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

The wsop ended in non dramatic fashion though I had a shot to score big in the last 1500 where I ended up getting around 80th. This and a 50th in one of the 1ks were my only two cashes for the summer amounting to 7182 and 7152 respectively. I was able to swap good and get some money back in a main event draft thanks to leggopokers own Richard Lyndaker and Ben Tollerene as well as the doctor himself David Sands.

After wsop I headed out to Miami to visit Caity and play the Florida state poker championship which included a 2k 6max and a 5k main event. The 6max had around 80 runners and I managed to stick around until 4-800 and had a really soft table with position on the only other competent player. Got put in some unlucky situations and busted in around 30th. Caity and I met up with leggo member toocrispy and leggo coach sc00t. one day for dinner and drinks and I did some other serious relaxing in my time off until the main event at a ridiculously baller house some friends rented which probably boded rather well for me.

I finished day 1 with 74k going into 4-800. Only played 1 particularly hilarious hand on day 1 where I got moved to a new table and the first 4 pots this young guy wins at a table full of old guys, the fifth pot he opens I 3b T9s oop at 50-100 blinds and he calls. Flop is KQJ with my flush draw(this is how you succeed in tournaments) I bet 1350 he raises me to 3550 I call, turn goes check check on a 6 bringing 2nd fd and on a blank 6 river I bet 6250 and he insta shoves for 18kish total. I stick the money in and he insta mucks what the dealer turns up shortly after, A9o.

Day 2 I got put in some incredibly fortunate situations with sets and boats and finished w 695k going into 4-8k w 30 left and 29 paying. The most awesome hand of the day featured me getting in TT v 99 on a QT88 board for an 800k pot at 3-6k. I think the old guy who spewed it in on the turn was angry at me for calling clock a few hands earlier. On day 3 with around 20 left I lost a 400kish pot at 5-10k with aq to kq aipf, rebuilt to over a million and eventually opened button to a minraise at 10-20k w 77 and got 3b to 111k from a seemingly competent regular. With stacks around 900k effective I decided to call and called 103k on 944r, turn T bringing fd and I bet 100k when he checked to which he flatted. We checked down on a Qo riv and his AA was good. The direct next hand I lost a flip ak v jj in co v btn for ~1.3m of 9.3m in play and was down to 5bb, eventually shoved 89s in co and couldn't beat A8o. 11th felt like a huge disappointment but I was so happy with my play throughout I knew I couldn't really be upset.

As I'm writing this I'm on a plane about to touchdown in Vegas where I'll be playing the upcoming epic poker league taking place at the palms. For those of you who don't know about the EPL you should check it out and try to qualify for next season because it's pretty awesome. Basically there are 4 20k main events(6 max, 8 max, heads up, and a tournament starting 9 handed, going to 6max and eventually becoming heads up) with 400k added prizepool money that have restricted access to EPL cardholders as well as a pro-am 1500 where anyone can play and the final table of 9 will be granted access to the main event with the remaining money paid out like a normal tournament, so it's like a satellite/tournament combo. At the end of the 4 main events the top 27 finishers will be entered into a million dollar free roll. CBS and discovery are going to be covering these tournaments which should hopefully be pretty sweet. If anyone's interested you can see a list of the card qualifiers and some other stuff about the league on the epicpokerleague.com website. Heres to me crushing some fools!

Since the shutdown of online poker as we know it I've experienced a wide variety of emotions. I try not to feel entitled because it seems like an awful way to go about things but I really do feel robbed that I can't play poker online anymore. I now have a pretty huge gap in my life which was once filled by online poker for many hours day in and day out that now has to be filled by...live poker.

I think for all the good things online poker brought me it effected me in other ways which I was blind to at the time. It was basically too good to be true, logging tons of hours and playing infinite hands in the comfort of my home, playing as many tables as I wanted. I think online poker was a video game and many of the nuances do not carry over to live poker and vice versa. What I'm trying to say is that it spoiled me and made poker into something that it had never been before.

