So I never got around to writing one of these bad boys, and unfortunately my memory is now super hazy on specifics hands, but I'm gonna give it a go anyways.

As some of you may know, I'm still a ripe-old 21 years of age so this was my very first main event. I was coming off a very blah series that involved not cashing in anything except a 1500 and missing half of my events because of an impending funeral of my grandmother. I was able to get back into Vegas with a few days to spare to play the main event, and honestly going into the tournament I had a massive sense of fate going on. For starters, the final table was going to be on November 9th - that's my 22nd birthday. Secondly, first prize was getting something like 9.119 million. My birthday, 11/9. Crazy, yes, and it was also compounded by a chinese delivery fortune cookie I got right before leaving Athens that said something along the lines of "You will get robusto". Naturally I stowed it away on the nonzero chance I'd win the main event so I could have something silly and gimmicky to show to Norman Chad.

Anywho, for those reasons going in I had this idea that, on the chance that I won, fate was somehow a greater force in life than I had initially anticipated. Obviously I didn't win, so that's shot (damn), but the 305th place finish was still a confidence booster. On to day 1...

I walk in and arrive early, and as anticipated the place is a massive zoo. People flocking all over the place, and since they're "poker people", lets be honest, it was a lot of pretty undesirable folk. In walking to my table I was eyeballing infinite people that absolutely had zero chance in hell of ever beating $5 sitngos online. For a $10k tournament I'd say the skill level would be comparitive to the Sunday Million. Well, I have a 2nd place in the FTOPS ME and an 8th and 11th in the Sunday Million, so I came prepared with a repertoire to pwn these lol-fish.

Lo and behold, I sit down in the green section right near feature table-land and am pale on the inside at the prospects ahead, for to my direct right is Brandon Schaefer (good MTT player, nitty but kinda solid) and 2 to my left is Kirill Gerasimov. I didnt know how Kirill played up until this main event, but I anticipated he was probably going to be more solid than most "live pros" just by virtue of the fact that I think he's under the age of 30. Fortunately I didnt recognize anyone else off the bat (plus there was an old woman on the table, holla) so away we went after some congressman who was like "SHIP IT WE'RE GONNA DESTROY THAT IUGEA BILL LOLZ" told us to shuffle up and deal.

We never changed tables the entire day, and god it was a long day. 2 hours of play followed by 15 minute breaks iirc, thank god I had access to the Stars VIP Lounge (i love RainKhan this much <----------> for getting me in). Here are some hands of memory:

Some idiot limps, I iso AQhh, he calls. Flop 742dd, he check calls. Turn is a 9, he checks and I double barrel because I put him on crap that would fold to my obviously KK because thats what live people think, but he foils me by calling. River Q and he donks 6500 which is a rather large bet relative to the pot. I go into the tank, yes I have TOP TOP but I give live players credit moreso than usual. Anyways I decide I can never fold top pair in a donkament and I should really stop slowrolling, so I call and the guy instamucks. I ask if I dont have to show my hand, the dealer says "***** show ur damn hand kthx" and I show. Scahefer gives me a "mbn to 2barrel and hit a pair" grin and Gerasimov is like "haha nice". I give Gerasimov more respect just from his reaction to my play, because I think he respected my 2barrel as opposed to other people just blindly saying "WOW THAT KID IS RECKLESS".

Later on Schaefer raised SB, I 3bet AQ, he 4bet, and I folded and felt kinda silly 3betting a hand like that versus Schaefer, who plays nitty and isn't gonna **** with me. There's more value flatting a hand like that, honestly, whereas I'd 3bet something like J9o for what I hope are obvious reasons to the reader.

Sometime later I flop a combo draw and blast it up facing a bet and a call, and got folds.

Notable to the table was this random old lady, damn-near a ghost she was so pale. I was chilling at my seat in between breaks and she was telling the dealer how she qualified in a double shootout somewhere in Louisiana. How she qualified I will never know, as she NEVER RAISED EVER. She played probably 65/0 with a postflop AF of a negative number. I got valuecut by her a couple times, but took most of her stack by flopping trips on 995 with T9s and getting 3 streets of value versus 77.

