Ok, so its WPT at Foxwoods. I decided to play some cash games Sunday. I took a couple weeks off from work, and if I do well in cash then I will probably play a couple of the tournaments coming up. I'm looking to play the $400 PLO, and maybe a $500 NLHE coming up in a week or so.

I sat down at a pretty good table. There is a french guy who I have played with several times. We've always been pretty friendly when we play. Today he must have been having a bad day, because he was being cold/rude at times. He had a habit of straddling every time he was UTG, and then iso-raising to 30-40 every time there were 3-6 limpers. After the 3rd time of seeing him do this, I decide to call in position with anything playable. This time I have 62cc on the button. Theres 3 limpers, I overlimp. He iso-raises to 30, everyone folds to me. I have 350+ behind me, and he has about 800. I decide to call and see a flop in position. Pretty loose call but its fine.

Board is 943cc. He donks 30, I call. I contemplated raising, but he isn't folding anything here usually. Turn is a 7. He leads for 65. I know very well that he spazzes out every time he has a straddle, so although he could have a big hand, theres a much better chance he is spazzing with air. I decide to call and shove most rivers when checked to. I have 13 outs, and I am getting over 3:1 to call on a pot of about 200.

River is an offsuit deuce. Not the card I was looking for. Board is 943cc72. I have bottom pair. He thinks for a few seconds, and checks. This is kind of weird. I assume he is checking a marginal hand to try to get to showdown. I know from the past he has the potential to spazz out postflop, but I don't think he would call a shove here generally. I push out about 230 into the middle. He takes 10 seconds, and calmly says "I call".

I sigh and say "Nice call, you're good". He doesn't turn his hand over. No motion. I turn my hand over and show 62cc. He immediately slams his fist down. "I called you with ace high, I knew you were bluffing". I tell him that it was a sick call. He generally has good composure, I've never seen him get that upset. I can't believe my hand is good, and the table is completely awestruck as to what just happened. I calmly scoop in the 720 pot, trying not to laugh.

So now French guy is berating me and saying how I'm going to go broke. Theres this young kid who is needling me for no reason at this point either. He's equally horrible, and plays quite bad postflop. He donks mediocre holdings into preflop raisers in 5 way pots with top pair no kicker, etc. He has been limp/calling every single hand I raise preflop. Limp/calling with K4s and spiking a king on the turn vs my QQ. He is bragging about how he is being staked in cash and tournaments, and he obviously thinks hes god's gift to poker. I take note of this.

The table is 6 handed at one point, and young kid is on the button. I raise 33 utg to 10. He calls. Flop comes K33. I usually play my hand straight forward, but he has shown that he will bet when you show weakness. I check flop, and he bets 20, I call. Turn is K334. I check again, knowing he has c-bet every street in position when I check. He bets 40. I flat call. River board is K3342. At this point I know he saw the last hand where I shoved with bottom pair versus the French guy. I took about 15 seconds and threw out two 100 dollar bills. "Do you have AK?". I don't say anything. I look up 15 seconds later and see that he has put out 200 for the call.

I'm the nicest guy when it comes to poker/life in general. I am not nice here. "Good call", I said as I flip over quads. "Good call? What did you just say to me?". He is flipping out, and asks me why I said good call. "Well I said its a good call, because if you fold I don't get your money". He didn't like hearing that, and proceeds to ask where I live, makes fun of the dress shirt I'm wearing, etc.

Usually its pretty good to have a friendly table image, but I realized that if everyone berates you and hates you then you get a lot of really loose calls that you normally wouldn't get. Interesting session for me.

I haven't written in a long time. It just feels good to write anything at all, even if it isn't quality. Just something to get into the swing of things again.

A lot has happened since I last posted. I had a brief 3-4 month relationship with this girl I met online. She broke up with me just recently. I really enjoyed being with her while it lasted, and was one of the most fun (if not the most fun) relationships I've had. Her family is moving to Texas in November anyways, so it was going to end one way or another. It just was strange to have it end a little prematurely

I've been listening to David Bazan's latest release (Curse Your Branches). He never ceases to amaze me. He just seems to improve with every album I hear. I don't think it can get any better, and he goes above and beyond every time.