I feel silly equating it to something so extreme but the analogy I'm imagining is some sort of hardcore drug user who has been getting bombed off the same stuff from the same guy every day for years. Then all of a sudden his guy just doesn't have strong drugs anymore, all he has is stuff that is 1/10th as effective as what he previously was indulging in. The obvious difference is that without online poker I don't feel any physical withdrawls but mentally I am definitely struggling a bit. I am certainly experiencing an interesting adjustment period playing so much more live poker than I have before but at the end of the day all it does is make me miss online poker more and more. I am excited to play live poker and try to improve as much as I can because it truly is a different beast than the internet but the process is pretty grueling at times.

Live poker is definitely more of an emotional game despite how much I remove my emotions from poker. I acknowledge the fact that my life would be nothing close to what it is now if poker never existed but it's hard to remain that objective on a day to day basis. Patience is a virtue though and it's never been more relevant for me to maintain it.

As some of you may know I was recently on NBC's poker after dark. The thing about TV poker that makes it so great is that there are rarely times where you are playing serious poker for lots of money and are then able to then figure out what your opponents had after the fact. As you may imagine sometimes this results in your hero looking awesome, sometimes it results in him looking like an idiot, and ultimately it results in durrrr taking his chips with suited hands containing a deuce. Certainly though in the process plenty of interesting hands occurred that are worth discussion.

In the first relevant hand Annette opens it up for 1500 utg1, I make it 4100 otb w A4o and she calls, stacks are roughly 50k. Flop A67r chk chk, turn 7o she bets 6k I call, river J she bets 15k and I call. Going into this hand Annette had been by far the most aggressive at the table, though it is a short sample and I didn't think she was playing too far outside a normal range. With this information available though she has more incentive to defend my 3bet with a wider range. On the flop I don't really think a bet from me will accomplish enough to make it better than a check. Pretty standard situation where she either has something crushing me to 3 or less outs, or has 2 or less outs herself with a pocket pair or broadway cards. When I check back this flop she can pretty confidently assume I have some sort of showdown value(or slowplaying a monster) as betting a bluff will simply be so profitable because of how often she misses this board. On the turn I am not loving my hand because I'm only beating bluffs but I know she is very aggressive and could see her betting some of the hands that missed assuming it will be difficult to call down with Ax/KK type hands. After the river comes a jack and she barrels again it really boils down to deciding if shell ever try to bluff me and I think she definitely has it in her to do so especially because she knows I'm calling turn with the hands I pot controlled. Having an ace makes it combinatorially less likely she has one, and although I expect her to defend my 3b quite a bit pre I think a suited hand with a 7 is a decent candidate for a 4bet. Basically it boils down to the fact that if she decides to bluff turn she can get to the river with her entire preflop range, which is at the very least 50% of her opening range in my estimation. Eventually I decide to call after thinking for over a minute and maybe 2 and she mucks what I later found out was 55. I think given my flop check and the board pairing turn her bluff is ambitious but given we have logged lots of hands together and she is generally not so out of line in these situations so it was a pretty decent spot. It would be interesting to see if I call KK under the same circumstances as having an ace really does significantly reduce the combinations of better hands she can hold and sometimes gets me half the pot(rare but plausible).

After this I don't play any relevant hands until I open KQo no club to 2k utg at 4-8 and Tom flats in the BB after being tight previous to leaving the table for an orbit or two, stacks are 55k or so and I cover. He also tanks a bit before flatting making me think there is at least some chance he was going to 3bet. Flop comes QcJx2c and he cr my 3k to 9600 and after some thought I fold. I'd say this was by far the closest hand of the session and after much deliberation I'm still not certain what my best option is. Something I am certain of is that once I see that 27s is in his range pre in this spot my fold is obviously not justified so it makes it hard to try and do so, but without knowing that would be the case and not really feeling like my hand was strong enough to stack off I believe there will be many situations where I make a mistake on a later street assuming he knows what my hand strength is likely to be and plays accordingly. I definitely do think checking flop is a very viable option but felt at the time that he would peel enough hands I'm in great shape against I just couldn't help myself.

A bit after this at 6-12 we play a hand where Tom opens co to 2800 I flat btn and Mel calls BB. I have 9Thh and stacks are 40k or so. Flop A56r and we chk around. Turn is a 2 bringing a fd not mine and when it checks to me I bet 4500 into 9k, Mel folds and Tom calls. I thought it was a spot where if he was giving up on the flop he'd be giving up on the turn too most of the time and Mel is almost certainly not gonna have anything good. River is a 4o and I bet 10.2k then snapfold when Tom makes it 27k. He ends up having 33, would be really interesting to see what he does on a Jo river for example. Obv if he calls me I'm totally owning myself but it's a pretty tough spot for him to lookup especially when I had been pretty in line and am credibly repping lots of better hands with my line.