Gerasimov started out playing kinda bad (for how I'd interpret play 400bb deep anyways), super passive and limpy McPassive-donk poker. I figured "ok thats standard, lol live players". But when the antes kicked in he turned into a beast, and I had to tone it down as he was 3betting me and checkraising flops with a high enough frequency so as to curb me from even valuebetting stuff like TPTK, as he was proving to not be the type of player to just call three streets with a worse 1 pair hand and more likely to put me into a retarded spot checkraising the flop and bombing turn+riv.

Sometime along this point I run into my Leggo friends, all of whom have like 1/10 the chips I do (I think I was running hot at this point with like 55k and aejones would say "wtf you and your tournament luck goddam") I also ran into JEM87 aka Nuggetz, who told me another Leggo guy was at his table and he was trying so hard to hold back from saying he was another online guy, as it was clearly smarter for him to be anonymous in the eyes of said Leggo'er. I was like "Is he really fit?" because straate was on my starting day and the guy is just jacked up, obv, and JEM says "yup" and Im like "well thats prob straate". It ends up being MYNAMEZGREG whos not so much jacked up, moreso "beanpole" (lol).

So we get later on into the night and players are getting replaced. Some standard live guy who's friends with Steve Dannenman (who in my estimation rules at life btw) gets busted by Schaefer and lo and behold gets replaced by mikech (high stakes bellagio player, nitty but obv not even close to a fish). I am getting annoyed now because I've got 2 HSNL players on my direct left in the SOFTEST FKING FIELD IN THE ENTIRE YEAR HYACHACHACHA". Some time later a young online unknown replaced the old woman, and some guy wearing a DeucesCracked shirt replaced the tard that I owned with my AQ earlier.

Funny hand between tard and Schaefer. Schaefer isos with TT, tard calls. Flop K77, check check. Turn 3, tard checkraises huge. Schaefer calls. River A. Check check. Tard shows 44. Schaefer was saying he was planning on calling river, and I agree with said notion. Schaefer plays well but he would say silly things like I would limp in EP with 33 and he'd raise in BB with QQ and I would call and after the hand was over he was like "omg when you flatted I was sooooo scared". and my inner monologe would say "i dunno why you'd think that, you only HAVE THE STONE NIZZLES SON".

Some short time later I pwn the DeucesCracked guy, but not before I ask him friendly table banter since I have nothing better to do. The crappy thing about 12 hour...

Ya thats pretty much it, a decent PLO sesh didnt hurt either :O

I've found to accept and, for lack of a better word... "nurture" my ADD habit of switching between games too often.

One way I've done this is moving my money diversely across numerous different sites, so sessions dont feel as monotonous. I've found that PLO on smaller sites can be quite juicy

This month I've put in 5k or so hands of holdem so far, +2800, and 750 hands of Omaha, +1000. RIght now I'm in a Omaha mood though, so... GOGOGO!

September went okay'ish, I think I netted 10k or so in playing approximately 30k hands. Spent almost a week in Arizona and went to numerous football games. Closing the month, though, I'm disencouraged with my prospects in this town and am already planning the possibilities for a move later next year. Possibly cities on the west coast, possibly Australia.

I think I have improved my 6max game by about tenfold, and I haven't even gotten serious coaching yet. Going into the month I felt 6max was a crutch and had to depend on HU NL (spotty volume) and 6m PLO (gay variance grind) for my living. Now I am comfy 10tabling 6max NL, and intend on grinding a ton for this month. Realistically I am aiming for 100k hands of 2/4 with zero idea where I'm gonna end up with regard to how much I profit. I'm just gonna put hands in, and see where my edge is in these games. I would like to have a PTBB higher than 1.5, as that would mean great hourly for a long time since I dont see the environment of poker changing all that much. Dunno exactly what that nets hourly-wise, but I ancitipate it would be enough.

And hopefully I can string together a few good months to end the year. As always, my motivation has been incredibly lacking re: putting in volume, but now that I have a future place to pay for in a city that would cost more per year, I'm gonna try and plan for that in advance. I'd also consider diversifying my money and putting it into the market, but with the market tanking right now I'm afraid to put money even into a CD. I'm probably sacrificing a little bit of money for the piece of mind, but whatever.