I bought a new car. My old car died (transmission). I had to push it 1/4 mile uphill to my work parking lot when it died, and ended up buying a new car the next day. I decided to buy an 09' Honda Civic. It's Atomic Blue.

I heard this on a poker show, and I thought it was a really good quote from David Sklansky.

There is a syndrome well known among doctors, but not too well known among the public. When somebody has a stroke and becomes paralyzed on one side of their body, they often deny it. Think about that. They cannot move one side of their body, and they will tell you and pass a polygraph that they are not paralyzed. If you ask them why they are not moving that arm, they will say they don't feel like it, but that they are not paralyzed.

I have always considered this fact to be extremely salient, because it shows the capacity to rationalize rather than face the unpleasant truth is astonishing in human beings. This is yet another reason why you must train yourself to be scientific and accept the results of logic or experiments. You cannot trust your own opinions.

Let me start out by saying the last few days have been absolutely amazing. The leggo party was off the hook. We got there 7ish, and the place was amazing. Very well organized and put together party, hats off to everyone who set it up. I had an awesome time and it was really nice meeting everyone. The beer pong tourney/games were ongoing for most of the party. A+ to aejones shipping the bartender $$$ to go topless.

The 2+2 party at hard rock was equally amazing also. I think this is the first time I ended up winning in drunken mixed games in a while. I don't remember cashing out, but I guess that happens when you're double fisting long island iced teas haha. Bobo Fett runs like god at badugi. I actually met FGators, and he was surprisingly really cool and chill . Shaun F. Deeb was really funny and awesome in all regards. I am horrible at Stud and Stud8 and I need coaching imo. I run good at 2nd best hold them. Thac was short stack/open shoving hand after hand, while showing a picture of Thomas the Tank Engine on his cell phone. Kurosh came up to me at one point in the night and asked me if I recognized him. The girl he was with turned around and walked away when I didn't recognize him right away.

Onto the cash games tonight. I ended up sitting down and playing with John Greenway since we had been introduced earlier. So far on the trip I was down about 1000-1100ish for the week. I ended up buying in for 300 at ballys tonight. First real hand I get AQ. I raise to 15, 5 callers. Flop is AQ9ss. I check, utg+1 bets 15, 2 calls, I make it 80. utg+1 folds, first cold caller shoves, other guy reshoves. I puke and call hoping they're both on flush draws. First guy shows 99 for a flopped set. How he flatcalls with a set first time around is beyond me. Other guy has K2s and ends up binking a flush on river, and I brick. Down 300 so far.

Next hand I get 75s in bb and 6 limpers in straddled pot. Board comes Q777. I c/c flop, c/r turn. River pot is 125. I have like 400ish behind and obviously other guy has a Queen. I overshove 400 and he has me covered and snaps with AQ. LOL

I have about 850-900 behind when I get AA. I raise to 15, and get 3bet to 65. 3bettor has 500-600ish. I make it 225 to go, he tanks and shoves w/ KK. He told me after he thought I had AK. I snap obviously. Board runs 963Q5 and my AA takes down a 1100ish pot. I run good!

Same guy I flatcall a decent preflop raise with QQ. Board comes Q95AK, and he amazingly lays down bottom set to my river raise somehow. He slammed his fist down after I raised the river. I think that was the second time I've ever had someone fold a set to me before.

Last big pot I raise 97s to 15. Tight BTN 3bets to 35. I call since he is 150-200bb deep. Flop comes K8s5s and we get it in on the flop obviously, and he has KK. I manage to hit a 2s on the river for another decent 650ish pot. I won a bunch of other smaller pots pretty standardish, and ended cashing out 1600 for over 10 hours of work. Jon just kept getting coolered and was down 900 when we left. He was really awesome and fun to talk/hang out with.