Later in this level I open co to 2700 with QhQx, Tom makes it 7900 in the BB and I flat after much deliberation with around 55k. I think stacks are a bit awkward for a 4bet and my hand obviously is going to play very well on lots of flops. Flop comes Ax4h3h and I call 9600. Turn is a 5o chk chk, and when the river comes the Kh and he chks I bet 14.5k. I think my bet is okay because since I am unsure of his frequencies in this spot if he thinks I'm bluffing he may call JJ/TT and if he doesn't he may fold Kx. Furthermore I think not showing down my hand is pretty advantageous for me and I am good a very large % to begin with. The obvious problem is that it's pretty hard for me to be bluffing but I could see some instances where I turn up with hands worse than TT and go for it.

After this Tom opens co to 3800 w 44k at 8-16 and I call btn w A6cc. Flop is 844cc, he bets 5600 and I call. I think raising here is certainly fine but I'm pretty sure given the dynamic we had I'm better of inducing a turn bet from stuff I beat. Turn is a 5o and when he bets 11.4k I shove and get snapped by 82. I think his call is a bit thin since but he is getting like almost 3:1 at this point. I also think I have to shove cause we just don't have enough money left to play a river and when I get it in vs a hand like he had I have 15 outs, so if he folds like ever(which he will) I am doing a good job of protecting my equity.

As I'm writing this up I'm feeling the calming feeling of binking 107k for 2nd in the warmup. Let the heater begin!

Hope everyone is doing well. Just wanted to shout out my Twitter account and some new videos in the pipeline. My $1,000 NL heads up battle vs Denny made for a very entertaining video. He is a smart aggressive player who definitely has a few tricks in the bag. I also have a leak finder with JaymesBond coming out soon. The video I am most excited about is half hand history review (all hands where villain flats a 3 bet) and then I play 4 tables of 600NL and get street on fools for the second half of the video.

In other news, I am very happy with how my beard is progressing. More updates to follow.

I figured as a newly inducted red pro, full tilt would boom switch me in the season of giving and warmly welcome me to the good side. Then I ran 55k below EV and it was brutal. I was feeling a mixture of confused and sad. I mulled over my options and decided it was a sign from full tilt to move up and chase losses.

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

BB: $53,237
Hero (BTN): $47,643

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (BTN)
Hero raises to $600, BB raises to $2,200, Hero raises to $5,300, BB calls $3,200

Flop: ($10,800) (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($10,800) (2 Players)
BB bets $7,600, Hero calls $7,600

River: ($26,000) (2 Players)
BB bets $40,237 and is All-In, Hero calls $34,643 and is All-In

Results: $95,286 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
BB showed and LOST (-$47,443 NET)
Hero showed and WON $95,285.50 (+$47,742.50 NET)

happy holidays!

I know some of you have probably been worried I left you alone on this earth but I assure you that isn't the case. I've been busy lately, and I don't even know where to start, but I made a deep run in the bellagio 5 diamond coming in 8th for 67 and change. The tournament was a blast and if I could have not gotten unlucky in some big pots at the ft I would have made big things happen. I really do feel like every time I play live poker I improve in one way or another. It's funny that playing a tournament like this for 5 days and getting super close to the gold but busting late only makes me more motivated to play live tournaments because I know winning is well within my reach. I guess I should feel fortunate that I react like this.

On unrelated notes, my brother sent me the song acid raindrops by people under the stairs and I love it, typed it into pandora and have a new go to station. For those of you who like lyrical rap I'd recommend it. I'm very excited to be going to aspen on monday to do some skiing before heading back to NY at the end of the week and then attending the WPT at Borgata right before christmas. After the holidays are over I'll be heading to PCA for some drunken tropical fun. I've only been skiing once before and fell on my face trying to get on the lift the first time. Once I got the hang of it I was gunning it down the mountain and my friend who has been skiing in the swiss alps and has a good bit of experience told me, 'You were going so fast that I would have been scared if I were going that fast.' I guess I'll try to learn how to stop or at least slow down this time around.