Lastly, I ate a hot wing tonight. A really hot wing. I am never eating such spicy food ever again. Got me sick!

Cliffnotes:

September: Went well, improved my 6m game, netted like 10k or so (most from 1 weekend). Only 30k hands played :P

October: 100k hands, 30k+ profit

I mean, honestly, how can you put into words seeing your team be down 31-0 at halftime at home?

And the sick thing is, they return a punt for a touchdown to make it 31-17 with ~14 minutes to go. It could have been the greatest comeback in college football history, and the greatest game of my life.

ESPN had a segment during college gameday that focused on Alabama's five offensive lineman, and they were all STACKED and pro-bound. I had to imagine the entire game they treated UGA's D-Line like the Juggernaut youtube cartoon. "lol silly ***** your weapons cannot harm me!!"

From watching it live (and not hearing commentators on ESPN/ABC/whatever) it seemed like the main reason UGA got raped had to do with lineman. Alabama's guys are just ridiculous, and we don't have the talent or the depth. It's great when you have Stafford and Moreno and Green, but that's only 3 of 22 players. The rest seemed pretty off the ball, so w/e.

As a result of said disappointment I see little reason to attend any more college football games for at least a month or two. Maybe I don't get as much out of it as I did in years past due to me not being a student there anymore, but the season seems pretty useless once your team has lost a single game (DIE BCS). Yes, they could still run the table and make the national championship game with 1 loss, but I guarantee you there would be 2 or 3 teams that would feel they also deserve a spot. Which makes the entire thing lame.

/end rant. the only good thing out of this is how awesome it's gonna feel to wake up tomorrow, since my entire body is tired and my feet are the sorest they've ever been.

Included is all the poker I've played since Arizona. You'll notice I started out decently, up around 1k or so. Then +8k in the last 24 hours.

Tonight is the UGA/Bama game. Definitely gonna ball out and buy extra powerade with my peanuts, seeing as its been such a nice week.

Today definitely helped for my confidence at sixmax play, just logged a three hour, 3100 hand session where I netted $4133 playing 23/20/4 with a 3b of 7

Its funny, those were just around the stats my coach wanted me to groove into to plug some preflop leaks, and I think I just arrived at those PF stats by accident for the session tonight, and combined with running well it felt super nice.

Granted, hands like these help:

(no im not playing on party, though i ought to)

Party Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 10 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter


Pre-Flop: T 7 dealt to Hero ()
5 folds, Hero raises to $14, 2 folds, calls $12, folds

Flop: ($32) 6 4 9 (2 Players)
checks, Hero bets $24, calls $24

Turn: ($80) 8 (2 Players)
checks, Hero bets $80, calls $80

River: ($240) 3 (2 Players)
checks, Hero bets $200, raises to $400, Hero raises to $975.25 and is All-In, calls $459.65 and is All-In

Results: $1,959.30 Pot
Hero showed T 7 and WON $2,071.90 (+$1,094.25 NET)
Villain showed 5h 2h and LOST (-$977.65 NET)

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

Party Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $149.30
BB: $125.50
Hero (UTG): $621.10
CO: $1,071.55
BTN: $365.40

Pre-Flop: J J dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $14, CO raises to $48, 3 folds, Hero calls $34

Flop: ($102) 9 J 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($102) 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $72, Hero raises to $179, CO calls $107

River: ($460) 3 (2 Players)
Hero bets $394.10 and is All-In, CO calls $394.10

Results: $1,248.20 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed J J and WON $1,245.20 (+$624.10 NET)
CO showed 4s 5s and LOST (-$621.10 NET)

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

overall a good session, hooray!

There isn't a great deal of content in this blog entry, sometimes I wonder if it's better if I just update once a month. That while, I'll have plenty more productive things to write about compared to day-to-day musings.

Anyways, even with my coaching coming up I am still super tilted at six max play. I am continually putting in TPTK in reraised pots straight into sets, My 1 pair hands run into turn scarecards OOP where I get put into guessing games that typically result in -EV decisions, and I'm not solid on preflop fundamentals. I also have lost my cojones on typical barreling spots because people never fold as much as I think they should, and it warps my mind.

