Hey guys, I'll quickly summarize how my life progressed after my last entry: got back to vegasand grinded live cash, took a trip to LA for a week to play cash/tournies and including some RPM grinding I won a small amount of money and decided I was over live poker for a little while and ready to get back online. I skipped the euro tournaments for the first time in 3 years to go to Toronto and play wcoops. Definitely happy with my decision to do so as was I with my play/results/work ethic for the time I spent there. Took close to 3 weeks off around thanksgiving and came back to vegas to play wpt 5 diamond where I got 8th last year as well as epic pokers 3rd event, not having lasted more than 2 levels in either of the first two epic events. Needless to say after being away from poker for so long I was really excited to get playing again. It's a unique feeling coming back to play, live especially, after having taken a long break from it. There's just something special about the atmosphere of a major live tournament and when you go without feeling it for a while it's relaxing in a way to experience it again.

First up was 5 diamond where I steadily increased my stack day by day winning three flips with pairs vs overcards(small favorite yo) for my tourney life before busting 2 people in a huge pot at the end of day 4 where hj who had been tight opened with around 600k to 35 at 8-16k, I made it 80 in the co w kk, btn flatted with around 1m, bb shoves for 240k, opener reshoves, I cover and jam as well and btn folds jj. I hold and get up to over 2m and begin day 5 2nd in chips with 15 remaining. The day went long and was especially brutal getting close to the tv bubble with short stacks doubling on more than a few occasions. Eventually it burst when chipleader made a straight vs trips and jammed the river and I was on the my first ever WPT ft! It was a ridiculously tough ft considering how the field looked at the beginning of day 1 and Antonio Esfandiari was going for the repeat having won it the year previous. The ft actually progressed really quickly and before the first break the tournament had gone heads up. I didn't play any interesting pots and busted cold 4betting 88 vs btn open and sb 3bet when btn called w 99(dominating my suits too wtf). I was so happy with how I played I just couldn't be upset with busting when the big pots I lost were all in pots.

With only 2 days before epic began I got hammered on Monday and slept most of Tuesday before getting a great dinner at everyones favorite thai spot Lotus of Siam. Much like bellagio went I was able to increase my stack slowly day by day in epic though on both days 2 and 3 I lost most of what I started with at the beginning of the day and grinded it back up throughout. Day 3 was when things really started moving along as the bubble burst much quicker than expected when my buddy Joe Tehan decided to make a bold move with 24o after utg 5 handed shoved 16bb and next to act isolated to 30bb, he ripped it in with 24o in the bb for around 90bb effective though he covered both. Isolater calls w qq, open shover has aa and board comes out 964-4-x. With that we were down to 12 and in the money as well as playing 4 handed for the rest of the tournament except the beginning of the final table which would be 5 handed. At the start of day 4 I was fortunate to get qq to 88 for a huge pot and then 88 to 33 to bust a player. I then flopped a boat with a2 on aa2 only to get checkraised by the bb who then cc a turn j bringing a bdfd and cr 75k to 205 on a t river, I called and beat TT. After that I called a 3b w kq and floated a t52 flop, turned a king and called again and shoved when checked to on a 9 river and got tank called by at. Shortly after we were down to 8 and combined to two tables of 4, but it didn't take long to bust 3 players and the very last hand of the day after the 6th place player had already been eliminated I called a 3b w aj and bet bet bet when the 3bettor checked every street to me on a84dd3djo and got called by worse giving me 1.7m going into the final table at 3k-6k blinds(!!!) with 5m in play. The final table was a pretty interesting one to say the least and although there were quite a few interesting hands I'll wait to talk about them publicly until the tournament airs.

So yeah, I've been grinding hard these past few months and will be making a return to the bahamas for the nth year in a row once 2011 ends in an attempt to finally have a winning trip there due to my own successes, but with this heater going it shouldn't be too much of a struggle this time around