use some unconventional lines, part of the fun with poker for me anyhow.

So yeah, thanks all for the love. Hopefully we keep up the Leggo rungood!

11 left, me, seabeast, and gary stevenson from 2p2 (my housemate alex wilson) are all still in

ive got 500k going into 8k/16k, so running good from here on in would be decent

i have zero pots worth mentioning, played so very ABC throughout the day afaik so no interesting stuff to note.

gl me! updates on pokernews and maybe bluffmagazine.com/live

vegas cant come soon enough, and fortunately im 90% done moving stuff out. WHEE. wedding tomorrow, then flying out sunday. $2500 sixmax on monday! sooo excited

====================

seeing as i'm now halfway through the year, i've got to say this year has felt like a huge failure thusfar. I'm up 70k or so at tournaments, and up around 30k at cashgames. So, a vast majority of my income this year has been derived from something like 4 tournaments. wheeee!

I'm definitely gonna have to re-evaluate things with respect to longterm after vegas is complete (and I guess this is just based on how well I run at the WSOP). I've been trying for something like 2 years to be a 5/10+ player, but it simply isnt happening. Meanwhile, guys like jongreenway are posting $125k years with zero variance putting in 65k hands per month at 1/2.

Am I insane for wanting that? Or am I just losing my mind because I've been losing for 5 weeks in a row? Every time I step above 1/2 I get bitch-slapped like nobody's business. I continue the cycle of torture, crushing 1/2 and getting owned at 2/4 and higher, which leads to tilting at 1/2, etc. It results in a meager winrate, but hey who's to worry about that when I can just win another tournament for 40k, amirite?

Forgive me for sounding spoiled at the prospects of being on pace for a 200k year, it's just I'm trying to look at my year from a Sklansky dollars perspective and it looks pretty mediocre. I may decide once and for all, for the very first time, to commit myself to a schedule with poker once I'm in my San Diego house. This would involve grinding 1/2 for a set amoung of hours per day, playing tournaments whenever I'm in the mood to play tournaments, and cashing out on the first day of every month. Then diversifying my excess money into CDs, real estate, and other ventures.

Part of me wants to leave room to potentially move up if the time is right, but part of me thinks that's been my plan for 2 years now and it's not working. I'm content just making 1/2 my daily nut and MTTs my "gamble for the fame and fortune since I run so good at them".

So, I'll re-evaluate that when the time is right, but for now it's back to putting the finishing touches on the moving process. I will look to play as little online poker as possible for the next month, and after winning a couple of bracelets it'll be off to San Diego with carrotsnake/potentially others and finding a new spot to live.

Cheers til then, next update figures to be from Vegas. Here's to hoping my flight doesnt suck. Seems like every time I book a plane in advance the weather gets rigged and I have to deal with turbulence =(

keeping true to my june goal of 1tabling headsup and gameselecting, id say june has gone well sofar. spread of 1/2 PLO and NLHE..



im definitely gonna keep up with this through June, and maybe July. I dont know at what point I should move up to 2/4, maybe when I have 25k online or so, but I feel a lot more confident about my abilities. I guess I'm just not meant to mass multitable, or maybe I'm just running bad whenever I multitable and I dont know it. I'm leaning on the former.

In other news, Rio is out of deposit boxes. This has me pretty tilted because I couldn't reserve one without actually being at the Rio, and without a place to safely keep my money I don't know where to hold the money that I'm going to be withdrawing once I'm in Vegas. For all I know, my best bet might be a safety deposit box at the bank! I'm certainly not keeping the money at the Vegas house for fear of it getting robbed or something. It's just really tilting that an establishment such as this welcomes people to bring large sums of money to buyin for tournaments and then promptly doesnt have a place for people to safely keep their money. U FKN RETARDS. sigh.

Hell, maybe I should just pre-register for everything the first day I show up. That might just be my best bet. I wouldnt have to worry about registering the day or so before. I hope you're able to unregister, because I'd hate to be sick or something and have to play sick or skip a tournament that I bought in for. You'd assume that Rio would be civil about unregistering, but at the same time I thought they'd be smart about HAVING ENOUGH DEPOSIT BOXES WTF. Sigh.

Tonight me and a bunch of my Athens friends went to a friends house in the middle of nowhereland to eat burgers, drink beer, and sit in front of a bonfire as a sort of "bachelor party" for a wedding this weekend. Southern woods-iness feelings are definitely something I am going to miss once I've left for California. I've tried to make it so all my friends will be interested in modern warfare 2 or the next Halo game, as afaik thats going to be the best way to keep in regular touch once I've moved to Cali.

5 more days! wow I am pumped. It's actually kinda hard to believe that my place is gonna fully moved out 5 days from now, I still have a bunch of stuff, but I have all the boxes and I have the address to ship to. I feel like Vegas is just gonna come out of nowhere! But when it comes I will have the donkment grindfest on the minddddd.