Putting myself back on track starts with correcting my preflop leaks I suppose, but I need to forget everything I've learned in holdem before focusing on this getting coaching deal. The game has changed a decent amount since 12 months ago, and in spite of 2/4 still being filled with plenty of horrible regs I have absolutely zero confidence to fire multiple barrels and be the general lagtard that I usually am. Of course, I am able to pull this kinda stuff off in HU cash and PLO like I usually do, but I feel (like I said before) that giving up on 6max compromises my ability to make the most money.

I dunno if I'm lying to myself with the prior statement, but whatever. Fact is, I'm attempting to right the ship and not be such a omaha/HU specialist, since I'm lacking in volume with both of those.

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

I have only gained 1 pound since last week when I left for Arizona, which is good because I have felt a lot worse since this time last week. The crappy thing about being in the desert is that there is very little room for a middle ground - you are either outside in 100 degree weather or inside breathing in perfumed super-chill air conditioning. I obviously had to favor the inside weather more (deserts suck, come on) which resulted in me feeling super sluggish for the last 48 hours or so.

Plans from here involve finally finishing off my room-cleaning battle (I am excited), getting taxes finalized, selling my truck, and start jogging and lifting heavy weights more. I am now more comfortable with light activity that doesnt involve me bending over and gasping for air, so time to push myself some more!

Game was sick, I had the unfortunate luck of sitting next to some chatterbox dbag who would not shut up and kept poking me and asking me stupid questions. He looooved to sh*t-talk. Which is gay, because I figured in Arizona nobody would care enough about sports enough to be a d-bag fan.

Negatives aside, the team was awesome and I've seen more stunning blondes in this city than any other. It's just ridiculous how much eye candy there is out here. I also got to play golf in the desert, which was fun.

Last random note before I pass out: We walked to the ticket booth and my dad got his ticket scanned. We walked to get drinks and the conversation went as follows:

Dad: ZOMG
Me: wat?
Dad: I just got into this game with our Diamondbacks ticket.

Yes, the baseball game we attended a few days ago must have had the same ticket processor and a similar color, and my dad accidently gave the ticket agent his USED baseball ticket. And it worked. Wowie!

So anyways, Phoenix has been fun, tho I would never live here b/c the desert sucks balls and you couldnt convince me otherwise. That said I'm gonna be staying through Tuesday because I dont want to fly out Sunday... I would miss the WCOOP ME and the Ryder Cup! So shelling out additional hundreds of dollars for hotel room and flight, but money ain't a thing when UGA wins... Balllaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr

Today I played a 1,000 hand sample of 2/4 6m in my hotel in Phoenix, and finished up almost $1.8k. I *think* I'm getting a better gauge overall at interpreting metagame with preflop 3 and 4 betting, and running good obviously helped.

That said I played like 16/13/4 over the course of the session so I fear that's a little too nitty, especially for me. I mean, if you told me that over hundreds of thousands of hands I could have a sick winrate doing that with little variance, I would instantaneously jump on the bandwagon, however I think I can achieve almost the same thing with a bigger winrate playing 21/17'ish.

So, with that said I'm gonna be getting coaching on my 6m play. I feel like it's the best form of poker that allows me to put in volume while at the same time make good money. PLO is still megasoft but I can't grind it for 10k hands without going bat**** crazy, and HU is very sporadic with volume.

And since volume = more money, I need to focus on something that provides good volume. I've had way too many months this year as a *pro* where I've put in a laughable amount of hands. As I've said infinite times before, I don't *need* a lot of money to live in Athens, but in anticipating a move out west I want to be financially covered to live comfortably in a city like San Francisco, San Diego, etc.

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I have my 3-part PLO series coming, so I won't be focusing so much on 6m videos unless I'm contributing with another producer... I'll still focus on PLO and HUNL videos for now, since that's what I'm established good at with regards to midstakes play. Today is a chill-out day (which means playing poker in the hotel room since outside is 100 degrees), tomorrow is golfing with my dad and a work friend of his, and the next day is COLLEGE FOOTBAWWWLLLLLLLL. I am very psyched