I'm a little reluctant to fly back to Rhode Island this Monday. I'm really just enjoying meeting so many cool people and all the fun collectively. Definitely a better time this year than my first year out last year. Ballys is a much better location than the Luxor for sure.

So managed to get into Vegas at about 10:30. We checked into our hotel at Ballys early, and we tried the $20 trick. The room seems to be better quality than the other tower, from what our friend was telling us. After we settled in we went to play at Caesars Palace. My roomate Mike and Bgnight ended up playing or about 5 or 6 hours. I ended up down 150, Bgnight was up 850ish, my roomate was down 700 after some cooler hands. Had some interesting hands. There was this Australian guy who kept flatting my raises in LP, and then donked or raised every flop I was in. He managed to b/4b all in on an A74 w/ 55 vs my 77. He snap mucked when I showed my hand, which is funny because the turn was a 6 and he could have won still.

We ended up driving 5 miles down the road to Naked Fish, since I have heard so much good about it from all the blogs on Leggo I decided I need to try it firsthand. We had to wait 30 minutes, so we ended up going to the bar next door and grab a drink and play pool while waiting. Eventually we sit down and order some saki. I've never had saki before. Mainly I always imagined it was really strong, but it was surprisingly good. It had a very neutral taste to it. Mike ordered Steak, and Bgnight and I ordered miso soup and a bunch of rolls. One of the rolls (the naked girl) took over an hour to finish. We had finished our dinners and 30-40 minutes later it finally finished cooking. Aside from that the rolls were exceptional. I really liked the little darling rolls they had. It was much different from any other sushi I've had to date. Definitely a good experience.

I'm going to hit up the gym at Ballys now. Hopefully its not like 25 or 30 dollars a day. We'll see. Looking forward to the Leggo party in a few days!

Well I haven't updated this thing in a while. I've been playing music with my bandmates. We have like 20 songs to go over and polish up before we even consider playing out anywhere. I've been playing a lot of live poker lately, and doing pretty well. I haven't been playing as much online. I started dating a girl who is 23. She let me know that she is moving to Texas in the near future, but I decided it would be something I would regret if I didn't pursue it. I am overall just really enjoying life and all that it has to offer. I'm just finishing reading "Blink" by Malcom Gladwell. Its a really solid read, I would recommend it to anyone.

I am going out to Vegas with two of my friends (my roomate and my friend Pat) from 2+2. We're staying at Bally's for the week. I went last year and we stayed at the Luxor and also at my friends Condo. I'm really looking forward to this year almost more than last year. I can't wait to get there Monday morning. Maybe see some of you out there!

Well I haven't written in a few. First off, the Foxwoods trek went really well. I ended up playing like 3 days of cash games. I usually play long sessions, but I only ended up playing like 12-15 hours over the 3 days. I ended up winning about 1100 for the 3 days. I've been playing a lot better recently. I think I just have a lot more patience, and I feel like my reads have been improving both live and online over the last few months.

A bunch of my friends are going to A.C. in late April, so looking forward to that. Last time I went the games seemed pretty good. I really liked the Borgata poker room. Excellent restaurants there as well. I drove down last time, which is like 5 1/2 hours if you don't get lost. I will probably take a train down this time, since I hate driving through there.

I'm going to be buying a laptop. I have been putting off buying one for the last couple years, but I'm finally going to buy something really decent. It will probably cost me about 1kish, but definitely worth it. I've deprived myself long enough.

http://www.dell.com/content/products...ref=lthp&s=dhs

I've been playing music with my friends again recently. We started going over some of my friend Chuck's originals, and I have to say it feels good to be playing guitar/bass again. We're all going to Boston on Friday to see Chris Cornell play at the House of Blues in Boston. Its a new venue, so I'm really curious as to the layout of the venue. Last time we saw Chris Cornell it was at the Avalon. He played an amazing set, and his voice was in top form. Can't wait til Friday!