Well I haven't updated in a long time so most of you probably didn't know I even left Vegas unless you saw me in Europe. I was in Cannes for the PPT at the end of August and had a great time overall but the floor was for the most part clueless. I was fortunate to never be on the bad side of a bad decision but in one instance after a player 4bet the turn all in on 8522 and the other guy folds AT face up, the shover shows A7. Floor is called for some reason and the AT is allowed to take his hand back and call. Live poker is relatively new in France so it's understandable that there would be a few errors but the extreme incidents that occurred were completely unreasonable. When I wasn't playing poker I had an amazing time though, Cannes is beautiful and the food is really good. Everything is incredibly overpriced but it's worth it if you pretend euros and dollars are the same thing, and consider it a vacation, and assume you raise your EV in the tournament because you're enjoying yourself. Well, even then it's probably not worth it but when you pay 38 euros for a club sandwich you get the best club sandwich you've ever eaten.

After Cannes I headed to Berlin for 5 days to see my Uncle and Grandma. I saw where my Dad and Uncle grew up and I also got to see my Uncles favorite bar, which is awesome. The highlight of the trip was certainly my discovery of currywurst. I'm pretty sure it's the best drunk food in the world and I took full advantage of that. One thing I found really odd was that at the gym in Berlin there was no still water only sparkling, medium or lots of bubbles though. When WCOOPs began I headed to London and grinded a ton in the month I spent there, both live and online. I got dominated in the former and did some dominating in the latter. I have been playing a ton more hu sngs on FTP because of my deal and I think it's one of the best and easiest ways to get a high hourly. I had a ton of fun and love playing live poker though and always feel like I'm improving at it when I play. When variance crushes me it's comforting to think about how good it is when you run super good, and I needed some comforting for all the abuse I took. Now that I'm home I look forward to taking care of some things that need taking care of and one of those things is to make some videos! Aejones is smiling as he reads this, and not one of those sneaky evil aejones smirks, I'm talking about a bigass ear to ear grin.

Now that the summer is over and live poker is done with for the foreseeable future(unless I go to london) I've been back on the online grind. The action isn't what it always was but 6 max games are getting off and plo is booming. I don't really have much experience with plo but it's fun and seems profitable to learn and toy with some midstakes games. There are lots of differences to no limit but there are certainly a few subtle similarities in my opinion thus far. It is definitely a much more complex game, likely because of the added combinations of hands preflop and the vastly different equity match ups in all in situations. I'm sure this is pretty novice plo speak but I'm just learning it now. Post flop stuff is also a lot trickier but the most valuable thing I've learned so far is that you generally have more equity post flop than you think. Anyways, life away from poker is great and I'm happier than I've ever been. Here is a cool hand I played the other day.

Full Tilt, $25/$50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $13,217
BTN: $20,049

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $150, Hero raises to $450, BTN calls $300

Flop: ($900) (2 Players)
Hero bets $625, BTN calls $625

Turn: ($2,150) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $1,650, Hero calls $1,650

River: ($5,450) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $3,750, Hero calls $3,750

Results: $12,950 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed and WON $12,949.50 (+$6,524.50 NET)
BTN showed and LOST (-$6,450 NET)

I write this after a long day at the pool where I consumed an excessive amount of alcohol in a short period of time mixed with dancing and boiling hot desert sun, and I look back upon what was my 2nd WSOP with disappointment. I think I played great throughout and am happy with myself that I was able to remain confident in my play and not begin to doubt myself just because live poker is soul crushing when you wake up and lose day after day. That said, it was definitely the best summer of my life aside from poker. We had so much fun around the house, going out, and just generally causing shenanigans. I really am going to miss everyone once they all leave and life becomes much slower for better or worse. At this point only a few people are left from the many that were here at the beginning and my family has replaced them. Currently my brother is out here and both my parents are out here for a week. It's nice to have them around, they make my house feel like a home and I don't get to see them very often anymore. Furthermore they accept me for who I am which is nice - I truly can't stress enough how incredible it is to have supportive parents in an industry that some people despise.

So, even though poker has not been amazing lately, I am happier than I've ever been and am very much looking forward to the future and of course WSOP 2011. Good luck fellas.