So after being woken up at 6:50 by a phone call, we woke up at 11:15. I forgot that Foxwoods checkout time is 11. I kind of hate that. Most of us shower and we start to pack up. I woke up everyone who was still asleep. We had like 5 people who knock on our door from Foxwoods staff in between 9-11:45. First person was a chef, who I guess makes a courtesy breakfast for you. We also got 4 other knocks asking if the room was still occupied. I should have just called down to tell them what time we were leaving. Oh well.

We went out to grab lunch at Panera before checking into the hotel suite we got down the road at Cedar Park. Obviously not as nice as MGM suite, but it has complimentary limo service so its all good. We ended up crashing for a couple hours sleeping. The rooms had tempurpedic mattresses, which were really comfortable to sleep on. I went to my bank, made a quick stop at the liquor store to pick up some wine and alcohol for the fridge, then went back to our room. I had made dinner reservations at this place called Shrine at Foxwoods, and also at Al Dente. I decided since Shrine is a club atmosphere and their club music is probably loud in the restaurant area that we should eat at Al Dente instead. I invited both of my sisters and my brother in law to join us. So it was 6 of us altogether. We have a drink at the bar and head in for the 7:15 reservations.

The restaurant was pretty good. The food overall was really good. The food takes forever and a day to be served. I think we waited an hour. It was fine though, because we had a lot of conversation in between so it kind of worked out in a way. I ended up ordering Linguini alla Vongole e Cozze (Steamed Littleneck Clams and Mussels over wine sauce). The sauce was really good. I ended up paying for my whole family, so I kind of busto-d my players card. It was definitely a good meal though so well spent.

Friday I only ended up playing 3 hours. I wanted to play more, but my roomate had played like 11 hours straight so he was tired. The table I was at had a mix of tight/nits to passive calling stations. It was a solid mix, but I had position on most of the nits. I actually was pretty card dead this session too, but I managed to use my tight image to my advantage. I folded so many hands, and the only hands I showed down were pretty solid. First hand I had 66 in CO. UTG opens to 15, 2 callers, I flat also. Four ways to the flop, 754 flop. Checked 3 ways to me, I lead out 25. Preflop raiser calls, as does MP. MP is terrible and clueless. Turn board is 7544, it checks around and I check also. River board is 75443. Checks to me, I bet 50. MP check raises me all in. I call and he has A2. Pretty funny hand. Guy to my right said he thought I was checking the turn with a boat to let the others catch up.

A little insight, I basically usually play tight/aggressive. I don't bluff ever. Almost never. That said, I was card dead and I wanted to play some pots. First hand I get involved with is I limp T9o in MP. BTN raises to 15, 2 callers and I call as well. I don't usually call here but the people calling in between were giving away money so I wanted to play. Flop was JT8, giving me middle pair and open end straight draw. I lead out for 20. BTN raises to 60. I call. Turn JT85. I lead out for 85, he hesitates and calls. River completes a flush JT853. I think for 20 seconds and lead out for 150. He folds KK face up lol.


I have worked my stack up to 500. Theres 2 limpers to me, I have 86dd in MP, I think about raising but decided to just limp as well. BTN who is tight raises to 15. Theres 3 callers so I decide to call since everyone else does. 5 to the flop. J75hh. Theres one diamond, so I have an open ender and a backdoor flushdraw. I decide to lead out for a little more than 1/4 pot. Folded around to BTN who raises from 20 to 65. I call, with the intentions of repping on any turn hearts or straight cards. Turn board is J753hhh. A pretty good card potentially. I lead out for 85. BTN tanks for a minute, checks his cards. He has his cards in his hand like he is debating mucking, and calls eventually. I usually am done with my hand at this point, but because I saw he was debating folding that I would fire the river also (since he could be calling with a hand like QQ-AA w/ 1 heart). River board is J7533. Not a great card, but I decided to fire a 3rd barrel here, leading out for 225. He tanks for 2 minutes and folds. I show my 86dd face up and he kind of grimaces. In retrospect most of those hands I could c/c flop, but I thought that maybe b/c seems stronger and I would get more credit when barreling. What do you think?

I ended up +475 for the session. I initially counted 375 but forgot I had a hundo in my back pocket : ). My friend who played 40/80 again ended up down another 5k. I feel really bad bc he came down from Michigan to play in some of the games and hes down 10k in 2 days. Hopefully he does well tonight.

I ended up picking my friend up at TF Green on Thursday, as his flight came in from Michigan at 3:40. We stocked up on food/drinks for the next few days. I picked up my roomate on the way back and made the trek down to Foxwoods. We checked into our MGM hotel suite, which was pretty nice. It had two tvs, and a really large bathroom/lounge area.

I met up with 4 of my other friends from 2+2 at the poker room, and we all talked for a bit before going off to play. I also got to meet Kirkdiese from leggo, which it was really cool meeting him. I missed a PM from kamillion so I was kind of upset I missed that opportunity to meet him, but probably another time we'll meet up. I only played 5 hours of 1/2. To be honest I was completely card dead on Thursday. There were a couple standard/boring hands. I'll just post about three of them that stuck in my mind. The first table I sat down at, there was this crazy lag named Liam. He basically would iso-raise 80% of the time from the SB/BB if it was limped multiple spots preflop. Example, 4 limpers pf, he iso-raises to $25, everyone folds but 1 person. He showed down K9o I think. He did this about 6 hands in about 30 minutes of me sitting down.

I had stack of about $175 when this hand occurred. Liam was in the BB, so I was sure if it was limped he was iso-raising. I get TT in the CO, theres 2 limpers, I limp. BTN is this girl who is new to the game and is pretty bad. She raises to 10. Liam in BB makes it 35. I shove over both of them when it folds back around, the BTN calls, Liam folds. Flop Came KQ874. She flipped up AJ and my TT was good.

Next hand I got 87hh on BTN. MP who is taggish raises to 14 preflop. a couple callers, I flat as well. Flop comes 765 w/ 1 heart. He bets 30, I call, everyone else folds. I should have just shoved flop, because in recollection he only had like 45 left behind after flop bet. We get it in on the turn. Board is T765 and my 87 does not improve on the river. He tables KK and I lose.

I switch tables eventually. The first thing to mention is there are a couple of people who are tilting notably. Its an hour in and I notice that the 3 seat has become emotionally unstable after losing a big pot a few minutes ago. Fast forward to next hand, he raises to 15 on the button. I normally fold 33 in the BB here when it folds around, but I decided I would play a hand with him since he was steaming. I flat w/ 33 in BB, flop is J62. I check, and he bets 15. I decide to peel since hes been raising and c-betting a ton in position, and also hes tilting so he could easily have air a lot. Turn board is J622. I check, he checks behind pretty quick. I decide I'm calling most safe rivers. River board is J6228. I check, and he bets $45. I beat him into the pot, and he pitches his hand into the muck. When I turned over my 33 he flipped out and asked me why I made the call. lol

So Friday I left up $50ish, not great but theres plenty of other days to catch up. My friend Pat ended up down 500ish, Mike (my roomate) won 150ish i think. My friend Jeremy and his friend ended their session at 6am. I woke up to a phone call saying they were having trouble with the room key. I guess they ended up playing 40/80 limit 3 handed against this whale. Jeremy ended down 5,000, and I guess his friend ended up winning 10,000. Pretty sick.

I'm going to post part 2 in a different update, because this is probably too long already.

I forgot to post in my last blog that I'm going to be down at Foxwoods pretty much all this week coming up. I have a friend coming in from Michigan, and a couple friends probably coming down from Boston and up from Connecticutt to play as well. Have a few hotels for the week, and the other days I might crash back at my apartment. It should be pretty good with all the tournaments they have going on throughout the week. Let me know if any of you are going to be playing there this week, maybe I'll see you down there.

Greg